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Date: 06/22/2015 10:54:44

How does the Orthodox Church relate to Freemasonry?

answers Zheleznyak Sergey Evgenievich, religious scholar, assistant dean for missionary work

Good afternoon How does the Orthodox Church relate to Freemasonry, taking into account that upon entering the Masonic society, and in the future, each Freemason continues to profess the religious views with which he came to the lodge, and his great attention to his religion is welcomed? Thank you in advance for your response!

Hello!

There is no single conciliar definition regarding Freemasonry in Orthodoxy, but there are statements definitely against Freemasonry both in our Russian Orthodox Church and in others, for example, in the Greek Church.

Before I give these statements, I would like to point out how Freemasonry positions itself in relation to religion and, in particular, Christianity. The connection with religion in Freemasonry is indicated by the entire (or almost all) Masonic ritual and Masonic tradition. And here we can note a more noticeable connection with Judaism and Kabbalism than with Christianity. Initially, Freemasonry was a religious and political association. But in the last century and a half, this movement has increasingly severed its ties with traditional religion (and sometimes with religion in general).

Freemasonry is not a completely rigid, monolithic structure. Masonic lodges scattered throughout different countries of Europe and America often hold quite different views on religion, while at the same time general Masonic views and positions remain united.

You are partly right that Freemasonry does not prohibit the professing of religious views. But there is a fair amount of outright deceit in such a position. The declared religious tolerance in modern Freemasonry is rather PR and a way to lull vigilance. Scientologists also preach religious tolerance, but when a person begins to profess their views, the adherent’s attitude towards religion changes noticeably. The same is true in Freemasonry.

Well, now the Masonic judgments about religion.

“If in the old days masons were obliged to adhere in each country to the religion of that land or that people, now it is considered more appropriate to oblige them to have the only religion in which all people agree - leaving them, however, to have their own special (religious) opinions , - that is, to be good, conscientious people, full of sincerity and honest rules" (Book of Rules, James Anderson (XVII-XVIII centuries) James Adams is the founder of symbolic Freemasonry; interestingly, he is a priest of the Scottish Presbyterian Church.

I.V. Lopukhin (XVIII-XIX centuries), author of the “Moral Catechism of True Freemasons,” writes: “What is the Goal of the Order of True Freemasons?— Its main Goal is the same as the Goal of True Christianity. What should be the main Exercise (work) of true Freemasons? “Following Jesus Christ.”

Russian Freemasons remained associated with Christianity for quite a long time (at least nominally), were baptized, sincerely believed in God, and did not break with Orthodoxy. In Russia in the 17th and early 18th centuries, there were virtually no attacks or demarches against Orthodoxy and religion in general, which cannot be said about Western Europe. In the West, Freemasonry begins to rebel against religion quite early. For this reason, the Roman Catholic Church is taking, in particular, the following steps to protect its flock. In 1738, Pope Clement XII declared the excommunication of Roman Catholics from the Church if they joined the Masonic lodge. In the 20th century, this excommunication was officially repeated.

Here are the statements of Western Masons of far from the lowest degree (degree of initiation):

In 1863, at a congress of students in Liege, Freemason Lafargue defined the goal of Freemasonry “as the triumph of man over God”: “War on God, hatred of God! All the progress is in this! We must pierce the sky like a paper vault!”

The Belgian Freemason Kok declared at the International Masonic Congress in Paris “that we need to destroy religion,” and further, “through propaganda and even through administrative acts we will achieve the fact that we can crush religion.”

The Spanish revolutionary Freemason Ferrero, in his catechism for primary schools, writes: “God is only a childish concept caused by a sense of fear.”

“Down with the Crucified: You, who for 18 centuries have kept the world bowed under Your yoke, Your kingdom is over. No need for God! - says Freemason Fleury.

Some may say that this is only the private judgment of individual Masons. But here are the definitions of not individual individuals, but entire Masonic lodges:

“Let us not forget that we are anti-church, we will make every effort in our lodges to destroy religious influence in all the forms in which it manifests itself” (Congress at Belfort in 1911)

“Public education must first of all be freed from any spirit of clergy and dogmatism.” (Grand Orient Convention, 1909)

“We will energetically support freedom of conscience in everyone, but we will not hesitate to declare war on all religions, for they are the true enemies of humanity. Throughout all centuries, they have contributed only to discord between individuals and nations. Let us work, let us weave with our quick and dexterous fingers a shroud that will one day cover all religions; in this way we will achieve throughout the world the destruction of the clergy and the prejudices inspired by them” (Convention of the Grand Lodge of France, 1922)

“We can no longer recognize God as the goal of life; we have created an ideal that is not God, but humanity.” (Grand Orient Convention, 1913)

“We need to develop a morality that can compete with religious morality.” (Grand Eastern Convention, 1913, Ray of Light magazine, book 6, p. 48).

In the end, purely satanic self-confession also appears: “We are Freemasons,” says Altmeister of the Broklin Lodge “Lessing,” “we belong to the family of Lucifer.” The magazine of the Great Orient of Italy contains a hymn to Satan, which reveals the true essence of the order of Freemasons (brothers of freemasons): “I appeal to you, Satan, king of feasts! Down with the priest, down with your holy water and your prayers! And you, Satan, don’t step back! In matter that never rests, You, the living sun, the king of natural phenomena... Satan, you defeated God and the priests!”

Russian philosopher N.A. Berdyaev says the following about Freemasonry: “Freemasonry, first of all, has an anti-church and anti-Christian character (...). Now anti-Christian humanism prevails in Masonic ideology.”

Finally, I bring to your attention the judgments of the hierarchs of the Orthodox Church.

Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky): “Under the banner of the Masonic star, all the dark forces are working, destroying national Christian states. The Masonic hand took part in the destruction of Russia."

In 1932, the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia anathematized Freemasonry.

The Council of Bishops of the Greek Orthodox Church in 1933 gave the following definition of its attitude towards Freemasonry: “Unanimously and unanimously, we, all the bishops of the Greek Church, declare that Freemasonry is completely incompatible with Christianity, and therefore the faithful children of the Church must avoid Freemasonry. For we have unshakable faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, “in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace, which He has abundantly bestowed upon us in all wisdom and understanding” (Ephesians 1:7-8), which we have revealed to us. and the truth preached by the apostles “not in persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and Power” (1 Corinthians, 2, 4), and we partake of the Divine sacraments, by which we are sanctified and saved for eternal life, and therefore we should not fall away from the grace of Christ , becoming participants in alien sacraments. It is not at all fitting for any of those who belong to Christ to seek outside His deliverance and moral improvement. Therefore, true and genuine Christianity is incompatible with Freemasonry.”

Our present Patriarch Kirill, while still a metropolitan, also spoke negatively about Freemasonry as a secret organization that preaches exclusive submission to its leaders, a conscious refusal to disclose the essence of the organization’s activities to the church hierarchy and even in confession. “The Church cannot approve the participation of Orthodox lay people, much less clergy, in societies of this kind.”

I believe that this answer is sufficient within our limited framework. Trust in the Lord God and our Savior Jesus Christ, do not look for any new “revelation” - everything necessary for our salvation, as well as for the peaceful good life of all people on earth, was already given and revealed 2 thousand years ago. Do not be offended: “Then many will be offended, and will betray one another, and will hate one another; and many false prophets will arise and deceive many; and, due to the increase of iniquity, the love of many will grow cold; he who endures to the end will be saved” (Matthew 24:10-13).

If there is a class of people who are capable of loving a select few to the point of self-sacrifice, then there are much more numerous people who love no one but themselves, do not strive for anyone, do not yearn for anyone and absolutely do not want to lift a finger for anyone.

The class of people who truly love their neighbors, who look at every person as if they were their neighbors, just as the Merciful Samaritan looked at the Jew beaten by robbers, is an extremely small class of people.

Meanwhile, the Lord, wanting to confirm this view of people towards each other, wanting to spread this all-encompassing love between people, said a word that revealed the greatest meaning of this love, giving it such a meaning, such a height that would force people to cultivate it in themselves in every possible way.

