World religions. Рахимбергенова М.Х. - 12 стр.

effect in 1054 when the Pope and the Patriarch of Constantinople excommuni-             sian rulers popularized the concept of Moscow as the Third Rome (successor to
cated each other. In the latter part of the 20th century the Orthodox Churches          the second Rome, Constantinople). The first Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus
have taken an active part in the ecumenical movement; the mutual excommuni-             was to be metropolitan Iov of Moscow.
cations of 1054 were abolished in 1965 (OEED) Orthodox Church.                               In the 16th century the Church became closely linked with the state. Rus-
                                                                                        sian rulers struggled against the influence of the Church. Ivan the Terrible dem-
Orthodox                                                                                onstrated cruelly his power not only by dismissing the Metropolitan Iov of
     1. (a) holding correct or currently accepted opinions, especially on reli-         Moscow, Filipp, but by having him strangled.
  gious doctrine, morals, etc.;                                                              The last attempts to return the supremacy of the Church in Russia were
        (b) not independent – minded; unoriginal; unheretical.                          made by Patriarch Nikon. His efforts proved to be abortive and created the
     2. (of religious doctrine, standards of morality, etc.) generally accepted as      Schism in Russian Christianity, with a large group of Old Believes, i. e. adher-
right or true; authoritatively established; conventional.                               ents of old traditions, splitting from the Church. Nikon’s failure cleared the way
     3. (also O-) (of Judaism) strictly keeping the traditional doctrine and ritual     for the ecclesiastical reforms of Peter the Great. After that tsar, the Church re-
(OEED).                                                                                 mained subordinate to the state until the end of the Russian Empire (based on:
                                                                                        CamEnc, 1994).
Task 2. Translate into Russian.
                      The Russian Pravoslavnaya Church                                  Task 3. Make up plan to this text and be ready to speak on any point of it.
      Christianity was brought to Slavs by the missionaries, Kirill and Mefody          Task 4. Translate into Russian.
(known in the West as Cyrill and Methodious) in the 9th century. They created                 Peter I (1672–1725), of the Romanov dynasty, was Tsar since 1682, the
the alphabet for the Slavs, so-called Kirillitsa (Cyrillic), and translated the Bible   Emperor of Russia since 1721. He carried out reforms of all the spheres of state
into Old (Church) Slavonic.                                                             life. Some of these reforms were justified and necessary, however his ecclesias-
      Russia was baptized in 988 under prince Vladimir of Kiev. The small prin-         tical reforms dealt a heavy blow to the Russian Pravoslavnaya Church, so that
cipality of Kiev was surrounded by powerful neighbours, who tried to influence          the consequences of them have not been fully overcome up to now. He abol-
Vladimir in his choice of a new religion. Thus Vladimir’s option was Byzantine          ished the patriarchate and subordinated the Church to the Synod, a state body
Christianity, Islam, or Judaism of Khazars. Vladimir started negotiations with          governed by a bureaucrat appointed by tsar, he introduced unbearable taxes of
Constantinople and that led him to the marriage to the emperor’s sister (989),          monasteries; the best craftsmen were taken from the monasteries to carry out
but the necessary precondition was his baptism (988). It was a baptism, which           Peter’s construction plans, he appointed as Church hierarchs his own people,
was to determine the religion of the Russian people for centuries to come. The          who were faithful to him and not to the Church, and, finally, Peter made his
choice in favour of Eastern Christianity also influenced the character of Russian       own interests prior to the ecclesiastical holiness and placed himself above the
writing – it was to Kirillitsa, not the Roman writing of the Roman Catholic             Holy Church Fathers by abolishing the secrecy of the confession and ordered
Church. As Russia had close links with Constantinople, it became still more             the clergy to answer all the questions of his investigators. Thus it is not by
separated from Rome after the Great Schism of 1054, which divided Christian-            chance that many Pravoslavnyi believers, particularly those observing old tradi-
ity into two parts – Western, with the Roman Pope at its head, and Eastern, with        tions, were convinced that Peter was Antichrist.
Constantinople as its leader.
      During the Mongol-Tatar invasion the Church became the center of resis-
tance. The most significant church figure of the 14th century was not a metro-          Part III
politan but a humble monk, Sergy Radonezhsky (1314–1392). One of the great-
est of Russian monasteries, Troitse-Sergrieva Lavra dedicated to the Troitsa            Task 1. Several words are missed here. Try to restore them to their places.
(Holy Trinity), was to develop around his hermitage 70 km north-east of Mos-
cow at the place subsequently named after him – Sergiev Posad.                               Council; Third Rome; the Cathedral of the Dormition; clergy; deprived;
      Constantinople was soon to fall to the Turks (1453). In Muscovy it was            patriarchate; situation; Civil War; Established; confiscation; separated; metro-
said that this was a punishment for acceptance of the Union with Rome. Rus-             politan; militancy; ideology.

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