| Hierotheus, Patriarch of Antioch. Lithography. 1858 (State Historical Museum) |
Hierotheus
(c. 1793 - 1885), Patriarch of Antioch (from October 9, 1850). Born around 1793 in Hora (now Hoshkoy, il Tekirdag, Turkey).
He began his church career in the Holy Sepulcher Brotherhood in Jerusalem, and enjoyed the special patronage of the secretary of the Jerusalem Synod, the famous historian and scribe Anthimus of Anchial.
In 1823 he was ordained a deacon, and in 1828 a priest. According to the testimony of the Russian monk Serapion, who was then in Jerusalem, on March 8, 1831, Abbot Hierotheus of the Church of Gethsemane was consecrated bishop in the Church of the Resurrection of Christ [1].
In April 1832, the Jerusalem Orthodox Church, burdened with unsustainable debts, turned to Russia with a request for financial assistance. On December 2, 1832, the Holy Synod decided to “allow in Russia the collection of voluntary donations in favor of the Jerusalem Temple”
and
“to allow the Patriarch of Jerusalem to send one of the trustworthy clergy to Russia for collection”
[2]. Patriarch Athanasius V (1827-1844) hastened not only to take advantage of this permission, but also to increase the hierarchical status of the Jerusalem metochion in Moscow, appointing it as rector of a bishop, namely Hierofey, Archbishop of Tabor. However, the Synod in May 1833 allowed the bishop to stay in Moscow to collect alms for only one year.
Archbishop Hierotheus, according to A.N. Muravyov, knew Russian by the time he arrived in Russia, which indicates that he was preparing in advance for the mission ahead of him. After arriving in Moscow in October 1833, Archbishop. Hierotheus headed to the capital. On December 20, he was solemnly received at the Holy Synod, where he made a speech, presented letters and gifts of the patriarch - a Cross with a particle of the Life-Giving Tree and part of the relics of St. ap. Andrew the First-Called. He stayed in St. Petersburg for about six months. The period for collecting alms was extended by three years, and was subsequently extended again. Having abandoned, on the recommendation of the Holy Synod, the collection of alms, which was not befitting the rank of archbishop, Hierotheus entrusted this responsibility to the two archimandrites who arrived with him, after which he began book publishing - preparing lithographs of St. places, prayer books in Greek and Slavic languages, theological works of Greek people who lived and worked in Russia. Archbishops Nikephoros (Theotoki) and Eugene (Bulgaris).
The amount of donations collected by the archbishop. Hierofey for the six years spent in Russia amounted to 700 thousand rubles. [3], according to other sources - 300 thousand rubles. The success of the Moscow mission influenced the decision of Athanasius V to appoint Hierotheus as his successor in November 1838. Before leaving for Constantinople, Archbishop. Hierotheus was again invited to St. Petersburg, where, having visited the Winter Palace together with members of the Holy Synod, he donated a mother-of-pearl model of the Edicule to the emperor and received a panagia with diamonds and emeralds “in commemoration of his long stay in Russia.”
Responsibilities of the Archbishop. Upon his return from Russia, Hierotheus remained the same - control over the income of the Jerusalem Church, timely receipt of money from the methods belonging to the Church (Russian, Moldavian and Wallachian, Georgian) and distribution of the funds received.
When Patriarch Athanasius died on December 16, 1844, the Synod of Constantinople tried to nominate its own candidate for the throne of Jerusalem. The main argument against Hierotheus was his “commitment to Russia.” The Grand Vizier rejected his candidacy for the patriarchate. Russian diplomats managed to obtain from the Porte agreement only that the patriarch be elected by the Jerusalem Synod from the ranks of the Palestinian clergy. The archbishop became the new patriarch. Cyril of Lyda, and Hierotheus remained in Constantinople as his representative and manager of the estates of the Holy Sepulcher in the Danube principalities.
