CROSS The cross is our protection. After all, a person resides in the world not only physical, but also spiritual. In that spiritual world we are between two poles. On the one hand, there is the power of Divine love, on the other, there is anger that counteracts it, speaking in modern scientific terms, dark negative energy, but people call it more simply - demons, evil spirits. And the cross is our defense against it. Christians have used more than 400 forms of the cross for many centuries.400 forms of the cross
Shapes of the Patriarchal cross. It has been noticed that in works of art this church cross often carried by patriarchs. The traditional Orthodox eight-pointed cross is a vertical cross with three crossbars. Two of them are horizontal, and the third, lower one, is beveled. Passionate. The pointed ends of this Latin cross represent the suffering of Christ on the cross. Bud. This widely used cross with trefoil-shaped ends symbolizes the Trinity.
The conqueror of death, Christ has risen! He was the conqueror of death. But the question is: whom did the risen Lord free by His victory over sin and death? People of only one nation or one race? People of only one class or social status? Not at all! Such liberation would, in fact, be only a feeble victory for the earthly victors. The Risen Lord tore the veil separating true Divinity from true humanity, and showed Himself to us in the greatness and beauty of both natures. No one can know true God, perhaps through the Risen Lord Christ; no one can truly know a person except through faith in Christ the Savior.
Christianity - description of religion
Christianity is one of the three so-called. world religions (along with Buddhism and Islam). It has three main directions: Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Protestantism. It is based on faith in Jesus Christ as the God-man, the Savior, the incarnation of the 2nd person of the triune Godhead (Trinity). The introduction of believers to Divine grace occurs through participation in the sacraments. The source of the doctrine of Christianity - Sacred Tradition, the main thing in it is the Holy Scripture (Bible); as well as the “Creed”, decisions of ecumenical and some local councils, individual works of the church fathers.
Christianity arose in the 1st century AD among the Jews of Palestine and immediately spread to other peoples of the Mediterranean. In the 4th century it became the state religion of the Roman Empire. By the 13th century, all of Europe was Christianized. In Rus', Christianity spread under the influence of Byzantium from the 10th century. As a result of the schism (division of churches), Christianity split into Orthodoxy and Catholicism in 1054. Protestantism emerged from Catholicism during the Reformation in the 16th century. Total number There are more than 1 billion Christians in the world.
Christianity [from Greek. Christ is the Anointed One, the Messiah; according to the New Testament text Acts of the Apostles 11:26, formed on the basis of the Greek language with the use of the Latin suffix, the noun christianoi - adherents (or followers) of Christ, Christians, first came into use to designate supporters of the new faith in the Syrian-Hellenistic city of Antioch in the 1st century .], one of the world religions (along with Buddhism and Islam), one of the so-called. “Abrahamic” (or “Abrahamic”) religions, successor to biblical monotheism (along with Judaism and Islam).
Cultural context of early Christianity
Christianity - description of religion
Christianity arose in 1st century Palestine in the context of the messianic movements of Judaism, with which, however, it soon found itself in conflict (the exclusion of Christians from synagogue life after 70, culminating in the drawing up of formal curses against Christians as “heretics”). Initially it spread among the Jews of Palestine and the Mediterranean diaspora, but already from the first decades it acquired more and more followers among other peoples (“pagans”). Until the end of the Roman Empire, the spread of Christianity occurred mainly within its borders, with a special role played by the eastern outskirts - Asia Minor, the land of those 7 churches that in the Revelation of John the Theologian (chap. 2-3) symbolize the fate of the Universal Church; Egypt is the cradle of Christian monasticism, and Christian scholarship and philosophy that flourished in the urban environment of Alexandria; It is also necessary to note the importance of such “buffer” territories between the Roman Empire and Iran (Parthian, later Sasanian Empire), such as Armenia (which officially adopted Christianity somewhat earlier than the famous Edict of Milan 313 of the Roman Emperor Constantine).
Language situation early Christianity was difficult. Jesus' sermon was spoken language Palestine of that time - Aramaic, which belonged to the Semitic group and very close to Syriac (there is information about the Aramaic original of the Gospel of Matthew; Semitologists are inclined to admit that the oldest Syriac version of the Gospels is only partly a translation from Greek, and partly retains memories of the original appearance of the sayings of Jesus ( cf. Black M. An Aramaic approach to the Gospels and Acts. 3 ed. Oxford, 1969). However, the language of interethnic communication in the Mediterranean space was Greek (the so-called Koine language); - New Testament. Therefore, the history of Christian culture (in contrast to the culture of Islam) begins on the border of languages and civilizations; ancient legend, according to which the Apostle Peter preached, having Mark (the future evangelist) as his translator. In Rome, Christian literature was created for a long time in Greek, which characterizes the cosmopolitan environment of the early Christian community, which was dominated by immigrants from the East (Christian Latin, which was to become the sacred language of the Catholic branch of Christianity in a symbolic connection with papal Rome, takes its first steps not so much in Rome , how many in North Africa).
Creed. Teaching about God.
Christianity (like later Islam) inherited the idea of a single God, matured in the Old Testament tradition, having His own cause in Himself, in relation to Whom all persons, beings and objects are creations created from nothing, and omnibenevolence, omniscience and omnipotence are unique attributes. The personal understanding of the Absolute, characteristic of the Bible, received a new development in Christianity, expressed in the two central dogmas of Christianity, which constitute its most important difference from Judaism and Islam - the Trinity and the Incarnation. According to the dogma of the Trinity, the internal life of the Divine is a personal relationship between three “Hypostases”, or Persons: the Father (the beginningless Origin), the Son, or “Word” - the Logos (the semantic and formative Principle) and the Holy Spirit (the “life-giving” Principle). The Son is born from the Father, the Holy Spirit “proceeds” from the Father (according to Orthodox teaching) or from the Father and the Son (the so-called filioque, a feature of Catholic doctrine, also adopted by Protestantism and which has become the common property of Western confessions); but both “birth” and “procession” take place not in time, but in eternity; all three Persons were always (“eternal”) and equal in dignity (“equally honest”). Christian “Trinitarian” teaching (from Latin Trinitas - Trinity), developed in the era of the so-called. Fathers of the Church (“patristics,” which flourished in the 4th and 5th centuries) and clearly rejected only in some ultra-Protestant denominations, demands “not to confuse the Persons and not to separate the Essence”; in the accentuated demarcation of the levels of the essential and hypostatic - the specificity of the Christian Trinity in comparison with the triads of other religions and mythologies (for example, the Trimurti of Hinduism). This is not unity, non-differentiation or duality; The faces of the Christian Trinity are considered accessible mutual communication It is precisely because of the unconditional “hypostatic” self-sufficiency that they have this self-sufficiency thanks to mutual openness in love.
