The Catholic Church features doctrine about the salvation of the soul. Creed of Catholicism. Need help studying a topic?
The main ideas about salvation in Christianity are conventionally divided into two types, which are sometimes called "organic" and "legal" theories of salvation . In the Orthodox tradition, as well as works before the split of churches into Western and Eastern, the first option prevails, in Catholicism and Protestantism the second.
The concept of salvation in Orthodoxy
In the Orthodox tradition, sin is understood not so much as guilt, but as a disease (wound). “Sin makes us more miserable than guilty,” Rev. John Cassian (c. 360 - c. 435). Salvation from this point of view consists of changing/healing human nature, which is “perishable, mortal, passionate.” (Constitutive changes in human nature are assumed to have occurred as a result of the severance of man’s direct connection with God (the biblical story of the Fall).) A very brief formulation of the “organic” theory of salvation is as follows. Christ, the God-man, is God the Word, who becomes incarnate, i.e. takes upon himself human nature (sick, mortal, etc.) and through suffering, through death, restores this nature in himself (through death and resurrection). This restoration in oneself has the most important consequences for the entire subsequent life, because an opportunity opens up that did not exist in humanity until that time, namely the possibility of a spiritual birth for every person who accepts Christ as savior. Unlike the first birth (“natural”), the second is associated with the consciousness and will of a person and is associated with itself definition of a person. (Usually in this context, Christian authors quote, among others, the words from the Revelation of John the Theologian: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock,” says the Lord, “if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him.” (Rev., 3, 20). Moreover, this self-determination is considered not only within the framework of “this” life, but also in an eschatological perspective (i.e., in the perspective of the Last Judgment and man’s final choice of his fate). Those. although a person does not become delivered from moral or physical evil, from illness, death (this is obvious, we are still mortal and imperfect in other respects), but the possibility of complete, decisive and final liberation by the resurrection of Christ to man, according to this approach, was proposed. Since the last choice in the eschatological perspective is the choice between “to be with God or without God,” then it follows that the special meaning that is given to the recognition of Christ as the savior and the choice to “be with Christ” in this life (and not just, say, doing good deeds). From this point of view, salvation is not so much what happened as what Maybe happen. As one Orthodox author (Proprietor D. Smirnov) said, no one is forced into the Kingdom of God. To save a person, therefore, what is called in Orthodoxy is required synergy– cooperation / joint effort of man and God in the matter of salvation (God cannot save a person without his participation).
The concept of salvation in Catholicism
In the 13th century A number of new concepts appear in Catholicism that define the official doctrine of salvation of Catholicism down to the present day.
Let's consider the content of the main ideas. Important for the formation of this doctrine was the norm of medieval (and ancient) law, according to which the degree of guilt for an offense is determined not only by the content of the offense itself, but also by the against who it was done. Thus, the same illegal act committed, say, against a peasant and against a king, from this point of view, implies completely different degrees of guilt. In addition, any guilt always involves a certain amount of punishment according to the principle: the heavier the guilt, the more severe the punishment (with possible aggravating or mitigating circumstances). Further, the Fall of man is conceived as an illegal act committed against God, the Absolute, which means that such an offense entails infinite guilt. This means that none of the people (neither personally nor collectively all of humanity) is capable of being punished, proportionate committed crime. This means that the lot of people is to remain forever damned (in biblical language, “curse” means “separation”, “cutting off”). But to restore connection with God, this is necessary.
The Fall thus placed a barrier between God and man legal nature, i.e. the understanding of this separation of man from God is thought in terms of law: guilt, guilty, punishment, in order to remove guilt it is necessary to undergo some punishment, i.e. we must atone for guilt, bring satisfaction (satisfaction) justice God, the latter is a key expression of Catholic soteriology.
So, since people are not able to bring the necessary measure of satisfaction to God’s justice for forgiveness (for the measure in this case is infinite), God Himself makes such a sacrifice on behalf of people for the sake of restoring justice. “He himself brings” means that God, having become a man, (more precisely, the second hypostasis is incarnated) himself endures suffering (on the cross). Such the sacrifice is proportionate to the crime committed and thereby humanity is forgiven the original sin.
If Christ brings satisfaction to the justice of God for the sin of Adam, then each person must bring personal satisfaction to the justice of God for his personal sins (i.e., endure something, do something in order to atone for this particular sin committed). If a person makes such atonements for sins, he gains merits. (Again, a specifically Catholic idea.) the atonement of all sins is a condition of salvation.
What will happen if a person does godly deeds that are not necessary for his salvation? The answer to this question is the most important Catholic teaching on supererogatory works. From the point of view of Catholic theology, in the teachings of I. Christ one should distinguish commandments(praecepta) and adviсe evangelical (consilia): the first are prescribed to everyone as duties, the second are offered as a means of achieving higher, optional perfection. (For example, becoming a monk is not necessary for salvation, but is a means to achieve the highest perfection.) Whoever follows the advice, according to the teachings of the Catholic Church, does the deeds overdue, which are not necessary for the performers themselves. Such a person acquires superfluous merits. Any person, if he zealously lives as a Christian and does as many good deeds as possible, gains everything large quantity merit. Christ has an infinite number of them. The Virgin Mary is also practically infinite (“almost” infinite). The saints have many of them. But even “mere mortals” can have extraordinary merits.
Extraordinary deeds form a kind of treasury (thesaurus, literally box), a treasury of good deeds. All supererogatory good deeds come to the benefit of the members of the church by virtue of the mysterious union connecting them with the church of the celestials and Christ himself, as the Head of the church. The Pope, as the vicar of Christ, has the right to redistribute merit and impute the merits of some (from the treasury of good deeds) to others. Such redistribution is carried out in order of leniency towards the sinner. This indulgence or forgiveness is called indulgentio in Latin. This doctrine arose in the 13th century. and developed in detail in the writings of Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, Duns Scotus and Bellarmine. Closely related to the doctrine of supererogatory merit is the Catholic doctrine of indulgences.
The concept of salvation in Protestantism
Protestantism raised a natural question to the Catholic doctrine of salvation: did Christ really have enough merit to free humanity only from original sin? Of course, there are more of them. Protestantism claims: Christ sacrificed complete satisfaction to God the Father for the sins of the world and every believer is freed not only from original sin, but also from all personal sins. (Difference from Catholicism: in Catholicism, satisfaction is brought only for (only paid for) original sin.) This is how one is liberated: a believer justified. The Formula of Concord says, “The Son of God has paid for all our sins.” Hence the well-known Protestant formula “it is sin for the believer not imputed into sin." (emphasis mine - O.N.) (Again, the legal conceptual field: sin there is, exists/ May be, but the trial on it is not opened.) To be saved, it is enough to believe in Christ as the Savior. The aforementioned “Formula of Concord” says: “We must reject the opinion that good works are necessary for salvation.” Of course, good works in Protestantism remain necessary, but not for salvation, but for showing gratitude towards God for my salvation.
Thus, acquittal is understood as a legal verdict. The salvation process is not going well in me, and necessary me. From the Protestant point of view, it is not man who changes (as a result of the atoning sacrifice of Christ), but God, as a result of it, changes His attitude towards man. The only change in man is that before he was subject to punishment and was in fear, but after pronunciation he is a “joyful, jubilant child of God.” Even a person’s faith itself is not the result of his activity. Luther’s Shorter Catechism puts it this way: “I believe that I cannot by my own understanding or my own strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to Him. But the Holy Spirit called me through the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith” I.e. here salvation is not an act human changes, and this is an act God changes. It is not man who changes in salvation, but God.
Not counting the plots of love affairs that abound in stories about pagan deities (and Zeus, as you probably remember, loved to “run after women”), Krishna, the 8th avatar of Vishnu, had, according to the Puranas, 16,100 wives, etc. etc., etc.)
He can be merciful and merciful, as Islam claims, and this means that Allah does not punish those who repent to the full extent. Those. mitigating circumstances are possible, but the punishment that justice calls for and demands is mandatory.
Wed. “definition” of Basil the Great (c. 330-379): “Theology is the selection of the least inappropriate words.”
Hypostasis (Greek) (Latin tracing paper: substantia) – verbatim. stand [ ipo-stasis], i.e. what lies at the core; for Aristotle - any individual existence (specific, this a person, a specific animal, a stone, etc.), that which cannot be a property for anything, but that perceives various properties (is the basis, a “stand” for various properties); in Christian theology this term later came to mean a specific personal existence, personality (which, just like Aristotle’s hypostasis, takes on various properties, but is not itself a property, cannot be defined, and in this sense is apophatic).
Moreover, these faces/individualities are so different that one of them - and only one - has merged with human nature.
Wed. with polytheism. There the gods have the same essence (not one), They similar in essence.
In the Christian tradition, various analogies were used to explain the trinity (in order to still give this idea of trinity some intuitiveness). I will give one: comparison with man (since, according to the Bible, only man is created in the image and likeness of God). Man has a mind. There is a word generated by it, there is a spirit emanating from the mind. The mind is the source of both the word and the spirit (The word spirit in this case appeals to the broadest possible meaning (cf. spirit of the times, spirit of the book, etc.).). Mind cannot exist without thought, and thought cannot exist without mind. The human mind cannot be without thought; word - an expressed, expressed thought; the mind by its nature always gives birth to thought.
Wed. also Hindu texts, which say that Vishnu, when incarnated, is likened to an actor who changes his costume and puts on the next mask (= moves to another incarnation).
However, Christian thought also assessed the Incarnation as something that is completely unbecoming of God “according to rank,” but something that God does out of love for people and out of (literally) superhuman humility ( kenosis).
Although, strictly speaking, Gnosticism is not a purely Greek phenomenon
For the same reason, the idea of the (bodily) resurrection of the dead as the final definition of human existence (in the unity of body and soul) was wild for the Hellenic consciousness.
Wed. also “The Word became flesh, and therefore became defenseless.” (A.S. Dobrokhotov) http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/1117011.html
Wed. “sin” in Greek “amartia” - literally translated means “miss, shot past the target”, and in Russian it has the same root as “flaw”, i.e. mistake, mistake, strived for one thing, it turned out something else.
Wed. “God does not violate human freedom. And therefore, the doors of hell, if you like, can only be locked from the inside - by its inhabitants themselves. Only those who themselves did not want or will not want to leave it remain there. The idea that the reason for being in hell, not excluding the devil himself, is their free “I don’t want”, was expressed by a number of Church Fathers: Clement of Alexandria, St. John Chrysostom, St. Basil the Great, St. Maximus the Confessor, St. John Damascene, St. Isaac the Syrian, St. Nicholas Kavasila and others.” (A.I. Osipov “The Afterlife of the Soul”, M. 2005)
By the way, the only one the dogmatically accepted definition of the Kingdom of God in Christianity (not only in Orthodoxy) - there a person is with God, “before the face of God.” Thus, the goal of salvation is to be with God, and not bliss. If the ultimate goal is defined as the achievement of bliss, then God becomes a function of bliss (i.e., since I strive for bliss, I need God along the way). In the context of the teaching about the sacrifice of Christ, the incarnation, etc., such goal-setting is unacceptable (or, in other words, will not lead to bliss).
