Suchergebnisse

Introduction. At the end of the sixth century a dispute broke out between the popes and the patriarchs of Constantinople – first of all, between pope Gregory I the Great (590–604) and patriarch John IV the Faster (582–595) – over the epithet "Ecumenical", which appeared in the title of John of Constantinople. This dispute is quite widely represented in the scientific literature, but since researchers almost always pay attention to this topic in general, their papers often miss many nuances contained in the texts of the letters of pope Gregory. Methods. This article attempts a detailed analysis of the first series of letters of pope Gregory dedicated to the dispute and related to 595. These are letters to emperor Maurice (582–602), empress Constantina, the patriarch John IV of Constantinople, and the papal apocrisiary in Constantinople, deacon Sabinianus. The purpose of this study is to reconstruct pope Gregory's argumentation system against the use of the Ecumenical title. Analysis. The author identifies several types of arguments that pope Gregory puts forward in his polemic against the title: canonical, biblical, dogmatic, ecclesiastical, political, pastoral and ascetic. Results. The article shows, on the one hand, what the letters have in common, and on the other, how the arguments of the pope vary depending on the recipient. Generally, pope Gregory expresses a sharply negative attitude to the title, and many researchers tend to see this fact as a contradiction to the concept of papal primacy, as it developed in a later period. Basing on the significant differences in argumentation between the letters to the emperor, the empress and the patriarch John – with the same purpose of all the messages – the article makes a conclusion about the care with which pope Gregory selects arguments. This can serve as one of the indirect indicators of the high importance of the dispute over the Ecumenical title for him, and also characterizes his perception of the idea of Church power in general.

Introduction. The order of deaconesses in Byzantium was formed by the time of the Council of Chalcedon in 451. The idea of the institutionalization of the women's ministry was revived in the new conditions in Russia of the 19th – early 20th century because of the need for Church reforms. Materials and methods. A comparative analysis of the ancient order of deaconesses and the project of its reconstruction in Russia allows us to determine characteristics of the ministry and status of deaconesses that depended on the specific living conditions of the Church. The deaconesses in the Byzantine Empire were ministers of the Church: the bishop ordained widows or virgins between the ages of 40 and 60. Deaconesses kept chastity, had property rights, were assigned to a parish, helped priests at the baptism of women, and were subordinate to clergymen. By the 12th century, the female order in Byzantium disappeared, however the honorary title of deaconess could later be worn by the prioress of female monasteries. The Russian Church has never had deaconesses, but in the 19th – early 20th century projects were discussed for the reconstruction of this women's ministry which was actively developing in the protestant tradition. The Pre-Council Conference in 1906 developed a draft of Church reforms, including the rules for orthodox deaconesses, who could be elected from active parishioners, not nuns. It was assumed that these women were supposed to keep order in the Church, help the priest in the parish, at the baptism and catechumenate of women, help the sick and the needy, in the so called "inner mission". However, the undeveloped status of deaconesses as new ministers of the Church did not allow this project to be implemented. Results. The order of the deaconesses that disappeared in Byzantium and the attempt to restore it in Russia show that a stable institutionalization of women's ministry took place only at a certain period in the history of the Church which needed it.

The article analyzes the ideas of charismatic leadership developed in the Catholic Church in the second half of the 20th century. These ideas are connected, on the one hand, with the biblical revival, with the attempts to rediscover the heritage of the Church of the first centuries, and on the other hand, with new social phenomena, which are typical for the era after the Second World War. The social dimension of charisma and its role in the creation of associations were rediscovered in Catholicism during the Second Vatican Council. At the same time, a huge number of new social and evangelical initiatives appealing to charisma appeared. The new church movements became the most prominent and well-known examples of catholic "charismatic associations". The author shows how the Catholic hierarchy managed to streamline and incorporate the charismatic leadership of lay associations into the reality of the universal church structure. The article emphasizes that the concept of charismatic leadership in the Church is in the process of evolution. The author concludes that the documents of church governance, proclaiming the absence of a conflict between charisma and institution in theory, reflect the political processes of the contemporary Catholic era: the emergence of Catholic movements with a predominant role of laity, the change of generations of Catholic elites and the formation of a new balance of responsibility between movements and the church hierarchy.

