– There are many criticisms of your position in relation to the book "Harry Potter". Is there any sound grain among these criticisms, or is absolutely everything unacceptable to you?– To be honest, when I read some anti-Potter books for the first time, some pages seemed very, very convincing to me. I am a scribe, I live in the world of books, and I know how convincing certain arguments and facts can seem, which, however, lose their force if you look at them from the other side. My long-standing rule in literary polemics is not to answer right away. When a critical article about me appears, I let it lie for a few months until my emotions settle down (emotions are bad helpers in polemics). It takes me some time to get used to the text, keep in mind the arguments given, compare them again and again with the books that I read... And when, after some time, I again, this time more calmly, begin to read a critical article, then, as a rule, it turns out that I was still mistaken in assessing its persuasiveness. Details are in the second edition of the book "Harry Potter in the Church: Between Anathema and a Smile", dedicated to the analysis of all anti-Potter publications and arguments. Their position is very logical, but all this logic is built on some initial assumptions, with which I do not see the need to agree. At first, there were rumors that Rowling was a Satanist. But these rumors were spread by the Satanists themselves for the purpose of their self-promotion, and Rowling denied them. As always, everyone heard the slander, and only a few heard the refutation. Half-knowledge is a terrible force. Well, the authors of anti-Potter articles have heard about the existence of Aleister Crowley, the world leader of Satanists. That's why they believed the rumor that Crowley blessed the release of Harry Potter [1]... But Crowley died in 1947 - half a century before the writing of the fairy tale we are interested in... That is why, reading "Harry Potter" with such a preconceived eye, they easily found in the text confirmation of their fears about the "Satanist Rowling".I reiterate my position: if you see that reading "Harry Potter" by your children is inevitable, then you need to read it with them, while explaining "what's what". Otherwise, children will read Harry Potter alone.Do you know what always surprised me in this discussion? When educators and psychologists write that reading Harry Potter is dangerous, they never cite any specific cases. Here, for example, are the psychiatrists Medvedeva and Shishova. In general, it is natural to expect psychiatrists to describe any specific cases of illness: here is the initial state of the child before acquaintance with Harry Potter, and here is his state after reading this book. His spiritual and mental state deteriorated in such and such parameters, but we did such and such work, and the child was rehabilitated. But since there are no such protocol observations, we have to state the fact that the arguments of Medvedeva and Shishova are far from psychology as a science. In all anti-Potter publications, the case in Novosibirsk is cited as an example of the dangerous influence of this book on children. There, several first-graders were poisoned by copper sulfate, because the "hefty beanpoles" (later it turned out that they were only seventh-graders) gave the kids a taste of "Harry Potter magic powder", as these "beanpoles" themselves allegedly called copper sulfate. The children, of course, were poisoned, and this case began to wander from one anti-Potter publication to another.I turned to the indispensable tool of the inquisitor – the Internet – and began to find out ("inquisition" in Latin means research) what was going on. And when I got to the original sources, that is, the Novosibirsk newspapers, it turned out that "Harry Potter" was not mentioned in them at all. The seventh-graders who offered the kids the "magic powder" did not mention the name of Harry Potter at all. And then, regardless of Harry Potter, can you imagine six-year-olds who would refuse to try "magic powder"? Alex Crowley, the world leader of the Satanists, highly appreciated this cycle of stories" ([Unsigned] "Harry Potter" through the eyes of the Orthodox // Sovereign Russia. 2002. № 8 [98]). "The founder of the sects of modern Satanism, the Englishman Aleister Crowley, highly appreciated the cycle of stories by Joan Rawlings" (Believers of the Crimean Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church. 2002. № 10). ^

