Conversation “What Russian People Believed”

Target: introducing children to the Slavic beliefs in spirits.

Tasks:

- expand children's ideas about fairy-tale characters;

Replenish children's vocabulary;

Cultivate interest in folk beliefs;

Teach children to distinguish between good and evil.

Preliminary work: watching cartoons “Kuzya the Little Brownie”, “Little Baba Yaga”, “Uncle Au”, “Flying Ship”, “Koschei the Immortal”, “Finist - the Clear Falcon”.

Equipment: illustrations with images of fairy-tale characters.

Progress of the conversation:

Organizing time.

Our ancestors believed in different creatures inhabiting everything that surrounded a person. Some were considered kind because they coexisted peacefully with people, helped them and protected them in every possible way. Others were considered evil because they harmed people and were capable of murder.

These creatures differ from each other in appearance, abilities, place of residence and way of life. Thus, some creatures outwardly resemble animals, others resemble people, and others do not resemble anyone else. Some of them live in forests and seas, others live directly next to people, sometimes even in their homes. Fairy tales describe in detail their appearance, lifestyle, ways to appease certain creatures or how to survive when meeting them.

Today I want to tell you about several such creatures.

Conversation.

Babai . Yes, yes, the same Babai with whom many were scared. The name "babai" means old man, grandfather. This word refers to something mysterious, unwanted and dangerous. Babai is a scary, lopsided old man. He wanders the streets with a stick. Meeting him is dangerous, especially for children. Even modern mothers and grandmothers can sometimes tell a naughty child that if he doesn’t eat well, the old woman will take him away. After all, he walks under the windows, as in ancient times.

Brownie - a good spirit, guardian of the house and everything in it. The brownie looks like a small old man (20-30 centimeters tall) with a large beard. The brownie lives in almost every home, choosing secluded places to live: behind the stove, under the threshold, in the attic, behind a chest, in a corner, or even in a chimney.
The brownie takes every possible care of his home and the family that lives in it, protecting them from evil spirits and misfortunes. If a family keeps animals, then the brownie will look after them; the kind spirit especially loves horses. The brownie loves cleanliness and order in the house, and does not like it when the inhabitants of the house are lazy. But the spirit dislikes it much more when the inhabitants of the house begin to quarrel with each other or treat it with disrespect. Then the angry brownie begins to knock on doors and windows; interferes with sleep at night, making terrible sounds or screams, sometimes even wakes a person up, pinching him painfully, after which large bruises remain on the body; and in extreme cases, the spirit is capable of throwing dishes, writing bad messages on the walls and starting small fires. However, the brownie will not cause serious harm to a person, and sometimes the spirit living in the house plays pranks without any particular reason.

Water. The merman cannot be called either evil or good - he is a spirit guarding his body of water, which, however, does not mind playing tricks on those who come there. The merman looks like an old man with a large beard and a fish tail instead of legs, the old man's hair has a green tint, and his eyes look like fish. During the day, the merman prefers to remain at the bottom of the reservoir, and with the rising of the moon it rises to the surface. The spirit prefers to move around the pond on horseback, mostly swimming on catfish.
The spirit lives in rivers, lakes, swamps. However, sometimes it comes onto land and appears in nearby villages. In reservoirs, the merman prefers to choose the deepest places for his dwelling. The vodyanoy guards his body of water and does not forgive those who treat him disrespectfully: the offending spirit can drown or severely injure. However, the merman can also reward people: it is believed that the merman can give a good catch, but he is also capable of leaving the fisherman without a single fish at all. The spirit also loves to play pranks: he scares people at night with strange screams, he can pretend to be a drowned man or a baby, and when he is pulled into a boat or pulled ashore, he will open his eyes, laugh and flop back into the water.
It is almost impossible to fight a merman in his native element, but you can scare him away from you with iron or copper, which in the end will only anger him more. Therefore, in ancient times they preferred not to anger the merman, and if he became angry, they tried to appease the spirit by throwing bread into the water.Mermaids. Mermaids serve the merman. According to people's beliefs, drowned women and children became mermaids. Mermaids have eternal youth and beauty, they have green hair and enchanting voices. On clear summer nights they play, dance and sing on the banks of rivers, swing on tree branches, and weave wreaths. In the summer, during Mermaid Week, mermaids come out of the water and dance in circles in the fields. Many thought that where the mermaid passed, there would be better bread to be born. Meeting with mermaids is dangerous: they can tickle the person they meet to death or drag him into the water.

Bannik - the spirit that lives in the bathhouse. The bannik looks like a small, skinny old man with a long beard. He has no clothes on, but his whole body is covered with broom leaves. Despite its size, the old spirit is very strong; it can easily knock down a person and drag him around the bathhouse. Bannik is a rather cruel spirit: he loves to scare those who come to the bathhouse with terrible screams, and can also throw hot stones from the stove or scald with boiling water. Bannik doesn't like it when people disturb him at night. But if the bannik is angry, then you can appease him: leaving him a piece of rye bread sprinkled with coarse salt. Just like the merman, the bannik is afraid of iron.

Kikimora- an evil spirit that sends nightmares to a person. In appearance, the kikimora is very thin and small: her head is the size of a thimble, and her body is thin as a reed; she wears neither shoes nor clothes and remains invisible most of the time. During the day, kikimoras sleep, and at night they begin to play pranks, performing small pranks: they either knock on something at night, or they begin to creak. The kikimora's favorite pastime is spinning yarn: sometimes he sits in the corner at night and starts working, and so on until the morning, but this work is of no use, it only tangles the threads and breaks the yarn. Kikimors prefer to live in human houses, choosing secluded places for themselves: behind the stove, under the threshold, in the attic, behind the chest, in the corner.

Baba Yaga - a fairy-tale Russian character who lives in a dense forest; witch. Let's answer the question: who is the fabulous Baba Yaga? This is an old evil witch who lives in a deep forest in a hut on chicken legs, flies in a mortar, chasing it with a pestle and covering her tracks with a broom. Loves to feast on small children and good fellows. However, in some fairy tales, Baba Yaga is not evil at all: she helps a good fellow, giving him something magical or showing him the way to it.

