The article examines the activities of the Johannites in Vyatka province. This religious movement, recognized as a sectarian by the IV Missionary Congress, appeared at the end of the 19th century. In Vyatka province, the Johannites became the object of attention of the authorities and society in 1907. Their activities in Vyatka province included distributing brochures from the Kronstadt Mayak publishing house, recruiting people into the Johannite communities, and collecting donations. All strata of the Vyatka public had a negative attitude towards the Johannites. Not only the liberal press, but also the monarchist Vyatka Herald considered the Johannites a criminal community, a malicious sect abusing the name of Father John Sergiev, who was revered in the province. If in other regions of the Russian Empire some monarchists tried to find common ground with the Johannites (primarily on a political platform), then the Vyatka monarchists listed the Johannites as enemies. The relatives of people who had joined the Johannite communities, the police, the local clergy, and John of Kronstadt, who sent “rebukes” in which he denied his involvement in the activities of the Johannites, acted against the Johannites. Previously unpublished archival documents are introduced into scientifi c circulation, data from local periodicals are analyzed, and the activities of the Johannites in the Vyatka province and other places in the Russian Empire are compared. The main attention is paid to the activities of the Johannites in 1907–1908. It was during this period that the Johannites began active work to attract adherents to their communities located in St. Petersburg and Kronstadt. The calculation was made on the religious feelings of the people, as well as the trust of believers in John of Kronstadt.
The article is devoted to the questions related to the authorship of the “Life of St. Pancratius”. The analysis was conducted using the manuscript GIM Sin gr. 15 (Vlad 381), which is the oldest manuscript of the second edition. The reason for the research of the second edition of the text is signifi cant diff erences from other editions, the relatively low degree of its study and the availability of the manuscript, due to its storage in Moscow. The complexity of the analysis lies in the fact that the Life is narrated by Evagrius, who presumably was a real disciple of the saint, but at the same time there is no doubt that the text that has come down to us was compiled by a later editor. It is not possible to distinguish between the contribution of the ancient author and the later editor, since from the point of view of both the logic of the text and the language of the narrative the text represents a single structure. The present work examines the origin and the level of education of the author — Evagrius, a disciple of Saint Pancratius. A special mention is made of the literary techniques that are used to form an artistic image of the author as well as the degrees of the refl ection of the personality in the created work. The research is based on the textual method and the method of historical hermeneutics. The task of the present study was set to characterize the informative potential of this hagiographic monument as a historical source with a focus on the methodology and peculiarities of working with late hagiographies of early Christian saints. In the course of the study, we have identifi ed data that allowed us to get an idea of the personality of the ancient author of the Life, his literary style. In our opinion, the image of Evagrius, the disciple of Saint Pancratius, was not completely invented by the later editor, and Evagrius was a real-life personality included in the narrative.
This article is devoted to the analysis of the correspondence between Augustine of Hippo and Boniface, comes Africae, in the context of the growing political infl uence of the Church. The fi rst part of the article examines the content of the surviving letters, the key themes of which are the laws against the Donatists, the service of an ascetic warrior, and the contradiction between love for worldly goods and love for God (Aug. Ep. 185; 185A; 189; 220; 17*). Much attention is paid to the problem of dating the letters and, in particular, to the key question in this regard about the time of Boniface’s second marriage. The author presents a number of arguments for a later dating of 425–426. The second part of the article examines the relationship between Augustine and Boniface. First of all, the author discusses the concept of B. D. Shaw, making a point that their acquaintance was based not on offi cial duties, but on a common faith. As a result of the analysis of Augustine’s arguments and Boniface’s questions, it was concluded that the main issue of their communication was the interests of the Church and Christian life. The description of the meetings of Augustine and Boniface and the data on Boniface’s social connections indicate the latter’s involvement in church life. The generalization of the results, given in the third part of the article, shows that the basis of the relationship between Augustine and Boniface was pastoral communication. However, since neither Boniface nor Augustine made a clear distinction between the ecclesiastical and secular, personal and public spheres of life, the role of a Christian was the most important for Boniface, at least until his second marriage. As a result of the study of the correspondence, the conclusion was made that it represents clear evidence of the growth of the political infl uence of the Church, which occurred, alongside with economic and social reasons, due to the authority of church hierarchs as pastors even for the “the powers that be”.
