Although the Athonite movement was condemned and crushed, interest in the problems discussed in the course of the imiaslav disputes did not fade away among Russian philosophers and theologians throughout the 20th century. Comprehension of the problems of name, word, and language became one of the main directions in the development of Russian philosophical thought. Theological comprehension of the meaning of the name of God also continued decades after the imiaslav disputes and resumed with renewed vigor at the end of the 20th century.

The final ecclesiastical assessment of the imiaslav disputes has not yet been given. The Local Council of 1917-1918 was supposed to make a decision on this topic, but it failed to do so, and the question of the Church's assessment of imiaslavie still remains open. Apparently, this is what has caused the revival of polemics around the veneration of the name of God in recent years. Recently, the Synodal Theological Commission of the Russian Orthodox Church included the question of the evaluation of the imiaslav disputes on the agenda of its work. We hope that the Commission will be able to address this topic in a comprehensive manner, and we see our work as a modest contribution to its reflection.

Our book is the first attempt at a detailed introduction to the history and problems of the imiaslav disputes [1]. The book consists of three parts. The first is devoted to the understanding of the name of God in the Holy Scriptures and the Tradition of the Church. In our opinion, the imiaslav disputes of the early 20th century have a centuries-old prehistory. The problems raised in the course of these disputes were discussed already in the Byzantine era, in particular, in the disputes between the Great Cappadocians and Eunomius in the fourth century, between the icon-worshippers and iconoclasts in the eighth and ninth centuries, and between Gregory Palamas and Barlaam of Calabria in the fourteenth century. The tradition of the Jesus Prayer, which existed in Eastern Christian monasticism since the fifth century and formed the basis of the Athonite practice of prayer, played a key role in the formation of imiaslavie. Some aspects of imiaslavie are rooted in the biblical understanding of the name of God. The formation of the imiaslav teaching, in addition, was influenced by the Russian theological tradition, especially the writings of St. John of Kronstadt. Therefore, we considered it necessary in the first part of the book to review those few traditions, acquaintance with which is necessary to understand the problems of the imiaslav disputes. The first chapter will be devoted to the theology of the name in the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. In the second chapter, we will consider the thoughts of some of the Fathers and teachers of the Church about the names of God. The theme of the third chapter will be the prayerful invocation of the name of God in Orthodox worship and in the practice of the Jesus Prayer. Finally, in the fourth chapter we will touch upon the understanding of the name of God in Russian theology.

The second and third parts of the book are devoted to the history and problems of the imiaslav disputes. These disputes, in our opinion, are one of the rounds of the never-ceasing polemics within the Orthodox Church about the nature of Church Tradition. We are convinced that all the major dogmatic disputes that took place within Eastern Orthodoxy revolved around the theme of Tradition, whether it was the dispute over the names of God between the Cappadocians and Eunomius in the fourth century, the dispute over the veneration of icons in the eighth and ninth centuries, or the Palamite disputes in the fourteenth century. It was always a question of understanding the experience of the Church, of its most correct, Orthodox expression. At the same time, both sides in the dispute considered themselves defenders of Tradition: both appealed to the Bible, to the authority of the Fathers, to church practice. In the end, however, it turned out that only one side defended the true and original Tradition of the Church, while the other exhibited a distorted or perverted version of it.

It is in this vein that the imiaslav disputes will be considered in the second and third parts of this work. Consequently, we will be interested only in the theological and ecclesiastical-historical side of the matter. Philosophical problems will be touched upon by us only to the extent that it is absolutely necessary for the understanding of the Orthodox teaching on the name of God. As for the philosophy of the name in general, the philosophy of language, word, myth, symbol, etc., we will not talk about this specifically.

This book is written on the basis of existing documents, both published in print and stored in archives and still awaiting publication. We have looked through dozens of books on imiaslav problems, hundreds of articles from the periodicals, and numerous archival documents. Of course, many details escaped our attention. Some publications and archival documents were not available to us. In addition, due to the vastness of the material, we had to leave out some sources that are directly related to the topic [2]. We hope that these gaps will be filled by other researchers.

