Well, do you think Christ would have worn with self-respect? — No, I don't. "Well, do you think He was an unfortunate Man?" Maybe He was wrong? "If He gave His life for everyone, then in theory He is an unhappy person. "He has conquered, He has conquered death, He is the Conqueror. Understand? This is the answer, the whole essence of Christianity is reduced to Christ, to the person of Christ.

That is why such paradoxical commandments are given by the Gospel. Are you reading the Gospel now? Agree, there are completely paradoxical commandments, for example: turn the other cheek to the one who insulted you. A scandalous commandment, of course, it has always been scandalous. I think that the Roman legionnaire did not turn the cheek to the neighbor who struck him more often than you and I did.

And the commandment does not depend entirely on time. What does the Lord focus on? Not for a while. And it is very important that morality does not depend on time in any way. It is guided by the will of God. You should always focus only on it. And what is this will expressed in? In the word of God, according to which we must act. In all cases where a person has a conflict between his desire and the word of God, what should he follow? The will of God, the word of God.

And, by the way, practice shows that such a person has never lost. A lot of people thought that if I did that, they wouldn't understand me, they wouldn't think of me that way. But a person who really acted according to the will of God, God always brought him out and raised him up. And a person who acted according to his own will necessarily always fell. And so, a brief expression of the will of God — these are the commandments. I have already listed them briefly.

So, the first commandment is this: "I am the Lord your God... thou shalt have no other gods before me" (Exodus 20:2-3). That is, you cannot worship gods other than the Lord, you need to worship God, serve Him, serve Him alone. By the way, this is why Christians, for example, do not serve the Motherland. They respect the Motherland, help it, but do not serve it. "Christians don't serve the Motherland?!"

"No, they go to the army, they take the oath. "But this is what it means to serve the Motherland. "I'm explaining to you what the difference is. To serve the Motherland is to put the Motherland in the first place. A Christian will never put the Motherland in the first place. When a conflict arises between the will of the Motherland and the will of God, what will a person follow? God. Here is a simple example. Soldiers shot civilians. What should a Christian soldier do? I must refuse. Although he may be court-martialed for this. But this is his right and duty.

- And if, for example, the enemies of the Church are shot? "Again, if he is on the battlefield, he can kill, fight, because he protects his own people. But this is only if the war is just, of course, in Chechnya, for example, when a person defends his loved ones, his relatives from terrorist attacks. I'm not talking about some wars that are unjust.

— And who determines whether the war is just or unjust? How to determine this? — It is very easy to determine. First, wars of conquest are rarely just. There are, but rarely. - In Chechnya then, one might say, there was a war of conquest. — Wars of conquest are just, but rarely. Why? Because it was necessary to free a hundred thousand of our captives. - And what about the war in Afghanistan?

- And it was an unjust war, of course. "And at that moment, many believed that this was a just war. "But again, Afghanistan is not our country, and the Afghans, sorry, did not steal ours, but we just came there. "And at that moment, let's say, if he doesn't know if it's a just war?" - To be honest, there was an unjust war in Afghanistan.

"Christians shouldn't have taken part in it, right? — Yes, that's right. When the war in Afghanistan was going on, Christians did not consider the USSR their homeland. For us, the USSR was an enemy country, this is a fact. This is a pure fact, because the USSR hated the Church and persecuted it with all its might. Yes, we served in the army, of course, we fulfilled our duty to the authorities, but we strove first to serve God, everyone fulfilled certain norms, minimal, so that people would not devour each other. But no more.

Christians have never had love for the USSR. "The government seems to have allocated money for the church..." You know, how it was in Soviet times, I remember it. There they ripped eight or ten thousand rubles a month from the church, imagine what kind of money it is! The so-called peace fund, to which the Soviet government contributed funds for communist parties and socialist organizations around the world.

The church was robbed in every possible way. But this is not the worst thing. Until 1986, priests were imprisoned, priests were in camps. Dozens of them were imprisoned. Our apartment was searched because those who distributed religious literature were persecuted. From the point of view of the Church, communism is, of course, a heresy, in the literal sense of the word, that is, it is an incorrect teaching about God, the world and man. About God – is it clear why?

Because he did not believe in God, he denied God. About the world, it is also clear why? He wanted to build the Kingdom of God without God on earth, that is, to build some kind of paradise on earth without God. — And what kind of state structure is justified then? The Church is a kingdom that is not of this world. For example, she believes that democracy is better than communism, and monarchy is better than democracy.

There are different levels, but monarchy is also not an ideal form of government, of course. — And what is the ideal form of government then? - The ideal form of government will be the Kingdom of Heaven. "But it still turns out to be a monarchy. Yes, but this is the monarchy of God, not of man. But again, the Church supports any state to the extent that the state fulfills the direct commandment of God, that is, which one? If it curbs evil.