Answer 40

– When did you first realize that you believe in Christ not just as a moral teacher who lived two thousand years ago, but as a God on Whom your whole life depends? – For me, these were two different moments: first came faith in Christ as God (Creator, Savior, coming Judge), and only then – faith in Christ as the Almighty, on Whom my life depends here and now. it happened when I was eighteen years old. At that time I was "sick" of the work of F.M. Dostoevsky "The Brothers Karamazov" and there I was very struck by the legend of the Grand Inquisitor. You could say that it was a turning point in my life. The fact is that in the legend of the Grand Inquisitor, all the philosophical problems that I was thinking about at that time miraculously converged. Everything that frightened me in my life at that time was concentrated in the words of the Grand Inquisitor. I suddenly realized that the temptations in the wilderness that Satan had offered to Christ were extremely capacious temptations that encompassed all of Satan's activities in the world and fully characterized him. And so I agreed with the characterization that Dostoevsky gave to this Gospel character: "a superhumanly intelligent and evil spirit." The realization of Christ as the Savior came. The feeling of inner emptiness has passed, the light in the window has shimmered.But, all the same, on my part, it was only a kind of philosophical acceptance of Christ. It was much more difficult to start praying, and this happened a little later, and I was baptized almost a year after these events. And even when I was baptized, I had great difficulty forcing myself to cross myself publicly in church or to bow down with the grandmothers who were standing there. Moreover, a year after the Baptism, at some Marxist lecture, when the lecturer was smashing idealists, I realized with horror that he was actually talking about me. It was very difficult to realize that I had become an idealist, so deep were the roots of the Marxist leaven in my subconscious. You see, the peculiarity of youthful faith lies in the fact that it does not ask for anything, it simply rejoices in the fact that God exists. There are no sores yet, there are no hopeless life situations and, therefore, you can come to God without bargaining, without begging for "humanitarian aid". Therefore, for the first time, I began to relate to Christ not just as the Creator and the coming Judge, but as the Almighty, on Whom my life depends here and now, only when I began to pray that the Lord would help me enter the seminary.

Answer 41

– Why is the Holy Scriptures so little used in the practice of Orthodox missionary work, are we not too carried away by oral Tradition? – I think that the practice of Orthodox missionary work has nothing to do with it. The Apostle Paul spoke of the saints as a cloud of witnesses (cf. Heb. 12:1). But in the minds of some people, this cloud thickens to such an extent that it obscures the sun, that is, Christ Himself.For example, I was sad to see that in our Church, in fact, the two thousand years of the Nativity of Christ have not been celebrated in any way. No, they officially held several concerts, banquets and so on. But there was no missionary surge in this regard. There was no series of Christological publications. Christ did not become the main topic of our sermons in 2000 either. Was at least one book about Christ written and published at that time? Only a few art albums... This means that the theme of Christ is not something that inspires the teachers of our theological schools. Only at St. Tikhon's Theological Institute did the jubilee collection appear. But even there were only translations of the Fathers and Western theologians, plus a couple of works by young people. But the editors appealed to the teachers of the institute in advance: "Fathers, write, cook," but few were inspired. For some reason, I am convinced that if a different theme had been chosen for the collection – for example, the Way of the Cross of the Royal Family – then the collection would have turned out to be four times thicker. During a sermon, a priest can tear himself away from a piece of paper for a while in order to share his personal impressions, for example, from a pilgrimage to some monastery, he can even share his experiences of what happened "yesterday at the service." But just as it is rare in our churches to see a priest, in the same way, at the demand of his heart, suddenly turn to the Gospel text about Christ (regardless of the fact that this passage was not read at the service today) and say: "Here, listen, what interpretation I found in such and such a holy father about such and such an act of Christ, about such and such a word of His." who did not have an icon of Christ in their home iconostasis. Or rather, He was present, but only as a Child in the arms of the Mother of God. In the center of the red corner, either the oldest or most expensive icon, or the largest, or the image of the most revered saint in the given family was placed. If there was still a place for the image of Christ, then somewhere far from the center, and the size of this image was much inferior to the size of many other icons. The main thing is to pray in front of icons, and not to think about their size, but still I believe that such icon corners are an external manifestation of some kind of internal disorder. Sacred painting has its own laws developed over the centuries, and one of them clearly states that the size of the characters on the icon is hierarchical, that is, the larger the character in size, the more significant his status is. Therefore, looking at modern home iconostasis, one can even visibly see an example of how Christ in the minds of people is diminished before the saints, who, in fact, are called saints only because they have laid their entire lives at the feet of Christ. Look at the apocrypha. If in the first millennium of the history of Christianity they revolved around the events of the Old Testament and the Gospel, that is, albeit distorted, but still concentrated around the person of Christ (the Gospel of the childhood of Jesus, and so on), then the modern apocrypha do not even mention Christ. They tell about Seraphim of Sarov, Blessed Matrona, John of Kronstadt. Even folklore has changed the theme for its work... In the final document of the Third All-Church Congress of Orthodox Missionaries (autumn 2002), a sad and true phrase was said: it was recognized as necessary to "restore the Christocentricity of the Church's consciousness" [1]. But if something needs to be restored, it means that this something has already been lost somewhere http://www.russian-orthodox-church.org.ru/nr211121.htm. ^

