History of Russian Orthodox Culture. Textbook created by Andrey Kuraev

Currently, the subject is taught from the 1st quarter of the 4th grade of a secondary general education school within the framework of the federal educational component. Pupils or their parents (legal representatives) can choose the subject "Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture" as one of the modules of the compulsory subject "Fundamentals of Spiritual and Moral Culture of the Peoples of Russia".

Until 2009, the OPK course was taught in a number of regions of the Russian Federation as a regional component school education and the decision on the introduction of the course was to be made by the school principal (or RONO) after collecting a sufficient number of signatures of the pupils' parents for the introduction of the course. The subject was positioned as secular. In 20 regions of the country (Moscow, Smolensk, Kursk, Ryazan, Samara, Belgorod, Vladimir, Omsk regions, Krasnodar Territory, etc.), local authorities have concluded agreements with dioceses. In 2008, the course was compulsory in five regions. In 2009, due to changes in educational standards, the regional educational component was excluded.

Block 1. Introduction. Spiritual values ​​and moral ideals in the life of a person and society.(1 hour)

• Lesson 1. Russia is our Motherland.

Block 2. ... Part 1.(16 hours)

Block 3. The basics religious cultures and secular ethics. Part 2.(12 hours).

• Lesson 1 (18). How Christianity came to Russia
• Lesson 2 (19). Christian attitude to nature
• Lesson 3 (20). Christian family
• Lesson 4 (21). Christian at war
• Lesson 5 (22). Christian at work
• Lesson 6 (23). Feat
• Lesson 7 (24). Beatitudes
• Lesson 8 (25). Why do good?
• Lesson 9 (26). A Miracle in the Life of a Christian
• Lesson 10 (27). How God sees people
• Lesson 11 (28). Liturgy
• Lesson 12 (29). Monastery

Block 4. Spiritual traditions multinational people Russia.(5 o'clock)

• Lesson 30. Love and respect for the Fatherland. Patriotism of the multinational and multiconfessional people of Russia.
• Lesson 31. Preparation creative projects.
• Lesson 32. Students' presentation with their creative works: “How I understand Orthodoxy”, “How I understand Islam”, “How I understand Buddhism”, “How I understand Judaism”, “What is ethics?”, “The meaning of religion in life person and society "," Monuments of religious culture (in my city, village) ", etc.
• Lesson 33. Students' presentation with their creative works: "My attitude to the world", "My attitude to people", "My attitude to Russia", "Where does the Motherland begin", "Heroes of Russia", "The contribution of my family to the well-being and prosperity of the Fatherland (labor, feat of arms, creativity, etc.) "," My grandfather is the defender of the Motherland "," My friend ", etc.
• Lesson 34. Presentation of creative projects on the theme "Dialogue of cultures for the sake of civil peace and harmony" ( folk art, poems, songs, cuisine of the peoples of Russia, etc.).

Item history

Since September 1, 2006, the subject "Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture" has been taught in 15 regions of Russia within the framework of the regional component of education, that is, by decision of the regional legislature - without a common curriculum and textbooks for all regions. In four regions - Belgorod, Kaluga, Bryansk and Smolensk regions, the subject was approved as a mandatory component of the school curriculum. In 11 regions (Ryazan, Oryol, Tver, Moscow, Kursk, Samara, Vladimir, Novgorod, Sverdlovsk, Arkhangelsk regions and Mordovia) the subject was taught on an optional basis. Some of these 15 regions are discussed in more detail below. According to the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexy II, said at a meeting of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, in total in December 2006 "Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture" and other similar electives were taught in 11,184 secondary schools in Russia. According to the leader of the Union of Christian Renaissance Vladimir Osipov, in 2007 the subject was taught in at least 36 regions, in 5 regions the course was ignored.

Brief chronology

Experiment progress until 2009 - regional stage

Belgorod region

Bryansk region

Kaluga region

Kursk region

On December 15, 1996, the governor of the Kursk region, A. Rutskoi, signed decree No. 675 "On the approval of the program for the study of Orthodox culture in the Kursk region," according to which the teaching of Orthodox culture was introduced in 300 public schools of the region. The program was fully funded from the regional budget. The implementation of the program was carried out by the laboratory of the Russian school under the guidance of Professor V. M. Menshikov, created by the order of the governor of the Kursk region No. 227-r dated 10.04.97 and opened on the basis of the Kursk Pedagogical University.

Plans for joint work were concluded between the Regional Administration and the diocesan administration; the Committee for Education and Diocesan Administration; Kursk Pedagogical University and Diocesan Administration; Kursk Pedagogical University and Kursk Theological Seminary; Kursk Pedagogical University and Kursk Orthodox Gymnasium. To determine the main directions of work, a public council was created consisting of the heads of education authorities, educational institutions, representatives of culture and the public, teachers and clergy. The council was headed by Metropolitan of Kursk and Rylsk Iuvenaly.

By 2002, the teaching of the Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture was conducted in most of the schools of the city and region. After the introduction of the subject, the positive influence of the lessons of Orthodox culture on the emotional and moral state of children, the improvement of relations between schoolchildren, and a decrease in aggressiveness were noted. In the 2007/2008 academic year, the OPK course in the Kursk region was studied in the form of a lesson (19.7%), elective (69.2%) or a circle (10.2%), as part of a school or regional component.

Mordovia

Moscow region

Since September 1, 2000, the OPK course has been taught in the Moscow region on an optional basis. During this period, according to the regional education minister Lydia Antonova, in the region "not a single problem situation has arisen with the parents of children professing other religions."

In 2002, in the Moscow region, the OPK course was taught in a number of districts, for example, in Balashikha and Mytishchi, to the greatest extent in the Noginsk district, where in the 2000-2001 academic year, "Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture" was taught in schools in 43 municipalities out of 48 ( in the rest, local priests held conversations with schoolchildren), as well as in 5 kindergartens. In 2002, the subject was already studied in 47 schools with a total of about 7,000 children - more than a quarter of all schoolchildren in the Noginsk district.

Penza region

Ryazan Oblast

Smolensk region

On September 1, 2006, the subject of the military-industrial complex was introduced in the region as a regional component of the educational program. As of this date, the subject was taught to 16 thousand schoolchildren in 450 public schools in the region under the guidance of 500 teachers. According to Marina Andritsova, a leading specialist of the Department for Education, Science and Youth Policy of the Smolensk Region, in 2006, the study of the defense industry complex in the region was voluntary.

Also, a similar subject was studied in the region - "The history of the Orthodox culture of the land of Smolensk", which as of 2009 was taught in all schools of the region, where there are eighth grades. In 2009, 8,761 students from 486 schools took this course. In addition, the “ABC of the Smolensk Territory” oriented towards Orthodox culture is taught in 507 schools for thirteen and a half thousand students.

Tver region

According to the Deputy Governor of the Tver Region Olga Pishchulina, according to the results of the first academic year (2007-2008), the MIC was introduced in all municipalities of the region in a total of 59% of schools. More than 11 thousand students studied the subject. Teachers' reports showed that, in general, children and parents perceive very well new item... Insufficiently good methodological support of the course was indicated as one of the main problems.

Chuvash Republic

In March 2006, the Ministry of Education of Chuvashia signed an agreement on cooperation in the field of spiritual and moral education children and youth from the Cheboksary-Chuvash diocese, in August 2007 - from the Spiritual Directorate of Muslims of the Chuvash Republic. In a number of schools, electives on the basics of Orthodox and Muslim culture were introduced. As of January 20, 2009, in the republic the total number of educational institutions in which the history and culture of religion was studied is 133 (22.5% of the total number of educational institutions), the number of students studying the history and culture of religion is 5462 (4.3 % of the total number of schoolchildren). The number of hours allotted for the study of the history and culture of religion in primary, secondary, and senior grades was, respectively, two hours. The textbooks developed by the teachers of the ANO "Moscow Pedagogical Academy" were taken as a basis.

From the 2009-2010 academic year, schools in Chuvashia participated in a pilot project to teach the course "Fundamentals of Religious Cultures and Secular Ethics" in grades 4-5.

In order to present the module "Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture" to the pedagogical community of Chuvashia, on March 24, 2010, the author of the first official textbook on "Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture", Protodeacon A. V. Kuraev, visited Cheboksary. On June 17, 2010, at the Chuvash State University, a regular meeting of Protodeacon A.V. Kuraev with the pedagogical community was held with the participation of His Eminence Barnabas, Metropolitan of Cheboksary and Chuvash, and the Minister of Education and Youth Policy of the Chuvash Republic G.P. foundations of Orthodox culture.

According to a survey of parents of grade 4 schoolchildren, in the 2009-2010 academic year 42.9% of Chuvash schoolchildren chose the Fundamentals of World Religious Cultures for study, 31% of the Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture, and 24.4% of the Fundamentals of Secular Ethics. , "Fundamentals of Islamic Culture" - 1.7% of students.

In the 2011-2012 academic year, more than 11.4 thousand students of 4 grades were involved in training on the modules of the course Fundamentals of Religious Cultures and Secular Ethics, of which 41.78% chose to study the module “Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture”.

Other regions

In February 2006, the draft of the optional teaching of the course "OPK" from the 5th to the 9th grade was approved by the legislative assembly of the Vladimir region.

Outcome

Experiment progress in 2010-2011 - federal stage

The basis for the development and introduction into the educational process of secondary schools of a comprehensive training course "Fundamentals of Religious Cultures and Secular Ethics", which includes the defense industry complex, is the Order of the President of the Russian Federation of August 2, 2009 and the Order of the Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation of August 11, 2009 No. VP- P44-4632.

From April 1, 2010 to 2011, the subject "Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture" was taught experimentally in 19 regions of Russia as part of the course "Fundamentals of Religious Cultures and Secular Ethics" as a federal educational component, that is, by order of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation. Federation. Based on the results of the experiment, it was decided to teach the course in all regions of Russia since 2012. The subject was taught in the 4th quarter of the 4th grade and the 1st quarter of the 5th grade of the secondary school.

According to a statement at a meeting of the Public Council under the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, the rector of the Academy for Advanced Studies and Professional Retraining of Educators Eduard Nikitin, since January 15, 2010, a thousand teachers from 19 regions have listened to training course"Foundations of Religious Cultures and Secular Ethics." The duration of their training was nine days (72 hours). Further training included the study of author's textbooks on the main modules that make up the course, including the defense industry complex. At the same time, teachers could communicate directly with the authors of the textbooks. Each trainer-teacher who received a certificate, in turn, had trained 15 secondary school teachers by the end of March 2010.

The Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation and the Public Chamber promised to carefully monitor so that the regions do not impose any one discipline on schoolchildren within the framework of the course "Fundamentals of Religious Cultures and Secular Ethics", so that the rights of children representing religious minorities are not infringed upon, and the secular essence of the subject is not replaced religious education. According to the Deputy Minister of Education and Science of the Russian Federation Isaak Kalina, parents who believe that the rights of their children are being violated can contact the coordinating bodies created under the governors and vice-governors, which will include representatives of confessions, teachers and public figures. Parents can also file a complaint with the district education department if necessary.

In accordance with the number of applications, schools ordered 82,000 textbooks of the "Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture" module, which is a quarter of the total number of textbooks issued for all six modules of the "Fundamentals of Religious Cultures and Secular Ethics" course. For comparison, textbooks on the basics of Islamic, Jewish, Buddhist culture were ordered 40 thousand, 14 thousand, and 12 thousand, respectively, on the "Foundations of world religious cultures" - 58 thousand, on "Fundamentals of secular ethics" - 123 thousand.

Other countries

Republic of Belarus

According to the Minister of Education of the Republic of Belarus Alexander Radkov, the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Belarus and the Belarusian Exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church have prepared an optional course program “Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture. Shrines of the Belarusian people ”for grades 1-11 of secondary schools. The course will be introduced in 2011-2015. In 2009, optional courses "Foundations of Orthodox Culture", "Spiritual Foundations of Culture", "Culture and Religion" were taught in 30 schools in the Minsk region and Minsk (about 5% of the total number of these educational institutions).

In August 2010, the curriculum for the subject “Foundations of Orthodox Culture. Orthodox shrines Eastern Slavs". Optional classes on this subject are introduced from the 2010-2011 academic year in secondary education institutions of Belarus from the 1st to the 11th grades.

Ukraine

Moldova

From September 1, 2010, optional teaching of religion begins in Moldovan schools. In this regard, the Orthodox Church of Moldova considers it necessary to hold a referendum on the teaching of a separate subject "Fundamentals of Orthodoxy" in the schools of the republic. On August 22, 2010, in an address to Metropolitan of Chisinau and All Moldova, Vladimir and the hierarchs of the Orthodox Church of Moldova, Patriarch Kirill expressed hope that in cooperation with the state authorities, the episcopate of the Orthodox Church of Moldova will be able to solve the important task of teaching the subject "Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture" in secondary educational institutions of the country.

Transnistria

In secondary schools of the Pridnestrovskaia Moldavskaia Respublika (PMR), an optional course "Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture" was introduced by the decision of the Education Council of the Ministry of Education of the PMR. Since September 1, 2008, in all districts of the republic, as well as in Tiraspol and Bender, 13 schools have been identified, in which students studied a subject of their own choice or at the request of their parents. As of the beginning of the 2009-2010 academic year, 25% of all schoolchildren in the republic are enrolled in an optional course.

MIC textbooks

During the experiment on teaching "Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture" as a regional component of education, a number of textbooks and teaching aids were written and used.

Textbook created by Alla Borodina

Chronologically, the first textbook for the course is the book "History of Religious Culture: Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture: Textbook for the basic and senior stages of secondary schools, lyceums, gymnasiums" by the deputy director of Moscow school No. 1148, methodologist of the Moscow Institute for Retraining Education Workers of the Moscow Committee of Education (MIPRO MCO, now Moscow Institute open education) A.V. Borodina, who has been developing this course since 1996. The textbook was published in 2002 and caused a significant resonance in society and mixed assessments.

Representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church spoke positively about the textbook. At the same time, a number of experts expressed the opinion that the textbook contains confessional and nationalist ideas, as well as "incorrect statements that contribute to the incitement of religious and ethnic hatred." The textbook was slightly edited and published in a second edition in 2003, although the fragments that caused the most protests were left in it. The textbook was approved by the Coordination Council for Interaction between the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation and the Moscow Patriarchate, but did not receive the stamp of the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation and cannot be used in the general educational process.

Textbook created by Andrey Kuraev

The history of the appearance of the textbook

The development of the textbook "Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture" was envisaged by the action plan for approbation in 2009-2011 of the comprehensive training course for educational institutions "Fundamentals of Religious Cultures and Secular Ethics", approved by the Order of the Government of the Russian Federation of October 29, 2009 N 1578-r. In accordance with this decree, the Ministry of Education and Science was obliged to ensure coordination and control over the implementation of the action plan. According to the member working group on the creation of textbooks, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Philosophy A. V. Smirnov, of the six modules forming the course "Fundamentals of Religious Cultures and Secular Ethics", four modules - the foundations of Orthodox culture and other religious cultures - from the very beginning were given to confessions , scientists did not take part in the writing of these modules, scientific expertise was not built into the process of preparing copyrighted texts.

