The Content:

The Meaning of the Dogma about the Church. The Main Thought in the Dogma about the Church. The Absence of this Thought in Contemporary Philosophy. The Church and Personality. Other definitions of the Church. The Militant Church. The Theses.

Introduction. The moral principles of pantheism. The moral principles promoted by Kant. Conclusion.

Speech pronounced in 1985 at the day of the 50-year anniversary of his repose.

Enlightened Christians know that the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Holy Trinity, the source of the blessed enlightenment of prophets and apostles, and as well of any gracious gift, given to Christians in the holy sacraments, especially in the sacrament of anointment and priesthood. But one must admit that the very character of blessed gifts is not very well understood by us.

The teaching about the third Person of the Holy Trinity was represented in the Farewell conversation of the Lord with His disciples. No prejudice can destruct the clear truth that under the Comforter the Lord meant not any impersonal Divine power, but the living Person, different from Him and God the Father, precisely "other Comforter." The characteristics of the Holy Spirit, as of the living personality, is expressed in the fact that though the word "spirit" is of neutral gender in Greek, the substituting it pronoun is used in the masculine: (John 16:14 and other extracts). What meaning does this name of the Comforter, which helps in understanding the dogma, possess?

At a first glance it can seem that the Holy Spirit will console the apostles in their separation with Jesus Christ. Though a similar interpretation is refuted by the very words of His: "It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment" (16:7-10). The consolation in a loss, obviously, cannot have greater importance than the lost object itself; therefore the explanation concerning this name should be searched for in the following words: the Holy Spirit will comfort the followers of the Lord in their struggle against the world and in hatred of the world towards them. Really, the further speech of the Lord reveals the meaning of the Heavenly Comforter with all clarity. In the time when the world will despise the preachers of the Gospel, will hate and persecute them (15:17-21), and even think that killing them is doing God a good service (16:2); this time the Comforter, abiding in the holy Apostles, will strengthen the spirit in their weak-believing hearts, setting them in the way of virtue, reminding and explaining them the prior thoughts of their Teacher, which were till that time beyond their understanding, — revealing them the future lot of the world, and accusing this proud world of the sin of disbelief (16:9-14) through them. That is why, to replace the former fear of the mundane power and arms, the feeling of grief over the humiliation of their Teacher, the Teacher introduced into the hearts of the Apostles that element of moral satisfaction, which would teach them to triumph in the time of persecutions.

All this came true after the Pentecost, when defeated and dishonored by the imprisonment, the apostles appealed to God in prayer, "and when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness" (Acts 4:31).

We shall get convinced in such an understanding of the word "Comforter" — meaning the consoler of those preaching the truth of Christ, or the giver of moral satisfaction in our outward sufferings, when we find the exact place where the Lord borrowed this name from, among the religious-moral concepts, known to old times’ Hebrews, and then trace the influence of the Holy Spirit upon the life of the Apostles and upon the arrangement of the Church of Christ. With this, we shall only pause at the circumstance that the endowment of joyful patience is possible only through the "other Comforter," but not through Jesus Christ Himself.

The state of humiliation, in which the activity of Christ and its fulfillers always abide on earth, will constantly tempt the latter with that despondent doubt, which had His disciples, who did not wish to believe, hearing the news about His resurrection and were saying about Him: "But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel" (Luke 24:21). Though the disciples did not dare to call Jesus a deceiver, but they were ready to treat Him as a self-deluded man, how contemporary Jews treat him now. Therefore, there was necessary another witness, following Christ, like the Forerunner, who had come ahead of Jesus, testifying of Him (John 15:26) saying that He went to the Father, and the Prince of this world was judged (16:11). Having such a Comforter, in the time of their sermon the apostles felt themselves better, than even being with Jesus Christ Himself, for being enlightened by their Teacher’s heavenly teaching and testimony about Him, they drew closer to Him afterwards, more than while Jesus was with them, for previously they could not understand His words, which the Holy Spirit "shews unto them" further on (16:12-13), in order for them not to be afraid of the cross but glory in it (Gal. 6:14). "Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate, — calls in the conclusion one of the apostles, — let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach" (Hebr. 13:12-13), i.e. let us step out of the laws of the community, protected by the world, and convert into those persecuted and outcast, without being afraid of the latter state, for Christ Himself had gone through it.

How can we understand such an action of "other Comforter"? — I think that many have experienced something similar in their sufferings for the truth. When one of us has to tolerate humiliation and hatred for an absolutely right and holy matter, sometimes from the hands of the respected and dear to us people, then our soul falls into a dark and hopeless state. Full of care God, Who had permitted it to be so, seems to us the Fulfiller of Punition, not the Protector; this state is very close to despondency. But then we suddenly meet a simple person, someone pure and convinced, filled with joyful inspiration, he becomes a comforter to us. Then as if fire starts burning in our heart, and all of a sudden those circumstances, which led us into the state of grief, start to inspire us with heroic enthusiasm: such is the power of a comforter! Such phenomena happened very often in the history of sufferings of holy martyrs. To their strength must have served other comforters, when the decision to carry the cross of Christ was subjected to the tempting trial within the exhausted soul: there was a need of an outer witness and comforter, like that Angel, Who strengthened Jesus Christ in the Gethsemane. Such comforters are people and angels, and more powerful is the Comforter — the Holy Spirit — for those suffering for Christ. Obviously, the faith of Christ, acting in the sufferers, cannot be such a comforter, but it is that special, equal to Christ, other Comforter, not less in worth than Christ Himself; Divine, not identical to the trying Father and as if tried Son; the comforter, which shows its very presence in the hours of sufferings. Here is the important significance of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, Who is crowning the exploits of saints, similarly to God, and is giving extraordinary joy to those professing the truth of Christ in the moments of sufferings and inner spiritual victory over the outwardly triumphing untruth of the world, and therefore It is called in no other way than the Holy Spirit.

Now we shall prove this point with the help of the Old and New Testaments and the life of the Holy Church. The Lord calls the Holy Spirit the Comforter in the meaning of the source of moral satisfaction for sufferers. Such a notion can be found in the books of the Old and New Testaments, according to which the moral ideas of Their readers were arranged and from which all the theological definitions of the Gospel of John were taken, for instance: word, life, way, truth, grace, light and the others.

Can the notion "comfort, a comforter" be found in the Old Testament, meaning moral satisfaction? — Yes, it can, for instance, in the Farewell sermon of the Savior . "So I returned, says the Ecclesiast, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter. Wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet alive" (4:1-2). On the word of the Ecclesiast, not the sufferings themselves are so awful, but the lack of consolation, comprehension of them. The word "comforter" is denoted in the Greek Bible by the same expression as the comforter of the New Testament, "paraclit", in Hebrew "menachem", proceeding from the verb "naham." This verb means "satisfaction," for example, in the words of the Lord, given by prophet Isaiah: "Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies" (1:24). From this verb comes the name of Noah, this utmost carrier of grace and righteousness (Gen. 6:8) of the pre-flood time and the denouncer of the sinful world. When he was born, his father "called his name Noah, saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD hath cursed" (Gen. 5:29). As well as in the other places of the Old Testament this word means the decision to tolerate sufferings, inner satisfaction: the soothing of the good and the exposure of the evil ones. Therefore Nathan the Denouncer is called "menachem" by the Jews. Such a comforter of the suffering was expected by the Ecclesiast, and, having not met him, he admitted any good venture of man to be powerless and fruitless, for "that which is crooked cannot be made straight" (1:15), and "every right work is envied," and "there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean" (9:2).

But if the lot of the righteous and sinful is the same, and the righteous are more predisposed to bear the cross and persecutions, than those violating the law, then what can keep them from falling into despondency? — They will be protected exactly by that Comforter, Who was not yet revealed to the Ecclesiast, but was sent forth from the Father through the Lord Jesus Christ, so that the victory-bearing joy in sufferings and firmness in spreading the faith of Christ could continue to be called by Christians as the comfort of the Holy Spirit, as it is said in the Acts: "the churches… in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, were multiplied" (9:31). The very word "comfort," "to be comforted" used in the New Testament meant exactly inner satisfaction (for example, Math.5:4, Luke 6:24; 16:25), and, together with that, comforting in sorrows, tolerated for the sake of the Divine matters in the struggle with the world or with oneself (Acts 20:1-2; Rom. 15:4; 1 Cor. 4:13; 2 Cor. 1:4 and 7:7-13; 1 Sol. 3:2 and 2 Sol. 2:16).

This holy, understandable only for Christians mood, was, is and will be the gift of the Comforter-Holy Spirit. These gifts are various, according to the Holy Scripture, but they all have spiritual perfection as a goal. First of all, the acceptance of the Holy Spirit by the believers converts them into new men: "I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance — said St. Forerunner, — but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire (Math. 3:11). This second baptism happened in the day of the Pentecost after the Ascension of Christ, Who said to the apostles: "For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence" (Acts 1:5). Anyone knows how much the apostles changed after that magnificent spiritual enlightenment.

In the epistle to Corinthians are mentioned those spiritual perfections, which are received through the acceptance of the Holy Spirit: the gift of wisdom, faith, curing, prophesy, etc. (1 Cor. 12:8-11). In other utterances of the New Testament these gifts are mentioned separately. Thus, first of all, the Holy Spirit cleanses the conscience of man, endows it with highest and indisputable assuredness in its testimonies: "I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost"— writes Ap. Paul. That is why, on the word of Ap. Peter, the Holy Spirit moves unto those, who for the sake of the obedience to conscience tolerate sufferings: "If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified" (1 Pet. 4:14). If someone is brought into interrogation for the sake of truth of Christ, then the Holy Spirit is responsible for such a righteous in the court: "For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you," warns the Lord his apostles (Math.10:20), and really, when the members of several synagogues started an argument with Stephan, they "were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake" (Acts. 6:10). On the contrary, the sin against the Holy Spirit is that conscious rejection of the testimony of conscience, which cannot be forgiven to man because he is in the state of voluntary bitterness. As the enlightener of our conscience, reporting to us the indifference towards dangers, the Holy Spirit is the constant Witness of truthfulness of the way of Christ, the Witness of His Divinity for us and for the outer world, as the Lord promised in His Farewell conversation. This promise came true very soon, for in several weeks the apostles testified in the court: "And we are his (Christ’s) witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him" (Acts 5:32). This Holy Spirit assures us of the fact that Christ abides in us (1 John 3:24) and that we are the children of God (Rom. 8:16). Therefore He not only reports to us patience, but hope with love (Rom.5:5), and this love gives us constant joy in the Holy Ghost (Ro. 14:17). But such joy is not at all some fruitless poetic delight, but love for all, that is why the communication of Christians, on the word of the Apostle, was the communication of the Holy Ghost (2 Cor. 13:13). As Apostle Paul says, the overseers of the flock of Christ are appointed exactly by the Holy Spirit to feed the Church of God (Acts 20:28). Christ the Savior meant this gift of teaching to be the gift of delight and love in the following words: "He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." Apostle John explains that: "This spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified" (John 7:38-39).