Doctrine of the God-Man (Christology)
The image of the semi-divine Mediator between the divine and human planes of existence is known to a wide variety of mythologies and religions. However, Jesus Christ is not a demigod for Christological dogma, that is, some intermediate being lower than God and higher than man. It is for this reason that the incarnation of God is understood in Christianity as one-time and unique, not allowing any reincarnation in the spirit of pagan, eastern or gnostic mysticism: “Christ died once for our sins, and after resurrection from the dead he dies no more!” - this is the thesis defended by St. Augustine against the doctrine of eternal recurrence (“On the City of God” XII, 14, 11). Jesus Christ is the “Only Begotten”, the only Son of the One God, not to be included in any series, similar to, say, the fundamental plurality of bodhisattvas. (Therefore, attempts to accept Christ as one of many, to include Him in a number of prophets, teachers of humanity, “great enlightened ones” - from the trends of late antique syncretism sympathetic to the new faith, through Manichaeism and Islam, which gave Christ the status of the predecessor of their prophets, right up to Theosophy - are unacceptable for Christianity and other “esoteric” doctrines of modern and contemporary times).
This increases the severity of the paradox inherent in the doctrine of the incarnation of God: the absolute infinity of God turns out to be embodied not in an open series of partial incarnations, but in a single “incarnation”, so that the omnipresence of God is contained within one human body(“in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” - Apostle Paul to the Colossians 2:9), and His eternity is within the bounds of a unique historical moment (the identity of which is so important to Christianity that it is specifically mentioned in the Nicene-Constantinople Creed: Christ crucified “under Pontius Pilate,” that is, during the time of such and such a governor - the mystical event is not just empirically, but doctrinally correlated with a date, with a world-historical, and therefore worldly, chronology, cf. also the Gospel of Luke 3:1) . Christianity rejected as heresies all doctrines that tried to smooth out these paradoxes: Arianism, which denied “co-originlessness” and the ontological equality of the Son to the Father, Nestorianism, which separated the divine nature of the Logos and the human nature of Jesus, Monophysitism, on the contrary, which spoke of absorption human nature Jesus by the divine nature of the Logos.
The doubly paradoxical formula of the 4th Ecumenical (Chalcedonian) Council (451) expressed the relationship of the divine and human natures, preserving their fullness and identity in the God-manhood of Christ - “truly God” and “truly man” - with four negations: “unmerged, untransformed, indivisible, inseparable." This formula outlines a universal paradigm for Christianity of the relationship between the divine and the human. Ancient philosophy developed the concept of non-passion, non-affectivity of the divine principle; Christian theological tradition assimilates this concept (and defends it against the heresy of the so-called Patripassians), but conceives precisely this non-suffering present in the suffering of Christ on the cross and in His death and burial (according to the Orthodox liturgical text, sharpening the paradox, by crucifixion and Before the Resurrection, the personal hypostasis of Christ is simultaneously localized in the most diverse ontological and mystical planes of existence - “in the grave carnally, in hell with the soul like God in heaven with the thief and on the throne... with the Father...").
Anthropology
The human situation is considered in Christianity to be acutely contradictory. In the original, “primordial” state and in God’s final plan for man, mystical dignity belongs not only to the human spirit (as in ancient idealism, as well as in Gnosticism and Manichaeism), but also to the body. Christian eschatology teaches not just the immortality of the soul, but the resurrection of the transformed flesh - in the words of the Apostle Paul, “the spiritual body” (First Epistle to the Corinthians 15:44); in the situation of disputes of the late antique era, this brought upon Christianity the ridicule of pagan Platonists and paradoxical-sounding accusations of excessive love for the physical. The ascetic program, formulated by the same Paul in the words “I subdue and enslave my body” (ibid., 9:27), ultimately has as its goal not the separation of the spirit from the body, but the restoration of the spirituality of the body, violated by sin.
The Fall, i.e. the first act of disobedience to God, committed by the first people, destroyed man's likeness to God - this is the weight of the so-called. original sin. Christianity has created a sophisticated culture of judging one’s own guilt (in this regard, such literary phenomena of the era of the Church Fathers as Augustine’s “Confession” and the confessional lyrics of Gregory the Theologian are characteristic); The most revered Christian saints considered themselves great sinners, and from the Christian point of view they were right. Christ defeated the ontological power of sin, “redeemed” people, as if redeeming them from slavery from Satan through His suffering.
Christianity highly values the cleansing power of suffering - not as an end in itself (the ultimate destination of man is eternal bliss), but as the most powerful weapon in the war against the evil of the world. Therefore, from the point of view of Christianity, the most desirable state of a person in this life is not the calm painlessness of a Stoic sage or a Buddhist “enlightened one,” but the tension of struggle with oneself and suffering for everyone; Only by “accepting his cross” can a person, according to Christian understanding, defeat evil in himself and around him. “Humility” is seen as an ascetic exercise in which a person “cuts off” his self-will and through this, paradoxically, becomes free.