Describing the Last Judgment, the Lord speaks of the conversation that will take place there between the terrible Judge and the human race.

Calling to Himself the good part of humanity, those who actually embodied this all-forgiving, tender, warm, caring love for people, the Lord will say to them:

“Come, blessed ones of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. You became hungry and gave Me food; you became thirsty and gave Me a drink; beh is strange, and you know Mena. Naked and clothed Me, sick and visited, I ran in prison and came to Me.”

They will ask when they saw the Lord in such a position and served Him. And He will answer: “Amen, I say to you: since you have created only these least of my brothers, you have created for Me.”

So, the Lord says that He Himself accepts everything that we do for people, thus putting Himself in the place of every unfortunate, sick, imprisoned, weak, suffering, offended and sinner, in the place of every person whom we pity with our impulse hearts and to whom we will help. It is also impossible not to pay attention to the fact that the Lord did not say: “Because you did it to one of these little ones in My name, you did it to Me.” He says only one thing: that everything done for a person, He accepts as done directly for Him.

This is the height He gives to the feat of love, mutual human help and favor... This is how He facilitates this feat by telling us: “When there is a person in front of you who needs to be helped, no matter how little you are attracted to him, no matter how He did not seem unpleasant and disgusting to you, say to yourself: “Christ lies before me, helpless, unhappy, requiring help; “Can I not provide this help to Christ?”

And if we force ourselves to look at every person we approach in this way, then, firstly, the world, crowded with people with their endless shortcomings, will seem to us populated by Angels and our heart will always be full of quiet, concentrated happiness in that feeling, that at every step of our lives we serve, help, console, and alleviate suffering directly to Christ.

It was necessary to see that the commandment that one must love one's neighbor as oneself caused outbreaks of discontent.

I love individual people, many say, but I cannot love and do not understand love for humanity. I love by choice, by vague desires, by commonality of views, by the qualities that captivate me in people, by their nobility... but how can I love such a multifaceted huge creature as humanity? Can I look at a brother, treat him like a being personally dear to me, someone who arouses in me disgust, a disgusting feeling, whom I can only despise and hate... not to mention the fact that more Some people at least didn’t exist for me. I love a few, I hate others, I am completely indifferent to the rest, and you can’t ask for more from me.

But let a person who reasons in this way ask himself, are there such traits in his character that he would be as pleasing to God as some of the people he has chosen are pleasing to him personally? What would have happened if the Lord had reasoned towards him the way he reasons towards most people, what would have happened if the Lord had treated him with perhaps well-deserved hatred or only with indifference?

The Lord, whatever he may be, showed towards him an equally great act of His immortal love.

The Lord, who makes everyone equal in His love, the Lord, who illuminates with the rays of His sun, who sends His gifts to both the good and the graceless, the Lord, who commands us to seek those perfections with which He Himself shines - the Lord expects us to look at other people just as He looks at them Himself.

There is some kind of wild horror in the fact that we, sinful, disgusting creatures, cannot treat people with even a small fraction of the condescension with which He, the source of perfection, the most radiant Shrine, treats us and all of them. ...

* * *

And first of all, the wrongness of our relationships with people lies in our constant condemnation. This is perhaps the most common and worst of the flaws in human relationships.

The horror of condemnation consists, first of all, in the fact that we assign to ourselves new rights that do not belong to us, that we seem to be piled on that throne of the Supreme Judge, which belongs only to the Lord alone - “Vengeance is mine and I will repay.”

And may there not be a single judge in the world except the terrible, but also merciful Judge - the Lord God!.. How can we judge, who do not see, do not know and do not understand anything? How can we judge a person when we do not know what heredity he was born with, how he was raised, in what conditions he grew up, what unfavorable circumstances he was surrounded by? We don’t know how his spiritual life developed, how the conditions of his life embittered him, what temptations his circumstances tempted him with, what speeches the human enemy whispered to him, what examples influenced him - we don’t know anything, we don’t know anything, but we undertake to judge!

Examples of such persons as Mary of Egypt, the mother and source of debauchery, as thieves who repented, starting with the one who hung at the right hand of Christ on the cross and before whom the doors of paradise were first opened wide, and ending with those numerous thieves who now shine in the crowns of holiness: All these people show that it is terrible to pronounce premature and blind erroneous judgment on people.

Anyone who condemns people shows his lack of faith in Divine grace. The Lord, perhaps, allows people who will later become great righteous people and His great glorifiers to sin, in order to protect them from the worst evil - spiritual pride.

There is a story about a quarrel between two monastery elders. Both were already frail, having lived a life close to seclusion, they could not quarrel in person, and, having quarreled over something, one sent his cell attendant to the other. The cell attendant, despite his youth, was filled with wisdom and meekness.

It used to be that the elder would send him with the order: “Tell that elder that he is a demon.”

The cell attendant will come and say: “The elder greets you and ordered to tell you that he considers you an Angel.”

Annoyed by such a soft and affectionate greeting, that elder will say: “Tell your elder that he is an ass.”

The cell attendant will go and say: “The elder is grateful to you for your greetings, greets you in return and calls you a great sage.”

Thus replacing the words of abuse and condemnation with words of meekness, peace and love, the young sage finally achieved that the anger of the elders completely disappeared, as if it had melted, scattered, and they were reconciled with each other and began to live in exemplary love.

So we do: by condemnation, abuse, ridicule, and rude treatment of people we will not do anything, but will only harden them, while quiet kind words, treating the sinner as a great righteous person, will most likely bring the most inveterate person to repentance and cause a saving revolution.

There was such a person who breathed love, condescension, and forgiveness - Elder Seraphim of Sarov. He was so affectionate that when he saw people approaching him, he first beckoned them to come to him with words, then suddenly, not mastered by the pressure of the holy love that filled his soul, he quickly headed towards them shouting: “Come to me, come.”

In every person he saw the Son of God standing behind him, he honored, perhaps, the barely smoldering, but nevertheless in every person the spark of Divinity that was certainly present, and when he bowed to everyone who came at the feet, kissed the hands of those who came to him, he bowed to them , as children of God, for whom the Lord shed His blood, as for the great purpose of the Lord’s sacrifice...

Without judging people himself, Father Seraphim did not tolerate condemnation from others. And when, for example, he heard that children began to condemn their parents, he immediately covered the mouths of these condemners with his hand.

Ah, if only we could adhere to the same holy rules of love and condescension in our mutual relationships!

Why is this not so? Look at our morals.

Someone is sitting visiting. They are friendly and affectionate with him, they try in every possible way to show him that he is pleasant and even necessary for these people. They say they miss him and ask him to come back soon. And as soon as he walked out the door, his cruelest condemnation began. They often invent and slander him various fables, which they themselves do not believe, they drag others in, and when one of these others appears, they exclaim:

Oh, how glad we are to see you! Just ask Ivan Petrovich - just now they remembered you!..

But as they recalled, this, of course, will not be said.

A person enters some large society: how many suspicions are about him, how many sidelong glances are directed at him! Does anyone succeed in life: “This man makes amazing progress with his impudence.” Does anyone sit in their place in life, not moving or improving: “What a mediocre person. It’s clear that he’s unlucky, who needs people like that!”

Wait, you who kill people with the word - “Who needs it?” He is needed by God, who suffered for him and shed His blood for him. You need him so that, avoiding the terrible sentence for the mortal sin of your condemnation, you can show other feelings on him and, instead of condemning him, feel sorry for him and help him.

He is needed in the general plan of God's economy. The Lord created him, and it is not your business to condemn the One who called him to life and who tolerates him, just as He tolerates you, perhaps a thousand times more worthy of condemnation than this man.

Your heart boils with indignation when you see how distorted our mutual relationships are, how we cannot do anything in the simplicity of thought and the nobility of Christian love.

Look how many different measures this man has for meetings, conversations and dealing with people, how many different tones, ranging from sweet, searching, as if he is crawling in front of the one he is talking to, to arrogant, rude and commanding.

I was told about one official, who considered himself a liberal, that he said to his boss, to whom he owed a lot: “You know, by the fact that you brought me to this place, I am so obliged to you that I am ready to do whatever you want. I assure you, if you asked me to clean your boots, I would do it with pleasure.”