Ovinnik - in Slavic beliefs, he is in charge of the barn and barn. He looks after the cattle and combs the manes of his favorite horses. He makes sure that the fox does not drag away small ducklings and chicks. Kind spirit for children.

III . Summarizing.

There are other spirits that Russian people believed in. You can learn about them when you grow up a little. Should we be afraid of these spirits? All of them are fairy-tale characters. We met them by reading fairy tales. And now I just reminded you of them.

Paganism is the oldest religion on Earth. It has absorbed thousands of years of wisdom, knowledge, history, and culture. In our time, pagans are those who profess the old faith that existed before the advent of Christianity.
And, for example, among the ancient Jews all beliefs that did not recognize Yahweh or refused to follow his law were considered pagan religions. The ancient Roman legions conquered the peoples of the Middle East, Europe and North Africa. At the same time, these were victories over local beliefs.

These religions of other peoples, “languages” were called pagan. They were given the right to exist in accordance with the interests of the Roman state. But with the emergence of Christianity, the very religion of Ancient Rome with the cult of Jupiter was recognized as pagan...

As for ancient Russian polytheism, the attitude towards it after the adoption of Christianity was militant. The new religion was contrasted with the old one as true - untrue, as useful - harmful. This attitude excluded tolerance and assumed the eradication of pre-Christian traditions, customs, and rituals. Christians did not want their descendants to remain signs of the “delusion” to which they had hitherto indulged. Everything that was in one way or another connected with Russian beliefs was persecuted: “demonic games”, “evil spirits”, sorcery. Even the image of an ascetic arose. "a non-fighter" who devoted his life not to feats of arms on the battlefield, but to the persecution and destruction of "dark forces". New Christians in all countries were distinguished by such zeal. But if in Greece or Italy time has preserved at least a small number of ancient marble sculptures, then the Ancient Russia stood among the forests, and the Tsar Fire, raging, did not spare anything: neither human dwellings, nor temples, nor wooden images of gods, nor information about them written in Slavic carvings on wooden tablets.

And only quiet echoes have reached our days from the depths of the pagan world. And it is beautiful, this world! Among the amazing deities that our ancestors worshiped, there are no repulsive, ugly, disgusting ones. There are evil, scary, incomprehensible ones, but there are much more beautiful, mysterious, kind ones. The Slavic gods were formidable, but fair and kind. Perun struck villains with lightning. Lada patronized lovers. Chur protected the boundaries of his possessions. Veles was the personification of the master's wisdom, and was also the patron of hunting prey.

The religion of the ancient Slavs was the deification of the forces of nature. The pantheon of gods was associated with the performance of certain economic functions: agriculture, cattle breeding, beekeeping, crafts, trade, hunting, etc.
And one should not assume that paganism is just idol worship. After all, even Muslims continue to bow to the black stone of the Kaaba - the shrine of Islam. For Christians, this is represented by countless crosses, icons and relics of saints. And who counted how much blood was shed and lives given for the liberation of the Holy Sepulcher in the Crusades? Here is a real Christian idol, along with bloody sacrifices. And burning incense and lighting a candle is the same sacrifice, only taking on a beautiful appearance.

The popular idea of ​​the extremely low level of cultural development of “barbarians” is not confirmed by historical facts. The products of ancient Russian stone and wood carvers, tools, jewelry, epics and songs could only appear on the basis of a highly developed cultural tradition. The beliefs of the ancient Slavs were not a “delusion” of our ancestors, reflecting the “primitivism” of their thinking. Polytheism is the religious belief of not only the Slavs, but also of most peoples. It was typical of Ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, whose culture could not be called barbaric. The beliefs of the ancient Slavs were not much different from the beliefs of other peoples, and these differences were determined by the specifics of their way of life and economic activity.

At the end of the 80s of the last century, the Soviet government, living its last days, decided to celebrate the 1000th anniversary of the baptism of Rus'. How many shouts of welcome were heard: “1000th anniversary of Russian writing!”, “1000th anniversary of Russian culture!”, “1000th anniversary of Russian statehood!” But the Russian state existed even before the adoption of Christianity! It is not for nothing that the Scandinavian name of Rus' sounds like Gardarika - the country of cities. Arab historians also write about the same thing, numbering Russian cities in the hundreds. At the same time, claiming that in Byzantium itself there are only five cities, the rest are “fortified fortresses.” And the Arab chronicles called the Russian princes Khakans, “Khakan-Rus”. Hakan is an imperial title! “Ar-Rus is the name of a state, not a people or a city,” writes the Arabic author. Western chroniclers called the Russian princes “kings of the people of Ros.” Only the arrogant Byzantium did not recognize the royal dignity of the rulers of Rus', but it did not recognize it either for the Orthodox kings of Bulgaria, or for the Christian emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation, Otto, or for the emir of Muslim Egypt. The inhabitants of Eastern Rome knew only one king - their emperor. But even the Russian squads nailed a shield to the gates of Constantinople. And, by the way, Persian and Arab chronicles testify that the Rus make “excellent swords” and import them into the lands of the caliphs.
That is, the Rus sold not only furs, honey, wax, but also the products of their artisans. And they found demand even in the land of damask blades. Another export item was chain mail. They were called “wonderful” and “excellent.” Technology, therefore, in pagan Rus' was no lower than the world level. Some blades from that era have survived to this day. They bear the names of Russian blacksmiths - “Lyudota” and “Slavimir”. And this is worth paying attention to. This means that the pagan blacksmiths were literate! This is the level of culture.

Next point. The calculation of the formula for the world's rotation (Kolo) allowed the pagans to build ring-shaped metal sanctuaries, where they created the most ancient astronomical calendars. The Slavs determined the length of the year at 365, 242, 197 days. The accuracy is unique! And in the commentary to the Vedas, the location of the constellations is mentioned, attributed by modern astronomy to 10,000 years BC. According to biblical chronology, even Adam was not created at this time. The cosmic knowledge of the pagans has advanced quite far. Evidence of this is the myth of the cosmic vortex Stribog. And this is consistent with the theory of the origin of life on Earth - the panspermia hypothesis. Its essence boils down to the fact that life did not arise on Earth on its own, but was brought in by a purposeful stream with spores, from which the diversity of the living world later developed.

