How do Protestants fight heresy? Heresy of Protestantism
SIMPLE OLD WOMAN
The old woman went up to the fire on which Jan Hus was burning, and put into it
a bunch of sickness.
O holy simplicity! - exclaimed Jan Hus.
The old woman was moved.
Thank you for your kind words, - she said and put another bundle into the fire.
Jan Hus was silent. The old woman was waiting. Then she asked:
Why are you silent? Why don't you say, "O holy simplicity"?
Jan Hus raised his eyes. An old woman stood in front of him. Simple old lady.
Not just a simple old woman, but an old woman proud of her simplicity.
(Felix Krivin. Carriage of the Past, 1964)
Jan Hus, Jerome of Prague, Giordano Bruno, Giulio Vanini - the most known victims Catholic Inquisition (in the case of the first two victims, the Inquisition, apparently, should be written with a small letter, since it existed only de facto, without this name). But in the mass consciousness there is a persistent myth that can interfere with understanding what is happening in the Middle Ages. This is a myth that heretics and witches burned only Inquisition. If researchers believe that the papal bulls provoked the witch hunt, then only Catholics are to blame. And all sorts of Protestants there - Lutherans and Calvinists - white and fluffy, like the Orthodox.
Indeed, some of the "Protestant bonfire" managed to avoid. Few people remember, but Giordano Bruno also fell into the clutches of the reformers. At the end of 1576, Bruno managed to come to Protestant Geneva. Yes, not just to come, but to go to study at the academy of this, as they called it then, "Protestant Rome." At the academy, Bruno was struck by the ignorance of the professor of philosophy, who was considered the pride of the university and school. The sharp-tongued Bruno wrote a short book, where he subjected to devastating criticism a number of provisions put forward by this professor, proving that in only one lecture he made 20 gross philosophical mistakes. In August 1579 the book came out and Bruno was arrested. By that time, Miguel Servet had already been burned by Calvin, and this vivid example of "morality and tolerance" of the Calvinists forced Bruno to understand the hopelessness of his situation and force himself to do everything that was required of him. But he tried too long and ardently to defend his philosophical convictions, and the case took on more and more dangerous forms. When Bruno came to his senses and fully admitted his "guilt", it was already too late. He was excommunicated from the church for two weeks, put up at the pillory in an iron collar, barefoot, in rags, on his knees, so that anyone could mock him. After that, he was allowed to ask for forgiveness and forced to express gratitude. For the rest of his life he absorbed a dislike for the "reformers". As soon as they were discussed, he was overcome with rage. But it was not at their hands that he was destined to die terribly twenty years later. However, in the methods of executions, all Christians practically did not differ from each other. In cruelty, the Protestants often gave odds to the most holy Inquisition.
Let's see if the Reformation helped the heretics and witches, did it become easier to live common people, tired of the "yoke of the papacy." Calvin managed to expel the Catholics from Geneva, eliminate rivals, and during the years 1540-1564. he actually ruled the city. Since 1541, the "Geneva Pope" establishes a religious dictatorship and rules until death. In Geneva, a dictatorship was created that the papacy could only dream of. Calvin, mindful of “blessed are the poor” (namely, in the original by Luke, without “spirit”, this is just an old interpolation-interpretation) *, was against excessive enrichment. Once he even said that the people must be kept in poverty, otherwise they would cease to be submissive to the will of God. All citizens were subject to captious daily guardianship in public and private life. Violation of discipline was punished (by decision of the consistory or synod) by various penalties up to the death penalty. It was impossible to sing secular songs, dance, eat plenty, and even more so drink, walk in light-colored suits. Restrictions were introduced even in food and clothing, loud laughter in the street was considered a terrible offense. For not attending church, a fine was due, doubting one or another Christian "truth", as Calvin interpreted it, was punishable by death at the stake. At the same time, Calvin was no longer satisfied with the fires of the Inquisition - too mild a punishment. The nasty heretic had time to die too soon. Under Calvin, a fashion appeared to burn unwanted people on “slow fires” - on damp wood. Later, this very method of affirming the true faith will be practiced in Russia. Human life as if she had lost all value in Geneva. But even more terrible was the cruelty that distinguished the judicial proceedings themselves. Torture was a necessary accessory of any interrogation - the accused was tortured until he confessed to the charges, sometimes in an imaginary crime. Children were forced to testify against their parents. Sometimes mere suspicion was enough not only for arrest, but also for conviction. Calvin was indefatigable in his search for heretics. Although the number of victims burned at the stake is not impressive compared to total number burned in Europe, but Geneva was a small city (about 13,000 by Calvin's arrival), so the percentage was not only sustained, but even exceeded. That is why many began to call Geneva "the Protestant Rome" and Calvin - "the Protestant Pope of Geneva."
In the first years of his reign, Calvin dealt mainly with heretics, but after four years he remembered witches. Already in 1545, more than 20 men and women were burned at the stake on charges of witchcraft and the spread of various diseases. Calvin also did not forget about the moral character of the townspeople, and in 1546 a number of higher officials cities, including the general captain and the first syndic, for such a terrible crime as participating in dances. The matter, however, was limited to severe suggestion and public repentance.
One of Calvin's "clients" was Miguel Servet, who discovered blood circulation. The discovery of blood circulation is not dancing for you, you won’t get off with repentance, and Calvin waited for years for the opportunity to punish the scientist. Seven years before the doctor's arrest, on February 13, 1546, Calvin wrote to his friend Farel: “Recently I received a letter from Servetus with such a collection of delusional fabrications and boastful statements that simply amazed me and which I had never heard before. He takes the liberty of offering me to come here if I please. But I do not intend to vouch for his safety, for if he comes, I won't let him leave here alive, unless, of course, my authority has at least some weight " 1. After seven years, Calvin waited for the fulfillment of his dream.
But why did Servetus become the number one worst enemy of Christianity for Calvin? What kind of “delusional fabrications” did Servetus manage to tell Calvin in his letter? As in the case of Giordano Bruno, opinions are divided - atheists believe that Servetus was burned "for science", and Christians - for heresy. But if in the case of Bruno the Christians are more right, which, of course, never justifies them, then in the case of Servetus, apparently, both are right. True, Christians still do not understand what was true heresy of Servetus.
The Spanish scientist Miguel Servet was born in 1509 in Navarre. Thanks to his brilliant abilities, at the age of 14 he received a secretary job from the confessor of Emperor Charles V. Servetus received an excellent education and knew law, medicine, theology, mathematics, and geography well. Like Bruno, he wrote works that could well be considered heresy by churchmen. Already in his first work (De trinitatis erroribus, 1531), written from the standpoint of pantheism, Servetus criticized the dogma of the trinity of God (Christians who worship the Trinity are tritheists), saw only a person in Christ, and considered the Holy Spirit as a symbol. It seems already enough for execution? But of the 30 points of heresy charged against Servetus, as a result, only two remained. And this despite the fact that Servet and I would like to be a heretic. There is no contradiction here - Servetus referred to the custom of the ancient church, which did not destroy, but only expelled heretics. This rule will save Galileo later. But not Servetus - a new indictment was brought against him, where Servetus was no longer recognized as a heretic, but as a blasphemer and a rebel and was subject to death in accordance with the legislation of Gratian and Theodosius. But he was burned as a heretic anyway. Calvin actually wanted Servetus to simply beheaded, because x hotel to submit the case to civil, and not religious, and just this type of execution was used in the case of civil crimes. Calvin did not succeed, which he greatly regretted in his letter to Farel. So what did the Holy Father want to hide so much? I wanted so much that the "inflexible reformer" in the Servetus case went even to cooperate with the papal Inquisition.
Since this is the rare case when neither ergot, nor witches, nor even Sacred Cannibalism (although how to say) had anything to do with the execution, I will not dwell on this in detail, I will only note that, in my opinion, the essence was precisely in the discovery blood circulation, but it was not a matter of "pure science" and "obscurantist churchmen", as it seems to atheists, the problem was quite theological. The discovery of Servetus attempted the very foundations of the Church that Servetus, apparently, was not fully aware of himself. Servetus claimed that blood comes from the heart and makes a long and amazing journey around the whole body. This discovery killed him. The discovery of blood circulation could call into question the most ancient church lie- the fact that Christ was already dead on his cross when Longinus pierced him with a spear, and the Church would have to get out, explaining how, with a stopped heart, the blood managed to “bleed”, so violently that it spattered Longin’s own eyes and the centurion “recovered his sight” (a blind-sighted Roman commander, the commander of hundreds of soldiers - this is such a Christian joke). And if the heart was still beating, then the blood could go, but it turned out that one of the most revered Christian saints killed the christian god. By the way, Servetus did not invent this, back in the second century Celsus scoffed at the fact that blood does not flow from the dead, but those blasphemous Celsian books were already burned, forgotten, and here this Spanish clever man with his blood circulation. Christians would not survive this, thought Calvin. In vain, by the way, - Christians do not think about such details. Now the discovery of Servetus does not bother anyone in any way. It's like a memorable letter from 1857 Metropolitan of Kyiv Filaret to the Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod A.P. Tolstoy: “The consequences of translating Holy Scripture into Russian will be most regrettable for the mother of our Orthodox Church… Then the entire Orthodox people will stop attending the temples of God.” The True Faith, which does not allow doubts, was also underestimated. Now some Christians, recognizing that Longinus killed Christ, explain this by the fact that the centurion "delivered Him from suffering" (the suffering almighty God is also such a Christian joke). Oh, Luther was right. “He who wants to be a Christian must rip the eyes out of his mind!” Well, I digress...
