Peter Lopukhin: Holy Russia and the Russian state
The Russian people, especially gifted religiously, called themselves - “Holy Russia” by their special love for holiness.
"Holy Russia" is the national life of the people, recognizing the meaning and joy of life in communion with God. This is a nation that honors holiness above all, which is the communion with God, the naturalness to Him. How often in historical life people hated the righteous, killed them; the prophet Isaiah was sawn with a wooden saw for the fact that in the pursuit of holiness the meaning is both truth and joy of life. And only in this. And how beautiful is the image of an old man who came several thousand kilometers from Siberia to spend a little time with Rev. Seraphim.
"Holy Russia" is not the life of a holy people: the history of the Russian People is a legend about its sins; but not only about them. The main feature of it, which determined and gave the right to the name of "Holy Russia", was and is - faithfulness to the truth: a person of Holy Russia sins, but does not lie, and therefore knows where and what to return to when he sinned and fell.
Holy Russia is precisely the Russian national life, its character and mood, the inner life, not the outer, not the life form, and therefore it is not at all necessary to imagine Holy Russia only and certainly in the clothes of one or another historical period. No, she can be in all clothes.
Do not confuse holy Russia with the Russian State: they are consonant, but this is a phenomenon of a different order: one is spontaneous life, determined by faith, views, tastes, mood, and the other is the fruit of conscious and purposeful human activity. Both are social life of people, but one is led by elemental force, the other by conscious force of power.
We never said "Holy Russia" - as a state, but "Holy Russia" - as a national, national life. We do not know the "sacred state" and do not say, as Catholics, the "Holy Empire" - because we do not have sacred forms of state life: we have no dogma about the state.
In all the Gospels there is not a word about it. After the Old Testament, when all social life, all the norms of criminal and civil law were religiously sanctioned, a striking Gospel silence about these subjects and questions of public life that people so keenly interested in. In the Gospel on this subject there is only one phrase: "return to Caesar what is Caesar's," i.e. live as a state, but how, in what forms, on what principles to build a state and state power - there is not a word about it.
Christianity is given the meaning of life - communion with God. This is the only saving goal and everything, all life must obey this. But if "all", it means, and public life. Christianity does not set a person the goal of building a perfect state or social system, or else any goals in the plane of culture. All of this is of secondary, official and relative importance, since it serves the main and only purpose.
Christianity draws the attention of a person inside, for there the communion of God and the Kingdom of God is accomplished. The "kingdom of God" on earth should not be thought of in its external, inherent, "sacred" forms: the kingdom of God does not come "in a perceptible way." "And they will not say: behold, it is here, or: here there. For behold, - the kingdom of God is within you." (Luke XVII, 20-21). The gospel frees one from the "sacred" forms of life that are obligatory for him. It calls him to freedom, invites all life freely to subordinate to the quest for the Kingdom of God. It seems to say to a person: "There are no specified forms of life, everything is allowed, but not everything is useful." And we ask ourselves the question, how will the son of Holy Russia, who is called to freedom, build his public life?
The meaning of life, the way of salvation is clear to him. It can and should demand conditions from the state in order to be able to live Christianity without meaningful life.
The kingdom of God, the divine life on earth, can exist on earth under all conditions and cannot be prevented by the outside worlds and government orders from the grace of God. But living conditions can make it extremely difficult for a person to assimilate it.
A person is influenced by the environment, the moral environment: we are dependent on each other and influence others. You can create such a relationship, such an environment or the air of public life, that it is difficult to live in them to the extreme. Every state, like in a house or family, has its own spirit. That is why for a Christian not only is not indifferent, but the organization of state life, its goals, foundations, the state’s “philosophy of law”, which determines the direction, character and spirit of life, our relations with each other, our social life, are of great importance.
State life is directed by power, and the government always has its own philosophy, and, guided by it, power controls and arranges social life. There can be no power without philosophy — without any understanding of its meaning and purpose. If someone says that the authorities do not need any philosophy, that the state is only a technical organization to meet the needs and the will of the majority, then such a statement is already a kind of philosophy of state law.
Therefore, if a given state does not accept the Christian position that all life, and, consequently, state, should be subject to the Christian meaning of life, then it should put another in the place of this philosophy; but a person of Holy Russia will regard all methods of dispensation of the state according to how far they are moving away or approaching the principle of submitting to Christianity for all life, how much they create a favorable environment for the life and development of the Christian.