The article explores the participation of the Moscow Patriarchate in the preparation of the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church during the chairmanship of Metropolitan Nikodim (Rotov, 1960–1972) in the Department for External Church Relations. The study is based on both published and unpublished sources, as well as on literature by Russian and foreign authors. The pre-council process became a pan-Orthodox phenomenon involving leading theological fi gures not only from the Russian Church but also from other Local Orthodox Churches. Metropolitan Nikodim made a signifi cant contribution to the Council’s preparation, particularly in developing the list of agenda topics. The author concludes that the preparation for the Council took place during a period of active inter-Christian cooperation, which was used by the Phanar to strengthen its leading role in the consolidation of global Orthodoxy, even aiming toward the creation of a unifi ed Orthodox Church headed by the Ecumenical Patriarch. The author asserts that the Moscow Patriarchate sought to link its participation in the pre-council process with resolving several complex issues in the sphere of inter-Orthodox relations and to rally friendly Churches around itself. According to the researcher, the pre-council work revitalized inter-Orthodox relations, stimulated theological thought, and contributed to the development of ties between the Orthodox Church and non-Orthodox churches.
This article reconstructs the biography and academic and social activities of Archpriest Alexander Mikhailovich Ivantsov-Platonov, one of the most signifi cant representatives of the Russian Church history in the second half of the 19th century. Despite Ivantsov-Platonov’s signifi cant infl uence on the development of university teaching in church history and theological thought, his biography has not been a topic of a comprehensive study. Based on a wide range of sources, including archival records, obituaries, memoirs of contemporaries, journalism, and scientifi c works, the article traces the main stages of his life. Special attention is paid to the intellectual evolution of the scholar, his relations with the Slavophiles, his role in the rapprochement of church and secular science, and his methodological diff erences with representatives of theological- academic historiography. The article highlights the signifi cance of Ivantsov- Platonov as an educator, promoter of church history, and author of fundamental studies on the history of early Christianity. The article argues that Ivantsov-Platonov was a “last Platonist”, a thinker who sought to synthesise faith and scientifi c knowledge and had a signifi cant impact on the intellectual culture of pre-revolutionary Russia.
The article is devoted to the Tashkent period of the life of St. Luke (Voino-Yasenetsky), very significant for his preaching, apologetic activities and episcopal service. His stay in Tashkent occurred during the period of revolutions, civil war and the most severe repression of the Soviet government against the Church (1917–1930s). Arrests, exiles, and gross interference of the authorities in internal church affairs provoked schisms, a complete breakdown of church governance, conflicts between clergy and “inter-party” strife among parishioners. Saint Luke also suffered persecution - four of his criminal cases were fabricated in Tashkent. In addition, at the Tashkent department he experienced very serious spiritual trials. In 1923 - deep disappointment in his first mentor-bishop, a secret episcopal consecration, which caused from different sides both doubts about its canonicity and a barrage of slander. In 1926–1929 – serious conflicts with his associates and church authorities, which led to a chain of unaccepted appointments in 1926–1927, a long stay on staff and a deep mental crisis in 1933. To date, historians who have covered in detail many periods of the life of Saint Luke have not fully explored or completely ignored some aspects of the Tashkent events, which is why in the lives of Saint Luke, compiled on the basis of scientific works, contains incorrect statements that distort the image of the saint. This article proposes new and little-known facts that fill some gaps in the first two parts of the Tashkent period of the biography of Saint Luke: from 1917 to 1923 (from arrival to the first exile) and from 1926 to May 1930 (from return to Tashkent until a new arrest).
