Excerpts from the book by Yuri Vorobyevsky
ORDER OF JUDAS
"On July 11, 1709," from the train from Poltava "Field Marshal A. D. Menshikov, fulfilling the order of Peter I, sent a command to Moscow: “Upon receiving this, immediately make a ten-pound silver coin, and on it command to carve Judas on the aspen of the hanged man and below thirty silversmiths lying with them a sack, and back and an inscription opposite it: "They curse the destructive son Judas the hedgehog chokes for the love of money." And for that coin, having made a chain of two pounds, send it to us by courier mail immediately."
And so it was done. The Judas Medal was created by the master Matvey Alekseev at the second Moscow Kadashevsky mint.
Peter proceeded from the calculation that one silversmith weighs 136.3 grams. This is practically equal to 1 Roman liter (136, 44 grams), which was in use in the Roman Empire during the time of the Savior.
An unusual award was intended for the traitor - Hetman Ivan Stepanovich Mazepa, who had previously been awarded a star and a badge of the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called "for faith and loyalty" (second after Admiral General FA Golovin and before Peter himself).
“On November 6, in Glukhov, in the presence of Peter I, a new hetman was proclaimed: the traitor Mazepa was cursed by the Church, the ribbon was torn from his effigy“persona”and street and square and even up to the gallows and then hung it. S. 201. *
This ceremony was surprisingly similar to the "hanging of Judas" adopted in different regions: a ritual effigy with its subsequent destruction … In various versions of the "hanging of Judas", the following points draw attention to themselves: "Judas" was dressed in things stolen from Jews, in a Jewish headdress, beaten, hung on the market square, on the gate or on a tree opposite houses of a Jew were thrown inside a Jewish dwelling, and the Jew had to pay off, pay for the doll. " [2-2. with. 168].
And what about the former hetman? He was terribly afraid of falling into the hands of the tsar and the Ukrainian people loyal to him. He understood that Peter's money promises would sooner or later force the Turks to hand him over. So, tormented, on August 22, 1709, Mazepa took poison. They buried him in the monastery of St. George (Jura) in Galati. After a while, the Janissaries, in search of gold, dug up the hetman's corpse, robbed him of his clothes and threw him into the Danube.
So they did not manage to present the medal to the former hetman. In order not to send the “coin” to be melted down, the tsar awarded it to his fool, prince Shakhovsky, who was greedy for silver (he once said that Judas asked too little for the Savior). There are no new mentions of the original Order, it seems, from the second half of the 18th century.
Nowadays, when new Judas are honored, when the "damned Mazeppa" fills human souls, the old reward seems to be getting a second life. The press reported. That in connection with the 300th anniversary of the Battle of Poltava, the "Academy of Russian Symbols" MARS "presents a draft medal" 300 years of Mazepa's betrayal."
The medal is issued in a limited edition (130 pieces, of which 30 pieces are silver-plated). Instead of "a large silver chain worn around the neck …" a piece of hemp rope is attached to the medal.
In addition, since 2010, the Russian community of the Poltava region will hold anti-award ceremonies for figures of Ukrainian politics, culture and science - a bronze prototype of the Order …
A similar order was cast on the initiative of the military-patriotic organization "Young Russia". Its leader, Vladimir Maksimov, also knows who should be awarded.
* The rite of anathematization, was served not only in Glukhov - by the Metropolitan of Kiev, as well as by the Chernigov and Pereyaslavl bishops, but also in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. In the presence of the higher clergy, after the sermon, Stefan Yavorsky said three times: "Traitor Mazepa, for the crime of the cross and for treason to the great sovereign, be anathema!"
ANATHEMA
In Russia, the rite of the triumph of Orthodoxy was introduced in the XIV century. It included a Greek synodikon with the addition of the names of new domestic heretics and traitors. Over time, the names of Grishka Otrepiev, Stenka Razin, Archpriest Avvakum, Emelka Pugachev, and many schismatics appeared in it. All the anathemas were 20, and the names were up to four thousand.
In 1801, the rank of anathematization was once again reduced: it now lists only the heresies themselves, without mentioning the names of the heretics. Of the names of state criminals, only Otrepiev and Mazepa were left. The later synodal edition of 1869 contained 12 general anathemas; all names were omitted, and in the 11th anathematism a general phrase was inserted about "those who dare to revolt and treason" against "Orthodox sovereigns."