On the night of June 24, 1850, the Patriarch of Antioch, Methodius, died in Damascus, and on October 9 of the same year, Hierotheus was elected as his successor [4]. From the correspondence of Russian diplomats, it becomes clear that the envoy in Constantinople V.P. Titov and the Beirut Consul General K.M. Basili “promoted” Hierotheos as “their” candidacy. Metropolitan Moscow Philaret (Drozdov) reported that the clergy of the Antiochian Orthodox Church, through the mediation of Hierotheus, submitted to the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Synod a request for the appointment of a successor to the deceased Patriarch Methodius without indicating the name, but the message was delivered to the addressee with the candidacy of Hierotheus already written into it [5]. Archim. Porfiry (Uspensky), head of the Russian spiritual mission in Jerusalem, writes that Hierotheus was elected through the efforts of the Sinai archbishop. Constantius and consul Basili [6]. Archbishop Constantius (former Patriarch of Constantinople), being the manager of the affairs of the Antiochian Church in Constantinople in 1840-1850, received letters from Damascus addressed to the Patriarch of Constantinople about the selection of a candidate. Most likely, Hierotheus was included in the “lists” of the Patriarchate of Constantinople as a “potential patriarch,” and he could only wait patiently until the time came for the Phanariot Greeks “for obedience” to take one or another of the vacated sees.
On March 30, 1851, the new patriarch arrived in Damascus. As soon as the Damascus Christians learned that Patriarch Hierotheos, according to him, had spent all the money left over from his predecessor on elections, they dismantled the roof of the unfinished patriarchal church as a sign of protest. When Basili, who arrived from Beirut, tried to pacify them in the name of the Russian emperor, he was told that Russian money had not been seen in Damascus, since all of it went to the needs of the patriarch.
In September 1851, Patriarch Hierotheus took advantage of the absence of Patriarch Kirill and went to Jerusalem under the pretext of a meeting with his teacher, Elder Anthimus, but in reality wanting to find out if he had a chance to return the throne of Jerusalem. But within a week he was under pressure from the archimandrite. Porfiry and Consul General Basili were forced to leave the Holy City and return to Syria.
During this period, the Antiochian Church was in dire need of competent clergy. But while Catholic and Protestant hierarchs built churches and founded monasteries, which later became educational and educational centers, Hierotheus hesitated, although funds were provided to him. As is known from Basili’s letters dated May-June 1852, the Patriarch of Jerusalem began to issue 30 thousand piastres annually to schools in the Antioch dioceses, and with the permission of the Holy Synod of the Russian Church, more than 4 thousand rubles were delivered. silver - interest on capital collected by Metropolitan of Iliupol. Neophyte [7]. The Patriarch was unpopular with the Arab flock, who from the very first months accused him of neglecting the needs of the Arabs, immoral behavior and appropriation of Russian alms, which he uncontrollably used for personal enrichment. Last Patr. Hierotheus did not hide it - according to Archimandrite. Porfiry, in September 1851, Hierotheus “confessed to him that he accepted the Throne of Antioch solely in anticipation of benefits from Moscow” [8].
The mid-19th century became a time of crisis for the archaic Ottoman economy. The ruin of Muslim artisans and traders occurred against the background of the prosperity of the Christian “middle class”, which acted as an intermediary of Western campaigns. A constant negative factor was the instability of religious-ethnic relations and civil strife, which was provoked by the Sublime Porte. Social and religious tensions were exacerbated by the abolition of traditional restrictions on Christian worship in the 1850s. From that time on, the ringing of bells, the installation of crosses over churches, magnificent, and so on, were allowed. Muslims, religious processions and other Christian ceremonies. These contradictions provoked religious clashes unprecedented in scale and number of victims - the Druze-Maronite conflict of 1841-1860, the pogroms in Maaloula and Aleppo in 1850, the Damascus massacre of July 1860. The extermination of Christians in Damascus was particularly cruel: several thousand people were killed, all the churches in the city were burned, as well as the patriarchal residence and the library of ancient manuscripts and books located in the Patriarchate. Among the dead was the greatest writer and preacher of that time, Fr. Youssef Muhanna al-Haddad (the Church of Antioch commemorates the victims of the Damascus massacre on July 10 every year). Patriarch Hierotheos was not injured, because at that moment he was outside Syria.
