Christianity
CHRISTIANITY -A; cf. One of the most widespread religions in the world. Convert to x. Spread of Christianity in Rus'. Confess x. ● Religion arose in the second half of the 1st century. AD in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, originally among the Jews (it is based on faith in Jesus Christ as a God-man who descended to earth and accepted suffering for the salvation of mankind.
Christianityone of the three so-called world religions (along with Buddhism and Islam). At the core is faith in Jesus Christ as the God-man, the Savior, the incarnation of the Second Person of the triune Deity (see the Trinity). The communion of believers to Divine grace is carried out through participation in the sacraments. The source of the doctrine of Christianity is Sacred Tradition, the main thing in it is the Holy Scripture (Bible); in importance it is followed by other parts of the Holy Tradition (the Creed, decisions of ecumenical and some local councils, individual works of the Church Fathers, etc.). Christianity arose in the 1st century. n. e. among the Jews of Palestine, immediately spread to other peoples of the Mediterranean. In the IV century. became the state religion of the Roman Empire. By the XIII century. all of Europe was Christianized. In Rus', Christianity spread under the influence of Byzantium from the end of the 10th century. As a result of the schism (separation of churches), Christianity in 1054 split into Orthodoxy and Catholicism. From Catholicism during the Reformation in the 16th century. Protestantism emerged. The total number of adherents of Christianity exceeds 1 billion people.
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CHRISTIANITYCHRISTIANITY, one of the three so-called. world religions (along with Buddhism (cm. BUDDHISM) and Islam (cm. ISLAM)). It has three main directions: Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Protestantism. It is based on faith in Jesus Christ as the God-man, Savior, the incarnation of the 2nd person of the triune Deity (see Trinity (cm. TRINITY (Christian dogma))). The communion of believers to Divine grace occurs through participation in the sacraments (cm. Sacraments). The source of the creed of Christianity - Holy Tradition (cm. HOLY TRADITION), the main thing in it is the Holy Scripture (Bible (cm. BIBLE)); as well as the “Symbol of Faith”, decisions of ecumenical and some local councils, individual creations of the church fathers (cm. CHURCH FATHERS). Christianity arose in the 1st century. n. e. among the Jews of Palestine, immediately spread to other peoples of the Mediterranean. In the 4th c. 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 (separation of churches), Christianity in 1054 split into Orthodoxy (cm. ORTHODOXY) and Catholicism (cm. CATHOLICISM). From Catholicism during the Reformation in the 16th century. Protestantism stood out (cm. PROTESTANTISM). The total number of Christians exceeds 1 billion people.
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CHRISTIANITY [from Greek. Christ is the Anointed One, the Messiah; according to the New Testament text Acts 11:26, the noun christianoi, formed on the basis of the Greek language with the use of the Latin suffix - adherents (or followers) of Christ, Christians, first came into use to refer to the supporters of the new faith in the Syrian-Hellenistic city of Antioch in 1 c. .], one of the world religions (along with Buddhism (cm. BUDDHISM) and Islam (cm. ISLAM)), one of the so-called. "Abrahamic" (or "Abrahamic") religions, successive in relation to biblical monotheism (along with Judaism (cm. JUDAISM) and Islam).
Cultural context of early Christianity
Christianity arose in the 1st century. in Palestine in the context of the messianic movements of Judaism, with which, however, it soon found itself in a state of conflict (the exclusion of Christians from synagogue life after 70, culminating in the drafting 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 gained more and more followers among other peoples (“pagans”). Until the end of the Roman Empire, the spread of Christianity took place 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 (ch. 2-3) symbolize the fate of the Universal Church; Egypt is the cradle of Christian monasticism, and Christian learning 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 (the Parthian, later the Sasanian Empire), such as Armenia (which officially adopted Christianity somewhat earlier than the famous Edict of Milan 313 of the Roman Emperor Constantine (cm. KONSTANTINE I the Great)).
The linguistic situation of early Christianity was complex. Jesus' sermon sounded in the colloquial language of the then Palestine - Aramaic, which belonged to the Semitic group and is very close to Syriac (there is information about the Aramaic original of the Gospel of Matthew; Semitologists tend to admit that the oldest Syriac version of the Gospels is only partly a translation from Greek, partly retains memories about 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 a different language - Greek (so-called Koine); the texts of the most sacred book of Christianity, the New Testament, are written in this language.Therefore, the history of Christian culture (in contrast to the culture of Islam) begins at the border of languages and civilizations, an ancient tradition is characteristic, according to which the Apostle Peter preached with Mark (the future evangelist) as an interpreter. In Rome, Christian literature has long been created 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).
Doctrine. Teaching about God.
Christianity (as well as later Islam) inherited the idea of a single God that 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 omnipotence, omniscience and omnipotence are unique attributes. The personal understanding of the Absolute, characteristic of the Bible, receives 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 inner life of the Godhead is a personal relationship of three "Hypostases", or Persons: the Father (the beginning without beginning), the Son, or the "Word" - the Logos (the semantic and shaping Beginning) and the Holy Spirit (the "life-giving" Beginning). The Son is born from the Father, the Holy Spirit "comes" from the Father (according to Orthodox teaching) or from the Father and the Son (the so-called filioque (cm. FILIOQUE), a feature of the Catholic doctrine, which was also adopted by Protestantism and became the common property of Western confessions); but both "birth" and "proceeding" take place not in time, but in eternity; all three Persons were always ("eternal") and equal in dignity ("equal in honor"). Christian "trinitarian" doctrine (from lat. Trinitas - Trinity), developed in the era of the so-called. the Fathers of the Church ("patristics", which flourished in the 4th - 5th centuries) and explicitly rejected only in some ultra-Protestant denominations, requires "not to confuse the Persons and not to separate the Essence"; in the accentuated delimitation of the levels of the essential and the hypostatic - the specificity of the Christian Trinity in comparison with the triads of other religions and mythologies (for example, trimurti (cm. TRIMURTI) Hinduism). It is not fusion, indistinction or duality; The persons of the Christian Trinity are conceived as accessible to mutual communication precisely because of their unconditional “hypostatic” self-identity, and they have this self-identity 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 being is known to various mythologies and religions. However, Jesus Christ is not a demigod for the Christological dogma, that is, some intermediate being below God and above man. It is for this reason that the incarnation of God is understood in Christianity as one-time and unique, not allowing any reincarnations in the spirit of pagan, Eastern or Gnostic mysticism: “Christ died once for our sins, and after the resurrection from the dead he dies no more!” - such is the thesis defended by Blessed Augustine (cm. AUGUSTINE Blessed) against the doctrine of eternal return ("On the City of God" XII, 14, 11). Jesus Christ is the “Only Begotten”, the only Son of the One God, not subject to inclusion in any series, similar, say, to the fundamental plurality of bodhisattvas (cm. BODHISATTVA). (Therefore, for Christianity, attempts to accept Christ as one of many, to include Him in a number of prophets, teachers of humanity, “great enlightened ones” are unacceptable - from the trends of late antique syncretism sympathetic to the new faith (cm. SYNCRETISM), through Manichaeism (cm. MANICHAEISM) and Islam, which gave Christ the status of the forerunner of their prophets, up to theosophy and other "esoteric" doctrines of modern and modern times).