Answer 26

– Let's approach the question of Harry Potter from the other end. Your position is clear: you do not advise reading Potter, but if there is a hopeless situation, then read the book with your children. But why did you completely exclude criticism of this book in your publications? Won't this lead to the fact that your position will be perceived as a Potter apology and the book will be read as a useful work?– It is not the book that should be criticized, but its unscrupulous occult exploitation.I am not defending Rowling, but children and their right to childhood and fairy tales. Even the atheistic Soviet power did not take away this right from children. When I went to kindergarten, and it was terribly Soviet times - the 60s, the conquest of space and so on - we were told about the magic wand. And there was even a control question: "Children, if you have a magic wand and you can fulfill only one wish, what will your wish be?" The correct answer was: "To resurrect Grandpa Lenin."In addition, I defend the honor of my Church, in whose name cruel nonsense is being said. If someone has said some hasty foolishness on its behalf, then people should not be left with the impression that all Orthodox journalism is like this. Yes, non-church people have completely caricature ideas about the life and faith of the Church. But still, a number of conflict situations are generated by us ourselves, with our either too emotional or too unsubstantiated reactions. Finally, I try to protect children from Satanists who try to break into children's souls and use a book about Harry Potter as a crowbar. It is better to knock this crowbar out of their hands and show that there is no logically necessary connection here, and therefore a child who has fallen in love with this book, by no logic, should consider himself obliged to go further into the world of magic, sorcery, into the world of Satanists. Critics of "Potter" have always contrasted this imported book with traditional Russian folk tales. In the end, I agreed with them. But with the opposite conclusion: "Potter" is much more moral than the original Russian fairy tales. It's just that my opponents were guided by vague memories of fairy tales of Soviet, censored publications, and I took a scientific edition of Russian folklore - Afanasyev's three-volume "Russian Folk Tales". That is where the magic is rampant, that is the mockery of the clergy, that is where the purest examples of unscrupulous preaching of cunning, cunning, and daring abound! Obtaining money in a cunning way (in the style of Ostap Bender) is the plot of an unexpectedly large number of Russian fairy tales. There are clearly fewer miracles than deceptions.Here, for example, is the fairy tale about Ivanushka the Fool (number 396 in the Afanasiev collection)." Once upon a time there was an old mare with his old woman; he had three sons: two clever ones, the youngest Ivan the Fool. Once the clever brothers sowed peas in the garden, and Ivan the Fool was put on guard from thieves. The old woman, their mother, had to go to the garden; as soon as she got into it, Ivan the Fool noticed and said to himself: "Wait, I'll catch the thief; He crept up slowly, picked up his truncheon, and as soon as the old woman cracked on the head, she did not stir, she fell asleep forever! The father and brothers began to scold, reproach, exhort the fool, and he sat down on the stove, raking the soot and saying: "The devil was carrying it to be stolen! After all, you yourself put me on guard." – "Well, fool," said the brothers, "you have made a mess, and you have to deal with it yourself; Get off the stove, remove the meat!" And the fool mutters: "I guess I can do as well as anyone else!" He took the old woman, dressed up her festive clothes, put her on the cart in the very back, gave her a hoop in her hands and drove through the village. An official goes to meet him: "Turn around, man!" The fool answers: "Turn yourself, I am carrying the royal gold embroidery." "'Take him off, you rascal!'" said the master to the coachman, and as soon as their horses turned, the carts caught on their wheels, and the fool and the old woman overturned: they flew far away! "Sovereign boyars! – the fool shouted at all the people. – They killed my mother, the royal gold embroiderer!" The clerk saw that the old woman was lying dead and was frightened, and began to beg: "Take what you need, peasant, but don't call the people." Well, the fool did not fly in to bother much, he said to him: "Give me three hundred rubles, and give the priest a sweetness to clean up the dead woman." That was the end of the matter; The fool took the money, turned the shafts home, came to his father, to his brothers, and they all began to live together."A variant of this fairy tale (number 395): "The fool put the old woman on the firewood and went to the nearest village; He made his way to the priest's yard, climbed into the cellar, and saw that there were crinkles with milk on the ice. He now removed the lids from them, dragged his old woman and sat down beside her on the straw; he gave her a jug in her left hand, a spoon in her right, and hid himself behind the tub. A little later she went to the cellar