370 years ago, the Great Schism of the Russian Church and the people began. Patriarch Nikon led the power struggle against his people. Since the time of the split, the people, the official church and the government have been irrevocably alienated from each other. The living Russian faith, the source of the strength and invincibility of the Russians, has suffered enormous damage.
Until now, this catastrophe has had a negative impact on Russian civilization and the people. Russia loses its connection with God, ceases to be Light. This became the spiritual cause of the catastrophes of Russia in the XX century and the current deplorable situation of the Russian people, which are rapidly losing their Russianness. Russians, lacking fiery faith and genuine knowledge of their history, lose their self-awareness. They are ready to break with their homeland, go to America, Australia, Britain, Germany or Brazil, and their children will no longer be Russians, but Americans, Canadians, Australians, Germans or Chinese.
It is worth noting that the best representatives of the authorities have always understood this. Thus, the Russian Empress Catherine II noted:
“Nikon, I admit, is a person that arouses disgust in me. I would have been happier if I had not heard of his name.
He began to reform his church, rebuild it in his own way.
What principles did he put into the basis of his restructuring? Unconditional subordination of the people to the clergy, clergy to archpastors, archpastors to patriarchs. Nikon and the sovereign tried to subjugate himself: he wanted to become a pope …
Nikon brought confusion and division into the patriotic peaceful before him and integrally united church. The Greeks imposed on us three-piercing with the help of curses, tortures and death executions …
Nikon made Alexei the king-father a tyrant and torturer of his people."
(Catherine II. "On the Old Believers", 15.9.1763).
The Empress noted the destruction of the Russian Church, which lost its living faith and became only a stronghold of formal ritual:
“Our patriotic church lies in ruins, if there is anything still alive in our church that takes care of her life, then this is almost one popular protest.
It is clear that the archpastors confuse us, fearing the destruction of the church, which they themselves have destroyed long ago."
Russian faith
During the time of Sergius of Radonezh and the great sovereigns of Moscow, on the basis of the ancient Russian Vedic faith (Russian paganism, which has many thousand-year roots) and Christianity, the Russian faith was formed. Orthodoxy ("the glory of pravie-truth", "rule" - the bright world of the gods, the highest laws of the Universe) absorbed the ancient faith of the pagan Rus. The cross (swastika) is a symbol of the One God. God the Father is Rod (Svarog), the creator of the world, people (people). Therefore, the Russians are fighting to the death for the Motherland. God the Son - Yarila, Dazhdbog, Khors, light, active principle. Theotokos - Russian Rozhanitsy, Mother Lada, the preserving feminine principle. The Trinity is Reality, Rule and Nav, a single Universe, the universal laws of creation, preservation and destruction (in Ancient India - Trimurti). The military principle of the One - Perun - George the Victorious.
In the XIV-XVI centuries. the civilizational project "Holy (Light) Russia" took shape.
Politically, he united the spaces of Russia, Byzantium and the Horde. Moscow became the heir of both the Byzantine tradition and the Russian-Horde (the Myth of the Tatar-Mongol yoke; The Secret of the Russian Horde and Great Tartary). Russian monasteries were then the image of the future of Russia.
The organization of Russian life, where symphony dominates, is the unity of the spiritual and material principles, with the unconditional primacy of the spiritual.
The main basis of Holy Russia was service - benefit, goodness and goodness. Sergius of Radonezh's call to brothers to live in love, sow good and bring good. The second foundation is creative and honest work for the benefit of people. This is a necessary and natural condition for the moral, spiritual improvement of a person. A kind of effective prayer to the Almighty. The third reason is non-acquisitiveness. The accumulation of material wealth is contrary to the spiritual nature of man. It is not necessary to accumulate land, estates, wealth, but spiritual treasures.
At the same time, creative work also implies material abundance. For example, during the time of Ivan the Terrible, foreigners were amazed by the abundant and rich Russia. The Russian people were hardworking, enterprising, savvy, the land was rich and vast. The Russian land flourished (if there were no war). At the same time, the monasteries, the centers of the productive economy, were at that time like a strategic reserve. And powerful fortresses, and warehouses of various reserves, which the sovereign could use in dashing years.
Light Russia had a direct channel of communication with Heaven (Rule). This time gave Russia more saints and ascetics than any other period (with the exception of the Great Patriotic War, when the people saved the Motherland at the cost of great self-sacrifice).
Monasteries were the centers of crystallization of the Russian civilization project, the structures of its power, economy and general life. It was at this time that Russia-Russia received a charge of miraculous power, which then allowed the power to make an unprecedented leap towards greatness.
