1.0 - Creating a File - Tabias

Conversations with MThA Professor Alexei Ilyich Osipov on the air of the Soyuz TV channel.

June 9, 2010 (hosted by Hegumen Dimitry (Baibakov))

– I want to start our today's meeting with memories dating back to 1982. I was fourteen years old then, and for the first time I thought about the questions of the meaning of life, about the questions of existence – both of humanity in general and of mine in particular. And these questions led me to the church, to the priest. Although at that time the involvement of minors in religion was punishable by a criminal article and the priest was threatened with a sentence for communicating with me, Father Vladimir not only communicated with me, answered my "tricky" questions, but also allowed me to access his library. And in this library I found a book – a textbook for the third grade of the seminary – which was called "Basic Theology". To call that publication a book would probably even be an exaggeration. These were typewritten bound sheets of paper in the fifth, sixth, and maybe even seventh copies - difficult to read. But what I read there just shocked me.

There the existence of God was proved; there the so-called arguments against the existence of God – atheistic, materialistic theories of the origin of religion – were very convincingly shattered into dust, and, on the contrary, a positive view of its origin was presented. I cannot say that this book made me a believer, because the Lord touched my heart in the sacrament of Communion, but from a worldview, of course, it literally turned my mind upside down. It changed my view of the world. And then, when this book, this typewritten textbook at the intellectual level, showed me the reality of God's existence, I would come home – and there, of course, as in every normal Soviet family, there was a TV set – and I would sit down in front of the TV and wait for the announcer (and all the announcers were very serious, Soviet announcers like that) to tell me the most important news: there is God. I have been waiting for this for a very long time, but I never got it: they never said on TV that God exists.

But these childhood dreams of being told on TV about what was written in these typewritten sheets of "Basic Theology" have come true. We have realized ourselves in the Soyuz TV channel, from the screen of which we are trying to reach out to all of you and tell you the main "news" that should enter your hearts – that there is a God. This is the main "news" of our entire existence.

And today, in our studio, which recently opened in Moscow at St. Andrew's Monastery, the first guest is the author of this book, this textbook (but we now know that there are many more books), Professor of the Moscow Theological Academy, Alexei Ilyich Osipov.

Hello, Alexey Ilyich. I apologize for such a long introduction, but I wanted our viewers to understand why you are constantly present on the Soyuz TV channel and why, to some extent, you are the "banner" of the Soyuz TV channel, and to express my deep respect for you, which has been going on since I was fourteen years old. And today you enlighten the clergy and laity, those who read these books, not only through your books, but also through our huge audience. Once again, I welcome you to the studio of the Soyuz TV channel.

–Hello. Thank you, Father Dimitry. A good start is half the battle.

– Let me begin our meeting with you today with such a banal question: I think it is interesting to our viewers, because they have been listening to your amazing lectures for many years, but they have no idea who Alexei Ilyich Osipov is. Let me formulate the question as it is formulated by the modern press: "Who are you, Professor Osipov?"

–Awesome. The question, of course, is not simple, but I will have to confess. The first thing I want to say is that when I was four or five years old, I kept pestering my mother: where am I from? And when she got pretty tired of my question, one day she told me: I bought you at the market. I calmed down. And now I know that, it turns out, I was born on Earth, not an alien, I did not have any previous incarnations, and my life began here.