The publication is a correspondence between Bishop Alexei (Dekhterev) of Pryashev and Archimandrite Mitrofan (Yaroslavtsev), who served in Morocco at the turn of the 1940s-1950s. The main topics of correspondence were: the situation of Orthodox parishes in North Africa in the context of the confrontation between supporters of the Church Abroad and the church authorities in Moscow; the attitude toward the Orthodox in Morocco; financial and personnel problems; the situation of Moscow-oriented parishes in France; and the attitude toward Russian emigrants on the part of representatives of the Greek episcopate. t should be noted that the correspondence touches on the natural and climatic conditions of living in the Maghreb. Bishop Alexis, who himself had previously served in Egypt, is interested in the state of affairs in the country and the peculiarities of living there. The letters were found by the author in the Archives of the Vilna-Lithuanian Diocese in Vilnius, in a file dedicated to Alexei (Dekhterev). They are not sorted out and not numbered, in some cases it is also difficult to establish the specific date of writing of this or that letter.
The publication introduces into the scientific circulation the letters from the future well-known church hierarch of the early twentieth century, Metropolitan Nikander (Fenomenov), the closest assistant of His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon, to another outstanding archpastor of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a permanent member of the Holy Synod and the closest friend of Chief Prosecutor K. P. Pobedonostsev, Metropolitan Flavian (Gorodetsky) of Kiev. The letters relate to different periods of the future bishop's life - the starting point is determined by the time of his service in Georgia (1900-1905), where, in fact, he met His Grace the addressee. The last letter is dated as January of 1915 and was written, thus, ten months before the death of Metropolitan Flavian, while the addressee at that time was the ruling bishop of the Vyatka Diocese. The author of the letters touched upon various aspects and problems of the theological education, and in the latest letters he touched upon the diocesan administration's issues, addressing to Metropolitan Flavian not only as to a permanent member of the Synod, but also as to a hierarch with significant experience and deserved recognition in the diocesan administration. The purpose of the work is a comprehensive analysis of the epistolary heritage, which is directly related to the history of the theological education and the diocesan administration in the early twentieth century. Through letters, new facts from the early biography of the future Metropolitan Nikander are revealed, and an assessment of the events that took place is given, that was not always possible to obtain by studying the official records. The research methodology is based on the historical and analytical method, in which a historical source is subjected to a detailed study and to historical features' and trends' identification. The published letters are kept in the collection at the Office of the Holy Synod in the Russian State Historical Archive (RSHA) in St. Petersburg and have not been used by researchers before.
The paper is focused on the practice of confession among Taborites and the Prague Hussites in the first third of the 15th century. It was reasoned out that the rejection shown by the Taborite priests towards the established forms of confession and their call to confess sins only to God were determined by their chiliastic mood, i.e. by their confidence that the coming Kingdom of Christ will abolish all human powers (including the right of indulgence possessed by the clergy). Thus, Taborites usually replaced the confession with the spiritual preparation of a believer to take communion. However, Taborites and the Prague Hussites did practice the public confession of a kneeling sinner who was confessing his sin to God, as well as to the political community which thus was being sacralized as an executor of God’s Law. In turn, the Prague Hussites were not united considering the confession: their conservative party recognized only the confession to a priest, while the Prague master Jacob of Stribro actually did share the opinion of the Taborite bishop Nicholas of Pelhrimov, namely that the penitence can be carried out also during the confession to a neighbour (not strictly to a priest), because the efficiency of the penitence depended fully on the spiritual repentance of the sinner and not on the formal realization of the rite.
