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Алексеев Владимир Иванович
Доктор богословия, настоятель русской православной церкви в Нью-Йорке, США
УДК 81-119 ББК 81.2
ПЕРЕСМОТР ТРАДИЦИИ: ИДЕИ «ИМЯСЛАВИЯ» В СОВРЕМЕННЫХ ЛИНГВИСТИЧЕСКИХ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯХ1
В докладе раскрывается связь современных теолингвистических исследований с идеями духовного движения «Имяславия» и учением Григория Паламы о Божественных энергиях.
Ключевые слова: Имяславие; теолингвистика; патристика; имя Божие; Божественные энергии.
THE REEXAMINATION OF TRADITION: THE IDEAS OF "IMIASLAVIE"
IN MODERN LINGUISTIC STUDIES
The paper is devoted to the connection between modern theolinguistic studies with the ideas of spiritual movement "Imiaslavie" and the doctrine about the Divine energies by Gregory Palamas.
Key words: Imiaslavie; theolinguistics; patristic; Name of God; Divine energies.
1. Tradition
The Hesychast controversy
Hesychasm attracted the attention of Barlaam, a convert to Eastern Orthodoxy who encountered Hesychasts and heard descriptions of their practices during a visit to Mount Athos; he had also read the writings of Palamas, himself an Athonite monk. Trained in Western Scholastic theology, Barlaam was scandalized by hesychasm and began to combat it both orally and in his writings. As a private teacher of theology in the Western Scholastic mode, Barlaam propounded a more intellectual and prepositional approach to the knowledge of God than the Hesychasts taught.
On the Hesychast side, the controversy was taken up by Palamas who was asked by his fellow monks on Mt Athos to defend hesychasm from the attacks of Barlaam. Gregory wrote a number of works in its defense and defended hesychasm at six different synods in Constantinople ultimately triumphing over its attackers in the synod of 1351.
The Triads
In response to Barlaam's attacks, Palamas wrote nine treatises entitled "Triads For The Defense of Those Who Practice Sacred Quietude".
Gregory's teaching was affirmed by the superiors and principal monks of Mt. Athos, who met in synod during 1340-1. In early 1341, the monastic communities of
1Доклад «The Reexamination of Tradition: the Ideas of "Imiaslavie" in Modern Linguistic Studies» был представлен в рамках 6. Ежегодной Зимней Конференции «Monasticism Asceticism & Holiness in Eastern Orthodox Christianity» в Колумбийском университете (Columbia University) г. Нью-Йорк (США), 6 декабря 2013 года.
Mount Athos wrote the Hagioritic Tome under the supervision and inspiration of Palamas. Although the Tome does not mention Barlaam by name, the work clearly takes aim at Barlaam's views. The Tome provides a systematic presentation of Palamas' teaching and became the fundamental textbook for Byzantine mysticism.
In response, Barlaam drafted "Against the Messalians", which attacked Gregory by name for the first time. Barlaam derisively called the Hesy-chasts omphalopsychoi (men with their souls in their navels) and accused them of the heresy of Messalianism, also known as Bogomilism in the East. According to Mey-endorff, Barlaam viewed "any claim of real and conscious experience of God as Messalianism". Barlaam also took exception to the doctrine held by the Hesychasts as to the uncreated nature of the light, the experience of which was said to be the goal of Hesychast practice, regarding it as heretical and blasphemous. It was maintained by the Hesychasts to be of divine origin and to be identical to the light which had been manifested to Jesus' disciples on Mount Tabor at the Transfiguration. Barlaam viewed this doctrine of "uncreated light" to be polytheistic because as it postulated two eternal substances, a visible and an invisible God. Barlaam accuses the use of the Jesus Prayer as being a practice of Bogomilism.
The second triad quotes some of Barlaam's writings directly. In response to this second triad, Barlaam composed the treatise "Against the Messalians" linking the hesychasts to the Messalians and thereby accusing them of heresy.
In the third Triad, Palamas refuted Barlaam's charge of Messalianism by demonstrating that the Hesychasts did not share the antisacramentalism of the Messalians nor did they claim to physically see the essence of God with their eyes.According to Fr. John Meyendorff "Gregory Palamas orients his entire polemic against Barlaam the Calabrian on the issue of the Hellenic wisdom which he considers to be the main source of Barlaam's errors."