Have the Church preserved such an elevated teaching about the action of the Holy Spirit, about Its gifts? — It could not but keep it only because the divine service prayers are composed like a mosaic from the words of the Scripture. Have a look at the service on the day of the Holy Trinity, take as an example the third Sunday antiphons of eight verses, and you will find in them exactly those thoughts about the Holy Spirit, which we were talking about. Or have a look at the church prayers of the rites, through which the grace of the Holy Spirit is mostly reported, i.e. in the fulfillment of sacraments; or analyze the content of the prayer to the Holy Spirit, the Heavenly King, with which a good son of the church begins every deed, and you will see that the thoughts about moral purity, clarity of conscience, unity with God and Jesus Christ, communicating with everybody in love are everywhere here.

The false, alien to moral purification teaching about grace, which is typical of the heresy of Khlysts and other sectarians, force them to deviate from the church and hate it, as darkness hates the light. To some extent external, mechanical understanding of the process of endowing man with grace is typical of the Protestant and catholic theologians, but, thanks God, it cannot be introduced into the religious practice of the Orthodox, though it tries to influence the teaching aids. The Orthodox divine service is so powerfully connected with the teaching about faith, the feeling of purity of the heart, sincerity and resignation, which are treated as the main conditions of our closeness to God, that no external influence can bring distortion into the enlightened by these feelings conscience of Orthodox Christians.

But they would say: our Orthodox faith is sacred in its doctrine, but what is it like in the understanding of the contemporary believers? If we once again resort to practice, then we shall see that the Orthodox people never part with the idea, that God requires from them first of all holiness, and that all the gifts of the Holy Spirit are the endowments of inner sanctification. This strife for spiritual purity, this constant regret about own sinfulness is not only the basic mood of our faith, but of our believing community and nation. It understands piety as the combined with self-resignation and sufferings exploit for the sake of Christ’s truth, the exploit, in which the Holy Spirit supports Christians. Let it be glory to Him, with the Father and Son to the ages of ages.

When the readers are suggested a more or less new explanation of Christian dogmas, the believing Orthodox author does not suppose to introduce into the Church mentality any new truth. On the contrary, he is convinced that the fullness of truth is the property of the church mentality of all times. If, for example, till the 5^th century the notions of nature and personality remained untouched, or if till the 7^th Ecumenical council the dogma about the revering of icons was not distinctly formulated, then this does not mean that earlier the Church had not known the correct doctrine about the Trinity, or was torn between idolatry and the struggle against icons. In the mentioned cases it was not that the content of faith was enriched, but there happened the enrichment of human thought, because some notions were substantiated and became more profound. Even before the 4^th century the church knew from the Gospel and Tradition that the Father and the Son are One, that we are saved by the belief in the Holy Trinity, but how to coordinate these truths with human philosophical notions of personality and nature, or in the other way— what kind of place receive these notions in respect of the Divine creature, — these things people learnt only from the fathers of the First and the following councils.

The same way, if now any simple, resigned Christian, like, for example, Homyakov, starts discussing the truths of faith (in contemporary terms), but without building an opposition to the church tradition, then such an author, remaining in the accord with Orthodox theology, does not discover any new mysteries of faith, but from the point of view of faith satisfies the new demands of contemporary human thought. A modern reader, seeing in his words a long-waited-for answer for the doubts, concerning his beliefs, is ready to proclaim such an interpretation to be "a new revelation", and another reader, without such demands, being an admirer of school authorities, full of distrust and ill-will, does not hurry to agree with the author and is persistently trying to find the presence of heresy, rejecting the fact that the subject is explained much better than in the existing teaching aids. By the way, same Homyakov did not say anything against the teaching aids, so the attitude to the comparative worth of his interpretations and teaching aids in general mostly depends not on how the eternal content of faith, identical for both the variants, is analyzed, but on the substantiation of changing demands of the contemporary thought.

One of the most persistent, most definite demands of contemporary life in respect of our faith has to do with the moral content of its dogmatic truths. The church consciousness always possessed this content. The Creed is always an enthusiastic hymn for the obedient and enlightened sons of the Church. Almost every prayer of the Church ends with the recollection of the Holy Trinity, especially as of the source of all moral treasures. But modern theology, as a science, lacks the clear definition of the moral notions of the truths of faith and the explication how the first are defined by the second ones. Therefore, it is natural enough, that those researchers, who are acquainted with Christianity only from its educational side, but do not have any practical view upon the church truth, these, so to say, external contemplators of Christianity, are bewildered about the fact, why our faith, which made its Founder pronounce the words: if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments — demands from its followers the acceptance of multiple, and as it seems, purely theoretical, dogmas with such persistence. We have said "are bewildered," but, unfortunately, our haughty contemporaries least of all agree to be bewildered, but prefer, like the rooster from the parable of Krylov, the sure and persistent denial and defaming of what they do not understand. This mood is especially strongly manifested in the works of Leo Tolstoy, who, unfortunately, in this case is only one more daring representative of the mood of the great number of educated Europeans and Russians. We are trying to respond to this bewilderment, both in the present article about the Church, and in the former ones: about the Holy Trinity, the atonement and the Holy Spirit.

From all dogmas, the dogma about the Church is subjected to the strongest attacks of sectarianism and pseudo-rationalism. Our liberals with special diligence spread the translated publications about inquisition, the fight of culture with the Papacy, within the reading circles, hoping that the quick-witted Russian reader will be able to shift the ill-intended statements, concerning the Papacy, onto the Russian church. Together with that, Russians in the West will underline that circumstance that the attractive grandeur, arrangement and convictions of the Papacy system — with one word, all that the Papacy can boast with — are not typical of our church management, with which similar people meet via secular executives, who usually cause various limitations, (i.e. censorious, disciplinary, ritual, etc.) And if the church management in the face of its hierarchic representatives creates obstacles for our liberals, then in this case it is usually treated like passive, ineffective, ineloquent, and therefore it is not strange that the renegades see it as the old boring grumbler.

So miserable seems to our contemporaneity that greatest sacred part of Christian teaching, without which the latter would really remain abstract, lifeless dogmatism, without which there would be no essential change in life performed by our faith in the universe. And if nowadays the false liberals think the teaching of the Church to be an obstacle in the path of their faith, then why do not they want, at least, to think over that phenomenon, that precisely this truth about the Church was the main power for attracting people and nations to Christ? Though, even without this dogma of the Church, Christianity is rich in elevated ideas, touching images, but all these ideas and images, including the events of the Evangelical history, would have remained powerless in the aspect of moral rebirth of people, if they would not have been fulfilled in the present life of Christians again and again, if the latter would not be the constant manifestation of that spiritual unity, that tender mutual love and mutual care, which could be instilled on Christians neither by belief in future life, nor by love for the Savior, and the recollection about His sufferings, but only by the words of His and His apostles about the Church, — about the fact that Christ gave His truth and grace not to each believing person separately, but to their unity in the Church, which as if forms the body, that is revived by the Spirit of God, gathering its members into one living unity of love, who live in this unity and die spiritually, as soon as they leave it.

Ancient Christians understood this condition to be the most important for their spiritual life and in it they found the force for fulfilling this most difficult task of life — to love each other. Our contemporaries have lost this understanding and need theoretical explanations, concerning the question about the significance of this dogma of the Church for spiritual perfection of the personality. We would like to offer such an explanation.

The given theological point of view about the interpretation of the dogma of the Church is not accidental and has place only in the contemporary conditions of thinking. The most authoritative dogmatist of Orthodoxy, venerable John Damascene, says that from His features and His providential destinies God, having revealed to us everything necessary for our salvation, hid that, what does not have a direct connection with this goal. In particular, not only the truth about the Church is revealed to us, as far as this goal is concerned, but the very Church is established only for that. Who does not know the words of the apostle that from Christ "the whole body [of the Church] fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love" (Eph. 4:16).

So, the designation of the Church is defined clearly and concretely: it is in the spiritual perfection of Christians. Meanwhile, as a consequence of some sad misunderstanding exactly this aspect is omitted in the definition of the Church, made by the contemporary dogmatists, who do not note at all, as it seems, that the given by them definitions suffer from logical incompleteness, which is obvious to a conscious reader.

The majority of the educational definitions of the Church start like this: the Church is a society, established, united, etc. But the main definition of a society is in its designation, its goal, and about this almost nothing is said in the educational formulation of the dogma. Recently in literature appeared another definition of the Church, as of the body of Christ, which caused great polemics, but the arguing said almost the same, though they fiery rebuked each other. The main basis for such a definition was in the given above words of the apostle, but on some reason no one considered it necessary to read the phrase up to the end, and the holy utterance was discussed, being harped on the same string, without going over to its main thought.

If to look at the truth of the Church from the mentioned by us point of view, then we would need to make the following thesis main in our reasoning: for salvation, or, which is the same, for spiritual perfection of man the three conditions are needed: very man, God and the Church. Usually, the third condition is not thought to be the basic for our salvation, because this subject was mostly highlighted by the Protestants in European theology; but we know that the Divine Kingdom, Which our Savior had brought to earth, is reached not only through the sanctification of personal life of man through the direct influence of the Divine Creature, but through the establishment on earth of new existence, new element, only through which the Lord comes into communication with human personality. This existence, this element is the Church. It is great that in that exceptional case, when after establishing the Church the Lord called persecutor Saul to Him directly from His Heavenly Throne, He did not leave him without the most direct guidance of the Church, did not show His will directly to him, as once He had done to Elijah and other prophets, but sent him to Ananias for to be taught, sanctified in the sacrament and healed from blindness.

