Sermon on Chastity (February 23, 1997)

... In fact, it turns out that not a single product, not a single advertisement can do without saturating it with fornication. Fornication is so attractive for a person who has lost the image of God, because acute experiences are not only bodily, but also mental, and for a person in whom there is no spiritual life, if he has to live, it is only fornication, and everything revolves around it. This is the main theme of everything. And now our state school has been very actively involved in this, and medicine... To the point that even fathers and mothers. Dad wants to look, but the child is right there. Mom seems to be like a woman - there is still more shame in them, thank God (as one ancient holy father said that if a woman loses shame, then no one will be saved!) - that's why there is such a natural, natural shame, it is greater in a woman. For example, a woman says: "Father, don't do it!" and the father says: "It's okay, let him watch." Let!.. Why? Because I really want to, that's the point. And so it has become a common place, you constantly encounter this, and, of course, on the eve of Lent, when all Orthodox people live in a monastic way: they try to pray more, and more often they go to church, and fast, and, so to speak, such an ordinary family life is postponed until after Lent... In this reading from the Apostles, the Epistle to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians, chapter VI, 12-20), the Apostle Paul speaks of the special importance of chastity and tries to explain why fornication is so unacceptable for any spiritual life. There have been such curiosities even on this basis. Western missionaries would come to Africa—and polygamy was common among many tribes there—and preach Jesus Christ there. And our dark-skinned brothers were already ready to accept Holy Baptism, but then, the missionaries explained to them that they would have to part with their wives, they had to leave alone, and the rest was not needed. And they say: "Well, what's wrong with that? This is our custom!" There are ancient customs, there are completely new ones - as we often say: "For the second year now, it has become a good tradition..." There are ancient customs that are very good, and there are the most disgusting customs. The very antiquity of the custom, it does not say anything - it is not a matter of antiquity. And in this tribe there was some kind of bewilderment: how could it be, a person could not understand - well, why, what's wrong with that?! Most modern people, brought up in this prodigal atmosphere of our modern civilization, simply do not understand why this is so important. For example, the Apostle Paul says: "All things are lawful to me, but not all things are profitable..." Yes, indeed, a person can do whatever he wants, and it is impossible to forbid a person to do all sorts of things, maybe even "mortal" ones - even if there is a criminal code and prisons, they still do not eradicate all lawlessness. "... Everything is allowed to me, but nothing should possess me" - that is the point! Sin, it has such a property that it enslaves a person. Christ came to earth to set us free from this. What the Apostle Paul says is not addressed to the whole world. The world lives quietly by its fornication, and the result of this prodigal life will neatly be fiery Gehenna – regardless of any other things, thoughts, philosophies, achievements, because fornicators will not inherit the Kingdom of God. Moreover, a fornicator is not one who constantly realizes his fornicatory passion, not one who does all this, but one who in his essence, within himself, fornicates, for everyone who looks with lust is already committing adultery. And into this heart, the prodigal, the grace of the Holy Spirit cannot enter it. Why? Because the grace of the Holy Spirit is the energy of God, and the Lord is holy. And spiritual life belongs only to spiritual beings. And fornication is a bestial thing, it is quite an animal experience. And if in the heart of man the main place is occupied not by striving towards God, but by striving towards fornication, then of course – if this is the main thing for man – then surely can God enter into this heart? This is absolutely impossible! And, as the Apostle Paul says, nothing should possess me - except Christ, of course - then a person will inherit eternal life and communion with Christ God. He goes on to say about food: "Food for the belly, and the belly for food..." What amazing words! As if it's not obvious anyway. Yes, indeed, he simply emphasizes that there is a stomach - for what? To digest food. And what is food for? Well, of course, to eat it. But! "... God will destroy both." And indeed, any food product is either eaten or spoiled. And a person with any stomach - no matter how iron it is, capable of digesting nails - will still grow old, and this is all perishable. All this has no eternal importance. And what is a holiday for a modern person - today is the Day of the Defender of the Fatherland - how will people celebrate it? Well, how... well, they will sit down at the table, eat and drink. "Here it is, the highest experience of the holiday!" And here, of course, a kind of spiritual life is added to talk, to communicate. And there is also a touch of a certain spirituality: at least to remember those who, defending this Fatherland, gave their lives. This already belongs to spiritual life, because the souls have gone to the other world, we have remembered them, and thus through this memory of ours we are united with them, with that spiritual world. It is as if we, not performing any podvig ourselves, but honoring their podvig, we thereby have a certain tangential participation in them. But, unfortunately, very little attention is paid to this, and unfortunately it is often so purely formal. Why? Because there is not enough soul for it to occupy the main place... And the main thing is to eat and drink, and if you drank too much, then the opposite effect can also happen in general... "God has raised up the Lord, and He will raise us up also by His power." Yes, He will raise up all, the righteous and the sinners, the chaste and the fornicators. But some go into eternal life, others into eternal punishment. God's will is such that the Lord wants everyone to be saved. Then he says: "Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?" Why do I say that these words are addressed only to Christians? Because what does "a member of Christ" mean? The Church is the Body of Christ, every Christian is a part of this Body. The Lord Jesus Christ is holy, and His Body must be holy. And so, "Shall I take away the members of Christ, that I may make them the members of the harlot?" As soon as a person enters a state of fornication, even if he does not commit a sin in practice, but only in feeling, he thereby separates himself from the Church, instantly. To do this, there is no need to pronounce an anathema there, as over Gleb Pavlovich, - he excommunicated himself, instantly. Because the grace of God in this sense immediately departs from a person, because we all unite with the Church only through the grace of God, and not through some papers, seals, signatures... Although a visible sign of this seems to exist. Here is confession, prayer of absolution, a person kisses the Cross and the Gospel – this is an external sign that at this moment he is united with the Church. If there is an anathema, a seal, a signature, then this is already an anathema, nothing can be done about it. A person has been excommunicated from the Church... Again, not because he was excommunicated at this moment, he had long ago excommunicated himself from everything, but it is a matter of recording this, so that no one would think, so that no one would think that this person is a Christian, and an Orthodox one at that! So that no one doubts that there can be no other things here. Or there is another "false Ukrainian patriarch". So that no one would think that he is really a patriarch, a Christian - he is just an unbaptized man! Not even a monk, no matter what he wears. You can dress anyone, you can dress Shirvindt - and he will play in films, and he will play no worse, maybe... So when we sin, even in feeling, we already separate ourselves. And so the Apostle Paul wonderfully says, what do we do? To take away the members from Christ and "make them members of the harlot." That is, when a Christian sins by any sin – it is just fornication – it is so obvious, and most disgusting, it looks even blasphemous: a sinning Christian, a person who has been baptized, renounced the devil, united with Christ, then, by sinning, he blasphemes, because he defiles the sanctity of his body (which is truly holy – every Christian is the Body of Christ.. This is the thought that the Apostle Paul pursues. Therefore, when a person sins, he is not just, so to speak, sinning, just by himself, he is sinning against Christ, he is sinning against every member of the Church. That is why the Apostle Paul says - do not communicate with such people at all! In general, you can't even welcome it. Therefore, what kind of unification of the Orthodox Church and the Anglican Church can there be, if they officially have gays "ordained priests" there. Well, how do we connect with them, with this very abomination, or what?! How, what is the possibility? This is not Christianity for a long time! What to unite with? Is this possible? On the contrary, there can be no communication between Light and darkness.. Therefore, if a person sins, and if it becomes known, then he is immediately separated from the Church, because he defiles it all. Because if we greet him as a brother, then the other, knowing his prodigal life, will say: "Ah, since he greets him, then it is possible!" "Do you not know that he who copulates with a harlot becomes one body with her?" Yes, this is indeed so, because God has arranged that those who are united in marriage are united into one flesh. That is why this is impossible, this sin is impossible by virtue of the fact that one becomes one being. "... For it is said, The two shall be one flesh." And he who unites with the Lord is one spirit with the Lord. Why? The Holy Spirit and the grace of God themselves enter into man, and our spirit, man, has communion with the grace of God, with the Holy Spirit. "Flee fornication; every sin that a man commits is outside the body, and the fornicator sins against his own body. Do you not know that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit who dwells in them, Whom you have from God, and you are not your own?" From the time a person was baptized, he does not belong to himself - he belongs to God. And if he somehow changes his mind, then he must already depart from the Church. Therefore, man hopes in vain... And many live in marriage, as in fornication, why? Well, for example, marriage exists in order to be one of the functions, not the main function, but nevertheless it exists - it is the continuation of the human race. And a person lives in marriage and does not want children to be born. And what does he want? And he only wants to fornicate! That is, marriage becomes only formal, legalized fornication. What difference does it make: buy for a hundred dollars or have a legal one with a stamp in the passport? Because the goal is fornication! Why? Because we want not to give birth to children. Why don't we want to? Well, why? Of course, it is difficult! Hard... Eat a little less, sleep a little less... Got it! You'll put on a little less. And about the vacation - you will have to forget about the vacation for twenty years. Because where can you get away from them? If only you float them somewhere! That is why the Church always says that of all the acts of civil status, marriage is one of the main Sacraments. Yes, God's grace is really needed here. This is the hardest, most difficult feat. Among other things - simply to give birth, to raise, to feed, to clothe (everyone who has children knows how difficult it is) - but, among other things, to raise him as a Christian in such a prodigal environment, to raise a new member of the Church - this is also a spiritual feat, which requires the exertion of all creative, all bodily, all spiritual, all spiritual forces - all! You need to give your soul to it! That is, exactly what the Lord requires: "Whoever lays down his life for his neighbor has no greater love." Indeed, a mother, a father - they must lay down their lives for their child. "And how can I live for myself-me-me?!" So then it turns out to be such pseudo-Christianity: everything seems to be decent, and the hands are well-groomed, and so he crosses himself and rams the icon with his forehead, everything - everything seems to be... All! And what's inside? And inside there is a coffin made up: a person who consciously distorts marriage, consciously rejects the Christian feat... No one says: "You must go to the Northern Thebaid, live there in the Ferapontov Monastery, eat hominy there, make a thousand and a half prostrations a day, do not eat or drink, and also work in between services." No! What is required? A very simple thing: if you get married, please give birth to children, bring them up, do your best, and so on. And you, since you got married, then provide for the family. If the frosts are severe, buy a fur coat. That is, not only nourish it, but also warm it. I have to buy a fur coat! Not just what, but a direct duty before God - that a husband should love his wife... "Why?" You can arrange everything very decently, and even have friends among the people of the church, and go to church, but live in fornication. You can marry all this, please. There, you paid money - and you will be married: sometimes for five hundred, sometimes for two hundred and fifty, and that's it. And everything seems to be legal, all the seals are kept - but the grace of God will never enter the heart! Because you will deceive no one, no one: neither your children, nor God! And no life will be arranged: all this is rotten anyway, it will all fall apart. Why? Because it is not natural, it is not real, it is all polyethylene and plastic, it is nothing - it has nothing to do with spiritual life. Therefore, relations with God must be honest and sincere. If you do not understand something, perhaps this is what the Church exists for - in order to teach us all. There is the Holy Scriptures, the epistles... And if we want to truly preserve our body as a temple of the Holy Spirit, you see: this body is not something like some Eastern religion teaches, a kind of case that must then be thrown off. No! Our body is a temple. This is a shrine! It is not without reason that the Lord often arranges that the bodies of saints are even incorruptible. And hundreds of years pass, and people venerate them and pray before them, venerating this shrine, this body, which is already dead, dried. And why? Because at one time the abundant grace of God was present in this body, and traces of this are preserved, and we draw from the holy relics this grace of God. We apply ourselves to them, and not just purely mechanical diffusion occurs there, no! - All this is done in the heart of man. Just as through the commemoration of the departed soldiers we become indirectly involved in this podvig through our respect and veneration of it, so it is here: through the veneration of this holy object, a certain grace of God comes into contact with our hearts. This is what it means - the body of a Christian! Therefore, a Christian, if he wants to be such, if he does not want the grace of God to depart from him, if he does not want to be, like the Pharisee, a tomb painted over – he must repent of this. He must correct his life. Or he must be perfectly aware of who he is: he must take the cross off his neck and no longer wear it. Why? Because either you are a Christian or you are not a Christian. Because a Christian is not required to do beyond natural morality, beyond natural feats. No! The Lord demands of us only what He has in us. He just doesn't want us to be worse than the way He designed us to be. And each of us always knows perfectly well within his conscience: where he was right and where he was wrong, where he justifies himself, indulging his weaknesses, and where he is not guilty. That's how important it is. The parable that the Holy Church reads today in all churches says that the youngest son, by whom is meant all sinful humanity, left God the Father for a distant country and squandered his possessions, living in fornication. Often a person, living in fornication, thinks that he will get joy from it. And not only living in fornication, but sinning in general, a person thinks that he is doing what he wants, and gains freedom. In fact, he is becoming more and more