Evil, a treasury of spiritual wisdom. "Eating human flesh, expecting death..."

John was born in Antioch around 347 into the Greek-speaking family of a wealthy official. “By birth and upbringing,” he, according to Archpriest Georgy Florovsky, “belonged to the Hellenistic cultural circles of Asia Minor society. This explains his high personal culture, the aristocratic nobility of his appearance, and the well-known secularity of his manner. Chrysostom did not renounce culture even when he renounced the world and everything in the world.” The father of Saint Secundus died shortly after the birth of the boy, and his mother, Anfusa, was engaged in his upbringing, devoting herself entirely to her son. When he grew up, his mother took care to give him a classical education. John took a course in rhetoric from the best specialist in this field, Libanius of Antioch, who, amazed by the student’s talent, was going to transfer his department to him, but the obstacle to this was John’s strong Christian convictions and his early ascetic aspirations. The pagan Libanius later complained that Christians had kidnapped his best student. In the Holy Scriptures, John was instructed by the Primate of the Antiochian Church, Saint Meletios. In 367 he baptized John and three years later made him a reader. After the exile of Meletius, which he suffered under the emperor Valens in 372, John studied theology under the guidance of the Antiochian presbyters Flavian and Diodorus, who was later appointed to the See of Tarsus. Together with him, the later famous theologian Theodore of Mopsuestia, who was condemned by the V Ecumenical Council as the main culprit of the Nestorian heresy, studied with them. John Chrysostom, a graduate of the Antiochian theological school with its biblical realism, hostility to all kinds of abstract theorizing and passive contemplation, with its heightened sensitivity to moral problems, with her complete commitment to the ideal outlined in the Sermon on the Mount, became the most consistent exponent of the ideas and attitudes of this school.

A zealous monk and scholar of the sacred books, who also had a brilliant classical education, was offered the episcopal see, but, filled with an uncompromisingly high idea of ​​​​the episcopal service, he shied away from the episcopate, writing in connection with his thoughts on this topic “Six Words on the Priesthood”, which became cornerstone Orthodox pastorology. While in the desert, John also created works devoted to monastic asceticism: “Against those who take up arms against those seeking monasticism” and “A comparison of the power, wealth and advantages of the king with the true and Christian wisdom of monastic life.”

Having returned to Antioch from exile, Saint Meletios called John to himself and ordained him as a deacon on the very eve of the Second Ecumenical Council. While serving as a deacon, John found time for theological creativity, writing such works as “The Book of Virginity,” “To the Young Widow,” “The Book of Saint Babylon and Against Julian and the Pagans.”

Meletius's successor, Flavian, ordained John as presbyter in 386, giving him a temple located in the ancient (later flooded) part of Antioch. In this church for more than ten years, usually twice a week, with a crowd of many people who often came from distant places to listen to the famous preacher, Saint John delivered sermons that glorified his name throughout Christendom and those who earned him the nickname Chrysostom. These sermons were recorded in shorthand by his admirers and edited by himself. In Antioch, he delivered teachings for the holidays, words whose theme was the denunciation of vices and instructions in the fight against sins, as well as interpretations of the sacred books.

The Old Testament Scriptures are devoted to “Nine Discourses on the Book of Genesis”, another “Sixty-seven Discourses” on the same book, “Conversations about David and Saul”, “Conversations about the Prophecies of the Old Testament”, “Conversations on the Psalms”, “Conversations on the Prophet Isaiah” , “Conversations about Job”, “Conversations about the Saints Maccabees” and a number of other works. The exegesis of the New Testament is contained in his Discourses on the Gospel of Matthew and Discourses on the Gospel of John, Discourses on Acts, Discourses in Praise of the Apostle Paul, Discourses on the Epistle to the Romans, on the Two Epistles to the Corinthians "and on other letters of the Apostle Paul.

John Chrysostom did not know the Hebrew language and commented on the Old Testament books according to the Septuagint, but in his interpretations of the New Testament he discovered a subtle understanding of the stylistic features of the text and linguistic nuances; in them his subtle sense of stylist was revealed in all its brilliance. Even in the grammatical forms used by the New Testament writers, he captures theologically important nuances of the meaning of the Scriptures. At the same time, his interpretations are not the fruit of armchair studies designed for an erudite reader, but a living pastoral word, designed to extract from the inspired Scriptures a teaching addressed to every person striving to live according to the commandments, or said so that those who, out of idle curiosity, came to listen to the preacher, to catch him in the apostolic net and encourage him to conversion and change of life.

For St. John, the ethical pathos of Christianity is inextricably linked with soteriology. Interpreting various passages of the sacred books, he again and again reminded people that there is no other path to salvation other than fulfilling the commandments in all their Gospel fullness and height. The saint perceived the word of God, including that spoken by the prophets in the Old Testament era, as living and active at all times human history. With amazing naturalness he updated the sacred books; starting from their plots or the ideas and instructions contained in them, he spoke on the topic of the day, on pressing problems of our time, often illustrating the thoughts of sacred writers with examples drawn from everyday life of his century.

A disciple of Diodorus of Tarsus, Saint John followed the exegetical tradition established in the Antiochene school, identifying the historical context of the sacred books. According to the description of Archpriest Georgy Florovsky, he “was close to the literal understanding of divine inspiration... There is nothing superfluous and vain in Scripture - not a single jot, not a single syllable... And even in slips of tongue or disagreement he tries to reveal the Divine meaning... Sacred writers wrote and spoke “in the Spirit ” - or the Spirit spoke in them. However, Chrysostom decisively distinguishes this influx of the Spirit from obsession: consciousness and mind remain clear and comprehend what is suggested. It's more like an insight. And this is the significant difference between prophetism and mantika. Therefore, sacred writers do not lose face. And Chrysostom always dwells on the personality of the writer, on the circumstances of writing individual books." Saint John did not take the methods of Antiochene exegesis to an absurd extreme. While he highly valued the literal meaning of the sacred text, he did not consider it acceptable in all cases and rejected the literal understanding of biblical anthropomorphisms applied to God.

The idea of ​​inviting a famous preacher to the dowager capital's see came to the mind of the then all-powerful temporary worker Eutropius, probably for two main reasons: to decorate Constantinople with a celebrity and in the hope that, a man not of this world, John would not be able to notice his unsightly intrigues. Eutropius feared that the See of Constantinople would otherwise be occupied by a protege of the influential and power-hungry Archbishop of Alexandria Theophilus. Theophilus experienced the move to the capital of a native of the Antiochian school as a defeat of Alexandria and even then harbored the thought of revenge, having hated St. John.

Not without hesitation, John accepted the invitation, and at the beginning of 398 his episcopal consecration took place.

In Constantinople, Saint John introduced antiphonal singing during the all-night vigil and composed several prayers of the rite of blessing of oil. Under his name is known the rite of liturgy, which is used to this day and is an abbreviation of the liturgy of Basil the Great.

In his sermons on social issues, the voice of biblical prophets sounded. And just as the ancient prophets castigated the sins of the chosen people, who again and again trampled on the commandments of God and thereby revealed their inclination towards religious adultery, and even more so - the crimes of the judges and kings who ruled the people, so Saint Chrysostom from the pulpit of the Cathedral of Constantinople uttered words filled with righteous anger and sorrow words that denounced the superficial, essentially hypocritical confession of Christ by the newly converted masses, who had not experienced the evangelical transformation of mind and heart, who remained pagans in their lives, and especially the atrocities of rulers and leaders who, with their publicly known personal sins, tempted the people, and hardened them with their government affairs his. “He,” according to Archpriest Georgy Florovsky, “had the impression that he was preaching to people for whom Christianity had become just fashionable clothing. “Of the number of so many thousands,” he said, “it is impossible to find more than a hundred saved, and I doubt that too”... And he spoke with bitterness about the prosperity that had come: “Security is the greatest of persecutions of piety - worse than any persecution”... Chrysostom was embarrassed moral decline is not only debauchery, but most of all a silent reduction in the demands of ideals... Not only among the laity, but also in the clergy... “No one would remain a pagan if we were real Christians.”

One of the main themes of the saint's sermon is wealth and poverty. As a Christian and a shepherd, as a teacher of the people, he could not remain indifferent to the scandalous contrast between luxury and poverty for Christian society. He even extended his denunciation of wealth to his efforts to decorate churches, to acquire precious vessels for them, luxurious finishing materials, contrasting the external splendor of church decoration with gospel simplicity and poverty: “The table was not silver then, Christ did not teach drink - His blood - to the disciples from a golden vessel. However, everything there was precious and aroused reverence, for it was filled with the Spirit. Do you want to honor the body of Christ? Do not despise when you see Christ naked... What is the use if Christ’s table is full of golden vessels, and Christ himself is languishing with hunger... You make a golden cup, but do not serve cold water in the cup... Christ, like a homeless wanderer, walks and asks for shelter, and you , instead of accepting Him, you decorate the floor, walls, tops of pillars, tie silver chains to horses - but you don’t even want to look at Christ... tied up in prison.”

The evil of wealth for the preacher of evangelical poverty mainly lies in the fact that not only the unrighteous ways of his acquisition, but also the very attachment to it destroys the soul, because it makes a person captive to the passion of acquisitiveness and removes him from serving God. Moreover, not only the desire to acquire wealth is destructive, but also excessive concern about acquiring necessary things. The harmfulness of wealth extends not only to those who possess it or seek to acquire it, but also to those deprived of it, because poverty is salutary only when it is tolerated complacently, but in the hearts of the spiritually weak poor it can give rise to destructive envy, hatred or despair.

The saint saw the root of social injustice and general ill-being in private property, for the highest justice lies in the fact that all earthly property, by the nature of things, belongs to God, and is called upon to serve the satisfaction of urgent needs everyone: “If our goods belong to a common Lord, then they are equally constitute the property of our fellow slaves: what belongs to the Lord belongs to everyone in general... And everything royal belongs to everyone: cities, squares, streets belong to everyone; we all use them equally... Regarding what belongs to everyone, there is not the slightest strife, but everything is done peacefully. If someone attempts to take something away and turn it into his own property, then strife occurs, as if due to the fact that nature itself is indignant, that at a time when God is gathering us from everywhere, we are trying with special zeal to be separated from each other, separate from each other, forming a private property, and say these cold words: “This is yours, and this is mine.” Then disputes arise, then grief... Consequently, we are destined for a common rather than a separate possession of things, and it is more in accordance with nature itself.”

Saint John found the social ideal of community of property fully realized in the original Christian community, which in all centuries of church history served as a prototype of communal monasticism: “This cruel expression, which produced countless wars in the universe: mine and yours, was expelled from that holy Church, and they lived on earth like angels in heaven: neither the poor envied the rich, because there were no rich, nor the rich despised the poor, because there were no poor. Nowadays they give to the poor who have property, but then it was not so... They had equality in everything, and all wealth was mixed together.”

The rejection of private property as an unnatural and sinful phenomenon gave reason to call St. John a preacher of Christian socialism. IN in a certain sense This is an acceptable assessment, but in order to be correct, it must take into account the following circumstances: with all his ethical maximalism, the saint stood on the solid ground of sober Christian anthropology, based on an understanding of the radical significance for human history and the conditions of human existence, including social dimension, original sin, the consequences of which were not completely overcome even by Christ’s death on the cross, so the abolition of inequality is possible only in an eschatological perspective, and he did not share the utopian illusions of the chiliasts, who dreamed of building the Kingdom of God on earth and infected social utopians with this dream subsequent centuries. Moreover, Saint John was not a projector or a reformer; he was far from the idea of ​​calling on rulers to confiscate private property. Recognizing slavery as an unnatural institution, he did not demand its abolition, taking into account, as a sober thinker, as a realist, the power of social prejudices, but he reminded slave owners that by nature they were no different from the slaves under their control, and called on masters to love humanity. Moreover, he did not propose radical and revolutionary ways to overcome sinful social inequality. The saint never called the people to revolt; on the contrary, in the famous words “On Statues,” uttered in Antioch, when, in connection with the introduction of a new tax, an indignation arose there, during which the statues of Emperor Theodosius the Great and his wife Flacis were overthrown, he called on the people to obey the legitimate authority.