The article examines the attitude of the holy Fr. John of Kronstadt (I. I. Sergiev) to the largest monarchist organization of the Russian Empire, the Union of the Russian People. Based on the testimonies of contemporaries, the texts of sermons and diaries of John of Kronstadt, materials from the pre-revolutionary periodical press and the achievements of modern historiography, the publication reconstructs and analyzes the political views of the orthodox priest and the degree of his involvement in the activities of this right-wing union. New sources are introduced into scientific circulation, including a previously unknown text of a speech by Fr. John of Kronstadt at a rally of the Union of the Russian People, as well as facts testifying to the closeness of the priest's political views with the main programmatic provisions of the right-wing monarchist parties. Particular attention is paid to the public speeches of Fr. John of Kronstadt, concerning his attitude to the tsarist power, the autocratic monarchy, the revolution and its leaders, his understanding of the situation in which Russia found itself, as well as his relationship with the leader of the Union of the Russian People, A. I. Dubrovin. Based on various sources, it is proven that Fr. John of Kronstadt was not only a formal member of the Union of the Russian People, but was a conscious and convinced supporter of the monarchist movement that came out in defense of Orthodoxy, autocracy and the Russian nationality during the 1905 revolution. Sharing the main programmatic guidelines of the union, the Kronstadt pastor supported it spiritually and materially, approving of its struggle against revolutionary unrest, socialism and liberalism. In key issues of political life, Fr. John of Kronstadt and A. I. Dubrovin completely agreed in 1905-1907, which led to the pastor's blessing of the union. At the same time, Fr. John of Kronstadt did not delve into the affairs of the union in detail, did not participate in its management, had nothing to do with its violent actions and manifestations of populism and radicalism, was far from interfering in the internal strife and struggle of the leaders of the Union of the Russian People.
The article examines the Calvinist or «second» Reformation in the small German principality of Anhalt in the late 16th – early 17th centuries. Using Anhalt as an example, it is considered how the choice of religion in the era of confessional schism and the search for the «true faith» influenced the small states of the Holy Roman Empire. The religious views of German rulers were inextricably linked with their political strategy, which played a leading role in the era that historians have called «confessional». This implies the comprehensive influence of religious attitudes on the life of society. Even contemporaries emphasized the inextricable connection between religious and political issues in this period. Protestant religious practices allowed the Anhalt princes to strengthen their power in their own lands and resist the imperial policy of the Counter-Reformation, thanks to the support they found among their co-religionists, primarily the powerful Electorate of the Palatinate. Along with the strengthening of political power and role within the Empire through the adoption of Calvinism, Anhalt was one of the first German territories to purposefully promote the religious ideals of Calvinism. The Anhalt princes paid special attention to school education in the Calvinist spirit, constantly supervised the activities of the printing house established in Zerbst and Köthen, which published a large amount of Calvinist literature. As a result, Anhalt turned into one of the main centers of Calvinism in the Empire. The strengthening of the position of Calvinism in Germany at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries was reflected in the internal and external political situation of the Empire and eventually led it to the catastrophe of the Thirty Years' War. The main sources of the article are ego-documents of representatives of the ruling house of Anhalt, funeral sermons dedicated to the house of Ascania and their retinues, as well as official materials published in the principality. This corpus of sources has so far attracted almost no attention from researchers.
The article is devoted to the history of the nominal scholarship of metropolitan Platon (Levshin), which was awarded to more than 50 students of the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy, the Trinity Lavra Seminary and the Moscow Theological Academy from 1789 to 1860. The scholarship holders of Metropolitan Platon were called platonists, retaining the lifelong addition to their surname – Platonov. Metropolitan Platon created a corporation of named fellows as a core of poor but well-behaved students capable of scientific pursuits. To this end, the Platonists received a common cell, the same food, clothes and shoes, as well as everything necessary for study. They were subject to restrictions in communicating with the outside world. Platonists were instructed to communicate with each other in one of the languages being studied. After the death of metropolitan Platon (1812) and the closure of the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy (1814), the practice of defining and maintaining platonists was transferred to the Moscow Theological Academy, while undergoing significant changes. In 1818–1860, 24 Platonovs were issued, as a rule, chosen from among the best students of their courses. They were no longer a scholarship corporation. By 1914, thanks to published sources and research, the idea about Platonists had developed as a special institution in the MDA, a corporation whose members were carriers of the ideas and ideals of their creator, metropolitan Platon (Levshin), the implementation of which was carried out in various fields. Intended to serve the Church with their talents and knowledge, Platonists in the second half of the 19th century became a noticeable phenomenon of public life. The prospects for studying the imaginary platonic community of the second half of the XIX – early XX centuries are associated with an attempt to identify horizontal links between them, the commonality of their cultural practices, and the degree of adherence to the ideas of metropolitan Platon.
