"Orthodox culture is the culture of Orthodox civilization". Education and Orthodox culture

Hegumen Georgy (Shestun) - Doctor of Pedagogy, Professor, Head of the Interuniversity Department of Orthodox Pedagogy of the Samara Orthodox Theological Seminary, rector of the church in honor of St. Sergius of Radonezh, Samara, rector of the Zavolzhsky Skete of the Cross of the Lord

Sometimes it is very difficult to determine the meaning of concepts that are well known from childhood, concepts that have firmly entered the language and consciousness and whose meaning is obvious at first glance. When you hear the question: “What does this concept mean?” - the answer, as it were, is ready: “Don’t you know?” It seems that everyone knows this.

The concept of “Orthodox culture” also belongs to such familiar, but difficult to define. We have been living in this culture and this culture for more than a thousand years, the age of Orthodox culture itself is more than two thousand years old, and some ontological moments of Orthodox culture are equal in age to our world. When heated debates arose over the subject "Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture", it was necessary to define the very concept of "Orthodox culture". Depending on the meaning that we put into this concept, the content of the subject and its place and role in the educational space of the educational institution are determined. To date, in the process of discussion, several approaches and methodological foundations have emerged, on the basis of which programs and teaching aids on the subject “Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture” have been developed and published (the name of the subject may have other options). Let's consider these approaches.

1. Local history approach. Textbooks in this area are designed for a subject included in the school or regional components of the state standard. Most often, the developers of such courses are limited to the history of Orthodoxy in a particular region and do not pretend to study the entire Orthodox culture.

2. Church approach. The developers of this direction proceeded from the fact that only church culture is Orthodox. All Orthodox culture was reduced to church culture and limited by it. The textbooks published from the standpoint of this approach gave our opponents reason to suspect that under the guise of Orthodox culture, the Law of God is being introduced in schools. In addition, the creative intelligentsia rebelled against this approach, since in Orthodox culture there was no place for great works of literature, painting, music, cinema, which carry the light of Orthodox values, which are not always expressed and clothed in the forms of church art.

3. Church-ethical approach. This direction is close to the previous one, but pays more attention to the axiological side of Orthodoxy, its value and moral basis. The developers of this direction are already worried about the word "culture" in the name of the subject, and therefore we can observe some inclusions, rather unfounded and unsystematic, from the field of cultural studies in programs and teaching aids. This approach inherited from the previous one the same limitations and the same criticism in its address.

4. Confessional or religious approach. A certain view from the outside is used, which claims to objectively examine the position of Orthodoxy and Orthodox culture in the world, and especially in the world of other religions and value orientations. This approach is the most distant from Orthodox culture and is closer to the subjects of "Religions of the World" or "Sect Studies".

5. Cultural approach. This approach is the most promising, but today, oddly enough, it is the least developed. However, there are some limitations in this area as well. Orthodox culture is considered only as the culture of Orthodoxy or the culture of Orthodox people. This causes criticism from those who see the values ​​of Orthodoxy in works created by non-Orthodox people - non-Orthodox people or authors who still live without God.

Orthodox culture should be considered as the culture of the Orthodox civilization, or it can be called the spiritual and moral culture of the Orthodox civilization (the DNA of the Orthodox civilization). From this point of view, the culture of the Orthodox civilization begins from the Nativity of Christ, and some ethical norms are drawn from the Old Testament and transformed by Christianity. It is important to trace the history of the emergence of the Orthodox civilization and its culture back in the framework of the ancient world, within the framework of the Great Roman Empire. It is necessary to know how Roman law was transformed into a symphony of powers, a symphony of kingship and priesthood in the Second Rome, the holy Byzantine Empire. To know how the Greek ideal of beauty acquired sacred forms under the influence of Christianity, how an ancient basilica acquired the forms of a Byzantine temple, and then the onions of Orthodox churches in the Third Rome - Moscow were lit with prayer burning. How the great ancient philosophy bestowed its wealth on Christian theology, which revealed to the world the revelation of the Holy Trinity and that God is Love. Pupils and students should know that Christianity, having freed man from the pagan veneration of nature, from its deification, made it possible for its objective scientific study. What literature, painting, iconography, poetry, architecture, music were born at that time! And how beautiful was Byzantium and its capital Constantinople! It was the most educated, cultural and beautiful empire of that time. It is unlikely that humanity will build a city on earth more beautiful than Constantinople - a city in which more than a million people lived. Only Moscow in the years of its Orthodox heyday, when it was called the city of "forty forty", was likened to Constantinople with its unearthly beauty.

Everyone who lives in the Orthodox civilization should know about the great theological battle between St. Gregory Palamas and the monk Barlaam of Calabria, when the saint defended the spiritual foundation of our civilization, its unique existence. And the West was already leaving Christ along the road of romanticism and the revival of pagan veneration of man and the created world, along the road of chivalrous heroism, but apostasy heroism.

We should all know how the great Orthodox civilization was bestowed for the preservation of Russia and its people. How our princes went to war against Byzantium, desiring earthly wealth, but gaining heavenly. With courage and desperate courage, they won the right to be baptized in the holy water of Byzantium, brought themselves royal brides and thereby acquired royal blood. How our holy ancestors lived, prayed and performed great deeds. How our great spiritual literature was born in chronicles and theological treatises, in teachings and lives. We need to know how St. Sergius, hegumen of the Russian land, implored the freedom of our people and state, how our holy princes and soldiers shed their blood for their native land, for its freedom, for its holy faith and original culture. How the patriarchal spirit grew in our land and how the royal blood grew stronger. And what were the family traditions, how our ancestors raised chaste, sacrificial and noble heirs, how they loved their faith, their people and their Fatherland!

In no civilization in the world you will find such a careful attitude to the beliefs, culture and languages ​​of other peoples. Many of the ethnic groups that have retained their existence in Orthodox civilization did not even have their own written language, and Orthodox civilization bestowed it on them.

Everything in our land is consecrated: water, air, land, cities, and villages. Everything around is permeated with the holy atmosphere of Orthodoxy. The living soul yearns without this holy spirit. A Russian in Europe or America, a Jew in Israel, a Muslim in Turkey or the Arab Emirates can no longer live in peace outside Orthodox civilization. Longing for the motherland, called nostalgia, disturbs the soul and calls to return to this multinational and multi-confessional community of Orthodox civilization.

Our children should know how the original Russian religious philosophy was awakened, how the great Russian literature was born. How to understand the depth and religious meaning of national and world culture, being brought up and trained outside the tradition of one's own civilization?!

The most striking thing about our culture is that, being in the atmosphere of the Orthodox civilization, breathing its air, inspired by its lofty ideals, the best representatives of national cultures, people of other faiths tuned in to its tone and contributed their voice, their contribution to the treasury of the culture of the Orthodox civilization. Dagestani Rasul Gamzatov, Kyrgyz Chingiz Aitmatov, Tatar Musa Jalil, Jews Levitan, Dunayevsky, Frenkel. What lofty poetry, painting, music - and this is all our common, this all belongs to our civilization. What books were written by our writers and what films were shot by our directors who called themselves atheists - and this is also ours! This list is truly huge. Antiquity and Europe, world and national culture, two Romes, two great empires donated this great Divine gift to the Third Rome - Moscow, the Russian Empire. So why can't our children know, study, store and pass it on to their descendants? Why can't we study this together, regardless of nationality and faith, if our ancestors preserved and multiplied this culture together? Does the study of the culture of our own civilization prevent us from knowing our national cultures, knowing our faith?

The academic subject "Spiritual and Moral Culture of the Orthodox Civilization" should become part of the federal component of the state standard of education. This is the basic subject of the educational area "Spiritual and moral culture". Each educational area should carry and carries a spiritual and moral component, it is necessary to single out, clarify and supplement it.

Instead of the subject "Religions of the World", which can be studied optionally at the request of parents and students, it will be useful to introduce the subject "Fundamentals of Orthodox Civilization". Within the framework of this subject, throughout all the years of study, students will learn the three foundations of Orthodox civilization: faith, culture and statehood. It is important not only to know about religions, it is important to know how they coexisted within the framework of civilization, what contribution they made to the strengthening of statehood and the unity of the people.

The root that nourishes the tree of culture of our civilization is Orthodoxy, it nurtured it and adorned it with beautiful fruits, but over the course of history, sprouts of many national cultures were grafted onto the branches of this tree and took root, which, feeding on the juices of this tree, brought their own original fruits, multiplying the beauty of our culture. Within the framework of civilization, national cultures outgrew themselves, surpassed the ethnic level and became part of civilizational culture, and therefore part of the world culture. Falling out, withdrawing from civilization, the ethnos loses the ability to such manifestations of cultural activity and limits its existence to folklore. By refusing to participate in the cultural life of civilization, closing itself within the framework of national culture, an ethnos commits an act of cultural separatism, which sooner or later will lead it to a state of state or territorial separatism. The culture of an ethnos is determined by the extent to which it is able to master the culture of civilization and make its own original contribution to it.

Orthodox civilization has always existed within the framework of empires. The more the empire became multinational and multi-confessional, the stronger it was, the more beautiful its culture became. Different languages, faiths, and hence different thinking, different ways of expressing innermost beauty elevated the culture of the Orthodox civilization to Divine heights. By studying the history of Orthodox empires, students will better comprehend the history of our Fatherland, begin to understand how to preserve it, which hinders its unity and stability. We have always been united by the Orthodox civilization, it is our cradle and our only Motherland.

Sometimes it is very difficult to determine the meaning of concepts that are well known from childhood, concepts that have firmly entered the language and consciousness, and whose meaning is obvious at first glance. When you hear the question: "What does this concept mean?" - the answer seems to be ready: "Don't you know?" - it seems that everyone knows this.

Among such familiar, but difficult to define, is the concept of "Orthodox culture." We have been living this culture for over a thousand years. The age of Orthodox culture itself is more than two thousand years old, and some ontological moments of Orthodox culture are equal to the age of our world. When heated debates arose over the subject "Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture", it was necessary to define the very concept of "Orthodox culture". Depending on the meaning that we put into this concept, the content of the subject and its place and role in the educational space of the educational institution are determined. To date, in the process of discussion, several approaches and methodological foundations have emerged, on the basis of which programs and teaching aids on the subject "Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture" have been developed and published (the name of the subject may have other options). Let's consider these approaches.

1. Local history approach. Textbooks in this area are designed for a subject included in the school or regional components of the state standard. Most often, the developers of such courses are limited to the history of Orthodoxy in a particular region and do not pretend to study the entire Orthodox culture.

2. Church approach. The developers of this direction proceeded from the fact that only church culture is Orthodox. All Orthodox culture was reduced to church culture and limited by it. The textbooks published from the standpoint of this approach gave our opponents reason to suspect that under the guise of Orthodox culture, the Law of God is being introduced in schools. In addition, the creative intelligentsia rebelled against this approach, since in Orthodox culture there was no place for great works of literature, painting, music, cinema, which carry the light of Orthodox values, which are not always expressed and clothed in the forms of church art.

3. Church-ethical approach. This direction is close to the previous one, but pays more attention to the axiological side of Orthodoxy, its value and moral basis. The developers of this direction are already worried about the word "culture" in the title of the subject, and therefore we can observe some rather baseless and unsystematic inclusions from the field of cultural studies in programs and teaching aids. This approach inherited from the previous one the same limitations and the same criticism in its address.

4. Religious approach. A certain view from the outside is used, which claims to objectively examine the position of Orthodoxy and Orthodox culture in the world, and especially in the world of other religions and value orientations. This approach is the most distant from Orthodox culture and is closer to the subjects of "Religions of the World" or "Sect Studies".

