The third major variety of Christianity is Protestantism. Protestantism arose out of

the second largest schism in Christianity. In this case, the split occurred in the Roman Catholic Church. The emergence of Protestantism is associated with the development of a broad religious, socio-cultural and socio-political movement of the 16th-17th centuries, which was called Reformation(from lat. reformatio - transformation, correction). The Reformation took place under the slogans of correction catholic doctrine, cult and organization in the spirit of the original evangelical ideals, eliminating in them everything that in medieval Catholicism seemed to the reformers to be a departure from these ideals. The Reformation had deep historical roots. The immoral behavior and flagrant abuses of the Catholic clergy, church formalism and hypocrisy long before the beginning of the Reformation were denounced by pious believers, mystical theologians and public figures. The forerunners of the Reformation are the Oxford University professor John Wycliffe (1320-1384) and the Prague University professor Jan Hus (1369-1415).

John Wyclif opposed the exactions of the Roman popes from England, doubted the right of the leadership of the church to forgive sins and issue indulgences, insisted that the Holy Scripture (i.e. the Bible) has undoubted priority over Holy Tradition, rejected the idea that in the process of the sacrament of communion actually, that is, materially, there is a transformation of bread into the body of the Lord, and wine into his blood. with similar ideas

Jan Hus also spoke, demanding that the church renounce wealth, buy and sell church positions, ban the sale of indulgences, transform the activities of the church in the image of early Christian communities, deprive the clergy of all privileges, including the main ritual privilege - communion with wine. The fact is that in the Catholic Church until the decision of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) in the rite of

There was a major difference between the laity and the priests. The laity had the right to take communion only with bread, and the priests with bread and wine. Jan Hus was convicted for his heretical ideas ecclesiastical court and burned at the stake in 1415.

But his followers (the Hussites), as a result of a long struggle in 1462, received the right to receive communion with wine.

The Reformation itself took place in Germany and Switzerland. Its initiators and leaders were Martin

Luther (1483-1546), Thomas Müntzer (1430-1525), J. Calvin (1509-1564) and W. Zwingli (1484-1531).

As can be seen from the above, the pious, oriented towards the deep inner connection of man with God, Catholic believers, it was painful to observe the luxury and depravity that high-ranking clergy indulged in.

Concerned about the problem of the salvation of the soul, they could not reconcile themselves to the idea that the cause of their salvation was in the hands of such people. Protested not only by luxury, immoral behavior, but also by the extreme formalism of religious life. As the researchers of this period note, in medieval Catholicism, all religious life is closed within the framework of church institutions. All forms of communication between believers and God are unified and codified, and the theological justification for this practice was the creation of the doctrine ex opera operate

(action through action). According to this doctrine, ritual liturgical actions have power in themselves, spread divine grace, regardless of moral qualities, and those who are the object of the sacred action, and the priests who perform them, seem to act automatically. The decisive condition for the effectiveness of the sacraments is the conformity of their procedure with the approved canonical norms. The authority of priests, their rights and opportunities, their place in the church hierarchy are also determined not by moral

values, but canon law, legal norms.

The most striking and concentrated expression of the formalization of religious life and the orientation of the church towards

enrichment, from the point of view of pious believers, was trade in indulgences. M. Luther's speech against the theory and practice of trading in indulgences was the starting point from which the Reformation began. On October 31, 1517, Luther published in Wittenberg (hung on the door of the church) 95 theses on the remission of sins, in which he denounced the mercenary trade in "heavenly treasures" as a violation of the gospel covenants. Accused of heresy by the leadership of the Catholic Church, Luther refused

stand trial, and in 1520 he publicly burned the papal bull that excommunicated him from the church. Luther's ideas were supported by representatives of various estates in Germany. Encouraged by this support, he develops increasingly radical arguments against official Catholic doctrine. The main argument of the entire Lutheran teaching is aimed at destroying the power of the church. He rejects the special grace of the sacred

stva and its mediation in the salvation of the soul, does not recognize papal authority. Together with the Catholic hierarchy, he also rejected the authority of papal bulls (decrees) and encyclicals (messages), which were part of the content of Holy Tradition.

In contrast to the dominance of the church hierarchy and Holy Tradition, Luther put forward the slogan restoration of the traditions of the early Christian church and the authority of the Bible - the Holy Scriptures.

In medieval Catholicism, only priests had the right to read the Bible and interpret its contents. The Bible was published in Latin and all services were held in this language. Luther translated the Bible into German and every believer got the opportunity to get acquainted with its text and interpret it according to his own understanding.

Luther rejected the dominance of the church hierarchy over secular power and put forward the idea of ​​the subordination of the church to the state. These ideas turned out to be especially close to some German sovereigns, who were dissatisfied with the concentration of land holdings and wealth in the church, the payment of large sums of money to the popes and the intervention of the pope in their politics. A group of German princes carried out reforms in the spirit of Luther's ideas in their possessions. In 1526, the Speer Reichstag, at the request of the German Lutheran princes, adopted a resolution on the right of every German prince to choose a religion for himself and his subjects. However, the second Speer Reich

the stag in 1529 canceled this decision. In response, 5 princes and 14 imperial cities formed the so-called Protest - a protest against the majority of the Reichstag. With this event, the origin of the term "Protestantism" is connected, which began to be used to refer to the totality of the faiths of Christianity, which in their origin are associated with the Reformation.

The Reformation had a number of currents. With the first of them, which was headed by M. Luther - Lutheranism, we have already briefly met. The second trend was headed by Thomas Müntzer. Müntzer began his reform activities as a supporter and follower of Luther. However, later, both in relation to the doctrine and in socio-political issues, Müntzer moves to more radical positions. Mystical motives prevail in the religious teachings of Müntzer, he opposes the church hierarchy, orthodox theological teachings, “self-

confident Pharisees, bishops and scribes" and contrasts them with the direct "faith of the heart". In his opinion, in order to find the true truth, a person must break with his sinful nature, feel the spirit of Christ in himself and turn from godless wisdom to the highest divine wisdom. The source of truth for man, according to Müntzer, is the Holy Spirit acting in the human soul.

From Luther's postulate of equality between the laity and the clergy, Müntzer draws a conclusion about the equality

the name of all the sons of God. And this also meant the demand for civil equality and the elimination of at least the most significant property differences. Thus, Müntzer came up with the idea of ​​social justice, for egalitarian or collective land use. Müntzer's ideal was the building of the Kingdom of God on Earth. Under this slogan, an uprising broke out, and the Peasants' War in Germany (1524–1525) began. This war ended in the defeat of the rebels and the death of Müntzer. Having been defeated, Müntzer's supporters fled to Holland, England, the Czech Republic, and Moravia.

In the first half of the 16th century, the reform movement began to spread rapidly beyond Germany. Separate Lutheran communities appear in the Scandinavian countries, the Baltic States, France and Poland.

The largest center of the Reformation during this period is Switzerland, in particular the cities of Geneva and Qu-

rih, in which J. Calvin and W. Zwingli acted. J. Calvin laid down the main ideas of his religious teaching in two main works: “Instructions in the Christian Faith” and “Church Ordinances”. On the basis of this doctrine, a special kind of Protestantism arises - Calvinism.

The Reformation also affected England. In England, it began at the initiative of the ruling elites. In 1534, the English parliament declared the independence of the church from the pope and declared King Henry VIII the head of the church. In England, all the monasteries were closed, and their property was confiscated in favor of the royal power. But at the same time, the preservation of Catholic rites and dogmas was announced. As a result of the struggle of the English authorities with the Pope, a compromise was found, and on the basis of this compromise, in 1571, the Parliament adopted the creed, on the basis of which the third major variety of Protestantism was formed - Anglicanism. Thus, from the very beginning of its existence, Protestantism was divided into a number of independent faiths - Lutheranism, Calvinism, Anglicanism. Later, many sects, denominations arose. This process continues in our days, and sects arise, some of them pass into the stage of denomination, acquire the character of the church. For example, Baptism, Methodism, Adventism.

Protestants reject the dogma of the saving role of the church and insist on a personal relationship between man and God. And this means that the entire church hierarchy is not needed for the work of salvation, priests are not needed as mediators between man and God, monastic orders and monasteries are not needed, in which huge wealth was concentrated.

From this position also follows the doctrine about the universal priesthood. Every Christian, being baptized, receives an initiation to communion with God, the right to preach and worship without intermediaries. Ministers of worship in one form or another are preserved in Protestantism, but they have a fundamentally different status than the one they have in the Orthodox and Catholic churches. A clergyman in Protestantism is deprived of the right to confess and forgive sins, in his activities he is accountable to the community. In Protestantism

abolished celibacy(celibacy).

Pastoral activity is interpreted in Protestantism as a service for which a given person is authorized

like a community. Of course, the position of a pastor requires special training in the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, in the performance of rites, etc. But only this special professional qualification distinguishes the pastor from all other parishioners. Therefore, from the point of view of Protestantism, all adult members of the community can play an active role in its activities, participate in the selection of governing bodies. Protestantism rejected the authority of the church and with it the authority of all church resolutions: the decisions of the Ecumenical Councils, the documents of the popes and other patriarchs of the church, what is called Sacred Tradition in order to approve the absolute authority of Holy Scripture, the Bible. The Bible, in the form in which it opens to your understanding, is the most important reservoir from which a believing person acquires his knowledge of God, those most important religious and moral principles that guide him in his life.

The main tenet of Protestantism is the dogma of justification by faith alone in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Other ways to achieve salvation (ceremonies, fasting, charitable deeds, etc.) are considered insignificant. The acceptance of this dogma follows from the recognition by Protestantism of the fundamental depravity of human nature, which came as a result of the original sin committed by him. Due to the

In the fall, man has lost the ability to do good on his own. All those good deeds that a person does are not his merit, but are evaluated only as a result of love for God, which stems from faith in the good news of Jesus Christ. Because of this, a person cannot be saved by his merits, the so-called "good deeds." Salvation can only come to him as a result of divine intervention,

salvation is a gift of divine grace.

From the point of view of Protestantism, a believing person is a person who is aware of the sinfulness of his nature. And this is enough for him to directly turn to God with a prayer for his salvation. Prayer for salvation must be confirmed by the conscientious fulfillment of one's worldly duties, for according to the degree of such conscientiousness, God judges the strength of faith and the desire to gain salvation. As M. Weber rightly showed, it is typical for Protestantism to consider the worldly activity of a person from the standpoint of religious vocation. The concept of "vocation" contains such a meaning that the fulfillment of a person's duty within the framework of his worldly activities is the highest task of religious and moral life. Thus, all spheres of human life acquire religious significance and are considered as diverse forms of service to God.

From the doctrine of the fundamental depravity of man's nature and his justification by mere faith in the atoning sacrifice of Christ, a very important position of Protestantism follows. beliefs about predestination. From the point of view of Protestantism, every person, even before his birth, as they say

"in Adam", is already predestined to be saved or perish. No one knows and cannot know his fate. There is only indirect evidence of what kind of lot went to this or that person. And these indirect testimonies are connected with his faith and the fulfillment of his calling. Deep faith in the saving sacrifice of Christ is not a merit of man, but a gift of divine grace. A person, having received this gift, can hope that he is chosen to salvation. The fulfillment of a vocation is also not the merit of a person. The successful conduct of his business is a sign of God's favor towards him. This doctrine is presented in the most consistent form in Calvinism.

Protestantism, rejecting the dogma of the saving role of the church, thereby significantly simplified and reduced the cost of cult activities. Worship is reduced mainly to prayer, preaching, singing psalms, hymns and reading the Bible. The Bible is read in one's native language. Of the seven sacraments, the Protestants left only two: baptism and communion. Prayers for the dead, worship of the saints and numerous holidays in their honor, veneration of relics and icons have been rejected. Religious buildings - temples, prayer houses to a large extent

freed from magnificent decoration, from altars, icons, statues. The bells have been removed.

Lutheranism.

Historically, the first and one of the largest varieties of Protestantism in terms of the number of followers is Lutheranism or Evangelical Church. Currently, 75 million people belong to it. Lutheranism takes shape as an independent denomination and religious organization in the northern German principalities as a result of the so-called "Augsburg Religious Peace". This peace was concluded on September 25, 1555 at the Augsburg Reichstag by an agreement between the Holy Roman Emperor

empire by Charles V and Protestant princes. He established the complete autonomy of the princes in matters of religion and their right to determine the religion of their subjects, based on the principle "whose country, that faith." At the same time, the right to resettle those people who did not want to accept the religion imposed on them was provided. Since that time, Lutheranism has received official recognition and acquired the right to be a state

natural religion.

The doctrine of Lutheranism is based on Holy Scripture - the Bible. At the same time, Lutheranism recognizes the main provisions of the Nicene-Tsargrad Creed: about God as the creator of the world and man, about the divine Trinity, about the God-Man, etc. Lutheranism, along with the Bible, has its own doctrinal books: "Augsburg Confession"(1530), compiled F. Melanchthon(disciple and follower of Luther), "The Book of Consent" by M. Luther, which included the "Large" and "Small Catechism", "Shmalnildinsky Articles", as well as the "Formula of Concord". These documents outline the main claims of the Lutherans to the Catholic Church and the new provisions that Luther introduced into the doctrine. Chief among them is the dogma of justification by faith alone in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Lutheranism arose as a result of a compromise between Charles V, who defended the interests of the Catholic Church, and the Protestant-minded German princes. Therefore, in his doctrine and, in particular, in cult practice, as well as religious organization, there are many elements borrowed from Catholicism. Lutheranism recognizes the sacrament of baptism and communion. Infants are subjected to the rite of baptism, as in the Catholic and Orthodox churches. Four other sacraments traditional for Catholicism and Orthodoxy

are considered as simple rites: confirmation, marriage, ordination (ordination) and unction. In relation to confession, Lutheranism has not developed a single position. Lutheranism retained the clergy and the episcopate. The clergy are distinguished from the laity by the appropriate attire. One-

However, the functions and appointment of clergy in Lutheranism are fundamentally different than in Catholicism and Orthodoxy. They act as organizers of religious life, interpreters of the Holy Scriptures, preachers of the Word of God, and moral mentors.

Lutheranism is influential in Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and the USA. On the territory of Russia, there are

only individual Lutheran congregations exist. In 1947, the Lutheran World Union was created.

Anglicanism.

In its most striking form, the compromise of the Protestant creed and cult with the Catholic creed was realized in Anglicanism. As noted earlier, the transformation of the Anglican Church in the spirit of Protestantism took place at the initiative of Parliament and King Henry XIII in 1534. The struggle between supporters of various faiths in England continued for half a century. During the reign of Queen Mary I Tudor (1553-1558), the Catholics managed to take revenge for a while and return England to the "bosom" of the Catholic Church. However, Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603), who ascended the throne, sided with the Protestants and the process of forming a new variety of Protestantism received its natural design. During this period, the development of the “Book of Common Prayer” was completed, and in 1571 the Anglican creed was approved - the so-called “ 39 articles».

In this document, the head of the Anglican Church is declared the reigning monarch - the king or queen. At the same time, the provisions on salvation by personal faith are combined with the provision on the saving role of the church. The church hierarchy is preserved, the idea of ​​the priest as an intermediary between man and God is not rejected. The rite of ordination to the clergy - ordination, from the point of view of Anglicanism, does not indicate that at this moment the initiate receives some special power to perform the sacraments and forgive sins. Anglicanism denies the significance of Holy Tradition and holds the doctrine of Holy Scripture as the first

original source of doctrine. In cult practice there are also elements of Catholic and Protestant rituals. Worship in Anglican churches is largely reminiscent of the Catholic

mass. Priests have special vestments. However, of the seven sacraments, only two are recognized: baptism and communion. Just as in Lutheranism, these rites are given a symbolic character. When performing the rite of communion, the possibility of transubstantiation is denied.

One of characteristic features Anglicanism is its episcopal structure, which means the presence of a church hierarchy that claims, like the Catholic hierarchy, the succession of power from the apostles. There are two Archbishoprics and a number of dioceses in the Church of England. The archbishops of Canterbury and York, as well as bishops, are appointed by the monarch on the recommendation of a government commission. The Archbishop of Canterbury is considered the spiritual leader of the Anglicans in Great Britain. In addition to England, there is the Episcopal Church of Scotland, the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, and a number of churches in India,

South Africa, Pakistan, Canada, Australia and other countries that were part of the British Empire. All of them are united by the Anglican Union of Churches, which elects an advisory body - the Lambeth Conferences.

Each Protestant denomination has its own rites, but the main thing is the education of "internal religious feelings."

Lutheranism

Lutheranism arose on the basis of German religious consciousness during the German Reformation, which formed the general foundations of the religious consciousness of Protestantism. The founding fathers of Lutheranism were M. Luther and F. Melanchthon, as well as their closest followers.

During the Reformation, the doctrine of salvation by faith alone was created. The idea of ​​salvation only through faith developed mainly from a peculiar interpretation of the epistles of St. Paul, so revered by Luther.

What is this saving faith that makes a person "a vessel for assimilating the merits of Christ." Faith is not a personal merit of a person and not the fruit of his inner development, it does not belong to him, but descends from above as a special gift from God. Luther wrote about this: "Faith is not a human thought that I myself could produce, but a divine power in the heart."

"Affirming the indisputable authority of Scripture, Luther insisted on the right of every believer to have his own understanding of its content, on the independence of personal judgment in matters of faith and morality, and, ultimately, on freedom of conscience."

Of the seven sacraments recognized both in Orthodoxy and in Catholicism, Lutheranism retained practically only two: baptism and the Eucharist.

Repentance also preserves the features of the sacrament, the rest are recognized as rites.

Only baptism and the Eucharist have an undeniable divine origin, since they are based on the clear testimonies of St. Scriptures.

Lutheran doctrine perceives the sacrament not as a way of grace in the world, but as a sign of a person's communion with Christ.

Lutheran baptism does not free human nature from original sin itself, but only from punishment for sin; it is not a rebirth from sin, but an amnesty.

The Lutheran sacrament of repentance is the ongoing action of baptism, and its existence is lawful because its purpose is the remission of sins through faith in Christ, it enlivens this faith, makes it real in a person's life.

The Lutheran understanding of the Eucharist rests on two main differences - the denial of the transubstantiation of the bread and wine of the Eucharist into the Body and Blood of Christ and the denial of the significance of the Eucharist as a sacrifice.

Calvinism

The cradle of the Reformation, undoubtedly, was and remains Germany, but evidence of its objective maturation in the bowels of the Catholic Middle Ages was the emergence of a second powerful center of church protest in Switzerland. It arose simultaneously with the beginning of the German movement, but practically independently of it. Soon the differences in the interpretation of the general principles of the Reformation became so significant that already in 1529 there was a division of the German and Swiss branches of the Reformation, which consolidated the independent existence of a group of Protestant movements, collectively known as the Reformed Churches.

On the whole, Reformedism or, as it is often called, Calvinism, is distinguished from Lutheranism by a greater consistency and rigidity of views.

The foundations of the Reformed tradition were outlined in his writings by John Calvin, a younger contemporary of the fathers of the Reformation. His main work is the famous work "Instructions in the Christian Faith".

Turning to the consideration of the features of the Reformed dogma, it is necessary, first of all, to indicate the common principle that organically connects it with Lutheranism and with the ideology of the Reformation as a whole, namely, the affirmation of salvation by faith.

The main feature of Calvinism is the doctrine of unconditional predestination, according to which God from eternity predestined some people to salvation, others to perdition. This allows you to finally destroy any possibility of merit of a person in the matter of salvation, he belongs entirely to the will of God. By the way, "in world religious studies, the point of view is most widely represented, according to which the emergence and existence of religion is associated, first of all, with relations of lack of freedom, dependence, limitation, domination, subordination, etc., that is, forces completely independent of the will of people ".

Proceeding from the concept of unconditional predestination, Calvin rejected the universality of the sacrifice on the cross and the gospel message, for the Lord suffered death on the cross not for everyone, but only for those whom He Himself chose to eternal life. This provision destroys the main dogma of Christianity - the belief in the redemption of all, accomplished by the God-man.

In the doctrine of the Church, Reformation consistently develops its basic principle. The true Church is the community of the truly chosen, that is, those predestined for salvation. But the Swiss Reformation finally abolishes all the features of the hierarchical structure that Luther still retained. "The dislike of structural uniformity has become a hallmark of Protestantism, which was formed in the conditions of a split in the common church for European countries and the extinction of the supranational Holy Roman Empire."

The Reformed tradition recognizes only two sacraments - baptism and the Eucharist.

In understanding baptism, Calvin is close to Luther; he considers this sacrament to be a divine sign of the believer's acceptance into a gracious union with God, the seal of his adoption to Christ.

The Reformed Church recognizes St. Scripture.

The principle of worldly asceticism, which developed on the basis of the doctrine of unconditional predestination, deserves special attention. The principle of worldly asceticism obligated a person to increase his well-being, which, in turn, was perceived not as a person’s personal property, but as a gift from above, as a sign of God’s goodwill towards a person.

The response controversy was led by a certain Ratramnus, who deviated to the opposite extreme of a purely abstract understanding of the Eucharist "in ... the sacrament, the Body and Blood of Christ are eaten only spiritually and by the power of faith of the one who receives them." This way of thinking is strikingly reminiscent of the later teaching of Luther, and its influence is confirmed by the fact that it was supported by prominent ecclesiastical figures of the time and then this judgment reappeared in the second phase of the Eucharistic controversy in the 11th century. One of its main participants, Berengary of Tours, believed that “His glorified body was lifted up to heaven; and if so, then the eating ... of the body ... can only be spiritual, because otherwise how can it be assumed that believers can eat ... the body, which is in a glorified form in heaven with its mouth. This doctrine was condemned at several councils in the middle of the 11th century, but continued to exist in France as late as the 12th century.

In the future, however, the idea of ​​the spiritual communion of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist implicitly continued to develop in the theological and philosophical tradition of nominalism, which to a large extent paved the way for the Reformation.

Almost simultaneously with the first phase of the Eucharistic controversy, the doctrine of predestination began to develop, which subsequently reached its logical conclusion in the Swiss Reformation. In the 9th century, it was already clearly stated by the monk Gottschalk in the form of the doctrine of double predestination - the righteous to salvation, and the sinners to condemnation. Like the future reformers, he based his views on the teachings of Blessed. Augustine, but if the latter mainly had in mind predestination to salvation, recognizing only "some allowance of God for the condemnation of sinners, but no more", then Gottschalk was not afraid to give the views of the bliss. Augustine's logical conclusion. He wrote: “I believe that in His mercy I predestinated the elect to eternal life, and that in His righteous judgment He predestinated sinners to eternal damnation.” Although this doctrine was condemned, we can judge the extent of its influence by the fact that it was approved at one of the local councils of the ninth century.

The second main postulate of the Reformation - sola Scriptura ("only Scripture") was already manifested in the Waldensian movement, which in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries covered almost all of Europe. Their heightened attention to St. The Scriptures were, in many ways, driven by a natural thirst to hear the Word of God, which they were denied in the Roman Catholic Church.

