(From the teachings of Archpriest Rodion Putyatin)

The apostles did not write everything in their books that they heard from Jesus Christ and that the Holy Spirit inspired them with: much of this they conveyed to the believers in words orally. Therefore ap. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians: “Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold to the tradition which you were taught either by word or by our letter” (Thessalonians 2:15).

This teaching, verbally transmitted by the apostles and later written down by the holy fathers, is called sacred tradition. Holy Scripture contains Divine teaching, transmitted to us in writing by the apostles, and sacred tradition is Divine teaching, transmitted to us verbally by the apostles.

What exactly has come to us through sacred traditions? These are some truths and incidents that, from the very first times of Christianity, have been recognized by the Church as revealed and committed by God Himself; These are some decrees and customs that were observed by the first Christians and are still observed, as if they came from God. When we pray, we create on ourselves sign of the cross; we worship holy icons and holy relics; we call on the holy saints of God and the holy angels for help; we are in famous times we fast for years and days; We perform church services according to a certain order; We observe various rituals during the sacraments; We pray for the dead, and we do a lot and accept things that are not directly stated anywhere in the Holy Scriptures.

From whom did we learn that all this must be recognized and fulfilled as divine, as necessary for our salvation? All this has come to us by tradition: the Church Fathers heard all this from the apostles, and the apostles heard it from Jesus Christ or were taught by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, we fulfill everything that has come down to us according to tradition from the apostles as divine and recognize it as divine. Here is what Basil the Great says about sacred traditions: “Of the dogmas observed in the Church, some we have from written instructions, and some we have received from the apostolic tradition by succession in secret. Both have the same power of piety, and no one will contradict this, although few are knowledgeable in church institutions. But if we dare to reject unwritten customs as not having great importance, then we will imperceptibly damage the Gospel in the most important way, or, moreover, we will leave the apostolic preaching as an empty name.”

But since there are and can be false and fictitious legends, it is necessary to know how to distinguish true, divine traditions from them. We must pay attention to the time from which a certain tradition came into use, and most importantly, whether it is in agreement with the spirit of Holy Scripture. If it did not reach us from the first times of Christianity, and does not agree with the spirit of Holy Scripture, then this is a clear sign that it is not a sacred, not divine tradition. Such are many of the traditions of heretics. Although they have had them for a long time, they are still not apostolic, not inspired by the Holy Spirit, but invented by people. Maybe someone will say: “Why didn’t the apostles themselves write everything that we need to know to please God and save the soul? If they had written everything themselves, then perhaps there wouldn’t have been any confusion or controversy afterwards?” It is not difficult to answer this question: the apostles themselves did not write everything, because even without their writing everything could have been preserved as they taught. The believers of that time, for whom the apostles primarily wrote everything, knew and carried out without written reminder what is now contained in the sacred traditions. “I praise you, brothers,” wrote the apostle. Paul to the Corinthians, “that you remember everything that is mine, and hold to the tradition as I handed it down to you” (1 Cor. 11:2). The apostles were not afraid for us in this case either: they undoubtedly knew that the teaching they conveyed in words would be preserved and would reach us in all its integrity and purity. After all, to whom did they pass on this teaching? Not one person, not two, not three, but a whole community of believers, the whole Church. “We should not,” says Saint Irenaeus, “look for truth from others, which is easy to borrow from the Church. For into it, as into a rich treasury, the apostles completely deposited everything that belongs to the truth.”

Could the oral teaching of the apostles not be preserved in such a faithful and strong repository as the Church? We will judge by ourselves. We are Christians, and therefore members of the Church. Do we not sacredly cherish our Christian teaching? Each of us, perhaps, sometimes in our judgments deviates from the truth of faith. Each of us, of course, often sins against the rules of piety. But will we tolerate, will we allow someone to cancel these rules and these truths or replace them with others? The same can be said about the believers of that time. And they, without a doubt, sacredly kept and treasured everything that they learned from the apostles, which they recognized as divine. Many of them agreed to endure severe torture. They died, but did not agree to change the sacred traditions. Thus, the apostles had nothing to fear for their oral teaching: they transmitted it to the community of believers, the Church, which is the living book of faith, the pillar and affirmation of the truth.

True, there were many disputes and perplexities regarding sacred traditions; but wouldn’t there have been these disputes and perplexities if the apostles themselves had written everything? There would certainly be. The Holy Scriptures were written by the apostles themselves, but weren’t there enough disputes regarding it? When people judge by their own minds alone, they cannot free themselves from bewilderment. If passions are active in people, they cannot refrain from arguing. The apostles knew this in advance and predicted that there would be false teachers, and they already had them with them. They knew this, just as they knew that the Church would stop all disputes raised by them.