This sharpens 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” - Epistle of the Apostle Paul (cm. PAUL (apostle) Colossians 2:9), and His eternity within a unique historical moment (whose identity is so important to Christianity that it is specifically mentioned in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed: Christ was crucified "under Pontius Pilate", i. then the vicegerent is a mystical event not just empirically, but doctrinally correlated with the date, with the 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 (cm. ARIANS) who denied "co-beginning" and the ontological equality of the Son with the Father, Nestorianism (cm. NESTORIANITY), dividing the divine nature of the Logos and the human nature of Jesus, monophysitism (see monophysites (cm. MONOPHYSITES)), on the contrary, speaking of the absorption of the human nature of Jesus by the divine nature of the Logos.
The doubly paradoxical formula of the 4th Ecumenical (Chalcedon) 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” - by four negations: “unmergeable, untransformed, inseparable, inseparable." This formula outlines the universal paradigm for Christianity of the relationship between the divine and the human. Ancient philosophy developed the concept of non-passion, non-affectibility 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 sufferings of Christ on the cross and in His death and burial (according to the Orthodox liturgical text, which sharpens the paradox, after the 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 tomb of the flesh, in hell with the soul like God in paradise with the robber and on the throne ... with the Father ...”).
Anthropology
The human situation is conceived in Christianity as acutely contradictory. In the original, “original” state and in the final plan of God about man, mystical dignity belongs not only to the human spirit (as in ancient idealism, but also in Gnosticism (cm. Gnosticism) and Manichaeism), but also the body. Christian eschatology teaches not just about the immortality of the soul, but about the resurrection of transfigured flesh - in the words of the Apostle Paul, "a spiritual body" (First Epistle to the Corinthians 15:44); in the situation of the disputes of the late antique era, this brought upon Christianity the ridicule of the pagan Platonists and accusations, which sound paradoxical to us, of excessive love for the body. 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, that is, the first act of disobedience to God, committed by the first people, destroyed the god-likeness of man - this is the weight of the so-called. original sin. Christianity has created a sophisticated culture of discerning one's own guilt (in this regard, such literary phenomena of the era of the Church Fathers as the "Confession" of Augustine and the confessional lyrics of Gregory the Theologian are typical); the most revered Christian saints considered themselves great sinners, and from the point of view of Christianity they were right. Christ conquered the ontological power of sin, "redeemed" people, as if redeeming them from slavery from Satan by His sufferings.
Christianity highly appreciates the purifying 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 fighting with oneself and suffering for everyone; only by “accepting his cross”, a person, according to the Christian understanding, can overcome 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 demand for the ascent of man to God; a person must not only be brought to obedience to God and the fulfillment of the commandments, as in Judaism and Islam, but be transformed and elevated to the ontological level of divine being (the so-called "deification", especially clearly thematized in Orthodox mysticism). “We are now children of God; but it has not yet been revealed that we will. We only know that (...) we will be like Him, because we will see Him as He is” (I John 3:2). If a person does not fulfill (at least after going through the difficult afterlife trials, called in the Orthodox tradition “trials”, and in the Catholic tradition “purgatory”) his mystical high purpose and fails to respond to the sacrificial death of Christ, then he will be rejected for all eternity; Ultimately, there is no middle ground between unearthly glory and destruction.
Doctrine of the sacraments
The concept of God's incomprehensibly lofty plan for man is connected with the concept of “sacrament”, which is alien to other religions, as a completely special action that goes beyond the limits of ritual, rite; if the rites symbolically correlate human life with divine being 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, really introduce the divine presence into a person’s life and serve as a guarantee of the coming “deification” , a breakthrough of eschatological time.
The most important of the sacraments recognized by all denominations are baptism (an initiation that introduces into the Christian life and stops, according to the teachings of Christianity, the action of the inertia of original sin) and the Eucharist, or communion (tasting bread and wine, according to church faith, invisibly transubstantiated into the Body and Blood of Christ for the sake of the believer's essential union with Christ, so that Christ "dwells in him"). Orthodoxy and Catholicism recognize 5 more sacraments, the sacramental status of which is denied by Protestantism: chrismation, which aims to inform the believer of the mystical gifts of the Holy Spirit and, as it were, crowning Baptism; repentance (confession before a priest and remission of sins); ordination or ordination (ascension to the priesthood, which gives not only the authority to teach and "pastorally" lead believers, but also - in contrast to the purely legal status of a rabbi in Judaism or a mullah in Islam - above all the power to perform 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 bring back to life and at the same time parting words to death). The concept of a sacrament, always bodily-specific, 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 both by asceticism and by the action of the sacraments. The ideal of ascetic-sacramental being is the Virgin Mary, who, precisely because of her virginity, realizes in her physical being 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 is weakening, 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 regarded Christianity as a complete negation of the official norm, incriminating Christians with "hatred of the human race"; refusal to participate in pagan rites, 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 deep: persons who were subjected to the death penalty for their adherence to Christianity (martyrs (cm. MARTYRS)) or imprisonment and torture (confessors (cm. confessors)) were the first in the history of Christianity to be revered as saints, the ideal of a martyr (correlated with the image of the crucified Jesus Christ) became the central paradigm of Christian ethics, which considers the whole world as being under the unrighteous power of the “prince of this world” (Satan, see the Gospel of John 14:30; 16:11, etc.), and proper behavior - as a peaceful resistance to this power and, to that extent, the acceptance of suffering. At the same time, the universally civilizing character of the Roman Empire was in tune with the universal spirit of Christianity, which appealed to all people; early Christian authors of the 2nd-3rd centuries. (who are usually called apologists (cm. apologists), since they, under conditions of persecution and attacks, acted with an apology for their faith) called in their writings, often formally addressed to the holders of power, for reconciliation between the Church and the empire.
Becoming at the beginning of the 4th c. thanks to the initiative of Emperor Constantine (cm. KONSTANTINE I the Great) officially permitted (and by the end of the same century the dominant) religion in the Roman Empire, Christianity for a long time was under the patronage, but also under the tutelage of state power (the so-called "Constantinian era"); the borders of the Christian world for some time roughly coincide with the borders of the empire (and the 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 cathedrals of the 4th-7th centuries, recognized not only by Catholics, but also by Orthodox). This paradigm, representing an analogy to the caliphate in early Islam and animated by the need for religious wars with Islam, is theoretically significant even at the end of the Western Middle Ages - for example, for the treatise of Dante Alighieri (cm. Dante Alighieri)"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 \u200b\u200b"-Moscow of the Third Rome (cm. MOSCOW - THE THIRD ROME)"). In the western half of the Roman Empire, 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 essentially about the same theocratic paradigm.