The court of Protestant Geneva sentenced Servetus in 1553 to the most painful of all executions - death at the stake with low fire. Together with the freedom-loving thinker, his book was put on fire by the verdict of the court, in order to give a warning example to all others who dare to express an opinion contrary to the views of Calvin. Servetus was tied to a post with an iron chain, and an oak wreath sprinkled with gray was put on his head, his book (in which he described the discovery of blood circulation) was hung on his chest, and a fire was lit. Firewood, in full accordance with the unfulfilled sentence papal inquisition, were raw, and the Servet had been roasted for more than two hours. Even Engels wrote about this execution: “The Protestants outdid the Catholics in persecuting the free study of nature. Calvin burned Servetus when he came close to opening the blood circulation, and in doing so made him roast alive for two hours; the Inquisition at least contented itself with simply burning Giordano Bruno." True, the father of communism did not understand the real background of the execution.
“So the heretic was silenced, but at what cost! For more than three centuries, the smoke and fire that rose over the body of Servetus cast a gloomy light on the personality of Calvin. 1. And then, even in the Protestant world, contemporaries reacted ambiguously to this event. Sebastian Castellio spoke rather harshly. In his defense, Calvin had to write the essay “Defensio orthodoxae fidei de sacra Trinitate contra prodigiosos errores M. Serveti” (Defence of the right faith in the Holy Trinity against the monstrous errors of M. Servetus, 1554), covering from the slow-witted (and not yet guessed) true reasons for execution.
Calvin dealt with the speeches against himself quickly (the night skirmish on May 16, 1555 is especially famous) and soon after this event the most zealous opponents of the Calvinists were executed or fled the city. The opposition was defeated and Calvin could return with a calm heart to the more familiar daily activities - the burning of witches.
The demonologist Jean Bodin, oscillating between Catholicism and Calvinism, hypocritically and cynically wrote about burnings: they, by the will of Satan, endure in this world - not to mention the eternal torment that awaits them in hell. Earthly fire cannot burn witches for more than an hour." Only one hour? Boden forgot, this "small punishment" could no longer suit Christians, and it began with Calvin, who had already surpassed these "restrictions" of the demonologist. There was never a shortage of human material for burning - all "witches" were recognized sooner or later. “It often occurred to me that all of us have not yet become sorcerers just because we have not all been tortured,” wrote the enlightened Friedrich von Spee. But the rest of the executioners thought differently: if someone lost his senses under torture, it meant that they were put to sleep by the devil, who decided to save them from interrogation, and if someone died under torture or committed suicide from despair, it was believed that legal proceedings still have nothing to do with it, and the life of the accused victims was taken away by the same Satan. In Switzerland, from the beginning of the 16th century to the middle of the 17th century, twice as many witches were exterminated as during the same period in Catholic Spain and Italy combined.
2I knew about Luther that he once threw an inkwell at the devil. The story with the devil intrigued me, but everything else was insipid and boring.
(Erich Hollerbach)
An even more notorious reformer was Martin Luther (1483-1546). In 1507 he, an Augustinian monk, became a priest. In 1511, after returning from Rome, where he was sent on a mission, Luther sharply opposed the sale of indulgences, which was launched by Pope Leo X. The future Great Reformer felt like Christ, expelling merchants from the Temple. The Pope, of course, did not like this, and on January 3, 1521, Luther was excommunicated by a papal bull. Here the Father of the Reformation solemnly burned the bull in front of the gates of Wittenberg and showed his meek disposition. “Just as they burn my works in Rome, I set fire to the bulls and decretals of this prince of darkness and conjure all people to come to my aid in order to throw Leo X and his apostolic throne with all the cardinals of the holy college into the same fire,” Luther raged. in front of a crowd of people - but I will put my hand into the throat of these devils, break their teeth and I will confess the teachings of God. He passionately wanted to communicate with God directly, without intermediaries, even if it was the Pope himself. It was not difficult to communicate with God then - with an appropriate hallucinogenic diet in those centuries, many succeeded.
Witches under Luther began to live even worse than under the revelry of the Holy Inquisition. Luther was obsessed with the Devil in the most literal sense. The founder of Protestantism saw the intrigues of the Devil everywhere. As the historian and philosopher V. Lekki wrote, "Luther's faith in the devil's machinations was amazing even for his time." Researchers have calculated that in his writings the Devil is mentioned more often than God. "We are all captives of the Devil, who is our master and deity." - the newly-minted fighter against demonism himself wrote, - “In body and property, we are submissive to the Devil, being strangers and aliens in the world, the ruler of which is the Devil. The bread we eat the drinks we drink, the clothes we wear, and the very air we breathe, and everything that belongs to us in our bodily life, all this is from his kingdom. That's about of bread Luther, without realizing it, was of course right. It must be remembered that Martin Luther was not born in the family of a priest, but was the son of a miner and ate plenty of black bread, so his visions of demons and hordes of demons, which, as he claimed, Faust had sent him, are not surprising. “Both in the parental home, and at the school where he was sent to the eight-year-old, he knew only beatings and hunger. "Give bread for God's sake!" - this plaintive refrain accompanied his childhood and adolescence. From the demons sent by the evil Faust to Luther with god help managed to get rid of, but the suffering of the Holy Father did not end there - the insidious Devil sent flies to the Father of the Reformation. Luther was firmly convinced that the flies were specially created by the Devil to distract the Great Reformer from writing charitable books. Luther did not see anything strange in such a close personal relationship with the Devil, who "slept with him", in his own words, more often than his wife. Once, arguing personally with the Devil about the wrongness of such behavior of the latter as using flies, Luther, having exhausted his arguments, threw an inkwell at the devil. It has become one of the most known facts his biography. Few, however, understand that Luther threw the inkwell not into “the shadow, mistaking it for the devil,” as they usually write, but into the real Devil himself. Luther saw him completely real. Apparently, the habit from childhood to black bread has not disappeared with age. Luther was gradually losing his mind, but he believed that madness was also from the devil. “In my opinion,” said Luther, “all insane people are corrupted in their minds by the devil. If doctors attribute this kind of illness to natural causes, then this is because they do not understand how powerful and powerful the devil is.
In addition to the devil, Luther considered the Jews and reason to be the main enemies of mankind. At first, Luther set about the Jews, completely repeating the path of the papal inquisition - it also began its glorious path in Spain in the same way. The methods of struggle were also not new: “First, you need to set fire to their synagogues or schools and bury in the mud everything that does not burn down, so that not a single person will see either the stone or the ashes left from them. This must be done for the glory of our Lord and all Christendom Luther preached. “Secondly, I advise you to destroy and raze their dwellings to the ground. For they pursue the same goals in them as in the synagogues.
But if radical measures against the Jews were natural and understandable to a true Christian, then what should be done with the Christians themselves, who confuse the minds of their brothers with all sorts of scientific theories? After all, not everyone can be burned as successfully as Calvin Serveta. Some cannot be reached - the same Copernicus himself is a canon, and it seems that he is not a heretic, but writes such that a Christian may doubt his faith. “This fool wants to turn the whole science of astronomy upside down; but Scripture tells us that Jesus commanded the sun to stand, not the earth,” Luther fumed, looking for a solution. Earlier, at the dawn of Christianity, it was easier - Christianity was born in the dregs of society: "There are not many wise among you, not many noble ones," complained (or rejoiced?) Apostle Paul. And now you see, some have learned. However, the solution was soon found by Luther: so that such scientific research could not confuse Christians, the latter should unlearn how to think. Indeed, why does a Christian need reason? “Among all the dangers, there is no more dangerous thing on earth than a richly gifted and resourceful mind,” Luther rejoiced that he had found a way out so quickly. - "The mind must be deceived, blinded and destroyed." “Reason is the greatest enemy of faith,” the Holy Father taught with inspiration, “it is not a helper in spiritual matters and often fights against the divine Word, meeting everything that comes from the Lord with contempt.” By this time, the reformer had already forgotten that, in his own opinion, it was the devil who deprives a person of his mind. Or has he already begun to identify with the devil? Be that as it may, Luther summed up his teaching and perpetuated it with the famous phrase: “He who wants to be a Christian must rip out the eyes of his mind!”