The Holy Church really fulfilled this; at seven Ecumenical Councils, all confusion about sacred traditions and Holy Scripture was clarified. And this was decided not by one person, but by hundreds of men; the shepherds of the Church, chosen and appointed by the Holy Spirit, decided. Therefore, the decisions of the Ecumenical Councils should be looked at as divine decisions. Gathered in the name of Jesus Christ, the Ecumenical Councils did not create a new teaching, but affirmed what was handed down by tradition or found in the Holy Scriptures. Thus, it was confirmed that the teaching contained in the Holy Scriptures and sacred traditions is truly divine teaching.

Do not think, however, that now there can no longer be any disputes and perplexities regarding the teaching contained in the Holy Scriptures and sacred traditions. People are always people, and the passions in them are still the same. And therefore, do not be embarrassed when you hear disputes about faith, or when any perplexities arise within you: these disputes easily pass when passions subside in a person. Perplexity is easily dispelled if we do not think about the elements of the world, but subdue the mind into obedience to faith.

No matter how smart someone is, without conquering the mind, he will never be sure of what cannot be seen and impossible to comprehend. Amen.

Legends

Of the dogmas and preachings observed in the Church, some we have from written instruction, and some we have accepted from the Apostolic Tradition, by succession in secret. Both have the same power for piety...

St. Basil the Great

Source Orthodox faith is Divine Revelation, i.e. what God Himself, through the prophets and apostles, revealed to people, so that they could rightly and savingly believe in Him and worthily honor Him. Divine Revelation spreads among people and is preserved in the true Church through the Holy Spirit. Scriptures and Holy Scriptures Legends.

In ancient times, St. Scripture (Bible) was the written Word of God, and St. Apostolic Tradition (the part of Divine Revelation not recorded in writing) - the oral Word of God. But already by the era of freedom and triumph of the Church in the 4th century. this part of Divine Revelation also received a written record.

As the Word of one God Holy. Scripture and Holy Scripture Traditions have equal dignity. At the same time, they are equally necessary and complement each other. According to St. Irenaeus of Lyons, the basis for the Tradition is drawn from the Holy Spirit. Scriptures, because it is “the foundation and pillar of our faith,” and Tradition “is ... the door to the correct understanding of the Holy Spirit.” Scriptures." The Holy Fathers call St. Scripture and Holy Scripture Tradition with two lungs in the body of the Church.

Taken together, the truths of faith contained in the Holy Scriptures. Scriptures and Holy Scriptures Apostolic Tradition, give the fullness of the teachings of the Orthodox faith.
Holy The Apostolic Tradition is made up of the Holy Scriptures. Tradition in its proper, or narrow, sense. Divine Revelation was given to people once and for all time and must be preserved unchanged.

The Church is the guardian of Divine Revelation

Our Lord Jesus Christ entrusted the custody of the Divine Revelation not to individuals, but to the Church founded by Him. “Into it, as if into a rich treasury, the apostles completely placed everything that belongs to the truth, so that everyone who wants can receive the drink of life from it,” says St. Irenaeus of Lyon.

The Church, according to Divine promise, is continuously preserved by Christ, who remains inseparably with her, “always until the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20) and by the Holy Spirit, guiding her “into all truth” (John 16:13), so that can neither fall from the faith nor sin in the truth of faith. Being “the pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15), it preserves and transmits from century to century the Divine Revelation intact and intact, in the form in which it was given to it by God. She also preserves and transmits from century to century her understanding of Divine Revelation, i.e. is its infallible interpreter.

This transfer to Orthodox Church Divine Revelation in letter, or its storage, and transmission in spirit and meaning, or interpretation of it, is Tradition in the broadest sense of the word.

In other words, Tradition in this sense is evidence, or voice, Universal Church, that spirit of truth and faith, that consciousness of the Church that lives in it from the time of Christ and the apostles. It contains the rule of proper understanding of the truths of Divine Revelation and that spiritual experience of the Church in bringing people to salvation, which allows it in each specific historical time, without changing the content of Revelation, teach it to people in a language understandable to them, teach them its correct perception and generally introduce them to spiritual Christian life in the church.
Traditionally the meaning of St. Tradition is assimilated: the resolutions of the Ecumenical Councils; dogmatic and moral teaching of the Church, expressed in the consonant teaching of St. fathers; the fundamentals of the liturgical life of the Church.

Holy Tradition can only contain what is in accordance with the Holy Scripture. Scripture and in what, according to St. Vikenty Lirinsky, they believed “everywhere, always and everyone.” It does not include local church customs, as well as what has nothing to do with Tradition at all, but comes from the area of ​​superstition.
Guardians of the Holy Traditions are all members of the Church who stand in truth.
“What is Tradition? - writes Rev. Vikenty Lirinsky. - What was entrusted to you, and not what you invented, what you accepted, and not what you invented... a matter that came to you, and not discovered by you, in relation to which you should not be an inventor, but as a guardian... Preserve the tradition. That is, the talent of faith...keep it intact. What is entrusted to you, then you pass on...
Let them (the dogmas) be interpreted, explained, defined: this is permissible; but their completeness, integrity, quality must remain unchanged: this is necessary.”