But even before the time when He was only explaining the principles of His doctrine, in the majority of His parables He showed new spiritual life as the opposite not only to that sinful, split into two, personal life of a single man, but as well to the isolated way of life in human society. In His new Kingdom people gather not only to create a friendly brotherhood, but they arrange some new council existence, which has to grow as the leavened bread, as that tree that hides all in its shadow, as the grape vine, where the stem is Christ and the branches are the Apostles.

Preparing Himself for leaving this world, the Lord Jesus Christ looked at the skies and appealed to His Father in a prayer about the fulfillment of that act, for the sake of which He had come to earth. This prayer was about nothing but the arrangement of new, council existence — the Church on earth — the existence, which till that time parted by sin mankind did not possess. This existence is typical not of earth, where there is no unity, but pure partition, but of heaven, where the unity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit gathers the three Persons into One Creature, so that there are no more three, but one God, living council life. Alike, the council new existence, new man is brought forth by Christ onto earth, into the hostile society of Jews and pagans (Eph. 2:14-15). Surely the goal of this new existence on earth lies not in itself, as in a process, but in the relations between its compound parts, i.e. human personalities. "Father, I will, —says the Lord, — that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me…that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them. (John 17:24-26). This is the final goal of the established by Christ Church, in respect to its members; and the first task, without which it is impossible to reach the final goal of our existence, is in unceasing spiritual perfection of the personality in the Church.

Therefore the Church is absolutely new, special and unique existence on earth, which cannot be defined with precision by any notion, taken from mundane life. And if in the mentioned by us theological argument those thinkers, who told about the superiority of their definition of the Church, as of the society (comparing it with the definition of the Church, as of the body of Christ), were sure that they were giving the correct definition of the Church, while their opponents only proposed a comparison, — then let us note that the claims of the first were absolutely unfounded. Any terrestrial society has so many aspects, absolutely different from the life of the Church, and so few common with it traits, that one could prefer the comparison, which is authorized by the Holy Scripture to the visibly formal definition, if only, as we have said above, the referring to this matter words of apostle Paul were analyzed in all their fullness, without shortening its main thought. And this main thought (unto the edifying of itself in love) already stands in the opposition to the image of the body, knowing no love, and through that again this thought leads us to the understanding that the definition of the Church is about the exclusive, opposite to everything terrestrial existence.

Now let us focus on the description of this existence in detail, and then again we shall point at its real displays and by that shall try solving the more difficult question of the mutual argument of European confessions: where should be the real Church searched for?

From the quoted words of Christ the Savior we saw that the Church is the similarity of the Trinitarian existence, in which many personalities become one creature. Why is this existence (as the existence of the Holy Trinity) new and unperceivable for the Old Testament man? — It happens on the reason that in its natural self-consciousness a personality is a limited in itself type of existence, drastically opposite to the others. Let us set aside the language of abstract definitions, necessarily dry and compressed, and discuss the practical influence of this law upon our will. First of all, we see that this law of our natural existence, which can be found in our direct self-consciousness, radically differs from the moral law of the Gospel, which demands from its followers self-denying love for the neighbor. Though, this law of love can be found within human nature, which is disposed to love, but at the same time it is inclined to defend its "ego," and bears the feeling of self-love and vengeance. And till the time man sympathizes with the Christian law only being led by his natural inclinations, he will never accept the fullness of Christian love, will not become a true Christian: he will love some, and maybe ardently, and will hate the others: love and self-love will still remain in him, as two irreconcilable enemies.

"But this will be a constant contradiction in the soul of man!" —an objector will state triumphantly. Sure, we shall reply. Natural man is the incarnated contradiction, and this inner contradiction of his nature is hardly revealed with such force elsewhere than in the feeling of natural love. Like that, for example, in the sexual sphere love and hatred are combined in one strange, ugly process, where sometimes reproduction is followed by a murder. Or take the highest manifestation of natural life — the love of a mother among the animals or simple people: here the affects of tenderness towards children are constantly changed by the affects of anger against their supposed enemies, and against children themselves, if they do not understand the wishes of the mother. A hen, when her chickens are born, not for a minute stops to threaten everyone around, and a usually meek cow is more terrifying than any predator, while the newly born calf is near her. From the constant observations of life, and from the artistic image of the latter in literature we know about the fact, how this inner contradiction of love and hatred is intensified within people (for example, "The Egyptian Nights" of Pushkin, "The Meek" of Dostoyevsky, "The Mother" of Nekrasov and many others).

Human thought did not bring together these two points, but rather intensified the contradiction. When people used the notion of a free personality, this unique notion, upon which the elevated demands of strict morals can be based, then together with the teaching about justice, chastity, honesty, they preached the proudly cold, legal and formal attitude towards the neighbors. Such is the teaching of the stoics and Kant, who totally denied the importance of virtue and suggested to substitute it with the principle of respect for the neighbors. The morals of the scholastic theologians were based on the notions of formal duty and, having no opportunity to deny love for the neighbors, which was preached in the Scripture, were limited by them with the invented doctrine about love for oneself, and with many legal, but artificially created norms, which were taken from the Roman and feudal law and were introduced not only into the teaching about the relations between people, but into the doctrine about God the Redeemer.

The latest humanistic moral, and with it the Protestant moral of the rationalistic direction came to mutual agreement that for the strengthening of the principle of love it is necessary to renounce "the scholastic" notions about the personality, free will, retribution, and instead of these notions, protecting egoism, to establish the opposite view onto existence, as onto council Divine life, which is distributed between creatures, who long to be the parts of one gracious unity. Here, spiritualism is changed into pantheism, the main leading principle of the modern philosophy and rationalistic theology. Let us add that not mainly humanism, but the Protestant predestination, (which denies the significance of the exploits of will) and the common drop of morals that was concealed behind the shield of humanism serve as the main basis for the development of such a world-view.

But let us discuss only the positive aspect of the latter, without penetrating into its concealed meaning. The connection between personalities is destroyed here, the opposition between "I" and "not me" is exterminated; there is no place for haughty self-praise of nonentity, which bears the name of a human. But everyone knows that with the extermination of the freedom of will the difference between the good and the evil and any moral responsibility of man fades, and the same happens to the moral attraction of the exploit of love and its moral necessity.

That is why the contradiction between haughty sensuous egoism and known to our heart element of love cannot be solved within the philosophic thought, till it originates from this or that principle of natural life — the principle of a free personality or of natural humanism: in the first case there rules legal formalism, in the second — pantheism. Obviously, both the thought and real life are based on the initial notion, due to which there will happen the reconciliation between the free self-esteem of personality and the principle of self-denial and life for the sake of others. Here, these others, this "not me," would not be anything opposite to me, to my "ego," and the freedom of each personality would be combined with the metaphysical council of their existence, not like it is in pantheism.

This is the initial notion of the Church according to the definitions, which we have given to It before, on the basis of the Divine Word. And really, we see that the personality, developing itself in the Church, combines the fullness of self-denying love and high degree of individual will. The most typical representatives of such a combination are our saints — martyrs, ascetics and holy fathers. In these three types of holiness (martyrs, ascetics and holy fathers), different from one another because of conditions of life, we find the identical harmony of those two opposite qualities, which would be permitted neither in natural life, nor in the Western philosophy. All these three types, the giants of will with the extremely intense realization of their moral responsibility, at the same time do not have any natural every-day egoism, any fine self-praise, any demands, concerning personal rights, — they are the types, among which the two first dedicate their whole life to and die for the church community and glory of God, and the third denies the own will for the sake of God and the representatives of the church authorities, making that the most important goal of life.

So, Christian truth about the Church not only within the thought, but within very life, frees man from the natural contradiction between self-consciousness of the personality and self-denying love, as the principle of life. Why exactly this contradiction should be analyzed? We said that the definition of the Church should be derived not from the concept of the terrestrial way of life, but from the teaching about the trinity-united Divine Creature, as the Lord had taught us in His Farewell prayer. God is one in His essence and life, but triple in Persons: the same way the Church is one in its essence, but multiple in persons, which form It. What is the united creature of the Church and how does it relate to natural mankind?

In the Holy Scripture and church legend it is said for many times that the Lord came to earth in order to revive man, as he had been before the downfall, and to restore His image, obscured by passions, in man and mankind. This image was the image of the trinity-united Divine Persons and exactly this image is revived by Christ in mankind through the establishment of the Church, i.e. the image of one essence in the multitude of persons, as it is said in the Archpriest prayer.

Let us explain the thought about the church common existence, which is in the restoration of the unity of human nature, with the help of the following reasons. Concerning the Divine Creature, under the notion of the united Divine nature theology means the Divine spiritual nature, those spiritual forces and qualities of Divine life, which are brought into action by the free will of the Divine Persons. The same is meant under the nature of mankind and the nature of each separate personality.

This division of personality and nature in us is not something abstract, but is the truth, directly proved through self-observation and experience. Feeling in oneself the presence of an independent personality, freedom of will and of actions, every man understands perfectly well that this independence, this freedom is only in the specific directing of forces and qualities of his, common to all humans, nature, in the development of some natural inclinations and elimination of others — in choosing between the struggling inclinations. But we all realize well that no man can think differently than according to the laws of thinking; man passes through certain stages replacing one habit by the opposite one, he cannot walk upon the air, stop breathing, etc. With one word, we feel ourselves already endowed by certain physical and psychical nature, partly known psychical content, the change of which is subjected to our will, but on a certain basis and with significant limitations (for instance, is it easy for a mother not to love her children?) This psychical nature of ours, this subconscious common human will, which we all inevitably posses, is our human nature.