Then the manuscript of the textbook was sent to the "Prosveshchenie" publishing house. According to Kuraev, in the publishing house, lesson 3 - "Relations between God and man in Orthodoxy" was subjected to a serious editorial revision and reduction by 2.5 times. According to the testimony of the coordinator of the group of developers of educational and methodological support of the course, head of the Department of Philosophy of Religion of St. The structure of the Universe was interpreted not from the point of view of modern physics, but from theological positions. Honored Lawyer of the Russian Federation, author of the Constitution of Russia Sergey Shakhrai conducted an examination of the above section and found no contradictions in the Constitution of the Russian Federation and the secular nature of the state established by it.

A. V. Kuraev's textbook received a number of positive external reviews, including recommendations from several academicians of the Russian Academy of Education. Kuraev's website published positive reviews for a textbook from the head of the Department of Personality Psychology at the Faculty of Psychology of Moscow State University, professor, academician of the Russian Academy of Education A.G. Asmolov, academician of the Russian Academy of Education A.F. A.I. Herzen A.A.Korolkov, Head of the Department of Education and Science of the Tambov Region, Doctor of Pedagogical Sciences, Professor N.E. Astafieva, Professor of Vilnius Pedagogical University, expert on moral education under the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Lithuania O.L. Chief Specialist of the Education Department of Zheleznogorsk-Ilimsky, Irkutsk Region V.A.Nechushkina, Head Federal Agency on youth affairs V. G. Yakemenko.

In an interview, A. V. Smirnov, noting that the examination of the OPK module was not done at the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and he himself “is not ready to speak on it professionally,” gave an overall assessment of the module, stating, “ that its general orientation is not acceptable for a secular school. And this textbook is even more than others aimed at Christianizing a person, turning him into an Orthodox. This is the first thing. Second. The concept of "culture" there is replaced by the concept of "religion". And the author of the textbook Kuraev does not even have the idea that culture is something else. And all the authors of the textbook also have» .

Orthodox St. Tikhon University for the Humanities prepared Methodological support of experimental lessons on the Basics of Orthodox Culture for grades 4-5 to the textbook written by Andrey Kuraev.

All-Russian Olympiad in "Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture"

The subject "Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture" in 2007 was included by the Ministry of Education and Science in the number of school "Olympic" disciplines. The Olympiad in a set of subjects related to the study of the history and culture of Orthodoxy is held for students in grades 5-11 of all types of educational institutions every academic year from October 1 to May 15 (starting from 2008-2009) in four stages: school, municipal, regional and final. The Olympiad is organized by the Orthodox St. Tikhon University for the Humanities (PSTGU).

The school stage takes place in October. 1 academic hour is allocated for writing a work, the participants' work is checked by the jury of the Olympiad on the spot. The municipal stage, in which schoolchildren who reach the final of the school stage, take part, is held in November. The regional stage is held in December-January. The regional stage is attended by schoolchildren who have reached the final of the municipal stage. The final stage held by PSTGU in April in Moscow in full-time form.

The First All-Russian Olympiad on the Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture "Holy Russia, Keep the Orthodox Faith!" was held with the blessing of Patriarch Alexy II, with the support of the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation and the Council of Rectors of Russia in 2008-2009. The organization, information support and the conduct of the Olympiad were entrusted to PSTGU.

The position of President V.V. Putin on the issue of teaching the defense industry

The position of President Dmitry A. Medvedev on the issue of teaching the defense industry

Course support

From the side of the Russian Orthodox Church

The course in the Foundations of Orthodox Culture in 2006 and 2007 was officially supported by the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexy II and Metropolitan Kirill. In the dignity of patriarch, Kirill also supported the introduction of the subject of the military-industrial complex and, among other things, headed the Editorial Council for writing a school textbook on this subject. In March 2010, the head of the Synodal Department of Religious Education and Catechesis, Bishop Mercury of Zaraysk, expressed his support for the course.

March 30, 2012 Chairman of the Synodal Information Department of the Moscow Patriarchate Vladimir Legoyda in the program “Vesti. Comments ”of the Novosibirsk TV and Radio Company expressed support for introducing the subject“ Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture ”into schools as important for understanding Russian culture.

From the side of public organizations

From the side of representatives of science

From other religious associations

The teaching of the OPK was supported by the Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church, the representative of the Holy See in Russia Antonio Mennini, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. The Russian Orthodox Old Believers Church (RPSTs) at the Consecrated Cathedral, held in the Rogozhsky village in Moscow on October 20-22, 2009, discussed the participation of a representative of the Old Believers in the preparation of a textbook on the subject "Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture" and decided to "approve the participation of representatives of the Russian Orthodox Old Believer Church in the development of the course "Fundamentals of Spiritual Culture" and its components - the subject "Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture". Metropolitan Korniliy (RPSTs) advocated cooperation on this issue with the Moscow Patriarchate.

The teaching of the course was supported by the chairman of the Coordination Center for Muslims of the North Caucasus Sheikh Magomed Albogachiev, Deputy Chairman of the Central Spiritual Directorate of Muslims of Russia Farid Salman and the Congress of Jewish Religious Organizations and Associations in Russia.

Rallies

Rallies in support of teaching "Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture" in Russian schools were held on September 19 and November 27, 2006 in front of the Public Chamber on Miusskaya Square and on March 15, 2008 on Slavyanskaya Square in the center of Moscow.

"Foundations of Orthodox Culture" and "God's Law"

Representatives of academic science have repeatedly expressed the opinion that secular culturological and religious knowledge in schools contributes to raising the educational level and improving mutual understanding between representatives of different nationalities and religious beliefs, but at the same time they expressed concerns that instead of a secular subject in schools, systematic attempts are being made to introduce the "Law of God". and that such an introduction of the church into the sphere of education grossly violates the Constitution of the country.

In 2006, according to Nikolai Shaburov, director of the Center for the Study of Religions at the Russian State Humanitarian University, hiding behind the secular content of the military-industrial complex, his supporters stood up for the teaching of the "Law of God", violating the right to freedom of religion and freedom of thought. In 2007, Protodeacon Andrei Kuraev agreed with Shaburov's point of view, saying that “in many schools there is a substitution of concepts and practices: the culturological discipline“ Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture ”is announced, but in fact the religious indoctrination of children begins. It is illegal and dishonest. "

Objections to the course

From the side of religious associations

Representatives and adherents of various confessions and religions have repeatedly opposed the introduction of the OPK into the educational process: the Russian Old Orthodox Church, Catholics and Protestants, Jews, Muslims. The followers of Buddhism opposed compulsory religious courses, but allowed optional teaching.

By public and political figures and organizations

The non-cultural, but missionary nature of textbooks on the basics of religious cultures, published in 2010, about the danger of teaching in a secular school the basics of one of the four religions, introducing the division of children into separate groups on religious and confessional grounds, is evidenced by the expert opinion of the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights on a comprehensive training course "Fundamentals of Religious Cultures and Secular Ethics."

Publicist, stage director, scientist-hippologist, anatomist A. G. Nevzorov, within the framework of the cycle "Lessons of Atheism" on the channel of the user NevzorovTV on February 18, 2012, posted a video "How to save children from studying the military-industrial complex", in which he explained the reasons and ways of refusing the study of the "Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture" by schoolchildren. On April 20, 2012, A.G. Nevzorov posted a video "On the lessons of religious studies in elementary school", recorded for the Chelyabinsk regional children's school of cinema and television (youth television project "Our Time"), in which he pointed out the need to abandon the study of religions and religious studies in school.

Atheists opposed the introduction of a compulsory course of the OPK. On February 20, 2008, the members of the Atheist Discussion Club turned to D. A. Medvedev (then a presidential candidate) with an open letter, posting it on D. A. Medvedev's forum.

On February 18, 2008, the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia spoke out against the compulsory teaching in schools of the "Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture" other religions - each separately - within the framework of the course "Spiritual and moral culture" an extremely undesirable phenomenon in the conditions prevailing in Russian society religious and national balance ”.

The Governor of the Voronezh Region Vladimir Kulakov and the Honored Lawyer of the Russian Federation Mikhail Barshchevsky spoke out against preferences in favor of one religion.

From the side of science

Ten academicians of the Russian Academy of Sciences (E. Aleksandrov, Zh. Alferov, G. Abelev, L. Barkov, A. Vorobyov, V. Ginzburg, S. G. Inge-Vechtomov, E. Kruglyakov, M. V. Sadovsky, A. Cherepashchuk; see Letter from ten academicians), whose letter to President Putin caused a wide public outcry, and 1,700 Russian scientists (scientists without degrees, candidates and doctors of science).

Academic science has repeatedly opposed the teaching of Orthodoxy as a separate school subject and against those who advocate the introduction of such teaching.

Pickets

Pickets against the OPK were held: by free radicals in Moscow near the building of the Russian Academy of Sciences on July 31, 2007 with the support of other organizations and in Novopushkinsky square on October 1, 2008, by members of the People's Democratic Party "Vatan" in Moscow on Pushkinskaya Square on October 3, 2008, representatives of the Railway District Committee The Communist Party of the Russian Federation in Novosibirsk at the Ascension Cathedral on August 23, 2009 (members of the AKM, RKSM, RKRP and VKB also took part), Old Believers, atheists and communists in Chelyabinsk.

Notes (edit)

1. The list of Russian regions in which the course "Fundamentals of Religious Cultures and Secular Ethics" was introduced on April 1, 2010, which includes the fundamentals of Orthodox culture, the foundations of Islamic culture, the foundations of Buddhist culture, the foundations of Jewish culture, the foundations of world religious cultures and the foundations of secular ethics: Jewish Autonomous region, Kamchatka Territory; Penza region ; Udmurtia ; Chuvash Republic ; Vologodskaya Oblast ; Kaliningrad region ; Krasnoyarsk region ; Novosibirsk region ; Tomsk region; Kurgan region ; Sverdlovsk region ; Kostroma region ; Tambov Region ; Tver region ; Republic of Kalmykia ; Karachay-Cherkess Republic; Stavropol region ; Chechen Republic . According to the Order of the Government of the Russian Federation of October 29, 2009 N 1578-r
2. Ivoilova I. Take it on faith. New regions are connected to the teaching of the basics of religious cultures and secular ethics // "Rossiyskaya Gazeta", 26.10.2010
3. Order of the Government of the Russian Federation of October 29, 2009 N 1578-r // "Rossiyskaya Gazeta", 11.11.2009
4. The structure of the comprehensive training course "Fundamentals of Religious Cultures and Secular Ethics" has been determined // Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, 9.12.2009
5. Order of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation of December 24, 2010 No. 2080
6. Ryabtsev A. Orthodoxy lessons are introduced in schools // kp.ru 09/01/2006
7. Kerch schools will introduce the course "Fundamentals of the Orthodox culture of Crimea"
8. The Ministry of Education of the Republic of Belarus and the Belarusian Exarchate have developed an elective program on the basics of Orthodox culture // Department of Religious Education and Catechesis of the Russian Orthodox Church (OROiK ROC)
9. Kevorkova N., Zheleznova M. Two hours of Orthodoxy a week // Parents' Committee newspaper, No. 211, 11/14/2002
10. Antipova N., Wedge B."A slave is not a worshiper" The President supported the idea of ​​voluntary study of the main religions // Izvestia, 22.07.2009
11. Fursenko: secular teachers will be engaged in "spiritual and moral education" of schoolchildren // Polit.ru, July 21, 2009.
12. Fursenko: secular teachers will teach the basics of religion // Gazeta.ru, 21.07.2009
13. Retraining of teachers on the course "Spiritual and moral education" will begin in winter // Interfax, 1.09.2009
14. Information from the press service of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation on the implementation of the action plan for approbation in 2009-2011 of a comprehensive training course for educational institutions "Fundamentals of Religious Cultures and Secular Ethics" // pravoslavnoe-obrazovanie.ru, 09.12.2009
15. This lesson has undergone serious editorial revision at the Prosveshchenie publishing house in comparison with the author's version proposed by Andrey Kuraev. How atheistic censorship mutilated a textbook- a post in the personal blog of Andrey Kuraev, 03/18/2010
16. His Holiness Patriarch Kirill makes a visit to the Smolensk diocese // Pravoslavie.Ru, 8.02.2009
17. E. E. Vardomskaya Regulation of interfaith relations, activities of religious organizations and other issues of religion in the legislation of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation // Journal "Law and Security", No. 1 (26), March 2008.
18. Belgorod region. The basics of Orthodox culture will now be taught in all schools // regions.ru, 19.09.2002
19. Order of the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation of 01.07.1999 No. 58 On the establishment of the Coordination Council for interaction between the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation and the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church
20. Mitrokhin N.A. Russian Orthodox Church: state of the art and actual problems. - M .: New literary review, 2006, p. 363.
21. Jubilee Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church. SPb., 2000, p. 227.
22. From September 1, in many schools of the country, one more compulsory subject will be added - the basics of Orthodoxy // NEWSru.com, 08/30/2006
23. OPK is taught in 11,184 secondary schools in Russia // Tver diocese, 28.12.2006.
24. 36 regions teach "Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture", at least five - "defiantly boycotted" - survey of the union "Christian Revival" // Interfax-Religion, 03.07.2007
25. Instruction letter from Alexy II No. 5925 dated December 9, 1999.
26. Appendix to the letter of the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation to the educational authorities of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation dated October 22, 2002 No. 14-52-875 in / 16.
27. On the direction to the constituent entities of the Russian Federation of an approximate agreement on cooperation between the educational management body of the constituent entity of the Russian Federation and the centralized religious organization // Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, Ref. N 03-1548 dated July 13, 2007.
28. N 309-Ф3
29. Instruction of the President of the Russian Federation D.A.Medvedev dated August 2, 2009 Pr-2009 VP-P44-4632

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Russian proverbs and sayings based on biblical texts and church historical motives.

Domestic literary works XX century, in which biblical topics are touched upon.

It is common knowledge that the Bible is the world's best-selling book of all time and that no other book is as popular as the Bible. This is not just an example of the literature of the ancient world, which is outdated and completely irrelevant today. On the contrary, it is a living, effective message from God to the world, which transforms this world. The Bible is an inspired book. And this is a treasury of wisdom for all thinking people of the Earth, whatever their beliefs.

The Bible, or Holy Scripture, is a sacred book that the Holy Spirit gave us: “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3,16). “Inspired by God” means “inspired by God,” that is, written by the holy authors upon the inspiration and revelation of the Holy Spirit. This term indicates the source of the message - God. For 16 centuries, the Holy Spirit revealed a divine message to forty clergy writers - prophets and apostles. Thirty-two of them wrote down the Old Testament; eight - New. The addressee of Holy Scripture is the Church.

The name "Bible" is not found in the sacred books themselves and was first referred to the collection of sacred books in the East in the IV century by Saints John Chrysostom and Epiphany of Cyprus.

Bible translated from Greek means books. 20 kilometers north of the city of Beirut, on the Mediterranean coast, there is a small Arab (in ancient times Phoenician) port city of Jibel (in Holy Scripture referred to as Ebal). Writing material was brought from it to Byzantium, and the Greeks called this city "Byblos". Then the writing material itself began to be called that, and later the books received this name. A book written on papyrus was called 'ε βίβλος by the Greeks, but if it was small, they said το βιβλίον - a little book, and in the plural - τα βιβλία. The Bible (βιβλία) is the plural of βίβλος. Thus, the literal meaning of the word "Bible" is books. Over time, the Greek neuter plural βιβλία became a feminine singular, capitalized and applied exclusively to Holy Scripture. The Bible is a Book of Books, a Book in essence, in a special sense of the word, predominant, in the most general, highest and singular meaning. This is the great Book of Fates, keeping the secrets of life and the plans of the future.

