Fully expressing the basic principles of Eastern patristic theology regarding the metaphysical side of Christianity, the "Enlightener" of St. In our opinion, St. Joseph's theological systems surpass the Greek theological systems in the definiteness and completeness of the teaching on Christian piety. 7 the word "Enlightener" contains an exposition of true, Christian worship of God, i.e. it determines what a person must do in order to be a true Christian and heir to the Kingdom of God. Prep. Joseph had to thoroughly investigate this question, since the Judaizers, against whom the "Enlightener" was directed, rejected not only certain dogmas of the faith, but also mocked all Christian piety. - First of all, St. Joseph justifies the Christian cult and mainly the veneration of icons. He expounds in detail the teaching on this subject, then speaks in detail about the veneration of the Most Holy Theotokos, about the veneration of Her icons, about the veneration of the cross and liturgical objects. Here is also set forth the teaching about the Eucharist as an object of reverent veneration. "In the same way, it is fitting to venerate and worship the holy mysteries of God, the most pure body and precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, for this reason, Who in the beginning created man autonomously, and commanded him to abide ever in obedience, having created him, and he transgressed the commandment and gave himself over to death and corruption. And the Creator and Creator of our race, having become like His mercy, having been man, apart from sin, was mixed with our poor and feeble nature, and in the flesh cleansed our flesh and sanctified our soul with His soul, as the Lord Himself said: "Behold is My flesh, and behold is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for you, eat and drink for the forgiveness of sin." Moreover, the word of God is alive and active, and everything that wills and creates, for the word of the Lord will be light, and there will be light, and by the word of the Lord the heavens are established, and by the spirit of His mouth is all their power: let the earth bring forth the grass of hay, and so to this day it has brought forth its vegetation, by the Divine command it is overcome. For if God desires the Word from the Most Pure and Ever-Virgin Mary's blood, Thou didst make Thy flesh without seed, and crucified Him on the Cross, and poured out blood and water from Thy most pure side: Canst thou not create bread into Thy flesh, and wine and water into Thy blood? As the Holy Mother of God spoke: "How shall this be, since I know no man?" the Archangel answered: "The Holy Spirit shall come upon Thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow Thee." Thus also in Communion the Holy Spirit does this. For the Lord is the tidings of man's weakness: for he who is not by nature turns away and grieves, and for the sake of such a person by nature and by ordinary descent He creates sanctification above nature. As it is the custom at baptism for a person to be washed with water and anointed with myrrh, add to the world the gift of the Holy Spirit. For since man is made of soul and flesh, He hath given us purification from water and the Spirit, for he cleanses the body visibly with visible water, and cleanses the invisible soul with the invisible Spirit: so also do here: for it is the custom for man to eat bread, and drink wine and water, and to harness thy Divinity to them and create them, that we may be ordinary to nature above nature. And as flesh was received from the Ever-Virgin, and not this flesh that ascended into heaven descends from heaven, but the bread and wine and the water are changed into the flesh and blood of God by the Holy Spirit, as the Lord Himself says: "My flesh is truly brush, and My blood is truly beer," and he who eats Me will live for Me's sake: and so He takes that flesh and blood, As he who drinks to the side of the Lord, who with faith and worthily accepts the remission of sins and eternal life, and in the observance of soul and body: for he will burn up our sins and sanctify our hearts. And whoever through unbelief and unworthiness receives, into anguish and torment, as the Lord's death is for those who believe in eternal life, and for those who do not believe in anguish and eternal torment." Further, the thoughts of St. John of Damascus, that the bread and wine are not images of the body and blood, but the real body and blood, that Holy Communion is not subject to the usual fate of food. Repeating the thought of this Church Father about the need to turn away from the heretical Eucharist, St. Joseph emphasizes with particular force the independence of the celebration of the Eucharist from the personal merits of Orthodox priests. Without condemning their pastors, Christians, however, can be admitted to communion of the Mysteries of Christ after a strict correction of their lives. "If anyone has an unclean life from the faithful, or from gluttony, or from pianism, or from anger and the memory of the wicked, let him not dare to approach this all-pure fire, until he is cleansed from all defilement of the flesh and spirit by worthy repentance. But if anyone is unworthy, he is found by killing Christ Himself. As the Jews then crucified His body, so now also defile the body and partake of it with an unclean soul" (Homily 7).