of the priest; look, I don't know whose old woman is taking sour cream from the bowls and collecting it in a jug; The priest grabbed the stick, as soon as she cracked her on the head - the old woman fell, and the fool jumped out and began to shout: "Fathers, lights, guard! The priest killed the mother!" The priest ran up: "Be silent," he said, "I will pay you a hundred rubles and bury your mother for nothing." – "Bring the money!" The priest paid the fool a hundred rubles and buried the old woman. The fool returned home with the money; the brothers asked: "Where did your mother go?" "I sold it, that's the money." The brothers became jealous, they began to conspire: "Let's kill our wives and sell them. If they gave so much for an old woman, they will give twice as much for young women." They slapped their wives and took them to the market; there they were taken, put in chains and exiled to Siberia. And the fool remained the master and lived happily ever after, remembering his mother."To sell the corpse ("meat") of your own mother – in what other fairy tales can you find such a thing!And in terms of cruelty and anatomical details, Russian fairy tales also leave "Harry Potter" far behind. Once Ivanushka the Fool "began to graze sheep: he saw that the sheep had scattered across the field, let's catch them and pluck out their eyes; he caught everyone, gouged out everyone's eyes, gathered the herd in one heap and sits for himself" (number 400). It is impossible to imagine Harry Potter doing such an activity, and even with such a reaction.Harry studies magic not for the sake of power and not for the sake of wealth. What Harry does not have is the "will to power". He rejoices more in victories in sports than in magic (here he is a C student). Magic is not the main thing for him. He is even ready to leave Hogwarts and return to the hated Dursleys - because he feels lonely and ceases to feel the warmth of friendly human relations in a magical school. He learns magic in order to protect his life and the lives of his friends and thousands of people unknown to him.The heroes of Russian fairy tales conjure for much more selfish purposes (marrying a princess, for example). Ivan Tsarevich was on the kindest terms with the werewolves married to his sisters (see number 562), and he did not use the services of the genie (which in the Russian version is called the Spirit) in cases of mortal threat (number 559). Magic is not considered evil, but in Russian fairy tales, the author, the readers, and the characters themselves know very well what "evil spirits" are, they know that for a connection with it you have to pay with your soul and eternal death (see the fairy tale "Neumoika", number 278). And if Harry has no choice - to turn to magic or the Church, then the heroes of Russian fairy tales have such a choice, but they prefer to turn to magic. Prayer is not rejected, but is considered insufficient protection. For example, in churches, sorcerers are protected from the resurrected dead by drawing a circle, nails and a hammer, a frying pan, and not just by praying to the Lord (see fairy tales Nos. 366 and 367). And this "resourcefulness" is very unscrupulous in means: it can use deception, witchcraft, and theft.And in "Harry Potter" there is just an extremely clear distinction between good and evil. The criteria for good and evil in Harry Potter are clear and quite traditional. Goodness is loyalty to friends, care for people, love, sacrifice, family as a value (Harry lacks it so much). A fairy tale can be evaluated only by two criteria: whether children like it or not, and by its morality ("a fairy tale is a lie, but there is a hint in it!"). What Harry Potter "hints" at, the morality of this fairy tale, is quite clear: love protects better than magic. And children like the fairy tale. In addition, this book is addressed to those already grown up children who will no longer read folk tales. The people are a "motley assembly of heads". Some heads are gifted with moral reasoning, others not so much. That is why fairy tales are so variegated: there are wonderful, Christian, moral, heartfelt ones. And there are "at least carry out the saints". Therefore, it is also necessary to treat them differently. But what cannot be done is to give indulgence to Russian fairy tales simply because they are Russian. The opposition of "Harry Potter" is bad, but Russian fairy tales are good" betrays a poor acquaintance with the material of Russian fairy tales. There is no common ethics or morality in Russian fairy tales. Some Russian fairy tales admire what is evil from the point of view of Christianity, others are good. Yes, I will also note that I did not give examples from the "Treasured Tales" of the Afanasiev collection – that is, I took far from the most shameless examples of folklore... So it is impossible to say that Russian folk tales as such, for the most part, are somehow better than "Harry Potter". But they did exist. And somehow they coexisted with the churchliness of the same Russian people. And since a tolerant attitude towards fairy tales was a detail of the Russian ecclesiastical folk tradition, I, as a conservative, see no reason to break this tradition today.