In the views of the Waldensians, we also see the idea of ​​the invisible Church, which Luther later developed, although historically it “reminiscent of the idea of ​​the invisible Church of Blessed. Augustine, who, under the influence of his concept of predestination to salvation, looked at her as a collection ... destined by grace for salvation, which sharply differ in this from ... the mass of members of the only visible Church.

In addition, noticeable features of the coming Reformation appear in the teaching of the Waldenses only about two sacraments: baptism and the Eucharist, as well as in the denial of the veneration of the Virgin, saints and icons.

One of the most prominent "reformers before the Reformation" was the English theologian of the second half of the XIV century, John Wyclif, translator of the Bible into English. In his views we find a rather sharp exposition of the doctrine of predestination and a very definite substantiation of the principle of sola Scriptura. Holy Scripture, according to the teachings of Wyclif, is the highest criterion: “if a hundred popes expressed any opinion, and if all the monks were converted to cardinals and defended this opinion, then one should not believe it if it is not based on the Holy. Scripture." Wyclif also expounded the heretical doctrine of the transubstantiation of the Holy Gifts, which subsequently had a direct impact on Protestant theology. He did not recognize the transubstantiation of bread and wine in the Eucharist and allowed only the co-presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Gifts. Simultaneously with the criticism of the church hierarchy, he significantly expanded the church rights of the secular authorities.

The teachings of J. Wyclif were condemned in 1382. He himself, due to his enormous popularity and support from the authorities, escaped execution, but his views had a huge impact on the development of Protestant theology. In England, his ascetic preaching was reflected primarily in the Puritan movement; in Europe, Jan Hus became his closest follower.

Jan Hus lived at the turn of the XIV and XV centuries and is known, rather, as a passionate exposer of the vices of church life and a martyr. He regarded indulgences as an outrage against the grace of the Gospel and violently rebelled against church property. In his theological views, Hus does not deviate as far as Wyclif from the basic truths of the Catholic faith; he follows Wyclif only in his view of the Holy. Scripture and in the doctrine of predestination. In addition, like Blzh. Augustine, Hus taught that, along with the visible Church, there is the true Church of Christ, headed by the Savior Himself, and the elect predestined for salvation are faithful to this Church. It may happen that the visible heads of the Church - popes and bishops - are among the condemned, then their power is usurpation, and they themselves are false prophets. Jan Hus also did not share the views of J. Wyclif on the Eucharist, he only demanded the restoration of communion under two types, as was customary in Orthodoxy.

Reformation doctrine of original sin

The foundations of the Protestant doctrine were formulated by M. Luther, F. Melanchthon and their associates during the German Reformation, which marked the beginning of its Lutheran branch. Therefore, the study of the general doctrinal foundations of the Reformation draws our attention primarily to Lutheranism, which has become the historical classic of Protestantism. It was the founders of Lutheranism who formulated the main principles of the Reformation in disputes with Catholic theologians. These principles, in one form or another, then inherited the main branches of the Reformation.

The origins of the doctrine of salvation by faith alone (sola fide) lie in the peculiar understanding of the nature of original sin by the fathers of the Reformation. Luther rebelled against the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church about the primordial state of man in paradise, where the confrontation between reason and sensuality was restrained by grace, and in the fall he only lost it, keeping his nature intact. The independent ability to do good deeds, by which salvation was achieved in Catholicism, depreciated, according to the forefather of the Reformation, the saving merit of Christ. In contrast to this “virtue of thoughtlessness”, Luther needed to affirm with particular force the destructive effect of the first sin on the very nature of man, in order to deprive man of the very opportunity to do good and participate in his salvation, for it belongs only to the will of the Redeemer.

So, the state of man's primordial innocence by nature was distinguished not simply by the absence of sin, but by the highest perfection of his spiritual abilities, which were in complete harmony with the sensual side of his being. It was "perfect righteousness", agreement not only in human nature, but also in his relationship with the Creator. As the “Apology of the Augsburg Confession” says: “The natural forces of man, covered by the general concept of the “image of God”, were naturally directed towards God as their direct and quite accessible goal”, i.e. man had access to the possibility of true knowledge of God and unity with Him. There was nothing supernatural in this state of the human race, "little diminished by the angels," for Protestant theology. In contrast to the Catholic tradition, which describes the primordial state of man in similar colors, explaining it by the influence of “the grace of primordial righteousness,” the fathers of the Reformation considered such a state to be natural, innate to man at his creation.

But the more colorfully the Protestant theology describes the perfection of the primordial man in paradise, the more bleak becomes the depth of his fall after the exile. The effect of the fall into sin is not limited to the loss of God-created perfection, a person falls into the exact opposite state. On the one hand, man lost his original righteousness, on the other hand, he acquired a tendency to evil, he became an enemy of God, and this enmity brings condemnation upon him. The “Formula of Concord” teaches: “it is necessary to believe that, after his fall, he lost the original righteousness or image of God that belonged to him by nature ... instead of the image of God that he lost, there occurred ... the deepest ... corruption of his whole nature.” The soul of man became dead before God, and the image of God in fallen man, according to the definition of the same "Formula of Concord", was replaced by a pillar of salt, into which Lot's wife had once turned. Man has become a "moral idol", unable not only to strive for goodness, but even to desire it.

If Eastern Christianity does not allow complete enslavement of human nature by original sin and preserves in it the possibility of moral choice with the help of divine grace, then the Reformation affirmed the complete dominance of the sinful principle in man. Luther expressed himself very sharply on this subject: “The human will is like a horse. God sits on her, she runs where God wants and directs; sits on her, she runs where the devil drives her. This idea of ​​a person's complete inability to choose between good and evil subsequently provided the basis for the development of Calvin's doctrine of predestination.

Depriving a person of the possibility of striving for good very soon developed into moral relativism - some reformers began to teach that Christians should not fulfill the commandments given to the Jews, etc. Therefore, Luther's categoricalness was significantly softened by Melanchthon, as well as by the subsequent development of the Lutheran doctrine. So the "Formula of Concord" already distinguishes on the basis of St. Scripture is our nature, in which it lives, and sin, which lives in our nature, but, nevertheless, has not become identical with it. Sin is from the devil, and nature is from God, sin has become only its quality, but not nature itself, which has retained the power of difference from it. Therefore, despite the fall, she retained a limited possibility of goodness, called by Melanchthon "the righteousness of the flesh." From such righteousness differs the righteousness of God or spiritual righteousness, already completely beyond the control of human effort, as this "Augsburg Confession" defines: "The human will, apart from the Holy Spirit, has no power to accomplish the righteousness of God or spiritual righteousness." This spiritual righteousness is actually the realm of soteriology, in which the salvation of man takes place. The beginning and driving force of this kind of righteousness belongs exclusively to the grace of God. In the words of the same “Augsburg Confession”: “Although we recognize freedom and the ability to perform external deeds of the law behind the forces of man, we do not ascribe to these forces spiritual deeds, such as true fear of God, true faith in God. ... These are the works of the first table, which the human heart cannot do apart from the Holy Spirit.”

As a result, the Reformation leaves a person only limited freedom of choice, but not action. Man has only the ability to passively submit to the grace of the Almighty acting in him, instead of striving for good, only non-resistance to him is left to man. The humiliation of human nature lies in the fact that it is only capable of resisting or obeying God, but is unworthy of assisting Him.

It is easy to see that in the Lutheran doctrine of original sin, the dispute of the Blessed Ones reappears. Augustine and Pelagius. Luther inherited the harshest forms of the teachings of the Blessed Ones. Augustine in the denial of man's freedom after the fall and his dependence in his salvation solely on the action of the grace of God. Suffice it to say that Luther's views were formed under the direct influence of the vicar general of the Augustinian order, John Staupitz, to whom Luther owes his acquaintance and his ardent adherence to the teachings of bliss. Augustine.

Reformation doctrine of salvation by faith alone (sola fide)

The Augustinian understanding of original sin provided the necessary theological premise for the cornerstone of the Reformation—the doctrine of salvation by faith alone— sola fide. The inner lie of Catholic soteriology was clearly recognized by many eminent representatives of the Roman Church. The “piecework” understanding of salvation, in which a person satisfied the justice of God with his good deeds, was, according to Luther, the greatest blasphemy, for instead of the Lord, a person believed salvation in his own effort and belittled the merit of the Redeemer. As the “Augsburg Confession” says: “Whoever confesses that he has earned grace through works, he neglects the merit of Christ and ... seeks the path to God besides Christ, by human forces.” The Reformation took up arms against this teaching with all its might, and as the only condition for obtaining justifying grace, established a saving faith that turned directly to Christ. Luther, with his characteristic categoricalness, opposed faith to the ritual faith of Catholicism - as the ultimate expression of the deep disposition of the human soul.

Historically, this doctrine began to develop in Catholicism itself long before the Reformation. For example, in the XII century. similar views were expressed by Bernard of Clairvaux, then by John Wessel, who lived in the 15th century. The latter, in particular, taught that it is impossible to earn salvation by good deeds, because a person's guilt before God is metaphysically incommensurable with his earthly zeal. In addition, the law of the Church is not something perfect, so that by its exact fulfillment it would be possible to be justified before God, and not a single person is able to adequately fulfill all the prescriptions of the law. One of the prominent Catholic hierarchs of the 16th century, Cardinal Contarini, in his Treatise or Epistle on Justification, also expounded views very close to the Reformation's doctrine of justification by faith alone.

Roots sola fide lay in those distorted ideas about God and His relationship to man that dominated the Catholic Middle Ages, when God's justice supplanted His mercy. The idea of ​​God as the Grand Inquisitor replaced the idea of ​​a saving God, and it was no longer the image of the meek Savior, but the horrors of hellish torment that served as the motivating force for good. The pressure of this horror gave rise to a thirst for guaranteed salvation, a person wanted to know for sure that he would escape hell, but good deeds did not give him such confidence, because, according to the Schmalkalden Articles: “satisfaction for sins is impossible because no one knows how much he must do good for sin alone, to say nothing of all.” The desire to know about one's salvation prompted the ordinary Christian consciousness to rush with all its might to faith, as to an instant and guaranteed sign of salvation, and in sola fide we see the ultimate expression of the thirst for guaranteed salvation, to which the Catholic Middle Ages, frightened by the horrors of hell, aspired. Luther himself admitted that the motive for his personal protest was the constant uncertainty about his own salvation: “My position was such that, although I was an infallible monk, I still stood before God, like a miserable sinner, with a troubled conscience, and I besides, there was no certainty that my merits would soften him. Therefore, I did not love the just God and murmured against Him. ... Further, I understood that the justification of God is righteousness, by which the grace and manifest mercy of God justify us by faith. Only then did I feel reborn, as if I had passed through an open door to heaven.” With this confession, Luther expressed the feelings of thousands of good Catholics, who later turned into good Protestants.

The idea of ​​salvation only through faith developed mainly from a peculiar interpretation of the epistles of St. Paul, so revered by Luther. As the “Augsburg Confession” says: “We cannot receive forgiveness of sins and justification before God by our merits, but we receive their forgiveness and are cleansed before God out of mercy, by faith in Christ, we believe that Christ suffered for us and for Him for us sin is forgiven, righteousness and eternal life are granted. For God will consider this faith and count it as justification before Him, as St. Paul".

Man does not need to worry about the additional satisfaction of God with his works, which was demanded by the Catholic Church. “A man is afraid of punishment, and now he is pointed to the death of Jesus Christ, as such a great, excessive satisfaction with the truth of God that this truth no longer has the right to demand anything else from a person, any other satisfactions.” Human efforts, in this case, are not only superfluous, but also dangerous, because they interfere with the direct action of the grace of God. Christ brought for us such a payment, which provided us with forgiveness before the truth of God, and the assimilation of this all-encompassing merit of Christ occurs through faith. Once a person believes that the merit has been brought for him, then he is included in its saving action.

What is this saving faith that makes a person "a vessel for assimilating the merits of Christ." Faith is not a personal merit of a person and not the fruit of his inner development, it does not belong to him, but descends from above as a special gift from God. Luther wrote of this: "faith is not a human thought that I myself could produce, but a divine power in the heart." His famous words that “everything happens according to God’s unchanging determination. God works good and evil in us; saves us without our merit and accuses us without guilt" in this case are not an exaggeration, for a person becomes an involuntary, unconscious bearer of grace acting in him, and " sola fide" became the Protestant "opus operata". A person can and should only touch Christ with his thought in order to deserve eternal life. One has only to be sure of one's own salvation in order to possess it in reality, for justifying faith combines an appeal to God and His action, in the words of Luther: "thoughts about the work of salvation, and it will be your property." As Archim. Chrysanthos: “Protestantism put the principle “I believe, therefore I am saved” at the forefront.

What gives a person this satisfaction with Christ's sacrifice of God's justice? In this satisfaction, justification is given to him, but not as deliverance from sin, but as deliverance from punishment for it, for, in the words of one of the symbolic books: “Justification does not remove sin, for it is deep, but covers it.” “For the sake of our Advocate Christ, God deigns to regard us as perfectly righteous and holy, although sin in our flesh has not yet been removed and mortified, He does not want to see it and does not punish for it.”

The essence of the justification that the Protestant seeks to achieve by faith is not "deliverance from sin, damnation and death", but, like Catholicism, deliverance from punishment. This punishment is canceled by proclaiming the righteousness of a person, but not because of his internal moral purification, but on account of the sacrifice of Christ. “In justification, the righteousness of Christ is assimilated to us, without the fact that we ourselves in our moral nature have become righteous.” This proclamation is called "pronuncation", and in it God refuses to present an account for sin, there is a cancellation of moral debts on the fact of faith.

But what should a Lutheran do after his faith has achieved reconciliation with God and the "writing off" of sins? As already mentioned, obvious moral considerations did not allow the reformers to completely abandon the works of virtue. Symbolic books talk a lot about the so-called living or active faith, which "necessarily gives rise to new aspirations and deeds." However, the "Apology" immediately stipulates that "good deeds are necessary not for justification, but ... as the fruit and result of justification", i.e. The Reformation, although it admits active goodness, denies its participation in the salvation of man.

As already mentioned, the theological and historical basis of the doctrine of salvation through faith was the oppressive uncertainty of medieval Catholicism in its salvation. A person always strives to secure such confidence for himself: “under certain conditions, a Christian should be completely calm about his salvation.” The Reformation gave ordinary religious consciousness something that it could not get in Catholicism - the desired assurance of salvation, which comes immediately after belief. It is this sense of guaranteed salvation that separates the Protestant world more than anything else from the Orthodox tradition, for in it it inevitably loses this guarantee of salvation, security. afterlife that man so longs for. With a certain stretch, we can say that justification by faith, which turns into universal justification, is an attempt by a weak-minded humanity to theologically secure itself from the coming Last Judgment, to pass, like Luther, through the open door to paradise.

Although the Reformation rejected the service of a man-slave in salvation, it retained the logic of man's relationship with God, Who is at enmity with fallen humanity with all the power of His might. Patriarch Sergius expressed this worldview in the following way: “According to Protestant teaching, it turns out that God was always angry with a person ... Then, suddenly seeing a person’s faith in Jesus Christ, God reconciles with a person and no longer considers him His enemy, although a person even after this can still sin, but with impunity.

Accordingly, the understanding of the essence of that change in the relationship between God and man, which is called salvation or justification, also differs. His goal is not to get rid of sin, but to avoid punishment for it. Deliverance from sin requires an inner change in man, while the right to deliver from the punishment of sin belongs to God, so salvation remains "an act ... taking place in God, and not in man."

If Western Christianity, both in the Catholic and Protestant traditions, mainly sought a way to change the attitude of God towards man, then the East has always called on man himself to change his attitude towards God, Who remains unchanged in love for His creation. Therefore, the West thought so deeply about what kind of propitiatory tribute - deeds or faith - is more pleasing to God in order to get rid of the punishment for man. The religious consciousness of the Eastern Church often left this question aside, because it always considered a change in the attitude of a person himself to God, i.e., as a necessary condition for salvation. spiritual and moral change. Catholicism saw the way to salvation in man's own effort, the Reformation gave it entirely to the will of God, but in both cases, the very content of salvation remained unchanged. God either justified a person, satisfying His justice with his good deeds, or forgave him by faith, removing from him the guilt for sin, but in both cases the soul of the person being saved did not undergo a saving change, the person did not have to change his attitude towards God, to gain eternal life.

In Orthodox belief, the basis of human salvation is not the number of good deeds or the fact of faith, but the process of changing a person's attitude to God, i.e. spiritual and moral rebirth of the individual. For this rebirth both faith and works are equally necessary, the unity of active faith. As the Circular Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs of 1723 says: “We believe that a person is justified not just by faith alone, but by faith, rushed by love (i.e., faith as an active force), that is, through faith and works. Not only the ghost of faith, but the faith that is in us through works justifies us in Christ.

Patriarch Sergius defined the correlation of faith and deeds in Orthodox teaching about salvation: “One should not ask for what Human receives salvation, but you need to ask how Human makes your salvation." Both faith and works equally participate in the return of a person to God, they are equal components of the salvific change of the human personality, which destroys sin in a person and leads him to salvation.

We must also note the unparalleled impact that the Reformation had on the public consciousness of the West and, ultimately, on the formation of Western civilization as a whole. It is with the influence of the Reformation that the end of the Middle Ages and the formation of the consciousness of the new time is connected. The Reformation changed the religious motivation of society, which resulted in a change in the very direction of historical development, a change in the type of social and religious consciousness.

The religious consciousness of the Middle Ages was in tense uncertainty about its salvation, in fear of the daily depicted horrors of hell. In an effort to protect himself, a person was forced to constantly fill the treasury of good deeds, which was invariably emptied by new sins. The Reformation at once liberated the human conscience from this oppression, universal salvation depreciated the deeds of virtue, they were needed only to calm the conscience. At the same time, the Reformation directed this liberated energy to the practical arrangement of earthly life, making it the basis for the industrial development of the Protestant countries. His successes were ultimately able to break down Catholic resistance and laid the foundation for the modern industrial-technocratic civilization of the West, which became the historical product of the religious half-life of Western Christianity.

Reformation doctrine of Holy Scripture and Tradition (sola Scriptura). Institute of Symbolic Books

The Reformation began as an attempt to purify church life, to return to the ideal of evangelical early Christianity. According to the thought of its fathers, the entire development of the Church in the post-evangelical era was an unconditional decline, in which human traditions overshadowed the gospel truth. Therefore, it is necessary to return to its original source - the Holy Scriptures and discard all later layers - the Holy Tradition. The only doctrinal authority for Protestants all over the world remains St. Scripture, which is expressed by the principle sola Scriptura- only Scripture. So, salvation is only by faith - sola fide but faith only according to the Scriptures - sola Scriptura. Indeed, one of the symbolic books of the Lutheran Church defines: “We believe, teach and confess that the only rule and guiding thread by which any teaching and all teachers can be judged and evaluated are only the prophetic and apostolic writings of the Old and New Testaments.” With the same certainty, the attitude to St. Tradition: "All human decrees and traditions are contrary to the Gospel and the doctrine of faith in Christ... on the basis of the deeds and words of the Holy Fathers, it is impossible to determine the dogmas of faith."

Like salvation by personal faith, the principle sola Scriptura proceeded from the general idea of ​​the Reformation about the legitimacy of a personal, unmediated appeal to God, which the Reformation asserted with particular force. The power of salvation belongs only to God, but every Christian must turn to Him for its action on his own, without any mediation, earthly or heavenly. Formerly, the Catholic Church was the mediator of salvation, for she communicated to the faithful the saving power of the sacraments. The Church was also a mediator in the faith, for it offered a person to know God their own experience of knowing about Him - Sacred Tradition. Between man and Revelation in Holy Scripture, she affirmed through the Holy. Traditions. In an effort to destroy any mediation between God and man, the Reformation left only St. Scripture, opening which, everyone could directly know about God from His words. In the cult of St. Scriptures personal doctrinal experience supplanted the doctrinal experience of the Church.

Holy Scripture has become a source not only of knowledge about God, but also of His sanctifying action, the guidance of the Holy Spirit in the interpretation of the Holy. Scriptures. As Luther wrote, “here, in the word of God, is the house of God, here heaven is opened...” Appeal to St. Scripture acquires a partly sacramental meaning, for, according to the reformers, the Spirit of God, which inspired its authors, "will guide into all truth even those who learn from the Bible the law of God."

In addition to dogmatic reasons, the cult of St. The Scriptures had their own historical background for the Reformation. As already mentioned, Protestantism developed solely as a reaction to the errors of Catholicism. Indeed, the ecclesiastical authority of the Roman Catholic Church for a long time limited access to the Holy. Scripture and, conversely, gave excessive importance to the Holy. Tradition, often using it to justify their arbitrariness. Naturally, the first thought of the leaders of the Reformation was the desire to deprive their opponents of the opportunity to refer to the authority of St. Tradition and contrast it with Scripture.

Thus, the only source of knowledge about faith is St. Scripture, for the reformers it was also a fulcrum in the fight against Rome, the authority of the papacy was opposed to the authority of the public, non-hierarchical - the Word of God.

Allowing access to St. Scripture, the fathers of the Reformation hoped that no one would go beyond it. However, it soon became clear that hopes for the internal unity of the biblical testimony turned out to be too naive, and the absence of criteria for interpreting its text ends in religious arbitrariness. How serious this danger was, Luther himself testifies in a letter to Zwingli: “If the world continues to exist for a long time, then I announce that with the various interpretations of Scripture that we have, there remains no other means to maintain the unity of faith, how to accept the decisions of the Councils and resort to under the protection of ecclesiastical authority. If the Catholic tradition still had its roots in the past, linking a person with a previous experience of communion with God, then after the Reformation, each of its followers was forced to develop their own experience of communion with God, losing any criteria for the legitimacy of such an experience.

Now the Reformation, like Catholicism after the Great Schism, needed its own restraining authority. The need to limit the arbitrariness of doctrine led to the emergence of the so-called symbolic books of Protestantism, under the name of which its own tradition, the second main source of Protestant dogma, is actually hidden. Each Protestant movement has its own symbolic books, but the very fact of their existence contradicts the original principle of the Reformation - sola Scriptura.

This contradiction is already reflected in the early symbolic books of the German Reformation. For example, the "Formula of Concord" proclaims that "one St. Scripture should be recognized as the criterion, norm and rule of faith, while the symbols have no authoritative meaning in matters of faith, but only serve as evidence of our faith. But, on the other hand, the same “Formula of Concord” prescribes that “all other books should be checked with symbols as to whether Christian ones are expounded in them correctly and in accordance with the word of God” and determines that the symbols contain a teaching that “existed and must always exist in the Church.