After "blinding the mind" it was possible to move on to witches. As far as witches are concerned, Luther's attitude was unequivocal. Enchantress Luther called "evil damn whores" and hated them to the core. “No compassion - they must be put to death without delay. I would gladly burn them all myself,” exclaimed the Father of the Reformation. Luther constantly demanded that witches be found and burned alive. “Sorcerers and witches,” he wrote in 1522, “they are evil devilish offspring, they steal milk, bring bad weather, send damage to people, take away strength in their legs, torture children in the cradle, force people to love and copulate, and there is no number the machinations of the devil." Not surprisingly, far more men, women, and children were condemned to death in witch trials in Germany than in any other country. After Luther's death, the witch-hunters in the Protestant areas of Germany went on a rampage even more than in the lands that remained Catholic. Historian Johann Scherr wrote: "Every city, every town, every prelacy, every noble estate in Germany lit fires." In the words of the repentant von Spee, "all over Germany the smoke of bonfires rises from everywhere, which obscures the light." And here it doesn’t even matter what part of Germany, which was divided into two warring camps, we are talking about - the witches were “comfortable” everywhere. Some reformers considered witch-hunting a holy duty to God. Ergot poisoning helped "justice" triumph, since not all "witches" had to be tortured to extract confessions, many confessed themselves. Crazed victims came to the crazed hunters in their arms - after all, everyone ate the bread alone. It came to the grotesque - in 1636 a man appeared in Koenigsberg, claiming that he was God the father, and that God the son, as well as the devil, recognized his power, and angels sang hymns to him. The Christian reaction was predictable - for such words, they first pulled out his tongue, then beheaded him, and burned the corpse. After all, Luther taught that all madness is from the devil. Before his death, the patient wept, but not over his fate, but over the sins of all mankind, who had decided to exterminate God the Father. In the Lutheran electors of Saxony and the Palatinate, as well as the Principality of Württemberg in 1567-1582. their own laws about witches appeared, much more severe than the corresponding articles of the code of Emperor Charles V - "Caroline". Witchmania in the Protestant part of the Christian world flared up with unprecedented force even for Catholics. Protestants made a hatred for witchcraft integral part creeds, and historians to this day argue who sent more women to the stake: Catholic or Protestant judges.
Historian F. Donovan wrote: “If we mark on the map with a dot each established case of burning a witch, then the greatest concentration of dots will be in the zone where France, Germany and Switzerland border. Basel, Lyon, Geneva, Nuremberg and the neighboring cities would hide under many of these points. Solid patches of dots would form in Switzerland and from the Rhine to Amsterdam, as well as in the south of France, splattering England, Scotland and the Scandinavian countries. It should be noted that, at least during the last century of witch-hunts, the areas of greatest concentration of points were the centers of Protestantism. Eh, and the historian would have taken the data of the chronicles of the epidemics of ergotism, sprinkled it on another map, and compared them. Find something else to surprise...
Even G.Ch. Lee, a notorious debunker of the Inquisition, had to take a closer look at the historical data. And it turned out that well-known fighters for rational thinking (like Descartes, for example) were rare dissidents in the north of Europe, and most prominent intellectuals even in the 18th century believed in demons and witches. And hundreds of thousands of "witches" went to the stake in the age of the scientific revolution, and the judges were professors from Harvard University, which amazed Voltaire so much.
But, moving away from the myth about the uniqueness of the phenomenon of the Inquisition, historians were immediately able to overcome the contradiction that seemed previously inexplicable: the assertion that the Reformation freed thinking did not fit in with the fact that it was the most prominent figures of Protestantism (Luther, Calvin, Baxter) who were fanatical persecutors witches.
Addition Scandinavian witchesAs noted above, witches to be burned were massively found in those countries where they mainly consumed rye, and where oats, dairy products, fish, etc. were the main food, witch fires were rare there. For only Christianity itself, despite all the demonological treatises, could not provoke such a massive witch hunt without the hallucinogenic support of ergot. Christianity alone could not force a people saturated with pagan superstitions to believe in the existence of evil demons, giving the monopoly on "good magic" exclusively to Christian saints. Could not convince people that all witches are necessarily evil, and they must be massively burned. Could not force the "witches" themselves to confess - sometimes sincerely, even without torture - in relations with the devil and covens with werewolves.
The time has come to raise the question: what were the causes of those, albeit few, processes in countries where rye was not the main agricultural crop? Is it exclusively Christian demonological propaganda? Let's see how things were in Scandinavia, where there were few trials, although in recent decades documents have been found on previously unknown courts, which increased the estimate of the number of victims.
According to updated data to date, about eighty witch trials have taken place in Norway. According to their results, a third of the accused were acquitted. The whole witch-hunt took place only in the 17th century, with a maximum in its middle.
A similar situation developed in Finland. In 1670, special commissions were appointed for Uppsala and Helsinki, the Swedish provinces of Finland, which continued the witch hunt that had begun in Sweden. Half a century ago, Russell Hope Robbins wrote in The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology: “On the whole, according to F., only 50 or 60 defendants were sentenced to death (but not all of them were carried out)”. Again, it's time to tweak this data a bit. As an expert on witch trials in Finland, Professor Marko Nenonen of the University of Tampere, co-author of a book on Finnish witches, The Wage of Sin Is Death, writes: “The extent of the witch trials in Finland only became apparent in the early 1990s. Therefore, the number of defendants presented in previous studies is not adequate to reality. It is interesting to note that while estimates of the number of defendants have fallen in many countries, in Finland they are much higher than before.”.
Professor Nenonen's book is based on a thorough study of 1,200 court cases in Turku and lower courts. Witch trials began in Finland under pressure from a new bishop appointed to the diocese in the mid-1660s. But only for 16% of the accused, the death sentences in Finland were carried out, the rest of the "witches" got off with fines. Most of the condemnations were recorded again in the 17th century, in a short period of time, in 1649-1684.
But even with all the adjustments, the number of witches burned or beheaded in Finland is no match for the number of victims in Germany and France; even after adjusting for population.
In the same 17th century, witch trials were going on in Sweden. At the same time, witches were not tortured there, it was against Swedish laws (Nenonen). The witches confessed themselves. And then, as the same R. H. Robins writes, "As if by magic, witchcraft disappeared". Professor Nenonen poses a similar question: “Of course, the question remains: why did most of the trials take place in such a short period of time?”.
Let's try to look for an answer on the example of Norway.
* * *Witch trials began in Norway later than in central Europe - only from 1621 (apart from atypical and isolated cases, like the trial in Bergen of the "witch" Anna Pedersdotter, accused of murdering her husband, a bishop, in 1590). Witch trials, where many people were accused at once, went after a law against witchcraft and magic was passed in 1617 in Denmark-Norway (it was one united kingdom from 1380 to 1814). In 1620, this law was promulgated in the province of Finnmark. The witches were not slow to show up immediately.
The first witch trial took place in the heart of Finnmark County, the Vardohus fortress in Vardo, where a woman from Kyberg, Marie Jörgensdot, was interrogated under torture on January 21, 1621. She claimed that Satan himself came to her on the night of Christmas 1620 and ordered her to follow him to the house of her neighbor Kirsty Sorensdotter. The defendant swore to serve Satan faithfully, for which Satan, in gratitude, bit her between the fingers of her left hand, dedicating Marie to the witches. Marie then went to Kirsti, with whom they flew to Satan's Christmas Sabbath on the Linderhorn mountain near Bergen in southern Norway. Moreover, Marie wrapped herself in a fox skin, turned into a fox, and flew in this form. According to the defendant, many people gathered at Satan's Sabbath, some from her village, and they all turned into cats, birds, dogs and monsters there.
Since then, the processes have gone on regularly, the largest number occurred in 1652–1653 and in 1662–1663. Later there were only rare isolated trials; The last death sentence for a witch was in 1695.
Especially many details about the deeds of the devil, revealed in the course of these trials, came, to the delight of the judges, from little girls. Just like in the future Salem witch trials in 1692 in America. For example, twelve-year-old Maren Olsdotter, whose mother had already been executed for witchcraft a few years earlier, lived with her aunt. When the aunt, in turn, was burned at the stake, Maren was also arrested. When Marin was interrogated on January 26, 1663, her confessions pleased the judges a lot. She claimed to have visited hell, where Satan personally took her on a tour. He showed her the "big water" down in the black valley; the water began to boil when Satan blew on the water through an iron horn, and in this water there were people who screamed like cats. Satan explained that she, too, would boil in water as a reward for faithful service to him. Maren later attended a sabbath where she danced to the music played by Satan on a red violin. When the court asked her which of the people she saw there, Maren gave the names of five women. Of course, they were also arrested.
These "witches", in their purest form, slandered by hallucinating girls, did not always themselves confess to "crimes". It didn't help them, though. For example, Ingeborg Krogh completely denied the allegations and was subjected to a water test and then torture. Even under torture, she confessed nothing. But the court found that she ate fish with a woman who had already been executed for witchcraft in 1653 and could have been "infected with magic." Note that, according to the Norwegian judges, witchcraft power could well enter a person in a completely physical way - through food. In a historical retrospective, this is not strange - after all, the memory of the Bersek Vikings, who mastered "strength" after consuming fly agaric, was still alive. But Ingeborg continued to insist on her innocence and was again tortured with burning iron, her chest was burned with sulfur, but the only words she said were: "I can not slander either myself or others." Soon she was tortured to death, and the corpse was thrown in front of the gallows, as a warning to everyone.
Barbra from Vadso, whom the same Maren pointed out, also tried to justify herself, citing reasonable arguments for her innocence. All this was ignored, and Barbra was burned with four other women on April 8, 1663.
Most of the "witches", as in Europe, admitted all the accusations, delighting the judges with sentimental details of their relationship with Satan, demons and other demons.