Answer 27

– What is the vision of Leo Tolstoy's excommunication in the Church today?– Nothing has changed over these hundred years. To understand what really happened then, you need to forget Kuprin's story "Anathema" and the film based on it. There was no special rank with a solemn anathema to Tolstoy. Church and secular newspapers published an appeal of the Synod to Tolstoy, in which it was said that, unfortunately, the views of Leo Tolstoy placed him outside the Orthodox Church and made it impossible for him to participate in the Sacraments. And there was an appeal to Orthodox Christians to pray for the enlightenment of Count Tolstoy. What is immoral in this? After all, Tolstoy himself did not consider his views to be ecclesiastically Orthodox. So the Church, for its part, simply confirmed what Tolstoy had repeatedly stated publicly before.A completely similar gesture to the same Leo Tolstoy on the part of a man of science is known. The famous Russian doctor Belogolovy treated many Russian writers. But once, having given Tolstoy the necessary medicines, he did not shake his hand. In his memoirs, he explained that by doing so he expressed his attitude to Tolstoy's attacks on science [1]. And in fact, the grumbling Tolstoy attacked everything: his family, art, the state, science, and technology. And the Church as well. All this seemed to him unnecessary, repressive. When this grumbling became unbearable, blasphemous and at the same time contagious, then the Synod "refused the house" to the count. It's just that the official church position on this issue is in the hands of archivists. It is they who should bring clarity to the last days of Tolstoy's life. It is known that he left home for the Optina Hermitage, wanted to meet with Elder Barsanuphius, but did not dare. It is also known that the elder followed Tolstoy in order to talk to him. Why didn't the meeting take place? If it is possible to prove on the basis of documents and memoirs that in the last hours of his life Tolstoy was isolated against his will, that he had a desire to talk to the elder and repent, but his secretaries did not allow this to happen, then the Church will have every reason to gladly reverse its previous decision. Materials of the "Round Table" // Questions of Philosophy. 1989. № 1. P. 15. ^

Answer 28

– Did Mikhail Bulgakov in "The Master and Margarita" also follow the path of censoring the Gospel?– I would not say that. With Bulgakov, everything is much more complicated, for the reason that Leo Tolstoy wrote on his own behalf, and the undoubtedly anti-Christian Gospel of Woland is the Gospel of Woland, and not of Mikhail Afanasievich Bulgakov. Therefore, in this case, it is not logical to identify the author and his characters.Moreover, I think that in a certain sense the Orthodox Christ was exactly like Bulgakov's Yeshua ha Nozri from The Master and Margarita. More precisely, as they would say now, this was the "image" of Christ, this is how He seemed to the crowd. And from this point of view, Bulgakov's novel is brilliant, it shows the visible, external side of the great event – the coming of Christ the Savior to earth, exposes the scandalousness of the Gospel, because it is really necessary to have an amazing gift of grace, to perform a true feat of faith in order to recognize the Creator of the universe in this dusty Wanderer without a diploma of higher rabbinical education. from childhood we hear prayers: "Lord, have mercy", "Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner". And such works as the paintings of Ge, or, to a lesser extent, Polenov, or the same "The Master and Margarita" help us understand all the improbability and paradox of the apostolic faith, feel its painful burn, allow us to return to the point of choice...

