"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?

"I think they're skipping some of the previous steps. It is not for nothing that they say that there is a logical chain and it is impossible to answer a question that is somewhere in the middle. It is necessary to start from the beginning – until this beginning is discussed, clarified, it is impossible to talk about the next one. It is necessary to speak not about the truth of the New Testament, because this question is in the middle of the chain, but about the truth of Christianity. Are there any arguments—not personal opinions, but objective arguments—that would show us that this religion is not of earthly origin? That supernatural forces are clearly manifested in this religion? That this is the religion that could only be from God? If we can be convinced of this, then we will understand that the New Testament is the Revelation of God Himself, and then we will accept it with full confidence. This is what the logical chain should be. And so how to prove that so-and-so is a saint? He works miracles – and the yogi works miracles. He had ecstasies – and the yogi achieved this. Try, think in your mind. You can't take it out of context like that, you have to start all over again, then it will be clear.

– Maybe the problem is that people do not have the skill to comprehend reality?

– Of course, we often demand an answer to a question without solving the previous question, without the solution of which, at least, it is simply impossible to answer. Is Seraphim of Sarov a saint or not? And why is he a saint? And why is he a true saint? And why not Rama Krishna, this famous yogi of the XIX century? And how do they differ? And so on... In fact, if we can show that Christianity is a divinely revealed religion, not a human creation, not something that man has invented, which he has arrived at on the basis of the study of himself and the world around him, on the basis of his philosophical speculations, but that it is a religion given by God, then it is clear. Then the way indicated in the New Testament, the principles of life revealed in it, are not human, but divine. And, therefore, the one who follows this path is truly holy. This is the logic.

– In the Kingdom of God, everyone will be happy. But if a person knows that his relatives, whom he loved, were not saved in life and are suffering in hell, will he still experience the fullness of bliss?

– This question rests on a completely different question – again, what we have just talked about. The question is very serious, to the highest degree. And can God, knowing that this person, who has not yet been born, will choose evil and go into eternal punishment, can God, being love, give him existence? First we need to resolve this issue. If God, being love, can give birth to one who will go to endless torment, then we can also talk about this question: "How is the blessedness of those who know that others are tormented?"

The question is about eternal torment. This question is very important, everyone asks it. Both in the New Testament and in the patristic teaching we see two solid parallel lines. Some in the New Testament directly say that sinners will go into eternal punishment. Other statements of the same New Testament say: "No, Christ is the Savior of all men, much less of the faithful." As the Apostle Paul writes: "God will be all things and in everything." Both texts go directly in parallel. We observe the same story in the Holy Fathers. Some saints write: "Opponents (that is, those who do evil) will go into eternal torment," others write: "No, they will suffer, but the torment will not be endless." These two lines go side by side. Eternal destiny is, of course, a mystery. Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory the Theologian, Athanasius the Great in his Paschal homily, Amphilochius of Iconium, Epiphanius of Cyprus, Ephraim the Syrian, Isaac the Syrian, Maximus the Confessor said that torments are not endless. These are people who not only knew the New Testament almost by heart, they were saints, they followed the life of the New Testament. And suddenly what did they say? Here will be Pascha, just listen to the Paschal word. Here is the word on Good Friday, at Matins: "Thou hast torn to pieces our handwritings (that is, our sins) on the Cross, O Lord, and hast been imputed to the dead, Thou hast bound the tormentor there, Thou hast delivered all from the bonds of death by Thy resurrection." On Holy Saturday: "Hell reigns, but not forever, over the human race." And if you take the Octoechos, you will find so many such statements there! And in the Paschal homily, speaking of the Resurrected Christ: "He destroyed death, He devastated hell, and the dead are not one in the tomb." What things are written – is it deception or lyrics? Epiphanius of Cyprus pointed out to us: "He made hell empty by His condescension." Amphilochius of Iconium: "When hell appeared, He destroyed its tombs and emptied its storehouse. Everyone was released, everyone ran after Him." St. Gregory of Nyssa: "After the complete elimination of evil from all creatures, God-like beauty will shine again in all." Again it is said: "in all." Athanasius the Great, the defender of Orthodoxy, writes in his Paschal epistle: "He is the one Who of old brought the people out of Egypt," and finally all of us, or, rather, "redeemed the entire human race from death and raised us out of hell." One after another, they say "all", "all". St. Ephraim the Syrian: "In the voice of the Lord (this is on Holy Saturday) hell received a forewarning to prepare for His subsequent voice (this is about the Second Coming), which will completely abolish it (hell)." Ignatius (Brianchaninov), who said that only the Orthodox would be saved, wrote about this issue: "Those who are deprived of the glory of Christianity (that is, not Christians) are not deprived of another glory received at creation – they are the image of God." What glory is this for those who are in hell?

That is, the teaching that there will be torment – that's for sure. But the very concept of eternity is incomprehensible to us. In the Old Testament there is such an amazing passage: "When the seventh year comes (it was necessary to release slaves for the seventh year), then he who does not want to leave slavery remains forever a slave to his master. But in the fiftieth year he becomes free." That is, the concept of eternity does not necessarily mean infinity. "Eternity" in the Old Testament context very often means duration – a long duration. And Jesus Christ spoke in this language, and not in any other, and used the concept of eternity in this sense as well. Here's the thing. How many people – Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory the Theologian, Athanasius the Great, John Chrysostom, Ephraim the Syrian, Amphilochius of Iconium, Isaac the Syrian, Maximus the Confessor – how many saints speak about this. But there are saints who say that there will be eternal torment, that is, endless torment. Therefore, it is not clear to us. They say "eternal", but it seems to be "infinite".