– The new is the well-forgotten old. Theology has always reminded us that one must think in the world of religion. Thought is distinction. Discrimination presupposes the ability to choose. Choice involves a determination to say "no" to what is incompatible with what has already been said "yes".

In the very first days of my studies at the seminary, a very significant conversation took place in our class. When we got to know each other, clarifying "who came to such a life", we suddenly discovered that one of us was a Komsomol member... No, we were all Komsomol members. And in my class, almost everyone followed the same path: at the age of 14 they joined the Komsomol, at 17 – at the institute, at the age of 20 they were baptized, and after the institute they went to the seminary. But one of the former Komsomol members, as it turned out, was a priest. This means that, unlike us, being a church man from childhood, he nevertheless joined an organization, to put it mildly, not a church one. But in response to my indignant exclamation:

"How dare you join an atheist organization! He replied calmly:

"What makes you think it's an atheist organization?"

Of course, I immediately quote Clause 1 of the Statute of the Komsomol: "A member of the Komsomol is obliged to wage a struggle against religious prejudices." And what do I hear in response?

–Correct. But this is also my first duty as a Christian!

And, in fact, this is profoundly true: faith always includes an element of the fight against superstition. Theological reason is always besieged by religious, folklore, magical, and pagan "prejudices."

And the more superstitions there are in society, the greater the need for theological rationalism and scientific sobriety. By the beginning of the 21st century, the conditions for a strategic alliance between the Church and science had again emerged. After all, the easiest way to unite is to find a common enemy. Such a common enemy of scientists and priests is occultism (it is difficult to calculate who gets more abusive words from the lips of H. P. Blavatsky - the first or the second) [138].

To my regret, the word that frightened me so much in my student years has disappeared from our everyday life. Imagine, a second-year student speaks at a seminar. In preparation for the report, he read one and a half articles on a given topic, supplemented them with all the incredible stock of his erudition – and bursts into a nightingale, and discovers new patterns of the universe and history, and puts forward ideas so staggeringly new that even Niels Bohr (with his aphorism "This idea is not crazy enough to be true") would not doubt their two hundred percent truth. If the student had been given two more minutes, he would undoubtedly have discovered the "general theory of everything"... And then this bald associate professor looks at you boredly over his glasses and says in a sad voice: "Justify it, colleague."

What kind of "justify"! – "And that's how I feel!", "And yesterday I had a voice!", "But that's what the Teacher himself said!", "Do you want to check? As soon as you go out into the astral, immediately to the right!"

In a world characterized by all-belief, the preaching of faith only Christian is a call to discernment, limitation, and discipline. That is, a call to responsibility and intellectual work. At a time when the fate of reason is expressed in the proverb: "The roof moves slowly, quietly rustling with slate," the scholasticism, rigor and logic of theology are the buttress that strengthens the wall of rational tradition. Without this buttress, demolished at the beginning of the twentieth century, the entire edifice of European rationalism began to creep apart.

It is not "freethinking" that replaces Christian dogmatics in the mass consciousness, but the most banal thoughtlessness. If you leave your religious instinct homeless, if you feed it whatever you can and let it feed on scraps of fashion, gossip and "esotericism", then it will grow into something strange, incoherent and pagan. From disbelief, fashion rushes into all-belief, bypassing the sober middle of tradition.

Aesthetic taste is brought up in a person. They are accustomed to logically consistent and balanced thinking. The skills of scientific thinking are taught. So why do modern intellectuals leave religious feeling unattended, without systematic education and upbringing? Those who do not make an effort to study Orthodox thought (they say, I do not need dogmas) find themselves captive to thoughtlessness. He subordinates himself to the elusive, vague and logically incoherent "feelings" of his own and the generally accepted "opinions". Refusing to study the centuries-old tradition of Christian thought, he, with his feeble knowledge of "scientific atheism," finds himself alone against legions of neo-pagan and sectarian preachers.

And how do you order to conduct a scientific dialogue with people who do not listen to your arguments, but are simply engaged in the "diagnosis of karma": "When you spoke, it was possible to clearly trace the following from your aura: when you spoke about the Truth in your speech, it flashed with bright lights, but when you talked about dogmas, the aura was, as they say, at zero" [139]?