Moreover, today I am convinced that I will not have any other reincarnations, although sometimes when I am asked: "What is your attitude to cloning?", I say: "Oh, very positively. Then I would sit at home, read books, go wherever I wanted, and my clones would drive around and perform for me. That would be amazing." But so far, this heavenly bliss is simply unattainable for me.

Well, what can I say next? My life is like that of all people: I ate, drank, studied. I studied at the seminary, at the academy, but the most important teaching began for me only when I began to teach. The Romans were right when they said "we teach, we learn" – I understood: indeed, learning begins only when you want to teach others. Then you only begin to see: first, that you know nothing, second, that you understand almost nothing, third, that you cannot be a teacher for the sole reason that you do nothing yourself. For it is inconceivable to be a teacher, especially when we are talking about such lofty things as Christian pedagogy and the teaching of Christian truths, without a person becoming at least a little Christian.

И это оказалось для меня, если хотите, очень большим открытием, что, оказывается, я совсем не тот, кем я должен быть. Но вот так я и продолжаю учиться и все более убеждаюсь в том, что чем, кажется, шире раздвигается горизонт, тем – уже не кажется, а на самом деле – я меньше знаю. И это совершенно естественно, потому что горизонт раздвигается, я бы сказал, в геометрической прогрессии, а свои познания видишь в арифметической. Таким образом, все более приходишь к выводу, о котором очень хорошо сказал академик Наан: «Как много нужно знать, чтобы узнать, как мало ты знаешь». Сейчас я в этом состоянии и нахожусь.

Теперь я преподаю, как Вы уже сказали, в Московской Духовной академии, читаю там лекции по основному богословию; так  они называются для широкой публики, хотя все студенты знают другое название, более точное, но сокровенное, о котором не знают внешние люди: что этот предмет называется «самое основное богословие», а не просто основное, естественно.

Вот и вся моя жизнь, а о прочих вещах и говорить нечего – как у всех и всегда. Единственно, правда, есть момент, который, может быть, отсутствует у многих людей. Я вот читаю лекции – в академии, общественные лекции, получаю много писем, вижу, до чего я хорош, и вижу, до чего более хорошим я себя чувствую и вижу, и жду не дождусь только одного: когда же меня живьем-то канонизируют? Но, к сожалению, этого момента не наступает, а когда я говорю об этом, все смеются. А что здесь смешного, не правда ли? Вот и вся моя биография. Единственное, о чем я хотел бы еще сказать: пока мне еще не открыт день, когда я перейду в другой мир, и час. Это мне пока неизвестно, поэтому жизнь не завершилась. Мне сказали, что жизнь за плечами; да, то, что за плечами, уже прошло, но самое главное теперь то, что впереди. И дай Бог, чтобы то, что впереди – хотя бы в этом отрезке времени начать быть православным христианином. Об этом я, по крайней мере, мечтаю.

Хотя святые отцы запрещают мечтательность, говорят, что мечтательность – самый легкий и прямой путь к прелести. Ой, не дай Бог впасть в это; но чтобы быть православным христианином – об этом-то ведь можно мечтать или нет? Это вопрос, на который я пока не ответил.

– Алексей Ильич, возвращаясь в 1982 год, для меня судьбоносный, хотелось бы поговорить о такой проблеме. Когда эта книга самого основного богословия перевернула мою жизнь, мне, конечно же, захотелось этой радостью обретения Бога поделиться с окружающими, с близкими. И я, выпросив у батюшки этот учебник, завернув его в массу советских газет, принес своему другу с тем, чтобы он его прочитал и тоже все понял. Прошел день, два, три, неделя… А  я смотрю: где эта книга лежала, там она и оставалась лежать нетронутой.

And when some time had passed, when the book had to be returned, I asked: "Why don't you read it?" "You know," he said to me, "and everything in this life suits me. I believe you that if I read this book, I will believe in God. But you understand, everything is fine in my life: family, study, work... Everything in my life is harmonious and good, I don't want to change my life. Why should I read this book and change my life?" How to encourage such people, who are "doing well", to change their lives? And do they need to change their lives? After all, we know that the search for God and turning to God sometimes does not pass very easily... And as if outwardly harmonious, life suddenly comes into disharmony... What to do here?

– You know, when Christ Himself preached, not everyone listened to Him, followed Him, and even more so agreed with Him. So we should not expect that every person will be interested in the main question of our life: "Why do I live?", without which it is impossible to answer the question: "If I feel good now, then why should I look for something else?" So, there are a number of people for whom this question does not exist, and it is very difficult to move them to some kind of search, to some kind of reading, to some kind of interest.

But if a person has something stirring inside, in his soul, then it would probably be worth talking about it. And it would be worth it from such a position: here he says that everything is fine with him now, but he knows that everyone born is sentenced to death. Secondly, he does not know to what death. Thirdly, when he says: "I am satisfied with my family", especially, as many people say: "My meaning of life is in my children", you have to involuntarily ask the question: "What a terrible word you have uttered. What would you call a person who would say, ardently say that he loves his children – let's say so – and send them to certain inevitable death? What would you say about this man?"  He would probably have recoiled in horror. But really?

What is "the meaning of life in my children", for example? Did you not know that when you gave birth to a child, you condemned him to death? And this is what you call love, the meaning of life? This is probably one of the very important provisions that should make a person think: can we say that "my meaning of life is in my children"? For those people who are satisfied with their seeming state – health, material, social status, is it really not enough to understand that in the blink of an eye for no one knows for what reasons all this can change: one vessel burst – and that all your well-being is? Whether you are anyone, any billionaire, whatever family you have, and you are lying in paralysis.

Once I read: one billionaire, he, poor, has throat cancer, he is fed with thin food, a spoon... Oh, what a wonderful meaning of life. And no one is immune from any diseases, misfortunes, or any worries of this life at all. Therefore, when you hear a person say that "everything is fine and I don't need anything else", you already look at him: is he out of his mind or not? What a strange thing – do you know the future? You've just gone to bed healthy, and are you sure you'll wake up like that? You've gone to work – and you're sure you'll come back from it? And so on, and without end.

This view of life is not only primitive, but somehow blind, unreasonable; I risk saying crazy. Therefore, the main question, without the solution of which a person can never say, "Look, I am satisfied, and I don't need anything else in the world" is the question that must be answered: "Why do I live, why do we live, why does all of humanity live, what is the meaning of this life if it ends in death?" What's the point? And there are two fundamental answers here. Fundamentally. There are nuances here, but there are only two answers: either there is an eternity of infinity, there is a soul, there is immortality, there is God – and then I understand what the meaning of my life is. If it is all the more eternity, as the Christian religion says, it is not just an eternal and strange existence, but the existence of goodness, the existence of such bliss, before which everything earthly is nothing. If you want, you can even make such a comparison: ask the lover what his happiness is, what is the meaning of his life, what he needs, whether he needs anything else. "Nothing," he will say, "nothing." Romeo and Juliet, Ruslan and Lyudmila. Yes, Lord, take Alexei Tolstoy's "Prince Silver", and in general, look at these old novels. They perfectly described human love and showed that it is very important when it is in the human heart; That's it, he doesn't need anything else.

So, Christianity says: the meaning of human life is precisely to worthily enter into that eternity when a person will be filled with this love.