Synopsis on Sectology

Jehovah's Witnesses: Christ's death only bought for people earthly life and earthly blessings lost when Adam sinned (Spadis In Ze Skiptsers, Vol. 5, p. 145). The Bible: Christ's death has bought a true forgiveness of sins and blessings that extend beyond this earthly life (Ephesians 1:3-14). Jehovah's Witnesses: Christ's death only makes it possible for a person to attain eternal life through the fulfillment of God's Law, so there is no certainty of eternal life (Stadis In Ze Skiptsers, Vol. 1, p. 150). The Bible: Christ's death gives salvation from sin to all who by faith accept His atoning sacrifice for them (Acts 2:10). 15:11. Heb. 10:38. Eph. 2:8-9. Rom. 3:28; 5:1. Gal. 2:16; 3:11-24). Jehovah's Witnesses: The blood of Christ shed at Calvary refers only to the 144,000 elite of Jehovah's Witnesses (God's Israel), not to the "great crowd" who are the remnant of the Witnesses (Eid To Vivl Understanding, p. 389). Bible: Christ died for all people (1 Tim. 2:5-6. 2 Cor. 5:15. Heb. 2:9). Jehovah's Witnesses: A person can live in God's paradise only through (a) Bible study; b) communication with Jehovah's Witnesses; c) change in life habits and mandatory water baptism according to the rite of Jehovah's Witnesses; d) to be a preacher and witness of the Kingdom of God (Frome Paradise, Lost. pp. 242-249). The Bible: Salvation is offered only through faith and trust in Jesus Christ as Savior (Acts 4:10-12; 10:42-43. Rom. 3:21-24) and good works, inseparable from faith (James 2:20). The Jehovah's Witnesses: The Doctrine of a Burning Hell Where the Wicked Will Be Tortured Eternally After Death Is Incorrect (Michael Shur Ow Tsings. 1953. p. 154). The Bible: Hell is a place of eternal torment for unrepentant sinners (Matt. 13:41-50. Mk. 9:47-48. Rev. 20:11-15).