But even against the backdrop of the sacralization of the throne, reality constantly created conflicts between Christian conscience and power, reviving the Christian ideals of martyrdom and “confessorship”, that are relevant for any era, that is, moral resistance to power (such key figures for the Christian tradition of saints as John Chrysostom (cm. JOHN ZLATOUST) in the early Byzantine era, Thomas Becket (cm. Beckett Thomas) and John Nepomuk (d. 1393), in the context of medieval Catholicism and Metropolitan Philip (cm. PHILIP (Metropolitan) in Russian Orthodoxy, are connected precisely with the fulfillment of Christian duty in the face of repressions from monarchs who are completely "of the same faith" to them).
ancient religions
The political and ideological context, which changed depending on the conditions of the era and culture, determined the logic of successive church divisions (“schism”), as a result of which discord arose between Churches and denominations (confessions). Already in the 5th-7th centuries. in the course of elucidating 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 Church of the Roman Empire separated from the unified Church of the Roman Empire. "non-Chalcedonites" (from the name of the 4th Ecumenical Council in Chalcedon) - Christians of the East who lived outside the Greek-Latin language zone; the Nestorians, who did not recognize 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 communities of the so-called. Assyrians ("Aisors"), 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 (cm. MONOPHELITES), the remnant of which is the Maronite Church of Lebanon, which for the second time united with the Catholics. At present (after scientific and analytical work, one of the initiators of which back in the 19th century was the Russian church scientist V.V. Bolotov), among Catholic and Orthodox theological experts, the attitude towards the “non-Chalcedonian” Churches prevails as to those separated not so much by virtue of real doctrinal differences, how many under the influence of linguo-cultural misunderstandings and political conflicts.
By 1054 it was officially proclaimed and in the 13th century. the division of the Orthodox Churches (with its center in Constantinople) and the Catholic Church (with its center in Rome) was consolidated; behind it was a conflict between the Byzantine ideology of sacred power and the Latin ideology of the universal papacy, complicated by doctrinal (see above on filioque) and ritual differences. Attempts at reconciliation (at the 2nd Council of Lyon in 1274 and especially at the Council of Florence in 1439) did not have long-term success; their result was the paradigm of the so-called. "Uniatism", or "Eastern Rite Catholicism" (a combination of the Orthodox ritual and church traditions, including the Creed without filioque, with the recognition of the universal primacy of Rome), which most often led to a psychological aggravation of the confessional conflict (especially the Union of Brest (cm. UNION OF BREST) among Ukrainians and Belarusians), as is often recognized by the Catholic side; nevertheless, it must be borne in mind that for about 10 million Christians around the world, “uniatism” has long been a tradition inherited and suffered in conflicts. In Russia, the most important Orthodox country after the death of Byzantium in 1453, the tendency inherent in Byzantine Christianity to identify the church, the kingdom, and the people, and to the sacralization associated with this, led in disputes in the 17th century. about the norm of ritual practice to the schism, as a result of which the so-called Orthodoxy separated from Orthodoxy. old believers (cm. OLD BELIEVE)(itself fragmented into many "talks").
Reformation
In the West, at the end of the Middle Ages, the papacy provoked a protest both “from above”, from the secular authorities, with whom it entered into a dispute over powers, and “from below” (Lollards (cm. LOLLARDS), Hussites (cm. HUSSITS) and so on.). On the threshold of the New Age, the initiators of the Reformation - Luther (cm. Luther Martin), Melanchthon (cm. MELANCHTON Philip), Zwingli (cm. Zwingli), Calvin (cm. CALVIN Jean) and others - rejected the papacy as a reality and ideology; having destroyed the unity of Western Christianity, the Reformation gave rise to many Protestant denominations and the so-called. denominations. Protestantism created a culture with its own specific features: a special interest in the Bible (including the Old Testament), Bible readings in the family circle; shifting the 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 ethic that values thrift, order in business and self-confidence as a kind of asceticism, and success as a sign of God's favor; domestic respectability, equally remote from monastic severity and aristocratic splendor. Such a culture brought up strong-willed, enterprising, internally secluded people - a human type that played an important role in the formation of early capitalism and the civilization of the New Age in general (cf. the famous concept of "Protestant ethics" by M. Weber (cm. WEBER Max)). It is not for nothing that the Protestant North of Europe (which the United States will later join) generally outpaces the Catholic South in terms of industrialization, not to mention the Orthodox East (and in the development of traditional capitalism in pre-revolutionary Russia, the Old Believers play a special role, in opposition to the tsarist officialdom, they developed features that represent the well-known analogy of the “Protestant ethic”).
Christianity and Modern Times
However, with all the contrasts and conflicts that poured out in the 16-17 centuries. in bloody religious wars, in the further development of the confessional branches of Christian culture, some common features can be traced. And the creators of the Protestant education system, like the "mentor of Germany" Melanchthon, and such extreme champions of Catholicism as the Jesuits (cm. JESUITES)(and PRists), subjectively striving to oust each other, objectively develop and impose a new school system, less repressive than the previous one, more oriented towards competition between students and towards aesthetic education; cf. the phenomenon of the Jesuit school theater, which also influenced the Ukrainian-Russian Orthodox culture of the 17th century, in particular, the poetic work of St. Dimitry of Rostov (cm. DIMITRY Rostovsky), which in itself was one of the manifestations of the Orthodox reception of baroque-scholastic forms of culture in Kyiv (Metropolitan Petro Mohyla (cm. GRAVE Pyotr Simeonovich), and the Kiev-Mohyla Academy he created) and then in Moscow (Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy). One can note, for example, the similarity in the methods of public preaching among two dissimilar currents that arose in the 18th century - among the Catholic Redemptorist congregation and such extreme representatives of English Protestantism as the Methodists. (cm. METHODISTS).
The secularizing tendencies of modern times are consistently revealed already by the anti-clerical wing of the Enlightenment: not only the practice of the Church, but also the teaching of Christianity as such, was challenged; in contrast to it, a self-sufficient ideal of earthly progress is put forward. The end of the so-called. “the union of the Throne and the Altar”, to which the idea of a Christian theocracy was reduced (if the early bourgeois revolutions took place under the banner of the Reformation, then during the Great French Revolution a campaign of “de-Christianization” was already carried out, anticipating the “militant atheism” of Russian Bolshevism); the “Konstantinov era” of Christianity as the 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, if only because of the mass migration of the labor force, they live next to non-believers. Today's Christianity has an experience that has no analogues in the past.
Ever since the 19th century. In Protestantism and especially in Catholicism, there is 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 (cm. RERUM NOVARUM)", 1891). The liturgical practice of Protestantism, and since the 2nd Vatican Council (1962-65) and Catholicism, has been looking for conformity to new models of human self-awareness. Similar attempts by Russian post-revolutionary “renovationism” failed both because of the greater strength of Orthodox conservatism and because the leaders of “renovationism” compromised themselves with opportunism at the time of anti-church repressions. The question of the legitimate relationship between the "canon" and innovation in Christian culture is paramount today for all Christian denominations. Reforms and shifts evoke a sharp reaction from extreme traditionalists who insist on the obligatory nature of the letter of the Holy Scriptures (the so-called fundamentalism is a term that arose as a self-name for groups of American Protestants, but is now used broadly), on the immutability of the rite (the movement of Catholic "integrists" who rejected 2- th Vatican Council, and in Orthodox Greece - "Old Calendarists"). At the opposite pole, there are tendencies (especially in some Protestant denominations) to revise doctrinal foundations for the sake of an unproblematic adaptation to the ethics of modern liberalism.