As can be seen from the note made, St. Joseph repeats the teaching about the Eucharist of St. John of Damascus. The very place for the exposition of this teaching, together with the teaching on the Orthodox cult, was also chosen under the undoubted influence of St. John, so that with regard to the teaching on the Eucharist, St. Joseph only repeated the teaching of the previous fathers. But his positive merit is the introduction into the section on the worship of God of precisely and definitely expressed rules of ascetic Christian life. What is implied and seen between the lines of the Greek dogmatists found a definite place in the dogmatics of the great theologian of the Russian Church, written under the strong influence of the universal ascetic creations. Having set forth the rules of prayer in church and at home, coupled with constant and vigilant vigilance over one's mood, St. Joseph points out the peculiarities of the Christian life, in which Christians differ from other people, how the spirit differs from the flesh and how the living differ from the dead: "Be righteous, wise, comforter to the sorrowful, feeder to the poor, successor to the strange, etc." In a word, all the rules of life are repeated, once outlined by Basil the Great for monastics and apply to all Christians. The exposition of these canons in the same discourse as the sacraments is very characteristic; It definitely points to the ascetic, deeply spiritual view of St. Joseph to the sacraments and determines his understanding of asceticism as the essence of Christian teaching.

In view of the fact that Bl. Maximus the Greek did not present the Christian doctrine in a complete form of a system, we find it difficult to indicate the place that he would have determined in the general composition of theological questions for Christian rites. On the other hand, his views on the Christian life are so definite and distinguished by such completeness that there is no difficulty in defining them; it is enough to recall the biography of Hieronymus Savonarola written by him to understand that Bl. the monk of the Vatopedi monastery wished to see in Christian life the triumph of the exclusively ecclesiastical principle. In this respect, Bl. Maximus is very similar to Joseph. However, enough has been said about this when we considered the general character of the worldview of the Holy Fathers. Fathers and Bl. teachers of the Moscow Church of the XVI century. In individual works and on completely different occasions, bliss. St. Maximus mentions the Eucharist: most often this is done in rebuke of the Western custom of using unleavened bread during the celebration of the Divine service. Both in disputes with the Latins and in other cases, bliss. St. Maximus asserts that the bread and wine are changed into the body and blood of the Saviour: "Inasmuch as the Lord's side has been pierced, the blood and the water have come forth, and we partake of it, we believe in His very blood according to His Divine commandment. And this is the very bread of the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, we believe, speaking animately and intelligently, and not soullessly, as in unleavened bread" (1:524). "But we are imams, instead of the tabernacle, the Church to the glory of God, and instead of the tablets of the Holy Scriptures. The Scriptures of new grace, instead of the sewn cherubim, the image of Christ and His saints, instead of the pen that possesses manna, the holy bread and the cup, which is in the body and blood of Christ" (489). This opinion is important in that here, although in comparison with Jewish institutions, the Eucharist is indicated as a sign of church life on a par with the veneration of icons and the reading of the Divine Scriptures. In this passage Bl. Maximus is a worthy disciple and faithful follower of the great fathers of Eastern piety, who did not know the difference in the degree of importance of various aspects of church life and demanded from Christians the fullness of piety.