The most difficult for the spiritual growth of a person, but the most tempting is to live in an atmosphere of triumphant evil. When evil is not only not prosecuted, but encouraged by the authorities. Evil celebrates its victory and seems invincible. Such is life under the God-given power. It is such an unbearable burden, such evil and vileness that people are morally crushed by such a life and become victims of evil and despondency.
Outwardly, not so painful, but it can be no less seductive to live in an atmosphere of indifference to good and evil. This is the air of state and public life where the principle of separation of the state from the church is carried out. In this air, the soul becomes cold and the fire of confession goes out. Such is the air in democratic states: in them the supreme law is the command of the majority, and they are only a technical organization, an “apparatus” for the execution of orders of this changeable will: there is no eternal truth, there is no sense, there is no service to the Truth and the daring of faith goes out. There are no eternal values, emptiness, and the Church is equated in rights with the anonymous Joint-Stock Company.
It is morally difficult and tempting to live in all totalitarian states, even in the case when it is not an open, God-fighting totalitarian communist regime.
If one rejects the principle of subordination of state power to the Christian idea, and if the principle of democratic spiritual “meaninglessness” is unacceptable to it, power should give a different idea, another main guiding goal. But whatever the goal she indicated, be it the greatness of the state, the nation, the modern social order, etc. - there will always be the presence of 3-s characteristic of all totalitarianism provisions: "instead of" the Christian principle available to everyone, exposes the other, developed by the party and belonging to it. This is the basis of the party regime: its justification is that only the party knows how to live and arrange meaningful life, and therefore only it is called upon to rule. In such a consciousness of its exceptional significance, the reason why all totalitarian party regimes are suspicious or hostile to the Church: it interferes with them, because it has its own understanding of meaningful life and its existence challenges the correctness of party self-awareness and claims. Finally, under all party regimes, there can be no flexible internal policy that meets the requirements of life: the latter are unjustified in the eyes of the party, they are not based on a “meaningful” party program, according to which it is necessary to arrange life.
This substitution of genuine and real values with artificial and invented ones and pretentiousness characterizes party regimes. On them at all, sharper or weaker, there is always the same stamp of exhausting totalitarian melancholy, and her name is “Soviet anguish.”
Holy Russia wants a state in which a Christian lives and develops unhindered. She wants to avoid “in the air” indifference to evil and good, to fight against evil, to avoid separation and dominion of one over the other, to avoid temptations and heavy temptations, to fight against them. Holy Russia wants the Orthodox worldview or philosophy to be in power, so that the power, and after it the whole public life led by it, clearly understands the goal of fighting evil. But just as there is no typic of salvation, and it requires the initiative, energy and sensitivity of the “refreshed heart” and “sober thought”, so in public life, in management there is no timetable for the actions of the authorities for all occasions: the authorities must have a lively feeling of goodness and evil.
Holy Russia wants a power that creates good and is sensitive to it: it is dear to the carrier of power to understand and feel what mood, what air of life is needed or useful or harmful for a Christian, where and in what obstacles and temptations for him. Therefore, Holy Russia wants the power not of a party, not of an apparatus, not of a morally irresponsible anonymous majority, not of a spiritually dead legal personality, but of the power of a person who is a morally responsible living personality. She loves true consciousness, a lively heart and the will of the carrier of power.
Holy Russia knows that no external, legal norms, orders and voting can create such a consciousness, heart and will. This clear and firm knowledge and the stated desire to find the desired power and lead Holy Russia to the solution of a state problem, original and unlike the solution of the Western world. The latter is wary of power, is concerned about its capabilities, wants to keep track of it, introduces a system of restrictions and control for this, and, fearing the authorities, wants to depersonalize it.
Holy Russia, on the contrary, rejects all these methods of influencing power: instead of legal norms of control and restriction, it arranges spiritual and moral conditions that guarantee the power it desires: it gives the holder of power complete freedom and imposes moral responsibility on him without this freedom unthinkable. She wants power free and autocratic and puts one condition of this autocracy: a free autocratic carrier of power must royally freely confess her faith and make a promise to exercise her power, guided by this faith. This connection of the Sovereign's authority with his faith is so deep that it gave Metropolitan Anthony the basis to say: "My loyalty to the King is determined by his loyalty to Christ."