Answer 29

– But still, why does "The Master and Margarita" have more opponents than supporters among the people of the Church?– Name me at least one secular book that would have more supporters than opponents in the Church! The only exception may be, perhaps, the works of Dostoevsky, and, paradoxically, "The Brothers Karamazov" was very much disliked in the Optina Hermitage [1].Judging by those people who thought about "The Master and Margarita" when they were already Christians, it is clear that there are two main currents of church literary criticism. One group of authors believes (quite reasonably) that this is an occultly anti-Christian work [2], and another group of church literary critics, no less reasoned, believes that this is not so. The question is not how to qualify the "Pilate" chapters in the novel – they are undoubtedly anti-Christian. The question is: what was Bulgakov's attitude towards them? And in order to answer it, a huge complex of testimonies is needed: biographical, memoirs, an analysis of the drafts of The Master and Margarita, and for this it is necessary to go beyond the boundaries of the "green-bound book", that is, the novel itself.Personally, I am closer to the position that in The Master and Margarita Bulgakov tried to give a kind of warning against trust in atheistic propaganda. To do this, he used a technique called redutio ad absurdum, when you take the position of your opponents and agree with it in advance, but bring their position to its logical limit, and this limit turns out to be absurd. Bulgakov did not have the opportunity to argue directly with them for censorship reasons, and therefore he wrote "The Master and Margarita", where the eyes of scientific atheism were inserted into Woland's eye sockets, and it turned out that atheism is precisely Satan's view of Christ, and by no means just science. a harsh review of Dostoevsky in the book: Kontsevich I.M. Optina Hermitage and Its Time. Jordanville, 1970. Pp. 598–599. ^Gavryushin N.K. Lifostroton, or Master without Margarita // Gavryushin N.K. Knights of Sophia. Moscow, 1998 (http://www.kuraev.ru/forum/view.php?subj=22970§ion=14). ^

Answer 30

– Why is the statement that Christ is God so important for Christians in general? Many people, such as Leo Tolstoy, were not atheists, but broke with the Church precisely because of this point of its doctrine. Why do Christians insist that Jesus is not just the best teacher of morality, not just a great and intelligent man, but God Himself?– You know, modern humanity is obsessed with the idea of contacteeism: they really want to find extraterrestrial civilizations. When you ask enthusiasts of these projects: "Why?" they exclaim: "But it's so joyful to know that we are not alone in the universe!" I will say the same about Christianity. It is also vital for Christians to know that we are not alone in the universe, that God is not indifferent to us. It is important for us to know that in the eyes of God, the Creator of the entire universe, we are not abandoned, that we are not some bastards swarming on the outskirts of the universe. The meaning of our life is given by the fact that God did not send us some kind of messenger, but came to us Himself. It turns out that in the eyes of God, we mean something. Remember Dostoevsky's Captain Kopeikin, who said that "if there is no God, then what kind of captain am I?" It's the same here: if there is no God, then we are really just cosmic mold covering the rock that is rushing along the outskirts of the Milky Way. Or, to put it another way, if God does exist, but He has never incarnated, has never become the same person as we are, then in the eyes of this God we are of no value, He did not come to look for us. And if God did not seek us, then why should we look for such a God, since He does not care about us anyway?In addition, it is vital for Christians to know that Jesus is not a creature of the earth, not just one of the great men who created human culture. Because the things that we can create, we can also destroy. And it is important for Christians to know that something indestructible has entered our lives. Something that not only could not collapse itself, but can also save us from destruction. Everything that man creates is subject to decay, so it is important that something superhuman has entered our life and made it imperishable. There is physical, biological death, and there is the death of the soul, which suffocates without God. It is this airless space of the pagan world that Christ filled with Himself, that is, now, when the soul leaves the body, it does not go into emptiness – it goes to God.The desire of many people to see Christ as an ordinary teacher of morality is very understandable. The fact is that Christianity, the Gospel and the world of the Church in general are a world of imperatives, a world of ethics that has the power to execute judgment on a person. Moreover, it is not just a judgment that you yourself make in your conscience over yourself. Christianity is a living tradition, it can refute the false visions of its teaching. Therefore, it is more difficult to remake it in accordance with one's tastes, to adjust it to oneself, as one can do with some "dead" religion.A person understands perfectly well that when he comes into contact with the world of the Gospel, he exposes himself to the arrows of imperatives, commands, and strict demands: from the Gospel text itself, from his conscience, and even from the Church. Of course, he tries to avoid such a situation, but in order not to "quarrel" with Christ at all, such a person pats Him on the shoulder in a friendly way and says: "Yes, I admit that You are a great teacher and a man of high morals." But in fact, he does what can only be called "the kiss of Judas". This is how Dostoevsky characterized the books of the XIX century, in which it was explained that Jesus, of course, is a great man, but not God. But in fact, such recognition means only one thing – we once again bury Christ, we bury Him in the tomb of history, carefully immur Him in it, so that He does not come out of there and invade our lives. People proclaim Christ to be the "Great Teacher of mankind" precisely in order to stop learning from Him.The logic of these non-disciples (or non-students) is simple: since Christ is not God, then the Church founded by Him has nothing to do with God. Accordingly, the books proclaimed by the Church in the name of Christ have no Divine dignity behind them. Then the fairy tale begins that all the Gospels have been corrected, and most importantly, the real Gospel is stored somewhere in Tibet. Man has embarked on the path of constructing Christianity on the principle of "do it yourself". Then the censorship of the Gospel begins: "This is what Christ could not say, because I do not agree with it, but this is undoubtedly His idea, because I like it. And, in general, you know, I think Christ should have said this in this place, because this is my deepest conviction. In fact, He said this, but the subsequent censors simply cut it out."As a result, it turns out that, having proclaimed Christ simply the Great Teacher, a person himself begins to teach Him: what He could do and what He could not. Leo Tolstoy followed this path. He just began to censor the Gospel. He forbade Christ to be resurrected, forbade Him to work miracles, and even more so forbade Christ to take up a whip in order to drive the merchants out of the temple.

