As a good expression from the formal side of the properties of Christian truth, as an indisputable, immutable and universally binding truth for Christians, the word δόγμα, as a conditional term, came into use among Christian writers to designate the truths of revealed religion. At first it was applied to Christian teaching in general, and then they began to express (the Fathers and teachers of the Church of the fourth and fifth centuries and later ecclesiastical writers) by this word not all truths contained in revelation without distinction, but also of the divinely revealed only those relating to a certain circle of ideas, i.e., to doctrine. In modern theological science, the essential features of dogmas that distinguish them from all other Christian truths, as well as from non-Christian teachings, are precisely the following: 1) the theological nature of the dogmas of faith, 2) the revelation of God, 3) the ecclesiastical nature, and 4) the law-binding nature for all members of the Church.

1. Theology. This sign, the dogmas assimilated, indicates the realm of truths embraced by dogmas. Of all the Christian truths, only those are called dogmas that relate to the essence of religion as the inner union of God with man, and moreover the union restored by the Lord Jesus Christ, i.e., truths that contain the teaching of the triune God and His relation to the world and rationally free beings, especially to man. All other truths which are found in revelation, but which have as their object the teaching of God and His relation to the world and rationally free beings, e.g., moral truths or commandments, ritual, canonical, historical truths of the Church of God in the Old Testament and partly in the New Testament, prophecies, etc., are no longer dogmas of faith, although in general and it is obligatory for a Christian to fully recognize them. Such content of the truths called "dogmas of faith" also shows why they are truths of faith, and the Church called its abbreviated exposition of the dogmas of faith "the symbol of faith" and begins it with the word "I believe."

2. Revelation of God. All the dogmas of the Christian religion are divinely revealed truths, they are the word of God Himself to people. This origin of dogmas distinguishes them from the truths and thoughts of any non-Christian religion and from philosophical teachings. To doctrine which is not contained in revelation (explicite or implicite) is not, and cannot be, a dogma of faith. In revelation, dogmas are not given in the form of only a few of the most general propositions, from which people have gradually deduced the rest of the particular dogmas in the usual logical way, but are given in full and once for all, to the extent and in the sense in which the Church confesses them. That is why the Church Fathers call Christian dogmas "dogmas of God," "dogmas of Jesus Christ," "dogmas of the Gospel," "dogmas of the apostles."

3. Churchliness. The truths of the faith, called dogmas, are truths recognized as such by the universal church and offered by it as dogmas to its members. That which is not confessed by the Church as a dogma cannot be a dogma for private persons either. The essential property of dogma, as a divinely revealed truth, is its unconditional truth and immutability (Mt 5:18; 2 Cor 1:19-20). The dogmas offered to the consciousness of believers and in their consciousness must be firm convictions. What can impart the necessary firmness to human convictions regarding the dogmas of the faith? (For this it is not enough that every single Christian dogma is contained in revelation. Individuals, borrowing directly from revelation a teaching, can easily misunderstand this or that utterance of the mind of God, or misunderstand, and even if they understood correctly, they could not be convinced that their understanding was correct.

We have such supreme guidance in the Church of Christ, which is the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim 3:15). It is her voice that gives firmness to our convictions regarding dogmas. (Consequently, in order to be fully convinced that certain revealed truths must be recognized as dogmas, and that they must be understood in one way and not another, we need to hear these truths and their exact definition from the mouth of the Church of Christ, of course, the true, Orthodox Church; without it, a person cannot go beyond personal opinions and assumptions. "in the words of the church."

4. Law-binding nature for all members of the Church is the last essential feature of the dogmas of faith. Dogmas, as truths of faith, determined by the universal Church with the assistance of the Spirit of God, and taught by her not on its own behalf, but in the name of the Holy Spirit. In the name of Christ, as divinely revealed truths, cannot have any other meaning than the obligatory rules of faith or laws, which in their entirety and their true meaning must be accepted by every Christian who does not wish to renounce Christ and separate himself from the church founded by Him, and thereby be deprived of the hope of salvation. And the word of God forbids the slightest deviation from the purity of Christian teaching and any change in it, thereby affirming its obligation for Christians: whether we are an angel from heaven, says St. Paul. Paul, "He preaches good tidings to you, if he preaches good tidings to you, he will be anathema" (Galatians 1:8). In accordance with this, according to the testimony of history, the Church did indeed act in excommunicating all those who consciously and stubbornly rejected or distorted her dogmas by virtue of the authority granted to her by God (Mt 18:17-18). VI Ecumenical. Cathedral, 1 pr.).

Consideration of the essential properties of dogmas leads to the following concept of dogmas: dogmas are divinely revealed truths, containing the teaching of the Triune God and His relation to the world and especially to man, preserved, defined and taught by the Orthodox Church as indisputable, unchangeable and obligatory for all believers rules of faith. The exposition in the system, the clarification, and the scientific substantiation of dogmas constitute the content of Dogmatic Theology. Dogmatic Theology, understood in the sense of science, is thus nothing but a system of Orthodox Christian doctrine, in other words, a systematic exposition of the Orthodox Christian teaching on the Triune God, His attributes and actions in relation to the world and, especially, to man.

§ 3. Sources of Christian Doctrine. The Holy Scriptures and the Holy Scriptures. Tradition.

The source of science, which has as its object the systematic exposition and revelation of the dogmatic truths of Christianity, must be divine revelation, as it is contained and explained by the Catholic Church.