Holiness and Saints in Russian Spiritual Culture

Volume II

Three Centuries of Christianity in Russia (XII–XIV Centuries)

I

FROM EARLY RUSSIAN-WESTERN ENCOUNTERS

A few preliminary explanations. For all the exclusivity and symbolic significance of the earliest encounters of the two ethnolinguistic and cultural elements, we will not be talking about them here, although in a broad cultural-historical perspective they form the phenomenon of the beginning and constitute the necessary background, without which subsequent encounters can hardly be adequately and organically perceived. In general, the definition of "the most" in these cases reveals features not only of a certain conventionality, but also of doubtfulness, if only because in the depths of time, in dark epochs, not yet snatched by the light of history, there is obviously more of the unknown than of what most often accidentally became known. But there is another, partly even more cardinal, reason that makes the definition of "earliest" in such situations extremely inaccurate. Such is the situation of the meeting of two ethno-cultural elements, which in the course of their development change, transforming in essence of a different rank and status, often preserving their successive genetic links in these trials, and these changes often occur at different rates.

As a matter of fact, it is hardly correct to speak of Russian-Italian relations before the end of the first millennium A.D., when it was only possible for the first time to speak of Russians and Italians as such. Of course, this does not remove the question of the connections between the historical predecessors of the Russian and Italian elements, if only because both of them, through a number of intermediate stages, ascend to a single and common source—Indo-European, its language and culture. Of course, at this chronological level, for the researcher "there is neither Russian nor Italian", but being interested in "Russian", "Italian" and the "connections" between them in their "beginnings", he cannot neglect the task of the formation of all these three phenomena, i.e., their filiation from a single source, the transformation of one common into two different ones, the verification of the existence of a "secondary", i.e., non-genetic, connection (in fact, only such a "free" connection determined only by cultural-historical circumstances and deserves the name of connection). But even later, in the epochs when the original unity was broken and the features of disunity were undoubtedly present, it is permissible to assume that there were such real situations when the remote ancestors of these two ethnoi could enter into mutual contacts. Perhaps such a situation existed in Central Europe in the second half of the second millennium B.C. and the beginning of the first millennium B.C., when the ancestors of both lived in close proximity, which is apparently confirmed by the data of linguistic borrowings. Another similar situation could arise from the beginning of our era, when Roman domination extended to those borders that were adjacent to the area of the Proto-Slavic tribes or even partially inhabited by them (and in this case, the layer of Latin borrowings in Proto-Slavic would confirm the reality of direct contacts; by the way, it was at this time that Roman authors first mentioned tribes identified with early Slavic associations). This situation continues to some extent later, acquiring more and more specific features. In this last period (the first half of the first millennium A.D. and, probably, in some places even later), the encounters of the Roman-Latin and Proto-Slavic elements could have taken place both in ancient Rome itself (the Slavic slaves) and in various places of the Roman Empire, which on its periphery approached the places of settlement of individual Proto-Slavic tribes (Pannonia, Dacia, etc.; cf. also the "Great Amber Road" along the Vistula to the southern coast of the Baltic Sea). Of particular interest in this respect is the presence of Roman power on the northern coast of the Black Sea between the mouths of the Dniester and the Dnieper - Tiras and Olbia - and on the sea itself, where the Roman fleet exercised control and protection from sea robbers; it should be recalled that in the Crimea there was the Bosporan Kingdom, which was under the Roman protectorate and received a Roman garrison subordinate to the governor of Moesia, and that the Northern Black Sea region became known and accessible to the Eastern Slavs quite early (at least to individual tribal groups or enterprising people who sought contacts with other peoples of the Mediterranean).