enslaved, becoming, unfortunately, a slave of the devil. And this parable, it tells us that the Lord is not the Judge. Because if each of us is judged, fluff and feathers will fly, there will be no stone left unturned, and we must all be killed for our sins. The Lord is a loving Father who is angry with us for our sins, but wants our salvation. Who punishes us, and admonishes us, gives us some difficult circumstances, each of us - necessarily each of us - will allow us to feel all the consequences of our own sins. Again, by his mercy. Everyone wants to sin somehow, and so that there are no consequences. But people have long noticed that no matter how much the rope twists, it will still end! And every stick has two ends... Not a single person will slip through life in such a way that he will sin, and that he will receive from life what some righteous person would have received, could hope to receive. No! Everyone will drink their own cup! Some more, some less, but everyone here on Earth will still receive for their sins - this is completely inevitable. Either by himself or in his own children, and this is especially painful: when a person sees the disintegration of his own children and understands that this is a consequence of his sins! It is even more difficult, but some people cannot be overcome in any other way - they will not think about their sin in any other way, so the Lord is forced - this is how such suppuration happens, when you need to chisel a bone, because otherwise you can't do anything, you need to clean it all out, because otherwise there will be gangrene - and the Lord is not that He is so evil and wants to do this: "Oh, you're so! No, the Lord does not take revenge, He wants to cleanse us, to cleanse us - because when a person suffers, he has no time for sin. Therefore, the One Who wants to cleanse us from sin, He allows us to suffer, no matter how much it hurts Him, no matter how much He empathizes with us – and the fact that He empathizes with us, do you know how He suffered when Lazarus died – although Lazarus can die without the will of God? No, but He is compassionate, He is compassionate... We are like crazy children to whom you can tell or not that you can't run across the road, that you need to look - no, he runs and is hit by a car. Well, do you understand now? But to understand this, is it necessary for everyone to get hit by a car or what? Of course not. You can believe a little, a little: believe your father a little, believe your mother that you don't need to do this. You have to believe it! And each of us needs to believe our heavenly Father a little bit, that if He says this, then it means it is so. This is not a joke at all - Gehenna of fire and a worm that does not sleep. These are not laughter at all, these are very serious things, and we often abstract from this, and in general, certain habitual images become for us, and in general, the Church no longer responds strongly enough to this... This younger son, under whom each of us is hidden, and this parable can be viewed in such a way that the eldest son is the people of Israel, the younger son is the Gentiles. It can be viewed in such a way that the eldest son is the one who is already churched, goes to church, and the younger son is the one who came right out of the cold and wants to get everything here at once, what he should rightfully be entitled to... But this is also about our every day and every hour of our life, because - well, how do we live? For example, we have come to church and are standing at the Divine Liturgy, and during this standing many times our mind and our heart "go to a country far away" from the Heavenly Father. They return to their thoughts, return to their affairs; sometimes they run away so far that the entire service passes, then the person wakes up like this: "And where have I been?" because, as John Chrysostom said: "With his body he is in church, and with his mind in the market" - what to buy, what to sell, who told me what, and all sorts of worldly cares. And some of them just sometimes stand in church, and are bathed in prodigal thoughts - that is, they have completely forgotten what they need to do in church. That is, this parable is even about this, what happens to our mind. This can be seen in such a way that, as the Apostle Paul says, there is both the "old man" and the "new man" in us. So, if we consider the "new man" in us, who was born in us as a result of our faith, then yes - Christ lives in us, and therefore we strive to come to church, and pray, and cleanse our souls with the Sacrament of Repentance, and commune of the Holy Mysteries of Christ, and buy some book about the spiritual life in order to read it - this is all new. what was born in us, in some a long time, in some recently. And there is also the "old man" who pulls us back, who lives a completely different life. And in each of us there is this schizophrenia, this duality, and we need to strive for chastity, so that a person is whole, holy. So that this "old man" would die in us completely. This is what you need to strive for! We can consider this parable in this way. But what a mercy of God, how the Lord meets us! If we - or in our minds suddenly return to God again: "Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner!" and again our thoughts into ashes, and our mind into ... - The Lord immediately comes out to meet us, and immediately the grace of God comes and immediately cleanses us from bad thoughts, and from worthless feelings, and so on and so forth... - And again our mind sobers up, and again all dreams fade away. Each time we must not feed these fat pigs with horns our thoughts and sinful feelings, but constantly strive to return to the Father's house, and this is what spiritual life actually consists of. For example, the Lord gave the thief the opportunity to repent, and after that he was immediately killed, and could no longer return to that former sinful life - and for a person who is not capable of this repentance, the Lord sometimes prolongs his life - he hopes that maybe he will still live somehow, suffer, understand something in life, maybe his conscience will awaken in him and return to the sources of his life. And we must work on this - and this is the work of the soul, because when we swim after our thoughts, after our sinful feelings, we are, as many of us say, and this is the right word - "we are carried". "Here it is" means that they began to condemn someone, to swear at someone, to get angry and so on - to be in some kind of sinful feeling: either anger, or envy, or fornication, and so on and so forth... We are literally carried along the waves, that is, it does not require any effort from us. And to be a Christian is always an effort, it is always to slow down, it is always to turn in the other direction, it is always to swim against the current, it is always to do it against oneself, against one's will. Why is it so hard? Because we are sinners. It is easy for a sinner to sin - this is such a tragedy, the drama of our human life. And one could have completely despaired if it had not been for the Lord, if not for the All-Merciful Lord, Who meets us and is ready to return to us again our garments, which affirm us in filial dignity, in adoption by God Himself, and give us a ring on our hand, and kill a well-fed calf! Just think about what kind of food the Church offers us - to us, sinners, who, in fact, according to the canons in the Church, are not only halved, this is our large meeting - but in general, to leave, perhaps, two dozen people, and the rest all there, not even in the churchyard, but there - behind the iron fence, there, closer to the public toilet. This, according to the rules of the Church, is what place we should occupy - we, all of us. This is not only fair - it is quite canonical. This is our place there... And we are the Lord, by His mercy, not that which brings us into church, not that which nourishes us with our grace-filled Divine services, but is also ready to cleanse us at confession, if we bring our repentance, if we really want to improve, and not just to complain to the priest about our sinful life! "Here, father, you know - I am such a sinner, and this is a sin for me..." Of course, the priest nods - the priest is the same, in fact, a sinner, so he sympathizes: "Yes, they say that I am a sinner, and maybe even more sinful"; The priest is embarrassed to discuss this somehow - the doctor does not tell the patient about his illnesses, so they talked, nodded and that's it. This is not enough. It is necessary that there be repentance. After all, repentance is not a feeling, because there is a special term called a feeling of repentance. And this is an important component, but still repentance is not a feeling of repentance. Therefore, to hollow out your chest in such a way as to squeeze out something so soulful, so compassionate to yourself - this is not enough. One must very calmly and soberly force oneself to fulfill the Will of God. You need to force yourself to correct your sinful life. And of course, this requires the Power of God, you need to pray to God for this. We cannot fix our insides ourselves, we cannot, for example, get rid of the feeling of revenge. For example, there is a feeling of revenge - here is a person who has done something to me, and I want to make him understand that I understand what he has done, and, as they say in politics, "take adequate measures against him." So that he knows! That's the feeling I have for him. But if I am a Christian, can I not apply these "adequate measures" to him? Can. If I do this, it means that I forgive him. But! If I have done this, it is good, but it is not enough and I still need to get rid of the feeling. But here I need to pray to God: "Lord, I am a sinful man, but I want to be a Christian. And you can see that I want to be a Christian, instead of kicking him in the mouth, I forgave him. Although I still want to kick in the teeth. And so I ask Thee to deliver me from this feeling, from this desire to kick him in the teeth, although - it is evident from everything and no matter who I tell - it is absolutely fair that if I give him a kick in the teeth, then no one will not only not condemn me, but will say that I did not give enough, I should have done more. But if I want to live like a Christian, I have to sweep it aside." But you need to have the courage to do this... That is why our Venerable Seraphim used to say that Christians, who are still contemporary with him – there is nothing to say about us – lack determination, determination to do the simplest things, the most elementary ones. That is, we have been so surrounded by this sinful outward life of ours, so much has the whole level of morality in general fallen so endlessly, that even our efforts are to drag ourselves to church, or put a piece of sausage aside, and it seems to us that we are almost righteous, not saints, and so on. But the Word of God, it remains the Word of God - what sin is, that is, sin, and there is nothing you can do about it. Of course, we have to use more effort to make this jelly, which is our soul, in order to give it at least some form. This, of course, is very difficult for us. And the Lord knows this, so nothing is required of us, no podvigs. If a person in our times takes upon himself some feats, then in 99 percent it is either out of madness or out of pride. Simply, straightforwardly, you can't think of a way to live in a Christian way! The smallest thing that is required for piety is to be saved by what is around: here is my family, here are my children, here is my work, here is my church - the field of activity for each of us is enormous. There is no need to invent anything, to look for anything - salvation, it lies right here. But! But you need to be honest. You don't need to deceive yourself or your neighbors, let alone the Lord God, of course! This parable says that the Lord knows our deceit, that the Lord respects our freedom: each of us can go "to a distant country", each of us can do whatever he wants, each of us can decide everything as he likes, live as he pleases. But salvation is only for those who want to be saved. And whoever wants to be saved must feel that not everyone who comes to church will be saved, no matter how sad it may be. There are cases when a person who does not go to church can be saved - there have been such cases. Therefore, our very coming here, although it testifies to our good intention, is not enough. Why? Because it would be too simple: make a pilgrimage to Mecca - and you are already a khoja?! No! No, this is too little, this is external. The Lord wants us to renounce sin inside, to renounce it within ourselves, to renounce it - for Christ's sake... ... Even if you are a ninety-year-old man, you can always repent! The question is: "And where is justice then?" One, there, all his life, went to church, prayed - this is how the elder brother thinks - and... At least. And the other was lying paralyzed, he had already received communion... And what happened? "I," he said, "went to church and prayed, and this one just took communion, on his sickbed, and he went to the Kingdom of Heaven, or what?" Are you sorry? Are you greedy? Is this your kingdom of heaven and not mine? Is this what envy says in you? Yes? Envy... Do you regret that you went to church?" Yes, the fact that you went to church (as one village grandmother told me: "The more you go to church, so many times you will be in the Kingdom of Heaven!"), for many of us who will not see the Kingdom of God as their ears - the fact that we have been here, in this church, will be what we will live there, in that darkness, that awaits us! Because this too is the Kingdom of Heaven – in its perfect, fullest power! We just can't realize it yet. So it often happens that a person got a "three" in the first year, and when he retakes it in the fifth, he gets a "five" for the same exam. Why? But he has become five years wiser, everything is much easier for him, he has mastered all this. This is a completely natural phenomenon. So it is with us: we will live by this, we will live by what we have seen here, heard, prayed for, tasted – we will live by this: by the remembrance of the opportunity that was given to all of us. Do not regret that we went to church "in vain"! "We walked and walked - and nothing came of it!" ... No, it is everyone who has come to church at least once - this is such a blessing that cannot be compared with anything else in this world at all! If you put all this Earth on one side of the scales, with all these wonderful achievements, and one visit to the temple on the other side, then this Earth can be burned, the whole thing - it is so precious that it is. But we cannot even think on such a scale, due to our limitations. We can only take our word for it and say: "Father gave such a hyperbole." That's all. Because this can only be evaluated from there, from hell, it can only be really appreciated - what is given to us now. That is, the Lord, in His Fatherly mercy, is ready to give us everything! He - now we are completely unworthy! - but He gives us the Kingdom, He gives us Divine food, which even angels do not have. And only to melt our hearts. So that we would want to do something, in gratitude to our Heavenly Father, in order to correct something in our lives, even if we do not reach the Kingdom of Heaven. If we fix what we fix, it won't be enough, but it doesn't matter. This correction will still be a striving for good, and the Lord will notice it anyway. And after all, the abodes in the Kingdom of Heaven are different... In the underworld, too, the abodes are different. And the great prophet of God Moses, and Enoch, and even Abraham himself, and even John the Baptist - all were in hell! Everyone was in hell until the Lord Himself descended into hell, until He brought them out of there. Everyone - some a thousand years, some seven hundred, some five hundred - all the Old Testament righteous and saints - all were in hell. These are, of course, different monasteries. Therefore, even if the Kingdom of Heaven does not await us, then there are also different abodes in the underworld. And with God nothing will be lost: not one of our thoughts in our hearts, not one of our slightest improvements. Although you should not think that it is mechanical or automatic... The Holy Fathers said: "From earth to heaven there is often one breath...", but this sigh must be very deep. Indeed, it is not some kind of exalted experience, not this, not the seething of feelings that is some kind of achievement and result - feelings can be influenced by some kind of autogenic training - all this has no value, but only a real determination for correction, for repentance. Help us in this, Lord!

