And then he reksha, and took both the blessing and the consecration from the saint. And the priestess came from the city from Metropolitan Theognastos, and brought with her the priesthood, and the antimise, and the relics of the holy martyrs, and other things, which were needed for the consecration of the church. And then the church was consecrated in the name of the Holy Trinity by the Right Reverend Archbishop Theognost, Metropolitan of Kiev and All Russia, under the Grand Duke Simeon Ivanovich [...]

So, in a sense, Theognost also stood at the beginning of the Trinity. But if the Palamism of Theognost can be guessed at with more than less certainty, then in the case of Alexis, Metropolitan of Moscow, there is no room for doubt. Arriving in Constantinople for the first time in 1353, shortly after the famous Council of 1351, at which the Orthodox Church confirmed the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas and whose decisions were recognized by the entire Eastern Church in the fourteenth century, Alexis "undoubtedly had to subscribe to the decision of the Council" (Meyendorff 1997, 142; cf. Miklosich and Müller 1860, 1, 336–340). The following year, Alexis was ordained metropolitan by Patriarch Philotheus. Mutual interests connected Philotheus and Alexis. The emperor also supported Alexius. This was the stellar time of Gregory Palamas, the triumph of hesychasm in the Palamite version. Philotheus himself was the compiler of the "Life" and the service to St. Gregory Palamas, he supported Alexis further, with his epistles to the church hierarchs and the grand prince he confirmed his high opinion of Alexis and hinted at unpleasant consequences for those who would be "disobedient and disobedient" to the metropolitan established in Constantinople [419]. All this is explained by the Palamite interests of Alexis (or rather, it even assumes them), by the undoubted knowledge of the teachings of Gregory Palamas. Constantinople, the Constantinople meetings, Philotheus and John Kantakouzenos – this is the circle in which Alexis' Palamism was formed as an individual filiation of hesychasm, although, of course, even before his arrival in Constantinople, Alexius had probably already advanced a lot in this direction.

Alexis held Sergius in high esteem, loved him, collaborated with him and tried to draw the attention of the patriarch to him. Behind the letter which Patriarch Philotheus sent to Sergius, when his fame outside a certain circle in North-Eastern Russia was apparently still small and accidental, and the Patriarch could learn about the Russian ascetic (and then believe what he learned and properly evaluate Sergius) precisely from the stories of Alexis, stands Alexis. Philotheus' subsequent epistles to Alexis further confirm the role of the Metropolitan of Moscow as the main source of information necessary for the Patriarch about the situation of the Church in Russia and about ascetics in Christian labor.

Considering that meetings between Alexis and Sergius were frequent, and that constant communication was maintained, it is not difficult and not without good reason to assume that their conversations were not only business, that Alexis was interested not only in the situation in the Sergius Trinity. Probably, these were useful and pleasant conversations for both on a wide range of issues, and it is unlikely that Alexis did not share with his interlocutor the content of the epistles of Patriarch Philotheus: Byzantium, its ecclesiastical and monastic affairs, and new trends in religious life attracted interested and often even excessively greedy attention in Russia. It was here that the figure of Gregory Palamas himself and his hesychastic theology were to come into the sphere of Sergius' attention, and once they got here, they could not but cause a discussion of how to relate to these religious phenomena, to the theological ideas that were on the agenda. It was at this crossroads that the learned new met its own, Sergiev, and this meeting required comprehension. In this perspective, all doubts about Sergius' acquaintance with the teaching of Palamas and with his teaching should be dispelled. Therefore, there are serious grounds to assert that Palamism as a certain set of theological ideas that determine (at least partially) the essence of the theology of Gregory Palamas, or, at least, as a knowledge of his name and a general idea of his teaching, should be dated to the middle of the fourteenth century. At the same time, it is worth emphasizing two important circumstances: first, it is quite plausible that the acquaintance with hesychasm in its "pre-Palamite" version took place before the middle of the fourteenth century, but it hardly went beyond a narrow circle and it hardly went beyond the ascetic practice of monastics (in any case, the names of those who practiced hesychia in Byzantium were known in Russia before the specified period); secondly, although there is a sufficient degree of probability of acquaintance with Palamism in Russia since the middle of the fourteenth century, we still have at our disposal no texts that would document this acquaintance, which, however, is also explained by the fact that among the Russian "Palamites" there were mainly people who practiced silence and did not touch the pen [420]. From the very beginning, the researcher of Palamism in Ancient Russia has to reckon with the fact that the teaching of Gregory Palamas and, more broadly, hesychasm was in fact most fully and profoundly reflected (and could not be otherwise) not in the word, but in spiritual deed, in the new features of Russian monastic asceticism, in the general spirit that manifested itself in Russia from the middle of the fourteenth century.

