Fr. Nikolai Afanasiev points out, however, that in St. Ignatius's writings the bishop is wholly included in the Eucharistic assembly and therefore cannot yet be the only guarantor of its ecclesiastical nature. However, he soon became such, consistently developing the function of the sole representation of his community at enlarged church meetings, where elected persons of neighboring communities were invited to convince his decisions (!), in particular on the election of a new bishop. Initially, these could be, and often were, not bishops or even clerics, but soon the obligatory presence of neighboring bishops as invited on such occasions was established everywhere. In this case, by representing himself, the bishop also represents the community. The latter began to mean the automatic reception of the decisions of one's bishop at meetings of near and distant neighbors. In this way, there is no need for reception in its former form, i.e. as a test of the ecclesiastical nature of certain actions.

Councils of a "transitional type" appeared, in the author's terminology, where the catholic principle inherent in the activity of a given assembly was combined with the legal nature of the presence of neighboring bishops. Then there are precedents for the consecration of bishops outside the communities, consolidating their fundamentally new position: no longer within, but above the church assembly. A logical continuation of such a church structure is such an idea of the conciliar unity of the Church, which will be understood as the assembly of the largest possible number of bishops. In addition, St. Cyprian of Carthage already speaks of the inadmissibility of demanding the ecclesiastical reception of the acts of the council, since this undermines the authority of the bishops. In the extreme, therefore, a council of bishops can replace the assembly of the church. Fr. Nicholas draws attention to the fact that the minutes of the Council of Carthage in 256 are called "Sententiae episcoporum" (decrees of bishops). Thus, with the triumph of universal ecclesiology, the idea of an ecumenical council, which for the time being was only technically impracticable, began to float in the air.

In this way, an order was finally formed, which replaced the spiritual quality of church fullness with the formal legal representation of church communities in the person of their heads, bishops. If we continue this logic further, it is easy to come to the conclusion that it is not obligatory for a bishop to represent anyone other than himself, a person endowed with sacralized legal powers. The order of consecrating bishops not within the community, but in the community, that is, from outside, which contributes to the emergence of such a worldview, has already been mentioned.

Consequently, the legal principle of the structure of the church itself must inexorably lead not simply to the rupture of church integrity, as stated by Fr. Nikolai Afanasiev, but directly to the legitimization of parallelism in the structure of the empirical church. Then one, the main level, is represented by a council of a self-lawful episcopate, and the second is also in a certain sense a self-contained church people. The first appears structurally necessary, but also sufficient, since the council of bishops is the expression of the fullness of the Church. The second, in turn, looks structurally optional, since it is not endowed with any qualities that can testify to its fundamental significance. In other words, ecclesiastical unity and catholic fullness, understood as legal principles, are fully institutionalized by the higher clergy.

However, not everything has been said here either. Authority and legal powers are capable of absorbing the sacramental side of the life of the church. At the very beginning of the book, Fr. Nicholas warns: "If, along with the authority of Christ as the Head of the Church, there were another authority in the person of another community, or of any primate, then this authority would be at the same time an authority over Christ Himself and His Body" (p. 30). The circle closes. The power of love and the power of keys cannot be equalized in rights, and, incredible as it may seem, legal consciousness by its very nature is forced to give primacy to the second, and not to the first.

Who knows, but perhaps the glaring incompatibility of the church order of the author's time with the early Christian church consciousness, which is clearly reconstructed today, including thanks to his own efforts, prompted Fr. Nikolai Afanasiev to this daring work. The accuracy and persuasiveness of the diagnostics and assessments that have become established in the course of history of the institutional and legal priorities of the church structure to the detriment of the original, properly conciliar ones, rooted in the mystical nature of the Church, the Body of Christ, make us think deeply today about the possible ways of actual, and not only theological, rehabilitation of the conciliar principle of the Church.

In this regard, the eyes of the children of the Russian Orthodox Church continue to turn to the Local Council of 1917-1918, since it was there that real encouraging steps were taken towards the restoration of the most obvious forms of conciliarity: the election of the episcopate and the rest of the clergy, the creation of metropolitan districts, the revision of the functions of church courts, and the restoration of some aspects of local conciliarity. On the whole, however, the council did not go beyond the framework of a representative understanding of its own function in church life, which is especially emphasized by Fr. Nicholas. Consequently, by this criterion alone, it has almost entirely remained within the limits of its legal, rather than charismatic, understanding. And yet, the very movement towards overcoming the distortions described above should be recognized as almost a breakthrough in the direction hoped for by the empirical church.

An adequate assessment of the real significance of the acts of the Council of 1917-1918 can be made possible by a comprehensive and thorough historical and theological analysis of the sequence and content of possible steps that should be taken on the path to the full restoration of genuine ecclesiastical conciliarity. Perhaps it is noteworthy that the Council, on the whole moving in the right direction, proposed measures devoid of any radicality, evolutionary in nature and quite feasible in those historical conditions, which made it possible to gradually but purposefully move from a state of legal amorphousness to a cross-cutting regulation of legal and representative procedures. In this regard, should we not talk about the inevitability of a retrospective repetition of the historical path of the Church, so as not to wander into new dead ends in an effort to return to true catholicity?

If this assumption is not unfounded, then the publication of the present work by Fr. Nikolai Afanasiev, which demonstratively demonstrates the stages of the transition from catholic gathering in Christ to the universal representation of the Church by a council of bishops, which is generally imperceptible to contemporaries and rather rapid by historical standards, acquires all the greater significance.

Внимательное вчитывание в книгу о. Николая неизбежно поставит и вопрос о необходимости более подробного рассмотрения причин, определивших обсуждаемую перемену в понимании церковной соборности, которые в настоящей работе лишь кратко обозначены. Трудно усомниться в самой констатации, что утрата яркой эсхатологической окрашенности своей жизни, неизбежно более тесная привязка к жизни мира сего вкупе с численным ростом раннехристианских общин создают, как оказалось, сильные соблазны забыть свою «первую любовь». Но тогда возникает вопрос о степени неизбежности им поддаться, а тем более о том, какие шаги позволили бы не повторять ошибок прошлого. Очень хочется верить, что жизнь Церкви на земле не покрывается одними секулярными закономерностями, и что поэтому искреннее стремление восстановить подлинные начала церковности позволит учиться даже у истории, которая, как известно со времен Гегеля, никого ничему еще не научила.

Нам остается только пожелать счастливой и плодотворной судьбы этой замечательной книге — плоду самоотверженного, пусть по видимости и кабинетного труда ее выдающегося автора, чье служение церкви, хочется верить, обретает сегодня новый масштаб и особенную востребованность.

Давид Гзгзян, канд. филол. Наук, зав. кафедрой богословских дисциплин и литургики Свято–Филаретовского института

Глава I ИКОНА ЦЕРКВИ

1. Церковное собрание было самым значительным и необходимым выражением церковной жизни древнего христианства. Значение церковного собрания уже выступает с особой силой в апостольских писаниях. Церковное собрание было самым существенным элементом древней христианской общины. Мы не можем представить себе древнюю христианскую общину без церковного собрания в первую очередь, конечно, молитвенного. «Они постоянно пребывали в учении апостолов, в общении (τη κοινωνία) и преломлении хлеба и в молитвах» (Деян 2:42). Это значение и роль церковного собрания в древней христианской церкви нельзя объяснить исключительно заимствованием практики ветхозаветных еврейских общин. Для иудео–христианских общин такое воспроизведение было бы понятно и законно, но простое заимствование этой практики христианами из язычников, во всяком случае, спорно. Наличие церковного собрания и в одних, и в других общинах объясняется только тем, что оно лежало в самой природе общин {1}.