He was surprisingly sweet towards the people he was looking for, flattering them as best he could; he treated people he didn’t need with boorish self-confidence; towards people who needed him, he was rude and arrogant.

Meanwhile, we should have only two tones, two attitudes: a filial-slave, enthusiastic, reverent attitude towards Christ and an even soft one, alien to ingratiation, on the one hand, impudence and arrogance, on the other, indifferent to all people.

There is a lofty concept in England, which in Russia is understood completely differently than in this country of remarkable character development. This is the concept of "gentleman". In English, a “gentleman” is a person who will not knowingly do anything to another that could offend that other person or cause him any harm or trouble. On the contrary, this is a person who will do everything he can for everyone, and to the extent that he can.

It is in this concept of gentlemanliness, of course, that true Christian attitudes towards people lie. Meet with a person in order to provide him, at least by constraining oneself, with help and sympathy; and if you don’t do him a favor, then at least look at him kindly and with disposition - this is a truly gentlemanly act.

And the Englishman will return, hurrying somewhere, from his road, to show the way to you, a visiting foreigner; he will stand for a long time and give you the explanations that you ask him, he will take on the trouble of checking in the luggage of the lady he meets - in a word, as they say, he will be torn to pieces in order to serve you.

And whether you are rich, noble, beautiful and interesting, or whether you are bad, poor, no one needs you, his treatment of you will be equally even and pleasant.

* * *

Often the kindness that we show to people requires heroic deeds from us, requires the exertion of our strength, requires that we deprive ourselves of something for these people. But a kind person, in addition to this difficult good, will find many occasions to apply his kindness where this kindness, having brought a very significant benefit to a person, will not require any work or deprivation from him.

We heard about some very profitable enterprise, which we ourselves, perhaps, could not enter into, and we told about this enterprise to a person who had sufficient funds for it - so we helped the person without working at all.

Is there any merit in such a thing? Yes, of course there is. This merit lies in the good will, in the care with which we treated the person, in our determination to be useful to him.

Imagine that a person entered a large, unfamiliar society of people who were higher than him. If this person is also shy, he goes through extremely unpleasant moments. And there will be someone who will notice how constrained he is, how uncomfortable he is, and will come up to him and speak to him kindly - and then the person’s constraint disappears, and he is no longer so afraid.

After the first, the second will approach him - and the ice that he felt in this company seems to have cracked. It may be the other way around. There may not be a single sympathetic person, and a newcomer to this society will feel unpleasant, embarrassed and false until the end of his stay in it.

Often even one kind look, an approving smile, or a casual word is extremely helpful to a person who is embarrassed about something. But not all people understand the importance of mutual assistance, mutual favors and approval. And some people, who consider themselves almost righteous, snap when they need to provide even the slightest service to another.

I once had to be present at a quarrel between two spouses of different mental moods, who were completely unsuitable for each other and who soon had to separate.

It was in the huge Pavlovsk Park, where it’s so easy for someone who doesn’t know how to get lost. These couple were walking when a out of breath lady approached them and asked:

How can I get to the station? I only have twenty minutes left before the train. I'm terribly afraid of being late.

The young husband, who knew the park very well, realized that if you start explaining to her in words, she will certainly go astray and you need to walk with her for about five minutes to bring her to a place where there is a straight and clear road. He immediately said to the lady:

Let me accompany you,” and quickly went with her.

His wife, who constantly made scenes for him, raised her eyes to the sky indignantly, and when he returned five minutes later, having taken the lady to the right place, she began to reproach him for having treated her in an extremely impolite and disrespectful manner when leaving her.

She saw her husband twenty-four hours a day and found that to spend five minutes with a person in difficulty was to treat her with disrespect... a peculiar and, of course, wrong view.

* * *

It is strange that in childhood there are some manifestations of senseless, sophisticated cruelty. How much do the so-called “newbies” endure, for example, from their comrades? Indelicate questions, all kinds of injections, kicks, pinches on the arm under the guise of trying the material with questions “how much did you buy it for,” and the same anger of the tormentors, whether the boy will respond to abuse with abuse or timidly press himself against the wall, not daring to resist his tormentors.

But even in this environment of little villains, there are children with a noble innate character, who have managed to make a position for themselves in the class and who stand up for the unfairly persecuted newcomers.

Of course, such noble boys will continue to show the same nobility in life.

There are still such characters who are cruelly offended and worried by any violence of man against man. These people were worried about the injustices and abuses of landowners over peasants during the days of serfdom. These people, arms in hand, will rush to defend the rights of an entire people, trampled upon by another, stronger people. This was the attitude of Russia towards the Slavs of the Balkan Peninsula for several centuries, since the Balkan states grew up, one might say, on the Russian blood shed for their freedom.

In the very power of man over man there is something deeply dangerous for the soul of the person who has this power.

It is not for nothing that the best people of all centuries were afraid of this power and often abandoned it. Those Christians who set their slaves free when they were imbued with Christ’s covenants, realized, of course, how much wrong there was in ruling over other people, and they themselves, like the great merciful Paulinus, Bishop of Noland, themselves preferred to become slaves than to keep others in slavery .

During the days of serfdom, many blatant lawlessnesses were committed. The peasants suffered many unheard-of, cruel insults from other landowners, who, intoxicated with their power, reached the point of some kind of brutality and often even (the height of sinful depravity) found pleasure in tormenting and torturing their serfs.

Blessed be the name of that tsar who, with a warm heart, understood the terrible torments of the Russian peasantry and, freeing them from serfdom, at the same time freed the landowners from the terrible temptation - power over human souls, the right to use free labor.

The easiest way is to feel sorry for those people whose suffering occurs before our eyes. If we see a person shivering in the cold, barely covered with rags; if we hear a voice barely escaping from this numb body; if timid, hopeless glances are directed at us, it will be strange that our heart is not touched by this voice, that we do not try to help this person with something... But a higher mercy consists in predicting such grief that we do not we see, to go towards such suffering that is not yet in our sight.

It is precisely this feeling that inspires the actions of people who found hospitals, shelters, and almshouses; after all, these people have not yet seen those suffering and in need of their help who will use the houses of mercy founded by them, and, so to speak, feel sorry for them in advance.

It's frosty. Deep evening over quiet Ukraine. In the city of Belgorod, everyone hid in their houses from the cold. Trees with faded branches shine, bathed in the silvery rays of the moon. In the frosty air the quiet tread of a man dressed as a commoner can be heard. But when the moon falls on his face, one can immediately guess that this man is of high birth. He approaches poor huts, carefully looks around to see if anyone sees him, and then, quickly placing on the window sill either a bundle of laundry, or some provisions, or money wrapped in paper, he knocks to attract the attention of the people inside. , and quickly disappears.

This is Bishop Joasaph of Belgorod, the future great wonderworker of the Russian land, making a secret round of the poor before the holiday of the Nativity of Christ, so that they can celebrate this holiday in joy and satiety.

And the next day firewood will be brought to some poor people from the market - this is the saint who secretly sends heating to those who are freezing from poverty from the cold in unheated huts.

* * *

Great mercy towards people and a caring attitude towards them in no way excludes wise firmness and the use of punishment where a person sins. Some researchers of the life of the same great saint Joasaph are perplexed by the fact that, despite his extremely developed mercy, with its most tender and touching manifestations, he, on the other hand, was harsh with those who were guilty. But there is nothing strange or inexplicable about this. The saint preferred that a person should suffer punishment better on earth than in heaven, so that the suffering suffered as punishment would cleanse his soul and free him from responsibility in eternity.

How much wiser was the saint’s view in this regard than the modern view of crime, now expressed very often by judges of conscience.

Recently, crimes have become extremely frequent - among other things, because retribution for them has become extremely insignificant, and because proven crimes very often remain without any punishment.

A person with common sense who has recently had to serve as a juror was simply horrified at the sight of the degree to which we show leniency towards a criminal. There are absolutely outrageous cases in which the jury definitely pushes the people they acquit to new crimes.