Eight-year-old Karen Iversdotter claimed that witches in the form of three crows tried to kill a government official with a needle. The maid Ellen was immediately arrested for being one of them and confirmed that she had used witchcraft to harm the cows. Ellen was burned on February 27, 1663, along with Sigri Krokare (which was shown by the 12-year-old Maren Olsdotter mentioned above). And so on.
As can be seen from these examples, the whole picture of the processes is very reminiscent of the case of the Salem witches. The same hallucinatory girls blaming everyone. The same crazy stories about covens and Satan. Let me also remind you once again about the “bitten” hand of Marie Jörgensdot. And by the way, oh red Satan's fiddle in Maren's story.
Candidate of cultural studies O. Khristoforova in her article "Hammer of the Witches" wrote about the Salem trials: “The girls … began to act like possessed, writhing and writhing in fits during sermons, shouting out the names of the people who allegedly bewitched them”.
But there is no reason to believe that the girls from Salem were “acting obsessed”, and did not behave exactly like other victims of the witch hunt, about the reasons for which O. Khristoforova herself writes here: "witch-hunting was the result of a mass psychosis caused by stress, epidemics, wars, famine, as well as more specific causes, among which ergot poisoning is most often mentioned - a mold that appears on rye in rainy years". The Salem trials do not stand out in any way from the general mass of others like them, except for their fame, and their reason lies in the same “mass psychosis”, and not in practical jokes. And the nature of their psychosis was fully explained back in 1976 by L. Caporel, who showed in her work “Satan broke free in Salem?” that it was precisely the poisoning of ergot. The bread baked by the Salem colonists in 1692 was naturally rye. When Caporel uncovered the connection between the Salem processes and ergot, she noted that girls were more susceptible to poisoning: “Ergotism or permanent ergot poisoning was then a common situation resulting from eating contaminated rye. In some epidemics, it appears that women were more susceptible to the disease than men. Children and pregnant women are more affected by ergot poisoning, although individual susceptibility varies greatly..
As Mappen (1980) noted, in Salem ergotism affected mainly women and children, manifesting characteristics- tingling of the hands and fingers, dizziness, hallucinations, vomiting, muscle contractions, mania, psychosis and delirium.
The same susceptibility of children to poisoning has been observed in Europe, according to Prof. J. Wong: "Numerous epidemics of ergotism followed, with thousands dying as a result of the constant consumption of contaminated rye, and children were often the most susceptible victims.".
But back to Norway. It was only a matter of time before someone took up this study of the trials and came to the appropriate conclusions as to what, besides the demonology of Christianity itself, provoked these trials and the hallucinations that accompanied them. And today we already have a quite expected answer in the work of the Norwegian scientist Tobjorn Alma from the University of Tromso:
"Witch trials in Finnmark, Northern Norway, during the 17th century: Evidence of ergot poisoning as a contributing factor"“During the 17th century, the province of Finnmark suffered the most from the witch trials recorded in Norway; at least 137 people were put on trial, of which about two-thirds were executed. A late 17th-century manuscript written by county governor H. H. Lilienskiold, based on sources from that time, contains details of 83 trials. More than half of these materials contain evidence of the potentially important role of ergot poisoning in the emergence of these court cases. In 42 cases in these trials, it is explicitly stated that people "learned" witchcraft by consuming it in the form of bread or other flour products (17 cases), milk or beer (23 cases), or a combination of the two (two cases). . In cases involving milk, several interrogated witches testified that they had noticed black grain-like inclusions in milk. Medical symptoms consistent with ergot poisoning have been reported in numerous lawsuits. These symptoms included gangrene, convulsions, and hallucinations. It has been found that hallucinations often occurred explicitly after eating or drinking. Most of the accused witches were women of Norse ethnicity living in coastal communities where imported flour was part of the diet. Only a small number of the victims of witchcraft trials, mostly independent Saami men, were accused, for example, of performing traditional shamanistic rituals. All flour available in Finnmark during the late 17th century was imported. Rye (Secale cereale), which is particularly susceptible to ergot infestation, was the main part of the imported grain.”
THE HERESY OF PROTESTANTISM
The second great step in the retreat from Divine Truth was the emergence of Protestantism. The very word "Protestantism" meant a protest against the wickedness of the medieval papacy. This protest was completely justified, for the deeds of the then Rome were in no way compatible with the spirit of Christianity. Of course, those who yearn for the true faith of Christ should turn their faces to the East, where the Orthodox Church sacredly preserves the Divine teaching of love and the apostolic covenants. But the papacy succeeded in spreading in the West a widespread prejudice against the "barbarian" East. And Protestantism, instead of overcoming the Roman retreat, only exacerbated the departure from the right teaching. Taking up arms against the vices of the papacy, Protestantism at the same time rejected those Divine gifts that, in spite of everything, the Roman Church continued to preserve.
The Protestants found neither pious leaders nor wise teachers. Unfortunately, the loudest of the voices raised against the abuses of the papacy was that of Martin Luther. He not only justly denounced the Inquisition and the trade in indulgences, he refused to obey the pope. This self-confident person decided to “start from scratch” in general, declaring “impious and pagan” the centuries-old history of the Church of Christ that existed before him. It was crazy! Has the Church of God, the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15), been lying in the dust and dust for a millennium and a half since the time of Christ, waiting for Luther's "coming"?
Yes, one must pay tribute to Luther's courage in his fight against papism, but his other qualities were far from apostolic. Luther was a man of dubious morality: a glutton, a lover of strong drinks and obscene jokes, far from humility and chastity, quick-tempered and unbridled in anger. Luther was a perjurer: he himself violated the monastic vow he had given to the Lord, and involved a woman in the same terrible sin - he kidnapped a nun from the monastery and entered into a blasphemous "marriage" with her.
Another "founder" of Protestantism, Guillaume Farel, together with his armed accomplices broke into churches during the Liturgy - they mocked the priests, destroyed icons, dispersed the believers. Feeling his mental incapacity to create any coherent doctrine, Farel called to Switzerland, where he operated, the young "religious thinker" John Calvin.
Calvin surpassed his teacher. For attempting to criticize the “teacher Calvin,” people were tortured, their tongues were drilled with a red-hot iron, and they were executed. His ideological opponent, the mystic Miguel Serveta, the "anti-papist" Calvin tried to betray the papal inquisition, and then burned him at the stake. What could people like Luther, Calvin, Farel have in common with the teaching of purity and love taught by Christ the Savior? With a single stroke of the pen, the “founders” of Protestantism crossed out the apostolic testaments stored in Holy Tradition, consigned to oblivion the blood of martyrs for the holy faith, the deeds and creations of the spiritual fathers of the Church - and all this was replaced by their own conjectures. On the teachings of Luther and Calvin, countless varieties of evangelism and Baptism are now based. By declaring "the freedom of everyone to interpret the Bible," the Protestants unbridled the crafty human mind. Their followers began to interpret the Holy Scriptures in the impurity of deeds and thoughts, with a mind darkened by pride and self-will. The result is known: there are now more than a thousand Protestant sects in the world, each with its own false teachers, each daring to interpret the Divine Revelation in its own way.
How did the retreat of the sectarians from the teachings of Christ the Savior, the holy apostles and teachers of the Church manifest itself?
Sectarians oppose the fullness of Sacred Tradition, leaving only the Bible for use and arbitrary interpretations.
Protestants reject the apostolic teaching about the Sacraments and the rite, the narrative about the actions of the Providence of God in the history of the Church,
God-inspired creations and prayers of the holy fathers, as if the action of the Holy Spirit ceased in the very first century of Christianity and the Almighty is no longer present in the world redeemed by the Blood of the Son of Man.
Since the time of Christ, the holy teachers of the Church have passed on the Holy Tradition to each other, protecting the shrine from distortion; The apostolic teaching passed from people to people, overcame centuries and millennia, and is preserved in its original form by the Orthodox Church. If humanity remembers its history from the works of the ancient chroniclers, then how not to trust the keepers of the Holy Tradition - the chosen ones of God, many of whom laid down their lives for the faith of Christ.
The Bible itself, Holy Scripture, is only a part of Holy Tradition, its basis. The sectarians present themselves as connoisseurs of the Bible - but even the words of the Savior and the apostles are interpreted by these false wise men at random, obstinately not noticing what directly exposes their spiritual blindness. But New Testament is the sacred treasure of the Orthodox Church - in the 3rd century, the holy fathers of the Church singled out truly inspired books from the whole huge corpus of ancient Christian writings, among which there were many false and heretical ones, and thus the New Testament canon was compiled.
And so the sectarians, who thievishly stole the New Testament from the Holy Church, are trying to turn the letter of Scripture against the Fullness of Orthodoxy. They have fallen out of the living life of Christianity, and for most of them the New Testament is only a lifeless graceless "moral code", a set of dry moral rules. The Son of Man himself did not write anything. Books about His life and teachings were subsequently created by the holy evangelists and apostles. But their creations, of course, could not contain the fact that if they wrote about it in detail, then ... the world itself would not contain the books that were written (John 21, 25). Therefore, according to the apostolic covenant, the faithful were commanded to adhere not only to the Scriptures, but also to Tradition, "which you have been taught" either by our word or our epistle (2 Thess. 2:15). In addition, the first Christians were forced to keep much of their teaching in secret, so that the shrine would not be “trampled” by the enemies of the Church of Christ. The ancient Israelites, being a free people and having the opportunity to protect the shrine from desecration, wrote down everything related to the ceremony.