… Numerous and varied portraits of Mazepa, I think, will soon disappear in the storerooms of museums. One will be left in plain sight - the heroic one. The “collective image” has, in fact, already been created. The head landing is proud. The mustache is, of course, good. A firm, strong-willed chin. High brow and wise eyes. Only a long-standing anathema stands in the way. She puts painfully gloomy shadows under her eyes, she cuts a painfully sullen fold between her eyebrows. The retouching of the false patriarch Filaret, who in the 1990s solemnly "removed" Mazepa's anathema, does not help either. *
What can you say to the zealous defenders of the hetman, some of whom agreed that Mazepa is a saint!? **
First. He broke the oath to the anointed of God, given on the holy cross and the Gospel. "The new traitor, called Ivashka Mazepa, the former Ukrainian hetman … broke the faith and loyalty promised and confirmed on the kiss of the cross." Violation of the oath of the cross is primarily a spiritual and ecclesiastical canonical crime. It is a pity that this is not known to those who today in the UOC-MP are raising the question of the incompetence of the anathema to Mazepa. ***
Second. Having betrayed the Orthodox state and taking the oath to the Swedish Lutheran king, Mazepa brought Protestants to the Ukrainian lands, who desecrated Orthodox churches and shrines. Historian E. V. Tarle, the author of the fundamental history of the Northern War, on the basis of documents carefully studied by him, reports that Mazepa even helped Karl choose the direction of strikes against certain Ukrainian settlements.
Returning to the text of the anathema: "The new traitor, called Ivashka Mazepa, the former Ukrainian hetman … (to the enemy of God and His saints, to the accursed heretic) to the King of Sweden Karl the second hope to hope, having thrown him into the Little Russian land like the Church of God and the holy places, desecrated and ruined." In a letter to the patriarchal locum tenens, Metropolitan of Ryazan, Stefan Yavorsky, dated October 31, 1708 from a camp on the Desna River, Emperor Peter reports: they put horses in the church)”. In the personal decree about the legend of Mazepa's anathema, it is written that the last "vessel was needed in the most image, and then the devil's vessel appeared," that is, at first Mazepa was a vessel of good, and then became a vessel of the devil.
The "Testimony about the Swedes of Priest Andrei Alexandrovich 1708, December 1" contains evidence of the destruction of Orthodox churches in the city of Nedrygailovo by the Swedes: the Swedes "dismounted under the city and marched in formation towards the city with a gun, and before the shooting they said the Swedes from the Nedrygailovo the inhabitants, when they left them in the castle, so that they would be allowed into that castle, and they would go out themselves, and promised them that they would not repair anything for them. And they from the city spoke with them that they would not be allowed into the city, although they would accept death. And after hearing those words, the Swedes, the Swedes began to chop the gates, then they fired a volley at them into the city, and the Swedes from the city also shot at them and killed 10 Swedes. And they Swedes, lifting their bodies, retreated from the castle, and stood on the backyards and the churches and courtyards burned everything."
Suffice it to recall the icons of the Poltava Holy Cross Monastery, on which the Swedes carved chessboards in order to while away their leisure time.
“The Ukrainians perceived the heretics-Swedes almost the same as the Belarusians, who considered them a satanic force:“where this Lucifer went with his army … everywhere there was hunger and for many years there was a poor harvest in the fields. Therefore, the peasants after them consecrated their arable lands, sprinkled them with holy water and performed prayers. So it is written in the Mogilev Chronicle.
Third. Mazepa betrayed the Orthodox sovereign and the Orthodox state and tried to overthrow them by going over to the side of the heretics. "Even so, like the son of perdition," reads the text of the anathema, "for such treason, apostasy from the pious power, betrayal and the offering of the hands of the robbers and abuse against Christ the Lord, their benefactor and sovereign, with all their like-minded people, skunks and traitors, may it be cursed" …
The Orthodox Church, not only Russian but also Greek, and even the Western (before its fall away) has repeatedly anathematized the rebels and traitors. For example, the great saint of the Ecumenical Church, Ambrose of Mediolan, excommunicated the usurper Eugene, who opposed the legitimate emperor Theodosius the Great and tried to seize the throne in the Western Roman Empire.