5. Cultural approach. This approach is the most promising, but today, oddly enough, it is the least developed. However, there are some limitations in this area as well. Orthodox culture is considered only as the culture of Orthodoxy or the culture of Orthodox people. This causes criticism from those who see the values ​​of Orthodoxy in works created by non-Orthodox people, non-Orthodox people or authors who still live without God.

Orthodox culture should be considered as the culture of the Orthodox civilization, or it can be called the spiritual and moral culture of the Orthodox civilization (the DNA of the Orthodox civilization). From this point of view, the culture of the Orthodox civilization begins from the Nativity of Christ, and some ethical norms are drawn from the Old Testament and transformed by Christianity. It is important to trace the history of the emergence of the Orthodox civilization and its culture back in the framework of the ancient world, within the framework of the Great Roman Empire. It is necessary to know how Roman law was transformed into a symphony of powers, a symphony of kingship and priesthood in the Second Rome - the holy Byzantine Empire. To know how the Greek ideal of beauty acquired sacred forms under the influence of Christianity, how an ancient basilica acquired the forms of a Byzantine temple, and then the onions of Orthodox churches in the Third Rome - Moscow were lit with prayer burning. How the great ancient philosophy bestowed its wealth on Christian theology, which revealed to the world the revelation of the Holy Trinity and that God is Love. Pupils and students should know that Christianity, having freed man from the pagan veneration of nature, from its deification, made it possible for its objective scientific study. What literature, painting, iconography, poetry, architecture, music were born at that time! And how beautiful was Byzantium and its capital Constantinople! It was the most educated, cultural and beautiful empire of that time. It is unlikely that humanity will build a city on earth more beautiful than Constantinople - a city in which more than a million people lived. Only Moscow in the years of its Orthodox heyday, when it was called the city of "forty forty", was likened to Constantinople with its unearthly beauty.

Everyone who lives in the Orthodox civilization should know about the great theological battle between St. Gregory Palamas and the monk Barlaam of Calabria, when the saint defended the spiritual foundation of our civilization, its unique existence. And the West was already leaving Christ along the road of romanticism and the revival of pagan veneration of man and the created world, along the road of chivalrous heroism, but apostasy heroism.

We should all know how the great Orthodox civilization was bestowed for the preservation of Russia and its people. How our princes went to war against Byzantium, desiring earthly wealth, but gaining heavenly. With courage and desperate courage, they won the right to be baptized in the holy water of Byzantium, brought themselves royal brides and thereby acquired royal blood. How our holy ancestors lived, prayed and performed great deeds. How our great spiritual literature was born in chronicles and theological treatises, in teachings and lives. We need to know how St. Sergius, hegumen of the Russian land, implored the freedom of our people and state, how our holy princes and soldiers shed their blood for their native land, for its freedom, for its holy faith and original culture. How the patriarchal spirit grew in our land, and how the royal blood grew stronger. And what were the family traditions, how our ancestors raised chaste, sacrificial and noble heirs, how they loved their faith, their people and their Fatherland!

In no civilization in the world you will find such a careful attitude to the beliefs, culture and languages ​​of other peoples. Many of the ethnic groups that have retained their existence in Orthodox civilization did not even have their own written language, and Orthodox civilization bestowed it on them.

Everything in our land is consecrated: water, air, land, cities, and villages. Everything around is permeated with the holy atmosphere of Orthodoxy. The living soul yearns without this holy spirit. A Russian in Europe or America, a Jew in Israel, a Muslim in Turkey or the Arab Emirates can no longer live in peace outside Orthodox civilization. Longing for the motherland, called nostalgia, disturbs the soul and calls to return to this multinational and multi-confessional community of Orthodox civilization.

Our children should know how the original Russian religious philosophy was awakened, how the great Russian literature was born. How to understand the depth and religious meaning of national and world culture, being brought up and trained outside the tradition of one's own civilization?!

The most striking thing about our culture is that, being in the atmosphere of the Orthodox civilization, breathing its air, inspired by its lofty ideals, the best representatives of national cultures, people of other faiths tuned in to its tone and contributed their voice, their contribution to the treasury of the culture of the Orthodox civilization. Dagestani Rasul Gamzatov, Kyrgyz Chingiz Aitmatov, Tatar Mussa Jalil, Jews Aivazovsky, Levitan, Dunayevsky, Frenkel. What lofty poetry, painting, music - and this is all our common, this all belongs to our civilization. What books were written by our writers and what films were shot by our directors who called themselves atheists - and this is also ours! This list is truly huge. Antiquity and Europe, world culture and national culture, two Romes, two great empires donated this great Divine gift to the Third Rome - Moscow, the Russian Empire. So why can't our children know, study, store and pass it on to their descendants? Why can't we study this together, regardless of nationality and faith, if our ancestors preserved and multiplied this culture together? Does the study of the culture of our own civilization prevent us from knowing our national cultures, knowing our faith?

The subject "Spiritual and Moral Culture of the Orthodox Civilization" should become part of the federal component of the state standard of education. This is the basic subject of the educational area "Spiritual and moral culture". Each educational area should carry and carries a spiritual and moral component, it is necessary to single out, clarify and supplement it.

Instead of the subject "Religions of the World", which can be studied optionally at the request of parents and students, it will be useful to introduce the subject "Fundamentals of Orthodox Civilization". Within the framework of this subject, throughout all the years of study, students will learn the three foundations of Orthodox civilization: faith, culture and statehood. It is important not only to know about religions, it is important to know how they coexisted within the framework of civilization, what contribution they made to the strengthening of statehood and the unity of the people.

Orthodoxy is the root that feeds the tree of culture of our civilization, it has grown it and adorned it with beautiful fruits, but over the course of history, sprouts of many national cultures have grafted onto the branches of this tree and taken root, which, feeding on the juices of this tree, brought their own original fruits, multiplying the beauty of our country. culture. Within the framework of civilization, national cultures outgrew themselves, surpassed the ethnic level and became part of civilizational culture, and therefore part of the world culture. Falling out, withdrawing from civilization, the ethnos loses the ability to such manifestations of cultural activity and limits its existence to folklore. By refusing to participate in the cultural life of civilization, closing itself within the framework of national culture, an ethnos commits an act of cultural separatism, which sooner or later will lead it to a state of state or territorial separatism. The culture of an ethnos is determined by the extent to which it is able to master the culture of civilization and make its own original contribution to it.

Orthodox civilization has always existed within the framework of empires. The more the empire became multinational and multi-confessional, the stronger it was, the more beautiful its culture became. Different languages, faiths, and hence different thinking, different ways of expressing innermost beauty elevated the culture of the Orthodox civilization to Divine heights. By studying the history of Orthodox empires, students will better comprehend the history of our Fatherland, begin to understand how to preserve it, which hinders its unity and stability. We have always been united by the Orthodox civilization, it is our cradle and our only Motherland.

Hegumen George (Shestun), Doctor of Pedagogy, Professor, Head of the Department of Orthodox Pedagogy of the Samara Theological Seminary, rector of the church in honor of St. Sergius of Radonezh, Samara

http://www.prokimen.ru/article_2601.html

Etymology of the word "Bible".

The concept of "Covenant". Types of Testaments in the Biblical Text.

Slavic translation of the Holy Scriptures.

The concept of the "Ostrog Bible"

Russian proverbs and sayings based on biblical texts and church-historical motives.

Domestic literary works of the 20th century that deal with biblical themes.

It is common knowledge that the Bible is the world's best-selling book of all time and that no other book is as popular as the Bible. This is not just a sample of the literature of the ancient world, which is outdated and completely irrelevant today. On the contrary, it is a living, active message of God to the world, which transforms this world. The Bible is an inspired book. And this is a treasury of wisdom for all thinking people of the Earth, whatever their beliefs.

The Bible, or Holy Scripture, is a sacred book that the Holy Spirit gave us: “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16). “Inspired by God” means “breathed by God,” that is, written by holy authors under the inspiration and revelation of the Holy Spirit. This term refers to the source of the message - God. For 16 centuries, the Holy Spirit revealed the divine message to forty holy writers - prophets and apostles. Thirty-two of them wrote down the Old Testament; eight is new. The addressee of Holy Scripture is the Church.

The name "Bible" is not found in the sacred books themselves and was first attributed to the collection of sacred books in the East in the 4th century by Saints John Chrysostom and Epiphanius of Cyprus.

Bible in Greek means books. 20 kilometers north of the city of Beirut, on the Mediterranean coast, there is a small Arab (Phoenician in ancient times) port city of Gibel (in the Holy Scriptures referred to as Ebal). Writing material was delivered from it to Byzantium, and the Greeks called this city “Byblos”. Then the writing material itself began to be called that, and later the books received this name. The Greeks called a book written on papyrus ‘ε βίβλος’, but if it was small, they said το βιβλίον – little book, and in the plural – τα βιβλία. Bible (βιβλία) is the plural of βίβλος. Thus, the literal meaning of the word "Bible" is books. Over time, the Greek neuter plural βιβλία turned into a feminine singular, capitalized, and applied exclusively to Holy Scripture. The Bible is the Book of books, the Book in essence, in the special sense of the word, predominantly, in the most general, highest and singular sense. This is the great Book of Fates, which holds the secrets of life and the destiny of the future.

The Bible consists of two large parts: the Old Testament and the New Testament. The word "covenant" in the Bible has a special meaning: it is not only an instruction bequeathed to followers, future generations, but also an agreement between God and people - an agreement on the salvation of mankind and earthly life in general.

The Old Testament (events of the Sacred history from the creation of the world to the birth of Christ) is a collection of 39 books, and the New Testament (events after the Incarnation, that is, after the birth of Christ) - from 27 books.

Canon (translated from Greek - reed, measuring stick, that is, a rule, sample) or canonical books are sacred books recognized by the Church as authentic, inspired by God and serving as primary sources and norms of faith.

The books of both the New and Old Testaments can be roughly divided into four sections:

law-positive books, in which the basic moral-religious Law is given;

teaching books, which mainly reveal the meaning and implementation of the fulfillment of the Law, give examples from the Sacred history of a righteous life;

historical books that reveal important events of Sacred history through the prism of the history of God's chosen people;

prophetic books, in which, in a mysterious, hidden way, it speaks of the future destinies of the world and the Church, and figuratively tells of the Incarnation and the salvation of mankind.

The Old Testament canon includes the so-called Pentateuch of Moses (Torah): Genesis, Leviticus, Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy; books: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1–4 Kings, 1, 2 Chronicles (Chronicles), Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Psalter, Proverbs of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Lamentations of Jeremiah. The canonical Old Testament books also include the books of the prophets: the four great ones - Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and the twelve small ones - Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi.

The non-canonical books of the Old Testament include the books: Judith, the Wisdom of Jesus, the son of Sirach, the Wisdom of Solomon, the Epistle of Jeremiah, Baruch, Tobit, 1-3 Maccabees, 2, 3 Ezra. The Church does not put them on a par with the canonical ones, but recognizes them as edifying and useful.

Most of the Old Testament is written in Hebrew, parts of some books are written in Aramaic. The division of the text into chapters was carried out in the 13th century by Cardinal Hugon or Bishop Stephen Langton.

The New Testament canon includes: The Four Gospels (from Matthew, from Mark, from Luke, from John). The first three Gospels (Matt., Mk., Lk.) are called synoptic (Greek - general); The Gospel of John (Jn.) - pneumatic (from Greek - spiritual). The canon of the New Testament also includes books: Acts of the Holy Apostles, seven epistles of the apostles (James, 1, 2 Peter, 1-3 John, Jude), 14 epistles of the holy apostle Paul (Romans, 1, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians , Colossians, 1, 2 Thessalonians, or Thessalonians, 1, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews).