The events caused indignation throughout Christian Europe, which gave France a reason to send troops to Lebanon. In Russia, charitable collections were carried out in favor of victims of pogroms - within a month from the opening of the subscription, 18 thousand rubles were collected and sent. [9]. The funds were placed at the disposal of the Russian Committee created at the Consulate General in Beirut to provide material assistance to the victims [10]. The Ottoman government, not wanting to give a reason to the Europeans. intervention, severely punished the perpetrators and paid Christians significant monetary compensation (65 thousand Turkish liras). The patriarch's misuse of funds received by the church treasury again aroused criticism in the Arab-Orthodox community. The situation was aggravated by the fact that in 1864, the ruler of Romania A. J. Cuza issued a law on the secularization of monastic lands with the payment of a one-time compensation to the holy places, as a result of which the Antiochian Church, among other Eastern Churches, lost significant financial income.
In the last third of the 19th century, as national ideologies spread in the countries of the Levant, contradictions between the Greek hierarchy and the Orthodox Arabs intensified. The Arab flock of the Antiochian Church sought to expand its participation in church life, opposing Greek hegemony in the Patriarchate. The most striking manifestation of Greco-Arab antagonism in the 1860s was a seven-year dispute over candidates for the Beirut See. Patr. Hierotheus twice tried to install a Greek archimandrite from his entourage as Metropolitan of Beirut, but due to violent protests from the Arab population he was forced to abandon his intention and elevated the Arab Gabriel (Shatila), rector of the Antioch Metochion in Moscow, to the metropolitan status (1870).
After the unilateral proclamation of the autocephalous Bulgarian Exarchate in February 1872, the hierarchs of the Greek Local Churches gathered in Constantinople in September 1872 and declared the Bulgarian Church “in schism.” Patriarch Hierotheos, it is believed, was not initially in favor of imposing anathema on the Bulgarians, but he yielded to the pressure of the nationalist Phanariot environment. The only participant in the Council who did not support the excommunication of the Bulgarians was Patriarch Kirill II of Jerusalem, who in turn was deposed by the Holy Sepulcher Brotherhood in November 1872 for this. Russian ambassador to Constantinople c. N.P. Ignatiev advised the Antiochian Arabs to use the precedent to depose Hierotheos, who voted at the Council to declare the Bulgarian schism, and elect an ethnic Arab as patriarch [11].
A group of Arab metropolitans actually attempted to depose Patriarch Ierotheos, but the Ottoman authorities did not allow this. The Russian ambassador managed to obtain concessions from Hierotheus: the patriarch promised to allocate 21 thousand rubles. (less than 5% of the total budget) for the maintenance of Arab schools and churches. In response to the threat of Mr. Ignatiev, that from now on Russian aid to the Antiochian Church will be distributed directly through the Beirut Consul General, the Patriarch, fearing loss of income, agreed to the creation of a National Commission of Orthodox Arabs, at least supervising school education [12]. This step stimulated the development of the national movement in the Arab-Orthodox environment. According to V.N. Khitrovo, who visited the Middle East in 1884, in the Antiochian Church, out of eight bishops, six were Arabs and only two titular ones were Greeks [13].
Patriarch Hierotheus died on March 18, 1885 in Damascus.
In the year of his death, there were 321 churches, 17 monasteries, and 75 schools in the Antiochian Church. Of the churches, only the city ones were relatively well-appointed and equipped with liturgical utensils; the rest were in extreme poverty and were deprived of the most necessary things. Rural schools were left without material resources, good teachers, and teaching aids. For the entire Patriarchate in Beirut there was the only theological school, maintained at the expense of Metropolitan. Gabriel, where 6 students studied, and one school for Orthodox girls [14].