Sermon on the Sunday of the Holy Fathers (January 3, 1998)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit! Today's Sunday is called the week before Christmas, the week of the Holy Fathers. We usually call the teachers of the Church the Holy Fathers, but here we mean people who belonged to the family from which the Savior came. Why do we remember them? Because although sin was active in each of them, as in any person, as in us, at the same time they lived in anticipation of the coming of the Savior, the Messiah, the Deliverer, and this main idea of their life was a guiding star for them. They sinned, because in those days they did not have the opportunity to partake of the grace of God, as we do now, but nevertheless they knew how to repent of their sins and mourn them truly. They waited for Christ the Savior, they waited for the forgiveness of their sins, and although they were mistaken on this path, the main thing for them was this expectation, which was passed down from generation to generation and began with Abraham. Abraham was not a righteous man, but God imputed his faith to him as righteousness, because at that time there were fewer believers in the whole earth than fingers on one hand, and, despite his sins and some human infirmities, Abraham had this main virtue, which almost no one living at that time had. He constantly prayed to the one God and, being already old, believed when the Lord said that he would have a child and that from him would come a whole generation, from which the Savior of the world would come. We often doubt both God's mercies and many important foundations of our faith, but Abraham did not doubt the words of the Lord. And when a son was born to him, and the Lord commanded, "Go and offer him to Me as a sacrifice," Abraham did not say, "If I sacrifice my son, how will the generation come from me?" He was a man of indestructible faith, and it was imputed to him as righteousness, the Holy Church calls him the father of all believers. Therefore, Abraham can be such an example for us, although he had weaknesses, infirmities, and all sorts of errors. Those who read the Old Testament often do not understand how such a person can be among the righteous. From our Christian point of view, what he did in his life is unacceptable. But we forget that that era was not Christian, but the era of the most terrible paganism, when such terrible and terrible outrages and such sins were committed, which are scary to read about, and if you live in the midst of this, you can simply turn gray with horror. And all the infirmities of Abraham simply pale in comparison with the iniquities with which the earth was overflowing. So did King David, and King Solomon, and all the others who were listed in this genealogy of Jesus. The born Christ sanctifies all mankind by His birth, but especially in His race rests the grace of the Lord, for the hope of salvation was present in each of those people who stand in the chain of Christ's race, and each of them served for His coming, prepared it in some way. The Virgin Mother of God could not have come from a bad family, because the apple falls not far from the apple tree. And in Her birth all the best that was in them was embodied. What lesson can we learn from this? The biggest problem for us is our family, our children. Some spiritual people call children the plague of the twentieth century. Now what the Apostle Paul spoke of is happening: "In the last days... people will be haughty, slanderous, disobedient to parents." If you talk to teachers who have been working for a long time, they say that today's children are really completely different. And even if you devote your whole life to raising your child, it turns out to be difficult, because the environment is just scary. What should we do? What forces should be put into ensuring that our race also lives in anticipation of the coming of Christ the Savior into our hearts? How to pass on the love of God to children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren? You can only pass on what you have. Therefore, all attempts at education will be unsuccessful if a person does not learn what he wants to instill in his children. And if he cannot teach, show, if he cannot give the child the opportunity to feel Christ, then punishment awaits him. It lies in the fact that when the child grows up, parents will look at his tricks all his life, will see everything that they have not reported to him, that they have not been able to do, and suffer from it. And many of us agonize when we look at our children, but this does not mean that we should despair and lose hope. After all, many came to God at a late age, and some half, some third, some two-thirds of their lives spent who knows where and who knows how. What should be demanded of children when they saw that this most important part of their lives was lived by their parents without prayer, without God? And now we are trying to force them to Christ, to force them to act as we would like? This is unthinkable and useless. It is always better to build from the beginning. But if you build poorly, then you will have to redo everything later, which is always more difficult, and tedious, and associated with high costs. And since we started late, it's not surprising if we don't do well. But there is no need to despair, because we do not build ourselves, but with God's help. And our main zeal, our main work should consist in prayer for children. The first thing, the most important thing, is that children need to be begged for. The second thing is a good example. What happened to the American, Australian, French, Russian, Tatar children? Why is the same process going on in all of them? Why is morality falling so quickly? The morality of Pushkin's era is not much higher than the morality of Nekrasov's era, and now we observe such failures every ten years, which is simply surprising. Take, for example, drunkenness. Statistics say that in the 50th year they drank 10 times less than in the 65th. This is one sin, and it is better not to touch the rest, it is even shameful and shameful to talk about it. Children do not have a good example. For example, a child is lying in a stroller, with his legs and arms twisting, and, of course, he is not a drunkard, not a drug addict, he is not a villain, not a blasphemer, not a foul-mouthed, not a thief. And even if his father is a robber, and his mother also leaves much to be desired, he is still a child, he is an angel. His soul is pure, although, of course, there is a tendency to sin, like any other person. But now the child finds himself in the atmosphere of our world, and what does he see? He grows up among swearing, squabbles, mutual resentment and constant lies. The child goes outside, and what does he hear? Already in the sandbox, all sorts of battles begin, one breaks the other. The mother said: "And you give him a kick, and you don't mess with it." If the children are older, then all you hear is: fool, fool. And in such terrible voices that you think: are they children? Here is the child turning on the TV. What moral qualities are instilled there, what do they show? A movie about love? And how is this love expressed? In only fornication. And so the whole world, everything that surrounds the child: books, and relations between children at school and in the family, is aimed at corrupting him and killing holiness in him. Where can he, poor man, go? They protect him from the church in every possible way, and if he does come there, some aunt will immediately run into him: where did he get up? Don't touch... And his heart absorbs only anger, envy, irritation, only rudeness, only lies. And of course, the heart cannot stand it; He becomes angry, withdrawn, goes into bad companies. These companies are semi-criminal, but they still have some semblance of human relations, although the guys say obscene words, and elevators are broken, and entrances are painted. And then, of course, tobacco, and booze, and drugs begin, then fornication, and then prison. It's all very close and close. And looking at him lying in a wheelchair, would you think that at the age of 17 he would go to jail for theft? No, it doesn't even occur to me. Therefore, parents, if they really want to raise a child, must create an atmosphere of paradise at home, so that wherever he is, whatever he does, he compares life in the world and life at home as hell and heaven. So that he feels good at home, so that there is an atmosphere of love, peace, patience, humility, meekness, prayer, mercy. And how do we do it? Some parents force their children to pray, swear, shout; They think that this is how something good can be instilled. And as a result, the mere mention of God causes torment in the child. Some times a year a child is brought to church, he is twisted, he yells, breaks out. Communion at all costs! So what? He will only remember the church with horror. And many adults remember it as something terrible, because they were grabbed, tied up, brought somewhere, stuck in their mouths; Wild screaming, fear, unfamiliar surroundings, many people, lights burning... This is not how it is done. If we want our lineage to continue, our faith not to fade away, so that our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great-great-grandchildren also come to Christ, we must set an example of Christian life in at least something, we must be strikingly different from worldly people, but not hypocritically, not put on some kind of mask, because a child cannot be deceived. Children, by virtue of their angelic state, are clairvoyant beings, spiritual things are open to them, which have long been closed to adults through their sin. Therefore, they perfectly feel people, relationships, perfectly understand lies, hypocrisy, but they understand not with their minds, but directly with their souls. Therefore, the only way to raise children correctly is to start education with themselves. And if this does not happen, then no persuasion, shouting, punishment, beating will give anything and we will look at our child for the rest of our lives and, as in a mirror, see ourselves. Everything that is in us will be there, look and admire. And this is very difficult and painful. Why did the Lord arrange it this way? Because otherwise you can't get through us! Yes, we love our children and wish them well, but each parent molds his child in his own image and likeness, because, except for himself, he knows nothing and cannot do something that he does not possess himself. Education does not consist in moralizing, not in telling how to do it, but in showing it. And here the Lord God Himself is an example for us. After all, He does not force us, He does not force us to do anything, He simply shows what beauty God's creation is. Everything that the Lord has created is always beautiful and always perfect. In order to paint a picture, an artist needs to think about the composition, about the color, and the Lord has a beautiful landscape everywhere in His creation, everything is harmonious and harmonious. How amazing it is! Or when the birds in the forest sing, we hear that wonderful music is made! And so everywhere we look. Is it to the sky - what beauty, what can be more beautiful than the stars? Or the sun, a tree, a butterfly or a lizard! Whatever God has created is all beautiful and supremely perfect! But earthly life is a pitiful reflection of heavenly life. This is how the Lord calls us to beauty. Christ did not drive anyone into the Kingdom of Heaven, He simply told. Whoever willed, accepted; Whoever did not want to, did not accept. The Lord respects the freedom of man. And education can only be associated with respect for freedom, and not with the suppression of a person. It is necessary to respect your child, because without it there can be no love, but only a manifestation of self-love, your own egoism and the desire to crush a person and make him what you want. This does not mean that the child should not be punished, there should be no need to force him to do anything: let him grow, they say. No, it is necessary to punish and to coerce, but punishment must be associated with love, as the Lord does. After all, he also punishes us, but in such a way that we draw conclusions from it, understand it ourselves. Therefore, many of us already in adulthood or even in old age begin to understand something: why something happened, why it happened. If a person comes to church for the first time and thinks: "Why do I need this?" then when he comes for the hundredth time, he already knows why. And he begins to understand that he needs to correct himself so that the same thing does not happen again in the future. These are the reflections that the Sunday of the Holy Fathers should lead us to. The generation of Christ brought forth perfect fruit. The Lord Jesus Christ was able to become incarnate from the Virgin Mary and come into the world. And our lineage can also bear worthy fruit. We must dedicate our children to God, we must also work to ensure that the Holy Spirit visits them, we must try to instill holiness in them, to show them, to reveal to them this heavenly beauty. The fact that holiness, kindness, and love have become scarce in the world has a bad effect on our children, and because of this impoverishment, all the evil that we see occurs. Of course, you can set up stadiums, arrange all sorts of circles, sections, art studios, music schools. But this will not save at all, it will only be a temporary distraction of a certain group of children from their fruitless pastime. Only the grace of the Holy Spirit can protect from evil. For example, children in rich countries have everything: stadiums, discos, money, any clothes, whatever, but this does not affect morality in any way. And our children can be given everything, everything can be built, but kindness, love, humility, meekness, patience, grace will not be added by this one iota. They think that children have nowhere else to be except for the entrance, but we will build clubs - and they will immediately become good. This is an insane hope. How many times have they tried to feed everyone, believing that then crime will disappear. But crimes suddenly begin to be committed by very rich people, children of very wealthy parents. And we often read in the newspapers: Minister So-and-so stole. It would seem, well, where else can he go, and everything is already there. And why? Because no worldly well-being adds morality, but only the grace of the Holy Spirit. And this is what we need to work on. Then our race will not be impoverished by the grace of God, but, on the contrary, it will be possible to hope that our children will still multiply what we have managed to acquire in our lives. Lord, help me!