In Russian, the word “satisfaction” in a religious context will most likely carry a moral and ethical aspect; Latin satisfactio rather corresponds to the concept compensation, compensation for damage; satisfactio is a legal term that does not apply to the field of ethics. The concept of satisfaction / satisfaction (namely a concept, not a doctrine) was introduced in the 12th century. Anselm of Canterbury (1033 - 1109) (canonized in the 15th century, in the 18th century he was given the title Doctor of the Church; this title conveys that this saint is revered not only for his pious lifestyle, but also that his works are recognized as adequately expressing the Catholic Church doctrine).
The nature of the atonement is determined by the priest. (This could be, for example, visiting hospitals for some time (for the sake of some good deeds, of course), making donations, reading prayers, etc.)
Wed. There are 3 parts to the Catholic sacrament of penance: the person's repentance, the priest's absolution, and the bringing of satisfaction to God's justice. The latter does not exist either in Orthodoxy or in Protestantism.
If a Catholic has not atoned for all sins, but at the same time has not committed mortal sins, then atonement occurs after death in the so-called. purgatory. The (dogmatic) doctrine of purgatory is also specifically Catholic.
Actually, the beginning of the activity of M. Luther (1483-1546), who stood at the origins of the Reformation movement, is associated with his speech against practices indulgences. During the time of Luther, this practice reached an unprecedented scale and acquired features that boggle the imagination (for example, some distributors of indulgences set a clear tax for one or another sin: simple murder; murder of parents (more expensive); sacrilege, etc.). In addition, indulgences could be purchased not only to account for past sins, but also for future sins.
Wed. terminology of salvation: in Orthodoxy - healing; in Catholicism - atonement; in Protestantism - justification.
Formula of Concord (lat. Formula Concordiae listen)) is one of the most dogmatically important books of Protestantism (published in German in 1576 and translated into Latin in 1584). It was supposed to serve to end the strife between the two movements in Protestantism that arose after the death of Luther
The burning question here is: what if a person believes in everything that is necessary and does nothing good, then what? Protestantism's answer is decisive: salvation is achieved only by faith.
Pronunciation - the justification of a sinner that occurs in baptism
Orthodoxy.
Currently, there are 15 autocephalous, that is, independent churches in the world: Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch (Syria, Lebanon), Jerusalem, Russian, Georgian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Cypriot, Hellenic (Greek), Albanian, Polish, Romanian, Czechoslovakian, American In addition, there are two autonomous Orthodox churches - Finnish (since 1957) and Japanese (since 1970)
All Orthodox churches have common doctrine and cult, while they retain canonical independence. The Patriarch of Constantinople, if considered “ecumenical,” is understood as “first among equals,” and he is not given the right to interfere in the activities of other Orthodox churches. The limits of independence of autonomous churches are determined by agreements with the autocephalous church that granted it autonomy. Administratively, autocephalous churches are divided into exarchates, dioceses, vicariates, deaneries, and parishes. Thus, the Russian Orthodox Church has 4 exarchates, 76 dioceses, 11 vicariates. In addition, a number of autocephalous churches have missions, deaneries, and metochions under other Orthodox churches. System of organization and management of Orthodox churches.
Orthodoxy, like Protestantism, does not have a single control center like the Vatican. Autocephalous churches are headed by patriarchs (archbishops, metropolitans), elected by local councils for life. There are synods under the patriarchs. Exarchates are governed by exarchs, and dioceses are governed by diocesan bishops, under whom, in some cases, diocesan councils are created. Dioceses consist of districts and parishes. The Orthodox Churches have not held ecumenical councils since the 8th century (the last council in which the Orthodox churches participated was the Second Council of Nicaea in 783-787). Each of them, at local councils, approves canonical rules, revises or supplements the lists of saints, and determines the forms of attitude towards heresies and schisms. For example, at a local council of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1971, the anathema towards the Old Believers was lifted. All Orthodox churches are characterized by a hierarchical principle of governance. All clergy are divided into higher, middle and lower. In addition, the clergy is divided into black (monastic) and white (married).
Features of Orthodox dogma.
The basis of Orthodox dogma is the Niceno-Tsargrad Creed, approved at the first two Ecumenical Councils of 325 and 381. The 12 members (paragraphs) of which formulate ideas about God as a creator, about his relationship to the world and man. This includes ideas about the trinity of God, the Incarnation, atonement, resurrection from the dead, baptism, the afterlife, etc.
The Orthodox Church declares the basic provisions of faith (dogmas) to be absolutely true, indisputable, eternal, communicated to man by God and incomprehensible by reason. Only those provisions of the doctrine that were approved by the first seven ecumenical councils are considered true. The rest, adopted later, are declared erroneous, contradicting “holy scripture.” The refusal of Protestant churches to reject most sacraments and to divide believers into laity and clergy is also considered an error.
Modern Orthodoxy.
The modernization of religion is caused primarily by the changes that have occurred in the minds of the majority of believers, not only under the influence of scientific discoveries and new theories, but also the new socio-political conditions of their lives. And, being a reaction to a change in the consciousness of believers, religious modernism has a reverse impact on this consciousness, forming new system religious orientation.
A specific feature of the modern modernization of Orthodoxy is not only the revision of socio-political and socio-historical concepts, but also the fact that, without going beyond the boundaries of orthodox dogmatic principles, many clergy interpret them in a new way. More and more attention is being paid to the relationship between faith and knowledge, science and religion.
Catholicism.
Catholicism is the most widespread Christian denomination, with adherents in all areas globe. According to the European press, at the beginning of the 80s the number of Catholics was about 800 million people - about 18% of the world's population. The Catholic Church is strictly centralized, has single head- the Pope, a single center - the Vatican, a city-state in the center of Rome with an area of 44 hectares, which has its own coat of arms, flag and other attributes of statehood, down to a small guard. The combination of secular and religious power is a rare case in the history of modern times. Secular power The Pope in its present form was established by the Lateran Treaty of 1929 between the fascist government of Mussolini and Pope Pius XI, according to which the State of Vatican City was created, its international sovereignty was recognized, and the Church received a number of privileges in the country.
The Pope, through the Roman Curia, which has a complex administrative structure, leads the entire church and its numerous organizations operating in the vast majority of countries in the world. The main Catholic hierarchs - cardinals and bishops - are appointed by the pope from among the clergy different countries. The College of Cardinals (conclave) elects from among itself a pope for life, who, according to Catholic doctrine, is “the vicar of Jesus Christ, the successor of St. Peter, the highest head of the universal church, the Western Patriarch, the primate of Italy, the archbishop and metropolitan of the Roman province, the sovereign of the city-state of the Vatican ”, crowns the multi-level hierarchy of the authoritarian-monarchical organization of Catholicism. As a sovereign state, the Vatican exchanges diplomatic representatives with other states, including Italy. The modern Catholic Church is a large religious and political organization that has a great influence not only on the worldview of its followers - believers, but also on the socio-philosophical and ethical theories that arise in society. Play an active role in the ideological and political life modern states Catholicism is helped by the peculiarities of its structure, historical traditions and experience, the presence of an extensive network of mass organizations - a huge church apparatus with numerous monastic orders (the largest of them: Jesuits - 27 thousand, Franciscans and Salesians - 20 thousand, Christian Brothers - 16 thousand. , Capuchins - 12 thousand, Benedictines - 10 thousand, Dominicans - 8 thousand). In total, the Catholic Church has over 1.5 million monks and nuns, including about 400 thousand priests. The activities of the Catholic Church are also characterized by the involvement of not only the clergy, but also lay Catholics in carrying out tasks of a socio-political nature. Catholicism has large political parties, trade unions, youth and other organizations.
Features of the Catholic faith.
Compared to Orthodoxy, Catholicism has a number of features in its doctrine and cult. Sharing the general Christian dogma of the divine Trinity, faith in the truth of the Bible and the system of myths about the creation of the world and man set forth in it, Catholicism recognizes, for example, the “proceeding” of the holy spirit not only from God the Father, as the Orthodox Church believes, but also from God son. Catholics believe in the existence of purgatory (except for heaven and hell), and recognize the infallibility in matters of faith and morality of the Pope, who is “the vicar of Christ on Earth.” Catholics consider the source of their doctrine not only “sacred scripture,” that is, the Bible, but also “tradition,” church tradition, in which they, unlike Orthodox Christians, include not only the decisions of the first seven Ecumenical Councils, but also subsequent councils, as well as popes' judgments However, only the church has the right to interpret the Bible. The clergy in Catholicism is distinguished by its vow of celibacy and the so-called doctrine of the reserve of good works - divine grace, which is distributed by priests.
The sacraments and rituals common to Christianity are also celebrated in a unique way in Catholicism. For example, the sacrament of baptism is performed by pouring water or immersion in water, whereas in Orthodoxy it is performed only by immersion in water. The sacrament of anointing in Catholicism, called confirmation, is performed when the child turns seven or eight years old (in Orthodoxy - shortly after birth). The sacrament of the Eucharist is celebrated on unleavened bread (among the Orthodox - on leavened bread), while until recently only the clergy could partake of bread and wine, while the laity had to take communion only with bread.
Widespread, exalted veneration of the Mother of God and the doctrine of her bodily ascension, a magnificent theatrical cult using all types of art, extremely developed veneration of all kinds of relics, the cult of martyrs, saints and blessed, a strictly centralized hierarchical organization headed by the “infallible” Pope - these are the characteristic features of the Catholic Church. varieties of the Christian religion.
Modernism in Catholicism.
Currently, the leadership of the Catholic Church has also been forced to take the path of modernizing its views. Thirty years ago, during a period of clear confrontation between the countries of the socialist and capitalist systems, when Orthodoxy for the most part was going through hard times due to the dominance of atheistic views imposed on the majority of the population, Catholicism, which actively supported the ideological struggle against communists and that is why it flourished in capitalist countries, was already forced to reconsider its positions. Then the main reasons were those social changes taking place in political system countries of the globe: expansion of the socialist camp, successes in the development of socialist countries; they influenced even such a traditionally conservative institution as the Catholic Church, not allowing it to associate itself with reactionary politics. For example, we can compare the actions of Pope Pius XII (during his pontificate 1939-1958) and those who followed him John XXIII (1958-1963), Paul VI (1963-1978) and John Paul II (1978-2005): if the first unconditionally supported the policy “ cold war”, then those who followed repeatedly spoke out in defense of peace, for the prohibition of nuclear weapons, and general disarmament.
In the intra-church, strictly religious area, the modernization of Catholicism is carried out in order to adapt religious doctrine and organization to the spirit of today, so that they do not contradict too much the secular mood and views of modern man. Reform activities here are aimed at getting rid of archaisms and absurdities, making church canons and religious rituals more attractive to believers, etc. In particular, the constitution on liturgy adopted by the XXI Ecumenical Council prescribes combining worship with local customs, especially in Asian and African countries; in some parts of the mass and during the performance of rituals, use local spoken languages, simplify the mass so that it is understandable to ordinary believers, pay more attention to sermons, the delivery of which on weekdays is strongly recommended, and on holidays is declared obligatory; allows all believers to partake of bread and wine.