Answer 42

– Do you think there is a need for a good fiction book about Christ, similar to Father Alexander Men's Son of Man, but more Orthodox?– You know, now people's thirst to hear about the Gospel and Christ is so great that it was a surprise for me to see the reaction of people when I began to give a lecture to the public on the problems of textual criticism of the Gospel (manuscripts, the history of their discovery, discrepancies in the texts, and so on). This is a purely seminary lecture, and I always thought that ordinary people would not be interested in delving into the problems of finding papyri. So, the reaction to these topics was absolutely unexpected for me. From time to time I interrupted the lecture and asked whether it was necessary to delve further into textual criticism or whether we should proceed to the analysis of the Gospel itself. In response, people asked to continue talking about papyri further. I do not perceive works of art on evangelical themes at all. For me, it's too serious to play, and a work of fiction is still a kind of game. But, again, what is not edible for me personally may be edible for someone else. It is one thing to write novels on Gospel themes that appeared in the 19th century (G. Senkevich's Kamo Grideshi, K. Romanov's play The King of the Jews, and so on), and the modern world is another. Modern culture is a culture of an all-encompassing and all-involving game, where everything winks at each other. Everything is conditional, everything is "as if", everything is "virtual". A novel about Christ, which appeared today, will be perceived by people as an offer to play with the Gospel. This can be perceived too well today (in general, there is a great danger for a missionary when he is always well received: there may be an illusion that where I am sitting now, Christianity already exists, so I do not need to go anywhere). They will be compared with Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita" and, of course, preference will be given to Bulgakov's version - as the most playful.

Answer 43

– The Apocrypha is a venerable literary tradition. Many of them have a very detailed account of Christ's earthly life, much more detailed than the four canonical Gospels accepted by the Church combined. But, nevertheless, the Church insists on the authenticity of these four Gospels. On what basis were all the other Gospels numbered among the apocrypha, that is, considered false or distorted?– The Church did not choose anything, firstly, because for the most part these pseudo-Gospels appeared after the Church had become accustomed to its canonical Gospels. And secondly, the Christ presented in the Apocrypha is not at all the image of Christ that was dear to the heart of the Church and was preserved in the Church of the martyrs of the first centuries of Christianity. "The son of Annas the scribe sprinkled the water that Jesus had collected. When Jesus saw what he had done, he was angry and said to him, "You worthless, godless fool, what harm have the puddles and water done to you? Behold, now you will dry up like a tree, and you will have neither leaves, nor roots, nor fruit. And immediately the boy was all dried up, and Jesus went away and went into the house of Joseph. But the parents of the boy who had dried up took him, mourning his youth, and brought him to Joseph, and began to reproach him for his son's doing such things! After that, He [Jesus] was walking through the settlement again, and the boy ran up and pushed Him on the shoulder. Jesus was angry and said to him, "You will not go anywhere further," and the child immediately fell down and died. And Joseph called the boy and rebuked him, saying, "Why do you do that because of which people will suffer and hate us and persecute us?" And Jesus said, "I know you don't speak your own words, but for your sake I will be silent, but they must be punished." And immediately those who accused Him were blinded. And after that no one dared to contradict him, lest he should be cursed and be mutilated."[1] There is nothing of the kind in the canonical Gospels. There are no miracles for the sake of miracles. There are no miracles for the sake of intimidation and obedience. All the miracles of the canonical Gospels are meaningful: they reveal the meaning of Christ's ministry. In the canonical Gospels, Christ sacrifices Himself, not those who disagree with Him. In the apocrypha we see ordinary folklore, and sometimes very vengeful, which is generally characteristic of folklore and magical consciousness. Moscow, 1989. Pp. 142–143. ^

