Work on the Orthodox Encyclopedia has been going on in Moscow for more than 20 years.

Work on the Orthodox Encyclopedia has been going on in Moscow for more than 20 years. 75 volumes are planned, more than half came out. This publishing project is unique in many ways. First of all, by the fact that this is the first and so far the only fundamental scientific work in the world on the two thousand-year history of Orthodoxy. From a purely ecclesiastical edition, the encyclopedia has long become a humanitarian national project. About how the idea of ​​its creation arose, what difficulties and discoveries each new volume prepares and what the Church and Scientific Center “Orthodox Encyclopedia ” still lives on today, its founder and leader Sergey Kravets told the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate . - Sergey Leonidovich, how are you, a person with a secular education, a graduate of the Faculty of Journalism of Moscow State University, entrusted to do such a responsible church publication? - By that time, for many years I had been engaged in publishing serious church literature together with my colleagues in the Valaam Monastery Spaso-Preobrazhensky monastery publishing house. Then, in 1997, we had already done the most impressive church and scientific publication at that time - “The History of the Russian Church” in 12 volumes based on the work of Metropolitan Macarius (Bulgakov). And by the way, they were the only ones who managed to unite around the publishing project a large number of secular scientists from the Academy of Sciences, Moscow University and a small community of church scientists, which then existed. When we finished the Makariev's “History,” His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II , I think it was just a pity that this project would end, and the first harmonious team of church and secular scholars in our post-Soviet history will disperse to their institutions, faculties and academies. It will be very difficult to assemble them a second time. And then, in a conversation with him, this idea arose to try to make such a fundamental Orthodox encyclopedia, which they had already tried to create twice. But the first, pre-revolutionary experience, and the second experience, in the 1970s, were not very successful. Then neither the Primate of the Church, nor anyone else really imagined what a huge edition of this would grow, how fundamental it would be, and, in general, they did not even really understand what we were going to do. The patriarch then uttered the decisive phrase: "It is difficult to find a more inappropriate time to start the encyclopedia, but we will not have another time." - The patriarch had in mind not only the default of 1998? - Of course. A decade of young people lost for science ended, those who were after university in the early 1990s, when it was impossible to do science, went into business, government, television — where they took, where they could earn money to live. The resulting large ten-year gap had to be filled. It was then, in the late 1990s, that young guys began to appear, who were not just living, but nevertheless they wanted to do science. And the Patriarch said about them that this is our last hope. After all, until the end there was no certainty that this gap could be bridged. We then scored the backbone of the encyclopedia editors from university graduates and watched our young authors become mature scientists. I can say with confidence that today the stable part of the Russian scientific world in its humanitarian field is the authors of the Orthodox Encyclopedia. We also carefully monitored church young scholars to appear. And they began to appear. Not right away. Immediately very hard to compete with venerable colleagues. The main question that was then asked by our young people: where do we compete with them, are they sitting in the archives, and we are in the service of the sonar? But then a whole circle of young ecclesiastical writers gradually developed, who eventually became serious scholars and to which their secular colleagues have great respect today. - That is, it can be said that the publication of the Orthodox Encyclopedia initiated the development of church science? - Can. After all, there are two types of encyclopedia - codifying, when scientific knowledge already exists and it needs only to be described systematically and precisely. Such is the Great Russian Encyclopedia, the release of which I also directed. When working on the Orthodox Encyclopedia to the pre-revolutionary ecclesiastical science, it was impossible to send it; it was outdated. New yet, it just appears. Secular science, which would be engaged in the history of the Church or theology, also did not exist. Sending people to study foreign sources is also not an option. Not everyone is fluent in languages, and these sources can not be treated as the ultimate truth. There are many disputes, they contain different versions, different interpretations. And so we had to build the foundation for church science. Our task was not to describe the finished building, but to build it gradually. Therefore, the Orthodox encyclopedia refers to the second type of encyclopedia - fundamental. At first, it was about 20-25 volumes. But as the encyclopedia became ever more fundamental from volume to volume, 75 volumes appeared. We are currently working on the 54th. We plan to complete this edition in five years. - Do you have a big team of authors? - Somewhere under a thousand people. We have gone through a period of the largest expansion. The encyclopedia happens like this: first there are few people, then