home For men Crosses - everything that was important - was scattered before the throne. I'm a Christian

Crosses - everything that was important - was scattered before the throne. I'm a Christian

In one of the responses to my poem “The Rabinoviches of the Russian Land”, Anatoly Berlin’s poem “...do not sew liveries, you Jews” was cited, which condemns Jews who converted to Christianity. It starts like this:

Crosses on the necks of non-Christians...
Doesn’t your chest feel tight, our great poet?
Writer, isn't your heart weighing on you?
Are you, artist, not ashamed?

What blood has been flowing in you since birth?
And what genes are roaming in it?
Talmudists with centuries-old teachings
And rabbis - those who are wiser than you.

This is where your genius comes from...
Yes, Christ’s miracles cannot be counted,
But what, in general, is a banality -
Present yourself as something other than who you are.

Jews who converted to Christianity are popularly called “converts.” Generally speaking, according to explanatory dictionaries, a cross is a person who converted to Christianity from another religion, not necessarily Jewish. But the Jews take first place in this matter. And I am writing this because I cannot agree with Anatoly Berlin’s theses.

Here, first you need to understand the terms. IN English language a Jew is called Jew and is qualified as follows: "1. An adherent of Judaism. 2. A descendant of the Hebrew people." In the States, the term Jew refers to people who practice Judaism, and nationality is determined by place of birth. For example, I am the most Jewish person, here by nationality I am Ukrainian, since I was born in Ukraine. If I had this nationality when I lived “in Batkivshchyna”, then I would not have left.

In the Russian language, in Ozhegov’s dictionary of 1986, there is a more extensive explanation of who the Jews are (in the plural for some reason): “Jews. The general ethnic name of peoples historically dating back to one of the ancient peoples of the Semitic language group (the ancient Jews), now living in various countries in common life with the rest of the population of these countries." Such an entry would look good in the “nationality” column in Soviet passports. Now Ozhegov’s dictionary gives another definition of Jews: “The main population of the state of Israel.”

Internet Wikipedia adds: “In modern Russian, a Jew is a nationality, and a Jew is a creed, a religious affiliation.” We will operate with these two terms.

Let's start from afar. It is said that the first cross in history was Jesus of Nazareth, also known as Christ. It is not true. Jesus was a Jew, but he could not convert to Christianity because Christianity did not yet exist. As you know, he was baptized, but still remained a Jew, and his last meal was the Passover seder.

From later history, we note the Maranos - Spanish and Portuguese Jews who were forced to accept Christianity under the threat of deprivation of life. Or cantonists - Jewish children conscripted for 25 years military service in Russia, forcibly converted to Orthodoxy. Or the very numerous Jews who converted to Christianity for the opportunity to receive an education, advance in their careers, and simply out of hatred for their fellow tribesmen.

Truly: until thunder strikes, a Jew will not cross himself.

But the famous Jew Anton Rubinstein, as well as his brother Nikolai, cannot be called baptized: their grandfather Ruven was a baptized, who converted to Orthodoxy, saving his children from being drafted into cantonism. Anton and Nikolai were never Jews and did not convert to Christianity - they were born into a Christian family.

There is a lot of talk about our Jewish contemporaries who allegedly converted to Christianity. They are called traitors to the Jewish people, they are objects of satire and menacing invective, an example of which is the poem by Anatoly Berlin.

" -...thoughts about death in Lately are they visiting you?"

Korzhavin replies: “I think about its inevitability, about whether there is that light. (Sighs). I don’t know the answer, but I believe in God...
- Do you believe it?
- Yes, I am a Christian - I was baptized in 1991 in Moscow."

Faith in God came to Korzhavin at the age of 66, when he became a Christian. And when it was already possible to come home without fear. As if it was impossible to believe in God without accepting Christianity. The Jew Korzhavin cannot be called a cross: he was not a Jew, did not believe in God, and did not belong to any religion.