The Doctrine of God

Jehovah's Witnesses: The doctrine of God is a wrong biblical doctrine born of Satan (Mace Shur Ov Tsings. 1953. P. 386). The Bible: God is one in essence (Deut. 6:4), but the Father is threefold in persons (Phil. 2:11); Jesus Christ is the Son (John 5:18); The Holy Spirit (Acts 5:3-4). Jehovah's Witnesses: Jesus Christ the Son was the original being created by Jehovah God.—Let God Bi Tru, p. 32. The Bible: Christ the Son is the eternal uncreated God (Isaiah 9:6; 44:6. Jn. 8:58. Heb. 1:8. 1 Jn. 5:20. 1 Tim. 3:16. Rev. 1:17-18). Jehovah's Witnesses: Jesus Christ was the incarnation of the Archangel Michael. Christ renewed the name "Michael" when He ascended to heaven (Yu Wil Bi Dan, p. 316; New Habens, End. p. 30). The Bible: Nowhere in its pages does it say that Michael became the Christ. On the contrary, the Bible makes a clear distinction between angels and the exalted position of Christ (Heb. 1:5-6; 13-14). Jehovah's Witnesses: Christ rose from the tomb as a spirit. Jehovah allowed Him to materialize into another body, in which He will appear to His disciples.—Yu Wil Bi Dan, On Ere, p. 143. The Bible: Jesus Christ rose in the same body that was laid in the tomb, which is explained by the traces of the crucifixion, the empty tomb, the burial clothes (Lk. 24:39. Jn. 20:1-9; 20-27). Jehovah's Witnesses: The Holy Spirit is not a person, but an impersonal active force of God (Let God Bi Tru, 2nd ed., p. 108; 1952. p. 24). The Bible: The Holy Spirit is an eternal person who possesses the whole essence of God (Matt. 12:32. Jn. 14:16-17. Acts. 5:3-4). Speaking of the name of God, let us think that behind the name of Jehovah is standing. At the oak grove of Mamre, Abraham ran to meet Jehovah. Not embarrassed by the presence of the three angels, he bowed down to the ground and said: "Lord! If I have found favor... don't pass by... and they shall bring a little water, and they shall wash your feet; and rest under this tree" (Gen. 18:1-15). And God (not the Father) enjoyed good food. Until Jehovah met Moses at the burning bush, the Hebrew word YAHVEH was not explained: "God said to Moses, I am." —Isa. 3:14. The Hebrew idiom Jehovah, translated as Eternal, means the Giver of Life. Throughout the Bible, Jehovah is described as "the Eternal," "Everlasting Father," or "Eternal Life." Why did God present Himself with the phrase "I am"? The infinitive form of the verb "I am" is "to be". "To be" expresses eternal existence (= Jehovah). Here God suppresses all skillful falsifiers. No matter what time "to be" is, it always expresses eternal existence (= Jehovah), and this is in any language. I am (= present tense from "to be") expresses eternal existence. I was (= past tense from "to be") expresses eternal existence. I will (= future tense from "to be") expresses eternal existence. Being (= adverbial participle of "to be") expresses eternal existence. I have been (= one of the past tense forms from "to be") expresses eternal existence (= Jehovah). God is ahead of the Watchtower figures who forged Jn. 8:58, turning "I am" into... "I've been." By doing so, they deliberately mislead the ignorant (cf. Luke 11:52). From its inception, Roussel's The Watchtower has been desperately trying to undermine the Revelations of the Bible that Jesus is the visible "I am" of Exod. 3:14. No one has seen the Father. However, He sent His Word (Christ), Who revealed Himself in visible form to Moses and the people. The Word that dwelt with us (John 1:14), referring to His former deeds in Jerusalem, saying: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem... how many times would I have gathered together thy children..." (Matt. 23:37). "Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was. I am" (John 8:58). They did not believe that He was Jehovah who was working among their people. "And the Jews sought to kill Him all the more, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also called God His Father, making Himself equal with God" (John 5:18). "We do not want to stone Thee for a good deed, but for blasphemy, and because Thou, being a man, make Thyself God" (John 10:33). The Lord made no attempt to deny this claim. His claim that He is "Eternal Life" (Jn. 8:58. Heb. 7:3. 1 Jn. 1:4) was the main argument in the Sanhedrin that led to His crucifixion. He pointed out that He is that ancient mystery of God's manifestations of "I am." To believe this was too much for the Jews. This is still too much for Jehovah's Witnesses, truly modern "Jews"! In this way, not being able to change the original Greek text, they explain it in their own way. They do not pay attention to the fact that one expression is simply "the present tense of the first person" and the other is the "participle or third person" of the same verb "to be." Both mean eternal existence = Jehovah = "I am". "There is no Saviour besides Me" (Isaiah 43:11). Then, if there is no Savior but Jehovah, the Father and the Son must share the same essence and nature. The Essence of Jehovah or the Life-Giving Essence, miraculously described by Isaiah: "Thus saith Jehovah, the King of Israel, and the Redeemer, Jehovah of hosts... besides Me there is no God" (Isaiah 44:6). Notice for yourself that Jehovah King and Jehovah of hosts (Redeemer) are one God. Thus, two spirit persons have one identical essence, and at the same time they are two persons. How so? But it is precisely this nature that the Apostle in Col. 2:2 calls God the mystery and says that this mystery is Christ, in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Col. 2:9). Jesus Himself says: "I and the Father are one" (one in nature and purpose, not in the sense