Answer 44

– Do you see a difference between the traditions of Orthodox and Catholic missionary literature? If so, what is it, and can the adoption of this or that tradition influence the reader's choice of confession in the future?– I think that there is no fundamental difference between Orthodox and Catholic fiction (if it is serious). I cannot say what the difference is, for example, between Gogol and Dickens, Bunin and Hugo, Shmelev and Exupery. Of course, each of them has his own authorial style and peculiarities, but I cannot say that this is the Catholic vision of the world, and this is the Orthodox one. On the contrary, there is even something similar, for example, in the book "Father Arseny" and the novel by the Catholic Graham Greene "The Power and the Glory". Both books are honest, not commercial. By the way, I consider "Power and Glory" to be a missionary novel par excellence and would recommend reading it to every young man who is going to enter the seminary. This is a good introduction to church life.However, one word about Graham Greene.In the 70s of the XX century, it was fashionable in Italy to conduct a dialogue between communists and Catholics. And to one of these meetings, the communists invited Graham Greene as a representative of the Catholic intelligentsia. Tense anticipation hung in the hall. But Graham Greene relieved the tension and won over the audience with his very first phrase. He came to the podium and said, "You know, you Communists and we Catholics have a lot in common." Green waited until the end of the applause and continued: "Both you and we have blood on our hands up to the elbows."

Answer 45

– I asked this question because there is an opinion that Catholic fiction develops a person's attitude to many religious issues from the position of "common sense". But faith and "common sense" often come into direct contradiction. The Apostle Paul directly writes that often "common sense" is foolishness before God [1]. From this point of view, is there a danger of using Catholic fiction for missionary purposes? This is a very conventional and conditional thing: each era has its own. I would put it this way: "common sense" is the stereotype of my grandmother's era. So, the "common sense" of the Apostle Paul's era is the prejudices of the grandmothers of the pagan era, and the "common sense" of the 20th century is the prejudices of the grandmothers of the 19th century. Prejudice – literally: something that is absorbed with mother's milk before a person has formed a personal critical view. The "superstition" of our age is conscience mixed with Christian leaven. Therefore, I am convinced that today, against the background of crazy "talk shows" in which all kinds of perversions, occultism and paganism are preached, the position of "common sense" is the voice of tradition, and therefore the voice of Christianity. There is a place for "lyrics" - the author's experience and conjecture. Therefore, comparing fiction books with catechism is an unmerciful task. But can you imagine a situation when an icon is thrown away only because a crack or scratch appeared on the board? Can't you? Then why do we throw away a whole book just because some small grain of it does not fit into the Orthodox mosaic? And at the same time, they absolutely do not take into account those ingots of missionary, philosophical, and spiritual gold that are contained in this book. 1, 20; 3, 19.– Ed. ^

Answer 46

– So, there are no differences between Catholic and Orthodox missionary work in terms of means?– The difference is that Catholics first of all want to be Catholics (from the Greek – atholios – "universal, universal"), and Orthodox Christians first of all want to be Orthodox (orthodox), that is, the immutability of tradition is put in the first place. Catholics are very afraid of losing any part of their flock, and Orthodox Christians are afraid of losing contact with past generations, that is, with the experience of the Church. Therefore, Orthodox Christians are often ready to sacrifice part of their potential flock for the sake of preserving a living tradition and church experience. This explains the rejection of various "advertising actions" by Orthodoxy.