Modern Christianity is not the religious self-determination of a homogeneous society, not the legacy of the ancestors, "sucked up 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 is the ecumenical movement (cm. ecumenical movement) for the reunification of Christians of various denominations. It is conditioned by the situation of Christianity as a faith offering itself anew to the non-Christian world; a person who becomes a Christian in an act of personal choice inherits the skills of the confessional culture of his ancestors less and less, but on the other hand, the mutual scores of confessions that go back centuries become less and less relevant for him. Popular English Christian writer C. S. Lewis (cm. LEWIS Clive Staples) wrote a book with the characteristic title "Simply Christianity" (Russian translation in the book: Lewis K. S. Love. Suffering. Hope. M., 1992); this title successfully expresses the need of the era to raise the question of the essential core of the Christian doctrine, viewed through all the particular features of this or that historical type. The danger of simplification and impoverishment contained in such a frame of mind is obvious. But a certain measure of simplification becomes an adequate response to the harsh reality of the radical challenge thrown to Christianity by both totalitarianism and secularist relativism. The diversity of theological positions at depth is replaced by a division in two - for or against Christ. Christians of various denominations 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, by no means forcing one to renounce doctrinal convictions, obliges one to see in the real history and life 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 sincere love for God and neighbor (cf. the call of Archbishop John Shakhovsky to see "sectarianism in Orthodoxy and Orthodoxy in sectarianism").
The ecumenical movement gave expression to these inner shifts. The initiative in this movement belonged to the Protestant denominations (Edinburgh Conference 1910); on the Orthodox side, it was supported in 1920 by a message from the Patriarch of Constantinople addressed to all the Churches and calling them to communion and cooperation. The World Council of Churches was created in 1948. Big Encyclopedic Dictionary
About a third of the world's inhabitants profess Christianity in all its varieties.
Christianity arose in the 1st century. AD within the territory of the Roman Empire. There is no consensus among researchers about the exact place where Christianity originated. Some believe that this happened in Palestine, which was then part of the Roman Empire; others suggest that it happened in the Jewish diaspora in Greece.
Palestinian Jews have been under foreign domination for many centuries. However, in the II century. BC. they achieved political independence, during which they expanded their territory and did a lot for the development of political and economic relations. In 63 BC Roman general Gnei Poltei brought troops into Judea, as a result of which it became part of the Roman Empire. By the beginning of our era, other territories of Palestine also lost their independence, management began to be carried out by the Roman governor.
The loss of political independence was perceived by part of the population as a tragedy. Religious meaning was seen in political events. The idea of divine retribution for violations of the precepts of the fathers, religious customs and prohibitions spread. This led to the strengthening of the position of Jewish religious nationalist groups:
- Hasidim- orthodox Jews;
- Sadducees, who represented conciliatory sentiments, they came from the upper strata of Jewish society;
- Pharisees- fighters for the purity of Judaism, against contacts with foreigners. The Pharisees advocated the observance of external norms of behavior, for which they were accused of hypocrisy.
In terms of social composition, the Pharisees were representatives of the middle strata of the urban population. At the end of the 1st century BC. appear zealots - people from the lower strata of the population - artisans and lumpen proletarians. They expressed the most radical ideas. From their midst stood out sicaria - terrorists. Their favorite weapon was a curved dagger, which they hid under a cloak - in Latin "sika". All these groupings, with more or less perseverance, fought against the Roman conquerors. It was obvious that the struggle was not in favor of the rebels, so the aspirations for the coming of the Savior, the Messiah, intensified. It is the first century of our era that dates back to the oldest book of the New Testament - Apocalypse, in which the idea of retribution to enemies for the unfair treatment and oppression of the Jews was so strongly manifested.
The most interesting is the sect Essenes or Essenes, because their teaching had features inherent in early Christianity. This is evidenced by those found in 1947 in the Dead Sea area in Qumran caves scrolls. Christians and Essenes had ideas in common messianism - waiting for the soon coming of the Savior, eschatological notions about the coming end of the world, interpretation of the idea of human sinfulness, rituals, organization of communities, attitude to property.
The processes that took place in Palestine were similar to those that took place in other parts of the Roman Empire: everywhere the Romans robbed and mercilessly exploited the local population, enriching themselves at its expense. The crisis of the ancient order and the formation of new socio-political relations were painfully experienced by people, caused a feeling of helplessness, defenselessness before the state machine and contributed to the search for new ways of salvation. Mystical moods increased. Oriental cults spread: Mitra, Isis, Osiris, etc. There are many different associations, partnerships, the so-called colleges. People united on the basis of professions, social status, neighborhood, and so on. All this created fertile ground for the spread of Christianity.
Origins of Christianity
The emergence of Christianity was prepared not only by the prevailing historical conditions, it had a good ideological basis. The main ideological source of Christianity is Judaism. The new religion rethought the ideas of Judaism about monotheism, messianism, eschatology, chiliasme - faith in the second coming of Jesus Christ and his millennium kingdom on earth. The Old Testament tradition has not lost its significance, it has received a new interpretation.
The ancient philosophical tradition had a significant influence on the formation of the Christian worldview. In philosophical systems Stoics, Neo-Pythagoreans, Plato and Neo-Platonists mental constructions, concepts and even terms were developed, rethought in the New Testament texts and the works of theologians. Neoplatonism had a particularly great influence on the foundations of Christian doctrine. Philo of Alexandria(25 BC - c. 50 AD) and the moral teaching of the Roman Stoic Seneca(c. 4 BC - 65 AD). Philo formulated the concept Logos as a sacred law that allows one to contemplate what is, the doctrine of the innate sinfulness of all people, about repentance, about Being as the beginning of the world, about ecstasy as a means of approaching God, about logoi, among which the Son of God is the highest Logos, and other logoi are angels.
Seneca considered the achievement of freedom of the spirit through the realization of divine necessity as the main thing for every person. If freedom does not flow from divine necessity, it will prove to be slavery. Only obedience to fate gives rise to equanimity and peace of mind, conscience, moral standards, universal values. Seneca recognized the golden rule of morality as a moral imperative, which sounded like this: Treat those below as you would like to be treated by those above." We can find a similar formulation in the Gospels.
A certain influence on Christianity was exerted by the teachings of Seneca on the transience and deceitfulness of sensual pleasures, caring for other people, self-restraint in the use of material goods, preventing rampant passions, the need for modesty and moderation in everyday life, self-improvement, and gaining divine mercy.
Another source of Christianity was the Eastern cults flourishing at that time in various parts of the Roman Empire.
The most controversial issue in the study of Christianity is the question of the historicity of Jesus Christ. In solving it, two directions can be distinguished: mythological and historical. mythological direction argues that science does not have reliable data about Jesus Christ as a historical person. The gospel stories were written many years after the events described, they have no real historical basis. historical direction claims that Jesus Christ was a real person, a preacher of a new religion, which is confirmed by a number of sources. In 1971, a text was found in Egypt "Antiquities" by Josephus Flavius, which gives reason to believe that it describes one of the real preachers named Jesus, although the miracles performed by him were spoken of as one of the many stories on this topic, i.e. Josephus himself did not observe them.