Till now we have not said anything new about the accepted in contemporary theology definitions. But if we pause on the said above, then under common human nature we shall understand not the actual (real) essence, but some abstract notion, which can suggest neither any basis for understanding of the problem of the first-born sin (which is inherited by all human personalities), nor redeeming grace, thanks to which exactly human nature (and not each separate human personality) is sanctified. Having lost the notion of human nature, as of the existing essence, the Middle Age theologians had to explain the nature of the first-born sin through the hereditary right or even to transfer the unworthy of people concept of vendetta onto the Creator and make this concept basic for the explanation of the process of our salvation.

Meanwhile, the Middle Age theologians and even Plato in earlier times vaguely felt that there exist such common or general notions, which are not a pure abstract idea about the common features of some objects, but which do exist independently and truly. About that was the argument of the nominalists and realists. To the number of such notions belongs the notion of common human nature. Does it possess any actual and real existence? In God this existence is so real, as the existence of each Divine personality; it is even more real, for we do not speak about the existence of three Gods, but one God, though we profess the existence of the Father, the Son and of the Holy Spirit. We know that these three Divine persons live common life of Divine character — which is holy, blessed, ever-righteous, though they have Their personal Freedom, as the Lord said: "I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love" (John 15:10).

If the people had not fallen, if they had not been filled with the spirit of opposition and partition, if they had not weakened the unity of their nature through all that, then in their hearts with the same fortitude would have been existing the life of common human nature, which was good enough, for God created it in His image, for immortality (Wisd.2:23). In that case, each single human personality would have been given the option to agree with the existing in him source of love, virtue, reason and joy. Unanimously studying the beautiful Divine Creation and the Very Creator, and being pleased with mutual love and joy, people would have been filled with the idea of their unity more and more. And it would have been hard to talk about the acts and thoughts of Peter, Paul and John, but we would have to talk about the actions of man in totality. But such a merging of all into one unity would seem infinitely strange, compared with that pantheistic nirvana, which is being preached by modern philosophers. In ideal, exactly this unity, this unanimity of human thoughts, feelings and actions would be constantly established and built by the free will of each single personality and by that would protect the moral value of its existence. That would make it different from the synchronic movements of various parts of a well-arranged apparatus, or from the unanimity of speechless ants or bees, led by the blind and having no freedom instinct in their tireless labors.

But such blessed life of mankind was distorted by self-loving disobedience of our forefather, and his descendants were destroying it more and more it with new sins, so that human consciousness almost absolutely lost it, reaching such isolation that the opposition between "I" and "not me" became basic for human reason; and the Divine Trinity, the image of Which is in our nature, became an incomprehensible mystery for natural reason, and for those, having taken root in their self-love philosophers — they see it even as logical absurdity.

But then the Redeemer restores the lost by the forefather council-like character of human nature, similar to that, which all people would have possessed, if they had not fallen. This life is the established by Him Church. It is alike the life of first forefathers, but differs a little from it, for now it is based not on the easily fulfilled free accord of each personality with its uncorrupt nature, but on the agreement, characterized by the struggle with that decrepit nature, which we are to crucify.

First, before to analyze this life, or, what is the same, the dogma of the Church, more profoundly, let us recall the utterance of St. Basil the Great, who tells about the unanimity, resignation, love and obedience of the monastic brotherhood in the 18^th chapter of the Ascetic Regulations:

As you see, in the above mentioned reasoning St Basil the Great says, that at first, human nature was council-like before the downfall; secondly, that it was split by the downfall or sin; thirdly, that the angels, which had not yield into the sin of self-love and disobedience, preserved this unity of their nature unharmed; fourthly, that the Savior came to restore this unity in fallen mankind; fifthly, that this restoration is in freeing people from self-love, discords and stubbornness and in renewing Christian love and obedience in their hearts, and sixthly that the divine atonement is mainly in the restoration of this newly-blessed unity of love and obedience among people and as well between them, God, and the Lord — and it is opposite to how school theological systems see it. Now we shall continue our reasoning.

We have said that this restored by Christ unity of nature of believing mankind is in the Church. And alike the first given by God unity of nature was not an abstract notion, but a real living power, which was constantly living within the human heart, and as well within the multitude of saints, the same way the Church is not simply the multitude of separate people, but a legal and governmental institution. Though, first of all, it is the established by Christ life, blessed and holy, which unbreakably and stably will exist on earth till the second coming of Christ, protected from without, and manifested, first of all, in the holy and touching feelings of faith, repentance, spiritual joy, purity and love, which any blessed person finds in his heart, not as the fruits, cultivated by the efforts of his will in his personal life, but as the characteristics of another, given to him from without, nature — the nature of that New Man, whom any person becomes after the baptism. His further task will be to protect and to nourish these holy elements of salvation, given to him by God, this life of the restored nature, and the life of the Church, through the exploit of his personal freedom; and to crucify and do away with the opposite to this life human decrepit nature.

Sure, this exploit is more difficult than that what mankind had to face if it had not have fallen, but anyway, due to the above mentioned understanding of the matter, it becomes rather clear to us, why the mentioned by us types of martyrs, venerable and saints were the invincible giants of will, and at the same time constantly suppressed the desire of self-establishment, self-love, or cultivation of the personal "I" within themselves. This lets us understand, why Paul, who had, on his personal statement, more exploit than any of the disciples of Christ, says that he does not live any more, for he had crucified himself, and Christ abides in him; and that not him, but the grace that abides in him, is working for the Church.[ The grace in the Biblical and church language is called sometimes the very essence of the church life, sometimes the fruits of this life in the soul of a Christian, sometimes as the blissful influence, through which this power of new life is reported to the soul of man].

Still, our explanation about the true Church is not yet finished. We have mentioned its characteristics, which make the notion of the Church close to the notion of originally created by God human nature, but we did not explain the difference between these two notions: this difference is in the fact that human nature would have been revealed directly and without obstacles in each man (if there would have been no downfall).

But the life of Christ, which He had given to the Church and which He shares with every single person is not like that: this introduction of new nature (grace) into the soul of each Christian is a more complex phenomenon: it does not happen so directly, like the development of the human personality of innocent Adam on the basis of human nature, but first of all it goes through conscious acceptance of the life of Christ or Christianity, and then through the mysterious introduction of the newly-blessed church nature into our personality.

The Lord and the Apostles point at both the methods of sanctifying Christians, as at the equally necessary. When they say about the revival or about the purification of our nature through the word of teaching, they recognize the conscious penetration of new life, described in the Divine teaching (John 15:3; Pet. 1:23; Hebr. 10:22). And on the other hand, — who does not know the parables of the Lord about the unconscious and mystical growing of the blessed seed of new nature in the soul of a believer? It is similar to that, how a man would sow a seed in the field, and then easily spend his days, and the sun and water without his efforts would grow the plant and make the ear form (Math.13:31); it is like leaven, which raises in a dark stove (Math.13:33). It is subtle, like the place where the wind comes from, on the word of the Lord to Nicodemus (John 3:8).

Therefore the Church is not simply that school of Christian law, not only pure unconscious blissful energy, mystically transmitted by Christ into human hearts, but that very energy, which is kept and spread by the conscious element, i.e. the Church community. Hence, it is possible to fill in the gap in defining the Church as community, or body, — that gap about the designation of the Church, which we have mentioned above. Analyzing any definition of the Church one has to point at the fact that the Church, first, is meant to keep untouched the conscious content of newly-blessed life, i.e. the Divine teaching, and then to pass it over to separate people, preserving both quantity and quality; secondly, what is the same, to spread the Divine teaching among people, and thirdly, to fill the believers with this life and to make them reach spiritual perfection. The given by Apostle Paul comparison of the Church with a living body (Eph. 4:16) fully coincides with this designation of the Church.

But I see here neither the presence of teaching about the Church as about the organized society, — some reader will say, — nor the reference to the fact, in what sense both the heavenly and terrestrial church is called holy and infallible. If under the Church you mean the reproduced by Christ unanimous nature of newly-blessed mankind, — the objector will continue, — then where is that infallible authority of the terrestrial, militant Church? Do not you indulge the Protestants, who lay their inspirations upon the heavenly Church and are deprived of the terrestrial One?

— We started to discuss these questions in our prior reasoning. But that blessed life, which inspires a zealous Christian, is the life of new Adam; and the more the Christian is worthy of his title, the more clear and joyful is his understanding of constant communication with saints in heaven and the more inspired he becomes by the given to us Creed, by the expectation of the final judgment and the life of the next age, as St. John taught us in the Revelation (chap.21). Here is the first failure of Protestantism, for it omitted the prayers to saints and the commemoration of departed.

But we have said about the fact that the life of the Church is the struggle against this sinful world, and in every generation of people this world acts as a certain, partly conscious and partly subconscious force. Every generation of people is to feel its moral-historic task, bring to God its talent and put its victory into the treasury of the Church. That is why the newly-created, blessed nature of the Church, this new Adam, led by Christ, must have its certain, adequate manifestation in every époque of terrestrial struggle. [In the Holy Scripture and History Christ himself and the Church, led by Him, are called new Adam or New Man, Eph. 2:15; 1 Cor. 2:12; St. Gregory the Theologian. The Word on the Theophany of God; venerable Isaac the Syrian. About the Merciful Spirit].

Here, on earth, within the struggle of Christianity and the world, in the new church nature, which is being developed together with the decrepit one, there must live and act, first, the qualitative fullness of the gifts of Christ to the Church, i.e. the untouched content of the Church (or the pure Christian teaching), and secondly, the mysterious blessed energy (the holiness of the Church), which is reported to the Christian soul indirectly, in the form of blissful gifts. And as the life of the Divine Persons is the council life of one Divine Nature, the same way the acting on earth power of blissful life of Christ proceeds from church fullness. Therefore the entire church community on earth, but not its separate branches or some local authorities, as the Roman Catholics explain, turns out to be holy and infallible.

The detailed substantiation of this latter thought, based on Divine revelation, is not included into our task, because school theology describes well the authority of the militant Church, using the revelation. But still let us remind the reader that the majority of the Lord’s parables about the Divine Kingdom relate to the militant Church, —the fullness of blessed gifts is promised to It, and His words, said at the time of His Ascension, are addressed to It as well: "And, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." The same way the Revelation draws the fight of the blissful Kingdom of Christ with the terrestrial world, and depicts Christ as the Leader and Direct Head of the militant Church, both in the first vision, where He is among "seven candlesticks", and in that revelation, which narrates about the future lot of the Church.

