And two more parameters are indicated in the Symbol: Visible to all and invisible. He is the Creator of all things visible and invisible. These words lead us to the idea of the duality of the entire universe, the duality of our nature. And man, who is a microcosm, that is, a small universe, unites everything in himself. Minerals live in our tissues, in our bones. Each cell of our body has the same principles as the cell of any plant. Our physiology contains everything that is in the physiology of higher animals. But in addition to this, we also have an invisible principle, the very principle that we call spirit. Strictly speaking, the soul is the link between the spirit and the body.

The spirit is distinguished primarily by creativity. Only the spirit creates. There is no creativity in the animal world. Therefore, man is similar to God. The spirit cognizes moral values, chooses between good and evil. The spirit is free, potentially free, so man is responsible for his actions. Spirit is not material, it has no color, shape, weight, does not occupy space, and therefore it is indestructible. Why is matter destructible? Because it is made of something: molecules, atoms, elementary particles that move in space. What is movement? This is a change in location in space. Creativity, consciousness, and love are not in space, so material movement is inaccessible to them, and neither is destruction. The human soul is enriched internally, it can grow, but its growth is not material. A tree grows, an organism grows. The spirit also grows, but in a completely different way. All the properties of the spirit are dynamic magnitudes. I emphasize, dynamic values, that is, they can increase and decrease. You can bury talent in the ground, you can develop it; you can learn to love, or you can suppress this desire in yourself, etc. That is, we should not think that this gift is given to us in a ready-made form, that it appears like Athena from the head of Zeus, and there is no need to add anything else. No, all human life is the development of spiritual qualities. The Bible calls these properties the image and likeness of the Creator.

Man is the image and likeness of nature, I have already spoken about this. And as a creator, as one who knows good and evil, as a thinker who embraces the entire universe, he is a likeness of his Creator. In this respect, he infinitely rises above everything. Blaise Pascal, the famous physicist and philosopher, wrote that man is a blade of grass, a reed, that it costs nothing to destroy him, a small drop is enough to kill him. But if the whole universe falls on him, he will be higher than it, because it will fall on him senselessly, thoughtlessly. Only he will understand that he is dying.

Man appeared at the last moment of the history of the world. It remains a mystery to us whether it was created only on Earth or in other worlds. In practice, today we are talking only about our, earthly humanity. There can be two options: either God populated the Universe with other humanity, or our humanity is the epicenter, from where the intelligent settlement of the entire Universe will eventually begin. But what is important is that the world, according to the Bible, according to the Holy Scriptures, is not a ready-made thing, but a certain givenness, a person's calling. And when a person betrays his calling, he begins to destroy the world. Instead of transforming it, spiritualizing it, it pollutes it. Instead of developing the abilities of spiritual cognition, he becomes dull. Instead of deepening brotherhood and love, he becomes bestial. And this ultimately leads to grave consequences.

One should not think that Divine punishment is a criminal punishment. I am often asked why they say: "God punished" and so on. No, God is not a criminal authority. But He created a certain moral world order, and in this moral world order, the sown evil eventually turns against the one who sowed it. Man is responsible for what he has created, and this responsibility is linked to the deep solidarity of human beings. People are connected, and when we do evil, it's not our own business—it's always spreading around.

Thus, the first point of the Creed concerns the main point of any religion. What I have just talked about is a dogma of both Islam and Judaism. And even the pagans, who worship the Divinity in individual phenomena of nature, still know that behind the individual phenomena is hidden the Supreme Reality. Therefore, the first point of the Symbol of Faith introduces us only to the threshold of Christian teaching. For the time being, it is still a religion in the broadest sense of the word. Is it an abstract theory, metaphysics, theology, philosophy? No, both theology and philosophy only comprehend it.

In fact, for each person there is a possibility of the deepest mysterious personal encounter with the Higher Reality. A person can and should always look for a way to it. We will never have the fullness of life or what we call happiness if we are cut off from this reality. We will never be truly happy if we replace it with idols: sooner or later the idol will fall, and we will see that it is powerless and inglorious.

For a hundred thousand years, from the moment when mankind became aware of itself, it has always been striving for Heaven, always seeking God. As the Bible tells us, God created man, and man seeks Him—but in fact He is not far from each of us. This is what is said in the 17th chapter of the Book of the Acts of the Apostles. The history of the human spirit and culture is the history of the search for God. And only in certain segments of history did the black flame of spirituality flare up — an attempt to abandon the desire for Eternity. Such were the attempts at materialism in ancient India, ancient China, ancient Greece, and in our own century. But these are anomalies of spiritual development. Normal spiritual development has always taken place under the sign of faith, under the sign of what we call religion.

The word "religion" comes from the Latin religare, which means to bind. We are separate people, and there is a mystery that binds us to each other, connects us to the Highest, connects us to the goal of existence, and gives each individual an enduring meaning. We are no longer grains of sand, we are no longer garbage and autumn leaves that fall to the ground. Each of us is infinitely precious, like a pearl extracted from the waves. Every soul is a pearl. It all depends on how it is processed. And processing is spiritual life, spiritual effort.

This is the first point of the Creed. Further, we will move on to the main themes of the Symbol. Of course, I cannot cover this inexhaustible problem in its entirety. I will try to answer some questions later. And now I thank you all. I was very glad that you have gathered here to hear the ancient and eternally young word of the Church – that Nicene-Constantinople Creed, on which Christianity has stood for centuries and will stand unchangingly, all the time discovering new and new depths in it, all the time comprehending it, for here is the path that has no end, the path to infinity. This is an open model, a model of flight and travel to light.

Thank you.

SECOND CONVERSATION

God revealed Himself to man as the living God, as God speaking to him. The knowledge of God is not a one-sided process, like the knowledge of nature; This is a meeting. That is why we use the word Revelation here, but not revelation. A discovery in the sphere of nature is always something one-sided: man cognizes nature. When a person comes to know God, they meet. This is a meeting of two personalities. This is a dialogue.

The Word Father was bequeathed to us by Jesus Christ Himself. He put into this word both emotional warmth (the Father as caring, as loving) and the mysterious meaning associated with His person. He is our Father and He is His Father, but in very different ways. We will come to this later when we speak of the person of Christ.