Influenced modern science Catholic leaders also advocate a “modernized” interpretation of “sacred scripture” and call for abandoning the literal interpretation of the most controversial biblical ideas. Also, the modern Catholic Church is conducting a kind of campaign to achieve agreement with science, dissociating itself from historical facts that compromise it, such as the persecution of Galileo Galilei by the church, recognizing their fallacy.
Protestantism
Protestantism is one of the main directions of Christianity, along with Orthodoxy and Catholicism, covering many independent confessions and churches. The peculiarities of the ideology and organization of modern Protestantism are largely determined by the history of its emergence and development.
Protestantism arose in the 16th century, during the Reformation. It was no coincidence that the first act of the bourgeois revolution took place in the form of religious wars. The feelings and consciousness of the masses were completely dependent on the spiritual food offered by the church; therefore, the historical movement, the content of which was the transition from feudalism to capitalism, had to take on a religious coloring.
One of the first steps of the reformation movement in Germany was Martin Luther’s speech against indulgences; he believed that “God cannot and does not want to allow anyone to dominate the soul, except himself.” A person can save his soul only through faith, which is directly given by God, without the help of the church. This doctrine of Luther about salvation or justification by faith in the atoning sacrifice of Christ became one of the central tenets of Protestantism.
The Lutheran Reformation proclaimed the doctrine of the universal priesthood, the equality of all believers before God. Under the slogan of restoring the traditions of early christian church a demand was put forward for the abolition of the separate class of priests, the elimination of monks, prelates, the Roman Curia, that is, the entire expensive hierarchy. Together with the Catholic hierarchy, the authority of papal decrees and messages, decisions of councils was rejected; the only authority in matters of faith was recognized as “sacred scripture,” which every believer had the right to interpret according to his own understanding. Rejecting the church hierarchy and special sacred rites as a path to the salvation of the soul, this teaching considered man’s worldly activity as serving God, and it was in worldly life that man had to seek salvation; hence the condemnation of monasticism, celibacy of the clergy, etc. followed.
The document that expressed the essence of the reform that took place is the “Augsburg Confession,” which is a statement of the foundations of Lutheranism. In 1530 he was presented to Emperor Charles V, but was rejected by him, which led to a war between the emperor and the princes who accepted Luther's reformation, ending in 1555 with the Peace of Augburg. The princes were given the right to determine the religion of their subjects independently.
In the first half of the 16th century, the reform movement began to quickly spread beyond Germany; it established itself in Austria, the Scandinavian countries, the Baltic states, and separate communities appeared in Poland, Hungary, and France. At the same time, new varieties of the reform movement arose in Switzerland - Zwinglianism and Calvinism, more consistent in their bourgeois essence than Lutheranism. Zwinglianism more decisively broke with the ritual side of Catholicism, refusing to recognize the special magical power - grace behind the last two sacraments preserved by Lutheranism - baptism and communion: communion was seen as a simple rite performed in memory of the death of Jesus Christ, in which bread and wine became only symbols his body and blood. The organization also consistently followed the republican principle: each community itself elected its own priest and was independent. Calvinism, theologically associated with one of the main principles of the Reformation - justification by faith, and not “good works,” became much more widespread. One of the main tenets of Calvinism is the doctrine of “absolute predestination”: even before the creation of the world, God supposedly predetermined the destinies of people, some were destined for heaven, others for hell, and no efforts of people, and no “good deeds” could change what was destined by the Almighty. From the very beginning, Calvinism was characterized by petty regulation of personal and public life believers in a spirit of sanctimonious decency and intolerance of any dissent. In accordance with its dogmatic basis, Calvinism discarded almost all the external attributes of the Catholic cult: icons, candles, vestments, etc. The main place in the service was taken by reading and commenting on the Bible and the singing of psalms. The leading role in the communities was played by elders (elders) and preachers. Doctrinal issues were resolved by congregations - special meetings of preachers.
Unlike Germany and Switzerland, where the reformation began as a popular movement, in England it was an initiative of the ruling elite. In 1534, the English parliament declared the independence of the church from the pope and declared its head to be King Henry VIII. All English monasteries were closed, their property was confiscated in favor of the royal treasury, while the preservation of Catholic dogmas and rituals was announced. Over time, the influence of Protestantism on the Anglican Church intensified; it accepted the dogmas of justification by faith and the Holy Scriptures as the only source of faith, and rejected the teachings of Catholicism about indulgences, the veneration of icons and relics. But at the same time, the Catholic dogma about the saving power of the church was recognized, although with some restrictions, the liturgy and some other rituals were preserved, and the episcopate remained inviolable.
In Scotland, the movement for church reform took place under the banner of Calvinism and was associated with the struggle against the Stuart dynasty, which ended in the late 60s with the execution of Mary Stuart. The Presbyterian Church, which grew out of Calvinism, proceeded from the recognition of the autocracy of Christ in the community of believers and the equality of its members; in connection with this, the bishopric was eliminated and only the presbytery was preserved.
With the aggravation of social contradictions in England at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries, a bourgeois opposition to the absolutist regime emerged, among which Calvinism, whose adherents are called Puritans, became widespread. The activation of democratic elements led to the emergence of various religious sects: Congregationalists, Baptists, Quakers, etc. In most cases, the formation of these sects in a religious form reflected the disappointment of the lower classes in the results of the bourgeois revolution.
Thus, during the Reformation in Germany and Switzerland and then during the bourgeois revolutions, primarily in England, the main currents that represent Protestantism at the present time were formed. The main varieties of reformed Christianity were and remain Lutheranism and Calvinism, which arose directly during the Reformation. All other Protestant formations vary the basic principles of these movements.
Sources of faith
Catholics consider the Bible (Holy Scripture) to be the main source of their faith. However, the Catholic edition of the Bible (Vulgate) has a number of features. Thus, they accept the Old Testament not in Greek, as with the orthodox, but in the Latin translation made by St. Jerome (d. 420). This translation into different time was supplemented and corrected until the Council of Trent (1546) approved the set of canonical (inspired) books and it came into general use in the Western Church. At the same time, the composition of the canon was expanded and today includes 46 books of the Old Testament (45 if we count the book of Jeremiah and the book of Lamentations as one book) and 27 of the New Testament.
In fact, throughout the history of the Roman Church, ordinary Catholics were prohibited from reading the Bible, and attempts to translate it into national languages were brutally persecuted. Only the Second Vatican Council lifted the ban on the reading of the Bible by the laity, and later Pope John Paul II allowed its translations. But even today, only the hierarchy retains the right to interpret “complex” passages of Holy Scripture.
The second source is considered to be Sacred Tradition. It includes not only the decisions of the Ecumenical Councils and the works of the “Church Fathers,” but also documents of the councils of the Catholic Church (21 councils in total) and the Roman pontiffs. It is in this part of Tradition that the innovations introduced by the Catholic Church are recorded. In addition, the Tradition includes the writings of those theologians who are considered teachers of the church. Here it must be borne in mind that this section of the Tradition was constantly changing. If in the first centuries the list of church teachers contained four names (St. Jerome, St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, St. Gregory the Great), today it contains 31 names, including two women: St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) and St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582).
Confessional and dogmatic features of Catholicism
Being one of the directions of Christianity, Catholicism in its teaching contains a significant amount of general Christian provisions; the concept of the triune god, the creation of the world, the coming end of the world and Last Judgment, the virgin conception of Christ by the Virgin Mary and his miraculous birth, preaching, death on the cross and resurrection on the third day, presence the afterlife, where the souls of the dead are, etc.
However, already in the first centuries of its existence, the Western Church, in fact, moves to the position dogmatic development, recognizing the right to introduce new provisions in the field of dogma. Formally, this approach continued until the 19th century. was not theologically argued in any way, although it was actively used in the practice of the Catholic Church. As a result, innovations appeared in the Catholic vision of Christianity, which constitute the specificity of Catholicism.
Historically, the first innovation in Catholic dogma was the dogma of the “filioque” (from the Latin Filioque), that is, the addition of the phrase “and from the Son also” to the doctrine of the Trinity. Thus, unlike the Orthodox, Catholics believe that the Holy Spirit comes not only from God the Father, but also from Christ too. This addition, emphasizing the divine nature of Christ, was first officially adopted in 589 at a local council in Toledo during the struggle against the Arians, who denied the “consubstantiality” of the Father and the Son and recognized only the “similarity” of Christ. Then the innovation was not accepted by the Vatican, although it became widespread in a number of local churches. This innovation became common in the official church only at the beginning of the 11th century, when the belief had already developed that popes were vicars (vicars) of Christ on Earth. In 1014, Pope Benedict VIII officially added the filioque to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. Later, this emphasis was strengthened by the introduction of a number of holidays that other Christian denominations do not know: the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Christ, the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, etc.
The system of Mariological (Mother of God) dogmas is also unique. To the common Christian teaching about the Mother of God, who immaculately conceived and gave birth to the sons of God, Jesus Christ, was added the dogma about the Immaculate Conception and the Virgin Mary herself by her mother Anna (1854). In a special message, Pius IX wrote: “We declare, express and define that the doctrine which contains that the most blessed Virgin Mary was in the first instant of her conception, by virtue of exceptional grace and (exceptional) withdrawal, is preserved - in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the savior the human race - untouched from every stain of original sin - (that this teaching is) revealed by God and therefore must be the firm and constant faith of all the faithful." It should be noted that the feast of the Conception of the Virgin Mary became widespread in the Western Church already in the 8th-9th centuries, but then it encountered serious opposition from a number of major Catholic theologians. They feared that the doctrine of the universal nature of the atoning sacrifice of Christ himself would be jeopardized. However, the popularity of the idea was so great that the pope ignored the opinion of theologians. But the development of Catholic Mariology did not stop there. In 1950, Pope Pius XII introduced a new dogma about the bodily ascension of the Virgin Mary. In accordance with this dogma, Catholics believe that after death, angels carried the body of the Virgin Mary to heaven, where she henceforth reigns together with her son. In 1964, Pope Paul VI, with a special message, proclaimed her “Mother of the Church.” The development of Mariology led to innovations in cult practice. IN church calendar new holidays appeared: the Immaculate Conception, the apparition Mother of God in Fatima and others, pilgrimages to the places of her appearance were widely developed.
The Catholic concept of salvation is also specific in a number of ways. Recognizing, like the Orthodox, the possibility of salvation only through the church, by doing good deeds in its favor, Catholicism teaches that a Christian must do good deeds not only because he needs merit (merita) to achieve bliss in the afterlife, but also in order to bring satisfaction and avoid temporary punishments.
Closely connected with this position is the doctrine of supererogatory deeds and merits, the totality of which forms thesaurus meritorum or operum superrogationis, “treasury of good deeds.” The modern interpretation of this dogma was given by Pope Paul VI in the special apostolic constitution “Indulgentiarum doctrina” (“Doctrine of indulgences”). According to this doctrine, the believer who seeks to save his soul is not left alone. He is a member of the church as the mystical body of Christ, which means he is in constant supernatural unity with the entire community of saints, which allows him to be freed from punishment for sins more quickly and effectively. This possibility is due to the fact that the merits of Christ, the prayers and good deeds of the Virgin Mary and all the saints not only freed them from sins, but were also largely performed beyond religious duty. At the same time, “extraordinary” cases did not disappear and do not disappear without a trace. From them a “stock of supererogatory matters is formed, which the church disposes of.