In the same way, one cannot call the famous Jews Mandelstam, Pasternak, Brodsky, Galich, Ehrenburg, Ulitskaya, Raikin Jr., Izmailov, Naiman, Neizvestny with his mother Bella Dizhur, Father Me and many, many others as baptized for the simple reason that they did not convert to Christianity from another religion. They were atheists, but with the adoption of Christianity they found God. And that's good. Although the God of Christians (if we ignore the Son of God) is also the God of the Jews. Most likely, these Jews were attracted to Christianity not by God himself, but by God’s son. It's their business.

At the same time, neither Galich nor Ehrenburg renounced their Jewishness, unlike, say, Pasternak, who treated his fellow tribesmen with contempt, or Brodsky, who declared that he did not consider himself a Jew (his friend Rein told the world the same thing , although he himself was not baptized).

Dmitry Bykov cannot be considered a cross either: he is not a Jew at all, he has a Russian mother, and his Orthodoxy should not confuse anyone. Another thing is that he is a anti-Semite, but this quality is also inherent in many other Russian writers.

In short, in our time there are no baptisms, but there are Jews who have converted to Christianity. I think they should not be scolded, but welcomed: in the end, they came to God, they finally began (I hope) to keep the commandments, maybe they became purer spiritually (I would like).

Those Jews who accepted Christianity and went over to the camp of anti-Semites must be denounced and called Judas; they are traitors to the Jewish people; the arrows of satire and humor should be aimed at them. But the poor writers and artists who came to God from among non-believers should be left alone and not be labeled as “crossed over.”

And who, for the most part, scolds these “crosses”? Jews, who are not involved in Judaism either by dream or in spirit, are the same atheists as these “converts” in the past. (I don’t know, however, anything about Anatoly Berlin’s religion.) If it is easier for an atheist Jew to live in Christianity, God grant him happiness. It's still better than not believing in anything at all. I, like other Jews who are not involved in Judaism, have no moral right to condemn people who came to God through Christianity. I repeat, they should be condemned only when they violate everyday and spiritual canons.

And, in conclusion, I will add a few more thoughts, which, however, have nothing to do with conversions, but have to do with Jews in general.

Why do we so scrupulously classify half-breeds or even people who are not mathematically Jewish as Jews, regardless of who they perceive themselves to be? Aksyonov, Voinovich, Dovlatov, Ryazanov were not Jews according to documents, never felt themselves to be Jews, and generally for the time being kept silent that they had half of Jewish blood. We continue to count Karl Marx, who was born a Christian, as Jews, and even Vladimir Lenin, whose grandfather either was or was not a baptized Jew. Complete insanity. Is it really that important for us to consider these figures to be Jewish? Should they be our pride?

And here it is interesting to mention Jews who claim that they are proud of their Jewishness. Remember: “And I am proud, proud, and not sorry that I am a Jew, Comrade Aliger” (M. Rashkovan)? What exactly is there to be proud of? You can be proud of your achievements, the achievements of your country, because we are its integral part, you can be proud of the successes of your family and friends, but you cannot be proud of what we get without difficulty, for free, for which we do not put any effort, for which we did not fight. We get Jewishness for free, and there is nothing to be proud of. Anatoly Berlin hints that the successes of the “crosses,” their talents, their genius are the result of the fact that Jewish blood flows in them and Jewish genes “wander.” Yes, we are supposedly the chosen people, but Tevye from the musical “Fiddler on the Roof” said, turning to God: “Couldn’t you, at least for a while, choose someone else?” There are plenty of brilliant and talented people in every nation. And all sorts of bastards, boors and traitors among the Jews are no less than among others. Nothing, I say, to be proud of.

And another strange phenomenon: Jews for some reason greatly value what non-Jews (to put it simply, goyim) say about them. There are many sites on the Internet that contain quotes from classics and not-so-classics about us, the Jews. For the most part, these are positive statements, and, probably, they should bring honey to our hearts. No one has such a phenomenon - neither Russians, nor Poles, Ukrainians, Americans, British, etc., etc., etc. They all don’t care what others say and write about them, they know themselves price. But we, it turns out, don’t know our worth, which is why we are glad that we, it turns out, are the yeast of humanity, something like a catalyst and a litmus test. Inferiority complex? How long can we prove to the world that we are good, that we did not make revolutions and that we do not mix blood into matzo? christian babies? That there are Heroes among us Soviet Union, and laureates, and generally respected people? There is no need for us to make excuses, just as there is no need to rejoice in the praise of outside celebrities.