Without offering reforms, Saint John did not remain a passive contemplator and theorizing denouncer of social ills. On the contrary, he called on his flock to actively love their neighbor and himself showed a convincing example of serving people. He used the funds intended for the maintenance of the archdiocese to establish and maintain hospitals and hotels for pilgrims. Exposing the vices of the laity and setting an example of concern for one's neighbor and Christian asceticism, the saint resorted not only to exhortations, but also to the use of archpastoral authority in relation to clergy whose life and deeds did not correspond to their rank. He ordered the removal of their suspicious “sisters” from the houses of celibate clergy and demanded that wealthy deaconesses give up luxury, and forbade monastics to roam freely around the city. By such measures he made enemies in the Constantinople clergy. The nobility considered the saint, who, unlike his predecessor Archbishop Nektary, refused to go to dinner parties with the rich people of the capital, to be proud.

Many were irritated by his fearlessness in the face of the powers that be. And he preached sermons that offended the temporary worker Eutropius, who, however, after his fall, took refuge in the altar of the cathedral church under the protection of St. John, and he did not betray him, so that the unfortunate eunuch only came out of hiding when he received a guarantee of preserving his life, on than the archpastor insisted. When the new temporary worker, Gaina, demanded that his fellow tribesmen and co-religionists - the Gothic federates - be given one of the churches of Constantinople (Arians had the right to gather for prayer outside the city wall), John insisted on maintaining the privileges of the Catholic Church, and the all-powerful Gaina was refused to satisfy his demand. But John Chrysostom was alien to any xenophobia and willingly performed divine services in the Orthodox Gothic church.

The saint was not afraid to stand up for the confiscation of the property of the widow and children of the disgraced dignitary, which irritated the emperor’s wife Eudoxia. His opponents, with their intrigues, managed to arouse in her a persistent hostility towards Chrysostom. The sermon in which he denounced vain and vain women who love to adorn themselves with luxurious outfits was presented to her as aimed personally at her, so Eudoxia began to look for a way to get rid of the annoying moralist. But reprisals against the archpastor, popular among the people and among those clerics who carried out their ministry with spiritual fervor, on political charges alone, without a church trial, seemed a risky business, capable of causing dangerous unrest. Therefore, on the one hand, it was necessary to find a reason to bring John before the cathedral court, and on the other, it was necessary to select a replacement for him, to find a candidate for the capital’s see who would not lose face as a preacher.

This is how the idea arose to introduce Bishop Severian of Kavala to Eudoxia, who, like John, at one time studied with Libanius and was a truly eloquent speaker, and stylistically close to Chrysostom, so that some of his words were later included in the collections of the works of St. John. Severian made the expected favorable impression on Augusta, and she invited him to baptize her newborn son Theodosius. The primate of the capital's Church saw this as a violation of tradition, and tension arose in the relationship between him and Severian. Another minor incident brought the matter to a direct conflict. Severian accused Saint John's closest assistant, Deacon Serapion, of not bowing to him once when meeting him. The saint responded by temporarily banning his assistant, but this was not enough for Severian: he insisted on a lifelong ban. But this demand was denied to him, and Severian left Constantinople with demonstrative resentment. Eudoxia, upset by Severian's departure, demanded reconciliation. And then one Sunday she “came to church early, before the liturgy. John was already sitting in his pulpit. The Empress quickly approached the bishop, placed little Theodosius on his lap and, in the name of the baby, asked him to forgive Severian. Chrysostom was depressed by this moral violence, but took upon himself the feat of formally making peace with Severian."

The intriguers continued to weave their networks, carefully collecting incriminating material against the saint. “Zlatoust was not a sophisticated administrator. I thought about the benefits of the matter, and not about office forms. He saw a motionless pile of marble” intended for the construction of a church, and “ordered to sell it and distribute the proceeds to the poor. Without consulting with anyone, he appointed candidates for bishops, and even en masse - four at a time. He appointed deacons even outside the rite of the liturgy.” But this was not enough to overthrow the archpastor, who was revered as a saint by the people, who were very, very capable of insisting on their own, - the rulers of the empire always felt over themselves the sword of Damocles of popular unrest, easily flowing into rebellion.

The matter of compromising the saint was finally taken into his own hands by one of the most influential bishops of his time - the primate of the Alexandrian Church Theophilus, a strong, powerful, stubborn man, skilled in intrigue, devoid of special scrupulousness and moral disgust - in other words, capable, perhaps, of not everything, but for a lot. He disliked John from the very moment he was appointed to the see of Constantinople, because he had other plans for it. His main ecclesiastical concern was, apparently, the status of the see he occupied, which he, like other Alexandrian bishops, after the ecclesiastical elevation of New Rome at the Second Ecumenical Council, did not want to consider inferior to the capital.

Therefore, he was touched to the depths of his soul when John accepted the request addressed to him, as the bishop of the imperial capital, but also, probably in view of his personal authority, to act as an arbitrator in a case that arose in the Ephesian metropolis. The bishops of the Ephesian Church accused their Metropolitan Anthony of violating the order of appointing bishops. Having left for Ephesus, Saint John immediately delved into the essence of the accusations and recognized them as fair, on the basis of which he declared both Anthony himself and the 13 persons consecrated by him deposed. Iraklid was appointed to the See of Ephesus. Not only Anthony, but also the Archbishop of Alexandria found in this act of Chrysostom a canonically unacceptable invasion of a foreign region.

Meanwhile, in reality, the situation with the boundaries of the jurisdiction of the See of Constantinople in the period between the II and IV Ecumenical Councils contained an element of uncertainty: on the one hand, by the 3rd rule of the II Ecumenical Council, the see of Constantinople was placed in second place in the diptych after the Roman one, with special emphasis on it analogies with Rome due to the capital status of New Rome; and on the other hand, only the Council of Chalcedon outlined the territorial limits of the jurisdiction of the capital see, subordinating three dioceses to it, including Asia with its main city of Ephesus. But the IV Ecumenical Council only legitimized a practice that had already been part of the tradition. And Saint John acted in line with this tradition. And before him, the bishops of Asia, Pontus and Thrace more than once turned to the archbishop of the metropolitan see as the foremost among them, especially since the bishops of Rome showed numerous examples of receiving and considering appeals from bishops and clergy of Western Churches who were not under their direct jurisdiction, and only in In some cases, this resulted in complications and conflicts in the relationships between the departments. But to Theophilus of Alexandria, the actions taken by Chrysostom in Ephesus served as the content of the main article of accusation against him.

He, however, was aware that the mere accusation of interfering in the affairs of another’s church region might turn out to be unconvincing or insufficient for conciliar condemnation, therefore, for greater hope of success, he decided to arm himself with the accusation of John of heresy, namely, of adherence to the teaching Origen. Moreover, it must be said that if, in accusing St. John of a canonical crime, Theophilus could sincerely consider himself right, then he could not deceive himself regarding the dishonesty of accusing his opponent of heresy: St. John, as a true Antiochian, was not a supporter of Origenism. Like other theologians of his era, he read and knew Origen and in some respects used his theological and especially exegetical heritage, but did not share the misconceptions of the Alexandrian theologian either regarding the preexistence of souls, or even about apocatastasis. In contrast to the views of Origen, “the very large number of Christians,” according to the apt observation of Archpriest George Florovsky, “confused [him]: “The more food for the fire,” said Chrysostom. Moreover, in reality Theophilus himself was O a greater supporter of Origen than his opponent. His emphasized anti-Origenism was only a opportunistically chosen position, which he abandoned after the deed was done - John was convicted and died in distant exile. “Satisfied with the victory,” Theophilus, according to A.V. Kartashev, “no longer took up arms against Origen. He continued to use it on occasion. After all, he had no other source of learning. And in response to poisonous remarks, he made an excuse, not without guile: “Origen is a meadow in which various flowers and herbs grow. You need to skillfully disassemble them in order to use them” - a reasonable judgment, but after the massacre of St. John, accused, among other things, of Origenism, filled with special cynicism.

The story of Theophilus's transformation from the admirer of Origen, which he once was, into an avid anti-Origenist began with the conflict between him and the monks of the Nitrian desert, whom he rightly condemned for anthropomorphism - one of the reasons for this error was elementary ignorance. The Monk John Cassian wrote that one of the Egyptian monks, when it was explained to him that it was impossible for God to assimilate human qualities, following the literal understanding of biblical passages that speak, for example, about the hands or feet of the Creator, although he agreed with the soundness of the arguments of his mentors, but At this, he “said with sorrow that “God was taken away” from him and now he does not know how to pray to him.”

Among the Nitrian monks there were four “long brothers”, so nicknamed for their tall stature: Dioscorus, Eusebius, Eutyches and Ammonius. They did not share anthropomorphic delusions and were known as Origenists among their opponents. Theophilus valued them for their enlightenment and ordained Dioscorus as bishop of Hermopolis, and Eusebius and Eutyches as presbyters, but Ammonius, faithful to the old monastic tradition of evading the priesthood, chose to cut off his ear and threatened to deprive himself of his tongue, just to avoid ordination, which aroused hostility by his domineering bishop.

Having opened a campaign to eradicate the Origenian heresy, Theophilus obtained from the local prefect an order to expel the “long brothers” from the Nitrian desert. And, according to A.V. Kartashev, “without delay, personally set off on an entire armed campaign to Nitria. With him were bishops, police officers, ministers and a crowd of street thugs. In Nitria itself, most of the anthropomorphist monks united with them... But Dioscorus, as befits a modest bishop, met his patriarch-pope with honor. The monks surrounding Dioscorus carried palm branches in their hands. But the overly excited Theophilus decided that this was a strategic deception, that it was necessary to start a preventive battle. There was a command, shouts, and clubs flashed overhead. Dioscorus and his monks were put to flight. Dioscorus ran into the church and sat down on the bishop's see, but Theophilus's slaves grabbed his hands. Theophilus commanded the end of the battle and immediately opened an episcopal council, at which the entire teaching of Dioscorus was condemned... The cells of the “long brothers” were destroyed and burned along with the books.”

The Council passed a decision prohibiting the reading of Origen's works. This act received approval from Pope Anastasius, who succeeded Siricius in 398, and Saint Epiphanius of Cyprus, who at that time was already approaching the age of a hundred. He responded to the Council of Alexandria like this: “At last, Amalek has been completely destroyed! The banner of the cross was erected on Mount Rephidim. On the altar of the Church of Alexandria, the servant of God Theophilus erected a banner against Origen."

Theophilus forbade the “long brothers” to be accepted into any monastery in Egypt. Up to 300 Nitrian monks, suspected of adhering to the teachings of Origen, fled to Palestine under the protection of Archbishop John of Jerusalem, successor of St. Cyril, who did not share the prejudices of Epiphanius of Cyprus and Theophilus against Origen. Among them was one of the four “long brothers,” Dioscorus, and the other three went to the capital to complain about the pogrom and their expulsion.

The Primate of the Church of Constantinople received the refugees, listened to their complaints and found them valid, but, observing canonical discipline, did not allow them to serve until they were acquitted in court. Saint John addressed a letter to the Archbishop of Alexandria, who condemned them, asking him for an explanation of the brothers’ case. Theophilus did not answer John, but sent a group of anti-Origenist monks to Constantinople. Theophilos' envoys, wherever they could, publicly and noisily accused the archbishop of the capital of taking heretics under his protection. In this situation, Saint John advised the “long brothers” to appeal to the imperial court - they did so, after which John once again wrote to Theophilus, arguing that the church-judicial hearing of the case of the “long brothers” had become inevitable. In his response to John, Theophilus rejected his right to interfere in the affairs of the Alexandrian Church.

The imperial court, having considered the complaint of the “long brothers,” acquitted them and at the same time condemned the monks sent by Theophilus to the capital for disorderly behavior. According to the court verdict, some of them were imprisoned, others were sent to hard labor in quarries.

Theophilus was summoned to Constantinople to make a final decision on the case. Postponing his departure, he, through his minions, hastily looked for supporters outside of Egypt. He managed to involve his long-time rival John Severian of Kavala, as well as Macarius of Magnesia (who refused to recognize the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan of Ephesus, Heraclid, appointed by Saint John after the deposition of his predecessor Anthony), Quirinus of Chalcedon, the centenarian elder Acacius of Verria (a man of a bygone era, a former stubborn Arian and one of the most influential “Omiyas”, who accepted the doctrine of consubstantiality, probably for opportunistic reasons) and - what was especially valuable - Metropolitan Paul of Herakleia: the fact is that Herakleia was the main city of the province, on the territory of which Constantinople was located, and until II of the Ecumenical Council, the department of Byzantium-Constantinople was under the jurisdiction of Metropolitan Heraclius. Since the question of the boundaries of the jurisdiction of the bishop of New Rome had not yet been positively resolved, it could be insisted that the Heraclian Metropolitan retained certain rights regarding the Church of the capital - and in later centuries the privilege of leading the consecration of a bishop appointed to the See of Constantinople belonged to the Heraclian Metropolitan.

