– Yes, this question constantly worries many and everyone. The fact is that the Christian understanding of God can be most accurately expressed in the following way: our God is the Doctor Who loves us more than anyone else in the world, and knows about our condition, about what is useful to us and what is harmful to us, better than all the doctors in the world. But this Doctor has an interesting feature, which, by the way, every doctor should have – He is ready to help us in any way, but only if we turn to Him. That is, He never takes actions that would destroy our freedom. Therefore, God's Providence is fully correlated with our spiritual state, with our freedom, with our aspirations, thoughts, intentions, goals, and depending on this, His action changes (just as the doctor's action is constantly changing in relation to the patient, depending on whether the patient fulfills the doctor's instructions or not. he says, "No, I won't do that." "You need a diet" – he reacts like Gogol's Sobakevich: "I would hang on the aspen tree in front of my window the German who invented this diet!" This is how the will of God relates to the human will). It depends on us to what extent we will follow those instructions of the Doctor, of God, which are called the commandments of God. First, the doctor gives a weak pill. It doesn't help. It gives stronger, it doesn't help either. Even more - it does not help. Then you have to do an operation - you literally put yourself on the brink. This is what God's providence consists in: its action depends on us, and not on God's personal sudden will. In this we know the great love of God and what other religions have never known – the great humility of God, of which it is said in the Apocalypse: "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock. And whoever reveals it to Me, to him will I also enter," then, accordingly, there will be good for man. This is what a Doctor of love and humility he is! And all of His actions are ultimately conditioned by our freedom.

– We often come to the question of the correlation between God's Providence and freedom: some perceive Providence as a kind of predestination, as a certain scenario of God, already known to Him; Others perceive this "scenario" as a kind of lack of freedom, that is, a person is already inside this scenario – which is why this question is so often asked. Is it correct to understand that Providence is happening here and now? Or is it beyond time and space?

– Providence, if you will, depends on our freedom, on our spiritual state. Every bad thought I have already changes me, already violates the integrity of freedom, already wounds me. And depending on this, God's action also changes. How? I repeat, the best and most accessible image is that God is the Physician, and His action, that is, Providence, is completely conditioned by our condition, the condition of the patient. But we are constantly changing, hurting ourselves, because sin is a wound inflicted on oneself by a person. How important it is to understand this! Otherwise, we understand the commandments as some kind of obstacle to a free life. After all, what is the commandment? God is not a state law, it is love that reveals to us, warns us: "Do not go there, do not do this, you will harm yourself – I do not command you, but warn you." This is the difference between the juridical perception of God's commandments, which, by the way, embraced all of Western Christianity, and the moral understanding of God's relationship to man. Therefore, I repeat once again a fact that sounds strange and paradoxical: God's Providence is conditioned by our freedom. Freedom is not destroyed, but on the contrary, it acts in full force, and thus God's action is coupled with the freedom of man. And this in theology is called synergy – cooperation, doing.

– Alexei Ilyich, we have outlined the actions of God and man. And what is the role of Satan in human life? How does it affect? Under what laws does this happen?

– Anthony the Great wrote very well about this law (there are not so many who are called Great in the Church) – he is a bright, special, strong personality who has reached the highest spiritual level of development, or rather, spiritual purification. He wrote: "When we try to live according to the commandments, then we are united with the Spirit of God, and good happens in our souls. When we act contrary to these commandments, that is, these indications of what is useful for us, then we unite with the tormenting spirits (as he calls the demons of Satan), this process is natural, because like is always combined with like." Oil and water do not combine with water in any way, but water with water is fine. This is the process: Satan acts in man and can influence man only to the extent that we ourselves freely and voluntarily choose what is inherent in him, that is, we choose evil, we commit actions that are contrary to our conscience, even to our reason. We shake hands with him. Satan himself (as all the Holy Fathers say) cannot approach a person until the person himself stretches out his hand to him: "My dear, I like your horns, your tail and your hooves. Let's get drunk together, let's envy, hate," etc. Here, as the Holy Fathers say, it unites with the soul of a person. Then, indeed, the devil can intensify our passions, by virtue of our voluntary consent, and then we suffer even more. This happens when a person does not struggle with passions, does not oppose them internally, does not turn to God for help, envies and burns with this envy. Here Satan will pour not only oil, but also gasoline into the fire.

"In America, there are frozen bodies of people who, during their lifetime, signed contracts with research centers in the hope that they will discover the secret of immortality in the future... What is the attitude of Orthodoxy to this?