The Bible has two large parts: the Old Testament and the New Testament. The word "covenant" in the Bible has a special meaning: it is not only an instruction bequeathed to followers, future generations, but also a contract between God and people - a contract for the salvation of humanity and earthly life in general.

The Old Testament (events of the Sacred history from the creation of the world to the birth of Christ) is a collection of 39 books, and the New Testament (events after the Incarnation, that is, after the birth of Christ) - of 27 books.

Canon (in the translation from Greek - reed, measuring stick, that is, a rule, a sample) or canonical books are sacred books recognized by the Church as authentic, inspired by God and serving as the primary sources and norms of faith.

The books of both the New and Old Testaments can be roughly divided into four sections:

law-positive books, in which the basic moral and religious Law is given;

teaching books, in which the meaning and implementation of the fulfillment of the Law is mainly revealed, examples from the Sacred history of a righteous life are given;

historical books, which reveal important events of Sacred history through the prism of the history of God's chosen people;

prophetic books, in which, in a mysterious, veiled way, it is said about the future destinies of the world and the Church, prototypically narrates about the Incarnation and the salvation of mankind.

The Old Testament canon includes the so-called five-book of Moses (Torah): Genesis, Leviticus, Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy; books: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1–4 Kings, 1, 2 Chronicles (Chronicles), Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Psalms, Proverbs of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Lamentations of Jeremiah. The canonical Old Testament books also include the books of the prophets: four great ones - Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and twelve small ones - Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi.

The non-canonical books of the Old Testament include the following books: Judith, Wisdom of Jesus, son of Sirach, Wisdom of Solomon, Epistle of Jeremiah, Baruch, Tobit, 1-3 Maccabees, 2, 3 Ezra. The Church does not put them on a par with the canonical ones, but recognizes them as edifying and useful.

Most of the Old Testament is written in Hebrew, and parts of some books are written in Aramaic. The division of the text into chapters was made in the 13th century by Cardinal Gugon or Bishop Stephen Langton.

The New Testament Canon includes: The Four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John). The first three Gospels (Mt., Mk., Lk.) Are called synoptic (Greek - general); The Gospel of John (John) - pneumatic (from Greek - spiritual). Also, the canon of the New Testament includes the following books: Acts of the Holy Apostles, seven conciliar Epistles of the Apostles (James, 1, 2 Peter, 1-3 John, Jude), 14 Epistles of the Holy Apostle Paul (Romans, 1, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians , Colossians, 1, 2 Thessalonians, or Thessalonians, 1, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews).

The last, or final, book of the New Testament is the Apocalypse, or the Revelation of John the Theologian. There are no non-canonical books in the New Testament.

The Holy Bible is a sacred library, which for over a thousand years consisted of many literary works created by different authors and in different languages. And at the same time, this is a holistic creation, striking in perfection and diamond strength in the most severe tests. stories.

All New Testament texts are written in the Alexandrian dialect of the ancient Greek language (Koine, or Kini), with the exception of the Gospel of Matthew, which was originally written in Hebrew and at the same time translated, apparently by the author himself, into Greek. The New Testament was first divided into chapters and verses in the 16th century.

In general, the sacred biblical canon was formed already in the 2nd century. The canon in its present form was finally recognized by the whole Church at the Laodicean (360–364) cathedral, then at the Hipponian (393), Carthagin (397) and subsequent councils.

Of the most important and famous translations of the Bible, the Septuagint (translation into Greek of 70 interpreters) of the Egyptian king Ptolemy Philadelphus (284-247 BC), Syrian (Peshito), Latin Itala (ancient) and Vulgata (blessed Jerome) Stridonsky, beginning of the 5th century, recognized at the end of the 6th century), Armenian (5th century), etc. The first Slavic translation of the Bible was carried out by the holy brothers Cyril and Methodius in the 9th century; translation) was completed in 1876.

Russia received the first printed Bible from Ostrog in 1581 thanks to the labors of Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich Ostrozhsky.

The books of Scripture have given rise to countless other books where biblical ideas and images live: numerous translations, transcriptions, works of verbal art, interpretations, and various studies.

The Bible is one of the largest monuments of world culture and literature. Without Bible knowledge, many cultural values ​​remain inaccessible. Most of the artistic canvases of the era of classicism, Russian icon painting and philosophy cannot be understood without knowledge of biblical subjects.

In our country, up to the beginning of the twentieth century, the main plots of the biblical narrative were familiar to almost everyone, regardless of the level of education. Many were able to quote verbatim passages from sacred biblical texts.

This is how our great poet A.S. Pushkin: “There is a book in which every word is interpreted, explained, preached in all ends of the earth, applied to all kinds of life circumstances and events in the world; from which it is impossible to repeat a single expression that everyone would not know by heart, which would no longer be the proverb of the peoples; it does not already contain anything unknown to us; but this book is called the Gospel - and such is its eternally new charm that if we, satiated with the world or depressed by despondency, accidentally open it, then we are no longer able to resist its sweet enthusiasm and plunge in spirit into its divine eloquence. "

Since the time of the Baptism of Rus by the holy prince Vladimir, the Bible has become the first and main book of Russian culture: it taught children to read and think, Christian truths and norms of life, the principles of morality and the basics of verbal art. The Bible has firmly entered the people's consciousness, into everyday life and spiritual life, into everyday and lofty speech. The books of Holy Scripture, translated into the Slavic language by the holy enlighteners Equal to the Apostles Cyril and Methodius, were not perceived as translated, but as relatives and able to make people in common different languages and cultures.

Many biblical phrases live in modern Russian in the form of proverbs, sayings, catchphrases, recalling its origins and stories our culture. For example, the proverb: “He who does not work does not eat” - compare with the thought of the Apostle Paul “... if anyone does not want to work, he does not eat” (2 Thess. 3, 10). Direct quotes from the biblical books are the expressions: "Blessed are the peacemakers" (Matt. 5, 9), "Man will not live by bread alone" (Matt. 4, 4), "Those who take the sword, by the sword, will perish" (Matt. 26, 52 ), "The tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (Gen. 2, 9), "In the sweat of his brow" (Gen. 3, 19), "Egyptian darkness" (Ex. 10, 21), "Stumbling block" (Is. 8 , 14), “Abomination of desolation” (Dan. 9, 27), “Their name is legion” (Mark 5, 9), “Not of this world” (John 17, 14), “A voice crying in the wilderness” (Is. 40, 3; Matt. 3, 3), "Do not throw your pearls (beads) in front of pigs" (Matt. 7, 6), "There is nothing secret that would not become apparent" (Mark 4, 22 ), "To the physician, heal yourself" (Luke 4:23) and many others. Everyone is well aware of biblical expressions and common nouns: "A wolf in sheep's clothing" (Matt. 7, 15), "Babylonian pandemonium" (Genesis 11, 4), "Let this cup pass from me" (Matt. 26, 39), “Prodigal Son” (Luke 15, 11-32), “Unbelieving Thomas” (John 20, 24-29), “Salt of the earth” (Matthew 5, 13), “Crown of Thorns” (Mark 15, 17 ), "The power of darkness" (Luke 22, 53), "The stones will cry out" (Luke 19, 40) and many others.

Having lost their bearings in the vain world, in the chaos of relative values, Russian authors have long begun to turn to Christian morality and later to the image of Christ as the ideal of this morality. In the ancient Russian hagiographic literature, the life of saints ascetics, righteous men, and noble princes was described in detail. Christ had not yet acted as a literary character: the sacred awe and reverence for the image of the Savior were too great. In the literature of the 19th century, Christ was not depicted either, but images of people of the Christian spirit and holiness appear in it: F.M. Dostoevsky - Prince Myshkin in the novel The Idiot, Alyosha and Zosima in The Brothers Karamazov; at L.N. Tolstoy - Platon Karataev in War and Peace. Paradoxically, Christ first became a literary character in Soviet literature. A.A. Blok in the poem "The Twelve" (1918), in front of people enveloped in hatred and ready to die, depicted Christ, whose image symbolizes the hope of people for purification and repentance at least sometime, in the future. Perhaps A.A. Blok, seduced by revolutionary romanticism, saw Christ “in a white crown of roses” among the rebellious crowd as a symbol of the idea of ​​the struggle for social justice. Later, the author of "The Twelve" became disillusioned with the revolution, having seen many of the horrors of the revolt of the mob. Awareness of the tragedy of his mistake brought the Russian poet to the grave prematurely. According to Z. Gippius, before his death, the poet “sees the sight of those who offend, humiliate and destroy his Beloved - his Russia” (meaning the Bolsheviks). In the same 1918, Z. Gippius, in his poems ("Walked ..." in two parts), will draw a completely different image of Christ in the Russian revolutionary turmoil - the image of the formidable and righteous Judge, angrily punishing the atrocities of the revolution. Later, Christ will appear in the novel by M.A. Bulgakov's "Master and Margarita" under the name Yeshua, B.L. Pasternak - in Doctor Zhivago, at Ch.T. Aitmatov - in "Plakh", at A.I. Dombrovsky - in the "Faculty of unnecessary things." The writers turned to the image of Christ as the ideal of moral perfection, the Savior of the world and humanity. In the image of Christ, the writers saw the common thing that was transferred by Him and that our era is experiencing: betrayal, persecution, unjust judgment.

The return of the Bible to our public life, its honest and unbiased study allowed modern readers to make a discovery: it turned out that all Russian literary classics, from antiquity to modern times, are associated with the Book of Books, based on its truths and covenants, moral and artistic values, correlates with her ideals, cites her sayings, parables, edifications.

The Bible came to Russia together with Christianity, initially in the form of separate books from the Old and New Testaments. The first Russian literary work - "The Word of Law and Grace" by Metropolitan Hilarion of Kiev (first half of the 11th century) was created on a biblical basis. This is a sermon, thematically consonant with the Epistle to the Romans of the holy Apostle Paul (Rom.). "The Tale of Bygone Years" (about 1113) by Nestor the Chronicler - a monk of the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery - reveals the connection between Old Russian literature and the Bible. From the first lines, the holy author-chronicler rearranges the Book of Genesis, tells about the dispersal of peoples across the Earth, about their division into seventy-two languages, and so on tells a sacred story. The Monk Nestor notes: "From these seventy-two languages ​​came the Slavic people, from the tribe of Japheth ...". The idea of ​​the unity of the Slavs with all the peoples of the world is further developed in the pious stories about the journey of the Apostle Andrew the First-Called on the way from the Varangians to the Greeks, about the activities of the holy enlighteners Cyril and Methodius, about the sermons of the Apostle Paul in the Slavic lands, about the Baptism of Rus. This will continue in the literature, the beginning of which was the "Tale of Bygone Years." An appeal to Holy Scripture expands the scale of the narrative, connects the native land with the whole Earth, and includes the national into the universal.

The appeal of the ancient Russian authors of the artistic word to biblical images is contradictory and organically combined with their traditional pagan outlook. After Baptism in Russia, a peculiar phenomenon, usually called dual faith, arose and proved to be quite stable for a long time.

In the Russian people of the XII century, the pagan perception of the world more and more passed into the aesthetic sphere, manifested itself in works of folk art and in literature. A striking example of this tendency is The Lay of Igor's Host (1185-1187). In it we see a combination of pagan and Christian principles. For example, the author uses the Christian concept of the pagan Cumans, and the pagan concept of animal totems, ancestors and patrons. He mentions the Christian God helping Igor, and immediately says something typically pagan about the transformation of the fugitive prince into an ermine, a white gogol, a gray wolf. In the "Word" ancient Slavic deities operate: Stribog - the god of the sky, the universe, Dazhdbog - the sun god, the giver of all blessings. But the whole tragic path of Igor to enlightenment, to understanding his duty to the Russian Land corresponds to Christian ideas about the purification of the soul, and the only victory that the prince gains in his reckless campaign is victory over himself. The combination of the ancient pagan and new Christian beliefs creates in the "Word" a single perception of the world: a person is perceived in the integrity of the entire universe of God and as the only earthly being bearing the image and likeness of God and endowed with responsibility for the whole world.

Direct biblical influence can be traced in Russian hagiographic literature. It developed starting from the 11th century, following the traditions of Byzantine hagiography, but acquired Russian characteristics, often reproducing living features of everyday life, human behavior and constantly returning to biblical sources. Such, for example, is the remarkable Life of St. Alexander Nevsky "(end of the 13th century). The whole narration is conducted in comparison of the hero with the images of Holy Scripture.

The Bible most vividly influenced the development of Russian lyric poetry, which was born in the 18th century. A decisive role in the formation of Russian lyric poetry was played by poetic transcriptions of biblical chants, primarily from the Psalter. The transcriptions of psalms by poets of the 18th century from Church Slavonic into their contemporary language was evidence of the special significance of biblical hymnography in the minds of Russian society and, at the same time, an expression of the historical development of poetry itself and its language. This is a transcription of the 81st Psalm - "For the Lords and Judges" by G.R. Derzhavin, an ode from psalm 93 by I.A. Krylova and others. Undoubtedly, the lyrics of the biblical psalms are one of the sources of Derzhavin's ode “God” (1780–1784), which expressed the self-consciousness of a Christian. Derzhavin brightly, emotionally and deeply reveals the quest human spirit striving to understand his place in the world created by the Creator, his relationship to God, to nature, to the universe.

The biblical psalms also contributed to the planetarity so characteristic of Russian poetry, cosmism, and philosophical generalizations. For example, the transcription of Psalm 103 by M.V. Lomonosov (1743), where praise to God - the Creator of the Earth, stars, all the wonders of "nature", and his "Morning Meditation on the Majesty of God" (1751), where the Sun - a heavenly lamp lit by the Creator - is wonderfully depicted.

The transcriptions created by Lomonosov and his followers, while remaining faithful to the biblical texts, absorbed the moods and experiences of Russian poets from the golden age of Russian literature.

The transcriptions of the Holy Scriptures, characteristic of the 18th century, contributed to the convergence of the biblical Church Slavonic language with a lively, rapidly developing speech, helped the formation of "high" speech styles that prevailed in civil and philosophical lyrics, in a heroic poem, ode, tragedy. The stately simplicity, vivid imagery, aphoristic refinement, and the energy of rhythm, gleaned from the Bible, entered all "high" literary genres, but, above all, thanks to the transcriptions of the psalms, into the lyrics.

Undoubtedly, the lyrics of the biblical psalms are one of the sources of Derzhavin's ode “God” (1780–1784), which expressed the self-consciousness of a Christian. G.R. Derzhavin vividly, emotionally and deeply reveals the quest of the human spirit, striving to understand its place in the world created by the Creator, its relationship to God, nature, and the universe.