From this dogma follows the doctrine of indulgences, i.e. about the right of the church to reveal to the sinner “the treasure of the merits of Christ and the saints”, so that he receives remission of temporary punishment for the sins he has committed, confirmed by special papal letters. Until the 16th century. indulgences, as a rule, were purchased for money, being effective way replenishment of the Vatican treasury. Special tables of the monetary equivalent of each sin were even developed.
Naturally, such a practice of atonement for sins caused enormous damage to the moral authority of the Catholic Church. In the 16th century it was prohibited - but it was precisely the practice, and not the right of the church to dispose of the stock of “super-duty” matters. The doctrine of salvation is supplemented by the dogma of purgatory as the third element of ideas about the afterlife.
According to Catholic dogma, the souls of the dead face different fates after death.
The souls of the righteous are immediately sent to heaven. Hell is destined for souls burdened with mortal sins. Souls that have not achieved purification before death, but are not burdened with mortal sins, are sent to purgatory. The dogma of purgatory was adopted in 1439 at the Council of Florence, which declared that special masses, prayers, etc., and the use of a supply of supererogatory affairs could shorten the time the soul spent in purgatory. There are no more or less specific descriptions of purgatory in Catholicism. Thus, in the new catechism of the Catholic Church, the question of the forms and methods of purification is not actually addressed, and purgatory itself is interpreted rather as a certain state of the soul.
An important feature of Catholic dogma is the dogma of papal infallibility in matters of faith and his primacy over all Christians, adopted at the First Vatican Council (1869-1970) and confirmed at the Second (1962-1965). It reads: “When the Roman Pontiff speaks ex cathedra, i.e. fulfilling the ministry of shepherd and teacher of all Christians, with his supreme apostolic authority determines the teaching in the field of faith and morals, obligatory for the entire Church, then, by virtue of God's help promised to him in the person of blessed Peter, he has that infallibility that the Divine Redeemer wanted him to The Church was gifted in definitions that relate to the teaching of faith and morals." Adopted in order to strengthen the church, shocked by the bourgeois revolutions of the 18th-19th centuries, the dogma continues to retain its significance today. It is in it that the church hierarchs see one of the main means of preserving the unity of the structure, teaching and cult of Catholicism.
Introduction
Catholicism (from the Greek katholikos - universal, universal), one of the main directions in Christianity along with Protestantism and Orthodoxy. Catholicism took shape as a doctrine and church organization after the division of the Christian Church into Catholic and Orthodox in 1054. Recognizes the basic Christian dogmas and rituals. The criterion for the correct understanding of Holy Scripture for Catholics is the word of the pope. Therefore, the basis of the doctrine of Catholicism is also the decrees of councils, as well as official documents of the head of the Catholic Church - the Pope. Also, the Catholic Church accepts as canonical biblical books that are considered non-canonical in the Eastern Church: Baruch, Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon and others. The Catholic Church has a single head - the Pope. The head of the church is considered the vicar of Christ on earth and the successor of the Apostle Peter. The Pope performs a triple function: Bishop of Rome, Shepherd of the Universal Church and Head of the Vatican State. The Pope, in accordance with the Lutheran agreements concluded in 1929 with the fascist dictator Mussolini, has his own sovereign state of the Vatican, which occupies a small part of the territory of the city of Rome. There are several Uniate churches under the tutelage of the Vatican.
Origins of Catholicism
The modern Catholic Church considers the entire history of the Church until the Great Schism of 1054 as its history.
Its origins are in a small Roman Christian community, the first bishop of which, according to legend, was the Apostle Peter. The process of isolation of Catholicism in Christianity began in the 3rd-5th centuries, when economic, political, and cultural differences between the western and eastern parts of the Roman Empire grew and deepened, especially after its division into the Western Roman and Eastern Roman Empires in 395.
The division of the Christian church into Catholic and Orthodox began with the rivalry between the popes and the patriarchs of Constantinople for supremacy in the Christian world. Around 867 there was a break between Pope Nicholas I and Patriarch Photius of Constantinople.
At the VIII Ecumenical Council the schism was accepted irreversible nature after the controversy between Pope Leo IV and the Patriarch of Constantinople, Michael Celuarius (1054), and was completed when the Crusaders captured Constantinople.
Spreading
The Catholic Church is the largest (by number of believers) branch of Christianity. As of 2007, there were 1.147 billion Catholics in the world.
Catholicism is the main religion in many European countries.
In 21 European countries, Catholics make up the majority of the population, in Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland - half.
In the Western Hemisphere, Catholicism is widespread throughout South and Central America, Mexico, Cuba, Canada and the United States.
In Asia, Catholics predominate in the Philippines and East Timor; there are large numbers of Catholics in Vietnam, South Korea and China.
In the Middle East there are many Catholics in Lebanon (Maronites, etc.)
According to various estimates, from 110 to 175 million Catholics live in Africa.
Until 1917 in the Russian Empire, according to official information, more than 10 million Catholics lived (mostly in the Kingdom of Poland). Estimates of the total number of Catholics in Russia (2005) vary from 200 thousand to one and a half million people. The catholic-hierarchy directory gives a figure of 789 thousand.
Greek Catholicism (or Catholicism of the Byzantine rite) is common among Belarusians, Slovaks, Hungarians, Romanians, Ukrainians, Transcarpathian Rusyns and Melkites of Syria, Lebanon and the USA; and also in small numbers among Albanians, Greeks, Bulgarians, Croats and Russians. Catholics of other Eastern rites live in India, the Middle East, Egypt, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Iraq and in the diaspora.
In total, there are now from 580 to 800 million adherents of Catholicism in the world.
Doctrine
The official philosophical doctrine of Catholicism is the teaching of Thomas Aquinas, adapted by the papacy to modern conditions in the form of neo-Thomism.
Within Catholicism there is a constant struggle between supporters of renewal (modernists) and its opponents (traditionalists). Various left-wing movements in defense of human rights are playing an increasingly important role.
The creed is based on the Bible and Sacred Tradition, which includes decrees Ecumenical Councils. The basic provisions of the doctrine are set out in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, canon law is systematized and set forth in the Code of Canon Law.
The main dogmatic innovations of the Western Church, on which the entire edifice of Catholicism is built, are the following:
· the doctrine of the absolute, sole power of the Roman bishop (pope) over the Church, and of his infallibility;
· the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit “and from the Son” (lat. filioque);
· these two points were the main reasons for the separation of the Roman see in the 11th century; the logical conclusion from the doctrine of the absolute, sole power of the pope over the Church was the doctrine of the teaching infallibility of the pope, formulated as a dogma at the First Vatican Council in 1870;
· the doctrine of salvation, of original sin changed, as a result of which dogmas arose about satisfaction with God for sins, about purgatory, the treasury of merit and indulgences;
· in the 19th and 20th centuries, two new, so-called marial dogmas were proclaimed: about the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary (1854) and Her bodily ascension to heaven (1950);
· In 1962 - 1964, at the Second Vatican Council, the doctrine of the Church and its role in the salvation of man was subjected to a radical revision.
Features of the doctrine
There are seven sacraments in the Catholic Church:
§baptism,
§marriage
§ anointing (confirmation)
§Eucharist
§confession
§blessing of oil
§priesthood.
The doctrine of the Catholic Church has a number of doctrinal provisions that distinguish it from the teachings of other Christian denominations:
§ filioque - the dogma of the procession of the Holy Spirit from both the Father and the Son (but not from different sources);
§ the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary and the dogma of Her bodily ascension;
§ the doctrine of purgatory;
§ the doctrine of indulgences;
§ widespread veneration of the Virgin Mary (hyperdulia);
§ veneration of martyrs, saints and blessed ones, with a distinction between the worship due to God alone (latria) and the veneration of saints (dulia);
§ confirmation of the monarchical power of the Bishop of Rome over the entire Church as the successor of the Apostle Peter;
§ the centralization of the church organization (a similar feature to some Protestant movements), in contrast to the autocephaly (autonomy) of Orthodox local churches;
§ the infallibility of the teaching of the Pope in matters of faith and morals, proclaimed ex cathedra (see Dogma of Papal Infallibility);
§ indissolubility of the sacrament of marriage; there is only the possibility of recognizing the invalidity of the marriage.
Features of the Latin rite
§ adding “and from the Son” (filioque) to the creed.
§ mandatory celibacy of the priesthood;
§ baptism, in most cases, by pouring water on the head rather than by immersion in water;
§ Confirmation can only be performed by a bishop (a priest can administer this sacrament only in exceptional cases, for example, in the case of mortal danger for the recipient of the sacrament);
§ eating for the Eucharist, as a rule, unleavened bread, not leavened bread;
§ the communion of the laity either with the Body, or with the Body and Blood of Christ - both are considered communion in its entirety; the sacrament of the priesthood only in Body and Blood;
§ emphasizing the meaning of the secretly establishing words of Christ in anaphora instead of epiclesis;
§ the sign of the cross is from left to right, and not from right to left as in the Byzantine rite (including among the Orthodox), while the sign is most often made with five fingers, as a symbol of the five wounds of Christ.
Excommunication
Catholicism has an “automatic” (ipso facto) excommunication for the following:
1.public renunciation of faith;
2.propaganda of views incompatible with the teachings of the Catholic Church;
.profanation of Holy Communion;
The Pope of Rome has the highest, full, immediate, universal and ordinary authority in the Catholic Church. The advisory bodies under the pope are the College of Cardinals and the Synod of Bishops. The administrative apparatus of the Church is called the Roman Curia, which includes congregations, courts and other institutions. The episcopal see of the pope together with the curia form the Holy See, located in the independent state of Vatican City. The Holy See is a subject of international law.
The Universal Catholic Church consists of the Latin Rite Church and the Eastern Catholic Churches, which profess one of the Eastern liturgical rites and have the status of “Sui iuris” (their right). In practice, this is expressed in the fact that these churches, while remaining in communion with the Pope and fully sharing Catholic dogma, have their own hierarchical structure and their own canon law. The largest Eastern Catholic churches are headed by a Patriarch or supreme archbishop. Eastern Patriarchs and supreme archbishops are equated to cardinal bishops of the Latin rite and occupy the place immediately behind the pope in the Catholic hierarchy.
The basic distinct territorial unit is a diocese, headed by a bishop. Some important dioceses have historically been called archdioceses. Other types of territorial units are equated to dioceses:
§ apostolic vicariate
§ apostolic prefecture
§ apostolic administration
§ military ordinariate
§ territorial prelature
§ territorial abbey
In the Eastern Catholic Churches, there are also exarchates.
Several dioceses (and archdioceses) may constitute a metropolitanate or an ecclesiastical province. The center of the metropolitanate necessarily coincides with the center of the archdiocese, thus the metropolitan in the Catholic Church is necessarily an archbishop. In some countries (Italy, USA, etc.) metropolises are united into ecclesiastical regions. The bishops of most countries are united in the Conference of Catholic Bishops, which has great powers in organizing the church life of the country.