Saint Epiphanius of Cyprus joyfully responded to Theophilus’ request to support him in his desperate struggle against the Origenist heresy. He was an ascetic and prayer book of high ascetic life, but at the same time he was distinguished by an imperious, tough character and exceptional straightforwardness, alien to any guile. He, according to the characteristic remark of Archpriest Georgy Florovsky, “had a special taste and zeal for exposing heresies.” His main work“Panarion” (“Antidote”) is dedicated to the description and denunciation of heresies. Since he believed that the original faith of the forefathers coincided with the Christian doctrine, he traced the first heresies back to the antediluvian times, including barbarism, Scythianism, Hellenism and Judaism. He counted 80 of all heresies - no more and no less, relying in this calculation on the words of the Song of Songs: “I have sixty queens and eighty concubines and maidens without number” (Song. 6: 8). Epiphanius considered Origenism to be one of the most evil heresies. Theophilus took advantage of Epiphanius's simplicity and attracted him to his side in the fight against Saint John Chrysostom, forcing him to believe in John's adherence to the teachings of Origen.

Convinced of John's Origenism, Epiphanius, upon arriving in Constantinople, did not accept the invitation of the archbishop of the capital to stay at his residence. The guest was immediately surrounded by Chrysostom's enemies, and he took such a canonically unacceptable step as being ordained a deacon without the sanction of the ruling bishop. Epiphanius served in the churches of the capital without the invitation of the ruling bishop, but when he tried to enter the Cathedral Church of the 12 Apostles to perform the liturgy, Archdeacon Serapion blocked his entrance to the temple, saying: “How is it that Bishop Epiphanius invades someone else’s church without the legal permission of the diocesan superior ? Epiphany, according to A.V. Kartashev, “was a frantic but honest man. He heeded Serapion’s explanations” and decided to return home. Socrates Scholasticus wrote: “Some say that just before sailing he said to John: “You will die a bishop,” to which John replied: “I hope that you will not reach your fatherland.” I cannot say whether those from whom I heard this spoke the truth, but the predictions came true for both”: on the way back to Cyprus, Saint Epiphanius died at the age of 96.

In the current critical situation, the saint did not adapt to the situation, did not try to win over the emperor and his wife or the influential dignitaries around them, but with bold, impartial denunciations he made new enemies for himself. The court lady Evgrafiya was offended by the saint’s reproach thrown at her: why did she, a widow, dress up in luxurious clothes, put on makeup and curl her curls. From then on, she became a hater of the obstinate accuser, who did not want to know decency, and began to energetically help Theophilus in his intrigues.

After this attack, Theophilus was informed that he could now safely travel to Constantinople, where the favorable attitude of Emperor Arcadius and Eudoxia awaited him. Theophilus arrived in the capital accompanied by 28 bishops of Egypt, on whose devotion he could rely. Instead of appearing before the imperial court, to which he was summoned, Theophilus opened a cathedral trial of St. John. Formally, however, he was not the chairman of the council - Metropolitan Paul of Irakli was nominated for this role, which gave the matter the appearance of greater canonicity, since, as already said, Constantinople in a certain sense was part of the Herakli metropolis, but the real director of what was happening was still Theophilus himself. The villa “Under the Oak”, located on the territory of the bishopric of the enemy of John Quirinus of Chalcedon, was chosen as the venue for the cathedral trial. In response to the summons to the cathedral court, Saint John announced the challenge of four of his personal enemies: Severian of Kavalsky, Acacius of Verria, Quirinus of Chalcedon and Antiochus of Ptolemais. This demand was denied to him, and then John decided to ignore this trial. He was supported by 40 bishops of Thrace, Asia and Pontus, who refused to appear at the council. Thus, only 36 bishops participated in the trial, of which 29 occupied sees in the Egyptian diocese.

The Cathedral "Under the Oak", named after its location, opened in September 403. At it various accusations were made against Saint John, even such curious ones as eating in a high place after the liturgy. Of course, there were accusations of interference in the affairs of the Ephesian Church, of adherence to the teachings of Origen, but the main accusation was the failure to appear at the council itself. Saint John was sentenced to defrocking. Moreover, the conciliar verdict also included a formidable political charge of laese majestatis (lese majeste), which consisted of publicly insulting Augusta from the church pulpit; such a verdict gave carte blanche to the imperial court to impose a death sentence - that is how far Theophilus’ vindictiveness extended.

On the night that followed the pronouncement of the verdict, an earthquake occurred, in which both the saint’s admirers and many of his enemies saw a manifestation of God’s wrath at the unrighteous verdict. To top it all off, misfortune befell the pregnant woman at that time in August - she had a miscarriage. This was enough for her to fear the further consequences of the unjust trial, and at her request, Saint John was returned to the capital. Eudoxia sent him a handwritten letter in which she invited him to return to his department.

The holy exile initially did not want to return, insisting on a second conciliar consideration of his case, but the emperor ignored this demand, perhaps considering the previous council to be devoid of any canonical significance. In the end, the saint decided to return. Crowds of jubilant Christians met him at the pier on the shores of the Bosphorus. Saint John again began to perform divine services in the capital's churches, again his preaching voice sounded in them, denouncing human vices and, as before, especially painfully touching the powers that be, so that his enemies had no reason to lay down their arms - reconciliation did not take place. Theophilus continued to intrigue.

And a few weeks after John Chrysostom returned to his see, a new conflict broke out between him and Augusta. This time the reason was the erection of a silver statue of Eudoxia near Hagia Sophia. On this occasion, the prefect of Constantinople organized noisy games, pantomimes and lists near the cathedral. The saint reacted to this with harsh criticism of the pagan rituals organized by the prefect, but Eudoxia was informed that the edge of the accusations was directed against her. On the day of remembrance of the beheading of the Forerunner and Baptist John, Chrysostom preached a sermon that began like this: “Again Herodias is raging, again raging, again dancing, again demanding the head of John the Baptist from Herod! Again Jezebel wants to seize Naboth's vineyard and drive Saint Elijah into the mountains... What did the Gospel tell us? It told the story of how Herod captured John and took him into custody. For what reason? For the sake of Herodias, the wife of Philip, his brother (Matthew 14: 3). Who would not accuse Herod of being weak when he gave in to mad women? But, on the other hand, how to depict, how to describe the unbridled anger of these women? It seems that there is no beast in the world more merciless than an evil wife."

Eudoxia believed the informers who claimed that this sermon contained direct allusions to the relationship between the capital’s bishop and the imperial couple. Obeying his wife’s demands, Arkady ordered John not to be allowed into the temple. Unrest began again in the city. On Easter 404, the catechumens, who were supposed to be baptized on that day, according to tradition, gathered in the baths of Constantinople, and there angry speeches were heard in support of the persecuted saint, denouncing the emperor and empress. The revolt was suppressed with bloodshed. According to the testimony of the participants in the incident, the water intended for baptism turned red.

Eudoxia began to insist on re-condemning John. Weak-willed Arkady obeyed his wife's demands. In March 404, a new council was convened on the case of Chrysostom. Saint John was present at this repeated conciliar trial. Theophilus did not participate in it, but the bishops who arrived from Egypt acted on his instructions. This time the accusation was brought against the saint that he began to perform divine services and to the affairs of church administration without reviewing his case. These actions of his fell under the 4th and 12th rules of the Council of Antioch. Saint John, in his defense, firstly, stated that he did not recognize the authority of the cathedral “Under the Oak”, and therefore did not consider himself deposed by legitimate church authority; and secondly, he questioned the authority of the Council of Antioch, which issued these rules, because Arians participated in this council and it was convened to condemn Saint Athanasius.

The Council, however, hesitated in passing a verdict, insisting that the emperor, by his own authority, on the basis of a previously issued ruling in John’s case, send John into exile. The saint continued to perform divine services in Hagia Sophia, but on June 24, by order of the emperor, he was removed from the capital and sent into exile in the Caucasus, in the Armenian town of Kukuz. Before leaving, the saint was allowed to say goodbye to those close to him. The saint called on them and all the clergy and laity faithful to him to submit to the bishop who would be installed in his place; he only asked not to sign any documents condemning him. He did this because there was no division in faith between him and his opponents: neither he nor Theophilus were apostates from Orthodoxy, but he suffered from human injustice, and he did not want his unrighteous condemnation to cause a schism.

The Christian population of Kukuz and surrounding areas treated the exiled saint with respect. The local authorities under whose supervision he was did not particularly pester him either - in any case, he was not prevented from conducting correspondence. In the letters that he sent to the bishops of Asia, Europe and Africa, as well as to his devoted friends in Constantinople, the saint found words of consolation and support for them, and gave advice filled with evangelical wisdom.

When Chrysostom was taken out of the capital, a fire broke out in it, turning the Church of Hagia Sophia to ashes. Strong wind its flames were transferred to the nearby Senate building. During the night, both the temple and the Senate Curia burned down. Numerous ancient statues, brought under St. Constantine to the new capital from different cities empire and kept in the curia. The authorities blamed the arson on the Johannites, as the faithful followers of John Chrysostom, who protested against the unjust verdict, were then called. Many of them were subjected to repression, some were executed. Three and a half months later, on October 6, 404, Eudoxia again suffered a miscarriage and died.

The brother of Chrysostom's predecessor Nektarios, 80-year-old Arsakios, who died the following year 405, was installed in the capital's see, and one of the capital's presbyters, Atticus, from among the enemies of St. John, became the new archbishop of Constantinople. He began to cleanse the capital's clergy. The clergy devoted to Chrysostom were purposefully removed from service. At the same time, bishops who remained loyal to the persecuted saint were deposed. Persecution in the form of exile and confiscation of property also fell on many laity. The Johannites, who did not recognize Atticus, were forbidden to gather for prayer in the capital - they held their services outside the city wall - and many of the persecuted left for the West, among them were clergy and bishops.

Meanwhile, Archbishop Theophilus, in a letter to Pope Innocent, who ascended the Roman throne in 401 after the death of Anastasius, reported on the trial of John and the sentence imposed on him. Only after this did the exiled Chrysostom send a message to Rome. He also addressed other Western primates with messages of the same content - the Metropolitans of Milan and Aquileia. The Pope demanded from Theophilus additional documents on the case, including the protocol of the council. Having examined the materials sent, Innocent came to the conclusion that John was convicted unjustly. The metropolitans of Milan and Aquileia came to the same conclusions. The Pope sent Theophilus an invitation to the council convened to consider the case of Chrysostom. He asked Emperor Honorius to negotiate with Arcadius about the participation of western and eastern bishops in the council that he wanted to convene in Thessalonica.

A representative delegation left Rome for Constantinople to negotiate the convening of a council. It also included bishops expelled from the eastern dioceses. By order of Arcadius, the pope's envoys demanded recognition of Atticus as the legitimate archbishop of New Rome. They refused to do this, after which the Westerners were sent back, and the Easterners were arrested and exiled to distant places. The Pope, in response to the violence committed, broke off communion with all who recognized Atticus, and thus canonical communion between the Churches of the West and the East was interrupted. Convened by the pope in Rome on the case of John Chrysostom, a council of Western bishops recognized the condemnation of John and the very council at which this happened as invalid.

In this situation, the authorities in Constantinople decided to tighten the regime for keeping Chrysostom. An order came to Kukuz to transfer the saint to Pitiunt (Pitsunda in modern Abkhazia), located on the far border of the empire. At this time the saint was bedridden by illness. Despite this, he was escorted by a convoy along bumpy mountain roads. They drove us in the rain and heat, without giving us any rest. When they arrived in the village of Comany, the saint fell completely ill. He was transferred to the nearest church of the martyr Basilisk, and, having received the holy mysteries there, the saint of God said “Glory to God for everything!” went to the Lord. The death of Saint John followed on September 14, 407. He was buried in Comana, and only in 438, under the holy Archbishop Proclus of Constantinople, his relics were transferred to the capital.

Emperor Arcadius died in 408. During the reign of Anthimius, who was regent during the infant Theodosius, repressive measures against the Johannites were softened, they were no longer exiled and their property was not confiscated, but the schism continued. The Johannites, in communion with whom the pope and the whole West were, were still not allowed to perform divine services in Constantinople, and they gathered for prayer in country churches; these churches were crowded with worshipers, while the city churches stood half empty. This state of affairs worried the government, but real changes in its religious policy came only when in 414 the affairs of government were taken into hands by the emperor’s elder sister, Saint Pulcheria, who had come of age, and who sought to overcome the schism and restore communion with the Roman Church.