The ecclesiological foundations of the Reformation

The doctrine of the Reformation about the Church is the cumulative expression of its basic principles. In it we can first of all observe the influence of the doctrine of salvation by faith. The act of faith, as an expression of personal, subjective religious experience, in which a person turned to God directly, bypassing all intermediaries, necessarily led to the rejection of the grace-filled mediation of the Church and her sacraments. Another postulate of the Reforation - sola Scriptura rejected its doctrinal mediation, asserting the right of every Christian to his own interpretation of the truths of St. Scriptures. If the Catholic Church erected a hierarchically organized intermediary apparatus between man and God - the famous Catholic pyramid, then the leaders of the Reformation did not find anything better than simply getting rid of it, leaving man alone with God. The Church cannot be a mediator in the communion with God of the faithful, for all of them, having the only Intercessor Jesus Christ, are taught from Him, are sanctified directly by His Spirit, and each believer is directly connected with Christ by his faith.

Historically, the Protestant view of the Church developed as a reaction to the significant shortcomings of Catholic ecclesiology, which was dominated by the idea of ​​the Church as an ideological community; the spiritual principle was oppressed, the existence of the sacraments, transforming this society into the Body of Christ. The Reformation opposed the unearthly and invisible to the earthly, visible image of the Church. In the words of Luther himself: “The Holy Christian Church says: I believe in the holy Christian Church, but the Papal Church says: I see the Christian Church. The one says: "The church is neither here nor there" - and this one says: "The church is here and there."

This desire for a spiritual image of the Church was quite natural and justified. The Reformation attempted to restore the inferiority of the spiritual principle of the Catholic Church, but falsely defined the nature of this spiritual principle. Instead of the Church being accomplished in the sacraments, the Reformation affirmed the image of the Church being accomplished by the faith of each of her faithful. Having renounced the earthly image of the Church as a visible community, Luther turned not to the heavenly, sacramental beginning of church life, but replaced the Catholic extreme with the opposite - instead of the experience of the earthly community, he affirmed the religious experience of the individual as the basis of churchness.

The Reformation opposed the subjective principle of faith to the objectified earthly image of the Church in Catholicism, and a person “consisting of two natures, body and soul, ... is not considered a member of Christianity according to the body that performs certain deeds, but according to the soul, i.e. by faith”, i.e. a person enters the Church and abides in it not by the grace-filled action of her sacraments, but by his own faith. "For the unity of the church, no human institutions are needed ... justification that comes through faith is not bound by external ceremonies." The Church exists not because the sacraments are performed in it, but because her faithful believe, she is "a spiritual gathering of souls in one faith." Justifying faith imparts to the church its inherent quality of holiness, for those who receive the gift of faith are sanctified by it, endowing their holiness to the invisible church itself.

The second general Christian problem that the Reformation tried and failed to solve was the problem of sinfulness in the Church. The entire history of Christianity and the Christian Middle Ages in particular testified to the fact that the Church is often filled with unworthy people who destroy its holiness with their sins. How can one reconcile the sinfulness of the earthly existence of the Church with her Divine origin and calling? The Reformation Fathers attempted to separate the righteous from the sinners with the doctrine of the invisible Church. Among those who call themselves Christians and form the visible Church, the true Church abides invisibly, to which belong the true believers and the righteous justified by this faith. “The hypocrites and the evil (i.e., sinners) can also be members of the church by external fellowship,” but they do not belong to it internally, in its essence, i.e. The Church of the Saints always invisibly separates itself from the sinners temporarily residing in it, but this separation will be clearly revealed only at the Last Judgment. Just as faith is an internal and invisible principle, accordingly, the Church, to which a person joins through faith, must become invisible, not subject to external manifestations. This true Church is invisible and, being based only on faith, she herself becomes an object of faith. According to the views of the fathers of the Reformation, this true invisible Church at all times remained within the visible Church, and "the invisible Church is in the visible as the soul in the body," but it visibly manifested itself in the world in the era of the Reformation. In this definition of the spiritual and invisible essence of the Church, Luther directly correlates it with the Kingdom of God, about which the Savior spoke.

This attempt at purification grew in Protestantism into a denial of the visible earthly existence of the Church, but the very first steps towards the establishment of a spiritual invisible Church forced its founders to change their own convictions, for the invisible Church was turning into an unknown Church, which was in danger of becoming non-existent in the eyes of the faithful. Immediately after the destruction of the earthly ecclesiastical building of Catholicism, the Reformation was compelled to enclose its own ecclesiastical building with outward marks, and thus give it that visible form which it had so zealously rejected. The Apologia asserts that "the True Church also has external signs by which it is recognized, namely: it is undoubtedly where the word of God is purely preached and the sacraments are performed according to the word."

The denial of the mediatory service of the Church, which proceeds from the postulate of salvation by faith, destroyed, first of all, the sacramental and hierarchical beginning of the Church, as well as the mediatory service of the Heavenly Church, which manifested itself in the rejection of the veneration of the Mother of God and the saints.

The destruction of the idea of ​​the Church, which sanctified the life of the believer with its sacraments, changed the whole structure of religious life. A person turns to God with his own faith, and only his inner confidence in the merits of the Redeemer, which does not need any mediation to Communion with God, can be saving. If there is no need for the intermediary, binding service of the Church, which elevates a person to God, then, accordingly, there is no place for the sacraments as a special image of the manifestation of God's grace in the world, for it is given directly to the believer. The logical development of the doctrine of justification by faith alone must inevitably lead to a denial of the grace-filled saving power of the sacraments; they cannot give more than justifying faith gives.

A common feature of the sacraments in all branches of the Reformation is the denial of the real presence of God in the Eucharistic bread and wine and, accordingly, the denial of the connection between the Eucharist and the Sacrifice of Christ. Thus, the nature of the sacraments has undergone such a significant distortion that the Orthodox Church cannot recognize their sufficient worth of grace and partially recognizes only the confession of the foundations of the faith in baptism, supplementing it with Orthodox Chrismation.

As already mentioned, the denial of the mediatory service of the Church was expressed in the consistent rejection of both the sacramental and hierarchical principles of church life. The Reformation replaced the hierarchical principle with the idea of ​​a universal or royal priesthood of the faithful, which, of course, was deprived of its sacramental dignity. Like the Old Testament Korah, Dathan and Aviron, who conjured that: “all society, all are holy,” Luther proclaimed: “We are all shepherds, because all Christians have one gospel, one faith, one Spirit ... So, the priesthood in the New Testament is the common property of everyone and everyone, only in spirit, and not in persons”, “why do we allow bishops and councils to decide and conclude what they want? We ourselves have before our eyes the word of God: we must know, and not them, what is right or wrong - and they must yield to us and listen to our word. So, every Christian is a divine person, enlightened by his own study of the Holy. Scripture, and containing the fullness of spiritual authority. Through salvation by faith and enlightenment by Scripture, the true believer gains direct communion with Christ: “Every Christian is a personal revelation of the true Church,” for all are baptized with one baptism and have the same rights in the Church.

Although the Reformation did not directly reject the institution of the priesthood, its nature changed. The appointment of a priest is not to communicate the gifts of the grace of the Holy Spirit, but only to teach the true faith and educate the people of God, i.e. the priest becomes a preacher. The essence of ordination, according to the teachings of the "Apology of the Augsburg Confession", "should be assumed only in the appointment of preachers, but not in the communication of special gifts of grace that distinguish priests from laity." Naturally, where there are no special gifts of grace in the ministry of a priest, there is no need for apostolic succession. The election of clergy (the so-called messenger from below) is the work of all the faithful, as the Apologia says about this, “the appointment of priests is granted to the Church by God’s command,” and in this she does not rely on the uninterrupted flow of Christ’s grace, but she herself endows with the necessary authority.

Having destroyed the mediatory service of the earthly Church, the leaders of the Reformation naturally rejected the mediation of the Church of Heaven, the Mother of God and the saints. This again reveals the blood relationship between Protestantism and Catholicism, for the denial of the veneration of the Mother of God and the saints developed as a reaction to their excessive veneration by the Catholic Middle Ages. The author of the Apology was largely right in asserting that the worship of the saints "offends Christ and His good deed because people trust the saints instead of Christ and are mad that Christ is a strict judge, and the saints are merciful ... intercessors." To render worship to human achievement was for the reformers the greatest possible blasphemy in relation to the saving faith, therefore statements about the cult of saints are particularly harsh. For the same reasons, the veneration of the Virgin Mary, as the embodiment of the highest conceivable holiness of man, as an all-holy, becomes completely inappropriate in the Reformation. The apology says this about the attitude towards Her: “She is worthy of every highest honor, but should not be considered equal to Christ ... If, however ... they want to receive Christ’s redemption through Her, then they recognize Christ not as a Redeemer, but as a formidable vengeful judge” . In response, we can cite the words from the Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs: “We ask the saints not as any gods, not as autocratic possessors of divine gifts, but as such persons who, having greater boldness towards God and closer access to Him than we, can mediate between Him and us by their intercession, and how holy persons can be heard by God rather than we who remain in sins.

The Reformation also made significant differences in the moral teaching of the Catholic Church, which was excessively burdened with asceticism, which sometimes turned into a savage denial of the dignity of the bodily nature of man. Asceticism was for Luther and his associates the same insult to the Sacrifice of Christ as the veneration of the saints; meaningless, from their point of view, the pursuit of exploits violated the main commandment of the Reformation - salvation is only by faith.

Lutheranism

Lutheranism arose on the basis of German religious consciousness during the German Reformation, which formed the general foundations of the religious consciousness of Protestantism. The founding fathers of Lutheranism were M. Luther and F. Melanchthon, as well as their closest followers. From Germany, it spread to a number of European countries: Austria, Hungary, France, the Scandinavian countries, and then North America. Now there are about 75 million Lutherans in the world and about 200 Lutheran churches. 50 million Lutherans belong to the Lutheran World Union, formed in 1947.

Very important among them belongs to the "Augsburg Confession" compiled in 1530 on the basis of several early Lutheran doctrinal writings. It got its name from the city in which the German emperor Charles V held a diet to reconcile the reformers with the Catholic Church. It sets out the basic dogmatic ideas of Lutheranism about God, sin, justification, the Church and the sacraments, as opposed to the Catholic doctrine.

Shortly after the announcement of the Confession, a refutation of it was received from Catholic theologians who were present at the Diet, and it served as a pretext for Melanchthon to write the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, which is close to the Confession in content, but much longer, differs in a sharper polemical tone and in detail. reveals the doctrine of original sin in connection with the dogma of justification by faith.

In 1536, Luther wrote the so-called "Schmalkaldic articles" or paragraphs. Briefly repeating the contents of the first two books, this short work supplements it with the teaching on the trinity of the Divine Persons and on the Person of Jesus Christ.

Equally important in the Lutheran world are Luther's Large and Small Catechisms, compiled by him in 1529. They are written as a guide in matters of faith and are devoted to the interpretation of the Creed, the Lord's prayer and commandments, and other general truths of faith. The Large Catechism was intended for teachers and preachers, while the Small, being an abbreviated version of the Large, was intended for all believers and for study in schools.

The Formula of Concord, adopted in 1580, completes a number of symbolic books of Lutheranism. It was compiled by a group of theologians after Luther's death and is devoted to considering the main provisions of Lutheranism in comparison with the teachings of the Reformed, as well as resolving the contradictions that arose among Lutheranism itself.

Of the seven sacraments recognized both in Orthodoxy and in Catholicism, Lutheranism has practically retained only two: baptism and the Eucharist. Repentance also preserves the features of the sacrament, the rest are recognized as rites. Only baptism and the Eucharist have an undeniable divine origin, for they are based on the clear testimonies of St. Scriptures. According to Luther and his associates, only these sacraments have prototypes in the Old Testament - circumcision and the Paschal lamb, all the rest are church institutions, have no direct justification in Scripture and do not directly serve to affirm the saving faith.

Lutheran doctrine perceives the sacrament not as a way of grace in the world, but as a sign of a person's communion with Christ, as "a reminder of our state of grace," according to Melanchthon. They are symbols of our union with God, like the rainbow after the flood. According to the definition of the Augsburg Confession, the sacraments should be "signs and means of the Divine will for Christians, appointed to arouse and strengthen the faith in those who use them." The whole power of these sacred rites is in reminding us of our salvation in Christ, which is accomplished once and for all, therefore, to demand and strive for a special grace-filled effect, in addition to what has already been granted to us by justifying faith, means to humiliate the redemption of Christ.

Unlike the teaching of the Eastern Church, which sees in baptism deliverance from original sin and renewal, the rebirth of human nature, Lutheran baptism does not free it from original sin itself, but only from punishment for sin, this is not rebirth from sin, but an amnesty. The fullness of the redemptive merits of Christ, imputed to the one baptized according to his faith, completely covers any of his sin, depriving the will of a person of the visible need to strengthen and develop the state of grace, to which he joins in baptism.

The Lutheran sacrament of repentance is the ongoing action of baptism, and its existence is lawful because its purpose is the remission of sins through faith in Christ, it enlivens this faith, makes it real in a person's life.

Consistently confessing that the sacrament is only a reminiscent sign in nature, Luther nevertheless did not dare to declare the Eucharist to be the same sign; it retained reality and did not become a symbol. It preserves the dignity of the sacrament because it reminds the faithful of the foundation of their faith, the Calvary sacrifice of Christ. But the Lutheran understanding of the Eucharist rests on two main differences - the denial of the transubstantiation of the bread and wine of the Eucharist into the Body and Blood of Christ and the denial of the meaning of the Eucharist as a sacrifice.

Lutheranism's denial of transubstantiation went back to the tradition of nominalism, in particular, to the works of W. Ockham and P. Lombard. In the course of the Reformation, fierce disputes unfolded between supporters of the symbolic understanding of the Eucharist and those who asserted the reality of the presence of the Body and Blood of Christ without the transubstantiation of bread and wine. The first direction was fixed in the Swiss branch of the Reformation, the second - in the German one, therefore the Lutheran view of the sacrament of the Eucharist developed in confrontation with the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church on transubstantiation, on the one hand, and with supporters of the symbolic view, on the other.

According to the teaching of symbolic books, bread and wine are not transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ, they do not change their essence: “We reject and condemn ... the doctrine of transubstantiation ... as if bread and wine, having been consecrated ... lose ... their substance and become the substance of the Body and Blood of Christ.” The internal inconsistency of the Lutheran understanding of the sacrament of the Eucharist lies in the fact that, having refused transubstantiation, Luther could not completely abandon the real, invisible presence of Christ in bread and wine, the feeling of a former Catholic monk restrained him, so he began to teach about the co-presence of the Body and Blood of Christ, which does not change the essence of the Eucharistic bread and wine. As the "Formula of Concord" says: "The body of Christ is present and taught under bread, with bread, in bread (sub pane, cum pane, in pane) ... by this way of expression we wish to teach the mysterious union of the unchanging substance of bread with the Body of Christ", moreover, the expression "under the bread" (sub pane) is only a modification of the Latin Eucharistic formulation "under the guise of bread" (sub specie pane). All analogies of symbolic books, however, do not indicate the image of the presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in wine and bread. The truth of the presence of the Body and Blood in the bread and wine of the Eucharist does not depend on the internal state of the one who performs the sacrament, i.e. the reality of the sacrament retains its objective nature: “Our faith does not produce the sacrament; it is produced only by the surest word and the establishment of the almighty God ”(“ The Formula of Concord ”). On the other hand, the validity of the sacrament also depends on the participation of the faithful with it, for, according to the same “Formula of Concord”, “mere blessing or pronunciation of the establishing words of Christ does not produce the sacrament, if all the actions related to the supper are not observed, according to the establishment of Christ. ; for example, if the blessed bread is not distributed, is not accepted by believers, if they do not become participants in it. Moreover, the realization of the co-presence of the Body and Blood of Christ with the bread and wine of the Eucharist occurs at the moment of eating bread and wine, "outside of eating, bread should not be considered sacred, then there is no sacrament", therefore, the validity of the sacrament, its objective component depends on its subjective side. – the participation of the faithful in it.

The “Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs on the Orthodox Faith” of 1723 pays special attention to the refutation of the Lutheran idea of ​​the Eucharist: “We believe that in the sacrament of the Eucharist our Lord is not symbolic, not figurative ... and not through the penetration of bread, so that the Divinity of the Word enters into what is offered for Bread is essential to the Eucharist, as the followers of Luther ... explain unworthily, but truly and truly, so that after the consecration of bread and wine, the bread is changed into the very true Body of the Lord ... and the wine is changed ... into the very true Blood of the Lord.

The second significant difference of the Lutheran Eucharist is that it does not assimilate the meaning of the sacrifice, for the true sacrifice of the Savior was made once and for all and is not repeated, so that by performing it anew the dignity of His feat would not be diminished. According to the Augsburg Confession: “The sacred sacrament was established not to be offered as a sacrifice for sins (for the sacrifice was made before), but to revive our faith and comfort our conscience ... Therefore, the sacrament requires faith and without faith it is in vain.” This view developed as a reaction to the extreme abuses of the Catholic Middle Ages, when the Eucharist became a means of obtaining grace and fulfilling desires, a sacrifice made by people to propitiate an angry God. In the struggle against Catholic distortions of the sacrament, Lutheranism lost its meaning and saving effect and excluded the faithful from the fruits of Christ's redemption. It is noteworthy that the Fathers of the Reformation repeatedly referred to the image of the Eucharist as the sacrament of thanksgiving, which was preserved by Eastern Christianity, in contrast to the Catholic idea of ​​the Eucharist as a sacrifice offered to avert the punishment for sin.

Calvinism

The cradle of the Reformation, undoubtedly, was and remains Germany, but evidence of its objective maturation in the depths of the Catholic Middle Ages, struck by an internal crisis, was the emergence of a second powerful center of church protest in Switzerland. It arose simultaneously with the beginning of the German movement, but practically independently of it. Soon the differences in the interpretation of the general principles of the Reformation became so significant that already in 1529 there was a separation of the German and Swiss branches of the Reformation, which consolidated the independent existence of a group of Protestant movements, collectively known as the Reformed Churches. At present, there are significant Reformed churches in England, Hungary, the Netherlands, Romania, France, Germany, Slovakia, the USA, Switzerland, as well as in a number of third world countries. The most representative international organization is the "World Alliance of Reformed Churches", which in 1875 united in its ranks about 40 million representatives of the main currents of the Reformation.

On the whole, Reformedism or, as it is often called, Calvinism, is distinguished from Lutheranism by a greater consistency and rigidity of views. Perhaps it was precisely this circumstance that contributed to the wide spread of Reformation, because its sharp, gloomy, but logically verified theological forms coincided with the religious character of the Middle Ages, on the one hand, and, on the other, satisfied that thirst for rationality in matters of faith, which was brought up by the Catholic tradition.

The foundations of the Reformed tradition were outlined in his writings by John Calvin, a younger contemporary of the fathers of the Reformation. His main work is the famous work "Instructions in the Christian Faith". In Geneva, Calvin also proved himself to be a major public figure, he became almost the sole ruler of the city and did much to transform his life in accordance with the norms of the Reformed dogma, without stopping at the physical reprisal against his opponents. His influence both in Switzerland and in Europe was so great that in his time he earned the title of "Pope of Geneva".

There are a lot of symbolic books of the Reformation, and not all of them enjoy the same authority. First of all, the “First Catechism”, written by J. Calvin in 1536 on the basis of his “Instructions in the Christian Faith”, enjoys the greatest recognition. He expounds the doctrine of the sources of Christian knowledge, of God and His attributes, of man and the fall into sin, of the Church and the sacraments. The "Geneva Catechism" and "Geneva Agreement" are also considered to be generally authoritative beliefs (the latter work is distinguished by the most consistent presentation of the doctrine of predestination). The Gallican Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism are also widely accepted in the Reformed tradition.

Turning to the consideration of the features of the Reformed dogma, we must first of all indicate the general principle that organically connects it with Lutheranism and with the ideology of the Reformation as a whole, namely, the affirmation of salvation by faith. The Swiss reformers gave a slightly different development to this principle, and here we must turn to those contradictions in the Lutheran system of views that were never resolved by it. Twice Luther and his supporters did not dare to draw conclusions that logically followed from the foundations of their religious worldview. Both times this innuendo became the cause of fierce disputes, which did not lead to final clarity in the view of the relationship of grace to the person being saved and the sacraments, in particular, the Eucharist. The resolution of the internal inconsistency of Lutheranism in these matters is the main merit of reformist theology, which, however, not only distanced it from the truly Christian foundations of the faith, but led to a direct contradiction with them, especially in the doctrine of unconditional predestination.

This idea, in its essence, is only the logical conclusion of the idea common to the entire Reformation about the unconditional destruction of human nature by the fall. Luther taught about "falling to the point of losing the very striving for good, about the complete moral deadness of fallen man." Calvin also proceeds from the same premise - “there is not a single part in a person that is free from sin, and therefore everything that he does is imputed to him as a sin”, but from it he draws conclusions that Luther did not know or wanted to avoid.

From the extremes of the general Protestant view of the complete decomposition of the fallen nature of man, Calvin quite logically moves to the other extreme - the position of the unconditional predestination of man's fate. Indeed, if from the hopeless depths of a person’s fall only the gift of saving faith, sent down by God, can be restored, if any of a person’s own effort is fruitless and does not matter for his salvation, then a natural question arises - why are not everyone saved equally? If a person is unable to choose good or evil, it means that this choice is made for him by Himself. If salvation does not belong to the person himself, is outside his will, then the cause of salvation or death is not in his own moral choice, but outside of him - in the realm of God's will, which determines the ways of the saving gift of faith given by one and taken away from others. So, salvation is entirely contained in the hand of God, which moves some to heavenly bliss, others to eternal torment.

At the basis of such an attitude of the Creator to man lies the idea of ​​His undivided dominion over the world, of the absolute sovereignty of the Divine. Calvin was driven by the desire to restore the true greatness of God, which Catholicism belittled by human hope in the price of human good deeds. The will of the Creator reigns over everything, including the souls of those created by Him.

Predestination allows you to finally destroy any possibility of a person’s merit in the matter of salvation, he belongs entirely to the will of God, which chooses him as his instrument, and “the good deeds that we do under the guidance of the Holy Spirit do not play a role in our justification.” A similar view belonged to Blessed. Augustine, but he did not dare to carry it out with such consistency as Calvin. Blzh. Augustine, and then Luther, preferred to speak only of predestination to salvation, not daring to "sacrifice mankind on the altar of sola fide." Calvin, on the other hand, was not afraid of double predestination - some for salvation, others for condemnation. The Lord reveals His mercy in the elect through gratia irrestibilis - an irresistible grace that they cannot resist, and He also reveals His truth in the condemned, depriving them of this grace. Proceeding from the prejudicedly interpreted saying of St. Paul from Romans 8:29, whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son”, Calvin coldly divides all mankind into two kinds of people: a small flock chosen for salvation by virtue of the incomprehensible decision of God, in addition to all their merit, and the doomed majority, which will not be saved, despite all efforts, and is called into this world only in order to to prove that these human efforts are fruitless in the face of the sovereignty of God.

Proceeding from the concept of unconditional predestination, Calvin rejected the universality of the sacrifice on the cross and the gospel message, for the Lord suffered death on the cross not for everyone, but only for those whom He Himself chose to eternal life. This provision destroys the main dogma of Christianity - the belief in the redemption of all, accomplished by the God-man, and directly contradicts the words of St. Paul " The grace of God has appeared, saving for all people" ().