Dioceses consist of parishes, which are headed by parish priests, subordinate to the bishop. The rector in the parish may be assisted by other priests, called vicars. Sometimes nearby parishes unite into deaneries.
A special role in the Catholic Church is played by the so-called institutions of consecrated life, that is, monastic orders and congregations; as well as the Society of Apostolic Life. Institutes of consecrated life have their own statutes (approved by the pope); their territorial organization does not always correspond to the diocesan structure of the church. Local units of monastic orders and congregations are sometimes subordinate to local diocesan bishops and sometimes directly to the pope. A number of orders and congregations have a single head (General of the Order, Superior General) and a clear hierarchical structure; others represent.
The clergy includes only men. There are white clergy (consisting of priests serving diocesan churches) and black clergy (monasticism). The clergy constitutes three degrees of priesthood: deacon, priest (priest) and bishop (bishop).
Clergy (servants of the Church who are not ordained during the sacrament of the priesthood) have two degrees - acolytes and readers - and do not belong to the clergy.
Before the Second Vatican Council, clergy were also included in the clergy. The entire clergy was divided into higher ranks (ordines maiores) - bishops, presbyters, deacons and subdeacons, and minor ranks (ordines minores) - ostiarii, choristers, readers, exorcists and acolytes.
Celibacy is compulsory for priests and bishops of the Latin Rite. In the 20th century, the institution of the permanent diaconate was restored; celibacy is not required for permanent deacons, but such a deacon will no longer be able to become a priest. In the Eastern rites, celibacy is only mandatory for bishops.
Divine service
The predominant rite in the Catholic Church is Latin or Roman, widespread throughout the planet.
Other Western rites are limited to territorial boundaries or the boundaries of monastic orders. In northwestern Lombardy, in addition to the city of Monza, about 5 million people practice the Ambrosian rite, in the city of Braga (Portugal) - the Braga rite, and in the city of Toledo and a number of other Spanish cities - the Mozarabic rite, in which there are a number of differences from the liturgy of the Roman rite . Eastern rites are used in the worship of Eastern Catholic churches.
Characteristic features of worship in the Latin rite
Catholic Church Latin Rite
Before the Second Vatican Council, worship was traditionally performed on Latin. After this council, it is also performed in national languages.
The liturgy of the Latin rite, the Mass, is the main liturgical event at which the sacrament of the Eucharist is celebrated. Consists of the Liturgy of the Word ( main element which is reading the Bible) and the Eucharistic Liturgy. Communion in the Latin rite before the Second Vatican Council was carried out under one type for the laity and under two types for the clergy. After the Second Vatican Council, the practice of receiving communion under two forms and for the laity became increasingly widespread. For the sacrament, unleavened bread is used - the host.
The liturgical year begins with Advent (Nativity Fast). Among the periods of the liturgical year, two periods of fasting stand out - Advent and Lent, two holidays - Christmas and Easter. Other periods of the liturgical year are united under the name “ordinary time.” There are three ranks church holidays- “memory” (of a saint or event), “holiday” and “triumph”. The two main holidays of the liturgical year - Easter and Christmas - are celebrated with an octave, that is, within eight days after the celebration itself (Octave of Easter, Octave of Christmas). The three days preceding Easter Sunday - Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Great Saturday - represent the pinnacle of the liturgical annual cycle and are united under the name Easter Triduum.
Daily reading of the Liturgy of the Hours (breviary) is obligatory for clergy and monastics. Lay people can use the breviary in their personal religious practice.
Non-liturgical services include passive services, including the Way of the Cross, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, prayer processions, church community recitation of prayers (mainly the Rosary), etc.
It is customary for Catholic Christians (both Western and Eastern rites) to greet each other with the exclamation “Glory to Jesus Christ,” which is usually followed by the response “Forever and ever!” Amen!”, and in some communities “Glory forever!” or “Glory forever!”
Old Catholics broke away from the Catholic Church due to rejection of some decisions of the First, and, as a consequence, the Second Vatican Council. In addition, there are still a large number of fringe groups that call themselves Catholics, but are not recognized as such by the Holy See. Many such groups are doctrinally on a conservative Christian fundamentalist platform, are effectively their own organizational autonomy, and are doctrinally some variant of Orthodoxy or Protestantism.
Catholic Church
The center of the cult is the temple. Gothic style in architecture. which spread throughout Europe at the end of the Middle Ages, contributed greatly to the development and strengthening of the Catholic Church. The huge space of the Gothic cathedral, incommensurate with the height of a person, its vaults, towers and turrets directed towards the sky evoke thoughts of eternity, that the church is a kingdom not of this world and bears the stamp of the kingdom of heaven, and all this with enormous capacity temple. At Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. for example, up to nine thousand people can pray at the same time.
Visual media and the possibilities of Catholic art also have their own characteristics. The strict canon of Orthodox icon painting reduces to a minimum the possibilities for the manifestation of the creative imagination of the icon painter. Western artists have always had fewer restrictions in depicting religious subjects. Painting and sculpture are quite naturalistic.
A special role in Catholic worship is given to music and singing. The powerful, beautiful sound of the organ emotionally enhances the effect of the word in worship.
Attire of Catholic clergy
The everyday clothing of a Catholic priest is a long black cassock with a stand-up collar. The bishop's cassock is purple, the cardinal's is purple, the pope's is white. As a sign of the highest spiritual power, the pope puts on a miter - a gilded headdress - during worship, and as a sign of the highest earthly power - a tiara. The tiara is based on a miter, on which three crowns are worn, symbolizing the triple rights of the pope as judge, legislator and clergyman. The tiara is made of precious metals and stones. She is crowned with a cross. The papal tiara was worn only in exceptional cases:
at the coronation,
during major church holidays.
A distinctive detail of the papal attire is the pall and i. This is a wide white woolen ribbon with six black cloth crosses sewn onto it. The pallium is placed around the neck, one end goes down to the chest, and the other is thrown over the shoulder to the back.
Catholic holidays and fasts
Important elements of the cult are holidays, as well as fasts that regulate the everyday life of parishioners.
Catholics call the Nativity Fast Advent. It begins on the first Sunday after St. Andrew's Day - November 30th. Christmas is the most solemn holiday. It is celebrated with three services:
at midnight, at dawn and during the day, which symbolizes the birth of Christ in the bosom of the Father, in the womb of the Mother of God and in the soul of the believer. On this day, a manger with a figurine of the infant Christ is displayed in churches for worship. The Nativity of Christ is celebrated on December 25 (until the 4th century, this holiday was combined with Epiphany and Epiphany). Epiphany among Catholics is called the Feast of the Three Kings - in memory of the appearance of Jesus Christ to the pagans and the worship of Him by the three kings. On this day, thanksgiving prayers are held in churches: gold is sacrificed to Jesus Christ as a king, a censer is sacrificed to God, and myrrh and fragrant oil are sacrificed to a man. Catholics have a number of specific holidays:
Feast of the Heart of Jesus - a symbol of hope for salvation,
Feast of the Heart of Mary - a symbol of special love for Jesus and salvation, Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary (December 8).
One of the main Mother of God holidays - the Ascension of the Mother of God - is celebrated on August 15 (for the Orthodox - the Dormition Holy Mother of God).
The holiday of All Souls (November 2) is established in memory of those who have passed away. Prayer for them, according to Catholic teaching, reduces the length of stay and suffering of souls in purgatory. The Catholic Church calls the sacrament of the Eucharist (communion) the Feast of Corpus Christi. It is celebrated on the first Thursday after Trinity.
Catholicism in Russia
The first contacts between Rus' and Catholicism date back to the era of the assimilation of Christianity by the Slavic world in the 9th century. Then the Enlightenment mission of the holy brothers Cyril and Methodius met with opposition from Catholicism, for which it seemed unthinkable to translate the sacred texts of Scripture and worship into national languages (this was called the “trilingual heresy”). After the schism, Rome begins a war against the Orthodox world; in 1204, the Latin crusaders, with the blessing of the Pope, ravaged Constantinople and desecrated Christian shrines, and in 1237 the Pope blesses crusade against the Russians. In addition to military campaigns that devastated many Russian lands, Rome actively used diplomacy. The pope's ambassadors sought, mostly unsuccessfully, to persuade the Russian princes to convert to Latinism in exchange for help in the fight against the Tatars. However, Rome constantly sent the Tatars themselves against Russia, as evidenced by the constant presence of papal representatives at the court of the khan.
Attempts to subordinate Orthodoxy to Rome continued further - after the conclusion of the Union of Florence in 1438, the Vatican's protege, Metropolitan Isidore of Moscow, was deposed in Moscow for apostasy and fled to Europe. At the court of Ivan IV the Terrible, the mission of the first Jesuit to arrive in Russia, Antonio Possevino, ended in failure, offering, in exchange for Rome's diplomatic support for Russia, its subordination to the papal throne. However, he failed to obtain permission to build Catholic churches in the Moscow state.
In the “time of troubles” of the early 17th century, Russia experienced direct military intervention by Catholics, who, among other atrocities, plundered churches and desecrated shrines. The intrigues of papal diplomats largely became the cause of the tragic split in the Russian Church. During the reign of Princess Sophia, two French Jesuits arrived in Moscow. In 1689, after the fall of Princess Sophia, at the request of Patriarch Joachim, these Jesuits were sent abroad. In subsequent years, Jesuits came to Moscow again. Active propaganda of Catholicism forced Peter I to expel the Jesuits from Russia in 1719. Jesuits reappeared in Russia under Alexander I, who, after much hesitation, sanctioned the activities of the Jesuit order in Russia, but set a condition for them - to refrain from promoting Catholicism. In 1815, the Jesuits were expelled from St. Petersburg and Moscow, and in 1820 the activity of the Order in Russia was stopped. However, even after the ban, envoys came to Russia not for the purpose of spiritually nurturing their flock, but for the purpose of converting to their faith. Catholicism finds isolated supporters in high society in St. Petersburg and Moscow, where some aristocrats accept it (for example, Prince Odoevsky, Princess Golitsyna, Countess Rostopchina, Prince Gagarin, who became a Jesuit and actively worked to convert not only Russia, but even Orthodox Greece to Latinism ). But these were only a few.
Catholic population in Russia for a long time did not have. Catholics were predominantly foreigners from trading people who settled in some Russian cities. The situation changed only after Catholic Poland joined Russia. At the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. in the territory Russian Empire there were 12 Catholic dioceses and 10.5 million parishioners, six Catholic orders and several theological seminaries.
The Roman throne welcomed the 1917 revolution. The Exarch of Russian Catholics, Leonid Fedorov, stated: “All Latin Catholics breathed freely when the October Revolution took place.”
After October 1917 and the separation of Poland, the number of adherents of Catholicism in Russia decreased: in 1922, 1.5 million Catholics lived within the borders of the USSR.