They say Mazepa took part in the construction and restoration of churches and monasteries. But in 1938, the Hitler government allocated funds for the overhaul of 19 (!) Orthodox churches in the Third Reich, and in 1936-1938 built a new Berlin Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ for the Russian Church. Since 1936, the Reich government has been implementing a program of assistance to the Orthodox Church in Germany as a state-recognized confession: the German Orthodox clergy began to receive a regular salary; subsidies were allocated for the various needs of the German Diocese and its parishes; the clergy and the diocese received benefits, etc. In 1939, an Orthodox Theological Institute was opened in Breslau (Silesia) at the expense of the German government … It is even difficult to say who worked harder in this field - Mazepa or Hitler.
On account of the hetman 12 built and 20 renovated churches. Yes, Mazepa built it. For the sovereign's money. He was, so to speak, a mediator, a government official. And if sometimes he built something on his own, acquired by hook or by crook? Well, on the silversmiths thrown by Judas, the Sanhedrin put to buy the potter's dug earth for the burial of strangers (Matt. 27: 2-7). On this occasion, St. John Chrysostom writes: “Heed you, who by murder think to favor your neighbors, and take upon yourself the price of human souls. These are Jewish alms, or, better to say, Satanic! There are, indeed, there are now those who, having robbed many, consider themselves completely right if they throw ten or a hundred gold pieces to the beggars. This is what the prophet says: and behold, what else are you doing: you are forcing tears to fall on the altar of the Lord.
It is difficult to disagree: if the Holy Synod or the Council of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate goes to remove the anathema from Mazepa, then, consequently, the Russian Orthodox Church is sinful. And the anathema she imposed is a relative thing. As soon as the Church itself recognizes the invalidity of one of its anathemas to the perjurer, the other anathema proclaimed in 1997 to another perjurer, Mikhail Antonovich Denisenko (false patriarch Filaret), is equally invalid.
Then the lifting of the anathema from Mazepa will be interpreted as a recognition by the hierarchy that the ROC is a political instrument in the hands of the "Moscow enslavers of the Ukrainian people." At all attempts to explain that the case with Mazepa and Filaret are incomparable, we will simply laugh in the face. They will say to us: “Three hundred years ago you were just as excited with Mazepa as you were with Filaret today. But never mind, it will take about twelve years, you will lift the anathema from Filaret, just as you have removed it from Mazepa”****
Anathema, the excommunication of a person from the Church, is a projection of the highest Judgment. On the eve of the death of the treacherous traitor, hordes of lice overpowered. Truly, this was God's punishment!
Karl's personal physician, Lei Bustr, testified: "the royal comrade is eaten by hordes of lice and worms", "it is scary to approach him, he is swarming with black insects", he is "like Herod the Great, eaten by worms alive …". Mazepa howled and scratched, shaking off handfuls of lice, but they reappeared with such incomprehensible rapidity, as if the old man's body itself gave rise to this evil. The former hetman was literally seized with lice, which is why he died, and Karl XII thoughtfully uttered: “A worthy death of a great man! The lice ate the Roman dictator Sulla, they gnawed at the Jewish king Herod, and the Spanish king Philip II did not leave the lice even in his grave …”.
* Not so long ago, the press reported that Yushchenko suggested that Patriarch Alexy II do the same as Mr. Denisenko.
** You will not believe, but on the eve of the 300th anniversary of the celebration of the Poltava victory, the portrait of Hetman Mazepa "pacified" !!! The family of the deceased UPR activist, who at one time fled to the West and settled in Munich, had a portrait of Mazepa, which was hidden in a bank safe. It is reported that when the safe was recently opened, they saw: the canvas is covered with some incomprehensible stains, drips and the strange substance has the smell of flowers !!!
The owner of the portrait comments: “We have practically no doubt that a real portrait of Mazepa was found, which was used for religious purposes. Perhaps they have been praying for him for many years."
For a better impression, it is also reported that the FSB officers have begun to hunt for the relic!