It is these facts that are the indicators by which the level of culture and education of the pagan Slavs should be judged. And no matter what the adherents of Orthodoxy claim, Christianity is an alien, foreign religion that paved its way in Rus' with fire and sword. Much has been written about the violent nature of the baptism of Rus', not by militant atheists, but by church historians.
And one should not assume that the population of Russian lands resignedly accepted the command of Vladimir the apostate. People refused to come to the river bank, left the cities, and started uprisings. And the pagans were by no means hiding in distant forests - a century after the baptism, the Magi appeared in large cities. But the population did not experience any hostility towards them, and either listened to them with interest (Kyiv), or completely willingly followed them (Novgorod and the Upper Volga region).

Christianity was never able to completely eradicate paganism. People did not accept alien faith and performed pagan rituals. They made sacrifices to the waterman - they drowned a horse, or a beehive, or a black rooster; to the devil - they left a horse or at least a buttered pancake or egg in the forest; to the brownie - they set out a bowl of milk and swept the corners with a broom soaked in rooster's blood. And they believed that if the sign of the cross or prayer did not help against annoying evil spirits, then swearing, which originated from pagan spells, would help. By the way, two birch bark letters were found in Novgorod. They contain, at least, a single swear verb and an “affectionate” definition addressed to a certain Novgorod woman who owed money to the writer of the letter, and was designated for this by feminine nature.

There is no doubt - over ten centuries, Orthodoxy has had a huge influence on the history, culture, art of Russia, on the very existence of the Russian state. But Vladimir the Baptist would have accepted the Catholic faith or Islam, and the current apostles of the “Russian primordial faith” would have shouted about the “revival of Russian Catholicism...”, or “... Russia is the stronghold of world Islam!..” It’s good that they didn’t send ambassadors to the priests Voodoo cult.
But the old faith of the ancient Russians will still remain the Russian faith.

In ancient times, the world for Russian people was full of secrets. The ancient Slavs were never left alone, because wherever they were, they were always accompanied by good and not so good gods, noisy and inconspicuous spirits. The Slavic gods were formidable, but fair and kind. The Slavs asked the earth, the wind, the rain, the sun for advice.

Svyatobor is the supreme ruler of the forest. Woe to the hunter who killed a deer and her cub: sooner or later Svyatobor will take revenge on him. Woe to the fisherman who catches fish when they spawn: all the same, a terrible retribution awaits him. Svyatobor's wife was Zevana, the Slavic goddess of hunting. She sent luck to hunters by exposing weak, old or sick animals to their arrows.

Dolya and Nedolya are two sisters, heavenly spinners who spun the thread of every person’s life. But Dolya had a straight, golden thread flowing from the spindle, while Nedolya was spinning an uneven, crooked, fragile thread. This is the fate that befell a person - good or bad, happiness or misfortune.

In addition to the gods of nature, the Slavs also had other spirits - domestic ones. Each Slavic hut had its own spirit. His name was Domovoy. The brownie was short, bearded and hairy. If the Brownie is fed on time and not offended, then there will be bread, salt and honey in the house, and quarrels in the hut will go away on their own. When the family moved to another house, the Brownie was solemnly invited to sit in a worn-out bast shoe or on a bread-baking blade and celebrate the housewarming.

And in the Slavic forests Leshy was in charge. He woke up in the spring and immediately began to play mischief: clap his hands, moo like a cow, meow like a cat, make noise like a river. And so that Leshy would not get confused in the thicket, the man, going into the forest, brought him a gift. And then the berries and mushrooms themselves asked to be included in the basket.

The owner of the water was considered to be Vodyanoy - an old man with a large belly filled with water and long green hair like algae. He usually lived in whirlpools, swamps and near mills. Everything that once drowned became his prey. Vodyanoy is married to Rusalka. Vodyanoy’s life began only at night, then it was impossible to swim and it was better not to drink water. The Vodyanoy sleeps all winter. He wakes up only on April 3rd. On that day, the ice cracks on the rivers - this is Vodyanoy stretching.

The article by Andrei Sergeevich Konchalovsky “What God does a Russian person believe in,” published in Rossiyskaya Gazeta, causes a mixed reaction.

On the one hand, the article poses deep questions that in many ways remain relevant, which cannot but worry anyone who thinks about the “paths of Russia”, about its past, present and future. It is obvious that the author is rooting for his country, sincerely wanting it to develop fruitfully and achieve prosperity.

On the other hand, it is no less obvious that in this case we are dealing with only one of the possible views on Russian history and modernity, and one that has a long tradition in our country. In Russian intellectual history, supporters of this view are called “Westerners” (I mean a broad school of thought). When considering historiosophical questions, they ask a certain perspective, which determines what is main and what is secondary, which answers should be recognized as correct and which should be obviously false.

Real history cannot be rewritten. Different interpretations are possible, but facts always remain facts. At the same time, in order to understand history and make the right decisions in our time, it is necessary, in my opinion, to hear different voices and take into account different angles. In other words, try to achieve a three-dimensional vision. A one-sided, limited view is unlikely to help us in serious, responsible reflection on the “paths of Russia.” This is precisely the view I see in this article, the author of which is trying to squeeze the entire history of Russia into the Procrustean bed of his Westernizing ideas, skillfully but unconvincingly juggling individual historical facts, names, ideas and approaches, arbitrarily pulling them out of the general context.

Of course, in the view of “Westerners” on Russia (including those to whom the author refers - Chaadaev, Klyuchevsky, Chekhov) there is some truth, often bitter. However, some features of Russian life also caused bitterness among representatives of another intellectual trend - the “Slavophiles” (suffice it to recall A.S. Khomyakov, also mentioned in the article). When today we try to hear the voices of both, the main thing, in my opinion, is not that some idealized the old Moscow way of life, while others idealized the Western European path of development. The most important questions concern differences in ideas about the social ideal, about fundamental values, primarily religious and moral, and as a consequence - about the paths of development and about the healing of those social diseases that require healing.