Until 1927, the Vatican officially and unofficially supported the Bolshevik government, helping it emerge from diplomatic isolation. In exchange for this, the papal throne expected the Bolsheviks to support Rome's desire to establish itself in Russia in the conditions of the systematic suppression of Orthodoxy. Many senior leaders of Catholicism emphasized that terror against the Russian Orthodox Church is justified, since it leads to the strengthening of Latinism. However, since the late 20s, the anti-religious policy of the Soviet government extended to Russian Catholics. Despite this, the Vatican continued to believe that the spread of atheism in Russia was beneficial for Catholicism. Thus, the Jesuit Schweigel declared in 1936: “The Bolsheviks perfectly prepared the way for Catholic missionaries.” A little earlier, in February 1931, Bishop d'Herbigny wrote to the Catholic Bishop Neve in Moscow about his project to appoint Bishop Bartholomew, who had secretly converted to Catholicism, to the Russian patriarchate with the help of the Vatican. The grateful "chosen one" would sign the union that Russia would have to accept in response to the generous gesture of Rome - the gift to Russia of the relics of St. Nicholas the Pleasant. D'Herbigny outlined his project, in particular, as follows: "... to prepare the ground for the election of a new Russian Patriarch, who, ... would arrive before his enthronement on West and, perhaps, would conclude a union with the Holy See... A suitable candidate could be Bishop Bartholomew. First of all, it is necessary to obtain signatures (elections by subscription) of primary importance from the imprisoned bishops... and then from others... After the arrival of all these documents at the Vatican, the chosen one will have to come “to Rome”... For example, with you, as a servant? Or a double? Or diplomatic baggage? Even if he does not proclaim the union... after his (prepared, supported or carried out by the Vatican) enthronement at a well-organized congress... he will take a new approach to the issue of proper recognition of the Pope and will take appropriate measures to conclude a union..." (See. The Papacy and its struggle with Orthodoxy. Digest of articles. Moscow. Strizhev Center. 1993. pp. 62-64).
In the years before World War II, the Vatican focused on the German bloc, concluding concordats (friendship treaties) with the regimes of Hitler and Mussolini. Rome welcomed the war against the USSR. The conversion of Orthodox Slavs to Catholicism is the strategic goal of Rome. Thus, back at the end of the 19th century, under Pope Leo XIII, to the accompaniment of speeches about the need to unite churches, the implementation of a long-term program of Catholicization of Central and Eastern Europe began with the support of anti-Russian Austria-Hungary. Particular attention was paid to the Sarajevo and Mostar region. Catholic communities arose literally out of nothing, receiving missionaries, money, literature (today Mostar is a NATO stronghold in Bosnia, and the Serbs were completely driven out of Sarajevo with the support of John Paul II). The Catholic Church in Yugoslavia actively supported the regime of the Croatian Nazi A. Pavelic, especially in his activities to destroy the Orthodox Serbs. Catholic priests and monks led detachments of Ustasha - Croatian fascists. Notorious concentration camp Jasenovac, where 40 thousand Orthodox Christians were killed, was headed by the commandant, the Franciscan monk M. Filipovich, and his assistants were the Catholic priests Brekalo and Kulina. In total, during the years of Ustasha rule, 700,000 Orthodox Serbs were killed, i.e. a third of the Serbian population of Croatia.
By 1961, the Catholic Church in the USSR numbered 1,179 communities. In 1983, Catholicism was represented by two dioceses in the Baltic states and individual parishes in the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus. In Russia itself, by the beginning of the 90s. only six parishes remained. In total, in the USSR, mainly in the Baltic states, in 1991 there were 1,465 communities.
The change in relations between the Soviet state and the Vatican began with the meeting of M. Gorbachev and Pope John Paul II in 1989. , after which the rapid development of Catholic activity in Russia begins. Since 1990, for the first time in the history of Russia, an apostolic nuncio, the permanent diplomatic representative of the Vatican, has been in Moscow. On April 13, 1991, two apostolic administrations for Catholics of the Latin rite were restored in Russia: in the European part of Russia with the center in Moscow, headed by the apostolic administrator Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz; in the Asian part of Russia with a center in Novosibirsk, the head is the apostolic administrator Jesuit Bishop Joseph Werth. Associations are registered with the Ministry of Justice Russian Federation. Canonically, they are subject to the jurisdiction of the Vatican and are part of the structure of the Roman Catholic Church. The administration includes more than 100 communities (parishes), uniting about 300 thousand believers, mainly Poles, Germans, and Lithuanians.
On February 2002, the Vatican officially announced the strengthening of the position of the Roman Catholic Church in Russia. By the decision of Pope John Paul II, the four apostolic administrations of the RCC existing in Russia became dioceses that will operate in Moscow, Novosibirsk, Saratov and Irkutsk, and the former apostolic administrator of central Russia Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz was appointed metropolitan. From now on, in Vatican documents, the territory of Russia will be called an “ecclesiastical province” headed by a metropolitan. There are currently several Catholic educational institutions. A lot of literature is published, including periodicals, proselytizing and ecumenical.
On the territory of the Novosibirsk region, the Catholic community was historically formed as a community of exiled Poles (before the revolution) and Volga Germans (during the Patriotic War). By the mid-80s, the parish consisted of several dozen people, served by one priest. In subsequent years, the Germans who formed the basis of the parish mostly left for Germany, but at the same time a rapid increase in the number of Catholic clergy and missionaries in Novosibirsk began. New parishes and monasteries began to open on the canonical territory of the Russian Orthodox Church, and a huge church was built. This activity is by no means aimed at working with the traditional Catholic flock, which is very small today; it is of a missionary, that is, proselytizing nature. Catholics teach classes in secondary schools where non-Catholic children study. Various monastic congregations are engaged in charity work, and there is a Catholic seminary that trains Russian priests. All this is being carried out in full accordance with the plans for the Catholicization of Russia and its involvement in a union with Rome, drawn up a century and a half ago by the Russian apostate Jesuit prince Ivan Gagarin, who wrote in 1862 about Orthodox Greece accepting a union with Rome: “When this Church (is in In appearance, the Greek-Uniate Church. - Ed.) will become prosperous and prosperous, observing its revered rite in all its purity and having an educated, pious, zealous clergy who in no way envy the Latin clergy, when schools arise in good condition, open to the public of both sexes and in all conditions, from the cradle, shelter and humble primary class and to colleges, seminaries, faculties, when hospitals, almshouses, charitable associations will come to the aid of every misfortune, when the word of God will be preached convincingly and simply from all pulpits, when books adapted to the needs of the population will be in his hands, it is impossible, so that the non-Uniate Greeks, in the face of such a spectacle, in the sight of such devotion, such mercy, such zeal, such enlightenment, do not recognize that the Spirit of God dwells here.... It is necessary that, comparing it with their own Church, all non-Uniate Greeks should be forced to say: "by appearance this is the same Church as ours, but it is filled with supernatural life, about which we have not the slightest idea." (I. Gagarin. The Future of the Greek-Uniate Church. Symbol, 32, Paris, 1994)
The Jesuit Order plays a special role in the proselytizing activity of the Vatican (the official name of the Russian branch of the order is the Independent Russian Region of the Society of Jesus). The Jesuit Order was founded in 1534 by the Spaniard Ignatius of Loyola. To the usual three monastic vows (celibacy, non-covetousness, obedience), a fourth has been added - the vow of unquestioning submission to the Pope. The Jesuits always gave priority to the creation of schools and universities. Currently, 54% of Jesuits are employed in education. Russian branch The Jesuit Order was registered by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation in October 1992 and is mainly engaged in missionary proselytizing work.
Novosibirsk became a Jesuit center. Bishop Joseph Werth is himself a Jesuit, and the statutes of this order prohibit its members from occupying episcopal sees other than missionaries. In September 1995, the Jesuit “center for spiritual development “Inigo” was created in Novosibirsk, focused not on working with the Catholic flock, but on attracting non-Catholics, mainly the intelligentsia, to Catholicism. The ideology and activities of the center are ecumenical in nature. The Jesuits strive to emphasize their communication with some Orthodox priests. However, in the politics of the modern Vatican, ecumenism actually means the expansion of earthly power over non-Catholics and non-Christians at the expense of the rejection of Christ. The activities of the Inigo Center are based on the modernist “theology of culture”, which is the basis for Vatican ecumenism.
The purpose of the Catholic mission in Siberia, as throughout Russia, is not to preach the Gospel. As the Venerable Elder Ambrose of Optina wrote about this 150 years ago, “they are not trying to convert and bring people to Christ, but to their dad.” Catholicism seeks to weaken the Orthodox Church and subject it to its spiritual and organizational influence. In 1991-93, the Roman Church financially and morally supported schismatics from the Church Abroad who illegally seized an Orthodox church in the city of Kuibyshev. They received humanitarian aid from France (distributed among the leadership of the schismatics); the leader of the group, priest Boris B., constantly visited the Catholic church. In the fall of 1996, Catholic priest Carrado took part in a legal conference organized by the most odious pseudo-Christian charismatic sect “Covenant” and which brought together sectarians of various persuasions with the aim of fighting the Russian Orthodox Church. Thus, the conference discussed methods of initiating legal proceedings against those Orthodox Christians who would publicly speak about the problems of sectarianism and heterodox aggression. In an interview, Carrado approved of the event.
In 1998, a joint “service” was practiced in the Novosibirsk Roman Catholic Church, in which, in addition to the rector of the Catholic cathedral, the pastor of the “7th Day Adventists” and the “priests” of the “Virgin Center” took part. Such a “prayer” meeting ended with the teaching of a general blessing to all those present simultaneously from the “shepherds” of the three represented movements.
At the same time, Catholics strive to advertise all cases of real and imaginary cooperation with the Russian Orthodox Church (for example, distorted and exaggerated information about cooperation in the anti-abortion commission published in the Catholic magazine “Right to Life”). Catholic missionaries constantly emphasize their supposedly benevolent attitude towards Orthodoxy, and even use traditional Orthodox symbols in their advertising - just like representatives of totalitarian sects or psychic scammers do. Catholics, offering the Orthodox, who are not experienced in the theological and historical details of the separation of Rome from the Church, cooperation for the purpose of reunification, deliberately conceal the deep differences between Latinism and Orthodox Christianity. This allows us to talk about the elements manifested in Latin missionary work that are characteristic of destructive totalitarian cults, just like Catholicism, striving for power over people through faith. The missionary task of the Vatican is to form among the Orthodox, especially among the clergy, a layer that is favorable towards the Latin teaching and serves the cause of concluding a union.
Here is an example of proselytism of the Roman Catholic Church in Novosibirsk. In the summer of 1996, a Catholic orphanage was opened, designed for 50 children, and enrollment of pupils began in the fall. The first children admitted to this orphanage were three Orthodox children, to whom access to close Orthodox Christians, including their godfather, was immediately restricted. Almost immediately, the Orthodox were met with a wary and unfriendly attitude from the staff, which later became clearly hostile. Referring to the fact that these people have no legal relationship with the children (really, what is an Orthodox godfather for Catholics?), they began to prevent visits. The director of the orphanage, Italian Ubaldo Orlandelli, threatened the children's godfather over the phone, and the orphanage guard threatened him with physical harm if he came again. Orthodox books were taken away from the children.