I had to be present at a hearing in one case, where several healthy guys were accused of robbing an old woman about seventy years old, attacking her in her room, and cutting out of her skirt one and a half thousand rubles, which she had accumulated through the work of her whole life and represented the only the source of its existence.

A whole gang was organized here, which tried to move her from the house where she had previously lived and where it was not so convenient to commit a crime, to a den where an attack could promise success. The attackers were wearing masks. The whole crime was led by a scoundrel who was in connection with the robbers.

The sight of this helpless old woman, old-fashionedly dressed, with a tattered reticule in her hands, inspired the most ardent, burning regret. And you can imagine that, despite the proven crime, the scoundrels were acquitted.

There they babbled the sacred name of love, and the eloquent lawyer argued that the robbers were hypnotized by the woman, who, by the way, was not found, and acted in a frenzy of love.

In general, this is one of the tricks of the modern legal profession - to say that a person acted under the influence of love and is therefore irresponsible. During the same jury session, another egregious case began to be considered, but was postponed due to the absence of the necessary important witness.

One artel worker, who served in a large bank, embezzled and squandered something like ten thousand rubles. The artel worker, a capable man, formerly in military service, about forty years old, was married in the village and had children. In the city, he was in connection with a special person who was present at the event as a spectator in an elegant dress and an incredibly large hat. There were rumors that the wasted money was used by him to buy this person a dacha at one of the stations on the Finnish Railway.

As always happens with embezzlement in artels, the wasted amount was replenished with contributions from all other artel members, all married people with large families. You can imagine that voices were heard among the jury that he could hardly be found guilty, since he also acted under the influence of love for this person.

* * *

The question of retribution belongs to one of the main issues. Christianity does not know forgiveness without the guilt being mitigated by appropriate punishment. When the first man fell, God could have forgiven his guilt before Him, but He did not.

Having established the unshakable truth, His indisputable laws, the Lord did not want to violate this truth. And in order for a person to be forgiven, it was necessary to make a sacrifice, outlined, perhaps, before the creation of the worlds. The incarnate God, our Lord Jesus Christ, had to offer the sacrifice of the cross in order to remove from man the curse under which he had brought himself through the fall. Just understand the full force of these words, that Almighty God could not violate the law of retribution established by Him. And since the Fall was so great that no measure, no suffering could atone for the crime he had committed, then in order to atone for this crime, the suffering of the Divine was necessary. The weight of the scales of justice could not rise upward without the greatest burden being placed on another cup, the burden of earthly life, humiliation, the burden of suffering and death on the cross of the Son of God.

This phrase seems terrible and incredible, it seems unpronounceable: the Lord could not forgive a person without demanding an appropriate reward for it, but it is so: he could not.

When a known crime is committed, appropriate retribution must be brought for it. This is the establishment of God's law, which cannot be gone against, which cannot be violated. And the punishment must be in accordance with the suffering that this crime causes to another person.

Imagine that some scoundrel encroached on the honor of a young girl or an undeveloped child: crimes that, precisely because of their low punishability, are currently encountered with amazing frequency.

In the morning, the mother let go of her cheerful, joyful, healthy child, and a few hours later, at the whim of the scoundrel, a tortured half-corpse returns to her, with a crumpled, wounded soul, with an indelible shame, with a painful memory for the rest of her days.

How can you cry for mercy to such a person? How can a mother's feeling, in comparison with the destruction of her daughter's fate, come to terms with the fact that this man, having been politely placed in the dock, will be politely interrogated and then, perhaps, announced that he acted in the heat of passion, especially if he was intoxicated? .

I think that kind but fair people would demand the most severe punishment for such a person, from whom, as they say, the blood would freeze in his veins, so that the person who made the unfortunate girl and her loved ones suffer so insanely would suffer even worse.

I think that there would be fair, virtuous, but harsh in their truth, people who would gladly drive nails into the body of a scoundrel with their own hands, so that, as they say, others would be disgraced, in order to protect other girls from such things with the horror of punishment. assassinations and other villains from such violence.

Nowadays, crimes of dousing with sulfuric acid are horrifyingly common. Then a young student, the only son of a millionaire engineer, was doused in the face with sulfuric acid by an old chorus girl who had tired of him with her pestering, and the unfortunate man was left disfigured, with an eye barely half saved and the other one dead. The interested groom, who was rejected by a rich bride after she exposed his low soul, drenches her until she is blind. Then the clerk, serving for a rich merchant and who made a marriage proposal to his daughter, a young student, and was refused, pours sulfuric acid on this girl, and at the same time, along with her, her sister.

Let us now see whether the paltry modern punishments for such horrendous crimes are commensurate with the misery they cause.

Personally, I would rather be executed than doused with sulfuric acid. Just imagine: a girl at the best time of her life, rich in hopes, striving for knowledge - suddenly blind, helpless, useless to anyone, with a face that a few days ago shone with beauty, and now represents a complete ulcer, which the closest people cannot look at without shuddering. .

And he, after a polite negotiation with him, will serve several years in prison: five - six - ten - and will return to life again full of strength, with the opportunity to create a happy existence for himself.

Where is the justice? And this easy responsibility only encourages others to engage in the same abominations. And it would seem that the way to stop these incredible crimes would be very simple.

It is only sufficient to establish the law that a person who pours sulfuric acid on another person undergoes the same operation in the same parts of the body. Do you really think that this law will have to be applied? Once or twice, and this crime will be uprooted, because no matter how evil such scoundrels are, they first of all tremble for their own skin and the prospect of being left without eyes or disfigured will undoubtedly subside their ferocity.

By being mindful of such crimes, we commit the greatest evil by proliferating crimes. As was the case with the robbery of an old woman by hefty robbers, we deliberately forget about the helpless victim of the crime, an honest, working victim, pitying the frenzied scoundrels, parasites and dirty tricks.

* * *

There is a good that must be given the strange name of “harmful good.”

This is a good thing that we agree to out of regret for a person, and we are not able to subordinate this regret to the voice of reason, and it only brings harm to a person.

The category of such goodness includes, first of all, the pampering of people - whether it be the pampering of a small child, a teenager, an adult man, an empty-headed lady begging her husband for money that he cannot give at his own expense, for those excessive outfits that she demands from empty and dangerous feminine swagger.

In one family, a two-year-old girl was excessively pampered. She had a lot of elegant dresses, all kinds of shoes, an innumerable number of hats, umbrellas, not to mention toys. At home they didn’t know how or how to please her; they fulfilled her every whim.

Several times a day the girl was capricious and cried - this happened carefully every time she dressed - after sleep, and also when she went to bed in the evening.

She would calm down only if they gave her candy or gave her something. Looking at this madness, I was involuntarily horrified that her parents were so spoiling her in preparing for her in the future. Firstly, they undermined her nervous system with these repeated cries and whims a day, with which she earned, so to speak, the constant fulfillment of her fantasies. And most importantly, they were preparing the saddest fate for her in the future.

Already now, in these infant years, she was the manager of the entire house, in the morning she prescribed what dress she would wear in the morning and what she would change into later. She got absolutely everything she wanted. And in such pampering she had to spend all the years of her life in her parents’ house, not knowing any refusal.

But then that real life was supposed to come, which is rather too cruel than soft, which gives nothing for nothing, in which everything is gained by battle and which in most cases destroys our best dreams one after another.

What terrible suffering later threatened the life of this utterly spoiled creature! Was it possible to hope that her fantasies would all be fulfilled in life as exactly as their unreasonable parents fulfilled them? How could one be sure that everything she wanted in life would come true? Was it possible to guarantee that she would be given everything to which she stretched out her hands? And who could promise that if she loved someone, they would answer her with the same love?

This one circumstance, so important in a woman’s life, threatened her with the greatest complication.

In general, it was crazy for her parents to indulge her in everything, instead of encouraging her to think about the struggle of life, about the trials ahead of her, about how rarely fate gives a person what he dreams of, no matter how sometimes these dreams may seem simple, easily accessible, legal.

To accustom a child to struggle, to accustom him to the fact that for higher reasons he refuses what he wants, and for the same reasons knows how to do what he does not want and what is extremely unpleasant for him, is the main task of proper education.