Turning to the theological system of Bl. According to St. Zinov, we encounter the same phenomenon that we have already noted more than once in our review of the patristic systems of the East: it includes the interpretation and explanation of only those aspects of the Christian cult which in a given epoch required exclusive attention, either because of the attacks of heretics or because of the spiritual needs of the faithful. Thus, when discussing with the Kryloshans who came to him about the rules of Basil the Great, Bl. Zinovius speaks of penances, although the main subject of dispute was to find out what the Great Basil meant by "depraved human tradition" (656). Even about the most important Christian rite, about the Divine Eucharist, Bl. Zinovy speaks on an accidental occasion, namely, "in consideration of the chanting of the Lord's prayer in the holy mysteries." Bl. Zinovy insists on the need to observe the ancient customs in the celebration of the Liturgy precisely and strictly, as having great power and meaning: "In the Divine Mysteries, however, everything is not simple, whether there is prayer, or singing, or song. For when in the sacraments, it is appropriate for singing at the Liturgy, then first the saint prays, saying: "Grant us with one mouth to glorify and sing and with one heart Thy glorious name." And when it is proper for prayer to become, then the saint prays, first of all he asks God to pray to all, saying: "Vouchsafe us to call upon Thee God the Father, and to speak" and thus with the Lord's prayer they pray and say: "Our Father" (971). The interpretation of the very image of the transformation of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ in Bl. Zinovius does not exist, and in general regarding the content of his system, one can repeat everything that has been said about the "Enlightener" of St. Joseph: the teaching on the Eucharist is also adjacent to the teaching on the cult, and there is no teaching on the sacraments as an independent department. In this there is a remarkable similarity of all patristic theologies, both Eastern and Russian.

III. The Doctrine of the Sacraments in Latin and Kievan Theology

The striving for completeness and definiteness has compelled Western theologians to pay unequal attention to the external Christian rites, to select the most important of them and to single them out from a number of others on the basis of their special importance. In a religious community, where life flows on the basis of the principle of legal legality, where there is no place for the triumph of the regenerated spirit, where all internal impulses have been replaced by the rule of strict discipline, such a phenomenon was inevitable. Regardless of the tendency of scholastic theology to define everything by an exact number, the teaching of the Roman Catholic community about the seven sacraments of the Church as the exclusive sources of Divine grace is in full harmony with the general spirit of this Local Church, which has separated itself from universal unity.

In addition to this practical significance in the life of the Roman Church, the teaching on the seven church sacraments naturally follows the teaching on the three ministries of the Lord and on the satisfaction of Divine truth: juridical truth, which triumphs in the life of the Author of life Himself, cannot be alien to church life; this is how the Catholics themselves look at this matter: "Sacraments are sensual, sacred forms established by Jesus Christ to signify and communicate grace to us. The Old Testament, with so many rites, did not have a single sacrament that communicated grace, which sacraments belong only to the New Testament. They were established by Jesus Christ Himself, so that His blood and endless merits, which are abundantly sufficient for the salvation of all people, would be assimilated to all His followers." Such is the idea of the sacraments according to the teaching of the Roman Catholic catechism.

Transferring to the soil of the Russian theological school the Catholic systems of theology and the scholastic system of reasoning, the Kievan theologians of the seventeenth century were the first to acquaint Russian Christians with the teaching of the seven sacraments. Containing nothing contrary to pious tradition and not alien even to Greek theologians of the times of decadence and dependence on the West (see Katansky's "On the Seven Sacraments"), this teaching - Catholic, both in origin (Peter of Lombard) and in its undoubtedly legal tendency - could not meet with protest from the simple-minded Russian people, although, as can be seen from a review of the systems of St. Joseph and Bl. In the sixteenth century, the Russian Church knew nothing about the sevenfold number of sacraments. The very definition of the sacrament is taken entirely from the Catholic catechism. "The mystery is a visible sign invisible to the grace of God, handed down to us from God for our sanctification" (306), says Lavrenty Zizanius. "A sacrament is a sacred action, which, under a visible image, communicates the invisible grace of God to the soul of the believer, having been established by our Lord, through Whom each of the faithful receives Divine grace," teaches Metropolitan Petro Mohyla. It is not difficult to notice the arbitrariness and artificiality of the concept itself: all theologically educated people know that in the language of the Holy Scriptures and the best monuments of the Holy Fatherland, both Eastern and Russian, the word sacrament does not have the sacramental meaning ascribed to it by the scholastics. Not only in poetic and rhetorical works, but also in theological patristic systems, the sacraments mean all manifestations of Divine grace, regardless of the formal conditions of their celebration. Manifestations in the life of the Lord are also called sacraments, and the Christian teaching is also called a sacrament; St. Gregory the Theologian calls the feasts of Christmas and Epiphany a sacrament; other manifestations of the Divine life and tonsure into monasticism are also mentioned in the sacred hymns. The Russian fathers of the sixteenth century retained the broad universal meaning of this concept, and it was only in the seventeenth century that Russian theological science assimilated a new meaning of the word "sacrament" or "mystery."