Patristic Tradition

The Holy Fathers are nothing more than the guardians of the Apostolic Tradition. All of them, like the holy apostles, are only witnesses of the Truth... - the God-man Christ. They tirelessly confess and preach it, they are the all-golden lips of God the Word.

St. Justin Popovich

Over time, after the Apostolic Tradition, a Tradition appeared, which is called “properly paternal.” It refers to the provisions of the fathers, which, although not dating back to apostolic antiquity, are nevertheless recognized as the truth of the Church. This also includes hagiography (biographies of saints) as examples of religious moral life of people.

St. Athanasius the Great formulated three main conditions for the truth of the Fatherly Tradition itself: compliance with the Holy. Scripture; agreement with other fathers; a good life and the death in Christ of the author. If these conditions are met, the Church accepts this Tradition and recognizes for it the same dignity that belongs to the apostolic teaching.
The authority of St. fathers in the Orthodox Church is very high. St. Seraphim Sobolev says: “Listen to St. fathers as successors of St. apostles means listening to God Himself.”

Holy Fathers - Spirit Receivers and Spirit Bearers

The Spirit is truly the place of the saints, and the saint is actually the place of the Spirit.

St. Basil the Great

On the day of Holy Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended into the Theanthropic body of the Church and remained forever in it as its all-life-giving soul (Acts 2: 1-47). The Holy Spirit descended on the apostles in the form of tongues of fire. Now He is poured out on believers in an invisible way through prayer, the sacred rites of the Church, and especially through its Sacraments. Everyone receives the Spirit to the extent that they are able to receive and hold it. This measure is determined by faith and holiness of life, fulfillment of the commandments. Therefore, only the saints of God are true spirit-receivers and spirit-bearers. To them the Holy Spirit - the Spirit of wisdom and reason - reveals the secrets of God. According to Rev. Justin Popovich, “in the Church, the best thinkers are St. fathers, for they think by the Holy Spirit.” They are the only true and reliable interpreters of the Holy Scripture. Scripture and Divine Revelation in general.

Holy Fathers - Interpreters of Divine Revelation

If the Word of Scripture is examined, then let it not be explained in any other way than as the luminaries and teachers of the Church have expounded in their writings…

From Rule Six Ecumenical Council

The importance of following this rule for preserving the unity of faith and the Church is evidenced by St. Ambrose Optinsky. To the question: “Why is the doctrine of the Orthodox Church, planted by various apostles in various places and peoples, remains the same and unchanged for eighteen and a half centuries; The Lutheran teaching, taught by one person, was divided over the course of three centuries into more than seventy different-minded parties - he answered: because the Council Orthodox and Apostolic Church He commands his children to understand the Holy Scripture. Scripture as...explained by God’s chosen men, purified from passions, God-bearing and Spirit-bearing...Luther allowed everyone...to interpret Scripture at their own discretion.”

Patristic works and lives of saints

Let us acquire true knowledge of God, alien to delusions and speculations; it shines from the Holy Spirit. Scriptures and writings of St. fathers, like light from the sun.

St. Ignatiy Brianchaninov

With a sufficient degree of convention, the patristic works can be divided into theological-dogmatic and moral-ascetic.
In the field of dogmatic theology, Fatherly Tradition can be expressed not in changing the content of dogmatic truths, which were once and for all communicated by the apostolic teaching, but only in their explanation, more flexible presentation, and the composition of new terms. St. Vikenty Lirinsky writes: “... teach what you yourself have learned, so that when you speak something new, you do not tell you something new.”
The Holy Fathers gave precision to the expression of the truths of Christian teaching and created the unity of dogmatic language.

A classic example of patristic dogma is the famous work of St. John of Damascus, “An Accurate Exposition of the Orthodox Faith,” which summarized the theological experience of St. fathers of the first seven centuries of Christianity. And in our time it remains the most authoritative presentation of Christian doctrine.
Serbian theologian Rev. Justin Popovich, who himself is the author of the remarkable three-volume work “Dogmatics of the Orthodox Church,” calls St. Fathers of the Church are the best theologians, because they theologize with the Holy Spirit, and considers the study of their works to be the first task of every Orthodox theologian.

Moral and ascetic writings of St. the fathers are for us a treasury of real, living experience of life in Christ and pointers to the path to salvation. They teach correct inner moral life, the fight against sin, passions, fallen spirits, and the acquisition of virtues.
The lives of the saints of all centuries of Christianity can serve as a model for us of how we should act in certain circumstances, how to make our moral choice.