Naturally, Alexandria resisted the church rehabilitation of St. John the longest. While Theophilus was alive, this could not have happened. Theophilus's hostility to the memory of Chrysostom aroused disagreement on the part of many Egyptian Christians, including those who were widely known. Thus, the Monk Isidore Pelusiot wrote then: “Egypt has always been an enemy of Moses, a supporter of Pharaoh. Now he brought forward this Theophilus, a man greedy for precious stones and gold, against the holy teacher. He was joined by... four apostates, like him: Akakios, Seviros, Antiochus and Quirinus. And they destroyed him." Theophilus' supporters denounced his accusers as Origenists.

Theophilus died in 412. Despite his low moral qualities, the name of the deceased archbishop was naturally included in the Alexandria diptych, and subsequently in the Alexandrian Church he was even revered as a saint for some time. His 14 rules were included in the canonical corpus of the Ecumenical Orthodox Church. After the death of Theophilus, his nephew, Saint Cyril, was appointed to the see of Alexandria, who inherited his uncle’s imperious character, but was a more flexible, more conscientious man, and in addition, had a much better theological education. But at first he also opposed the rehabilitation of Chrysostom, probably sincerely convinced of the justice of his conviction. When from Constantinople the government and Archbishop Atticus invited him to include the name of Chrysostom in the Alexandria diptych, he reacted to this with defiant harshness: “To enroll the deposed John as a bishop is the same as placing Judas among the apostles.” He “said that his uncle Theophilus was a judge at the council, and he, Cyril, knows the matter well. There is even an assumption that Kirill himself, surrounded by Uncle Theophilus, was at the cathedral “Under the Oak.” But Cyril did not fully defend the hopeless and wrong cause and in 419 he gave in, ordering that the name of the slandered saint of God, for whom, at least before, he had a hereditary hostility, be included in the Alexandria diptych.

Prejudiced rumors from the era of humanism and later centuries place the blame on Saint Cyril for the death of the famous Hypatia, a mathematician and philosopher who did not accept Christian teaching, seeing her as a victim of his fanaticism. But here's how it really happened. The circumstances of the death of Hypatia are described in the “Ecclesiastical History” of Socrates Scholasticus, who treated her, despite her adherence to paganism, quite sympathetically: “In Alexandria there was one woman named Hypatia, the daughter of the philosopher Theon. She acquired such scholarship that she surpassed the philosophers of her time, was the successor of the Platonic school... and taught all philosophical sciences to those who wished... By her education, having a self-confidence worthy of respect, she appeared with modesty even in the face of rulers, and even in that she did not show any shame that appeared among men, because for her extraordinary modesty everyone respected her and marveled at her. Envy then took up arms against this woman. Since she often talked with Orestes (prefect of Alexandria. - Prot. V.Ts.), then her treatment of him gave rise to slander, as if she did not allow Orestes to enter into friendship with Cyril. Therefore, people with hot voices under the command of a certain Peter once conspired and waylaid this woman. When she was returning home from somewhere, they pulled her off the stretcher and dragged her to a church called Caesarion, then, having exposed her, they killed her with shards, and carried her body to a place called Kinaron, and burned her there. This caused a lot of grief for both Cyril and the Alexandrian Church, for murders, strife and all the like are completely alien to those who think in the spirit of Christ. The mentioned event occurred in the fourth year of Cyril’s bishopric... in the month of March, during Lent.”

In the case of St. John Chrysostom, fabricated by his enemies, one of the outstanding church figures of the era was involved - Blessed Jerome, whose biography connects him with both the West and the East of the empire. He was born in the Dalmatian city of Stridon around 347 into a Latin-speaking family and went to Rome to study. There he, like other students, and not only pagans, led an absent-minded life, so that later, after he accepted the Gospel with all his heart and was baptized, he bitterly repented of the sins of his youth, and these repentant feelings prompted him to asceticism and monasticism. Together with his friend Rufinus, he moved from Rome to his homeland in Aquileia, where a circle of zealous Christians, well educated and ascetically minded, was formed. From Aquileia, Jerome, together with Rufinus and several other friends, went to the East to the monastic monasteries of Syria and Egypt, already famous in the Christian West.

Having reached Antioch, he fell ill and was forced to stay for some time in this metropolis, where the famous theological school was located. In Antioch, Jerome diligently began studying Greek in order to deepen his understanding of the Bible. At this time, Apollinaris of Laodicea temporarily became his leader in biblical studies, but Jerome was not carried away by his heretical Christology - he was not at all inclined to speculative constructions, had no interest in philosophy and was therefore not a dogmatic theologian - Jerome valued exegetical, or better to say, philological technique and textual criticism of Apollinaris. When meeting the Syrian monks, Blessed Jerome was surprised by their heated involvement in theological disputes, which he found inappropriate for ascetics who had renounced the world: “It is a shame to say, from the depths of the caves we pronounce condemnation of the universe. Rolling in sackcloth and ashes, we pass judgment on the bishops. What is the spirit of power doing under the tunic of a penitent! Belts, rags, long hair- signs are not royal power, but contrition and humility."

In Antioch, where in parallel there were two Orthodox communities that had no communication with each other: the large Meletian and the small Paulinian, whose Orthodoxy and canonicity were recognized in Alexandria and Rome, Jerome, as a Latin by birth, sided with Paulinus, and he ordained him as a presbyter . Before the dedication, he warned Paulinus that he was not inclined towards pastoral activities, and yet he took this step, so that Jerome became, according to the characterization of A.V. Kartashev, “a wandering and cabinet presbyter.”

After the triumph of Orthodoxy and the disgrace of Arianism in all its varieties took place under Theodosius the Great, Jerome came to Constantinople, communicated there with the great Cappadocians Gregory the Theologian and Gregory of Nyssa, and from them acquired an interest in the works of Origen (not in the dubious dogmatic side of his heritage, but to his exegesis) and diligently set about translating Origen into Latin. He then translated the Chronicle of Eusebius of Caesarea. In translation work, Jerome found his calling: possessing subtle philological intuition and a remarkable gift of words, he passionately worked on translations all his life.

In 382, ​​after the end of the Second Ecumenical Council, Jerome went to Rome, and there Pope Damasus, aware of his translation experiences, commissioned him to edit the Latin translation of the Bible, which was then in use in the Latin West, later called the “ancient” translation - Vetus Latina. After the death of his patron Damasus, Jerome returned to the East, first to Antioch and then to Alexandria. In Syria, Palestine and Egypt, at the end of the 4th century, a kind of colonies of ascetic-minded people from the West appeared, who, in the absence of monastic communities in their homeland, sought to gain experience of ascetic life in eastern monasteries. In Egypt, Jerome met his longtime friend Rufinus, as well as the Roman matron Reverend Melania, who previously possessed colossal wealth, who, having spent her estate on church needs and charity, settled in the East. For many years, Jerome corresponded with her, which has partially survived, representing extremely valuable material on the history of this turbulent era.

In Alexandria in 386, Jerome met the famous Didymus, nicknamed the Blind Man because he lost his sight in childhood. He was an excellent scholar of the Scriptures, which he studied by listening to his assistants read; in his youth, under Saint Athanasius, he headed the Alexandrian theological school. In his theological views, Didymus was a follower of Origen, but did not share his subordinationist errors, following Athanasius in triadology, although, apparently, not without reason, he was condemned by the Fifth Ecumenical Council for adhering to the doctrine of the pre-existence of souls. Like Origen, but also Saint Gregory of Nyssa, Didymus the Blind taught apocatastasis. Didim considered theology inseparable from ascetic and prayerful practice, and therefore he had students and admirers in the monastic environment; among them were Evagrius of Pontus and Palladius, one of his followers was Jerome’s friend Rufinus of Aquileia; but, having a reputation as an Origenist, Didymus faced distrust from the majority of the monastics of Thebaid and the Nitrian desert - many of his opponents, out of ignorance, adhered to anthropomorphistic ideas. This mistrust also extended to the students of Didymus, including those Latins who, having settled in the East, were overly keen on Origen, as it seemed to the zealots.

Blessed Jerome and Rufinus of Aquileia moved from Egypt to Palestine. Jerome settled in Bethlehem, and Rufinus in Jerusalem. Small monastic communities of Latin-speaking emigrants formed around them. Although both of them were under the jurisdiction of Paulinus, the successor of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Archbishop John, having canonical communion with Flavian of Antioch, treated them quite friendly.

According to the militant anti-Origenist Epiphanius of Cyprus, John of Jerusalem himself was infected with the heresy of Origenism and therefore patronized heretics. He considered the Latin monasteries on Olivet in Bethlehem to be breeding grounds for heresy. Epiphanius could not remain indifferent to the danger he suspected; he sent his assistant Atervius, who was himself a Latin, probably from Spain, to Palestine for a missionary purpose - to convert the Origenists to Orthodoxy. The eloquence and pathos of Atervius's sermons, with a touch of fury and fanaticism, left Rufinus indifferent, but made a stunning impression on Jerome, an impetuous, enthusiastic man and extremely harsh and straightforward in his assessments. Then Saint Epiphanius himself came to Palestine to debunk the heresy, and all this further strengthened Jerome in his determination to radically reconsider his theological views. He was horrified by the destructiveness of his recent real and imaginary errors and from then on became one of the most ardent denouncers of Origen and his followers. Meanwhile, Epiphanius, in letters addressed to the monastery of the Holy Land, called Jerome's friend Rufinus the most dangerous Origenist, and Jerome, taking his new convictions very seriously, broke with Rufinus and became involved in the struggle against Origenists, including imaginary ones, attacking with unceremonious and angry criticism of John of Jerusalem, so that he even tried, but unsuccessfully, to remove the frantic zealot from Bethlehem and Palestine.

When Pope Siricius received information about the disputes that were raging in the East about the theological heritage of Origen, he took, contrary to the hope of Epiphanius, a balanced position and, without supporting him in his desire to completely eradicate the “Origenist infection,” he leaned toward supporting John of Jerusalem. Having learned about the position of the pope, Jerome moderated the tone of his denunciations and, remaining in Bethlehem, delved into the matter of biblical translation. In the East, he not only mastered Greek perfectly, but also thoroughly studied the Hebrew and Aramaic languages, so that while translating, he was fully armed with philological knowledge. Having distanced himself from the controversy surrounding the theology of Origen, whose exegetical works were very useful to him in his translation work, he decided to make peace with his old friend Rufinus. Reconciliation took place in Jerusalem, at the Holy Sepulcher, in 397.

After this, Rufinus returned to Rome. And there he translated into Latin the Apology of Origen, written by Eusebius Pamphilus, as well as the most important dogmatic work of the Alexandrian theologian On the Elements. During the translation, Rufinus took liberties that could, if taken strictly, be regarded as a forgery: he resorted to proofreading Origen’s text, removing obviously unacceptable ideas from it in the translation, eliminating elements of subordinationism from the triadology of the translated author. But this edit was still not so bold as to remove from Origen’s text all passages that diverged from the Orthodox theology of the Nicene era, so that readers of the book “De principiis” - as it is called in the Latin translation - found a reason to accuse Rufinus of heresy . The matter was brought to the attention of the Pope. Siricius decided not to attach importance to the accusations and sent Rufinus to his native Aquileia. But Rufinus was forced to explain himself and justify himself, and in his justifications he resorted to a rash and flawed method: in view of the strong authority of his old friend Jerome in the West, he began to refer to his approving statements about Origen, without specifying that they belonged to a long time ago, so Jerome's admirers found a reason to stand up for his reputation and defend him from the “slander” of Rufinus. The situation became especially tense because the successor of Siricius, Anastasius, who died in 398, not without the influence of Theophilus of Alexandria, who then sharply changed his attitude towards Origen, took up arms against real and imaginary Origenists.

In letters from Rome, Blessed Jerome was told about the attitude of the new pope towards Origen and at the same time that Rufinus, justifying himself, referred to the authority of his old friend, passing him off as a like-minded person. Then Jerome undertook a new and correct translation of Origen's works. Having familiarized himself with this translation, having received a conclusion about the works of Origen from the theologically educated Bishop of Cremona Eusebius, to whom they were sent for review, the pope came to the final conclusion that they contained heretical thoughts, and obtained from Emperor Honorius the issuance of a decree banning and exterminating them. .