Lavrenty Zizanius and Peter Mogila, following the Latin theologians, consider the Divine institution to be a distinctive feature of a "mystery" or "sacrament". If we wanted to define this sign precisely and clearly, we would have to study the Holy Bible long and carefully in this direction, but if we take the word of the scholastics, we would have to come to the conclusion that in the matter of choosing the sacraments, their disposition was more important than the direct and precise indications of the Divine will on this matter. In other cases, for the recognition of the Divine institution, one hint from the Gospel or the accidental presence of Jesus Christ during the occurrence of certain manifestations of life, remote and alien to its spiritual content, is sufficed, and in others even the example of the Lord, which laid the foundation for some Christian sacred rites, is hushed up. In addition, the principle of the Divine institution of the seven sacraments of the Church degrades other rites and sacraments, which are no less important and also have a Divine institution; is the positive testimony of St. Basil the Great, which establishes the Divine origin of manifestations of church life that were not included in the seven sacraments. "Of the dogmas and sermons preserved in the Church, some we have from written instruction, and some we have received from the Apostolic Tradition, by succession in secret, both have one and the same power for piety. And no one will contradict this, even if he is poorly versed in the institutions of the Church. For if we undertake to reject unwritten customs, as having no great force, then we will imperceptibly damage the Gospel in its main subjects, or even more shorten the sermon into a single name without the thing itself" (Book of the Holy Scriptures, ch. 27). Other signs of the seven sacraments, i.e. the external form and the inner grace, do not stand up to criticism either, because in church practice there are other sacraments that fully satisfy these conditions, but for some reason were not honored by the scholastics with the name of sacraments. There is even a sacrament that has the greatest importance for the entire life of those who receive it and is always recognized together with baptism, the Eucharist and consecration - a great manifestation of Divine grace, but nevertheless recognized by scholastics as lower than simple confession, lower than unction. We have in mind the tonsure into monasticism, which is called a sacrament both in the tonsure rite and in the spurious creation of Dionysius the Areopagite, and in the writings of St. Theodore the Studite, and in the monk Job, the first of the Eastern writers of the thirteenth century, who received a sevenfold number of sacraments. Thus, the external and internal signs that should distinguish the "sacrament" from other sacred actions cannot be recognized as valid. Turning to the "sacraments" themselves, it is impossible not to notice that here are indicated sacraments of different nature and significance, which caused a strange division into mysteries "necessary" and "necessary" for salvation. "Such a division is only possible from a formal point of view of our salvation. "There are three things necessary for salvation: baptism, communion and repentance; And there are two things that are needed for salvation, the holy myrrh, and the last anointing of the sick. Marriage is also necessary for those who use it for the sake of help and preservation from fornication, and it is necessary to eat childbearing for the sake of the Church of God. The priesthood is the same. For it is necessary for those who have been consecrated to eat in order to please God by this service, but it is necessary to eat for the sake of the church and the building of the Holy Spirit. of the Mysteries of God" (301). The incomprehensibility and confusion of such a division of the sacraments, which, by virtue of the unity of the name, should have the same meaning, are noticeable even to the author of the "Great Catechism" himself, because he writes further: "Yes, it is better and more convenient for you to understand, listen to this other division. For all the seven mysteries have consumed the essence, but not to every man, they are less uniform. For marriage and priesthood, if it is necessary to need the essence of the Church, but from another country, in the will and election of everyone, so that neither marriage nor consecration can be saved. The other five mysteries are necessary for salvation and for salvation, but not uniformly. For baptism, communion, and repentance, are necessary for everyone's salvation, that he may be saved, as a ship sails through the depths of the sea, and without them he alone can be saved; unless it is possible to use them by lusting after them. And the holy myrrh and the last anointing of the sick are for salvation, so that we may have salvation, our boldness is known and firm, for it is not only salvation, but let the holy myrrh be boldly and established, for the holy chrism boldly disposes us to suffering, and the last anointing of the sick and forgives the remains of sins. For this reason I am despised, weak, and unknown below confirmed in my salvation, unless I coveted and were unable to use them" (ibid.). Unable not to note the different meanings of the "sacrament," Lawrence Zizanius nevertheless insistently affirms the sevenfold number of sacraments: "Know without any doubt, for in the Church of God there are not two exact mysteries, but the all-perfect seven." In spite of the persuasiveness of the tone, any impartial reader familiar with the spirit of patristic writings remains convinced that the very idea of the sacrament as a sacramental act, quite special in comparison with other sacraments, belongs to Latin theology, that the number of such sacraments is indicated by the scholasticists arbitrarily and artificially, that reasoning about the greater or lesser necessity for the salvation of this or that sacrament is foolish, since salvation is not accomplished individual sacraments, even the most important ones, but unity with the entire life of the Church, where there is nothing unimportant, that some sacraments, for example, the great blessing of water, the tonsure into monasticism, and the funeral of the departed, have no less power and significance than most of the sacraments, although we personally do not like the comparison of sacraments from the point of view of "importance" to the highest degree. What determines the importance of the rite? Is it the quantity or, better, the degree of grace? But if we reason on this basis and do not take into account the higher spiritual meaning of the sacraments, then the successive performance of several sacraments will be incomprehensible. Why then is chrismation after baptism, communion after confession, and sometimes even after the anointing of the sick? In general, there is no need or reason to apply the vain point of view of human concepts to Christian rites, which should be discussed strictly spiritually. In addition to all that we have said, the attachment of the Kievan theologians to the formula of the sacraments is striking. The influence of legal Latinism is also felt here. In discussing the sacred rites of Sts. the Fathers, as we have seen from the review of universal dogmatic systems, say nothing about the formula of the sacraments, referring it to the liturgical rule, and not at all to the dogmatic teaching of the Church. The formula of the sacrament, as its external celebration, is recognized as immutable, but the difficulty and even the impossibility of a precise definition of the "moment" and the "formula" manifested itself in the teaching on the Eucharist. In this teaching there is a contradiction between Lavrenty Zizanius and Metropolitan Peter: the former considers the pronunciation of the words of the Lord to be the "modification" of the mystery together with the Catholics, while the latter, coming closer to the meaning of the Liturgy, recognizes the blessing of bread and wine as the formula of the sacrament. It should be noted, however, that the lofty, strictly spiritual meaning of the Divine Liturgy, composed by the Apostles and handed down to writing by the two greatest pillars of the Church of Christ, does not make it possible to pose the question so crudely and in this sense of carnal wisdom. And after the blessing of the Holy Gifts, the deacon says: "Break up, Vladyka, the holy bread."