Let us give just one example from the life of saints especially close to us - the new martyrs and confessors of Russia: St. Afanasy Sakharov, bishop. Kovrovsky, the author of the Service to All Saints Who Shone in the Land of Russia, first performed in a prison cell, of the 33 years he served as bishop, less than 3 years were in diocesan service and he spent about 30 years in prisons, camps and exile. At the same time, he never ceased to thank God for the fact that he was honored to suffer “a little,” in his words, for Christ.

The Holy Fathers, according to St. Justin Popovich, “the measure and criterion of everything Orthodox... only that which can be tested by their spirit, consistent with their teaching... is Orthodox and corresponds to the spirit of the Gospel.”
Holy The tradition of the Church, being traditional in terms of its indispensable correspondence with the Holy Spirit. Scripture, the patristic and liturgical experience of the Church, does not remain something frozen. Having the responsibility to respond to the needs of Christians in every era, it lives and develops. It is a living Tradition.

Biblia means "books" in ancient Greek. The Bible consists of 77 books: 50 books of the Old Testament and 27 books of the New Testament. Despite the fact that it was written down over several thousand years by dozens of holy people on different languages, it has complete compositional completeness and internal logical unity.

It begins with the book of Genesis, which describes the beginning of our world - its creation by God and the creation of the first people - Adam and Eve, their fall, the spread of the human race and the increasing rooting of sin and error among people. It describes how one righteous man was found - Abraham, who believed God, and God made a covenant with him, that is, an agreement (see: Gen. 17: 7-8). At the same time, God makes two promises: one - that the descendants of Abraham will receive the land of Canaan and the second, which is significant for all humanity: “and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed” (Gen. 12: 3).

So God creates a special people from the patriarch Abraham and, when he is captured by the Egyptians, through the prophet Moses frees the descendants of Abraham, gives them the land of Canaan, thereby fulfilling the first promise, and concludes a covenant with all the people (see: Deut. 29: 2-15).

Other Old Testament books provide detailed instructions related to keeping this covenant, give advice on how to build your life so as not to violate the will of God, and also tell how God's chosen people kept or violated this covenant.

At the same time, God called prophets among the people, through whom He proclaimed His will and gave new promises, including that “behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a deal with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.” New Testament"(Jer. 31:31). And that this new covenant will be eternal and open to all nations (see: Isa. 55: 3, 5).

And when he was born from a virgin true God and the true Man Jesus Christ, then on the farewell night, before going to suffering and death, He, sitting with the disciples, “took the cup and gave thanks, gave it to them and said: drink from it, all of you, for this is My Blood of the New Testament, poured out for many for the remission of sins” (Matthew 26:27-28). And after His resurrection, as we remember, He sent the apostles to preach to all nations, and thereby fulfilled the second promise of God to Abraham, as well as the prophecy of Isaiah. And then the Lord Jesus ascended into heaven and sat at the right hand of His Father, and thus the word of the prophet David was fulfilled: “The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand” (Ps. 109:1).

The New Testament books of the Gospel tell about the life, death and resurrection of Christ, and the book of the Acts of the Apostles tells about the emergence of the Church of God, that is, the community of the faithful, Christians, a new people redeemed by the blood of the Lord.

Finally last book The Bible - Apocalypse - tells about the end of our world, the coming defeat of the forces of evil, the general resurrection and the Last Judgment God, followed by a fair reward for everyone and the fulfillment of the promises of the new covenant for those who followed Christ: “And to those who received Him, to those who believed on His name, He gave power to become children of God” (John 1:12).

The same God inspired the Old and New Testaments, both Scriptures are equally the word of God. As Saint Irenaeus of Lyons said, “both the law of Moses and the grace of the New Testament, both in accordance with the times, were given for the benefit of the human race by the same God,” and, according to the testimony of Saint Athanasius the Great, “the old proves the new, and the new testifies to dilapidated."

The Meaning of Scripture

Out of His love for us, God raises relations with man to such a height that he does not command, but offers to conclude an agreement. And the Bible is the holy book of the Covenant, a contract voluntarily concluded between God and people. This is the word of God, which contains nothing but the truth. It is addressed to every person, and from it every person can learn not only the truth about the world, about the past and the future, but also the truth about each of us, about what the will of God is and how we can follow it in our lives.

If God, being a good Creator, wished to reveal Himself, then we should expect that He would try to convey His word to as many people as possible. Indeed, the Bible is the most widely circulated book in the world, translated into more languages ​​and published in more copies than any other book.

In this way, people are given the opportunity to know God Himself and His plans regarding our salvation from sin and death.

The historical reliability of the Bible, especially the New Testament, is confirmed by the most ancient manuscripts written when eyewitnesses of the earthly life of Jesus Christ were still alive; in them we find the same text as that used today in the Orthodox Church.