So, to believe in the Church means:

First, to believe that Jesus Christ through Himself restored the unity of human nature in the flock of His disciples, which was lost by people through the downfall of Adam and because of the sins, committed by his descendants.

Secondly, that this unity is not an abstract notion, but an active moral force, which gets into the hearts of His disciples and acts in them, like the source of blissful intentions and feelings, especially in their mutual love for God and one another.

Thirdly, this force, this church life, on the word of Christ, will exist on earth forever, and it is the unique means, through which the Lord leads people to salvation, i.e. to holiness and unity.

Fourthly, the people, leading church life, form one spiritual creature together with Christ, Who leads it as the Leader. To the extent of their perfection on earth — and to the utmost extent — in heaven, — they strengthen this unity so that it starts resembling the unity of Divine nature in three Divine Persons and by that fills every human personality with bliss and holiness, and the elements of this state are reported since people first enter the Church.

Fifthly, because the people of each generation start their spiritual perfection on earth in their struggle with the world, then the fullness of Divine gifts on earth is constantly preserved within the struggling for salvation community of people.

Sixthly, this community or the militant Church has a designation, first, to protect the source of Divine life, i.e. the Divine teaching and blissful energy of newly blessed life, and secondly, to report both of them to the own children by the means of teaching and prayer, so that they could reach perfection in their graceful church life, and to those not knowing Christ, so that they could become a part of this life.

The seventh point is in the statement that the task of each man, who wants to be saved, is first of all in the agreement with these truths of faith, reported from without to his personality, as well as with these sacred predispositions of the heart, and with the life of the Church.

The eighth point is in the idea that one’s personal life meets with the Church life not like free of any qualities, but like life, already filled with sin, that is why we call this free agreement with newly-blessed life of the Church as voluntary obedience.

The ninth point is that if it is so, if the life of the Church meets with the life of each personality, being the superior element, and a guide in voluntary inner struggle of man, then the life of the Church needs to have certain conditional outward forms, so that it can give way to manifestation of the church life or church administration and discipline. The common features, which define this external arrangement of the Church, are mentioned by the Savior in the Gospel and by the apostles in the Acts, Epistles and Revelation, and the most detailed explanations are given by Christ to the church pastors and form the subject of Church Tradition, mostly of canons.

The tenth point is that all external conditions, which define the appearance of blissful (church) life on earth, and the Church guidance of Its children, are filled with the same spirit of blissful Divine life, in which is found the meaning of this life, i.e. the spirit of love and holiness, and therefore, if they are called by us external, then it is not in the literal sense, but means that they guide the inner life of our souls with the help of some external means.

This is the content of the dogma of the Church. — Is it necessary to say that such beliefs are the part of irreplaceable moral force, general for the Christians undertaking exploit; that without such beliefs their life is aimless, and exploit has no basis?

We feel especially glad to talk about the Church in the gathering meeting of our community, which, as far as some aspects of its life are concerned, looks like the bearer of life of ancient Christian communities in heathen towns. Really, let us recall the scene of life of those times and of nowadays. Let us suppose, that in front of us is a big heathen city, for example, Rome, with all its theatres, public baths, circuses, entertainment places, with all nesting there vices, loathsome service to heathen abomination, characterized by cruelty and crimes, which terrified the world. But then in that world of "sin and death" there appears another world of "peace and joy in the Holy Ghost"; and within ancient heathen Rome there is revived another, Christian Rome; different, once hostile people, "Greek… Jew, Barbarian, Scythian, bond, … free" become the parts of one body, the body of Christ. In that time, when heathens with their wild feasts, inhuman depravity and arousing indignation murders, brought the universe into trepidation, in that very time the chant of the holy men of God, glorifying the resurrection of the Crucified, came out of burial caves. In the first case everybody is amazed by the subtleness of mind and will in serving passions, and in the second case the resigned slaves of the Lord of Hosts rise over the laws of nature, curing the sick with a prayer and resurrecting the dead.

Now there are no admirers of heathen gods in front of us, those terrible religious crimes disappeared; now the rulers, troops and nations worship the cross of the Savior. But the difference of the life of Christ and the life of the Church with secular life did not cease existing, and surely will remain forever, both in communities and in every single man. Within Christian communities, according to the predictions of the Gospel, love became so weak that long ago the non-religious ideals started to attract people’s attention in the places with great population. Already John the Chrysostom, the teacher of the Church, who lived 350 years after the Resurrection of Christ, constantly expressed his grief about the fact that Christ stopped being the part of life of the capitals and people were attracted only to theatres, circuses, gossips, fashion, wealth accumulation, but did not search for Divine will. Nowadays these secular interests overwhelmed the society in such measure that religious life, except for divine service, started to become the matter of each one’s personal conscience, and started to be thoroughly hidden from the neighbors. We always had many pious people, but had no pious society, no pious common life.

But the light of the Word of God quite recently shone in this darkness of fussy and becoming totally secularized life. With the powerful hand, which created heaven, God the Word gathered people of different society circles, ages and disposition into one body, put in their hearts thirst for listening to the Evangelic sermon, and into the breasts and mouths — His holy chants. And as in ancient Rome the glorification of resurrected Christ reached the angels of God, suppressing the sounds of frantic orgies and loathsome for God feasts, the same way from new, fussy and dissolute Petersburg appeared newest Petersburg, united by the word of the Gospel and chanting of sacred hymns. In the same hours and minutes, when the majority of inhabitants hurry to serve to the world interests and pleasures, the others — with prayer-books in their hands and with Christ in their hearts gather in the temples of God in the unusual for this forgotten matter hours — for additional divine services, dedicated to the Evangelic revelation. Surely, the majority of these people are simple, which are less in number than those rich and deluded by the charms of this world, on the word of the apostle: "For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: that no flesh should glory in his presence" (1 Cor. 1:26-30).

This new life began or was restored not only for the righteous, but for desperate sinners, who now through the sanctification by the word of God became better than the righteous and together with them glorified the resurrection of Christ in those holy days, and not vaguely, as the rest, but being filled with bright light of sincere communication with God, tasting of the joy of Pascha, "when they who were held by the chains of hell beheld Thy boundless compassion, O Christ, they hastened to the light with joyful feet, exalting the eternal Pascha." Our gladness and joy are exactly in that we, through the assimilation of the word of God due to the Church, "partake of the fruit of the new vine of divine joy on the auspicious Day of the Resurrection and Kingdom of Christ." Therefore we need to understand, in what is our advantage among the other listeners and readers of the Gospel, who do not partake of the kingdom of Christ, who accept the Gospel not from the Church, but each one does that for himself, for his personal life.

"What is to me the Church, priests and divine service? — The sectarians say, — "My Christ had given me His Gospel and I do not need anything that is not in the Gospel in order to be saved; it is enough to fulfill what I will understand in the Scripture, and I do not know and do not want to know about the teaching of the fathers of the church and the Ecumenical councils. I must not be judged for that, for I try to study the law of Christ and join Him and His Divine Person, and to search for my salvation within It, but not within the church."

These words are unjust, and do not bear the Evangelical spirit. In reality, it is impossible to understand the teaching of Christ without the Church, and one cannot join Christ outside the Church, so our salvation is not only the reward for the exploits of life, but it is in the process of gradual merging of our life with the life of the Church, which is the body of Christ.

1. The Lord said, that His glory is "the way and the Life" (John 6:63), and by that showed that one cannot understand and perceive His teaching in the way any other reasonable teaching is perceived. Simple human wisdom is perceived through reason, and it is possible to perceive the teaching of Christ — the teaching of the spirit and life —no otherwise than through life. "If any man will do his will, — says the Lord, — he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God" (John 17:7).

About what fulfillment of will of the Heavenly Father and about what unique means to perceive His law is talking the Lord? Is it only about the fulfillment of single good deeds? — No, the whole life, human nature must merge with the life of Christ, in order to master His teaching of life. The Jews are asking Him, if He is the promised by the prophets Messiah, whom they had been waiting for. The Lord answers to them: "I told you, and ye believed not…ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me" (John 10:26).

So, in order to believe truly and assimilate the Divine truth of the teaching of Christ, one needs to merge with the life of Christ, first, through the fulfillment of will of the Heavenly Father and secondly, through joining the Divine flock, that society, that life, which the Lord had established on earth, and this life is the Church.

This cannot be otherwise. It is impossible to understand any life-important teaching without taking into account that society or people, who live according to it. Even in secular matters, in order to understand, for instance, Russian songs or ancient epics, one needs to understand Russian life, Russian lifestyle, and if one would not do that, he will have a very funny concept of them, as the French or Germans have about Russian traditions. Only the very life of the people, the very character of them can clarify the essence of the folk legends and ideals, but it will happen only to the extent this folk life remained faithful to itself, to the extent of not yielding to the external influence, as it happened with the life of the highest walks of Russian society, by which one surely cannot judge about the ancient noble customs and legends.

Consequently, in order to perceive the life of Christ, conveyed in the Bible, one needs not only to plunge into the very life of the contemporary Christian society, but have reasons to believe that this life did not deviate from its original path. Truly, for that we got the indisputable promise of the Lord: "I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it," so that anybody, who "neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican."

Beside that, in the Holy Scripture there are references to the fact that people would perceive the teaching of Christ exactly through the Church, which drawn already by the prophets of the Old Testament as a mountain or a virgin, not knowing a man, but having many children. "And it shall come to pass in the last days, — predicted Isaiah (2:2-4) and Micah (4:1-3), — that the mountain of the LORD's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem."

This way, the law and the word cannot be perceived separately, but through the process of ascending onto the Lord’s mountain, Zion, i.e. the Church. The same thought is confirmed in the farewell prayer of the Lord about the Church. "That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me" (John 17:21-24).

The belief of the people in Christ depends on that spiritual unity, in which abide those believing in Christ, the apostles’ followers, the sons of the Church, whom Apostle Paul calls "no more strangers and foreigners," but as the unity "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets."