The descent of God to man is at the same time the requirement of man’s ascent to God; a person must not only be brought to obedience to God and fulfill the commandments, as in Judaism and Islam, but transformed and elevated to the ontological level of divine existence (the so-called “deification”, especially clearly thematized in Orthodox mysticism). “We are now children of God; but it has not yet been revealed what we will be. We only know that (...) we will be like Him, because we will see Him as He is” (First Epistle of John 3:2). If a person does not fulfill this (at least after going through severe afterlife trials, called “ordeals” in the Orthodox tradition, and in Catholic tradition“purgatory”) of its mystically high purpose and fails to respond to the sacrificial death of Christ, he will be rejected for all eternity; there is ultimately no middle ground between unearthly glory and destruction.
Doctrine of the Sacraments
Associated with the concept of God’s incomprehensibly high plan for man is the concept of “sacrament”, alien to other religions, as a completely special action that goes beyond the boundaries of ritual and rite; if rituals symbolically correlate human life with divine existence and thereby guarantee the stability of balance in the world and man, then the sacraments (Greek mysterion, Latin sacramentum), according to the traditional Christian understanding, actually introduce the divine presence into human life and serve as a guarantee of future “deification” , the breakthrough of eschatological time.
The most important of the sacraments, recognized by all religions, are baptism (initiation, introducing into Christian life and stopping, according to the teachings of Christianity, the effect of the inertia of original sin) and the Eucharist, or communion (eating bread and wine, invisibly transubstantiated, according to church faith, into the Body and Blood of Christ for the sake of the essential union of the believer with Christ, so that Christ “lives in him”). Orthodoxy and Catholicism recognize 5 more sacraments, the sacramental status of which is denied by Protestantism: anointing, which aims to impart to the believer the mystical gifts of the Holy Spirit and, as it were, crowning Baptism; repentance (confession to the priest and absolution); ordination or ordination (ordination to the clergy, which gives not only the authority to teach and “pastorally” lead the faithful, but also - in contrast to the purely legal status of a rabbi in Judaism or a mullah in Islam - primarily the authority to administer the sacraments); marriage understood as participation in the mystical marriage of Christ and the Church (Ephesians 5:22-32); unction (accompanied by prayers, anointing the body of a seriously ill person with oil as a last resort to return to life and at the same time a farewell to death). The concept of a sacrament, always bodily concrete, and the ethics of asceticism are subordinated in Christianity to the idea of the high purpose of all human nature, including the bodily principle, which must be prepared for eschatological enlightenment by both asceticism and the action of the sacraments. The ideal of ascetic-sacramental existence is the Virgin Mary, who, precisely thanks to her virginity, realizes in her physical existence as the Mother of God the sacramental presence of the Divine in the human world. (It is characteristic that in Protestantism, where the experience of the sacrament weakens, the ascetic institution of monasticism, as well as the veneration of the Virgin Mary, naturally disappears).
Christianity and monarchy
The administration of the Roman Caesars for a long time viewed Christianity as a complete negation of the official norm, accusing Christians of “hatred of the human race”; refusal to participate pagan rituals, especially in the religious and political cult of the emperor, brought bloody persecution on Christians. The impact of this fact on the specific emotional atmosphere of Christianity was very profound: persons who were subjected to death penalty(martyrs) or imprisonment and torture (confessors) were the first in the history of Christianity to be revered as saints, the ideal of the martyr (correlated with the image of the crucified Jesus Christ) became the central paradigm of Christian ethics, viewing the whole world as being under the unrighteous power of the “prince of this world” (Satan, see Gospel of John 14:30; 16:11, etc.), and proper behavior is peaceful resistance to this power and, therefore, acceptance of suffering. At the same time, the universal-civilizing character of the Roman Empire was consonant with the universal spirit of Christianity, addressing all people; early Christian authors of the 2nd-3rd centuries. (who are usually called apologists, because in conditions of persecution and attacks they came out with an apology for their faith) called in their writings, often formally addressed to the bearers of power, for reconciliation between the Church and the empire.
Becoming at the beginning of the 4th century, thanks to the initiative of Emperor Constantine, an officially permitted (and by the end of the same century, the dominant) religion in the Roman Empire, Christianity for a long time found itself under the patronage, but also tutelage state power(the so-called “Constantinian era”); the borders of the Christian world for some time approximately coincide with the borders of the empire (and Greco-Roman civilization), so that the position of the Roman (later Byzantine) emperor is perceived as the rank of the only supreme secular “primate” of all Christians in the world (on whose initiative, in particular, the Ecumenical Councils met cathedrals of the 4th-7th centuries, recognized not only by Catholics, but also by Orthodox). This paradigm, which represents an analogy to the caliphate in early Islam and was animated by the need for religious wars specifically with Islam, was theoretically significant even at the end of the Western Middle Ages - for example, for Dante Alighieri’s treatise “On the Monarchy” (1310-11). Moreover, it determined the Byzantine ideology of the sacred power and, in part, some traditions of the Orthodox branch of Christianity (cf. in Muscovite Rus' the idea of “Moscow of the third Rome”). In the western half of the Roman Empire, the weakness and then the collapse of statehood led to the rise of the power of the Roman bishop (pope), who also took over secular functions and argued with the imperial principle on essentially the same theocratic paradigm.
But even against the background of the sacralization of the throne, reality constantly created conflicts between Christian conscience and power, reviving the Christian ideals of martyrdom and “confession”, relevant for any era, i.e., moral resistance to power (such key figures of saints for the Christian tradition as John Chrysostom in the early Byzantine era, Thomas Becket and John Nepomuk (d. 1393), in the context of medieval Catholicism and Metropolitan Philip in Russian Orthodoxy, are associated precisely with the fulfillment of Christian duty in the face of repression from monarchs who were completely “of the same faith” with them).