The divine authorship of the Bible is confirmed by many miracles, including the annual descent of the miraculous Holy Fire in Jerusalem - at the place where Jesus Christ was resurrected, and precisely on the day when Orthodox Christians prepare to celebrate His resurrection. In addition, the Bible contains numerous predictions that were accurately fulfilled many centuries after they were written down. Finally, the Bible still has a powerful effect on the hearts of people, transforming them and turning them to the path of virtue and showing that its Author still cares about His creation.

Since the Holy Scripture is inspired by God, Orthodox Christians believe it unquestioningly, for faith in the words of the Bible is faith in the words of God Himself, whom Orthodox Christians trust as a caring and loving Father.

Relationship to Holy Scripture

Reading the Holy Scriptures is of great benefit to anyone who wants to improve their life. It enlightens the soul with the truth and contains answers to all the difficulties that arise before us. There is not a single problem that could not be resolved in the word of God, because it is in this book that the very spiritual patterns that we mentioned above are set out.

A person who reads the Bible and tries to live in accordance with what God says in it can be compared to a traveler walking along an unfamiliar road in the dead of night with a bright lantern in his hand. The lantern light does for him the way is easy, allowing you to find the right direction, as well as avoid holes and puddles.

Anyone who is deprived of reading the Bible can be compared to a traveler forced to walk in pitch darkness without a lantern. He does not go where he would like, often trips and falls into holes, hurting himself and getting dirty.

Finally, someone who reads the Bible, but does not strive to bring his life into accordance with the spiritual laws that are set out in it, can be likened to such an unreasonable traveler who, passing at night through unfamiliar places, holds a lantern in his hand, but does not turn it on.

Saint John Chrysostom said that “just as those deprived of light cannot walk straight, so those who do not see the ray of Divine Scripture are forced to sin, since they walk in the deepest darkness.”

Reading Scripture is not like reading any other literature. This is spiritual work. Therefore, before opening the Bible, an Orthodox Christian should remember the advice of St. Ephraim the Syrian: “When you begin to read or listen to the Holy Scriptures, pray to God like this: “Lord Jesus Christ, open the ears and eyes of my heart, so that I can hear Your words and understand them and to fulfill Your will." Always pray to God to enlighten your mind and reveal to you the power of His words. Many, relying on their own reason, were mistaken."

In order not to be subject to delusion and errors when reading the Holy Scriptures, it is good, in addition to prayer, to also follow the advice of Blessed Jerome, who said that “in reasoning about the sacred scriptures one cannot go without a predecessor and a guide.”

Who can become such a guide? If the words of the Holy Scripture were composed by people enlightened by the Holy Spirit, then, naturally, only people enlightened by the Holy Spirit can explain them correctly. And such a person becomes one who, having learned from the apostles of Christ, followed the path opened by the Lord Jesus Christ in the Orthodox Church, finally renounced sin and united with God, that is, became a saint. In other words, a good guide in studying the Bible can only be one who has himself walked the entire path offered by God in it. The Orthodox find such a guide by turning to Holy Tradition.

Sacred Tradition: One Truth

In any good family there are family traditions, when people from generation to generation lovingly pass on stories about something important from the life of their ancestor, and thanks to this, the memory of him is preserved even among those descendants who have never seen him in person.

The Church is also a special kind of big family, because it unites those who, through Christ, were adopted by God and became the son or daughter of the Heavenly Father. It is no coincidence that in the Church people address each other with the word “brother” or “sister,” because in Christ all Orthodox Christians become spiritual brothers and sisters.

And in the Church there is also a Holy Tradition passed on from generation to generation, going back to the apostles. The holy apostles communicated with God incarnate Himself and learned the truth directly from Him. They passed this truth on to other people who had a love for the truth. The apostles wrote down something, and it became Holy Scripture, but they passed on something not by writing it down, but orally or by the very example of their lives - this is precisely what is preserved in the Church’s Holy Tradition.

And the Holy Spirit speaks about this in the Bible through the Apostle Paul: “Therefore, brethren, stand and hold to the traditions which you were taught either by word or by our letter” (2 Thess. 2:15); “I praise you, brethren, that you remember everything that is mine and adhere to the tradition as I handed it down to you. For I received from the Lord Himself what I also passed on to you” (1 Cor. 11: 2, 23).

In the Holy Scriptures, the Apostle John writes: “I have many things to write to you, but I do not want to write them on paper with ink; but I hope to come to you and speak mouth to mouth, so that your joy may be full” (2 John 12).

And for Orthodox Christians this joy is complete, because in Church Tradition we hear the living and eternal voice of the apostles, “mouth to mouth.” The Orthodox Church preserves the true tradition of the blessed teaching, which it directly, like a son from a father, received from the holy apostles.