So, the word of God teaches, that without being in the Church and without Christian life man cannot perceive the Evangelic teaching. Therefore those, who assert that only the Bible is necessary for the salvation of each one of them, are mistaken, for the Bible is given not to each one separately, but to the unity of the Disciples of Christ, created by God, i.e. — the Church. That is why, brothers, when the sectarians will talk to you about your confession, ask them: "Did Christ come to give us a book or to give us life? Should we only submit our will to the book, or to that life, which had been established by Christ, and without which the Bible Itself is unclear? And this life, holy and infallible, which rises over my will and mind, is called the Church, which unfailingly bears the truth of Christ, the examples of hope of the apostles and ascetics, the interpretation of the Ecumenical councils, the divine service of great saints and chants’ writers, the grace of the Comforter-Holy Spirit."

2. A sectarian is bombarding you with his statements about life in Christ, about the personal communication with Him: "My Christ ordered me to do this or that, and He did not ask me to fulfill these things, and I do not want to know about any of your sacraments," etc. But do we, the Orthodox, state that we do not need communication with Christ? Do not we partake of His sacraments? Do not we call one another in the Great day to see "the radiant Christ who said: rejoice?" Do not we ask him: "Grant that we may more perfectly partake of Thee in the unending Day of Thy Kingdom?" What a difference with our communication with Christ do they have? It is in that they cry: "I… my…to me," i.e. they put themselves outside of that unity, to which Christ calls His followers. Does such excluding, jealous love please Christ? Will He ask us about this kind of love at His Judgment? —Yes, He will demand love for Himself, but not that kind of exclusively personal love, — He will ask for uniting love.

Those, who in love for Him have forgotten about love for the neighbor, would be amazed with His judgment and "then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me" (Math. 25:44-46). Christ demanded that we should be in Him, live with Him, but does He talk about Himself as about the separate personality? No, these words about abiding in Him are preceded by the Lord’s comparison of Himself with a vine with many branches, i.e. people; therefore there appears not exclusively my personal Christ, but Christ within the Church. Christ is not alone, but with His universal family, with brothers, and sisters and the mother, who are those listening to His word and fulfilling His will.

We should love Christ and live only for Him, but not that Christ, that knows you alone, and you know Him, not that One, Who is only your Bridegroom, but Who is the Bridegroom of the Church. We should love incarnated Christ, not only in the glorified flesh, but in that flesh, about which the apostle said: "For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ… And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you" (1 Cor. 12:12-22). But still it can only be heard from the sectarians: there is no need in the Church, in good deeds, exploits, but only Christ personally is needed. But as you see, Christ is not self-loving and one cannot please Him with such carnal love and zeal. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity." (Math. 7:22-24). It is easy to imagine ourselves to love that beautiful image of Christ, which we have made up in our mind, but to love Him as a part of the Church — with all His brothers, with His spiritual body, with His bride — this is what we should long for. This Orthodox love for Christ is love of constant self-denial, good will and resignation in life and sectarian love is exceptional, proud, making one blind; not love, but the emotion, which rejects the exploit of struggling with oneself, filled with fantasizing and not contributing to the spiritual growth of man. This is that state of prelest’ or delusion, against which the Fathers of the Church warn us, explaining that real spiritual delight should be preceded by the number of confessionary exercises and cleansing of the heart from self-love and passions through prayer and good deeds. "Your bridal chamber, O my Saviour, I see all adorned, but I have no garment so that I may enter it. Make bright the mantle of my soul, O Giver of light, and save me. " See, in which words our attitude to Christ is expressed.

Is it clear now that without the Church, the communication with It and Its guidance we can neither perceive, nor love Christ? We should be so grateful to God that He gave us the chance to be fed from the source of the Evangelic teaching, preserved by the Church! How we should cherish any recollection of our communication with It, starting with the Holy sacraments, in which we truly obtain the grace of the Holy Spirit, coming over to the sign of the cross and ending with any rite, held by the universal family of our Savior! And at last we should not be embarrassed that only the minority of people, calling themselves Christians, really belong to the body of the Church: "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom!" "Let the dead bury their dead." Let every year of terrestrial life set new gods for worshipping them: we shall neither be embarrassed by them, nor judge them, as the Lord did not judge them: "And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world" (John 12:47). We, joyful about the Divine salvation, should not judge them, but pity them, as the person that can see pities the blind, as the healthy man pities the sick. We should have mercy for them and help them to be saved through the word, example and prayer. We shall help them and humbly thank God that He made us study His word, and we shall beware of sin, knowing the statement: "That servant, which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes." Let us, at last, subdue ourselves to God and people, thinking that we have fulfilled so little from what we have learnt about the will of God, and ask the Lord to help us in leading the better, God-pleasing life.

Any established group has to meet, in order to hold conversations about the matter, which brings the members together. Our circle was gathered for the preaching and listening of the word of God. With the same aim it brought us together today in this room, full of light, making some people leave secular matters, depriving the others of rest after heavy daily work, reporting to all of us the unanimous spirit and filling everybody with thirst for the word of God, as the Psalmist said: "The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver…How sweet are thy words unto my taste! Yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!" (Psalms 118:72,103).

But where exactly can be found this mysterious strength of the word of God, which brings us here? What qualities do turn out to be so powerful and effective? In what is, at last, the influence of the word of God upon the heart and life of man — all this we shall hear today, on the day of annual celebration, dedicated to the word of God. But who will clarify that to us? Can natural reason explain the action of the Divine word? — No, our soul only feels its life-giving power, but by itself will never be able to understand, where it comes from, as the Lord said: "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." (John 3:8). But if our mind is not able to define the laws of the word, then we shall be taught by the revelation. Let the very Word, Which had incarnated, reveal to us Its action, and teach us, first, what significance the word of God should have in Christian life, and secondly, what fruits it will bring for a believer in this and future life.

We have to discuss the first matter only because many consider the reading and preaching of the word of God almost unnecessary for salvation, hoping to earn it with good deeds and the fulfillment of the church orders, and the others, on the contrary, are ready to enclose the entire nature of salvation in studying the Bible and do not consider necessary to exercise their will in virtue. Despite these extremes, the Divine Scripture shows the perfect combination of how to perceive the word and strengthen it in Christian life. If we wish to search for the possibility of the sermon of the word of God, both for the beginning of Christian life, and for strengthening it, we shall learn that Christian faith itself, very Christianity is sometimes called the teaching of the word. This way, in the Acts it is said that after the baptism of Cornelius the Centurion, who was heathen, "the apostles and brethren that were in Judaea heard that the Gentiles had also received the word of God" (Acts 11:1), i.e. Christian faith. About it Apostle Paul said in Antiochia of Pisidia: "To you is the word of this salvation sent" (13:26). In the same chapter it is said that heathens "glorified the word of the Lord" (13:48). If the acceptance of Christianity is called in the Bible the acceptance of the word of God, then the process of perfection of people, taking place in Christian life, is called there as the development of the word of God, as it is mentioned many times in the Acts: "So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed" (19:20; 12:24, comp. Tim. 2:9 and the like).

Thus, if the goal of divine faith was understood like the assimilation of the word of God, then it is rather understandable that the preachers of this faith — the holy apostles — considered the preaching to be the main matter, called themselves the servants of the word and rejected external regulations, ordering to elect deacons and saying: "But we will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word" (Acts 2:41; 1 Tim. 4:12; 5:17; 2 Tim. 4:2; Hebr. 13:7; Rev. 1:2,9; 20:4).

But how much is mistaken the one, who thinks that Christian life is limited by the process of listening to the word of God, that the word of God by itself, without our efforts, can sanctify us. On the contrary, in the parable about the sower the Lord clearly showed that the pure acceptance of the word through faith without a struggle is not more stable than that sprout of the seed on the stony ground, which dries in the heat of the sun; that only those souls can be suitable for the Divine Kingdom, which, having accepted the word, "bring forth fruit with patience," and only that one who, listening to the teaching of Christ, fulfills it, erects the building of salvation on the good ground (Luke 6:47). The disciple of God will be the one, who continues in His word (John 8:32), who keeps it (8;52), who, having received it in meekness (James 1:21), is the doer of the word (1:22), but not only a hearer (1:23), for the Jews as well heard the word, but it is said about them: "The word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it" (Hebr. 4:2). Then among Christians appeared talkative rebels, but the apostle threatened them to come and test "not the speech of them which are puffed up, but the power" (1 Cor. 4:19). About his sermon the apostle said that "our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance" (1 Thes. 1:5)

So, the word of God gets its saving significance only with the firm decision to change own sinful life and with the strife of man to accomplish, what he had decided, what is within his powers. Let the sectarians, who calmed their conscience in pure dead faith, and who are saying that the blissful word of God by Itself creates new life in them without any efforts of theirs, become silent. The very Word teaches us, the faithful, that the Evangelic teaching saves only on the condition that man struggles against his sin.

So, the first influence of the word of God onto our life is reflected in our spiritual revival. This way, Apostle James says that God "begat us with the word of truth" (1:18), and Apostle Peter explains that this birth through the word differs from ephemeral birth, for it leads us into eternal, non-ephemeral life. The people, born in the word, must be absolutely strange to any malice, flattery, hypocrisy, envy and slander, as newly-born babies; love only that verbal milk, which gives us the opportunity to taste "that the Lord is gracious" (1 Pet. 2:3).

Have you experienced this new birth through the word? Was there a moment in your life when you felt in yourself the beginning of new life, not the one, with which your body, your secular calculations live, but that gracious life, for which you need nothing, but God and the fulfillment of His commandments, for the sake of what man is about to agree for tortures and death, when he is ready to forget his former life and feels himself, on the word of the apostle, as a newly-born baby, free of any cunningness and envy? Can you say that you are revived by the word? — God gave you all, so that you could reach perfection of this birth within you: He cleansed you with water and the Spirit in the Holy baptism, but remember that this holy sacrament will bring its fruit within you only when you yourself will consciously be revived by the word, because the purification and sanctification of the church happens through baptism, but in no other way, than by the means of the word, as it is said in the Scripture: "Cleanse it with the washing of water by the word" (Eph. 5:26).