In 1937, Archpriest Georgy Florovsky complained that the "history of the Athos Troubles" had not yet been written: there was only polemical and very biased literature" [3]. 60 years later, the situation has changed little: according to the Russian scientist A. G. Kravetsky, "the literature devoted to the philosophical and theological understanding of this dispute is enormous, while the history of the imiaslav movement itself has not yet been written" [4]. We perceive my book not as a history of the imiaslav disputes, but as an attempt to review this history, as an introduction to this history: we wanted first of all to collect material on the history of disputes so that such a history could be written on the basis of this material.

St. John of Kronstadt said: "Church history should not be only a list of facts, but should be a teacher of dogmas and all Christian virtues" [5]. For us, the historical outline of the imiaslav disputes is only the background against which the analysis of the dogmatic, theological content of the question of the name of God unfolds. A historical account of the Athonite controversies is necessary for us insofar as it contributes to a theological understanding of the problems that brought them to life.

However, our analysis of theological problems is also introductory, introductory. We are well aware that the solution of the question of the name of God is beyond the power of one person: a group of people must work on it – theologians, church historians, philosophers, philologists. We hope that such a group will be created within the framework of the Theological Commission.

The reader will find in our work many quotations from the Holy Scriptures, from the works of the Fathers and teachers of the Church, liturgical texts, the writings of the imiaslavtsy and their opponents, and the works of contemporary theologians. We give quotations from the Bible according to the Synodal translation. In those cases where biblical texts are found in the works of other authors that we quote, we leave them in the form in which they are given by the authors (including in the Slavonic translation). Quotations from the Church Fathers are given, when possible, according to Russian translations; In some cases, the translations are checked by us against the original (the corrections made by us to the translations are not specifically specified). Quoting the works of the imiaslavtsy and their opponents, we sought to preserve the stylistic and grammatical features of the original; Nevertheless, we allowed ourselves minimal stylistic and spelling edits.

All abbreviations in the cited texts are marked with ellipses in angle brackets. Ellipses without angle brackets in quotations belong to the authors of the cited texts. There are no ellipses in our author's text. Words that are not in the quoted texts, but are included in them for clarity, are in square brackets.

We use italics as the only form of emphasis in the text. In quotations from essays in which other forms of emphasis were used (bold, breakdown, underline, capital letters, etc.), all these forms are replaced by italics. In all quotations, italics belong to the authors of the quoted texts, except where otherwise noted.

During the period of the imiaslav disputes, the term "imiaslavie" was spelled in different ways: "imiaslavie", "imeslavie", "imenoslavie" and even "imislovie". In quotations from sources, we, as a rule, unify the spelling of this term ("imiaslavie"), as well as its derivatives ("imiaslavtsy", "imiaslavsky", etc.)· Only the most extravagant forms, such as "name slave" (a term used by Berdyaev), have been left unchanged. The term "imyabozhniki" is replaced in quotations by "imyabozhniki", "imebortsy" by "imyabortsy"; Corresponding changes have been made to all derived terms. In the author's text, we try to avoid the terms "imyabozhniki" and "imiabortsy", which were perceived as offensive; However, in quotations from sources, as well as in references to sources, these terms are constantly encountered.

Special mention should be made of the spelling of the word "name" in relation to the name of God, the names of God, and the name "Jesus." As a rule, the imiaslavtsy wrote this word with a capital letter, and their opponents with a lowercase letter. However, there were exceptions: for example, Schema-monk Hilarion wrote it for the most part with a lowercase letter, whereas in the Synod Epistle of May 18, 1913, it begins with a capital letter. In our book, the spelling of the sources in this paragraph is left unchanged, so the reader will find both spellings in the quotations. In the author's text, the word "name" is written with a lowercase letter, except for those cases when a capital letter is required by the meaning. We hope that the reader will forgive us this inevitable discrepancy in the spelling of a term that is so important for the history and problems of the imiaslav disputes.