Assessing the activities of Hierotheus during the period of his Patriarchate, it is necessary to recognize that he was neither a theologian nor an outstanding administrator. The appointment of bishops to vacant departments was made without any consideration of the needs and problems of the dioceses. Half a century of efforts by Russian diplomats (from 1833 to 1885) to promote and support the so-called. their candidate in the East did not materialize. Skillfully respecting the interests of the Greek hierarchy and avoiding the Porte’s suspicions about his “Russophilia,” Hierotheus, unnoticed by Russian diplomats and hierarchs, restrained educational programs financed by Russia and at the same time attracted new funds to the treasury of the Patriarchate. After his election to the throne of Antioch, Hierotheos actually froze all the undertakings of the Russian government in the interests of the Orthodox Arab population. In the great church-diplomatic game that was played for many years with the aim of strengthening Russia's influence in the Middle East, the Russian side was defeated. Russia's active assistance to the Arab population within the Antiochian Patriarchate was able to produce real results only after the death of Patriarch Hierotheos, when the initiative passed to the Imperial Palestine Orthodox Society, which found support from the new primates of the Antiochian Church.
History of the AOC
Founded in Antioch, the third largest and most important city in Rome. empires 1st–2nd centuries The mention of Antioch in the New Testament is associated with the story of the election of the first 7 deacons of the Church (Acts 6:3–6). In Antioch, Christians from Cyprus and Cyrenaica preached to both Jews and Greeks (Acts 11:20). The Church of Antioch arose in the 40s. 1st century n. e., its founders are traditionally considered to be the apostles Paul and Peter. It was in Antioch that the followers of Christ “first began to be called Christians” (Acts 11:26).
At the 1st Ecumenical (Nicene) Council (325), the ancient tradition was confirmed, according to which the Bishop of Antioch, like the bishops of Alexandria and Rome, was proclaimed bishop of his district, which included Syria, Phenicia, Palestine, Arabia, Cilicia, Isauria, Cyprus and Mesopotamia. After the 3rd Ecumenical (Ephesian) Council (431), at which Nestorius was anathematized, the Persian Christian communities separated from the AOC. Mesopotamia. At the 4th Ecumenical (Chalcedonian) Council (451), the Primate of the AOC took fourth place in honor (after the Patriarchs of Rome, Constantinople and Alexandria, before the Patriarchs of Jerusalem). By decision of the same council, 58 bishops of the AOC were transferred to the Jerusalem Orthodox Church. The condemnation of Monophysitism at the 4th Ecumenical Council led to the fact that in the middle. 6th century The Antiochian Church was actually divided into 2 churches: Orthodox (Melkite, from the Syrian word “melk” - king, i.e. supported by the Byzantine emperor) and Monophysite [Jacobite, named after Bishop. Edessa Jacob (Jacob) Baradei]. During the period of Arab rule (639–969), the AOC managed to maintain its status (despite the fact that the Arabs supported the Jacobites). In con. 7 – beginning 8th centuries part sire. Christians who did not accept the condemnation at the 6th Ecumenical Council (680–81) of the doctrine of one will in Christ (monothelitism) formed a department. Maronite Patriarchate of Antioch (see Maronites). After Byzantium recaptured Antioch, the AOC was recognized as the only legitimate church in Syria. During the Crusaders' campaigns, a Catholic church was created in Antioch. patriarchy (early 12th century). In the 12th–13th centuries. Orthodox patriarchs, as a rule, lived in exile. During the Mamluk conquest, Antioch was destroyed (1268), and from 1366 the patriarchal throne was moved to Damascus. In the 18th century a split occurred, as a result of which the Uniate Melkite Church emerged from the AOC, subordinate to the Pope, but preserving traditions. rituals.