The danger of punishment loomed over Rufinus, who had gained a reputation as an Origenist, but such influential persons as Saints John of Jerusalem and Paulinus of Nolan, Archbishop Chromatius of Aquileia, and the Venerable Melania came out in his defense. Rufinus sent a personal confession of faith to the pope and at the same time wrote his own “Apology” in two volumes. And in it he again referred to Jerome’s previous laudatory statements about Origen. The threat of excommunication passed, but Jerome was terribly angry and wrote an extremely irritated letter to Rufinus. He responded, not apologizing, but rather accepting the challenge. The epistolary polemic between Jerome and Rufinus is filled with personal attacks, and on the part of the eloquent and angry Jerome - masterly abuse. Chromatius of Aquileia, Melania and the new bright star in the theological horizon of the West, Bishop Augustine of Hippo, tried to extinguish this enmity, but it was all in vain: Jerome did not reconcile with Rufinus. Having learned that Rufinus had died in Sicily, Jerome wrote in his diary: “Finally, the scorpion lay down in the land of Trinacria, the hundred-headed hydra stopped hissing.” Having hated Melania, whom he once revered, for her support of Rufinus, he wrote that her very name - melania in Greek means “black” - testifies “to the blackness of her soul.”

At the height of the case of St. John Chrysostom, Jerome, who believed Theophilus, who denounced the saint for his imaginary Origenism, spoke about him in a discouragingly abusive tone, branding him in one of his letters as “the wicked, the robber, the blasphemer, Judas and Satan, whom he cannot punish enough.” even hell itself." To a certain extent, the only excuse for such unbridled language and pen can be the sincere conviction that Chrysostom was wrong and the violent temperament of Jerome.

In 405, in Palestine, Jerome completed the main work of his life - the translation of biblical books into Latin, called the Vulgata - the “people's Bible”, which replaced earlier and less perfect translations in wide use and was subsequently canonized by the Catholic tradition. 15 years later, in 420, he reposed in Bethlehem and was buried in the Church of the Nativity. In the 7th century, his relics were transferred from Bethlehem to Rome, to the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. Called blessed in the Orthodox Church, Jerome is revered in the West as one of the greatest saints of the Catholic Church.

The turn of the 4th and 5th centuries was a kind of pause between two eras of opposition to heresies that shook Universal Church and prompted in the 4th century to find an adequate formula for the Trinitarian, and in the next century - for the Christological dogma. The controversy surrounding the theological heritage of Origen was aroused by a false alarm of overly impressionable and suspicious zealots and was used for opportunistic purposes by clever church leaders as a bogeyman to intimidate and defeat their opponents. Origen expressed, along with deep and true ideas, a number of thoughts that were incompatible with the revealed teaching of God, but he was the best expert and thoughtful interpreter of the Scriptures. None of the undeniably Orthodox major theologians of the 4th century, nor any of the Church Fathers of this era, could do without the use of his works, and they borrowed his sound thoughts to varying degrees, treating him with respect, but not without caution and criticism, so that the loud noise about the dangerous Origen heresy was raised in vain.

At the turn of the century, however, a new heresy appeared, barely noticed in the Christian East, but which shook the ecclesiastical West. This was the teaching of Pelagius, a native of Britain, who settled in Rome around 380. In his interpretation of the Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Romans, he argued that the Fall of Adam was only his personal sin and the effect of this sin does not extend to the descendants of Adam, each of whom retains the ability to reject evil and choose the path of self-improvement. Lord Jesus Christ saved human race not so much by His blood, but by an example of virtuous living and righteous death, which anyone seeking salvation and holiness can follow. The Lord helps him in this, but ultimately everything is decided by the free will of a person making a conscious choice. In essence, Pelagius rejected the dogma of original sin. The doctrine of Pelagius, with its boundless anthropological optimism, met the most consistent criticism from Bishop Augustine of Hippo.

Even in his student years, he became interested in the Manichaean teaching, which attracted him intellectually with the strict systematicity of the doctrine, and ethically with the consistent rigor of the demands made on adepts, but, perhaps, also with its esotericism that flattered the youth’s pride. But even after accepting Manichaeism, Augustine still had doubts about its truth, which grew over time. And when one of the prominent mentors of this sect, Faustus, was unable to answer the questions that Augustine addressed to him, he moved away from the Manichaeans.

In Milan, Augustine listened to the sermons of Saint Ambrose, finding them profound in content. He began to treat the Christian teachings, which he knew about from his Christian mother, with increasing confidence. He began to diligently read the Old Testament and New Testament books. A revolution in his soul occurred while reading the Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Romans. It prompted him to decide to become a Christian, and in 387, on Easter, Augustine was baptized in Milan cathedral. He was then 33 years old. After baptism, he went to his homeland, Africa, and founded and led a monastic community in the town of Ippone.

Soon afterwards, in 391, he was ordained a presbyter, and in 396 he became a bishop and headed the Ippon Church; From his monastic community, he established a theological school, which became one of the main centers of Christian education in Africa. The Bishop of Ippona had to confront the Donatist schism, which still retained numerous adherents, as well as the sect of his former co-religionists, the Manichaeans. He conducted numerous debates with religious opponents, and in them he discovered an extraordinary gift for polemicism. As a result of one of these debates, held in 404, the Manichaean preacher Felix was forced to admit the inconsistency of this teaching and was baptized.

When the doctrine of Pelagius appeared, Augustine acted as its most persistent and thorough critic. In contrast to Pelagius, Augustine proceeded from the idea of ​​deep damage to human nature as a result of the fall of our ancestors - original sin. Through conception and birth, the seed of sin, hereditarily transmitted from Adam, is communicated to every person coming into this world, and the predisposition to sin has become a kind of second nature of fallen man. As a result of the fall of the primordial couple, not only man, but also his habitat - the cosmos - deviated from God's original plan for creation. But the degradation of human nature and the entire created world is not, according to Augustine, irreversible. Out of love for His creation, for man, the Son of God descended into this world, took on human flesh, became Man, remaining God, in order to redeem and save the fallen Adam on the cross. We are all sinners who rightly deserve eternal death, and, using only our own strengths, paralyzed by sin, which has damaged our very will, which is drawn to evil, none of the people, even the righteous of the Old Testament, are able to be saved and enter into communion with God . Augustine compared the state of fallen man with the position of a man who was abandoned half-dead on the road by robbers and who himself is no longer able to ascend again to the heights of righteousness from which he previously descended. Only the true Good Samaritan, the Lord Jesus Christ, can heal his suppressed will. His atoning sacrifice crushed the omnipotence of the devil over man. Salvation is accomplished by the action of God's grace, which was poured out abundantly on the human race when One of us, by His human nature, accepted a voluntary death, without having in Himself even a shadow of sin.

The concept of grace is central to Augustine's soteriology. By the grace of God a person is justified, but justification by grace does not apply to everyone. In His omniscience, the Lord knew that not everyone would benefit from the gifts of His grace, and He predestined only those to eternal bliss who are able to believe in Christ and follow Him. Augustine emphasized with particular emphasis that his salvation depends not on man himself, but on God, but a person predestined for salvation, in his very faith in the saving action of grace, gains evidence of the salvation granted to him.

Through the efforts of Augustine, Pelagius and his follower Celestine were condemned at the Councils of Carthage in 412 and 416. During the polemics excited by the emergence of the Pelagian heresy, a position was expressed that was critical of Pelagius, but also differed from the Augustinian one. It was formulated and substantiated by the Marseille monk St. John Cassian, who argued that human salvation is achieved not only by the will of God, but by the synergy of Divine grace and human will. Without sharing the optimistic and “rosy,” so to speak, ideas of Pelagius about the state of human nature after the Fall, John Cassian did not imagine fallen man in such a deplorable and powerless position as Augustine. Augustine's thoughts, when consistently carried to absurd extremes, many centuries later resulted in Calvin's doctrine of the divine predestination of some to salvation, and others to eternal destruction - and also for the sake of the greater glory of God. Luther also relied on Augustine, and not just on the one-sided understanding of the Epistle to the Romans, in his teaching about the saving power of faith alone, without the works of the law. Augustine, and after him the Western Church, rejected the thoughts of St. John Cassian about synergy as semi-Pelagian, but his teaching was accepted in the East, and it lies at the basis of Orthodox anthropology and soteriology.

Literary heritage Augustine, by his own count, includes 97 writings, 224 letters and more than 500 sermons. His works written before his conversion have been preserved: “Against the Academicians (Skeptics)”, “On the Blessed Life”, “On Order” - but most of what he wrote dates back to the time that followed his baptism. Among his Christian works are the words “On the immortality of the soul”, “On true religion”, “On free will (On freedom of choice)”, “Against the message of Mani, called the Founder”, “Against Faustus”, “On spirit and letter”, “ About the Trinity."

His most significant works include the treatises “On Christian Doctrine”, “On the Book of Genesis Verbatim”, “On Nature and Grace”; two of his books had a colossal influence not only on the theological thought of subsequent centuries, but also on the formation of the very paradigm of Western European culture - this is the “Confession”, written in 400, and the colossal work “On the City of God”, on which Augustine worked from 412 to 426 year.

The reason for writing the book “On the City of God” was the fall of Rome, captured by the Visigoths led by Alaric. The pagans claimed that the cause of the fall was the apostasy of the Romans from the faith of their fathers. Augustine objected to them. This grandiose work was the first experience in constructing a holistic concept of human history. Earth history, according to Augustine, is a series of appearances and deaths of states, and real reason experienced national disasters: wars, coups, fall of kingdoms, famine and disease - are rooted in human sinfulness. But over the history of the earthly kingdoms, which are in the power of Satan, to whom individuals, peoples and states submit due to their sins, another kingdom rises - the City of God, which submits to the will of God and which, in a certain sense of the word, is identical to the Church; This City will, at the end of the century, merge into the eternal blissful peace of the Heavenly Kingdom. The beginning of the earthly sinful kingdoms was laid by the fall of the angels and the subsequent fall of the ancestors. The confrontation between the earthly city and the heavenly city forms the core of world history, which has its beginning in creation, its central event - the Incarnation of God, and its eschatological end.

Augustine’s “Confessions” is dedicated to the reconstruction of the spiritual formation of the author, who from a pagan became a Christian. This book is written with the utmost sincerity, it presents with amazing depth, insight and subtlety the drama of the human soul, striving for light and truth, but powerless to escape from the snares of passions and delusions without the omnipotent action of grace on it, so that by the example of one’s own life, the example of personal experience, the writer illustrates in “Confession” the anthropological and soteriological ideas he developed.

Augustine reposed in his cathedral city of Ippon during its siege by the Vandals on August 28, 430. In the Orthodox Church, he, like Jerome, is recognized as blessed, and by Catholics he is revered as a great saint and one of the teachers of the Church.

In 417, Pope Innocent died. His successor was Zosima, a Greek by birth and native language, who died a little over a year after his elevation to the Roman see. His death was followed by division in the Roman clergy and flock. Two popes were elected: the majority of suburban bishops (so called because they occupied sees in the suburbs of Rome), as well as representatives of the Roman clergy and flock, voted for Boniface at an electoral council held in the temple of St. Marcellus, but in parallel elections in the cathedral Lateran At the cathedral, the protege of the prefect Symmachus, who remained a pagan, his friend Eulalius, was elected pope. Thanks to the insistence of Symmachus, Emperor Honorius, who had a residence in Ravenna, by his edict recognized Eulalius as bishop of Rome. By order of the emperor, Boniface was removed from the city and took refuge in the Basilica of St. Paul, which was then located outside the city limits. Unrest began in Rome, and Honorius changed his position. He ordered both Boniface and Eulalia to remain outside Rome until representatives of the disputing parties came to Ravenna, and then to Spoleto, where a council was to be convened to resolve the conflict. Boniface obeyed the order of the emperor, and Eulalis came to Rome without permission to perform the liturgy at the Lateran Cathedral. The reaction to this was the recognition by Honorius of Boniface as the legitimate pope and the removal of antipope Eulalia from Rome.

Boniface's priestly ministry continued until his death in 422, after which Saint Celestine took over the Roman See. In the same year, the primate of the Antiochian Church, Theodotus, died, and Archbishop John was elevated to the dowager throne. After the death of Saint John in 417, the See of Jerusalem was occupied for three years by Prailius, whose successor was Saint Juvenal. Until his death in 425, Atticus led the Church of New Rome.

Thanks to the short-term friendly relations between the Roman Empire and Iran, when it was ruled by Shah Yazdegerd, the situation of Persian Christians changed for the better. They actually gained not only freedom of religion, but also the legal opportunity to preach the Gospel. In 409, Christian communities were granted the right to openly worship and restore previously destroyed churches. In 410, a council was convened in the eastern capital of Iran, Seleucia, at which the primate of the Persian Church, Avda, was elected with the title of Catholicos of Seleucia and Ctesiphon, who recognized the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Antioch over himself. The council expressed perfect loyalty to the monarch: “We all unanimously implore our gracious God that He will prolong the days of the victorious and famous king Yazdegerd, the king of kings, and that his years may be extended for generations of generations and for years of years.”