Answer 32

– For a person who is far from theological discussions, disputes about the nature of Jesus Christ, about the relationship between the Divine and the human in Him, often seem to be internal "showdowns" between confessions, between trends in Christianity. Is all this dogma really so important for a person who just wants to love Him?– Yes, these are indeed our internal "showdowns", but I do not see anything bad or unnatural in them.

But the appearance and operation of these devices is a direct consequence of discussions among physicists. The same can be said about theology, because the consequences of disputes between theologians are very important not only for those who participate in them, but for the entire human civilization. When there is a beautiful building, we only see what is outside: walls, cladding, frames, and so on. But all this is held together by powerful internal supports, a frame that is not visible to us. The edifice of our civilization is also based on certain pillars and supports, which were created, among other things, in theological discussions, and if even one pillar fails, the whole edifice begins to skew, and if two or three of them are broken, the building will collapse altogether. One of the first disputes in theology was the dispute about whether to consider Christ like God or one with Him. People who received the name of Arians asserted that Christ was not God, that He was not of the same essence with God the Father. In Greek, the dispute was over a single letter: the single one was "omo", and the similar one was "omi". Moreover, this last sound was transmitted by two letters: oi. So, if only the Church had inserted into the dogma this smallest, inconspicuous letter of the Greek alphabet – iota (i), then this novelty would have emptied all the museums of the future Europe.The logic would have been as follows: if Christ is not God, then it means that God did not come to people. He remained incomprehensible, transcendental and invisible in the Old Testament. In this case, the world of Christianity would have become the world of an impersonal God and, as in Islam or Judaism, the ban on His image would have gained full force. There would have been no Andrei Rublev, no Michelangelo, no Rembrandt; there would be no painting either sacred (icon) or secular, as there is none, for example, in Saudi Arabia or Iraq. So all the "unnecessary" theological disputes, as it turned out, directly affect the life of each of us. This is an honest statement of the Gospel facts. Dogma stands guard over the Gospel, so that nothing is lost from there. Some people, reading the Gospel, see only God in Christ and do not notice His humanity, while other people, reading the same Gospel, see in Christ only the Son of Man and do not notice God in Him. And the dogma says: "No. Let's take the Gospel in its entirety: Jesus Christ is both God and man at the same time. How? Many people are afraid of the word "dogma," but one can just as well be afraid of the word "relics." Let me remind you that from Church Slavonic this word is translated as "bones", "skeleton". By the way, Chesterton said that the call to free Christianity from dogma is akin to the call to free me from my bones [1]. The other day I read in a fine Puritan magazine, "Free Christianity from its ossified dogma, and you will see that it is simply a doctrine of the Inner Light." With the same success it is possible to free a person from bones" (Chesterton G.K. Orthodoxy // Chesterton G.K. Vechnyy chelovek. M., 1991. P. 412). ^