If the great powers of the West made such a leap at the expense of looting and predation, the merciless exploitation of the occupied lands and colonies. That is Russia on the basis of its own creative, productive forces.
Russia was filled with passion, charisma, energy, which made it possible to overcome all difficulties and difficulties, all obstacles on the way to the goal. People were ready to make any sacrifices, to overcome any suffering and adversity in the name of bright ideals and their implementation (Russia was able to make a similar short-term breakthrough under Stalin, when the people believed in bright ideals and power). This energy is the result of the interaction of man and God (through prayer and living prayer - creation, good action).
Light Russia
At the end of the XV-XVI centuries. Russia was among the European leaders.
New cities and fortresses, temples and monasteries were quickly raised and built. According to foreign travelers, Russian cities were much larger, more beautiful and cleaner than European ones. Moscow was one of the largest and most beautiful cities in the world. Production and crafts were developing, and yields increased. Domestic and foreign trade flourished.
The Russians successfully adopted the positive, creative experience of their neighbors (for example, in the architecture of the Italians). Russia became the true heir to the spiritual tradition of Byzantium (and in the future, the Second Rome - Constantinople). Under Ivan the Terrible, Russia became the heir to the Horde Empire. Russia again assimilated the lands of the great northern civilization.
Ordinary Russian people lived much better than in subsequent times, when the Russian elite would be oriented towards the West, without spending money on luxury, imported expensive things, entertainment and life abroad.
Contemporaries noted in Russia the full abundance of everything necessary.
The poor were few. Urban and rural communities helped and pulled the weak. The administration helped dependent peasants with allowances if misfortune befell them. Taxes (compared to other states) were quite low. The sovereigns did not try to squeeze out their subjects to a penny.
Only during emergencies (war) was a special tax collected, "tenth money" or fifth money - all property was described, evaluated and 10 or 20% of the value was paid to the treasury. If there was no urgent need, the government did not stop people from getting rich and prosperous. It was beneficial to everyone. The people traded, founded new trades and crafts, developed production, thereby strengthening and enriching the entire state.
The West tried to stop the progressive development of Russia.
Another "crusade" was organized - the Livonian War. However, Russia resisted.
The population grew, the Russians successfully moved further and further south and east. Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich created a regular army, and during his reign, attempts were made to create a fleet in the Baltic.
After the failure to destroy the Russian world by force, the West changed its strategy. With the help of the traitorous boyars, Troubles were organized. But the people will stand in the way of collapse.
Created by Ivan the Terrible "horizontal power" - zemstvos, will save the state. While the tsars, impostors, boyars and interventionists were sharing power and the "skin of the Russian bear," the people organized themselves, deployed their troops and armies. Russian zemstvo militias rescued and recreated precisely the state, the state.
The country has gathered from below. From individual cities, townships, monasteries and villages.
What was the basis of the revival?
Russian faith and spirit. Patriarch Hermogenes and Archimandrite of the Trinity Dionysius aroused the people with their letters. With their word, full of faith, they reached out, shouted to the people. Filled them with fiery faith and energy.
And the people saved the country.
Ordinary people - townspeople and peasants, nobles and warriors, monks gathered the country, which seemed to have perished forever, anew. They stood in the way of chaos and darkness, saved the state. The Russian national liberation movement defeated not only foreign invaders, but also domestic thieves and rebels. The people saved the Motherland (the power of the Family). I drove out the invaders. He rebuilt cities, towns and villages. Restored the economy. I put things in order on the roads. And he established the state.
Alas, the historical choice, skillfully directed by the boyars, many of whom were the culprits of the Troubles, as it turned out later, was unsuccessful. Obviously, that Dmitry Pozharsky would have been a better sovereign than the Romanovs. A party of traitors was able to elevate a comfortable, secure king to the throne. The "thunderstorm" did not fall on the heads of the "Polish party" of the Russian nobility. The Romanov dynasty at first was forced to reckon with the people. Zemsky Sobors met regularly. Then the Romanovs consistently achieved complete freedom from the people, society, and the Holy Russian tradition. And began the destruction of the most dangerous enemy of the West and the pro-Western government - the Russian faith.
Thus, it was faith in Russia that was a kind of powerful capacitor that collected the highest social energy. This energy made it possible to change history overnight, to perform any miracle. As the salvation of Russia during the Troubles, or the amazing rise of the USSR under Stalin. Therefore, in order to destroy the Russian civilization, to enslave the Russian people, it was necessary to destroy the Russian faith. Thus began a great sabotage against Russia - the Schism.
Zealots of piety
The church was an integral part of Russian life.
She did not belong to government agencies. But it did not separate from them either.