According to the historian Theophanes the Confessor, “the Persian king Isdigerd, following the convictions of Marufa, the bishop of Mesopotamia, and Avda, the bishop of the reigning city in Persia, became completely pious. He was about to accept baptism from the hands of the miracle-working Marufa, punishing the Magi (magicians) as deceivers, but he died in his twentieth year.” This message is fully consistent with the reputation of Yazdegerd, which he gained among adherents of Zoroastrianism: “A Persian tradition that reflects the mindset of magicians and nobility,” writes A.A. Vasiliev, calls Yazdegerd an “apostate”, “immoral”... a friend of Rome and Christians and a persecutor of magicians.”

After the death of Yazdegerd in 420, the son of Yazdegerd Bahram, nicknamed Horus, which means “wild ass,” ascended the throne of the Shahinshahs. Under him, bloody persecution of Christians began. The reason for them was given by Catholicos Avda with one of his unreasonable acts. As Theophanes the Confessor relates, “Abda, the bishop of the capital of Persia... carried away by divine jealousy and using it improperly, burned the temple of fire. Having learned about this, the king ordered the destruction of all Christian churches in Persia, and executed Avda with various torments. This persecution lasted five years, countless martyrs suffered, for the Magi carefully searched for Christians hiding in cities and villages; some announced themselves, so as not to show by silence that they were renouncing Christ. When Christians were mercilessly exterminated, many died amid torture, while others fled to the Romans.”

The persecution of Christians caused a war between the Roman Empire and Iran, which ended in victory for Rome in 422. Shah Bahram in the peace treaty took upon himself the obligation not to persecute Christians. Direct persecution did cease, but Christians remained a discriminated against community in Iran. Never again have they enjoyed such freedom in this country as existed for them during the reign of Yazdegerd.

Scroll Down

1 && "cover" == "gallery"">

The location for the future city of Khabarovsk was in June 1854, several years before the final left bank of the Amur to Russia. “This is where the city will be,” then East Siberian Governor-General Nikolai Muravyov pointed from the board of the steamer “Argun” to the coastal rock. But it was not enough to choose a suitable place; the city still had to be built on a deserted shore in the middle of the Amur taiga. This difficult task fell to the lot of soldiers and officers of the 13th Siberian Line Battalion. Historian Alexey Volynets will tell about their difficult fate especially for DV

"13th line..."

It so happens that many peoples have a prejudice towards the number 13, which is considered unlucky and brings failure. This superstition hardly has any real basis, but in the history of the first builders of Khabarovsk, the “devil’s dozen” indeed coexists with tragedy.

The 13th battalion was created in Irkutsk in 1829 among fifteen other “line battalions”. In the language of the military of the Russian Empire, the “line” was then called the state border - in fact, these were precisely the border units that guarded the most remote borders of our country in the east of Siberia. It would seem that the soldiers of these battalions were not threatened by any troubles, except for the usual hardships of life in remote garrisons, thousands of miles away from all the wars that were raging at that time in Europe and Asia.

But mid-19th centuries changed the measured life of the “lineians,” as the border guards were called in that era. When the East Siberian Governor-General Nikolai Muravyov in Transbaikalia on the banks of the Shilka River became the first steamships and river vessels for the Amur, it was the soldiers of the 13th battalion, whose buttons on their uniforms and overcoats were decorated with the corresponding number, who had to work a lot on auxiliary work. As one eyewitness recalled the spring of 1855: “The soldiers were dragging huge logs, sawing them into planks, knocking down rafts and building barges. Soldiers swarmed everywhere like ants, and from everywhere there could be heard the dull tapping of axes, the ringing roar of forge hammers, or the piercing screech of saws. And above all this chaos of fussy work there were sounds of an exciting song: “Hey, little club, let’s whoop!” Hey, green one, she’ll go on her own!..”

A year later, the privates and officers of the 13th battalion greeted the new spring not in Transbaikalia, but thousands of miles to the east - at the mouth of the Amur. They had the opportunity to swim the entire great river to the coast of the Tatar Strait, where in the fall of last 1855 their comrades, participants in the first “rafting”, repelled the attack of the British fleet. The 13th battalion itself never took part in the battles - its meeting with death was ahead...

In the spring of 1856, when Russia’s war against the coalition of England and France ended, there were about four thousand Russian troops in the wild taiga near the mouth of the Amur. It took a lot of effort and money to feed them in this wilderness, so the command decided to immediately return most of the soldiers to Transbaikalia, closer to the populated areas of Siberia. If previously the soldiers had crossed the entire Amur, sailing downstream, now they had to make the way back up the river. For those returning from the mouth, the Amur waves became not a convenient river road, but a very difficult obstacle - almost three thousand miles along the winding riverbed had to be passed against a strong current, moving between the deserted taiga shores.

The first detachments of those returning set off on the return journey in June 1859. The very last group of three companies of the 13th and 14th battalions began returning at the end of the summer, moving up the Amur only on August 8th. This group had to walk thousands of miles under the command of the commander of the 13th battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Obleukhov.

32-year-old Alexander Nikanorovich Obleukhov commanded his battalion for the second year. The son of a general, he began his military service as a guardsman in the capital Petersburg, but had no experience of real combat. During the preparation of the first “rafting” along the Amur in the spring of 1854, Lieutenant Colonel Obleukhov amazed the headquarters with verses of his own composition, dedicated to Governor General Muravyov:

You made us happy with your arrival,

But he only let me look at myself

And you promise us sadness when we leave,

Getting ready for a long, wondrous journey.

Although we are sorry to part with you,

But Cupid is calling you,

And we should be consoled by this,

What immortality awaits you there.

Come, hero, among the prayers,

Warming in all hearts;

Rus' is waiting for offerings from you,

Which Ermak didn’t do either!

Lightning-fast considerations

There are no obstacles for you in any way:

You were appointed to us by providence,

To bring the Old and the New closer together.

The hero of these rhymes himself, General Muravyov, did not like Obleukhov’s flattery. However, otherwise the exalted poet in the lieutenant colonel's epaulettes seemed to everyone to be an exemplary servant - he would become the cause of the tragedy only if he found himself in extreme situation, in the middle of the Amur taiga.

“The battalion was waiting for the commander to awaken...”

In the lower reaches of the Amur, captain 1st rank Pyotr Kazakevich was responsible for organizing the movement of troops. An experienced sailor who participated in all three “raftings,” he warned Lieutenant Colonel Obleukhov about the risk of a late return - “being almost a month late, the ascent along the Amur will be difficult.” Kazakevich advised the commander of the 13th battalion to postpone the return until the spring of the following 1857. But Obleukhov refused - he had personal reasons for haste, and the only time he sailed down the Amur, he did not imagine the complexity of the return journey.

The main leader of the Russian forces on the Amur, Governor-General Muravyov, having personally carried out the first two “raftings” of 1854-55, did not participate in the third, having gone to the capital for the coronation of the new emperor. The next “rafting” in 1856 and preparations for the withdrawal of troops from the mouth of the Amur were carried out without him. Therefore, Lieutenant Colonel Obleukhov had the opportunity to ignore the opinion of the experienced Kazakevich, referring to the “decisive order to return”, allegedly received from his superiors in Transbaikalia.

The real reason for the rush was completely different. As one of the lieutenant colonel’s colleagues later recalled: “Obleukhov at that time was the groom of a beautiful and very rich girl, Alexandra Kurbatova, his wedding was postponed until his return; in addition, he did not want to miss the opportunity to distinguish himself more than others, sailing to the mouth of the Amur and returning to Shilka in one navigation ... "

The commander of the 13th battalion was in a hurry to return to Transbaikalia to his bride - the daughter of the richest merchant in the Transbaikal city of Verkhneudinsk (now Ulan-Ude). Therefore, all warnings about the risk turned out to be useless, and on August 8, 1856, 374 people, including Obleukhov himself, in thirty boats moved against the flow of the mighty river, starting from the Mariinsky post at the mouth of the Amur.

In addition to weapons, Obleukhov’s detachment took with them food for 45 days. In the future, they planned to receive food at the few Cossack posts located along the northern bank of the Amur.

It was impossible to row all the way against the current, and soldiers often had to walk along the wild shore, pulling boats behind them like barge haulers. This was witnessed by the Transbaikal Cossack Roman Bogdanov: “We overtook the 13th battalion 15 or 20 versts above Mariinsk; the soldiers did not know how to walk with a whip at all and suffered terribly, thereby exhausting themselves in vain... The heat was terrible.”

Cossack Bogdanov, being one of the few literate people, served as a courier transporting messages between Transbaikalia and the mouth of the Amur. He had many acquaintances in the battalion with an unlucky number; Bogdanov wrote down their stories and personal observations in his diary, preserving this to this day. scary story, as it was seen not by the big bosses at headquarters, but by simple “lower ranks”, Cossacks and soldiers.

Nothing had yet foreshadowed the tragedy, but many of the detachment, led by the commander of the 13th battalion, were already doomed to death. Officers and generals will then try to understand the causes and culprits of the tragedy, but the rank and file clearly laid the blame on their commander, Lieutenant Colonel Obleukhov. “Eyewitnesses whom I had to save from starvation,” testify to the notes of the Cossack Roman Bogdanov, “said the following: Colonel Obleukhov, before sending him to the Amur with his battalion, wooed himself a bride from a rich Verkhneudinsk merchant and was so upset by the separation, so often raved about a speedy a date with her, that he spent whole nights without sleep, and in the morning he fell asleep and did not order to disturb him; As a result, the entire battalion was waiting for the commander to wake up and had no right to move. They also said that one had to live in the same lodging for 2 to 3 days; On the way, feasts were held in honor of the name day of the future wife, father-in-law and mother-in-law, and all royal and church holidays were celebrated by standing there. In these celebrations and stops the summer passed unnoticed..."

“This circumstance saddened the soldiers a little...”

After two months of difficult travel, at the beginning of October 1856, Obleukhov’s detachment reached only the area where the city of Blagoveshchensk is now located. From here to the sources of the Amur, where at the confluence of the Shilka and Arugni rivers Russian settlements began at that time, there were still a long 883 kilometers left.

First warning sign noticed on October 4th. “The morning is extremely cold, the water in the glass on the boat froze,” Lieutenant Colonel Obleukhov wrote in his travel diary. Winter that year actually came early to the Amur and turned out to be very harsh. Three days later, the lieutenant colonel writes: “The snow fell quite deep for the first time. This circumstance saddened the soldiers a little..."

Scroll Down

1 && "cover" == "gallery"">

((currentSlide + 1)) / ((countSlides))

On October 21, 150 versts northwest of modern Blagoveshchensk, the boats of Obleukhov’s detachment reached a small Cossack post located on the left bank of the Amur, opposite the mouth of one of its southern tributaries - the Kumara River. Three centuries ago, it was here that the well-fortified Kumarsky fort was located, founded by the pioneers of Erofei Khabarov. In 1856, the Cossack post consisted of only one dugout with a stove.

At the Kumar post, Obleukhov’s detachment was overtaken by winter - not a calendar one, but a natural one, which began early that year. If on October 23 the first ice floes were noticed on the Amur, then just two days later the surface of the river was covered with “slush” - small ice crumbs that precede freezing. The detachment nevertheless tried to sail further, but as Obleukhov wrote in his diary: “After traveling about five miles, we were stopped by thick ice, which forced us to return...”

For over two weeks, the detachment remained at the Kumar post - they ate the remaining supplies and waited for the Amur to finally be covered with a strong ice shell, along which it would be possible to walk through the snow-covered taiga, like on a road. The soldiers cut down birch trees and prepared homemade sleighs. Meanwhile, food supplies were running out. Over the long months of trekking in the taiga, shoes and uniforms had also worn out, which further aggravated the difficulties of the beginning winter.

“It seemed that nature itself had armed itself against us,” Obleukhov later recalled. - There are cliffs and dense forest all around, but there is no game. Several excellent shooters walked in the ridges for two days and did not have a chance to unload their rifles. We tried to put muzzles (fishing gear woven from branches - D.V.) and didn’t catch a single fish, and there is so much of it here in the summer that sometimes a carp from the reeds near the shore itself jumps into the boat, to the considerable surprise of the rowers..."