When creating the orphanage, Catholics repeatedly emphasized that religious education would not be conducted in the orphanage. And in fact, for several weeks, when the children were in the orphanage, the owners of the orphanage did not educate them, perhaps due to poor knowledge of the Russian language. It should be especially noted that the shelter’s employee is also a certain young German who is doing alternative service here in Russia - instead of serving in the Bundeswehr, he wished to go to missionary work in “backward” countries. It is obvious that in the orphanage children will not receive a national, patriotic education, much less an Orthodox education. Here completely different values will be formed - ecumenism, Western culture, denial of Russian history. It is also obvious that the declared non-religiousness of the shelter is nothing more than a crafty screen to cover up Rome’s ancient plans for the “Catholicization” of Russia. Let us remember that there have never been large groups of Russian Catholics in Russia. Catholicism is a traditional religion only for some peoples, a few representatives of which at different times lived and live in multinational Russia. Among the Russian population, only those few converted to Catholicism who consciously decided to renounce Russia and Orthodoxy and accept someone else's faith. History shows that the planting of Catholicism on Slavic lands always ended in bloodshed. Today we see the implementation of Rome’s plans to create an entire layer of Catholic population in Russia. The children to whom the attention of Latin missionaries is drawn are deprived of parents and have not received an education that would in any way root them in the national culture and faith of their fathers; they represent the most convenient “material” for “forming a new type of person,” being oriented towards Western values and Latin faith. Until recently, Siberia remained unaffected by this destructive work of the Roman Catholics for the Russian spirit. However, today Novosibirsk is becoming the center of Latinism in Asian Russia, which means that a bomb is being placed under our future, and in ten, fifty, a hundred years, blood will be shed on Siberian soil just as it is today in Serbia, Belarus and Ukraine.
Another example. In Cherepanovo, a deacon of the Catholic Church began to come to the church in the name of All Siberian Saints and distribute Catholic literature among parishioners, declaring that the time of separation had ended and Orthodox Christians could communicate with Catholics. Addressing the rector of the temple, he demanded that he be allowed to serve in this Orthodox church and take communion. This preacher of Latinism did not respond to the numerous admonitions of the abbot.
Catholic missionaries often refer to the fact that the anathemas of 1054 were lifted: in 1965, these anathemas were lifted by Pope Paul VI and the Patriarch of Constantinople Athenagoras. However, firstly, besides these anathemas, there are others, more important. Secondly, on December 28, 1965, Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Alexy I sent the following telegram to Archbishop Chrysostomos in Athens: “We have received a telegram informing us of the decision to lift the anathema imposed by Patriarch Michael Cerullarius on the legates of the Roman See in 1054. This act is being considered by us. as an action of the Local Church of Constantinople, addressed to the Roman Church, which has no theological significance for the entire Fullness of the Orthodox Church, for the division of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches is too deep and there are currently no appropriate grounds for overcoming it.”
In 1997, the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church characterized the activities of the Roman Catholic Church as the ongoing expansion of the union and proselytism, which should be opposed.
The number of members of the Roman Catholic Church, according to the latest data, reaches 900 million people.
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Luther's speeches, as is known, began with a protest against the sale of indulgences. Roman Catholic practice in this area was based on the doctrine of satisfaction to God for sins, according to which the sacrifice of Christ, no matter how great it is in its significance, does not free the penitent from the need to give God additional satisfaction for sins. According to Roman Catholic teaching, a person brings this satisfaction to Divine justice through his suffering, both through deeds of piety in earthly life and through torment in purgatory. “The meaning of papal indulgences is to free a person from this need to bring additional satisfaction to God. The money that a Roman Catholic paid for an indulgence ultimately played the role of an equivalent measure of such satisfaction. The matter changed little because money itself was not considered a means of satisfying God, but was only a means of acquiring guarantees for appropriate satisfaction from the treasury of merit.
By opposing the sale of indulgences, Luther had to reject their doctrinal basis - the Catholic teaching about additional satisfaction required from the penitent. He declared with all decisiveness that Christ had already paid the entire debt for the human race and that no more satisfaction was required. The Apology of the Augsburg Confession directly states: “The doctrine of human satisfaction is diabolical.”
Having rejected the doctrine of additional satisfaction, Luther naturally rejected everything that Roman Catholics consider to be the means of bringing such satisfaction, including the necessity for the justification of good works, and proclaimed his doctrine of justification (or salvation) by faith alone as the basis of Protestant soteriology (sola fide).
131. Thus, Luther, like the Catholics, sees the main way to save sinners from punishment not in the desire for moral purification and holiness, but only in evading punishment. What distinguishes his teaching from the Roman Catholic one is only the assertion that since Christ had already paid in full for human sins, he thereby freed those who remained in the faith from any need to atone for them through pious deeds.
Here it is necessary to dwell in detail on Luther’s reasoning, with which he refutes the teaching of Catholicism about satisfying God for sins and the need to perform good deeds for this.
In the “Members of Schmalkalden” there is such a reasoning on this issue, which, by the way, is very typical for people brought up on Roman Catholicism: “Satisfaction for sins is impossible, because no one knows how much good he would have to do for sin alone, not to mention everyone." In other words, a person who does not know the norm required of him can do more good than is necessary to satisfy, and still remain unsure of his salvation. According to Luther's teaching, there should be no such uncertainty in the system of relationships between man and God: provided certain conditions are met, a Christian should be completely confident about his salvation. It is not difficult to see that both Luther and the Roman Catholic theologians proceed from the same premises, which are of a purely legal nature.
What Luther is outraged by in Roman Catholic soteriology is not jurisprudence, not the very idea of payment for sins, but, firstly, the inconsistency of the teaching (satisfaction from two sources - brought by Christ and brought by man) and, secondly, the fact that the Roman Catholic the system forces a person to constantly worry about repentance and satisfaction.
In the Formula of Concord, Lutherans say this: “We must reject the idea that good works are necessary for salvation.”
Luther himself, during the monastic period of his life, had to suffer a lot from constant uncertainty as to whether his exploits were sufficient to satisfy God (Luther, apparently, did not pin his hopes on indulgences even then). Having embarked on the path of the Reformation, Luther tried to bring complete certainty to this issue: Christ paid everything and nothing is required of man - this is the main position of Lutheran soteriology. In support, texts from the Holy Scriptures were cited, which speak of salvation as a gift of God’s mercy.
132. Thus arose the Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith alone, which is the cornerstone of Lutheranism. “We are justified not through any of our own merits, but through faith in Christ” (“Augsburg Confession”). “Through faith in Him, and not through our merits, not through our repentance, not through our love” (“Apology”). “We acquire Christ’s merit not by works or money, but through faith by grace” (“Members of Schmalkalden”).
“This opinion of Luther comes from his understanding of faith as the Christian’s confidence in his personal salvation. To be saved, one must not just believe in Christ and in the work he accomplished, but in the fact that “to me... forgiveness of sins is given without my merit” ( "Apology"). Faith is “not the knowledge that God exists, that there is hell, etc., but the confidence that my sins are forgiven for the sake of Christ” (ibid.).
However, this faith is also not the merit of man. She is "a gift from God." “Faith is not a human thought that I myself could produce, but a Divine power in the heart.” Thus, faith is conceived by Lutherans as something passively acquired by man.
In Luther one can find comparisons of a person with a “pillar of salt” and a “block.” The man is even worse than a blockhead, because he is stubborn and hostile. His advantage, however, is that he retained the ability to believe. The “Formula of Concord” states that after the Fall “not even a spark of Divine powers remained in man.”
However, Lutherans are unable to consistently and completely carry out the idea of man’s complete passivity in the matter of his salvation. This idea does not fit in any way with the gospel teaching, which is very far from portraying a person as a “pillar of salt.” Lutherans do not deny the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament, and therefore still cannot completely reject the meaning of good works. The Augsburg Confession says that “good deeds must be done,” that “the law must be fulfilled.”
So, good deeds are completely unnecessary for salvation, but they still must be done, since without them there is no real faith, and therefore there is no salvation. It cannot be said that there was a clear consistency of judgment among Lutherans in their treatment of this issue. What is clear here is that Luther’s teaching is not so easy to reconcile with the Gospel.
Important provisions of Lutheran soteriology are the process of a person’s conversion to Christ and the moral consequences for him of the essence of justification itself, accepted by Lutheranism, expressed in the doctrine of pronunciation.
133. The essence of justification itself in Lutheran doctrine consists in the “declaration” of the sinner as righteous (“imputation” and “pronunciation”), after which the sinner becomes righteous due to the satisfaction that Christ brought. The dirty one is declared clean. God ceases to be angry with the sinner because He received complete satisfaction for his sins. The change, therefore, occurs not in man, but in God’s attitude towards him. The only change in man is that before he was subject to punishment and was in fear, but after pronunciation he is a “joyful, jubilant child of God.”
But is a person restored in this way to his moral dignity after turning to Christ?
The most detailed process of turning a sinner to God in the light of the Lutheran doctrine of justification is set out in the “Formula of Concord.”
“Conversion,” says the “Formula of Concord,” “neither completely, nor half, nor to any smallest or insignificant part belongs to the person himself, but is completely and completely produced by the Divine action.” A person only submits to this action, but does not participate in the work of his salvation. “We condemn,” it says there, “the teaching of the synergists that man... is only... half-dead... that free will... can, with its own powers, accept God and, to some, albeit weak and insignificant, degree, act with Him , promote and assist its impact."
How can this position of Lutheranism be reconciled with the preaching of the Gospel, which calls a person to activity, to the fight against sin, to repentance? The “Formula of Concord” considers calls to repentance not evangelical in the true sense of the word, but Old Testament, since the Gospel teaches that the Son of God “paid for all our sins.” “It is therefore impossible to derive the preaching of repentance from the Gospel in the proper sense.” The “Formula of Concord”, in fact, corrects the Gospel when it states:
“In this sense, all calls to repentance are removed from the Gospel and transferred to the realm of the Law.” They (these evangelical calls) “are not evangelical in the proper sense.”
134. Thus, the main point in the process of conversion is not repentance, but faith in the understanding in which it is given in the teachings of Luther. “It was through faith in the Gospel, or the promise of Christ, that all the patriarchs and all the saints from the beginning of the world were justified, and not because of their repentance or contrition or works (Apology).
The essence of the Lutheran doctrine of justification and pronunciation is stated in the “Schmalkaldic Members” as follows: “For the sake of our Intercessor Christ, God has deigned to consider us completely righteous and holy. Although the sin in our flesh has not yet been removed and put to death, He does not want to know it and does not punish him for it." “Thanks to faith in Christ, everything that is sinful and unclean in our deeds is not considered sin and deficiency.” “A man, completely by his personality and by his deeds, is declared and considered justified and holy.”
But is it worthy of God to declare evil good, to accept sinful things as holy? Did the apostles teach about such “justification”? Lutherans are again faced with the need to reconcile their doctrine of pronunciation with New Testament teaching. The New Testament scriptures speak of newness of life, of putting off the old man. Lutherans cannot completely reject the moral teaching of the Gospel. The Apology repeats this teaching when it says that faith “renews the heart, the mind, and the will, and makes of us a different people and a new creature.” But then, “why is the doctrine of pronunciation necessary? There is the same inconsistency here: on the one hand, the tendency to present the work of man’s salvation as taking place outside of man and apart from him, on the other, the impossibility of carrying out this point of view to the end without falling into sharp contradiction with the Holy Scriptures. As a result, Lutherans do not completely reject the moral side of justification, but only push it into the background.The “Formula of Concord,” based on the fact that complete moral renewal is unattainable in this life, contrasts it with the complete justification of a person and depicts this justification as a legal act, occurring in God, and not in man. “In justification, the righteousness of Christ is assimilated to us, without the fact that we ourselves have become righteous in our moral nature.” The last words show that we are not talking about the actual assimilation by man the righteousness of Christ, but only about the legal imputation of it to man.