When the King makes this vow in the solemn atmosphere of the coronation, then in response to his willingness to devote himself to the feat of the Tsar's ministry, the Church performs the Sacrament of Confirmation and sanctifies the power of the King. From that moment or event, the carrier of power actually becomes the Tsar - the Anointed of God: he is not only the head of state, but also the servant of God. “Tsar” and “kingship” is not only the rank of state and its ministry, but also the order of the Church, and the Church service. On the Tsar, the blessing of God and through the Tsar, or, better to say, the Tsar blessed the state: The Tsar received the blessing because he brought his willingness to devote his power to the service of the truth of God, but he could do it because Holy Russia is in the free love of holiness I wanted the Tsar’s Tsar’s ministry and the blessing of God for his public life: “The King of God is in mercy and monarchy by the will of the people who participate in the creation of the state, Christian authority and the possibility of royal service.” Such is the fundamental basis for the construction of Holy Russia - the Russian State and Tsarist government. This construction is fundamentally different from all systems and principles of solving the problem of building power in other states.
For a person who does not know and does not believe in virtue of moral relations - responsibility, requests, promises - this system is incomprehensible and looks naive, and Holy Russia knows what a tremendous power of influence and upbringing in spiritual and moral requirements, what it surrounds power. She knows for sure how much more real and effective they are than legal measures of influence. He knows how they guard the Tsar in his great deed, as they ennoble power and all state life, introducing moral forces into it, as legally recognized.
Freedom of the Tsar, his free confession of faith and the goals of his ministry, moral relations of the Tsar and the people - their common goal of creating Christian statehood, the moral responsibility of the Tsar, His dedication of himself to the Tsar's ministry, consecration of His power and anointing of the Tsar on the Kingdom and feat - these are the basic laws The state created by Holy Russia, such are the foundations of this truly "sui generis" state. This constitution created the corresponding halo of the Russian Tsars. There is a wonderful testimony to the characteristic shade of this halo. Russian poets, spiritually subtle and noble, who were able to "speak the truth to the Kings with a smile, speak about him." Modestly respectful, they say that Russian Tsars is characterized by honesty: “He rules us honestly,” says Pushkin. “Our honest Russian Tsar,” Tyutchev writes.
Holy Russia came to her state consciously, soberly and steadily in search of Christian statehood! She does not want the Tsar because it is a God-established state form and dogma, not because she liked the power alone and the beauty of power, but because she does not know how to build Christian power otherwise.
"Everything is allowed," and the free thought of free Holy Russia revised all the decisions. Rejecting all the godless totalitarian theories, it does not accept democracy as a principle either, because it cannot accept its slogan and banner - “the supreme law is the will of the people”! No, the supreme law is the service of the Truth, and the will of the people must submit to it! Nor does she accept such an attempt to solve the task of Christian statehood, such a line of thought — the Christian state will, allegedly, if in fact Christian views and moods dominate and characterize life. But we need an actual victory, not a declaration. Using democratic freedoms, it is necessary to spread the Christian influence on public life. Hence the slogan - "Faith and Fatherland." So they come to the conclusion that the problems of Christian statehood should not be solved! But it is only as if: in fact, the advocates of this slogan and tactics decide it and come to the assertion of the non-Christian principle of democracy and its indifference to good and evil. Thus, “in the name of Christianity,” they come to the assertion of the anti-Christian principle! And there is no confession of the consciousness of good and evil, no oath, no consciousness of what to hold on to and what to return to when it falls. This slogan for some is a way to avoid solving the problem; others are the fruit of unreasoned thoughts and can have fear, democratic fear, let go of initiative, control and influence ...
Next to this cold of thoughts, a purely democratic concept develops, as if with some moral justification: "The state is created by people, and they must be held responsible for it." But in order to be held accountable, freedom of creativity is needed, one cannot bear moral responsibility for the creation of which I did not participate. Therefore, it is impossible to answer for the theocratic monarchical state created, as some interpret, by God or by the Divine "delegate", "a representative of the supreme supernatural forces" (see L. Tikhomirov), but not by people or people. But if the proposition that “people should be held responsible for the state” is true, then the theocratic monarchy should not exist, for it cannot bear this responsibility.
