V. G. DATSYSHEN

Doctor of Historical Sciences

A. B. CHEGODAEV

Post-graduate student of the Siberian Federal University

How can we adequately perceive the realities of today's China? Everyone has managed to get used to skyscrapers in Chinese megacities, tourists admire numerous historical monuments that reflect the many thousands of years of history of the Middle Kingdom. But what is hidden behind this facade, where is the foundation of Chinese economic achievements? And in general, what gods help the Chinese to surprise the modern world?

You can't read about this in the newspapers or learn from TV shows. We need to go to the outback. And now we and our colleague Maria Khizha-Chinese historians from the Siberian Federal University-are flying from Krasnoyarsk on S7 airlines to Beijing after the Olympic Games. But the capital of a huge state is only a transit point, our goal is to get acquainted with the religious life of southeast China.

China Airlines flight to Shanghai.

This largest Chinese metropolis, formerly the center of Western expansion in East Asia, remains the center of Christianity in China, or rather, the center of Chinese Christianity. In the area of modern Shanghai at the beginning of the XVII century. Xu Guangqi (about. Paul), who was one of the founders of Chinese Christianity, founded the Qiqiwei Christian Mission. The entire biography of the famous statesman and religious figure Joseph Ma (Ma Xianbo), who graduated from the Jesuit college in this city and was ordained a priest there, was connected with Shanghai. Joseph Ma founded the Aurora Academy (Zhendan Xueyuan) in Shanghai, which marked the beginning of the famous Fudan University.

THERE ARE MANY CHRISTIANS, BUT NO ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS

Throughout the XX century. Shanghai was one of the centers of Catholic life in China, and even the Shanghai Russian Greek Catholic Diocese was established there in the 1930s. And in the People's Republic of China, this metropolis has remained one of the centers of Chinese Catholicism. However, in the 1950s, Chinese Catholics found themselves in a difficult situation. Chinese authorities have deported foreign bishops and arrested Chinese priests who resisted the new government. At the National Catholic Congress in Beijing in 1957, the Association of Chinese Catholic Patriots was formed, which took the position of self-government, and immediately, without the blessing of the Holy See, the bishop of Shanghai was elected. "Autonomous" Catholics sent lists of elected cardinals to the Vatican for approval, but the pope threatened to excommunicate all participants in the election of bishops. A significant part of Chinese Catholics rejected the principle of independence from the Vatican, forming the so-called "catacomb" church.

The logical conclusion of the atheistic policy of the young communist state was the" cultural revolution " in the People's Republic of China (the second half of the 1960s - the first half of the 1970s). they committed violence against Christians, destroyed buildings and objects of worship, and forced Catholic priests to marry with slogans like "be men". Religious leaders and believers were persecuted, some priests, unable to withstand the bullying, committed suicide, others were killed or sent to labor camps for re-education. Religious activities in the PRC were virtually banned, and most of the church property was nationalized.

At the end of the 20th century, the revival and development of Christianity began in China.

Since 1980, real estate has been returned to church organizations, and the following year a decree was annulled that "recommended" candidates for bishops to renounce their allegiance to the pope. In February 1989, a decision was made to "spiritually reunite with the Holy See", and in April of the same year, the Chinese College of Bishops recognized the Pope as the head of the Chinese Church. However, even today, relations between Beijing and the Vatican remain contradictory and rather uncertain. The schism of the Chinese Catholic Church has not been completely eliminated. During the reform years, the Shanghai Diocese was headed by Bishop Aloysius Jin Luxian. The priest, who received a theological education in Rome, spent 27 years in prison and on "correctional labor". After being released from prison in 1976, he joined the Association-

Catholic-patriot associations. In 2005, Aloysius Jin was invited to the Vatican, but the Chinese authorities refused to allow him to travel.

Despite the problems, Catholicism is developing quite actively today, which is confirmed by the fact that large churches in Chinese cities are crowded on Sundays. When we attended a Sunday service at the main Catholic church in Tianjin in 2004, we noticed that most of the parishioners were young people. Today, according to statistics released in China, there are about 12 million Catholics in the country, there are 74 official and 46 "catacomb" bishops, as well as 2710 priests. In Shanghai itself, 120 churches officially have about 160,000 parishioners and 70 Catholic priests. Still the most significant Catholic church in the entire Far East is unofficially considered the Shanghai Cathedral of St. Ignatius, or, as it is also called, the Catholic Cathedral of Xiujiahui. Damaged during the years of the "cultural revolution", but then restored, it can accommodate up to 2.5 thousand believers.