Trying to soften his teaching, the Swiss reformer taught that God's predestination comes from His omniscience: "God knew everything that should happen, and He could not know, for everything happened from Him and according to His will." But this attempt only changes the form of predestination, not its essence. The reason why “God once decided in His eternal and unchanging council whom He wishes to bring to salvation and whom He wishes to put to death” remains unknown, and Calvin himself is forced to admit it: “When asked why God does this, we must answer: because that He so pleases”, the law of God prescribes to a person “excessive for him, in order to convince a person of his own impotence”, i.e. the root of the problem remains, for a person in the Calvinian understanding is deprived of the gift of choice, which he makes for him.

But the doctrine of the predetermining action of God gave rise to an inevitable contradiction - if everything is predetermined by God, then He is the culprit of evil and is responsible for everything that happens, for sin is committed not by God's permission, but by His predestination. God becomes not only a source of salvation, but also death, evil exists not by the will of people who voluntarily choose it, but by the will of God Himself, Who sends them into evil. In this, many saw an indirect revival of dualism, the equal existence of good and evil, for both exist in the world at the behest of the two-faced Calvinian Deity.

To restore the image of a perfect and good God, Calvin is forced to proclaim the relativity of the concepts of good and evil. He argues in the sense that, as an infinite being and the Creator of everything, he does not obey any law. Therefore, what is considered evil from our point of view does not have a moral quality for Him, for He is above the law, which He commanded for the fulfillment of people. For God there is no law, therefore for Him there is no transgression of the law.

Such a view actually destroys the image of God, who "is love", the source and root cause of goodness; he affirms, if not the immorality of God, then His immorality. Calvin returns to the Old Testament image of the law, which is higher than morality, good and evil lose their absolute value and from transcendental categories become temporary derivatives of the law. Such a relapse of Old Testament thinking is not surprising; on the whole, Calvinism is distinguished by an increased attention to the history of Old Israel.

The God of the Reformed remains merciful and all-forgiving to a small number of the elect. For the rest, He again acquires the familiar features of a ruthless Judge, with the only difference that if medieval Catholicism still left the opportunity to propitiate Him, then the teachings of Calvin take away this hope, turning the Christian God into a semi-pagan fate that overtakes a person without meaning and guilt. If a person is deprived of freedom, then he is not responsible for involuntary evil. Why, then, does God punish a person by not giving him the freedom to choose otherwise?

Calvin's predestination is no longer just a violation of the foundations of Christian life, but a direct destruction of them. The views of Calvin and his followers encroach on the very foundations of the Christian universe, on the image of God and the calling of man in the world, therefore the Eastern Church found it necessary to pronounce judgment on them. At the Council of Jerusalem in 1672, Calvin and his teachings were anathematized, and his preachers were called "the worst even of the infidels." The “Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs on the Orthodox Faith” of 1723 also directly speaks against predestination: “but what the blasphemous heretics say, that God predestinates or condemns, regardless of the deeds of the predestined or condemned, we consider this foolishness and impiety; for in such a case Scripture would contradict itself. It teaches that the believer is saved by faith and his works and at the same time presents God as the only author of our salvation, because ... He ... gives enlightening grace ... without destroying the free will of man.

The Orthodox understanding of God's omniscience, including His foreknowledge of the future destinies of people, has never rejected the free will of man, his conscious participation in his own salvation. Speaking of the views of blj. Augustine, we have already mentioned the brilliant formulation of St. John of Damascus: "God foresees everything, but does not predetermine everything."

The flagrant injustice of this teaching, its direct contradiction of St. The Scripture was already understood by Calvin's contemporaries, but none of the branches of modern Calvinism officially rejected this teaching, just as no one canceled the anathemas of the Orthodox hierarchs. For us, the fate of this doctrine is indicative not only as a stage in the historical development of one of the branches of the Reformation, but as a natural result of the development of one of its main theological postulates - the doctrine of salvation by faith. Consistent doctrinal development of this postulate leads, ultimately, not only to delusions, but to conclusions that are directly anti-Christian and inhuman, its internal logic leads to absurdity.

In the doctrine of the Church, Reformation also consistently develops its basic principle. The true Church is the community of the truly chosen, i.e. predestined for salvation. But the Swiss Reformation finally abolishes all the features of the hierarchical structure that Luther still retained; in Reformed ecclesiology, the administrative principle of the church resolutely supplants its mystical, sacramental nature.

As already mentioned, the Swiss Reformation finally separated from the German because of disagreements in the doctrine of the Eucharist, which did not receive its logical conclusion in the Lutheran tradition. Luther proclaimed the independence of the action of grace from any external images of its manifestation, but he did not dare to consistently apply this principle in the interpretation of the Eucharist. The reality of this sacrament is realized subjectively by everyone who approaches it, but at the same time it is associated with the objective co-presence in the Holy Gifts of the Body and Blood of the Savior.

With his characteristic consistency, Calvin cleansed the sacraments of all human participation, which is completely supplanted by predestination, which does not need gracious assistance. The Reformed tradition recognizes only two sacraments - baptism and the Eucharist. The Eucharist becomes a true symbol: “the body of Christ is not contained in bread, and we would look in vain for Him in this earthly being; such teaching is an impious superstition.” According to the teachings of Calvin, His Body and Blood are not present in the substance of the Eucharist, there is no real partaking of them in the Eucharist, and we perceive Jesus Christ Himself spiritually and invisibly: “Although the Lord is in heaven, He nourishes and gives life by the incomprehensible power of the Holy Spirit us with the substance of His Body and Blood.” Only those who have been chosen for salvation truly partake of the Spirit of God; for the rest, this communion has no effect. There is no transubstantiation, no Lutheran “co-presence” in the Reformed understanding of the Eucharist, there is only a spiritual union with the Savior, while bread and wine remain only symbols of this union.

In the understanding of the second sacrament, which was preserved in the Reformation - baptism, Calvin is close to Luther, he considers this sacrament to be a divine sign of the believer's acceptance into a grace-filled union with God, the seal of his adoption to Christ.

The Reformed Church also recognizes St. Scripture. But if Lutheranism still has respect for church tradition, the same Luther quite often quotes the fathers, the decisions of councils, then Calvin resolutely rejects any authority of the conciliar consent of the Church, her council decisions, testing everything with the criterion of reason.

Particularly noteworthy is the principle of worldly asceticism, which developed on the basis of the doctrine of unconditional predestination and had a tremendous impact on the socio-economic development of countries where Calvinism became widespread, as well as Western civilization as a whole. On the one hand, an indirect result of the doctrine of unconditional predestination was a general oppression of religious activity, any religious aspirations of a person were paralyzed by the predetermination of his fate. On the other hand, predestination inevitably gave rise to the desire of everyone to learn about their predestination to salvation, and not vice versa. This desire was answered in the principle of worldly asceticism - a person could indirectly judge his predestination to salvation by worldly prosperity: the Lord blesses those chosen for heavenly salvation with prosperity in their earthly life. The principle of worldly asceticism obligated a person to increase his well-being, which, in turn, was perceived not as a person’s personal property, but as a gift from above, as a sign of God’s goodwill towards a person. Accordingly, this gift had to be used for multiplication, the wealth given by God cannot be used to satisfy one's own needs, there was a sacralization of hoarding. Under these conditions, the only way out was activity in the world, which acquired the character of consecrated labor. Needless to say, what a powerful religious motivation for socio-economic progress Calvinism provided to the emerging capitalism, and it is no accident that he gained a predominant influence in the countries of radical capitalism, for example, in the USA.

Anglicanism

The third significant branch of Protestantism is Anglicanism, which originated in the British Isles and then spread to the countries of the former British Empire. Currently, the Anglican churches are united in the so-called Anglican Commonwealth. The most significant of them are the Church of England, the Church in Wales, the Episcopal Church of Scotland, the Protestant Episcopal Church in the USA, as well as a number of churches in India, Pakistan, South Africa, Canada, Australia, and others. In total, there are about 70 million Anglicans in the world. Every 10 years, the highest hierarchs of these churches gather to discuss the most important issues at the so-called Lambeth Conferences. At the beginning of our century, prominent figures of Anglicanism stood at the origins of the "Faith and Order of the Church" movement, and to this day the Anglican Churches actively participate in the activities of the WCC.

The beginning of the Reformation in England is most often associated with the name of Henry VIII, but its creator and ideologist was his contemporary, the Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer, and the key to its success was hidden in the same general dissatisfaction with the state of the Roman Catholic Church that caused the European Reformation.

The formation in the second half of the 16th century of the third main branch of the Reformation - the Anglican - due to historical conditions, differed significantly in its nature from the birth of the German and Swiss branches. If in Europe the Reformation proceeded mainly "from below", then in England it began "from above", which was reflected in its comparative conservatism and the preservation of the hierarchical structure of the church. In addition, the English Reformation was late in time compared to the European one, and all this contributed to the originality of its development - it took on a softened character of a compromise between Rome and the Reformation in Europe. The foundations of Catholic doctrine and church life were increasingly eroded over time under the onslaught of extreme Protestantism, mainly the Calvinist tradition.

The symbolic books of the Church of England are few compared to other Protestant confessions. They are often distinguished by some deliberate theological ambiguity, vagueness. This is natural, for they were drawn up in an era of religious strife as an expression of compromise rather than principle and reflect the general duality of Anglican doctrine.

First of all, these are the so-called "39 members of the Anglican Church", which are the latest edition of the Anglican doctrine compiled by T. Cranmer on the basis of the "Augsburg Confession" and some provisions of Calvinism. They were finally approved by the Parliament of England and church authorities only in 1571 and represent a summary of the foundations of the Anglican religion. Of undoubted significance for the faith and life of all Anglican churches is the so-called "Book of Common Prayer", which contains the order of Anglican worship. After a number of revisions, its final approval took place in 1661, until now it remains a symbol of the church unity of the entire Anglican Commonwealth. The third symbolic book is the Anglican Catechism, which finally took shape by 1604.

The Anglican Church also recognizes three Creeds as sources of doctrine: Niceno-Tsaregrad with the addition of filioque, Athanasian and Apostolic, and also, in part, the decisions of the Ecumenical Councils. Although the Anglican Church retains respect for the tradition of the Church, partially recognizes it and uses it in its life and teaching, but, like all Protestant confessions, it denies its doctrinal dignity, equal to St. Scripture, for according to the 6th member of the Anglican Confession: “St. Scripture contains everything necessary for salvation.”

We see clear traces of the influence of the Reformation in the doctrine of original sin. 9 and 10, members of the Anglican faith basically repeat the Lutheran view of the nature of man after the fall, original sin "is the corruption and damage to the nature of each person, naturally from what happens ... as a result of which every person, by his nature, is inclined to evil", so that "by itself it cannot do good deeds pleasing to God."

In the doctrine of salvation, the Anglican doctrine repeats the general idea of ​​the Reformation that only the alienated grace of God works in justifying a person, accomplishing salvation without the cooperation of the saved. As the 11th member of the Anglican Confession puts it: "We are justified before God only by the merits of Jesus Christ through faith, and not by our good works."

Although the Anglican doctrine preserved the Reformed doctrine of predestination, it significantly softened it and has more sense of God's foreknowledge of human destinies than the actual predestination of their final fate.

The dignity of the sacraments in Anglicanism belongs only to baptism and the Eucharist, these are the sacraments of the gospels; the rest are the sacraments of the Church and cannot be considered full-fledged, although in this series, the sacrament of the priesthood still retains special significance. Anglicanism more retains the true meaning of the sacraments, as images of the special action in us of the grace of God. Article 25 of the Anglican creed states that “the sacraments instituted by Christ are not mere... symbols... of the Christian creed, but they are... real signs of the grace and blessing of God upon us, through which God invisibly works upon us... strengthens. ..our faith in Him.”

The Anglican understanding of the Eucharist, like Lutheranism, is notable for its internal contradictions. Thus, according to the exposition of 28 members of the Anglican Confession, “transubstantiation (or the change of bread and wine in the sacrament of the Lord) cannot be proven by Holy. Scripture. ... The Body of Christ is given, accepted... in the Eucharist in a heavenly, spiritual way, and the means, as the Body of Christ is received... in the Eucharist is faith. ... bread and wine still remain in their... natural essence". The denial of the transubstantiation of the Holy Gifts, however, does not mean their complete immutability in the sacrament. The change takes place not in the nature of bread and wine, but in the invisible relation of the heavenly Body and Blood of the Savior to them. This change takes place through the consecration of the Holy Gifts by the power of the Holy Spirit in the priesthood of a legally ordained priest, but it takes place spiritually and consists in the fact that the Body and Blood of Christ unite their inexpressible presence with bread and wine, together with which they are served to communicants. Bread and wine become the Body and Blood in the sense that they perceive the dignity, power and action of the Body and Blood of Christ through the union of their qualities with the essential qualities of the Body and Blood of the Savior, and their spiritual presence is perceived realistically, in the words of the Anglican Catechism: “The Body and the Blood of Christ is truly and truly taken... by believers at the Lord's Supper." Such uncertainty is typical of Anglican theology and allows for the coexistence of a fairly wide range of opinions on this matter.

The Anglican Church retains a general rejection of the sacrificial meaning of the Eucharist throughout the Reformation. 31 members of her creed reads: “The sacrifice of Christ, once offered, is a sacrifice ... satisfying for all the sins ... of the world - both for original sin and for arbitrary ones, and there is no other satisfaction for sin as only that one. Therefore, the idea of ​​sacrifices offered during the liturgy ... is ... a dangerous deception.

As we have said, the features of the sacrament in the Anglican tradition also preserve the priesthood. The tripartite hierarchy of episcopal, priestly, and deaconal ranks remains a distinctive feature of Anglicanism, which it inherited from the Roman Catholic Church, and not only the ecclesiastical hierarchy was preserved, but the very idea of ​​​​apostolic succession, completely alien to most Protestant denominations.

The question of the validity of apostolic succession in Anglicanism is closely connected with the history of relations between the Anglican Churches of England and America and Orthodoxy, primarily with the Russian Orthodox Church. These ties were especially livened up at the turn of the last and present centuries, there was even talk of a possible reunification of the Anglicans with Orthodoxy. The most prominent theologians of the Russian Church took part in discussions on this issue. For quite objective reasons, reunification turned out to be impossible, but mutual benevolence in relations between Anglicans and Orthodox remained. After the revolution, the Anglicans were among the few in the West who consistently supported the Russian Church during the years of persecution. Unfortunately, recent decisions in favor of the female priesthood have seriously complicated the attitude of Orthodoxy towards the Anglican Church.

The question that the theology of the Orthodox, Catholic and Anglican Churches had to solve at the end of the last century was to determine the authenticity of the apostolic succession of the Anglican hierarchy, but its solution required the development of a number of historical problems, as well as questions related to the doctrine of the Church and the sacraments.

The prehistory of the question begins on December 17, 1559. when the ordination of the Archbishop of Canterbury Matthew Parker took place, from whom the entire modern Anglican hierarchy originates. He was ordained by four Anglican bishops, of whom two had apostolic succession of ordination in the Roman Catholic order, and two were ordained in the new Anglican order, but by Archbishop T. Cranmer, who had a valid Roman Catholic ordination but was excommunicated for disobedience to the pope.

The verdict of the Roman Catholic Church was issued in September 1896 by the bull of Leo XIII, which invalidated all the ordinations of the Anglican Church, performed according to its reformed order, since they did not preserve the necessary established form of the sacrament.

Orthodox theology in resolving this issue proceeded from the predominant significance of its doctrinal aspect over the formal one. According to V.V. Bolotov, “not excluding the possibility of recognizing the reality” of the Anglican hierarchy, “it is necessary ... to be convinced of its orthodoxy, Orthodoxy”, i.e. in this case, the truth of the apostolic ministry is ultimately determined by the content of the faith. The Orthodox understanding of the interdependence of the grace-filled and doctrinal components of church life was expressed by one of the researchers of this issue, prof. I.P. Sokolov: “in its official creeds, the Anglican Church does not recognize the priesthood as a sacrament and does not teach about the offering of a true propitiatory Sacrifice at the Eucharist ... The question of the Anglican hierarchy is the question of what consequences these errors should have for the validity of the initiations of this church.”

The general conclusion of Orthodox theology at the beginning of our century boiled down to the need to clarify the Orthodoxy of the faith of the Anglican Church in order to resolve the issue of the validity of its hierarchy. The final decision on this issue was adopted at the Pan-Orthodox Conference of the Heads and Representatives of the Autocephalous Orthodox Churches, held in Moscow in 1948. Although this conference was held under obvious political influence, nevertheless, the possibility of pan-Orthodox consent was used to resolve the issue of the Anglican hierarchy. Its essence is expressed by the resolution "On the Anglican Hierarchy":

"one. The doctrine contained in the "39 members" of the Anglican Church differs sharply from... the doctrine and tradition... of the Orthodox Church; meanwhile, the solution to the question of recognizing the reality of the Anglican hierarchy must, first of all, be based on the doctrine of the sacraments, consistent with Orthodoxy. ...

“3. Treating with all attention and sympathy the contemporary movement ... of many representatives of Anglicanism, aimed at restoring ... communion between the believers of the Anglican Church and the Universal Church, we determine that the modern Anglican hierarchy can receive recognition from the Orthodox Church of the grace of her priesthood, if between The Orthodox and Anglican Churches will establish a formally expressed ... unity of faith and confession ... ".

Unfortunately, changes in the practice and doctrine of the Anglican churches that have taken place over the past decades have further alienated them from the doctrine of the Orthodox Church. The Episcopal Church in the United States has been practicing the female priesthood for decades. In 1994, a similar decision was made by the Church of England.

Although the main desire of the fathers of Anglicanism was to avoid the extremes of both Catholicism and Protestantism, their offspring turned out to be internally unstable, prone to decay. The vagueness of the doctrine of the Anglican Church gave freedom to the development of opposing currents. In the Church of England, for example, two main groupings coexist: the "high church", which has retained the remnants of church tradition, and the "broad church", which is dominated by Protestant views.

ecumenical movement

The ecumenical movement was perhaps the most significant event in the development of Western Christianity in the 20th century. It was born out of a feeling, common to all Christians, of the unnaturalness of the division of the Christian world. The fact that it originated in a Protestant environment is quite understandable, because it was the Protestant world that most acutely felt its church insufficiency, separation from the universal fullness.

Another thing is that this desire to overcome Christian divisions was expressed in the only form acceptable to the Protestant religious consciousness, in the form of the so-called “branch theory”. According to this theological conception, the unified Christian Church, which existed since ancient times, in its development was divided into many directions or branches, each of which equally retains its connection with the early Christian heritage, which constitutes the trunk of this common Christian tree. The fragmentation of the Christian world is natural and does not carry in itself inferiority, it is a manifestation of the fullness and diversity of Christian life. Accordingly, the coming unity of Christians must include all manifestations of this diversity, for each branch is a full-fledged part of the common Christian heritage.

Naturally, such an attempt by the church to legalize deviations from the heritage of the undivided Church has never enjoyed recognition either in Orthodoxy or in Catholicism. Usually the rationale for Orthodox participation in the ecumenical movement is the words of the Savior from the Gospel of John (17:21) “Let them be one in Us, that the world may believe,” as well as numerous sayings of St. Scriptures and St. Fathers. The duty of unity prevails over the entire Christian world, and, above all, over the Orthodox, and it remains a necessary condition for the full value of our witness to the world. The controversy lies in whether the theological views that actually justify the consequences of violating this commandment agree with the gospel commandment of unity. Can we, for the sake of following the duty of unity, recognize the equal dignity of right faith and deviation from it? Orthodoxy cannot help striving for the unity of Christians, but it cannot fully accept the image of unity that the modern ecumenical movement carries within itself. The very foundations of participation in the ecumenical movement of the Orthodox Churches initially and in essence differ from the Protestant justification of ecumenism, for the goal of Orthodoxy is witness to the truth to heterodoxy, the goal of heterodoxy is unity at any cost.

The first step in the formation of the ecumenical movement is considered to be the World Missionary Conference, held in 1910 in Edinburgh. The reason why the first attempts at Christian unity are connected with missionary work is clear, because its absence remains the most obvious temptation for those who turn to Christ. The conference in Edinburgh was intended to resolve the contradictions that inevitably arose between the various Protestant missionaries in the colonial countries, when their mutual criticism weakened the success of the mission.

Simultaneously with the Edinburgh Conference, which was attended by many future prominent figures of the ecumenical movement, for example, D. Mott, W. Temple, the desire to unite all Christians manifested itself in the United States. In the same 1910, a commission was created in the American Episcopal Church to prepare World Conference on the Faith and Order of the Church.

The First World War prevented the further development of ecumenism, but its upheavals served as an incentive for further attempts to unite Christians. In the 1920s, two main currents in ecumenism took shape: "Faith and the Order of the Church", under the leadership of the Anglican Bishops C. Brent and W. Temple, and "Life and Work", which was headed by the Lutheran Archbishop N. Cederblom. These movements differed significantly in their views on the path to achieving Christian unity, and the differences turned out to be so significant that they retained their significance even after the unification of these movements into the World Council of Churches.

The movement "Faith and the Order of the Church" considered the true and highest goal of the ecumenical movement to be the unity of faith of all Christians, on the basis of which all other differences can be overcome. If we are talking about Orthodox participation in the formation of the ecumenical movement, then this participation was most of all concentrated around "Faith and the order of the Church."

On the contrary, the Life and Work movement proceeded in its ideology from the impossibility of quickly achieving unity in faith and therefore sought to unite the efforts of all Christians in their practical activities, which would help overcome religious differences. As the slogan of "Life and Work" said: "Faith separates, deeds unite." In other words, "Faith and Dispensation" was more of a theological movement, while "Life and Work" was more practical, and the search for agreement between these directions continued during the two interwar decades.

By the beginning of the century, the first attempts to fundamentally expand the ecumenical movement, transforming it from inter-Protestant into pan-Christian, also date back. In 1919 a group of ecumenical representatives of the American Protestant churches visited the Vatican, but their visit ended in vain. The general attitude of the Roman Catholic Church remained, at best, watchful waiting, and in 1928 it was reinforced by Pius XI's encyclical The Souls of Mortals, which stated: that everyone is more or less good and healthy... The Church would betray its purpose by taking part in pan-Christian events... Under no circumstances are Catholics allowed to enter into such enterprises or to contribute to them.

The attitude of the Orthodox world towards ecumenism from the very beginning was probably distinguished by two main features: on the one hand, it clearly felt a sincere desire to promote the unity of Christians with all its might and a hope, perhaps naive, to enlighten the Protestant world with the light of the Orthodox faith. On the other hand, the Orthodox attitude towards the ecumenical movement too often turned out to be contradictory, and this inconsistency had a detrimental effect both on our general Christian authority and on intra-Orthodox relations.