One may think that such reasoning in different shades and variants accompanied the struggle against the monarchy in the West, where the monarchy was based theocratically (or sometimes aristocratic). Then the struggle, then, was fought for the right of the people to creativity and the responsibility associated with it.
The need to have creative freedom and the responsibility associated with it is a legitimate and justifiable feeling, and it requires satisfaction, and the question posed is an answer.
The theocratic understanding of the monarchy implies such a position: on the one hand, the commanding power; on the other, the opposite - the people, the submissive of the authorities, the people whose virtue is not creativity and responsibility, but obedience.
In the state of Holy Russia the situation is different: there is no opposition and separation between the authorities and the people, and vice versa: the unity of the main creative goal - the creation of Christian statehood and common responsibility. Monarchy for a person of Holy Russia is not an established system from the outside. Not! For him, this is the only way to accomplish the dear goal he has set himself for the creation of Christian statehood. Therefore, the very existence of a monarchy, an understanding of its meaning, its protection, its loyalty - all this is a manifestation of the creative will of a man of Holy Russia.
Finally, there is another attempt to solve the problem: to transfer power not to a person, but to a part of the people of a certain Christian faith. She has to choose the carrier of power from her midst. This is how religious aristocracy is established, connected with the division within the people and all its consequences. Russia also transfers power to a person of a certain worldview, but does not divide people; on the contrary, before him all people of all faiths are absolutely equal: "The Tsar is not the Tsar only of the Orthodox, or the educated, or the workers, or the peasants, but the Tsar of all Russia."
Holy Russia loves the Tsar and the Tsar's ministry and rejoices when He, at the coronation, clothed with power and glory, falls down before God and the Church of God, bringing this power to the service of God and His righteousness. Metropolitan Anthony said that this moment, when Russia merges with Holy Russia, is a moment of genuine spiritual exultation, as at Easter. This is the joy of the victory of the Good, or here in the eyes of the whole nation, the “Restraining” evil is created to save many.
Holy Russia does not want to choose the Tsar so that by human earthly calculations and deeds not affect the Tsar, not bind his freedom, for where there is no freedom, there is no Tsarist service and there is no “Holding Back”. Therefore, she asks God to indicate the King.
Love for the Tsar and the Tsarist power is so understood not to be the fruit of reverie or mood. No, its basis is much deeper: that is demanded by the human soul. We see that even among the nations that have long put power under the control and observation of the parliament, there still lives a love for Christian authority responsible for God.
At the recent coronation in England, the representative of the church stated such an idea of the coronation and royal service: “At the coronation, the Queen accepts for the rest of her life the difficulties and joys of the Christian duty of her high calling. She is called by God for her ministry and accepts it. obedience. She promises to give her whole life to her people, to lead him and encourage him. For this, we need more than human strength, and Christ gives her strength in coronation to spiritually uplift the life of Christ. anskogo people. " In these words there is something from our understanding, although there is no call for the fight against evil, and this is not a speech about "Holding."
People, people love the idea of Christian power. In foggy England, this is only a foggy dream, traditions and beauty: truly, in all of this, only the popular desire of Christian authority, and in fact the poor Queen of “free England” is held captive by the main party, and today is called upon to “spiritually uplift the life of the Christian people”, " having received the strength from Christ, "tomorrow, at the behest of the dominant party, she will meekly extend her hand to the persecutor of faith and Christianity.
The Christian Tsarist power in Russia was not a dream or an idea, but genuine strength. Great world power! And now - there is no king, and there is no peace in the world. It was the power of the “Restraining” evil, and therefore, in order to kill the Tsar, it was necessary to raise the God-fighting revolution. When the people in their vast majority, even for a while, lost Faith and God, the King was left alone and defenseless.
As long as a person is alive - his soul is alive, and she stubbornly loves the idea of Christian power. Our soul knows that the truth of the state is in Christian authority. Holy Russia is always true to Pravda. The sons of Holy Russia, or those who hope to be her son, stand for the Tsar, the Tsarist ministry, because, like Holy Russia, they know no other way of establishing Christian authority.
Lesna Convent
Petr Sergeevich Lopukhin
(14.02.1885 - 02.08.1962)
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