Answer 1

– What is Orthodox youth for you?– I don't know, I haven't met. I know Tanya, Vasya, Dima. They are all different. But seriously, it is probably difficult to be Orthodox and young. Because it means to go against – to go against the double current.To be Orthodox means to go against the fashion of one's secular company. And in order to be young people in the parish, one must go against parish superstitions. In one case, the dominant trend is anti-Orthodox, in the other, anti-youth.In our parishes, the psychology of grandmothers mainly dominates. But each age has its own experience of faith. Babies who kiss God have their own experience. Children have their own experience, teenagers, adults and the elderly. But since there are more old people in our churches, their experience of Orthodoxy turns out to be the only one, normative, imposed, and therefore crippling young people. Novelty pleases a young person and frightens an older one. A young person sees opportunities everywhere, and an adult sees dangers. The young one asks the question: "What can I do?" The elderly asks: "And what can be done to me that can threaten me and my usual way of life?" A man is walking through the city, unexpectedly he comes across a gateway. The reaction of the young man is more active: "I wonder what's there? I will go and see, a new space has opened up for me, which I can explore and subjugate." The reaction of an elderly person: "I'd better go to the other side of the street, you never know what can fall on me here." Before each new turn, the young man thinks: "Should I go in?" – the adult beware: "And what can fly out of there on me?" The same is true in the church environment. Instead of youthful missionary daring, there are old women's fears: "Nothing is allowed!!." In this regard, the difference between the evangelical origin of Christianity and, let's say, the historically formed way of Orthodox life is especially noticeable to me. Gospel symbolism places the shrine in the mud, hoping that the dirt will be sanctified, and not fearing that the shrine will be desecrated. The Kingdom of God (!!) is likened to yeast thrown into dough, grain thrown into the ground, treasure buried in a field [1]. In the seine there are valuable and weedy fish, on the same church field it is assumed that both weeds and wheat will grow. A person who is ignorant of agronomy could be indignant at the picture of sowing: it would seem that the peasant scatters good and delicious things, tramples them into the mud, and dooms them to rot! Christ came into a world of which He knew beforehand that the majority would rejoice at His crucifixion, and that only a numerically insignificant minority would hear His words. And Christ sends the Apostles into a hostile world, like sheep in the midst of wolves [2]. All the parables about the Kingdom of Heaven are associated with the fact that something bright enters the darkness in order to overcome it. The light shines in the darkness [3]. The Word of God came to prostitutes and traffic cops (this is how the Church Slavonic formula "fornicators and tax collectors" will sound in the language of today's realities). The further it went, the more the need to hide the shrine from "unclean hands" grew. The iconostases are becoming higher and higher. The path to the Church Sacrament becomes more complicated (so that it is rare, so that it is necessary to observe some technology before touching it). This change is most clearly seen in many icons, where the saint, for example, holds the Gospel not with his hand, but with a handkerchief under it. It turns out that you cannot directly touch the Gospel, you definitely need some kind of intermediary. This means that a person (even an ordained person or even a saint) is perceived as a source of profanation and distortion. You are not the one who needs the holy thing to come to you as you are, dirty and black. No, on the contrary. You are the one who threatens the sacred. A person is perceived as a source of filth. He threatens the sacred, and the sacredness must be saved from him. This, of course, is a radical anti-missionary attitude, because the evangelical pathos is completely different – the shrine comes to save me. But it is the latter psychology that dominates in our parishes.Ask our parishioners today whether it is permissible for a priest to go to a city bathhouse, whether they can imagine that the apostles washed in common baths. The answer you will receive is indignantly negative. A bathhouse is a prodigal and filthy place, and it is unseemly to mix holiness with dirt! But the most ancient church history knows about a different perception of the bathhouse – as a place of meeting with people. In the middle of the second century, the Hieromartyr Irenaeus of Lyons heard from the Hieromartyr Polycarp of Smyrna, a personal disciple of the Apostle John, that the Apostle, having once come to wash in the bath, learned that the heretic, the Gnostic Cerinthus, was also there. Then John jumped up from his seat and ran out, saying to his companions: "Let us flee, lest the bathhouse fall, for in it is the enemy of the truth, Cerinthus" [4]. For the pure indeed, everything is clean [5], but the pig will find dirt everywhere. It's good that this spirit appeared. Its appearance meant that there was something to protect and protect. A non-existent treasure is not protected. It is bad that this spirit has become almost the only normative-Orthodox one. It is bad that missionary behavior began to be regarded (not in official documents, but at the level of parish and monastery gossip) as "deviant behavior," as something that gives rise to suspicion and indignation. For example, in March 2003, there was a congress of Orthodox youth in Tambov, and one state official from the regional apparatus made a speech where there was a phrase that simply stunned me: "Our Orthodox Church has always cemented our people." God, what a manner to pour cement over all living things! I have always believed that the Sicilian mafia is engaged in cementing the people. Christ likened the Church not to cement, but to yeast, which makes the dough ferment and breathe! It is a revolutionary element, an element of fermentation, a leaven that is thrown into the dough.So it is difficult to be an Orthodox youth. 13, 33, 31–32, 44.– Ed. ^Mf. 10, 16.– Ed. ^In. 1, 5.– Ed. ^Irenaeus of Lyons. Against heresies. 3, 3, 4; Eusebius of Caesarea. Church History. 3, 28. ^Cf. Titus. 1, 15.– Ed. ^