An example of such inconsistency is the well-known envoy of the Patriarchate of Constantinople dated 1920. The attitude of Orthodoxy towards the heterodox world has always been dogmatically conditioned, it proceeded from the paramount importance of doctrinal agreement in any interaction with heterodoxy. (In this regard, the closest thing to the Orthodox point of view is the ideology of "Faith and Church dispensation"). Unfortunately, the district message of 1920 is an example of at least an ambiguous attitude towards this rule, which was strictly observed for centuries. In the text of the epistle, we read that “dogmatic differences existing between the various Christian Churches do not exclude their rapprochement and mutual communion, and that such rapprochement... is necessary and even beneficial for... each Local Church and the entire Christian Plenitude, as well as for the preparation and easier conduct ... of a blessed union, ”and further:“ For even if possible difficulties arise on the basis of old prejudices, habits and claims, which have repeatedly disrupted the cause of the union in the past ... they cannot and should not serve as an insurmountable obstacle ” . This document leaves a very ambivalent feeling and cannot be compared with the dogmatic messages of the Eastern Patriarchs of the 19th century. It should also be said that he expresses only the opinion Church of Constantinople and does not have the full authority of the entire Orthodox East.

A few years later, the foundations of possible Orthodox participation in the ecumenical movement were set out with much greater consistency in the Statement of the Orthodox participants in the conference "Faith and Church Order" held in 1927 in Lausanne. It was signed by representatives of almost all Local Churches and in it, in particular, it was determined that "in matters of faith and religious consciousness in the Orthodox Church, no compromise is appropriate", and "where there is no community of faith, there can be no communion in the sacraments."

The upheavals of the revolution did not allow the Russian Church to exercise due influence on the attitude of the Orthodox world towards the ecumenical movement. The only possibility of such influence was the participation of the Russian church emigration in ecumenical activities, and Russian theologians abroad in the 20s and 30s took part in many ecumenical meetings, trying to draw the attention of the West to the tragedy of the Russian Church. Many of them were inspired by quite sincere hopes for the success of the Orthodox witness to the non-Orthodox world, which at that time still preserved the foundations of the Christian way of life.

In the interwar decades, the development of the ecumenical movement proceeded in three parallel directions. First of all, these are the activities of the commission "Faith and Church Dispensation", in which the Orthodox Churches, including the Russian Church Abroad, participated widely. Then the work of the commission "Life and work" continued, in which representatives of the Orthodox world also took part. And, finally, the Edinburgh Conference of 1910 stood at the origins of the creation of the International Missionary Council, which, after the creation of the World Council of Churches, was associated with, and then completely united with it.

In 1938 a preparatory committee for the World Council of Churches was formed, but the development of ecumenism was again interrupted by the World War. However, after its end, again, as at the beginning of the century, the sense of responsibility of the Christian world for what had happened and the need to unite in order to preserve peace became aggravated. In the first post-war years, Europe lived with the desire to restore and reaffirm the brotherhood of the human race, undermined by two world wars, and the Christian image of such a brotherhood could not be more in line with the aspirations of the peoples.

In this atmosphere, in 1948, the first founding Assembly of the World Council of Churches was held in Amsterdam, which included about 150 churches and church organizations, mostly Protestant. This assembly merged "Faith and Order of the Church" and "Life and Work" and was later joined by the International Missionary Council. In its course, the foundations of the ideology and organization of the WCC were laid, although later they underwent significant changes. Of the Orthodox Churches, only the Churches of Constantinople and Hellas participated in the work of the Amsterdam Assembly, the Russian diaspora was represented mainly by the St. Sergius Theological Institute in Paris.

Almost simultaneously, the Conference of the Heads and Representatives of the Local Orthodox Churches was held in Moscow, which represented the majority of the Orthodox world. The Conference's critical attitude towards ecumenism is well known, and this is usually explained by the pressure of the Soviet state, which had already entered the Cold War. Undoubtedly, there is a significant amount of truth in this, but the fact remains that the Orthodox criticism of the WCC, reflected in the Conference documents, had a direct effect on the further development of this organization.

It resulted in the adoption in 1950 of the so-called Toronto Declaration, which still remains one of the founding documents of the World Council of Churches. The Declaration was drawn up with the decisive participation of Orthodox participants, among whom were, for example, such eminent theologians as Fr. Georgy Florovsky, Metropolitan of Thyatira Herman, prof. Mr. Alevizatos and others. First of all, the declaration defines that "The World Council of Churches is not and should never become a super-Church." The purpose of the World Council of Churches ... is to promote the study and discussion of questions of the unity of the Church.” Extremely important for the Orthodox Churches was the statement that membership in the WCC “does not mean that each Church must recognize the other Churches that are members of the Council as Churches in the full and true sense of the word”, in addition, the obligation of the participating Churches was expressed “ assist each other if necessary and refrain from such actions that are incompatible with fraternal relations”, in other words, from proselytism, from which the Orthodox Churches suffered, first of all. The Toronto Declaration also formally affirmed that "in no event shall any Church be or shall be compelled to make decisions contrary to its convictions."

The Russian Orthodox Church and, together with it, most of the Slavic Churches joined the WCC at the Third Assembly in New Delhi in 1961. Now there is a lot of debate about the true reasons for this step and there is no doubt that behind it was the desire of the Soviet state to use the Church to spread its influence in the world, although, on the other hand, participation in the ecumenical movement gave our Church the opportunity to resist the growing atheistic pressure in those years.

On the other hand, with its participation, the Russian Church ensured very significant changes in its own religious consciousness of the WCC, in particular, the so-called “trinitarian formulation”, or the naming of the Persons of the Holy Trinity, was introduced into its basis or basis of religion. The new edition of the basis stated that "The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of Churches that confess the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Savior according to the Holy Scriptures and therefore seek a common confession, a common calling for them to the glory of the one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit."

After the adoption by the Second Vatican Council of the Decree “On Ecumenism”, which affirmed, albeit with significant reservations, that “in ecumenical work, faithful Catholics must undoubtedly take care of the brothers separated from them,” there was a change in attitude towards the WCC on the part of the Roman Catholic Church, which culminated in the visit Pope Paul VI to the headquarters of the WCC in Geneva in 1969. Catholics participate in the work of many divisions of the WCC, but the Roman Catholic Church, however, is not a member, it officially participates only in the work of "Faith and Church Dispensation", which remains the only proper theological subdivision of the WCC.

A significant change in the future appearance of the World Council of Churches, however, soon began to determine the trend towards the gradual extinction of the theological component of its activities, its displacement by “practical Christianity”. As already mentioned, initially ecumenism developed in two rather contradictory directions, on the one hand - the "theological ecumenism" of "Faith and Dispensation", on the other hand - the practical ecumenism of "Life and Activity", and the possibility of forming the WCC appeared only as a result of the unification of these movements, and each of them retained its influence. For decades, these initially opposing aspirations were in one way or another consistent with each other, but gradually theological ecumenism began to be absorbed by practical, social ecumenism. This was expressed at least in the fact that the commission "Faith and the Order of the Church" was reduced to the position of a secondary, albeit respected, division within the WCC. The further development of this trend led to the gradual disintegration of the ecumenical movement that we observe today.

The most significant, albeit controversial, fruit of theological ecumenism was the document adopted at the meeting of the Faith and Dispensation Commission in 1982 in Lima. This document is called "Baptism. Eucharist. Priesthood” is the result of many years of work of the Commission. He sets out the totality of theological views regarding these three sacraments that exist in the Churches that are members of the WCC.

Although, according to the compilers, this document "displays a significant coincidence in theological issues," one can hardly speak of it as a coordinated position of all the Churches that took part in the work on it. "Baptism. Eucharist. Priesthood” is, rather, a generalization of existing views, indicating the points of their common ground or even coincidence. On the other hand, it inevitably reflects the deep-seated contradictions of various confessions on the fundamental issues of their dogma and the structure of the Church, and leaves a lot of open questions. For this reason, key concepts, such as the interpretation of the image of the presence of the Body and Blood in the Eucharist, the meaning of apostolic succession, the issue of the female priesthood, did not receive a full and indisputable interpretation in this document. Moreover, the deliberate duality of the formulations allows us to put completely different meanings into them, which happened after the publication of this document. Most of the Churches that are members of the WCC sent their responses, which contained completely contradictory interpretations of its provisions.

The text adopted in Lima can, to a certain extent, be called the pinnacle of what ecumenical theology could achieve; it clarified the whole variety of theological ideas on basic dogmatic issues and offered them in a generalized form to the entire Christian world. It also tried to point out ways to overcome the existing differences, but, of course, it could not overcome them on a purely theological level.

Currently, the World Council of Churches brings together about 330 Churches from about 100 countries. The supreme body of power is the Assembly of the WCC, which is convened every seven years. The Assembly elects the General Secretary of the WCC, who exercises overall leadership of the Council between Assemblies. In general, the leadership of the WCC remains collegiate and is carried out through the Central Committee and the Executive Committee. All working bodies are combined into four units or divisions, each of which has its own area of ​​work. The first unit includes the commission "Faith and church dispensation".

The response polemic was led by a certain Ratramnus, who deviated to the opposite extreme of a purely abstract understanding of the Eucharist "in ... the sacrament, the Body and Blood of Christ are eaten only spiritually and by the power of faith of the one who receives them." This way of thinking is strikingly reminiscent of the later teaching of Luther, and its influence is confirmed by the fact that it was supported by prominent ecclesiastical figures of the time and then this judgment reappeared in the second phase of the Eucharistic controversy in the 11th century. One of its main participants, Berengarius of Tours, believed that "His glorified body was taken up to heaven; and if so, then the eating ... of the body ... can only be spiritual, because otherwise how can we assume that believers can eat ... the body, which is in a glorified form on heaven with your mouth." This doctrine was condemned at several councils in the middle of the 11th century, but continued to exist in France as late as the 12th century.

In the future, however, the idea of ​​the spiritual communion of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist implicitly continued to develop in the theological and philosophical tradition of nominalism, which to a large extent paved the way for the Reformation.

Almost simultaneously with the first phase of the Eucharistic controversy, the doctrine of predestination began to develop, which subsequently reached its logical conclusion in the Swiss Reformation. In the 9th century, it was already clearly stated by the monk Gottschalk in the form of the doctrine of double predestination - the righteous to salvation, and the sinners to condemnation. Like the future reformers, he based his views on the teachings of Blessed. Augustine, but if the latter mainly had in mind predestination to salvation, recognizing only "some allowance of God to condemn sinners, but no more", then Gottschalk was not afraid to give the views of the blissful. Augustine's logical conclusion. He wrote: "I believe that God, in His mercy, predestinated the elect to eternal life, and that in His righteous judgment He predestinated sinners to eternal damnation." Although this doctrine was condemned, we can judge the extent of its influence by the fact that it was approved at one of the local councils of the ninth century.

The second main postulate of the Reformation - sola Scriptura ("only Scripture") was already manifested in the Waldensian movement, which in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries swept almost all of Europe. Their heightened attention to St. The Scriptures were, in many ways, driven by a natural thirst to hear the Word of God, which they were denied in the Roman Catholic Church.

In the views of the Waldensians, we also see the idea of ​​the invisible Church, which Luther later developed, although historically it "reminiscent of the idea of ​​the invisible Church of Blessed Augustine, who, under the influence of his concept of predestination to salvation, looked at her as a collection ... destined by grace for salvation , which differ sharply in this from ... the mass of members of the only visible Church ".

In addition, noticeable features of the coming Reformation appear in the teaching of the Waldenses only about two sacraments: baptism and the Eucharist, as well as in the denial of the veneration of the Virgin, saints and icons.

One of the most prominent "reformers before the Reformation" was the English theologian of the second half of the XIV century, John Wyclif, translator of the Bible into English. In his views we find a rather sharp exposition of the doctrine of predestination and a very definite substantiation of the principle of sola Scriptura. Holy Scripture, according to the teachings of Wyclif, is the highest criterion: "if a hundred popes expressed any opinion and if all the monks were converted to cardinals and defended this opinion, then you should not believe it if it is not based on Holy Scripture." Wyclif also expounded the heretical doctrine of the transubstantiation of the Holy Gifts, which subsequently had a direct impact on Protestant theology. He did not recognize the transubstantiation of bread and wine in the Eucharist and allowed only the co-presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Gifts. Simultaneously with the criticism of the church hierarchy, he significantly expanded the church rights of the secular authorities.

The teachings of J. Wyclif were condemned in 1382. He himself, due to his enormous popularity and support from the authorities, escaped execution, but his views had a huge impact on the development of Protestant theology. In England, his ascetic preaching was reflected primarily in the Puritan movement; in Europe, Jan Hus became his closest follower.

Jan Hus lived at the turn of the XIV and XV centuries and is known, rather, as a passionate exposer of the vices of church life and a martyr. He regarded indulgences as an outrage against the grace of the Gospel and violently rebelled against church property. In his theological views, Hus does not deviate as far as Wyclif from the basic truths of the Catholic faith; he follows Wyclif only in his view of the Holy. Scripture and in the doctrine of predestination. In addition, like Blzh. Augustine, Hus taught that, along with the visible Church, there is the true Church of Christ, headed by the Savior Himself, and the elect predestined for salvation are faithful to this Church. It may happen that the visible heads of the Church - popes and bishops - are among the condemned, then their power is usurpation, and they themselves are false prophets. Jan Hus also did not share the views of J. Wyclif on the Eucharist, he only demanded the restoration of communion under two types, as was customary in Orthodoxy.

Despite the fact that his sermon did not contain the clearly heretical views of J. Wyclif, Hus was condemned at the Council of Constance and burnt as a heretic. According to the famous expression of Erasmus of Rotterdam, he was burned, but not defeated, because the death of Jan Hus only contributed to the development of the Hussite movement, before which, in the end, the whole of Catholic Europe turned out to be powerless.

Jerome Savonarola, who lived in the second half of the 15th century in Florence, continued with renewed vigor the denunciation of church vices. It is unlikely that he can rightfully be called a "reformer before the Reformation," he denounced the authority of the Bishop of Rome, but did not deviate from the traditional dogma of the Catholic Church. Rather, he served as a forerunner of the egalitarian social and religious transformations of Calvin, with whom he is drawn together by severe fanaticism. Despite the condemnation and death at the hands of the Inquisition, I. Savonarola was subsequently acquitted by the Roman Catholic Church.

It would be completely unfair to believe that the Catholic Church was not aware of the danger that threatened her and did not try to do anything to prevent it. These attempts are connected with a number of cathedrals of the beginning of the 15th century, which received the name of the cathedral movement. Unfortunately, they were never put into practice, and for this Western Christianity paid the price of schism.

In the 14th century, William of Ockham, one of the most prominent representatives of scholasticism, made a strong criticism of papal absolutism. In his treatise Eight Questions on Papal Power, he expressed a number of provisions that would later be used by the conciliar movement. Their essence boils down to the denial of the secular power of the priesthood, which should take care exclusively of the salvation of souls. Neither the clergy nor the Church can own property and be subject to the authority of secular laws. The primacy of the pope has no basis either in divine law or in Holy Scripture. Scripture, which is the only rule of faith. Disagreements that arise in the Church must be resolved not by the court of the pope, but by the decision of the Council.

The theological school of the University of Paris played a significant role in the conciliar movement. There is nothing surprising in the fact that the efforts of all those who strove for church reforms were directed, first of all, against the main position of Catholic ecclesiology - the doctrine of papal authority, from the arbitrariness of which the entire Church suffered. Prominent theologians of that time John of Paris, Marsilius of Padua, Simon de Cramo spoke out against the principle of the sovereign power of the popes. He was especially sharply condemned by the Chancellor of the University of Paris, Pierre d'Ally, the future cardinal and leading participant in the cathedrals. In his treatise De Ecclesia, he wrote: “The subordination of the Church to the pope is only accidental. Only the Universal Church is infallible, and any individual Church can err, the Roman Church, like any of them. The Roman high priest is not necessarily the universal high priest, for once the primacy passed from Antioch to the Roman See. The pope is able to err, which has happened more than once ... The pope can even fall into heresy." Another prominent figure in the Parisian school, Jean Charlier of Gerson, spoke in the same spirit. He devoted the treatise "On the removal of the pope from the Church," in in which, in particular, he argued that "the pope, as a pope, is a man, and how a pope can sin, and how a person can err ... the cathedral is higher than him in authority, higher than him in dignity, higher than him in position. To such a council, the pope himself is obliged to obey in everything ... because the council, which represents the whole Church, cedes the power to bind and decide." Moreover, he believed that in the interests of the Church it was possible "to depose the pope or the prelate, who is confirmed by the election of cardinals."

The Avignon captivity of the popes and the scandalous revelations of the time of the "papal schism" undermined the authority of the See of Rome so seriously that the need for internal changes became absolutely inevitable. In July 1408, 13 cardinals announced that they were rejecting rival claimants to the papacy and intended to seek unity between the Latin Church split between the two papal courts. In fact, for the first time in the history of the Western Church, power was in the hands of the cardinals alone, without a pope. It was decided to convene the Council of Pisa in 1409. The decision to convene the council was made not by the pope or the emperor, but by the college of cardinals. By the power of the council, both rivals - Benedict VII and Gregory XII - were deposed, their decisions were canceled, and the throne of Rome was declared vacant.

The strengthening of conciliar power continued at the Council of Constance, convened in 1414. It was decided that the popes, like the rest of the clergy, obey him in everything, even in matters of faith. The ruling reads: "Although the pope has the greatest rights in matters of faith, and his decrees apply to all Churches ..., his judgment is not final and is subject to the approval of the Church." The conciliar beginning of church life was further strengthened by the provision that councils should be convened regularly, at least every ten years. The authority of the cathedral began to operate, Pope Martin V, elected by him, recognized all the decisions and took an oath in his submission to the cathedral authority.

The decisions of the Council of Constance were further developed at the Council of Basel in 1431. The Pope was forbidden to stop the work of the cathedral, change the place of its holding, the Hussites were allowed to receive communion under two kinds. Pope Eugene IV, who opposed these decisions, was deposed, in their letter the theologians of the University of Paris urged the fathers of the council "to oppose the pope as once Paul opposed Peter."

Although by the middle of the 15th century the popes succeeded in subordinating the Western Church again to their power, the consciousness of the need for internal renewal remained, and in this connection we should mention the V Lateran Council, which took place from 1512 to 1517. At it, the issue of reforming the Roman Catholic Church was put forward as a priority , but it was not possible to use this last possibility.

The leaders of the reforming councils of the 15th century primarily set themselves the goal of transforming the Catholic Church from an absolute monarchy into a limited monarchy. They demanded the strengthening of the national episcopal power at the expense of the power of Rome. The pope, as a high priest, should be honored, but the power in the national Churches should belong to the bishops, and general church issues should be resolved at councils, to which the highest church authority belongs.

The activities of the pre-Reformation councils revealed the main causes of the Reformation, which were, first of all, the result of the deviation of the Western Church from the truly Christian principles of faith and life, preserved by the Eastern Church, and a schism could only be prevented by a return to these principles. The experience of the conciliar movement testifies that in order to overcome the crisis, the best minds of the Catholic Church were forced to turn to the truly Orthodox principles of church life. Indeed, many of the statements of d "Aglie or Gerson sound quite Orthodox, and the tragedy of the Western Church is that these attempts at church transformations in capite et membris ended in failure.

Unfortunately, instead of reforms, the Reformation took place, and the Catholic Church had to throw all its strength into the fight against it. The revival of the conciliar principle, which began to develop in the 15th century, was no longer possible a century later, when many of those who sympathized with him had already joined the Reformation. In the era of religious wars and the fight against schism, the order of the Jesuits, with its paramilitary organization, came to the fore in the Catholic Church.

These theological premises of the Reformation were supplemented by the further development of religious rationalism, for example, in the writings of P. Abelard, who affirmed, in contrast to the well-known thesis, "I believe in order to understand" the reverse "I understand in order to believe." There is no need to say how useful this principle of doubt was as the beginning of all knowledge, including religious knowledge, four centuries later.

Along with rationalism, the influence of medieval mysticism also affected the development of the Reformation, although it was very indirect. In addition to the deaf opposition of the dominant Church, the mystical tradition of the Middle Ages was brought closer to the views of the Reformation by the idea of ​​a direct personal appeal to God, which would later become one of the cornerstones of Protestant theology. The birthplace of the Reformation, Germany was a classical country of medieval mysticism, and its leaders themselves recognized the influence of the works of M. Eckart and the influence of other works, in particular, written by an unknown author "German Theology."

Significantly contributed to the Reformation and the flourishing of humanism. Humanism and the Reformation had common enemies - the Catholic ideology of the Middle Ages, some common foundations - the predominance of a rational and individual principle. Although this alliance turned out to be purely tactical, the influence of humanistic ideas was very noticeable in the preparation of the Reformation, in particular, Erasmus of Rotterdam had a great influence on the views of its leaders.

A number of powerful historical factors also contributed to the development of the Reformation. The gradual disintegration of the medieval world order was inevitably reflected in church life. The idea of ​​a national state, to which all its subjects are subject, finally prevailed over the idea of ​​the supreme sovereignty of the Church over the entire Christian world. By this time, the formation of the main national cultures had already been completed in Europe, and the reverse side of the struggle against papal power was the desire for independence of the national Churches. National-church movements found support in the person of the local government, which was no longer limited to the demand for independence from Rome. In the Reformation, the state saw a convenient opportunity to secure for itself the ability to interfere in the affairs of the Church and dispose of its untold riches.

The organic connection of the Reformation with the Catholic reality that gave birth to it became the reason for the internal failure of the Reformation. Only a return to the ancient church heritage of the undivided Church, which was preserved in the East, could become a genuine renewal of Western Christianity. However, having entered the struggle with Rome, Protestantism turned out to be too saturated with its spirit, it did not correct its shortcomings, but replaced them with the opposite ones and turned out to be only a reverse projection of that distorted understanding of Christianity that had developed in the West by the 16th century. If Catholicism asserted the need for an objectified, churchly mediated religious experience, then the Protestant religious consciousness proceeded from the idea of ​​the subjective, personal self-sufficiency of such experience. The unlimited religious rights of the individual, combined with the elements of protest, destroyed in the Reformation not only the errors of Catholicism, but the very foundations of the Christian faith. As Bishop wrote about it. Hilarion (Troitsky): "Protestantism ... did not restore ancient Christianity, but replaced one distortion of Christianity with another, and the new lie was bitterer than the first."

Reformation doctrine of original sin

The foundations of the Protestant doctrine were formulated by M. Luther, F. Melanchthon and their associates during the German Reformation, which marked the beginning of its Lutheran branch. Therefore, the study of the general doctrinal foundations of the Reformation draws our attention primarily to Lutheranism, which has become the historical classic of Protestantism. It was the founders of Lutheranism who formulated the main principles of the Reformation in disputes with Catholic theologians. These principles, in one form or another, then inherited the main branches of the Reformation.