So, if in your life you had not experienced such decisiveness to set aside self-love and sin, and live for God, if you have not accepted the words of Christ, that one has to be born from above, if you have not experienced how new life’s spiritual strength comes onto you, and according to the teaching of the Savior, suddenly overwhelms our hearts (John 3:8) as an unexpected blowing of the wind, then pray and ask God to give you the opportunity to be revived by the word, for you received the principal element for revival in the holy baptism.

But if you were in that state, if the sermon of the word of God opened your eyes and you saw life and death, truth and lie and arose in decisiveness to live for God, then be careful and do not lose this life, nourish it and make it bring its fruits, so that it would not remain in you fruitless. How should one nourish it? It happens again through the word of God. This is what the New Testament says about the significance of the word of God for those, who had been revived by water and spirit, for Christians, whom God had already begotten by the word of truth.

For the maintenance of physical life one needs food and drinks: the same way spiritual life cannot be maintained without learning or listening to the word of God. About that the Lord says in the conversation with the Samaritan woman: "But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him…shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life" (John 4:14). Having said about such drinking of His word, the Lord calls the fulfillment of His commandments as food. The way food and drinks maintain and strengthen the body, the same way the word of God and Christian virtues nourish newly revived, spiritual life. This life is begotten in us by God, as some plants, and the servants of the word "plant and water them" (1 Cor. 3:5).

The word of God is so necessary for supporting in us that glorious life, that it is even called as the gracious word in the Holy Bible (Luke 4:22; Acts 14:3; 20:35), or as the word of life (Acts 5:20; 7:38), or, finally, as life itself or light (John 1:4; 6:63). The life-giving power of the word of Christ was seen in the fact that the people, listening to it, at once decided that this was the word of God (Luke 5:1), and Christ was the preaching prophet (John 7:49). The Lord Himself called the listening to the word of God blissful and cleansed "through the word which I have spoken unto you" (John15:3). Then apostle Paul even more expressively describes the action of the word, saying: "For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart" (Hebr. 4:12). Why is it so? — It is because it meets with the same demands, with which human heart is filled, like the apostle explains in another epistle: "The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach" (Rom. 10:8).

O Christian! Does the word of God, which you hear or read, satiate you? Does it make you quench spiritual thirst; does it introduce light into your life and make your conscience open for the analysis of all intentions and actions? To fulfill this spiritual feeding by the word, the Lord gives to you His very Body and Blood in the image of bread and wine. Are you truly feeding yourself with the word of life; is it really the Evangelic sermon, which raises you over the world of flesh and passions and fills you with spiritual joy about God? If it is so, then thanks God!

But you should know that for this you will have to suffer from the world, which lies in the evil. We have heard that the word of God leads to the separation of the soul and spirit: it also divides emotional people and those spiritual and arms the first against the second, as righteous Simeon predicted, holding in his arms the incarnated Word (Luke 2:35). Already within the life of the Savior the prophesy about the sufferings on earth for the sake of the word of God started coming true, as He said about Himself to the enemies: "But ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you…even because ye cannot hear my word" (John 8:37-43); and about the apostles in the prayer to the Father: "I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them" (John 17:14). Therefore the Lord said to His disciples that they should "think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household" (Math. 10:34-36). And the observer of the mysteries of the further lot of the Church St. John saw in the Revelation multitudes of the righteous, slain for the word.

This way, the word of God, together with spiritual life, promises us sufferings and even physical death. Shall we be scared of them and confounded by the mundane condemnation for the word of God? Let it not be so, for the Lord said: "Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels" (Mark 8:38). But if it is so, with what should we fight, protecting the word? — The answer is: with the very word, for, on the statement of Apostle Paul, it is "the sword of the Spirit" (Eph. 6:17), it is invincible for "the word of God is not bound" (2 Tim. 2:9). It is not afraid of mundane contempt, mockery, mundane judgment, for it is not the world that judges the word of God, but the world is judged itself by this word, as the Lord told us: "And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not…He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day" (John 12:47-48).

But why is the word of God the judge of the universe? — Because the commandments of Christ are not accidental resolutions, but represent the qualities of the heavenly Ruler, as it is said in the Scripture: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not…And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth" (John 1:1-6, 14).

So, do you understand, why is the world judged by the word of God? Because those, who have accepted the word, accepted the One, Who had brought this word onto earth, received the One Who said: "If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him" (John 14:23). This is why the person having accepted the word of God is not scared of the world: because he lives in the unity with God-the Father, Who is seen only by those believing eyes, as the constant Judge of the world, as John had seen him in the Revelation: "And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords" (Rev. 19:11-17). This is Him, with Whom the assimilation of the word of God connects us: with the pre-eternal and unchangeable Word, ruling the universe since the beginning.

In this unity with God is the fourth point of the Evangelic sermon, and the fifth is in the fact that because this divine life is unchangeable and eternal, as Christ (2 Cor. 1:18-21), then exactly through the word of the Gospel, received and fulfilled through faith, we step into eternal life, as the Lord promised: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life" (John 5:24; 6:40-74 and 12:25).

Should we continue speaking about the use of the word of God, brothers? Shall we continue neglecting everything most precious on earth and in heaven? Shall we prefer fuss and decay to the word? Let it not be this way! And if we are weak and infirm to do good, then let us pray to the divine Word, so that It could strengthen within us love for listening to and proclaiming, for acceptance and fulfillment of the word here, on earth, and could award us with better understanding of it in heaven after we leave the body. "O great and holiest Pascha, Christ. O Wisdom and Word of God and Power, grant us truly to partake of thee in the day without evening of thy kingdom!"

We are used to imagine the lot of sinners beyond the grave, following the parables about the Rich and Lazarus. Those condemned will be in vain crying over their sins in the infernal fire and appeal to God and the saints for forgiveness, having no response: the repentance of the dead is not accepted, it is late to change! — Why is it so? The fact why the soul, which condemned its falls and changed, is still rejected by the Divine justice remains unclear.

From this originate the natural attempts to invent the stories about some universal reconciliation-apocatharsis. But this teaching is denied by the Church and the Origenists are considered to be heretics. It is all quite consequential: all attempts to interpret the eternity of tortures, as a rather long period of duration, but not infinity, contradict to the word of God and Church tradition. It is enough to point at the words of God in Isaiah: "For their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched" (66:24). These words are impossible to re-interpret as the long duration of tortures, for it is said directly that they will have no end. (comp. Rev. 14:11; 20:10).

Though, if neither the Holy Bible, nor the definitely substantiated teaching of the Church revealed to the people the teaching about the eternity of tortures, our mind anyway would not be able to digress from such a sad conclusion about the beyond-the-grave lot of conscious enemies of God or unrepentant sinners. Really, it would be only left to admit that the Lord would force them to be righteous and to join His joy: but, there where violence rules, there are no moral values, there disappears the very difference between the good and evil, and with that — the whole meaning of the Atonement and House-building.

Is it possible to surmise that there are no consciously and completely evil people; that the evil is the fruit of misunderstanding and imperfection, as pantheists, evolutionists and even some theists teach? But such an understanding is incompatible with the concept of free will, and more — with the teaching of the Holy Scripture and the Church about demons, which no sincere reader would be able to interpret, no matter if he is believing or not believing in God. Finally, we have the direct words of Christ about the fact that his enemies hated Him not because they did not understand Him, but precisely because they understood Him and started to hate the very truth and goodness in Him. "If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth" (John 9:41). "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloak for their sin. He that hateth me hateth my Father also. If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father" (15:22-24).

So, the teaching about the eternity of tortures comes out not only from clarity of the word of God and the Church tradition, but it is impossible to omit it in solving the problem through reason.

Though these are not the things, which stand in the parable about the Rich and Lazarus, — the reader will object: there the talk is not about the unrepentant and embittered villain, but about the soul, which bitterly cries over its sins, and more than that, is filled with compassion to other sinners, who are still on earth; why then the Lord would find no mercy for such a soul? — The objection, in our opinion, is quite well-founded, and it would be difficult to reject it, if in this parable the final lot of the departed was described. But let us recall what the Lord told to the Jews before His descending to hell: did not it have the saving meaning for that repenting about his sinful life rich man? Certainly it did, for the Apostle testifies that not only the righteous, but the sinners were saved by the Conqueror of hell, "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah" (1 Pet. 3:18-20).

From these words of the apostle we make the conclusion that the words of Abraham in the parable about the Rich and Lazarus, concerning the abyss that was set between the righteous and sinners and that cannot be passed, refer to the state, typical of the times before the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the day of His saving death and resurrection the Lord passed over that abyss and led out of hell not only the waiting for Him righteous, but many, "once rebellious," but still not embittered heathens.

That is why the state of sinful souls, condemned forever, would be not similar to that, through which went the rich man from the parable, humbly begging about bringing to senses his living on earth brothers. Where in the Divine revelation should we find the references to how the perished souls will feel themselves? — "There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth," — this is how the Lord defines the lot of the outcast in His parables. These words are said about the cast out from the wedding feast evil guest, who wanted to cast gloom over the common joy through not wearing the wedding vestment, and about the lazy servant, who did not return the given to him talent and was talking with the returned master angrily. According to these words the Lord will drive away from Him those, who will be knocking at the door from the outside and saying: "We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets." (Math. 24:21-30. Luke 13:28). Finally, by this expression is determined the final lot of sinners (Math. 8:12; 13:42-50; 24:51).

So, this state is compared to that, which will experience the invited evil guest and the rejected embittered servant. "Outer darkness" means that dark night, which is so awful after the beautiful, full of light wedding room, or the royal palace. Here not the inflicted sufferings are terrible, but the state of being deprived of common joy, which became absolutely inaccessible to these miserable only because they themselves neglected it and tried to introduce their malice into it, bring the gloom over it through the feeling of senseless bitterness.

What does it mean: weeping and gnashing of teeth? Are only heavy unbearable sufferings or something else meant by these words? It is not said about the rich man of the parable that he gnashed the teeth, but only that he suffered in that fire. What is the direct meaning of this expression? Are sufferings expressed exactly in the gnashing of teeth? No, the gnashing of teeth is the sign of malice and intense struggle. The same way angry dogs, which are attacking their enemies, are gnashing their teeth, as any predatory animals. In the Bible the gnashing of teeth defines the intensified anger and threat, often powerless rage of sinners, directed to the righteous. "The abjects gathered themselves together against me, and I knew it not; they did tear me, and ceased not: "With hypocritical mockers in feasts, they gnashed upon me with their teeth" (Ps. 34:16-17). "The wicked plotteth against the just, and gnasheth upon him with his teeth. The LORD shall laugh at him" (Ps. 36:12-13; the same meaning in Lamentations 2:16).

