Summary of A. V. KreitzerТs report УSt. Petersburg in WorldТs FateФ

Summary of A. V. KreitzerТs report УSt. Petersburg in WorldТs FateФ, read at a meeting of St. Petersburg Society named after Vladimir Solovyov.

The author of the report regards St. Petersburg as a city which contains both West and East. Referring to the problem of St. PetersburgТs role in the fate of the world A. V. Kreitzer makes a preliminary analysis of the cityТs history. He thinks that the archetype foundations of the modern civilization were laid in the 13-th century when the epic of the Crusades came to the end. These Crusades were directed not only against Moslems, who allegedly had captured the GodТs Tomb in Jerusalem, but against Byzantium as well. The devastation of Constantinople by the crusaders was not a fortuity but a historically logical event. The Crusades were an attempt to restore the unity of church on the western basis: the West having captured the East with Jerusalem and Constantinople made an attempt of taking upon itself all the burden of the world Way of Cross. Such attempt completely failed in the middle of the 13-th century when Louis IX the Saint had to reject the idea of capturing Jerusalem already lost by the West by that time. At the same time the campaigns of German crusaders and Swedes in Russia also failed. Russia was also East at that time, namely Orthodox East, of the same kind as Byzantium East. At the Russian East crusaders were stopped by Alexander Nevsky. The East still possessed East, and the West possessed West. So the picture of divided European civilization formed which, generally speaking, renders the state of the modern world as well.

Inside the East have always been its own East and West. East inside the East can be associated with the aspiration to Calvary, Victim, Crucifixion and Resurrection, i. e. to Jerusalem. West inside the East is Constantinople with its state origin, connected with misuse of authority, luxury, contempt to the life of an individual man. The similar East and West also exist inside the West where the eastern trend is also Hierosolymitan, and the western one is to be identified with Rome.

But Rome is not only West inside the West. Rome is the center of the world as it was such before the separation of the churches and remains till now, as it stores a number of relics and sacred objects common to all Christians and belonging both to the East and the West.

St. Petersburg uniting in itself both the East and the West claims to be the center of the world similar to Rome. Still it should be taken into account that St. Petersburg was conceived as the part and the capital of Orthodox Russia. That is why St. Petersburg may be considered as the center of the world of Eastern Christianity.

It is well known that classical St. Petersburg was erected at one stroke and according to common plan at the unbounded open spaces of the Big Neva water area while the cities of Western Europe have been built step-by-step during many centuries. ThatТs the reason of space narrowness in these cities. St. PetersburgТs space may be characterized as the personification of the Russian soulТs breadth. St. PetersburgТs cathedrals which are Catholic by form, for example, St. IsaacТs Cathedral and Kazan Cathedral, probably mean that in the Russian expanse Ц space of St. Petersburg Ц the West has come to the East. So the Eastern, Russian space has entered Catholic cathedrals and now Orthodox services are celebrated there.

When Orthodox liturgies instead of masses are celebrated in Catholic cathedrals without their destruction or reconstruction, it means that the East has entered the West peacefully, without a fight. St. Petersburg conceals a possibility of capturing the West without violence in the same way as the West captured the East by force during the short historical period of the Crusades.

The Russian space which penetrates into Catholic forms of St. Petersburg cathedrals is the universal, ecumenical one because the true expanse can be only universal. St. Petersburg expresses the idea of all-unity. It is the center of the world similar to Rome and Orthodoxy has entered the Roman forms of St. Petersburg.

When St. Petersburg fully finds itself as an Orthodox Rome the split between the East and the West will disappear. The East will illuminate the West with its Уback lightФ, sunrise will illuminate sunset, the end will illuminate the beginning. People of the West ossified in their material well-being will stop forgetting that the paradise connected with GodТs advent to the Earth, his Christmas in the West, is only the beginning of Way of the Cross leading to Calvary and Resurrection.

In the long run the eastern way which St. Petersburg is ready to offer to the world is the road of universal Calvary. It will spread over all the world Way of the Cross. The apocalyptic end will become the beginning Ц the beginning of Уthe new heaven and the new earthФ for which sin-offering was made. The Eastern way is the way of Resurrection following after Crucifixion, Resurrection not only of Christ but of the whole mankind. St. Petersburg will become a new Jerusalem of the resurrected mankind.

It canТt be ruled out that the image of St. Petersburg depicted there fed the philosophy of Vladimir Solovyov and his conception of the world all-unity.