Orthodox Moral Theology of the 17th Century and its Peculiarities: “Mir s Bogom čeloveku” (Kiev 1669)

Abstract

The article is dealing with the first Orthodox handbook for confessors, entitled “Mir s Bogom” (Kiev 1669), which was prepared in the Kiev Lavra and marked a break with the earlier Orthodox tradition of moral theology. This work is mostly a compilation of three treatises by the Polish Dominican Mikołaj z Mościsk (1559–1632), complemented by excerpts from the “Summa of Theology” of Thomas Aquinas, “Summa casuum conscientiae” of Francisco de Toledo, the decree “On justification” of the Council of Trent, the “Roman Catechism”, the “Decree of Gratian”, and various essays of the seventeenth century Catholic moralists. The structure and content of “Mir s Bogom” indicate the orientation of its compilers on the forms of the presentation of moral theology that had been established in the Catholic tradition by the end of the sixteenth century (the so called “Institutiones morales” and manuals on confession), having a typical emphasis on the problem of the sin and moral obligations and omitting of such issues as virtues, happiness, or man’s final end and beatitudes. “Mir s Bogom” was the first attempt in the East-Slavic Orthodox tradition to present the basics of the Christian moral teaching by stressing the practical aspects of the faith. It was novel in its effort to create and standardize terminology dealing with the sacrament of penance. Through “Mir s Bogom”, many moral concepts of the Catholic theology were incorporated into the Orthodox literature. The work gained also great popularity in Russia and constituted the basis for a number of manuscripts on how to celebrate the penance, but was not used in the Kiev and Moscow Academies as a textbook on moral theology.