Khristianstvo na blizhnem Vostoke

15-28

Authors: Evgenii Palamarenko

The Russian-speaking community of Orthodox believers in Jerusalem in 1950-1951 consisted of several groups that were in disunity between themselves, but also did not have complete independence. The first group includes the inhabitants of the Russian ecclesiastical mission in Jerusalem and the nuns of the Gornenskii convent, who were in full subordination to the Moscow Patriarchate. The second group should include pilgrims who lived in Elizavetinsky and other farmsteads located near the administrative building of the Mission, but they perceived differently the arrival of the first and second members of the Mission from Moscow. The third group includes Russian nuns and several clergymen from the Old City of Jerusalem, formerly part of Jordan. Although they could not attend the Mission, they maintained correspondence with the Moscow hierarchy of Moscow, willingly accepted donations, and in every way declared their loyalty to the Moscow Patriarchate. The fourth group includes the inhabitants and the administration of the monasteries of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia on Mount Eleon and Gethsemane, who were categorical opponents of uniting with the Moscow Patriarchate and unambiguously showed their suspicion in this matter. Among the representatives of the fourth group were “sympathizers” to the Moscow Patriarchate, which was rather an exception than any mass phenomenon. This article is based on previously not attracted sources from the State Archives of the Russian Federation and is aimed at some coverage of the events of the life of Russian-speaking Orthodox believers in Jerusalem at the very beginning when the Russian Orthodox Church began its ministry in the newly-formed State of Israel.

37-59

Authors: Ilya Kashitsyn

The article is a part of candidate thesis on theology and is going to identify main doctrinal, historical and political factors that influenced the contemporary position of Christians in the Middle East. With reference to Holy Scripture and estimations of native and foreign church leaders and theologians we comprehend correlation between Christian dogma and contemporary martyrdom of followers of Christ. It realizes in ecclesiological, soteriological and missiological aspects. Persecution of Christians glorify the Church, multiply quantity of its followers, being the testimony for Christ. In historical retrospective we mark interreligious, international and interethnic factors that led to the phenomenon of Arab Spring. Thus, the position of Christians in Muslim entourage changes from the good in early Caliphate to discriminational in Abbasside epoch. Christians suffer from Mongol invasion then they go through discrimination in the Ottoman Empire. Relative stabilization of Christians in the late Empire led to another spike of persecution known as genocide. In XX century Christians were hostages of colonial policy of England and France and only in the times of Arab Socialism they could enjoy the peace. Besides, we try to estimate modern politics of countries, that have interest in Syrian and Iraqi conflicts. First of all, we mean Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey.

75-84

Authors: Ilya Nazarov

The article is a logical continuation of the study of the peculiarities of examining crimes against morality by the court of an ancient church on the basis of the rules of the Apostolic. At the beginning of the article, the author intends to return to the essence and content of these rules in order to emphasize the retrospective vector of the development of the church justice. The author concludes that the new canonical constructions did not in any way affect and did not have to touch upon the basic nature and essential properties of the Apostolic rules, which in turn strictly corresponded to the Holy Scriptures and, in particular, the Epistles of the Apostle Paul. Having established this fact, the author goes on to study the features of the consideration of crimes against morality by the church court of the II-IV centuries. The article examines the following canonical acts: the Apostolic Decree, the rules of St. Gregory of Neocaesarea, the rule of St. Peter of Alexandria, the rule of St. Basil the Great, the rules of St. Dionysius of Alexandria, a letter from Cyprian of Carthage. In conclusion, the author concludes that when solving legal issues (an element of an external court), the church legal proceedings of this period gave a significant role to exposing crimes against faith and morality (an element of the internal court), as well as strengthening in their flock for the pursuit of goodness and holiness.