In his teaching on the properties of Christian almsgiving, St. Ambrose stands out from other teachers of the Church by constant reminders of the need for a certain discernment in the distribution of alms. In his view of the other qualities of almsgiving, St. Ambrose, in general, teaches in accordance with the general teaching of the Church. Thus, St. Ambrose emphasizes that remarkable feature of Christian almsgiving, according to which its value depends not on the amount given, but on the mood of the donor. "Blessed," says the Holy Father, "is he who does from the heart what he can. To the gifts of the rich, Christ preferred the widow's two mites, because she gave everything she had, and they gave only a small part of the abundance. Thus, our spiritual disposition makes a gift either great or small, it also imparts this or that value to the actions themselves" [965]. And considering the value of almsgiving, the Holy Father emphasizes that it should always combine both generosity and benevolence. "It is not enough," argues St. Ambrose, "to have a good will, it is also necessary to do good, and on the other hand, it is not enough to act well, it is necessary that this good deed proceeds from a good source, that is, good will, for God loves the giver willingly. And if you give involuntarily, is this your reward? That is why the Apostle says in general: "If I do this voluntarily, I will have a reward, and if I do it involuntarily, then I perform only the ministry entrusted to me"... Thus, it is very good to be benevolent, guided in one's generosity by the intention to be useful." Generosity should be found in giving no less of one's strength and giving to the really poor, and not in being extravagant. According to the Holy Father, if a benefactor does not give the poor such alms as he can, then alms are not pleasing to God, and what remains with those who give is not their righteous inheritance[967]. And a sincere willingness to alleviate the suffering of the poor must be expressed in the fact that generosity does not turn into extravagance. "There are two kinds of blessings," says St. Ambrose, "one is generosity, and the other is extravagant luxury. To be generous means to receive a stranger, to clothe the naked, to ransom captives, to help the needy; and to be profligate is to make great feasts. And this must be called extravagance, when for the sake of popular sympathy one depletes one's wealth; so do those who squander their father's inheritance on circus or theatrical entertainments in order to surpass their ancestors in fame"[968]. And it is precisely in the definition of what true generosity is that St. Ambrose introduces into the understanding of the Christian view of alms such features that we have not encountered in the Eastern Fathers, and which bear a fairly clear stamp of that limitation which is alien to the spirit of Christian teaching, as an expression of an ideal point of view on the subject. We have already seen how the great teachers of the Church understood this absoluteness: they were completely alien to thoughts and concerns about the practical results of almsgiving, and the starting point in the evaluation of alms was always the absolute expression of God's will (give to everyone who asks) and the mood of the donor. St. Ambrose applied a new criterion to the evaluation of almsgiving—its practical expediency—and from this point of view he gave advice that fundamentally ran counter to the general church spirit of understanding Christian almsgiving. "Even in the expenditure of good deeds," we hear from St. Ambrose, "it must be moderate." And these words are, as it were, the motto of the entire teaching of the saint about almsgiving. What is needed is prudence both in relation to those persons who need help, and in relation to the property security of the charity itself. "In almsgiving," advises the saint, "one must pay attention to age, physical weakness, and sometimes even to modesty, which testifies to the nobility of origin. Thus, to the elderly who are no longer able to earn their living by labor, give more generously; In the same way, you are more willing to help the crippled. Then, do not refuse to help someone who has become poor from a rich man, especially if he has lost what he had through no fault of his own, but as a result of an attack by robbers, or as a result of confiscation, or through slander." "And it is not only the person who needs to be paid attention to, but often also the circumstances and the time, for example, when one has to help a neighbor rather than a brother" [971]. Thus, it is clear that in generosity one must observe a certain measure, so that charity does not turn out to be useless. One must be cautious in order to do good for the sake of real need. "Able-bodied people come, who had no need except the desire to wander, and want to deprive the poor of help, to leave him without a piece of bread; not content with little, they seek more, by the appearance of their rags they try to persuade gullible benefactors in favor of their request... That is why in the distribution of alms it is necessary to observe a certain prudence, so that the really needy do not leave empty-handed, and so that poverty is not judged by a deceptive appearance. Let it be a yardstick so that neither humanity is forgotten, nor need is left unattended... He who observes the measure is not stingy with anyone, but is merciful to all. It would be necessary that we should not listen to those who ask for help with our ears alone, but also see their needs with our eyes." But it should be noted about these instructions of St. Ambrose that they were directed mainly to priests who were benefactors on behalf of the Church and, moreover, distributors of property donated by others. For this reason, the Holy Father also insists that the donor, on the one hand, should not be indiscriminately extravagant for the sake of gaining popular sympathy; and on the other hand, he would not be stingy, "so that the well-being of the poor would not be contained in the box"[973]. As we have said, St. John Chrysostom, who is the most consistent in the pursuit of the absolute Gospel point of view regarding the debt of almsgiving, spoke of the need for the priest to take careful care in the distribution of church property. But for all this, the general arrangement of St. Ambrose's speech clearly distinguishes his teaching from the teaching of other great teachers of the Church, especially when the Holy Father instructs that in almsgiving one can limit oneself to such a limit beyond which poverty threatens the beneficent himself, although St. Ambrose notes that such poverty is not to be feared[975] and that sometimes it is necessary to give "unbearable help"[976].