The last, or final, book of the New Testament is the Apocalypse, or Revelation of John the Theologian. There are no non-canonical books in the New Testament.

The Holy Bible is a sacred library, which for more than a thousand years has been composed of many verbal works created by different authors and in different languages. And at the same time, this is a holistic creation, striking with perfection and diamond strength in the most severe trials. stories.

All New Testament texts are written in the Alexandrian dialect of the ancient Greek language (Koine, or Kini), with the exception of the Gospel of Matthew, originally written in Hebrew and at the same time translated, apparently, by the author himself into Greek. The New Testament was first divided into chapters and verses in the 16th century.

In general, the sacred biblical canon took shape already in the 2nd century. The canon in its present form was finally recognized by the whole Church at the Council of Laodicea (360–364), then at the Council of Hippo (393), Carthage (397) and subsequent councils.

Of the most important and well-known translations of the Bible, the Septuagint (translation into Greek of 70 interpreters) of the Egyptian king Ptolemy Philadelphus (284-247 BC), the Syrian (Peshito), Latin Itala (ancient) and Vulgata (blessed Jerome) should be mentioned. Stridonsky, beginning of the 5th century, recognized at the end of the 6th century), Armenian (5th century), etc. The first Slavic translation of the Bible was carried out by the holy brothers Cyril and Methodius in the 9th century, the translation into Russian of the entire text of the Holy translation) was completed in 1876.

Russia received the first printed Bible from Ostrog in 1581 thanks to the work of Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich Ostrozhsky.

The books of Holy Scripture have brought to life countless other books where biblical ideas and images live: numerous translations, arrangements, works of verbal art, interpretations, and various studies.

The Bible is one of the largest monuments of world culture and literature. Without knowledge of the Bible, many cultural values ​​remain inaccessible. Most of the art paintings of the era of classicism, Russian icon painting and philosophy cannot be understood without knowledge of biblical stories.

In our country, until the beginning of the 20th century, the main plots of the biblical narrative were familiar to almost everyone, regardless of the level of education. Many could quote lengthy passages from sacred biblical texts verbatim.

This is how our great poet A.S. Pushkin: “There is a book by which every word is interpreted, explained, preached in all ends of the earth, applied to all kinds of circumstances of life and events of the world; from which it is impossible to repeat a single expression that everyone would not know by heart, which would not already be a proverb of the peoples; it no longer contains anything unknown to us; but this book is called the Gospel - and such is its ever-new charm that if we, satiated with the world or dejected by despondency, accidentally open it, we are no longer able to resist its sweet passion and are immersed in spirit into its divine eloquence.

From the time of the Baptism of Rus' by the Holy Prince Vladimir, the Bible became the first and main book of Russian culture: children were taught literacy and thinking, Christian truths and norms of life, the principles of morality and the basics of verbal art from it. The Bible has firmly entered the consciousness of the people, into everyday life and spiritual life, into ordinary and high speech. The books of Holy Scripture translated into Slavonic by the holy educators Equal-to-the-Apostles Cyril and Methodius were not perceived as translations, but as native and able to bring people of different languages ​​and cultures together.

Many biblical phrases live in modern Russian in the form of proverbs, sayings, popular expressions, recalling its origins and stories our culture. For example, the proverb: "He who does not work, he does not eat" - compare with the thought of the Apostle Paul "... if anyone does not want to work, he does not eat" (2 Thess. 3, 10). Direct quotations from biblical books are the following expressions: “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Matt. 5:9), “Man shall not live by bread alone” (Matt. 4:4), “Those who take the sword will perish by the sword” (Matt. 26:52 ), “Tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Gen. 2, 9), “In the sweat of the face” (Gen. 3, 19), “Egyptian darkness” (Ex. 10, 21), “Stumbling block” (Is. 8 , 14), “The abomination of desolation” (Dan. 9, 27), “Their name is legion” (Mark 5, 9), “Not of this world” (John 17, 14), “The voice of one crying in the wilderness” (Is. 40, 3; Mt. 3, 3), “Do not throw your pearls (beads) before swine” (Mt. 7, 6), “There is nothing hidden that would not become obvious” (Mk. 4, 22 ), “Physician, heal thyself” (Luke 4:23) and many others. Everyone is well aware of biblical expressions and common nouns: "A wolf in sheep's clothing" (Matt. 7, 15), "Babylonian pandemonium" (Gen. 11, 4), "Let this cup pass from me" (Matt. 26, 39), “Prodigal Son” (Luke 15:11-32), “Unbelieving Thomas” (John 20:24-29), “Salt of the Earth” (Matt. 5:13), “Crown of Thorns” (Mark 15:17 ), “The power of darkness” (Luke 22:53), “Stones will cry out” (Luke 19:40) and many others.

Having lost their bearings in the vain world, in the chaos of relative values, Russian authors have long begun to turn to Christian morality and later to the image of Christ as the ideal of this morality. In ancient Russian hagiographic literature, the lives of holy ascetics, the righteous, and noble princes were described in detail. Christ had not yet acted as a literary character: the sacred awe and reverent attitude towards the image of the Savior were too great. In the literature of the 19th century, Christ was also not depicted, but images of people of the Christian spirit and holiness appear in it: in F.M. Dostoevsky - Prince Myshkin in the novel "The Idiot", Alyosha and Zosima in "The Brothers Karamazov"; at L.N. Tolstoy - Platon Karataev in "War and Peace". Paradoxically, Christ first became a literary character in Soviet literature. A.A. Block in the poem "The Twelve" (1918), in front of people embraced with hatred and ready for death, depicted Christ, whose image symbolizes the hope of people for purification and repentance at least someday, in the future. Perhaps A.A. Blok, seduced by revolutionary romanticism, saw Christ “in a white halo of roses” among the rebellious crowd as a symbol of the idea of ​​​​struggle for social justice. Later, the author of The Twelve became disillusioned with the revolution, seeing many of the horrors of the rabble rebellion. Awareness of the tragedy of his mistake prematurely brought the Russian poet to the grave. In the words of Z. Gippius, before his death, the poet "begins to see the sight of those who offend, humiliate and destroy his Beloved - his Russia" (meaning the Bolsheviks). In the same 1918, Z. Gippius in his poems (“Shel ...” in two parts) draws a completely different image of Christ in the Russian revolutionary turmoil - the image of a formidable and righteous Judge, angrily punishing the excesses of the revolution. Christ will later appear in M.A. Bulgakov "The Master and Margarita" under the name of Yeshua, in B.L. Pasternak - in Doctor Zhivago, at Ch.T. Aitmatov - in the "scaffold", at A.I. Dombrovsky - in the "Faculty of unnecessary things." Writers turned to the image of Christ as the ideal of moral perfection, the Savior of the world and mankind. In the image of Christ, the writers also saw the common thing that was endured by Him and that our era is going through: betrayal, persecution, wrong judgment.

The return of the Bible to our social life, its honest and unbiased study allowed modern readers to make a discovery: it turned out that all Russian literary classics, from antiquity to the present, are connected with the Book of Books, rely on its truths and precepts, moral and artistic values, correlate with her own ideals, cites her sayings, parables, edifications.

The Bible came to Rus' together with Christianity, initially in the form of separate books from the Old and New Testaments. The first Russian literary work - "The Word of Law and Grace" by Metropolitan Hilarion of Kyiv (first half of the 11th century) was created on a biblical basis. This is a sermon thematically consonant with the Epistle to the Romans of the holy apostle Paul (Rom.). "The Tale of Bygone Years" (circa 1113) by Nestor the chronicler - a monk of the Kiev-Pechersk monastery - reveals the connection between ancient Russian literature and the Bible. From the first lines, the holy author-chronicler transcribes the Book of Genesis, tells about the settlement of peoples on the Earth, about their division into seventy-two languages, and so on tells the sacred story. The Monk Nestor notes: “From the same seventy-two languages, the Slavic people also originated, from the tribe of Japheth ...”. The idea of ​​the unity of the Slavs with all the peoples of the world is further developed in pious stories about the journey of the Apostle Andrew the First-Called on the way from the Varangians to the Greeks, about the activities of the holy enlighteners Cyril and Methodius, about the sermons of the Apostle Paul in the Slavic lands, about the Baptism of Rus'. So it will continue in the literature, the beginning of which was the Tale of Bygone Years. The appeal to the Holy Scripture expands the scale of the narrative, connects the native land with the whole Earth, includes the national into the universal.

The appeal of ancient Russian authors of the artistic word to biblical images is contradictory and organically combined with their traditional pagan worldview. After Baptism in Rus', a peculiar phenomenon arose and proved to be quite stable for a long time, usually called dual faith.

In the Russian people of the XII century, the pagan perception of the world more and more passed into the aesthetic sphere, manifested itself in works of folk art and literature. A striking example of this trend is the Tale of Igor's Campaign (1185–1187). In it we see a combination of pagan and Christian principles. For example, the author uses the Christian concept of the pagan Polovtsy, and the pagan concept of animal totems, ancestors and patrons. He mentions the Christian God helping Igor, and then he says something typically pagan about the transformation of the fugitive prince into an ermine, a white gogol, a gray wolf. Ancient Slavic deities act in the "Word": Stribog - the god of the sky, the universe, Dazhdbog - the sun god, the giver of all blessings. But Igor's entire tragic path to enlightenment, to understanding his duty to the Russian Land, corresponds to Christian ideas about the purification of the soul, and the only victory that the prince wins in his reckless campaign is victory over himself. The combination of the ancient pagan and new Christian beliefs creates in the "Word" a single worldview: a person is perceived in the integrity of the entire God's universe and as the only earthly creature bearing the image and likeness of God and endowed with responsibility for the whole world.

Direct biblical influence can be traced in Russian hagiographic literature. It developed starting from the 11th century, following the traditions of Byzantine hagiography, but acquiring Russian features, often reproducing the living features of everyday life, human behavior and constantly returning to biblical sources. Such, for example, is the remarkable Life of St. Alexander Nevsky" (late 13th century). The whole narrative is conducted in comparison of the hero with the images of the Holy Scriptures.

The Bible most clearly influenced the development of Russian lyric poetry, which was born in the 18th century. A decisive role in the formation of Russian lyric poetry was played by verse transcriptions of biblical chants, primarily from the Psalter. The transpositions of the psalms by the poets of the 18th century from the Church Slavonic language into their modern language was evidence of the special significance of biblical hymnography in the minds of Russian society and at the same time an expression of the historical development of poetry itself and its language. This is an arrangement of the 81st psalm - "To the Rulers and Judges" by G.R. Derzhavin, ode from Psalm 93 I.A. Krylova and others. Undoubtedly, the lyrics of the biblical psalms are one of the origins of Derzhavin's ode "God" (1780-1784), which expressed the self-consciousness of a Christian. Derzhavin vividly, emotionally and profoundly reveals the quest of the human spirit, seeking to understand its place in the world created by the Creator, its relationship to God, to nature, to the universe.

Biblical psalms also contributed to the planetary nature, cosmism, and philosophical generalizations so characteristic of Russian poetry. For example, the transcription of Psalm 103 by M.V. Lomonosov (1743), where praise is given to God - the Creator of the Earth, stars, all the miracles of "nature", and his "Morning Reflection on the Majesty of God" (1751), where the Sun is wonderfully depicted - a heavenly lamp, lit by the Creator.