The author of the article begins with a historical consideration of the “Russian religious idea,” but ends with the thesis about the need to “bring the “great” Russian people out of the “pre-bourgeois” state.” Criticizing what he considers the “Russian religious idea,” which supposedly has not undergone significant changes for many centuries, he tacitly proceeds from a certain credo of his own: the good of Russia lies in the establishment, albeit belated, of “bourgeoisity,” that is, urban Western European culture, the main characters of which are impersonal anonymous (sic!) individuals. (I quote: “Man’s anonymous responsibility before God is the basis of modern society.”)

There are two logical inconsistencies in these arguments that are striking.

Firstly, the author combines the accusation of the Russian Orthodox tradition with the dominance of “faith without thought” with a rationally unfounded belief in the truth and usefulness of the “bourgeois” social ideal for Russia (as it is described in the article). Meanwhile, the usefulness of such an ideal is not at all obvious. The criticism of “bourgeoisism” within Western thought itself is widely known, and not only from the left, socialist positions, but also from the positions, rather, of the right, including religious ones. Speaking about the latter, it is enough to name the most famous names of living thinkers: the Canadian Catholic philosopher Charles Taylor, the American Jewish thinker Michael Walzer, the Greek Orthodox philosopher and theologian Christos Yannaras, without mentioning many others, including Protestants. And in the Russian religious intellectual tradition, the most prominent critic of “bourgeois” was Konstantin Leontiev, who belongs to the late Slavophiles.

Understanding bourgeoisism as loyalty to certain only correct “European values” is a type of secular faith. Such a belief, of course, has its own rational argument, but it is absent from this article. And therefore there are no objections to other views on the ideology of Western European bourgeois individualism and liberalism.
The second logical discrepancy is related to the author’s assertion that in the Russian Orthodox tradition paganism and dual faith, or even “three faiths,” are victorious.

Pagan prejudices, indeed, have always been present and still make themselves felt in our religious life - such is the nature of religious psychology. Concern with this problem was characteristic of the Orthodox pastorate even in the Byzantine era and much later. The outstanding Orthodox theologian of the 20th century, Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann, rightly noted in his book “The Historical Paths of Orthodoxy” that “paganism is not only a religion that chronologically preceded Christianity and was destroyed by its appearance, but it is a kind of permanent and “natural” pole of religion itself, and in this sense, an eternal danger for any religion. Christianity requires unceasing effort, non-stop filling of form with content, self-examination, “testing of the spirits”; paganism is the separation of form from content, highlighting it as an intrinsic value and an end in itself. This is a return to natural religion, to faith in a formula, in a ritual, in a “sacred” regardless of their content and spiritual meaning. But then the Christian rite itself and the Christian Shrine itself can easily become the subject of pagan worship, overshadowing the one thing for which they exist: the liberating power of Truth.”

Since ancient times, ascetic ascetics have opposed the magical perception of shrines - relics, icons, crosses and other Christian relics. The Monk Barsanuphius the Great (VI century) taught: “If you pass by the relics, bow once, twice, three times - but that’s enough... Cross yourself three times if you want, but no more.” Many of our archpastors, for example, St. Tikhon of Zadonsk, fought against the remnants of a pagan attitude towards Christianity when he was Bishop of Voronezh.

However, reacting to this article in connection with this topic, I would like to draw attention to the following. If a Christian treats a shrine in a pagan way, then this is, first of all, a betrayal of Christianity itself - in the sense that a personal attitude towards the Savior Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, is replaced by a magical attitude towards some impersonal religious “artifact”, to use the expression of the author of the article . But at the same time, the same author offers us another idea as more correct - the idea of ​​​​certain anonymous duties of a person that are not related to his religious faith: “honest work, paying taxes...” And then we read a very strange statement: “Personal anonymous responsibility is the cornerstone modern state and society." It turns out that instead of anonymous religious magicism, the author proposes anonymous secular magicism.

It is difficult to agree with such a “secular idea” of the author, not only from a religious, but also simply from a human point of view. The human person is unique because he is created in the image and likeness of God. It is to Christianity that European culture owes such an idea of ​​personality. For two millennia, Christianity - both Eastern and Western - has encouraged a person to the feat of faith, to personal spiritual effort, despite all the temptations of pagan magic. This is how Orthodox theology has always been, including Russian theology.

If the social relations in which a person is involved lose this personal dimension, we are dealing with a society that is a mechanism - political, economic, cultural and everyday. This means a rejection of the understanding of man that Christianity defends.

Orthodox Christians cannot agree that Russia, as a European Christian country, even a “marginal” one, should follow the version of Europeanism proposed by the author of the article. The author writes that Russia was able to make its contribution to pan-European and world culture. But she was able to do this precisely because her social ideal is far from “anonymity” and “mechanism.” It is important to note that this contribution was already made in the era of European secularization, but its driving forces were a special religious intuition and a special religious experience.

The history of Russian philosophical and religious thought can be assessed pessimistically, or, on the contrary, optimistically. It all depends on the look. Pessimists see thoughtlessness, optimists see intense, sometimes painful, reflections of many very gifted, creative people about Christianity as a universal faith and about Russian Orthodoxy as its concrete embodiment. Pessimists see the dominance of ritualism and magic, optimists see a free and meaningful discussion not only about Russia, but also about the fate of Christian civilization.

The author of the article writes: “Since the advent of Christianity in Europe, theological disputes have never ceased. For millennia, free thought was not afraid to question any theses and rituals of Christianity. Russian religious culture excluded this right and was built only on faith.” According to the author, “our virgin pagan consciousness never learned what a culture of discussion is,” and religious thought in Russia “did not exist until the middle of the 19th century.”

Historical facts convincingly refute these claims. In the Middle Ages, the situation in Western Europe was very far from that described by the author of the article. There was no “free thought” in the sense of later European freethinking in Western Europe at that time - there was the Holy Inquisition and its bonfires. In Orthodox Rus' there were also individual supporters of inquisitorial methods of fighting heretics (St. Gennady of Novgorod, St. Joseph of Volotsk), but the scale of the corresponding practice cannot even be compared with Western Europe.