Since the second half of the XIX century. Shanghai became a center of Protestant missionary activity. The Shanghai Christian Society was the largest Protestant missionary organization in China. In the 1850s, a special "Committee for Correcting the Translation of the Bible" appeared here. Published since 1868 by the representative of the American Southern Methodist Episcopal Church, J. J. Allen, the New Church Gazette (Jiahui Xinbao-now Wanguo Gongbao) was a discussion platform for discussing the compatibility of Christianity and Chinese culture.

After the formation of the People's Republic of China, in July 1954, a National conference was held in Shanghai, which proclaimed the formation of the Committee of the Patriotic movement of Chinese Christians. Protestant churches and organizations in China were able to survive the oppression and repression of the Cultural Revolution. And in the first years after the reform policy began in December 1978, Shanghai regained its position as the largest center of Christianity in China. For example, David Seid, a representative of the American East-West Christian Outreach, who visited China at that time, reported 124 Protestant churches in this city, which united 125 thousand believers, or about 1% of the city's population.

Protestantism in China today claims to be a "Christian universalism", a leader in the Christianization of the Chinese, using the experience of both Catholics and Orthodox. According to official statistics, there are now more than 16 million "legal" Protestants in the interior of the PRC, visiting 50 thousand people. temples. Protestantism is visible on the streets of modern Shanghai, although, as it seemed to us, the authorities try not to advertise this side of Shanghai culture.

The annual circulation of the Bible in China exceeds 35 million copies. In 2004, the Bible was included in the list of recommended reading for general education schools along with the texts of Confucius and Lao Tzu.

Of course, we would like to see traces of Orthodoxy in Shanghai, especially since the first missionary here was Krasnoyarsky, the future Metropolitan of Beijing Innokenty (Figurovsky), where he arrived in 1897 as the head of the 18th Russian ecclesiastical mission. And the history of Orthodoxy in Shanghai began with the foundation of an Orthodox mission school in this city in 1901 by Innocent. In 1916, the Orthodox community in the Shanghai area reached a thousand people. After the death of Metropolitan Innocent, a schism occurred in the Chinese Orthodox Church. With the departure of Russian emigrants, Orthodoxy also declined. In 1965, the last Chinese bishop, Bishop Simeon (Du), died in Shanghai, and Orthodox worship ceased.

We have learned from modern literature that Shanghai still has two Orthodox churches built by Russian emigrants before the Second World War. However, we didn't manage to visit them in the remaining time.

MOUNTAIN ABODE OF THE TAOISTS

After Shanghai, we continued our journey south. Our Boeing 737 landed at Wenzhou Airport-in the south of Zhejiang Province, very close to the border with Fujian Province.

The Zhazhong County Seat was awed by the large number of neatly and brightly dressed children returning from school. Kids in scarlet pioneer ties trudged along the sidewalks in pairs or small groups, talking cheerfully, and older children on bicycles took up almost the entire roadway.

In the gathering dusk, it was impossible to see the final destination of our journey - the Temple of the Pure Cloud. A semi-transparent cloud settled firmly on the ledge of the mountain looming over Zhezhong. All that remained was a landmark-a transformer box built on the edge of a ledge in the traditional Chinese style. Before we started climbing the mountain, our guide, Konstantin Ageev, solved the problem of getting some luggage upstairs by persuading a local Chinese man to take our suitcases upstairs for a fee.

After a long climb, we reached the Temple of Pure Clouds. We had dinner in the spacious monastic dining room together with Russian pilgrims from St. Petersburg and Tolyatti.

The Taoist Qingyun Gong Monastery, or Pure Cloud Temple, was founded in the Wuishan Mountains in the late 1980s by monk Liao Xinjie, who became abbot. In his youth, he was a novice at a Taoist temple in his hometown of Fuan (Eastern Fujian). By the age of 18, Xinjie felt that serving the Tao was his destiny.

* Taoism is a traditional Chinese religious teaching.

In the late 1980s, he traveled to the mountains to establish his own temple.