Ancient religions
The political and ideological context, changing depending on the conditions of the era and culture, determined the logic of successive church divisions (“schisms”), as a result of which discord between churches and religions (confessions) arose. Already in the 5th-7th centuries, in the course of clarifying the doctrine of the union of the divine and human natures in the person of Jesus Christ (the so-called Christological disputes), the so-called. “non-Chalcedonians” (from the name of the 4th Ecumenical Council in Chalcedon) - Christians of the East who lived outside the Greco-Latin language zone; The Nestorians, who had not already recognized the 3rd Ecumenical Council (431), enjoyed significant influence until the late Middle Ages in Iran and further to the East from Central Asia to China [now the so-called communities. Assyrians (“Isors”), scattered from the Middle East to the United States, as well as “Christians of St. Thomas" in India]; the Monophysites who did not recognize the 4th Ecumenical Council (451), who prevailed in the Jacobite (Syrian), Gregorian (Armenian), Coptic (Egyptian) and Ethiopian Churches; Monothelites, the remnant of which is the Maronite Church of Lebanon, which united with Catholics for the second time. At present (after scientific and analytical work, one of the initiators of which back in the 19th century was the Russian church scientist Vasily Vasilyevich Bolotov), among Catholic and Orthodox theological experts the prevailing attitude is towards the “non-Chalcedonian” Churches as being separated not so much due to real doctrinal differences, how much under the influence of linguistic-cultural misunderstandings and political conflicts.
By 1054, the separation of the Orthodox (centered in Constantinople) and Catholic (centered in Rome) Churches was officially proclaimed and consolidated in the 13th century; behind it lay the conflict between the Byzantine ideology of the sacred power and the Latin ideology of the universal papacy, complicated by doctrinal (see above about the filioque) and ritual differences. Attempts at reconciliation (at the 2nd Council of Lyons in 1274 and especially at the Council of Florence in 1439) did not have long-term success; their result was the so-called paradigm. “Uniatism”, or “Catholicism of the Eastern Rite” (a combination of Orthodox ritual and church-everyday tradition, including the Creed without a filioque, with recognition of the universal primacy of Rome), which most often led to a psychological aggravation of the confessional conflict (especially Union of Brest among Ukrainians and Belarusians), as is often recognized with Catholic side; However, it must be borne in mind that for approximately 10 million Christians around the world, “Uniateism” has long been an inherited tradition, suffered through conflicts. In Russia, the most important Orthodox country after the fall of Byzantium in 1453, the inherent Byzantine Christianity the tendency to identify the church, kingdom and people and to the associated sacralization led in the 17th century disputes about the norm of ritual practice to a schism, as a result of which the so-called Old Believers separated from Orthodoxy (itself fragmented into many “talks”).
Reformation
In the West, at the end of the Middle Ages, the papacy caused protest both “from above”, from the secular authorities, with whom it entered into a dispute about powers, and “from below” (Lollards, Hussites, etc.). On the threshold of the New Age, the initiators of the Reformation - Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon, Ulrich Zwingli, John Calvin and others - rejected the papacy as a reality and ideology; Having destroyed the unity of Western Christianity, the Reformation gave birth to many Protestant denominations, etc. denominations. Protestantism created a culture with its own specific features: special interest in the Bible (including the Old Testament), Bible readings in the family circle; shifting emphasis from church sacraments to preaching, and from personal obedience to spiritual “primates” and the practice of regular church confession - to individual responsibility before God; a new business ethics that values frugality, order in business and self-confidence as a kind of asceticism, and success as a sign of God's favor; everyday respectability, equally removed from monastic severity and aristocratic splendor. Such a culture brought up strong-willed, proactive, internally secluded people - human type, which played an important role in the formation of early capitalism and the civilization of modern times in general (akin to the famous concept of “Protestant ethics” by Max Weber). It is not for nothing that the Protestant North of Europe (which the United States will later join) generally outstrips the Catholic South in terms of industrialization rates, not to mention the Orthodox East (and in the development of traditional capitalism in pre-revolutionary Russia A special role is played by the Old Believers, who, in opposing the tsarist officialdom, developed traits that represent a well-known analogy to the “Protestant ethic”).
Christianity and Modern Times
However, with all the contrasts and conflicts that resulted in the 16-17 centuries. During the bloody religious wars, in the further development of the confessional branches of Christian culture, some common properties can be traced. Both the creators of the Protestant education system, like the “mentor of Germany” Melanchthon, and such extreme advocates of Catholicism as the Jesuits (and PRists), subjectively trying to oust each other, are objectively developing and implanting a new school system, less repressive than the old one, more competitive-oriented between students and on aesthetic education; Wed the phenomenon of the Jesuit school theater, which influenced the Ukrainian-Russian Orthodox culture 17th century, in particular, on the poetic work of St. Demetrius of Rostov, which in itself was one of the manifestations of the Orthodox reception of baroque-scholastic forms of culture in Kyiv (Metropolitan Peter Mohyla, and the Kiev-Mohyla Academy created by him) and then in Moscow (Slavic-Scholastic Greco-Latin Academy). One can note, for example, the similarity in the methods of public preaching among two dissimilar movements that arose in the 18th century - the Catholic congregation of the Redemptorists and such extreme representatives of English Protestantism as the Methodists.
The secularizing tendencies of the New Age were consistently revealed by the anti-clerical wing of the Enlightenment: not only the practice of the Church was challenged, but also the teaching of Christianity as such; in contrast to it, a self-sufficient ideal of earthly progress is put forward. The so-called “union of the Throne and the Altar” came to an end, to which the idea of Christian theocracy was reduced (if the early bourgeois revolutions took place under the banner of the Reformation, then during the Great french revolution a “de-Christianization” campaign had already been carried out, anticipating the “militant godlessness” of Russian Bolshevism); The “Constantinian era” of Christianity as a state religion has passed. The usual concept of a “Christian (Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, etc.) nation” has been challenged; All over the world, Christians live next to non-believers, and today, at least due to the massive migration of labor, they live next to non-believers. Today's Christianity has an experience that has no analogues in the past.