As an example, we can cite the words of the ancient Orthodox Saint Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons. He wrote at the end II century after the Nativity of Christ, but in his youth he was a disciple of Saint Polycarp of Smyrna, who personally knew the Apostle John and other disciples and witnesses of the life of Jesus Christ. This is how Saint Irenaeus writes about this: “I remember what happened then more clearly than what happened recently; for what we learned in childhood is strengthened along with the soul and takes root in it. Thus, I could even describe the place where blessed Polycarp sat and talked; I can depict his gait, his way of life and appearance, his conversations with the people, how he talked about his treatment with the Apostle John and with other witnesses of the Lord, how he recalled their words and retold what he heard from them about the Lord, His miracles and teachings. Since he heard everything from witnesses of the life of the Word, he told it in accordance with Scripture. By God’s mercy to me, even then I listened carefully to Polycarp and wrote down his words not on paper, but in my heart - and by the grace of God I always keep them in fresh memory.”

That is why, reading the books written by the holy fathers, we see in them a presentation of the same truth that was set forth by the apostles in the New Testament. Thus, Holy Tradition helps to correctly understand Holy Scripture, distinguishing truth from lies.

Sacred Tradition: one life

Even family tradition includes not only stories, but also a certain course of action based on life examples. It has long been known that deeds teach better than words, and that any words gain power only if they do not diverge, but are supported by the life of the one who speaks. You can often see that children act in their lives in the same way as they saw their parents do in this situation. So, family tradition is not only the transmission of certain information, but also the transmission of a certain way of life and actions, which are perceived only through personal communication and living together.

In the same way, the Holy Tradition of the Orthodox Church is not only the transmission of words and thoughts, but also the transmission of a holy way of life, pleasing to God and in agreement with the truth. The first saints of the Orthodox Church, such as Saint Polycarp, were disciples of the apostles themselves and received this from them, and subsequent holy fathers, such as Saint Irenaeus, were their disciples.

That is why, studying the description of the life of the holy fathers, we see in them the same exploits and expression of the same love for God and people that are visible in the life of the apostles.

Sacred Tradition: One Spirit

Everyone knows that when an ordinary human legend is retold in a family, over time something is often forgotten, and something new, on the contrary, is invented that did not actually happen. And if someone from the older generation, having heard how a young member of the family incorrectly retells a story from a family tradition, can correct him, then when the last eyewitnesses die, this opportunity no longer remains, and over time the family tradition, passed on from mouth to mouth , gradually loses some part of the truth.

But Holy Tradition differs from all human traditions precisely in that it never loses a single part of the truth received at the beginning, because in the Orthodox Church there is always One who knows how everything was and how it really is - the Holy Spirit .

During the farewell conversation, the Lord Jesus Christ said to His apostles: “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever, the Spirit of truth... He abides with you and will be in you... Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in the name Mine, he will teach you everything and remind you of everything that I told you... He will testify about Me” (John 14: 16-17, 26; 15: 26).

And He fulfilled this promise, and the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles, and since then has remained in the Orthodox Church for all 2000 years and remains in it to this day. The ancient prophets, and later the apostles, were able to speak words of truth because they communicated with God and the Holy Spirit admonished them. However, after the apostles this did not stop or disappear at all, for the apostles worked precisely in order to introduce other people to this opportunity. Therefore, it is not at all surprising that the successors of the apostles - the holy fathers - also communicated with God and were admonished by the same Holy Spirit as the apostles. And therefore, as St. John of Damascus testifies, one “father does not oppose [other] fathers, because they were all partakers of one Holy Spirit.”

So, Sacred Tradition is not only the transmission of certain information about the truth and an example of living according to the truth, but also the transmission of communication with the Holy Spirit, Who is always ready to remind of the truth and fill in everything that a person lacks.

Sacred Tradition is the eternal, non-aging memory of the Church. The Holy Spirit, always acting through the fathers and teachers of the Church who faithfully serve God, protects it from all error. It has no less power than the Holy Scriptures, because the source of both is the same Holy Spirit. Therefore, living and studying in the Orthodox Church, in which oral apostolic preaching continues, a person can study the truth Christian faith and become a saint.

How is Sacred Tradition visibly expressed?

So, Holy Tradition is the truth received from God, passed on from mouth to mouth from the apostles through the Holy Fathers down to our time, preserved by the Holy Spirit living in the Church.

What exactly is the expression of this Tradition? First of all, the most authoritative exponents of it for Orthodox Christians are the decrees of the Ecumenical and Local Councils of the Church, as well as the writings of the holy fathers, their lives and liturgical chants.

How to accurately determine Holy Tradition in certain specific cases? Turning to the mentioned sources and keeping in mind the principle expressed by Saint Vincent of Lirinsky: “What everyone believed, always and everywhere in the Orthodox Church.”

Attitude to Sacred Tradition

Saint Irenaeus of Lyons writes: “Into the Church, as into a rich treasury, the apostles put in full everything that belongs to the truth, so that everyone who wishes can receive the drink of life from it.”