The origins of the doctrine of salvation by faith alone (sola fide) lie in the peculiar understanding of the nature of original sin by the fathers of the Reformation. Luther rebelled against the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church about the primordial state of man in paradise, where the confrontation between reason and sensuality was restrained by grace, and in the fall he only lost it, keeping his nature intact. The independent ability to do good deeds, by which salvation was achieved in Catholicism, depreciated, according to the forefather of the Reformation, the saving merit of Christ. In contrast to this “virtue of thoughtlessness,” Luther needed to affirm with special force the destructive effect of the first sin on the very nature of man, in order to deprive man of the very opportunity to do good and participate in his salvation, for it belongs only to the will of the Redeemer.

So, the state of man's primordial innocence by nature was distinguished not simply by the absence of sin, but by the highest perfection of his spiritual abilities, which were in complete harmony with the sensual side of his being. It was "perfect righteousness," harmony not only in man's nature, but also in his relationship with the Creator. As the "Apology of the Augsburg Confession" says: "The natural forces of man, covered by the general concept of the "image of God," were naturally directed towards God as their direct and quite accessible goal," i.e., the possibility of true knowledge of God and unity was available to man. with him. There was nothing supernatural in this state of the human race, "little diminished by the angels," for Protestant theology. In contrast to the Catholic tradition, which describes the primordial state of man in similar colors, explaining it by the influence of "the grace of primordial righteousness," the fathers of the Reformation considered such a state to be natural, innate to man at his creation.

But the more colorfully the Protestant theology describes the perfection of the primordial man in paradise, the more bleak becomes the depth of his fall after the exile. The effect of the fall into sin is not limited to the loss of God-created perfection, a person falls into the exact opposite state. On the one hand, a person has lost his original righteousness, on the other hand, he has acquired a tendency to evil, he has become an enemy of God, and this enmity brings condemnation upon him. The "Formula of Concord" teaches: "it is necessary to believe that Adam, in his fall, lost the original righteousness or image of God that belonged to him by nature ... instead of the image of God that he lost, there occurred ... the deepest ... corruption of his whole nature." The soul of man became dead before God, and the image of God in the fallen man, according to the definition of the same "Formula of Concord," was replaced by a pillar of salt, into which Lot's wife had once turned. Man has become a "moral idol," incapable not only of striving for goodness, but even of desiring it.

If Eastern Christianity does not allow complete enslavement of human nature by original sin and preserves in it the possibility of moral choice with the help of divine grace, then the Reformation affirmed the complete dominance of the sinful principle in man. Luther expressed himself very sharply on this score: "The human will is like a horse. God sits on it, it runs where God wants and directs; the devil sits on it, it runs where the devil drives it." This idea of ​​a person's complete inability to choose between good and evil subsequently provided the basis for the development of Calvin's doctrine of predestination.

Depriving a person of the possibility of striving for good very soon developed into moral relativism - some reformers began to teach that Christians should not fulfill the commandments given to the Jews, etc. Therefore, Luther's categoricalness was significantly softened by Melanchthon, as well as the subsequent development of the Lutheran doctrine. So the "Formula of Concord" already distinguishes on the basis of St. Scripture our nature, in which sin lives, and sin, which lives in our nature, but, nevertheless, has not become identical with it. Sin is from the devil, and nature is from God, sin has become only its quality, but not nature itself, which has retained the power of difference from it. Therefore, despite the fall, she retained a limited possibility of goodness, called by Melanchthon "the righteousness of the flesh." From such righteousness differs the righteousness of God or spiritual righteousness, already completely beyond the control of human effort, as this "Augsburg Confession" defines: "The human will, apart from the Holy Spirit, has no power to accomplish the righteousness of God or spiritual righteousness." This spiritual righteousness is actually the realm of soteriology, in which the salvation of man takes place. The beginning and driving force of this kind of righteousness belongs exclusively to the grace of God. According to the same "Augsburg Confession": "Although we recognize freedom and the ability to perform external deeds of the law behind the forces of man, we do not ascribe to these forces spiritual deeds, such as: true fear of God, true faith in God .... This is - the deeds of the first table, which the human heart cannot do apart from the Holy Spirit."

As a result, the Reformation leaves a person only limited freedom of choice, but not action. Man has only the ability to passively submit to the grace of the Almighty acting in him, instead of striving for good, only non-resistance to him is left to man. The humiliation of human nature lies in the fact that it is only capable of resisting or obeying God, but is unworthy of assisting Him.

It is easy to see that in the Lutheran doctrine of original sin, the dispute of the Blessed Ones reappears. Augustine and Pelagius. Luther inherited the harshest forms of the teachings of the Blessed Ones. Augustine in the denial of man's freedom after the fall and his dependence in his salvation solely on the action of the grace of God. Suffice it to say that Luther's views were formed under the direct influence of the vicar general of the Augustinian order, John Staupitz, to whom Luther owes his acquaintance and his ardent adherence to the teachings of bliss. Augustine.

Reformation doctrine of salvation by faith alone (sola fide)

The Augustinian understanding of original sin provided the necessary theological premise for the cornerstone of the Reformation - the doctrine of salvation by faith alone - sola fide. The inner lie of Catholic soteriology was clearly recognized by many eminent representatives of the Roman Church. The “piecework” understanding of salvation, in which a person satisfied the justice of God with his good deeds, was, according to Luther, the greatest blasphemy, for instead of the Lord, a person believed salvation in his own effort and belittled the merit of the Redeemer. As the "Augsburg Confession" says: "Whoever confesses that he has earned grace through deeds - he neglects the merit of Christ and ... seeks the path to God besides Christ, by human forces." The Reformation took up arms against this teaching with all its might, and as the only condition for obtaining justifying grace, established a saving faith that turned directly to Christ. With his characteristic categoricalness, Luther contrasted the ritual faith of Catholicism with faith - as the ultimate expression of the deep disposition of the human soul.

Historically, this doctrine began to develop in Catholicism itself long before the Reformation. For example, in the XII century. similar views were expressed by Bernard of Clairvaux, then by John Wessel, who lived in the 15th century. The latter, in particular, taught that it is impossible to earn salvation by good deeds, because a person's guilt before God is metaphysically incommensurable with his earthly zeal. In addition, the law of the Church is not something perfect, so that by its exact fulfillment it would be possible to be justified before God, and not a single person is able to adequately fulfill all the prescriptions of the law. One of the prominent Catholic hierarchs of the 16th century, Cardinal Contarini, in his "Treatise or Epistle on Justification" also expounded views very close to the Reformation's doctrine of justification by faith alone.

Roots sola fide lay in those distorted ideas about God and His relationship to man that dominated the Catholic Middle Ages, when God's justice supplanted His mercy. The idea of ​​God as the Grand Inquisitor replaced the idea of ​​a saving God, and it was no longer the image of the meek Savior, but the horrors of hellish torment that served as the motivating force for good. The pressure of this horror gave rise to a thirst for guaranteed salvation, a person wanted to know for sure that he would escape hell, but good deeds did not give him such confidence, because, according to the "Schmalkalden Articles": "satisfaction for sins is impossible because no one knows how much he must do good for sin alone, to say nothing of all." The desire to know about one's salvation prompted the ordinary Christian consciousness to rush with all its might to faith, as to an instant and guaranteed sign of salvation, and in sola fide we see the ultimate expression of the thirst for guaranteed salvation, to which the Catholic Middle Ages, frightened by the horrors of hell, aspired. Luther himself admitted that the motive for his personal protest was the constant uncertainty about his own salvation: “My situation was such that, although I was an infallible monk, I still stood before God, like a miserable sinner, with a troubled conscience, and I besides, there was no certainty that my merits would soften Him. Therefore, I did not love a just God and murmured against Him .... Further, I realized that God's justification is righteousness, through which the grace and obvious mercy of God justify us by faith. Only after I felt resurrected, as if I had walked through an open door to heaven." With this confession, Luther expressed the feelings of thousands of good Catholics, who later turned into good Protestants.

The idea of ​​salvation only through faith developed mainly from a peculiar interpretation of the epistles of St. Paul, so revered by Luther. As the "Augsburg Confession" says: "We cannot receive forgiveness of sins and justification before God by our merits, but we receive their forgiveness and are cleansed before God out of mercy, by faith in Christ, we believe that Christ suffered for us and for Him for us sin is forgiven, righteousness and eternal life are granted, for God will consider this faith and count it as justification before Him, as the Apostle Paul says.

Man does not need to worry about the additional satisfaction of God with his works, which was demanded by the Catholic Church. “A man is afraid of punishment, and now he is pointed to the death of Jesus Christ, as such a great, excessive satisfaction with the truth of God that this truth no longer ... has the right to demand anything else from a person, any other satisfactions.” Human efforts, in this case, are not only superfluous, but also dangerous, because they interfere with the direct action of the grace of God. Christ brought for us such a payment, which provided us with forgiveness before the truth of God, and the assimilation of this all-encompassing merit of Christ occurs through faith. Once a person believes that the merit has been brought for him, then he is included in its saving action.

What is this saving faith that makes a person "a vessel for assimilating the merits of Christ." Faith is not a personal merit of a person and not the fruit of his inner development, it does not belong to him, but descends from above as a special gift from God. Luther wrote of this: "Faith is not a human thought that I myself could produce, but a divine power in the heart." His famous words that "everything happens according to God's unchanging determination. God produces good and evil in us; saves us without our merit and accuses us without guilt" in this case are not an exaggeration, for a person becomes an involuntary, unconscious carrier of the acting in him grace, and sola fide"became the Protestant" opus operata. "A person can and should only touch Christ with his thought in order to deserve eternal life. One has only to be sure of one's own salvation in order to possess it in reality, for justifying faith combines an appeal to God and His action, in the words of Luther: “think about the work of salvation, and it will be your property.” As Archimandrite Chrysanthos figuratively noted: “Protestantism has put the principle “I believe, therefore I am saved” at the forefront.

What gives a person this satisfaction with Christ's sacrifice of God's justice? In this satisfaction, justification is given to him, but not as deliverance from sin, but as deliverance from punishment for it, for, according to one of the symbolic books: "Justification does not remove sin, for it is deep, but covers it." "For the sake of our Advocate Christ, God deigns to regard us as perfectly righteous and holy, although sin in our flesh has not yet been removed and mortified, He does not want to see it and does not punish for it."

The essence of the justification that the Protestant seeks to achieve by faith is not "deliverance from sin, damnation and death," but, like Catholicism, deliverance from punishment. This punishment is canceled by proclaiming the righteousness of a person, but not because of his internal moral purification, but on account of the sacrifice of Christ. "In justification, the righteousness of Christ is assimilated to us, without the fact that we ourselves in our moral nature have become righteous." This proclamation is called "pronouncement," and in it God refuses to present an account for sin, there is a cancellation of moral debts on the fact of faith.

But what should a Lutheran do after his faith has achieved reconciliation with God and the "writing off" of sins? As already mentioned, obvious moral considerations did not allow the reformers to completely abandon the works of virtue. Symbolic books talk a lot about the so-called living or active faith, which "necessarily gives rise to new aspirations and deeds." However, the "Apology" immediately stipulates that "good works are not necessary for justification, but ... as the fruit and result of justification," i.e. The Reformation, although it admits active goodness, denies its participation in the salvation of man.

As already mentioned, the theological and historical basis of the doctrine of salvation through faith was the oppressive uncertainty of medieval Catholicism in its salvation. A person always seeks to secure such confidence for himself: "under certain conditions, a Christian should be completely calm about his salvation." The Reformation gave ordinary religious consciousness something that it could not get in Catholicism - the desired assurance of salvation, which comes immediately after belief. It is this sense of guaranteed salvation that separates the Protestant world from the Orthodox tradition more than anything else, because in it it inevitably loses this guarantee of salvation, the security of the afterlife, which man so longs for. With a certain stretch, we can say that justification by faith, which turns into universal justification, is an attempt by a weak-minded humanity to theologically secure itself from the coming Last Judgment, to pass, like Luther, through the open door to paradise.

Although the Reformation rejected the service of a man-slave in salvation, it retained the logic of man's relationship with God, Who is at enmity with fallen humanity with all the power of His might. Patriarch Sergius expressed this worldview in the following way: “According to the Protestant teaching, it turns out that God was always angry with a person ... Then, suddenly seeing a person’s faith in Jesus Christ, God reconciles with a person and no longer considers him His enemy, although a person can even after that still sin, but with impunity."

Accordingly, the understanding of the essence of that change in the relationship between God and man, which is called salvation or justification, also differs. His goal is not to get rid of sin, but to avoid punishment for it. Deliverance from sin requires an inner change of man, while the right to deliver from the punishment for sin belongs to God, so salvation remains "an act ... taking place in God, and not in man" .

If Western Christianity, both in the Catholic and Protestant traditions, mainly sought a way to change the attitude of God towards man, then the East has always called on man himself to change his attitude towards God, Who remains unchanged in love for His creation. Therefore, the West thought so deeply about what kind of propitiatory tribute - deeds or faith - is more pleasing to God in order to get rid of the punishment for sin. The religious consciousness of the Eastern Church often left this question aside, because it always considered a change in the attitude of man himself to God, that is, a spiritual and moral change, as a necessary condition for salvation. Catholicism saw the way to salvation in man's own effort, the Reformation gave it entirely to the will of God, but in both cases, the very content of salvation remained unchanged. God either justified a person, satisfying His justice with his good deeds, or forgave him by faith, removing from him the guilt for sin, but in both cases the soul of the person being saved did not undergo a saving change, the person did not have to change his attitude towards God, to gain eternal life.

In Orthodox belief, the basis of human salvation is not the number of good deeds or the fact of faith, but the process of changing a person's attitude to God, that is, the spiritual and moral rebirth of the individual. For this rebirth both faith and works are equally necessary, the unity of active faith. As the Circular Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs of 1723 says: “We believe that a person is justified not just by faith alone, but by faith guided by love (i.e., by faith as an active force), that is, through faith and deeds. Not only a ghost of faith, but the faith that is in us through works justifies us in Christ."

Patriarch Sergius defined the correlation of faith and deeds in the Orthodox teaching on salvation in this way: "One should not ask why a person receives salvation, but one must ask how a person makes his salvation." Both faith and works equally participate in the return of a person to God, they are equal components of the salvific change of the human personality, which destroys sin in a person and leads him to salvation.

We must also note the unparalleled impact that the Reformation had on the public consciousness of the West and, ultimately, on the formation of Western civilization as a whole. It is with the influence of the Reformation that the end of the Middle Ages and the formation of the consciousness of the new time is connected. The Reformation changed the religious motivation of society, which resulted in a change in the very direction of historical development, a change in the type of social and religious consciousness.

The religious consciousness of the Middle Ages was in tense uncertainty about its salvation, in fear of the daily depicted horrors of hell. In an effort to protect himself, a person was forced to constantly fill the treasury of good deeds, which was invariably emptied by new sins. The Reformation at once liberated the human conscience from this oppression, universal salvation depreciated the deeds of virtue, they were needed only to calm the conscience. At the same time, the Reformation directed this liberated energy to the practical arrangement of earthly life, making it the basis for the industrial development of the Protestant countries. His successes were ultimately able to break down Catholic resistance and laid the foundation for the modern industrial-technocratic civilization of the West, which became the historical product of the religious half-life of Western Christianity.

The Reformation began as an attempt to purify church life, to return to the ideal of evangelical early Christianity. According to the thought of its fathers, the entire development of the Church in the post-evangelical era was an unconditional decline, in which human traditions overshadowed the gospel truth. Therefore, it is necessary to return to its original source - the Holy Scriptures and discard all later layers - the Holy Tradition. The only doctrinal authority for Protestants all over the world remains St. Scripture, which is expressed by the principle sola Scriptura- "only Scripture." So, salvation is only by faith - sola fide, faith is only according to Scripture - sola Scriptura. Indeed, one of the symbolic books of the Lutheran Church defines: "We believe, teach and confess that the only rule and guiding thread by which any teaching and all teachers can be judged and evaluated are only the prophetic and apostolic writings of the Old and New Testaments." With the same certainty, the attitude to St. Tradition: "All human decrees and traditions are contrary to the Gospel and the doctrine of faith in Christ ... on the basis of the deeds and words of the Holy Fathers, it is impossible to determine the dogmas of faith."

Like salvation by personal faith, the principle sola Scriptura proceeded from the general idea of ​​the Reformation about the legitimacy of a personal, unmediated appeal to God, which the Reformation asserted with particular force. The power of salvation belongs only to God, but every Christian must turn to Him for its action on his own, without any mediation, earthly or heavenly. Formerly, the Catholic Church was the mediator of salvation, for she communicated to the faithful the saving power of the sacraments. The Church was also a mediator in the faith, for it offered a person to know God their own experience of knowing about Him - Sacred Tradition. Between man and Revelation in Holy Scripture, she affirmed through the Holy. Traditions. In an effort to destroy any mediation between God and man, the Reformation left only St. Scripture, opening which, everyone could directly know about God from His words. In the cult of St. Scriptures personal doctrinal experience supplanted the doctrinal experience of the Church.

Holy Scripture has become a source not only of knowledge about God, but also of His sanctifying action, the guidance of the Holy Spirit in the interpretation of the Holy. Scriptures. As Luther wrote, "here, in the word of God, the house of God, here the sky is opened ..." Appeal to St. Scripture acquires a partly sacramental meaning, for, according to the reformers, the Spirit of God, which inspired its authors, "will guide into all truth even those who learn from the Bible the law of God."

In addition to dogmatic reasons, the cult of St. The Scriptures had their own historical background for the Reformation. As already mentioned, Protestantism developed solely as a reaction to the errors of Catholicism. Indeed, the ecclesiastical authority of the Roman Catholic Church for a long time limited access to the Holy. Scripture and, conversely, gave excessive importance to the Holy. Tradition, often using it to justify their arbitrariness. Naturally, the first thought of the leaders of the Reformation was the desire to deprive their opponents of the opportunity to refer to the authority of St. Tradition and contrast it with Scripture.

Thus, the only source of knowledge about faith is St. Scripture, for the reformers, it was also a fulcrum in the fight against Rome, the authority of the papacy was opposed to the authority of the public, non-hierarchical - the Word of God.

Allowing access to St. Scripture, the fathers of the Reformation hoped that no one would go beyond it. However, it soon became clear that hopes for the internal unity of the biblical testimony turned out to be too naive, and the absence of criteria for interpreting its text ends in religious arbitrariness. How serious this danger was, Luther himself testifies in a letter to Zwingli: “If the world continues to exist for a long time, then I announce that with the various interpretations of the Scriptures that we have, there remains no other means to maintain the unity of the faith than to accept the decisions of the Councils and resort to under the protection of ecclesiastical authority." If the Catholic tradition still had its roots in the past, linking a person with a previous experience of communion with God, then after the Reformation, each of its followers was forced to develop their own experience of communion with God, losing any criteria for the legitimacy of such an experience.

Now the Reformation, like Catholicism after the Great Schism, needed its own restraining authority. The need to limit the arbitrariness of doctrine led to the emergence of the so-called symbolic books of Protestantism, under the name of which its own tradition, the second main source of Protestant dogma, is actually hidden. Each Protestant movement has its own symbolic books, but the very fact of their existence contradicts the original principle of the Reformation - sola Scriptura.

This contradiction is already reflected in the early symbolic books of the German Reformation. For example, the "Formula of Concord" proclaims that "Holy Scripture alone should be recognized as the criterion, norm and rule of faith, while symbols have no authoritative meaning in matters of faith, but only serve as evidence of our faith." But, on the other hand, the same “Formula of Concord” prescribes that “all other books should be checked with symbols as to whether Christian dogmas are expounded in them correctly and in accordance with the word of God” and determines that the symbols contain a teaching that “existed and must forever exist in the Church."

The ecclesiological foundations of the Reformation

The doctrine of the Reformation about the Church is the cumulative expression of its basic principles. In it we can first of all observe the influence of the doctrine of salvation by faith. The act of faith, as an expression of personal, subjective religious experience, in which a person turned to God directly, bypassing all intermediaries, necessarily led to the rejection of the grace-filled mediation of the Church and her sacraments. Another postulate of the Reforation - sola Scriptura rejected its doctrinal mediation, asserting the right of every Christian to his own interpretation of the truths of St. Scriptures. If the Catholic Church erected a hierarchically organized intermediary apparatus between man and God - the famous Catholic pyramid, then the leaders of the Reformation did not find anything better than simply getting rid of it, leaving man alone with God. The Church cannot be a mediator in the communion with God of the faithful, for all of them, having the only Intercessor Jesus Christ, are taught from Him, are sanctified directly by His Spirit, and each believer is directly connected with Christ by his faith.

Historically, the Protestant view of the Church developed as a reaction to the significant shortcomings of Catholic ecclesiology, which was dominated by the idea of ​​the Church as an ideological community; the spiritual principle was oppressed, the existence of the sacraments, transforming this society into the Body of Christ. The Reformation opposed the unearthly and invisible to the earthly, visible image of the Church. In the words of Luther himself: "The holy Christian Church says: I believe in the holy Christian Church, and the papal Church says: I see the Christian Church. That one says: "The Church is neither here nor there" - and this one says: "The Church is here and there - then."

This desire for a spiritual image of the Church was quite natural and justified. The Reformation attempted to restore the inferiority of the spiritual principle of the Catholic Church, but falsely defined the nature of this spiritual principle. Instead of the Church being accomplished in the sacraments, the Reformation affirmed the image of the Church being accomplished by the faith of each of her faithful. Having renounced the earthly image of the Church as a visible community, Luther did not turn to the heavenly, sacramental beginning of church life, but replaced the Catholic extreme with the opposite - instead of the experience of the earthly community, he affirmed the religious experience of the individual as the basis of churchness.

The Reformation opposed the subjective principle of faith to the objectified earthly image of the Church in Catholicism, and man "consisting of two natures, body and soul, ... is not considered a member of Christianity according to the body that performs certain deeds, but according to the soul, i.e., according to faith , "that is, a person enters the Church and abides in it not by the grace-filled action of her sacraments, but by his faith. "For the unity of the church, no human institutions are needed ... justification that comes through faith is not bound by external ceremonies." The Church exists not because the sacraments are performed in it, but because her faithful believe, she is "a spiritual gathering of souls in one faith." Justifying faith imparts to the church its inherent quality of holiness, for those who receive the gift of faith are sanctified by it, endowing their holiness to the invisible church itself.

The second general Christian problem that the Reformation tried and failed to solve was the problem of sinfulness in the Church. The entire history of Christianity and the Christian Middle Ages in particular testified to the fact that the Church is often filled with unworthy people who destroy its holiness with their sins. How can one reconcile the sinfulness of the earthly existence of the Church with her Divine origin and calling? The Reformation Fathers attempted to separate the righteous from the sinners with the doctrine of the invisible Church. Among those who call themselves Christians and form the visible Church, the true Church abides invisibly, to which belong the true believers and the righteous justified by this faith. "The hypocrites and the evil (i.e., sinners) can also be members of the church through external fellowship," but they do not belong to it internally, according to its essence, i.e., the church of saints always invisibly separates itself from the sinners who temporarily reside in it, but this separation will be clearly revealed only at the Last Judgment. Just as faith is an internal and invisible principle, accordingly, the Church, to which a person joins through faith, must become invisible, not subject to external manifestations. This true Church is invisible and, being based only on faith, she herself becomes an object of faith. According to the views of the fathers of the Reformation, this true invisible Church at all times was within the visible Church, and "the invisible Church is in the visible as the soul in the body," but it manifested itself visibly in the world in the era of the Reformation. In this definition of the spiritual and invisible essence of the Church, Luther directly correlates it with the Kingdom of God, about which the Savior spoke.