The article is devoted to the characteristics of the events of the Russian Empire in the late 19th – early 20th centuries aimed at the protection and improvement of military-historical monuments and military burials using the example of the Russian necropolis in San Stefano. The source base of the study was made up of materials from office documentation and periodicals. Of particular value were the reports, explanatory notes and dispatches of the military agent in Constantinople, Lieutenant Colonel of the General Staff N.N. Peshkov. Based on their analysis, it was possible to recreate the features of the construction of the burial temple, as well as the difficulties and subtleties of the negotiation process with the Ottoman Empire. In the course of the study, it was possible to establish that the idea of building a Russian necropolis caused a negative reaction both in the government and among the local population of the Ottoman Empire. The author came to the conclusion that the protection of military burials and memorials was one of the sides of the policy of memory, hidden from the public space. The key role in this process was played by the state, which had the necessary administrative and financial resources. Maintaining military cemeteries and obelisks in proper condition allowed paying tribute to heroes and securing a symbolic context for a specific geographic space. Improvement of the supervision system became possible due to the construction of a common necropolis to replace scattered burials. It is concluded that in the Russian Empire of the late 19th – early 20th centuries, issues of improvement of military-historical monuments were resolved privately. Outside the state, military agents played a special role in solving these problems, collecting information about burials and the condition of memorials. However, on the eve of the First World War, it was not possible to develop a normative act regulating this activity as a whole.
The study of the formation and development of the institute of military clergy in our country in the XVIII – early XX centuries. over the past decades, it has been relevant and in demand both for the study of the history of Russia and the history of the Russian Orthodox Church. However, many issues of the development of military-church relations in the XVIII century either received partial coverage or remain almost unexplored. Such little-studied issues include the problem of recruitment and dismissal of army priests. Its full-fledged study requires the involvement of a wide range of sources, including materials from federal and regional archives. In this regard, the documents of the Tobolsk branch of the State Archive of the Tyumen Region (TF GATO) are of great scientific importance, in the funds of which the richest material is concentrated, revealing many aspects of military-church relations in the Tobolsk diocese in Western Siberia in the second half of the XVIII century. The study of these materials, most of which have not been previously published, makes it possible in the proposed article to attempt a detailed analysis of the practice of recruiting the Russian army in Western Siberia with clerical personnel in the second half of the XVIII century
The bronze name signet ring, which is the subject of this publication, was found during the res-cue excavations of the Moscow Region archaeological expedition of the Institute of Archaeolo-gy of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2023 in the northern part of the Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra, in the south-western part of the Zhitniy Dvor. The find belongs to the type of name ring-seals and has a massive round shield. The sides of the hoop tapering downwards are notched in the form of palms placed on each other, the lower ends of the hoop are open. The whole area of the shield is covered by a mirror-image inscription in four lines: BORIS BAZLOV'S RING. From the end of the 10s of the 17th century the Bazlov family of servants was a member of the corporation of servants of the Trinity-Sergius Monas-tery and during the war was called up for service as men of honour. Boris Bazlov among the monastery's lackeys, died in late September — early October 1633 during the siege of Dorogobuzh by the Poles. His body was transported to the Trinity-Sergiev Monastery and bur-ied, as evidenced by the discovery of a ring.