In his views on almsgiving by Blessed Augustine, we will allow ourselves to note only his explanation of how the Church's teaching on the purifying significance of almsgiving should be understood, which is interesting from a Christian and ethical point of view. Blessed Augustine personally also believed in its meaning and spoke about it more than once, but he did not struggle with that crude understanding of this meaning of almsgiving, according to which, as it were, the most valuable thing in every Christian deed – the spiritual disposition – was forgotten and all attention was one-sidedly falsely directed to the idea of the redemptive significance of alms in itself. "It remains to answer those," says the blessed father, "according to whom only those who do not care about their sins will burn in eternal fire, to do worthy almsgiving, according to the words of the Apostle James: judgment without mercy to him who has not done mercy. And whoever, they say, has done almsgiving, even if he has not improved in his immorality, and in the midst of the works of his mercy has lived impiously and unseemly, for him the judgment will be merciful, so that he will either not be condemned at all, or will be released from the last condemnation after a while. Hence, they believe, Christ will make a division between those standing on the right and on the left, of whom He will send some to the Kingdom, and others to eternal torment, meaning only their love or neglect of almsgiving. And that the daily sins, which we will not cease to commit completely, of whatever kind and how many of them there are, can be absolved thanks to almsgiving, in support and in confirmation of this view they refer to prayer, which the Lord Himself taught.

For, it is said, just as there is not a day when Christians do not say this prayer, so there can be no sin, even if it is committed daily, that it cannot be forgiven when we say: "And forgive us our debts," if only we try to act in accordance with the further words: "As we also forgive our debtors." For the Lord, they continue, does not say: "If you forgive the sins of others, your Father will forgive you also your daily small sins"; and says: "He will forgive you your sins"[979]. Thus, no matter how many and whatever kinds of sins there are, even if they are committed daily, even if they do not evade them, changing their lives for the better, all these sins, in their opinion, can be absolved of them by virtue of the promised forgiveness for almsgiving.

It is also good that they exhort us to do worthy works of mercy for sins: if they were to say that any almsgiving, whatever it may be, even for daily and great sins, and in every criminal way of life, can win Divine mercy, so that daily forgiveness follows for it, they would see for themselves that they are talking stupidity and absurdity. Then they would be forced to admit the possibility that a very rich man, at the cost of ten small coins daily given as alms, can cover murder, adultery, and all other obscenities. If it is extremely absurd and senseless to assert this, then when it comes to what should be understood by worthy works of mercy for sins, of which the Forerunner of Christ spoke: "Bring forth fruit worthy of repentance"[980]; Without any doubt, it will not turn out that such deeds are done by those whose lives are full of daily crimes. And this is because, first of all, by plundering the property of others, they seize too much for themselves, and, giving a grain of it to the poor, they represent Christ as their protector in this respect; so that, supposing that they have bought, or rather daily buy from Him, the right to do evil deeds, they calmly commit all the most reprehensible things. And yet, even if for one evil deed they distributed all their possessions to the needy members of Christ, but did not abandon such deeds, not having that love which does not act perversely, then there would be no benefit for them. Thus, whoever does works of mercy worthy of his sins begins to do them, first of all, from himself. For whoever does for his neighbor what he does for himself, acts contrary to the words of the Lord: Love your sincere one as yourself[982]; likewise with the words: love thy soul, pleasing God[983]. And whoever does not do this alms for his soul, that is, to please God, how can he be called to give alms worthy of his sins? To the same applies what is written: "Who is evil to himself, to whom will he be good?" [984] Almsgiving undoubtedly helps prayer. It is necessary to bear in mind what is read: Child, if you have sinned, do not add to it and pray for your former ones[985]. Therefore, we must do alms in order to be heard when we pray for our former sins, and not so that, by persisting in them, we think by means of alms to obtain permission for evil deeds.

