Hieromonk Job (Gumerov) - A Thousand Questions to a Priest

The book, compiled from questions from the laity and the priest's answers to them, covers a huge range of topics devoted to the Church and the person in it, Christianity and the world. This essentially encyclopedic publication is addressed both to church-going people and to those who are still joining the Orthodox faith, taking the first steps on the way to church.

Cultural

How do you feel about cartoons about Teletubbies?

Hegumen Ambrose (Yermakov)  

Sorry, but not only do I not watch cartoons (I am out of this age :), but I think that old cartoons for children are much more interesting, more useful than talentless entertaining spectacles with creatures of suspicious origin.

Could Aesop have been known to the children of Galilee?

Priest Athanasius Gumerov, monk of Sretensky Monastery Comparing the Jews of His time, who stubbornly resisted the truth, the Savior likens them to capricious children who do everything out of stubbornness. In the words of Jesus Christ there is a thought: I and John came in opposite ways, but you did not accept either my testimony or his. One was accused of not keeping the fast, and the other of observing it. Aesop's fable "The Fisherman" tells about a trapper who knew how to play the pipe. He took a pipe and a seine, went to the sea, stood on the ledge of the rock and began to play the pipe, hoping that the fish would come out of the water on their own to these alluring sounds. But this did not happen. Then he took the nets, threw them into the water and pulled out many fish. When he took them ashore, they began to jump. Looking at how they were fighting, he said: "I played with you - you did not dance, I stopped - you dance." The Gospel story and Aesop's fable, despite certain similarities, have semantic differences. In the first one, the ethical aspect is clearly expressed. The fable speaks of those who unwittingly do everything inappropriately.

Where did the Holy Grail come from?

Hieromonk Job (Gumerov)  

The Holy Grail (Old French. Graal, Latin. Gradalis) in Western European medieval legends is a mysterious vessel with the blood of Jesus Christ, which was collected by St. Joseph of Arimathea, who performed the burial of the body of the Savior of the world taken down from the Cross. The sources were some apocrypha.

The oldest literary treatment of the legends about the Holy Grail in Western European literature belongs to Chrétien de Troyes, a French writer of the late twelfth century (the novel Perceval). The story of this vessel, which acquired miraculous powers, was described in detail by another French writer of the early 13th century, Robert de Boron, on the basis of apocryphal stories. Robert's work consists of three parts: Joseph of Arimathea, Merlin and Perceval. The first part tells the original story of the Holy Grail and tells about its transfer to England. It is also told about the search for this mysterious and miraculous vessel by the knight Perceval. After Perceval's death, the Holy Grail ascends to heaven. In Robert's work, the Christian apocrypha is combined with the Breton cycle of legends about King Arthur.

In medieval knightly legends, the Holy Grail is a mysterious symbol of the highest spiritual good, for the sake of which fearless feats are performed.