Spiritual and moral potential of Russian classical literature 19th century still delights readers all over the world. And this is not accidental, for the roots of artistry, as noted by the famous Russian thinker and literary critic I.A. Ilyin, are hidden in those depths of the human soul, where "the breezes of God's presence" sweep. Great art always bears the "stamp of God's grace", even when it develops secular themes and plots that have no external connection with churchliness and religiosity. The phenomenon of Russian literature consists in posing the "eternal questions" of life, the answer to which almost all Russian writers tried to give in their work.

Russian literature of the 19th century was instructive in its main tendency, it always felt its responsibility for the state of the country and the world, it was always sensitive and responsive to the needs and disasters of its people and humanity. Literature taught in the highest sense of the word: it awakened dignity and honor in people, spirituality and creative aspirations, and formed a worldview.

The brightest star of the literary horizon of Russia in the 19th century was undoubtedly A.S. Pushkin. The deepest expression of Pushkin's view of poetry and its significance in life was the poem "Desert Sower Freedom ..." (1823), the source of which was the famous Gospel parable (Matthew 13: 3–23). This poem of the great poet was echoed many times later in his own work and in the works of other Russian writers of the 19th and 20th centuries. It contains reflections on the most tragic circumstance of human history - on the mysterious inclination of peoples to herd obedience. "Desert Sower of Freedom ..." is not a political treatise, this poem combines the state of mind caused by specific circumstances and generalizations that go far beyond the life of the poet and the history of Europe. In this work, the "I" includes the author's personality, but it is not identical to it. The universality and all-humanity are here emphasized by the direct correlation of the poem with the Gospel parable. Pushkin not only took the epigraph from the Gospel, he considered the entire poem an imitation of Christ's parable.

In 1826-1828 A.S. Pushkin creates the poem "The Prophet", where the connection with the poem "The desert sower of freedom ..." is obvious.

One of the Old Testament books - the book of the prophet Isaiah - depicts the painful cleansing of the soul of a person who wished to convey to people the high truth that was revealed to him, that is, to fulfill the work of the prophet. The holy prophet Isaiah tells how a vision dawned on him: the Lord appeared to his eyes, surrounded by six-winged seraphim. But can “unclean lips” tell about this? The fiery seraphim cleanses the lips of the prophet by damping a burning coal in them (see Isaiah 6: 1–8). Pushkin, creating the poem "The Prophet", follows the biblical text.

This beautiful poem belongs to those heights from which the path of Russian poetry is far visible. In it, the poet's mission, like the biblical prophet, is depicted as asceticism.

Rise, prophet, and see, and hearken,

Fulfill my will

And, bypassing the seas and lands,

Burn the hearts of people with the verb.

A stern warning against the frivolous understanding of poetry is clearly voiced here: true poetry undergoes burning, unquenchable suffering, goes through death and resurrection to become a prophecy.

Pushkin often refers directly or indirectly to the Holy Scriptures. So, he directly expounds the biblical story, for example, the beginning of the Old Testament book of Judith ("When the ruler of Assyria ...", 1835). Sometimes biblical motives seem to be dissolved in the text and only some details indicate parallels with sacred biblical texts. So, in "Poltava" (1828–1829), the shadow of the devil suddenly appears when Hetman Mazepa, not daring to tell Maria directly about the impending execution of her father, tries to snatch from her at least an involuntary almost consent to this atrocity. Biblical images serve as moral guidelines in the poem "Angelo" (1833).

A direct transposition of the church hymnography - the Lenten prayer of the Monk Ephraim the Syrian "Lord and Master of my life ..." - was the poem "Desert Fathers and Innocent Wives ..." (1836).

The Bible is constantly present in the creative thinking of the great poet; his artistic quest, his moral ideas are correlated with it.

Soon the theme of the prophet arises in M.Yu. Lermontov. We remember his poem "The Prophet".

Ever since the eternal Judge

He gave me the omniscience of a prophet,

I read in the eyes of people

Pages of malice and vice.

The difference with the "Prophet" A.S. Pushkin is deep. For Pushkin, this was a vision of God and the world, a moment experienced by the prophet; Lermontov has a different theme: the vision of human sin. This is a bitter gift that poisons the prophet's life on earth. This also fits the biblical model, because the prophets saw the evil of the world and denounced it mercilessly.

Perhaps with M.Yu. Lermontov in Russian literature of the 19th century, a sharp increase in the role of the Bible in verbal creativity: ideas, plots, images, style of Holy Scripture acquire such a force of influence on verbal art that many of the most remarkable works cannot be fully read and adequately understood without referring to the biblical texts.

Believers see Lermontov as a spiritual poet and distinguish in his multifaceted work such religious and spiritual peaks as “An Angel flew across the midnight sky ...”; two "Prayers" (1837 and 1839) and other poetic masterpieces, testifying to the high and bright faith of the poet.

God for him is an absolute reality. But the attitude towards Him in different contexts is manifested and perceived in different ways. Obsession with poetry takes the poet far from the ways of God, closes his hearing for the word of the Lord, seduces the mind, darkens the eyes. Lermontov himself realizes this as inappropriate, disastrous in himself and prays to the Almighty not to accuse and not punish him for that. He understands the full extent of his guilt before Him - hence the fear to appear before His eyes:

I'm afraid to penetrate to You.

The contradiction between the "internal man" (spiritual) and the "external man" (mental and physical) remains in M.Yu. Lermontov sharp and dramatic. It is reflected in the poem "I go out alone on the road."

The influence of the Bible affected not only the content of Lermontov's works (the use of biblical names, images, plots), but also the form of his literary creations. Thus, the poet's prayer genre received a new, special development. It was not his discovery, but it became an important link in his poetic system. Biblical motives by M.Yu. Lermontov is a complex, multifaceted phenomenon. Their use in the same context is contradictory and is intended for a reader who is familiar with the Bible, who will be able to understand the intricacies of their ideological and semantic orientation.

The rich spiritual heritage of N.V. Gogol. “Gogol,” according to Professor Archpriest Vasily Zenkovsky, “is the first prophet of a return to a holistic religious culture, a prophet of Orthodox culture ... he perceives its departure from the Church as the main untruth of modernity, and he sees the main path in the return to the Church and the restructuring of the whole life in her spirit. "

Gogol prophetically foresaw the spiritual state of contemporary Western society, he wrote in about the Western Church: “Now that humanity has begun to achieve the fullest development in all its strength ... discord. " Indeed, the conciliatory and adaptive march of the Western Church towards the world, crafty calls for unprincipled unification with various religious groups eventually led to the emasculation of the Spirit in the Western Church, to the spiritual crisis of Western society.

In his socio-philosophical views, N.V. Gogol was neither a Westerner nor a Slavophile. He loved his people and saw that he "heard God's hand more than others."

Of course, N.V. Gogol is one of the most ascetic figures in our literature. His whole life testifies to his ascent to the heights of the spirit; but only the clergy closest to him and some of his friends knew about this side of his personality. In the minds of most of his contemporaries, Gogol was a classic type of satirist, an exposer of social and human vices. Another Gogol, a follower of the patristic tradition in Russian literature, an Orthodox religious thinker and publicist, the author of prayers, was never recognized by his contemporaries. With the exception of Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends, spiritual prose remained unpublished during his lifetime. And if by the beginning of the 20th century, the spiritual appearance of Gogol was to some extent restored, then in Soviet time his spiritual heritage (however, like the spiritual works of other authors) was carefully hidden from the reader for many decades.

The great writer was a deeply religious person. In January 1845, Gogol lived in Paris with Count A.P. Tolstoy. About this period, he wrote: "He lived internally, as in a monastery, and in addition to that, he did not miss almost a single mass in our church." He carefully studied the Greek texts of the rites of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom and the Liturgy of St. Basil the Great. Gogol creates one of the best examples of spiritual prose of the 19th century - "Reflections on the Divine Liturgy", where theological and artistic sides are organically combined. In the work on this book, the pious author used the works on the liturgy of ancient and modern theologians, but they all served him only as aids. The "Reflections" embodies the personal experience of N.V. Gogol, his striving to comprehend the liturgical word. “For anyone who only wants to go forward and become better,” he wrote in his “Conclusion,” “frequent, as much as possible, attendance at the Divine Liturgy and attentive listening are necessary: ​​it insensibly builds and creates a person. And if society has not yet completely disintegrated, if people do not breathe full, irreconcilable hatred among themselves, then the secret reason for this is the Divine Liturgy, reminding a person of the holy, heavenly love for his brother. "

Unfortunately, even today little known are the spiritual works of Gogol "The Rule of Living in the World", "Bright Sunday", "The Christian Goes Forward", "A Few Words about Our Church and the Clergy." These works are a real treasure of Orthodox wisdom, still hidden under a bushel.

In the works of religious thinkers, philosophers and clergymen N.V. Gogol appears as a vivid example of spiritual feat, modesty and honesty in the self-assessment of his works in the literary and social field.

High recognition by the history of writer's merits and human significance of N.V. Gogol even more expressively and vividly highlights the greatness of his spiritual quests, moral defeats and moral victories, and this will increasingly manifest the influence of his personality on our contemporaries.

Among the great poets of the 19th century, whose work is colored with biblical motives, one should also name F.I. Tyutchev.

Tyutchev in his work acts not only as a great master of the poetic word, but also as a thinker. In relation to him, we have the right to speak not only of his attitude and outlook, but also of his worldview system, which received a peculiar expression and was embodied not in a philosophical composition, but in verses full of artistic perfection. In poetic philosophical contemplations and meditations of the poet there is an internal connection, and in poetry the intensity of philosophical thought has a certain purposefulness.

Man and nature, as a rule, are revealed in the poems of F.I. Tyutchev, not only as a whole, but also, as it were, in its primeval state. His poetic consciousness is carried away by the natural elements that stood at the very origins of the creation of the world: water, fire and air (see Gen. 1).

Poem by F.I. Tyutchev's "These poor villages ..." (1855) made a strong impression on contemporaries and for a long time evoked responses in literature. In it, the poet creates the image of Christ - a wanderer through Russia, as if he had lifted onto his shoulders all the immensity of the people's suffering:

Weighed down by the burden of the godmother,

All of you, dear land,

In slavery, the Heavenly King

I went out blessing.

The image of Christ is internally at the center of F.M. Dostoevsky. There is an entry in his diaries: "Write a novel about Jesus Christ." He did not write the novel, but in a broad sense he wrote it all his life. Dostoevsky tried to recreate the image of Christ in a modern setting. In the Legend of the Grand Inquisitor in The Brothers Karamazov, the inquisitor speaks of the happiness of mankind, of the future of the world: people will find happiness, but their freedom will be taken away from them. The old inquisitor speaks and speaks - but Christ is silent. And in this silence, the authenticity of the image of Christ is felt: the Lord did not say a single word, just as he stood before Pilate (Matt. 27, 13-14, Mark 15, 2-5, John 18, 37-38). And this is the wondrous reality of God's presence.

In the same novel, Dostoevsky has a wonderful chapter "From the Notes of Elder Zosima" - a chapter about the Bible, about Holy Scripture in the life of Elder Zosima. Let us recall the words that the writer utters through the lips of his hero: "What a book is this Holy Scripture, what a miracle and what power, given to man with it! ... Death to the people without the word of God."

For Dostoevsky, the Bible was the right reference point on the path of spiritual quest. “What kind of book is this Holy Scripture ... An exact sculpture of the world and man, and human characters, and everything is named, and indicated for ever and ever. And how many secrets have been resolved and frank ... This book is invincible ... This is the book of mankind, "he writes in the article" Socialism and Christianity. " For him, the world of the Bible is not at all the world of ancient mythologies, but a very real world, which is a tangible part of his own life. In the Book of Books, Dostoevsky sees the level of transcendental being. For a writer, this is a kind of fullness of books, a seed, in the depths of which the wonderful fruits of Christian literature and culture in general reside. For Dostoevsky, Holy Scripture is a "spiritual alphabet", without which the creativity of a real artist is impossible. In recent years, the Bible has become for the writer one of the main sources of ideas that create the philosophical and religious implications of his works.

The Holy Bible, presented to Dostoevsky by the wives of the Decembrists in Tobolsk on the way to prison, was the only one allowed for him to read in hard labor. “Fyodor Mikhailovich,” writes his wife, “did not part with this holy book during all four years of being in hard labor. Subsequently, she always lay in plain sight, on his desk, and he often, thinking or doubting about anything, opened the Gospel at random and read what was on the first page ... ". In the Bible, the writer drew strength and courage, and at the same time, a willingness to deal with difficulties. It is a deep faith in God, according to Dostoevsky, that gives firm support in all the vicissitudes of fate. Thanks to her, in the soul of a person there is peace of mind for the fate of the world and his personal life.

Throughout his life F.M. Dostoevsky was accompanied by a personal direct feeling of the presence of Christ in earthly human existence, comprehending and elevating this existence to his heavenly goal - the result.

At the center of Dostoevsky's entire world outlook is God - "the most important world question." The initial principle of Dostoevsky's direct perception of the world, which formed the basis of his artistic creativity, is the unfolding of earthly human existence in the face of "other worlds", and not an abstract, "other dimension", but specifically in front of the living "bright face of the God-man." The meaning of the presence of the New Testament text in the writer's works of fiction is that he makes "happenings" that happen to heroes, "events" that take place in the face of Christ, in His presence, as a response to Christ. The Gospel text introduces into the plot of the works of F.M. Dostoevsky, a certain metaplot, a new dimension, a vision in Christ, an image of the real stay of Christ in human existence.

Dostoevsky's unconditional sincere and deep religiosity is also expressed in his approach to national identification, in his famous formula: "Russian means Orthodox." All his life he had a very negative attitude to atheism, considering it "stupidity and thoughtlessness." “None of you are infected with rotten and stupid atheism,” he says confidently in a letter to his sister. The writer generally doubted the existence of real atheism. In a letter to K. Opochinin (1880), he notes: “No one can be convinced of the existence of God. I think that even atheists retain this conviction, although they do not admit it, out of shame or something. "

F.M. Dostoevsky went a long, difficult and painful path of spiritual search for answers to world questions about the place of man in the real world, about the meaning of human existence. At the same time, the Holy Scriptures and the person of Christ have always acted for him as the main spiritual guidelines that determine the moral, religious and artistic principles of the great Russian writer.

In his book Fundamentals of Art. About the perfect in art "I.A. Ilyin expressed the idea that the roots of true art have a spiritual and religious character. Speaking about the Russian classics, Ilyin, not without reason, asserted: “The 19th century gave Russia a flourishing of spiritual culture. And this flowering was created by people "inspired" by the spirit of Orthodoxy ... And if we pass in thought from Pushkin to Lermontov, Gogol, Tyutchev, L. Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Leskov, Chekhov, then we will see the brilliant flowering of the Russian spirit from the roots Orthodoxy. And we will see the same in other branches of Russian art, in Russian science, in Russian lawmaking, in Russian medicine, in Russian pedagogy and in everything. "

Next to F.M. Dostoevsky is named after another giant of 19th century literature - L.N. Tolstoy, who also considered the problem of human happiness and also sought answers to these questions in the Bible.

Dostoevsky tries to discern the image of God in man, since this is associated with deification and with the salvation of man. Tolstoy, on the other hand, searches for natural principles in a person, since this can contribute to a person's earthly happiness.