The article compares the interpretations of the prophetic role of F.M. Dostoevsky, proposed by the philosopher V.S. Solovyov and the theologian M.M. Tareev. The method of comparison between the writer and the prophet, which came from the literary tradition of romanticism, is transferred to the sphere of cultural studies and religious thought. The article analyzes the works of V.S. Solovyov "Three speeches in memory of Dostoevsky" and M.M. Tareev "Dostoevsky as a religious thinker to clarify the interpretations of the prophetic function of the writer proposed in these texts, other texts of these authors are involved, revealing in more detail their ideas about the place and tasks of the prophet in the New Testament time and about possible carriers of this function in modern the church community. The article attempts to show that the discrepancies in the assessments of the prophetic role of F.M. Dostoevsky between V.S. Solovyov and M.M. Tareev are partly due to their ideas of the relationship between Christianity and culture. (Thus, the limitation of Dostoevsky to the framework of national Christianity, noted by M.M. Tareev, which makes it possible to compare him with the Old Testament prophets, is explained by the idea of the impossibility of combining the religious-moral and cultural-historical spheres in the theological writings of M.M. Tareev). The views of thinkers on the person being able to perform the function of prophet in the modern church community are also examined.

The article compares two selected ecclesiological concepts of the twentieth cen­tury (bishop Damascene Tsedrik and metropolitan Anthony Bloom) with the cur­rents of thought of postmetaphysical theology, namely the movement of weak theology (G. Vattimo, J. Caputo). Firstly, a special study is required to define the object of consideration – a set of ecclesiological programmes of the twentieth century, in key points consonant with the general principles of contemporary postmetaphysical thinking; this task requires, on the one hand, identification of specific features of weak theology in its authentic variants, on the other hand, establishment of a wider (both chronological and with respect to different schools and movements) space of thought that possesses the highlighted fea­tures. Secondly, the question of the uniqueness of each replica under considera­tion arises: to what extent they are conditioned by "external" factors (an object­ive historical situation or orientation towards certain philosophical tendencies) and to what extent they remain a specifically theological statement, reflecting a particular situation in a specific religious logic. The main part offers a detailed examination of the ecclesiological views of Bishop Damascene and Metropolitan Anthony (which are chosen as two distinctive examples of a wider range of typ­ically similar positions). As a result, it is possible to identify common for them content and methodological features, which at the same time are consonant with the main points of postmetaphysical theology. The conclusions are that 1) there is a wider space of reaction to the cultural situation of criticism of modernity, of which the weak theology movement is a part, 2) in the considered concepts there is a proper theology, not reducible to the actual historical and ideological context, and 3) sacramental aspects of the presented ecclesiologies can be inter­preted in the spirit of postmodern poetics of Event.

Introduction. The article is devoted to the problem of interpretation of the canons 9 and 17 of the Council of Chalcedon (451) which regulate the arbitrage in disputes between clerics. Of particular importance is the prescription to resolve disputes in which the metropolitans participate through an appeal to the exarch of the diocese or the See of Constantinople. These canons are often viewed as the foundations of the ecumenical primacy and special judicial prerogatives of the See of Constantinople in the entire Orthodox Church. Methods. Given the status of Constantinople as the New Rome, the author compares the contents of the rules of the Council of Chalcedon with the decisions of the Council of Serdica (343) and the Council of Rome (378) concerning the judicial prerogatives of the Roman see. Analysis. As a result, the article criticizes the thesis about the similarity of the rules of the Council of Chalcedon with the appeal canons of the council of Serdica, which has become widespread in historiography. At the same time, in the letter of the Council of Rome (378) and in the rescript of the emperor Gratian who responded to this text, we can find some similarity with the Chalcedonian decrees. For example, in the decisions of both councils, there is alternativeness in the choice of the judicial instance. Their common feature is also the idea that it is impossible to conduct a trial of the metropolitan's case at the provincial level. At the same time, if the decisions of the Council of Rome deal with the accusations in grave crimes, the canons of the Council of Chalcedon speak about arbitration in litigation. Results. Despite some differences, the decrees of the councils in Rome and Chalcedon are inextricably linked with the general tendencies in the development of the system of ecclesiastical organization at the super-provincial level.