Prayers
Troparion, tone 4
(from the service on December 20)
The imitator of the apostolic morals/ and the successor to their throne,/ the fertilizer of the bishops/ and the martyrs, gloriously, God-inspired,/ you dared to fire, and the sword, and the beasts for the sake of faith/ and, words Correcting the truth, / you suffered until you bled, Hieromartyr Ignatius, / pray Christ God // our souls will be saved.
Kontakion, tone 3
(from the service on December 20)
The luminous day of your luminous deeds / is preached to everyone in the den of the Born: / For this reason, thirsting to enjoy from love, / you tried to be devoured by beasts; / for this and for God’s sake the nose was called you, // Ignatius to all things.
Kontakion, tone 4
(from the service on January 29)
From the east today, shining / and enlightening all creation with teachings, / / the God-bearing and Divine Ignatius was adorned with martyrdom.
Brent Allen. Ignatius of Antioch. The Martyr Bishop and the Origins of the Episcopate
Review of Brent Allen's book “Ignatius of Antioch. The Martyr Bishop and the Origin of the Episcopate.” Per. from English (Church History Series). M.: Publishing house. BBI, 2012. 188 p.
The book by A. Brent (2007), very quickly translated and published by the publishing houses of the Biblical-Theological Institute of St. Apostle Andrew (in 2012), somehow went completely unnoticed by the public reading such literature, the author of these lines tried to find any reviews on the Internet, but in vain. Meanwhile, the book was written on the verge of a scandal (in the positive, evangelical meaning of the word “scandal” [1]), it changes the seemingly completely unshakable idea of Ignatius the God-Bearer and his theological heritage.
Indeed, the image of the impeccable bishop-martyr, thanks to his messages, even now, after almost 2000 years, cannot but amaze with the sincerity of his pathos. The sympathy that arises for Ignatius is completely natural[2], his theological position also seems impeccable. All the more important is the new investigation undertaken by A. Brent into the “case” of St. Ignatius.
Reading this book, you are amazed at the tenacity of Brent’s research mind; we Orthodox, I think, are indeed “lazy and not curious,” somehow we are unable to ask “inconvenient” questions to the saints and “interrogate” their texts, avoiding confessional apologetics or simply having a “blurred” eye on their heritage. What the Orthodox do not do well, Protestants do well.
What is the research line of Brent's work? First of all, he analyzes the scanty information that has come down to us about the life and work of Ignatius, and here is the first oddity that Brent notes: why, out of the entire large Christian community of Antioch, was only Ignatius arrested and why was he sent to Rome, and not executed on the spot? Ignatius is not a Roman citizen, therefore, if sentenced to execution, he should be torn to pieces by beasts in the amphitheater, but Antioch also had its own amphitheater, so why take one person, even if he is the bishop of the capital of the province of Syria, across the entire empire? Brent examines in detail all the legal incidents that could clarify these hitherto unexplained facts.
In combination with the main theological theme of Ignatius (the rationale for the role of the bishop in the Church, the unity of the faithful and the presbyterium [3] with their bishop - the same unity as Jesus Christ with the Father) this leads the researcher to the assumption that the reason for the removal of Ignatius from Antioch was the acute conflict within the Antiochian community. Ignatius's self-awareness as the one and only bishop of the Church of Antioch (in the image of the unity of the Trinity in God the Father) came into conflict with the charismatic image of the Church, which dominated everywhere during this period. So, for example, in “The Shepherd of Hermas” - a very popular early Christian text (it was part of the New Testament, at least in Egypt) at the turn of the 1st–2nd centuries. - there is no mention of the episcopate, the Christian community is headed by the presbyterium, and prophets-spirit-seers like Hermas play a significant role in the church. According to Brent, it was the conflict between the “charismatic” and the “hierarchical” that began in the Christian community of Antioch, caused by the new concept of episcopacy, affirmed by Ignatius, that forced the city authorities to remove Ignatius as far as possible.