more and more narrow specialists are found, there are a lot of them, and towards the end of the publication, when the scientific editorial board is already experienced and knows who is who, the group of authors is again compressed, because they are already ordering reliable authors, knowing that this will be a qualified article. And the editors themselves are often authors. We have the same number of candidates and doctors of science, as in a research institute. During this time, the young guys who came to us after the university, all defended themselves. Many of them became university professors. This is very good, because it allows the scientific editor to be not an outside observer of the scientific process, but his active participant. Thus, he is much better oriented in the world of modern science. - For the encyclopedia they are written by real star scientists - historians of the RAS Corresponding Member Academician Sergey Karpov, Boris Florea, Pavel Uvarov, archaeologist Leonid Belyaev, and many others. How did these luminaries of secular science react to the proposal to cooperate with the church edition? - Boris Nikolayevich Florea with us from the very beginning. In this sense, it is difficult to say who is the pupil: he came to us already recognized outstanding scientists. And the fact that he started working with us was very important. These church topics turned out to be interesting for him; he knew this new world to some extent, but he began to work with them professionally. Just like Alexander Nazarenko, Anatoly Turilov, Leonid Batalov and many others. And those who entered our team later joined precisely when they saw that the encyclopedia had a high scientific level. Many scientists in the humanitarian cycle believe that the Orthodox Encyclopedia now sets the highest scientific level in the humanitarian field. - You have many foreign authors. How was contact established with them? - It was very dependent on that side. Someone from the very beginning realized that this is very important. As, for example, the Georgian Orthodox Church , which is still taking an active part in the creation of the encyclopedia. And all this is due primarily to His Holiness Patriarch Ilia II . We met several times, I told him and showed the encyclopedia, and he was very interested and supported this project. If we recall how we made the article about the Georgian Orthodox Church, then at the last stage it was discussed and removed some controversial points in the text of the two Patriarchs. Not to mention the fact that I flew to Patriarch Elijah, and the head of their delegation, an eminent scientist, director of the Georgian National Center for Manuscripts Zaza Abashidze, flew here. In Georgia, dozens of authors. The same situation in Bulgaria. Serbia is slightly weaker, but there are also very good authors. The other day I met with the Romanian delegation, they are now very actively working on the preparation of an article about the Romanian Orthodox Church . There are some not very strong Churches from the point of view of science, such as the Albanian Church , and the Primate himself wrote all the articles there. Articles turned out good. But from the very beginning, we did not have a relationship with the Constantinople Patriarchate . They believed that we would not do anything of value, did not believe in the Russian potential. As one wonderful Serbian bishop told me, “you have destroyed with your encyclopedia an old stable tradition of perception — from Russian money, from the Greeks — wisdom. Suddenly take and bring the encyclopedia. It was a big blow for the Greek side. ” - Is it important for you that their representatives write about foreign Local Churches? - We all read books about our Church, written by foreign authors, and found many absurdities in them, even just mistakes. Knowing this, we are trying to get either the article of the author of that Church, or at least a review. We do not make an encyclopedia of the Russian Orthodox Church, we make an encyclopedia of the entire Orthodox world with the help of the entire Orthodox world: the Serbs were written by the Serbs, the Georgians were Georgians, the Romanians were Romanians. Even the Finnish Orthodox Church , we write Finns. - What topics were the most difficult in the work on the encyclopedia? - Difficult articles come in many forms. For example, multi-factor, multi-aspect articles. For example, the article "Moscow", which spoke about the church life of the capital. The group of authors was about 30 people. There was a lot of information that had to be brought together in a single system. There are articles, perhaps, not so voluminous, but complex on the topic, which need to be able to translate into encyclopedic language without simplifying, and so that it is understandable to many. Right now we had an article about the apostle Paul. There, in addition to the biography, a detailed analysis of his convictions, his relationship with the Jerusalem Apostles. And this is a very difficult problem, but about which we could not write. There are still very difficult articles related to interchurch conflicts. The article about the Macedonian Church was very hard. We were under intense pressure from the unrecognized Macedonian Church, the Serbian Church , the Bulgarian Church - in general, from all the parties concerned. Here it was necessary to pass in such a way as to tell the truth. During the preparation of this article, an entire delegation flew to Macedonia: I, our editor, scholars, and the special representative of the President of the Russian Federation for international cultural