Stages of the formation of Christianity as a state religion
The history of the formation of Christianity covers the period from the middle of the 1st century. AD until the 5th century inclusive. During this period, Christianity went through a number of stages of its development, which can be summarized in the following three:
1 - stage current eschatology(second half of the 1st century);
2 - stage fixtures(II century);
3 - stage struggle for dominance in the empire (III-V centuries).
During each of these stages, the composition of believers changed, various new formations within Christianity as a whole arose and fell apart, internal clashes constantly boiled, which expressed the struggle for the realization of pressing public interests.
Stage of actual eschatology
At the first stage, Christianity has not yet completely separated from Judaism, so it can be called Judeo-Christian. The name "actual eschatology" means that the defining mood of the new religion at that time was the expectation of the coming of the Savior in the near future, literally from day to day. Enslaved, destitute people suffering from national and social oppression became the social basis of Christianity. The hatred of the enslaved for their oppressors and the thirst for revenge found their expression and detente not in revolutionary actions, but in the impatient expectation of the reprisal that would be inflicted by the coming Messiah on the Antichrist.
In early Christianity there was no single centralized organization, there were no priests. The communities were led by believers who were able to perceive charisma(grace, the descent of the Holy Spirit). Charismatics united groups of believers around them. There were people who were engaged in explaining the doctrine. They were called didaskaly- teachers. Special people were appointed to organize the economic life of the community. Originally appeared deacons performing simple technical duties. Later appear bishops- observers, overseers, as well as presbyters- elders. Over time, the bishops assume a dominant position, and the presbyters become their assistants.
adaptation stage
At the second stage, in the II century, the situation changes. Doomsday does not come; on the contrary, there is some stabilization of Roman society. The tension of expectation in the mood of Christians is replaced by a more vital attitude of existence in the real world and adaptation to its order. The place of eschatology, which is common in this world, is occupied by individual eschatology in the other world, and the doctrine of the immortality of the soul is being actively developed.
The social and national composition of communities is changing. Representatives of the wealthy and educated segments of the population of different peoples that inhabited the Roman Empire begin to convert to Christianity. Accordingly, the doctrine of Christianity changes, it becomes more tolerant of wealth. The attitude of the authorities to the new religion depended on the political situation. One emperor carried out persecution, the other showed humanity, if the internal political situation allowed it.
The development of Christianity in the II century. led to a complete separation from Judaism. Jews among Christians in comparison with other nationalities became less and less. It was necessary to solve problems of practical cult significance: food prohibitions, the celebration of the Sabbath, circumcision. As a result, circumcision was replaced by water baptism, the weekly celebration of Saturday was moved to Sunday, the Easter holiday was converted to Christianity under the same name, but was filled with a different mythological content, just like the feast of Pentecost.
The influence of other peoples on the formation of a cult in Christianity was manifested in the fact that rites or their elements were borrowed: baptism, communion as a symbol of sacrifice, prayer, and some others.
During the III century. there was the formation of large Christian centers in Rome, Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria, in a number of cities of Asia Minor and other areas. However, the church itself was not internally united: there were differences among Christian teachers and preachers regarding the correct understanding of Christian truths. Christianity was torn from within by the most complex theological disputes. Many directions appeared, interpreting the provisions of the new religion in different ways.
Nazarenes(from Hebrew - “refuse, abstain”) - ascetic preachers of ancient Judea. An external sign of belonging to the Nazirites was the refusal to cut hair and drink wine. Subsequently, the Nazirites merged with the Essenes.
Montanism originated in the 2nd century. Founder Montana on the eve of the end of the world, he preached asceticism, the prohibition of remarriages, martyrdom in the name of faith. He considered ordinary Christian communities as mentally ill, he considered only his adherents to be spiritual.
Gnosticism(from Greek - “having knowledge”) eclectically connected ideas, borrowed mainly from Platonism and Stoicism, with Eastern ideas. The Gnostics recognized the existence of a perfect deity, between which and the sinful material world there are intermediate links - zones. They included Jesus Christ. The Gnostics were pessimistic about the sensory world, emphasized their God's chosenness, the advantage of intuitive knowledge over rational knowledge, did not accept the Old Testament, the redemptive mission of Jesus Christ (but recognized the saving mission), his bodily incarnation.
Docetism(from the Greek. - "seem") - a direction that separated from Gnosticism. Corporeality was considered evil, the lower principle, and on this basis they rejected the Christian doctrine of the bodily incarnation of Jesus Christ. They believed that Jesus only seemed to be clothed in flesh, but in reality his birth, earthly existence and death were ghostly phenomena.
Marcionism(after the name of the founder - Marcion) advocated a complete break with Judaism, did not recognize the human nature of Jesus Christ, in his basic ideas was close to the Gnostics.
Novatians(named after the founders - Rom. Novatiana and carf. Novata) took a tough stance towards the authorities and those Christians who could not resist the pressure of the authorities and compromised with them.
Stage of the struggle for dominance in the empire
The third stage is the final approval of Christianity as the state religion. In 305, the persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire intensifies. This period in church history is known as "age of martyrs". Places of worship were closed, church property was confiscated, books and sacred utensils were confiscated and destroyed, plebeians recognized as Christians were enslaved, senior members of the clergy were arrested and executed, as well as those who did not obey the order to renounce, having honored the Roman gods. Those who yielded were quickly released. For the first time, the burial places belonging to the communities became for a time a refuge for the persecuted, where they performed their cult.
However, the measures taken by the authorities had no effect. Christianity has already become strong enough to offer worthy resistance. Already in 311 the emperor galleries, and in 313 - the emperor Konstantin adopt decrees on religious tolerance towards Christianity. The activities of Emperor Constantine I are of particular importance.
During a fierce struggle for power before the decisive battle with Makentius, Constantine saw in a dream the sign of Christ - a cross with a command to come out with this symbol against the enemy. Having done this, he won a decisive victory in the battle in 312. The emperor gave this vision a very special meaning - as a sign of his election by Christ to establish a connection between God and the world through his imperial ministry. This is how his role was perceived by the Christians of his time, which allowed the unbaptized emperor to take an active part in solving internal church, dogmatic issues.
In 313 Constantine published Edict of Milan according to which Christians become under the protection of the state and receive equal rights with pagans. The Christian Church was no longer persecuted, even during the reign of the emperor Juliana(361-363), surnamed Renegade for the restriction of the rights of the church and the proclamation of religious tolerance for heresies and paganism. under the emperor Feodosia in 391, Christianity was finally consolidated as the state religion, and paganism was prohibited. The further development and strengthening of Christianity is associated with the holding of councils, at which church dogma was worked out and approved.
See further:Christianization of pagan tribes
By the end of the IV century. Christianity was established in almost all provinces of the Roman Empire. In the 340s. through the efforts of Bishop Wulfila, it penetrates to the tribes ready. The Goths adopted Christianity in the form of Arianism, which then dominated the east of the empire. As the Visigoths moved westward, Arianism also spread. In the 5th century in Spain it was adopted by the tribes vandals And Suevi. to Galin - Burgundians and then Lombards. Orthodox Christianity adopted by the Frankish king Clovis. Political reasons led to the fact that by the end of the 7th century. in most parts of Europe, the Nicene religion was established. In the 5th century The Irish were introduced to Christianity. The activity of the legendary apostle of Ireland dates back to this time. St. Patrick.