of person and position, John 10:30). The Jehovah's Witnesses turned Christ into a created person ("Try all things." The Watchtower, transl. from English, p. 207) and into the "god" of his own teaching. They are adjusting the Bible to their fabrications — "they turn to their own destruction... Scriptures" (2 Peter 3:16). Thus, the Jehovah's Witnesses declare that the Scriptures call many gods, and therefore the Word is also god-like (The Book of Truth, transl. from English, p. 24). To prove it, they quote Isa. 9:6, where Jesus is called "the mighty God." Indeed, the Bible mentions so-called "gods." The fallen angels are the "sons of God," and Satan is even called the "god of this world." However, Isaiah continues the text by making the connection "Mighty God... The Father of Eternity." The Jews understand that no one can be called the Eternal Father (Matt. 23:9), for this means the Eternal Source of Life, because Jehovah. To quote the Book of Truth (p. 47): "The Bible informs us that He is the firstborn Son of God. This means that He was created before the other sons of God's family." For them, what is born and what is created is one. But born is when Life comes from another similar Life. Creation is the creation of something out of nothing or out of matter. Christ is born of God, which is why the Bible uses the term "Only-begotten" (i.e., the only one who was begotten). The Bible describes Christ as coming from God (John 8:42; 13:3). Just as the Father is the source of divinity, so the Son becomes a manifestation of divinity. Christ is the radiance of His glory (Heb. 1:3. Jn. 1:14). The Bible says, "God is the sun" (Ps. 83:12), and we can say with certainty that Christ is His rays. God is "a consuming fire" (Hebrews 12:29), Whom no man can see and live, but Christ came and revealed the Father in a visible form: "He who has seen Me has seen the Father also" (John 14:9). In fact, He says: if you have seen Me, you have seen God. Just as the sun never existed without its rays, so God never existed without the Word (Christ). Together they share an eternal essence. Various names of the Creator characterize the diversity of His properties in relation to man. In other words, we call the Creator by the name that reveals His qualities to us in our sensations: Merciful, Just, Terrible, Terrible, Far or Near. The Creator Himself, as has been pointed out many times, is not comprehensible to us. Only the light that comes from Him, or rather, that part of the light that enters the "kli" (us) and evokes the feelings by which we call the Creator. According to Jewish tradition, every word, every sign in the Torah carries information about the Creator, His revelation to the creatures, which is why Talmudic Jews say that the entire Torah is the names of the Creator. The light emanating from the Creator carries within it the germ of the future creation, and therefore this hidden form of creation in the outgoing light is designated by a point, for a point is the beginning of any image. Keter. On the basis of new discoveries, scientists give new explanations for the origin of the world. The most famous hypothesis of our time belongs to the Belgian scientist, professor at the University of Louvain, and a student of Eddington, a Catholic priest, Father Lemaître. In his opinion, in the beginning there was a giant radioactive atom, something like "a package of matter in a condensed state." Exploding or, scientifically speaking, disintegrating, it formed nebulae and myriads of stars. This can be compared to a giant fireworks exploding from a small cartridge. The only difference is that the explosion continued for several tens of billions of years and continues to spread in space (which we hear through interference in the ether). So, the point is called a keter. Then comes the spread of light into the "Kli" (in us) so far without a reaction from the latter. This stage is called chochma among the Jews, it is denoted by a dot and a small line coming out of it, the trace of which leaves a trace in the "kli" of "us". Joke. This is the Hebrew letter yud. Next comes bina. Bina expresses the reaction of the Kli to the Light. Therefore, it is indicated by the spread of the line in breadth. Bina corresponds to the letter hei. Despite the fact that there is no concept of place in the spiritual world, the language of the branches is used to express the correspondence of spiritual forces, and therefore the action of the letter Hay, called "Ohr Hassadim", begins with spreading in breadth (hesed – mercy, wide hand, big heart, breadth of soul) and continues with writing from top to bottom ("or hochma") – from the Creator to the creatures. All the lines depicted horizontally imply the action of "Ohr Hasalim" (i.e. the manifestation of Divine love and all the best qualities of God as Perfection without reference to us), and the vertical lines correspond to the spread of these perfections from top to bottom – from the Creator to the creatures: Here are the letters that make up the name of the Creator: The unpronounceable four-letter name of the Creator – Abaya – has a deep mystical meaning and, as mentioned above, the Jews say that the entire Torah is the names of the Creator. There are ten indelible names (indelible - since if a mistake is made in their spelling, correction is forbidden and the scroll is interred). The true meaning of knowing His name is to enjoy the Creator. Therefore, when Jehovah's Witnesses carelessly carry the Bible in their pocket, excuse me, trousers (which is often the case) or juggle the name of the Creator, then these people are far from the shrine to which they pharisaically point.