I end here, anticipating, however, objections and even, perhaps, complaints from fellow tribesmen who disagree with my humble opinion. God help them.

Abi gezunt, ken men gliklah zain.

משומד ‎, meshumad, plural meshumadi; letters “destroyed”) and carries negative connotations (despite the fact that the first baptized were the apostles and disciples of Christ). Most modern dictionaries list the word “cross” as “obsolete.”

Synonyms in the dictionary of V. I. Dahl: cross, rebaptized, newly baptized, baptized Jew, Muslim or pagan and verbs baptize, baptize, baptize, baptize and others .

Jews especially often began to convert to Christianity in the 19th - early years. centuries, when religious affiliation with Judaism was no longer strictly identified with national identity, the transition to Christianity removed from the Jew educational and other restrictions that existed in a number of states (in the Russian Empire before). However, gradually some of them spread to crosses. Thus, crosses were not accepted into the gendarmes, since late XIX for centuries they have not been ordained priests, they have not been recruited to serve in the navy, and since 1910 they have not been promoted to officers in the army; in 1912, the ban on promotion to officers was also extended to children and grandchildren of baptisms.

In Russia, Jews often accepted the Lutheran faith, since Lutherans could marry Jewish women, while the children remained Jewish (see criteria for Jewishness).

Crosses often received surnames derived from the names of animals and birds, since a surname is formed by general rule, from a father who bore a Jewish name, they did not want to, but freely choose any surname in Russia for a long time it was impossible.

Notes

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

See what “crosses” are in other dictionaries:

Stories of the Jewish people ... Wikipedia

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Geographical encyclopedia

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Religious conversion is identification of oneself with any religion, either from birth due to existing customs, or as a result of conversion from another faith, or as a result of a conscious decision. Implies unconditional acceptance of the system... ... Wikipedia

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It is, of course, worth getting baptized! - I will say this at the very beginning, so that my always rushing and impatient readers know what to expect, and if they are waiting for a different answer, so that they do not suffer, do not spoil their little eyes in vain and do not waste precious time.

Jews view baptism as old maids do—or, say, radical feminists view their wedding night. We heard a lot about it, both about joys and horrors. But installation - no way! Everything but this. Like in the story about the chicken that ran away from the rooster and got hit by a truck. The old maid saw this and said: “She chose to die!”

Likewise, Jews love to talk about martyrs who preferred to die rather than be baptized. And there were those who killed their children so that they would not accept the faith of Christ. And here you feel a similarity with radical feminism, because for those, intimate intimacy with a man is a betrayal of the highest purpose of a woman in their eyes, her complete autonomy.

Old maids have their joys. Jews also have their joys. There is an imitation of worship, but there is no rejoicing. And if you look carefully, there is a constant melancholy from incompleteness. That's the first difference. Christians have one hard, dreary day a year - Good Friday. This is the day when the long-awaited Messiah died and it is unknown whether he will rise again. This is replaced by Holy Saturday, when the promise of resurrection flares Holy Fire- but there is no resurrection yet. These are all Fridays and Saturdays among Jews. There is no Messiah, and it is not known when there will be. Doesn't send letters or call. For Christians, they are replaced by the eighth day of the week - resurrection. Christ has risen and returned to us. For Jews, the week begins anew - everyday life, melancholy, practical affairs, so that by the end of the week they again find themselves in a state of expectation and unfulfilled hopes.

And the Messiahs are different. Among the Jews national hero, who will exalt the kingdom of Israel and restore worship in Jerusalem in the temple. They will start slaughtering calves again. For Christians, the temple has already been restored - this is the body of the risen Christ. Instead of slaughtering calves, we have our communion. Therefore there is no sadness, there is only joy.

