Having chosen this patristic definition of theology as the title of this chapter we must also say that a theologian is the one who has "Christ's mind", who worships God in "spirit and truth", that theology is the knowledge of the divinely revealed eternal truths leading into life eternal.
But Christ's mind as well as the Spirit and Truth are unique and abide only in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church having Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior Himself as Its Head. This theology, divinely revealed and guarded by the Church, is assimilated by way of an effective growing into the Church, which is accomplished mainly through prayer and compliance with Christ's commandment concerning love of God and one's neighbors.
Such theology, concordant with what the Church has been saying for ages and everywhere through Its Apostles, Church Fathers and Saints, unfortunately, has little in common with the "theological science" and "theological creativity", which have so abundantly flourished in the 20th century amongst ecclesiastical modernists and apostates.
The recently canonized St. John (Maximovitch) wrote that such human reasonings, instead of bowing before the divinely revealed truths, try to adapt them to their own understanding. "This is the desire to level and intermix that which was revealed by God with what the man himself has found... Our philosophers seem to feel akin to ancient heretics without concealing their sympathy with them and seeing the preachers of truth in them" [137].
These words in the best way possible characterize "theological" writings of contemporary heresiarchs. In them the reader may find "female nature in Divinity", the "World Soul" and apocatastasis (Sergei Bulgakov writes about it with sympathy) with "pre-existence of the soul" and other cabbalistic and occult-gnostic inventions. Moreover, these ideas presented in a slightly new manner are passed as brilliant theological "insights" and "teachings". Is this not the reason why all these renovationists try to denigrate the Russian Church declaring that it had no independent theology until the 20th century. They maintain that the flowering of Russian religious thought occurred through the activity of S. Bulgakov, P. Florensky, N. Berdyaev and their followers, through all those whom F.M. Dostoevsky had aptly called "religious idlers".
But idleness and vanity are not the only forces motivating such people. The single-minded coordination of their efforts in secret societies and organizations controlled by these societies (like Theological Institute in Paris and St.Vladimir's Seminary in New York, Theological Academy and Seminaries of the Moscow Patriarchate and other Ecumenical Patriarchates, not to speak of such new hot houses of malicious Renovationism as the University est. in commemoration of Archpriest A.Men' and St.Tikhon's Theological Institute in Russia) is evidence enough that the worldwide propagation of this "theological creativity", so akin to the most terrible ancient heresies, is of great importance to someone. This "theology" of apostasy which from its first steps has placed itself above and outside the teaching of the Church Fathers and has been constantly contradicting it, cannot be the teaching of the Church, although it constantly poses as such. Being unable to abide within the Church, to be in accord with the Fathers, these "theologians" would declare as a "church" whatever is capable of accommodating any heresy. They would not only declare, but would hastily create this anti-church in ecumenism which before our eyes is quickly developing into super-ecumenism with clearly defined features of the religion of Antichrist.
That which is created in the limited world of theological school, congresses and assemblies is dutifully advertised, popularized and introduced into the practice of increasingly degenerating churches. The success of this corrupting activity is here for everyone to see: succumbing to obedient mood, worshippers adopt the previously impossible innovations, and the wolves who control them may now with increasing frankness their satanic objectives (see, for example, Ch.4 utterances of Metr. Kirill of Smolensk at the Sixth Assembly of the WCC).
The gift of the discernment of spirits is becoming a great rarity, and thanks to advertising the writings of "founders" and their followers (bulgakovs, florenskys, shmemans, men's) occupying shelves in bookshops intermixed with the works of Blavatskaya, Steiner, Hinduists and Satanists, are finding new hundreds of thousands of new readers.
The quite recent artfulness of this theological "party" looks ridiculous and naive today, as we recall a characteristic admission of one of the Moscow Sophianists who was fond of repeating that he had entitled his article on Bulgakov as "Father Sergi" in order to bring out the consonant "Father of the Church" in the consciousness of his reader. Only a few years later no tricks are needed: heretics are now openly called "fathers of the church", and one, even of a lesser caliber (A.Men'), is referred to as "the son of man"!