Answer 2

– You were present at the Orthodox Youth Conference. What kind of young people have gathered for this congress in Moscow? This age division – "youth" – seems to me somehow inappropriate. After all, there can be no "union of Orthodox old women". In the Church, after all, we are present as a single organism.– And yet, the Apostle Paul distinguished among his parishioners Greeks from Jews, slaves from freemen, and gave them various advices. You see, young people have their own problems that older people do not have, and vice versa. They have different age psychology. For example, it seems to me that the youthful experience of Orthodoxy is brighter and more joyful. There are still few sins accumulated here, and the soul more easily breaks into the doxology: "Glory to Thee, O Lord, for what Thou is!" In the older generation, the memory of our sins, of our infirmities, illnesses, needs makes us ask the Lord more often for something: for the forgiveness of our sins, for help, for healing. And young people are free from this, and in this sense their prayer is more unselfish. Metropolitan Kirill, speaking at this conference, said very correctly: priests must understand that any young man who crosses the threshold of church (girl or boy) is a person marked with the seal of God. We should not tell them about it. But they themselves must understand that if this person chose the path not to a disco, not to a party, but to the church, then there is some part of the young Bartholomew (the future Sergius of Radonezh) in this person. And therefore we must rejoice at his coming, notice him, distinguish him from the general mass of parishioners, and pay special attention to him. After all, perhaps this boy, who today is timidly jostling on the threshold of the church, is already a priest or a monk in the eyes of God... Precisely because young people have many paths and, accordingly, many temptations, I think we still need to work with them separately. After all, we are not embarrassed by the fact that we have Orthodox kindergartens, Orthodox nursing homes, and we do not mix them with each other. Therefore, I believe that there may be separate circles or structures that will work specifically with young people.

Answer 3

– How do you explain to unbelieving classmates why we go to church?– When they start asking me where your God is, who has seen your God, and so on, I say: "Well, guys, they quickly looked at me carefully. What do you see now?" They begin to whisper: "We see you." I said: nothing of the kind, you don't see me. Now you see only parts of my future corpse. Why are you surprised? You can only see my epithelium, the top layer of my skin. Open any anatomy textbook and you'll read that this layer of skin is dead. Over time, I will be all like that. So for the time being, you have the dubious pleasure of contemplating pieces of my future corpse, but at the same time, for some reason, you fanatically believe that there is something else behind this corpse. Now, you don't see me, but you believe that I exist. In the same way, we do not see the most important things in our lives. We don't see each other, we don't see ourselves, we don't see God. And yet, for the sake of these invisible realities, we both live and act. It is for the sake of the invisible God that we go to the visible temple. We will not see Him there either. But maybe He will manifest Himself in the stirring of what is under our skin, in the soul. The soul wants this touch and goes to ask for it [1].For more details, see the chapter "Why go to church if God is in my soul" in my book "Gifts and Anathemas" (Moscow, 2003). ^