To break character, to contribute to the fact that everything in life subsequently seems shrouded in dark clouds, and all people seem to be personal enemies - this is what the reckless pampering of children and indulging them in everything leads to...

And here is another example of how dangerous it is to fulfill all sorts of people’s requests without reasoning.

It is known that Russian youth have recently adopted the disgusting habit of living beyond their means.

Before the officer has time to serve in the regiment for several months on a salary sufficient to keep himself in line with his rank, he already has large debts.

In guards regiments, where expenses are higher, parents usually, in addition to the salary the youth receives, give them a monthly allowance. But, sufficient for a prudent life, it is insignificant for the expenses that young people begin to afford.

Do you know,” says one of these officers, “the last time I dined in a good restaurant with my friend, how much did they charge me for a small bowl of fruit? Twenty-five rubles, and the whole bill came out to sixty.

Meanwhile, this young man received from his father, who had no other means except a seven to eight thousand salary, an allowance of fifty rubles a month, which was already difficult for his father, since he had three more adult children on his hands and all of them helped.

With such inappropriate expenses, the son fell into debt, which the family paid off twice for him - something like three and a half thousand.

In addition, he borrowed left and right from his acquaintances, from richer comrades. At the same time, he was very unscrupulous.

Some acquaintance, who lives by his own labor and has nothing extra, will give him thirty or forty rubles under his oath promise that tomorrow he will have a paycheck and that he will return everything from this paycheck to him tomorrow evening. Or he will beg a friend, when he does not have money, to borrow for him.

He will borrow for a day, but he will have to pay for it himself.

To the horror of his family, he became involved with one of those ladies who live at the expense of others, and this increased his expenses. He was not shy with government sums and one day he came early in the morning to a comrade with the good news that he had squandered the recruits’ money entrusted to him, that his immediate superior had already asked him several times to present this money and that he finally ordered him to present it that same morning, on nine o'clock. If he had not done this, a major official scandal would have occurred.

The comrade had no money at home at that time; he had to borrow from several people at such an early hour in order to cover this crime.

Several close acquaintances, a few days later, were talking about this, and one of them, an elderly man, distinguished by a big heart, but also by strict, definite views, said:

I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong, but it seems to me that you shouldn’t have helped him out... According to everything that I know about him, he is an incorrigible person, and the constant services that all his acquaintances provide him are to their detriment , only give him the opportunity to burrow deeper and deeper. A major catastrophe in the form of exclusion from service, in which he is, however, completely useless, alone could bring him to his senses. He would finally understand that he couldn’t live like this anymore and that he had to make a sharp turn. As a capable person who can work well, if he doesn’t go on a spree, he could still get back on his feet.

In the end, this officer had to leave military service and accept a modest place in the civilian service. He broke with his family when his lady forced him to marry herself, and completely left the circle in which he was born.

Fate, as they say, bewitches a person. He bore a good, honest name, had good abilities, influential family and acquaintances, was pleasant in conversation and, distinguished by himself, had sufficient support for service in the guard, for his simple disposition he was loved by the comrades of the privileged institution where he was brought up... And what was the purpose of all this? I am sure that the fatal significance in his life was that first extra ruble that his parents gave him when he began to beg from them against the monthly money allotted to him, the first piece of paper he borrowed from his friends, while he always had enough, to support yourself with dignity.

It is in Russia that parents must be especially strict with themselves when it comes to pampering their children. It happens that all the children are hard-working and modest, but one is a carouser, and before you know it, he has already incurred debts. And then, to save, as they say, family honor, to pay off these debts, shamelessly increased by usurers, the family wealth is used, the sisters’ dowry is spent, the entire way of life of the family changes... Why? Why should many suffer because of the folly of one?

It was as if, in a Christian way, they pitied one, but at the same time offended many and, in essence, crowned vice and shamelessness by punishing virtue.

* * *

In the broad question of our attitude towards our neighbors, an important aspect is our attitude towards the lower ones.

There is nothing worse than if a person is seriously convinced that he, being nobler and richer than another, is much higher than this other person; may be impolite with him, may command and dispose of him.

Firstly, these people themselves are digging a hole for themselves, so to speak. After all, if I make such a difference between myself and a person standing below me, then how should I expect that another person standing above me would make the same difference between me and himself as much as I consider myself superior to that other person? the person I despise.

Thus, I must convince myself in advance that people who are much superior to me should already consider me a complete scum and insignificance...

How flattering all this is for me!

We, especially in Russia, as a relic of serfdom, have preserved some kind of attitude towards lower people, which can only be called boorish.

In foreign lands, servants do not allow you to talk to them the way we talk to them. There is no such custom of speaking to lower people on a first name basis.

Let us remember here, by the way, the remarkable opinion of Elder Seraphim of Sarov on this important issue. He found in general that it was impossible and unnecessary for people to say “you” to each other, that this was a violation of the Christian simplicity of human relations. But Elder Seraphim assumed and considered it natural that all people would begin to speak “you” - and the servant would say “you” to the master, and the commoner would say “you” to the nobleman... But with us it’s just the opposite.

One foreigner who came to America allowed himself to speak rudely to the servant he hired and received a firm rebuke from him.

Let me advise you,” said the servant, “since you do not know American morals, not to treat servants in America in this way.” Otherwise, you will not find anyone who would agree to serve you for a long time... If you do not know or do not want to do what you invited me to help you with, if I agree to this help you, then I think you should first Just be grateful for this and treat me kindly... It’s a pity that you in Europe look at this differently.

It would be a good idea for all of us to learn this lesson from the American servant.

In fact, what a service all these cooks, maids, footmen provide to us, and the extent of this service is clearly visible when suddenly you, even for a day, are left without them: then everything goes topsy-turvy, and you are helpless.

But how do we treat them?

Their personality does not exist for us - a sad remnant of the views of those times when people were considered tens, hundreds and thousands of “souls”.

Nowhere, as in Russia, are people so poorly placed. In Europe, no servants will fit in the kitchen. There is no custom in large houses to have basements for servants. In England, in rich mansions, the top floor is reserved for them. They, like gentlemen, have their own baths, do not eat on the go, casually, but have strictly defined hours for their meals. They sit down decorously at a table covered with a white tablecloth, with dishes from a separate set, and none of the gentlemen would think of disturbing them during this meal, just as the gentlemen themselves do not have the custom of disturbing their guests during their meals.

Except for holidays, they have the right to go out in the evenings.

This seems insignificant on the surface. But this is a brilliant example of the Christianization of human relations.

In general, our attitude towards the people subordinate to us cannot but cause bitterness in the souls of those just people who witness such treatment. These compassionate and just people firmly remember the words of Christ that the Angels of these humiliated people always see the face of the Heavenly Father. Let us add that, probably, these Angels are telling God about the insults that these lower ones suffer because of the cruelty of these higher ones.

Elder Seraphim of Sarov, a contemporary of the abuses of serfdom, was deeply grieved by the grief of the serfs. Knowing that one general had bad managers and poor peasants, the elder persuaded that same Manturov, who became impoverished to build the Diveyevo church, to go to this estate as a manager. And Manturov in a short time raised the well-being of the peasants.

The elder reprimanded the landowners for their heartless and rude attitude towards the peasants and deliberately, in front of the gentlemen who came to him with their servants, treated the serfs with tenderness and affection, sometimes turning away from the gentlemen themselves for this purpose.

In modern disagreements between masters and servants, much of the blame lies with the servants. The fragrant type of the former devoted faithful servants, loving the family they serve and living in the interests of this family, is disappearing almost without a trace.

Remember Savelich, a kind nurturer and friend of Grinev’s mischievous youth, the groom of the “Captain’s Daughter”; Evseich - the glorious nurturer Bagrov-grandson of S. T. Aksakov, Natalya Savishna from “Childhood” by Count L. N. Tolstoy, nanny Tatyana Larina from “Eugene Onegin”; the ascetic nanny Agafya from Turgenev’s “The Noble Nest”, who formed in her pet, Liza Kalitina, her noble, harmonious, integral worldview.

How far these fragrant images are from modern Russian reality!