Many people underestimate Tolstoy's religious pursuits. They are undoubtedly deeply sincere and painful. But the fact that a man, who for almost thirty years considered himself a preacher of the Gospel, found himself in conflict with Christianity, even excommunicated from the Church, shows that L.N. Tolstoy was a very complex figure, tragic and disharmonious. He, who praised such powerful harmonious characters, was himself a man suffering from a deep mental crisis.

Even in his youth, Tolstoy wrote in his diary: "I have a goal, an important goal, to which I am ready to give my whole life: to create a new religion that would have a practical character and would promise goodness here on Earth." Already in the initial thinking of Tolstoy, the entire basic content of his religion was laid, which has nothing in common with Christianity. Strictly speaking, this is not a religion at all. This idea matured in his soul for a time, until it sprouted at the turn of the 70s and 80s, at the time of the spiritual crisis that overtook L.N. Tolstoy. It should be noted that there is nothing new in Tolstoyism: earthly bliss, earthly Kingdom, created on a rational basis, was dreamed and discussed both before and after.

Leo Tolstoy entered the history of world culture, first of all, as one of the most brilliant artists - creators. But, perhaps, even more important for the history of mankind is his experience of faith-making, which requires a fairly close understanding.

At first, when he turned to Holy Scripture, he, like Dostoevsky, was captivated by the epic power of the Bible. Tolstoy immersed himself in the Old Testament, even studied the Hebrew language in order to read it in the original, then he drops it and turns only to the New Testament. The Old Testament for the writer becomes just one of the ancient religions. But even in the New Testament, Tolstoy is not satisfied with much. The Epistles of the Apostle Paul seem to him to be an ecclesiastical perversion of truth, and he confines himself to the Four Gospels. Then, in the Gospels, everything seems to him not so, and he throws out of them the miraculous, the supernatural. He throws out the highest theological concepts: "In the beginning was the Word", the Word as divine cosmic Reason - Tolstoy says: "In the beginning was understanding"; The glory of Christ, that is, the reflection of eternity in the person of Christ - for Tolstoy this is the teaching of Christ.

According to Tolstoy's views, there is some mysterious higher power and it can hardly be considered personal: most likely, it is impersonal, because personality is something limited. The writer, who created wonderful images of a person, who was himself a brilliant personality on a world scale, was a principled impersonalist, that is, he did not recognize the value of personality and hence his idea of ​​the insignificant role of personality in history. According to his concept, a certain higher principle presented by the writer in some incomprehensible way encourages a person to be kind.

Summarizing the theological views of L.N. Tolstoy, it can be argued: God is determined by him, first of all, through the negation of all those properties that are revealed in the Orthodox doctrine. Tolstoy has his own understanding of God, and it, by his own admission, existed from the very beginning in him and before. He is initially inclined to consider his concepts as a starting point in the study of Orthodoxy, and he elevates his lack of understanding of the doctrine to the absolute.

“This point of view, - notes I.A. Ilyin, - can be called autism (autos in Greek means himself), that is, a closure within oneself, a judgment about other people and things from the point of view of one's own understanding, that is, subjectivist non-objectiveness in contemplation and evaluation. Tolstoy is an autist: in worldview, culture, philosophy, contemplation, assessments. This autism is the essence of his doctrine. " L.N. Tolstoy perceives Christ outwardly - as an outside moral preacher. Unification with Christ, life in Christ is not conceived by him, from which follows the meaninglessness and uselessness of life in the Church of Christ, deification and salvation in her. This is where the source of Tolstoy's spiritual tragedy is found. As you know, in 1901, Count L.N. Tolstoy was excommunicated by the Holy Synod.

At the very end of his life, Count Tolstoy experienced great embarrassment, he fled from himself and his ideas, tried to find help from the Church, which he so passionately denied. This attempt remained unsuccessful, but still it was.

From Yasnaya Polyana Tolstoy went to Optina Pustyn, where he had been more than once. Many writers and thinkers, starting with the brothers Kireevsky and Gogol, sought and found support, consolation, and faith here. Tolstoy communicated in this monastery with the great elder - the Monk Ambrose. The Reverend Elder, in the words of NA Berdyaev, "was weary" by the writer's pride. From the Astapovo station, from the terminally ill Tolstoy, a telegram came to Optina with a request to Elder Joseph to come to the sick man. The telegram was sent while the writer was still free in his actions, but when Elder Barsanuphius (Elder Joseph at that moment could not leave the monastery) reached Astapov, dark servants of evil from among his entourage, headed by Chertkov, were already in charge here. They did not allow either his wife, Sofia Andreevna, or the elder priest to see the dying man. “The iron ring bound the late Tolstoy, although Leo was there, but he could not break the rings or get out of him ...” - this is how Elder Barsanuphius later said about the writer. This tragedy of the exodus of a great man from life evokes horror and bitter regret.

"The history of Tolstoy's soul," wrote Archpriest Vasily Zenkovsky shortly after the writer's death, "from its first phase of irreligion to the last wanderings and unnecessarily evil struggle against the Church, is a stern and formidable lesson for all of us." “And therefore, not irritation or anger, but repentance and the consciousness of all our guilt before the Church should cause us that Tolstoy died alienated from Her,” Father Sergiy Bulgakov wisely noted. "Tolstoy pushed himself off not only from the Church, but also from the non-churchliness of our life, with which we block the light of church truth."

Opinions about the degree of religiosity of A.P. Chekhov and his contemporaries and contemporary researchers of his work are ambiguous. Perhaps everyone agrees that Chekhov was never "fundamentally outside of religion." He did not inherit the home-building intolerant religiosity that reigned in his father's house, and in this sense he had no religion. There was something deeper, more meaningful and complex that should have been called Christian civilization - with a special attitude to national history, to history in general; with the belief that it is progressive and successive in its movement - starting with that initial spiritual effort, about which he wrote in his favorite story "The Student".

Professor M.M. Dunaev. In his book "Orthodoxy and Russian Literature" to the works of A.P. Chekhov is dedicated to big chapter... A professor at the Moscow Theological Academy believes that "the combination of torment for God with torment for man ... determined the entire system of worldview of an Orthodox writer in spirit."

A.P. Chekhov was a person and a writer of Orthodox culture, he was very fond of church singing, he knew divine services very well. In his works, he repeatedly turned to the church theme, preached Christian ethics and morality.

The turn of the 19th and 20th centuries filled Russian literature with alarming premonitions and predictions. In this era, literature's appeal to the Bible often expresses the idea of ​​the connection of times, the continuity of cultures, which became a kind of preparation for spiritual protection against threatening ruptures and gaps in human memory, against the danger of the dissolution of human individuality in the political and social whirlpools of the impending era, against the danger of human absorption by the achievements of civilization ...

The names of A.A. Akhmatova, D.S. Merezhkovsky, B.L. Pasternak and many others. It is obvious that Anna Akhmatova was a Christian poet, this is clearly evidenced by the Christian tonality of her poetry. There is quite clear evidence of this in her own statements and in the testimonies of her contemporaries. In his 1940 letter to B.L. Pasternak calls her a “true Christian” and notes: “She, and this is her exclusiveness, did not have an evolution in religious views. She did not become a Christian; she has always been one all her life. "

Religious motives in Akhmatova's poetry have a certain cultural, historical and ideological basis of the corresponding realities: biblical quotes and names, mentioned church calendar dates and shrines create a special atmosphere in her work.

Along with verses that are somewhat close to prayer and prophetic denunciation, there are works with manifestations of everyday religiosity, superstition, and sometimes even involuntary almost blasphemy. In verses of such a plan, the spirit and character inherent in the atmosphere itself is manifested. silver age... In them we see many premonitions, omens, dreams and fortune-telling. Over the years, her poetry becomes spiritually more balanced and rigorous, the strengthening of the civil resonance is accompanied by the deepening of the originally inherent Christian worldview, the thought of a deliberately chosen sacrificial path.

The religiosity of A.A. Akhmatova was poetic, transforming the world. Religion expanded the scope of beauty to include the beauty of feeling, the beauty of holiness, the beauty of church splendor.

A special place in Akhmatova's poetry is occupied by the theme of the Passion of Christ and the Resurrection. The poet's passionate theme is associated with the understanding of personal sacrifice, life as the Way of the Cross, the idea of ​​redemption and the high meaning of suffering.

Wound your holy body,

They draw lots for Thy garments.

This is a direct transcription of the lines from the Psalter: “You shall divide My garments for yourself, and for My garment you will have a lot of lots” (Psalm 22: 19). The fulfillment of this Old Testament prophecy about the suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ is repeated in one of the 12 Passionate Gospels (excerpts) read at the Great Heel Matins (performed in the evening of the Great Four): “The soldiers, when they crucified Jesus, took His clothes and divided into four parts, each a warrior in part, and a tunic; the chiton was not sewn, but all woven on top. So, they said to each other: “We will not tear him apart, but let us cast lots for him, whose will be,” so that what is said in the Scripture might come true: they divided My garments among themselves and cast lots for My clothes ”(John 19: 23-24) ... We hear the same words in the prokeem at the Great Heel Matins.

In the early period of her work, A. Akhmatova rethinks the tasks and feat of the Christian poet and patriot. In the light tragic events the war of 1914, the all-Russian collapse of 1917 and the personal losses inseparable from them in Akhmatova's poetry, the theme of the “end times”, the approach of the Antichrist, the end of the world and the Last Judgment, the theme of “fulfilling dates” and fulfilling prophecies begin to sound clearly.

In the Soviet period, fidelity to historical memory, paternal faith, national, national, universal foundations demanded courage, sometimes sacrifice from the creative people of Russia, testified to internal freedom in conditions of denunciations, terror and totalitarianism.

Years of relentless torture with fear, which seemed worse than death itself, is expressed in the lines of the brave poetess:

Better on the green square

Lie down on the unpainted platform

And under the cries of joy and groans

Red blood to the end to expire.

I press a smooth cross to my heart:

God, give peace to my soul!

The smell of decay is faintly sweet

It blows from the cool sheet.

A true poet cannot live and create under the power of fear, otherwise he ceases to be a poet. During the years when Akhmatova was persecuted and not published, depriving her of words and bread, she creates a cycle of Bible Verses (1921-1924), which expresses her protest, challenge to the dictatorial atmosphere and rejection of fear. She presents herself in the image of the wife of the biblical Lot, whom an angel leads out of the city of Sodom, which is perishing for her grave sins, forbidding her to look back (Gen. 19, 1–23), but this is beyond her strength:

To the red towers of native Sodom,

To the square where she sang, to the yard where she spun,

On the empty windows of a tall house,

Where she gave birth to her dear husband,

She looked and, shackled by mortal pain,

Her eyes could no longer look;

And the body became transparent salt,

And the fast legs rooted to the ground.

For many years A.A. Akhmatova wrote without hope of publication, and often burned what she wrote. The author never saw the poem "Requiem" (1935–1940) printed in his homeland; the first domestic publication appeared in the 1987 perestroika year.

Russian writers who remained “in the country of victorious socialism” or were forced to leave it were united in their attitude to the biblical tradition. Regardless of their personal attitude to religion, they were disgustingly instilled by those in power, an outrage over the paternal faith, the so-called "exposure" of the Bible, mockery of it - blasphemy, which called itself "scientific atheism", but in fact defiled genuine science, which has always been respect for freedom of conscience and for the greatest cultural treasures is characteristic.

Such real, honest and courageous writers, fulfilled with a genuine civic duty, include B.L. Pasternak. Born and raised in a Jewish family, he independently and meaningfully comes to Orthodoxy. This path for the future poet and writer began with the influence of his deeply religious Orthodox nanny.

From the first literary experiments (in the almanac "Lyric"; 1913) to "Hamlet", which opens a cycle of poems on the Gospel themes, - the path in half a lifetime. The poet passed the passion for symbolism, moderate futurism, temporarily became close to the LEF association. But the poet's personality was never completely captured by these ideological programs and false concepts. Even during this period, the Christian theme was not completely alien to him. So, the poem "Balzac" (1927), dedicated to exhausting toil and heavy everyday worries French writer, ends unexpectedly with a stanza:

When, when, wipe your sweat

And dry the coffee,

He will protect himself from worries

The sixth chapter of Matthew?

The sixth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew contains part of Christ's Sermon on the Mount. The Lord here gives a perfect example of prayer ("Our Father") and shows the way to salvation: Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all this will be added to you (Matthew 6, 33).

Even in a poem on a revolutionary theme, written in 1927, when a new period of persecution of the Church began in Soviet Russia, the poet finds the following reminiscence appropriate:

About the state idol,

Freedom is an eternal doorway!

Centuries creep out of the cells

Animals roam the colosseum

And the preacher's hand

Fearlessly baptizes the damp crate,

Panther training by faith,

And the step is always taken

From Roman circuses to Roman churches

And we live by the same yardstick

We are the people of the catacombs and mines.

It is not even this episodic appeal to the New Testament theme that is important, but the joyful, sometimes enthusiastic attitude to life that pervades all the work of these decades. The poetic image “my sister is my life” is included in the title of an entire collection (1923), which Boris Pasternak considered the beginning of his poetic life. In his poems, there is none of that insatiable selfishness that can be observed in many poets of the so-called "Silver Age". There is also no demonic gloom and tragic fracture.

The years of the brutal defeat and terror of the 1930s were a time of moral testing and choice for all people. B. Pasternak discovered such an arrangement of the soul, which inevitably had to lead him to a conscious adoption of Christianity. The war years finally determined and shaped the Christian worldview of B.L. Pasternak. The poem "Death of a Sapper" is permeated with the Gospel thought. The poet speaks of the immortality of the feat of a warrior who sacrifices his life for the sake of others. This is not an illusory and rhetorical immortality, which atheists like to talk about, but real immortality: he who fulfills the Divine commandment becomes the heir of eternal life. The poem "Scouts" speaks of three fearless warriors who are guarded by prayer:

There were three of them, frankly

Desperate to youth

Freed from bullets and captivity

With prayers in the depths of the fatherland.

In the poem "Revived Fresco", when describing the battle, images of church life are directly used:

The earth hummed like a prayer

About the disgust of the howling bomb

Censer smoke and rubble

Throwing out of the carnage.

Between battles, the warrior recalls the fresco on the walls of the chapel where his mother took him, and in his imagination the image of the Holy Great Martyr and Victorious George rises up, as if descending from her and defeating the enemy:

Oh, how he remembered those glades

Now that my chase

He tramples enemy tanks

With their formidable dragon scales!

He crossed the land of the border,

And the future, like the breadth of heaven,

Already raging, not dreaming,

Approaching, wonderful.

In the poem "Obesity", in which Pasternak writes about the valiant Russian sailors, he uses the church language:

To invincible - many years,

Famous to use!

Expansion to live in this world,

And endlessly the sea surface.

To use is an abbreviation for the bishop's many years: "Execute these despots" (Greek - for many years, lord).