Articles, speeches

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit! Today's Sunday is called the week before Christmas, the week of the Holy Fathers. We usually call the teachers of the Church the Holy Fathers, but here we mean people who belonged to the family from which the Savior came. Why do we remember them? Because although sin was active in each of them, as in any person, as in us, at the same time they lived in anticipation of the coming of the Savior, the Messiah, the Deliverer, and this main idea of their life was a guiding star for them. They sinned, because in those days they did not have the opportunity to partake of the grace of God, as we do now, but nevertheless they knew how to repent of their sins and mourn them truly. They waited for Christ the Savior, they waited for the forgiveness of their sins, and although they were mistaken on this path, the main thing for them was this expectation, which was passed down from generation to generation and began with Abraham. Abraham was not a righteous man, but God imputed his faith to him as righteousness, because at that time there were fewer believers in the whole earth than fingers on one hand, and, despite his sins and some human infirmities, Abraham had this main virtue, which almost no one living at that time had. He constantly prayed to the one God and, being already old, believed when the Lord said that he would have a child and that from him would come a whole generation, from which the Savior of the world would come. We often doubt both God's mercies and many important foundations of our faith, but Abraham did not doubt the words of the Lord. And when a son was born to him, and the Lord commanded, "Go and offer him to Me as a sacrifice," Abraham did not say, "If I sacrifice my son, how will the generation come from me?" He was a man of indestructible faith, and it was imputed to him as righteousness, the Holy Church calls him the father of all believers. Therefore, Abraham can be such an example for us, although he had weaknesses, infirmities, and all sorts of errors. Those who read the Old Testament often do not understand how such a person can be among the righteous. From our Christian point of view, what he did in his life is unacceptable. But we forget that that era was not Christian, but the era of the most terrible paganism, when such terrible and terrible outrages and such sins were committed, which are scary to read about, and if you live in the midst of this, you can simply turn gray with horror. And all the infirmities of Abraham simply pale in comparison with the iniquities with which the earth was overflowing. So did King David, and King Solomon, and all the others who were listed in this genealogy of Jesus. The born Christ sanctifies all mankind by His birth, but especially in His race rests the grace of the Lord, for the hope of salvation was present in each of those people who stand in the chain of Christ's race, and each of them served for His coming, prepared it in some way. The Virgin Mother of God could not have come from a bad family, because the apple falls not far from the apple tree. And in Her birth all the best that was in them was embodied. What lesson can we learn from this? The biggest problem for us is our family, our children. Some spiritual people call children the plague of the twentieth century. Now what the Apostle Paul spoke of is happening: "In the last days... people will be haughty, slanderous, disobedient to parents." If you talk to teachers who have been working for a long time, they say that today's children are really completely different. And even if you devote your whole life to raising your child, it turns out to be difficult, because the environment is just scary. What should we do? What forces should be put into ensuring that our race also lives in anticipation of the coming of Christ the Savior into our hearts? How to pass on the love of God to children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren? You can only pass on what you have. Therefore, all attempts at education will be unsuccessful if a person does not learn what he wants to instill in his children. And if he cannot teach, show, if he cannot give the child the opportunity to feel Christ, then punishment awaits him. It lies in the fact that when the child grows up, parents will look at his tricks all his life, will see everything that they have not reported to him, that they have not been able to do, and suffer from it. And many of us agonize when we look at our children, but this does not mean that we should despair and lose hope. After all, many came to God at a late age, and some half, some third, some two-thirds of their lives spent who knows where and who knows how. What should be demanded of children when they saw that this most important part of their lives was lived by their parents without prayer, without God? And now we are trying to force them to Christ, to force them to act as we would like? This is unthinkable and useless. It is always better to build from the beginning. But if you build poorly, then you will have to redo everything later, which is always more difficult, and tedious, and associated with high costs. And since we started late, it's not surprising if we don't do well. But there is no need to despair, because we do not build ourselves, but with God's help. And our main zeal, our main work should consist in prayer for children. The first thing, the most important thing, is that children need to be begged for. The second thing is a good example. What happened to the American, Australian, French, Russian, Tatar children? Why is the same process going on in all of them? Why is morality falling so quickly? The morality of Pushkin's era is not much higher than the morality of Nekrasov's era, and now we observe such failures every ten years, which is simply surprising. Take, for example, drunkenness. Statistics say that in the 50th year they drank 10 times less than in the 65th. This is one sin, and it is better not to touch the rest, it is even shameful and shameful to talk about it. Children do not have a good example. For example, a child is lying in a stroller, with his legs and arms twisting, and, of course, he is not a drunkard, not a drug addict, he is not a villain, not a blasphemer, not a foul-mouthed, not a thief. And even if his father is a robber, and his mother also leaves much to be desired, he is still a child, he is an angel. His soul is pure, although, of course, there is a tendency to sin, like any other person. But now the child finds himself in the atmosphere of our world, and what does he see? He grows up among swearing, squabbles, mutual resentment and constant lies. The child goes outside, and what does he hear? Already in the sandbox, all sorts of battles begin, one breaks the other. The mother said: "And you give him a kick, and you don't mess with it." If the children are older, then all you hear is: fool, fool. And in such terrible voices that you think: are they children? Here is the child turning on the TV. What moral qualities are instilled there, what do they show? A movie about love? And how is this love expressed? In only fornication. And so the whole world, everything that surrounds the child: books, and relations between children at school and in the family, is aimed at corrupting him and killing holiness in him. Where can he, poor man, go? They protect him from the church in every possible way, and if he does come there, some aunt will immediately run into him: where did he get up? Don't touch... And his heart absorbs only anger, envy, irritation, only rudeness, only lies. And of course, the heart cannot stand it; He becomes angry, withdrawn, goes into bad companies. These companies are semi-criminal, but they still have some semblance of human relations, although the guys say obscene words, and elevators are broken, and entrances are painted. And then, of course, tobacco, and booze, and drugs begin, then fornication, and then prison. It's all very close and close. And looking at him lying in a wheelchair, would you think that at the age of 17 he would go to jail for theft? No, it doesn't even occur to me. Therefore, parents, if they really want to raise a child, must create an atmosphere of paradise at home, so that wherever he is, whatever he does, he compares life in the world and life at home as hell and heaven. So that he feels good at home, so that there is an atmosphere of love, peace, patience, humility, meekness, prayer, mercy. And how do we do it? Some parents force their children to pray, swear, shout; They think that this is how something good can be instilled. And as a result, the mere mention of God causes torment in the child. Some times a year a child is brought to church, he is twisted, he yells, breaks out. Communion at all costs! So what? He will only remember the church with horror. And many adults remember it as something terrible, because they were grabbed, tied up, brought somewhere, stuck in their mouths; Wild screaming, fear, unfamiliar surroundings, many people, lights burning... This is not how it is done. If we want our lineage to continue, our faith not to fade away, so that our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great-great-grandchildren also come to Christ, we must set an example of Christian life in at least something, we must be strikingly different from worldly people, but not hypocritically, not put on some kind of mask, because a child cannot be deceived. Children, by virtue of their angelic state, are clairvoyant beings, spiritual things are open to them, which have long been closed to adults through their sin. Therefore, they perfectly feel people, relationships, perfectly understand lies, hypocrisy, but they understand not with their minds, but directly with their souls. Therefore, the only way to raise children correctly is to start education with themselves. And if this does not happen, then no persuasion, shouting, punishment, beating will give anything and we will look at our child for the rest of our lives and, as in a mirror, see ourselves. Everything that is in us will be there, look and admire. And this is very difficult and painful. Why did the Lord arrange it this way? Because otherwise you can't get through us! Yes, we love our children and wish them well, but each parent molds his child in his own image and likeness, because, except for himself, he knows nothing and cannot do something that he does not possess himself. Education does not consist in moralizing, not in telling how to do it, but in showing it. And here the Lord God Himself is an example for us. After all, He does not force us, He does not force us to do anything, He simply shows what beauty God's creation is. Everything that the Lord has created is always beautiful and always perfect. In order to paint a picture, an artist needs to think about the composition, about the color, and the Lord has a beautiful landscape everywhere in His creation, everything is harmonious and harmonious. How amazing it is! Or when the birds in the forest sing, we hear that wonderful music is made! And so everywhere we look. Is it to the sky - what beauty, what can be more beautiful than the stars? Or the sun, a tree, a butterfly or a lizard! Whatever God has created is all beautiful and supremely perfect! But earthly life is a pitiful reflection of heavenly life. This is how the Lord calls us to beauty. Christ did not drive anyone into the Kingdom of Heaven, He simply told. Whoever willed, accepted; Whoever did not want to, did not accept. The Lord respects the freedom of man. And education can only be associated with respect for freedom, and not with the suppression of a person. It is necessary to respect your child, because without it there can be no love, but only a manifestation of self-love, your own egoism and the desire to crush a person and make him what you want. This does not mean that the child should not be punished, there should be no need to force him to do anything: let him grow, they say. No, it is necessary to punish and to coerce, but punishment must be associated with love, as the Lord does. After all, he also punishes us, but in such a way that we draw conclusions from it, understand it ourselves. Therefore, many of us already in adulthood or even in old age begin to understand something: why something happened, why it happened. If a person comes to church for the first time and thinks: "Why do I need this?" then when he comes for the hundredth time, he already knows why. And he begins to understand that he needs to correct himself so that the same thing does not happen again in the future. These are the reflections that the Sunday of the Holy Fathers should lead us to. The generation of Christ brought forth perfect fruit. The Lord Jesus Christ was able to become incarnate from the Virgin Mary and come into the world. And our lineage can also bear worthy fruit. We must dedicate our children to God, we must also work to ensure that the Holy Spirit visits them, we must try to instill holiness in them, to show them, to reveal to them this heavenly beauty. The fact that holiness, kindness, and love have become scarce in the world has a bad effect on our children, and because of this impoverishment, all the evil that we see occurs. Of course, you can set up stadiums, arrange all sorts of circles, sections, art studios, music schools. But this will not save at all, it will only be a temporary distraction of a certain group of children from their fruitless pastime. Only the grace of the Holy Spirit can protect from evil. For example, children in rich countries have everything: stadiums, discos, money, any clothes, whatever, but this does not affect morality in any way. And our children can be given everything, everything can be built, but kindness, love, humility, meekness, patience, grace will not be added by this one iota. They think that children have nowhere else to be except for the entrance, but we will build clubs - and they will immediately become good. This is an insane hope. How many times have they tried to feed everyone, believing that then crime will disappear. But crimes suddenly begin to be committed by very rich people, children of very wealthy parents. And we often read in the newspapers: Minister So-and-so stole. It would seem, well, where else can he go, and everything is already there. And why? Because no worldly well-being adds morality, but only the grace of the Holy Spirit. And this is what we need to work on. Then our race will not be impoverished by the grace of God, but, on the contrary, it will be possible to hope that our children will still multiply what we have managed to acquire in our lives. Lord, help me!