What an abyss separates this nanny Agafya with her important thoughts about eternity, with her stories about how the martyrs of Christ shed their blood for the faith and how wonderful flowers grew on this blood: what an abyss separates these Agathias, Savelichs, Evseichs from the current brawlers, irritable and unhappy servants.

What an ulcer this is, this dishonesty of theirs, with which the owners must be in constant struggle, constantly on guard. They deceive in the most blatant way. When they are caught in theft, they swear such oaths that it’s simply scary to listen to: “God destroy me, may I not leave this place, if I have profited from your penny... so that I don’t see the light of God... they swear on their heads loved ones” - and they obviously lie.

The servants do not value their place at all, not at all getting used to the family - not getting used to the house, as even the most crafty, ungrateful and vile of domestic animals - cats - get accustomed to.

They change places not because they are dissatisfied, not because the work is too much or the owners are too demanding and capricious, but simply because they have lived for a long time.

So what! It’s healed: that’s the whole explanation for you.

For people with common sense, it would seem undeniable that if you have lived in one place for a long time, this is how you should live... But no.

Again, we need to look at foreign lands. There servants value their places so much - especially in France - that they often consider changing places not only a misfortune, but also a shame. There, people often live in the same family for decades and die in the same families where they began their service.

With a patriarchal life, a healthy and modest life, devoid of any frills, the servants generally feel much happier: the difference between their life and the life of the masters is not particularly sharp.

But where life has been turned into a continuous frantic holiday, incredibly expensive, where a woman spends thousands and tens of thousands of rubles on her outfits alone, where many thousands are thrown away on one evening in order to throw dust in the eyes of society, where they eat on gold and The master's car is decorated with fresh flowers every day - this way of life, this sinful and criminal luxury fills the lower ones with great envy. The servants begin to foolishly imitate the masters in their squandering, and the secondary servants, whose monthly salary does not exceed twelve rubles, begin to sew silk dresses for themselves with tails.

I once heard a conversation, on the one hand, funny, but on the other hand, tragic in its senselessness, in the perversion of people’s common sense.

One lady had an ugly village girl as her servant, who asked her for a salary in advance in the sixth week of Lent and at the same time constantly asked her to go to the dressmaker.

What is it, Dunya, - asked the lady, - that you have such big business with the dressmaker?

But what about: I’m sewing a dress for myself for communion, I’m going to fast.

Yes, you have a light dress, and a very good one.

Is it really possible to partake in a formal dress? After all, I will be hanging out with my friends. There will also be guys we know who live here locally. They will laugh if one of us appears in an old dress.

And the dress was made: something awkward, with a long train, while Easter was early, and there was nowhere to escape the sticky mud on the streets.

Fuss with the dressmaker is all that this poor girl will take out of her shit, and even a new dress with a long tail.

But if this seems wild to you, then, after all, the ladies themselves are better, with the only difference being that their dresses are more luxurious, more expensive and there is more fuss, but the same attitude towards that Sacrament, which requires complete concentration of the spirit.

Gentlemen roam around in cars - now give the servants a car too. Many maids now make it a condition for their grooms that the bride must have a taxi - otherwise she won’t even go to church.

And so it is in everything: masters set a bad example, and servants follow this example.

If servants steal, it is mainly because their old age is not at all secure.

Some positions, like the position of a cook, have a devastating effect on health, since they stand at a hot stove for several hours in the cold air blowing through an open window, since otherwise it is difficult for her to breathe - this has a devastating effect on health, shortens life, and causes incurable rheumatism .

And what should a servant who has no one close to her do when she gets old - but beg!

It would be fair that families using the work of servants should be subject to at least a light tribute - for example, one ruble a month and more or less, depending on the salary paid to the servants, and thus constitute untouchable capital, from which those who have lost the ability to work the servants could receive a pension or be kept in an almshouse.

Sometimes people seem decent and well-mannered to you, but a sudden glimpse of their attitude towards the servants shatters your assumption.

In one rich house a group was sitting, talking about various interesting issues... They were drinking tea. The recently arrived son of the hostess, an officer of a smart regiment stationed in the vicinity of the capital, rudely interrupted the young footman, who served him something not as he wished.

Donkey, bastard,” he said angrily under his well-groomed mustache.

I noticed how one very well-mannered man who had great influence winced with displeasure. An hour later we walked down the stairs at the same time.

That’s how he was raised,” he said thoughtfully. - I thought that Marya Petrovna’s children were raised differently.

This young officer subsequently had to serve under the command of this gentleman. They said that he somehow did not let him move. And more than once I had occasion to recall that fleeting scene in which this influential man with a subtle soul noticed an unbearable rudeness for him in this seemingly polished, but in essence rude and impudent young man. And since this gentleman equally hated both rudeness and servility - and these two traits are almost always inseparable from one another - he looked with understandable distrust, as an unreliable person, at this two-faced - polite before some and impudent before others who could not resist him - a man...

* * *

In the question of the relationship between superiors and inferiors, one cannot ignore the question of workers and employers.

Human nature pushes a person seeking labor to ask for this labor as dearly as possible, just as it pushes a person who hires another for labor to offer him this labor at the lowest possible price. And usually an average figure is established, which is not unprofitable for both.

But in most cases, power is on the employer’s side, and it is easy for him, as they say, to “squeeze” the employee.

In the village these people are called “kulaks”.

A "kulak" is a person who takes advantage of a person's unfortunate circumstances to enslave him.

Someone needs grain for sowing: he will lend him grain, but so that he returns this grain to him from the harvest in double quantity. For the money you borrow, you will be forced to work twice or three times the prices prevailing in that area.

The category of these people includes those worthless individuals who take advantage of public disasters for their own profit: anticipating an imminent famine, they secretly buy up reserves of grain in order to later resell it at a terribly expensive price.

Of course, such abuses, such use of human misfortune for one’s own profit, is the gravest of crimes. We can say about these people that they drink human blood.

The Apostle James thunders against all such people with terrible threats, and horror penetrates the soul when you think about these threats:

“Listen, you rich people: weep and howl for your troubles that are coming upon you.

Your wealth has rotted, and your clothes are moth-eaten.

Your gold and silver are rusty, and their rust will be a witness against you and will consume your flesh like fire: you have laid up for yourselves treasure for the last days.

Behold, the wages you withheld from the workers who reaped your fields cry out; and the cries of the reapers reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.

You have lived luxuriously on earth and enjoyed; feed your hearts as for the day of slaughter.”

“Let others live” is the motto that Christianity gives for the relationship between master and worker.

You cannot live looking at the labor force of living people as some kind of impersonal mechanical force. No matter how large the enterprise, a Christian owner must see a living soul in each of his many thousands of workers, must treat them with sympathy and modesty.

In a French novel I had a chance to see an excellently observed movement of the soul of a rich man. A young millionaire from Paris travels by night train to the seaside town of Le Havre, where he must board his own yacht for an extended voyage across the seas with the woman he loves.

He doesn't sleep well. In the morning, long before dawn, cutting through the area with coal mines, he sees many black figures of coal miners heading into the mines to work, and when he compares his life, full of all kinds of pleasures, carefree, beautiful, with the limited, working life of these people, being in constant danger of being crushed and suffocated by the collapses of coal and the gas developing in the mines, this essentially good-looking person becomes uneasy...

Some kind of remorse gnaws at him. He feels that at that moment he would be ready to do a lot for these people, but the impulse passes, and his life flows in the same selfishness.

And there are, however, people who carry out - in one degree or another - active assistance to the workers who depend on them.

You, of course, have heard about various auxiliary institutions, superbly equipped in different factories, which arose from the thoughts of the factory owners and are carefully supported by them. There is also a magnificent hospital, a nursery for children, where working mothers can rent out their little children who require care for the entire working day, and artel shops where you can get everything at a cheaper price and of better quality, and reading rooms with light paintings , which can provide such healthy entertainment to the workers and help replenish their meager knowledge, and an almshouse for lonely workers who have lost the opportunity to work, and free schools that prepare knowledgeable specialist workers from the children of workers with a high price for their work, and a funeral fund that makes it easier for the worker’s family in difficult days when the head of the family dies, and various other institutions that the warm heart and resourceful mind of a person who strives to alleviate the situation of a working brother can invent for the benefit of the working people.