In general, with regard to the teaching of the Kievan theologians of the seventeenth century regarding each sacrament separately, it should be noted that it is devoid of the sublime spirit of patristic theology and is very reminiscent of the medieval scholastic doctrines, from which it was borrowed. The teaching of the "Great Catechism" on the sacrament of the Eucharist and repentance is imbued with a particularly earthly character; The inclusion of the "Great Catechism" and the "Orthodox Confession" in the number of sacraments of marriage sharply distinguishes it from the "Enlightener" Joseph of Volotsk and the divinely wise work of St. Joseph of Volotsk. John. As for the teaching on the Eucharist, after spiritual reflections on it, Sts. The "Great Catechism" of Lavrenty Zizanius strikes the Fathers of Eastern piety in this respect with a kind of crude literalism. First of all, the teaching about the Eucharist as a sacrifice satisfying God is striking. We have already spoken of the validity of the idea of satisfaction itself, but even after accepting this idea, it is strange why God, once infinitely satisfied, should be satisfied with each new offering of the blood and flesh of His Son. Moreover, in the Eucharist the bloody sufferings of Christ go far beyond the boundaries of Golgotha; even the slight relief that circumstances and the Roman soldiers gave to the deceased Christ, the coarse scholastics did not want to show Him. "But on the cross it is not for this, but also for that which is contrary to it, for his bone, he says, shall not be broken, but if he has not suffered on the cross, he suffereth in the prosthyra, that is, in the offering for Thy sake, and we suffer this breaking, that he may fulfill all" (33). The latter expression shows what a coarse and sensual character distinguishes the views of the Kievan theologians on the Eucharist.