Deviating from the teaching of the Church on the Sacraments, the founders of Protestantism renounced the saving grace of God and barred their followers from the path to the Kingdom of Heaven. The terrible and life-giving Gifts of the Flesh and Blood of the Lord, about which the Savior speaks unequivocally, without which not a single person will be saved, super-wise heretics try to present them with “signs” and “symbols”. But these false teachers cannot act otherwise, for there is not a single one among them who would have the right to perform the Divine Mysteries.
In their madness, the founders of Protestantism broke the apostolic succession of the priesthood. Luther declared: "The priesthood is the property of all Christians." Did the Savior send many to “teach and baptize,” or gave many the right to “bind and loose”? Only the chosen apostles of Christ were entrusted with the holy work of the Gospel, they were given grace by the Holy Spirit to perform the Sacraments and transfer this gift of grace to successors with the laying on of the hands of the priesthood (1 Tim. 4:14). The humblest priest of the Orthodox Church, through the continuous transmission of ordinations, traces his spiritual lineage back to one of the apostles of Christ, and the grace of service bestowed upon him does not depend on the personal merits of the priest - the Sacraments are performed visibly by his hands, but invisibly - by the Power of God.
Themselves spiritually weak, the sectarians dare to deny the veneration of the saints of God.
I also knew the greatest saints and prophets Old Testament. According to the word of the prophet Elijah, the heavens dissolved and closed, drought lasted or rain fell. From touching the bones of the prophet Elisha, a dead man was resurrected. Joshua stopped the sun with his petition. The Savior speaks of the righteous of the New Testament in prayer to the Heavenly Father: “Father ... the glory that You gave Me, I will give them” (John 17,
21-22). So, is it really with the coming of the Son of God that holiness has dried up or diminished in the world? Such a statement is blasphemy. And the Orthodox Church follows the apostolic covenant: “Remember your leaders who preached to you the word of God, and, looking at the end of their lives, imitate their faith” (Heb. 13:7). True Christians are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God (Eph. 2:19), because they resort to the help and intercession of the holy saints of the Lord before the Throne of the Most High.
Stubborn heretics go so far as not to accept the worship of the Mother of God.
Can anyone hope for the favor of even an ordinary decent person if without respect refers to his mother? So how do sectarians hope to receive the favor of the Son of Man by refusing to worship His Most Pure Mother? How do these false connoisseurs of the Gospel fail to notice the angelic greeting addressed to Her: “Rejoice, Blessed One! The Lord is with you; Blessed are You among women” (Luke 1:28), and Her answer: “From now on, all generations will bless Me; what did the Mighty One do to me greatness” (Luke 1:48-49)?
The veneration of the Holy Cross is unbearable for the seed-antes. “The word about the cross is foolishness for those who are perishing, but for us who are being saved it is the power of God (1 Cor. 1:18),” says the holy Apostle Paul. Cross for Orthodox Christian- An altar, stained with the Most Pure Blood of the Savior. According to the word of the Lord Himself, one who swears by the altar swears by it and everything that is on it (Matt. 23:20) - thus, the sectarians who blaspheme the Cross spew blasphemy against the Crucified Savior.
Sectarians accuse of their unreason Orthodox Church in idolatry for the worship of holy icons.
A huge step in the retreat from the Divine Truth was the emergence of Protestantism. The very word "Protestantism" meant a protest against the wickedness of the medieval papacy. This protest was completely justified, for the deeds of the then Rome were in no way compatible with the spirit of Christianity. Of course, those who yearn for the true faith of Christ should turn their faces to the East, where the Orthodox Church sacredly preserves the Divine teaching of love and the apostolic covenants. But the papacy succeeded in spreading in the West a widespread prejudice against the "barbarian" East. And Protestantism, instead of overcoming the Roman retreat, only exacerbated the departure from the right teaching. Taking up arms against the vices of the papacy, Protestantism at the same time rejected those Divine gifts that were preserved in the Roman Church. The Protestants found neither pious leaders nor wise teachers. Unfortunately, the loudest of the voices raised against the abuses of the papacy was that of Martin Luther. He not only justly denounced the Inquisition and the trade in indulgences, he refused to obey the pope. This self-confident person decided to “start from scratch” in general, declaring “impious and pagan” the centuries-old history of the Church of Christ that existed before him. He rejected the Church itself. It was crazy! Has the Church of God, the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15), been lying in the dust and dust for a millennium and a half since the time of Christ, waiting for Luther's "coming"? Yes, one must pay tribute to Luther's courage in his fight against papism, but his other qualities were far from apostolic. Luther was a man of dubious morality: a glutton, a lover of strong drinks and obscene jokes, far from humility and chastity, quick-tempered and unbridled in anger. Luther was a perjurer: he himself violated his monastic vow to the Lord and involved, in the same terrible sin, a woman - he kidnapped a nun from the monastery and entered into a blasphemous "marriage" with her. Another "founder" of Protestantism, Guillaume Farel, together with his armed accomplices broke into churches during the Liturgy - they mocked the priests, destroyed icons, dispersed the believers. Feeling his mental incapacity to create any coherent doctrine, Farel called to Switzerland, where he operated, the young "religious thinker" John Calvin. Calvin surpassed his teacher. For attempting to criticize the “teacher Calvin,” people were tortured, their tongues were drilled with a red-hot iron, and they were executed. His ideological opponent, the mystic Miguel Serveta, the "anti-papist" Calvin tried to betray the papal inquisition, and then burned him at the stake. What could people like Luther, Calvin, Farel have in common with the teaching of purity and love taught by Christ the Savior? With a single stroke of the pen, the “founders” of Protestantism crossed out the apostolic testaments stored in Holy Tradition, consigned to oblivion the blood of martyrs for the holy faith, the deeds and creations of the spiritual fathers of the Church - and all this was replaced by their own conjectures. On the teachings of Luther and Calvin, countless varieties of evangelism and Baptism are now based. By declaring "the freedom of everyone to interpret the Bible," the Protestants unbridled the crafty human mind. Their followers began to interpret the Holy Scriptures in the impurity of deeds and thoughts, with a mind darkened by pride and self-will. The result is known: there are now more than a thousand Protestant sects in the world, each with its own false teachers, each daring to interpret the Divine Revelation in its own way. How did the retreat of the sectarians from the teachings of Christ the Savior, the holy apostles and teachers of the Church manifest itself? Sectarians oppose the fullness of Sacred Tradition, leaving only the Bible for arbitrary interpretation and use. Protestants reject the Biblical, apostolic teaching about the Sacraments and ritual, the narrative of the actions of the Providence of God in the history of the Church, the inspired works and prayers of the holy fathers, as if the action of the Holy Spirit ceased in the first century of Christianity, on the first apostles and the Almighty is no longer present in world redeemed by the blood of the Son of Man. Since the time of Christ, the holy teachers of the Church have passed on the Holy Tradition to each other, protecting the shrine from distortion; the apostolic teaching passed from people to people, overcame centuries and millennia, and is preserved in its original form, only by the Orthodox Church. If humanity remembers its history from the works of the ancient chroniclers, then how not to trust the keepers of the Holy Tradition - the chosen ones of God, many of whom laid down their lives for the faith of Christ. The Bible itself, Holy Scripture, is only a part of Holy Tradition, its basis. The sectarians present themselves as connoisseurs of the Bible - but even the words of the Savior and the apostles are interpreted by these false wise men at random, obstinately not noticing what directly exposes their spiritual blindness. But the New Testament is a sacred treasure of the Orthodox Church - in the 3rd century, the holy fathers of the Church singled out truly inspired books from the entire huge corpus of ancient Christian writings, among which there were many false and heretical Jews, and thus the New Testament canon was compiled. And so the sectarians, who thievishly stole the New Testament from the Holy Church, are trying to turn the letter of Scripture against the Fullness of Orthodoxy. They have fallen out of the living life of Christianity, and for most of them the New Testament is only a lifeless graceless "moral code", a set of dry moral rules. The Son of Man himself did not write anything. Books about His life and teachings were subsequently created by the holy evangelists and apostles. But their creations, of course, could not contain the fact that if they wrote about it in detail, then ... the world itself would not contain the books that were written (John 21, 25). Therefore, according to the apostolic covenant, the faithful were commanded to adhere not only to the Scriptures, but also to Tradition, "which you have been taught" either by our word or our epistle (2 Thess. 