Since the 19th century, in Protestantism and especially in Catholicism, there has been a tendency to develop, on the basis of Christian teaching, a social doctrine that meets the challenges of the time (Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical “Rerum novarum”, 1891). The liturgical practice of Protestantism, and since the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) and Catholicism, seeks conformity with new models of human self-awareness. Similar attempts at Russian post-revolutionary “renovationism” failed both due to greater strength Orthodox conservatism, and due to the fact that the leaders of “renovationism” compromised themselves with opportunism at a time of anti-church repression. The question of the legitimate relationship between the “canon” and innovation in Christian culture is paramount for everyone today Christian denominations. Reforms and changes caused a sharp reaction from extreme traditionalists who insisted on the obligatory letter of the Holy Scripture (the so-called fundamentalism - a term that arose as a self-name for groups of American Protestants, but is now used broadly), on the immutability of ritual (the movement of Catholic “integrators” who rejected the 2nd Vatican Council, and in Orthodox Greece - “Old Calendarists”). At the opposite pole there is a tendency (especially in some Protestant denominations) to revise doctrinal foundations for the sake of seamless adaptation to the ethics of modern liberalism.
Modern Christianity is not the religious self-determination of a homogeneous society, not the heritage of ancestors, “absorbed with mother’s milk” by descendants, but rather the faith of missionaries and converts; and in this situation, Christianity can be helped by the memory of its first steps - in the space between ethnic groups and cultures.
Ecumenism
A new factor in the life of Christianity in the 20th century was the ecumenical movement for the reunification of Christians of different faiths. It is conditioned by the situation of Christianity as a faith offering itself anew to the non-Christian world; a person who, in an act of personal choice, becomes a Christian, less and less inherits the skills of the confessional culture of his ancestors, but on the other hand, the mutual accounts of confessions, going back centuries, become less and less relevant for him. The popular English Christian writer Clive Staples Lewis wrote a book with the characteristic title “Mere Christianity” (Russian translation in the book: Lewis C.S. Love. Suffering. Hope. M., 1992); This title successfully expresses the need of the era to raise the question of the essential core of Christian teaching, visible through all the particular features of this or that historical type. The danger of simplification and impoverishment contained in such a mentality is obvious. But a certain measure of simplification becomes an adequate response to the harsh reality of the radical challenge posed to Christianity by both totalitarianism and secularist relativism. The diversity of theological positions in depth is replaced by a division in two - for or against Christ. Christians of various confessions, who found each other as comrades in fate in Stalin's and Hitler's camps - this is the most profound “ecumenical” experience of the century. At the same time, intellectual honesty, far from forcing one to renounce one’s religious beliefs, obliges one to see real story and the lives of different confessions, on the one hand, according to the well-known formula of Berdyaev, the sad “unworthiness of Christians”, contrasting with the “dignity of Christianity”, on the other hand, deeds of sincere love for God and neighbor (akin to the call of Archbishop John Shakhovsky to see “sectarianism in Orthodoxy and Orthodoxy in sectarianism").
Name: Christianity (“messiah”)
Time of occurrence: beginning of our era
Founder: Jesus Christ
scriptures: Bible
Christianity is an Abrahamic world religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ as described in the New Testament. Christians believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, the Son of God and the Savior of mankind.
Christianity is the largest world religion, both in terms of the number of adherents, of which there are about 2.3 billion, and in terms of geographical distribution - in every country in the world there is at least one Christian community.
The largest movements in Christianity are and. In 1054, the Christian Church split into Western () and Eastern (Orthodox). The appearance was the result of the reformation movement in the church in the 16th century.
Christianity originated in the 1st century in Palestine, in the Jewish environment in the context of the messianic movements of Old Testament Judaism. Already in the time of Nero, Christianity was known in many provinces of the Roman Empire.
The roots of Christian doctrine are connected with Old Testament Judaism. According to the Holy Scriptures, Jesus was circumcised, raised as a Jew, observed the Torah, attended synagogue on Shabbat (Saturday), and observed holidays. The apostles and other early followers of Jesus were Jews.
According to Christian doctrine, man is created in the image and likeness of God. He was perfect from the beginning, but fell due to the Fall. Fallen man has a rough, visible body, a soul filled with passions and a spirit directed towards God. Meanwhile, man is one, therefore not only the soul, but the whole man, including the body, is subject to salvation (resurrection). The perfect man, inextricably united with the divine nature, is Jesus Christ. However, Christianity also implies other forms of posthumous existence: in hell, heaven and purgatory (only in).
The main commandments of Christians from the New Testament, given by Christ himself (Matthew 22:37-40):
- “Love the Lord God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind.”
- “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Currently, the number of adherents of Christianity around the world is about 2.35 billion, including:
- - about 1.2 billion;
- -about 420 million;
- 279 million Pentecostals;
- 225 to 300 million Orthodox;
- about 88 million Anglicans;
- about 75 million Presbyterians and related denominations;
- 70 million Methodists;
- 70 million Baptists;
- 64 million Lutherans;
- 16 million Seventh-day Adventists;
- There are about 70-80 million adherents of ancient Eastern churches.
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Karma Yoga | Teachings of the Bhagavad Gita Title: Karma Yoga (yoga of action) Karma yoga is based on the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita - the sacred Hindu scripture...
World religions:
Christianity
Christianity is the largest religion in the world. According to the encyclopedia “Peoples and Religions of the World” (M..1998, p.860), in 1996 there were about 2 billion Christians in the world. Christianity arose in 
Palestine in the middle of the 1st century. AD The first Christians were Jews by nationality, and Jews by their previous religious worldview. But already in the second half of the 1st century, Christianity became an international religion. The language of international communication among the early Christians became Greek language(as in the state of that time). From the point of view of clergy, the main and only reason for the emergence of Christianity was the preaching activity of Jesus Christ, who was both God and man. Jesus Christ, say the clergy, came to earth in the form of a man and brought people the truth. His coming to earth (this past coming is called the first, in contrast to the second, future) is told in four sacred books called the Gospels.