Orthodoxy was the basis of the life of the Russian people. It pervaded every day, every important step of a person. Dutch writer, Catholic Alberto Campense (16th century) collected information about Russia and in his report to the Pope noted that
"They (the Russians) seem to follow the teachings of the Gospel better than we do."
He proposed to unite the churches.
In Russia there were 13 thousand churches, 1200 monasteries, 150 thousand priests and 15 thousand monks.
The church owned vast lands, numerous villages and settlements in the posad, had its own administrative, financial and economic apparatus, its own court system. Confessors were subject only to their own court, except for criminal offenses. At the same time, initially this system was not sharpened for personal enrichment, but was a strategic reserve of the state and people, which was used during wars, famine and natural disasters.
However, the opinion arose that errors had accumulated in the doctrine and rituals. For a long time liturgical literature was handwritten, and the originals differed from each other, there were translations from Greek, South Slavic books, they were made at different times, by different scribes. Distortion has accumulated. Also, the Russian and Greek churches developed independently.
So, when Russia was baptized, in Byzantium, the sign of the cross was accepted with two fingers (the unity of the divine and human nature of Christ), later the Greeks affirmed the sign with three fingers (the unity of the Holy Trinity). There were differences in the direction of the procession - “salting” (in the sun) and “anti-salting”, in the service of the liturgy on seven or five prosphoras (liturgical bread), in two or three times praise of Hallelujah (“praise God”). Russia itself grew out of many principalities and lands, where its own characteristics, even outright elements of paganism, remained. In Novgorod and Pskov, icon-painters created icons of “Fryazhsky writing”, adopting the manner of the Western style. Here and there heresies arose.
Already under Ivan the Terrible, there were attempts to unify. The Stoglavy Sobor of 1551 worked out general church rules, condemned the sign with three fingers, and approved two fingers. There was a struggle against false prophets, "Judaizers", etc. The Tsar and Metropolitan Macarius gathered educated theologians who directed and prepared spiritual literature for publication. This work was continued by Filaret. At the Printing House, a service of "reference officers" was created, schools for priests were opened.
Ukrainian-Greek sabotage
In Western Russia (Ukraine), the situation was even more complicated.
Catholic and Protestant preachers and Jesuits were active here. They tried to draw people over to them. It didn't work out with the common people. However, some of the educated people were "processed" accordingly. The Jesuits opened excellent schools in the cities. And in them everyone was accepted free of charge: both Orthodox Christians and Protestants, people of different classes. Schools provided the best secular education, religion was not imposed.
But the "recruitment" went through the method of "cultural cooperation". Ukrainian Orthodox clergy tried to resist Catholics and Uniates. Orthodox brotherhoods created their own schools.
So, the Kiev Metropolitan Pyotr Mohyla organized the Kiev-Mohyla Academy (1632). The Metropolitan of Kiev did not want to submit to Moscow and was guided by the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Therefore, the priests in the Western Russian lands (Malaya and Belaya Rus) adhered to the Greek rules.
During waves of persecution of Orthodox Christians in Ukraine, many local priests and monks fled to the Russian kingdom. Also during this period, Moscow provided patronage to co-religionists in the Ottoman Empire. From there, Greek, South Slavic, Moldavian and Romanian priests came to Russia. The faith was one, but with some peculiarities. Eastern clergy visited Russia with pleasure: here they were well received, watered, fed, richly endowed. At the same time, the Greeks began to introduce elements of criticism.
Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich (reigned 1645-1676) was considered a devout man. Together with Patriarch Joseph (1642-1652), he was engaged in the construction of temples and monasteries. The patriarch developed book printing and school education, for which scholars were discharged from Kiev. And under the king, the so-called
"A circle of devotees of piety", it included
"People who are well-read and skilled in the preaching work."
It consisted of the tsar himself, his confessor Stefan Vonifatyev, childhood friend Fyodor Rtischev, rector of the Kazan Cathedral Ivan Neronov, protopopes Avvakum and Loggin, priest Danila, Nikon (then archimandrite of the Novospassky monastery).
"The devotees of piety" regularly gathered in the sovereign's chambers, conducted conversations. They believed that all the trouble is from human sins, which means that it is necessary to strengthen the faith. Then all matters, both external and internal, will be settled. On the whole, everything was correct.
However, the question was how exactly to achieve the strengthening of faith. This is where the circle split.
Vonifatiev, Rtischev and Nikon supported the Kiev and Greek scientists and priests. They say that "distortions" and "mistakes" have accumulated in Russia, they need to be corrected. To adopt the best achievements in theological science and education. Another wing of the circle was wary of the "Westerners" (and as it later became clear that it was right), suspected "heresy" and advised to protect the Russian Church from their influence. To look for support in the Russian old faith.