Orthodoxy has no need to seek the truth: it possesses it, for the Church already contains the fullness of the truth, taught to us by the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit through the apostles and their disciples - the holy fathers.

Turning to the testimony that they showed in word and life, we comprehend the truth and enter the path of Christ along which the holy fathers followed the apostles. And this path leads to union with God, to immortality and a blissful life, free from all suffering and all evil.

The Holy Fathers were not just ancient intellectuals, but bearers of spiritual experience, holiness, from which their theology was nourished. All the saints abided in God and therefore had one faith, as a Gift of God, as a sacred treasure and at the same time a norm, an ideal, a path.

Voluntary, reverent and obedient following of the holy fathers, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, delivers us from the slavery of lies and gives us genuine spiritual freedom in the truth, according to the word of the Lord: “You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (John 8:32).

Unfortunately, not all people are ready to do this. After all, for this you need to humble yourself, that is, overcome your sinful pride and self-love.

Modern Western culture, based on pride, often teaches a person to consider himself the measure of everything, to look down on everything and measure everything within the narrow framework of his reason, his ideas and tastes. But such an approach does a disservice to those who perceive it, because with such an approach it is impossible to become better, more perfect, kinder, or even simply smarter. It is impossible to expand the scope of our reason if we do not recognize that there is something bigger, better and more perfect than ourselves. It is necessary to humble our “I” and recognize that in order to become better, we must not evaluate everything that is true, holy and perfect by ourselves, but, on the contrary, evaluate ourselves in accordance with it, and not only evaluate, but also change.

So every Christian must subordinate his mind to the Church, place himself not above or on the same level, but below the holy fathers, trust them more than himself - such a person will never go astray from the path leading to eternal victory.

That's why when Orthodox Christian opens a spiritual book, he prays to the Lord to bless this reading and let him understand what is useful, and during the reading itself he tries to be disposed with openness and trust.

This is what Saint Theophan the Recluse writes: “Sincere faith is the denial of one’s own mind. The mind must be laid bare and presented to faith as a blank slate, so that it can inscribe itself on it as it is, without any admixture of outside sayings and positions. When the mind retains its own provisions, then, after writing the provisions of faith on it, there will be a mixture of provisions in it: consciousness will be confused, encountering a contradiction between the actions of faith and the philosophizing of the mind. Such are all those who enter the realm of faith with their wisdom... They are confused in faith, and nothing comes of them except harm.”

Sacred Tradition(Greek άγιά παραδώσις, Latin sacra traditio)

Literally, the Greek word παραδοσις means successive transmission, for example, inheritance, as well as the very mechanism of transmission from one person to another, from one generation of people to another.

Relationship between Tradition and Scripture

This is due to the Latin influence on Orthodox theology, which began during the period of decline in education in the Christian East. This Latin scholastic influence in this case is manifested in the characteristic tendency of Latin thought to codify Tradition in historical documents, monuments, in other words, to consider Tradition almost exclusively as a certain sum of information about God, about spiritual life, while for the Eastern fathers Tradition is always not only knowledge, not so much information, but rather the living experience of knowledge of God, the experience of a comprehensive vision of the revealed truth, without which true knowledge is impossible.

And in other Church Fathers we can find the statement that Holy Bible itself contains everything needed for piety, that is, it contains not part of the revealed truth, but the whole truth in its completeness.

“...Tradition is a continuous sequence of not only ideas, but also experience. It presupposes not only intellectual coherence, but also live communication on the path to comprehending the truth,” says Protopr. John Meyendorff. Essentially the same idea was expressed two thousand years earlier by apostle paul: "...imitate me as I Christ » ( 1 Cor. 4, 16).

"By Sacred Tradition is meant that continuous action of the Spirit Pentecost in the Church, which is transmitted from generation to generation through the bearers of this Spirit and expresses itself in doctrinal truths, moral norms, principles of spiritual life, canonical and liturgical institutions, disciplinary requirements, rituals, etc. as necessary means of salvation and spiritual improvement of man."

It is absolutely wrong to assume that the entire volume of creeds, vitally contained by the Church. It is necessary to distinguish between the doctrine originally received by the Church and the doctrine formally defined by it due to historical necessity. A dogmatically formulated doctrine is only a “summary” of a holistic and indivisible Christian truth stored in church experience... If truth can only be experienced, but not proven, then it is very difficult to determine which theological judgment corresponds to Christian doctrine and which distorts it, using a formal approach.