The novel Doctor Zhivago (1946–1955) was the result not only of a long creative path, but also an attempt to comprehend the life he had lived in the light of the Christian worldview. In a letter to his cousin Olga Freidenberg (October 13, 1946) he wrote: “Actually, this is my first real work. In it I want to give a historical image of Russia over the last forty-five years, and at the same time, by all sides of its plot, heavy, sad and detailed, as, ideally, in Dickens and Dostoevsky, this thing will be an expression of my views on art, on The gospel, on human life in history and much more. The novel is still called Boys and Girls. In it, I settle scores with Jewry, with all kinds of nationalism (and in internationalism), with all shades of anti-Christianity and its assumptions that there are still some peoples after the fall of the Roman Empire, and there is an opportunity to build a culture on their raw national essence. The atmosphere of a thing is my Christianity. " Jewishness is not mentioned by chance. For a person who was born into a traditional Jewish family, the national idea becomes a kind of religion, being the reason for the insensitivity to the New Testament truth hardened over the centuries. In the novel Doctor Zhivago, Mikhail Gordon, who converted to Orthodoxy, expresses the thoughts of Boris Pasternak himself: this belittling task. How amazing it is! How could this happen? This holiday ... this rise above the meager mind of everyday life, all this was born on their land, spoke their language and belonged to their tribe. And they saw and heard it and missed it? How could they let a soul of such absorbing beauty and strength go out of it, how could they think that next to its triumph and accession they would remain in the form of an empty shell of this miracle ... "(Doctor Zhivago. Part Four. Overdue inevitability). The anti-Christianity mentioned in the letter by O. Freudenberg was the main element of the society in which the writer lived for the last 40 years. Militant atheism in the USSR was peculiarly combined with neo-paganism (the cult of party leaders and numerous monuments-idols, quasi-religious Soviet rituals, etc.).

The writer perceived the work on the novel as his Christian duty and saw in this the Divine will. From a religious point of view, the most important theme in Doctor Zhivago is the theme of life, death and Resurrection. The first title of the novel in the manuscript of 1946 is "There will be no death." B. Pasternak took these words from the Apocalypse of the Holy Apostle John the Theologian: “And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death will no longer be; neither weeping, nor outcry, nor sickness will be any more, for the former things have passed away ”(Rev. 21: 4). The surname of the protagonist of the novel - Zhivago (Church Slavonic form of the genitive case of the word "alive") - also indicates the main idea. The work begins with the death (funeral of Yuri's mother) and ends with the death of the protagonist. However, at the end of the book and the poetic supplement of the novel, there is the poem "The Garden of Gethsemane", which speaks of the great victory over death.

The all-Russian catastrophe of 1917 had one of its consequences the return of a part of the Russian intelligentsia to the paternal Orthodox faith, into the bosom of the Mother Church. Already in the "first wave" of Russian emigration, a number of writers appeared, with varying degrees of artistic talent, who entered the world of Russian Orthodoxy and embodied it in the pages of their works. The providential mission of the Russian exiles was to reveal to their compatriots and open to the world the spiritual treasures of “Holy Russia”. B.K. Zaitsev admitted that the sufferings and upheavals he experienced during the revolution allowed him to discover the "Russia of Holy Russia", which without these trials he, perhaps, would never have seen.

Ivan Sergeevich Shmelev belongs to Russian writers who deeply imbued with the spirit of Orthodoxy and reliably reflected it in their works. He was one of those Russian émigrés who, being cut off from their dearly beloved Russia, in hard thoughts about parting from their homeland, comprehended all the greatness of her spirituality.

After the defeat of Wrangel's Volunteer Army in Crimea, where in those years Civil War the Shmelevs lived, the Bolsheviks spared the writer, but shot his only son, an officer. This tragedy deeply shocked I.S. Shmeleva. Subsequently, he wrote: “I testify: I saw and experienced all the horrors, having survived in the Crimea from November 1920 to February 1922. If an accidental miracle and an imperious international commission could receive the right to conduct an investigation on the ground, it would have collected such material that would have absorbed all the crimes and all the horrors of beatings that have ever happened on earth! " On November 20, 1922, the Shmelevs left Moscow for Berlin, and two months later moved to Paris.

The entire creative heritage of Shmelev is imbued with Christian ideas, his entire creative path testifies to a gradual but steady spiritual ascent, to an ever closer fusion in the works of the earthly and heavenly. Already in the earliest works created in their homeland, there are Christian motives.

The image of Russia - Holy Russia - is central in the work of I.S. Shmeleva. He reveals to the reader a harmonious world in which "holidays, joys, sorrows" take place, the world of the Lord, and at the same time as close as possible to the daily life of a person, his life. But the world opened by the writer is at the same time spiritually sublime, for it is based on the Orthodox view, the Christian worldview, the knowledge of the human heart and soul, the paths of the individual and all of Russia as a whole.

In 1930-1931 Shmelev created the "Bogomolye". This is a wonderful story about a pilgrimage to the Holy Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, a child, with sincere and pious people - old man Gorkin and his father. Here the writer draws a living contact with the world of Russian holiness, shows the senile ministry of the ascetic - Elder Barnabas of Gethsemane, describes his works. The work unfolds a picture of a pilgrimage to the monastery to the Monk Sergius and Father Barnabas of many different people from different social strata. All believing Russia appears before us late XIX century. "Praying Mantis" is a reflection of a child's pure perception of the world.

In 1932-1933 I.S. Shmelev is working on the novel Nanny from Moscow, on the pages of which the soulful image of an old Russian believer is revealed.

The pinnacle of creativity and stage spiritual path Shmelev became the book "Summer of the Lord" (part 1 - 1927-1931, parts 2 and 3 - 1934-1944). The words of Christ are quite applicable to her "... if you do not turn and become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven" (Matthew 18: 3). In order to somehow alleviate the pain of contemplation of an outraged, devastated Russia, to get rid of the painful pictures of the bloody nightmare of the civil war experienced, the writer turns to the years of his distant childhood.

In The Lord's Summer, Shmelev vividly, fully and deeply recreates the church-religious layer of the people's life. He depicts the life of people, inextricably linked with the life of the church and worship. The writer shows a person's life not in the change of seasons, but in the church liturgical circle - a person walks along the time marked by the events of church life. The meaning and beauty of Orthodox holidays, rituals, customs, which remain unchanged from century to century, is revealed so accurately that the book, both in emigration and reaching the modern domestic reader, has become a kind of encyclopedia for many believers. In addition, psychological experiences, emotions, and prayer states of an Orthodox Christian are revealed here. "The Lord's Summer" is a story about the entry into the soul of a person of the truths of Orthodoxy.

The last masterpiece of I.S. Shmelev's novel "Heavenly Ways" (Volume I was published in Paris in 1937, Volume II - in 1948) is a unique phenomenon in Russian literature. The pious author created a work in which a person's life is inextricably linked with the action of Divine Providence. This new feature in Russian literature is described by I.A. Ilyin. “And since the existence of Russian literature, the artist has shown for the first time this wonderful meeting of the world-sanctifying Orthodoxy with the open-minded and sympatheticly tender soul of a child. For the first time, a lyric poem was created about this meeting, which is not composed of dogma, and not in sacrament, and not in worship, but in everyday life. For everyday life is permeated through and through with currents of Orthodox contemplation. "

Shmelev left us with a clear understanding that nothing is scary, because Christ is everywhere. The writer has suffered this truth and encourages us to see it and feel it constantly. This is what the artistic demand means to find hidden Beauty under the grimaces of life. This world-saving Beauty is Christ. Before he was looking for her on earthly ways, it turned out - he was only preparing himself for the "heavenly ways." In these ways I.S. Shmelev left earthly life.

In December 1949, he said: “God gave life to the sinner, and this is an obligation. I want to live as a true Christian and I can only accomplish this in church life. " June 24, 1950 Shmelev went to the small monastery of the Intercession Mother of God 150 kilometers from Paris. Finally, his wish for monastic peace and quiet, unhurried prayer and quiet holidays came true. He unpacked his things, stood for a while, breathing in the fresh air of a summer evening to the quiet bells ringing, and, a few hours later, died. Such an end is God's gift: not in anger and confusion, but in peace and spiritual exultation, his Lord's summer ended.

“The Bible is a book addressed to all mankind,” noted Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexy II. “The Bible spoke to our ancestors, tells us and will tell our descendants about the relationship between God and man, about the past, present and future of the Earth on which we live.”

"We cannot, having children, expect that once, having become mature, they themselves will understand that their path lies to the Church - for they may not understand, they may become coarse, the path of the Church may be forever obscured and closed. Children should be led to the Church from early childhood ... Not from youth, but earlier should begin feeding the child with the grace-filled forces of the Church, so that the young man's heart does not turn out to be deaf when the hour of creative search comes. "

Prot. Zenkovsky V.V.

To consider the formation of the Orthodox culture of students in secondary schools, it is necessary to turn to the concept of "Orthodox culture", where both components of the term: "Orthodox" and "culture" are defined by means of the conceptual apparatus of theological, philosophical, aesthetic and pedagogical sciences. "The adjective" Orthodox "comes from the noun" Orthodoxy "and means a sign that distinguishes the Orthodox Church from other Christian denominations.

The word "Orthodoxy" means true knowledge about God and creation. The Greek term "Orthodoxy" consists of two words - "right, true" and "glory" (in two meanings: "faith" and "doxology").

Correct teaching about God includes correct praise. The teaching of God to people is the Revelation of God to holy people through teaching and through the Sacraments. The Holy Fathers embodied this experience and knowledge in dogmas. "

The concept of "spirituality" is associated with the concept of "Orthodoxy". "Spirituality is a state of a spiritual person who has a certain type of behavior, motives and way of thinking that distinguish him from a non-spiritual person. Spirituality is not identical with the concept of" soulfulness ", which is associated with mental manifestations: mind, feelings, etc. Orthodox spirituality is the experience of a person's life in Christ, transformed by the grace of God.

Orthodox spirituality is Christocentric (since the hypostatic union of the divine and human nature took place in Christ), triadocentric (since Christ cannot be considered apart from other persons of the Holy Trinity) and church-centered (since the Church is understood as the Body of Christ). Thus, the core of Orthodox spirituality is Christ, the Holy Trinity and the Church.

The bearer of Orthodox spirituality is a person who has acquired the gift of the Holy Spirit. Man with developed creativity v different areas art, but who did not acquire the Holy Spirit, which gives life to the soul, is a man of soul and flesh. "

"Culture" as a philosophical concept means form public conscience and reflections of reality, as well as the human environment, represented by the products of his activities. Culture is the embodiment of the human spirit into forms that are accessible to objective observation.

For a more complete understanding of the concept of "Orthodox culture" I will give the most significant definitions of theologians, art historians, philosophers.

In my opinion, the most accurate Orthodox-philosophical definition of the concepts "spirituality", "culture" was given by I.A. Ilyin: "Culture is an internal and organic phenomenon: it captures the very depths of the human soul ... In this it differs from civilization, which can be absorbed externally and superficially ... Therefore, a people can have an ancient and refined spiritual culture, but in matters of external civilization ( clothing, housing, communication routes, industrial technology, etc.) show a picture of backwardness and primitiveness. And vice versa: the people can stand at the last height of technology and civilization, experience an era of decline. "

“The spirituality of a person consists in the confidence that within his soul there are the best and the worst, qualities that do not depend on his arbitrariness.” disclosure and implementation of spiritual life on earth. This is real culture. "

Thus, "religiosity is the living basis of true culture. It brings to man precisely those gifts without which culture loses its meaning and becomes simply unrealizable: a sense of anticipation, a sense of assignment and purpose, and a sense of responsibility."

Orthodox culture, according to N.A. Lacoste, is the sensual embodiment of the absolute values ​​of being in the creative forms of human life. The philosopher connects the concept of spirituality with the personal development of a person, since a real person is an agent who is aware of the absolute values ​​of being and must implement them in his behavior.

The most relevant circumstance that characterizes Orthodox culture is that all of it, even in its smallest components, was and remains spiritually, morally, aesthetically significant, and this alone determines the need to study it in our pragmatic age.

Thus, cultured person(in the Orthodox sense) must have developed feelings of anticipation, calling and responsibility. And where, no matter how at school, the mastery of Orthodox spiritual and moral values ​​is given, the foundations of Orthodox traditions, customs, customs are laid.

Report of Bishop of Stavropol and Vladikavkaz Theophanes

Orthodoxy is the living past, present and future of the Russian people. It is represented in every cell of life, in the images of the best sons of our people: spiritual and statesmen, thinkers and creators, warriors and ordinary workers.

Orthodoxy is a living history and living truth of the Russian people, it is culture and modern life, philosophy and worldview, ethics and aesthetics, upbringing and education. Therefore, to tear a Russian person away from Orthodoxy means to tear him away from own history, its roots and soil, i.e. just kill him. Thus, the return to Orthodoxy is the main condition for the salvation of the Russian people. To do this, we must provide every person with every opportunity to turn to faith, and above all, children. It is necessary that the connection between belief and life be formed from infancy, so that the child learns to motivate his behavior with the Christian faith, which gives spiritual strength. Therefore, it is the duty of the Church to make doctrinal truths alive in the eyes of the people.

This task can be accomplished through public policy, the strengthening of the traditional family and education.

It is necessary to return Orthodoxy, if not as a state ideology, then at least as a social ideology. Understanding it as a fundamental idea that will be understood and accepted by the majority of society. With its help, it will be possible to oust from the consciousness of Russians the widespread ideologemes-myths: godless materialism, soulless consumerism with indifferent pluralism, and spiritually dangerous cosmism with pantheism.

Today, calls for the search for a common idea, a deep reference point, a universally significant ideal are heard more and more insistently. Everyone now understands that it is impossible to organize anew the life of the people, and even more so the education and upbringing of young people, without a spiritual core, without an idea that unites and inspires people. Some people think that such a national idea can be invented and instilled in the people. But the history of the 20th century convincingly showed us that invented national ideas most often turn out to be erroneous, false, and even taking possession of the people for a short time always lead him to disaster.

Such an idea should ripen in the thick of the people's consciousness, reflect the deep aspirations of millions. If its prerequisites are not formed in the depths of society, then no efforts of state structures, theorists and ideologists will give a reliable result.

The roots of the modern civilizational collapse lie in the changed picture of the world that has developed in the era of modern times. With this understanding, God remains in philosophy and in pedagogy, but in a different capacity. He, in fact, is taken out of the brackets of this world, in which the man becomes the owner, now endowed with creative power.

We must fight the idea of ​​anthropocentrism in the name of establishing the principle of theocentrism in our life, for the focus of our being is not the earthy man, but the eternal God.

It is quite obvious that the most important task on this path is the education and upbringing of children and youth, those who should receive from us the age-old values ​​of people's life.

If we do not cope with this problem, then no economic and political programs will change anything for the better. They, just as they have done so far, will be perverted and strangled by immorality, selfish desire for profit by any means.

Orthodoxy understands true freedom as freedom from sin. This implies the voluntary self-restraint of a person, making him some kind of sacrifice, imposing on himself in the name of salvation certain spiritual and moral bonds. The liberal standard, however, asserts the exact opposite: removing from one's being everything that limits, constrains, does not allow, for the idea of ​​freedom is for him an idol above all faith in God. The direction that they are now trying to give to the system of secular education from kindergarten to high school, focuses on the formation and approval of this particular liberal standard of human freedom.

That is why we need to clearly define the goal of education, identifying the fundamental reason that generates all the consequences that are detrimental to our life and our salvation, testifying to the insanity of the existence of a person outside of faith as a norm of human existence, to educate a person in our own, Orthodox standards. Religious education rooted in the Orthodox Tradition should be oriented towards the formation of these standards, including the ideological attitudes of the individual.