It was for this reason that the Lord foretold that He would impute alms to those who stand both to the right and to the left, to the former created and to the latter uncreated, in order to show what significance alms have for the atonement of previous sins, and not for their constant unpunished commission. Those who do not want to change their criminal way of life for the better should not be called those who do this kind of almsgiving. For by saying, "Wherefore ye do not give to one of the least of these, neither do ye co-possess me," He shows that they do not give alms even when they think they do. And indeed, if they were to give bread to a hungry Christian as a Christian, they would certainly not deny themselves the bread of righteousness, which is Christ Himself, for God does not pay attention to who is given, but to the disposition with which it is given. Therefore, whoever loves Christ in a Christian gives with the disposition with which he approaches Christ, and not with which he wishes to depart from Christ with impunity. For each of us loves Christ all the more the more he loves what Christ approves. What good would it be if each of us were only baptized and not justified? He who said: "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, cannot enter into the Kingdom of God"[987], did he not also say: "Unless your righteousness be fulfilled more than the scribe and the Pharisee, do not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven"[988]. Why then do many, fearing the first utterance, hasten to be baptized, and many do not try to acquire justification, not fearing the last? Hence, if not to his brother, says "mad" he who, by saying this, expresses dislike not for the brotherhood itself, but for its sin; for otherwise he will be guilty of hell of fire[989]; so, on the contrary, whoever gives alms to a Christian, gives it to a non-Christian, if he does not love Christ in him; but he does not love Christ who does not want to be justified in Christ. In the same way, if anyone is possessed by such a vice that he says to his brother "foolish," that is, he reproaches him unjustly, without a desire to remove him from sin, it is not enough for him to do works of mercy to atone for this, but it is also necessary to add to them the means of reconciliation that are spoken of later. For it goes on to say the following: "If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and remember that thy brother hath something against thee, leave thy gift before the altar, and go first and humble thy brother, and then come and bring thy gift." Thus, it is not enough to give any alms for this or that crime and at the same time remain in the same vicious way of life... It goes without saying that those whom the righteous receive into eternal abodes are not so virtuous that their very life can deserve mercy without the intercession of the saints, and therefore mercy is all the more evident in them above judgment.

There is a certain way of life: on the one hand, it is not so bad that for those who live in this way, in the matter of receiving the Heavenly Kingdom, there is no benefit from almsgiving, which serves as a support for the righteous in their poverty and wins in the person of their friends who receive them into eternal abodes; but on the other hand, it is not so good that alms alone are sufficient for them to receive blessedness, unless this alms are supported by the merits of those whom it makes friends" [991].