cooperation, Mikhail Shvydkoi. The first with whom we spoke when we arrived was the President of Macedonia. Then there was a meeting with members of the Government of Macedonia, then the head of the Macedonian Church talked with us, then the scientists. Such a high level at which we were received testifies to the attitude of the foreign Churches to Orthodoxy today. This is what is really important for them, for which it is necessary to fight with the forces of the whole country. We feel this well by the way the attitude of other Local Churches to our project has changed. You come to some distant monastery in Serbia and suddenly you see the read volumes of our encyclopedia there. And such an example is not one. - Orthodox encyclopedia - the state national product. In early 1998, President Boris Yeltsin decided to support this project both morally and financially, largely due to the position of then-future President Vladimir Putin . There are several Councils - trustees, social and observant, who participate in the work on the encyclopedia. Is there any pressure on you from the Government or individual officials? - Not. Just as there is no pressure from the Patriarchate. We are absolutely autonomous in this sense. We have always acted as initiators of appeals to various services and specialists in the church or state spheres. We ask the Foreign Ministry to see the text if it is necessary to clarify the latest changes in the legislation of some countries. We are also working with the DECR or the Patriarch. When we were preparing an article about Moscow, of course, the Moscow authorities strongly involved - they asked for statistics on all religious organizations for several years. I would stress that the Patriarch is free to request any article for a preliminary reading, since the encyclopedia is published under his general editorship. But this is a rare case. Sometimes the Holy One asks us to be more careful in the preparation of certain articles. But, as a rule, the Patriarch trusts the competence of our authors and editors. - You always say that in articles seek to authenticity. With this, too, no problem? Surely some side or heroes had a desire to embellish something or not to talk about something, because this information will remain forever? - Something similar happened at the very beginning of our work. One of the bishops, who was in schism, sent us a letter asking us not to mention it in his biography. We forwarded this letter to then Patriarch Alexy II, and he said very harshly: write as it is. And we adhere to this principle, as it is, and to write. We had conflicts when we refused articles sent from dioceses, because they didn’t suit us at all in quality, and ordered articles to secular scholars, local historians. One of the high-profile conflicts we had with Alexander Drabinko (when he was not yet the metropolitan, but was hegumen) about the article about Metropolitan Vladimir (Sabodan) . He demanded that we remove something, but add something, and we had a lot of conflict. We sometimes conflict with other dioceses. It happens, we know well that a particular researcher is the best on this topic, and a letter or a call comes from the diocese, that the diocesan bishop has a bad relationship with him, therefore you should not cooperate with him. For us, this is not an argument. This is the problem of the bishop himself. - What are the hot topics and discoveries waiting for us in the remaining volumes? - This year is the year of Peter and Paul. The next letter "P" will not be very heavy. Although there Ryazan - one of our oldest dioceses. And the Romanian Orthodox Church. The letter "C" is Sergievsky volume. The letter “F” will be very difficult, and not only because there are many saints with the letter “F”, but it is also France. Work on an article about Poland has been going on for a long time, since Poland and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth are very complex topics. One of the most difficult will be the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and Ukraine. We have Ukrainian authors, but now it’s not easy to cooperate with them. Some of them refuse to continue to work, someone asks for anonymity. It would seem such a simple thing - the author must pay a fee. But in Ukraine today for political reasons it is difficult to get money from Moscow. I hope that when we get to the letter “U”, the situation will change for the better. - Over time, the approach to the articles changed? - He became tougher. Most recently, there was an article about a bishop of the 18th century. I demanded that the part where it is said that was characteristic of any bishop of the 18th century be significantly reduced, and only his outstanding qualities should be left, one of which, by the way, was particular cruelty. Many then flogged the priests, but he could screw up to death. Corporal punishment for priests was abolished only at the turn of the XVIII-XIX centuries. - Who is the main reader of the Orthodox Encyclopedia today? - Students of secular universities. We judge this by the electronic version of the encyclopedia, where they are frequent visitors. And we can very clearly say when one of them has exams. If in the top of the most widely read articles suddenly there are not “Jesus Christ” or “Vladimir Icon”, but “Code of Justinian” and lasts for several days, it means that lawyers take exams. Students also read the “paper” version, because the institute librarians turn to us with a certain frequency with a request to replace the failed encyclopedias. “Why don't seminarians read?” It would seem that this is your target audience? - The