*** A layperson-perjurer who voluntarily broke his oath, only in the case of "worthy repentance" (82nd rule of St. Basil the Great), is subjected to ten-year (64th rule) or eleven-year (82nd rule) excommunication from Holy Communion. To understand the full gravity of Mazepa's crime, it should be noted that penance to a repentant perjurer is stricter than penance to one who renounced Christ and sacrificed to idols - such, according to the 4th rule of the Ankyra Council, a six-year excommunication is required. If someone says that one cannot be excommunicated from the Church for perjury, then he must, in this case, declare that one cannot be excommunicated from the Church and for renouncing Christ.
**** There is one service in the June Menaion, which has been thoroughly forgotten today, but it seems that the time has come to be remembered. This is "Service of thanksgiving to God in the Holy Trinity, the glorified one, about the great God-given victory over the Swedish king Charles XII and his army, done near Poltava, in the summer of the Lord's Incarnation 1709, the month of June, on the 27th day." In this service, which has become part of the liturgical tradition of the Russian, and therefore, through her, and the Ecumenical Orthodox Church, the following is said about Ivan Mazepa.
“O extreme fury and anger! Now the next evil to the previous Judas is found, the second Judas, a slave and flatterer, is found: a pernicious son, the devil in disposition, and not a man, damned apostate Mazepa, who has left Christ the Lord, Lord and his benefactor, and cleave to the foe, deliberating to repay evil for good, for good deed, wickedness, for mercy, hatred: God will reward the second like and the first Judas, according to their deeds …
“You have not become like a man who is a merchant who is looking for good beads, an ungrateful and wicked slave, but a frantic Judas, who seeks harm, and who sought to betray the precious beads of Christ, and by all who are good, if you lose them, buy the unspeakable evil. To this you became like a fool, to this you imitated more ungrateful, to this you followed better than Mazepo. The same and the good are deprived, you have acquired equal evil, and you have come to him in your place”…
Let us also recall the sticira from the 50th Psalm: "May the apostles be honored, who disagreed with the second Judas Mazepa, but betrayed their souls for their Master."
HETMAN NAKED
Three hundredth anniversary of Poltava Victoria. "Passion for Mazepa" squirt like never before (60).
Interestingly, one of the first press reports about what was happening in Poltava was as follows:
“Kiev June 27. This morning, an unknown citizen tried to set fire to a straw effigy of Hetman Mazepa, according to the Ukrainian news agency UNIAN. A scuffle ensued between supporters and opponents of this action, which was stopped by police officers. The incident took place during the opening of the Arch of Reconciliation on the battlefield of Poltava, not far from the Church of St. Sampson, built in honor of the victory.
A theatrical battle was staged on the field of military glory. To quote the press: “The audience froze and waited for the denouement. "Hooray! We are breaking, the Swedes are bending …”Peter's troops (about a dozen actors) pressed forward, waving swords. The Swedes (about the same number) resisted, fighting back with their blades. They were lucky that day. For the sake of political correctness and tolerance, the Battle of Poltava ended 300 years later … in a draw. The opposing sides, waving their fists, simply dispersed to their corners of the "ring". Neither the turning point in the bloody Northern War, nor the shameful flight of Charles XII and Hetman Mazepa, who joined him, nor, of course, the "triumph of Russian weapons" and the birth of the Russian Empire.
-Glory to Ukraine! - the cry of one of the nationalists sounded over the field of Russian glory.
-Glory to the heroes! - answered him a couple of hundred voices.
-Mazepo is victorious! - shouted "matyugalnik".
-Ukrainska state e! The chorus joined in amicably.
-Moskali - get out! - someone snapped unauthorized.
There was no answer - too much …"
“On the day of the Battle of Poltava, more than two thousand Cossacks gathered in Poltava to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the Victory in the Battle of Poltava. As the organizers of the event told the portal RUSSKIE. ORG, Poltava saw a column in which hundreds of hundreds of units of the Faithful Cossacks, the Don, Zaporozhye and Tver Troops, the Crimean Cossack Union, the Cossack organizations of the Crimea, Central and South-Eastern Ukraine marched. The procession took place within the framework of the IV International Forum of Cossack Culture, which it was decided to hold in Poltava. The host from Ukraine was the Faithful Cossacks.