Polemics about the God-Humanity of Christ

Question to Jehovah's Witnesses: Tell me, can God have a beginning of days, an end, a father or a mother? Answer: Of course not, and this cannot be the case. Then open and read aloud to them Hebrews 7:1-8: "Without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, being like the Son of God, abides as a priest forever." Now compare the spiritual reality of Melchizedek (the most mysterious person in the Bible) and Jesus Christ. Can we say that Jesus is "created" if Melchizedek is likened to Him, who has no "beginning of days"? Another question you may ask is: Can anything or anyone other than God give eternal life? The answer is natural, that creation can neither give such life nor maintain eternal life, because it has no life in itself. Then read the verse they are familiar with: "And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; and no man shall snatch them out of my hand." This is what the God-Man Jesus Christ said, for no man, no angel, no spiritual creature or "son of God" (the interpretation of the Jehovists) can give eternal life, as God does.

Sects of a mystical persuasion

The Emergence of Sects of a Mystical Nature

Nikon accepted the patriarchate on July 25, 1652, and during these first five years he was connected with Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich by a strong friendship. Not a single important state matter was resolved without the consent of the sovereign and the patriarch. At one time, the patriarch took an active part in the struggle against the plague, for which he was granted the title of "great sovereign" by the tsar. Patriarch Nikon approved several monasteries: Iberian, Cross and New Jerusalem. But, being a straightforward and uncompromising person, he gradually acquires influential enemies in the person of noble boyars. Four noble boyar families had the most negative attitude towards the patriarch: the Streshnevs, the Miloslavskys, the Odoevskys, and the Morozovs. At court, intrigues were woven in order to turn the sovereign against the patriarch. Soon the occasion presented itself. In 1657, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich returned from the Livonian campaign, where the military operation against Lithuania was not entirely successful for the Russian army, and the gloomy mood of the sovereign was aggravated by the news from the boyars that Nikon was wasting the state treasury on the construction of monasteries, the maintenance of the brethren, while this money could successfully be used for a military campaign against Lithuania. Relations between the tsar and the patriarch became strained. In addition, it was reported that the Patriarch spoiled the purity of the faith, tempted the people by correcting the liturgical books, etc. Concerning the question of reforming the resolutions of the Council of the Hundred Chapters, it should be said that this Council was held in 1551 under the chairmanship of Metropolitan Macarius, where Tsar Ivan the Terrible was also present. 37 issues concerning various aspects of church life were considered. In one hundred chapters were set forth the main doctrinal, ritual and other questions, from which the Council received the name "Hundred Chapters".

