But with "barcodes" everything is different. They are everywhere and everywhere. It does not depend on the will of a person whether he stumbles upon them or not. These "stigmas" invaded the lives of the two Christians without asking. One of them reacts from a "strong" position: "an idol is nothing in the world." The second is embarrassed and avoids these "codes". He is ready to run away from the city... In this situation, what should the "one who is strong in the faith" do? To run after the owner of the "idolatrous conscience", to imitate his fears, and to imitate them, without actually sharing them at all? Or should he make a preaching effort for his brother's sake and explain to him the Christian attitude towards pagan rattles?

Sometimes people who believe that barcodes (or rather, the sixes believed in them) defile everything to which they cling, say that the number 666 is the maximum of impurity, and therefore cannot be sanctified (just as, for example, urine cannot receive grace). Faithfully. But the possible alternatives are not limited to a dilemma: either sanctify or discard. There is still an opportunity to win back. This is the path of exorcism, "chastisement". It is the return to God of a part of His creation that was stolen by Satan. Return through the prayer of Christians.

Once I asked (separately) the abbess of the monastery of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, located in the Garden of Gethsemane near the walls of Jerusalem, and the spiritual father of this monastery: "You live in Israel, in a country where Judaism is the state religion. Almost all goods here undergo the so-called "kosher". The process of making and recognizing kosher products is associated with the blessing of the rabbis. Tell me, do you take this into account when buying food for the monastery, or do you take food only from the Arabs?" And both times I got the same answer: "We don't pay attention to this. It doesn't matter where the product is purchased. It is important that we cook it and eat it with prayer, and before the power of the sign of the cross all the opposing force is exhausted."

No one is going to "bless" barcodes. It is about something else: the cleansing of a product (books, a carton of milk, a document) marked with a barcode from the alleged filth.

Those church people who are seriously afraid of the "negative energy" of idols cite an episode from patristic literature to substantiate their fears. St. Cyprian of Carthage tells in his book "On the Fallen": "But listen to what happened in my presence, of which I myself was a witness. Some parents, running away, in anxiety and turmoil, left their little daughter in the care of a wet nurse. She took her to the rulers; and they, since the little one could not eat meat because of her minority, gave her bread to eat before the idol, where the people flocked, mingled with the wine left over from the offerings sacrificed to idols. Subsequently, the daughter was handed over to her mother. But the girl could neither discover nor express the crime that had been committed, just as she could not have understood it or resisted it before. And so, through ignorance, it happened that my mother brought her with her when we were performing the Divine service. The little one, finding herself among the saints and unable to endure our prayers and supplications, began to sob and rush about in all directions as if in a frenzied state: the young soul at such a tender age, as if under the torture of an executioner, showed by all possible signs the consciousness of its crime. When, at the end of the Divine service, the deacon began to offer the chalice to those present, and after receiving it by the others, it was her turn, the little one, ... she turned away her face, pursed her lips, closed her mouth, refused the cup. However, the deacon insisted and, despite her resistance, poured a little sacrament into her mouth. Hiccups and vomiting followed: the Eucharist could not remain in the body and mouth of the injured entrails. Such is the power, such is the majesty of the Lord! The darkest mysteries are revealed before His light, and the hidden crimes did not deceive the priest of God. The story relates to a child who, because of his minority, could not declare an evil deed against him" [284].

In this case, we are talking about an infant who could not consciously resist Communion. And that is why it is so easy to conclude – you see, even an unconscious touch of demonic darkness makes a person (even an infant) an enemy of God... But such a conclusion will be logical only on one condition: if three words are omitted when paraphrasing or quoting. Here they are: "The baby, by inspiration from above, turned away her face." It turns out that it was not the demon who acted through the little girl, but the Lord put such an action into her in order to reveal to others the impossibility of combining the worship of idols and the service of Christ through her resistance. So the girl herself was not harmed by the unconscious eating of things sacrificed to idols.

The publishers of the almanac Orthodoxy or Death!, illustrating their thesis that even an unconscious touch of defilement soils a Christian, cite the story of the miracle of St. Theodore of Tyron. When the pagan emperor Julian the Apostate wanted to mock the Christians, he ordered to secretly sprinkle food sacrificed to idols in all the markets of the city. And then St. Theodore appeared to the bishop of Constantinople with a warning of his plan...