Blessed Jerome, in his view of Christian almsgiving, emphasized both its religious significance and its characteristic feature, according to which the value of alms is determined by the attitude of a person's will and his spiritual mood to it. We have already seen that, according to the conviction of Blessed Jerome, the duty to follow Christ requires of the Christian the renunciation of wealth, or, in any case, a constant readiness to share his possessions with others, the poor. Such is the duty of every Christian in the face of God's truth, and this duty receives the highest sanctification from the realization that Christian alms are also given for the sake of Christ and even to Christ Himself in the person of His poor brethren. At this point in his teaching, the blessed father is very close in verbal expression of thought and its sharp delineation to St. John Chrysostom. "Give to everyone who asks you," the blessed one repeats the Gospel exhortation, "and especially to those who are ever in the faith. Clothe the naked, feed the hungry, visit the sick. Stretching out the hand of charity, always think about Christ. See that thou shalt not multiply the riches of others, while the Lord thy God remains meagre."[992] In a letter to Demetrias, the blessed father, contrasting the decoration of churches with works of mercy, gives preference to the latter and sees in them service to Christ Himself. "It is destined for you," he says, "to clothe Christ in the face of the poor, to visit in the sick, to nourish in the hungry, to receive Him in those who are homeless." We find a similar personification of the poor with Christ Himself in the contrast between the luxury of some and the poverty of others: "We live as if we were going to die the next day, and we build as if we were going to live forever in this world. The walls shine with gold, the ceilings with gold... and the naked and hungry Christ in the form of a beggar dies before our doors"[994]. The Holy Father urges the rich "to make Christ a joint heir with his children"[995]; Blessed Jerome also speaks of the purifying significance of almsgiving, and in one place of his letters he directly refers in this case to St. Cyprian as an authoritative teacher of Christian truth: "What significance mercy has and what rewards it entails, St. Cyprian speaks of this in detail in an extensive work" [997]. Blessed Jerome remarks.

On the question of what serves as a criterion of the value of Christian almsgiving, the blessed father replies by pointing out that in this matter the highest value is the dedication of oneself to the cause of mercy and personal participation in the sorrow of the poor. "You do good," Blessed Jerome writes to Julian, "you donate... But these are only the first experiments of your militancy. You despise gold, and the philosophers of the world despised it... Do you think that you have already become at the height of virtue if you have sacrificed a part of the whole? The Lord wants you as a living sacrifice, acceptable to God. You, I say, not yours... The poor widow threw two mites into the treasury, and since she sacrificed all that she had, it is said of her that she surpassed all the rich by her sacrifice to God, which is valued not by its quality, but by the disposition of those who bring it." "If you have any thing in your hands," writes the blessed father in a letter to Paulinus, "sell it; if you do not have, do not worry about gaining. To the one who takes away the robe, you must also give the. If you, constantly postponing until tomorrow, dragging day after day, carefully and little by little sell your possessions, then Christ will have nothing with which to feed His poor. Everything was given to God by the one who sacrificed himself. The apostles leave the ship and the dead. A widow puts two mites into the treasury and is considered higher than the rich"[999]. And here are the words in which the blessed

Jerome speaks of the high value of personal participation in the ministry of the poor and sick. "Whatever property she (Fabiola) had, she divided into parts, and sold, and, turning it into money, used it for the needs of the poor... How many times she herself carried stinking patients on her shoulders... How many times she washed the purulent blood from a wound that no one else could even look at. She gave food with her own hands and supported the living corpse with medicinal drinks. I know that many rich and pious people, due to the weakness of their bodies, show this kind of mercy with the help of others and are merciful with money, and not with their hands. Though I do not reproach them, nor do I attribute their faint-heartedness to a lack of faith, yet as much as I excuse the weakness of their organism, so much do I extol to the skies the zeal of a perfect soul. Great faith despises all this... The one we despise, whom we cannot see... is like unto us, made of the same dust as us, composed of the same elements. What he endured, we can endure. Let us consider his ulcers to be our own, and all severity towards others will be softened by modest reflection on ourselves." And with such a personal experience of someone else's misfortune, neither vanity in the distribution of alms, nor rudeness towards those who ask will undoubtedly become inconceivable. One can also note the view of Blessed Jerome on the question of whether one should be choosy when giving alms. The blessed father emphasizes the idea of necessary justice in this case; More particularly, it is to give alms to the really poor and to help, first of all, those who are Christians who are in the faith. "Take heed," advises Blessed Jerome, "that you do not squander the property of Christ unwisely, that is, lest the wealth of the poor be distributed to the poor with unstrict scrupulousness, and, in the words of the most prudent man (Cicero), charity will not lose from generosity." "If you want to be perfect, you want to be like the prophets, the apostles, like Christ – sell, and not a part of your possessions, so that the fear of poverty does not serve as a reason for infidelity, but all that you have. And having sold, give to the poor, and not to the rich, not to the haughty. Give to maintain need, and not to increase wealth... To give to the poor what belongs to the poor in some way is sacrilege." And first of all, we must help those who are present in faith. "We must," argues Blessed Jerome, "prefer faithful Christians and believers to infidels, and there is a great difference between Christians themselves: whether a sinner is poor or a saint. For this reason the Apostle, approving alms to all in general, adds: "More than those who are ever in the faith." He who is ever in faith is one who is united to you by the unity of faith, and who is not separated by sins from brotherly communion with you. And if in relation to our enemies we are commanded to nourish them if they hunger, and to give them water if they thirst... how much more so with regard to those who are not enemies, but Christians and saints?" [1004]. As we can see, Blessed Jerome does not adhere to the absolute Gospel point of view on the question of whom one should do good in view of the clear possibility of acting practically imprudently in the case of fulfilling the commandment: "Give to everyone who asks." But it should be noted that the blessed father nevertheless speaks out on the subject that interests us now, and in the sense that prudence does not turn into miserliness and captiousness, even when distributing entrusted church property. "To accept something to distribute to the poor, and when many are in starvation, to distribute cautiously or sparingly... means to surpass all robbers in cruelty. I'm hungry, and you calculate how much my stomach needs? Either immediately distribute what you have received, or, if you are indecisive in giving, leave it to the benefactor to distribute his property himself"[1005].