But the special character of this phenomenon — the gnashing of teeth — is expressed in the unjust execution of the first martyr of Christ Stephan. When this blissful young man revealed the purity of his faith according to the law and prophets and accused the prophets’ and Christ’s murderers, revealing "the face of an angel," what did his enemies experience? "When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth" (Acts 7:54).

Was not that experienced by all villains, overwhelmed by rage and conscious of their powerlessness to fight with the truth? And if this powerlessness is such, that they are not only able to confound it, but to cause any physical damage as well, then the gnashing of teeth joins the wail of powerless rage. — This happens to a ferocious man, who, attacking the hateful neighbor, turns out to be caught and bind: then he cries in malice and gnashes the teeth; this can be often seen by the outraged women, when people around have bound them and do not let them fulfill their malignant intentions.

So "weeping and gnashing of teeth" means not only the sufferings but rage and suffering of powerless rage, of the impossibility to pour it out upon the hated Kingdom of God. This is in what is the meaning of beyond-the-grave tortures! These are not simply the twinges of conscience, which should be followed by repentance, and with this repentance forgiveness shall come. It is impossible to imagine the ever-good Lord, Who would not listen to the centuries-long repentance of sinners and would not ease their state.

But is it possible to imagine such bitterness in the state of rage, which would not cease with the revelation of Divine judgment, with shaming of the kingdom of the devil? — Why one has to ask about the possibility of all, what had already happened in reality? — one should always compare our future appearance before the Lord with how people accepted the Lord, Who had come and worked among them: the kind people joyfully accepted Him; those having the fight between the good and evil, accepted Him after inner struggle and tortures, as the possessed, being cured, as the malefactor on the cross, as Nicodemus, one of the Jewish leaders. The evil ones, on the contrary, the more they knew Him, the more they hated Him, and when they saw the resurrection of Lazarus, "then from that day forth they took counsel together for to put him to death" (John 11:53). This was expressed by the Lord in the words of the farewell conversation, which were mentioned at the beginning of this article. And Apostle John based all his Gospel, his epistles and the Revelation exactly on the revealing of that sad law of war between God and the world, which is in the unceasing fight of the latter against Christ and His Kingdom, — the fight that does not stop, but on the contrary, becomes more intense, the more the Divine plans are being revealed. "And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory." This is how sinners will act in the fire of hell and its eternity will depend only on their absence of repentance. But listen to the Revelation further: "And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain, And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds" (Rev. 16:8-12; compare 9:20-21).

I am ready to agree with the correctness of such an interpretation and Biblical utterances, and the state of the condemned sinners, — the reader will say: but how is it possible to permit eternal resistance in such insane bitterness against God, the eternal absence of repentance among His enemies? — And what is repentance? — We shall ask in our turn, and shall answer this way. Repentance is the turning point, concerning the will, the change in the human mood, which is caused either by the new way of perceiving oneself, i.e. the awakening of the just found and till that time concealed content of one’s soul, one’ inner life, — or by the assimilation of this new content because of the influence of other people, books, outer world, the very Lord at last, as it happened to Zacchaeus, when he was listening to His holy words and felt His compassionate attitude towards him. — But all these conditions take place only within the gradual process of perceiving oneself and Divine plans, and when it all will be done, when "there should be time no longer" (Rev.10:6) — the plans of God will come true and there will remain nothing to perceive neither in oneself, nor in the outside world; all blessedness and wisdom of God will be revealed before everybody in all its grandeur, and the enemies of God will blaspheme it and curse it and finally turn away from it, without having accepted the accusation neither concerning their terrestrial life, nor the long period between their death and the Dread Judgment (when the prayers of the believers and saints for the souls of the departed raised to God). Then there will be no new chance remaining for the inner change of embittered souls; there will remain only inner necessity for both the righteous and sinners to take root in their mood — in blissful love and thanksgiving, or on the contrary, in powerless rage and painful tortures.

Though, why then these tortures will be so painful, if they are, on the major part, the tortures of powerless rage? — We shall answer this question, recalling one of the Biblical expressions about the weeping and gnashing of teeth. The tortures of powerless rage are very painful. But here, on earth, they are eased by the temporal character and variety of the experienced emotions and states; and as well by the fact that the outraged person hopes to satisfy himself if not in one evil act, then in another, or at last, to find oblivion in wine, earthly entertainments, in some other, accessible to him pleasures and comforts, — and in the other life nothing of this will exist. The complexity and fuss of this life will disappear. "The earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up" (2 Pet. 3:10). For reasonable creatures there will remain only the chance of taking root in moral position in respect of God and the Divine Kingdom: either love for them, or hatred, powerless rage, which is self-accusatory and therefore infinitely torturing. The wedding palace of the Lamb will shine in front of the outcast, to be precise — that sinner who cast himself out. He would be bound and would not interrupt the course of the celebration, there would be light in front of him, but he would be in darkness; the Divine love would shine in front of him, in readiness to forgive everything, but this love would be hated by him, and the forgiveness — undesired. The same way it is said in the Revelation: "And he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb" (14:10). — The words of the Lord at the Dread Judgment "Depart from me, ye cursed," and other similar to them words of the Catechism, which explain that hell is the place away from God, should be understood in the sense of moral, but not positional deprivation, as well as the words of Christ, said to the unwisely speaking disciple: "Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me" (Math. 16:23).

But what is the fire, making sinners burn? — First of all, it is the same fire, which will enlighten the righteous since the day, "when all deeds, good and evil, will be tried by fire," as we read in the canon to the Guardian Angel; it is like the Chaldean furnace: "A furnace once in Babylon, by divine decree, divided its action, burning up the Chaldeans but refreshing the faithful". The fire burns the wood, hey and straw, but cleanses gold and silver. The sinners shall be cast "into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father" (Math. 13:42-43). Similarly Apostle Paul tells about one and the same fire — the Divine touch — that influences different souls in a different way. "Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire" (1 Cor. 3:13-15).

In this sense the Lord is called as consuming fire in the Old and New Testaments. Isaiah calls him eternal fire, eternal flame, which burns the sinners. "The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions", and further (33:14-15).

Do not you want to say that the lot of the righteous and sinful will be the same if to look at them from aside: it is the state of constant vision of God and the impossibility to hide from Him, — but for one it will be the source of pleasure, and for others — of tortures, forthcoming from their hatred and powerless rage? — Or do you want to say that the eternal fire is nothing but the Divine presence, which is so hard to bear for his enemies? I did not mean "nothing but" but what was meant is "in the first place". To say "nothing but" will be possible only in the case, when someone compares the eternal fire with material fire from the church legend (and the church legend is as well holy for us, as the words of the holy Bible), and only if it is possible to bring this idea together with that indisputable truth about the resurrection of the body, so precious for most ancient Christians and so obviously revealed to us through the Word of God.

But, in the vast course of dogmatics there is no expression of the holy fathers about the material fire in hell. But, certainly, we would not dare to deny the presence of physical tortures there, — it is only easier to talk about the soul in respect of future life, than in respect of the resurrected body, for as well in this life the spiritual aspect is more understandable for us, then that of flesh and matter, as correctly states one Russian philosopher, who passed away long before. No one could yet define what matter is, and it is more difficult to imagine, which qualities of matter will definitely remain in the resurrected flesh.

To protect oneself from any misunderstandings, caused by the superfluous reading of this parable, one should first of all correctly understand the words of the Lord: "Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness." Here the Lord means not only that terrestrial wealth, which is accumulated through deceit and stealing, but any material wealth, comparing it with the wealth of virtues and grace: only spiritual wealth is stable and just. This is proved by His further words: "If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?." That is, if you, possessing miserable (unrighteously gained) material wealth, did not serve with it to God, then how God will entrust you true gracious wealth? Similarly Apostle Paul writes to Timothy: "Charge them that are rich in this world (he compares them to the spiritually rich men, i.e. holy people) that they… nor trust in uncertain (unrighteous) riches…That they do good, that they be rich in good works," i.e. in just wealth.

They will say: but if the Lord under unjust wealth means that monetary wealth, which was obtained through true labors or as a legacy, then why He puts as an example the unjust house steward, who secretly was handing away the others’ wealth, to be fed further on by the poor, who became rich due to the welfare of the others? The answer is simple: the Lord does not at all want to approve of that act of the unjust steward, and if ""the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely," then it was not a praise of moral approving, but the ironical praise of his wittiness and smartness. But here, the same way as in other cases, the Savior gives as an example such a shameful physical act, because something similar to that, performed in spiritual life, can be really approved of.

Such meaning have the parables about the unjust house steward, "which feared not God, neither regarded man" and about the woman, who had found the lost drachma (the woman, which is covetous and not clever). Akin to that case, here without any approval of the deed of the unjust steward, the Lord suggest to the listeners using the main thought and applying it to spiritual qualities, which the steward demonstrated in terrestrial life. Whose wealth did he distribute? That of the master. — And whom does the wealth that we possess belong to? — For sure, to God, and we only temporarily own it, till we live on earth, and when the hour of our death and the Divine judgment comes, the Lord will take this wealth away from us.

So, if we are only the temporary owners of this welfare, then why do we need to spare it? Let us hand it out to those, who can be useful to us, when the Lord will deprive us of terrestrial life, and with that of all wealth. Who are these gained through unjust (i.e. material or monetary) wealth friends, and who, when we impoverish (i.e. die), will accept us "into everlasting habitations"? — These are the poor, who with the commemorative prayer for the souls of departed will open the doors of the Heavenly Kingdom to us. These words of the Lord are said against the deniers of prayers for the dead, i.e. against the Protestants of all types.

To these words are similar those of Paul, in which the apostle teaches Timothy to edify the rich "that they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate; Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life&q