Pharisaic hypocrisy

Brothers and sisters! Has it ever occurred to any of you why the Lord exhorted prostitutes with meekness and patience, and often turned to righteous Pharisees with anger? Is moral depravity really less dangerous than the Pharisaic disposition of the soul? And what is the disease of Phariseeism? Isn't it that they constantly go to church, observe holidays and fasts, give alms, and know the Holy Scriptures? "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites..." – the Savior rebuked. Maybe the concept of "hypocrisy" needs to be explained? Vladimir Dahl explains: "Hypocrisy is a property, a quality, a state of hypocrisy." And hypocritical is "feigned, where evil is hidden under the guise of good, vice under the guise of virtue." The mask is "a false face, a face, a mask", that is, a false, pretended appearance, a sly pretense. As if it were clear... It is not entirely clear why pretense is worse than debauchery. Let's try to explain. The adulterer reduces his human dignity to the position of an irrational beast, which, obeying the instinctive call of the flesh, cannot control its behavior with reason. The hypocrite divides his very personality, his soul. He no longer encroaches on the integrity of his flesh, but of his immortal soul, and in deliberate deception he likens himself to the father of the false devil. And thereby it acquires satanic properties. And the fall into demonism is deeper and more pernicious than into bestiality. Although, of course, the deep bottom of bestiality borders on the beginning of demonism. Now the eyes of many are turned to public life because of the processes that take place in it. Unfortunately, most people do not think about heavenly things, but about the earthly order. The more obvious will be the example of the manifestation of public hypocrisy. The giver of life is God, and it is impossible to arrange any life, either bodily or spiritual, if we do not repent, that is, if we do not cease to be hypocritical, for this sin brings upon us the wrath of God. Everyone is already accustomed to peaceful calls. War has been cursed by society and is denied as a way to settle disputes. The whole country is dotted with obelisks, illuminated by "eternal flames". Not a single newspaper overlooks the needs of veterans of all wars. You can often see photos of an old mother or a widow bride. But why is there a false note in the chorus of condemnation of war - this obvious evil - heard? Why does the face of grief sometimes resemble a hypocritical mask? Because a terrible, undeclared, decades-long bloody war is going on in our country, with hundreds of millions of victims killed and wounded. This cannot be called a war. Massacre, hecatomb! On one side of the front - innocent defenseless babies, on the other - adults: mothers, fathers, doctors. Babies cannot stand up for themselves and die by the millions, and adults, who rarely die in this massacre, are more likely to get off with wounds. But for this they receive a paid sick leave. I hope now it is clear what we are talking about? Who will erect a monument on the unknown grave of nameless babies? Objections are immediately heard: "Abortion, artificial termination of pregnancy is a personal matter of the mother." Let's imagine a picture: a trial, a dock, a murderer. The judge asks: "How dare you?" The defendant: "What's so special about it? I artificially stopped the activity of the heart of one victim, the brain of another, and the lungs of the third." - "But they died from it!" - "Yes, but what can I do, it just so happened, they could prevent me from living the way I want." Absurdity? And what do we do when we kill a child, what do we call it? It is often said that the child does not feel anything. This is a lie. If even plants are sensitive to pain, is a small child in the womb more primitive? But even dying in an unconscious state does not make her anything else. And if we assume that the child does not feel anything, killing him is still not justified by anything. Reasoning about what the murdered person feels is very reminiscent of reasoning about humane death in a gas chamber: it, they say, is sweeter than in a noose. The third objection is: "There is nothing there yet... This is not yet a person." And this is a lie. No scientist can say about a human embryo: it is a fish, a tree, a cereal. Both the sprout that has only recently emerged from an acorn and the four-hundred-year-old, gnarled tree are equally oaks. It is a pity that such simple, understandable things have to be chewed up by adults. For some reason, when it comes to plants, everyone agrees, and when you talk about people, they begin to justify crimes. After all, a newborn baby is also not yet fully human, he cannot do anything that an adult can do; Any animal is smarter than him. But for the murder of a born child there is a prison, and for the murder of an unborn child there is a ballot, although both the embryo and the infant are people only potentially. To see the difference between killing one and the other is equivalent to killing a five-year-old child with a greater punishment than killing a four-year-old. Isn't this hypocrisy? Other usual objections are so absurd that I don't even want to cite them... But still: "I have no money to feed, to clothe, to give a decent education... If poverty is an excuse for murder, it is possible to solve food, housing and other problems by exterminating two-thirds of the country's population. If it is difficult for single people to raise children, is it really necessary to pass a law allowing widows and divorcees to kill the extra children they have borne? According to official statistics, about 8 million children are killed annually in our country (the population of Moscow). In fact, there is much more. How many times? At two? At three? Neither Hitler nor Stalin dreamed of such a scale. This mass terror against our own children is the bloody background of our entire life. Against this ominous background, any, even the most benign social movement: peacemaking, mercy, protection of nature, preservation of the cultural environment, democratization, glasnost, human rights - looks like terrible hypocrisy with crocodile tears. Let our conscience, if we have forgotten the commandment "Thou shalt not kill", answer: does the conceived person have a God-given right to life, or is it (this right) in the hands of another person, who can dispose of this right at his own discretion? In denying the right to life of another, we deny in general every right and every manifestation of life as such. Among us, who have already believed in God, many in the past have foolishly committed such a sin or participated in it with their connivance, and some have done so repeatedly. According to the ancient canons of the Church, for such an act one was excommunicated, as for murder, from the communion of the Church for twenty years. Modern life is such that now the Church does not excommunicate anyone, but calls for repentance. We must repent and bring forth the fruits of repentance. You can't resurrect murdered children, you can't make amends, even if you raise ten orphans. Oh, if only instead of forcibly bringing our unbelieving murderous daughters to church for a prayer of absolution (so that in the future they could repeat the same crime with a clear conscience), we would use all the strength of our soul and mind, all our eloquence, all our parental authority to prevent lawlessness! And this is how children and grandchildren would be raised! How many tillers, workers, soldiers, scientists, artists, priests would we have preserved. Stand up for the small, defenseless! Teach the foolish the commandment of God! And the all-merciful Judge, perhaps, will have mercy on you, if He finds you not killing, but saving the innocent. Great is the mercy of God! Why have we dwelt so much on this one manifestation of hypocrisy? Aren't there others? There are, and many, but this is the most egregious. It especially clearly shows all the harmlessness of Phariseeism and hypocrisy. It turns out that the fruits of it can be multi-million human casualties. "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy!" Amen.

Dignity of the Church

A layman who is sufficiently knowledgeable, if he looks at the history of the Church and contemporary church life, can come to the conclusion that Christianity has failed. The work to which Christ and the apostles devoted their lives does not have today such visible success as could be expected from the shedding of blood and such severe suffering. In our world, love is becoming more and more impoverished, holiness is almost non-existent, and culture has ceased to be Christian. The first disorders began with Judas the traitor, continued into the apostolic age (Ananias and Sapphira, the murmuring of the Hellenists against the Jews), and after the Church emerged from the catacombs, it sometimes came to the point that one saint exiled another saint, and heretics were often dealt with no more humanely than they dealt with the faithful. If we imagine the history of the Church as a chain of events in which its members participated, then we will see that individual manifestations of purity, holiness, and podvig are literally drowned in blood, meanness, hypocrisy, betrayal, i.e. the history of the Church is quite similar to the usual course of world history, in which this nightmare is always and still in abundance. Hence the embarrassment. Let's look for the Church today. Of course, it should be looked for in an Orthodox church. Go. Any person who has gathered all his courage and decided to cross the threshold of the church for the first time, naturally expects to see holiness, beauty, love... Everything that he lacks so much in this world. That is why it took so long to gather his courage, for he perfectly feels and realizes his unworthiness. Is it so easy to take and enter Heaven? And he is just shy, as usual. How could I, so ignorant and sinful, go to a place where I would feel like an ugly duckling? Overcome, entered and... Suddenly, an incomprehensible language, unusual clothes, and all this against the background of the clinking or rustling of money (why are they here?!), rudeness, and often simply rudeness of those standing in the church, unwillingness to talk or, on the contrary, an excessive thirst to teach you from those whom I did not ask for it, and would never in my life ask for this instruction. It is difficult to approach the priest, since his whole appearance shows that he is very busy and you have come at the wrong time and inopportunely. The first contact with the Church, as a rule, is unsuccessful, since no one is waiting for anyone there and fishers of men are not to be seen. And yet, where is it, the Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, which is written about in the books that are now sold in such numbers? After all, she could not disappear, how can the gates of hell prevail against her? Maybe it is for those who impudently call themselves the Church of Christ, or Scientology, or the watchtower, or maybe there is some other - true, true? The second embarrassment. People who go to church affirm that the Church is the holy, immaculate Bride of Christ, that she contains and preaches the Truth, that she herself is the Truth. And these people speak with a fervor of conviction that it is difficult to explain by fanaticism alone. And all of our people who have been Christianized, or rather more cautiously, many of our people look to the Church with the hope that she alone can somehow save Russia. And the fact that she, mother, needs to be saved, seems to be understood by everyone now. Here is such an antinomy: on the one hand, there is a historical failure and a present that is difficult to assimilate, and on the other hand, the only hope of the greatest country and a huge people. Is it possible that less than 20,000 priests can do anything in such a vast area with such a large people, of whom 4/5 are still completely godless? Let's try to understand. The most important dogma of Christianity is the incarnation of Almighty God. The Divinity in Christ was united with human nature inseparably, unmerged, inseparable, unchanging, and He became in everything, except sin, like all other people. He ate and drank, wore human clothes. His most pure feet, touching the roads of Palestine, could be covered with dust, and his clothes could get dirty with time and need to be washed. In His humanity, He could be terribly tired. Otherwise, how can we explain that He could have slept in a boat in the middle of the raging Sea of Galilee? As a man covering long distances on foot, His feet probably had calluses and abrasions. And after the tortures of the Cross, His all-pure body imprinted upon itself all the horror of these sufferings. The Church, through the mouth of her chief Apostle Paul, identifies herself with the Body of Christ. That is why the Church is a divine-human organism, the Divine in her is holy and immaculate, while the human only strives towards God's truth, and for the time being, at times, is covered with the dust and dirt of this world, for it lives and acts in the world. The Lord Jesus Christ appeared as a pure seed, instilled by the Heavenly Father into the human world, so that from Him would grow the vine of unprecedented spiritual beauty of the Church of God. At first, the sprout was completely green, all its shoots - the disciples were alive and nourished by the seed that fell into the ground - Christ, Who became the root of this new Tree of Life. All the sprouts not far from the root were grafted onto the vine and therefore retained life in themselves, and life in abundance, although they themselves could not yet bear fruit, because they had not yet grown stronger, had not yet become branches, and still had in them much of the past "wild" life. The vine grew, the grafted cuttings became branches, the fertile juices of the Tree of Life, like new wine, flowed through the souls and veins, displacing everything old. Sinful decrepitude resisted, and the inoculation was not painless. Just before the beginning of the first flowering, a sprout with the name Judas began to dry out. Then he fell away, because he preferred the old to the new and lost faith in the Truth, and one can be grafted into the vine of Christ only by faith. This was followed by Peter's denial, but he found enough faith, love and courage in himself to repent without justifying himself, and he remained on the vine of the Church. And even earlier we see in our first shoots of the young Church the old diseases of cowardice, disagreement, the desire of one to bypass the other, arrogance, difficult assimilation of the Word of God, a certain spiritual stagnation. Human nature, although covered with the grace of the Holy Spirit and purified by the Word, still always bears traces of sin. Let us continue along the path of perceiving the image of the Church as a tree of Life that grew from a seed, fell on the heart soil of mankind perishing far from God. Years passed, then centuries, now millennia. From a delicate, fragile, fast-growing sprout, a huge beautiful tree grew. Its two-thousand-year growth has been accompanied by many upheavals, tragedies and losses. Huge branches were broken off by the winds of persecution, the fiery arrows of the evil spirit, like lightning, inflamed the trunk and branches and deadened significant parts of the tree, making them barren firebrands. The worms of heresy wore out the healthy tissue of the tree, making it fragile and incapable of growing and fruiting. In the course of time, under the influence of the spirits of time, hollows appeared in the trunk, in which rot formed, quite comparable to the very soil on which the tree grew, i.e. inside the Tree of Life itself, something