To establish a sobriety society in the working environment, to help an outstanding boy prone to invention, with a living spark of talent in him to obtain a higher technical education, to build his own church for a factory remote from the villages: how many countless ways can there be for a hearty entrepreneur to serve his workers.

There are owners whom the workers call “fathers”... What a high title, what happiness for the owner to earn this title from his workers!

But, unfortunately, such a humane attitude of the owner towards the workers is far from the rule, but a rare exception. And we see such cases of the attitude of entrepreneurs towards workers, from which the blood runs cold.

Thus, one cannot without shudder remember the Lena history, where the Lena Gold Mining Partnership, swimming in gold, with its heartless attitude forced the workers to go on strike, which ended in the beating of innocent workers to death.

The attitude of this association towards the workers represents one of the greatest, most blatant mockeries of human rights that has ever been seen. And to this partnership, more than to anyone else, there is attached a terrible curse, which the Holy Spirit, through the mouth of the Apostle, brings down on the ruthless and unscrupulous owners.

In the eyes of the partnership, which received fabulous profits, the workers were some kind of cattle, not people, and they were treated worse than cattle.

They lived in incredible conditions, in disgusting damp dugouts. This area is a lost corner, cut off from the rest of the world for a significant part of the year. The workers were forced to buy provisions at the price set by the partnership from the shops of the partnership, which profited from this and bought obviously rotten, rotten and spoiled goods for next to nothing, so that at an expensive price, as they say - with a knife to the throat, they would force the workers who were in a hopeless situation, since nowhere, like in the shops of the partnership, can one get anything there.

In the eyes of feeling and thinking people, this partnership will remain forever spattered with the blood of the Russian worker, an immortal monument to human abomination and criminal greed.

And if our society were Christian, it would make the life of the criminal leaders of this society impossible. Everyone would turn away from them, despite, or rather, precisely because of this money they looted, this labor sweat and blood turned into gold. They would not shake hands, they would spit in their eyes, they would be loudly called thieves and murderers.

The terrible power of man over man. Once upon a time it was the unlimited power of the master over the worker. Now this is no less severe economic dependence; its types are endless, just as the abuses of this heavy power are endless.

The exhaustion of strength from a worker during unemployed times, the fall of a woman into severe poverty, bought by a rich sensualist, they said that the wives and daughters of Lena workers had to satisfy the whims of local employees - all sorts of rudeness, insults, injustices: all this merges into one terrible ocean of tears, violence , bullying in which the working people are drowning. And the hour of reckoning will be terrible. Terrible is the moment when, at the Last Judgment, these offended, persecuted, humiliated people, at the crown of their suffering and their patience, will point to their oppressors, robbers, offenders and murderers - to that all-seeing Judge, before Whom all excuses and those pathetic justifications with which these the enemies of the people were justified before partial human judges.

The sexual relationship between a man and a woman was originally intended to fill the earth with people. This was and is an order from God. The intimate relationship between husband and wife is love that God has blessed. The secret of intercourse occurs only between two partners in solitude. This is a secret action that does not require prying eyes.

Theology of Intimate Relationships

Orthodoxy welcomes sex between a married couple as an act of God's blessing. Intimate relationships in an Orthodox family are a God-blessed action that involves not only the birth of children, but also the strengthening of love, intimacy and trust between spouses.

About family in Orthodoxy:

God created man and woman in His image, He created a beautiful creation - man. The Almighty Creator Himself provided for intimate relationships between a man and a woman. Everything was perfect in God's creation; God created man, naked and beautiful. So why is humanity so hypocritical about nudity nowadays?

Adam and Eve

The Hermitage exhibits magnificent sculptures demonstrating the beauty of the human body.

The Creator left His instructions to people (Gen. 1:28):

• to multiply;
• multiply;
• fill the earth.

Orthodoxy and intimate relationships

Delving deeper into the New Testament, one can trace the indignation and contempt with which Jesus treated hypocrites. Why is sex life relegated to second and third place in Orthodoxy?

Before the coming of Jesus Christ, polygamy existed on earth, but these were not casual relationships. King David, a man after God’s own heart (1 Sam. 13:14), sinned with someone else’s wife, then married her after the death of her husband, but God’s chosen one also had to suffer punishment. The child born to the beautiful Bathsheba died.

Having many wives, concubines, kings and ordinary people could not even think that another man could touch their woman. When entering into a love affair with a woman, a man was obliged to tie himself to family ties according to the laws of the church. Even then the marriage was blessed by the priests and sanctified by God. Children born from a legal marriage became heirs.

Important! The Orthodox Church stands for the beauty of real close family ties.

Intimate relationships or sex

There is no concept of sex in the Bible, but Holy Scripture pays a lot of attention to the intimate life of believers. From time immemorial, the connection between a man and a woman has been an object of desire and an open door to temptation.

Sex has always been associated with depravity, which has been known since the beginning of time. For debauchery, homosexuality and perversion, God burned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah with fire, not finding righteous people in them. The concept of sex is associated with oral and anal copulation, which Orthodoxy classifies as perversions according to the Bible.

In order to protect believers from the sin of fornication, God, in chapter 18 of the book of Leviticus from the Old Testament, described point by point with whom one can have sexual intercourse.

Imagine, the Great Creator Himself pays great attention to close, sexual relationships, blessing intimate life in marriage.

Wedding of spouses

Sex before marriage

Why does the Orthodox Church warn young people to abstain from intimate relationships before marriage and maintain chastity?

The Old Testament describes several cases where fornicators were stoned for committing adultery. What is the reason for such cruelty?

The film "The Ten Commandments" shows a terrible scene of stoning sinners. The adulterers were tied by their hands and feet to stakes so that they could not hide or defend themselves, and all the people threw sharp, huge stones at them.

This action had two meanings:

• the first - for intimidation and edification;
• secondly, children born from such a relationship carried a curse to the family, depriving it of God’s protection.

A family not married by God cannot be under His protection.

Unrepentant sinners excommunicate themselves from the Sacrament of Confession and Communion, living of their own free will under the attacks of the devil.

How to combine chastity and sex

The Christian Family is a small church based on love . Purity and chastity are the main canons of Orthodox relationships, most of all revealed in the sexual relationship of married spouses.

The Church in no way excludes sexual relations between partners, for this is an act created by the Creator Himself to fill the earth with His children. Church laws clearly regulate the life of Orthodox believers, including spiritual, mental and physical life.

To be immersed in God's grace, all Orthodox Christians must grow spiritually:

• read the Word of God;
• pray;
• keep fasts;
• attend temple services;
• participate in the Sacraments of the church.

Even monks living in monasteries are not deprived of spiritual experiences, but what can we say about ordinary Christians who are in a sinful world?

Every day, every person needs food, communication, love, acceptance and sex life as a natural part of human existence. The Orthodox Church, according to the Word of God, blesses the sex life of a married couple, limiting it for a certain time, this also applies to food, fasting, entertainment and various types of work.

Prayers for the family:

Relationship between husband and wife

In the First Epistle to the Corinthians, in chapter 7, the Apostle Paul literally described the behavior of marriage partners during solitude: “Intimate relationships are the law, and it is not permissible for healthy people to refuse them, for in this case both partners will be guilty of adultery: the one who refused and led to sin, and the one who could not resist and fell into fornication.”

Attention! Nowhere in the Bible does it say that the only reason for marital intimacy can be the birth of a child. When touching on an intimate issue, there is no talk about children at all, but only about love, pleasure and close relationships that strengthen the family.

Church opinion

Not all families are blessed with the birth of a child, so they can't make love anymore? God classified gluttony as a sin, and promiscuous sex and excessive passion for sexual activity are not approved by the church.

1. Everything should happen in love, by mutual consent, in purity and respect.
2. A wife cannot manipulate her husband by refusing intimate caresses, because her body belongs to him.
3. The husband is obliged to win over his wife, like Jesus the Church, to take care of her, respect and love her.
4. It is not permissible to make love during prayer and fasting; it is not without reason that they say that during fasting the bed is empty. If Christians find the strength in themselves to perform the feat of fasting, then God strengthens them in limiting the time of close marital relationships.
5. The Bible repeatedly emphasizes that touching, and therefore having sex with, a woman during her menstrual period is a sin.