level of intellectual interest. Only in this case. But it is academic and seminar teachers who complain about direct cheating or copy-past from the electronic version. - And the priests? - Unfortunately, today the priest is not an integral part of an educated society. Who was an educated society in imperial Russia? Teacher, doctor, priest - three whales. Today, not every school teacher, doctor and priest - carrier education. But I think this situation will change. Now we live in the world of energy resources, therefore material is very important. And when we enter the knowledge economy, education will be valued significantly higher. In this regard, I recall the words of Patriarch Alexy II that this encyclopedia we create opportunities not only for our own, but also for the future generation. Therefore, we are now working for the future. - Where is the Orthodox Encyclopedia spread today? - First of all in libraries - both in secular, and in temple and diocesan. Encyclopedia is first and foremost a library product. But among our regular readers there are about seven thousand people who buy volumes in their personal library. - It is difficult to imagine that after the completion of the publication of the Orthodox Encyclopedia such a unique team will disperse. You have not thought about how you can still use this enormous potential? - There is a problem. Patriarch Kirill has already been at the meetings of our Soviets for two years, so that everyone will think about what will happen next. There is nothing more complicated in the book business than an encyclopedia. In addition, large funds are needed for the work of such a team, therefore a real task and goal must be set. Of course, people will be happy to remain in a cohesive team. We have no staff turnover. They both come and work. - In addition to the encyclopedia, the Church Research Center headed by you maintains the Internet portal “Sedmitsa.ru” . It differs from other news portals in that it prints a lot of translated articles. You do not have your own correspondent network. Did you deliberately go for it? - We created a portal at the very beginning of the 2000s. It appeared before the "Patriarchy.ru". There was a time when we published the main church news earlier than Patriarchy.ru. But gradually “Patriarchy.ru” gained strength, many other portals related to church themes arose. We began to search for our niche and found it - this is church-religious news from around the world. Therefore, among our users, slightly more than half are Russians, the rest from abroad are from the near one, primarily from Ukraine, and the furthest from Germany, the United States. We, of course, are not the very first in the number of users among religious portals, if we count "Sedmitsu.ru" and the Orthodox Encyclopedia as two separate sites. And if we add up the number of users of these two resources, we will find ourselves in the lead. Someone goes to watch "Sedmitsu.ru", someone - an encyclopedia, and they have one source - we. - You also have the program “Orthodox Encyclopedia” - a real television long-liver. She has been on the air for 18 years. There was no desire to somehow change its format? - Once a month we meet and discuss what to change in the program. We are constrained by the external conditions: the time of the air (Saturday morning) and timekeeping (26 minutes). This imposes certain genre restrictions. We conduct research, which programs are perceived better, which ones are worse. They understood that nothing depends on anything. A large number of external factors determine that at this moment viewers are watching - our program or something else. We have the most interesting editions of the program with a small audience rating and not the most successful editions with the overwhelming rating, which are kept by 5-6% of all TV viewers on this day. - Almost all the years of the program’s existence are led by Archpriest Alexy Uminsky. Was it important for you to lead the priest? - Yes of course. But this is not the main thing. The leader is certainly an important figure, but more importantly the guests, that is, the invited experts. And Father Alexy can talk to a guest. And I fear that our traditional clergyman can listen more to himself. - Your church research center successfully filmed many interesting documentary and feature films that had a high audience rating and were awarded festival prizes. Why haven't new pictures appeared for a long time? - No ideas yet. Those films that we shot were first born in my head. And then professional scriptwriters, directors came, and the work began. Now I can’t think and I can’t explain to myself why this is necessary. - You once said that according to the Great Russian Encyclopedia we can judge our national character: where is the nation going, at what stage of development is it. And according to the Orthodox encyclopedia, what can be judged? - About the character of our church. And its main feature is the worldwide responsiveness, what Dostoevsky spoke about. Here we are doing the Orthodox encyclopedia, and we are all interested. Unlike the Greek encyclopedia, where the Greeks are mainly interested in themselves, and there they describe a lot of nayad and other goddesses and satyrs, because they are Greek, and there are almost no saints of other Churches. Of the Russian Church, only Seraphim of Sarov and Sergius of Radonezh are represented. You can also talk about the enormous life potential of the Russian Church. It consists of the fact that every time, sometimes in a completely unbelievable way, our Church either can endure, or, on the contrary, can rebel.