completely uncharacteristic of it, even opposite in essence, appeared. Such hollows led to the splitting of the trunk and the death of many branches and shoots. As a result, the modern observer standing before the Church sees before him an object so vast and majestic that he can almost never grasp it in its entirety. There is a lack of experience, knowledge, and culture of communication with such a unique creation of God and man, unlike anything from ordinary human experience. The eye slides and gets stuck on the understandable and familiar. Here is the rot, here is the fracture, here is the dry branch, here are worms and beetles, and where is the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church? Where is? It's easy to understand, it's harder to find, it's harder to see. What do we see in front of us? The beauty created over the centuries: beautiful temples scattered over the face of the whole earth, perfect in form and brilliant in engineering, let us hear beautiful sounds and read the words amazing in their sublimity, with which the Church in the past glorified Her Creator. We will see wondrous painting, spiritualized sculpture. But these are only traces of the life of the spirit that was seething in this place before. Life itself is not to be sought here. Let us turn again to our image. What does a tree exist for, what does it grow for? For the beautiful shape of the branches, for the thick and dead bark, for the green leaves? No, but for the sake of the fruits. What fruits did the Heavenly Father want to grow on the Tree of the Church, sending His Son to earth, Who became the Seed of this Tree? Of course, the fruits of the Spirit of God. Therefore, whoever wants to find the Church must seek holiness! From the words of the Savior Himself, we know well that the Church will stand until the end of this world, which means that she will bear fruit. Let us look among the breaks and bends of dry branches for branches on which there are still green leaves, for only they indicate that the branch is still alive. And on these few branches let us look for the fruits: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, mercy, faith, meekness, self-control (Gal. 213). Without these fruits, there is no holiness, and there is no Christianity, which consists not in outwardly, like a painted grave, reminding of Christ, but in having the spirit of Christ in oneself. For whoever does not have the spirit of Christ is not His. Where the spirit of Christ is, there is His Church. But now everyone claims to possess the gifts of the Spirit, even the atheists and lechers speak of spirituality... Barkers on every corner and everyone shouts: come to us, we have Christ, sometimes calling himself by a different name, then the prophet John, then Bessarion, then Lazarus, then Krishna, then Asahara, then Hubbard, then Moon, then... Well, enough, "there are countless of them". The Lord planted only one Tree, only one Church, and only on it can we find true, and not evil, fruits. Any organization that calls itself a church has a historical beginning in its founder, who was once born somewhere, grew up, and only then organized what he came up with. And, as can be seen in the example of Luther, it often turns out not even exactly what the founder wanted. And only the true Church has a beginning in Christ Jesus and an uninterrupted succession. Continuity is not only in ordination, but in everything: worship, way of life, art, etc. Therefore, any experiments to rejuvenate church life are essentially artificial, and if they become a general trend, they will destroy a 2000-year-old tree. This does not mean that what remains of it will cease to grow green and bear fruit, but that the opportunity to be grafted into the Tree of Life will be lost by millions who consider and feel it to be native, their own. In the shrub that will, of course, grow again at the fallen trunk, millions of people who have remnants of historical memory do not recognize their Mother Church. We will have to remake the people again, "enlighten", retrain, change the psychology. Recently, the dominant communist religion has largely remade the Russian Orthodox person. So much so that the last high priest at one of the congresses testified before the whole world that "during the years of Soviet power, the image of the Soviet (read Orthodox) person has changed beyond recognition." But many could not and did not want to be altered, changed beyond recognition, and were destroyed. In attempting to cleanse the church, the result will be the same as that of Catholics, who lost millions of members after the Second Vatican Council. Therefore, the Lord commanded that both the wheat and the tares be saved until the harvest. The gardener who cares for the 2,000-year-old tree of the Church can only be the One Who planted it, namely the Lord Jesus Christ. And what about us? As they say, water does not flow under a lying stone, does it? And is it not enough for us to have a field of activity - our whole heart. After all, the Lord addresses him with the Sermon on the Mount. Have we already attained the perfection of the Heavenly Father? With the coming of the Savior to earth, the Kingdom of God came near to every person, first the Jew, and then the Greek. But the Kingdom of God is needed, and only those who make an effort enter it. But man is sinful, so he neglects the virtue of work, and follows the passion of spiritual laziness. The spiritual battle with sin is fought at the level of thoughts, and this invisible battle is accomplished by prayer. And everyone who has ever tried to pray knows how hard it is. It is always easier to engage in "activity". It is easier to be a Pharisee than to lead a spiritual life. It is easier to read prayers than to pray. It is easier to engage in demagogy than to serve your compatriots. It is easier to look than to be. It is easier to be in an illusion than to be sober. It is more difficult to work than to "go crazy". It is easier for a sinner to be stubborn than to repent. Therefore, it is very difficult to reach the Savior in the heart of a person... Everyone chooses from the Word of God his own and only his own. His own small, but his own. This part of Revelation is quite consistent with the part of Revelation, because the little human "ours" is also from God. But God wants to give man all of His kingdom, and man wants to expand his miserable 6 acres of his heart. Why is a person ready to spend great efforts to expand his own, and not take what is given to him by God Himself? Out of pride alone. Only it, the root of all sins, blinds a person, makes him incapable of hearing and listening. It does not allow him to see the forest for the trees, which is a little further than his own nose. Out of pride, a person loves his opinion of God, of the Church, more than of Them. After all, only true love does not seek its own. And the developed energy is nourished not by hunger and thirst for God's truth, but by passion, the passion to have one's own, the passion to insist on one's own at all costs. This is how heresies and false Christs arise. If something that I cannot contain sticks out of Tradition or Scripture, we will remove it or we will not notice it. If the Church does not listen to me, I will create a new one and prove that mine is better, everyone will feel more comfortable in it, because all the incomprehensibility that does not fit into my soul will disappear. Thus in mankind there arose and continue to arise those stumps which are only called Christian, but in essence rejected Christ long ago, because He with His commandments turned out to be too complex, incomprehensible, difficult, and, most importantly, contradictory to sinful human selfishness, from which it is not at all easy to renounce according to the Word of the Savior. The Lord commanded us to love our neighbor as ourselves, at least not to do to him what you do not want to do to yourself. But the proud man incapable of repentance, who tries to prove his rightness to everyone, would rather destroy all those who did not join than depart from his own. We see this in the religious wars of the past, and in the multi-million reprisals of adherents of the communist religion against dissidents in various countries, and in the modern threats emanating from totalitarian sects, and in the policy of the so-called civilized Christian states in relation to those peoples who want to live differently from what this civilization offers. Everyone has a conscience and it needs justification. And justification is possible either from outside or from within. From the outside - from God or from people, from the inside - either in repentance or in the satisfaction of proofs. Therefore, the one who admits that he is a sinner is wrong repents before God and finds justification in Him, while the proud person seeks justification from people, proving his rightness before them. For this reason, no proud philistine, even nominally belonging to the Church, can ever see its holiness, but will see only the sinful that pertains to its human part. In the lives of saints, he will see mythologems and conventions and hyperboles characteristic of the genre. In modern spirit-bearing men - aibolites in eyeglasses, in the history of the Church there are only Judas. With pleasure he will seek out manifestations of human weakness in the soldiers of Christ glorified by the Church, in order to prove to himself once again that "I am no worse." He will prove that the Church of Christ is also fallible, that Godunov did not kill the Tsarevich, although everyone who lived at that time says that he did. And he will never understand that holiness does not depend on who killed whom, but only on whether God gave grace to the Comforter or not. If it were important for the Church what, where, when, would not depict the Holy Apostle Paul on the icons of Pentecost, would cross out the second Gadarian demoniac from the canon of the New Testament, and would leave only a little from the Old Testament in order to fit the necessary answer to the questioner of this age. The Church does not need this. It still shines and shines to everyone in the house, and darkness cannot embrace this light. And only he who loves the darkness of his own eye more, only because it is his own, does not see this light. Whoever is of the Truth will listen to the voice of His Shepherd Christ and will follow Him to His church to graze in the pastures together with the rest of the sheep of His flock. Whoever thinks that other pastures are more pleasant to look at and more desirable, will be expelled from the paradise of the Church, the branch will wither and will be fit only for fire. But all sinners, all are proud from the beginning, from their mother's womb! Who then can be saved, let us cry out together with the apostles? There must be a way! It exists and, thank God, it is the only one, you do not need to choose from different paths, but only want to be with Christ or not. Will I be able to rise above my addictions? I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic church. I believe that she is alone. I believe that the Orthodox Church, which I see before me and to which I belong by baptism, is apostolic, because it comes from them uninterruptedly through the laying on of hands by the priesthood. I believe that those whom she glorified as saints are truly holy. I believe that the Synaxis of Saints is the Church of Christ, and my salvation lies in communion with this Council. I believe that the path of the saints is the path of Christ, and if I can walk it, I will reach the Kingdom of God. Don't be embarrassed! Any confusion from the evil one. Just as the Old Testament is not a textbook of geology, biology, ethnography, history, but a divinely inspired story of man about God acting in the history of the world, so the history of the Church is the life on earth of the true Vine, its germination into humanity, the history of the emergence of clusters of holiness on it. The story of how God saved man from sin and how those who really wanted it more than anything earthly were saved. But this is also an instructive story about how many who had great and small talents did not reach the end, could not endure all the temptations, withered and fell away, and why this happened. As every tree ferments the earth, which consists of stones and humus, into miraculous fruit (but not the whole earth, but only that which has fallen to the root), so the Church of God transforms the stone and the pus of human hearts into the fruits of the Holy Spirit. And this does not happen to all of humanity, but only to those who have been grafted into the vine – Christ, who have become part of the Tree. Do not be embarrassed if you are "kicked" in church, know that it is not grace that tears you away from the church, from the Church, although in some cases this has happened, but a rebellious sin, which is also at war in another person as in you. And he fears your salvation and persecutes you. Don't be embarrassed. God wants everyone to be saved. "Do not be afraid, only believe" in this, be patient, as God also tolerates you. Nor should we be confused by the naked eye infirmities of those who bear the name of a Christian or belong to a spiritual rank, be they monks, priests, or even bishops. From any ecclesiastical height a man can fall, let us remember the Apostle Judas, and from any fall he can rise, let us remember the Apostle Peter. Let us not condemn anyone, this is not pleasing to God. Let us not expect a miracle from man, remembering that only grace makes saints. Everyone sins before God and everyone will answer before Him for himself, and we do not know what will be the path of the person who is now seducing us, nor do we know why at the moment he is like this in relation to us. Let us try to forgive him and separate his soul, striving for God, from its present sin, and let us pray with all our hearts that the Lord will help him overcome today's weakness. For all those who want to embark on the path that leads to eternal life, but do not have eyes, in order to see holiness in modern life and follow it, one must turn to the experience of the glorified saints of the past and try to honestly follow in their footsteps. Then let us reach the Siloam font of insight, "having purified our senses, we will see." What do they need to be cleaned of? From sinful passions: pride, vanity, ambition, love of money, anger, gluttony, fornication, despondency, doubt, laziness, talkativeness, malice, deceit, deceit, greed, vindictiveness, vindictiveness, condemnation, man-pleasing, partiality, foul language, and much care. In order to see the Truth, we "must have the same feelings as in Christ Jesus" (Phil), for only "the pure in heart shall see God." If we dream of another truth that is not accepted by the Church, then this is the temptation of serpents, which was "a murderer from time immemorial." In order not to get lost, one should not "think highly of oneself," but, on the contrary, learn from the Savior to be meek and humble, so as not to muddy one's soul with sinful agitation and not to lose the spirit of peace. Lord, I believe, help my unbelief!" The faith of Christ is both His commandment and virtue. If we are able, in spite of all temptations, to stand firm in it, if we are able, making efforts on ourselves, courageously overcoming doubts, to act in accordance with faith, and not with evil considerations, i.e. practicing faith as a virtue, then the Savior will see this and strengthen us. "Without faith it is impossible to please God," but only one's pride. Following the path of faith, we will take the path of the saints, and by the mercy of God, if we remain in humility, we will attain that which leads the disciple of the Savior into the Synaxis of His Saints – the love of Christ.