And it was precisely in the struggle against heretical teachings, but also in intra-Orthodox polemics, that our theological thought developed. You don't have to look far for examples. The 15th century was a time of particularly intense mental work and heated discussions: this was the era of the Church’s struggle against the heresy of the Judaizers and the church-theological dispute between the “Josephites” and the “non-possessors.” It was during this era that the first original theological works of Russian authors appeared: the dogmatic work of the Venerable Joseph of Volotsky “The Enlightener” and the essay on the Orthodox asceticism of the Venerable Nil of Sorsky “The Charter of skete life”. In public discussion - in author's works and at church councils - a variety of issues were discussed: about the fundamental tenets of the Christian faith, about the calling of monasticism and the role of monasteries, about the social service of the Church, about the relationship between secular and ecclesiastical power, and others. A purely church discussion acquired a wide social and state scale. For the Russian Church, it ended with the glorification of two ideologists of these trends as saints - the Venerable Joseph of Volotsky and Nil of Sorsky. This was a recognition of the reality and effectiveness of the apostolic testament for the Russian church life: “There must also be differences of opinion among you, so that those who are skilled may be revealed among you” (1 Cor. 11:19).

If in medieval Europe the initiator of the persecution of dissidents was the Catholic Church, which dealt with them through the hands of secular power, then in Rus' the situation was exactly the opposite: it was the state that became the persecutor of dissent and dissent. This is what happened with the Old Believers. The schism of the 17th century would not have had such dire consequences if the state had not joined in the persecution of the Old Believers. The Church did not burn anyone or condemn anyone to execution. It seems that if in the dispute between supporters of the old and new rituals the state had taken the position of an outside observer, the outcome of these disputes could have been fundamentally different.

The author of the article points to an important feature of Russian Christian intellectual history when he writes: “The work of Cyril and Methodius led to an incredible democratization of Christian teaching itself. And that is great. But, on the other hand, being translated into Old Slavic, it interrupted the connection of the teaching itself with its philosophical justification, with the cultural roots of ancient European civilization.”

This is not a new idea. In the 20th century, it was expressed by such outstanding Russian religious thinkers as Archpriest Georgy Florovsky and Georgy Fedotov. The latter wrote: “At first glance, it seems that the Slavic language of the Church, while facilitating the task of Christianizing the people, does not allow the emergence of a Greek (Latin) intelligentsia alienated from it. Yes, but at what cost? At the cost of separation from the classical tradition...” In response, Florovsky recalls that such “differences between Russian and “European” cultures have been talked about for a long time, it was the Slavophiles who spoke, in particular Ivan Kireyevsky.” Florovsky’s own diagnosis is harsh: “And the last thing that awakens in the Russian soul is logical conscience - sincerity and responsibility in knowledge.” At the same time, he looks at the problem from a special angle, arguing that “the crisis of Russian Byzantinism in the 16th century was at the same time the loss of Russian thought from the patristic heritage” in theology.

Florovsky considered the “paths of Russian theology” based on his own view of history - a view that was one-sided in its own way, for which he was criticized by his contemporaries. In particular, Archpriest John Meyendorff reproached him for viewing the entire Russian history through the prism of Byzantinism, considering Byzantium as a certain ideal to which Russian religious thought never grew up.

Konchalovsky views history from a Westernist position and criticizes it for the same things that Florovsky criticized it for, however, unlike the latter, he lacks knowledge of factual historical material. For example, his statement that our ancestors, having received the Slavic translation of the Gospel, were deprived of “Greek and Latin languages” and “did not have the opportunity to learn ancient philosophy or sophistry,” contradicts historical facts. In one of the oldest monuments of Russian literature - “The Tale of Peter, Tsarevich of the Horde” there is an indication that the service in Rostov the Great in the middle of the 13th century in the temple was held in parallel in Russian and Greek. In the collection of kontakia of the 12th century we find Greek chants given in Russian transcription. From the church language, Greekisms actively penetrated into the secular and business language. Rus' traded with Byzantium and therefore was not cut off from its culture.

Contacts with Western Europe have also been quite regular since the times of Kievan Rus. And in the 16th-18th centuries, the Russian Church was subjected to powerful Western, primarily Latin, influence. Even spiritual education was initially built on models borrowed from Europe. I had the opportunity to hold in my hands the dissertations of students of the Moscow Theological Academy of the early 19th century, written in Latin. It took considerable efforts of such “church Slavophiles” as St. Philaret of Moscow to turn Russian spiritual education off the Westernizing path and gradually put it back on the rails of Orthodox Byzantinism. However, the final liberation of Russian theology from “Western captivity” took place already in the 20th century, in the works of theologians of the Russian emigration, such as Florovsky and Schmemann mentioned above.

The 16th-17th centuries in both Western Europe and Russia is an era of radical religious changes. In the West - the Reformation. In Russia - historical upheavals associated with the reign of Ivan the Terrible, which gave birth to new martyrs (Metropolitan Philip of Moscow, Venerable Cornelius of Pskov-Pechersk), then - with opposition to foreign, religiously Catholic, conquest, and later - with the tragedy of the church schism. Western and Russian processes are difficult to compare, but we can say with confidence that Russia, unlike Western Europe, has not followed the “bourgeois” path.

Of course, there is a certain connection between the Western religious Reformation, on the one hand, and the new role, as well as the demands of the “bourgeoisie,” or better yet, the “burghers,” on the other. However, it would hardly be correct to deduce one from the other, as the author of the article does, arguing that “the emergence of the bourgeoisie led in Europe to the evolution of religious consciousness” and that “the emerging bourgeoisie wanted to consciously comprehend its relationship with God.”

Religious consciousness has its own logic. Those who explain it by third-party reasons are mistaken - and then try to use it for political, cultural and other non-religious purposes. The Reformation is a religious and theological event that split Western Christianity. The confrontation between Protestants and Catholics was very tough, and to a certain extent it continues to this day. It is completely wrong to reduce this, now centuries-old, religious dispute to the processes of “intellectualization of religious consciousness through which other Christian denominations passed,” as the author does. Martin Luther, a refined theologian-intellectual, emphasizes faith - sola fide, and John Calvin burns heretics at the stake in Geneva.