[Later, the "Roman-Latin" element in the Black Sea region, primarily in the Crimea, was replaced by an Italian one. Its heyday coincides with the defeat of the Venetian fleet by the Genoese at Kurzola in 1296, when they founded in the Crimea the trading posts of Kafa, Balaklava, Soldaia, which became important centers of trade, in particular, with Russia, and the decline began after the defeat of the Genoese fleet by the Venetians in the battle of Chioggia in 1380 (true, the Venetians appeared in the Crimea with their trading posts, penetrating, however, much further to the northeast - the trading post of Tana [Azov] on the Sea of Azov) and acquired fatal importance after 1475, when Muhammad II defeated Kafa, most of the Italian population left the Crimea for Akkerman and Circassia, others were taken to Constantinople, still others remained in place, but converted to Orthodoxy, to the Greek rite, since their wives were usually Greek (cf. Dortelli d'Ascoli Emidio - "Descrittione del Mar Negro e della Tartaria", 1634), and eventually dissolved in the Greek, and later partly in the Russian population. However, from the end of the 18th century, a new wave of mass immigration of Italians to the Crimea and the Northern Black Sea region began, which continued into the 19th century.]

The entry of the Eastern Slavs into the structure of the early state formations of Eastern Europe and the adoption of Christianity (9th-10th centuries) meant the achievement of a level of civilization at which both the circle of relations and their possibilities were fundamentally expanded. New types of ties arose—state, church-religious, acting as official, partly ideological, and so on (trade-economic, "matrimonial-dynastic," and other ties were also added to this category to a greater or lesser extent). These connections are not considered here either, but since even the connections of this period reveal their continuity in the form of separate, but sufficiently indicative traces with the situation of the preceding period, it is not superfluous to indicate the spectrum of "official" ties of Ancient Rus (primarily Kiev) with Italy, starting from the end of the 10th century, since it was in this "initial" period that the foundations were laid, which to a strong extent predetermined the composition and nature of the already truly Russian-Italian relations. which will be discussed further. But first, a few words about the ties of Ancient Russia with Italy during about two and a half centuries before the Tatar-Mongol invasion.

It must be said that the axis that determined these ties was the religious question of the choice of the "right" faith, which appeared both at the level of dogmatic and organizational, and at the ideological level, and even at the "state-political" level. Russia was the object of the struggle between Rome and Constantinople. Having received Christianity from Byzantium and strongly dependent on it in matters of religious order, the Russian Church inherited, along with the true values of "Eastern" Orthodoxy, a biased view of the "Roman heresy", of the "Latins", concentrating in its polemics with "Western" Christianity for the most part on empirically noted, but clearly secondary issues (about unclean food ["strangled"], about the wearing of the ring by bishops of the "Latins", about cutting their beards, about unleavened bread, finger composition, etc.). In this respect, the position of the Russian Church was not independent, and church policy was carried out in line with the "anti-Latin" Epistles of Patriarch Photius (2nd half of the ninth century), although it should still be noted that at first the attitude of the Russian Church towards the "Latins" was less aggressive than in Byzantium. The schism of the Christian Church in 1054, the new outbreak of the "anti-Latin" polemics in Byzantium (cf. the Epistle of Michael Cerularius to Patriarch Paul of Antioch, the anonymous work "Περι των Φράγγων και των λοιπών Λατίνων", known in the Russian translation, etc.) did not remain without consequences in Russia, and if until the middle of the eleventh century only the epistle of the second (in Golubinsky's opinion, the first) Russian metropolitan Leontius against the "Latins" (in Greek) is known, then the number of such speeches increases rapidly, and the tone noticeably (and sometimes sharply) becomes tougher. "Anti-Latin" epistles become a kind of canonized genre of church literature (Theodosius of the Caves, several "words" against the "Latins"; "The Struggle with Latin" by George, John II, Nicephorus I, etc., so as not to go beyond the 1st quarter of the twelfth century). Old Russian polemical works "against the Latins" have been studied well enough to dwell on here. In addition, although they reflect real relations between the Roman and Eastern Churches, they are nevertheless such, if we are talking about texts relating to "paper" contacts, the purpose of which is not to break the connection, but to break it, to separate it, to isolate it (cf. Popov 1872; Pavlov 1878, not to mention later studies).