We have already had occasion to note the idea of "satisfaction" introduced into the field of repentance and having a basis in the general worldview of Latin theologians. Now we will confine ourselves to remarking that the teaching about "repentance" as the main content and beginning of the Christian life has been replaced by the teaching about confession as a legal form of cleansing sins. Undoubtedly, the custom of confessing one's sins to spiritual fathers is as ancient as the Universal Church, but the sacred teachers of the faith, in expounding the laws of repentance, paid the main attention to the soul of the penitent, and not to the external environment of repentance. Of course, confession is one of the most important sacraments and already an indubitable "sacrament" in the broadest sense, but still, in expounding the teaching on repentance, to confine oneself to an exposition of the conditions of confession, and at the same time to introduce legal elements into it, means to move away from the teaching of the God-bearing Fathers and to approach Latin scholasticism. In the East, in general, repentance was understood more broadly and was not limited to confession. The monk Job even identifies the anointing of the sick with repentance, and it must be agreed that there is much given in the inner content of both sacraments to allow such an identification. The "Great Catechism" and the "Orthodox Confession" recognized "marriage" as a sacrament, i.e. a religious sacrament, a phenomenon that has no definite relation, existing apart from religion in non-religious societies. Of course, Christ could not fail to express anything about such an important phenomenon in human life and, as the Evangelist tells us (Matthew 19:12), gave preference to virginity. The Apostle set forth the same in more detailed terms (1 Corinthians 7). In the dogmatics of St. Gregory, St. St. John and Bl. Zinovy says nothing about marriage, only bliss. Theodoret mentions it, but not at all as a Christian sacrament, but as a phenomenon quite possible in the Church. Lawrence Zizanius somehow hesitates about the "need" or "need" of marriage and is inclined to consider marriage "necessary" for the Church. We will only note that the recognition of the necessity of marriage for the Church somewhat contradicts the Apostle, who wanted to see all Christians as virgins (1 Corinthians 7:7). True, the Apostle called marriage a "mystery" (Ephesians 5:32), but not Christian marriage, but any marriage in general, so that here, by mystery, we must understand: the mysterious incomprehensible law of life. Finally, the very content of these words of the Apostle does not refer to the sacrament, which is not mentioned at all, but to the psychological and even physiological act of conjugal love. What is considered the sacrament of marriage, the wedding ceremony itself or marital cohabitation? This is not evident from the "Great Catechism". True, at first it is said that in the sacrament of marriage "the bride and groom are united in a common and inseparable life, like Adam and Eve before the fall without carnal intermingling" (sheet 342), but when defining the "substance" of the mystery, the author considers the bride and groom to be the one themselves. We refuse to make any explanations, since the stretches made are obvious by themselves. The instructions to those entering into marriage are very respectable, but they belong more to the realm of pastoral instruction than to dogmatic theology; the same, of course, must be said about the sacraments of betrothal and wedding.

Moreover, with regard to the teaching of the seven sacraments, it must be said that we have already spoken of the three ministries of the Lord, i.e., that the teaching which has its source in the creation of heretics