The next point in Brent's investigation is perhaps the most vulnerable to criticism. Ignatius is in chains and is being taken to Rome for execution. What happens to his Antioch flock? She cannot help but feel belated repentance for her indirect involvement in the persecution of her bishop. Ignatius is well aware of this; he, openly calling himself a victim, a “scapegoat,” believes that the bishop’s suffering should atone for the disobedience of his flock and reconcile it (he learns about the peace that has reigned in the Antiochian Church while in Smyrna). Ignatius' theological argumentation and his sacrificial pathos are aimed at strengthening the repentant feeling among the Antiochians.
And here Brent somewhat crosses the line, presenting Ignatius as a clever manipulator, using the guilt of the flock to unite them and assert that they are right. In particular, the question arises: why did Ignatius, having such good knowledge of the “secret strings” of the human soul, even allow divisions among the Antiochian Christians?[4]
Of particular interest is the study of the theological vocabulary of Ignatius the God-Bearer, in particular, his widely used concept of ὁμόνοια - like-mindedness. Omonoia is the main characteristic of the relationship between the Church and its bishop, which corresponds to the unanimity of the Father and the Son, thus the presence of omonoia confirms belonging to the Church of Christ and the Orthodox confession of the unity of God. Brent shows that the term is borrowed from the political rhetoric of the Second Sophistry. This intellectual movement - the fashion for Hellenism in the Roman Empire (it was shared by the emperors of the Antonine dynasty) - in particular, assumed the restoration, however, rather on a rhetorical level, of civil models from the times of the Greek classics. In general, an analysis of the context of the theological thought of Ignatius of Antioch, parallels with the political philosophy of the Second Sophistry, clearly reveals the gaps in our research on early Christian ecclesiology and beyond. In the very conscientious works of St. Hilarion (Troitsky) or protoprep. N. Afanasyev, such analysis is so lacking that it leads to losses in the reconstruction of theological logic itself, to the isolation of these topics in a sterile environment, in no way connected with either culture or philosophy[5]. Omonoia - the state of civil peace in the polis ekklesia, or between the polis - presupposed a special ritual when the message of unanimity is conveyed by authorized ambassadors and secured by a joint sacrifice (συνθυσία), thus achieving kononia - a union of cities. Ignatius of Antioch in his epistles uses all the elements of this political theory, giving it a Christian meaning.
As for the ecclesiastical unanimity of the faithful, the presbyterium and the bishop, it is established through messengers (St. Ignatius calls them “theodromoi” - divine messengers [6]), they allow the exchange of the message of onomoy with other ecclesias, this is how a union is concluded, the catholic ecclesia is established ( the word “catholic” itself was used by Ignatius for the first time).
However, homonoia in the church does not explain why it should be headed by a bishop, since civil unanimity presupposes democratic government. Here, according to Brent, Ignatius very inventively reinterprets elements of the pagan cult, in particular, the ritual of the procession: the entire path of St. Ignatius from Antioch to Rome became a Christian procession with a final sacrifice.
Reverend Allen Brent is a scholar of the history and literature of early Christianity, Professor of Early Christian History and Iconography at King's College London, and Professor at the Lateran University of Rome.
Ignatius calls himself, and all Christians in general, God-Bearers, Christ-Bearers, Temple-Bearers. These names, as a rule, are perceived in a sense close to the words of the Apostle Paul, “as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Gal. 3:27). However, if you combine them with the procession motif, an analogy arises with the pagan “God-bearers” who walk ahead of the procession and carry a typos - an image, an image of a deity. The image-bearer—the God-bearer—represents God himself, surrounded by a mystery community. For Ignatius, the bishop's mission is to be the image of God. From this fact follows his primacy in the Church. The bishop’s God-bearing is noticeably spiritualized against the pagan, but retains an “empirical” dimension: the God-bearer is the specific head of the community, uniting in himself (the bishop is the celebrant of the Eucharist par excellence) the community (headed by the presbyterium) and God. This combination of mysterial bearing of God and primacy in the community becomes a strong argument against the prophets, whose influence on the life of Christian ecclesias was significant. The hierarchical (elective) and charismatic principles (prophets are chosen by God) are now combined in the person of the bishop.