Yes, there is such a church tradition. But I would draw a different conclusion from it. If at that time the Lord sent a vision to the Primate of the Church of the Second Rome, then why does God not give a similar sign and admonition to the Patriarch of the Third Rome today? Why did the Lord miraculously warn the emperor about the blasphemous joke[286], and why did the Lord not give news to the present Patriarch about a much more serious event – the beginning of a serious printing with the sign of the Antichrist? Has the Lord stopped caring for His people? Or does God's silence in this case mean that the measure of the threat is not so extraordinary as to require extraordinary (miraculous) measures?

Yes, I understand that the Innenists (people for whom all their churchliness has been reduced to a struggle against the INN) will object that the current Patriarch is unworthy of God's appearances. I do not dare to judge the personal qualities of Patriarch Alexy. But one thing is certain: he professes Orthodoxy, and by no means the Arian heresy... But the same Archbishop Eudoxius, to whom St. Theodore appeared, was... Arian. V. Bolotov characterizes him as follows: "an extremely unattractive man, who in his sermons reached the point of vulgarity and farce, who changed his convictions like no other" [287]. So, maybe, if today the Lord does not warn us about the most terrible threat, this threat does not exist today?.. [288]

Thus, if a Christian does not know about the secrets of the meal offered to him, it will not harm him. According to Chrysostom, Ap. Paul appeals to the Corinthians "so that by this fear (of conscious participation in the pagan mysteries – A. K.) not to lead them to the other extreme, lest they should be overly cautious in fearing such defilement in any way without their knowledge. If you eat without knowing or hearing that it is sacrificed to idols, then you are not subject to punishment, since this is a matter of ignorance, and not of intemperance... The Apostle grants them great independence and freedom: he does not even allow them to doubt, that is, to investigate and investigate whether it is sacrificed to idols or not, but commands them simply to eat everything that is in the marketplace" [289].

And even if the Christian himself knows that he is offered things sacrificed to idols, yet he is not warned about this circumstance by the treaters or sellers, even then, having protected himself with prayer, he has every right to "eat everything without examination" without confusion of conscience.

But the Apostle Paul could not have imagined the current situation: an atheist-minded host treats guests to some products, about which he himself assures that they are the most ordinary, and Christian guests repeat: "No, don't pretend! We know that you are actually giving us things sacrificed to idols." After all, it is impossible to seriously consider that all the employees of the tax inspectorate and passport offices are all secret Kabbalists and occultists, who secretly mark state documents with our names and these secret "sixes" in order to rededicate us to the service of Satan!

The assertion that a sign that is not perceptible to a person "spoils" the thing and the person who has come into contact with this thing contradicts the Orthodox theology of the image. In 1082, the Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comnenus faced a decisive shortage of money while waging war. And then he ordered to pour the copper gates of one of the churches into coins, apparently similar to those that now adorn the gates of the Moscow Cathedral of Christ the Savior). On these gates were poured out the icons of the Twelve Great Feasts. The Chalcedonian metropolitan Leo was indignant at the emperor's action, considering it blasphemous and iconoclastic. A council was convened to resolve the conflict. Leo defended the idea that the substance from which sacred images are made remains a sacred object even after the face of the saint or Christ is destroyed. The Council explained that honor is given not to the substance of the icon, but to its Divine prototype... [290] Church practice indeed commands the removal from prayerful use of icons on which the faces have been erased. A crumbling or hopelessly blackened icon can be burned – and this will not be blasphemy. "If someone wanted to kiss his image in the mirror, he would not kiss nature, but the likeness of himself reflected in it, so he clung to the substance. Of course, if he moves away from the mirror, then the image will recede with it, as having nothing in common with the substance of the mirror. In the same way with regard to the substance of the image: if the likeness which was visible on it and to which the veneration belonged is destroyed, then the substance remains without veneration" (St. Theodore the Studite)[291]. Therefore, the icon with a darkened and indistinguishable face was destroyed – without fear of desecration of the "grace accumulated in it".

Only as long as the image is visible to the person in front of him – the icon is able to serve as a combination of his mind with the Divine Prototype. If we say that a paper marked with a satanic sign that is invisible to a person captivates the mind of that person to Satan, then we attribute more to Satan than to God. In human language, strokes do not mean sixes.