It does not seem difficult now, after the exposition of the patristic teaching on almsgiving, to briefly formulate the Church's Christian view of it. Almsgiving is one of the manifestations of that love which is the all-embracing principle of the life of the Kingdom of God, that is, love for God and for one's neighbor in its organic, indissoluble connection. This connection is so undoubtedly manifested in almsgiving that the latter can be placed along with the forms of direct service to God, and service to people in their need should be considered as reverence for God, an expression of piety. This is because alms are the way to restore on earth the principle of true truth in human relations, which is commanded to people by God Himself; the path in which the believer simultaneously manifests both compassionate brotherly love for his fellow human beings and the reverent devotion of his loving heart to the Father of all, God. The highest motive for a Christian in the fulfillment of his duty to do alms is the response of grateful love to the love of Christ the Savior, Who not only deigned to suffer for our sake, but also "impoverished" for our sake, Who took upon Himself all the burdens of human poverty and human humiliation, in order to give us a perfect example of truly brotherly love. And as inseparable as service to Christ the Savior Himself is from service to His lesser brothers, so inseparably linked in the Christian consciousness is the heartfelt participation in the need of these lesser brothers of the Lord here on earth and participation in His blessedness and glory in the eternal Kingdom

Father. Almsgiving, therefore, is at the same time the fulfillment of the will of God as the Supreme Lawgiver; and the way to the restoration of truth in human relations, violated as a result of human egoism, and the expression of brotherly love for people, and the sacrifice of a loving heart to the Lord Jesus Christ, who has become impoverished for our sake, and the pledge, finally, of future participation in the Kingdom of Christ, when He comes in the glory of His Father to judge the world. Such a view of alms makes understandable those enthusiastic praises to it and those fervent appeals to it, which, according to the distant centuries, are carried to us from the distance of centuries in the teachings of the Holy Fathers. As for the question of the relative value of alms from the Christian ethical point of view, it is clear that it is determined by the extent to which it is imbued with the principles of true Christian love, of which alms should be a manifestation. The quantitative criterion of the value of almsgiving, from the point of view of such a principle, is not the amount of sacrifice, but the measure of self-restraint and self-denial that the donor voluntarily imposes on himself. The highest value, therefore, is that almsgiving which is created "out of poverty," and the outward expression of the fullness of love is the distribution of all one's wealth to the poor. But, of course, such self-denial has true value only if there is a sincere loving attitude. Without the latter, even the complete distribution of property has no value. This loving disposition constitutes the soul of almsgiving, and it is this disposition that determines the real value of charity. If the fullness of love is quantitatively expressed in perfect generosity, then on the part of the inner mood of the donor, this love will be expressed in complete freedom and personal experience of someone else's need. Therefore, only that giving is valuable that is given freely, joyfully, with a living awareness that the giver receives more from his giving than the one who receives it; therefore, that alms are more valuable in which not only bread is shared with the needy, but also the life of the heart itself, where there is a personal service to the grief of the brother. And it is natural that with such an inner mood of the benefactor, all kinds of rudeness, vanity and arrogance, as well as inappropriate scrupulousness, will become impossible in relation to those who ask. We have not only noted, but also emphasized that there is no complete agreement in patristic writings on the question of who should give alms, namely the duty to give alms with or without scrutiny. The great majority of the great teachers of the Church defend the absoluteness of the duty to give alms and demand complete indiscriminateness. Some respectable fathers abandon this absolute point of view and, in the face of crying need, on the one hand, and on the other, in view of the limited means of each, recommend that those who ask for care for a more expedient distribution of alms, without stinginess and resentment, take care of the more expedient distribution of alms. It seems that after all that has been said about the nature of Christian almsgiving, it is clear that the views of the majority of the great teachers of the Church on the duty of a Christian to give to everyone who asks are more in line with the purity of the understanding of the Gospel teaching. If we pay attention to the way in which Christian alms essentially differ from any other, we can definitely note this difference: the Christian teaching on alms has its starting point in the heart of mercy, and not in one or another consequence of it. Christian almsgiving is undoubtedly a duty in view of the existence of poverty and want. The fervent sermons of the Holy Fathers were undoubtedly so fervent and persistent precisely in the face of life's untruths, the groans of the offended and destitute. In encouraging almsgiving, the Holy Fathers always, of course, had in mind helping