The Christianization of the barbarian peoples was carried out mainly from above. Pagan ideas and images continued to live in the minds of the masses of the people. The Church assimilated these images, adapted them to Christianity. Pagan rites and holidays were filled with new, Christian content.
From the end of the 5th to the beginning of the 7th century. the power of the Roman pope was limited only to the Roman ecclesiastical province in Central and Southern Italy. However, in 597 an event occurred that marked the beginning of the strengthening of the Roman Church throughout the kingdom. Dad Gregory I the Great sent preachers of Christianity led by a monk to the Anglo-Saxons-pagans Augustine. According to legend, the pope saw English slaves on the market and was surprised by the similarity of their name with the word "angels", which he considered a sign from above. The Anglo-Saxon Church became the first church north of the Alps, subordinate directly to Rome. The symbol of this dependence is pallium(a kerchief worn on the shoulders), which was sent from Rome to the primate of the church, now called archbishop, i.e. the highest bishop, who was delegated powers directly from the pope - the vicar of St. Peter. Subsequently, the Anglo-Saxons made a great contribution to the strengthening of the Roman Church on the continent, to the alliance of the pope with the Carolingians. Played a significant role in this St. Boniface, a native of Wessex. He developed a program of deep reforms of the Frankish Church with the aim of establishing uniformity and subordination to Rome. Boniface's reforms created the overall Roman Church in Western Europe. Only the Christians of Arab Spain preserved the special traditions of the Visigothic Church.
Why history of the christian religion, which originated in Palestine and Israel, did not find recognition among the Jewish people? But it is the Jews that are the nation that is inextricably linked with biblical legends. The first part of the Bible, the Old Testament, is a sacred book for both Jews and Christians. However, the second part of the "New Testament" is already the most important scripture of Christians, while the Jews did not accept the new faith. Why? This people was chosen by God, it was among the Jews that faith in the Living God was born, it was among them that they appeared, saying that the Messiah would come to this world, capable of saving all mankind.
Palestine, where the Jewish tribes lived, was constantly under the rule of neighboring states, and dreams of freedom were very relevant. But the fact is that by "Savior" they meant a certain leader who would give them independence and create a great Jewish kingdom, free and strong. The Savior who came into the world spoke about the Kingdom of God, about love for humanity and about universal brotherhood, which was not understood and not accepted.
That is why the Jews rejected Christ, not understanding his destiny and not accepting him as the Messiah. So it turned out that the Jewish people chosen by God, having rejected Christ, ceased to be "God's" people. Good or bad, but the essence remains the same - history of christianity inextricably linked with the Jews. And after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, with the help of his disciples and followers, spread throughout the world, becoming multinational.
Early Christianity
The history of the Christian religion arose during the period of religious instability of the Greco-Roman Empire, which was in crisis and decline. Early Christianity is a scattered community, consisting of people of the lower classes. Rather, it was founded as a movement of the oppressed, who were fascinated by the idea of equality before God, the right to happiness and freedom, calls for mercy and justice.
The early Christians did not have a single church or organization of any kind. These were preachers, often wandering, calling to believe in the One Living God, and as proof they told the story of Jesus Christ as the Son of God.
In the 2nd century, people of noble classes began to pour into Christian communities. And around the same time there is a break with Judaism. The Old Testament ceased to be revered and the first split occurred - Christians abandoned the laws of the Old Testament, while the Jews continued to observe them. Thus, among the Christian communities, the number of Jews sharply decreased.
Despite this circumstance, the Christian religion grew stronger, and a church organization gradually emerged, which became a serious competitor to the authorities. The power of the bishops was founded and the struggle for it continued already within the church.
Recognition of the Christian religion
In the III century, when the class struggle reached its peak, the emperor Decius began the persecution of Christians. This is where persecution, denunciations, torture, and executions became widespread. But nevertheless, the significance of the Christian Church grew steadily, and a situation arose that we in the modern world call “You can’t change the situation, change your attitude towards it”, which was done by Emperor Constantine I, who was distinguished by a shrewd and resourceful mind. He moved from resistance to cooperation, and gradually the Christian religion began to be elevated to the rank of the official state religion. True, this did not stop the violent deaths.
IV century was marked by the emergence of the first monasteries and sketes. Church communities began to have their own land, in the processing of which the members of the community were involved. Therefore, among those who recognized Christianity there were many ruined peasants.
Then, around the 4th century, various martyrs and saints began to appear in the Christian religion, elevated to the rank of saints. In fact, the pagan gods - patrons of livestock, agriculture, etc. were replaced by saints. In addition, Judaism left a deep and lasting imprint of its faith in Christianity - all revered spirits - angels, archangels, cherubs - are the highest beings of the Jewish faith, which Christians have long considered "their own".
In the VI century, the Christian church proposed to start a new chronology from the Nativity of Christ, which we use to this day.
In subsequent centuries, the development of the Christian church was very rapid. Covering the entire Roman Empire, by the 13th century Christianity had reached the Baltic peoples, and by the 14th century it had covered almost all of Europe. In the 19th century, the missionary movement noticeably intensified, thanks to which the Christian religion penetrated the countries of North and South America. There are about a billion Christians today.
In the name of faith?
The formation of the Christian religion is a complex, lengthy and rather cruel process. And, as in any powerful organization, there is a struggle for power, for which the powers that be do not stop at nothing. Hence the great number of victims. Who knows if this is the church Jesus was talking about? It is unlikely that He taught to destroy dissenters, torture them and burn them at the stake. But such is the history of the Christian religion - everywhere there is a human factor. Humans have a natural desire for power.
Christianity is one of the world religions based on the teachings of Jesus Christ. Christianity is one of the many religions. The followers of Christianity are about three billion people.
The history of the emergence of religion.
Christianity originated in Palestine in the first century AD. The creator and propagator of religion is Jesus Christ. He led a preaching activity: he went around the world and told the truth of God. How it was? (from the Bible)
Birth of Christ. The Mother of God (or Holy Virgin Mary) gave birth to Jesus Christ, the son of God. The Mother of God was a pious woman. Once in a dream, God came to her and gave her a son. She named her son Jesus Christ. Jesus was demigod, half man. They say he could heal people and many other miracles beyond the power of an ordinary person. When the boy grew up, he began to preach a new religious doctrine - Christianity. Obviously, the religion is named after Christ.
The religion is based on several commandments. Jesus called to love your neighbor, to help the sick and the destitute, and spoke of other moral principles. He also spoke about heaven and hell, about impure forces and angels, about the immortality of the soul.
He himself went around the world in search of disciples and followers. On the road, he helped all those in need, never refused help. The twelve apostles became his disciples. They were closer to Jesus than all the other followers. These apostles received the gift of healing people. As you know, one of the twelve apostles turned out to be a traitor. Jesus had detractors who wanted the death of a demigod. Judas, the traitor, agreed to hand over his teacher to ill-wishers for 30 silver coins. Jesus Christ was crucified on the cross.