The arrangements created by Lomonosov and his followers, while remaining faithful to the biblical texts, absorbed the moods and experiences of Russian poets of the golden age of Russian literature.

Transcriptions of the texts of Holy Scripture, characteristic of the 18th century, contributed to the convergence of the biblical Church Slavonic language with a lively, rapidly developing speech, helped to form "high" speech styles that dominated in civil and philosophical lyrics, in a heroic poem, ode, tragedy. The majestic simplicity, vivid figurativeness, aphoristic sharpness, the energy of rhythm, drawn from the Bible, entered all the “high” literary genres, but, above all, thanks to the transcriptions of the psalms, into the lyrics.

Undoubtedly, the lyrics of the biblical psalms are one of the origins of Derzhavin's ode "God" (1780-1784), which expressed the self-consciousness of a Christian. G.R. Derzhavin vividly, emotionally and profoundly reveals the quest of the human spirit, seeking to understand its place in the world created by the Creator, its relationship to God, nature, and the universe.

The spiritual and moral potential of Russian classical literature of the 19th century still delights readers all over the world. And this is not accidental, because the roots of artistry, as noted by the famous Russian thinker and literary critic I.A. Ilyin, lie in those depths of the human soul, where the "breathes of God's presence" sweep through. Great art always bears the "seal of God's grace", even when it develops secular themes and plots that have no external connection with churchliness and religiosity. The phenomenon of Russian literature lies in the formulation of the "eternal questions" of being, the answer to which almost all Russian writers tried to give in their work.

Russian literature of the 19th century was educational in its main tendency, it always felt its responsibility for the state of the country and the world, it was always sensitive and responsive to the needs and disasters of its people and mankind. Literature taught in the highest sense of the word: it awakened in people dignity and honor, spirituality and creative aspirations, and formed a worldview.

A.S. Pushkin. The deepest expression of Pushkin's view of poetry and its significance in life was the poem "Liberty Sower of the Desert ..." (1823), the source of which was the famous gospel parable (Matthew 13, 3-23). This poem of the great poet was echoed many times later in his own work and in the works of other Russian writers of the 19th and 20th centuries. It contains a reflection on the most tragic circumstance of human history - the mysterious propensity of peoples to herd obedience. “The Desert Sower of Freedom...” is not a political treatise, this poem combines a state of mind caused by specific circumstances and generalizations that go far beyond the life of the poet and the history of Europe. In this work, "I" includes the author's personality, but it is not identical to it. The universality and all-humanity are emphasized here by the direct correlation of the poem with the gospel parable. Pushkin not only took an epigraph from the Gospel, he considered the entire poem to be an imitation of Christ's parable.

In 1826–1828 A.S. Pushkin creates the poem "Prophet", where the connection with the poem "Freedom sower of the desert ..." is obvious.

One of the Old Testament books - the book of the prophet Isaiah - depicts the painful purification of the soul of a man who wished to convey to people the high truth that was revealed to him, that is, to fulfill the work of the prophet. The holy prophet Isaiah tells how a vision dawned on him: the Lord appeared to his eyes, surrounded by six-winged seraphim. But can “unclean lips” tell about this? The fiery seraph cleans the prophet's mouth by putting burning coal into them (see Isaiah 6:1-8). Pushkin, creating the poem "Prophet", follows the biblical text.

This beautiful poem belongs to those peaks from which the path of Russian poetry is far visible. In it, the mission of the poet, like the biblical prophet, is depicted as asceticism.

Arise, prophet, and see, and listen,

Fulfill my will

And, bypassing the seas and lands,

Burn people's hearts with the verb.

There is a clear warning here against the frivolous understanding of poetry: true poetry undergoes burning, unquenchable suffering, passes through death and resurrection to become prophecy.

Pushkin often directly or indirectly refers to the Holy Scriptures. So, he directly sets out the biblical story, for example, the beginning of the Old Testament book of Judith (“When the ruler of Assyria ...”, 1835). Sometimes biblical motifs seem to be dissolved in the text, and only some details point to parallels with sacred biblical texts. Thus, in “Poltava” (1828-1829), the shadow of the devil suddenly appears when Hetman Mazepa, not daring to tell Mary directly about the impending execution of her father, tries to wrest from her at least almost involuntary consent to this atrocity. Biblical images also serve as moral guidelines in the poem "Angelo" (1833).

A direct translation of the church hymnography - the Lenten prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian "Lord and Master of my life ..." - was the poem "The Hermit Fathers and Immaculate Wives ..." (1836).

The Bible is constantly present in the creative thinking of the great poet, his artistic searches, his moral ideas are correlated with it.

Soon the theme of the prophet arises in M.Yu. Lermontov. We remember his poem "Prophet".

Ever since the eternal Judge

He gave me the omniscience of the prophet,

I read in the eyes of people

Pages of malice and vice.

The difference with the "Prophet" A.S. Pushkin is deep. For Pushkin, this was a vision of God and the world, a moment that the prophet experienced; Lermontov has a different theme: the vision of human sin. This is a bitter gift that poisons the prophet's life on Earth. This also corresponds to the biblical model, because the prophets saw the evil of the world and denounced it mercilessly.

Perhaps with M.Yu. Lermontov in Russian literature of the 19th century, a sharp increase in the role of the Bible in verbal creativity begins: the ideas, plots, images, style of Holy Scripture acquire such a power of influence on verbal art that many of the most remarkable works cannot be fully read and adequately understood without referring to biblical texts.

Believers see Lermontov as a spiritual poet and single out such religious and spiritual peaks in his multifaceted work as “An angel flew across the midnight sky ...”; two "Prayers" (1837 and 1839) and other poetic masterpieces, testifying to the high and bright faith of the poet.

God for him is an absolute reality. But the attitude towards Him in different contexts is manifested and perceived differently. The obsession with poetry leads the poet away from the ways of God, closes his hearing to the word of the Lord, perverts the mind, darkens the gaze. Lermontov himself is aware of this as improper, disastrous in himself and prays to the Almighty not to blame or punish him for that. He understands the full extent of his guilt before Him - hence the fear of appearing before His eyes:

Well I'm afraid to penetrate you.

The contradiction between the “inner man” (spiritual) and the “outer man” (spiritual-bodily) remains in M.Yu. Lermontov sharp and dramatic. It was reflected in the poem "I go out alone on the road."

The influence of the Bible affected not only the content of Lermontov's works (the use of biblical names, images, plots), but also the form of his literary creations. Thus, the prayer genre received a new, special development from the poet. He was not his discovery, but became an important link in his poetic system. Biblical motives in M.Yu. Lermontov is a complex, multifaceted phenomenon. Their use in the same context is contradictory and is designed for a reader familiar with the Bible, who will be able to understand the intricacies of their ideological and semantic orientation.

The rich spiritual heritage of N.V. Gogol. “Gogol,” according to Professor Archpriest Vasily Zenkovsky, “is the first prophet of a return to a holistic religious culture, a prophet of Orthodox culture, ... he feels the departure from the Church as the main untruth of modernity, and he sees the main path in returning to the Church and restructuring the entire life in her spirit.

Gogol prophetically foresaw the spiritual state of contemporary Western society, he wrote in about the Western Church: “Now that humanity has begun to achieve the development of the fullest in all its powers ... The Western Church only pushes it away from Christ: the more it bothers about reconciliation, the more it contributes discord." And indeed, the conciliatory and adaptive procession of the Western Church towards the world, crafty calls for unprincipled association with various religious groups ultimately led to the emasculation of the Spirit in the Western Church, to a spiritual crisis in Western society.

In his socio-philosophical views, N.V. Gogol was neither a Westernizer nor a Slavophile. He loved his people and saw that they "heard God's hand more than others."

Of course, N.V. Gogol is one of the most ascetic figures in our literature. His whole life testifies to the ascent to the heights of the spirit; but only the clergy closest to him and some of his friends knew about this side of his personality. In the minds of most of his contemporaries, Gogol was a classic type of satirist writer, debunker of social and human vices. Another Gogol, a follower of the patristic tradition in Russian literature, an Orthodox religious thinker and publicist, the author of prayers, was never recognized by his contemporaries. With the exception of "Selected passages from correspondence with friends," spiritual prose remained unpublished during his lifetime. And if by the beginning of the 20th century Gogol's spiritual image was restored to some extent, then in Soviet times his spiritual heritage (as well as the spiritual works of other authors) was carefully hidden from the reader for many decades.

The great writer was a deeply religious man. In January 1845, Gogol lived in Paris with Count A.P. Tolstoy. About this period he wrote: "I lived inwardly, as in a monastery, and in addition to that, I did not miss almost a single mass in our church." He carefully studied the Greek texts of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom and the Liturgy of St. Basil the Great. Gogol creates one of the best examples of spiritual prose of the 19th century - "Reflections on the Divine Liturgy", where the theological and artistic sides are organically combined. In working on this book, the pious author used the works on liturgics of ancient and modern theologians, but all of them served him only as aids. “Reflections” embodies the personal experience of N.V. Gogol, his desire to comprehend the liturgical word. “For anyone who only wants to move forward and become better,” he wrote in his Conclusion, “it is necessary to attend the Divine Liturgy as often as possible and listen attentively: it insensibly builds and creates a person. And if society has not yet completely disintegrated, if people do not breathe complete, irreconcilable hatred among themselves, then the hidden reason for this is the Divine Liturgy, which reminds a person of holy, heavenly love for a brother.

Unfortunately, Gogol's spiritual writings "The Rule of Living in the World", "Bright Sunday", "A Christian Goes Forward", "A Few Words about Our Church and Clergy" are little known even today. These works are a real storehouse of Orthodox wisdom, still hidden under a bushel.

In the works of religious thinkers, philosophers and clergy N.V. Gogol is a vivid example of spiritual achievement, modesty and honesty in self-assessment of his works in the literary and public field.

High recognition by the history of writer's merits and human significance of N.V. Gogol highlights the greatness of his spiritual quest, moral defeats and moral victories even more expressively and brighter, and this will increasingly manifest the impact of his personality on our contemporaries.

Among the great poets of the 19th century, whose work is colored with biblical motifs, one should also name F.I. Tyutchev.

Tyutchev in his work acts not only as a great master of the poetic word, but also as a thinker. In relation to him, we have the right to speak not only about the worldview, worldview, but also about his worldview system, which received a peculiar expression and was embodied not in a philosophical work, but in poetry full of artistic perfection. In the poetic philosophical contemplations and reflections of the poet there is an internal connection, and in the verses the intensity of philosophical thought has a certain purposefulness.

Man and nature, as a rule, are revealed in the verses of F.I. Tyutchev not only as a whole, but also, as it were, in primordial nature. His poetic consciousness is fascinated by the natural elements that stood at the very origins of the creation of the world: water, fire and air (see Gen. 1).

Poem F.I. Tyutchev "These poor villages ..." (1855) made a strong impression on his contemporaries and for a long time evoked responses in the literature. In it, the poet creates the image of Christ - a wanderer in Rus', as if raising on his shoulders all the immensity of people's suffering:

Burdened with the burden of a godmother,

All of you, dear land,

In a slavish form, the King of Heaven

Went out blessing.