the poor. But the ethical evaluation of alms has always concerned not this aspect, not the result, but the process of almsgiving itself, the inner moods and experiences of the benefactor. This is what gives the Christian teaching the character of an incomparable height, the character of absoluteness: the will of God must be fulfilled without any thought or concern about what will follow its fulfillment. And on the question of whom alms should be given, this God's will is expressed with all certainty: to everyone who asks, give. Like the mercy of the Heavenly Father, Christian love knows no bounds in principle: it gives to everyone who asks, gives a shirt to the one who takes away his outer garment, turns the other cheek to the one who strikes one, blesses those who curse. Only the good of the beggar can be the boundary for almsgiving: brotherly love does not take upon itself the right to judge his need, but cannot give up concern for his salvation and give him that which must inevitably bring not benefit, but harm; To put it simply, the Christian mind is given the duty to choose this or that type of almsgiving, but not the right to refuse the beggar.

In brief excerpts from the works of the Holy Fathers, we tried, as if in a focus, to collect the rays of patristic thought, illuminating the Christian teaching on property and almsgiving. These rays are pure and warming. The ancient Orthodox Church, in which they shone, appears before our eyes as the herald of that love and truth which were brought to earth by Christ the Savior and are the light of Christian life, called to shine to the world. In this light, we see a picture of the true life that the members of the Church of Christ should live. God is the Father of all men, giving them all things abundantly to enjoy; the whole world is a reflection of Divine love, which brings its gifts to people; All people are brothers, called to live in their father's house, to use in common all the gifts of fatherly love without offending each other, but sharing among themselves both sorrows and joys on the path of their pilgrimage to the heavenly Fatherland. This is what the great ministers of the Church taught. In life, of course, it was not the same. Not only could the whole non-Christian world not even comprehend the beginning of a new life in Christ, but the Christian life itself was far from its ideal, especially when the "first love" began to grow cold. And among the Christian community there were no truly fraternal relations, vivid pictures of earthly untruth were visible, the unceasing groans of the offended and destitute in the world were heard, in this house of the common Father. And all the hearts that suffered from a lack of brotherly love, all the victims of human malice and unrighteousness, all the souls suffocating in the atmosphere of the beginnings of worldly pagan life, all those who hungered and thirsted for righteousness — all of them, like flowers to the sun, reached out to the Church, sought from her help, and protection, and consolation in their sorrow, they asked her for the bread of life and living water, flowing into eternal life. And the Church helped them, comforted them, fed the hungry, clothed the naked, and warmed the chilled; She did all this, but she did even more than that: she nourished and watered people spiritually, she shone the world with true light, warmed it with the warmth of eternal truth and love. And the Church could not have enough earthly bread to satiate everyone, but it always had enough spiritual bread, the word of Christ's truth, by which man truly lives. The pastor of the Church went out to all those who thirsted for the truth to teach them, and with joyful blows the sorrowful heart responded to these words. This pastor said that our true life is in heaven, that the earthly states of people are only theatrical masks that everyone will need to throw off when the last hour of his life strikes. This pastor said that everything in this world is not our own, but belongs to our heavenly Father, in Whose presence we are all children and heirs, and therefore it is most fitting for us to divide everything equally, as brothers. And when the pastoral gaze turned towards the rich, the word of the herald of Christ's truth sounded with fervent denunciation. This word spoke of the desecration of God's truth on earth and called, ardently and tirelessly to mercy and love. And when this pastoral gaze turned towards the poor and offended in this world, a word of fatherly affection and consolation sounded. This word spoke of the coming days when the light of Christ's righteousness would shine in the world, and that there would be a righteous reward for all. The menacing denunciations of the rich mingled with the encouraging consolation of the poor; fervent appeals to mercy and truth turned into a warning voice of fatherly love, zealous for the salvation of spiritual children. The Church was a true mother for the faithful: a mother, a being who for children is the bearer of love, a self-sacrificing protector, the source of all that is pure, warming, caressing, to whom children stretch out their hands, by whose caress and care they live. Such was the ancient Universal Orthodox Church in the teaching of its pastors and teachers. And when the latter said that "to whom the Church is not a mother, God is not a father," they knew what they were saying. The Church was the conductor of Christ's love and the light of His truth into the life of the world, and whoever rejected this love and turned away from this light rejected the work of Christ and did not want to look upon His pure heavenly countenance...