2:15). In addition, the first Christians were forced to keep much of their teaching in secret, so that the shrine would not be “trampled” by the enemies of the Church of Christ. The ancient Israelites, being a free people and having the opportunity to protect the shrine from desecration, wrote down everything related to the ceremony. Deviating from the teaching of the Church on the Sacraments, the founders of Protestantism renounced the saving Grace of God and barred their followers from the path to the Kingdom of Heaven. The terrible and life-giving Gifts of the Flesh and Blood of the Lord, about which the Savior speaks unequivocally, without which not a single person will be saved, super-wise heretics try to present them with “signs” and “symbols”. But these false teachers cannot act otherwise, for there is not a single one among them who would have the right to perform the Divine Mysteries. In their madness, the founders of Protestantism tore apart the apostolic succession of the priesthood and the hierarchy established by God. Luther declared: "The priesthood is the property of all Christians." Did the Savior send many to “teach and baptize,” or gave many the right to “bind and loose”? Only the chosen apostles of Christ were entrusted with the holy work of the Gospel, they were given grace by the Holy Spirit to perform the Sacraments and transfer this gift of grace to successors with the laying on of the hands of the priesthood (1 Tim. 4:14). The humblest priest of the Orthodox Church, through the continuous transmission of ordinations, traces his spiritual lineage back to one of the apostles of Christ, and the grace of service bestowed upon him does not depend on the personal merits of the priest - the Sacraments are performed visibly by his hands, but invisibly - by the Power of God. Themselves spiritually weak, the sectarians dare to deny the veneration of the saints of God. The Old Testament knew the greatest saints and prophets. According to the word of the prophet Elijah, the heavens dissolved and closed, drought lasted or rain fell. From touching the bones of the prophet Elisha, a dead man was resurrected. Joshua stopped the sun with his petition. The Savior speaks of the righteous of the New Testament in his prayer to the Heavenly Father: “Father ... the glory that You gave Me, I will give them” (John 17:21-22). So, is it really with the coming of the Son of God that holiness has dried up or diminished in the world? Such a statement is blasphemy. And the Orthodox Church follows the apostolic covenant: “Remember your leaders who preached to you the word of God, and, looking at the end of their lives, imitate their faith” (Heb. 13:7). True Christians are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God (Eph. 2:19), because they resort to the help and intercession of the holy saints of the Lord before the Throne of the Most High. Stubborn heretics go so far as not to accept the worship of the Mother of God. Can anyone hope for the favor of even an ordinary decent person if he treats his mother without respect? So how do sectarians hope to receive the favor of the Son of Man by refusing to worship His Most Pure Mother? How do these false connoisseurs of the Gospel fail to notice the angelic greeting addressed to Her: “Rejoice, Blessed One! The Lord is with you; Blessed are You among women” (Luke 1:28), and Her answer: “From now on, all generations will please Me; what did the Mighty One do to me greatness” (Luke 1:48-49)? The veneration of the Holy Cross is unbearable for the secants. “The word about the cross is foolishness for those who are perishing, but for us who are being saved it is the power of God (1 Cor. 1:18),” says the holy Apostle Paul. The cross for an Orthodox Christian is the Altar, stained with the Most Pure Blood of the Savior. According to the word of the Lord Himself, one who swears by the altar swears by it and everything that is on it (Matt. 23:20) - thus, the sectarians who blaspheme the Cross spew blasphemy against the Crucified Savior. Sectarians in their foolishness accuse the Orthodox Church of idolatry for the worship of holy icons. Wasn't the Ark of the Covenant outwardly material, was it not made by human hands from wood, metal, fabric? However, the Lord punished those who unworthily touched this shrine with death. In the Holy of Holies of the Jerusalem Temple there were hand-made images of Cherubim - who would dare to call them idols? The Son of God came down to earth, clothed in matter, in human flesh. The Savior allowed mortals to see and hear Himself, to feel His wounds, the God-man showed His Face to the world not so that Christians would forget His Most Pure Image. We cherish the photographs of our loved ones and the memorabilia received from them. Could the love of Christians for the Savior be so small that they would not save His images? Twice Jesus Christ gave His miraculous images to people - the ruler Abgar for pious zeal and Saint Veronica on the way to Golgotha. Protestants, of course, do not believe in this, as in many other miracles of the Lord. But here: in modern times the world was shown another miraculous Image of the Savior, miraculously imprinted on the Shroud of Turin. Even materialistic scientists, who meticulously studied the Shroud, were forced to admit the authenticity and “inexplicability” of this greatest shrine, which once wrapped itself around the Body of the Lord after the Crucifixion. The image on the Shroud can safely be called a "photo" of Jesus Christ. And here one more miracle is seen: this Most Holy Image is exactly like the images of the Savior on most Orthodox icons. To compare sacred images with idols, as sectarians do, is blasphemy. No, Orthodox Christians do not worship “boards and paints” in front of holy icons, but through the contemplation of images they rush in spirit to the Heavenly prototypes. Moreover, just as the power of God rested on the Ark of the Covenant, the spirit of the Lord and His saints also rests on sacred objects revered by the Church, and an inexhaustible stream of miracles flows from them. Sectarians treat miracles from holy icons and miracles flowing from the relics of the saints of Christ, as once from the bones of the prophet Elisha, with crafty unbelief. Orthodoxy is a whole universe, bringing up for the service of God both the soul and the body of the believer, covering his whole life. Tempering the flesh, repentance that burns out the filth of sin, the sublime joy of the Lord's feasts, the splendor of temples, holy images, inspired chants and prayers, censing incense - everything is aimed at helping a person find the path to Gornyaya. Slyly philosophizing sectarians have refused most of the treasures of the Church of Christ. The resulting void could only be filled with lies. Many sectarians "teach about justification by faith" - they say, only faith in Christ is enough to gain a "place in paradise." St. Neil of Yaroslavl remarks about such "Christians": "In their opinion, just think decently about the Lord - and you will be good." What a temptation for spiritual loafers, stagnant in the filth of sin and at the same time sighing about "spirituality"! Can there be "justification" by faith alone? After all, fallen spirits they believe, moreover, they tremble, firmly knowing about the existence of the Just-Just Almighty Lord. Christians are called to imitate the Savior, and our Lord Jesus Christ prayed until he sweated blood, fasted for forty days in the wilderness, exhausting His earthly Body. Prayer work and the feat of fasting became daily spiritual bread for the apostles of Christ and for all who want to follow in His footsteps. According to the word of the Lord, the kingdom Heavenly power is taken, and those who use force delight it (Mt. 11, 12). The sectarians, propagandizing "lite Christianity", lure people onto the "broad path" leading to death. "One Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Eph. 4, 5), - it is said in Holy Scripture. One Body of Christ, Holy Orthodox Church. In the old days in Rus' there was a wonderful pious custom: during heavy snowstorms, church bells did not stop, so that the lost traveler could hear the good news and understand that housing was close, help was close, salvation was close. In the same way, in the midst of any worldly storms, the Mother Church calls the lost into her arms so that they find peace and tranquility. Metropolitan Vladimir (Ikim).
1 . Protestants reject the special priesthood in the Church and the division of the faithful into shepherds and sheep (see ch. 12, paragraphs 2-5,10), contrary to the teachings of the Bible (see ch. 12, paragraphs 11-28) and the entire ancient Church ( see chapter 12, paragraphs 30–39).
2 . Most Protestants, contrary to the Bible and the teachings of the ancient Church (see ch. 12, pars. 83-120), rejected the three-rank structure of the church hierarchy (bishop, presbyter, deacon), replacing it with a two-rank and abolishing the episcopal rank (see ch. 12 , paragraph 81), without which, in principle, there can be no Church and saving sacraments.
3 . The Protestants, contrary to Holy Scripture and the teaching of the entire ancient Church (see ch. 12, paragraphs 127-151), rejected the apostolic succession of ordination of the priesthood, establishing their own disorderly, self-appointed and graceless hierarchy.
4 . Protestants reject baptism “for the forgiveness of sins” (see ch. 13, para. 3), contrary to Holy Scripture () and the unanimous teaching of the entire ancient Church (see ch. 13, paras. 41, 43–53, 55, 57 –66), while changing the Nicene-Tsaregrad Creed (see ch. 13, paragraph 8).
5 . Protestants, contrary to the Holy Scriptures (; ; - see ch. 13, pars. 18–28,31) and the unanimous teaching of the entire ancient Church (see ch. 13, pars. 38–40, 42–45, 47, 49 –54, 58, 60–62, 66, 68), deny that in Baptism a person is reborn (see ch. 13, par. 3),
6 . Protestants teach that “baptism does not save” (see ch. 13, paragraph 3), directly contradicting the Apostle, who says that “baptism ... saves” (- see ch. 13, paragraph 10) and other testimonies of St. Scriptures (; - see ch. 13, pars. 11-13, 29-30), as well as the unanimous faith of the entire ancient Church (see ch. 13, pars. 37-69, especially 45, 62, 64).
7 . Most Protestants reject child baptism, contrary to Holy Scripture (see ch. 13, pars. 157-172), especially, and the unanimous teaching of the ancient Church (see ch. 13, pars. 175-186) - even contrary to the teachings of their own founders (see ch. 13, paras. 173, 186).
8 . Protestants pervert the consistency in salvation (first Baptism, and then the reception of the Holy Spirit), testified both by Holy Scripture (; - see ch. 14), and by the teaching of the entire ancient Church (see ch. 13, paragraphs 55-58 , 60, 64, 67; ch. 14, paragraphs 56-57, 59, 61-69, 73, 75, 78).
