Still, in Pravoslavia, the need for spiritual guidance is very developed...

Yes; But it seems to me that at times this becomes one of our shortcomings: the world is waiting for "leadership", and there is very little personal sense of responsibility. Being under spiritual guidance consists in standing before one's conscience, before the word of the Gospel, bringing one's sins to confession and repenting of them, making an effort to use oneself and on this path to seek advice, but not necessarily pointers or instructions.

When I got to London, I wanted to involve our old people in some responsible work. They answered: "Why, Father Anthony? You tell us - we will do ...". For practical things, this is not important, but in general, the Church is not so important, because the Church is something richer than just the flock and the shepherd.

In Shanghai, a Russian priest published a book of his stories (at his own expense, and I understand why); I read them at a time when I wanted to find some inspiration. There was a story about sheep and goats. It began like this: "I read to you the Gospel and saw how you all listened with pleasure and thought: Here we are – the sheep of the flock of Christ... And it is clear that you have never lived in the village. The sheep is the stupidest, greedy, most vile animal I can imagine; and therefore I have been appointed a shepherd over you..." In a softened form, this approach is often encountered in the righteous world: "We must ask..." Why?! If this is not indirect, there is no contrary to the teachings of the Church and the Gospel, why not do it?.. No, I need someone to say. And this "someone" in the result will imagine that he is special in some way. There is nothing special about him, the same greedy, hungry sheep... And when the priest says to you, "Do this," you must consider it; not thinking: "Maybe he doesn't understand anything?", but – "Can I do this?". If you want an opinion more autonomous than mine, take St. Theophan Zatvornik. He says: if you have a number of sins, take and fight with the smallest ones. By the time you learn to conquer small sins, you will have the strength and ability to fight with the sin, and then move on to the next one. And we want to go straight to the greatest and make ridiculous mistakes. For example, how many people say: I sin through grievance or vanity... – and how many priests teach: Seek mercy... The Fathers of the Church tell us that peace is a mysterious and divine thing, which cannot be defined. Look for peace with the phonar - you will not find it. It can be born in you, but you cannot simply switch from vanity or city to peace. But you can find something in the past, let's say, grace.

I'll give you an example. A girl of about twenty came to me, sat down with an unhappy expression of her face, lowered her head and said: "I am so sinful, I don't know what to do!" I answered: "Well, yes, of course, sinful, like everyone else, but what is so special? Why do I want to build such a family?" – "When I look at myself in the black, I find that I am good..." I advised her: "Stand in front of the head and look. Look at your beautiful eyes, your good nose, your good nose, etc. And every time you find something in yourself that you need, stop and say: Lord, thank you for giving me this! – because God gave it to you. And when you have finished your work and thanked God by the ears, by the forehead and everything else, say: Lord, forgive me that I have made such a sour expression on this beautiful, sweet face..." And this can be applied not only to appearance, but to many other things.

Now many people cross in an adult state and almost without any training. From the outside, it is not noticeable that they become better because of this, but these people themselves believe that they have become better...

If a person considers himself better than others because of the fact that some kind of action, the sacrament of crossing, has been done to him, he simply does not understand what has happened to him. Because the very essence of the Christian faith in the first place is humility. Not that the recognition of oneself is the worst of all, as the saints can reach, but a realistic attitude towards oneself. For example, I have been scolded or I have been sent to the righteous Church, and this has given me an ideal to which I must strive. Let me compare myself with this ideal, compare myself, and at every step see how far I am from it... You know, when you read the lives of saints, you say: we, in general, are worthless, and at the same time we feel that we are not so bad at all. They are conceiving people, but they see themselves as sinful. Why? Because they compare themselves with God, as they see Him more and more. They see the light brighter and brighter, and they see how dark they are, at best – half-luminous. And if a person exalts himself above others because he is a Christian or a Orthodox, he simply did not understand something very basic. St. Seraphim of Sarov was asked what signs that a person is buried in God, receives something from God – or from the power of evil; And he said, The devil is cold, he is dark, he is bitter, he is a hater. If your soul is cold, if you see everything in the dark, if you are proud and exalted above other people, if you consider yourself a righteous person and others to be sinners, then your religious transgressions are not from God... And God (continues Seraphim of Sarov) is light, God is humble. When your heart is bitter, when your mind is bright, when you feel that you are the worst of all, and yet you are loved by God and people, then you can think: Yes, this is from God... I think that we must remember that what God gives us does not mean that we have it. That is, we must assimilate what God gives us, otherwise we are given a kind of sealed package, something with seven seals.

Don't you think that Church needs repentance for what she did in her time? I mean the Inquisition, etc., the repentance of the earthly Church?

I think that up to now there has never been a kind of all-encompassing repentance about what the Christians have been like in history; but the consciousness of our responsibility for all the horror of history is growing more and more. If you think that in less than two thousand years of Christianity in Western Europe there were more than two thousand wars between Christians, this clearly says what kind of Christians we are... And besides, we bear a great responsibility for those who do not believe, because when we talk about the Gospel, it may sound good, but when they look at how we live and what we represent as ourselves, we prove what is true. In the Gospel, Christ speaks of the Pharisees that they bind heavy burdens for people, but do not burden them themselves (cf. Matthew 23:4). So we have a huge responsibility. Certain priestly groups have long since begun to introduce penitential prayers at various services, for the fact that they have turned out to be, individually or as communities, unfaithful to the Gospel and a temptation to those around them. In the Orthodox Church there is this consciousness, but there is no service or any action in this regard. But I think we need to be aware of this. The Apostle Paul also said: "The name of God is blasphemed because of you" (see Romans 2:24). People look at us and think: no, it's not worth being a Christian...

It seems to me that rather than expecting that the Church, or the Community, or the Group, will do this, each of us should realize this: "What a Christian am I?.." and be a little bit able to understand our zeal when we feel and affirm: "Yes, I am a Christian, I am a Christian..."

I meant faster – how shall I say? – an official, political side, so that the Church would somehow say that it understands its mistakes purely as an organization...

Such things are said, but I don't think they reach enough even to those who speak. This is a very urgent problem in relation to the godless world. We are responsible to a large extent for the fact that people cannot believe. If they saw in us the kind of people they wanted to be like, they would do something. I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about myself. Looking at me, who would want to be a Christian? My spiritual father told me that no one can renounce the world and choose God if he does not see on the face or in the eyes of at least one person the radiance of eternal life. I have met such people, but, of course, not every parishioner, not every person in our midst is like that. And this is the responsibility of each of us, because collective responsibility is made up of individual responsibilities. A group of people cannot repent if every person does not repent. You can create such a service, but it will only be a service, words.

Should the Church and the State be completely independent of each other, or can the Church as an organization interfere in political affairs, and the State in the affairs of the Church?

I think, first of all, that the Church and the state cannot ignore any other people, because the Church not only lives within the boundaries of the state, within its citizens, but it consists of citizens, and the state has some rights to these citizens. People living in a certain state must obey the laws of the state, make some contribution to public life, so in this sense it is impossible to dissociate oneself: "We do not know that you exist, and you forget that we exist." A believer can still do this, and then with a curse, but the state, of course, will not agree to this, he needs a working force.