Therefore, for the topic put forward here, those contacts are more important that involve real human meetings, even if their participants act as official representatives of certain state or church institutions. A number of Western sources report indirect contacts between the Vel. Kn. Olga, and those who acted as conductors of papal policy (an embassy to Otto I, sending Adalbert to Russia as bishop). However, these initiatives have proved fruitless. However, Rome was looking for contacts to a much greater extent, pursuing its own goals. In 979, Pope Benedict VII sent his ambassadors to Yaropolk, hoping that the Russian prince would convert to Christianity according to the Western rite. Seven years later, when Prince Vladimir was wondering what new faith he should choose, Germans (foreigners) came to him from Rome, a message from the pope. A question-and-answer dialogue took place between them, attested by the chronicle. Vladimir was interested in the main thing – What is your commandment? And having listened to the answer that did not satisfy him, "Go again, for our fathers have not accepted the essence of this. Knowing Vladimir's openness, it is easy to imagine that before the final Ideta there was again time for an informal conversation that satisfied the need for human communication and disinterested interest. Soon Pope John XV sent his ambassadors to Korsun, having learned that the newly baptized Vladimir was discussing with the Greeks the question of the baptism of Russia. In 991 and 1000, ambassadors again arrived to Vladimir, first from the same John XV, and then from Sylvester II. The embassy of 1000 is especially indicative: it allows us to see, at least partially, or at least feel, a certain human, everyday situation behind the official and state, which also involves personal contacts (the situation of the marriage of Vladimir's son Svyatopolk with the daughter of the Polish king Boleslav I, an attempt to subordinate Svyatopolk and someone else from the princely nobility to the "Latin" influence). Even more characteristic in this respect is the story of Vladimir's meeting with the papal missionary Bruno, who went to preach to the Pechenegs. It is known that Vladimir cordially welcomed Bruno, who spent about a month visiting the prince, and after that saw him off with his retinue, dissuading him from a dangerous mission. There is information about the conversations between Vladimir and Bruno, and one can guess about their human solidarity, and perhaps about the religious tolerance of Prince Vladimir (probably, this can be partially confirmed by the facts of Vladimir's sending ambassadors to Rome in 994 and 1001, apparently in response to papal embassies, which is reported in the Nikon Chronicle). In Bruno's epistle to Henry II, there are important testimonies (probably the first and for a long time the last) about the personal and human in this meeting of the Russian chief apostolic prince and the "man of Rome" (it is worth recalling that the Pechenegs heeded Bruno's persuasions and agreed to accept Christianity, but on the condition that Prince Vladimir would conclude a lasting peace with them): "With this [offer of peace. — V. T.] I came to the Emperor of the Russes, who, for the sake of the Lord's cause, satisfying my request, gave my son as a hostage; and we consecrated one of our own bishops, and he [Vladimir. — V. T.] sent him together with his son to the middle of the land [of the Pechenegs. — V. T.]." Much of these early meetings remains unclear, but it is known that they took place, and sometimes there is information about the very situation of communication, which opens up the possibility of establishing personal relationships from person to person. The initiative belonged to Rome: before the Tatar invasion (in part even a little later) papal epistles were constantly sent to Russia (1227 – the epistle of Pope Honorius III "ad universos reges Russiae", 1231 – the epistle of Gregory IX "ad regem Russiae", 1248 – the epistle of Innocent IV to Alexander Nevsky, etc.), and envoys or even missionaries appeared after the epistles or together with them. In 1228, brothers of the newly formed Dominican Order appeared in Kiev; they formed a whole community (the "convent," see Dlugossi I, lib. VI) at the church of St. Mary, at the head of which stood a special prior. Pope Gregory IX highly appreciated their activities (according to him, the Dominicans, "burning with zeal for faith and piety, fought hard to spread the worship of God in the Russian countries"). They were indeed active and inventive; contacts with the Kiev population were undoubtedly close and lively; A common language was found, and, of course, the sermon had a response among the people of Kiev. Sensing the danger, the Grand Duke Vladimir expelled the Dominicans from Kiev in 1233, but their five-year stay in the city could not but be associated with unofficial, everyday, perhaps even personal ties, and could not but leave traces, in particular, of good ones. Or another example of such connections is the one about which Plano Carpini, sent in 1246 by Pope Innocent IV to Great Mongolia to Khan Guyuk, writes in his travel notes (the stay of the traveler and his companions as guests of the "duke" Basilisk, the discussion of the question of "union with the Holy Mother Church", conversations in anticipation of the return of Basilisk's brother "Duke" Daniel from the headquarters of Batu, his arrival and consent to the admonitions of the Pope in exchange for help in the fight against the Tatars). A reconstruction of the "subtle" structure of such meetings, even a very approximate one, gives a chance to reveal the secret nerve of these meetings themselves.