From the point of view of materialist historians, the main reason for the emergence of Christianity was difficult living conditions masses who sought consolation for themselves in the new religion. At the same time, modern historians do not deny that Christ the preacher (but not God) existed and that his preaching activity was one of the factors in the formation of a new religion.
Cultists say that the Gospels were written by two apostles of Jesus Christ (Matthew and John) and two disciples of the other two apostles: Peter - Mark and Paul - Luke. The Gospels tell that during the time when King Herod ruled Judea, a woman named Mary in the city of Bethlehem gave birth to a boy whom she and her husband named Jesus. When Jesus grew up, he began to preach a new religious teaching, the main ideas of which were the following. First, you must believe that Jesus is the Christ (the Greek word Christ means the same as the Hebrew word Messiah). And secondly, you must believe that he is Jesus - the son of God. Along with these two, the most frequently repeated ideas in his sermons, he propagated many others: about his future second coming, about the resurrection of dead bodies at the end of the world, about the existence of angels, demons, etc. Moral ideas occupied a significant place in his sermons: about the need to love your neighbors, help those in trouble, etc. He accompanied his teachings with miracles that proved his divine origin. In particular, he performed the following miracles: he healed a great many sick people with a word or touch, raised the dead three times, turned water into wine once, walked on water as if on a dry place, fed five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two small fish, etc. Particularly important A role in the Gospels is played by the story of the last days of the life of Jesus Christ. This story begins with the episode of his entry into Jerusalem. He was met by many people, for Jesus became famous for his numerous miracles. People spread their clothes and palm branches on the road along which Jesus Christ was traveling and shouted to him “Hosanna!” The word “hosanna” literally translated from Hebrew means “salvation” (wishing salvation for Jesus), but in meaning it is a greeting like “Glory”).
One of important events in the life of Jesus Christ after his entry into Jerusalem was the expulsion of merchants from the Jerusalem temple. The situation of expelling traders from the temple became a symbol of the removal of dishonest people from all holy and noble affairs. Jesus entered Jerusalem on the first day of the week (as Sunday is called in the Gospels), and on the fifth day of the week (i.e. Thursday) the farewell Easter dinner (the Jewish Passover) of Jesus Christ with the apostles took place. Subsequently, Christian clergymen called this dinner the “Last Supper.” During the Last Supper, Christ's disciples ate the bread and drank the wine that he served them.
After the Easter dinner, Jesus Christ and his disciples (with the exception of one of them, Judas Iscariot, who left the dinner earlier) came first to the Mount of Olives and then to the Garden of Gethsemane. There, in the garden on the night from Thursday to Friday, Roman soldiers, with the help of Judas Iscariot, arrested Jesus Christ. The arrested man was taken to the house of the high priest. Church court accused him of blasphemy and an attack on the royal throne (this attack was seen in the fact that he called himself “King of the Jews”). Jesus Christ was sentenced to death. On Friday, Roman soldiers, who, according to the laws of that time, carried out death sentences from the ecclesiastical court, crucified him on the cross, and he died. Early in the morning on the first day of the week, Jesus Christ was resurrected, and after some time ascended to heaven. The book “The Acts of the Apostles,” located in the Bible after the Gospels, specifies that the ascension to heaven occurred on the 40th day after his resurrection. This is the main content of the gospel stories about Jesus Christ. People differ in their assessment of the truth of the Gospel stories. Some believe that everything that is written in the Gospels took place in reality. Others, on the contrary, believe that in the Gospels reality is mixed with fiction.
In the formation of the specific features of the new religion, according to historians, some other social circumstances also played a role. The existence of imperial power contributed to the development and consolidation of the idea of one God in heaven. 
Strengthening economic, political and ideological communication between peoples (as a result of the formation of the Roman Empire) formed and consolidated the idea of an international God who cares for all people, regardless of their nationality. The crisis of the slave society led the upper classes to disappointment in the old religions, to a loss of faith in the gods, who could not prevent the deterioration of the position of the ruling classes. And many of the representatives of the ruling classes pinned their hopes on the newly emerged religion as a powerful force that could support them. If you compare the Christian religion with the religions and philosophies that already existed in the Roman Empire, then in a number of cases you can see something in common. Historians believe that these common points indicate that the Christian religion had ideological sources. The most important of these is Judaism.
Christianity arose as an offshoot of Judaism. Christians consider the sacred book of the Jews, the Tanakh, to be theirs. holy book, but they call it differently: the Old Testament. Christians supplemented the Old Testament with the New Testament, and together they compiled the Bible. From Jewish religion Christians accepted the idea of the Messiah. The word Christ itself is nothing more than a translation of the Hebrew word Messiah into Greek. A number of provisions that were later included in the system of Christian religious and moral views were expressed by the Alexandrian philosopher Philo: about the innate sinfulness of people, about asceticism and suffering as means of saving the soul, about the fact that the Messiah is also God and that his name is Logos (this name in Christianity it became the second name of Christ, translated from Greek into Russian Logos is the Word). From the Roman Seneca, Christians borrowed ethical ideas about the equality of all people before God, about the salvation of the soul as the goal of life, about contempt for earthly life, about love for enemies, about submission to fate. The Qumran community (formerly a denomination in Judaism) propagated ideas about the first coming of the Messiah that had already taken place and the expected second, and about the presence of a human nature in the Messiah. These ideas also entered Christianity.
In the 1st century AD There were many national religions on the territory of the Roman Empire. By the end of the 5th century. these religions either receded into the background (such as Judaism), or disappeared from the historical scene ( ancient greek religion). Christianity, on the contrary, from a small religious movement turned into the main, most numerous religion in the empire. According to historians, the victory of Christianity over other religions is explained by its following features.
Firstly, its monotheism. All other religions in the empire, except Christianity and Judaism, were polytheistic. Under the empire, monotheism looked more attractive.