Gradual acceptance of the Palamistdoctrine
Kallistos I and the ecumenical patriarchs who succeeded him mounted a vigorous campaign to have the Palamist doctrines accepted by the other Eastern patriarchates as well as all the metropolitan sees under their jurisdiction. However, it took some time to overcome initial resistance to his teachings. For example, the metropolitan of Kiev, upon receiving tomes from Kallistos that expounded the Palamist doctrine, rejected it and composed a reply in refutation. Similarly, the patriarchate of Antioch remained steadfastly opposed to what they viewed as an innovation; however, by the end of the fourteenth century, Palamism had become accepted there. Similar acts of resistance were seen in the metropolitan sees that were governed by the Latins as well as in some autonomous ecclesiastical regions, such as the Church of Cyprus.
Despite the initial opposition of some patriarchates and sees, over time the resistance dwindled away and ultimately Palamist doctrine became accepted throughout the Eastern Orthodox Church. During this period, it became the norm for ecumenical patriarchs to profess the Palamite doctrine upon taking possession of their see.According to Aristeides Papadakis, "all Orthodox scholars who have written on Palamas — Lossky, Krivosheine, Papamichael, Meyendorff, Christou — assume his voice to be a legitimate expression of Orthodox tradition."
2. Reexamination
Beginning
The 20th century history of Imiaslavie started in 1907 with the publication of the book On the Caucasus Mountains by a revered elder, Schema-monk Hilarion. In his book, Illarion told of his spiritual experience with the Jesus Prayer as a proof that "The name of God is God Himself and can produce miracles". The book became extremely popular among the Russian monks on Mount Athos. Many of them argued that, since according to Plato, "the name of an object exists since before the object itself does", so the name of God must pre-exist before the world was created, and that it (the Name) cannot be anything but God Himself. Among other things, this was thought to mean that knowledge of the secret name of God alone allows one to perform miracles.
The opponents of Imiaslavie, the other Athonite monks, considered this teaching to be pantheism and incompatible with Christianity. They argued that, before the Creation God did not need this name, so the name was created and is actually an empty sound having no mystical attributes in and of itself. The proponents of this idea got the name Imyaslavtsy (those who glorify the Name) and its opponents were called Imyabortsy (those who fight the Name).
Proponents and opponents
The main proponent of the Imiaslavie doctrine was a Hieromonk of the Andre-yevsky skete of Athos Mountain, Anthony Bulatovich, who published a few books on the subject. Those who promote this doctrine claim support from the writings of Saint John of Kronstadt, and the influential mystic and healer Grigori Rasputin, the popularly-styled "mad monk" who was closely associated with the Russian Royal Family shortly before the October Revolution. It should be pointed out, however, that St John of Kronstadt reposed before this controversy erupted, and his quotes, it can be argued, are taken out of context to support a whole set of ideas that are not found in his own writings.
The most vocal opponent was the archbishop of Volyn, Anthony (Khrapovitsky), who considered imiaslavie to be a variation of the heresy propounded by the Khlysts (khlystovschina). In 1912, by decision of the Holy Synod, the book On the Caucasus Mountains became forbidden in Russia. It was not reprinted until 1998. In September 1912 the book was judged by Patriarch Joachim III of Constantinople, who gave a negative opinion about it (though in 1907 he had supported the same book).
In January 1913 a monk called David, a supporter of imiaslavie, was elected as the hegumen of the Andreyevsky skete, taking the place of the monk Hieronim who was an opponent of it. Hieronim did not recognize the results of the elections and complained to the Russian Embassy in Greece. The Imperial Government insisted on changing the hegumen back to Hieronim. In April the teaching of imiaslavie was also proclaimed to be pantheism by the new Patriarch Germanus V of Constantinople.
In June 1913 a small Russian fleet, consisting of the gunboat Donets and the transport ships Tsar and Kherson, delivered the archbishop of Vologda, Nikon (Rozhdestvensky), and a number of troops to Mount Athos. The poll organized by the
archbishop had shown that among 1700 of St. Panteleimon Monastery's monks, 661 monks identified themselves as imiabortsy, 517 as imiaslavtsy, 360 refused to participate in the poll, and the rest identified themselves as neutral. In May and June archbishop Nikon held talks with the imiaslavtsy and tried to convince them to change their beliefs voluntarily, but was unsuccessful. On July 31 the troops stormed the monastery. Although the monks were not armed and did not actively resist, the troops showed very heavy-handed tactics. They set up two machine guns and a number of water cannons, and the soldiers were ordered to beat the monks with their bayonets and rifle butts. Allegedly, four monks were killed and at least forty-eight were wounded. After the storming of St. Panteleimon Monastery the monks from the An-dreevsky Skete surrendered voluntarily.
The military transport Kherson was converted into a prison ship. It took 628 monks to Russia and on July 9 set sail to Odessa. Forty monks were left in the Mt. Athos hospital, judged unable to survive the transportation. On July 14 the steamship Chikhachev delivered another 212 monks from Mt. Athos. The rest of the monks signed papers that they rejected the imiaslavie.