There really was no game in the vicinity - it was scared away by the troops passing along the banks of the Amur for the last three years in a row. By November 7, the river was finally completely covered strong ice and two days later the detachment moved on foot along the Amur, bypassing the ice holes they encountered. Since November 11, the soldiers had only a small supply of crackers left.

Nights in the taiga in the cold became especially painful. Almost two decades later, Lieutenant Colonel Obleukhov himself recalled them this way: “Having chosen a place near the forest, the soldiers immediately began to rake the snow to get the herbs: without it it was impossible to light the icy tree branches. Then they boiled water in camp cauldrons. Instead of tea, the soldiers boiled grass and tree bark, warming their stiff limbs with this tasteless liquid. In the open air, at 20° below zero and without warm clothing, the soldiers could not sleep without risking frostbite on their hands or feet, and therefore drowsiness exhausted them even more. We spent seventeen hours a day in this apathetic state. To complete the sad picture, the howling of wolves was often heard, wandering in packs, waiting for the sure prey. Exhausted soldiers did not have the strength to bury the corpses of the dead deeply. Not for the sake of effect, I will mention that it happened that soldiers who were completely exhausted, but still showed signs of life, were attacked by wolves...”

"Eating human flesh, expecting death..."

From that time on, the detachment began to disintegrate - separate groups of hungry, exhausted people either wandered in the snow or remained for a long time near the fires, not having the strength to move on. Lieutenant Colonel Obleukhov actually abandoned his soldiers - taking the remaining horse and the last four pounds of cereal, he went forward under the pretext of looking for help. The lieutenant colonel did not die of hunger - the day before, according to eyewitnesses, he ate his beloved dog.

The lieutenant colonel gave the soldiers remaining in the taiga a bull skin, which they used to protect themselves from the frost. People, exhausted by hunger, began to boil it to try to eat it. According to Obleukhov’s later memoirs, before leaving, a non-commissioned officer named Prosekov approached him “with a question that made me shudder, he wondered whether it was possible to take the corpse of a soldier who had died in the morning for consumption...”

Further horror was described by a simple Transbaikal Cossack, Roman Bogdanov, who became the savior for many of Obleukhov’s unfortunate detachment. By mid-December 1856, in the village of Ust-Strelka, at that time the easternmost of the Russian villages near the Amur, they learned from Evenki nomads about a dying detachment. Local Cossacks immediately went to help.

As Roman Bogdanov recalled: “In Ust-Strelka they equipped a transport of 24 Cossack horses, and, having supplied it with provisions and warm clothing that could be found in Ust-Strelka, they sent me and 6 Cossacks to meet the starving and supply them with provisions. Lieutenant Colonel Obleukhov arrived in Ust-Strelka on the day of our departure. It was around mid-December."

Scroll Down

1 && "cover" == "gallery"">

((currentSlide + 1)) / ((countSlides))

Further memories of a Transbaikal Cossack paint a terrible picture: “Below Albazin, near a barge with flour that was running aground, there were several corpses of dead soldiers - they ate too much flour from hunger and died. Below this barge there were heart-rending pictures: soldiers, hungry, walked on foot at 35° below zero, wearing only greatcoats and caps, half-dead, disfigured by frost, smoke-stained beyond recognition; in a word, a person you knew closely could not be recognized; hands and feet mutilated by frost...

On one island in the middle of the Amur there were many corpses frozen in different positions and, for the most part, who must have died from hunger; some of the corpses had their backsides cut off. On this island they found 20 or 25 people alive, who, due to lack of boots and various other reasons, could not go further and remained here, eating human flesh, awaiting death.

Among these people was an acquaintance of mine, non-commissioned officer Bezobrazov; this one admitted that he ate human flesh; and the other, cadet Komarov (a Transbaikal native), denied that he did not eat human flesh, but ate belts and leather from backpacks and various discarded shoes. He told an incident that happened to him about 10 days before us: There were only at least 50 people on the island, almost everyone ate the meat of dead soldiers, which disgusted everyone. One fine day, in the evening, they decided to cast lots - who would be slaughtered alive in the morning, whether the meat would be more pleasant to eat; the lot fell on Komarov. Out of despair, Komarov did not sleep all night, prayed to God to deliver him from this death and, almost in a feeling of insanity, went into the forest to die of hunger, which he wanted to get rid of being eaten. It had just begun to get light, he ran from the island into the channel, against which there was a large rock, and saw on the channel under the rock a wolf and a wapiti that had been killed by falling from the cliff; not believing his eyes, Komarov began to call his comrades; those who were able to walk came to the call, those who were able cut the beast into pieces and left the island, and those who could not go further remained again on this island to wait for death ... "

“Any consequence would be too unprofitable...”

The Cossack caravan with food and clothing saved many. But of the 374 people in Obleukhov’s detachment, 98 died by December 1856. The tragedy shocked everyone - however, there were no official consequences. As Major General Ivan Venyukov, who arrived at that time on the banks of the Amur, later recalled: “There is no doubt that there was a case of cannibalism... In 1857, one of these cannibals was at the mouth of the Zeya, that is, in present-day Blagoveshchensk, and was serving penance (church punishment - D.V.), which was imposed on him by the spiritual authorities. There was, of course, no talk of criminal prosecution, because any investigation would be too unprofitable - not for the soldier, but for the commanders.”

Lieutenant Colonel Obleukhov escaped with minimal consequences: upon returning from the unfortunate campaign, he immediately began treatment for a “disorder of mind.” He was demoted by one rank and soon dismissed from the army “due to illness,” which, however, did not prevent Obleukhov from subsequently serving as chief of police in several Siberian cities. A decade and a half later, he even published memoirs in one of the capital’s newspapers, trying to deny his guilt in the tragic events of 1856. It would be better if Obleukhov did not do this - together with the stories of other eyewitnesses, awkward attempts at justification only emphasized his unseemly role.

Governor General Muravyov, although he was thousands of miles from the Amur in 1856, nevertheless considered himself responsible for everything that happened on the distant river. It was on his orders that the main participant in the rescue of people from the unfortunate detachment, Cossack Roman Bogdanov, carefully and unvarnishedly wrote down memories of all the horrors. The Governor-General asked that these notes be “kept for future posterity,” but published only after his death.

Staff Captain Yakov Dyachenko became the new commander of the unfortunate 13th battalion. His military rank corresponded to the modern rank of lieutenant; in the army of the Russian Empire, staff captains usually commanded companies. Therefore, in accordance with all the norms of the army bureaucracy, Dyachenko will be finally approved for more high position only two years later.

But it was during this period of time that the 13th battalion, which survived the tragedy, and its commander, who was not fully formed, will forever go down in history Far East- they will be laid future city Khabarovsk.

30-year-old staff captain Yakov Vasilyevich Dyachenko came, as they said then, from the “Little Russian nobles” - he was a native of the Poltava province, had no estates or wealth. He was born exactly 200 years ago - March 21 (April 2, new style) 1817. Unlike the previous commander of the 13th battalion, Dyachenko began his service not in the capital’s guard, but in the provincial regiments on western border the vast Russian Empire. There were no high-profile military events in the biography of the new battalion commander; as they say, he just honestly pulled the burden of difficult army life in godforsaken remote garrisons. But it was he who was to become the first builder of the largest Russian city in the Amur region.

“These troops contribute to the settlement of the region...”

The 13th battalion again met the summer of 1857 in the taiga on the banks of the Amur. The lands north of the great river had not yet been finally annexed to Russia, and Governor-General Muravyov was in a hurry to build the first Russian posts and villages here before the start of border negotiations with the Chinese.

Two decades later, an eyewitness and participant in these events, Major General Ivan Venyukov, will publish the book “Memories of the Settlement of the Amur.” He will describe the first days of the summer of 1857 at the mouth of the Zeya River, where the city of Blagoveshchensk is located today: “The third courier arrived, he brought a plan of the proposed Ust-Zeyskaya village, very elegantly drawn. Everything was here: a church, a hospital, houses of various authorities, and various offices (it’s impossible without this); but the project, completely suitable for the construction of a city on the Semyonovsky parade ground in St. Petersburg or anywhere else, was not suitable precisely for the plain on which it was supposed to be implemented. The Zeya and Amur rivers gave the soil of this plain a completely different outline than was required by the project. And so they admired the drawing and rolled it up, and the first street in the new colony stretched along the ridge of a small height according to the design of Captain Dyachenko ... "

So the new commander of the 13th battalion found himself among the builders of the future city of Blagoveshchensk, which for the first two years from its founding was called Ust-Zeyskaya Stanitsa. At the end of the summer of 1857, Yakov Dyachenko was already working 150 versts northwest of the future city - together with the soldiers he was building another new settlement. “On Kumara,” recalled General Venyukov, “in a small narrow valley on the left bank of the Amur, opposite the mouth of the Kumara, where the village of Kumarskaya was being built, I found the commander of the 13th battalion, Captain Dyachenko. This was one of the most useful figures in the settlement of the Amur. His calm, even character, management, ability to deal with soldiers and Cossacks, with superiors, earned him the general respect of the Amur people. And in his village, construction was going on quickly, and the number of houses was greater than anywhere else..."

The following year, 1858, the 13th battalion and its commander had to carry out construction even further east - where the Ussuri River flows into the Amur. To make up for previous losses, several dozen soldiers from the European part of Russia were sent to the battalion - thanks to the archives, today we know that new builders arrived on the Amur from Saratov, Penza, Perm and Nizhny Novgorod.

So on the last day of May 1858, Captain Yakov Dyachenko and the soldiers of his 13th battalion found themselves on the site of the future Khabarovsk. It was they who began the first work on the construction of Khabarovka - a military post, from which the largest Russian city on the Amur would later grow. General Ivan Venyukov, then serving as an officer on the headquarters of Governor Muravyov, comparing the progress of work in the new settlements, noted that construction was going best at the 13th battalion: “But Khabarovka, located on an excellent, elevated bank, presented a comforting view. Here the work, under the direction of the same Dyachenko, who last year built the village of Kumarskaya, went very successfully, not only houses, but also shops with goods appeared, even a small church or chapel was founded on a hillock, visible from afar.”

The barracks of the 13th battalion and the first buildings of the future city were located on the slopes of the cliff, which today adorns the monument to Muravyov-Amursky. A century and a half ago, the church mentioned by Venyukov stood here - the chapel of Mary Magdalene, built by soldiers of the 2nd company of the 13th battalion.

The vast majority of the privates were illiterate back then, so they left no memoirs for us. Unlike military exploits or difficult campaigns, their work in the middle of the wild taiga was not considered worthy of detailed description by their contemporaries. Today we know only individual names of those who founded the capital of the Khabarovsk Territory - thanks to individual reports of Captain Dyachenko preserved in the archives, approximately two hundred pioneer builders are known by name. Among them were several “lower ranks” who came to the banks of the Amur with their families. Non-commissioned officer (sergeant) Pyotr Kazakov arrived with his wife Alexandra and little daughter, private Alexander Misyurokeev - with his wife Marya and two sons. Privates Kharlampiy Murashev, Ivan Gadolshin and Grigory Bolsheshapov arrived with their wives. It was these soldiers of the 13th battalion and their relatives who became the first residents of the future Khabarovsk.

“Knowing personally the commander of this battalion...”

Only in the fall of 1859 Yakov Dyachenko received the rank of major and was officially confirmed as commander of his battalion. In June 1860, one of the eyewitnesses of the development of the Amur spoke about the 13th battalion, comparing Dyachenko’s activities with the previous situation: “Knowing personally the commander of this battalion, I can safely say that, despite the incredible efforts incurred by the lower ranks of the battalion, they and healthy and provided with everything necessary.”

By that time, the battalion of the founders of Khabarovsk had not only recovered from the previous tragedy, but also parted with its “unlucky” number. From now on, it was officially called the “3rd East Siberian Line Battalion.” Major Dyachenko at that time had, in addition to his soldiers, to deal with the creation of the Amur Cossack army and the placement of the first Russian peasants who moved to the Amur and Primorye regions.

In 1859, the St. Petersburg naturalist Richard Maack visited these regions on behalf of the Imperial Geographical Society. He described the fruits of the activities of Yakov Dyachenko and his battalion as follows: “Many places on the right bank of the Ussuri were in full swing with life; everything was in motion and busy with the construction of the huts and buildings necessary for the first establishment, which were built by soldiers of the line battalion from Khabarovka.”

The “Battalion from Khabarovka” founded dozens of villages on the banks of the Amur and Ussuri. One of the new Cossack villages received the name Dyachenkov - in honor of the commander of the pioneer builders.