Our Christ does not care about all of Israel, but about each of us. He is not a hero, he is God. Only God can save. And a national hero comes from the field of state building. The exaltation of earthly kingdoms is not at all a task for Christians qua Christians. So there are no empty expectations here either.

Why is he needed, the Jewish Messiah? Not needed at all - unless you are a rabid Jewish nationalist. After all, he will not give anything to an individual - except perhaps a hundred goyim slaves, if you are a devout Jew. And Christ saves us from sin, gives us joy, leads us to God.

Judaism is a collective faith, one is one and zero. The Christian faith - in it there is a collective, a church, but there is also an individual. There is the joy of repentance, confession, purification - this is the joy of a solitary person.

But collective joy is the joy of communicating with people. Not only with Jews, who are in the minority everywhere, but where they are in the majority, there is little joy in this. You will see how your attitude towards people changes. Shared communion breaks down the wall of mistrust and hostility. You will be able – in Israel – to freely pray and receive communion with Palestinians. They will no longer be your enemies, but your beloved brothers and sisters. You will not need a separate Jewish state to escape the company of non-Jews. Both in Russia and in any other Christian country– you don’t have to go to the ends of the earth in search of a synagogue, you don’t have to go through security and show your purse or empty your pockets. There is always a church near your home. And believers are prettier, simpler, socially closer.

This is if you are not a banker or an oligarch. But it is probably easier for a banker and an oligarch to remain a Jew - the Christian faith does not approve of interest. Of course, the oligarch also has a choice, but it is easier for a camel to pass, as we know, through the eye of a needle (there are such narrow gates in Jerusalem) than for an oligarch to save his soul. But a camel can pass through the Ear, and a rich man can also be saved. There is neither social nor biological determinism.

Discovering Christ is a fabulous moment in life. The Japanese call it satori, and we call it Epiphany. When God appears to you, or you stand before Him, you will experience a feeling of such power that all others will fade away.

There were times when a Jew, coming to Christ, parted with all his loved ones, friends, and relatives. And now we have to part with many, but not all. So many Jews came to Christ in last years that the Jews are accustomed to this and do not tear out their hair, do not put on mourning, and do not become horrified. Persecution? Well, they’re not so scary that it’s worth thinking about.

You just need to go to the end, don’t slow down. The brakes were invented by a coward. It happens that Jews slow down and try to sit on two chairs. We are, they say, both Christians and Jews, twice chosen. I've encountered people like this. I think that this is both inherently wrong and harmful to the soul - unless it is just a missionary tactic. We become former Jews - the same Christians as our newfound brothers and sisters in faith, no more and no less.

For Jews living in Russia, coming to Christ will allow them to coincide in phase with the Russian people, who are now experiencing a huge spiritual upsurge. Jews who remain with their old faith - or lack of faith - continue to fight Christ, and harm not only others, but also destroy their souls.

If before the revolution, baptized Jews were suspected of baptism for profit, today there is no self-interest in this - but there is benefit for the soul. And the losses are small - a few unnecessary acquaintances, and some atavisms. History shows that the best of the Jews usually come to Christ. The children of the most famous Jews - Theodor Herzl, Moses Montefiore - were baptized. Baptism opens the heart and soul. It is no coincidence that Russian poets of Jewish origin, whose names are well known, Pasternak, Mandelstam, Brodsky, were all baptized. Jewish faith– and not Jewish blood – interferes creative impulse. People must be loved, but Judaism teaches that only Jews must be loved.

Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, wanted to baptize Jews, just as Vladimir baptized the people of Kiev in his time. Perhaps it will come to this, but for now - this is a font personal feat. And personal great joy. I remember the feeling of water and oil, the smell of myrrh, leaving the temple to the ringing of bells, the radiance of the Jerusalem sun - you would give everything for such happiness, and you won’t regret it. For a person with a living soul, baptism is a miracle. And a person with dead soul I will say - Christ raised the dead Lazarus, already touched by corruption. He can resurrect your dead soul too.