After interrogation in Odessa, 8 imprisoned monks were returned to Athos, 40 put into jail, and the rest were defrocked and exiled to different areas of the Russian Empire. One of the leaders of the imiaslavtsy, Antony Bulatovich, was sent to his family estate in the village Lebedinka of Kharkov gubernia, to where many imiaslavtsy moved.
Aftermath
In February 1914 some imiaslavtsy were received by the Emperor Nicholas II. The kind reception was considered a sign of changing fate. In May 1914, Makariy, the Metropolitan of Moscow, and the Moscow Synodal Office decided to accept the imiaslavtsy into church services without their having to repent, as "there was nothing to repent about." A similar decision was taken by the Kiev Metropolitan. On May 10 the decision was partially adopted by the Holy Synod that the imiaslavtsy were allowed to keep their positions in the Orthodox Church without a formal repentance, but it specified that the teaching itself was still to be considered a heresy.
In September 1917 the Pomestny Sobor of the Russian Orthodox Church was assembled to solve the problem with Imiaslavie, with both strong proponents and opponents of Imiaslavie present. The work of the Sobor was aborted due to the October Revolution. Among the theologians who spoke out for Imiaslavie were Pavel Floren-sky and Sergey Bulgakov.
In October 1918 the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church cancelled the previous decision, and no longer allowed imiaslavtsy to participate in church services unless they repented. The decision was signed by Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow. In January 1919 the leader of the imiaslavtsy, Antony Bulatovich, broke relations with the Holy Synod and Tikhon and returned to his family estate in Lebedinka. There, he was killed either by robbers or by soldiers of the Red Army in December.
The question of compatibility between Orthodoxy and imiaslavie is still hotly argued by some theologians. Bishop Hilarion (Alfeyev), in 1999, wrote: "Even though the movement of the 'Name-worshippers' was crushed at the beginning of the century
on the orders of the Holy Synod, discussion of the matter regained impetus in the years preceding the Moscow Council (1917-18), which was supposed to come to a decision about this but did not succeed in doing so. Thus the Church's final assessment of Name-worshipping remains an open question to this day."
The first serious manifestation of the approaching turn of Russian religious thought to these sources was the attempt of several notable philosophers (Florensky, Bulgakov, Ern, Losev) to develop philosophical foundations of the so called Ono-matodoxy or Name-Praising (imyaslavie), a new current within hesychasm, which spread at the beginning of the 20th c. in some monasteries in the Caucasus and on Mount Athos and professed special adoration to the name of God. To explain the practice of the Onomatodoxy these philosophers found it necessary to use palamitic theology of Divine energies, but at the same time they were preserving the framework and basic concepts of the metaphysics of All-Unity. Their work produced a number of in-depth studies in linguistic philosophy, philosophy of symbol and myth, but nevertheless the main aim, to provide a philosophical justification of Onomatodoxy, was not achieved.
The actual distance between the discourse of classical metaphysics and Eastern Christian discourse was more significant than they supposed it to be, and new elements contained in hesychasm and Palamism could not be brought into philosophy as mere complements to the basis of the metaphysics of All-Unity (nor could they justify Onomatodoxy). As the contemporary analysis shows, "The neoplatonist relationship between energy and essence accepted implicitly by Onomatodoxy and rather explicitly by its philosophical apologies does not coincide with the relationship, which corresponds to hesychast practice and Orthodox theology of Divine energies".
Thus the real turn of Russian and Orthodox thought to the Eastern Christian discourse in its entirety came later and followed a different course. It was performed already in the emigration by the next generation of Russian religious thinkers who left out the metaphysics of All-Unity and also metaphysics as such and turned to direct and profound studies of Orthodox spiritual tradition, above all, of theology of Divine energies, which was then very little studied and even little known. This new course formed up in the mid-20th c. in works of Vladimir Lossky, Georgy Florovsky, John Meyendorffe.a. meant the return to genuine origins of Orthodox spirituality and resulted in the emergence of a whole new trend of Orthodox thought. Quickly developing, this trend attracted scholars from all Orthodox countries and became widely known as neo-palamism and neopatristics.
It was basically a theological trend, and one can say that in the field of theology it achieved a fairly comprehensive integration of Eastern Christian discourse into modern Orthodox thought. Today it is still active and creative, elaborating chiefly such subjects as theology of energy and theology of personality and including a number of eminent Orthodox theologians, like, for example, Metropolitans John Zezioulas (Greece) and Amphilochy Radovich (Serbia).