135. A person who believes in his salvation ceases to worry about his final fate and becomes a “joyful, rejoicing child of God.” From all of the above it follows that this joy and jubilation is caused in him by a feeling of impunity; he is confident that God will not consider as sin and lack everything that is sinful and unclean in his affairs.
Luther's teaching on pronunciation and the very formulation of the question of the need for good deeds reveal a different religious psychology, a different gradation of values, a different understanding of the main goal. Consistently developing Luther's individual thoughts on justification, one could come to the strangest conclusions. But, it must be said, Luther himself tried, as far as possible, to avoid conclusions that would be in too obvious contradiction with Holy Scripture. In general, about Protestants, about their practical attitude to questions of justification, the same can be said that has already been said about Roman Catholics: in soul and heart they are often closer to Orthodoxy than their official teaching.
The fundamental difference between Luther's teaching on justification by faith alone and Orthodoxy lies in the different interpretation of the Gospel teaching.
Luther proceeds in his teaching mainly from those passages in the letters of the Apostle Paul where it is said that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law(Rom. 3:28), and by the works of the law is no flesh justified(Gal. 2:16). In other words, faith is contrasted here with the works of the law.
136. The Apostle Paul says this against those who thought that a person could be saved without Christ, by their own efforts. The Apostle Paul wants to say that salvation is accomplished by Christ and that a person’s works in themselves do not save. (If a person could accomplish his own salvation, there would be no need for Christ to come to earth). And when the “Formula of Concord” says that “the honor of justification belongs not to our miserable works, but to Christ,” the Orthodox recognize the correctness of this thought. Works are not a person’s “merit” before God; he does not acquire the right to salvation through his works. In this sense, works are not the legal basis of salvation. Salvation is not a price for deeds, it is a gift from God. But not everyone uses this gift. When the Apostle Paul speaks about those who were justified by faith, he cites the example of the Old Testament righteous, according to what was said: “the righteous shall live by faith.” This righteousness was imperfect and in itself insufficient for salvation, but it constitutes a moral condition for salvation and this explains why not everyone receives the gift of salvation . When going to God, a person is not passive, he participates with his whole being in the Cross of Christ in order to be resurrected with Christ. This apostolic teaching should not be forgotten.
Man draws strength from Christ for his renewal. By mystically uniting with Christ in the church body, a person becomes a participant in a new life. He is not only “declared” to be righteous, but becomes an actual participant in the righteousness of Christ, this New Adam, the renewer of human nature. The Church and the Apostle Paul are far from belittling a person, presenting him as filled with slavish joy that his sins are no longer punished. Christ exalted man and seated him in His person at the right hand of the majesty of God. God became man in order to raise man to deification. This is church teaching. Lutheran one-sided emphasis that salvation is a gift, and the simultaneous denial of human activity can lead to fatalism.
Archbishop Sergius of Finland (1867-1943), later Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, gave a profound analysis of the Protestant teaching on salvation in his classic work “Orthodox Teaching on Salvation” (29).
As a result of a careful study of the writings of the holy fathers and a comparison of the patristic teachings on salvation with heterodox teachings (Roman Catholic and Protestant), Archbishop Sergius came to the conclusion that it is in the understanding of salvation that the basis of religious differences lies and that in this matter “the difference between Orthodoxy and heterodoxy lies not in some particular omissions and inaccuracies, but right at the very root, in principle.” And further: “Orthodoxy and heterodoxy are opposite to each other, just as... self-love... and life according to Christ.” Before me, says the eminent author about the results of his research, two completely different worldviews arose, irreducible to one another. : legal and moral, Christian." In the legal worldview, the relationship between God and man is "similar to the relationship of a king to a subordinate and is not at all like a moral union"; God for man appears to be "only a means to achieving well-being." The moral worldview posits the highest good of man in holiness and the source of this holiness sees in God. Salvation, in generally accepted language, is the deliverance of a person from sin, curse and death. This definition can equally be accepted by both the Orthodox and the follower of the legal worldview. But the whole question is what each of them believes in salvation 137 the most important and essential. A self-lover will, of course, put in the first place the consequences of sin for a person’s well-being... He will explain salvation to himself as deliverance from suffering caused by sin." He will explain the very consequences of sin to himself by saying that God is angry and therefore punishes. Therefore, he understands salvation only as a change from God’s wrath to mercy, and imagines it in the form of an action that takes place only in the Divine consciousness and does not touch the human soul... Since all the attention of a sinful person is directed towards not suffering, in order to get a comfortable life in self-pleasure, then he does not think much about how this opportunity is achieved... He does not love goodness, does not understand working on himself for the sake of holiness and is afraid to sacrifice kind sin - it is difficult and unpleasant for him... Meanwhile, for the Orthodox consciousness, sin itself, in addition to all its disastrous consequences, constitutes the greatest evil... From here it is obvious that in the concept of salvation, the Orthodox will put liberation from sin in first place... Sin is evil; the people of the Old Testament were eager to get rid of it; Christ preached freedom from it with His apostles in the New." The work of Archbishop Sergius cites a number of texts from the patristic writings, indicating that the Church Fathers could not “understand salvation other than salvation primarily from sins.
138. “If this is the essence of salvation, then the very method of it becomes definite for us. If we think only about saving a person from suffering, then it is completely indifferent whether this deliverance is free or not free on the part of a person: it’s all a matter of complacency But if a person needs to be made righteous, it is necessary to free him from sin, then it is not at all indifferent whether the person is only passive (passive - BEFORE.) a subject for the action of supernatural power, or he himself will participate in his own deliverance. That is why in the Holy Scriptures and in the works of the Fathers of the Church there is a constant desire to convince a person to work out his own salvation, because without his own efforts no one can be saved. It is certain that “man is nothing without God” (Tikhon of Zadonsk)... And that, therefore, salvation can only be attributed to the grace of God. However, “God has adorned man with the gift of freedom” (Gregory of Nyssa)... And that, therefore, salvation can only be attributed to the grace of God. However, “God adorned man with the gift of freedom” (Gregory of Nyssa)... Involuntary holiness cannot be holiness... Salvation cannot be some externally judicial or physical event, but must necessarily be a moral action... Although grace acts, although he does everything, he certainly does it within freedom and consciousness..."
The above arguments exclude the Lutheran teaching about the complete passivity of man in the matter of salvation, as well as the Lutheran interpretation of the conditions of justification and its essence.
According to Protestant teaching, it turns out that God was always angry with man, all the time he could not forgive him for the insult that man inflicted on Him through sin. Then, suddenly, seeing a person’s faith in Jesus Christ, God is reconciled with the person and no longer considers him His enemy; although a person can still sin after this, but with impunity." Orthodox teaching understands God's attitude towards man differently. "The main thing in justification," says Archbishop Sergius, "is not the pronunciation of Protestants, but the conversion of a person from sin to life according to God, a moral revolution ..." "We were buried with Him through baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life" (Rom. 6:4).
“By being freed from sins in Baptism, a person becomes a participant in the righteousness of Christ. Protestants turned this into a completely external judicial incident. According to them, God, not finding anything in a person for which he should be given a reward in eternal life, imputes merit to him. .. which Jesus Christ accomplished. The basis for imputation is simply that God sees on the part of man a desire to appropriate this merit to himself (faith as a tool, instrumentum for assimilating the merit of Christ)..." Meanwhile, according to Orthodox teaching, "a person is not saved by the fact that he wants to appropriate to himself what Christ did, and by the fact that he is in the closest unity with Christ, like a branch with a vine... this unity, on the one hand, gives a person strength, strengthens his determination to obey his will Christ, on the other hand, requires diligence from him (otherwise there is nothing to strengthen if there is no determination)... The effectiveness of the sacrament depends on the degree of free participation of the person himself in it.”
These are the main thoughts of the work of Archbishop Sergius.
139. How could Luther, a man gifted with high aspirations, an irreconcilable fighter against the shortcomings of Roman Catholicism, be satisfied with such an imperfect theological interpretation of the work of Christ? The reason should be seen, firstly, in the fact that Luther, having lost faith in the Church, put personal considerations above church thought, and secondly, in the fact that the Roman Catholic Church, which raised Luther, did not itself preserve the heritage of apostolic ecclesiasticalism in all its purity.
Luther correctly noted the inconsistency of the Roman Catholic doctrine of justification: if the Blood of Christ is sufficient to satisfy the sins of the whole world, it is illogical to demand any additional satisfaction from people. But Luther did not notice the main drawback of this teaching, which is the too free use in soteriology of analogies with such human concepts as the anger of the offended, the need for satisfaction, etc. The justice of God is not at all the same as our human justice, which ensures human interests . It comes from other criteria - Moral. It is not the father who moves away from the prodigal son - it is the son who goes to the far side. It is not God who is at enmity with the sinner - it is the sinner who is at enmity with God. As stated in the canon of Octoechos:
“You have loved me dearly as my enemy.” “Here I stand at the door and knock...” The person himself must open the door. The change must occur in the individual, and not in the abstract sphere of legal relationships. Christ came to us to unite with us. We are not aloof from His Cross, we are not passive observers of our salvation. The Cross of Christ enters the life of a Christian and with it the leaven of another life. This is a moral sphere. The dry bones of humanity are resurrected along with the One who trampled down death with death. In the “funeral songs” of Holy Saturday, the thoughts and feelings of the Church are turned to the birth of new life from the “two-branched” Grain, which was received by the bowels of the earth at the burial of the Savior. Those who are saved become participants in this life in Christ. In this life, according to the Church, salvation consists; there can be no salvation without deliverance from dead works.
Of course, there is no immorality in the Lutheran environment; on the contrary, we can talk about a kind of piety, quite strict Lutheran piety. However, what was destroyed from the very beginning and what Lutherans do not have to this day is the concept of an internal struggle against sin, asceticism, for if a person is saved, the internal struggle to overcome certain passions and vices, in fact, cannot find justification, she doesn't exist. Despite all the piety and puritanism of certain Protestant movements, asceticism as such is absent in Protestantism in all its directions.
140. And finally, concluding this section, we can once again turn to the authoritative dogmatic document - the “District Message of the Eastern Patriarchs” (1723). It expounds at length the church teaching about Western misconceptions that accumulated by the 17th-18th centuries. In particular, it says this about works and faith: “We believe that a person is justified not simply by faith alone, but by faith promoted by love, that is, through faith and works. It is not the ghost of faith alone, but the faith that is in us through works that justifies us in Christ." Neither the theoretical faith of Lutherans, nor its contemplative side, nor the very fact of confidence in one’s own salvation grants this salvation. It is given only by faith, which can be called living or, as it is called in the epistle, promoted by love, that is, that which is embodied in the real, striving for righteousness, life in Christ of a church person.