Of course, the Catholic Counter-Reformation and the development of Protestant theology had the consequence of increasing the complexity of Western theological thinking and even its flourishing, especially in the 20th century. But, at the same time, if we talk about the 20th century, then Orthodox theology also flourished, becoming an integral part of modern general Christian discussion on a variety of theoretical and practical issues. Orthodox thought - both in the form of strict church theology and in the form of religious and philosophical reflections - has been and will continue to be in demand due to those features of the Eastern Christian religious tradition that testify to the original church tradition, but to one degree or another have been lost by the Western Christianity.

Of course, in Rus' there were no universities in the classical European sense of the word. And in the universities created in the post-Petrine era, theology was not represented, since it was studied in theological academies. This is a historical fact. But do we need to be endlessly sad about this today? Isn't it better to think about how to fill this historical gap?
The inclusion of Orthodox theology in a modern Russian secular university is a difficult matter. This difficulty is due not only to the lack of tradition, but also to the Soviet ideological legacy, as well as to the current “anti-clerical” tendencies in our university and academic community. However, practice convincingly shows the demand for theology in a secular academic environment. Evidence of this is the opening of more and more theological faculties and departments in the country's leading universities.

But let's look at the question of the presence of theology in the modern university from a “Western” point of view. If in the Russian past there were no classical Western universities, where theology was the “queen of sciences” and at the same time did not hinder, but, on the contrary, contributed to the “culture of discussion,” including “critical understanding of the Christian faith” (as, apparently, believes author of the article under consideration), then why not introduce into the educational and scientific space of the modern Russian university, that is, into the space of the “universe of knowledge,” a rational Christian component, that is, theology with its centuries-old tradition?! Moreover, in the current situation, when, after decades of the dominance of atheistic ideology, the question asked by the author of the article is more than relevant: “What does a Russian person know about God?”

The author's view of the religiosity of Russian society in the period after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 is simply incorrect. In accordance with his general idea, he connects the anti-religious excesses of that era with the “pagan “passionarity” of the Russian people,” which supposedly “demonstrated a return to barbaric civilization by destroying the incomprehensible and hostile world of the ‘other’ European Russia.” And moreover, “a people who have escaped from under the centuries-old oppression... of the institution of the church. How else can one explain that the majority of the Christian population of a huge country so willingly succumbed to atheistic, Marxist propaganda and began to mock religious temples and shrines, destroy the clergy and, with chilling inspiration, participate in the destruction of their fellow men.”

This is a wrong view. Let us refer to a specialist - Doctor of Historical Sciences, leading researcher at the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences V.B. Zhiromskaya, who reports little-known facts to the general public regarding the religiosity of the population of Soviet Russia in the fateful year of 1937. By this time, the persecution of religion had been going on for 20 years: the clergy and monasticism were exterminated almost entirely, every single monastery was closed, most churches were destroyed and closed. And here is the population census initiated by Stalin: “80% of the population surveyed answered the question about religion. Only 1 million people chose to remain silent, citing the fact that they are “responsible only to God” or that “God knows whether I am a believer or not”... According to the census, in the USSR there were more believers among people aged 16 years and older than non-believers: 55.3 million versus 42.2 million, or 56.7% versus 43.3% of all those who expressed their attitude towards religion. In reality, there were, of course, even more believers. Some of the answers may have been insincere. In addition, it can be assumed with a high degree of probability that most of those who did not answer the question about religion were believers.”

The radicalization of the religious question in Russia - “There is a God” or “There is no God” - reached its apogee during the period of the dominance of communist “secular paganism.” It was Bolshevik atheism that brought Russian people to choose between two extremes. And it was precisely this anti-religious ideological regime that borrowed its ritual side from historical Christianity, only strengthening its magical distortions and raising them to the norm.

It was not the Russian people as a whole that “succumbed to atheistic, Marxist propaganda and began to mock religious temples and shrines,” as the author writes. Only a part of the Russian people succumbed to this propaganda, seduced by the promises of heaven on earth and the temptation of godless materialism. It is in this case that we are dealing, using the words of the author of the article, with a peculiar victory of “pagan faith in the spirituality of an object” - that pseudo-faith that has always been and remains the antipode of faith in Christ, in the Divine Person who became Man for the sake of our salvation. For for the Orthodox church consciousness, no sacred object can be perceived as the “materialization of God.” (I quote: “For a Russian Orthodox, any object or artifact associated with faith - a cross, an amulet, a belt - are sacred, are, as it were, the materialization of God.” I note that the author persistently, throughout the entire article, writes the word “God” with a lowercase letter , with rare exceptions).

In this case, the author touches on the original and traditional question for Christian theology about the relationship between the spiritual and the material, the sensory and the intelligible. This “eternal question” was resolved long ago by the Church, but constantly arises again in secular intellectual and spiritual culture. Leo Tolstoy also tried to answer this question in his own way, which the author of the article repeatedly mentions with sympathy.

In Christian religious thought there have always been deviations either into the deification of nature, or into spiritualism and intellectualism. Leo Tolstoy in the late period of his work is an example of such a rationalization of Christianity, which finally breaks not only with church tradition, but also with the deep meanings of Christ's Gospel.

Tolstoy sincerely sought God, but at a certain stage he contrasted this spiritual search with the knowledge of God that was accumulated in the Church and contained in its memory. The tragic figure of Tolstoy should remind us today not so much of some “obvious” interpretations of the Gospel and Christianity, but of the fact that we continue to live in a situation of intense meaningful discussion about our faith and hope. This intensity of search was preserved by the “seditious count” himself, who in his last exodus went to Optina Pustyn, to the elders, to the bearers of the great spiritual Orthodox tradition.

The author of the article actively refers to Chekhov, who, it would seem, is not a religious writer at all (although Chekhov also has works imbued with the deepest religious intuition). Let's take the above quote from Chekhov: “Between “there is a God” and “there is no God” there lies a huge whole field, which a true sage traverses with great difficulty. A Russian person knows any one of these two extremes, but the middle between them does not interest him, and therefore he usually knows nothing or very little.”