Secondly, its humanistic moral content. Of course, there were certain humane moral ideas in other religions of that time. But in Christianity they were expressed more fully and more vividly, since the main authors of this religion (according to historians) were workers; and for workers, work and life without mutual respect and mutual assistance were simply impossible.
Thirdly, the picture of the afterlife in Christianity looked more attractive to the lower classes of society than in any other religion. Christianity promised a heavenly reward first and foremost to all those who suffer in this life, to all those who are humiliated and insulted.
Fourthly, only Christianity abandoned national barriers, promising salvation to everyone, regardless of nationality.
Fifthly, the rituals in the religions that existed at that time were complex and expensive, and Christianity simplified and made the rituals cheaper.
Sixth, only Christianity criticized slavery by recognizing the slave as equal before God with all other people. In general, Christianity adapted better than other religions to new historical conditions.
The Christian religion has gone through two major stages and is now in the third stage of its history. Historians call Christianity of the first stage (I-V centuries) ancient Christianity, the second stage (VI-XV centuries) - medieval Christianity, the third stage (XVI century - to the present) - bourgeois Christianity. In bourgeois Christianity, a special part of the stage stands out, which is called modern Christianity (second half of the twentieth century).
The creed of official ancient Christianity took shape towards the end of the 5th century. It was based on the Bible and the decisions of the Ecumenical Councils and was set out in the works of prominent theologians of the 4th and 5th centuries (they, like the famous theologians of subsequent times, are called “fathers of the church”). The doctrine of official ancient Christianity was adopted in whole or in part by all that subsequently emerged. Christian denominations, but each of the confessions supplemented the doctrine of ancient Christians with some of its own specific religious teachings. These specific additions mainly distinguish one denomination from another.
The main author of the Bible is God. People helped him: about 40 people. 
God created the Bible through people: he inspired them with what exactly should be written. The Bible is a divinely inspired book. She is also called Holy Scripture and the Word of God. All books of the Bible are divided into two parts. The books of the first part, taken together, are called the Old Testament, the second part - the New Testament. Ancient Christians included 27 books in the New Testament. Some denominations in modern Christianity include 39 books in the Old Testament (for example, Lutheranism), others - 47 (for example, Catholicism), others -50 (for example, Orthodoxy). Therefore, the total number of books in the Bible is different in different denominations: 66, 74 and 77.
According to the creed of official ancient Christianity, there are three groups of supernatural beings in the world: the Trinity, angels and demons. The main idea of the doctrine of the Trinity is the assertion that one God exists simultaneously in three persons (hypostases) as God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. All persons of the Trinity can appear to people in physical, material bodies. Thus, on Catholic and Orthodox icons (and Catholics and Orthodox Christians inherited the doctrine of the Trinity from ancient Christians), the Trinity is depicted as follows: the first person in the image of a man, the second person also in the image of a man, and the third person in the image of a dove. All persons of the Trinity possess all perfect qualities: eternity, omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, omnibenevolence and others. God the Father created the world with the participation of the other two persons of the Trinity, and the forms of this participation are a mystery to the human mind. Christian theology considers the doctrine of the Trinity one of the most incomprehensible to the human mind.
In ancient Christianity, believers were required to honor prophets. Prophets were people whom God gave the task and opportunity to proclaim the truth to people. And the truth that they proclaimed had two main parts: the truth about right religion and the truth about right life. A particularly important element in the truth about correct religion was the story of what awaits people in the future. Christians, like Jews, revered all the prophets mentioned in the Tanakh (Old Testament), but in addition to them they revered the prophets of the New Testament: John the Baptist and John the Evangelist. Their veneration of the prophets, as in Judaism, was expressed in the form of respectful conversation about the prophets in sermons and in everyday life. But the ancient Christians, unlike the Jews, did not have any special ritual veneration of Elijah and Moses. Ancient Christians supplemented the veneration of the prophets with the veneration of the apostles and evangelists (authors of the Gospels). Moreover, two evangelists (Matthew and John) were also apostles. John, moreover, according to the views of ancient Christians, was considered at the same time a prophet.
The main idea of the doctrine of the afterlife in Christianity is the idea of the existence of heaven and hell. Heaven is a place of bliss, hell is a place of torment. The word “paradise” is taken from the Persian language. In the first, literal meaning, it meant “wealth”, “happiness”. The word “hell” is taken from the Greek language (in Greek it sounds like “ades”) and in its first, literal meaning it meant “invisible.” The ancient Greeks used this word to describe the kingdom of the dead. Since, according to their ideas, this kingdom was located underground, the word “ades” in the second meaning began to mean “underground kingdom.” Ancient Christians believed that heaven was in heaven (hence the expression “kingdom of heaven” became synonymous with heaven), and hell was in the bowels of the earth. Modern Christian clergy add to this that both heaven and hell are located in a special supernatural space: they are inaccessible to people during earthly life. 
It is usually written in the literature that, according to Christian teaching, God sends the righteous to heaven and sinners to hell. Strictly speaking, according to Christian teaching, because of the original sin of Adam and Eve, all people are sinners (with the exception of Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ). Therefore, according to Christians, the righteous are not the opposite of sinners, but a special part of them. Since the righteous differ from each other in the degree of righteousness, and inveterate sinners differ from each other in the depth of sinfulness, then the fate of all the righteous (in the degree and forms of bliss) and all sinners (in the degree and forms of torment) is not the same.
According to the canons of Christianity, the afterlife has two stages. First: from the death of the body to the second coming of Jesus Christ. The second stage will begin with the second coming of Jesus Christ, but it has no end. At the first stage, only the souls of people are in heaven and hell; at the second, souls will unite with resurrected bodies. Hell in both stages is in the same place, and heaven in the second stage will move from heaven to earth.
Ancient Christianity was the cradle of the main world religion of our time. In its further development, Christianity was divided into many denominations, but each of them is based on the inheritance received from ancient Christianity.
To comply with ethical and moral standards in society, as well as to regulate relations between an individual and the state or the highest form of spirituality (Cosmic Mind, God), world religions were created. Over time, splits have occurred within every major religion. As a result of this schism, Orthodoxy was formed.
