21. Why did all the old books use the Lord's name with a small letter?

Well, not in all. Firstly, in the Church Slavonic language itself there is a rule to write with a small letter all sacred names, names of cities, rivers, seas. In the past, this was treated more calmly, because it was already clear to everyone that the Lord is Something that is always with a capital letter, and it was written not in books, but in the heart of man. And now, when there are many people who would like to write the name of the Lord with the smallest letter, it is not a sin to remind that this name is sacred and that we will not allow anyone to mock it, and we must remember that we live in an Orthodox country, and respect our faith, the faith of our ancestors, we must and must.

22. What is sin?

Sin is such a hole; For example, there is a wondrous, wondrous picture or shawl, as, for example, someone's mother wears a Pavlovo-Posad shawl, it is wonderfully beautiful, and suddenly a hole appears on this shawl, as in the picture of our life, and not just appears, we ourselves kind of tear it out slowly, picking, picking, until it appears, and at first it is not yet so large and imperceptible, you can sew it up, but if you go further, then soon there will be a solid hole instead of a handkerchief; That's the sin: first it's a small, and then an ever-widening hole, and how not to fall into it!

23. What will you be like in paradise?

The Apostle Paul says: "We will not all die, but we will all change." We will change so much that although we recognize each other there, we cannot understand from this what qualities a person will have in paradise. However, in part, covertly, we can reason about this on the basis of how the Lord appeared to His disciples in His human nature, but already glorified and transfigured – the one that will be with the righteous in paradise after the resurrection. He could pass through the "closed door," that is, through the walls when the doors were closed, He could walk with them and be unrecognized by them for some time. He could have been suddenly identified by them during the transfiguration of bread, become completely different, and at the same time remain the same as He was before His resurrection. Something similar will happen to those who are vouchsafed heavenly bliss.

24. What happens to the deceased people who died unbaptized, but who contributed to the prosperity of our country?

First of all, let's put the question more broadly. And the unbaptized, "who have not brought great benefit" – well, it is not worth talking about them, well, there is only one road left for them – to hell? Let's think about what the Lord says, "No man will come to my Father except through me." This means that without Christ, outside the Church, there can be no salvation. Indeed, without recognizing Christ as the Son of God, no one can be saved. But this does not mean that hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people who knew nothing about Christ and Christianity will be severely punished, think, for example, of the American Indians before the discovery of America by Columbus, or of the Africans, or of the Polynesians, or even of those people who may have heard something about Christianity, but have never had in their lives the experience of preaching about it – which could be called apostolic. But if a person saw the image of Christ before him, and suddenly for some reason did not accept it and turned away, and, like the Jews during Christ's life, said: "No, we have no king but Caesar, we do not want to be with you, Christ God!" but the judgment of God and this judgment is just and merciful.

25. I have various doubts now. I believe that there is hell and demons. But paradise and God, as they are told, are presented to me in a different way, somehow not so simple. How can I be confirmed in the faith?

Paradise is when God will be in every way and in all, when Christ will be and all who are Christ's around him, and when we will be in eternity with God, and when there will be our loved ones, those who will be vouchsafed, and all will be near, and nothing will be far away, when everyone will be truly neighbors, in whatever different ages they may live and in whatever different countries on earth they may be. And paradise is not some kind of place where pancakes with sour cream and strawberry jam fly right into your mouth. This was probably told or shown in fairy tales, well, an Orthodox person does not care about them. And what is hell? Hell is a Greek word, it comes from the even more ancient word "Avidus" – a place, as it is written in the Catechism of Metropolitan Philaret, invisible, that is, one where it is impossible not to see, not to know God. In hell, you will no longer see anything good or bright, you will not know and feel in your heart that you can be saved and changed, and this is very scary. This terrible state is hell, and not at all frying pans and not demons throwing logs into the fire.

26. God knows all things in the future; it means that He knows who will sin and who will not in any case, so why are we given a chance?

The Holy Scriptures say that the Lord desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the Truth, and He sent His Only-begotten Son, so that whoever believes in Him would not perish, but would gain eternal life. Salvation, as an opportunity, is given to each of us precisely as an opportunity – after all, every moment of our life, in every situation, the Lord is with us, so that we, like a thief on the cross, who even one minute before death could change and say: "Remember me, Lord, when you come into Your Kingdom" – and hear: "Today you will be in paradise." There are no people predestined to perdition or predestinated to salvation, but if the former is true, then the latter is also true; if we are not computers, and not refrigerators, and not televisions, but beings who have in us the image and likeness of God's freedom, then it means that we are saved not by force, but by cooperating with God, who saves us. There are great words of one of the saints: "God does not save us without us." Try to think carefully about these words. Christ saves us, but not without our answer and not without our effort.

27. Why does the Lord not forgive sinners in hell?

Because sinners themselves do not want it. Because those who are in hell are those who have voluntarily determined themselves in evil, they are those who have lived their lives saying: "No, I do not want, Christ God, I do not want Your salvation, nor Your sacrifice. My sin, my passion is dearer and more pleasant to me. God does not force anyone, neither in this life nor in the hereafter.