In 1866, eight years after the birth of the future capital of the Khabarovsk Territory, Yakov Dyachenko was transferred 700 miles further, into the very wilderness of that time - to lead the “Novgorod post team”, now the territory of the village of Posiet on the southern tip of Primorye, where the borders of Russia and Korea touch. and China. These lands began to be inhabited even later than the banks of the Amur. Here, Yakov Dyachenko had to not only develop the very edge of our country, but also lead the fight against the raids of Chinese “hunhuz” bandits. Among his subordinates were the soldiers who made up the first garrison of the future city of Vladivostok.

editorial@site

Everything, apparently, and even nature itself, took up arms against Mr. Golyadkin; but he was still on his feet and not defeated; he felt that he was not defeated. He was ready to fight. He rubbed his hands with such feeling and such energy when he came to his senses after the first amazement that one could conclude from Mr. Golyadkin’s appearance alone that he would not yield. However, the danger was imminent, it was obvious; Mr. Golyadkin felt it too; But how can we tackle it, this danger? here's the question. Even for a moment, a thought flashed in Mr. Golyadkin’s head: “What, they say, shouldn’t we leave it all like this, shouldn’t we just give up? Well, what then? well, nothing. “I’ll be special, as if it’s not me,” thought Mr. Golyadkin, “I’m letting everything pass by; not me, and that’s all; he is also special, maybe he will back down; he will bark, he will bark, he will bark, he will turn around, and he will retreat. That's how it is! I will take it with humility. And where is the danger? Well, what's the danger? Would I like someone to show me the danger in this matter? No big deal! an ordinary thing!..” Here Mr. Golyadkin stopped short. The words died on his tongue; he even scolded himself for this thought; I even immediately convicted myself of baseness and cowardice for this thought; however, his case still did not move forward. He felt that it was an absolute necessity for him to decide on something at the present moment; he even felt that he would give a lot to someone who would tell him what exactly he needed to decide on. Well, how can you guess? However, there was no time to guess. Just in case, so as not to waste time, he hired a cab and flew home. "What? How do you feel now? - he thought to himself. - How do you feel now, Yakov Petrovich? Will you do something? You will do something now, you are such a scoundrel, you are such a scoundrel! You’ve brought yourself to the last point, and now you’re crying, and now you’re whining!” This is how Mr. Golyadkin teased himself, bouncing on the shaking carriage of his van. Teasing himself and thus irritating his wounds at the present moment was some kind of deep pleasure for Mr. Golyadkin, even almost voluptuousness. “Well, if there, now,” he thought, “some kind of wizard would come, or somehow it had to happen in an official way, and they would say: give me, Golyadkin, a finger from your right hand - and it’s even with you; there will be no other Golyadkin, and you will be happy, only there will be no finger - so I would give my finger, I would certainly give it, I would give it without wincing. Damn it all! - the desperate titular adviser finally cried out, - well, why all this? Well, all this had to happen; this is certainly this, this is exactly this, as if nothing else was possible! And everything was fine at first, everyone was satisfied and happy; but no, it was necessary! However, you can’t take anything away with words. We need to act."

So, having almost decided on something, Mr. Golyadkin, entering his apartment, without hesitation at all, grabbed the pipe and, sucking on it with all his might, scattering wisps of smoke to right and left, began to run back and forth around the room in extreme excitement. Meanwhile, Petrushka began to collect food for the table. Finally, Mr. Golyadkin made up his mind completely, suddenly hung up the phone, threw on his overcoat, said that he wouldn’t have dinner at home, and ran out of the apartment. On the stairs, Petrushka caught up with him, out of breath, holding his forgotten hat in his hands. Mr. Golyadkin took the hat, he wanted to justify himself a little in passing in Petrushka’s eyes, so that Petrushka wouldn’t think something special - that, they say, such and such a circumstance, that he forgot his hat, etc. - but since Petrushka didn’t even look wanted and immediately left, then Mr. Golyadkin, without further explanation, put on his hat, ran down the stairs and, saying that everything would perhaps be for the best and that things would work out somehow, although he felt, by the way, even in himself chills in his heels, went out into the street, hired a cab and flew to Andrei Filippovich. “However, wouldn’t tomorrow be better? - thought Mr. Golyadkin, grabbing the cord of the bell at the door of Andrei Filippovich's apartment, - and what can I say in particular? There's nothing special here. It’s such a minuscule matter and, finally, it’s really minuscule, a trivial matter, that is, almost a trivial matter... after all, here it is, like all this, a circumstance...” Suddenly Mr. Golyadkin pulled the bell; rang, someone's steps were heard from inside... Here Mr. Golyadkin even cursed himself, partly for his haste and impudence. The recent troubles, which Mr. Golyadkin almost forgot in his business, and the conflict with Andrei Filippovich immediately came to his mind. But it was too late to run: the door opened. To Mr. Golyadkin’s happiness, they answered him that Andrei Filippovich did not come home from his post, and did not dine at home. “I know where he has lunch: he has lunch at the Izmailovsky Bridge.” - thought our hero and he was so happy. When the servant asked how to report about you, he said that, they say, I, my friend, it’s good, that they say, I’m my friend, then, and even with some cheerfulness, he ran down the stairs. Going out into the street, he decided to let the carriage go and paid the cabman. When the driver asked for an increase - they say, he waited, sir, for a long time and did not spare a trotter for your honor - he gave him an extra coin, and even with great willingness; I went on foot myself.

“The thing is, really,” thought Mr. Golyadkin, “that we can’t leave it like this; however, if you think like this, think so sensibly, then why really bother here? Well, no, but I’ll keep talking about it, so why should I bother? Why should I toil, fight, suffer, kill myself? Firstly, the job is done, and you can’t turn it back... because you can’t turn it back! Let's think this way: a person appears, a person appears with a sufficient recommendation, they say, a capable official, good behavior , only he is poor and has suffered various troubles - such troubles there - well, but poverty is not a vice; therefore, I am on the sidelines. Well, really, what kind of nonsense is this? Well, he has settled down, he has settled down, a person has settled down so well by nature that he is two peas in a pod like another person, that he is a perfect copy of another person: so why shouldn’t he be accepted into the department?! If fate, if only fate, if only blind fortune is to blame here, then wipe him out like a rag, then don’t let him serve... but where will there be justice after that? He is a poor, lost, intimidated man; here the heart hurts, here compassion commands him to look upon him! Yes! there is nothing to say, the bosses would be good if they reasoned like me, a hammered head! What a head I have! Sometimes there is enough stupidity for ten! No no! and they did well, and thanks to them for looking after the poor unfortunate... Well, yes, let’s assume, for example, that we are twins, that we were born that way, that we are twin brothers, and that’s all - that’s how it is! Well, what is it? Well, nothing! All officials can be trained... and an outsider entering our department would certainly not find anything indecent or offensive in such a circumstance. There is even something touching here; What, they say, is some kind of thought: that, they say, God’s providence created two completely similar ones, and the beneficent authorities, seeing God’s providence, sheltered two twins. It, of course,” Mr. Golyadkin continued, taking a breath and lowering his voice a little, “it, of course... it, of course, would be better if there weren’t any of this touching things, and there weren’t any twins either... Damn it all ! And what was it for? And what kind of need was there that was so special and could not tolerate any delay?! Lord my God! What a mess the devils have made! But, however, he has such a character, he has such a playful, nasty disposition - he’s such a scoundrel, such a fidgety, a licker, a sycophant, he’s such a Golyadkin! Perhaps he will behave badly and sully my family name, the bastard. Now look after him and take care of him! Wow, what a punishment! However, what then? Well, there’s no need! well, he’s a scoundrel, well, let him be a scoundrel, but the other one is honest. Well, he’ll be a scoundrel, but I’ll be honest, and they’ll say that this Golyadkin is a scoundrel, don’t look at him and don’t interfere with him; but this one is honest, virtuous, meek, kind, very reliable in his service and worthy of promotion; that's how it is! Well, okay... but how, that... And how are they there, that... and they’ll mix it up! Everything will happen from him! Oh, my God!.. And he will replace a person, he will replace him, such a scoundrel - like a rag he will replace a man and will not judge that the person is not a rag. Oh, my God! What a misfortune!..”

This is how Mr. Golyadkin ran, reasoning and complaining, not making out the road and almost not knowing where. He woke up on Nevsky Prospekt, and only because he collided with some passer-by so deftly and tightly that only sparks fell. Mr. Golyadkin, without raising his head, muttered an apology, and only when the passer-by, muttering something not too flattering, had already walked a considerable distance, raised his nose to the top and looked around to see where he was and how. Having looked around and noticing that he was right next to the restaurant in which he was relaxing, preparing for a dinner party with Olsufy Ivanovich, our hero suddenly felt pinches and clicks in his stomach, remembered that he had not dined, there was no dinner party to be held anywhere, and therefore, dear Without wasting his time, he ran up the stairs to the restaurant to grab something as quickly as possible, and not hesitate as quickly as possible. And although everything in the restaurant was expensive, this small circumstance did not stop Mr. Golyadkin this time; and there was no time to dwell on such trifles now. In a brightly lit room, at the counter, on which lay a varied pile of everything that decent people consume as a snack, stood a rather dense crowd of visitors. The clerk barely had time to pour, dispense, hand over and accept money. Mr. Golyadkin waited his turn and, having waited, modestly extended his hand to the pie pie. Having retreated to a corner, turning his back to those present and having eaten with gusto, he returned to the clerk, put the saucer on the table, knowing the price, took out ten silver kopecks and put a coin on the counter, catching the clerk’s glances to indicate to him: “What, they say, there’s a coin lying around; one piece of pie,” etc.

“You have a ruble and ten kopecks,” the clerk muttered through his teeth.

Mr. Golyadkin was quite amazed.

Are you telling me?.. I... I think I took one pie.

“They took eleven,” the clerk objected with confidence.

You... as far as it seems to me... you seem to be mistaken... I really think I took one pie.

I thought; you took eleven pieces. When you take it, you have to pay; we don’t give anything for nothing.

Mr. Golyadkin was stunned. “What is this, witchcraft, or what kind of witchcraft is being performed on me?” - he thought. Meanwhile, the clerk was awaiting Mr. Golyadkin’s decision; Mr. Golyadkin was surrounded; Mr. Golyadkin was already reaching into his pocket to take out a silver ruble, to pay immediately, to be out of harm’s way. “Well, eleven is eleven,” he thought, blushing like a lobster, “well, what’s wrong with eating eleven pies? Well, the man was hungry, so he ate eleven pies; well, let him eat for his health; Well, there’s nothing to be surprised here and nothing to be ashamed of...” Suddenly, something seemed to prick Mr. Golyadkin; he raised his eyes and - at once he understood the riddle, understood all the magic: at once all the difficulties were resolved... In the doorway to the next room, almost directly behind the clerk and facing Mr. Golyadkin, in the doorway, which, by the way, our hero had hitherto taken for a mirror, there was one little man standing, he was standing, Mr. Golyadkin himself was standing - not the old Mr. Golyadkin, not the hero of our story, but another Mr. Golyadkin, a new Mr. Golyadkin. The other Mr. Golyadkin was apparently in excellent spirits. He smiled at Mr. Golyadkin first, nodded his head to him, winked his eyes, minced his feet a little and looked so that as soon as he disappeared, he went into the next room, and there, perhaps, in reverse, and even that... and all pursuits will remain in vain. In his hands was the last piece of the tenth pie, which, in the eyes of Mr. Golyadkin, he sent into his mouth, smacking with pleasure. “Substituted, scoundrel!” - thought Mr. Golyadkin, flaring up like fire with shame, - he was not ashamed of publicity! Do they see him? It seems no one notices...” Mr. Golyadkin threw the silver ruble as if he had burned all his fingers on it, and, not noticing the clerk’s significantly insolent smile, the smile of triumph and calm power, he tore himself out of the crowd and rushed out without looking back. “Thank you for at least not completely compromising the person! - thought the elder Mr. Golyadkin. - Thanks to the robber, and to him and to fate, that everything was still well settled. Only the clerk was rude. Well, he was right! Ten rubles followed, and it was within its rights. They say they don’t give it to anyone without money! If only he had been more polite, you slacker!..”

"My dear sir,
Yakov Petrovich!

"Dear Sir,
Yakov Petrovich!

"Dear Sir,
Nestor Ignatievich!

This work has entered the public domain. The work was written by an author who died more than seventy years ago, and was published during his lifetime or posthumously, but more than seventy years have also passed since publication. It may be freely used by anyone without anyone's consent or permission and without payment of royalties.