Answer 4

– How to convert a person to the Orthodox faith? – It is not difficult to convert. It's hard to keep him there. The fact is that a young man must do something, he cannot just work as a candlestick in the church. It is necessary to come up with a job for him, an area of his responsibility, so that every young man understands: "This is mine and something depends on me in the life of the church." And so in most of our churches the number of young parishioners is exactly equal to the number of altar servers.Look at how sectarians act: when they recruit their new adept, they immediately send him to some kind of work, to preach. What for? Let this inexperienced preacher make mistakes, let him get bumps, but each new failure will force him to study some topic more deeply. And most importantly, he will feel the theses he voices as his own, and not as something that was imposed on him by someone else's uncle. And as a result, he has an inner solidarity with the ideology that he now preaches.Naturally, we should not borrow all the methods of sectarian propaganda, but, nevertheless, the very idea that young people should be given the opportunity to work in the Church is quite sensible. It seems to me that it would be great if the obediences of "akalufs" – people standing at the door – were introduced in our churches. These young people could be on duty in pairs at the entrance to the church, especially on days when parishioners (not parishioners, but parishioners – people who are just making their way to church) can come in. The first is to pay attention to these intruders and, without approaching them, at a distance, from afar, squint in their direction in order to protect them from encroachments on occasion. Here, of course, it is necessary to approach correctly and stop the same bony hand that Metropolitan Kirill spoke about in May 2002 at the Moscow Youth Congress, and say: "Forgive me, matushka! The blessing of the rector so that we communicate with the newcomers to the church!" The second task is the maximum task – if the opportunity arises, to come up and ask: "Can we help in any way, tell something?" I remember my first months in the Church: how I wanted, I dreamed that someone would come up to me, address me, and tell me something. I myself did not dare to impose myself on people, especially since Soviet times were filled with the total fear of parishioners of each other. This would also be important for those who are already in church. Because these young attendants would have to study the history of their church, the history, plot and symbolism of each icon that is in the church, they would have to know the divine service well, that is, again, the history and symbolism of each hymn. They should be able to answer the basic perplexities that people have about our life and faith. And, accordingly, this would compel these young attendants themselves to study Orthodoxy better. And this would give them the opportunity to cling to church life in some other way.Obviously, a person who is on duty at the gate will be distracted from prayer; And probably it is of little use for his spiritual growth. Therefore, it seems to me that such duty officers should exist in a fairly large number. Not one person should constantly stand at the door, but five or six such interchangeable pairs. Then each person would be on such duty once a month, and at the rest of the services he would be able to pray in peace.I would also like each parish to have an oral library. Do you remember Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451? The "Matrix" of that virtual world burned all the books. Firefighters do not extinguish fires, but look for the remains of libraries and set them on fire. But there is an underground brotherhood of book lovers who keep books in their memory, and at their meetings they say to newcomers: "This is Homer, Dante is sitting there, Shakespeare is coming to us now," that is, these are people who knew the works of these authors by heart. Each person keeps only one book in his memory, but together they are a library.In our missionary work, the main thing is to know where to send it. This is a great skill. For example, a person comes up to you with a question, and you send him. "I'm sorry, dear, I don't know anything about faith, but you see, Petya is standing there, he wrote a dissertation on this topic. He knows your tumba-jumba better than both tumbaits and jumbaits combined. Go to him. Do you have a question about the transmigration of souls? You know, our Masha is just a great specialist in reincarnation. Go to her, she will tell you everything. Do you have a question about martial arts? With this - to Petrukha. He knows how to distinguish aikido from wushu. UFO? "Do you know how afraid they are of our Vanka?" Go and he'll tell you why..." And so it is about all the sects operating in this city.It is impossible to know all the sects: the roof will go too far. But let there be twenty specialists in the parish, each of whom knows how to conduct a conversation with one of the twenty sects. And if there are children in the parish whose fists are stronger than their heads, then they can also contribute to the cause of the triumph of Orthodoxy. I propose to divide your city into sectors and hand over the keys to each sector to these handy children: "This is under your responsibility, twice a day you patrol your territory and monitor the cleanliness of lampposts and fences, so that there are no sectarian healing leaflets there." "Beware, sect." You walk down the street, do not touch anyone, look - a fence. And on it there is an announcement: "Hereditary healer Baba Shura repairs the aura, corrects the chakra." You come up, do not tear it off, but take out a signet from your wide trouser legs as a duplicate of the priceless cargo, breathe on it and seal it with all your Orthodox soul. And now this anti-advertising is working against Baba Shura.I saw this dream of mine fulfilled in Khanty-Mansiysk. There, local charismatic Pentecostals rented the pediment of a five-story building that overlooked the central square, and hung their advertisements on it. And the local priests ordered a stencil "Beware, sect" with a size of two floors and glued it across this advertisement. What should sectarians do? They spent a lot of money on this advertising, and it works against them... And I would also like to draw your attention to the fact that the phrase "totalitarian sects" has a synonym: "jugendreligionen" – youth religions. You will agree that a Krishna grandmother is a rather rare sight. It turns out that it is precisely the totalitarian sects, those sects that deprive a person of his freedom, that are sympathetic to young people! These sects speculate on the youthful desire for service. In the words of Dostoevsky, "a man is looking for someone to worship." And so, if we want young hearts to come to us, we must offer them service.The popular opinion that "the Church is too demanding, and therefore young people do not go there" does not seem convincing to me. If young people go to monasteries, then to those where the rule of life is more severe. If young people go to religion, then to those religious groups where there are more demands. One Catholic theologian has quite true words: "I proceed from the assumption that the Church has lost her life-giving power, not because she demands too much, but on the contrary, because her demands are too small, too loosely related to the priority of the Gospel. If the Church were more "radical" in the evangelical way, she would not have to be so legalistic and irreconcilable. Excessive strictness and intransigence come rather from fear, while radicalism is the child of freedom. The freedom to which Christ calls" [1].Those who are in sects are probably the best people in Russia. By their departure to the sect, they proved their indifference. These are not Teletubbies, they need something in this life, they have a restless mind, a restless heart. Therefore, just disowning them, saying: "Oh, okay, everyone is crazy there" is unwise. They are far from the worst of those people that we can meet on the roads of life. And even if their opinion does not coincide with ours, even if they were mistaken, they made a mistake in the search, which means that they had a search. And if they passed us by, it means that we could not give them something.I know from my own experience: every time you have a conversation with a sectarian, if this conversation goes well, if there are several hours for communication, then in the end everything will end with a confession like: "Yes, it's all great, it's good that all this was explained to me. I wish I knew that. But, to be honest, I tried to be Orthodox, I tried to enter the church..." And then follows the story of how they met, how they looked and where they sent. Too often people hide not from Christ in sects, but from us. This means that we need to become "more Christian" – then people will see Christ through us. On the Other Side of Bourgeois Religion // Questions of Philosophy. 1990. № 9. P. 89. ^