– The madness of materialism, atheism. We are looking in the wrong direction. This is nonsense, and nothing more. They want to achieve immortality, and look at what we are spending our lives in now – we are looking for entertainment, we cannot live otherwise, sometimes not knowing what to do with our time without entertainment. We live by passions, often by such intentions, such a state of mind – what is happening in our soul, later it will even be embarrassing to reveal to a person. And that's how we want to live again. Well, a hundred years have passed, a man has been resurrected. There is no soul, only the body. Imagine, now he, who has received immortality, has committed some offense, and he is sentenced to death. A person will not die himself, he was told, but it is possible to kill. And what will happen for this person? What a horror! Man has attained immortality, and now he is being deprived of this immortality. And that atmosphere of life, which is called "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life," contains in itself this murder, hatred. Instead of paying attention to the eradication of these passions that lead to death, people look at themselves as an animal, they want the body to live. Do we not understand that the well-being of the body does not at all mean the well-being of life? How many people commit suicide? And not at all because they have nothing to eat. There was a crisis – how many millionaires committed suicide? Why – they had a hundred million, and there were twenty left: "What a horror! How to live now?!"

I believe that the phenomenon that you have mentioned testifies to the insanity of materialism, which brings man to the point of absurdity.

– I once heard in church that the well-known words of Christ about the possibilities of faith the size of a mustard seed are just a metaphor. Is this true?

– Of course, this is a parable. There we are talking about a lot of conflective expressions. It is not only about a mustard seed, there is a whole range of images, parables, if you like – metaphors. But what are they talking about, what is the point? The oriental language is very interesting in this regard. Modern language is all conceptual. And the ancient language in general, and especially among the Eastern peoples, is a different language. They think in images, pictures, if you like, even in whole plots. It turns out to be a more lively language, which makes you think and understand life more deeply. So there is nothing special about it, it is a parable.

– Is there a patristic or theological opinion about the fate of the "wise thief" about whom it is said: "Today shalt thou be with Me in paradise"? I heard that, according to Ephraim the Syrian, there are different degrees of bliss in paradise and the human soul can change its state. Is there freedom there or will a person be like an angel?

First of all, one should not look for more authoritative words than the words of Christ Himself about the fate of the thief. These words of Christ are repeated countless times in the Holy Fathers – that the thief really inherited the Kingdom of God. But no one doubts that there are different degrees of blessedness there as well, because holiness can be of a different nature. But the fact is that in the question that has been voiced, one feels that the Kingdom of God is just some other room. Where to go? We went into one room - good. Next time - even better. And so on. Such nonsense, nonsense. When the Jews asked Christ, "When will the kingdom of God come?" they meant the absolute good on earth. And Christ uttered the terrible words, which, by the way, were one of the essential reasons for the rejection of Christ: the Kingdom of God will not come in a visible way, for it is not said that it is there or here, in some corner of the globe, in such and such a state, under such and such a political system. No, "the Kingdom of God is within you." And the Holy Fathers write wonderfully about this: "The Kingdom of God is the state of the soul, which is no longer burdened by passions." What joy does a person who is in anger have? And where is this malice, in what room, in what place? In the human heart. Look at those who are envious. No wonder they say "turned green with envy". Where is the suffering? In the human heart. The Kingdom of God is also there. it turns out that the Kingdom of God is a state of the soul. If translated into another language, this is a state of joy, and joy can be very different. Therefore, the condition of those who are in paradise will be different. But how can you measure who has more joy? It is very difficult to say. And finally, will man in paradise have freedom or will he be in the state of angels? The doctrine of spirits is very undeveloped. That is, we know very little about them. Christ said magnificently about our current situation: "He who commits sin is a servant of sin." I know that I must eat very abstinently, otherwise, the doctors tell me, you will have this and that; And I can't refuse, because I'm a slave to my stomach. And this applies to all passions: I cannot help envying, I cannot but condemn, I cannot help being vain – complete slavery, hand and foot, these are our conditions. The Kingdom of God is liberation from these passions. If "the slave who commits sin is sin," then it turns out that the one in whom there will be no more sin, who will conquer sin, is free. Thus, in the life of the age to come, man acquires true freedom from passions, he can already live with his whole being, which is God-like, and partakes to the measure of his spiritual height with God, Who is love. And I wonder if there is anything greater on earth that can be called happiness than love? No, the Kingdom of God is the absolute kingdom of Love.

– Why are Christians called "servants of God"? Does God want to take away their freedom? Or is it just an unfortunate term? It is very jarring to the ears of a modern person and simply repels many.

– First of all, by analogy. Just as one can be a slave to sin, one can also be a slave to virtue. But in what sense? I would put it this way. A mother, overwhelmed with love, throws herself into the fire to save her child. St. Isaac the Syrian writes: "A person who has attained love is ready to be burned ten times a day for his love of people." She cannot help throwing herself into the fire; You see, it can't. And when we say "can't," it means a slave. That's why "a servant of God." A person who is embraced by love is a slave of this love. What slave? That supreme, absolute happiness to be a slave not of someone else's, but of one's own love. Here is an image that is understandable to everyone – a mother, overwhelmed by love, is ready to do anything for her child. This slavery is not the slavery of torment, but the slavery of joy and happiness. Man is a slave in the sense that he cannot but love, love cannot be inactive, love is always sacrificial, love is always active. In this sense, man is a servant of God. That is, a slave of love. So if someone does not like to be a slave to love, but wants to be a slave to hatred, then there is no arguing about tastes. But for some reason, everyone is looking for love, and would even be happy to be slaves to love.