The image of Christ internally stands at the center of F.M. Dostoevsky. In his diaries there is an entry: "Write a novel about Jesus Christ." He did not write a novel, but in a broad sense he wrote it all his life. Dostoevsky tried to recreate the image of Christ in a modern setting. In the Legend of the Grand Inquisitor in The Brothers Karamazov, the inquisitor speaks about the happiness of mankind, about the future of the world: people will find happiness, but their freedom will be taken away. The old inquisitor keeps talking and talking, but Christ is silent. And in this silence, the authenticity of the image of Christ is felt: the Lord did not say a single word, just as he stood before Pilate (Matthew 27, 13-14, Mark 15, 2-5, John 18, 37-38). And this is the marvelous reality of God's presence.

In the same novel, Dostoevsky has a wonderful chapter “From the notes of the elder Zosima” - a chapter about the Bible, about the Holy Scriptures in the life of the elder Zosima. Let us recall the words that the writer pronounces through the lips of his hero: “What kind of book is Holy Scripture, what a miracle and what power given to man with it! ... Death to the people without the word of God.”

For Dostoevsky, the Bible was a sure guide on the path of spiritual quest. “What kind of book is this Holy Scripture ... An exact sculpture of the world and man, and human characters, and everything is named, and indicated for all eternity. And how many mysteries are resolved and revealed... This book is invincible... This is the book of mankind,” he writes in the article “Socialism and Christianity”. For him, the world of the Bible is not at all the world of ancient mythologies, but a very real world, which is a tangible part of his own life. In the Book of Books, Dostoevsky sees the level of transcendent existence. For the writer, this is a kind of fullness of books, a seed in the depths of which the wonderful fruits of Christian literature and culture as a whole reside. Holy Scripture for Dostoevsky is the "spiritual alphabet", without knowledge of which the work of a true artist is impossible. In recent years, the Bible has become for the writer one of the main sources of ideas that create the philosophical and religious subtext of his works.

The Holy Bible, presented to Dostoevsky by the wives of the Decembrists in Tobolsk on the way to prison, was the only one allowed him to read in hard labor. “Fyodor Mikhailovich,” writes his wife, “did not part with this holy book during all four years of his stay in hard labor. Subsequently, she always lay in plain sight, on his desk, and he often, thinking or doubting something, opened the Gospel at random and read what was on the first page ... ". In the Bible, the writer drew strength and vigor, and at the same time, readiness to deal with difficulties. It is a deep faith in God, according to Dostoevsky, that gives firm support in all the vicissitudes of fate. Thanks to her, peace arises in the soul of a person for the fate of the world and his personal life.

Throughout the life of F.M. Dostoevsky was accompanied by a personal direct feeling of the presence of Christ in earthly human existence, comprehending and elevating this existence to its heavenly goal - the result.

At the center of Dostoevsky's world outlook is God - "the most important world question." The initial principle of Dostoevsky's direct perception of the world, which formed the basis of his artistic creativity, is the unfolding of earthly human existence in the face of "other worlds", and not an abstract one, "another dimension", but specifically in front of the living "bright face of the God-man". The meaning of the presence of the New Testament text in the literary works of the writer is that he makes “incidents” that happen to the heroes, “events” that take place before the face of Christ, in His presence, as an answer to Christ. The Gospel text contributes to the plot of F.M. Dostoevsky is a kind of metaplot, a new dimension, a vision in Christ, an image of the real presence of Christ in human existence.

Dostoevsky's unconditional sincere and deep religiosity is also expressed in his approach to national identification, in his famous formula: "Russian means Orthodox." All his life he had a sharply negative attitude towards atheism, considering it "stupidity and thoughtlessness." “None of you are infected with rotten and stupid atheism,” he confidently says in a letter to his sister. The writer generally doubted the existence of real atheism. In a letter to K. Opochinin (1880), he notes: “No one can be convinced of the existence of God. I think that even atheists retain this conviction, although they don’t admit it, out of shame or something.”

F.M. Dostoevsky went through a long difficult and painful path of spiritual search for answers to world questions about the place of man in the real world, about the meaning of human existence. At the same time, the Holy Scriptures and the person of Christ have always acted for him as the main spiritual guidelines that determine the moral, religious and artistic principles of the great Russian writer.

In his book Fundamentals of Art. On perfection in art” I.A. Ilyin suggested that the roots of true art are spiritual and religious in nature. Speaking about the Russian classics, Ilyin, not without reason, stated: “The 19th century gave Russia the flowering of spiritual culture. And this flourishing was created by people “inspired” by the spirit of Orthodoxy... And if we go from Pushkin to Lermontov, Gogol, Tyutchev, L. Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Leskov, Chekhov, then we will see the ingenious flowering of the Russian spirit from the roots Orthodoxy. And we will see the same thing in other branches of Russian art, in Russian science, in Russian law-making, in Russian medicine, in Russian pedagogy, and in everything.”

Next to F.M. Dostoevsky is named after another giant of literature of the 19th century - L.N. Tolstoy, who also considered the problem of human happiness and also looked for answers to these questions in the Bible.

Dostoevsky tries to discern the image of God in man, since this is connected with deification and with the salvation of man. Tolstoy, on the other hand, looks for natural principles in a person, since this can contribute to the earthly happiness of a person.

Many people underestimate Tolstoy's religious quest. They are undoubtedly deeply sincere, painful. But the fact that a man who for almost thirty years considered himself a preacher of the Gospel found himself in conflict with Christianity, even excommunicated from the Church, shows that L.N. Tolstoy was a very complex figure, tragic and disharmonic. He, who sang such powerful harmonious characters, was himself a man suffering from a deep spiritual crisis.

Even in his youth, Tolstoy wrote in his diary: “I have a goal, the most important goal, to which I am ready to devote my whole life: to create a new religion that would have a practical character and would promise good here on Earth.” Already in the original thinking of Tolstoy was laid the whole basic content of his religion, which has nothing in common with Christianity. Strictly speaking, it is not a religion at all. This idea matured in his soul for the time being, until it sprouted at the turn of the 1970s and 1980s, at the time of the spiritual crisis that overtook L.N. Tolstoy. It should be noted that there is nothing new in Tolstoyism: about earthly bliss, about the earthly Kingdom, built on a rational basis, they dreamed and reasoned both before and after.

Leo Tolstoy entered the history of world culture, first of all, as one of the most brilliant artists - creators. But perhaps even more important for the history of mankind is his experience of faith-making, which requires a fairly close understanding.

At first, when he turned to the Holy Scriptures, he, like Dostoevsky, was captivated by the epic power of the Bible. Tolstoy immersed himself in the Old Testament, even studied the Hebrew language in order to read it in the original, then he abandons this and turns only to the New Testament. The Old Testament for the writer becomes just one of the ancient religions. But even in the New Testament, Tolstoy is not satisfied with many things. The Epistles of the Apostle Paul seem to him an ecclesiastical perversion of the truth, and he confines himself to the Four Gospels. Then, in the Gospels too, everything seems to him to be wrong, and he throws out for himself the miraculous, the supernatural. He throws out the highest theological concepts: “In the beginning was the Word”, the Word as the divine cosmic Reason – Tolstoy says: “In the beginning was understanding”; The glory of Christ, that is, the reflection of eternity in the person of Christ, for Tolstoy is the teaching of Christ.

According to Tolstoy, there is some mysterious higher power and it can hardly be considered personal: most likely, it is impersonal, because a person is something limited. The writer, who created wonderful images of a person, who himself was a bright personality on a global scale, was a principled impersonalist, that is, he did not recognize the value of the individual, and hence his idea of ​​the insignificant role of the individual in history. According to his conception, a certain higher principle presented by the writer, in some incomprehensible way, encourages a person to be kind.

Summarizing the theological views of L.N. Tolstoy, it can be argued that God is defined by him, first of all, through the denial of all those properties that are revealed in the Orthodox dogma. Tolstoy has his own understanding of God, and, by his own admission, it existed from the very beginning in him and before. He is initially inclined to consider his concepts as a starting point in the study of Orthodoxy, and he elevates his misunderstanding of dogma to an absolute.

“This point of view,” notes I.A. Ilyin, - can be called autism (autos in Greek means itself), that is, closure within oneself, judgments about other people and things from the point of view of one's own understanding, that is, subjectivist non-objectivity in contemplation and evaluation. Tolstoy is an autist: in worldview, culture, philosophy, contemplation, assessments. This autism is the essence of his doctrine." L.N. Tolstoy perceives Christ outwardly - as a third-party moral preacher. Union with Christ, life in Christ is not conceived by them, from which follow the meaninglessness and uselessness of life in the Church of Christ, deification and salvation in it. This is where the source of Tolstoy's spiritual tragedy is found. As you know, in 1901 Count L.N. Tolstoy was excommunicated from the Church by the Most Holy Synod.

At the very end of his life, Count Tolstoy experienced strong embarrassment, he fled from himself and his ideas, tried to find help from the Church, which he so passionately denied. This attempt was unsuccessful, but still it was.

From Yasnaya Polyana Tolstoy went to Optina Pustyn, where he visited more than once. Many writers and thinkers, starting with the brothers Kireevsky and Gogol, sought and found support, consolation, and faith here. Tolstoy communicated in this monastery with the great old man - the Monk Ambrose. The reverend elder, in the words of N.A. Berdyaev, "was tired" of the writer's pride. From the Astapovo station, a telegram arrived from the terminally ill Tolstoy to Optina asking Elder Joseph to come to the sick man. The telegram was sent while the writer was still free in his actions, but when Elder Barsanuphius (Elder Joseph at that moment could not leave the monastery) reached Astapov, the dark servants of evil from among his entourage, led by Chertkov, were already in charge here. They did not allow either his wife, Sofia Andreevna, or the elder priest to see the dying man. “The iron ring bound the late Tolstoy, although Leo was there, but he could not break the rings or get out of him ...” - this is how the elder Barsanuphius later said about the writer. This tragedy of the exodus of a great man from life causes horror and bitter regret.

“The history of Tolstoy’s soul,” Archpriest Vasily Zenkovsky wrote shortly after the writer’s death, “from its first phase of irreligion to its last wanderings and needlessly vicious struggle against the Church, is a harsh and formidable lesson for all of us.” “And therefore, it is not irritation or anger, but repentance and consciousness of all our guilt before the Church that Tolstoy died in estrangement from Her, should evoke in us,” Father Sergius Bulgakov wisely noted. “Tolstoy pushed off not only from the Church, but also from the non-churchness of our life, with which we block the light of church truth.”

Opinions on the degree of religiosity of A.P. Chekhov and his contemporaries, and the current researchers of his work are ambiguous. Perhaps everyone agrees that Chekhov was never "fundamentally outside of religion." He did not inherit the Domostroyevsky intolerant religiosity that reigned in his father's house, and in this sense he had no religion. There was something deeper, more meaningful and complex, which should be called Christian civilization - with a special relationship to national history, to history in general; with the belief that it is progressive and successive in its movement - starting from that initial spiritual effort, which he wrote about in his favorite story "Student".

Professor M.M. speaks most objectively on this matter. Dunaev. In his book "Orthodoxy and Russian Literature" A.P. A large chapter is devoted to Chekhov. A professor at the Moscow Theological Academy believes that "the combination of torment for God with torment for man ... determined the whole system of the worldview of a writer who is Orthodox in spirit."

A.P. Chekhov was a man and a writer of Orthodox culture, he was very fond of church singing, knew the divine service very well. In his works, he repeatedly addressed the church theme, preached Christian ethics and morality.

The turn of the 19th-20th centuries filled Russian literature with disturbing forebodings and predictions. In this era, the appeal of literature to the Bible often expresses the idea of ​​the connection of times, the continuity of cultures, which became a kind of preparation for spiritual protection against threatening gaps and gaps in human memory, against the danger of dissolving human individuality in the political and social whirlpools of the impending era, against the danger of human absorption by the achievements of civilization. .

