I think there is no unambiguous answer, you can't give a prescription here. Eat people whose purely natural gifts are more pronounced than others. Very much A common occurrence is people who can calm a person by holding him by the hand, or who, on the contrary, can somehow stir it up, because of them And nervousness flows. This is the most ordinary, unpretentious thing. There are people who have of which such gifts, purely psychophysical, are more pronounced and which can help or harm in this regard.

I knew an Anglican priest who was interested in and worked over "devilry", let's say, and such things, and he had some gift for alleviating suffering, pain. At some point, when my back was very bad, he told me He said: "Why don't I try to help you?" long, he put one hand on his head, the other on his legs — such a grasp, concentrated, and everything went away for me for a while. After a while, he came to me came again. During this time, I asked myself exactly this question: what is the share in this good or average, let's say, not black, but gray, and when it is the second time I offered, I said yes and prayed during its action – and nothing It's a go. Probably, or I've stopped being receptive because I've disconnected from what he was doing, we just didn't meet, or it was something difficult – I just don't know, I only know that nothing happened.

There are people who have a mixture of human or even human in terms of the dark force. They have some kind of gift of healing — but I would rather be sick and die than get help from them, because that they seem morally terrible to me, and I would not like to receive help from a person whom I regard as an evil presence. I remember when I was a doctor, a healer was sent to me: he will help you, he will heal those that you can't heal, which of course would be Terribly convenient and pleasant. I told him: "And you first prove to me that you have there is some power." He said, "Here, look." He stretched out his hand at me, and I was just burned with heat. Then he stretched it out again, and I was literally overwhelmed by frost. It means that he had something. But when I talked to him, he turned out to be like that scoundrel that I decided that it was better for my patients to suffer from me than to be treated by Him. At least I can honestly send the patient away from me, say: nothing I understand, look for another. And this one was a dishonest man. And I had a feeling that His gift is probably natural, but using it because of his greed for money is of a completely different order.

It is clear that in the saints this ability is also rooted in something else, but it seems to me that that the gift itself is to a large extent natural. I am not saying that miracles are natural actions, but Theophan the Recluse writes in one of his books that we underestimate our natural capabilities. When, say, we pray and feel in we are inclined to attribute them to grace at once. And Theophanes says: no, this is not a grace-filled phenomenon, but simply a purely natural one. I I think that there is a middle lane. Every person has gifts that can develop far beyond the ordinary, but these gifts will be colored on what kind of person he is, who he is in relation to God, to the dark forces...

I can admit that when I was in my first year of medical school, I had began to manifest the ability to read people's thoughts from a distance, to transmit to them my thoughts are at a distance, and I thought about it. It was in the summer nursery Camp; I remember walking on the lawn, suddenly stopped and said: "Lord, if this gift is from You, let it remain with me, if it is from an evil power or simply natural, but it can lead me into pride and destruction — take it off!" It was filmed instantly, and I have never experienced it in this form again.

This made me be thoughtful and cautious in this regard, because We are looking – in spiritual guidance, or in preaching, or simply in communication with people, so that the Lord would do some deed through us, say the word, do the Action for salvation. But to base an action or a word for salvation on natural soil, we are looking for another, our struggle is not with flesh and blood, but with with the powers of darkness under heaven; and no natural gifts are protected from penetration and impact of such force. Therefore, I would say: it is better not to use it if you have no reason to think that it is not natural a gift in man, but the fruit of a holy life. I am not talking about Seraphim of Sarov, about those people who were God-seers and spoke with the word of the Holy Spirit, and about that adjacent soil, where, yes, you can listen, but with caution, not to be timid, not cowardly, but soberly, prayerfully, and cautiously about it.

Vladyka, you are a doctor by education. Do you continue your medical work now? activity?

No, I quit a long time ago. I tried to be a doctor and a priest for six months at the same time, and nothing worked: it is incompatible simply in time. At I had a full practice that took all day, and then becoming second priest in the parish, I had to be free to respond to the needs of the parishioners, when they appear. And I chronically had such a situation: I now have to to serve in the church, I have ten sick people who need to be visited: it means that I am in front of the if I do not go to them, but people stand at the door of the church and also have some rights, but I don't ... And I was guilty all the time, and in the end it becomes boring to be always guilty before everyone: at least sometimes to be A glimpse that you are not to blame! As a result, it would be necessary to have two lives each day. In fact, it would be a wonderful combination. I think it's possible, for example, as it used to be in Africa or such undeveloped countries, when a person could have been engaged in both as if in parallel, but in the Parisian situation it was turned out to be impossible for me personally.

In addition, I did not consider it fair that when a person calls for a doctor, as a priest would enter secretly; I thought it was fair to separate these two areas: An unbeliever has the right to have only a doctor come, nothing else. I wanted To say that I feel: I have no right to come to a person and begin with him to preach the faith, he has the right to see me as a physician without me he pressed on him: "Oh, you're in bed, you have a broken leg, you don't care about me if you leave, let me preach to you"... We had one such surgeon in Paris who he abused this: as soon as the patient got to him, he lay in bed, he could not escape Maybe he is on it with his faith. And, in my opinion, he did not convert anyone, because people were indignant that he took advantage of the opportunity, violated them freedom of conscience.

For a believer, it is the same that you are a doctor, and an unbeliever wants only to have medical relations, this could create difficulties. This has not yet created difficulties, because I was known as a priest for too long, but it could to create. But the main thing is that all the time was simply spent on medical care work, from seven in the morning to midnight: what to do with the rest?

A physician, whether he is a believer or an unbeliever, must heal only the body, without touching the person as a person?

No, I think a doctor should treat the whole person, because even in bodily illness, a colossal role is played by the mental state of a person, his the determination to live or his refusal to fight, and there is no such area in man that For a doctor, somatics is indifferent. Of course, there are specialized areas, For example, not every somatic person should treat mental illnesses, because it is requires specialization, but the same applies to the departments of somatic diseases: one deals with nervous diseases, the other mainly with other diseases. But I It seems that the doctor's task is to penetrate into the whole person and, as it were, to use all his strength for recovery – all his psychic power to excite, sometimes to revive. It would simply be professionally unwise to say: "I'm interested in your muscles and bones, but what's going on inside is not," because it is becoming more and more evident what a huge role they play in the disease states of mind.