This article examines the problem of the development of the narrative about the norm in relation to the priest, using the example of the context of the modern Rus­sia. The concept of the norm is key for the modern state and society that is emerg­ing in the modern era, and despite the fact that this concept itself is not found in domestic sources, the value of the corresponding concept has been consis­tently growing since the 17th century. The author proposes to see the genesis of the process of normation of the Orthodox priest in the era that followed the Schism, when for the first time a functional reading of the liturgical activity of the clergy is revealed as an activity capable to ensure the piety of the people. The discovery of the priest as the subject of normation activates the development of discursive resources capable of supporting this process. At the first stage, it is a collective concept of the clergy, allowing to fix the subject of the norm itself. The hitch of the figure of a priest with the key modern ethical concept – "duty" – expands the possibilities for developing a norm. Finally, the discipline of "pas­toral theology", which undergoes the swift development in the second half of the 19th century, becomes the predominant "place" for the normation of the priest – a process that reached its apex during the counter-reforms of Alexander III.

Introduction. Despite multiple references to the proposed topic in the scholarly literature, it still seems relevant to identify and consistently describe the entire set of measures taken at the Council of Chalcedon in order to raise the status of the see of Constantinople. Methods. The work is based on the application of the historicalcritical method of analysing source data of the original text, compiled in Greek and Latin. Analysis. The article consistently describes and analyses the church-political steps and actions taken during the conciliar meetings, which paved the way for the elevation ("addition to honour") of the see of Constantinople, which took place during the 17th conciliar act. These measures included the corroboration of the status of the Council of Constantinople in 381 as the Second Ecumenical Council, the use of the ecclesiastical and political actions of the see of Constantinople in the previous period as court of appeal and "superprovincial" instance as precedents, as well as a demonstration of the equal status of the Archbishop of Constantinople in relation to his Roman counterpart. The result was the adoption of the so-called 28th canon and its approval by the officials presiding at the council, and then by the emperor Marcian himself. Results. The author concludes that the actions taken by the officials, who were presiding at the council, and the representatives of the Church of Constantinople during the council were planned and consistently aimed at establishing the equal honour of the see of Constantinople in relation to the see of Rome and its second place in regard to the latter. He also points to certain similarities in the process of elevation of both sees.

The purpose of the article is to show the nature of the relationship between Emperor Alexander I, professor of the University of Dorpat Georg Friedrich Parrot and members of the Ministry of Public Education in the process of discussing the reform of parish schools in the Dorpat educational district at the beginning of the 19th century. Professor Parrot became the author of a project on the establishment of parish schools in the district, and his close friendship with the king made it possible to hope for the approval of his ideas by the minister. However, having received the initial support of the emperor, the Dorpat professor faced resistance from some members of the Main Directorate of Schools who did not want to amend the decisions which had already been adopted, and then the military conflict with France became a serious obstacle to the implementation of the planned transformations. Over the course of two years, Parrot had made changes to the text of the draft three times, but could not achieve the final consent of Alexander I. The author comes to the conclusion that Parrot's desire to get special conditions and partial state maintenance for parish schools of the Dorpat district was unfeasible given the context of the protracted war and the worst financial crisis. The article introduces into scholarship an unpublished correspondence between the emperor and the Dorpat professor, which significantly supplements the idea of the reforms of public education in the first decade of the 19th century.