In order to bring everything to a common denominator, Patriarch Nikon established a scholarly brotherhood near Moscow, which analyzed Greek primary sources, sent a number of educated monks from the Kiev Academy to Greece, headed by Arseny Sukhanov, and finally, in 1654, convened a bishops' council, where the need to correct the liturgical books was recognized. Archbishop Pavel of Kolomna, the only hierarch who refused to sign the act of the council. Already in 1656, another council, which was attended by two patriarchs of Serbia and Antioch, confirmed the legitimacy of the council of 1654 and decreed: the newly corrected books were to be corrected in all churches, and the old ones were to be burned. Passions boiled. The enemies of Patriarch Nikon took advantage of the discontent of some of the laity and a number of priests, of whom the fathers of the Moscow Council would later say that they were "simplicity and ignorance," and they would be called "empty saints." The resistance of the "Pustosvyats" irritated the Patriarch: at first he admonished them verbally, and then severe sanctions followed. Bishop Pavel was defrocked and exiled to the Paleostrovsky Monastery, Priest Neronov to the Kamenetz Monastery, Archpriest Avvakum to Dauria, Prince Lvov to Solovki. Petitions to the tsar poured in. Although Alexei Mikhailovich did not share the convictions of the "empty saints", his relations with the Patriarch were strained due to other, objective, as it seemed to him, reasons. The tsar stopped inviting the patriarch to the Kremlin, including to receive foreign ambassadors. In 1658, the patriarch publicly took off his vestments in front of all the people at the liturgy and declared that from now on he was not a patriarch, since the tsar did not recognize him as such. He voluntarily retired to the Resurrection Monastery for eight years of imprisonment. Such behavior of the patriarch embittered the tsar, and instead of reconciliation, in 1666 he invited Patriarch Macarius of Antioch, Patriarch Dionysius of Alexandria, ten metropolitans, three archbishops, five bishops and a multitude of priests to try Nikon. The court charged the deposed Nikon with the following: unauthorized abandonment of the flock, pride, and not humility in court, humiliation of Metropolitan Paisius of Gaza, deprivation of bishops of their dioceses without a conciliar trial, rudeness and cruelty in the treatment of subordinates. In the rank of a simple monk, Nikon was exiled to a remote monastery for repentance. He died in 1681, and a year later a letter was received from the Eastern patriarchs, freeing Patriarch Nikon from conciliar condemnation. While Patriarch Nikon was in voluntary 8-year imprisonment, the adherents of the Old Believers were emboldened. Archpriest Avvakum was returned from exile and with enviable persistence began to consolidate the Old Believer movement around him. His speeches were harsh, the lack of knowledge and tact was compensated for by exaltation, which captivated a lot of people. His ardent adherents also appeared among the boyars. The persecution of the "pustosvyatsy" by the authorities was likened to the wind in the direction of a smoldering fire. Soon the Old Believer movement swept over the whole of Russia. The main distinguishing feature of the schism was attachment to the letter of the church service books and the rite without understanding its meaning and significance. They wanted to die "for one AZ". In their opinions on the issue of restoring lawful succession through ordination, the Old Believers were divided into two large channels. One branch (the priests) continued to seek ways to restore their priesthood through the Orthodox hierarchs, when in 1846 they turned to the out-of-the-way Greek Metropolitan Ambrose with a request to "bake" more bishops and priests for them, which the latter did in Bukovina. It is now called the Belokrinitsky concord. Others, on the contrary, rejected any contact with Orthodoxy, accusing it of all mortal sins, and then they had an avalanche-like fragmentation into a multitude of sects and interpretations. Briefly about the most famous of them.