The task of substitution of the Church Fathers by bulgakovs, theology by heresy, and the Church of Christ by antichristian harlot of Babylon is zealously carried out by those whom our ancestors would parade in the city streets having placed caps on their heads bearing the inscription "Satan's warriors". Now these warriors have power and authority in the world of apostasy.
The Orthodox Church and theology bear no relation to all this. Never will the Church call heretic Bulgakov a theologian, never will theological degrees be conferred on Catholics and Monophysites in the Church, as has become the custom in the Theological Academies of the Moscow Patriarchate. The One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Orthodox Church is one with the Church Fathers and It cannot but abide in the patristic contemplation of God. "To reason about everything "in Christ" -- these are the main commandments for every Christian, this is our categorical Christian imperative of the theory of knowledge" (Justin Popovich) [138]. More often than not true theology speaks softly, but its pure voice is heard throughout the world: for the salvation of some and greater condemnation of others. True theology, alien to narcissism and exaltation, is hiding in the cells of the devotees of prayer and ascetics, in monasteries which faithfully guard patristic tradition, in an inconspicuous ascetic struggle amidst the apostate world.
True theology helps to acquire salvation, for those who seek salvation find it. God alone knows, how many copies of the Holy Scripture, how many volumes of the works of the Church Fathers, of ascetic writers, of lives of saints, of prayer books and akathists were secretly copied by hand, or typed, away from the staring eyes of the KGB and passed from one person to another in Soviet Russia. The author of these lines had often seen and read such "Samizdat" publications of books by Archbishop Seraphim (Sobolev), of sermons and articles by Archbishop Averky (Taushev), Archimandrite Konstantin (Zaitsev), and other remarkable books.
This literature was providentially preparing Russian people for the spiritual aggression which Orthodoxy in Russia is enduring today. For Russia, tormented by sufferings, and perishing in sins, alcoholism and excessive crimes, the books of the above mentioned theologians have been just as important, as bread. Maybe this is why we may observe an extraordinary phenomenon in today's Russia, namely that of "wise thieves" who, upon leaving prisons, become fervent sons of the Orthodox Church? "We are not given to know, how our word will reverberate" (F. Tyutchev).
The books published by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, primarily at the Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, and sent to Russia for decades, have been bearing good fruit. Pastoral care for the salvation of the lost and erring is also theology.
In our pre-Antichrist times, as in the times of Ecumenical Councils, theology is where heresy is exposed, where the voice in defense of Orthodoxy is raised, where the unity with the saints is manifested not only in their liturgical commemoration, but in the entire order of life of the Church.
The canonization of the holy New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia and the Elders of Optina by our Church Abroad; glorification of Its holy ascetic and theologian St. John (Maximovitch), censure of the Sophianist heresy and its anathema against the great heresy of ecumenism -- all this crowns the Orthodox faith throughout the existence of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. All of Its First Hierarchs, the now late Metropolitans Anthony. Anastasy and Filaret, the present Metropolitan Vitaly, the founders and professors of Theological Seminary at the Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, such as Archpriest Michael Pomazansky and others; Archbishop Seraphim (Sobolev) and his Bulgarian students and followers, exposers of the heresy of ecumenism Archimandrite Seraphim (Aleksiev) and Sergei (Yazadzhiev) [139], Archimandrite Justin (Popovich), Bishop Gregory (Grabbe), Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose), Archpriest Lev Lebedev, Archdeacon Germain Ivanoff-Trinadtzaty -- they are the ones in whose words the Orthodox people of today look for and find a reliable guide towards salvation specifically, and away from the cobweb of writings produced by false pastors-modernists and renovationists in which Antichrist tries to catch the unstable souls. The true Church, as distinct from today's apostate Patriarchates, by its very nature cannot permit the intermingling of light and darkness, communion of Christ with Belial. It cannot but be the source of true theology, which It and It alone guards and conveys to the world. |