David Eidelman

Orthodox orthodox - would rather trust a Jewish orthodox than a baptized Jew. And vice versa. However, the phenomenon of Jewish Christians goes back to the very beginning of Christianity, the founder of which, according to statutory documents, did not oppose himself to Judaism at all, but promised not to violate the Mosaic Law, but to fulfill it.

Immediately after the end of the Jewish Passover and with the beginning Orthodox Easter I wanted to write about the phenomenon "Jewish Christians". I know what for large quantity people for whom Jewishness is, first of all, Judaism - a religion, such a phrase itself looks like an unacceptable oxymoron.

If they are Jews, then they are not Christians. If they accepted Christianity, then they were converted - they were discharged from the Jewish tribe. Maybe not forever, but as long as they adhere to Christianity, they do not belong to Judaism.

After all, Jewishness for such people is not blood. Or at least not just blood. This is an ethno-confessional essence, and maybe a sacred unity.

However, the phenomenon of Jewish Christians has its roots in the very beginning of Christianity, the founder of which, if you believe the statutory documents, did not oppose himself to Judaism at all, but promised not to violate the Mosaic Law, but to fulfill it.

Moreover, he saw himself as a shepherd who was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

Pietro Perugino. "Christ and the Samaritan Woman"

Chapter 15 of the Gospel of Matthew

“And behold, a Canaanite woman, coming out of those places, shouted to Him: have mercy on me, O Lord, son of David, my daughter is cruelly raging.

But He did not answer her a word.

And His disciples came up and asked Him: let her go, because she is screaming after us. He answered and said: I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

And she, coming up, bowed to Him and said: Lord! help me.

He answered and said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs...”

The first Christians were Jews

And the apostles. And the disciples of the apostles.

It was only then that the roads forked and went apart, first parallel, then further and further, moving away from each other.

Only after the First Council of Nicea, convened by Emperor Constantine in 325, at which the Christian “Creed” was developed, was the separation of Christianity from Judaism finally proclaimed.

But even after this there were “Jewish Christians” of different kinds. They were exposed, denounced, exposed.

Caravaggio, "Saint Jerome"

17 years after the Council of Nicaea, Jerome was born, who in 360 (already in mature age) will be baptized, and then become one of the most revered and influential Fathers of the Church.

In 386 he settled in Bethlehem (Beit Lehem) and began translating the Bible into Latin. This translation, called the Vulgate, received catholic church official status.

And so Jerome writes from Bethlehem to another (even more revered!) Church Father Augustine about Jewish Christians: “Today there is a sect among the Jews in all the synagogues of the East, which is called the sect of Menaion, and it was condemned by the Pharisees. The adherents of this sect are also known as Nazarenes; they believe in Christ, the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary; and they say that he is the one who suffered under Pontius Pilate and rose again, just as we all believe. But while they want to be both Jews and Christians, they are neither one nor the other.”

"Saint Jerome" by Leonardo da Vinci.

"Let there be no hope for the apostate"

Please note: describing groups of people who accepted the Nicene Creed (Christ is the Son of God, born of a virgin, was crucified and suffered, and was resurrected), but thought that they could remain Jews too (prayed in synagogues, kept the Sabbath , adhered to kashrut), that is, they did not separate “Christians” and “Jews”, Jerome rejects not only their attempts to be both at the same time. He ruthlessly rejects both of their identifications. Starting with Jerome, these are mutually exclusive possibilities.

Jerome calls them "Mineans" or "Nazarenes." Menaia is from the word “min” - type, class, variety, gender. This is from a Jewish prayer that calls not to trust either “minim and notzrim.” It's funny that the position of the Jewish blessing against apostates is closer to Jerome than the position of the Jews who profess the Nicene Creed.

Not much has changed since then. An Orthodox Christian is more likely to trust a Jewish Orthodox Christian than a converted Jew who is trying to sit on two chairs. And vice versa. For an Orthodox Jew almost main problem in the Christian world there are Jews who “either take off your cross or put on your panties.”

"The worst anti-Semites"

In Jewish families, they sat on the crosses “shiva” as if they were dead. Jews often believed that converts were anti-Semitic Jews, the most vehement spreaders of anti-Semitic slander.