Children can be taught in different ways. Unfortunately, often, the most common method is all sorts of prohibitions - on this or that clothes, certain hobbies, interests. Of course, restrictive, protective methods must be present along with others in the process of personality formation. But experience shows that this path is the least productive and most fraught with a response from childhood and adolescent negativism. Thoughtless prohibitions naturally provoke a stubborn tendency to act contrary. Equally erroneous is the assertion in the mind of a person of a positive ideal by the method of hammering in common truths, just as it was done in Soviet times. But life always revolts against the scheme and always wins.

The problem is that it is impossible in principle to program the behavior of people by means of ready-made and imposed from the outside worldview clichés. A person simultaneously exists in diverse everyday situations that do not fit into any schemes, which, due to this, turn out to be useless for him. The way out of this situation is that we put it in the concept of a standard. For if a person is brought up in a certain system of values, then at the moment of any, and even more fateful choice, due to the upbringing received, he will be able to make the right decision.

Thus, the task of including elements of religious education in secular education is seen in the formation of a living standard, a certain system of values ​​that predetermine a person's behavior in various circumstances and make Christian motivation of actions and decisions urgent for him. Through religious education to Orthodox image life - this should be the strategy of modern Orthodox pedagogy.

There is no people's life without faith in God. Faith is the soul of the people.

But is there a place for it in the current legislation?

The law on education states that education in our country must have a "secular character", that "At the request of parents or persons replacing them, with the consent of children studying in state and municipal educational institutions, the administration of these institutions in agreement with the relevant authorities local government provides a religious organization with the opportunity to teach children about religion outside of the educational program: (Article 5, paragraph 4). Our entire educational system, subject to the inertia of previous years, perceives this law as an affirmation of atheistic education in public schools.

"Secular" does not mean atheistic, and therefore not clerical. All confessional general education schools before the revolution in Russia, and now abroad, like modern Orthodox grammar schools, gave and are still giving a completely secular education.

The interpretation of the “secular nature” of education as atheistic is based not on the letter or the essence of the law, but on a complete lack of understanding that another completely legitimate approach to this problem is possible. It is necessary to use the regional 20% component presented at the discretion of the local authorities for teaching religiously-oriented subjects, teach basic humanitarian subjects in such a way that they give an objectively scientific, and not biased-atheistic description of the place and significance of religion in history and culture.

Atheism, even not militant - aggressive, is not some kind of objectively over-religious progressive knowledge. It is just one of the worldviews that does not express the views of the majority of the world's population, and does not have any scientific substantiation.

In a country where more than half of the population declares itself to be believers, there is no reasonable basis for atheism to dominate education and upbringing.

Atheism, denying the ontological existence of good and evil, is not capable of logically consistently substantiating the necessity and obligation of morality.

Today Orthodoxy is the main spiritual and moral support of a very large part of the Russian population of our country. Therefore, it would be fair to include religiously oriented disciplines in the grid of compulsory subjects on the principle of an equal alternative. Parents who want to educate their children as atheists can choose, for example, "Fundamentals of Morality" instead of "Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture."

The system of Orthodox upbringing and education in Russia is being formed today in accordance with the following principles and directions.

First of all, the development of the spiritual and moral potential of humanitarian knowledge began, with the inclusion of religious components in its content. A system of spiritual and moral education is being created, based on both humanistic and religious traditions.

Today we can already say that the possibility of obtaining religious education is provided in accordance with the beliefs and at the request of children and parents, as an additional, optional. A software and scientific-methodological support for teaching spiritual and moral disciplines is being created. In this regard, the activities of educational institutions and religious organizations are coordinated on issues of mutual interest.

A big step forward is the inclusion of Theology in the number of educational directions allowed by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation in state universities.

Raising the authority of Christian science, and, consequently, Christian education and upbringing, we can work on the return of our people to a moral life, to the norms of Christian morality. In addition, these measures will help to exclude the egregious facts of anti-state educational activities of sectarianism, which is becoming a real state disaster.

This requires uniting all forces, including in cooperation the most authoritative educational and scientific structures - RAS, RAO, Moscow State University, the Ministry of Education and Science, educational institutions of the Moscow Patriarchate, in order to carry out fruitful work, including promoting:

Exchange of information and transfer of experience in educational activities;

Understanding objectively full interpretation legislative acts;

Conducting an analysis of existing experience and considering the issue of opening an educational direction and specialty Orthodox theology.

The preparation and approval of standards in Theology and other humanitarian disciplines, in their composition corresponding to traditional higher theological education, consistent with the existing norms (the presence of compulsory disciplines, the total number of hours and hours in the subjects) of the organization and
the functioning of the Educational and Methodological Association for
polyconfessional direction and specialty Theology;

The study and implementation of traditional and modern experience of educational activities, implying a religious
worldview and aimed at obtaining a secular education;

Interaction on a bilateral basis in matters of publishing educational literature, developing and implementing curricula and other materials, conducting various activities in the field
education and expertise in relation to published books;

Involvement in writing programs and teaching aids on basic humanitarian subjects of professional specialists from culture-forming confessions, capable of giving an objective scientific description of the place and significance of religion in history and culture.

There are already significant shifts in the consciousness of the people, government officials, employees of ministries and departments.

In the Stavropol and Vladikavkaz Dioceses, active work is being carried out in the field of Orthodox education and spiritual and moral education of children and youth. This work includes both the improvement of secondary and higher education (the introduction of the subject "Foundations of Orthodox Culture"), and a system of measures addressed to the family, preschool children; introduction of spiritual and moral content into the sphere additional education, culture, health care, social protection, the work of public associations with adolescents and youth, the activities of law enforcement agencies.

In the Diocese, measures are being taken to improve the qualifications of teachers, including not only the holding of scientific and practical educational conferences, seminars, round tables, but also the organization of training courses for teachers "Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture."

After the conclusion of the Agreement on Cooperation between the Stavropol and Vladikavkaz Dioceses and the Ministry of Education of the Stavropol Territory dated May 16, 2002, it became possible to introduce the subject “Basics
Orthodox Culture ”(mostly optional). On the basis of this Agreement, more than 30 Cooperation Agreements have already been concluded and programs have been developed for joint actions of executive authorities, bodies of the Education Directorate and commissions for religious education and catechesis in all deaneries of the Diocese.

But there are still spiritual problems that cannot yet be dealt with.

The evil influence of the environment permeates our schools and is often perceived as a coveted forbidden fruit;

We have a huge shortage of teachers. Our external successes are much ahead of the internal - spiritual. Good people come to teach, often believers, but they themselves are neophytes: they do not have the proper upbringing, taste, do not understand their duties, do not know how to educate
children in spiritual, church life, because they themselves do not know what spiritual life is. They confuse spiritual freedom with democracy, spiritual leadership with brainwashing, and so on.

How to ignite the soul of a child with faith, so that it becomes not some kind of everyday state, but so that the heart of the child ignites? How to do it? The heart lights up from the heart like a candle from a candle. Usually this happens due to a meeting with some wonderful believer, an ascetic of the faith. The beauty of a heroic deed can captivate the soul of a child, it captivates him. If our teachers are such ascetics, then the children will be believers. If our teachers are simple Orthodox philistines, then our children will leave the Church, as it happened, before the revolution. Then the Law of God was taught everywhere, but this did not prevent a huge part of our people from renouncing the faith as soon as the revolution took place.

Religious subjects cannot be taught at school in the same way as other subjects, it must be remembered that the main objective- this is to cultivate in the soul of a child the desire to be an ascetic of the faith, it is necessary to cultivate in him love for God, love for the Church.

It should be well remembered that education is not just edification. Upbringing is a long-term cohabitation with children.

Times are changing and secular education, experiencing a deep crisis, turns its face to spiritual, traditional foundations.

The use of faith necessary for the revival and prosperity of Russia is well known. It consists of a corpus of those primordial values ​​of morality and civic life, which are the same for both the Gospel and the constitution of the modern state.

And the primary task of the modern period is to unmistakably affirm these moral and civic values ​​in our schools. Moreover, to put them at the center of education, since the future of the Fatherland primarily depends on the spiritual and moral potential of young people, on their kindness, honesty, justice and striving for disinterested concern for their neighbors and selfless love for their Motherland.

In the last period, moral imperatives more and more perceptibly triumph over momentary needs, they are increasingly becoming

a guide to action by the government and the Ministry of Education and Science.

Reforms and innovations will be carried out on the basis of the currently developed National Doctrine of Education and Federal program its development.

As a result, the leading role of spiritual and moral values ​​in the development of education will be restored, upbringing will be returned to schools, which means that the humanistic mission of educational institutions will be strengthened at the very origins.

At the suggestion of His Holiness the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexy II, a secular-religious commission on education was created, which is designed to free state educational standards, curricula, textbooks and teaching aids from manifestations of militant atheism.

Most of the tasks that determine the development of schools, universities and other educational institutions can be solved only with the active participation of the general public, representatives of the religious-confessional, state-political and business circles.

Without social organization of the life of children, adolescents and youth outside of school and other educational institutions, it is impossible to ensure the full upbringing of the younger generation. It is very important for the Orthodox Church to find an opportunity to participate more actively in its inherent forms in the activities of public organizations for children and youth.

Summing up all of the above, it should be noted that a certain part of our society is already moving towards the revival of Russian national traditions and culture. Against the background of this process, the crystallization of the basic principles of Orthodox education is taking place. This is, first of all, Christocentrism, the personal nature of learning through the unity of the family, parish and school, teaching love affairs, churching, asceticism, getting ahead morally and rationally by moral education of rational-informative, instilling the skills of moral perception of cultural values, fostering a sense of humanity and patriotism, deeply moral attitude to the surrounding world. On this basis, the national Russian culture, the self-consciousness of our people was formed, there is hope that the spiritual revival of Russia will begin with the establishment and spread of Orthodox education.

Foreword

For a teacher of Orthodox culture, the simplest method of teaching her children would be to retell the textbook of the Law of God in the hope that gradually the acquired knowledge will form the necessary personal qualities children and introduce them to the Orthodox culture. However, the modern state general education school has a secular character. How to solve the problem of enthralling children with the Divine Truth, reflected in a variety of different forms ah the manifestation of the beauty of Orthodox culture in the surrounding life? A teacher is required to thoroughly prepare for each lesson, a great love for children and a desire to convey to them the light of love and beauty that Orthodox culture carries. These manuals have been developed to help teachers who want to walk this path with children.

The purpose of the Conceptual Justification of the program of the academic subject "Orthodox Culture" is to establish a common understanding by the participants of all educational structures of the meaning of the subject "Orthodox Culture", which is equally related to the content of the subject and to the specifics of its program. The conceptual rationale should help address three issues:

1. Why should modern schoolchildren be taught this subject?

2. How to organize the pedagogical process so that the teacher does not distort the sacred basis of the content of this subject?

3. How to connect the subject "Orthodox culture" with the interests of modern schoolchildren (motivation of the learning process and selection of content), avoiding the danger of a knowledge-based approach?

In connection with the undeveloped scientific and theoretical basis and methods of teaching the subject "Orthodox culture" there is no clarity in the definition of approaches to the selection of content. Therefore, it seems necessary to provide a comprehensive presentation of materials of a theoretical and methodological nature, which will make it possible to understand the conceptual basis of the new academic subject and the content of the program, built in accordance with this basis. The conceptual basis of the subject and the sample curriculum are developed in accordance with the requirements of the "Model content of education in the academic subject" Orthodox culture "".

Rationale includes:

Determination of the goals and objectives of the subject, as well as its specifics.
- Methodological substantiation of the subject (characterization of the concept of "Orthodox culture" in cultural, historical, axiological, theological and pedagogical aspects).
- General characteristics of Orthodox culture as an educational field.
- Principles of building a subject program.
- Determination of the structure of the program of the subject in accordance with its specifics.
- Information about the age, individual characteristics of the spiritual, moral and aesthetic development of modern schoolchildren in connection with the peculiarities of the perception of the content of the subject.
- Requirements for teacher training in accordance with the specifics of the content of the subject.
- An experimental methodological kit for a teacher on the subject of "Orthodox culture", including three manuals.

1. Methodical manual containing:
a curriculum in a subject;
thematic planning by quarters of the academic year;
lesson plans with methodological comments.

2. Manual "Illustrations", which contains a list of illustrations to accompany the lessons.

3. Musical aid "Sound palette"- lesson musical materials.

In a separate section methodological manual highlighted "Conceptual substantiation of the program of the academic subject" Orthodox culture "(grades 1-11).

Conceptual substantiation of the program of the academic subject "Orthodox Culture"

Introduction

The "Approximate content of education in the academic subject" Orthodox culture "substantiates the relevance and possibility of introducing the subject" Orthodox culture "in public schools, lyceums and gymnasiums" (58). Analysis of the situation in Russia over the years preceding the development of this document showed: A Moral values in our society, from the area of ​​participation in the general, collective, conciliar ideal of a person's responsibility for another person, from the area of ​​empathy with other people, they have shifted to experiencing only their own luck, to the manifestation of practicality and rationalism.

As a result, the disunity of people increases, morality deteriorates, the family is destroyed, the meaning of life is lost, the criminalization of consciousness, the growth of forms of deviant behavior (drug addiction, vagrancy, alcoholism, sexual promiscuity, delinquency) occurs. All this can lead to the moral degradation of society. Such negative phenomena are especially noticeable among young people. This puts before the state educational structures responsible for the spiritual health of the nation, the urgent task of social and pedagogical correction and rehabilitation of young members of Russian society.

As a didactic form of the necessary spiritual and moral correction (within the scope of school education) it is proposed to introduce into the basic curriculum of a general education school the subject "Orthodox culture", which will oppose the traditional values ​​of Russian culture to the moral anti-values ​​of modern society. They can be the basis for the spiritual and moral health improvement (education, re-education) of modern schoolchildren (for more details see "The approximate content of education in the academic subject" Orthodox culture "").

The main feature of the subject "Orthodox Culture" is its cultural orientation. This is due to the secular nature of the public school in which the subject will be taught. In accordance with the leading goals of a general education school, determined by the Law of the Russian Federation "On Education", the "Approximate Content of Education in the Subject" Orthodox Culture "" defines in detail the main goals and objectives that should be implemented in the study of this subject.

The Conceptual Justification of the program of this subject explains how to apply the normative guidelines of "Approximate Content ..." to the process of introducing the subject "Orthodox Culture", which is innovative for the state education system. This presupposes the concretization of the basic methodological blocks: the clarification of the basic concepts of the subject and the translation of general goals into a psychological, pedagogical and methodological interpretation, understandable to the teacher.