Unfortunately, the problem of Russian Palamism and, more broadly, of hesychasm, its roots and early period, has not been practically investigated (of course, there are serious reasons that have prevented the study of this question), although something in this area could have been done or at least outlined.

Without questioning Sergius' well-known knowledge of Palamism, and admitting with good reason that Sergius could not have ignored the teaching, which in many respects corresponded both to the nature of his spiritual podvig and to the very spirit that determined his ascetic practice, we must nevertheless assume that there were other (and earlier) sources of Sergius' hesychia-silence.

First of all, in the tradition of asceticism in Russia, there are other examples of the feat of silence, noted, in particular, in the "Life" of Sergius (the example of Isaac is especially characteristic). This practice could also combine the Russian line of silence proper: it would be more cautious to say that there was a certain general tendency to cultivate this particular feat; In this sense, the Russian tradition reflects a fairly general type of asceticism, which, if it is not a typological universal, can perhaps be called "frequentalia" with some justification. Earlier than the middle of the fourteenth century, examples of silence in Russia may have reflected both its own tradition of this type of asceticism and the influence of pre-Palamite versions of hesychasm. The theme of silence was also known to Symeon the New Theologian († 1032) [423], whose name is associated with the doctrine of the heavenly illumination of the soul, which later led to disputes between the Palamites and the Barlaamites [424].

Sergius grew up in a pious family and in early childhood learned about his predestination to God and accepted it as a sign of fate. This personal, individual aspiration of Sergius explains his amazing receptivity to the sphere of the spiritual, the divine: like a sponge, he absorbs everything that strengthens him on the chosen path, and assimilates it to himself. Bearing in mind the high social position of Father Sergius under the Rostov prince, one can think that his father also communicated with clergymen of the corresponding rank and was aware of religious life in Russia and those processes that were gaining momentum (wilderness dwelling, etc.), which were a new phenomenon on such a scale. In any case, the atmosphere in the family and, apparently, around it was undoubtedly favorable for religious upbringing: it cannot be explained by chance that both Sergius' brother Stephen and the latter's son Theodore, the nephew of the monk, left a very noticeable mark in the history of the Church.

But the change in the social status of his father, the impoverishment of the family, and the general hardships of life at that time also pushed Sergius to leave the world: he was ready to wait, but nothing could change his decision. Later, when he became an interlocutor of Metropolitan Alexis, the space of what was happening in the religious life of Byzantium was greatly expanded for Sergius, and he could not ignore the new trends that shook Byzantium and resonated not only there, but also among the South Slavs and in Russia. It can be assumed that in the second half of the 1840s and early 1850s, "his own" (in particular, his silence) was combined with what he learned about the contemporary Palamite experience in Byzantium and among the South Slavs. Both of them, apparently, came into agreement and formed a single whole, where there was no place for discord and contradictions – it was this feature that was the foundation of Sergius's religious genius. And it seems that everything worked for the good – its own tradition and novelty in Byzantine theology and ascetic experience of the fourteenth century, deep intuition and amazing spiritual insights, revelations of the future and the depths of religious consciousness and, of course, the mind. Of course, in the system of religious values of the Sergius epoch and his own religious consciousness, reason, logic, and science were put under a certain doubt, and faith, religious intuition, and revelation were valued higher.