Sometimes this was justified. Trying to curry favor with their new coreligionists, the neophytes, relying on their authentic knowledge of former Jews, told all sorts of abominations about the tribe they had just left.

And those who viewed baptism as an accession - joining a people, joining a culture - also left a well-reasoned justification for such a step.

One of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century, Karl Popper (son of a cross), believed that Jews bear their share of the blame for anti-Semitism, since they stood apart from the majority.

Karl Raymund Popper

Popper wrote: “After much thought, my father decided that life in a Christian society obliges him to cause as little offense as possible to this society - that is, to assimilate.”

Converted Zionists

Even for many early Zionists, the first solution to the Jewish question was baptism: Jews must leave the cultural and social ghetto into which they drove themselves - this will bring them liberation.

Then many converts went into Zionism, having previously participated in the revolutionary movement. One of the most famous examples- Pinchas (Peter) Rutenberg, who was first baptized, took Russian name, married a non-Jew, then became a revolutionary terrorist, and then turned to Zionism.

Peter (Pinkhas) Moiseevich Rutenberg

Many interpreters of Sholom Aleichem's book Tevye the Milkman believe that the return of Tevye's baptized daughter Havva at the end of the book symbolizes her departure to Palestine.

Herzl and mass baptism

Even Theodor Herzl suggested that a possible solution to the Jewish problem was a mass "voluntary and honorable conversion" to Christianity. In 1895, he wrote in his diary: “Two years ago I wanted to decide Jewish question, at least in Austria, with the help of the Catholic Church. I tried to get guarantees from the Austrian bishops and through them to get an audience with the Pope in order to tell him: help us in the fight against anti-Semitism, and I will create a strong movement among the Jews so that they freely and worthily accept Christianity. Free and worthy in the sense that the leaders of this movement, and above all myself, will remain Jews and, as Jews, will promote the adoption of the majority religion. In the light of day, at noon, the conversion to another faith will open with the ringing of bells with a solemn procession to St. Stephen's Cathedral (in Vienna). Not bashfully, as only a few did before, but with their heads held high. The fact that the leaders of this movement themselves, remaining within the framework of Judaism, lead the people only to the threshold of the church, while they themselves remain outside, will elevate this whole matter and give it deep sincerity...”

Theodor Herzl

Only the trial of Captain Dreyfus turned Herzl into a Zionist and made him the author of the “State of the Jews.” Herzl’s historical foresight was that he saw in the Dreyfus affair a dress rehearsal for a future genocide, which would destroy for “innate properties,” regardless of religion.

Judeo-Christianity of the Soviet intelligentsia

But I am not interested in people who consciously converted to Christianity and ceased to be Jews (at least in their own sense of self). The question is about people who at the same time, like those ancient “Mineans,” consider themselves both Jews and Christians, who try to be both.

“Crossover” today is perceived as an outdated term. This is how people who converted to Orthodoxy from another religion were called in pre-revolutionary Russia. Most often this was the name given to baptized Jews.

History of crosses in Russia

The first mentions of the conversion of Jews to Christianity in Rus' date back to the 11th century. Chronicles testify that the Monk Theodosius of Pechersk preached the teachings of Jesus Christ among the Kyiv Jews.
In the fall of 1648, Patriarch Paisiy of Jerusalem baptized several thousand Ukrainian Jews. The Monk Paisiy Velichkovsky was the great-grandson of the Jewish merchant Mandi, who converted to Orthodoxy in the 17th century.
Jews began to convert to Christianity especially often in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when religious affiliation was no longer clearly correlated with nationality. IN Russian Empire Until the revolution, there were restrictions on education and other rights for Jews. Back in the era of Nicholas I, about 30,000 Jews converted to Christianity. Under Nicholas II, about 1,000 Jews became Orthodox every year.
By royal decree of August 26, 1827, Yiddish-speaking Jews living within the Pale of Settlement began to be drafted into the army and sent to cantonist schools. They underwent the baptismal ceremony, receiving Orthodox names according to the calendar, as well as last name godparents: for example, Petr Ivanov, Grigory Stepanov. However, after retirement, some of them again accepted the Jewish faith.
In other cases, crosses often received surnames derived from the names of animals and birds - Galkin, Sinichkin, Volkov, Kotin, Zaitsev - whereas in pre-revolutionary Russia people of ordinary rank most often received surnames after their father's name. Baptized Jews did not want their surname to indicate Jewish origin.
However, since 1850, arbitrary changes of surnames for crosses have been prohibited. They began to receive christian names- Pavel, Mikhail, Nikolai, but the surnames remained “family” - Abramovich, Rabinovich, Zilberstein, etc.
However, certain restrictions were also imposed on crosses. For example, they could not serve in the gendarmerie or the navy, and from the end of the 19th century they were forbidden to be ordained priests. In 1910, a ban was introduced on officer ranks for baptized Jews, and in 1912 it also extended to their children and grandchildren.