This quote can be considered as a kind of short manifesto of the non-religious, secularized consciousness of part of the Russian intelligentsia of the “Chekhov era”. The question of God here is purely intellectual, at best cultural. Personal confession of God is perceived as an “extreme”, and a certain middle ground, a “culture of doubt”, is considered the norm, so that the very spiritual freedom of a person turns out to be inseparable from doubt.

But then the author of the article sharpens his reasoning, no longer referring to Chekhov, but to the interpretation of A. Chudakov, whose logic is highly specific: whether there is a God or not is unimportant; the main thing is to go through the “field” between these statements; whoever does not go through this “field” does not think at all. And in conclusion - the diagnosis: “True religion is in search of God” (again - with a lowercase letter; does this mean that we are talking about the search for some ancient or modern “pagan” god?).

But there are also completely different ideas about the spiritual path, about the search for God and about the doubts that accompany this path and this search.

"Chekhov's" search for God does not end with anything. And Tolstoy’s search for God ended at the Astapovo post station, where the writer died in complete confusion and complete loneliness, isolated by his fans from the world of true religiosity, to which in the last days of his life he again reached out. Tolstoy's tragedy was that on his God-seeking path he never met the living God. The God who is revealed in the person of Jesus Christ - God who became man and showed people the true face of God. This face remained for Tolstoy completely obscured by those reasonings and speculations with which he tried, without meeting God, to replace Him for himself and for his fans.

The religious question for this type of thinking always remains a question of an endless intellectual search for some “religious idea”, which has essentially nothing to do with religion itself. With the “mental god” (here we will use a lowercase letter), even if he is found, there cannot be any personal relationship. And the God that a person finds in real inner experience cannot in any way be the “middle” or the subject of doubt: this is the God whose existence a person does not doubt, because he feels His real ontological presence in his life.

They not only “mentally” believe in the Christian God - they know Him, communicate with Him, pray to Him, ask Him questions and receive answers to them. The Lord Jesus Christ, God incarnate, is the Savior of the world and people. Through deeply personal spiritual communication with Christ, a person is revealed to an understanding of the world that cannot be reduced either to secular rationalism or to religious magic. All Christian asceticism - the experience of holy ascetics of the faith - testifies to the fact that the search for God is the main goal of a Christian. But this search is carried out not through abstract thinking and intellectual doubt, but primarily through prayerful feats, the result of which is spiritual experience, and through a virtuous life. They seek God not because they doubt His existence, but because they strive for spiritual communication with Him.

The interpretation of Christianity proposed in the article by A.S. Konchalovsky, is far from church tradition. A careful reading of the article reveals that the author’s inclusion in the title of the topic of the religious faith of a Russian person is only a rhetorical figure, a way to draw attention to his thoughts about the “paths of Russia.” The author was unable to delve into the essence of the Orthodox faith of the Russian people, since he is interested not so much in religious issues as in the secular problems of our social development. Hence the strange connections between “our civilization” and “Islamic civilization”, “African states” and “ancient paganism”.

The Savior once said about Christians: “If you were of this world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of this world, because I took you out of the world, the world hates you.” These same words can also be applied to the Russian people, into whose flesh and blood Christianity was most deeply absorbed.

Today we are often faced with open Russophobia and hatred from other states. But this is not a reason to panic, it did not start today and will not end tomorrow - it will always be like this.

The world hates us, but it itself does not suspect how much he himself needs the Russian people. If the Russian people disappear, then from the world soul taken out and he will lose the very meaning of his existence!

That is why the Lord protects us and Russians exist, despite all the tragedies and trials: Napoleon, Batu and Hitler, revolution, perestroika and troubled times, drugs, the decline of morals and the crisis of responsibility...

We will live and develop as long as we ourselves remain relevant, as long as the Russian people retain the character traits inherent in our people.

Caring “friends” often remind us of those inherent characteristics of us that can be classified as bad, trying to make us hate ourselves and self-destruct... We will look at the positive characteristics of the Russian soul in order to remember what gifts the Lord has generously endowed us with and which we should always stay.

So, TOP 10 best qualities of a Russian person:

1. Strong faith

The Russian people believe in God at a deep level, have a strong inner sense of conscience, a concept of good and evil, worthy and unworthy, due and not due. Even the communists believed in their “Moral Code.”

It is the Russian person who views his entire life from the perspective son of God – The Father will like it or it will upset him. To act according to the law or according to conscience (according to the commandments of God) is a purely Russian problem.

A Russian person also believes in people, constantly doing good to them and even beyond that. sacrificing personal for the good of one's neighbor. A Russian person sees in another person first of all Image of God, sees equal, recognizes the dignity of another person. This is precisely the secret of the victorious power of Russian civilization, our gigantic spaces and multinational unity.

Russian people believe in themselves as the bearer of Truth. Hence the strength of our actions and the legendary Russian survival. Not a single conqueror in the world could destroy us. Only we ourselves can kill the Russian people if we believe in the negative image of the Russian people that is being imposed on us.

2. Heightened sense of justice

We cannot live in comfort while lies are rampant in the world. “We’ll put together a strong coffin for the scum of humanity!” from the song “Holy War” - it’s about us.

We fought with the Turks for a long time for the freedom of our Slavic brothers, we saved the poor people of Central Asia from the bais and their extortions, stopped the genocide of the Chinese by the Japanese army and saved the Jews from the Holocaust.

As soon as a Russian person believes that a threat to all of humanity comes from somewhere, Napoleon, Hitler, Mamai or anyone else immediately disappears from the historical canvas.

The same rule applies in our internal life - our riots and revolutions are just attempts to build a fair society, punish those who have gone too far and alleviate the lot of the poor (naturally, if we consider the motivation of ordinary workers and peasants, and not the cynical leaders of the revolution).

You can rely on us - because we keep our word and do not betray our allies. The concept of honor, unlike the Anglo-Saxons, is not only familiar to Russian people, but also deeply inherent.

3. Love for the Motherland

All peoples love their homeland. Even Americans, a people of emigrants, treat their national symbols and traditions with reverence.

But a Russian person loves his homeland more than others! White emigrants fled the country under threat of death. It would seem that they should have hated Russia and quickly assimilated where they came. But what really happened?