But Sergius – it seems that no one talks about this and, perhaps, does not even notice it – possessed an unusually sober and practically oriented mind – a mind that was not seduced by speculations, did not strive for the sophistication of mental constructions, but knew its place and its limits, and understood that, having been introduced into a fairly rigid framework, it could also be a help in his working path. In a word, Sergius was not a religious radical here either: he did not treat either his mind or his body as enemies, but he knew that temptation came through them and they needed to be protected. It can be thought that it is precisely the intellect and its sobriety that explain much in this ability of Sergius to harmonize the results of the activity of the body, heart, soul, and spirit, taking from each of them what it can give on the path to God, and discarding what it can complicate this path. But this ability to reconcile is extremely far from compromise, unless we are talking about mundane, everyday conflicts or actions explained by ambition and ambition (as in the case of Stephen, when Sergius preferred a silent departure, without a single reproach or justification), to clarifications and explanations). On the path to God, concord is that highest simplicity, the highest wholeness, without which life in God is generally unrealizable, it is the overcoming of "bad" multiplicity and, above all, anthropological dualism, the struggle against which is a characteristic feature of the work of Gregory Palamas, which is quite fully reflected in his texts. In this connection, and summing up what has been said so far, it is necessary to once again mention those common features that were shared by Sergius of Radonezh and Gregory Palamas: in the former in the experience of the podvig of life, in the latter in his ascetic practice and in his theology. At the same time, it is necessary to remember the difference that exists between the outstanding theological writer and polygistor Gregory Palamas and Sergius of Radonezh, who left behind no texts and about whom everything we know is drawn from his "Life", the author of which, apparently, was completely devoid of interest in theological problems, in the dogmatics of Christianity, in that "conceptual" which lives primarily by the practice of the real. everyday religious experience. But, fortunately, the same author has given a detailed account of the life of Sergius, and his story, in combination with other early sources relating to the monk, provides grounds for a number of reconstructions or, at least, assumptions with a high degree of probability. It is only necessary to emphasize that the theme of the common between Gregory Palamas and Sergius in no way excludes the specifics of the individual and personal in each of them. It should also be remembered that, in accordance with the above description of these common features, its language itself is necessarily more oriented towards Gregory Palamas and the sources of our knowledge of him connected with him.

First of all, both Gregory and Sergius shared as a common mysterious feeling of God, the striving for God "with all the strength of the soul, without mortifying anything natural in it" (Bibikhin 1995, 362) and life in Him, "a bold confession of love for God." It is very likely that the prayer practice of Gregory Palamas and Sergius of Radonezh itself was close both in its "psychophysical" features, and in the nature of prayerful contemplation, which presupposes the descent of the mind into the heart ("mental prayer"), and in its content, the direct vision of the uncreated light (the two visions of Sergius noted in the Life provide grounds for such an assumption). Also, proceeding from the general context and a number of details, most often indirect (because direct evidence in the "Life" would be difficult to expect), it can be assumed that Sergius shared with Palamas the attitude to the body, to the very problem of the dualism of soul and body: it seems that, struggling with evil thoughts and temptations emanating from the body, Sergius also remembered the "common action" of the soul and body. when the former "raises the flesh to spiritual dignity, taking the flesh with it upward," when the action is directed not from the body to the mind, but from the mind to the heart. The moderate asceticism of Sergius, coupled with his general severe severity and sobriety, allows us to think that the very absence of evidence of the physical, even "mechanical" mortification of the flesh in the ascetic practice of Sergius cannot but assume that he struggled with bodily thoughts and temptations in a different way – by mental prayer, spiritual contemplation. It was they who were the allies and the main weapon of Sergius, thanks to whom he not only withstood the terrible demonic temptations, but also, having emerged victorious from this struggle, having freed himself from the darkness that surrounded him, he went out into the space where he was a witness to the uncreated light that the apostles had seen on Tabor on the day of the Transfiguration.

The above-mentioned severe austerity as a kind of "grand style" of Christianity of the fourteenth century in Byzantium and Russia, opposed to the excess of official pomp and the rhetoric accompanying it, having a certain moral position behind it and, as it were, expanding the circle of asceticism practiced, also manifests itself in the phenomenon that in Russia was called "non-acquisitiveness." It is well known that the Byzantine Palamites had a positive attitude towards the confiscation of monastic (and even ecclesiastical) possessions and valuables and their transfer to the state. The "non-acquisitiveness" of Sergius, and of Sergius personally, can hardly be questioned either (cf. in the "Word of Praise": "But this is the greatest acquisition of true non-acquisitiveness and namelessness, and wealth is spiritual poverty"), and the only thing that can be the subject of discussion is what the position of the monk would have been if he had lived 20-30 years longer. The tendency to acquire both in monasteries and in churches, of course, existed before Sergius and, apparently, partly in his time (although more likely in the old "pre-Sergius" monasteries, and not in the newly created monasteries of Sergius' disciples). And the question is formulated only in this way —