And at the superficial level, which was the only one that was recognized as the main thing, everything went on as usual. Embassies came, sovereigns and church hierarchs met, official negotiations were conducted on important political, interstate, foreign policy and religious issues, missionary preachers came to enlighten the pagans with a new and better faith. All this was discussed and planned in advance, and only then solutions were proposed, contracts were concluded, and laws were established. The highest and most authoritative instances participated in all this: the State, the Church, and the Court (legal authority). There is no reason to take a nihilistic attitude towards this kind of activity, which proceeds from a conscious, purposeful, reason-based attitude, and on the results obtained: the entire "crude" structure of civilization presupposes just such activity and such results corresponding to it. But here the situation is somewhat different. The meetings referred to here, in whatever general framework they may be included and whatever special goals they may pursue, are valuable primarily because they served the "expanded order of human cooperation," which is more often and better achieved in other ways that lead to the creation of a "delicate" structure of civilization. The need for such cooperation is such that it is most organically born where the actors think not so much about the cooperation itself, but about something else, above all about its results, and the "extended order of human cooperation" arises to a certain extent arbitrarily, as a by-product of conscious activity pursuing a different, "main" goal. And as long as this is done in this way, the expansion of the "anthropic", personal, spiritual component of civilization can be considered assured. «[…] the emergence of our civilization and its preservation in the future, Hayek wrote, depend on a phenomenon that can best be defined as the "extended order of human cooperation" [...] In order to understand our civilization, it is necessary to understand that this extended order did not arise as a result of the realization of conscious human design or intention, but spontaneously: it arose from the unintentional adherence to certain traditional and, mainly, moral practices. […] Reluctantly, forced, even painful, inculcating such practices held such groups together, facilitated their access to all kinds of valuable information, and allowed them to "be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and possess it" (Genesis, p. I: 28). This process seems to remain the least understood and appreciated facet of human evolution" (Hayek 1992, 15–16).

It is precisely these "moral practices," which are formed in part by these encounters between "us" and "them," and which in turn prepare for new encounters at an even greater depth, that induce people whose conscious plan is directed toward the "main" goal, the "cause," to distract themselves for a moment from the vanity of this day and its malice, to stop to look, as if in between, involuntarily, at the "non-essential," at first glance trivial and, at first glance, trivial. apparently irrelevant, but nevertheless necessary, satisfying some hitherto obscure need of the soul. And in this "unimportant" and unexpected-unexpected, there suddenly begin to arise another person, a "stranger", an unfamiliar city, a previously unnoticed landscape, that beauty of this God's world, which, being seen, felt and experienced, makes a person different, new, transformed, and he begins to understand what it means — And God saw that this is good, and to feel himself in the space of the divine word-deed — Let it be! If "meetings" planned in advance as something "main" and the only necessary thing often turn out to be dubious and often doomed to failure, then unforeseen, spontaneous and accidental meetings, when intuition comes into play and turns out to be a better guide than reason, meetings that arise as if at the intersection of some completely different plans and affairs and therefore are not disturbed by the "order" of reflections, falling on a person at once, unexpectedly, they give if not to understand, then to feel the joy of communication, its grace-filled action. Each such meeting forms a concrete and "natural-supernatural" act of "expanding the order of human cooperation," and the farther and more separated in the physical space and in the space of culture and spirit these participants in the meeting are, the more different they are, the more they do break through to each other, meet physically and discover their closeness in spirit, or at least the very possibility of rapprochement (you as I and I as you).  — the fruits of such a meeting are more valuable.