The Cossacks walked through the historical center of Poltava and went out to the Korpusny Garden, to the Victory Monument. Here they met with representatives of the Orthodox Brotherhood of Alexander Nevsky, the Russian community of the Poltava region and organizations of compatriots. A solemn meeting was held near the monument, which was opened by the Chief Ataman of the Supreme Cossacks Alexey Selivanov.
The ataman stressed that the memory of the joint struggle of the Russian army, the Don and Zaporozhye Cossacks is alive, despite all attempts to slander the common history. On behalf of the Russian side, Alexey Kirichenko read out an official greeting to the participants of the forum, the ataman of the Poltava branch of the Faithful Cossacks, cornet Kucherov read out the Appeal of the IV International Forum of Cossack Culture, in which the Cossacks call for the establishment of truly friendly relations between Ukraine and Russia, and for an end to the glorification of traitors - to demazepization of Ukraine.
After the victorious march in the center of Poltava, in comparison with which the Mazepa "mourning course" looked pale, sparse and few in number, ** the Cossacks filled the field of the Battle of Poltava, where they took part in laying flowers at the commemorative Cross.
After the processions, representatives of the Cossack delegations prayed on the territory of the Exaltation of the Cross Monastery, where they had the opportunity to venerate the Image of the Kaplunovskaya Mother of God - the very Icon that Emperor Peter blessed the troops on the eve of Victory.
Remember how Pushkin finishes his "Poltava"?
“Mazepa has been forgotten for a long time;
Only in a triumphant shrine
Once a year anathema to this day, Thundering, the cathedral thunders about him.
Forgotten?
No, something happened, reminiscent of a plot from Gogol's story "Portrait". Yushchenko went to bed and - either he fell asleep, or it seems to him - he sees how the moonlight fell on the old picture. How the eyes shone in the gilded frame. How a sharp, stern and proud gaze stared at him. How the image of Mazepa came to life, and how the hetman's mace fell to the floor with a crash … In the morning “he again went to the portrait in order to examine these wonderful eyes, and with horror noticed that they were definitely looking at him. It was no longer a copy from nature, it was that terrible liveliness that would illuminate the face of a dead man who rose from the grave. " The president involuntarily lowered his eyes. And at his feet - a miracle and nothing more! - and in fact lies the hetman's mace. Finally, a weapon was found against the damned Muscovites!
Then, they say, the old intriguer got off the ten-denomination bill and got into Ukrainian life. Only a train behind him, a bad train, remained. The hryvnia has depreciated, people (if they have nothing to appropriate and sell) have become impoverished. But many do not lose heart: Ukraine is "e"! However, the most surprising thing is that Yushchenko's face has changed terribly since that time. As if the undead had become.
* It is known for certain that the Poltava victory took place on the day of St. Sampson the Stranger, that is, June 27 or July 10 according to the new style. For some reason, however, July 8 was established in the calendar of glorious dates. This is a seemingly crafty attempt to obscure the obvious: the heavenly assistance that was provided to Russian weapons. The current celebration in Poltava was set by the Ukrainian authorities for June 27 in a new style. According to an eyewitness to the events - as if in defiance of the Russian Orthodox Church with its unshakable Julian calendar.
** The balance of forces was approximately the same as between the Cossacks loyal to Russia and Mazepa's supporters in 1709.
*** A funny detail. On the evening of the first day of the celebration, the Dnepropetrovsk Opera House was supposed to stage Boris Godunov on the memorial field. Literally a week before the date, a "decree" came from Kiev: to change "Godunov" to "War Requiem" by Benjamin Britten. What, indeed, Godunov, when Viktor Yushchenko canceled the 300th anniversary of the victory at Poltava itself - everything that happened on June 27 and 28 was called “Events to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the events associated with the military-political speech of the hetman of Ukraine Ivan Mazepa and the imprisonment Ukrainian-Swedish Union ".
P. S. A healthy stallion, firmly whipped, rushed in. Through the heaving feather grass steppe of memories. Through the dusty roads of politics. Through the hazy fantasy of romantic writers. Through muddy puddles of propaganda lies … Finally, someone grabbed the horse by the bridle. There is a tied fellow on the rump. Stripped back and … lower back. Marvel, people, the hetman is naked!