The methodological basis of the program is: patristic heritage (St. Basil the Great, St. John Chrysostom - interpretation of Holy Scripture; St. Gregory the Theologian, St. Gregory of Nyssa, Venerable Maximus the Confessor - the doctrine of man; St. Clement of Alexandria - about the relationship knowledge and faith; about feeling (sensation) as one of the four components of proof; about the essence and methods of "childbearing"; St. Gregory the Sinaite - about the inner improvement of man; St. Tikhon of Zadonsky - about the forms of moral edification; St. Seraphim of Sarov - on the correspondence of the methods and content of the teacher's conversation to the level of the spiritual and mental development of the student; St. Ignatius Brianchaninov - on the accessibility of the studied source to the student's perception; on the use of different forms of presentation of spiritual material to activate positive mental states (for example, on arousing the will to repentance by means of poetry) ; St. Theophan the Recluse - on the principles of selection of the content and systematization of the material of the Holy th Scripture and the forms of its assimilation; St. right. John of Kronstadt - on the substantive basis for the intensification of interest in the knowledge of the world; about the laws of creativity, the category of the beautiful and the laws of Divine action; about the directions and tasks of pedagogical work; on the allocation of theological core in the selection of material); works of theologians (S.L. Epifanovich, S.M. Zarin, A.I. Osipov, Father P. Florensky, etc.); philosophers (M.M.Bakhtin, V.V. Zenkovsky, L.P. Karsavin, I.A.Ilyin, N.O. Lossky, etc.); culturologists, art historians (P.A.Gnedich, V.P. Lega, L.A. Uspensky, F.I. Uspensky, etc.); psychologists (L. S. Vygotsky, V. V. Davydov, S. L. Rubinstein); teachers (Sh.A. Amonashvili, E.N. Ilyina, S.N. Lysenkova, V.A. professionals in aesthetic education(D.B. Kabalevsky, B.M. Nemensky, V.K.Beloborodova, T.N. Ovchinnikova, etc.); philologists (I.O.Shmeleva); theoretical studies on the development of educational standards, government documents in the field of education, as well as generalization materials practical experience teaching a subject based on the Bank of psychological and pedagogical data, the analysis of which made it possible to give a theoretical substantiation of the goals, objectives, principles of material selection, based on the specifics of the subject and to develop a methodology for teaching it at school (1-85).

1.1. Definition of the concept of "Orthodox culture". Specificity of the subject

Currently, there are several options for teaching the subject "Orthodox culture": as the Law of God, as the history of culture, as a subject of local history. Without denying all that is useful in these options, for the introduction of a subject into a mass general education school, one should nevertheless determine a single basis for the subject and its variable components. This will allow keeping common goals and the tasks of the subject, to enrich its content and forms of presentation. The main basic element is the presence in the title of the subject of the key words "Orthodox culture", which requires a unified interpretation of the concepts of "Orthodox", "culture", "spirituality".

In the concept of "Orthodox culture" both components of the term: "Orthodox" and "culture" - are determined by means of the conceptual apparatus of theological, philosophical, aesthetic and pedagogical sciences. "The adjective" Orthodox "comes from the noun" Orthodoxy "and means a sign that distinguishes the Orthodox Church from other Christian denominations. The word" Orthodoxy "means true knowledge about God and creation. The Greek term "Orthodoxy" consists of two words - "right, true" and "glory" (in two meanings: "faith" and "praise." teaching and through the Sacraments. The Holy Fathers embodied this experience and knowledge in dogmas "(10).

The concept of "spirituality" is associated with the concept of "Orthodoxy". "Spirituality is a state of a spiritual person who has a certain type of behavior, motives and way of thinking that distinguish him from an unspiritual person. Spirituality is not identical with the concept of" soulfulness ", which is associated with mental manifestations: mind, feelings, etc. Orthodox spirituality is the experience of a person's life in Christ, transformed by the grace of God. Orthodox spirituality is Christocentric (since the hypostatic union of the divine and human nature took place in Christ), triadocentric (since Christ cannot be considered apart from other persons of the Holy Trinity) and church-centered (since the Church is understood as the Body of Christ). Thus, the core of Orthodox spirituality is Christ, the Holy Trinity and the Church. The bearer of Orthodox spirituality is a person who has acquired the gift of the Holy Spirit. A person with developed creative abilities in various fields of art, but who has not acquired the Holy Spirit, which gives life to the soul, is a person of the soul and flesh "(10).

"Culture" as a philosophical concept means a form of social consciousness and reflection of reality, as well as a person's habitat, represented by the products of his activities. Culture is the embodiment of the human spirit into forms that are accessible to objective observation.

For a more complete understanding of the concept of "Orthodox culture" we give the most significant definitions of theologians, art historians, philosophers. The Orthodox philosophical definition of the concepts "spirituality", "culture" was given by I.A. Ilyin: "Culture is an internal and organic phenomenon: it captures the very depths of the human soul ... In this it differs from civilization, which can be absorbed externally and superficially ... Therefore, a people can have an ancient and refined spiritual culture, but in matters of external civilization ( clothing, housing, communication routes, industrial technology, etc.) show a picture of backwardness and primitiveness. And vice versa: the people can stand at the last height of technology and civilization, to experience an era of decline "(31, p. 300). Thus, "spirituality does not coincide with consciousness, is not exhausted by thought and is not limited to the sphere of words and utterances. A person's spirituality consists in the confidence that within his soul there are better and worse qualities that do not depend on his arbitrariness." "In spiritual work, a person learns to bow before God, to honor oneself, to see and appreciate spirituality in all people and to desire creative disclosure and realization of spiritual life on earth. This is real culture." Thus, "religiosity is the living basis of true culture. It brings to a person precisely those gifts without which culture loses its meaning and becomes simply unrealizable: a sense of imperative, a sense of assignment and purpose, and a sense of responsibility" (33, p. 446).

Thus, a cultured person (in the Orthodox sense) must have developed feelings of anticipation, calling and responsibility.

Orthodox culture, according to N.O. Lossky, is the sensual embodiment of the absolute values ​​of being in the creative forms of human life. The philosopher connects the concept of spirituality with the personal development of a person, since a real person is an agent who is aware of the absolute values ​​of being and must implement them in his behavior (41).

A spiritual person always strives for truth, goodness and beauty. General culture a person is determined by his spiritual culture.

The spiritual component of culture includes ideology, art and religion (Latin - "shrine", "piety", "piety"), which determine the system of spiritual values, social norms and the relationship of man to God as the highest principle, to the world, people. The spiritual sphere of Orthodoxy determines the direction of the Orthodox culture.

Orthodox culture reflects the peculiarities of the religion of our country (Orthodoxy), refracted in the traditional legal, moral and aesthetic forms of human activity, transformed by the Grace of God.

Orthodox culture has been the core of Russian history over the past 10 centuries. Understanding the culture of a people is possible only in conjunction with the history of this people. The introduction of Christianity in Russia in its Greco-Eastern form left a vivid imprint on the specifics of education and culture of both the Russian and other peoples that were part of the Russian state. Thus, the phenomenon of Orthodox culture reflects the characteristic features of human consciousness and environment, formed and organized on the basis of Orthodox spirituality in the context of Russian history and presented in the form of products of human activity.

The relationship between a person's introduction to art and his spiritual and moral development has been noted by many authors (33, 36, 53, etc.). Scientists explain the high educational potential of art (culture) by ontological links between the moral and aesthetic phenomena of culture.

The social and historical significance of culture and art is explained by the need to preserve and pass on to descendants the ideal models of human activity as a reflection of God's plan.

Any humanitarian knowledge forms the worldview of a person. This is due to the fact that the worldview includes an emotional and evaluative attitude to knowledge, to moral norms, aesthetic manifestations. If such an attitude is not formed in the learning process, a person cannot be considered cultured. Thus, the RF Law "On Education" defines education as a complex process of upbringing and training. An important conclusion follows from this: the academic subject should contain a vivid emotional attitude to the system of values ​​adopted in society. Otherwise, it is impossible to realize educational tasks. The subject "Orthodox culture", integrating theological, historical, aesthetic, philological knowledge, has exceptional opportunities for solving these educational problems.

The educational possibilities of the subject "Orthodox culture" are explained by the fact that Orthodox culture has preserved the experience of feelings, reference values ​​that reflected the way a person responds to the world in aesthetic forms, and also by the fact that, based on the norms of Christian morality (morality), it fulfilled a regulatory and culture-forming role in public life Russia, while maintaining the continuity of spiritual traditions. The spiritual core (mentality) of the Russian nation, formed on the basis of these traditions, is defined by prominent figures of Russian culture as the soul of Russia (34, 83).

Christian morality as a component of Orthodox culture has always been a system-forming component of general education, which underlies the social and moral education of schoolchildren, the formation of their civil position... This was reflected in the definition of the tasks of education, ideological attitudes, formed the basis for the analysis of the activities and relationships of people. The loss of the continuity of traditions in the spiritual and moral education of children led to crisis phenomena in the development of society. Therefore, a culturological training course was developed with the task of systematically and consistently communicating spiritual and moral knowledge to children, reflecting the main traditional national values ​​(and such a value tradition for Russia is Orthodox culture). Having a spiritual, moral and aesthetic orientation, the subject "Orthodox Culture" will acquaint schoolchildren with the values ​​of Christian morality, based on the traditional understanding of morality as good behavior, agreement with the absolute laws of truth, dignity, duty, conscience, and honor of a citizen of their Fatherland.

The introduction of systematic teaching of the subject of a spiritual and moral orientation, restoring the experience of practical education of piety, lost as a result of political cataclysms in Russia in the 20th century, can and should prevent the moral degradation of public consciousness.

1.2. General characteristics of Orthodox culture as an educational field

1. Basic level. This is knowledge of a spiritual and moral nature: the Orthodox teaching about the Creator and creation.

2. Cultural and educational level. This is the refraction of teaching into various forms of social, cultural, material life of the Russian people at sublevels: Church Slavonic language, religious painting and icon painting, literature, Orthodox education, church music, religious philosophy. Orthodox culture belongs to the educational areas "Social Studies", "Art" and "Philology". The allocation of a separate educational area "Orthodox culture" seems necessary, since this academic subject has an independent and specific object of study - the process of development of Orthodox culture and a complex structure of content, which cannot be fully assimilated as part of others. educational areas... The content of this subject includes materials, the study of which will contribute to the formation of a moral and aesthetic value judgment of the phenomena of the surrounding reality on the basis of Orthodox traditions and the system of values. The subject of study is the phenomena of Orthodox culture, reflected in the Holy Scriptures, works of art (architecture, painting, music), spiritual and secular literature, sources of local history.

The area of ​​scientific knowledge in which the concept of "Orthodox culture" is used is education, theory and methods of spiritual, moral and aesthetic education. Therefore, this concept is associated with the concepts of "aesthetic education" and "moral education". The subject allows for interdisciplinary connections with such academic subjects as music, visual arts, the world around, history, social studies, Russian literature, Russian language, world art culture.

1.3. Goals and objectives of the program of the academic subject "Orthodox Culture"

In accordance with the leading goals of the general education school, determined by the Law of the Russian Federation "On Education" and indicated in the "Approximate content of education in the academic subject" Orthodox Culture "", the program defines the following common tasks training and education:

Teaching of cultural knowledge to schoolchildren, necessary for the formation of a holistic picture of the world in them, based on Orthodox cultural values ​​traditional for Russia.

The upbringing of schoolchildren as pious citizens who have virtues in the Orthodox sense, who are aware of the absolute values ​​of being and the need to implement them in their behavior.

Transfer of knowledge to modern schoolchildren in the field of the Orthodox cultural tradition as a means of spiritual, moral and aesthetic development of the individual. In accordance with the specifics of the subject, which has a multicomponent structure of content, the tasks of raising children are concretized.

The tasks of spiritual and moral education:

Development of understanding of the meaning of the creative action of God the Creator.
Developing a moral sense of empathy.
Developing a sense of responsibility for another person.
Developing a sense of thanksgiving.
Development of the ability to interact with the surrounding world of people and nature in accordance with the norms of Christian morality. Tasks of aesthetic education:
Development of aesthetic perception.
Development of artistic ideas and concepts about Orthodox culture.
Development of aesthetic judgments and tastes in the field of objects of Orthodox culture.
Development of artistic skills and aesthetic needs based on examples of Orthodox art.

The solution of the set tasks can be realized provided that schoolchildren are interested in Orthodox culture.

The pedagogical interpretation of the tasks set involves the allocation of knowledge, abilities, skills, levels of upbringing, which are indicators of their implementation. The definition of knowledge is not difficult problem, since the subject involves familiarizing students with the main content of the Christian doctrine, monuments of Orthodox writing, pictorial and musical art... The amount of knowledge is predetermined by the culturological nature of the subject and is reflected in the "Approximate content of education in the subject ...".

Determination of skills and abilities in the subject area "Orthodox culture"

The pedagogical solution involves the creation of a system for the development of specific (in accordance with the specifics of the subject) skills and abilities. Their specificity is associated with the Divine nature of the Source that feeds the Orthodox culture, the comprehension of which is impossible within the framework of a secular general education. At the same time, the study of the subject "Orthodox culture" in the volume determined by the "Approximate content of education in the subject ..." becomes achievable with the activation of the figurative-associative perception of educational information. To do this, the content of the program should include teaching materials that will stimulate it. The methods of aesthetic, moral education and methods of stimulating the skills of artistic creativity, which can be successfully used in the lesson of Orthodox culture, have the possibilities of activating the figurative-associative perception.

The skill is formed by repetition. In the lessons of Orthodox culture, children through training can develop the skills of communication with objects of Orthodox culture, the vision of the purposeful formation of the image of God's creation in the surrounding life, the need to look for it and find it in the Holy Scriptures, in the lives of saints, in Orthodox traditions and values ​​reflected in works of art and in the surrounding life (in Orthodox holidays, the language of worship, etc.). In the depicted, reflected in nature and in the works of church and secular art, one must teach to see the meaning for which a certain form was created (image, prayer, life, canon, chant, genre, decoration, ritual, building, holiday, etc.). The skill of communicating with high examples of Orthodox culture should be formed in direct communication with the original, and if impossible - with a retelling, reproduction, video film. Educational tasks should be set as practical, creative: understanding the figurative content, creating an image in one's own products of creative activity and expressing one's attitude in them.

Skills in the field of Orthodox culture presuppose the creative application of the knowledge gained in everyday life: for example, knowledge about the childhood of Rev. Sergius of Radonezh and family relationships from the lives of other saints will allow the child to develop the ability to obey elders, honor each member of his family, the ability to fulfill his duties in relation to loved ones, comrades, etc.

Two conclusions follow from this:

1. The child must master the language skills of perceiving Orthodox culture. This is due to the development of creative thinking and perception. The data of psychologists show that children have the makings of creative perception (12). It is characterized by the interconnection of moral and aesthetic categories: the category of good merges with the category of the beautiful, beautiful, the category of evil - with the category of the ugly. Creative development presupposes movement from an image-feeling to a means of expression: intonation, genre, style, color, form, peculiarities of language, rite, canon. The skills should be developed in a child in the unity of his mastery of the form and content of Orthodox art.

2. The lesson of Orthodox culture can only be personality-oriented. This is implemented in the form of a dialogue. The teacher goes from awakening the child's feelings through the image and then to his awareness of the means of expression. At the same time, heuristic and problem teaching methods are used.

Training should be organized in such a way that initial stage the child has formed a need to study that has something to do with interests modern schoolchild... Then this actualized need will allow the teacher, together with the child, to formulate the question: for what and how was the Orthodox culture created? And now, relying on the child's interest, the teacher will be able in the learning process to show the authors and the means of its creation, its role in the life of Russian people for a millennium. This sequence of educational stages will lead children to a gradual understanding of the essence of Orthodox culture as a culture created for the glory of Christ.