Psychological and pastoral aspects of the schism

Your Graces and all the honorable assembly! I will first talk about things that are quite famous, we have all gone through them, but I need to say this, because I will draw some conclusions from it. Thus, the topic of the report is declared: "Psychological and pastoral aspects of the schism." You see, it's about the schism again. Indeed, schism is a terrible thing. This sin is not washed away even by the blood of a martyr. The Church has always experienced schisms very painfully and acutely. That is why Father John Sviridov is apparently worried, for this deeply affects all of us. Let us recall the schism of the eleventh century between the Western Church and the Eastern Church. What happened in the beginning? As a prerequisite, there is a difference in traditions. Further, the emergence and growth of papal ambitions under Nicholas I, Adrian II, John VIII, then there were curses against Patriarch Photius, the denouncer of lies. Pseudo-Isidore decretals appeared, which served, in some part, as the ideological basis for the future schism. A certain political situation arose under Leo IX and his secretary, the monk Hildebrant, who later became pope. The prerequisites merged into a trend, the result of which was this terrible split between the West and the East, all the consequences of which we still feel and, probably, will feel until the end of centuries. As a result of this schism, a new spirituality arose, and from it a new culture. The new spirituality, which greedily absorbed the spirit of the times, poured out in completely new forms of church art. The Western Church, having broken away from the East, has lost its ancient spirituality. Let us look at the schism at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Luther and Zwingli began the struggle with the just slogan: "Down with indulgences!" Yes, indulgences are terrible, but they ended with the rejection of Church tradition, new prayers, hymns, new rules of life, a new church structure, a new dogmatics. A new, different spirituality arose again. The losses in the legend were enormous. Suffice it to mention the 11 books of the Holy Scriptures. The "new church" lost church singing, icons, rituals, architecture and became a constant source of the birth of new confessions, i.e. greater division. Now let us recall the schism that occurred in the Russian Church under Patriarch Nikon. He was guided by good intentions. I can admit, although with a certain stretch, that such good intentions guided both Archpriest Avvakum Petrovich and his supporters. In the unpublished works of Patriarch Nikon, about which their researcher Professor Zyzykin told, there is much clear evidence of the Patriarch's historical intuition. But he also failed to foresee the fact that, on the one hand, justly defending church freedom from the state, on the other, he himself caused a landslide, which later became an avalanche, and in the future, psychologically facilitated Tsar Peter to carry out his reforms, which would deepen and consolidate the schism. The stubborn firmness shown on both sides, the underestimation of the possible consequences, were based on the most serious arguments. Patriarch Nikon eliminated errors and inconsistencies in the texts. He aligned the rite according to the Greek model (a purely intellectual idea!), and his opponents fiercely resisted the spirit of the times. As we know from the old proverb: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." As a result, the Russian Church lost the ancient icon and ancient singing. The tradition has barely survived in remote corners. And a huge part of the Russian people was torn away from the Church into the Old Believers and deprived of the grace-filled life of the Church. We are taking a huge step through the entire Synodal period. The First World War. Revolution. The Council of 17. Restoration of the Patriarchate. A new era of schisms has begun, about which there are many, but not everything is known yet. One of the greatest figures of that era was the famous theologian Metropolitan Sergius Stragorodsky. His quite natural desire to preserve the legal church organization at any cost led to mistakes that are still felt today. He could not have imagined the consequences of his going into renovationism for only a few months. He failed to foresee the train of ecclesiastical strife that would follow the publication of his Declaration. Therefore, he is also to blame for those ecclesiastical disorders, as well as for the schism with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia that we are experiencing at the present time. Why? Not because he was a malicious man, oh no! But because he did not calculate the consequences of his steps. What kind of "spirituality" arose among the renovationists was perfectly demonstrated by the funeral of Alexander Vvedensky, which was attended by a whole "clip" of sad widows. Our brief review has come close to our time. Not so long ago, soon after the Russian Church received freedom from the state, a schism arose, but, thank God, began to fade away, created on our canonical territory by the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. It seems that the Synod Abroad is beginning to move away from these positions, since a large number of the faithful belonging to the Church Abroad are against such a schism. After some time, it also became clear from across the ocean what kind of church "figures" rushed into schism. There is no way to send good ones from America and Europe for two reasons: first, life in Russia is difficult even for Russians, what can we say about Americans and Europeans?, and second, for the Russian Diaspora, the problem of a parish without a priest also exists, so there is simply nowhere to get "missionaries." A few words about the current painful Ukrainian split. First of all, we see the complete moral bankruptcy of the organizers and figures of this movement - Ioann Bodnarchuk and former Metropolitan Philaret Denisenko. Therefore, these splits are purely disciplinary, not "ideological". First of all, the ordinary church people suffer from them, who are not always able to understand what is behind the demagogic speeches of the schismatics. Yet deeply ecclesiastical people are horrified by what is happening in their Mother Church. Those who are external to the Church are offended. Now, let's imagine for a moment that this schism will strengthen and a new "church" will arise, which is based not on apostles and martyrs, but on such philarets and johns (who, by the way, "consecrated" Bishop John of Bereslav, the founder of the "Mother of God Center"). What will be this latest "spirituality" with a nationalistic tinge? What nightmarish "centers" will it spawn? From the mother of Russian cities, let us move to the present capital. There are some trends that can lead to a split if developed. I want to share my thoughts on the processes that are taking place in the community of Fr. Georgy Kochetkov, or rather, in the church of Fr. George, because he already has a whole network of communities, of which the church hierarchy is not even aware. And I also want to briefly dwell on what is happening in the parish of the Church of Cosmas and Damian, where Father Alexander Borisov is the rector. Moreover, I would like to emphasize that I have known Fr. Georgy for almost twenty-five years and his closest colleague Alexander Mikhailovich Kopirovsky for the same number of years, and I hope that despite the fact that our views do not coincide in many respects, we will still retain the warm feelings that have connected us for many years, and we will remain friends. Although, perhaps, I have already been enrolled in the category of renegades? And I have a long-standing acquaintance with Fr. Alexander Borisov, almost fifteen years ago, and we have never had any problems in our relationship, but always love and full respect. I do not want to throw a stone in the direction of these workers in the field of the Church, but I just want to say what hurts me. And not only me. I dare to think that I represent a parish of about one and a half thousand people, which, although it is not located in one church, is one large community. Let Fr. George forgive me for using the word "community" in the general sense of the Church, and not in its system of signs. Unfortunately, due to lack of time, it is impossible for me to conduct a complete analysis of what is happening in Fr. George's church, but this does not mean that such an analysis has not been done earlier. In order not to be tempted to accuse me of unfoundedness, I will rely on printed publications. Before me is a collection of materials published by the Sretensky Brotherhood of Fr. George, "Community in Orthodoxy." I have noted many passages there that clearly indicate a very serious trend. It can be briefly expressed in the words of the spiritual leader of the brotherhood himself: "You and I are firmly convinced that the parish system in the old sense has exhausted itself." Of course, I knew about similar ideas of Fr. George before, but I did not think that the new model had already been created and continued to grow, and very quickly. Many communities have already been created on a vast territory. They are in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Murmansk, Yekaterinburg. As a rule, future members of the community undergo total training through the system of "catechesis" and "catechesis" and, when they "mature", a new community is created headed by a "presbyter" who, as a sign of his presbyter dignity, wears a pectoral cross of the established pattern. All "presbyters" are spiritually subordinate to Fr. George, and only he has the right to say the final word about whether a certain "incomplete" member of the church has finally become "complete." For those who want to improve their spiritual and intellectual level, there is a higher school, also created on the basis of the new concept of the Church. A full-time student who undergoes it becomes an apologist for the ideas of Fr. George and can already begin to work on "catechesis" and "catechesis" himself, although under the vigilant control of the head of the "church." As a friend, I have tried many times to influence Fr. George, but he is fully convinced of the correctness of the chosen path and does not intend to retreat, so I decided to address him from the rostrum of this conference so that he could see how serious the arguments of the opponents of his activities are. Moreover, I am well aware of the uselessness of such attempts to influence Fr. George "ideologically," for he is incapable of listening not only to his old friends, but also to recognized church authorities. From Fr. George one can often hear that he has been blessed for his work by Fr. Vsevolod Shpiller, that he is a "disciple" of Fr. Nikolai Afanasiev. On Fr. George's banner one can read the names of Archimandrite Tavrion of Batozsky, Archpriest John Meyendorff, Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann, and Protopresbyter Vitaly Borovoy, thank God, who is still alive. Forgive me, but I must still cite two quotations that clearly demonstrate the attitude of only two of this brilliant series. The deceased pastors would have been able to give a better rebuff to speculation on their names, but two testimonies, I think, are enough. Thus, Archpriest. John Meyendorff, "A Note on the Church," Vestnik RKhD No 141, pp. 78-82, is devoted to an article by Fr. Georgy Kochetkov, published under the pseudonym S.T. Bogdanov. "... It seems to me necessary to express not only some surprise, but also a decisive disagreement with the main conclusion of the article. I will not dwell on vague expressions, probably explained by the theological inexperience of the author, but will confine myself to the main thing... I so strongly disagree with the conclusions of S.T. Bogdanov's article: the principled acceptance of two parallel forms of church structure: "synagogue-synaxarinal" and "ecclesiastical" (why such monstrous neologisms?) This division is unacceptable in principle, since the Church is one, and the singling out of the "synagogue-synaxarion" structure for a special group of "already perfected and sanctified" would be a kind of Gnostic elitism. Forms of such elitism have been known since antiquity, and have always been rejected by "catholic" Christianity... But to say that the "ecclesiastical" order with its dogmas, canons, rites, apostolic succession of hierarchy, etc., is as such only an "Old Testament reality" (Vestnik RKhD No140, p. 58) is incorrect and dangerous, and even monstrous from the Orthodox point of view. It is precisely the Eucharistic ecclesiology, which corresponds to the New Testament and ancient Christian understanding of the Church, that should give the "tone" for the correct attitude towards this ecclesiastical empiricism and teach the ways of its transformation from within. Now let us listen to what Protopresbyter Vitaly Borovoy says to Fr. George (Address at the Second Transfiguration Council of the Transfiguration Brotherhood, August 17-18, 1991): "Bear in mind that very many of the points that have been expressed here will cause disagreement and objections, and even in a sense justified doubts and objections. For example, I can also sort out all your proposals, although they are ideologically close to me, as you know. But if you put them in order, a whole series of doubts, objections, and advice will arise... I will say this: whether you like it or not, the basis of the life of the future Church in our country, out of necessity, and simply existentially, will and should be the parish... The temple should be open so that people can come and go there. That's the coming... But keep in mind that if you try to implement even a tenth of what we have been talking about in the parishes, then you will all be finished. Because, unfortunately, this is unacceptable in parishes, because people there are not prepared. It may be that like-minded people have gathered in your community now, and if you open your church to everyone and people from different sides come to it and see what you have been talking about, Fr. George, then..., for me, for example, it will not shock me, because I understand and know history and everything else, but others will immediately file a complaint with His Holiness the Patriarch." Fr. George did not heed any of the most learned theologians of the twentieth century, Archpriest John Meyendorff, nor the "ideologically close" Protopresbyter Vitaly Borovoy. Now, I think, the time has come to declare from the general church conference how his work is perceived by the church people. Listen, and don't be offended, dear Fr. George. Your labors, titanic in scale and energy expended, are seen by everyone whom I have asked about as malicious activities aimed at undermining the Church's foundations. They are perceived as a deliberate creation of a parallel church structure for a further revolutionary upheaval in order to change the 1,500-year-old parish church structure to some mysterious "synagogue-synaxarinal". The system of catechesis developed by you leads the neophyte not to the modern church tradition, but to the "pseudo-apostolic" tradition you have invented, which is as similar to early Christianity as an unfriendly caricature of man himself. Your experiment on a very expensive thing that has been preserved in church tradition - meaning divine services - is perceived only as blasphemy. Do you really think that what the Church defended from the Bolsheviks at the cost of the lives of hundreds of thousands and millions of martyrs of the Russian Church, she will give to you for revolutionary vivisections? The divine service that you encroached upon, adjusting it to your small height, is not yours, but ours, and it hurts us when they cut us alive. I know and testify that you are not a malicious person, but how childishly naïve you are. Involuntarily, you begin to think that Bernard Shaw was right when he said that if a person is not a revolutionary at the age of 20, he has no heart, but if he is a revolutionary at 40, he has no mind. You, who have no ear for music, cannot appreciate all the mediocrity of your stumbling "heed" instead of "heed", so take my word for it. Among the outsiders, neophytes and even sworn enemies of the Russian Church, you already have many supporters, and authority within the Mother Church does not exist for you. Even the beloved and reverently revered elder-confessor, Archimandrite John (Krestyankin), is just an "aibolit" for you. Try, come to your senses, repent. God is merciful! And please do not pretend to be a misunderstood sufferer for the truth, a kind of Galileo Galilei. Everything has long been analyzed and understood. Your pastorship, which can be conditionally called an