The "Chronography" of St. Theophanes the Confessor contains accounts of the First and Second Ecumenical Councils, as well as several other councils held in the IVth century in Tyre, Antioch, Milan, Serdica, Alexandria, Lampsacia, Tyana, Illyricum, and novatians’ council on the problem of celebrating the Easter. Most of these accounts are based on the Epitome of Theodore Anagnostes’ Historia Tripartita. Theophanes only slightly modifies it and organizes into the annual sections of his chronicle. A proper description of the First Ecumenical Council, in Theophanes' view, is missing from the Epitome. He adds it, calling the Council "holy and universal" and its participants "miracle workers and equal to the angels." The chronicler's attention to the theory of the pentarchy is evident in the list of those presiding at the council, as well as his use of the text of Gelasius of Cyzicus' "Ecclesiastical History," which shifts the reference to absence "due to old age" from the Roman pope to the bishop of Constantinople (Byzantium). Theophanes also three times emphasizes the participation of Emperor Constantine. These same tendencies can be traced in his description of the Second Ecumenical Council: for Theophanes, the presence of saints among the participants becomes particularly important as a guarantee of its sanctity. This can also be seen in the account of the Council of Tyana. A strict division between Orthodox and non-Orthodox councils is hardly seen in the "Chronography." However, he does not call a number of assemblies—the novatians’ council, the Council of Tyre, and the Council of Lampsacus— «synodos». The Council of Antioch, which opens the entry in A. M. 5833, on the other hand, receives an attention from Theophanes, perhaps because the chronicler is familiar with its canons. The Council of Serdica is unexpectedly placed in the “Chronography” to the end of Constantius' reign (A. M. 5849), possibly confusing it with the Council of Arimino-Seleucus. The Council of Milan (A. M. 5843) is placed in relation to the events surrounding Pope Liberius, making the pope's participation in it completely impossible. The Council of Illyricum, which Theodore the Reader learned about from Theodoret of Cyrrhus, is held, according to Theophanes, because of spreading the Orthodoxy in the West and becomes one of the steps toward the consolidation of Orthodoxy.
This study is dedicated to assessing the place of the First Ecumenical Council (Nicaea, 325) in the corpus of letters of St. Leo the Great, Pope of Rome. The author attempts to show that the "Nicene idea" was central to the saint's theological and ecclesiological thought, especially in his interaction with the Eastern Churches — both in the Christological controversy and in the church-legal debates concerning the 28th canon of the Council of Chalcedon. The article demonstrates that Leo's polemical tactics underwent significant changes during the course of these disputes. Initially, in his Tome to St. Flavian, he avoided directly quoting the Nicene Creed and did not even appeal directly to the faith of the Council of Nicaea, preferring the so-called "Apostles' Creed," which was unknown in the East. However, after immersing himself in the context of Eastern theological conflicts, he subsequently began to verbatim reproduce the Nicene Creed to prove his own orthodoxy and the correctness of the Council of Chalcedon. Contrary to common interpretations, the author seeks to demonstrate that St. Leo's objections to the 28th canon of the Council of Chalcedon were formulated by the saint himself primarily not as a defense of the primacy of Rome or even of the Apostle Peter, but as a safeguard of the inviolable church order established by the Holy Spirit, the structure of which St. Leo attributed to Nicaea. At the same time, it is noted that this position was based on an erroneous conflation of the canons of the Council of Nicaea with other texts: the canons of the Council of Sardica, as well as various interpolations. Although, within the correspondence with Eastern emperors and episcopate, the "power of Peter" in St. Leo is presented not as a papal plenitudo potestatis, but essentially as the right to declaratively annul decisions that contradict the higher authority of the Ecumenical Council, it remains unclear how this approach is reconciled with the significantly more categorical assertion of papal privileges in St. Leo's interaction with Western church leaders.
