Finally, the state, recognizing the right of the hierarchy, clergy and monasticism to be exempted from a number of state duties, for example, from military service, may, to the extent established by law, take certain restrictive measures against malicious attempts to evade the fulfillment of civic duty by moving to a privileged part of church society.

However, the Orthodox state within this framework can set itself the goal of defending Orthodoxy according to its own understanding; And it should even do so. It must take certain measures to set certain limits to the aggressive propaganda of non-Orthodoxy or non-Orthodoxy, for example, atheistic liberalism, communism and Catholicism. On the other hand, the state, in the matter of public education, must see to it that it is combined with Orthodox religious education. It cannot do this without the assistance of the Church, and it is necessary to turn to its assistance, reserving for itself the right of general supervision and control, but by no means paying for the teachers of religion provided to it by the Church. They can and must be paid for by the church community from its own funds.

Under these conditions, the Church will be able to become an active and effective participant in the entire cultural life. Real independence from the state and the Orthodoxy of the state itself will provide it with real authority and bring their relationship closer to a symphony. Then the Church will be able to reveal her ideals incomparably more and more clearly and with her advice to have a beneficial effect on all life. Then the voice of the Church, calling, as in the time of Hermogenes, to the defense of the homeland, will not be interpreted by anyone as forced by the state, and prayers for the Christ-loving army will not be subject to misinterpretations. After all, one must realize the greatest misfortune of the entire Russian Revolution, which consisted in the fact that the long oppression of the Church shattered faith in her, and "revolutions" suddenly began to take place in church society itself.

18. There can be no ideal, perfect solution to the question of the relationship of the state to the church organization, i.e., one that would be suitable for all times, conditions and peoples and could not be improved. Otherwise, all empirical being would not only become the Church, but would already be it, and it would only become and will only become, until times and seasons are fulfilled, until the heavens are folded into a scroll, i.e., until it ceases to be only empirical and temporal. Of course, the becoming of the whole world as the fullness of the Church or the Kingdom of God enters into this fullness or this Kingdom, and even enters into such a way that without it, without becoming and, consequently, imperfection, there is no perfection itself, there is no perfect Church; for the perfection of the Church lies in the fact that Christ fills up what is "unfinished," and there can be no perfection without the earthly life of the Son of God, without His sufferings and death. Therefore, all earthly labor is necessary and in its essence ecclesiastical, and we all work on earth not only for our "future," but for eternity and even in eternity. Our every thought and every action we do is in eternity, though not "only imperfect," as on earth. This is the greatest responsibility of our earthly life, the horror of sin and the joy of redemption and goodness (paragraph 1 ff.).

The paths of earthly life, the "callings" of a Christian are different (paragraph 6), but all of them are necessary in the Kingdom of God and are valuable, although not of equal value, but among them there are better and worse, more and less perfect. Thus, the righteous man, the one "who wants to be perfect," denies himself and the whole world for the sake of Christ, Who saves the world, and therefore for the sake of his brethren and for the sake of the world. He conforms himself to Jesus Christ and becomes a partaker of the Son of God in the active and self-sacrificing transfiguration of the world up to the crucifixion of Christ and to the point of co-dying with Him. In what and how death in Christ is expressed depends on external conditions, and physical death is only the completion of this death, and murder is one of its types: but he "who wants to be perfect" must know that the price of perfection is sacrificial death. But even he who does not want perfection nevertheless in his calling does God's work and works in eternity. He is inferior to the one who desires the perfect, but no one, not even this one who strives for perfection, can fulfill his work, for everyone has his own task.

There is no need to ask idle and stupid questions. "What would happen to the world if everyone wanted to become perfect?" In this case, could there be culture, earthly life itself? Wouldn't many needs and professions then be superfluous? "First you need to want perfection, and only then ask such questions: and only in this case can you get an answer to them, for God always answers questions that are not idle. But in fact, not everyone wants perfection, and even very few want it, and in reality no one really wants it, since "all are sinners, every single one." Any fleeting desire should not be considered a will, or a distinction should be made between essential will and superficial wills, which man often takes for essential, but which do not express or touch the depths and essence of man. The essential will determines the whole life of a person and is expressed in all his actions and desires, although in some more, in others less, and in others almost imperceptibly. Essential volition cannot be considered empirical, since, being empirically manifested, it embraces and determines the whole empiricism. This can be explained, and quite accurately, by some similarity. It is as if God asks every person before the beginning of his earthly life in what calling a person wants to live and whether he wants to strive for perfection, and according to the will of man, He grants him His grace. Therefore, in his earthly life man is not subject to anything and is not predestined, for he fulfills his essential will, but nevertheless everything is accomplished only by the power of God's grace. Thus God, "whom He foreordained, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son..., and whom He predestined, He also called, and whom He called, He also justified, and whom He justified, He also glorified" (Romans 8:29ff.); but God chose us in Christ Jesus "before the foundation of the world" (Eph. 1:4). This means that I have no reason to envy one who follows the highest path on earth and before God, or to be offended by God because I do not feel a call to monasticism in myself, for I myself have chosen and am choosing what is less perfect. And, therefore, before renouncing the world, a person must consider whether his desire is not self-deception, whether it is pride, i.e. whether it corresponds to his essential desire, or whether he himself, in his sinfulness, wants to live less perfectly. After all, in the latter case, he must first overcome his sinful weakness, and only then outwardly change his life. This is the meaning of the solemn vow of monasticism.