This attempt at purification grew in Protestantism into a denial of the visible earthly existence of the Church, but the very first steps towards the establishment of a spiritual invisible Church forced its founders to change their own convictions, for the invisible Church was turning into an unknown Church, which was in danger of becoming non-existent in the eyes of the faithful. Immediately after the destruction of the earthly ecclesiastical building of Catholicism, the Reformation was compelled to enclose its own ecclesiastical building with outward marks, and thus give it that visible form which it had so zealously rejected. The Apologia asserts that "the True Church also has external signs by which it is recognized, namely: it is undoubtedly where the word of God is purely preached and the sacraments are performed according to the word."

The denial of the mediatory service of the Church, which proceeds from the postulate of salvation by faith, destroyed, first of all, the sacramental and hierarchical beginning of the Church, as well as the mediatory service of the Heavenly Church, which manifested itself in the rejection of the veneration of the Mother of God and the saints.

The destruction of the idea of ​​the Church, which sanctified the life of the believer with its sacraments, changed the whole structure of religious life. A person turns to God with his own faith, and only his inner confidence in the merits of the Redeemer, which does not need any mediation to Communion with God, can be saving. If there is no need for the intermediary, binding service of the Church, which elevates a person to God, then, accordingly, there is no place for the sacraments as a special image of the manifestation of God's grace in the world, for it is given directly to the believer. The logical development of the doctrine of justification by faith alone must inevitably lead to a denial of the grace-filled saving power of the sacraments; they cannot give more than justifying faith.

A common feature of the sacraments in all branches of the Reformation is the denial of the real presence of God in the Eucharistic bread and wine and, accordingly, the denial of the connection between the Eucharist and the Sacrifice of Christ. Thus, the nature of the sacraments has undergone such a significant distortion that the Orthodox Church cannot recognize their sufficient worth of grace and partially recognizes only the confession of the foundations of the faith in baptism, supplementing it with Orthodox Chrismation.

As already mentioned, the denial of the mediatory service of the Church was expressed in the consistent rejection of both the sacramental and hierarchical principles of church life. The Reformation replaced the hierarchical principle with the idea of ​​a universal or royal priesthood of the faithful, which, of course, was deprived of its sacramental dignity. Like the Old Testament Korah, Dathan and Aviron, who conjured that: "all society, all are holy," Luther proclaimed: "We are all shepherds, because we are all Christians, we have one gospel, one faith, one Spirit ... So, the priesthood in the New Testament the common property of everyone and everyone, only in spirit, and not in persons, "" why do we allow bishops and councils to decide and conclude what they want? We ourselves have the word of God before our eyes: we should know, and not them, that right or wrong - and they must yield to us and listen to our word. So, every Christian is a divine person, enlightened by his own study of the Holy. Scripture, and containing the fullness of spiritual authority. Through salvation by faith and enlightenment by Scripture, the true believer gains direct communion with Christ: "Every Christian is a personal revelation of the true Church," for all are baptized with one baptism and have the same rights in the Church.

Although the Reformation did not directly reject the institution of the priesthood, its nature changed. The appointment of a priest is not to communicate the gifts of the grace of the Holy Spirit, but only to teach the true faith and educate the people of God, that is, the priest becomes a preacher. The essence of ordination, according to the teachings of the "Apology of the Augsburg Confession," "should be assumed only in the appointment of preachers, but not in the communication of special gifts of grace that distinguish priests from laity." Naturally, where there are no special gifts of grace in the ministry of a priest, there is no need for apostolic succession. The election of priests (the so-called messenger from below) is the work of all the faithful, as the Apologia says about this, "the appointment of priests is granted to the Church by God's command," and in this she does not rely on the uninterrupted flow of Christ's grace, but she herself endows with the necessary authority.

Having destroyed the mediatory service of the earthly Church, the leaders of the Reformation naturally rejected the mediation of the Church of Heaven, the Mother of God and the saints. This again reveals the blood relationship between Protestantism and Catholicism, for the denial of the veneration of the Mother of God and the saints developed as a reaction to their excessive veneration by the Catholic Middle Ages. The author of the Apology was largely right in asserting that the worship of the saints "offends Christ and His good deed because people trust the saints instead of Christ and are mad that Christ is a strict judge, and the saints are merciful ... intercessors." To render worship to human achievement was for the reformers the greatest possible blasphemy in relation to the saving faith, therefore statements about the cult of saints are particularly harsh. For the same reasons, the veneration of the Virgin Mary, as the embodiment of the highest conceivable holiness of man, as an all-holy, becomes completely inappropriate in the Reformation. The apology says this about the attitude towards Her: "She is worthy of every highest honor, but should not be considered equal to Christ ... If ... they want to receive Christ's redemption through Her, then they recognize Christ not as a Redeemer, but as a formidable vengeful judge." In response, we can cite the words from the Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs: “We ask the saints not as any gods, not as autocratic possessors of divine gifts, but as such persons who, having greater boldness towards God and access to Him closer than we, can mediate between Him and us by their intercession, and how holy persons are more likely to be heard by God than we who remain in sins.

The Reformation also made significant differences in the moral teaching of the Catholic Church, which was excessively burdened with asceticism, which sometimes turned into a savage denial of the dignity of the bodily nature of man. Asceticism was for Luther and his associates the same insult to the Sacrifice of Christ as the veneration of the saints; meaningless, from their point of view, the pursuit of exploits violated the main commandment of the Reformation - salvation is only by faith.

Lutheranism

L Utheranism arose on the basis of German religious consciousness during the German Reformation, which formed the general foundations of the religious consciousness of Protestantism. The founding fathers of Lutheranism were M. Luther and F. Melanchthon, as well as their closest followers. From Germany, it spread to a number of European countries: Austria, Hungary, France, the Scandinavian countries, and then North America. Now there are about 75 million Lutherans in the world and about 200 Lutheran churches. 50 million Lutherans belong to the Lutheran World Union, formed in 1947.

Very important among them belongs to the "Augsburg Confession" compiled in 1530 on the basis of several early Lutheran doctrinal writings. It got its name from the city in which the German emperor Charles V held a diet to reconcile the reformers with the Catholic Church. It sets out the basic dogmatic ideas of Lutheranism about God, sin, justification, the Church and the sacraments, as opposed to the Catholic doctrine.

Shortly after the announcement of the Confession, a refutation of it was received from the Catholic theologians who were present at the Sejm, and it served as a pretext for Melanchthon to write the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, which is close to the Confession in content, but much longer, differs in a sharper polemical tone and in detail. reveals the doctrine of original sin in connection with the dogma of justification by faith.

In 1536, Luther wrote the so-called "Schmalkaldic articles" or clauses. Briefly repeating the contents of the first two books, this short work supplements it with the teaching on the trinity of the Divine Persons and on the Person of Jesus Christ.

Equally important in the Lutheran world are Luther's Large and Small Catechisms, compiled by him in 1529. They are written as a guide in matters of faith and are devoted to the interpretation of the Creed, the Lord's prayer and commandments, and other general truths of faith. The Large Catechism was intended for teachers and preachers, while the Small, being an abbreviated version of the Large, was intended for all believers and for study in schools.

The Formula of Concord, adopted in 1580, completes a number of symbolic books of Lutheranism. It was compiled by a group of theologians after the death of Luther and is devoted to considering the main provisions of Lutheranism in comparison with the teachings of the Reformed, as well as resolving the contradictions that arose among Lutheranism itself.

Of the seven sacraments recognized both in Orthodoxy and in Catholicism, Lutheranism has practically retained only two: baptism and the Eucharist. Repentance also preserves the features of the sacrament, the rest are recognized as rites. Only baptism and the Eucharist have an undeniable divine origin, for they are based on the clear testimonies of St. Scriptures. According to Luther and his associates, only these sacraments have prototypes in the Old Testament - circumcision and the Paschal lamb, all the rest are church institutions, have no direct justification in Scripture and do not directly serve to affirm the saving faith.

Lutheran doctrine perceives the sacrament not as a way of grace in the world, but as a sign of a person's communion with Christ, as "a reminder of our state of grace," according to Melanchthon. These are symbols of our union with God, like the rainbow after the flood. According to the definition of the Augsburg Confession, the sacraments are to be "signs and means of the Divine will for Christians, appointed to arouse and strengthen the faith in those who use them." The whole power of these sacred rites is in reminding us of our salvation in Christ, which is accomplished once and for all, therefore, to demand and strive for a special grace-filled effect, in addition to what has already been granted to us by justifying faith, means to humiliate the redemption of Christ.

Unlike the teaching of the Eastern Church, which sees in baptism deliverance from original sin and renewal, the rebirth of human nature, Lutheran baptism does not free it from original sin itself, but only from punishment for sin, this is not rebirth from sin, but an amnesty. The fullness of the redemptive merits of Christ, imputed to the one baptized according to his faith, completely covers any of his sin, depriving the will of a person of the visible need to strengthen and develop the state of grace, to which he joins in baptism.

The Lutheran sacrament of repentance is the ongoing action of baptism, and its existence is lawful because its purpose is the remission of sins through faith in Christ, it enlivens this faith, makes it real in a person's life.

Consistently confessing that the sacrament is only a reminiscent sign in nature, Luther nevertheless did not dare to declare the Eucharist to be the same sign; it retained reality and did not become a symbol. It preserves the dignity of the sacrament because it reminds the faithful of the foundation of their faith - the Calvary sacrifice of Christ. But the Lutheran understanding of the Eucharist rests on two main differences - the denial of the transubstantiation of the bread and wine of the Eucharist into the Body and Blood of Christ and the denial of the meaning of the Eucharist as a sacrifice.

Lutheranism's denial of transubstantiation went back to the tradition of nominalism, in particular, to the works of W. Ockham and P. Lombard. In the course of the Reformation, fierce disputes unfolded between supporters of the symbolic understanding of the Eucharist and those who asserted the reality of the presence of the Body and Blood of Christ without the transubstantiation of bread and wine. The first direction was fixed in the Swiss branch of the Reformation, the second - in the German one, therefore the Lutheran view of the sacrament of the Eucharist was formed in confrontation with the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church on transubstantiation, on the one hand, and with supporters of the symbolic view, on the other.

According to the teaching of symbolic books, bread and wine are not transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ, do not change their essence: "We reject and condemn ... the doctrine of transubstantiation ... as if bread and wine, having been sanctified ... lose ... their substance and turn into the substance of the Body and Blood of Christ ." The internal inconsistency of the Lutheran understanding of the sacrament of the Eucharist lies in the fact that, having refused transubstantiation, Luther could not completely abandon the real, invisible presence of Christ in bread and wine, the feeling of a former Catholic monk restrained him, so he began to teach about the co-presence of the Body and Blood of Christ, which does not change the essence of the Eucharistic bread and wine. As the "Formula of Concord" says: "The Body of Christ is present and taught under bread, with bread, in bread (sub pane, cum pane, in pane) ... by this way of expression we wish to teach the mysterious union of the unchanging substance of bread with the Body of Christ," moreover the expression "under the bread" (sub pane) is only a modification of the Latin Eucharistic formulation "under the guise of bread" (sub specie pane). All analogies of symbolic books, however, do not indicate the image of the presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in wine and bread. The truth of the presence of the Body and Blood in the bread and wine of the Eucharist does not depend on the internal state of the one who performs the sacrament, i.e. the reality of the sacrament retains its objective nature: "Our faith does not produce the sacrament; it is produced only by the most certain word and the establishment of the almighty God" ( "Consent Formula"). On the other hand, the validity of the sacrament also depends on the participation of the faithful with it, for, according to the same “Formula of Concord”, “mere blessing or pronunciation of the establishing words of Christ does not produce the sacrament, if all the actions related to the supper are not observed, according to the establishment of Christ. ; for example, if the blessed bread is not distributed, is not accepted by believers, if they do not become participants in it. Moreover, the realization of the co-presence of the Body and Blood of Christ with the bread and wine of the Eucharist occurs at the moment of eating bread and wine, "outside of eating, bread should not be considered sacred, then there is no sacrament," therefore, the reality of the sacrament, its objective component depends on its subjective side. - participation in it of the faithful.

The "Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs on the Orthodox Faith" of 1723 pays special attention to the refutation of the Lutheran idea of ​​the Eucharist: "We believe that in the sacrament of the Eucharist our Lord Jesus Christ is not symbolic, not figurative ... and not through the penetration of bread, so that the Divinity of the Word enters into what is offered for Bread is essential to the Eucharist, as the followers of Luther ... explain unworthily, but truly and truly, so that after the consecration of bread and wine, the bread is changed into the very true Body of the Lord ... and the wine is changed ... into the very true Blood of the Lord.

The second significant difference of the Lutheran Eucharist is that it does not assimilate the meaning of the sacrifice, for the true sacrifice of the Savior was made once and for all and is not repeated, so that by performing it anew the dignity of His feat would not be diminished. According to the "Augsburg Confession": "The sacred sacrament was instituted not to be offered as a sacrifice for sins (for the sacrifice was made before), but to revive our faith and comfort our conscience... Therefore, the sacrament requires faith and without faith it is in vain." This view developed as a reaction to the extreme abuses of the Catholic Middle Ages, when the Eucharist became a means of obtaining grace and fulfilling desires, a sacrifice made by people to propitiate an angry God. In the struggle against Catholic distortions of the sacrament, Lutheranism lost its meaning and saving effect and excluded the faithful from the fruits of Christ's redemption. It is noteworthy that the Fathers of the Reformation repeatedly referred to the image of the Eucharist as the sacrament of thanksgiving, which was preserved by Eastern Christianity, in contrast to the Catholic idea of ​​the Eucharist as a sacrifice offered to avert the punishment for sin.

Calvinism

TO The cradle of the Reformation, undoubtedly, was and remains Germany, but evidence of its objective maturation in the bowels of the Catholic Middle Ages, struck by an internal crisis, was the emergence of a second powerful center of church protest in Switzerland. It arose simultaneously with the beginning of the German movement, but practically independently of it. Soon the differences in the interpretation of the general principles of the Reformation became so significant that already in 1529 there was a separation of the German and Swiss branches of the Reformation, which consolidated the independent existence of a group of Protestant movements, collectively known as the Reformed Churches. At present, there are significant Reformed churches in England, Hungary, the Netherlands, Romania, France, Germany, Slovakia, the USA, Switzerland, as well as in a number of third world countries. The most representative international organization is the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, which in 1875 brought together about 40 million representatives of the main Reformed movements.

On the whole, Reformedism or, as it is often called, Calvinism, is distinguished from Lutheranism by a greater consistency and rigidity of views. Perhaps it was precisely this circumstance that contributed to the wide spread of Reformation, for its sharp, gloomy, but logically verified theological forms coincided with the religious character of the Middle Ages, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, satisfied that thirst for rationality in matters of faith, which was brought up by the Catholic tradition.

The foundations of the Reformed tradition were outlined in his writings by John Calvin, a younger contemporary of the fathers of the Reformation. His main work is the famous work "Instructions in the Christian Faith." In Geneva, Calvin also proved himself to be a major public figure, he became almost the sole ruler of the city and did much to transform his life in accordance with the norms of the Reformed dogma, without stopping at the physical reprisal against his opponents. His influence both in Switzerland and in Europe was so great that in his time he earned the title of "Pope of Geneva."

There are a lot of symbolic books of the Reformation, and not all of them enjoy the same authority. The greatest recognition is enjoyed, first of all, by the "First Catechism," written by J. Calvin in 1536 on the basis of his "Instructions in the Christian Faith." He expounds the doctrine of the sources of Christian knowledge, of God and His attributes, of man and the fall into sin, of the Church and the sacraments. The "Geneva Catechism" and "Geneva Agreement" are also considered to be generally authoritative beliefs (the latter work is distinguished by the most consistent presentation of the doctrine of predestination). The "Gallican Confession," and the "Heidelberg Catechism" are also widely accepted in the Reformed tradition.

Turning to the consideration of the features of the Reformed dogma, we must first of all indicate the general principle that organically connects it with Lutheranism and with the ideology of the Reformation as a whole, namely, the affirmation of salvation by faith. The Swiss reformers gave a slightly different development to this principle, and here we must turn to those contradictions in the Lutheran system of views that were never resolved by it. Twice Luther and his supporters did not dare to draw conclusions that logically followed from the foundations of their religious worldview. Both times this innuendo became the cause of fierce disputes, which did not lead to final clarity in the view of the relationship of grace to the person being saved and the sacraments, in particular, the Eucharist. The resolution of the internal inconsistency of Lutheranism in these matters is the main merit of reformist theology, which, however, not only distanced it from the truly Christian foundations of the faith, but led to a direct contradiction with them, especially in the doctrine of unconditional predestination.

This idea, in its essence, is only the logical conclusion of the idea common to the entire Reformation about the unconditional destruction of human nature by the fall. Luther taught about "falling to the point of losing the very desire for goodness, about the complete moral deadness of fallen man." Calvin proceeds from the same premise - "there is not a single part in a person that is free from sin, and therefore everything that he does is imputed to him as a sin," but from it he draws conclusions that Luther did not know or wanted to avoid ".

From the extremes of the general Protestant view of the complete decomposition of the fallen nature of man, Calvin quite logically moves to the other extreme - the position of the unconditional predestination of man's fate. Indeed, if from the hopeless depths of a person’s fall only the gift of saving faith sent down by God can be restored, if any of a person’s own effort is fruitless and does not matter for his salvation, then a natural question arises - why are not everyone saved equally? If a person is unable to choose good or evil, it means that God Himself makes this choice for him. If salvation does not belong to the person himself, is outside his will, then the cause of salvation or death is not in his own moral choice, but outside of him - in the realm of God's will, which determines the ways of the saving gift of faith given by one and taken away from others. So, salvation is wholly contained in the hand of God, which moves some to heavenly bliss, others to eternal torment.

At the basis of such an attitude of the Creator to man lies the idea of ​​His undivided dominion over the world, of the absolute sovereignty of the Divine. Calvin was driven by the desire to restore the true greatness of God, which Catholicism belittled by human hope in the price of human good deeds. The will of the Creator reigns over everything, including the souls of those created by Him.

Predestination allows you to finally destroy any possibility of a person’s merit in the matter of salvation, he belongs entirely to the will of God, which chooses him as its instrument, and “the good deeds that we do under the guidance of the Holy Spirit do not play a role in our justification.” A similar view belonged to Blessed. Augustine, but he did not dare to carry it out with such consistency as Calvin. Blzh. Augustine, and then Luther, preferred to speak only of predestination to salvation, not daring to "sacrifice mankind on the altar of sola fide." Calvin was not afraid of double predestination - some for salvation, others for condemnation. The Lord reveals His mercy in the elect through gratia irrestibilis - an irresistible grace that they cannot resist, and He also reveals His truth in the condemned, depriving them of this grace. Proceeding from the prejudicedly interpreted saying of St. Paul from Romans 8:29, whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son," Calvin coldly divides all mankind into two kinds of people: a small flock chosen for salvation by virtue of the incomprehensible decision of God, in addition to all their merit, and the doomed majority, who will not be saved, despite all efforts, and are called to this world only in order to prove that these human efforts are fruitless in the face of the sovereignty of God.

Proceeding from the concept of unconditional predestination, Calvin rejected the universality of the sacrifice on the cross and the gospel message, for the Lord suffered death on the cross not for everyone, but only for those whom He Himself chose to eternal life. This provision destroys the main dogma of Christianity - the belief in the redemption of all, accomplished by the God-man, and directly contradicts the words of St. Paul" The grace of God has appeared, saving for all people"(Tit. 2:11).

Trying to soften his teaching, the Swiss reformer taught that God's predestination comes from His omniscience: "God knew everything that was to happen, and He could not know, for everything happened from Him and according to His will." But this attempt only changes the form of predestination, not its essence. The reason why "God once decided in His eternal and unchanging council whom He wishes to bring to salvation and whom He wishes to put to death" remains unknown, and Calvin himself is forced to admit it: "When asked why God does this, we must answer: because that He so pleases, "the law of God prescribes to a person" unbearable for him to convince a person of his own impotence, "that is, the root of the problem remains, for a person in the Calvinian understanding is deprived of the gift of choice that God makes for him.

But the doctrine of the predetermining action of God gave rise to an inevitable contradiction - if everything is predetermined by God, then He is the culprit of evil and is responsible for everything that happens, for sin is committed not by God's permission, but by His predestination. God becomes not only a source of salvation, but also death, evil exists not by the will of people who voluntarily choose it, but by the will of God Himself, Who sends them into evil. In this, many saw an indirect revival of dualism, the equal existence of good and evil, for both exist in the world at the behest of the two-faced Calvinian Deity.

To restore the image of a perfect and good God, Calvin is forced to proclaim the relativity of the concepts of good and evil. He argues in the sense that God, as an infinite being and the Creator of everything, is not subject to any law. Therefore, what is considered evil from our point of view does not have a moral quality for Him, for He is above the law, which He commanded for the fulfillment of people. For God there is no law, therefore for Him there is no transgression of the law.

Such a view actually destroys the image of God, who "is love," the source and first cause of goodness; he affirms, if not the immorality of God, then His immorality. Calvin returns to the Old Testament image of the law, which is higher than morality, good and evil lose their absolute value and from transcendental categories become temporary derivatives of the law. Such a relapse of Old Testament thinking is not surprising; on the whole, Calvinism is distinguished by an increased attention to the history of Old Israel.

The God of the Reformed remains merciful and all-forgiving to a small number of the elect. For the rest, He again acquires the familiar features of a ruthless Judge, with the only difference that if medieval Catholicism still left the opportunity to propitiate Him, then the teachings of Calvin take away this hope, turning the Christian God into a semi-pagan fate that overtakes a person without meaning and guilt. If a person is deprived of freedom, then he is not responsible for involuntary evil. Why, then, does God punish a person by not giving him the freedom to choose otherwise?

Calvin's predestination is no longer just a violation of the foundations of Christian life, but a direct destruction of them. The views of Calvin and his followers encroach on the very foundations of the Christian universe, on the image of God and the calling of man in the world, therefore the Eastern Church found it necessary to pronounce judgment on them. At the Council of Jerusalem in 1672, Calvin and his teachings were anathematized, and his preachers were called "the worst even of the infidels." The "Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs on the Orthodox Faith" of 1723 also directly speaks against predestination: "but what blasphemous heretics say, that God predestinates or condemns, regardless of the deeds of those predestined or condemned - we consider this foolishness and impiety; for in such In any case, Scripture would contradict itself. It teaches that the believer is saved by faith and his works, and at the same time presents God as the only author of our salvation, because ... He ... gives enlightening grace ... without destroying the free will of man. "

The Orthodox understanding of God's omniscience, including His foreknowledge of the future destinies of people, has never rejected the free will of man, his conscious participation in his own salvation. Speaking of the views of blj. Augustine, we have already mentioned the brilliant formulation of St. John of Damascus: "God foresees everything, but does not predetermine everything."

