In contrast to these two extremes, we, who have been nurtured by the old normal Russia, continue to carry within us an experiential sense of its spiritual values. Our premonition of a new rebirth and the future greatness of both the state and the Church is nourished by our national history. It is time to cling to it with a patriotically loving heart and mind, wise with the tragic experience of the revolution.

Lomonosov, by the manifestation of his personality and the confession of his conviction "that the Russian land can give birth to its own Platons and quick-witted Neutons," instilled in us the confidence that we will become what we instinctively, by unerring intuition, we want to be. Namely: we want to be in the first, leading ranks of builders of universal culture. For there is no other worthy primacy for earthly humanity.

And this, not thanks to the museum-preserved relics of Monomakh's crown and the title of the Third Rome, and not thanks to Avvakum's fanatical devotion to the letter – all these were only noble premonitions – but through an impulse worthy of a great nation to take an equal place on the world front of universal education.

The ancient consciousness bequeathed its heritage to us in two more versions of the antithesis: I) the Greeks and the barbarians, and II) Israel and the pagans (goyim). The Christian-European consciousness has merged this obsolete bifurcation into one: into a single and supreme, final cultural association for the peoples of the whole world. In their racial, religious, and national diversity, the inhabitants of the globe remain for indefinite periods of time imprisoned in the various shells of their hereditary forms of life, so dear to them, recognized as national. But this is not an essential and decisive historiosophical point. Whether someone wants it or not, the objective fact of the exhaustion of the scheme of the global history of earthly mankind as a whole is obvious. No revisions are conceivable here. We, Christians and Europeans, must accept this fact with gratitude for honor and chosenness as the holy will of Providence and with prayer and reverence make our earthly march to the ultimate good goals known only to the Creator Alone.

No matter how hotly lively, historically topical tasks may become more acute, from time to time and place, whether for us or for other peoples of the world, we, who have once overcome the self-sufficiency of national particularism, cannot and must not waste our strength on this phase of cultural service, which in principle we have already overcome. National forms of culture, like languages and religions, continue to function, but no one and nothing has the right to abolish and replace the qualitatively leading and commanding heights of its ministry, which have already become clear and have been revealed to advanced Christian humanity. In this limitation of ministries there is an irrevocable moment of bestowal and the right to leadership. Only on this path is the overcoming of the "flesh and blood" of nations, with their zoologically humiliating and inevitable wars, accomplished. Only on this path is there a light and hope to overcome and conquer the great demonic deception of the godless international. Only in universal Christian guidance is there a promise of true freedom of man and peace to the whole world. And on this path is a worthy, supreme, holy place of service for Russia and the Russian Church, and not under the banner of "Old Testament," decaying nationalisms.

Introduction

The proposed Essays on the History of the Russian Church are precisely Essays, and not a complete collection of materials, not a complete system of the History of the Russian Church, not a reference book. This is an overview of the main aspects in the historical development of the Russian Church, in order for the reader to form a value judgment about the missionary role played by the Russian Church in the history of Russia, in the history of all Orthodoxy and, ultimately, in world history. These essays, conceived in Russia half a century ago, did not and do not set themselves the task of providing readers with elementary information on the history of the Russian Church, assuming them to be known from complete reference books, for example, from the "History of the Russian Church" by Archbishop S. Philaret or the high-quality Textbook of Prof. P.V. Znamensky. The essays strive, by involving the reader in the problematics of characteristic moments and phenomena in the historical life of the Russian Church, to contribute to a living feeling of her experiences, her destinies, a loving understanding of her weaknesses, exhaustion, stumbling-blocks, but also of her long-suffering, Christianizing podvig and her slow, quiet, humble majesty, holy and glorious achievements.

The author of these historical lessons would not have considered himself entitled to encumber either the book market or the shelves of libraries with real work, if it were not for the anti-Christian revolution, which terribly lowered the scientific and theological level of the Russian Church. Even before the revolution, there was an unusual halt in the cultivation of our discipline, almost thirty years. After the fourth volume of Prof. Dobroklonsky's "Manual" (1893), only new reprints of Prof. Znamensky's Textbook still reminded us that the concern for updating the systematic exposition of the History of the Russian Church had not been forgotten by those who should know about it. The revolution brought a new year of paralysis. Thus, in the place of this devastation, it becomes not superfluous and practically useful to have any, even if it does not pretend to be a new scholarly development, a repetition and generalization of the History of the Russian Church. Only to extend in this sense a hand of connection through the failure of the revolution from the old Russian generation of venerable giants of our profession to the coming new giant of armchair labor in our liberated fatherland and liberated Church — such is the modest task of the present Essays.

The pre-state era

Was the Apostle Andrew the First-Called in Russia?

Rus', as a whole state nationality, was baptized by St. Prince Nicholas. Vladimir. But this event had its roots in the centuries preceding it. Therefore, let us turn to the depths of centuries in order to trace the initial fate of the spread of Christianity in Russia, as the cause of its later universal baptism.

The terminus a quo of our search cannot be designated with mathematical precision, just as it is impossible to indicate it for the beginning of "Rus'" itself. Only one thing was clear even to our ancestors of the ninth and early twelfth centuries, that "the apostles (i.e., in the Russian land) did not teach," that "the apostles were not in the body"; so it is said in the chronicle story about the murder of the Varangian Christians under Vladimir. The same is repeated by St. Nestor in his Life of Boris and Gleb. Nevertheless, in one of the legends included in the "Tale of Bygone Years", its editor has already shown a tendency to connect Russian Christianity with the times of the apostles. Calling our first teacher Methodius "the Andronikov Table-Maker" (an apostle from among the 70), he continues: "In the same Slovene language the teacher is Andronicus the Apostle, for he went to the Moravians; and the Apostle Paul taught this, for this is Ilyurik, and he was reached by Ap. Pavel, that is the first thing. In the same way the teacher of the Slovene language is Paul, from whom we are also Rus, and in the same way we are the teacher of Rus' is Paul." If such were the views of the Russian people on the question of apostolic sowing in the Russian field up to and including the beginning of the twelfth century (the time of the formation of the "Tale of Bygone Years"), then it is evident that only after this time did they take the confident form that was communicated to them by the story of the visit of the Russian country of St. Paul. Andrew the First-Called.