It is interesting that Ignatius does not have the doctrine of bishops as successors of the apostles; this concept appears later, in Irenaeus of Lyons and Cyprian of Carthage. The legitimation of the power of the bishop without relying on the motive of succession[7] once again emphasizes the exclusively mystical nature of the primacy affirmed by Ignatius: the bishop is the “typos” of the Father, the deacons[8] are of Jesus Christ, the presbyterium is of the apostles.
Brent's study concludes with an analysis of the versions of the authenticity and inauthenticity of the so-called middle edition of Ignatius's letters and a valuable sketch of the relationship between Ignatius the God-Bearer and Polycarp of Smyrna.
Thanks to the clarity of style, brevity of presentation (the book is not even 200 pages), unobtrusive didactics (at the end of the chapters the author collects all the threads into a single bundle, repeating key points), Allen Brent's study can be considered a real event among books on theology published in the last five years. years in Russian.
Nachalo magazine No. 32, 2021
[1] “...for the Jews a stumbling block (σκάνδαλον), and for the Greeks foolishness; but for those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:22).
[2] Quite recently, on the pages of Nachalo, T.A. wrote wonderfully about Ignatius the God-Bearer. Turovtsev: The beginning. Journal of the Institute of Theology and Philosophy. No. 27. St. Petersburg, 2013. pp. 33–51.
[3] In the Russian translation, “presbyterium” (the board of elders of the local church) for some reason is conveyed by the not very successful word “presbyteriat”.
[4] Another danger, seemingly overcome by the very course of things in our country, is the desire to reduce the realities of the early Christian church almost entirely to external, socio-political (and economic) factors. An example here is the book by I.S., which was quite good for its time (1985). Sventsitskaya "From community to church". I would not mention Sventsitskaya (however, a worthy author - compared to types like Kryvelev - a researcher and translator, she even believed that Jesus Christ existed, which did Him a great favor), if not for the increasingly frequent appearance of her book in “scientific works of respected scientists” (for example, Uskov N.F. “Christianity and monasticism in Western Europe of the early Middle Ages. German lands II–III - mid-XI century.” St. Petersburg, 2001). There are such examples in modern journalism (Yu. Latynina), and in studies on the topic of modern church realities (N. Mitrokhin). It is a paradoxical situation when “churchliness” coincides with “secularism” in the insensitivity to the openness of theological issues to a variety of meanings, in the fear and misunderstanding of freedom and inspiration that are demonstrated by such authors as Ignatius of Antioch.
[5] In connection with this plot, A. Brent considers the version of the peculiar refraction of these ideas in the work of Lucian, a younger contemporary of Ignatius of Antioch, a native of northern Syria; in “The Death of Peregrinus” he puts into comic form the rumors about the “divine messengers” of Ignatius.
[6] See, for example, “Didahe” (a compilation of various texts, finally formed by the end of the 1st century), in this monument five times more space is devoted to the prophets than to bishops, about whom it is said only that they must be worthy people and “they should not be neglected.”
[7] Noteworthy is the parallel between the idea of succession of the episcopate from the apostles and the tradition of inheritance (diadochi) in philosophical schools (it was once expressed by S.S. Averintsev in his “Poetics of Early Byzantine Literature”). When in the 3rd century the church, thanks to the movement of apologists, finally entered the expanse of Greek culture, the Christian kerygma began to be designated as “true philosophy,” “philosophy according to Christ,” and the idea of succession from the first Scholararch, the Teacher, to his modern heirs began to be conceptualized along the lines of the school. .
[8] They take bread from the faithful, bring it to the bishop for thanksgiving and, after consecrating it, teach it to the faithful; their path symbolizes the economy of salvation carried out by Jesus Christ.
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