19. If all the becoming of the world by the Church, all earthly life and all earthly work, is included in the fullness of the Church, this becoming in the very fullness of the Church is also perfected and perfect, no matter how incompatible the concepts of perfection and becoming are for us. Who, indeed, can conceive of "eternal life," i.e., perpetual motion, as "eternal rest"? And according to the word of the Church, "eternal rest" is "eternal life." Here, on earth, the becoming of the world (and of all of us) is not perfect: "only becoming." Here our perfection is limited by a certain limit, as if delineated by a certain circle, in which we spin like a squirrel in a wheel, helplessly and painfully. But this circle is drawn by ourselves, this limit to our perfection is set by us ourselves — by sinfully wanting only a little, "wanting imperfection." By our free and essential (paragraph 18) will, we create an insurmountable obstacle to our perfection, an enslaving necessity. This necessity, freely created by our freedom, is the original sin, which is committed by all people, although each in his own way, a sin in which everyone is guilty. As an essential will, it permeates all our thoughts, feelings, and actions; and there is not a single thought, even the slightest one, in which it would not be realized in one way or another. True, not everything is imbued with sin in the same measure, and with the development of man, his sinfulness can both increase and decrease. However, complete sinlessness on earth is not attainable, even for the greatest righteous man. Only the Lord Jesus Christ and His most pure, immaculate Body, the Mother of God and the Church are sinless on earth.

This must always be remembered, and therefore we must not hope for the possibility of absolute perfection on earth (whether of an individual or a state, or of the whole world), but with humility always strive only for the best possible, remembering that such an aspiration is already work in the harvest-fields of the Lord (cf. paragraph 18). From this it does not follow not only that one can ever be satisfied with something, and not always strive from the best to the best (quite the opposite!), but also that one should not strive for absolute perfection. Such an aspiration exists in us, given to us by God, and God does not give us anything unnecessary or erroneous. Absolute perfection must be striven for, but it must be understood that its place is not in empirical limited reality, but beyond its boundaries, and that the way to it lies in overcoming empirical reality, in defeating it. By the mercy of our Lord, the perfection and fullness of the Church exists, and "the Kingdom of God has drawn near to us"; And because it has come nearer, has become visible and tangible, we can understand the imperfection of our being and realize the cause of this imperfection as our sin, i.e., repent or "change our minds" (metanoein). Repentance is the knowledge of the Kingdom of God, i.e., the beginning of it in us, i.e., the beginning of overcoming the necessity created by the sin that we freely commit. This is already the beginning of perfection beyond the limits of what is possible on a sinful earth, going beyond its boundaries, or communion with Christ, Who has conquered the world.