This picturesque place with a rich historical and cultural heritage is located in the north of Fujian Province. Once the mountains of Wuishan were seismically active, lava was released more than once, and later the mountains were subjected to water erosion. As a result, a special landscape has been formed here - in a small area there are 72 caves, 99 steep cliffs and 108 natural attractions.

The mountain itself, on which Qingyun Gong is located, has several names, one of which is Dongshishan (Eastern Lion Mountain). Its height is 1400 m above sea level, and the monastery is 400 m lower. In general, this place has been considered energetically strong since ancient times, it has long been chosen by Buddhist and Taoist monks. In addition, on the slopes of this mountain, a local girl lived in a hermit, canonized as Ma Hsien (Celestial Ma). One of the altars* in Pure Cloud, like almost all temples in the area, is dedicated to Ma Hsien.

Ma Hsien is a historical figure who lived about 1000 years ago. As a young girl, she went to the mountains and practiced what we now call meditation. People considered her a saint, helped her in any way they could, and in return received spiritual support and hope.

PATRON SPIRITS OF THE MONASTERY

The total area of the "Pure Cloud" is approximately 10 thousand square meters. m. It has two dormitories with monastic cells and rooms for pilgrims and guests. There is a separate two-story dining room and utility room.

The largest and most beautiful building of the monastery is the temple itself. In the hall with the altar, on which the statue of Ma Hsien is located, a rich pantheon of Taoist celestials is collected, many of them are of Buddhist or Indian origin. For example, the goddess with many hands - Doum-giver of the "elixir of immortality", patroness of doctors. Almost the entire Pantheon has Indian faces, which is probably the result of the influence of Buddhism. So, next to the Three Purest (Sanqing) in this temple is the Buddhist deity Avalokiteshvara, or Guanyin.

The monks of the monastery grow vegetables and tea, have a small apiary; the surrounding forest gives the monks not only firewood, but also mushrooms, bamboo shoots, berries. The food in the monastery is vegetarian, but very tasty and varied. It should be noted that in the "Pure Cloud", which is still difficult to reach for tourists due to the lack of roads, there is electricity, monks watch television programs, use cellular communications and the Internet.

Life in the monastery, at first glance, is not burdened with any rigid framework. Services are held on an irregular basis, and on some days the abbot or one of the remaining servants confine themselves to small ritual actions when opening and closing the church early in the morning and late in the evening. Unfortunately, we were not able to participate in the religious festivals, one of which the Chinese had carefully prepared for just before our departure. We helped move a significant number of products into the dining room, including even coca-Cola packages.

In recent years, Konstantin Ageev, a physicist by training and orientalist by vocation, and the heir to the traditional Taoist Kung Fu school of the baguazhang (eight palm strokes) style of mentor Dong Haichuan, has become a regular guest at the Pure Cloud Monastery. With his light hand, several representatives of Russia - Muscovites, Petersburgers, Tolyatti residents - were able to improve their skills in kung fu in the Wushan Mountains. It was thanks to Kosta that we were able to get acquainted with the Taoist shrines of Fujian.

Obviously, the Qingyun Gong who gave us shelter belongs to one of the branches of the Taoist school of Correct Unity (Zhengyi) - the School of Mentor Liao. Currently, Taoism of this school prevails throughout southern China. Monasteries like Qingyun Gong are widely represented in rural areas of Fujian and neighboring provinces.

Not far from the Pure Cloud Monastery on the slopes of the Eastern Lion Mountain, surrounded by thickets of bamboo, pine forest and small tea plantations, we found the Buddhist monastery of Puguansy. In the "staff" of this small monastery, which has two temples and a hostel, there are only three monks. On one of the explanatory inscriptions there is an indication that a Buddhist temple was founded here in 934.

Nearby, a seven-meter high relief of a Buddha sitting in a lotus position was recently carved on a steep cliff, around which a whole complex for performing religious Buddhist rituals, outwardly no different from Taoist and other traditional Chinese places of worship. The same ritual stone square, four-legged candle stands. A little away from the stone Buddha, in a low place, the highest tree. The local caretaker could not clearly explain to which religious system this cult complex can be attributed, but said that the tree is 900 years old. There are stone tables near it. Here, in the built niches-houses, there are stone and ceramic spirits-patrons, a lot of burning cult aromatic and wax candles. This place, as well as many sacred caves and grottos scattered along the mountain slopes, old and new temple buildings, is actively visited by the Chinese. They do not forget to light candles and pray everywhere.