Answer 5

– А богослужение на миссионерско-молодежном приходе может чем-то отличаться?– Ну, прежде всего скажем, что – не обязано. Если на этом приходе будет атмосфера миссионерской приветливости, радости о вошедших, если там будут возможности для общения прихожан между собой и со священником, то и не надо в богослужении ничего менять.Но если уже есть согласие и прихода, и настоятеля, и епископа на то, чтобы и сама служба носила миссионерский характер, то тогда, мне кажется, можно было бы сделать следующее.В таком храме раз в месяц можно было бы служить всенощную с комментариями. Ведь многие священники совершают Крещение с комментариями, то есть поясняют: "Вот сейчас мы отрежем вашему малышу волосики, и это будет означать то-то и то-то". А что мешает всенощное бдение совершать так же? Перед каждым действием за одну-две минуты объяснять, что сейчас будет сделано и почему. Например: "Братья и сестры, сейчас будет звучать ектенья, ектенья – это перечень наших прошений к Богу. Но это не молитва! Диакон не молитву читает, а называет повод к вашей личной молитве, то, о чем вы должны молиться в эту минуту. И вот пока хор будет петь "Господи, помилуй", каждый из вас про себя, своими словами, должен помолиться о тех людях, о тех нуждах, о которых нам напомнил диакон в ектении".Молитв на такой службе будет немного. Но из-за пояснений она все равно будет идти долго. Главное – чтобы весь город знал: в каждую первую субботу месяца в таком-то храме вам пояснят всё, что происходит на службе. Кто это уже знает, пусть идет в другой храм. Это в селе нет выбора, а когда в городе пять – десять храмов, постоянным прихожанам есть куда пойти. А сюда они могут пригласить тех своих знакомых, которые заявляют, что я бы, мол, в храм пошел, но там ничего не понятно.Такой миссионерский храм тогда стал бы шлюзом. Люди в него входили бы и вскоре выходили: получив навык молитвы и понимания богослужения, они затем уже шли бы в обычные приходские храмы.

Ответ 6

– Как вы относитесь к экстремальному миссионерству? Хождению по квартирам, проповеди на улице. Есть ли у вас опыт подобного миссионерства?– Опыт проповеди на улице у меня был где-то в середине 80 х годов. Арбат тогда стал свободной зоной, я после уроков убегал из семинарии и приезжал туда. Первыми там начали проповедовать кришнаиты, потом баптисты, потом и я появился. И надо заметить, что нескольким людям я успел "испортить" жизнь. Один из них сейчас уже священник (кстати – в Бразилии), другой – церковный журналист.Когда наша Церковь была молода, она и сама "грешила" экстремальным миссионерством.По квартирам и домам наши священники тоже ходили – правда, не с тем, чтобы раздать книги, а с тем, чтобы собрать пожертвования (вспомните быт сельских батюшек в дореволюционные годы: на Пасху и Рождество они обходили все село и собирали пожертвования – по большей части продуктами).Я честно скажу: православная этика в значительной степени готтенготская этика. Племя готтенготов живет в Африке по "понятиям" вполне примитивнейшим. И в XIX веке какой-то миссионер, видя их безобразия, спросил у вождя этого племени: "Скажите, у вас хоть что-нибудь святое есть? Что для вас добро и что – зло?". И тот отвечает: "Конечно же, мы знаем, что такое добро и зло. Если сосед украл у меня корову – это зло. А если мне удалось свести его корову с его двора – это добро". Вот наша церковная позиция совершенно такая же. Если нам удалось перевести католика в Православие – это добро, а если они от нас отбили – это плохо. Я это без всякого осуждения говорю. Я с этим совершенно согласен.

Ответ 7

– Но ведь те же адвентисты гораздо активнее завлекают к себе молодежь...– Завлекать-то мы как раз и не хотим. Но должны быть места возможных встреч молодежи и ее культуры с Православием.