Which famous people were crosses?

Despite the restrictions, there are many known converts who have reached high positions and titles, including spiritual ones. Thus, Archimandrite Nathanael (Kuznetsky), a former cantonist, was called Itska (Isaac) Borodin from birth. He actively preached Orthodoxy among the Jews and converted about three thousand Jews to this faith.
The grandfather of the famous Russian pianist and composer Anton Rubinstein also converted to Orthodoxy. He not only was baptized himself, but also convinced other members of his large family to do so.
Already in adulthood, having received a doctorate, Daniil Khvolson, who taught Hebrew language and biblical archeology at the St. Petersburg Theological Academy. He did a great deal of work on the synodal translation of the Old Testament books from Hebrew.
The famous historian Solomon Lurie was baptized while a student at St. Petersburg University. The adoption of Orthodoxy allowed Lurie to remain at the university as a “professorial fellow.”
A baptized Jew was a deputy of the pre-revolutionary State Duma II convocation from the Kharkov province Moses Derevyanko, who came from cantonist peasants.
The Russian sculptor Mark Antokolsky had to be baptized, otherwise he would not have been accepted into the Academy of Arts. But at the same time he continued to observe the Sabbath and Jewish holidays.
At the age of 10, the poet Sasha Cherny (Alexander Glikman) was baptized.

How did the Jews convert to Orthodoxy?

To convert to Orthodoxy at a conscious age, a Jew had to first study the catechism. At baptism, he had to publicly declare his faith in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the sake of delivering all mankind from sins, and also recognize him as his personal savior. After baptism, Jews had to behave in the same way as Orthodox Christians: wear pectoral crosses, pray, overshadow oneself sign of the cross, attend worship services. Crosses were also buried according to Orthodox rite in Christian cemeteries.
Since sometimes it turned out that the transition to Christian faith was only a formality and was done, for example, for career reasons, but in fact the person secretly continued to profess Judaism, the 8th rule was adopted VII Ecumenical Council, which stated that a Jew can be recognized as Orthodox only if he accepts Orthodox faith from the bottom of his heart and solemnly renounce the Jewish religion, recognizing it as false. So, in addition to baptism, the Jew also had to undergo a special rite of renunciation of Judaism.

How did Jews and Orthodox Christians feel about baptism?

The Jews themselves called such people “meshumadi” (“destroyed”). The concept had a negative connotation, since the baptism of a Jew was usually accompanied by his break with the Jewish community. After all, a baptized Jew ceased to observe Jewish traditions, such as kashrut and Shabbat.
There were cases when a baptized Jew broke not only with the community, but also with his family. Thus, the famous Jewish historian Sh. Dubnov broke off relations with his daughter Olga, who married the Social Democrat M. Ivanov and was forced to be baptized so that she could marry a Russian.
The fate of Jews who converted to Orthodoxy was often difficult. The Jews considered them religious apostates and even sometimes anti-Semites, and Orthodox Christians of Russian origin also did not recognize them as “their own” because of their Jewish nationality. That is why many of them so willingly accepted revolutionary ideas preaching the rejection of any religion at all.

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