Christ conquered the world, i.e. the sinful necessity of the world or the sin expressed in it, by complete self-denial, by His sufferings and His death on the cross. And to conquer the world, i.e. to reach absolute perfection and perfect the world, is possible only in union with Christ (paragraph 8). Unity with Christ is achieved through man's co-formation with Him. And conformity to Jesus Christ is not imitation (imitatio) of Him, i.e. not an external reproduction or repetition of His life, which, as an individual, is unique, but the bringing of man into such a state that he lives and acts in a given situation and conditions as Christ would live and act in his place. Christ Himself lives and acts in man who conforms himself to Christ (Gal. 2:20): so united is man "clothed in Christ" with Him, Man and God. We approach this conformity by fulfilling the commandments of Christ, that is, by applying and necessarily concretizing and individualizing them in our one and only life, as if continuing the work of Christ on earth. But even greater is the conformity to Christ Jesus when we "get accustomed" to His concrete image, which is not conveyed either in general rules or in descriptions, but is vitally fully perceived. But conformity with Christ is impossible without communion and His love for those for whom He suffered, that is, without active love for people or without entering as a living member into the Body of Christ, into the Church. Therefore, co-formation with Christ is churching. It makes man and the associations of people personal (paragraph 4), overcoming the necessity of sin, and free (of course, everything to the extent of being churched or conforming to Christ). It places them, as it were, on the threshold of empirical existence, where the world ceases to be necessary and becomes a free world of God's miracles. Wandering on earth with our eyes downcast, we see nothing but earthly, necessary and sinful, and we cannot see. But as soon as we raise our eyes from the ground, we will see the righteous Optina elders, the holy elder Seraphim of Sarov, we will see how on the threshold of their cell the sinful necessity of the world miraculously ceases, and through the narrow door of the cell, a new earth and a new heaven open up in it. Here is the passage to heaven, here the imperfect, being perfected, merges with the perfect. The Church stands as its saints, and the saints by their miracles teach us to see the miracle of the sacraments and of the entire life of the Church.

This is a difficult and long path, the path of co-formation with Christ in churching, a path that at first bears imperceptible fruits. But this is the only true and possible way to overcome sinful necessity and perfection, and not only to it, but also to the "correct" empirical life. Often it is too late to think about victory over sin when sin tempts: it is already too strong. We must think about the victory over it in advance, prepare to fight it when it is not yet heard, and not with this or that sin — for do we know which will creep up first? — but with sinfulness, with the possibility of any sin. One must educate oneself, educate oneself on the small and everyday, and then one will stand firm in the struggle against the great and the unexpected. Then you will be surprised to find in yourself the great power of God's grace, accumulated in small things. It is often too late to think about the best way to act in a given case, when this case is already in front of you and does not give you time to think, and you must act and act in the best possible way. One must prepare in advance for all eventualities, i.e., for it is impossible to foresee everything, to make oneself capable of the best action in any circumstances. All this is achieved by churching. It is only necessary to remember that a sinful person always sins, and churching will not make him incapable of sinning on earth. He can sin more or less and will sin the less the more and more deeply he becomes churched.

All these considerations, of course, are equally applicable to the individual personality, and to the conciliar or symphonic personality, in particular, and to the state-controlled people.

Thus, the degree of empirical perfection of man, the state, the world, and their very existence (paragraph 15) depends on the degree of their churching, and the Church turns out to be the "salt of the world." It is pious to think that an imperfect and sinful being exists only in order to overcome sin and be perfected, and only because it overcomes sin and is perfected. In other words, it exists because Christ saved it. That is why Christ is the light of the world. For this reason all that exists is through Him, and through Him the ages were created. For, confessing the Symbol of Faith, we also remember that "the Word of God working miracles and Christ who suffered is not another and another, but... the same is our Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, incarnate and incarnate" (5 Ecumenical Council, Anathema, canon 3).

20. One of the greatest errors is the so-called doctrine of non-resistance to evil by force, which reveals a complete lack of understanding of what perfect and imperfect being is and what their relationship is. This teaching contradicts Christian truth primarily in that it preaches inaction, while Christianity calls for active love and considers inaction to be a great sin, not allowing us to abandon the fulfillment of the tasks of life that lie ahead of us. Moreover, he who does not resist evil in fact almost always resists it precisely by force, only not directly and openly, but indirectly and hypocritically. Remaining to live in society and enjoying its benefits, he, of course, participates in wars and in the fight against crime, but in the safest and most convenient way for himself - shifting the danger and inconvenience onto others. If, above all, he also assumes that his "example" will convert other people and that they will defeat the world's evil in such a "reasonable" and easy way, he falls into excessive pride and sets an example of extreme misunderstanding of the world. Only he who suffers from this evil himself has the right not to resist evil by force: whether it is directed at him, or in such a way that his non-resistance makes him a victim. But there is no "non-resistance" here, the place of which is taken by self-sacrifice as the truest and best means of victory over the evil world (paragraph 19).

Usually, the doctrine of non-resistance to evil is refuted with the help of some imaginary and supposedly concrete example: what will a non-resister do and what should a Christian do if an evildoer encroaches on the life of an infant, and the infant can only be saved by killing the evildoer? Contrary to its form, this is not at all a concrete example, but an abstract proposition. After all, it must be understood that in such cases living and normal people do not resonate and discuss the moral and philosophical problem, but act, moreover, directly, instinctively. Nevertheless, the above example seems to be quite convenient for clarifying the correct attitude to the issue.