intellectual-spiritual delusion, has already created an opposition within the Church that yearns for revolutionary changes and judges everything and everyone in the Church, although they have belonged to it for only a year or two. The whole harm of your activity lies not only in your stubborn revolutionism, not only in the danger of the emergence of a new mystical sect from your "high-quality cosmonauts" who sway at the divine service, but in servility to the spirit of the times, which is the spirit of the prince of this age. That is why you will be protected to the last bullet by both external and enemies of Christ. I would like to bring to your attention the following: the new spirituality that is being born in your communities is perceived by the rest of the Church as alien and hostile to it in spirit. Now very briefly about the ecumenical views of Fr. Alexander Borisov, which he set forth in his book "Whitened Fields". It reads with interest, and it contains many correct observations, which I could also subscribe to. But in general, of course. It is imbued with the ideas of the Reformation in the most Protestant spirit. In order to protect himself from future criticism, Fr. Alexander for some reason chooses a primitive technique, known to us from the difficult Russian communist yesterday. Here is what he writes: "The clergy belonging to a different group (I also consider myself to belong to this group. - D.S.), which can be conditionally called "right" (it's nice to be right! - D.S.) is characterized, first of all, by extremely conservative orthodox (!?? - D.S.) views, for the most part - these are people with secondary education, although recently, some with higher education (well, definitely about me! - D.S.). In quantitative terms, they make up something like a fifth (as a percentage of KGB officers, or something? - D.S.). This group of especially active orthodox (well, at least be ashamed! - D.S.) is especially interesting for us (I wonder for whom "for us"? - D.S.), since it is they who mainly make the weather in our Church (oh, if only so! - D.S.), keeping it in a state of extreme conservatism. The majority of monastics belong to them, and this is natural, since all people of an extremely conservative orientation tend to strive for monasticism, and all the more so in our conditions." And one of the most important signs of those "who make the weather" in the Russian Church, Fr. Alexander sees... anti-Semitism. We all know very well what it means at the end of the twentieth century to accuse someone of anti-Semitism. Fr. Alexander also knows this and consciously goes to this slander. In my opinion, this is a political denunciation, which, as Fr. Alexander probably thinks, will protect him from the conservatives. But the conservatives do not attack you, Father Alexander, but only ask: "What are you doing? What are your goals?" Your pastoral work raises many questions among orthodox Christians. Why is heterodox literature distributed in your church? Why are Pentecostal zeals performed? Why does the children's magazine you publish contain blasphemous pictures and crosswords? Why do they sell a record with recordings of the so-called "Christian rock" in your church? This question can also be addressed to Priest Vsevolod Chaplin, who on the sleeve of this disc speaks with an apology for it, and to his father, Archpriest Valentin Chaplin, who is the spiritual father of the Orthodox youth movement, under whose stamp this disc was released. Why does your church have an NFP group teaching your congregation "safe" sex from birth? Why, after all, do you write, publish, and distribute Catholic and Protestant books in an Orthodox church? And why do you think, dear Father Alexander, that Orthodox Christians are completely indifferent to what is happening in orthodox churches? Yes, apparently, it is no coincidence that on the cover of Fr. Alexander Borisov's book there is a photograph of Fr. Georgy Kochetkov. Although the scale of their activities is different and the direction is different, we have one and the same psychological type of personality. A type of self-appointed revolutionary-reformer, who has only one authority - himself. It is no accident that they do not seem to notice the one who preserved and defended Holy Orthodoxy for them – the holy martyrs of Russia. One looks to the apostolic age, the other to the Protestant and Catholic West. Why did these young priests, who are barely five years old at the time of their consecration, rush away from Orthodox spirituality to the far side? Why don't they notice their own, close, dear? Due to the fact that the spirit of the time is their own for them, and the spirit of the Orthodox Church has not yet become such. It is for such young people (not in age, but in spiritual development) that there is a tradition, a church tradition, having absorbed which, one can perceive the truly eccentric spiritual life. And they can't wait, they are no longer young men, they are secularly educated, they have no time. Out of pride, they consider themselves much smarter than other, backward conservatives. They do not want to join the spirit of Tradition, it is better for them to reshape Tradition to their own standards, according to the spirit of the times. They do not have enough time to think about the fact that, perhaps, these conservatives are not only inert and stupid? Maybe they are also lively, kind, intelligent people? Among the orthodox there are not only candidates of biology, but also doctors of various wonderful sciences. And these "conservatives", among other things, care about how the priests Kochetkov and Borisov look in the eyes of the ordinary believers, who form the basis of the Body of the Church. And they ask them not to disturb church life. To have pity on the Mother Church and the people who make up her. Refuse reforms at all costs. In conclusion, I will say that the ideas that we have all encountered in the study of the activities of these two priests are in the air and are instilled by the prince of the air. Moreover, it is ridiculous to think that only these two pastors are the bearers of a new spirituality. I think everyone paid attention to what Fr. John Sviridov said and how he behaved. These ideas are already quite widespread in our native Church and represent a very serious problem that we will encounter more than once. If this trend prevails, then the schism of the Russian Orthodox Church is inevitable, possibly in 10-15 years. If the Russian Church is unable to resist due to the loss of spiritual strength by that time and a schism does not occur, then the losses will be much more terrible than those I spoke about at the beginning of my speech. Having lost its spiritual wealth, which we inherited from our victorious martyrs, Russian Orthodoxy will share the fate of those churches that have been overcome by the spirit of this age. The Russian Church will become impoverished in holiness, it will cease to give birth to God's people in the bosom of its people, and only "doers" will arise. And the spirit of Christ will absorb and dissolve in itself the spirit of the times, and the spirit of the Antichrist will seize everyone. This, of course, does not mean that "the gates of hell will prevail" against the Church, but that the grapes will pass to "other workers." Let it not be! Let us stand up for the Orthodox faith!

Spirituality, morality and law

1. Human security. Due to the trichotomous nature of man, for the convenience of consideration, we can try to consider human security in three aspects, namely: a) physical, b) mental (mental), c) spiritual. So, let's consider the sources of physical danger of a person. All of them can be grouped into the following sections: Crime, Irresponsibility (Negligence), Elements (Accident). When a person encounters crime or negligence of any other person or group of people, his physical safety is exposed to a real threat. The primary cause of this danger for man lies in the field of morality. That is, both crime and irresponsibility are manifestations of the immorality of the individual. Human safety in a natural disaster, extreme situation, accident also directly depends on the moral level of the person who is threatened by physical danger. In such situations, it is often necessary to show courage, patience, nobility, bravery, unselfishness, etc., etc. It is quite obvious that the physical safety of a person in all the sections considered, even if not 100%, has a direct dependence on the level of morality of society. Let's consider the sources of mental danger for a person. Or, in other words, that which leads a person to mental illnesses, which always end in premature death due to the need to take potent pharmacological drugs that adversely affect the human body, as well as to numerous cases of suicide. These are: alcoholism, drug addiction and substance abuse, burdened heredity, traumas (mental and physical). When considering these causes, we are convinced that the primary source of mental illness is either the immoral life of the suffering person himself, or his parents, and in some cases more distant ancestors in the direct line, or an immoral act committed by another person against the victim: aggression, violence, mockery, etc. But in these cases, in order to safely survive mental trauma, high moral qualities are necessary, the deficiency of which can lead to the development of mental illness. Thus, the root of the psychic danger of a person is also immorality. Now let's move on to the most difficult for the perception of modern man consideration of the sources of man's spiritual danger. The difficulty lies in the fact that a modern, especially Russian, person has long been torn away from the source of spirituality, which is God Himself, and takes surrogates for spiritual life, which in themselves are sources of spiritual danger. Another difficulty lies in the fact that spiritual life, both true and leading away from the Truth, flows intimately, and a person is never inclined to take a critical attitude to his manifestations and finds that he has reached an impasse when it is often no longer possible to help him. Spiritual danger, like radiation, acts silently and invisibly, but its consequences are terrible. This is a special topic that requires a certain level of spiritual knowledge from the audience, so we have to limit ourselves to a simple list. It would be good if at least these listed sources remained in the memory of the listeners, and they would first believe the word for it, as a first-grader believes the teacher that this letter is pronounced "B", and this word is written in such and such a way, and we will give proofs when we move to the fifth grade. So: any sin committed by a person (sin is any manifestation of the human personality directed against God and His commandments) opens the soul to the influence of dark forces on it, which are aimed exclusively at the spiritual and physical destruction of a person. First, let us enumerate what prevents a person from entering spiritual life, i.e. without overcoming which no spirituality is fundamentally possible: forgetting God; possession of something that is more important to man than God; loss of reverence for God; unwillingness to devote at least one day a week to one's soul and God; disrespect for one's father and mother, and in general one's elders; premeditated murder (including abortion); adultery (adultery and life outside of marriage); theft; perjury; envy. These are nothing more than the commandments given by God to man 3500 years ago, i.e. 1500 years before the birth of Christ. The second obstacle to spirituality, a source of spiritual danger for man, are the congenital and "acquired" spiritual diseases of man, which in Christian terminology are called passions. This is the essence: pride, vanity, anger, love of money, gluttony (including drunkenness), fornication, despondency, laziness, envy (as a state of mind), greed, lack of mercy. Both individual actions and the sinful structure of the soul are a consequence of the immoral state of man. 2. The security of society depends on the conditions that the state can create for its people, and depends on the creation of prerequisites for the spiritual and moral development of society, the effectiveness of the army, law enforcement agencies and the financial and material condition of the state. Moreover, the development of the spiritual and moral state of society should be and remain a priority area of the state's activity, as a guarantor of its physical, mental and spiritual security. Let's try to prove it. The combat capability of the army and the effectiveness of law enforcement agencies directly depend on two components: high morale plus material support, which in turn depends on the country's resources and sufficient taxation. Russia's material resources exceed the level of any country in the world, so we may not include this component. But the collection of taxes and the morale of the army and law enforcement agencies are clearly insufficient to provide for Russian society as a whole. The cheapest way to increase the effectiveness of structures that ensure the security of society is to increase its level of morality, as one of the components of this efficiency. Also, with a general increase in the level of morality, the emergence of a desire for moral ideals in society, the total number of offenses that pose a threat to the human person and society is also reduced. If we follow the path of increasing taxes, then this will lead to the impoverishment of that part of society that does not evade them, i.e. the state will come into conflict with the most law-abiding, and, consequently, more moral, part of society and will itself be a threat to the security of the people's life. And this can lead to a revolution, which is the most terrible expression of the decline in the moral level of society, for there is no greater evil than when brother rises up against brother because of the loss of the sense of justice by the authorities. The mental security of society depends on the degree of mental comfort of the members of society. The state should function in such a way as to provide the maximum number of members of society with a life that is not perceived as unbearable. Each person should have an occupation that will provide a tolerable standard of living. Disabled members of society should be provided for at the expense of the prosperous, but at such a level that the latter do not lose the desire for this prosperity. Each member of society should have a moral ideal that will give an impetus to the spiritual development of the individual even when the state of health or lack of property does not allow him to reach the generally accepted level. The moral ideal accepted by society, instilled in each of its members, will prevent the slide into the seemingly easy criminal path. Because of climatic conditions, vast spaces, wars, revolutions, the Russian person has to spend huge amounts of money on constant road repairs, on warm clothes, on heating homes, etc., which is not at all so expensive for an American or a European. Therefore, in order to achieve at least a European standard of living, a Russian will need to make much more effort than a Frenchman or a German. Only by getting rid of envy, it turns out that you can save a huge amount of mental and physical strength. And this, again, is a moral task. 3. The state can and must take care of the spiritual security of society and each of its members. This is already a field of law. Legislation should not be structured in such a way as to give a presumption of freedom for sin, whether it is actions contrary to the law of morality or a way of life. But on the contrary, with the help of law, the state must put up an impassable barrier to any encroachments on the person, try to ensure the physical, mental and spiritual security of each person. The state should take care to nullify the factors that were listed earlier and thus develop its legal framework in order to give a "green light" to the development of the spiritual and moral potential of society. Can't the state protect society from depravity and violence, from pornography and drug addiction, from nihilism and permissiveness? It can, but only with a sufficient number of highly moral members of society who are not indifferent to the fate of the people. If we do not have this good Christian army, then our people and the whole country are doomed to historical extinction. There have been mighty nations before, and they perished because Sin conquered virtue. And how virtue is cultivated instead of vices needs to be discussed for a long time and separately, it is enough that we have learned today that any aspect of the security of the individual and society is impossible without the revival of morality.