Ritual candles can also be seen in the center of Zhazhong on the grave of a Ming dignitary, on the inner walls of a traditional covered bridge over a stream. Rya-

* Altar (Latin altaria from alta ara-elevated altar) - elevation; a term for a sacred place of sacrifice.

In addition to the massive burial complexes of influential local residents, there are small temples-idols*built by relatives of the deceased. Europeans are rare visitors here, and there was only one sighting of a Muslim Xinjiang man selling dried fruits and nuts on the streets of Zhazhong. There is no mosque in the county, and the Christian church is "isolated" from foreign influence.

Central to Jaejoong's religious life are obviously three of the largest places of worship visible from afar. This is, first of all, the "Shrine of the Celestial Lady Ma". Judging by the internal content of the temple, it cannot be attributed to traditional denominations, but it can be conditionally called a local Taoist cult structure. There is no traditional set of cult objects and idols, and the local Chinese themselves could not answer the question about the confessional affiliation of the Ma idol. During the visit to this temple, there was not a single visitor or clergyman inside it, only outside, not far from the entrance, sat a fortune teller with special maps and diagrams spread out on a table. Our driver quickly lit incense candles and prayed in front of a large ceramic and brightly colored idol of Tudigun.

There is a large Buddhist monastery in Zhazhong, climbing a steep mountainside. On its territory, several new structures were being built at once, including a temple, a bell tower, covered galleries, and so on.

ALIENATED PROTESTANT

The third major religious building towering over Zhezhong is the Protestant temple. Above the entrance is an inscription in large red characters - "ren shi ai sheng", which can be translated as "The spirit of human and universal love". The temple consists of two parts-a two-story stucco building with an inner courtyard and a four-story white brick building attached to it with a large open gazebo on the roof.

The fact that this temple can be attributed to Christianity is indicated only by a large, several meters high, red cross on the roof, a cross on a nightstand in the prayer hall and calendars of church holidays on the wall. On the front wall there is a large image of the hieroglyph "love", and on the opposite side of the prayer hall there is a wooden screen with the hieroglyphic inscription"Immanuel".

The abbot of the temple, an immaculately dressed, well-looking elderly Chinese man, refused to give his name, saying that he could only reveal it to his co-religionists. The prayer hall has about one and a half hundred seats, the temple dining room is not very large, but the head of the community said that the number of parishioners reaches 4 thousand people. This is a big figure, considering that the entire population of Zhazhong County is about 40 thousand people. In many localities on our way from Zhejiang Province to Fujian, we met similar temples with large red crosses.

Thus, the religious life in the Chinese province is rich and diverse. In counties far from major cities, a kind of construction boom is observed, monasteries and temples are being built and expanded everywhere, both in settlements and in the mountains. Infrastructure is being actively developed: power lines have been laid out to small monasteries, many kilometers of stone stairs and trails have been laid out, and highways are being laid. At the same time, there are no signs of any religious fanaticism. In large monasteries, only a few monks, young and old monks and nuns live permanently, as well as a certain number of elderly acolytes from among the local residents.

A certain aloofness and "pronounced religiosity" is noticeable only among Protestants.

The policy of separation of church and State continues to be strictly observed. When visiting a local school, I didn't notice any religious propaganda. Religious and church life is financed by donations. Churches and monasteries have the support of the authorities, at least in the counties. This policy is based on purely practical interests-attracting tourists. In addition, traditional monasteries partly serve as almshouses for lonely old people, which is becoming very relevant in the context of the "aging" Chinese society.

Chinese youth, couples in love, small noisy groups of young men and women, young mothers with infants - these were the people we constantly met on the mountain paths or on the steps of the Pure Cloud Monastery. It is Chinese children and young people-crowds of children filling the streets of Zhezhong at lunchtime and in the evening, children being cared for from all sides in a modern county hospital, smart and mischievous eyes of students in music, computer science and art classes at a local elementary school-that are our main impressions of this trip.

* * *

We have not found out which gods help modern China, but we have come to the conclusion that the Chinese "pray" mainly for their children and preserve and develop the traditional Chinese religious and cultural space for their future. The modern ecclesiastical and religious life of the Chinese province links together the past, present and future of China, being one of the foundations of its successful development.

* Idolatry - a small pagan oratory with idols.

** Representative of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, where the majority of the population is Muslim.

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