The names of A.A. Akhmatova, D.S. Merezhkovsky, B.L. Pasternak and many others. It is obvious that Anna Akhmatova was a Christian poet, this is clearly evidenced by the Christian tone of her poetry. Evidence of this is quite clear in her own statements and in the testimonies of her contemporaries. In his letter of 1940, B.L. Pasternak calls her a “true Christian” and notes: “She, and this is her exclusivity, did not have an evolution in religious views. She did not become a Christian, she has always been one all her life.”

Religious motifs in Akhmatova's poetry have a certain cultural-historical and ideological basis for the corresponding realities: biblical quotations and names, mentioned church calendar dates and shrines create a special atmosphere in her work.

Along with poems that are somewhat close to prayer and prophetic denunciation, there are works with manifestations of everyday religiosity, superstition, and sometimes even almost involuntary blasphemy. In verses of such a plan, the spirit and character inherent in the very atmosphere of the Silver Age are manifested. In them we see a lot of forebodings, signs, dreams and fortune-telling. Over the years, her poetry becomes spiritually more balanced and strict, the strengthening of the civil sound is accompanied by a deepening of the Christian worldview inherent in it, the thought of a consciously chosen sacrificial path.

Religiosity A.A. Akhmatova was poetic, transforming the world. Religion expanded the sphere of beauty, including the beauty of feeling, the beauty of holiness, the beauty of church splendor.

A special place in Akhmatova's poetry is occupied by the theme of the Passion of Christ and the Resurrection. Passionate themes are associated with the poet's understanding of personal sacrifice, life as the Way of the Cross, the idea of ​​redemption and the high meaning of suffering.

Wound Your Holy Body,

They cast lots for Thy garments.

This is a direct transcription of the lines from the Psalter: “You have divided My garments for yourself, and for My clothes you have cast lots” (Ps. 21, 19). The fulfillment of this Old Testament prophecy about the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ is repeated in one of the 12 Passion Gospels (excerpts) read at Great Heel Matins (taken on the Great Thursday evening): “The soldiers, when they crucified Jesus, took His clothes and divided them into four parts, each a warrior in parts, and a chiton; the tunic was not sewn, but all woven from above. So they said to each other: “Let us not tear him apart, but cast lots for him, whose will it be,” so that what was said in Scripture would come true: they divided my garments among themselves and cast lots for my clothes ”(John 19, 23-24) . We hear the same words in the prokimon at Matins of the Great Heel.

In the early period of her work, A. Akhmatova rethinks the tasks and deeds of the Christian poet and patriot. In the light of the tragic events of the war of 1914, the all-Russian collapse of 1917 and personal losses inseparable from them, in Akhmatova’s poetry, the theme of the “last times”, the approach of the Antichrist, the end of the world and the Last Judgment, the theme of “fulfilling dates” and coming true prophecies begins to sound distinctly.

In the Soviet period, loyalty to historical memory, patristic faith, national, national, universal foundations demanded courage from the creative people of Russia, and sometimes sacrifice, testified to inner freedom in the face of denunciations, terror and totalitarianism.

Many years of relentless torture by fear, which seemed worse than death itself, is expressed in the lines of the brave poetess:

It would be better in the green square

Lie down on the unpainted platform

And under the cries of joy and groans

Red blood to the end to expire.

I press a smooth cross to my heart:

God, give peace to my soul!

The smell of decay is faintly sweet

Breathes from the cool sheets.

A real poet cannot live and create under the rule of fear, otherwise he ceases to be a poet. In the years when Akhmatova was persecuted and not published, depriving her of her words and bread, she creates a cycle of "Bible verses" (1921-1924), which expresses her protest, challenge to the dictatorial atmosphere and the rejection of fear. She imagines herself in the image of the wife of the biblical Lot, whom the angel leads out of the city of Sodom, which is dying for her grave sins, forbidding her to look back (Gen. 19, 1-23), but this is beyond her strength:

To the red towers of native Sodom,

To the square where she sang, to the yard where she spun,

On the empty windows of a high house,

Where she gave birth to children to her dear husband,

I looked and, shackled by mortal pain,

Her eyes could no longer see;

And the body became transparent salt,

And quick feet rooted to the ground.

For many years A.A. Akhmatova wrote without hope of publication, often burning what she had written. The author never saw the poem "Requiem" (1935-1940) printed in his homeland, the first domestic publication appeared in the perestroika year of 1987.

Russian writers who remained “in the country of victorious socialism” or were forced to leave it were united in their attitude to the biblical tradition. Regardless of his personal attitude to religion, he was disgusted by the desecration of the paternal faith, the so-called "exposing" of the Bible, mockery of it - blasphemy, which called itself "scientific atheism", but in fact defiled genuine science, which has always been respect for freedom of conscience and for the greatest treasures of culture.

B.L. Pasternak. Born and raised in a Jewish family, he independently and meaningfully comes to Orthodoxy. This path for the future poet and writer began with the influence of his deeply religious Orthodox nanny.

From the first literary experiments (in the almanac "Lyric"; 1913) to "Hamlet", which opens a cycle of poems on gospel themes, is a half-life journey. The poet went through a fascination with symbolism, moderate futurism, and temporarily became close to the LEF association. But the personality of the poet has never been completely captive to these ideological programs and false concepts. Even during this period, the Christian theme was not completely alien to him. So, the poem "Balzac" (1927), dedicated to the exhausting labors and heavy everyday worries of the French writer, unexpectedly ends with the stanza:

When, when, wipe the sweat

And otvetav coffee dry,

He is protected from worries

The sixth chapter of Matthew?

The sixth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew contains part of Christ's Sermon on the Mount. The Lord here gives a perfect example of prayer ("Our Father") and indicates the path to salvation: Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all this will be added to you (Matthew 6:33).

Even in a poem on a revolutionary theme, written in 1927, when a new period of persecution of the Church began in Soviet Russia, the poet finds the following reminiscence appropriate:

About the state of the idol,

Freedom is the eternal threshold!

Centuries are stealing from the cells,

Animals roam the Colosseum

And the preacher's hand

Fearlessly baptizes the damp cage,

Training a panther with faith,

And a step is always taken

From Roman circuses to Roman church

And we live by the same measure

We, the people of the catacombs and mines.

What is important is not even this episodic appeal to the New Testament theme, but the joyful, sometimes enthusiastic attitude to life that permeates all the work of these decades. The poetic image “sister is my life” is put in the title of a whole collection (1923), which Boris Pasternak considered the beginning of his poetic life. In his poems there is none of that insatiable selfishness that can be observed in many poets of the so-called "Silver Age". There is also no demonic gloom and tragic brokenness.

The years of brutal destruction and terror in the 1930s were for all people a time of moral testing and choice. B. Pasternak discovered such a disposition of the soul, which inevitably had to lead him to a conscious acceptance of Christianity. The war years finally determined and shaped the Christian worldview of B.L. Pasternak. The poem "The Death of a Sapper" is imbued with evangelical thought. The poet speaks of the immortality of the feat of a warrior who sacrifices his life for the sake of others. This is not an illusory and rhetorical immortality, which atheists like to talk about, but real immortality: he who fulfilled the Divine commandment becomes the heir to eternal life. The poem "The Scouts" speaks of three fearless warriors who are kept by prayer:

There were three, frankly.

Desperate to youth

Delivered from bullets and captivity

Prayers in the depths of the fatherland.

In the poem "Revived Fresco", when describing the battle, images of church life are directly used:

The earth hummed like a prayer

About the disgust of the howling bomb,

Censer smoke and rubble

Throwing out of the carnage.

Between battles, a warrior recalls a fresco on the walls of the chapel where his mother took him, and in his imagination the image of the Holy Great Martyr and Victorious George arises, as if descending from her and striking the enemy:

Oh, how he remembered those clearings

Now that I'm chasing

He tramples enemy tanks

With their formidable dragon scales!

He crossed the land border

And the future, like the expanse of heaven,

Already raging, not dreaming

Approaching, wonderful.

In the poem "Invisibility", in which Pasternak writes about the valiant Russian sailors, he uses church language:

Invincible - many years,

To those who became famous!

Expanse to live in the world,

And endless sea surface.

Execute is an abbreviation for hierarchal longevity: “I filled these despots” (Greek – for many years, lord).

The novel "Doctor Zhivago" (1946-1955) was the result of not only a long creative journey, but also an attempt to comprehend the life lived in the light of the Christian worldview. In a letter to his cousin Olga Freudenberg (October 13, 1946) he wrote: “Actually, this is my first real work. In it I want to give a historical image of Russia over the past forty-five years, and at the same time, all aspects of my plot, heavy, sad and elaborated in detail, as, ideally, in Dickens and Dostoevsky - this thing will be an expression of my views on art, on Gospel, on human life in history and much more. The novel is still called “Boys and Girls”. In it, I settle scores with Jews, with all kinds of nationalism (and in internationalism), with all shades of anti-Christianity and its assumptions that there are some peoples after the fall of the Roman Empire, and it is possible to build a culture on their raw national essence. The atmosphere of the thing is my Christianity.” Jewishness is not mentioned by chance. For a person born in a traditional Jewish family, the national idea becomes a kind of religion, being the cause of immunity to the New Testament truth that has hardened over the centuries. In the novel Doctor Zhivago, Mikhail Gordon, who converted to Orthodoxy, expresses the thoughts of Boris Pasternak himself: this downgrading task. How amazing! How could this happen? This holiday ... this rise above the stupidity of everyday life, all this was born on their land, spoke their language and belonged to their tribe. And they saw and heard it and missed it? How could they let a soul of such absorbing beauty and strength escape from themselves, how could they think that next to its triumph and reign they would remain in the form of an empty shell of this miracle ... ”(Doctor Zhivago. Part Four. Overdue inevitability). The anti-Christianity mentioned in O. Freudenberg's letter was the main element of the society in which the writer lived for the last 40 years. Militant atheism in the USSR was uniquely combined with neo-paganism (the cult of party leaders and numerous idol monuments, quasi-religious Soviet rituals, etc.).

The writer perceived the work on the novel as his Christian duty and saw the Divine will in this. From a religious point of view, the most important theme in Doctor Zhivago is the theme of life, death and Resurrection. The first title of the novel in the 1946 manuscript is "There will be no death." B. Pasternak took these words from the Apocalypse of the Holy Apostle John the Theologian: “And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death; there will be no more mourning, no outcry, no sickness, for the former things have passed away” (Rev. 21:4). The surname of the protagonist of the novel - Zhivago (the Church Slavonic form of the genitive case of the word "live") - also indicates the main idea. The work begins with death (the funeral of Yuri's mother) and ends with the death of the protagonist. However, at the end of the book and the poetic appendix of the novel is the poem "The Garden of Gethsemane", which speaks of a great victory over death.

The all-Russian catastrophe of 1917 had as one of its consequences the return of part of the Russian intelligentsia to the patristic Orthodox faith, to the bosom of the Mother Church. Already in the "first wave" of Russian emigration, a number of writers appeared, with varying degrees of artistic talent, who entered the world of Russian Orthodoxy and embodied it on the pages of their works. The providential mission of the Russian exiles was to reveal to their compatriots and open to the world the spiritual treasures of "Holy Rus'". B.K. Zaitsev admitted that the suffering and upheavals he experienced during the revolution allowed him to discover the "Russia of Holy Rus'", which he might never have seen without these trials.