Fifteen centuries have passed since the last of those Fathers taught in the Church, whose teaching on the question of the Christian attitude to property we have expounded. The world lived its own life for these centuries; and now, just as in the days of the patristic teaching, there is no truth on earth in relations between Christians, and the words of the Gospel of Christ about the brotherhood of man as children of one Father seem wondrous to us. And now, just as in the early days of Christianity, millions of the world's destitute go to the Church and through it offer their broken hearts as a sacrifice to God, waiting here for consolation and enlightenment. Our Russian Orthodox Church is part of the great universal whole and must be the bearer of the ideas by which the ancient Church lived. To it, the Russian Orthodox Church, not only the hands of those who ask are stretched out, but the hearts that love the truth and yearn for it are directed. And our Church must be the messenger of Christ's truth, must confess His truth, must convict the world that there is no truth in its life, and show the world the only way of life in Christ and His word of eternal truth. And if our theology and preaching in church are to be servants of the Church and contribute to her growth in the world, then they must confess and preach the truth of Christ in all its purity and radiant beauty, and not pervert it to please the principles that dominate in our present life. We have briefly pointed out the falsity of the path that modern theology and preaching generally follow in clarifying the Christian view of questions about the relationship of a Christian to property and help to the needy. This fundamental lie lies in the fact that the norm of Christian relations is not those ideal principles of life that were proclaimed to the world by the Lord Jesus Christ, but the principles that actually dominate in our life, pagan in spirit. For this reason it turned out to be possible to reach such a blindness as to advise, in the name of the Church of Christ, to preserve and increase one's wealth while the brethren were dying of hunger, and to live in luxury when a great multitude of people had no shelter. To teach thus means verily, to give to those who hunger for righteousness a stone instead of bread; and is it any wonder that when such teachers say: "The Church is our mother," then, although they speak the truth, it sounds sadly in their mouths, and in their speech one does not feel all the warmth of this image – the motherhood of the Church. And there is only one reliable way for our Russian theological thought to remain faithful to Christ, and that is to listen more to the voice of the tradition of the Universal Church than to the voice of the tradition of human customs; to assimilate the meaning of eternal truth to the word of the Gospel, and not to changing human institutions and opinions. Russian theological thought, if it wishes to be faithful to the precepts of the ancient Church, must, on the path of its confession and propagation of Christ's truth, go into the world with a banner on which would be inscribed the great words of the Psalmist, addressed by him to God: "Thy righteousness is everlasting righteousness, and Thy law is truth."

APPLICATION. Archbishop Vasily (Krivoshein). ST. SYMEON THE NEW THEOLOGIAN AND HIS ATTITUDE TO THE SOCIO-POLITICAL REALITY OF HIS TIME