9 . Protestants teach that during the prayer of repentance, the Holy Spirit immediately enters a person without the mediation of the Church and Her priesthood, contrary to the teaching of Holy Scripture (- see ch. 14, par. 8, 13, 35-36; ; ; ; - see ch. 14, paragraphs 45–54;) and the entire ancient Church (see ch. 14, paragraphs 56, 59, 62–63, 66–69, 72–82), testifying that the Holy Spirit is given to the faithful through the sacrament of the church - the apostolic (episcopal) laying on of hands or chrismation.
10 . Protestants, contrary to the teachings of the Gospel (see ch. 15, pars. 7–28) and of the entire ancient Church (see ch. 15, pars. 30–63), reject the reality of Communion and teach that it is only a symbol (see 15, paragraph 3), thereby depriving themselves in principle of the opportunity to be the Church - the Body of Christ.
11 . Protestants, contrary to Holy Scripture (, ; - see ch. 16, paragraphs 2-7) and the teachings of the entire ancient Church (see ch. 16, paragraphs 27-64). they reject the sacrament of Confession and the very right of the priesthood to forgive people's sins by the power of Christ.
12 . The majority of Protestants, contrary to the clear commandment of the Apostle (- see ch. 17, paragraph 2) and the teaching of the entire ancient Church (see ch. 17, paragraphs 7-9), reject and do not perform the Anointing of the Sick.
13 . Protestants truncated Holy Scripture, arbitrarily excluding 11 books from it, contrary to the Tradition of the Old Testament Jews and the ancient Christian Church(see ch. 20).
14 . Protestants, contrary to Holy Scripture (; ; ; ; - see ch. 19, paras. 11-12), the teaching of the entire ancient Church (see ch. 19, paras. 15-22) and, which is very funny, contrary to their but in their own practice (i.e., in fact, they recognize some parts of the Tradition of the Church and have their own tradition - see ch. 19, pars. 28-51) reject the Sacred Tradition of the Church and the very concept of "tradition".
15 . Protestants do not believe in the "One Holy Catholic and Apostolic", in Her invincibility, continuity and all-knownness, arguing that the "historical" spiritually died, rushing to recreate the Church, in fact, causing thousands of schisms and their self-styled man-made churches and denominations, alien and hostile to Christ (see ch. 21).
16 . Protestants, despite the fact that the Bible describes many different material shrines and that there have always been shrines both in ancient Israel and in the Church, categorically reject all shrines and the very theological concept of “material shrine” (see Chapter 1).
17 . Protestants do not honor the Cross and vilify it, calling the Savior a vile instrument of murder, despite the fact that the Bible (see ch. 2, pars. 14–39) and from the beginning (see ch. 2, pars. 41–54) is completely different relate to the Cross, and the Protestants themselves, contrary to their own teaching, venerate the Cross in a peculiar way, especially in last years(See ch. 2, paras. 59-79).
18 . Protestants, contrary to Holy Scripture (see ch. 3, pars. 8–10), the teachings of the ancient Church (see ch. 3, pars. 87–95) and their own practice (see ch. 3, pars. 4– 5), reject icons (and their veneration), considering the images of false gods and the images of Christ and His saints to be one and the same - idols, godlessly mixing the holy with the impious, thereby falling, like iconoclasts, under the anathema of the Seventh Ecumenical Council.
19 . Protestants, contrary to the teachings of the Bible (see ch. 4, paras. 9-18, 32-37, 43-49), of the entire ancient Church (see ch. 4, paras. 19-31, 38-42, 53-75 ) and even their own practice (see Ch. 4, paragraphs 93–97) reject the prayerful communion of the heavenly and earthly Churches: the prayers of Angels and saints for those living on earth, prayers to Angels and saints, and prayers for repose.
20 . Protestants, contrary to Holy Scripture (see ch. 5, pars. 10–20) and the unanimous teaching of the ancient Church (see ch. 5, pars. 25–41), blaspheme, saying that the Virgin Mary is not the Ever-Virgin and apart from Christ had other children from Joseph, thereby falling under the anathema of the Church (see ch. 5, paragraph 65).
21 . Protestants, contrary to the Bible (see ch. 5, paras. 79-84), the teachings of the entire ancient Church (see ch. 5, paras. 86-101) and just common sense (see ch. 5, paras. 104) refuse to call the Virgin Mary the Theotokos.
22 . Protestants argue that good works and the sacraments of the Church are not needed for salvation, and that a person is saved only by faith, falsely defined as "the recognition of Christ as one's personal Savior" (see ch. 6).
23 . Protestants reject and vilify monasticism, often calling conscious celibacy for the sake of Christ heresy and apostasy (see ch. 7, par. 3), contrary to Holy Scripture (see ch. 7, par. 45–51) and the teaching of the ancient Church (see ch. 7, paragraphs 53-69), which magnify celibacy.
24 . Protestants, contrary to Holy Scripture (see ch. 8, paragraph 7) and the practice of the ancient Church (see ch. 8, paragraphs 8-12), do not fast (or almost never fast), while rejecting partial fasting , although the Bible clearly speaks of such a fast (see ch. 8, pars. 48-51), and general posts(see ch. 8, pars. 14–22), including the most important fasts established by the Apostles themselves – fasts on Wednesday and Friday, and Great Lent before Paschal (see ch. 8, pars 24–35).
25 . The Protestant organization of worship and their houses of prayer does not correspond to the Bible, which describes many elements of the heavenly Temple and Divine services, and to the tradition of the ancient Church (see ch. 10).
26 . Many Protestants, in particular Baptists, contrary to Holy Scripture (see ch. 11, paragraphs 3-12) and the teachings of the ancient Church (see ch. 11, paragraphs 15-20) forbid drinking wine, being apostates from the faith, about which he speaks. Paul in, and thereby falling under the anathema church canons(see ch. 11, par. 35).
27 . The majority of Protestants accepted the heresy of ecumenism, which claims that there is no single truth, and demands to abandon the thinking that has permeated all Holy Scripture, the teachings and canons of the Church from the very beginning (see ch. 22).
A huge step in the retreat from the Divine Truth was the emergence of Protestantism.
The very word "Protestantism" meant a protest against the wickedness of the medieval papacy. This protest was completely justified, for the deeds of the then Rome were in no way compatible with the spirit of Christianity. Of course, those who yearn for the true faith of Christ should turn their faces to the East, where the Orthodox Church sacredly preserves the Divine teaching of love and the apostolic covenants.
But the papacy succeeded in spreading in the West a widespread prejudice against the "barbarian" East. And Protestantism, instead of overcoming the Roman retreat, only exacerbated the departure from the right teaching.
Taking up arms against the vices of the papacy, Protestantism at the same time rejected those Divine gifts that were preserved in the Roman Church.
The Protestants found neither pious leaders nor wise teachers. Unfortunately, the loudest of the voices raised against the abuses of the papacy was that of Martin Luther.
He not only justly denounced the Inquisition and the trade in indulgences, he refused to obey the pope. This self-confident person decided to “start from scratch” in general, declaring “impious and pagan” the centuries-old history of the Church of Christ that existed before him. He rejected the Church itself.
It was crazy! Has the Church of God, the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15), been lying in the dust and dust for a millennium and a half since the time of Christ, waiting for Luther's "coming"?
Yes, one must pay tribute to Luther's courage in his fight against papism, but his other qualities were far from apostolic.
Luther was a man of dubious morality: a glutton, a lover of strong drinks and obscene jokes, far from humility and chastity, quick-tempered and unbridled in anger. Luther was an oathbreaker: he himself violated the monastic vow he had given to the Lord and involved him in the same terrible sin, a woman, kidnapped a nun from the monastery and entered into a blasphemous "marriage" with her.
Another "founder" of Protestantism, Guillaume Farel, together with his armed accomplices broke into churches during the Liturgy - they mocked the priests, destroyed icons, dispersed the believers. Feeling his mental incapacity to create any coherent doctrine, Farel called to Switzerland, where he operated, the young "religious thinker" John Calvin.
Calvin surpassed his teacher. For attempting to criticize the “teacher Calvin,” people were tortured, their tongues were drilled with a red-hot iron, and they were executed.
His ideological opponent, the mystic Miguel Serveta, the "anti-papist" Calvin tried to betray the papal inquisition, and then burned him at the stake.
What could people like Luther, Calvin, Farel have in common with the teaching of purity and love taught by Christ the Savior?
With a single stroke of the pen, the “founders” of Protestantism crossed out the apostolic testaments stored in Holy Tradition, consigned to oblivion the blood of martyrs for the holy faith, the deeds and creations of the spiritual fathers of the Church - and all this was replaced by their own conjectures.
On the teachings of Luther and Calvin, countless varieties of evangelism and Baptism are now based. By declaring "the freedom of everyone to interpret the Bible," the Protestants unbridled the crafty human mind. Their followers began to interpret the Holy Scriptures in the impurity of deeds and thoughts, with a mind darkened by pride and self-will.
The result is known: there are now more than a thousand Protestant sects in the world, each with its own false teachers, each daring to interpret the Divine Revelation in its own way.
How did the retreat of the sectarians from the teachings of Christ the Savior, the holy apostles and teachers of the Church manifest itself?