Orthodoxy and Christianity
Many people make the mistake of considering all Christians to be Orthodox. Christianity and Orthodoxy are not the same thing. How to distinguish between these two concepts? What is their essence? Now let's try to figure it out.
Christianity is which originated in the 1st century. BC e. waiting for the coming of the Savior. Its formation was influenced philosophical teachings that time, Judaism (polytheism was replaced by one God) and endless military-political skirmishes.
Orthodoxy is just one of the branches of Christianity that originated in the 1st millennium AD. in the eastern Roman Empire and received its official status after the schism of the common Christian church in 1054.
History of Christianity and Orthodoxy
The history of Orthodoxy (orthodoxy) began already in the 1st century AD. This was the so-called apostolic creed. After the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, his faithful apostles began to preach his teachings to the masses, attracting new believers to their ranks.
In the 2nd-3rd centuries, orthodoxy was engaged in active confrontation with Gnosticism and Arianism. The first to reject the scriptures Old Testament and interpreted it in their own way New Testament. The second, led by the presbyter Arius, did not recognize the consubstantiality of the Son of God (Jesus), considering him a mediator between God and people.
Seven Ecumenical Councils, convened with the support of the Byzantine emperors from 325 to 879, helped to resolve the contradictions between the rapidly developing heretical teachings and Christianity. The axioms established by the Councils regarding the nature of Christ and the Mother of God, as well as the approval of the Creed, helped the new movement to take shape into the most powerful Christian religion.
Not only heretical concepts contributed to the development of Orthodoxy. Western and Eastern influenced the formation of new directions in Christianity. The different political and social views of the two empires created a crack in the united all-Christian church. Gradually it began to split into Roman Catholic and Eastern Catholic (later Orthodox). The final split between Orthodoxy and Catholicism occurred in 1054, when the Pope and the Pope mutually excommunicated each other (anathema). The division of the common Christian church ended in 1204, along with the fall of Constantinople.
The Russian land adopted Christianity in 988. Officially there was no division into Rome yet, but due to political and economic interests Prince Vladimir, the Byzantine trend - Orthodoxy - was widespread on the territory of Rus'.
The essence and foundations of Orthodoxy
The basis of any religion is faith. Without it, the existence and development of divine teachings is impossible.
The essence of Orthodoxy is contained in the Creed, adopted at the second Ecumenical Council. On the fourth, the Nicene Creed (12 dogmas) was established as an axiom, not subject to any change.
Orthodox believe in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Holy Trinity). is the creator of everything earthly and heavenly. The Son of God, incarnate from the Virgin Mary, is consubstantial and only begotten in relation to the Father. The Holy Spirit comes from God the Father through the Son and is revered no less than the Father and the Son. The Creed tells about the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, pointing to eternal life after death.
All Orthodox Christians belong to one church. Baptism is a mandatory ritual. When it is committed, liberation from original sin occurs.
Observance of moral standards (commandments) that were transmitted by God through Moses and voiced by Jesus Christ is mandatory. All “rules of behavior” are based on help, compassion, love and patience. Orthodoxy teaches us to endure any hardships of life without complaint, to accept them as the love of God and trials for sins, in order to then go to heaven.
Orthodoxy and Catholicism (main differences)
Catholicism and Orthodoxy have a number of differences. Catholicism is a branch of Christian teaching that arose, like Orthodoxy, in the 1st century. AD in the western Roman Empire. And Orthodoxy is Christianity, which originated in the Eastern Roman Empire. Here is a comparison table:
Orthodoxy | Catholicism |
|
Relations with authorities | The Orthodox Church, for two thousand years, has been in collaboration with secular power, sometimes in her submission, sometimes in exile. | Empowering the Pope with both secular and religious power. |
the Virgin Mary | The Mother of God is considered the bearer of original sin because her nature is human. | Dogma of the purity of the Virgin Mary (there is no original sin). |
Holy Spirit | The Holy Spirit comes from the Father through the Son | The Holy Spirit comes from both the Son and the Father |
Attitude towards the sinful soul after death | The soul undergoes “ordeals.” Earthly life defines eternal. | Existence Last Judgment and purgatory, where the purification of the soul takes place. |
Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition | Holy Scripture - part of Holy Tradition | Equal. |
Baptism | Triple immersion (or dousing) in water with communion and anointing. | Sprinkling and dousing. All sacraments after 7 years. |
6-8-pointed cross with the image of the victorious God, legs nailed with two nails. | 4-pointed cross with God the Martyr, legs nailed with one nail. |
|
Fellow believers | All brothers. | Every person is unique. |
Attitude to rituals and sacraments | The Lord does it through the clergy. | It is performed by a clergyman endowed with divine power. |
Nowadays, the question of reconciliation between churches very often arises. But due to significant and minor differences (for example, Catholics and Orthodox Christians cannot agree on the use of yeast or unleavened bread in the sacraments), reconciliation is constantly postponed. About the reunion in soon there is no question at all.
The attitude of Orthodoxy to other religions
Orthodoxy is a direction that, having stood out from general Christianity as an independent religion, does not recognize other teachings, considering them false (heretical). There can only be one truly true religion.
Orthodoxy is a trend in religion that is not losing popularity, but on the contrary, gaining popularity. And yet in modern world peacefully coexists in the vicinity of other religions: Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, Shintoism and others.
Orthodoxy and modernity
Our times have given the church freedom and support it. Over the past 20 years, the number of believers, as well as those who consider themselves to be Orthodox, has increased. At the same time, the moral spirituality that this religion implies, on the contrary, has fallen. A huge number of people perform rituals and attend church mechanically, that is, without faith.
The number of churches and parochial schools attended by believers has increased. Increase external factors only partially affects the internal state of a person.
The Metropolitan and other clergy hope that, after all, those who consciously accepted Orthodox Christianity will be able to achieve spiritual success.
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