The flagrant injustice of this teaching, its direct contradiction of St. The Scripture was already understood by Calvin's contemporaries, but none of the branches of modern Calvinism officially rejected this teaching, just as no one canceled the anathemas of the Orthodox hierarchs. For us, the fate of this doctrine is indicative not only as a stage in the historical development of one of the branches of the Reformation, but as a natural outcome of the development of one of its main theological postulates - the doctrine of salvation by faith. Consistent doctrinal development of this postulate leads, ultimately, not only to delusions, but to conclusions that are directly anti-Christian and inhuman, its internal logic leads to absurdity.

In the doctrine of the Church, Reformation also consistently develops its basic principle. The true Church is the community of the truly chosen, that is, those who are predestined for salvation. But the Swiss Reformation finally abolishes all the features of the hierarchical structure that Luther still retained; in Reformed ecclesiology, the administrative principle of the church resolutely supplants its mystical, sacramental nature.

As already mentioned, the Swiss Reformation finally separated from the German because of disagreements in the doctrine of the Eucharist, which did not receive its logical conclusion in the Lutheran tradition. Luther proclaimed the independence of the action of grace from any external images of its manifestation, but he did not dare to consistently apply this principle in the interpretation of the Eucharist. The reality of this sacrament is realized subjectively by everyone who approaches it, but at the same time it is associated with the objective co-presence in the Holy Gifts of the Body and Blood of the Savior.

With his characteristic consistency, Calvin cleansed the sacraments of all human participation, which is completely supplanted by predestination, which does not need gracious assistance. The Reformed tradition recognizes only two sacraments - baptism and the Eucharist. The Eucharist becomes a genuine symbol: "the body of Christ is not contained in bread, and we would look in vain for Him in this earthly being; such a teaching is an impious superstition." According to the teachings of Calvin, His Body and Blood are not present in the substance of the Eucharist, there is no real partaking of Them in the Eucharist, and we perceive Jesus Christ Himself spiritually and invisibly: “Although the Lord is in heaven, He nourishes and gives life by the incomprehensible power of the Holy Spirit us with the substance of His Body and Blood." Only those who have been chosen for salvation truly partake of the Spirit of God; for the rest, this communion has no effect. There is no transubstantiation, no Lutheran "co-presence" in the Reformed understanding of the Eucharist, there is only a spiritual union with the Savior, while bread and wine remain only symbols of this union.

In the understanding of the second sacrament, which was preserved in the Reformation - baptism, Calvin is close to Luther, he considers this sacrament to be a divine sign of the believer's acceptance into a grace-filled union with God, the seal of his adoption to Christ.

The Reformed Church also recognizes St. Scripture. But if Lutheranism still has respect for church tradition, the same Luther quite often quotes the fathers, the decisions of councils, then Calvin resolutely rejects any authority of the conciliar consent of the Church, her council decisions, testing everything with the criterion of reason.

Particularly noteworthy is the principle of worldly asceticism, which developed on the basis of the doctrine of unconditional predestination and had a tremendous impact on the socio-economic development of countries where Calvinism became widespread, as well as Western civilization as a whole. On the one hand, an indirect result of the doctrine of unconditional predestination was a general oppression of religious activity, any religious aspirations of a person were paralyzed by the predetermination of his fate. On the other hand, predestination inevitably gave rise to the desire of everyone to learn about their predestination to salvation, and not vice versa. This desire found an answer in the principle of worldly asceticism - a person could indirectly judge his predestination to salvation by worldly prosperity: the Lord blesses those chosen for heavenly salvation with prosperity in their earthly life. The principle of worldly asceticism obligated a person to increase his well-being, which, in turn, was perceived not as a person’s personal property, but as a gift from above, as a sign of God’s goodwill towards a person. Accordingly, this gift had to be used for multiplication, the wealth given by God cannot be used to satisfy one's own needs, there was a sacralization of hoarding. Under these conditions, the only way out was activity in the world, which acquired the character of consecrated labor. Needless to say, what a powerful religious motivation for socio-economic progress Calvinism provided to the emerging capitalism, and it is no accident that he gained a predominant influence in the countries of radical capitalism, for example, in the USA.

Anglicanism

T The third significant branch of Protestantism is Anglicanism, which originated in the British Isles and then spread to the countries of the former British Empire. Currently, the Anglican churches are united in the so-called Anglican Commonwealth. The most significant of them are the Church of England, the Church in Wales, the Episcopal Church of Scotland, the Protestant Episcopal Church in the USA, as well as a number of churches in India, Pakistan, South Africa, Canada, Australia, and others. In total, there are about 70 million Anglicans in the world. Every 10 years, the highest hierarchs of these churches gather to discuss the most important issues at the so-called Lambeth Conferences. At the beginning of our century, prominent figures of Anglicanism stood at the origins of the "Faith and Order of the Church" movement, and to this day the Anglican Churches are actively involved in the activities of the WCC.

The beginning of the Reformation in England is most often associated with the name of Henry VIII, but its creator and ideologist was his contemporary, the Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer, and the key to its success was hidden in the same general dissatisfaction with the state of the Roman Catholic Church that caused the European Reformation.

The formation in the second half of the 16th century of the third main branch of the Reformation - the Anglican - due to historical conditions, differed significantly in its nature from the birth of the German and Swiss branches. If in Europe the Reformation proceeded predominantly "from below," then in England it began "from above," which was reflected in its comparative conservatism and the preservation of the hierarchical structure of the church. In addition, the English Reformation was late in time compared to the European one, and all this contributed to the originality of its development - it took on a softened character of a compromise between Rome and the Reformation in Europe. The foundations of Catholic doctrine and church life were increasingly eroded over time under the onslaught of extreme Protestantism, mainly the Calvinist tradition.

The symbolic books of the Church of England are few compared to other Protestant confessions. They are often distinguished by some deliberate theological ambiguity, vagueness. This is natural, for they were drawn up in an era of religious strife as an expression of compromise rather than principle and reflect the general duality of Anglican doctrine.

First of all, these are the so-called "39 members of the Anglican Church," which are the latest edition of the Anglican doctrine compiled by T. Cranmer on the basis of the "Augsburg Confession" and some provisions of Calvinism. They were finally approved by the Parliament of England and church authorities only in 1571 and represent a summary of the foundations of the Anglican religion. Of undoubted significance for the faith and life of all Anglican churches is the so-called "Book of Common Prayer," which contains the order of Anglican worship. After a number of revisions, its final approval took place in 1661, until now it remains a symbol of the church unity of the entire Anglican Commonwealth. The third symbolic book is the Anglican Catechism, which finally took shape by 1604.

The Anglican Church also recognizes three Creeds as sources of doctrine: Niceno-Tsaregrad with the addition of filioque, Athanasian and Apostolic, and also, in part, the decisions of the Ecumenical Councils. Although the Anglican Church retains respect for the tradition of the Church, partially recognizes it and uses it in its life and teaching, but, like all Protestant confessions, it denies its doctrinal dignity, equal to St. Scripture, for according to the 6th member of the Anglican Confession: "Holy Scripture contains everything necessary for salvation."

We see clear traces of the influence of the Reformation in the doctrine of original sin. 9 and 10, members of the Anglican creed basically repeat the Lutheran view of the nature of man after the fall, original sin "is the corruption and damage to the nature of each person, naturally from Adam occurring ... as a result of which every person, by his nature, is inclined towards evil," so that "by itself cannot do good deeds pleasing to God."

In the doctrine of salvation, the Anglican creed repeats the general idea of ​​the Reformation that only God acts in the justification of man, the alienated grace of God accomplishes salvation without the assistance of the saved. As the 11th member of the Anglican Confession puts it: "We are justified before God only by the merits of Jesus Christ through faith, and not by our good works."

Although the Anglican doctrine preserved the Reformed doctrine of predestination, it significantly softened it and has more sense of God's foreknowledge of human destinies than the actual predestination of their final fate.

The dignity of the sacraments in Anglicanism belongs only to baptism and the Eucharist, these are the sacraments of the gospels; the rest are the sacraments of the Church and cannot be considered full-fledged, although in this series, the sacrament of the priesthood still retains special significance. Anglicanism more retains the true meaning of the sacraments, as images of the special action in us of the grace of God. 25 of the Anglican creed states that "the sacraments instituted by Christ are not mere ... symbols ... of the Christian creed, but they are ... actual signs of the grace and blessing of God to us, through which God invisibly works upon us ... strengthens ... our faith in Him."

The Anglican understanding of the Eucharist, like Lutheranism, is notable for its internal contradictions. Thus, according to the exposition of 28 members of the Anglican Confession, "transubstantiation (or the change of bread and wine in the sacrament of the Lord) cannot be proved by Holy Scripture .... The Body of Christ is given, received ... in the Eucharist in a heavenly, spiritual way, and the means, like the Body of Christ, is received ... there is faith in the Eucharist .... bread and wine still remain in their ... natural essence. The denial of the transubstantiation of the Holy Gifts, however, does not mean their complete immutability in the sacrament. The change takes place not in the nature of bread and wine, but in the invisible relation of the heavenly Body and Blood of the Savior to them. This change takes place through the consecration of the Holy Gifts by the power of the Holy Spirit in the priesthood of a legally ordained priest, but it takes place spiritually and consists in the fact that the Body and Blood of Christ unite their inexpressible presence with bread and wine, together with which they are served to communicants. Bread and wine become the Body and Blood in the sense that they perceive the dignity, power and action of the Body and Blood of Christ through the union of their qualities with the essential qualities of the Body and Blood of the Savior, and their spiritual presence is perceived realistically, in the words of the Anglican Catechism: "The Body and the Blood of Christ is truly and truly taken... by believers at the Lord's Supper." Such uncertainty is typical of Anglican theology and allows for the coexistence of a fairly wide range of opinions on this matter.

The Anglican Church retains a general rejection of the sacrificial meaning of the Eucharist throughout the Reformation. 31 members of her creed reads: "The sacrifice of Christ, once offered, is a sacrifice ... satisfying for all the sins ... of the world - both for original sin and for arbitrary ones, and there is no other satisfaction for sin as only that one. Therefore, the thought of the sacrifices offered during the liturgy ... there is ... a dangerous deception."

As we have said, the features of the sacrament in the Anglican tradition also preserve the priesthood. The tripartite hierarchy of episcopal, priestly, and deaconal ranks remains a distinctive feature of Anglicanism, which it inherited from the Roman Catholic Church, and not only the ecclesiastical hierarchy was preserved, but the very idea of ​​​​apostolic succession, completely alien to most Protestant denominations.

The question of the validity of apostolic succession in Anglicanism is closely connected with the history of relations between the Anglican Churches of England and America and Orthodoxy, primarily with the Russian Orthodox Church. These ties were especially livened up at the turn of the last and present centuries, there was even talk of a possible reunification of the Anglicans with Orthodoxy. The most prominent theologians of the Russian Church took part in discussions on this issue. For quite objective reasons, reunification turned out to be impossible, but mutual benevolence in relations between Anglicans and Orthodox remained. After the revolution, the Anglicans were among the few in the West who consistently supported the Russian Church during the years of persecution. Unfortunately, recent decisions in favor of the female priesthood have seriously complicated the attitude of Orthodoxy towards the Anglican Church.

The question that the theology of the Orthodox, Catholic and Anglican Churches had to solve at the end of the last century was to determine the authenticity of the apostolic succession of the Anglican hierarchy, but its solution required the development of a number of historical problems, as well as questions related to the doctrine of the Church and the sacraments.

The prehistory of the question begins on December 17, 1559, when the ordination of the Archbishop of Canterbury Matthew Parker took place, from which the entire modern Anglican hierarchy originates. He was ordained by four Anglican bishops, of whom two had apostolic succession of ordination in the Roman Catholic order, and two were ordained in the new Anglican order, but by Archbishop T. Cranmer, who had a valid Roman Catholic ordination but was excommunicated for disobedience to the pope.

The verdict of the Roman Catholic Church was issued in September 1896 by the bull of Leo XIII, which invalidated all the ordinations of the Anglican Church, performed according to its reformed order, since they did not preserve the necessary established form of the sacrament.

Orthodox theology in resolving this issue proceeded from the predominant significance of its doctrinal aspect over the formal one. According to V.V. Bolotov, “not excluding the possibility of recognizing the reality” of the Anglican hierarchy, “it is necessary ... to be convinced of its orthodoxy, Orthodoxy,” i.e., in this case, the truth of the apostolic service is determined, ultimately, by the content of faith. The Orthodox understanding of the interdependence of the grace-filled and doctrinal components of church life was expressed by one of the researchers of this issue, prof. I.P. Sokolov: "in its official creeds, the Anglican Church does not recognize the priesthood as a sacrament and does not teach about the offering of a true propitiatory Sacrifice at the Eucharist ... The question of the Anglican hierarchy is the question of what consequences these errors should have for the validity of the initiations of this church."

The general conclusion of Orthodox theology at the beginning of our century boiled down to the need to clarify the Orthodoxy of the faith of the Anglican Church in order to resolve the issue of the validity of its hierarchy. The final decision on this issue was adopted at the Pan-Orthodox Conference of the Heads and Representatives of the Autocephalous Orthodox Churches, held in Moscow in 1948. Although this conference was held under obvious political influence, nevertheless, the possibility of pan-Orthodox consent was used to resolve the issue of the Anglican hierarchy. Its essence is expressed by the resolution "On the Anglican Hierarchy":

"1. The doctrine contained in the "39 members" of the Anglican Church differs sharply from ... the doctrine and tradition ... of the Orthodox Church; and, meanwhile, the solution to the issue of recognizing the reality of the Anglican hierarchy must, first of all, be based on a doctrine consistent with Orthodoxy about mysteries...

"3. With all attention and sympathy to the contemporary movement ... of many representatives of Anglicanism, aimed at restoring ... the communion of the believers of the Anglican Church with the Universal Church, we determine that the modern Anglican hierarchy can receive recognition from the Orthodox Church of the grace of her priesthood, if between the Orthodox and the Anglican Churches will establish a formally expressed ... unity of faith and confession ... ".

Unfortunately, changes in the practice and doctrine of the Anglican churches that have taken place over the past decades have further alienated them from the doctrine of the Orthodox Church. The Episcopal Church in the United States has been practicing the female priesthood for decades. In 1994, a similar decision was made by the Church of England.

Although the main desire of the fathers of Anglicanism was to avoid the extremes of both Catholicism and Protestantism, their offspring turned out to be internally unstable, prone to decay. The vagueness of the doctrine of the Anglican Church gave freedom to the development of opposing currents. In the Church of England, for example, two main groupings coexist: the "high church," which retains remnants of church tradition, and the "broad church," which is dominated by Protestant views.

Notes:

Filaret (Drozdov) Met.. Conversation between the searching and confident in the Orthodoxy of the Eastern Catholic Church. M. 1849.

Ogitsky D.P., Kozlov M. Priest. Orthodoxy and Western Christianity. MDA, 1995, p.22.

A detailed exposition of them can be found in the "Handbook for the Holy Church Ministers" (Vol. 2, p. 1009–1047) by Fr. S. Bulgakov, republished by the Publishing Department of the Moscow Patriarchate in 1993.

Khomyakov A.S. A few words of an Orthodox Christian about Western religions. Concerning the pamphlet of Mr. Laurency. - Works T. 2, M. 1994, pp. 32, 46.

Cit. on: Arseniev I. From Charlemagne to the Reformation. (Historical study of the most important reform movements in the Western Church during 8 centuries). T.1. M. 1909, p.43.

Khrisanf (Retivtsev) archim. The nature of Protestantism and its historical development. SPb. 1871, p.89.

Cit. on: Voronov L.A., prot.. The Question of the Anglican Priesthood in the Light of Russian Orthodox Theological Science. - "Theological Works", No. 3, p.81.

According to the doctrine and structure of its Church, Lutheranism stands much further from Orthodoxy than Catholicism. The main provisions of Protestantism are expressed in the doctrine of justification by faith and the sources of Christian doctrine. All the rest are, as it were, conclusions from these provisions.

According to Luther, a person is justified by faith in the Redeemer alone. At the same time, faith is not a free feeling of a person; it is excited in the heart by God, it is a gift from God. Faith brings a person into personal direct communion with his Redeemer. Good deeds born of faith are, in the proper sense, the deeds of God. They do not constitute any merit of the person himself and therefore have no significance for salvation. Likewise, all other means of salvation recognized by the Church are superfluous; they constitute only the focus between man and God and alienate the hearts of believers from his Redeemer. As a result, Luther rejected the visible Church as the custodian of the gifts of grace. The Church, according to his teaching, is only a society of equally believing people and in essence represents such a spiritual institution, the inner life of which cannot be determined and limited by any external forms. Therefore, Luther rejected the hierarchy as a sacred institution. Clergymen in Protestantism - presbyters - are the same laymen, authorized only to perform certain church rites.

He also rejected the sacraments as special acts in which grace is communicated to the believer. Some sacraments, like baptism and repentance, serve only as a sign that our sins have been forgiven and our communion with Christ has been established; others (chrismation, priesthood, marriage) constitute only pious rites. Only in the doctrine of the sacrament of the Eucharist did Luther depart from his view of the sacraments. Rejecting the transubstantiation of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, Luther nevertheless taught that Christ is present in the bread and wine with all His being, and those who approach the sacrament with faith partake of the Body of Christ together with the bread, those who approach without faith partake of only bread alone.

In the name of the same justifying faith, Luther rejected the veneration of saints, icons, relics, as well as everything that is established to strengthen a person in virtue, such as fasting, monasticism and holidays, except for the Lord's. Luther did not attach any importance to ritualism in worship, although much remained with him from Catholicism.

Of the sources of doctrine, Luther recognized only the Holy Scriptures and rejected church tradition and everything related to the field of tradition - the definitions of the Ecumenical and Local Councils, as well as the teaching of the Church Fathers. At the same time, in understanding and interpreting Holy Scripture, he rejected the guiding significance of the Church and left each believer to understand the word of God according to his own personal understanding.

The teachings of the Lutherans are set forth in Augsburg Confession and his Apologies, v Large and Small Catechisms Luther and Schmalkaldic members. These works constitute the symbolic books of the Protestants.

Of great importance in the organization of the Protestant Church, besides Luther, was his friend Philip Melanchthon , professor of Greek at the University of Wittenberg. He wrote the main symbolic books of the Protestants - the Augsburg Confession and its Apology (1530).

Despite all the obstacles from the Catholics, the Reformation movement began to spread rapidly in the 16th century outside of Germany. Lutheranism established itself in Austria, in the Scandinavian countries, in the Baltics. Separate Lutheran communities appeared in Poland, Hungary and France. The Lutheran Church in Sweden is a public institution.

In the modern world, Lutheran Evangelical Churches are most influential in Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Germany, Latvia and Estonia. The Estonian Evangelical Church is headed by an archbishop. There are many Lutheran Churches in North America. In Latin America, Lutheranism is practiced in Brazil. There are few Lutherans in Asian countries, their influence is more felt in Africa, where there are Lutheran Churches in Ethiopia, Sudan, Cameroon, Liberia and other countries.

There are about 75 million Lutherans in the world.

Reformed Church

Almost simultaneously with the Reformed movement in Germany, similar events occurred in Switzerland, at the center of these events dominated by the personality of the eloquent Catholic preacher priest Ulrich Zwingli (1484).

Zwingli made his reform in Zurich. The reasons for his reform were similar to those that forced Luther to come forward.

Zwingli also began to preach the doctrine of justification by faith alone and, like Luther, rejected all external means in the matter of salvation. He differed from Luther in that he was stricter and more consistent in his conclusions from the doctrine of justification by faith. Thus, in the sacrament of the Eucharist, he rejected any presence of grace, although the Eucharist is a rite that reminds the believer of the Calvary sacrifice and thereby arouses in the heart of a person the faith that saves him. From worship Zwingli removed all ritualism.

Zwingli's reform caused a struggle in Switzerland between the various cantons. During this struggle, Zwingli was killed (1531) and his corpse was burned by the Catholics.

The work begun by Zwingli was completed by the Frenchman Jean Calvin (1509-1564). He was educated in the Catholic spirit, but became carried away by the Protestant doctrine and, with all his ardent temperament, began to spread it in France. After being expelled from France, Calvin moved his activities to Geneva. He rejected all rituals: icons, crosses, thrones, even church music and various kinds of decorations were removed from the temples. Temples have become simply prayer halls. Divine service was limited only to preaching, reading prayers and simple artless singing of psalms. The two sacraments of Baptism and Communion preserved by Calvin were performed: the first - through one sprinkling of water without the sign of the cross, and the second - in the form of breaking bread in turn by each of those present and, moreover, sitting.

To guide the religious life of his congregations, Calvin established the offices of presbyters, teachers, preachers, elders, and deacons. But the most essential feature of Calvin's doctrine is his doctrine of unconditional predestination. According to the teachings of Luther, a person is saved by faith, and this faith is aroused in the heart of a person by God Himself, therefore, the salvation of a person depends exclusively on God. This begs the question: why are not all saved?

Calvin answered this question in the following way: God, by His will from eternity, predestinated some to salvation, and others to perdition. Those predestined to salvation will surely be saved. God will stir up saving faith in their souls; those predestined to perish will inevitably perish.

The moral doctrine of Calvin is also based on the doctrine of unconditional predestination. In his opinion, all believers, already because they received the gift of faith from God, are predestined to salvation.

Created by the activities of Zwingli and Calvin, the Church was called Reformed , because the Swiss reformers, in agreement with the basic provisions of Protestantism, drew conclusions from them, i.e. how to reform the Protestant Church.

Reformation was not limited to Switzerland. It also spread to other Western European countries. Its spread was greatly facilitated at first by the Geneva Academy, founded by Calvin, which turned into a center of reformism.

Foreigners who received education there became, as it were, missionaries in their own countries. Later, reformed educational institutions appeared in different countries.

At present, Calvinism is represented by the so-called reformed (in some European countries) and Presbyterian (in England and USA) Churches with up to 45 million adherents.

The World Presbyterian Union includes 125 independent Calvinist churches in different countries. There is a small number of followers of the Reformation in the regions of Western Ukraine.

Reformed adjoin congregationalists , from the Latin word "congregation" (connection). Congregationalism arose in England during the Reformation movement as a movement in opposition to the Anglican Church. Its peculiarity lies in the principle of the independence of the communities of believers from the secular authorities and the complete autonomy of each community-congregation. In the 19th century, the Congregational Union of England and Wales was formed. Congregationalism is widespread in North America. Its preachers are active in missionary work and participate in the ecumenical movement.

Among the varieties of Protestantism that developed during the Reformation are various sects: Mennonites (XVI century), Baptists (XVII century), Quakers (XVII century), Mormons (XIX century), adventists (XIX century), jehovists (XIX century), Pentecostals (XX century) and others.