Sectarians oppose the fullness of Sacred Tradition, leaving only the Bible for arbitrary interpretation and use.
Protestants reject the Biblical, apostolic teaching about the Sacraments and the rite, the narrative about the actions of the Providence of God in the history of the Church, God-inspired creations and prayers of the Holy Fathers, as if the action of the Holy Spirit ceased in the very first century of Christianity, on the first apostles and the Almighty is no longer present in the world redeemed by the Blood of the Son of Man.
Since the time of Christ, the holy teachers of the Church have passed on the Holy Tradition to each other, protecting the shrine from distortion; the apostolic teaching passed from people to people, overcame centuries and millennia, and is preserved in its original form, only by the Orthodox Church.
If humanity remembers its history from the works of the ancient chroniclers, then how not to trust the keepers of the Holy Tradition - the chosen ones of God, many of whom laid down their lives for the faith of Christ.
The Bible itself, Holy Scripture, is only a part of Holy Tradition, its basis.
The sectarians present themselves as connoisseurs of the Bible - but even the words of the Savior and the apostles are interpreted by these false wise men at random, obstinately not noticing what directly exposes their spiritual blindness.
But the New Testament is a sacred treasure of the Orthodox Church - in the 3rd century, the holy fathers of the Church singled out truly inspired books from the entire huge corpus of ancient Christian writings, among which there were many false and heretical Jews, and thus the New Testament canon was compiled.
And so the sectarians, who thievishly stole the New Testament from the Holy Church, are trying to turn the letter of Scripture against the Fullness of Orthodoxy. They have fallen out of the living life of Christianity, and for most of them the New Testament is only a lifeless graceless "moral code", a set of dry moral rules.
The Son of Man himself did not write anything. Books about His life and teachings were subsequently created by the holy evangelists and apostles. But their creations, of course, could not contain the fact that if they wrote about it in detail, then ... the world itself would not contain the books that were written (John 21, 25).
Therefore, according to the apostolic covenant, the faithful were commanded to adhere not only to the Scriptures, but also to Tradition, "which you have been taught" either by our word or our epistle (2 Thess. 2:15).
In addition, the first Christians were forced to keep much of their teaching in secret, so that the shrine would not be “trampled” by the enemies of the Church of Christ. The ancient Israelites, being a free people and having the opportunity to protect the shrine from desecration, wrote down everything related to the ceremony.
Deviating from the teaching of the Church on the Sacraments, the founders of Protestantism renounced the saving Grace of God and barred their followers from the path to the Kingdom of Heaven.
The terrible and life-giving Gifts of the Flesh and Blood of the Lord, about which the Savior speaks unequivocally, without which not a single person will be saved, super-wise heretics try to present them with “signs” and “symbols”. But these false teachers cannot act otherwise, for there is not a single one among them who would have the right to perform the Divine Mysteries.
In their madness, the founders of Protestantism tore apart the apostolic succession of the priesthood and the hierarchy established by God.
Luther declared: "The priesthood is the property of all Christians."
Did the Savior send many to “teach and baptize,” or gave many the right to “bind and loose”? Only the chosen apostles of Christ were entrusted with the holy work of the Gospel, they were given grace by the Holy Spirit to perform the Sacraments and transfer this gift of grace to successors with the laying on of the hands of the priesthood (1 Tim. 4:14).
The humblest priest of the Orthodox Church, through the continuous transmission of ordinations, traces his spiritual lineage back to one of the apostles of Christ, and the grace of service bestowed upon him does not depend on the personal merits of the priest - the Sacraments are performed visibly by his hands, but invisibly - by the Power of God.
Themselves spiritually weak, the sectarians dare to deny the veneration of the saints of God.
The Old Testament knew the greatest saints and prophets. According to the word of the prophet Elijah, the heavens dissolved and closed, drought lasted or rain fell.
From touching the bones of the prophet Elisha, a dead man was resurrected.
Joshua stopped the sun with his petition.
The Savior speaks of the righteous of the New Testament in his prayer to the Heavenly Father: “Father ... the glory that You gave Me, I will give them” (John 17:21-22).
So, is it really with the coming of the Son of God that holiness has dried up or diminished in the world?
Such a statement is blasphemy. And the Orthodox Church follows the apostolic covenant: “Remember your leaders who preached to you the word of God, and, looking at the end of their lives, imitate their faith” (Heb. 13:7). True Christians are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God (Eph. 2:19), because they resort to the help and intercession of the holy saints of the Lord before the Throne of the Most High.
Stubborn heretics go so far as not to accept the worship of the Mother of God.
Can anyone hope for the favor of even an ordinary decent person if he treats his mother without respect? So how do sectarians hope to receive the favor of the Son of Man by refusing to worship His Most Pure Mother?
How do these false connoisseurs of the Gospel fail to notice the angelic greeting addressed to Her: “Rejoice, Blessed One! The Lord is with you; Blessed are You among women” (Luke 1:28), and Her answer: “From now on, all generations will please Me; what did the Mighty One do to me greatness” (Luke 1:48-49)?
The veneration of the Holy Cross is unbearable for the secants.
“The word about the cross is foolishness for those who are perishing, but for us who are being saved it is the power of God (1 Cor. 1:18),” says the holy Apostle Paul. The cross for an Orthodox Christian is the Altar, stained with the Most Pure Blood of the Savior.
According to the word of the Lord Himself, one who swears by the altar swears by it and everything that is on it (Matt. 23:20) - thus, the sectarians who blaspheme the Cross spew blasphemy against the Crucified Savior.
Sectarians in their foolishness accuse the Orthodox Church of idolatry for the worship of holy icons.
Wasn't the Ark of the Covenant outwardly material, was it not made by human hands from wood, metal, fabric? However, the Lord punished those who unworthily touched this shrine with death. In the Holy of Holies of the Jerusalem Temple there were hand-made images of Cherubim - who would dare to call them idols?
The Son of God came down to earth, clothed in matter, in human flesh. The Savior allowed mortals to see and hear Himself, to feel His wounds, the God-man showed His Face to the world not so that Christians would forget His Most Pure Image.
We cherish the photographs of our loved ones and the memorabilia received from them. Could the love of Christians for the Savior be so small that they would not save His images?
Twice Jesus Christ gave His miraculous images to people - the ruler Abgar for pious zeal and Saint Veronica on the way to Golgotha. Protestants, of course, do not believe in this, as in many other miracles of the Lord.
But here it is: in recent times, the world has seen another miraculous Image of the Savior, miraculously imprinted on the Shroud of Turin. Even materialistic scientists, who meticulously studied the Shroud, were forced to admit the authenticity and “inexplicability” of this greatest shrine, which once wrapped itself around the Body of the Lord after the Crucifixion. The image on the Shroud can safely be called a "photo" of Jesus Christ. And here one more miracle is seen: this Most Holy Image is exactly like the images of the Savior on most Orthodox icons.
To compare sacred images with idols, as sectarians do, is blasphemy. No, Orthodox Christians do not worship “boards and paints” in front of holy icons, but through the contemplation of images they rush in spirit to the Heavenly prototypes. Moreover, just as the power of God rested on the Ark of the Covenant, the spirit of the Lord and His saints also rests on sacred objects revered by the Church, and an inexhaustible stream of miracles flows from them.
Sectarians treat miracles from holy icons and miracles flowing from the relics of the saints of Christ, as once from the bones of the prophet Elisha, with crafty unbelief. Orthodoxy is a whole universe, bringing up for the service of God both the soul and the body of the believer, covering his whole life. Tempering the flesh, repentance that burns out the filth of sin, the sublime joy of the Lord's feasts, the splendor of temples, holy images, inspired chants and prayers, censing incense - everything is aimed at helping a person find the path to Gornyaya. Slyly philosophizing sectarians have refused most of the treasures of the Church of Christ. The resulting void could only be filled with lies.
Many sectarians "teach about justification by faith" - they say, only faith in Christ is enough to gain a "place in paradise."
St. Neil of Yaroslavl remarks about such "Christians": "In their opinion, just think decently about the Lord - and you will be good." What a temptation for spiritual loafers, stagnant in the filth of sin and at the same time sighing about "spirituality"!
Can there be "justification" by faith alone? After all, even the fallen spirits believe, moreover, they tremble, firmly knowing about the existence of the Just-Just Almighty Lord. Christians are called to imitate the Savior, and our Lord Jesus Christ prayed until he sweated blood, fasted for forty days in the wilderness, exhausting His earthly Body.
Prayer work and the feat of fasting became daily spiritual bread for the apostles of Christ and for all who want to follow in His footsteps. According to the Lord's word, the Kingdom of Heaven is taken by force, and those who use force take it by force (Matthew 11:12). The sectarians, propagandizing "lite Christianity", lure people onto the "broad path" leading to death.
“One Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph. 4, 5), - it is said in the Holy Scriptures. One Body of Christ, Holy Orthodox Church.
In the old days in Rus' there was a wonderful pious custom: during heavy snowstorms, church bells did not stop, so that the lost traveler could hear the good news and understand that housing was close, help was close, salvation was close.
In the same way, in the midst of any worldly storms, the Mother Church calls the lost into her arms so that they find peace and tranquility.
Metropolitan Vladimir (Ikim).