They were so nostalgic that they taught their sons and grandchildren the Russian language, they were so homesick for their homeland that they created thousands of little Russias around them - they founded Russian institutes and seminaries, built Orthodox churches, taught Russian culture and language to thousands of Brazilians, Moroccans, Americans, French, Germans, Chinese...

They died not from old age, but from longing for their Fatherland and cried when the USSR authorities allowed them to return. They infected those around them with their love, and today Spaniards and Danes, Syrians and Greeks, Vietnamese, Filipinos and Africans come to live in Russia.

4. Unique generosity

Russian people are generous and generous in everything: material gifts, wonderful ideas, and expressions of feelings.

The word “generosity” in ancient times meant mercy, mercy. This quality is deeply rooted in the Russian character.

It is completely unnatural for a Russian person to spend 5% or 2% of his salary on charity. If a friend is in trouble, then the Russian will not bargain and gain something for himself, he will give his friend all the cash, and if it is not enough, he will throw his hat around or take off and sell his last shirt for him.

Half of the inventions in the world were made by Russian “Kulibins”, and patented by cunning foreigners. But Russians are not offended by this, since their ideas are also generosity, a gift from our people to humanity.

The Russian soul does not accept half measures and knows no prejudices. If in Russia someone was once called a friend, then they will die for him, if he is an enemy, then he will certainly be destroyed. At the same time, it doesn’t matter at all who our counterpart is, what race, nation, religion, age or gender he is - the attitude towards him will depend only on his personal qualities.

5. Incredible hard work

“The Russians are very lazy people,” Goebbels’ propagandists preached and their followers today continue to repeat. But that's not true.

We are often compared to bears and this comparison is very apt - we have similar biological rhythms: summer in Russia is short and we have to work hard to have time to harvest, and winter is long and relatively idle - chop wood, heat the stove, remove snow, and collect crafts . In fact, we work a lot, just unevenly.

Russian people have always worked diligently and conscientiously. In our fairy tales and proverbs, the positive image of the hero is inextricably linked with skill, hard work and ingenuity: “The sun paints the earth, but labor paints man.”

Since ancient times, labor has been famous and revered among peasants and artisans, scribes and merchants, warriors and monks, and has always been deeply linked to the cause of defending the Fatherland and increasing its glory.

6. The ability to see and appreciate beauty

The Russian people live in extremely picturesque places. In our country you can find large rivers and steppes, mountains and seas, tropical forests and tundra, taiga and deserts. Therefore, the sense of beauty is heightened in the Russian soul.

Russian culture was formed over a thousand years, absorbing parts of the cultures of many Slavic and Finno-Ugric tribes, as well as accepting and creatively processing the heritage of Byzantium and the Golden Horde and hundreds of small nations. Therefore, in terms of richness of content, it cannot be compared with no other culture in the world.

The awareness of the immensity of his own wealth, material and spiritual, made the Russian person friendly and understanding towards other peoples of the Earth.

A Russian person, like no one else, is able to highlight the beauty in the culture of another people, admire it and recognize the greatness of achievements. For him there are no backward or underdeveloped peoples, he has no need to treat anyone with disdain out of awareness of his own inferiority. Even from the Papuans and Indians, Russians will always find something to learn.

7. Hospitality

This national character trait is associated with our vast spaces, where it was rare to meet a person on the road. Hence the joy from such meetings - intense and sincere.

If a guest comes to a Russian person, a laid table, the best dishes, festive food and a warm overnight stay await him. And all this is done free of charge, since it is not customary for us to see in a person only a “wallet with ears” and treat him as a consumer.

Our man knows that a guest in the house should not be bored. Therefore, a foreigner who comes to us, when leaving, can hardly put together the memories of how they sang, danced, rode, fed him to the full and watered him to amazement...

8. Patience

The Russian people are amazingly patient. But this patience is not reduced to banal passivity or “slavery”; it is intertwined with sacrifice. Russian people are by no means stupid and always endure in the name of something, in the name of a meaningful goal.

If he realizes that he is being deceived, a rebellion begins - the same merciless rebellion in the flames of which all the moneylenders and careless managers perish.

But when a Russian person knows for what purpose he endures difficulties and works hard, then national patience gives incredible positive results. For us, in five years, cutting down an entire fleet, winning a world war or industrializing is in the order of things.

Russian patience is also a kind of strategy for non-aggressive interaction with the world, solving life’s problems not through violence against nature and consumption of its resources, but mainly through internal, spiritual efforts. We do not plunder the property given to us by God, but slightly moderate our appetites.

9. Sincerity

Another of the main features of the Russian character is sincerity in the manifestation of feelings.

A Russian person is bad at forcing a smile, he does not like pretense and ritual politeness, he gets irritated by an insincere “thank you for your purchase, come again” and does not shake hands with a person whom he considers a scoundrel, even if this could bring benefits.

If a person doesn’t evoke emotions in you, then you don’t need to express anything - just walk in without stopping. Acting in Russia is not held in high esteem (unless it is a profession) and those who are most respected are those who speak and act as they think and feel as God put it on my soul.

10. Collectivism, conciliarity

A Russian person is not a loner. He loves and knows how to live in society, which is reflected in the sayings: “in the world even death is red,” “alone in the field is not a warrior.”

Since ancient times, nature itself, with its severity, has encouraged Russians to unite into groups - communities, artels, partnerships, squads and brotherhoods.

Hence the “imperialism” of Russians, that is, their indifference to the fate of a relative, neighbor, friend and, ultimately, the entire Fatherland. It was because of conciliarism that for a long time there were no homeless children in Rus' - orphans were always sorted into families and raised by the entire village.

Russian conciliarity, according to the definition of the Slavophile Khomyakov, is “a holistic combination of freedom and unity of many people based on their common love for the same absolute values,” Christian values.

The West was unable to create such a powerful state as Russia, united on spiritual principles, because it did not achieve conciliarity, and to unite peoples it was forced to use, first of all, violence.

Russia has always been united on the basis of mutual respect and mutual consideration of interests. The unity of the people in peace, love and mutual assistance has always been one of the basic values ​​of the Russian people.

Andrey Szegeda

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