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.

"In My Father's house are many mansions," says the Lord (John 14:2). What are we talking about here?

"That's exactly what it's about. We are not talking about palaces. We think anthropomorphically, that is, human-like. In this case, it would be better to say that we imagine the abodes of the Kingdom of God "earthly." In fact, this is a spiritual state. It is not without reason that when we are talking about the highest states that are possible, we speak, in common religious language, of a "state of ecstasy": a person turns off almost all the senses, the mind itself leaves the state of ordinary thinking and merges completely with the state of good that a person experiences. Such a state takes a person out of the plane of this world. This is the highest abode (or perhaps not the highest, we do not know), about which the Apostle Paul wrote: he was caught up to the third heaven and heard there verbs that cannot be conveyed. But at the same time, the Apostle writes: "I do not know whether I was in the body or out of the body." This is the state of admiration, ecstasy, if you will, although I don't really like this word: it evokes associations with some cults. A state of rapture. Yes, there are different abodes, different degrees. Barsanuphius the Great, for example, has the idea that there is even a seventh heaven, that is, seven higher degrees of blessedness, or rather, "blessings," which are called the Kingdom of God. Even seven. The Apostle Paul was only in third.

– Why is it through the sufferings of Christ that the salvation of people is achieved? Why, for example, not through His hard work? Why did Christ have to go through the agony of the Cross in order to achieve the salvation of people? Where does such a literally "bloodthirsty" principle of salvation come from?

"I would probably start from the last one, the 'bloodthirsty' one, and say: 'Yes, the surgeon is a bloodthirsty man! A gangrenous leg is cut off from a person, well, a bloodthirsty!" If I now take and break this table, I will have to assemble it, glue it together, work, suffer and revile the one who broke this table. And what happens when a person breaks his arms and legs? And if the heart is sick, already on the verge – either life or death? The greater the damage, the more difficult it is to combine the healing of this person with greater suffering. In this case, we accept (we accept because faith is necessary) that as a result of man's apostasy from God, which was accomplished by the first people, when they became proud and wanted to be like gods (this is the essence of sin), the human being was torn away from the Source of life, which is why it is said: "You will die by death." That is, the damage to human nature turned out to be such that man became mortal. He is mortal not just in his body, but the very realm into which he has departed from God is already the realm of death. That is why it took such suffering, in this case suffering unto death, in order to save mankind from death, and it is not for nothing that on Easter it is sung: "By death trampled down death." This is the point – this is not bloodthirstiness, but an amazing sacrifice, a voluntary sacrifice that Christ undertook, and it was necessary, since it is impossible to repair anything broken or mutilated without difficulty, without podvig, without shedding blood. Look, Susanin's feat – he was ready to go to death only to save the Fatherland from destruction. So here, the same process took place. That is why the sufferings of Christ were required, and the most terrible sufferings, sufferings unto death. Only then did they understand that "by death trampled death", that is, by destroying. This is the obvious law that we calmly observe in our world.

– "Why do people come to God more often in our time from grief and suffering?"

– First of all, not in our time, but throughout history. We have a wonderful Russian proverb: until the thunder roars, the peasant will not cross himself. When everything is fine with us, we forget about the meaning of life, about eternal life, about the fact that there is God, we forget about conscience itself, and we often live as unscrupulous. "Eternal life on earth!" – this is where this comes from, there is nothing new here, this phenomenon has continued and will continue throughout history. People live flat: "It's good now, and I don't need anything else," and this is the majority – we lead an animal lifestyle. But there are people who turn out to have more intelligence. They think about the meaning of life, about the meaning of all existence, they wonder if this afterlife really exists. Is there a God, or not? And there are those who literally do not find peace for themselves – by the way, a vivid illustration of the same Ignatius (Brianchaninov); Hegumen Nikon (Vorobiev) was ready to commit suicide because of the meaninglessness of this life – he asked: "Lord, tell me!" Varvara turned out to be a real clever girl who thought about these questions. It had a sincere search, and not the curiosity of a philosophizing mind, as, for example, the Athenians, who loved nothing more than to learn something new; After all, it is possible to engage in theology while having fun – not in order to understand a person, to understand what we should do, what path to follow, what dangers we encounter on the path of Christian life. No, we will just engage in theology, having fun: "How to understand this, and how to understand this?", and we will spend our whole lives in this entertainment. And there are true souls who selflessly, not for the sake of entertainment, seek precisely the truth, and then the Lord, seeing their true search, reveals Himself to them. After that he ate a little bread and five potatoes, and he didn't need anything else – a young man, twenty-two, young people were walking behind the wall, he was invited, and he was deaf to it. That's the kind of power some people have! I think these are people who, apparently, by nature received ten talents, unlike many who have only one (and it is often buried in the ground). That's where Varvara got all this, that's who she is. That is why the Church glorified her.

– Alexei Ilyich, many people, including the unbaptized, who are far from the Church, have read the New Testament and agree that there are very good truths there, but they do not believe in the authenticity of the New Testament and are tormented by this question. What guarantees the truth of the New Testament and what happened to Jesus?