This article examines the history of the establishment of the universal status of the Council of Constantinople of 381. Four stages of this history are highlighted: 1) the immediate reaction to the council in the East and West; 2) the perception of the council before the Council of Chalcedon; 3) the Council of Chalcedon; 4) the establishment after Chalcedon of the final narrative about the Second Ecumenical Council. A look at the legacy of this council shows that in the first two stages, the council was not perceived as ecumenical. The designation of the Council of Constantinople of 381 as “ecumenical” at the Council of 382 is significant for analysis. It is shown that it could not have had the ecclesiological meaning that is attributed to this concept today. By comparing it with the sixth rule of the Second Ecumenical Council, it is assumed that it referred to a council of bishops from several dioceses convened by the emperor. The Council of Chalcedon, which gave a number of its decrees universal status and set the line of perception of the councils of Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon, turns out to be key in the history of the establishment of the universal status of the Council of 381. After that, the Council of 381 began to be called ecumenical, first among the councils mentioned, and then independently, and it was given its own theological significance: the affirmation of the consubstantiality of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son. This interpretation of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed through the prism of Cappadocian triadology, while partially violating historical accuracy, turns out to be the final embodiment of the concept of the “Second Ecumenical Council,” surpassing the historical event of 381 itself. The history under consideration suggests that, in this case, it was not the ecumenical council that gave rise to the ecumenical dogmatic or canonical heritage of the Church, but rather church tradition that gave rise to the ecumenical council.
The article examines the connection between the addition of the Filioque to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed in the Frankish Church and the controversy with Spanish adoptionism in the late 8th century. It criticizes the widespread concept in historiography that the Filioque was added to the Creed as a counteraction to Spanish heretics. Many scholars have merely repeated the assertion of such a connection without providing evidence. Using examples from the primary sources of the controversy, the article shows that the doctrine of the double procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son was not used as an argument against adoptionism, with the exception of the letter of Pope Hadrian I. The mentions of the Filioque in the letters of the Council of Frankfurt (794), as well as the precedent of the insertion of the Filioque into the Creed at the Council of Friuli in 796 or 797, cannot be unambiguously regarded as a remedy against adoptionists. This is supported by the fact that both Alcuin and Paulinus of Aquileia, in their later treatises against Felix of Urgell, do not write at all about the Filioque as an argument against this heresy. The suggestion is made that a more likely reason for the addition was the reaction to the confession received from Tarasius of Constantinople.
This article attempts to reconstruct the system of church organization based on the documents of the Council of Nicaea (325) and the letters of Emperor Constantine the Great reporting its results. The scholarly relevance of a separate examination of this body of texts is linked to the development in the ecclesiastical tradition of the 4th century of the concept of the absolute normativity of the Nicene legacy for the entire Catholic Church, which was largely due to the victory of the Nicene party in the Arian controversy. At the same time, both the Nicene Fathers themselves and Emperor Constantine, who gathered them at Nicaea, perceived the Council of Nicaea as an event of exceptional significance. Its goal was to synchronize the local customs of the Churches and formulate a pan-ecclesiastical norm (both doctrinal and disciplinary). In this regard, the documents of the Council of Nicaea contain a lot of evidence that allows us to reconstruct the basic principles and regional particularities of church organization, as well as problematic aspects of intra-church communication. The council's ecclesiology is based on the principles of the inseparable connection between the episcopal ministry and the concrete local Church, the universal unity of the episcopal collegium, realized, among other things, through the event of a "great" and "holy" council, and the regional primacy of metropolitans, who ensure the harmony and continuity of the episcopate within individual ecclesiastical provinces. Unresolved within the Nicene model of church structure is the question of how to regularly maintain the harmony of the entire episcopate and, accordingly, the local Churches led by bishops. This problem became significantly more acute during the Arian controversy and led to the emergence in the West of romanocentric ecclesiology, which represents a significant reinterpretation of the Nicene legacy.