Ivan Sergeevich Shmelev belongs to the Russian writers who were deeply imbued with the spirit of Orthodoxy and faithfully reflected it in their works. He was one of those Russian émigrés who, being torn away from their beloved Russia, in heavy thoughts about separation from their homeland, comprehended all the greatness of her spirituality.

After the defeat of the Wrangel Volunteer Army in the Crimea, where the Shmelevs lived during those years of the Civil War, the Bolsheviks spared the writer, but shot his only officer son. This tragedy deeply shocked I.S. Shmelev. Subsequently, he wrote: “I testify: I saw and experienced all the horrors, having survived in the Crimea from November 1920 to February 1922. If an accidental miracle and an authoritative international commission could obtain the right to conduct an investigation on the ground, it would collect such material that would absorb in abundance all the crimes and all the horrors of beatings that have ever been on earth! On November 20, 1922, the Shmelevs left Moscow for Berlin, and two months later they moved to Paris.

All of Shmelev's creative heritage is permeated with Christian ideas, his entire creative path testifies to a gradual but steady spiritual ascent, to an ever closer merging of the earthly and heavenly in the works. Already in the earliest works created back in the homeland, there are Christian motifs.

The image of Russia - Holy Rus' - is central in the work of I.S. Shmelev. It shows the reader a harmonious world in which “holidays, joys, sorrows go on in their turn”, the world of the Lord, and at the same time as close as possible to the daily life of a person, his life. But the world discovered by the writer is at the same time spiritually exalted, because it is based on the Orthodox view, the Christian worldview, the knowledge of the human heart and soul, the path of an individual and all of Russia as a whole.

In 1930-1931, Shmelev created "Praying Man". This is a wonderful story about a pilgrimage to the Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra, as a child, with sincere and pious people - old man Gorkin and with his father. Here the writer draws a living contact with the world of Russian holiness, shows the senile service of the ascetic - the elder Barnabas of Gethsemane, describes his labors. The work unfolds a picture of a pilgrimage to the monastery to St. Sergius and Father Barnabas of many different people from different social strata. All believing Russia at the end of the 19th century appears before us. "Praying Man" is a reflection of pure children's perception of the world.

In 1932–1933, I.S. Shmelev is working on the novel "Nanny from Moscow", on the pages of which the soulful image of a Russian believing old woman is revealed.

The pinnacle of creativity and the stage of Shmelev's spiritual path was the book "The Summer of the Lord" (part 1 - 1927-1931, parts 2 and 3 - 1934-1944). The words of Christ are quite applicable to it: “... unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matt. 18:3). In order to somehow alleviate the pain of contemplating a desecrated, devastated Russia, to get rid of the painful pictures of the experienced bloody nightmare of the civil war, the writer turns to the years of his distant childhood.

In "The Summer of the Lord" Shmelev vividly, fully and deeply recreates the church-religious layer of people's life. He draws the life of people, inextricably linked with the life of the church and worship. The writer shows the life of a person not in the change of seasons, but in the church liturgical circle - a person goes through the time marked by the events of church life. The meaning and beauty of Orthodox holidays, rituals, customs, which remain unchanged from century to century, is revealed so accurately that the book, both in exile and reaching the modern domestic reader, has become a kind of encyclopedia for many believers. In addition, psychological experiences, emotions, and prayer states of an Orthodox Christian are revealed here. “The Summer of the Lord” is a story about the entry into the soul of a person of the truths of Orthodoxy.

The last masterpiece of J.S. Shmelev's novel "The Ways of Heaven" (Volume I was published in Paris in 1937, Volume II - in 1948) is a unique phenomenon in Russian literature. The pious author created a work in which a person's life is inextricably linked with the action of Divine Providence. I.A. writes about this new feature in Russian literature. Ilyin. “And since the existence of Russian literature, for the first time the artist showed this wonderful meeting of world-sanctifying Orthodoxy with an open and sympathetic-tender childish soul. For the first time, a lyrical poem was written about this meeting, which takes place not in dogma, and not in the sacrament, and not in worship, but in everyday life. For everyday life is permeated through and through with the currents of Orthodox contemplation.

Shmelev left us a clear understanding that nothing is scary, because Christ is everywhere. The writer has suffered this truth and encourages us to see it and feel it all the time. This is what the artistic demand means to find hidden Beauty under the grimaces of life. This world-saving Beauty is Christ. Previously, he was looking for her on earthly paths, it turned out that he was only preparing himself for the "heavenly paths." In these ways, I.S. Shmelev left earthly life.

In December 1949, he said: “God gave life to the sinner, and this obliges. I want to live as a true Christian, and I can do this only in church life.” On June 24, 1950, Shmelev went to a small monastery of the Intercession of the Mother of God, 150 kilometers from Paris. Finally, his desire for monastic peace and quiet, unhurried prayer and quiet holidays came true. He unpacked his things, stood for a moment, breathing in the fresh air of a summer evening under the quiet ringing of bells, and, a few hours later, died. Such a death is God's gift: not in malice and confusion, but in peace and spiritual exultation, his Lord's summer ended.

“The Bible is a book addressed to all mankind,” noted Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Rus'. “The Bible spoke to our ancestors, speaks to us and will speak to our descendants about the relationship between God and man, about the past, present and future of the Earth on which we live.”

Children all over the world study in schools the culture of the country in which they live. It is well known that Orthodoxy played a key role in the formation of the Russian statehood. Understanding Russian history, literature and art, everything that our ancestors lived and what distinguishes modern Russia from other countries, is possible only in the context of the Orthodox spiritual tradition.

2. What is the course "Fundamentals of Religious Cultures and Secular Ethics"?

The comprehensive training course "Fundamentals of Religious Cultures and Secular Ethics" includes six academic subjects (modules).

Four of them are devoted to the most ancient spiritual traditions: Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism.

Two subjects are atheistic (non-religious): secular ethics and religious studies.

The choice of subject is the legal right of parents.

3. Who and when decided to start the experiment?

On July 21, 2009, President of Russia D.A. Medvedev, at a meeting with His Holiness Patriarch Kirill and leaders of other Russian religious organizations, decided to start teaching spiritual and moral disciplines at school. Currently, this course is being tested in 21 regions of Russia.

4. Will the study of different religious cultures by choice become a cause for conflict among children?

There are many religions in the world, and people of different views and beliefs live together. Sooner or later, children begin to realize this. It is important that at this moment a wise teacher who is able to understand himself and others is nearby. A person who knows and loves his native culture will respect the traditions of other peoples. According to sociological surveys in schools where the fundamentals of Orthodox culture are taught, there is an improvement in mutual understanding among students, parents and teachers.

5. What does the freedom to choose a subject in religious culture and ethics mean?

It is the parents who choose one or another subject according to religious culture. Recommendations and advice from a teacher or headmaster are certainly important, but they are not decisive. Who, if not parents, needs to know about the legal right of the child to education, and help him make the right choice.

6. What should a teacher of Orthodox culture be like?

In order to teach "Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture", the teacher must have a vocation for this. The main evidence of such a vocation is love for Orthodox culture and for children. An atheist or an indifferent person will not be able to instill respect and love for the religious tradition. This can only be done by a teacher who has experience of direct, live communication with God and people belonging to the same culture.

7. Why OPC?

The choice of "Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture" is due to the importance of Orthodox Christianity for the formation of Russian statehood and culture. Even people who are far from the Church, but sincerely striving to know and understand their native history, should have an idea about Orthodoxy.

Studying the foundations of Orthodox culture is the beginning of a child's familiarization with the moral and cultural values ​​preserved by the Russian Orthodox Church. The OPK opens the world of Orthodoxy to the child - an endless, kind and wise world.

8. How can you help children learn the GPC?

Excursions to churches and monasteries, trips to ancient Russian cities, visits to museums, sacred music concerts - all this does not contradict the secular nature of education and can be useful for all participants in the educational process. A lot of interesting things can tell the children and Orthodox clergy.

9. Is it possible to change the subject of religious culture during the course of study?

It often happens that parents first choose the subject “Fundamentals of Secular Ethics” for their child, and after a while they realize that it would be more interesting and useful to study the OPK. In this case, the school must provide a change of subject. Parents should submit a written statement of intent to the principal in advance and, if necessary, seek assistance and information from representatives of the diocese.

10. What are the prospects for teaching OPK in a secular school?

Now, in the process of approbation of the comprehensive training course "Fundamentals of Religious Cultures and Secular Ethics", the foundations of cooperation between the school, the Church and the parent community in the upbringing of children are being formed. One of the first results of this process is that a new subject area is included in the mandatory part of the curricula of primary and basic general education - "Fundamentals of the Spiritual and Moral Culture of the Peoples of Russia", in which the "Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture" will be taught after the completion of the approbation of the ORSKE course in 2012 year.

The role of Orthodoxy in Russian culture

Completed the work: student 63gr.

Evening faculty of SGAP

The culture of Russia has historically been shaped under the influence of Orthodoxy, and all its spheres are deeply connected with Orthodoxy. Being historically the core of traditional Russian culture, Orthodox culture is closely connected with the national cultures of many peoples of Russia in their historical development and current state.

In the Russian Federation, the Orthodox Christian religion is the main traditional religion, the majority of Russians express their affiliation or preferred attitude towards. In the scientific community, the Orthodox religion is characterized as culture-forming in relation to the Russian culture that has historically developed over a period of more than a thousand years, since it had a decisive influence on the formation of the Russian national and cultural identity, the specifics of the culture of our country in the space of world civilization.

Orthodox culture embraces a wide range of social phenomena affecting almost all the main spheres of public life, primarily the sphere of the spiritual life of society. The spiritual sphere of the life of society and culture is, in a narrow sense, ideological phenomena of culture: religion, philosophy, ideology, and in a broad sense - all specifically human forms of life and culture. The worldview of the individual, the system of value orientations, accepted attitudes and behavior determine the direction and results of a person's expedient activity in society. The spiritual and ideological sphere of culture has a decisive influence on the content and specifics of people's activities, creativity, any material and spiritual production. This circumstance is connected with the importance of Orthodox culture in the moral, aesthetic education of children and youth, instilling in them the qualities of citizenship, patriotism, culture of interethnic and interconfessional communication.

The significance and influence of Orthodox culture in society is not limited to the sphere of spiritual life. Within the framework of the Orthodox cultural tradition in its historical development, a unique civilizational phenomenon was formed - the Orthodox way of life. This is the area of ​​culture and everyday life of millions of Russians for dozens of generations, interpersonal and civil relations, stable stereotypes of social behavior that have become an integral part of Russian reality. The Orthodox culture of attitude to nature, labor and production has received a large-scale material embodiment. A large part of our national cultural heritage, expressed in the material culture of the Russian people - historical buildings and structures, material monuments of history and culture, items of everyday life and production, folk art, art, etc. belong to Orthodox culture or bear its imprint.

Each national culture is a form of self-expression of the people. It reveals the features of the national character, worldview, mentality. Any culture is unique and goes through its own, inimitable way of development. This fully applies to Russian Orthodox culture. It can be compared with the cultures of the East and West only to the extent that they interact with it, influence its genesis and evolution, and are connected with Russian culture by a common destiny.

In the spirit of Russian culture, breadth and extremeness in expressing the emotional state. A.K. Tolstoy, the author of the novel "Prince Silver", one of the co-authors of the "works of Kozma Prutkov" perfectly expressed this feature of the national character:

If you love, so without reason,

If you threaten, it's not a joke,

If you scold, so rashly,

If you chop, it's so sloppy!

If you argue, it's so bold

Kohl to punish, so for the cause,

If you forgive, so with all your heart,

If there is a feast, then a feast is a mountain!