The danger of a formal understanding of Tradition speaks V.N. Lossky in a dispute about Sofia with Fr. Sergius Bulgakov: “This is what Fr. understands. S. Bulgakov under the tradition of the Church: not a mysterious current of keeping secrets, inexhaustible in the Church and communicated Holy Spirit Its members, but simply “monuments of church culture,” so to speak, material that is dead in itself, that is, not Tradition, but what was created to one degree or another by Tradition, not the river itself, but those sands, although and the gold that it deposits in its flow. If you understand the legend this way Churches and yet consider at the same time that it is tradition that is the most important dogmatic basis Orthodoxy, then what will Orthodoxy turn into? – into an object of archaeological research. The reliability or unreliability of the so-understood “tradition” will be established by scientific criticism, so that then on this basis Orthodox theologians can build one or another theologumen. This understanding of Tradition is not characteristic of only Fr. S. Bulgakov. It has become deeply entrenched in us, under the influence Catholic And Protestant textbooks, becoming partly the lot of our “school theology.”

That is, Tradition is the only mode of perception of the Divinely Revealed Truth, the only mode expressed in dogma or icon to recognize the truth, as well as the only way to express it again.

Thus, Sacred Tradition includes, as it were, three levels:

• the lowest, first level is, in fact, the transfer of knowledge and historical monuments that are associated with this knowledge;
• secondly, it is the transfer of experience of spiritual life;
• thirdly, this is the transmission of grace-filled sanctification, the life of the Holy Spirit in the Church.

Tradition and "fatherly traditions"

It is impossible to remain in Tradition due to some kind of historical staticity, preserving, as “fatherly tradition,” everything that, due to habit, flatters “pious sensitivity.” On the contrary, replacing this kind of “tradition” with the Tradition of someone living in Churches Holy Spirit, it is most of all that a person risks ending up, ultimately, outside the Body of Christ.

If the Church, having established the canon Holy Scripture, preserves it in Sacred Tradition, then this preservation is not static and inert, but dynamic and conscious... Otherwise, the Church would preserve only dead texts, the testimony of dead and completed times, and not the living and life-giving word, which the Church possesses regardless of existing, inconsistent old manuscripts or new “critical editions” Bible.

In addition, Tradition acts critically, revealing first of all its negative and exclusionary aspect: it discards “worthless and women’s fables” ( 1 Tim. 4, 7), piously accepted by all those whose traditionalism consists in accepting with unlimited confidence everything that rubs into the life of the Church and remains in it by force of habit.

6) Ancients liturgy, of whom many come from the apostles. The Russian edition of them is in “Christian Reading” and separately, with scientific research about them (St. Petersburg, 1874 et seq.).

7) Acts of Martyrs, especially the most ancient ones (St. Ignatius, St. Polycarp, etc.), compiled by direct witnesses of their suffering, during which the martyrs often expounded in detail the dogmas of Christian teaching. The oldest editions of them were published in the West by Ruinard and others.

8) Creations of St. fathers and teachers of the church, some of whom interpreted ancient symbols or expounded in detail church teaching (Gregory of Nyssa - “The Catechetical Word”, Cyril of Jerusalem - “Catechetical and Secret Teachings”, Damascene - “Theology”, etc.); St. did especially a lot. fathers to clarify Christian teaching in their “conversations” and “words” spoken in churches, and in separate “books” containing an explanation of the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.

9) Ancient practice of the church, also partly reproduced in writing; it concerns sacred times (fasts, holidays, etc.), sacred places, sacred rites, rituals, etc.

The problem of "dogmatic development"

The dynamism of Sacred Tradition does not allow any ossification either in the usual manifestations of piety or in dogmatic expressions, which are usually repeated mechanically as magical recipes of Truth insured by the authority of the Church. Keeping “dogmatic tradition” does not mean being tied to doctrinal formulas

“Updating” does not mean replacing old expressions with new, more understandable and theologically better developed ones. If this were so, it would be necessary to admit that the learned Christianity of the theology professors represents a significant advance in comparison with the “primitive” faith of the apostolic disciples.

Therefore, we can talk about dogmatic development only in an extremely precise sense: formulating a new dogma , Church starts from dogmas that already exist. The Church expands the rules of faith, basing its new definitions on dogmas accepted by all.

In addition, it should be noted that dogmas, belonging to Tradition, do not at all become its “parts”; they are only some external means that make it possible to participate in the Tradition of the Church, a certain witness of Tradition, its external edge.

And if the canon of Holy Scripture forms a complete body, excluding any possibility of any subsequent growth, then “dogmatic tradition,” while maintaining its immutability of “rules of faith,” from which nothing can be removed, can expand and, as necessary, include new ones. expressions of the revealed Truth formulated by the Church.

Used materials

• St. Basil the Great. About Church Tradition.
• Smch. Hilarion (Troitsky). Holy Scripture and the Church.
• Lossky V.N. Tradition and legends.

Quote by: Florovsky Georgiy, prot. "Ways of Russian theology". Paris, 1939, p. 178.

From lectures by Prof. A.I. Osipova.

St. Irenaeus of Lyons. Essays. Against heresies. III, 4, 2.

Creations. On Mt. conversation I. 1. Ed. St. Petersburg Theological Academy. T. 7, pp. 5-6.

Russian edition - Kazan, 1859-77