Attributes of the Christian religion- cross, temple (church), icons, prayers, Bible, Gospel.
Religion Christianity has found many followers. But there was a split of a single religion into three currents: Orthodoxy, Catholicism and Protestantism. In fact, there are many more currents in Christianity, for example, Lutheranism, Calvinism and others. But these three currents are the largest and most significant in the modern world. The split occurred due to different views on religion of several churches.
Orthodoxy.
Orthodoxy was formed in the Eastern Roman Empire. The founder of the movement is considered to be Jesus Christ. Usually an Orthodox church is a temple with domes, usually golden in color, decorated with icons inside, it is customary to stand in the temple throughout the entire service. The ministers of the church are called pop.
Catholicism.
Catholicism appeared on the territory of the Roman Empire. It is considered a continuation of the early Christian religion. The Vatican is considered the center of government for all Catholic churches. The main pope is the Pope of Rome. Catholic cathedrals - buildings with blue or white domes, it is customary to sit in them throughout the service.
Protestantism.
Protestantism is relatively young. It appeared because many people in Europe were unhappy with the Catholic Church. Martin Luther provoked the emergence of the Protestant church. The Protestant Church is very different from the above churches.
Christianity is one of the many religions with different currents. Whatever trend or religion you choose, remember that God is one.
Option 2
One of the largest world religions, and the most popular is Christianity. This religion, which has been around for more than 2 thousand years, is represented in all countries of the world.
What is the essence of Christianity
Christianity is a humane religion. A person, according to its canons, must lead a righteous life in accordance with the 10 commandments, which are aimed at kindness and love for God and neighbor.
The Bible, especially the New Testament, is sacred to Christians. Christians believe in one God and his son Jesus Christ, who gave his life for the salvation of mankind and was crucified on the cross.
In his life, Jesus did only good deeds: he healed the sick, helped the poor. At the same time, he lived very modestly and did not covet wealth and power. The main thing for him was to save humanity and their souls. For this salvation, he sacrificed himself, and Christians should take as an example this kindness and love for others, and also believe in his teaching.
When and where did Christianity originate?
Christianity originated in the 1st century AD. in the homeland of Jesus Christ, in Palestine, which was under the yoke of the Roman Empire. Rome, conquering new lands, established an unbearable oppression for the peoples of these lands, and the struggle against Roman lawlessness was suppressed. And now, with the birth of Jesus Christ, a new trend appeared in the struggle for justice, in which everyone, both rich and poor, was considered equal before the one God. This trend in the name of Christ was called Christianity, and its followers were called Christians.
Christians were persecuted by the rulers, they dealt with them very cruelly. Gathering in secret communities, mainly in caves, they were true to their ideals and refused to believe in the Roman gods and make sacrifices to them.
The sermons of Jesus Christ and his followers had a beneficial effect on the spread of this religion, and his martyrdom and miraculous resurrection further strengthened people's faith in the one God. And not only the poor, but also the rich took the side of Christianity, for they were satisfied with the ideas of humility and patience. So in the year 325, Emperor Constantine recognized this religion in Rome as the state religion. As the years passed, religion spread throughout the world and began to dominate other religions.
Currents in Christianity
Although the ideas of Christianity are united, there are differences in the essence of the doctrine. Christianity is divided into three branches: Orthodoxy, Catholicism and Protestantism. Within each branch there is also a divergence in the teachings of the faith. But the essence of religion is one.
Report on Christianity
There are three major religious trends in the world, one of which is Christianity. Founded in Palistine in the 1st century AD, it preaches faith in the Son of God - Jesus Christ, who suffered a painful death on the cross to atone for human sins.
Christianity is professed by three church movements: Protestantism, Catholicism and Orthodoxy.
Historians have not come to a consensus about the real existence of Jesus. A more plausible version is that the Son of God really existed historical personality. This is proved by the chronicle of Josephus Flavius "Antiquities" and many other historical sources. The New Testament describes events that have found their confirmation in archaeological monuments.
On Mount Sinai, the 10 commandments, the foundations of a Christian life, were revealed by God to the prophet Moses:
1. God is one and for man there should be no other Gods.
2. You can not create an idol for yourself.
4. One day a week (the seventh) must be dedicated to God.
5. Respect your parents.
6. You can not take the life of other people.
7. Do not commit adultery.
8. You can't take someone else's.
9. You can not falsely accuse another person.
10. You can't want what the other person has.
The main holy book for people of the Christian faith is the Bible, consisting of the Old and New Testaments. She is the bearer of the truth of the life of a believer, tells about the life of the Savior, tells the kingdom of the living and the spring of life after death.
The New Testament consists of four narratives of the prophets (Matthew, John, Mark and Luke), as well as the "Apocalypse" of John the Evangelist and the "Acts of the Apostles".
In Christianity, there are seven rites, they are called sacraments. A person is accepted by the church by baptism, bonds of marriage are sealed by a wedding, when a sin is committed, a believer can repent before God to forgive his misconduct, to get rid of an illness there is a rite of unction, to establish a spiritual connection with God, a person takes communion.
In memory of the terrible torment and death of the son of God, Christians venerate the cross. They decorate the domes of temples, after baptism the believer wears it on the body.
Armenia adopted Christianity as the main religion earlier than other states. This event dates back to 301, then in 313 Emperor Constantine I proclaimed Christianity the state religion in the Roman Empire, at the end of the 4th century the Byzantine Empire also began to recognize Christianity as the main faith in the state.
In Rus', the spread of faith about Christ began in the 8th century, and Prince Vladimir baptized Rus' in 988.
The place of worship is the temple, which is dedicated either to a specific church holiday, or to a particularly revered saint, whose feast day is the patronal day for a particular church.
Faith in Christ is the most widespread in the world. It has more than 1.3 billion people according to UNESCO. In almost every part of the planet there are people who believe in Christianity.
4, 5, 7, 9 grade
- Flute - message report (2, 3, 4, 5 grades in music)
The flute is a musical instrument that belongs to the class of wind instruments. The history of the flute is not fraught with many mysteries. One of the versions of its origin is considered
The history of the Christian religion has more than two thousand years. But humanity, before giving preference to this world religion, has come a long historical way. During it, religious ideas and beliefs were formed. Christianity is based on the doctrine of the God-man Jesus Christ, who descended from heaven to earth (incarnated in the form of a man) and accepted suffering and death in order to atone for the original sin of mankind. After death, Christ was resurrected and ascended to heaven. In the future, according to Christian teaching, there will be a second coming of Christ to judge the living and the dead.
Christianity is characterized by the presence of strict commandments and rules set for its adherents. Followers of Christianity must fulfill the commandments of Christ, meekly endure the hardships of life. For observance and non-observance of all the rules, Christians are promised retribution in the afterlife, as I said in the introduction, this is Eternal Life. The confessional basis of Orthodoxy is made up of Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition. The basic principles of Orthodoxy are set forth in the 12 points of the creed adopted at the first two ecumenical councils. Christianity has its roots in the teachings of Jewish religious sects. Judea at the turn of our era was part of the Roman Empire and under the control of its governors. But in resolving certain vital issues, primarily judicial and religious, it granted autonomy to the priesthood, headed by the high priest of the Jerusalem temple, and to the Sanhedrin.
