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.

Of course, this rejoices and inspires the pastors of the Church, but at the same time they are concerned and concerned about the fact that the majority of newly-baptized, adult people, having received the Holy Sacrament of Baptism and not having assimilated the essence of Christian life, do not consider it their primary necessity to be a living member of the Orthodox Church from now on.

Neophytes, reborn to a new life, need to understand that the church is a living organism, the body of which is Christ Himself, the head and founder of this church, and the Christians who believe in him are members of this body. And he who does not live in the church, has little contact with it, loses its life-giving power, is deprived of grace-filled help and, gradually withering, dies to spiritual life.

Observing today's Christian believers, it is impossible not to notice that their communication with the church is sometimes reduced to lighting candles before an icon or, at best, to ordering prayer services. They believe that in this way they are fulfilling their duty to God. The fact that they deprive themselves of the most important thing - the liturgical life and prayerful communion in the worship of the church - does not cause them concern.

But, as the Holy Fathers tell us, true life is possible only on the condition of union with Christ in the sacrament of the Eucharist, communion of the Holy Body and Blood of the Lord, only with such unity with Christ is the unity of people with one another accomplished, that is, the one body of the Church is created. From this it follows that Christian life is essentially ecclesiastical. Therefore, according to God's commandment about the veneration of the feast day, every Christian is obliged to be in the temple of the Lord on all Sundays and, of course, on all the great feasts that are honored by Christians all over the world.

There is no salvation outside the Church

If this is so, then how can one neglect going to the temple of God, where our Lord Jesus Christ Himself is invisibly present in His spirit? After all, he came into this world in order to renew and revive to a new life human nature, corrupted by sin, and entrusted this greatest work to his goodness, mercy, truth and wisdom to his Church. "The Holy Spirit, Who has entered into the world and acts in the Church through the clergy, divine services, preaching, and the sacraments, accomplishes this renewal unceasingly. Only in the church does this renewal force relate, outside the church it does not and cannot exist."