Whips

People rhythmically jump around the large upper room, uttering inarticulate sounds, a whirlwind seizes a stranger with a tormenting sensual voluptuousness, awakening an irrepressible desire, which at the end of the joy will finally be fulfilled, to the great delight of those who are careful. But while they are whipping themselves and others with tourniquets and rods, and shouting aloud: "I whip myself, I seek God!" guttural strange sounds break from their lips, and unknown speech is sometimes intertwined with the general hubbub. Thus do the Khlysts care (serve God). This mystical sect was founded by Danila Filippov, as he himself explained, through "illumination" he obtained the truth. Later, he would call himself the God of Sabaoth, which would not surprise the sectarians at all, for they considered him to be such. A little later, in 1649, this fugitive soldier of the Kostroma province called the zealous follower of Suslov "his only-begotten son", that is, Christ Jesus. And again the sectarians will believe him, because Suslov will surround himself with the "Mother of God" and the twelve "apostles". Having bought a huge house in Moscow at the expense of his followers, he will call it "New Jerusalem". There will spin mind-blowing zeals, regularly ending in gross sin. In 1699 Danilo Filippov died – as the Khlysts would stubbornly assert – "ascended to heaven", and his place was taken by Prokopiy Lupkin, who in 1716 was put on trial in Yaroslavl, after repentance the authorities were released, but only in 1733 the sect was recognized as a malicious heresy, and everywhere in Russia persecution fell on the Khlystovism. But... Time is lost. Khlysts spread in the Ryazan, Tver, Simbirsk, Penza, Vologda, Nizhny Novgorod, Kostroma, Vladimir and Yaroslavl provinces. What can we say for peace, if by 1733 there were already 8 Khlystov nests in Moscow monasteries alone. In the investigation, 416 people were found, some of whom were executed, some were exiled to Siberia, and the other part repented. Sectarian meetings usually take place in a secret place, hidden from the eyes of an outsider. A guard is posted in case of a raid. During meeting hours, the room is lit by a huge chandelier in the form of a chandelier. All those gathered change into white clothes. An essential element of the "divine service" is whirling ("salting") and prophecies. There are: a) single, b) wall (several people in a row), c) ship (running one after another), d) cross (in pairs crosswise). At the moment of spiritual ecstasy, the whirling becomes vortex. At this moment, the sectarian "flies into the sky" or "lures the bird of paradise." Then he falls into a frenzy and hallucinations begin; Someone is screaming, someone is climbing under the stove with eyes bulging with emotions. Universal indescribable delight ends in sexual unbridledness, which is popularly called "gross sin". To summarize the signs by which you can identify a whip, the following: folk rumor, ease of sexual relations, non-use of alcohol, appearance - a languid, yellow-pale face, dull look, a smoothly combed and oiled head in men, insinuating humble speech, impulsive inadequate body movements, a strange love of sweets, the use of diminutive names for each other's names. It should be noted that the zeal of sectarians is extremely contagious; It often happened that a person who once out of curiosity came to the zeal of the sect, practically did not return from it. Khlystovshchina absorbed many sensible people, including those from the Russian intelligentsia, who, out of idle curiosity, wanted to attend the celebrations.

Jumpers

In a hotly heated upper room, people are sitting on benches near the walls. With a sly smile, a quick, ruddy peasant sings a prayer composed by him to the tune of a Russian folk song. He is unanimously pulled up by the audience, and only a little at the beginning the tune that was guessed turns into a jubilant song "Oh, you, sleigh, my sleigh". The song reverberates through the village. During the singing, the spirit rolls over the "prophet" (i.e. on the ruddy peasant). He stops the song and prepares to receive the "spirit", expressing this by stamping his foot on the floor and smoothing the hair on his head. This is followed by a swaying of the body in different directions, and finally, unable to restrain his ecstasy, he begins to dance before the prophetess, who, without moving from her seat, responds to him with a nervous twitch of the shoulders. And then the "prophet", raising his hands up, begins to jump. Jumping higher and more actively, he puts his hands on his partner's shoulders, and then they both start dancing. Those present are imbued with the "sacred action" of the prophets, and they themselves begin to jump until they fall down in exhaustion. (Often an outside observer who was present at the celebration caught himself jumping to his amazement.) Then someone starts muttering all sorts of nonsense, but it's a "prophecy," and every word that is spoken is listened to in order to interpret what is said. For the post of prophet, people are selected who are young and quick, but most importantly, who know how to dance well. Meetings of the jumpers are held from Friday to Saturday, because the sect adheres to the Mosaic Law. The sectarians explain this form of service simply: King David sang and danced in front of the Ark, and God did not impute this to him as a sin. The founder of the sect is considered to be Lukyan Sokolov (1862), but the real ideological inspirer and universally recognized leader is Maxim Rudometkin, nicknamed "Komar". The sect was born in Transcaucasia in the 50s of the XIX century. The sect celebrates all Jewish holidays, but it is difficult to judge how widespread it is at the present time, since no one has kept such statistics. At one time, this trend was very widespread in Russia, but, as is known, many mystical sects were simply absorbed by rationalistic Protestant sects. This fate did not pass by the jumpers either.