Preface

Archpriest

Vasily Izyumsky Today there is a lot of talk and discussion about spirituality, about spiritual life, often having in mind something else: morality, decency. Yes, of course, a spiritual person cannot be immoral or dishonest. Why? Because he lives according to Christ's Commandments. It is from them that our ideas about morality, morality, decency flow. They are the basis of our life. And often, especially from young people striving for a spiritual life, we hear that "you can believe in God at home," that "faith is an innermost part of life." And here I would like to note right away that Faith is not a part of life, but Life itself. And the church is not just a place where services are performed, the church is the Temple of God. During the Liturgy, the Sacraments, parishioners are communed with the faith. And a priest is the person who unites with God. Archpriest Vasily Izyumsky speaks about all these difficult questions of interest to many in his work. He served in the church for more than fifty years and has a wealth of experience in spiritual life. The Church of the Nativity of Christ in the village of Besedy, where the priest serves, is always full of people. People come here from different parts of Moscow, because Father Vasily is able to understand the person who turns to him with his painful questions, and to help him. "Faith has always helped me to withstand the most difficult circumstances," he says. And these are not just words. Father Vasily suffered the bitter fate of the son of an "enemy of the people". He himself was subjected to repression and persecution. His faith is hard-won.

We have published books by contemporary spiritual fathers more than once. The Church is not a "pre-revolutionary heritage", as they tried to instill in us, and even try to instill in us. It has always lived and is still living its innermost life. And people who have experience of genuine spiritual life have been and are. Listen to their words.

Alexander Zhukov

The hammer of atheism

Decades of fierce struggle with religion and the church could not but have a detrimental effect on the moral foundations of the entire society of our great country.

Strange as it may seem, the ground for such unbridled atheistic propaganda was prepared even before 1917 mainly by the Russian intelligentsia itself. Therefore, it is not entirely fair to blame only the Bolsheviks and Communists for this. Having read Western false philosophizing, intoxicated by the achievements of science and technology, Russian thinkers from the nobility came to the conclusion that society, the state, is ruled by man; it establishes laws and regulations, and God, as the omnipotent Creator, has nothing to do with it. You can live perfectly well without it. The merchant class enriched itself excessively, often by unrighteous means, led a dissolute life, drowning in luxury and allowing itself everything. Although the merchants did not reject God, they did not live according to the law of God. Many expressed the strength of their faith by donations, monetary contributions to the construction of charitable institutions and churches. But even in this seemingly good deed, vanity, boasting, and sometimes the convenience of having a personal church came out above all.

Factory people, city dwellers, haunted by eternal worries about daily bread, plunged into unrestrained drunkenness. And only the villager, the semi-literate peasant, still held in his soul the living faith of his fathers, but even this was subsequently eradicated by the Bolshevik revolution, the favorable ground for which was prepared to a large extent by all these conditions. Armed with the slogan "There is no God, there is no need for a tsar", the deceived people followed their agitators to build paradise on earth, crushing the age-old foundations on which our long-suffering state was built, mercilessly destroying all those who did not want to build this paradise. For more than 70 years, the satanic bacchanalia of the destruction of the souls of human and national shrines continued. First of all, everything that reminded of God, spoke of Christianity, was subject to destruction or desecration: churches were destroyed, many precious architectural monuments were wiped off the face of the earth, works of art - music, painting, literature - were subjected to devastating criticism or hiding from the eyes and ears of the people.

The Second Baptism of Rus

The beginning of the 90s was marked by a sharp turn towards the creation of a new social system, based, as promised from the tribunes, on the principles of freedom. But promises, as it has happened more than once, have remained promises, although in many ways human life has become liberated.

The remaining churches are opening by a miracle, the hammer of atheism has stopped hitting people's heads, many have reached out to the open doors of churches. The withered soul thirsted for the life-giving water of sanctification. The mind, which has so long wandered in the darkness of falsehood, sin and godlessness, is now seeking the light of true enlightenment. The wave of baptism of the Russian people reached incredible heights. It can be said that now baptism is again going on throughout Russia.