PATRISTICS:

Texts and studies

Vasily Ilyich

Copy

"The Teaching of the Ancient Church on Property and Almsgiving"

Publishing house "Text", Krasnodar, 2013.

UDC 281.9 BBK 86.372 E 36

Recommended for publication

Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church IS 13-304-0347

The book was published at the expense of the Ekaterinodar and Kuban diocese, as well as on personal donations.

The text of the book is printed according to the edition:

The Teaching of the Ancient Church on Property and Almsgiving. Kiev, 1910. Foreword: Somin N. V.

Oscopynsky, Vasily Ilyich.

E 36 The Doctrine of the Ancient Church on Property and Almsgiving / V. I. Copynsky. — Krasnodar: Text, 2013. 272 p.

ISBN 978-5-903298-11-2

The book by Professor V. I. Oscopynsky offered to the reader is truly unique. Copymansky's work is the only monograph in Russian theology entirely devoted to the question of property and wealth from the patristic point of view. Its content is entirely based on the teaching of church writers and holy fathers of the III-V centuries: Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Cyprian of Carthage, Gregory the Theologian, Basil the Great, John Chrysostom, Ambrose of Milan, Blg. Augustine, blg. A good half of the text of the book consists of excerpts from Scripture or patristic tradition (about 300 quotations from the Bible and about 700 from the Holy Fathers). And so, on the basis of such extensive material, Oscopynsky recreates the patristic teaching on property and almsgiving, which has an amazing height. The Russian theologian convincingly shows that the basis of the patristic teaching is mercy and love for one's neighbor. In the Appendix is published a small work by Archbishop. Vasily (Krivoshein), devoted to the same question, considered on the basis of the works of St. Symeon the New Theologian.

The book is intended for theologians, philosophers, historians and all those interested in the fate of Orthodoxy.

© Publishing House "Text". © "Orthodox Ekaterinodar". © Somin N. V. — preface.