The second half of the first century BC and the entire first century of our era were the time of continuous protests of the population of Judea against Roman rule. All these speeches were mercilessly suppressed, which paved the way for the emergence among the oppressed Jews of eschatological ideas. The fairly stable Jewish tradition of waiting for the Messiah - a savior who will help the oppressed to free themselves from the power of strangers - also played its role. The continuous struggle with powerful enemies for independence, devastating enemy invasions, and the increasing exploitation of the Jews led to the formation of a part of the people staying outside their homeland.
As a result of this and other circumstances, a number of currents were formed in Judaism: the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes. The first two currents were traditional. Esseism arose in the 2nd century. BC. In its ideas and in the organization of communities, it already contained much of what was then developed in early Christianity. Information about the Essenes was replenished after the finds in 1947 of ancient manuscripts in the Qumran caves on the shores of the Dead Sea. The Essenes recognized the absoluteness of divine predestination and were distinguished by a strong belief in the immortality of the soul. Members of their sects were in opposition to official Judaism, strongly condemned slavery and trade. Gradually, the Essenes began to move away from the complex religious rituals of official Judaism. In addition to the Essene communities opposed to Judaism, other similar religious communities arose in the diaspora. This was due to the loss by the Jews of their former social and ideological unity. In the process of religious searches against the backdrop of the decline and decay of the Roman Empire, the idea of equality, the idea of salvation, the idea of the possibility of obtaining and finding happiness in the other world is formed and introduced into the minds of believers.
Religious syncretism, as well as some philosophical ideas, played a significant role in the formation and development of early Christian beliefs. Researchers of the emergence of Christianity note, in particular, the enormous influence of the philosophical ideas of the Neoplatonists on the process of the formation of the ideology of Christianity. Neoplatonism is a system of late antique idealism, which included many provisions and images of ancient religious and mythological teachings and legends. The founder of this trend in philosophy, Plotinus, systematized the objective idealism of Plato. In his theoretical constructions, he also used some of the ideas and views of Aristotle. Plotinus saw the source of being in the supernatural beginning, which he thought of as a pure and simple unity, completely rejecting any multiplicity.
Christianity arose as a synthesis of Judaism, the teachings of the Stoics and some other elements of the cultural life of the Roman Empire.
Christianity arose at the crossroads of epochs and cultures, was able to combine the achievements of the spiritual and practical activities of mankind and adapt them to the needs of a new civilization, leaving behind the threshold the decrepit clothes of tribal and national religious ideas and beliefs.
The new religion was a contradictory set of ideas, often not even logically consistent with each other. The Christian religion had to go through a difficult path of adaptation to the surrounding society, and society had to survive and realize the collapse of the world order so that this religion could become the dominant and state religion.
An important role in the formation of Christianity was played by the democratic nature of early Christianity, which manifested itself primarily in the organization of communities of believers. The emergence of primitive Christianity is due to the idea of equality contained in it. The idea of equality was formulated as the equality of all people as sinful "creatures" before the powerful and all-merciful God. The desire for equality, which has always lived in the depths of the popular consciousness, helped to develop this religious system. In the early days of the existence of Christians, there was no church clergy in their communities. Christianity originated in Palestine in the 1st century AD. against the backdrop of the mystical-messianic movements of Judaism, as a religion of the oppressed and those who sought salvation from cruel conditions in the coming of a savior. The Roman Empire during this period stretched from the Euphrates to the Atlantic Ocean and from North Africa to the Rhine. In 6 AD, after the death of Herod, dissatisfied with the civil strife between his sons, the Romans handed over the administration of Judea to the imperial procurator.
Christianity initially spread among the Jewish environment in Palestine and the countries of the Mediterranean basin, but already in the first decades of its existence it received a large number of followers from other peoples. In the second half of the 1st millennium, Christianity spread among the Germanic and Slavic peoples. Until the first half of the 2nd century, Christianity was a series of communities consisting of slaves, freedmen, and artisans. In the second half of the 2nd century, Christian writers already noted the presence of noble and wealthy people in the communities.
One of the important elements of the transition of Christianity to a fundamentally new level was its break with Judaism in the 2nd century. After that, the percentage of Jews in Christian communities began to steadily decrease. At the same time, Christians are abandoning the Old Testament laws: Sabbath observance, circumcision, and strict food restrictions. The expansion of Christianity and the involvement of a large number of people of various faiths in Christian communities led to the fact that Christianity of this period was not a single church, but a huge number of directions, groups, theological schools. The situation was complicated by a large number of heresies, the number of which, by the end of the 2nd century, the church historian of the end of the 4th century, Philastrius, determines the number of 156. dioceses. Large church centers were created in the most important political centers of the empire, primarily in the capitals. Christians accepted everyone who came to them and did not hide their belonging to the new religion. Thanks to the rich who came to them, the clergy gradually appeared - permanent clergymen and property managers. This is how it came about:
presbyters(elders)
deacons (servants)
bishops(guards).
The clergy soon declared themselves the sole bearer of divine grace, and later, through church teaching and church laws, secured this function for themselves.
The clergy erected their monopoly on divine grace to the twelve apostles - the disciples of Jesus Christ himself. The general crisis of the ancient worldview, the oppression of imperial power contributed to the entry into the ranks of the new faith of an increasing number of rich and educated people. Naturally, it was they, who were more educated and experienced in management, who took strong positions in the leadership of many communities.
The hope for the imminent second coming of the Savior contributed to the strengthening of their positions. Individual church leaders began to advocate the autocracy of the bishops, who later became the leaders of the communities in all matters, including dogma. In 323, the emperor of the Roman Empire, Constantine, moved the capital to the east, to the city of Byzantium, which was renamed Constantinople. By order of Emperor Constantine, the First Ecumenical Council was convened in 325.
By the providence of God, in the year 326, the Life-Giving Cross was miraculously acquired by the mother of Constantine, the holy Empress Elena. At the beginning of the 4th century, Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire. At this time, the church organization is strengthened and the church hierarchy is officially formalized, the highest part of which becomes the episcopate.
Until the 5th century, the spread of Christianity took place mainly within the geographical boundaries of the Roman Empire, as well as in its sphere of influence - Armenia, Ethiopia, Syria.
Starting from the 7th century Christianity clashes with Islam and loses almost all of Africa and the Middle East. In the 11th century, as a result of the division of churches, the single Christian church split into Catholicism and the Eastern Church. The Eastern Church, in turn, split into many churches, where the Orthodox Church is the largest today. In the XIII-XIV centuries, Christianity spread among the Baltic peoples. By the XIV century, Christianity had almost completely conquered Europe, and from that time began to spread outside of Europe. In the 16th century, another branch of Christianity appeared in Europe - Protestantism. The emergence of Protestantism is associated with the Reformation - a powerful anti-Catholic movement. By the beginning of the 21st century, the number of Christians worldwide exceeds 1.5 billion, of which about half live in Europe.