“Among the primary, basic properties of the Russian people is its outstanding kindness,” writes N.O. Lossky, - it is supported and deepened by the search for absolute goodness and the religiosity of the people associated with it. Noting the importance of national spiritual values ​​for understanding the specifics of national culture, N.A. Berdyaev wrote: “The nation includes not only human generations, but also the stones of churches, palaces and estates, gravestones, old manuscripts and books. And in order to catch the will of the nation, you need to hear these stones, read the decayed pages.

The phenomenon of Russian religiosity has always been in the sphere of attention of scientists, a special type of folk spirituality, which was also called “double faith”, “ritual belief”, etc. Indeed, folk religiosity is contradictory: on the one hand, Orthodoxy for the peasants clearly constituted a rather high spiritual value, on the other hand, a weak interest in and knowledge of church dogmas, liturgical texts, etc. and strict adherence to the ritual side of the dogma.

Russian culture has always found recognition, appreciation and a worthy place in world culture, being its significant and integral part. The greatness of Russian culture over the course of ten centuries of development was determined by its deep spiritual content, which goes back to Orthodox morality and the history of Christianity. The spiritual system, as well as the ideas and figurative language of the best works of modern Russian art, have the same basis.

Orthodoxy has been a traditional and culture-forming (forming culture) religion on the Russian land since 988. This means that since the end of the 10th century, Orthodoxy has become the spiritual and moral core of society, shaping the worldview, the character of the Russian people, cultural traditions and way of life, ethical norms, and aesthetic ideals. For centuries, Christian ethics has been regulating human relations in the family, at home, at work, in public places, determining the attitude of Russians to the state, people, the objective world, and nature. Legislation and international relations are also developing under the strong influence of the Orthodox Church. Christian themes feed the creative sphere with images, ideals, ideas; art, literature, philosophy use religious concepts and symbols, periodically return to Orthodox values, study and rethink them.

The Orthodox Church unites the people on weekdays and on holidays, in years of trials, hardships, sorrows, and in years of great creation and spiritual rebirth. For any people, the ideas of state organization and social, civil, national ideals are inextricably linked with spiritual and moral ideals. The great Russian writer and philosopher F. M. Dostoevsky wrote about this very accurately:

“At the beginning of any nation, any nationality, the moral idea always preceded the birth of nationality, for it was the same that created it. This idea always proceeded from mystical ideas, from the conviction that man is eternal, that he is not a simple earthly animal, but is connected with other worlds and eternity. These convictions were formulated always and everywhere into religion, into the confession of a new idea, and always, as soon as a new religion began, a civilly new nationality was immediately created. Look at the Jews and Muslims: the nationality of the Jews was formed only after the law of Moses, although it began from the law of Abraham, and the Muslim nationalities appeared only after the Koran. (...) And note that as soon as after times and centuries (because here, too, there is a law of its own, unknown to us) its spiritual ideal began to loosen and weaken in a given nationality, the nationality immediately began to fall, and together its whole civil charter, and dimmed all those civil ideals that had time to take shape in it. In what character religion was formed among the people, in such a character the civil forms of this people were born and formulated. Consequently, civic ideals are always directly and organically connected with moral ideals, and the main thing is that they undoubtedly come out of them alone.

Ideals of Orthodoxy in Russian culture

People who are not familiar with the basics of Orthodox culture have many questions about the attitude of Russians to other peoples and to the material world. Why is patriotism and loyalty to Orthodoxy among the Russian people so naturally combined with tolerance for other religions and with some indifference to material losses? Why doesn't Orthodoxy force anyone to convert to the Orthodox faith, and yet so openly? Why does the Orthodox Russian people not shut themselves off from communion with other peoples and nationalities, but hospitably accept them into their church, state and civil community, despite the fact that this is most often completely “unprofitable”?

The origins of a respectful and benevolent attitude towards all people and at the same time a readiness to help those in need of protection go back to the teachings of Christ:

“... whoever wants to sue you and take your shirt, give him your coat as well. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. You heard what was said: love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you: love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who despitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven, for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have? Do not the publicans do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what special thing do you do? Don't the pagans do the same? Therefore, be perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:40, 42-48).

These great Christian ideals carry the Russian people through all trials, trying to show mercy and patience to each person, sacrificing material goods for the sake of the higher, universal, all-brotherly good in the name of Christ.

At the same time, for the Russian people, the defense of Orthodoxy and the Fatherland has always been considered the sacred duty of a Christian, because in this case shrines were defended.

It is very difficult to adequately carry and embody these highest ideals in the human world, where many other personal, national, political and socio-cultural ideas are realized. On this occasion, F. M. Dostoevsky wrote:

“... the vast majority of the Russian people are Orthodox and live by the idea of ​​Orthodoxy in full, although they do not understand this idea clearly and scientifically. In essence, apart from this “idea”, there is no other idea in our people, and everything comes from it alone, at least our people want it so, with all their heart and deep conviction. He just wants everything that he has and everything that is given to him to come from this only one idea. And this despite the fact that many things in the people themselves appear and come out to the point of absurdity not from this idea, but from the stinking, vile, criminal, barbaric and sinful. But even the most criminal and barbarian, although they sin, nevertheless pray to God, in the highest moments of their spiritual life, that their sin and stench will be stopped, and everything would come out again from that favorite “idea” of them.

It speaks of the presence of forces for the revival of the people and each (even perishing) person. These forces are in the correct understanding of salvation as liberation from sins by the grace of God, in the ability to repent as a necessary condition for salvation, and in fervent prayer as a manifestation of the will of the soul for salvation.

The formation and development of Orthodoxy

Our ancestors before the tenth century were pagans, but not Christians. The year 988 entered the history of the Russian people as the year of the baptism of Rus'.

Since that time, Orthodoxy has become officially the state religion in Rus'. Only an Orthodox monarch, crowned to reign or reign according to the Orthodox tradition, could stand at the head of the state. Official acts of the state (birth, marriage, crowning the kingdom, death) were registered only by the Church, in connection with which the corresponding Sacraments (Baptism, Wedding) and divine services were performed.

All state ceremonies were accompanied by prayers (special services). The Orthodox Church played an important role in state affairs and in the life of the people.

In the 16th - 17th centuries, many heterodox (professing other religions) and non-Orthodox (Catholics, Protestants) peoples and states became part of the Russian state. The Russian Orthodox Church did not forcibly convert peoples to Orthodoxy, but the conversion to Orthodoxy was supported and encouraged. People who were baptized in the Orthodox Church were given various benefits, in particular, taxes were removed.

The concepts of "Russian" and "Orthodox" in Rus' until the 20th century were inseparable and meant the same thing, namely: belonging to the Russian Orthodox culture.

A person of any nationality, ready to accept the Orthodox worldview and way of life through Holy Baptism and faith in Christ, could become Orthodox, and therefore belong to the Russian Orthodox culture. And this often happened: representatives of other nationalities and religions accepted Orthodoxy as a faith, worldview and, accordingly, a Christian life and became true sons of the new Orthodox Fatherland for them. Often these people left a bright mark in the history of our culture, striving to serve the new Motherland with faith and Truth for the glory of God, as they said in Rus', which meant honest service not for the sake of personal gain and their own interests, but for the glorification of the Lord. Thus, the civil community in Russia was formed not on a national basis, but on the basis of belonging to Orthodoxy and attitude to the Orthodox state.

After the October Revolution, on January 23, 1918, the new Soviet government adopted the Decree "On the separation of the Church from the state and the school from the Church." The principle of “freedom of conscience and religious beliefs” was proclaimed, which in fact turned into real terror against the Orthodox Church, clergy and parishioners. The state and society were declared atheistic (atheism is the denial of God), and instead of ensuring the rights of citizens to freedom of conscience and religious beliefs, a policy of combating religion was pursued. Temples were closed and destroyed, priests were arrested, tortured, and killed. Concentration camps were set up in monasteries. In 1930, bell ringing was banned in Moscow. Such terrible, cruel and immoral pages of our history were caused by a new atheistic ideology, completely alien to traditional Russian culture, formed for centuries on the Orthodox ideals of love, kindness and humility.

However, the Orthodox traditions were deep, and the Orthodox religion remained the most widespread in Russia. And in closed churches, time itself often does not seem to dare to touch the faces of the saints with decay.

Since the 90s of the XX century, Orthodox culture in Russia began to revive intensively. Both the official attitude towards the Church and the consciousness of citizens have changed. The bells rang again, divine services began to be performed in the open and restored churches and monasteries. Thousands of Russians came to churches for the first time, gaining spiritual protection and support.

The revival of Orthodox culture could not be hindered and even "contributed" by the activities of sectarian preachers, various kinds of "healers", as well as missionaries (distributors) of other religions. Since the beginning of the 90s, they have been actively promoting their "paths to salvation", "educational programs", methods of "recovery and spiritual help", distributing literature and various fetishes (a fetish is an object allegedly endowed with supernatural properties). The manifold harm caused by them drew many Russians for oven protection to their native traditions.

At present, the traditions of the Orthodox religion were preserved in Russia and were reflected in all spheres of life of Russians, including legislation, social, family, domestic relations, as well as literature and art.

In Moscow and other primordially Russian cities, among the predominantly Russian population, both before and at the present time, people of various nationalities and religions live and continue to actively settle and do not seek to return to the homeland of their ancestors. This means that the great Russian culture, based on Orthodox traditions and morality, attracts other peoples not only with high spiritual, aesthetic and scientific achievements, but also with excellent traditions of human coexistence, peacefulness and brotherly attitude towards all people. It is very important in the modern world to show nobility, hospitality, kindness and the ability to comprehend and subordinate even everyday worries and personal problems to the highest spiritual ideals.

Without God, a nation is a crowd,

United by vice

Either blind or stupid

Ile, which is even worse, is cruel.

And let anyone ascend the throne,

Speaking in a high voice.

The crowd will remain the crowd

Until you turn to God!

Whoever does not understand in our people its Orthodoxy and its ultimate goals will never understand our people themselves.

F. M. DOSTOYEVSKY

List of used literature

Milyukov P.N. Essays on the history of Russian culture: In 3 vols. M., 1993. T. 1. S. 61.

Klyuchevsky V.O. Cit.: In 9 t. M., 1987. T. 1. S. 315

Berdyaev N.A. History and meaning of Russian communism. M., 1990. S. 7.

Lossky N.O. Conditions of absolute goodness. M., 1991. S. 289.

Berdyaev N.A. New Middle Ages. Berlin, 1924. S. 28.

Tolstoy L.N. The path of life. M., 1993. S. 157.

Milyukov P.N. Essays ... M., 1994. Vol. 2, part 2. S. 467-468.

Essay on the development of Russian philosophy. M, 1989. S. 28.

Cit. by: Voloshina T.A., Astapov S.N. Pagan mythology of the Slavs. Rostov n / D., 1996. S. 26.

Shpet G. G. Op. M., 1989. S. 28-29.

Ekonomtsev I. (abbot John) Orthodoxy. Byzantium. Russia. M., 1992. S. 28.

Lotman Yu.M. The problem of Byzantine influence on Russian culture in typological coverage // Byzantium and Rus. M., 1989. S. 229, 231.

Literature of Ancient Rus'. pp. 190-191.

Stepun F.A. Thoughts about Russia // New World. 1991. No. 6. S. 223.

Fundamentals of Orthodox culture. A. V. Borodina.

Textbook for basic and senior levels of general education schools, lyceums, gymnasiums.

2nd edition, 2003, Moscow, Pokrov Publishing House, 288 pp., tver. per.