Children born from the pure, chaste love of two married partners are initially covered by God's mercy and love.

The Orthodox Church considers the intimate relationships of the Christian family as the crown of love, which is multifaceted in God's presentation.

Archpriest Vladimir Golovin: about intimate relationships between husband and wife

ABOUT THE MOST SECRET
Candidate of Theology, graduate of the Moscow Theological Academy Archpriest Dimitry Moiseev answers the questions.

Abbot Peter (Meshcherinov) wrote: “And finally, we need to touch on the sensitive topic of marital relations. Here is the opinion of one priest: “A husband and wife are free individuals, united by a union of love, and no one has the right to enter their marital bedroom with advice. I consider any regulation and schematization (“schedule” on the wall) of marital relations to be harmful, including in the spiritual sense, except for abstinence the night before communion and the asceticism of Lent (according to one’s strength and mutual consent). I consider it completely wrong to discuss issues of marital relations with confessors (especially monastics), since the presence of an intermediary between husband and wife in this matter is simply unacceptable and never leads to good.”

There are no small things with God. As a rule, the devil often hides behind what a person considers unimportant and secondary... Therefore, those who want to improve spiritually need, with God’s help, to put things in order in all areas of their lives, without exception. Communicating with familiar family parishioners, I noticed: unfortunately, many in intimate relationships behave “inappropriately” from a spiritual point of view or, simply put, sin without even realizing it. And this ignorance is dangerous for the health of the soul. Moreover, modern believers often master such sexual practices that some secular womanizers’ hair can stand on end from their skill... I recently heard how one woman, who considers herself Orthodox, proudly declared that she paid only 200 dollars for “super” educational sexual trainings -seminars. In all her manner and intonation one could feel: “Well, what are you thinking about, follow my example, especially since married couples are invited... Study, study and study again!..”.

Therefore, we asked the teacher of the Kaluga Theological Seminary, candidate of theology, graduate of the Moscow Theological Academy, Archpriest Dimitry Moiseev, to answer the questions of what and how to study, otherwise “teaching is light, and the unlearned are darkness.”

— Are intimate relationships in marriage important for a Christian or not?
— Intimate relationships are one of the aspects of married life. We know that the Lord established marriage between a man and a woman to overcome the division between people, so that the spouses would learn, by working on themselves, to achieve unity in the image of the Holy Trinity, as St. John Chrysostom. And, in fact, everything that accompanies family life: intimate relationships, raising children together, housekeeping, simply communicating with each other, etc. - all these are means to help a married couple achieve a measure of unity accessible to their condition. Consequently, intimate relationships occupy one of the important places in married life. This is not the center of shared existence, but at the same time, it is not something that is not needed.

— On what days should Orthodox Christians not have intimacy?
- The Apostle Paul said: “Do not separate from one another, except by agreement to practice fasting and prayer.” It is customary for Orthodox Christians to abstain from marital intimacy on fasting days, as well as on Christian holidays, which are days of intense prayer. If anyone is interested, take the Orthodox calendar and find the days where marriages are not celebrated. As a rule, during these same times, Orthodox Christians are advised to abstain from marital relations.
— What about abstinence on Wednesday, Friday, Sunday?
- Yes, on the eve of Wednesday, Friday, Sunday or major holidays and until the evening of this day you need to abstain. That is, from Sunday evening to Monday - please. After all, if we marry some couples on Sunday, it means that in the evening the newlyweds will be close.

— Do Orthodox Christians enter into marital intimacy only for the purpose of having a child or for satisfaction?
— Orthodox Christians enter into marital intimacy out of love. In order to take advantage of this relationship, again, to strengthen the unity between husband and wife. Because childbearing is only one of the means in marriage, but not its final goal. If in the Old Testament the main purpose of marriage was procreation, then in the New Testament the priority goal of the family is to become like the Holy Trinity. It is no coincidence, according to St. John Chrysostom, the family is called the small church. Just as the Church, having Christ as its head, unites all its members into one Body, so the Christian family, also having Christ as its head, should promote unity between husband and wife. And if God does not give children to some couples, then this is not a reason to abandon marital relations. Although, if the spouses have reached a certain measure of spiritual maturity, then as an exercise in abstinence they can move away from each other, but only by mutual consent and with the blessing of the confessor, that is, a priest who knows these people well. Because it is unreasonable to take on such feats on your own, without knowing your own spiritual state.

“I once read in an Orthodox book that one confessor came to his spiritual children and said: “God’s will is for you to have many children.” Is it possible to say this to a confessor, was this really the will of God?
- If a confessor has achieved absolute dispassion and sees the souls of other people, like Anthony the Great, Macarius the Great, Sergius of Radonezh, then I think the law is not written for such a person. And for an ordinary confessor, there is a decree of the Holy Synod prohibiting interference in private life. That is, priests can give advice, but do not have the right to force people to fulfill their will. This is strictly prohibited, firstly, St. The Fathers, secondly, by a special resolution of the Holy Synod of December 28, 1998, which once again reminded confessors of their position, rights and responsibilities. Therefore, the priest can recommend, but his advice will not be binding. Moreover, people cannot be forced to take on such a heavy yoke.

— So, the church does not encourage married couples to have many children?
— The Church calls on married couples to be God-like. Whether you have many children or few children depends on God. Anyone who can contain anything, yes, he can. Thank God if a family is able to raise many children, but for some people this can be an unbearable cross. That is why, in the fundamentals of the social concept, the Russian Orthodox Church approaches this issue very delicately. Speaking, on the one hand, about the ideal, i.e. so that the spouses completely rely on the will of God: as many children as the Lord gives, so many will he give. On the other hand, there is a caveat: those who have not reached such a spiritual level should, in a spirit of love and benevolence, consult with their confessor about issues in their lives.

— Are there limits to what is acceptable in intimate relationships among Orthodox Christians?
— These boundaries are dictated by common sense. Perversions are naturally condemned. Here, I think, this question comes close to the following: “Is it useful for a believer to study all kinds of sexual techniques, techniques and other knowledge (for example, the Kama Sutra) in order to save a marriage?”
The fact is that the basis of marital intimacy should be the love between husband and wife. If it is not there, then no technology will help with this. And if there is love, then no tricks are needed here. Therefore, for an Orthodox person to study all these techniques, I think it is pointless. Because spouses receive the greatest joy from mutual communication under the condition of love between each other. And not subject to the presence of some practices. In the end, any technology gets boring, any pleasure that is not associated with personal communication becomes boring, and therefore requires more and more intense sensations. And this passion is endless. This means that you should strive not to improve some techniques, but to improve your love.

— In Judaism, you can enter into intimacy with your wife only a week after her menstrual period. Is there something similar in Orthodoxy? Is it permissible for a husband to “touch” his wife these days?
— In Orthodoxy, marital intimacy is not allowed on the critical days themselves.

- So this is a sin?
- Certainly. As for a simple touch, in the Old Testament - yes, a person who touched such a woman was considered unclean and had to undergo a purification procedure. There is nothing like this in the New Testament. A person who touches a woman these days is not unclean. Can you imagine what would happen if a person traveling on public transport, on a bus full of people, began to figure out which women to touch and which ones not to. Is this, “Whoever is unclean, raise your hand!..,” or what?

- Is it possible for a husband to have intimate relations with his wife? if she's in a position and from a medical point of view there are no restrictions?
- Orthodoxy does not welcome such relationships for the simple reason that a woman, being in a position, must devote herself to caring for the unborn child. And in this case, you need to try to devote yourself to spiritual ascetic exercises for a specific limited period, namely 9 months. At least abstain in the intimate sphere. In order to devote this time to prayer and spiritual improvement. After all, the period of pregnancy is very important for the formation of the child’s personality and his spiritual development. It is no coincidence that the ancient Romans, being pagans, forbade pregnant women to read books that were morally unhealthy and to attend entertainment. They understood perfectly well: a woman’s mental state is necessarily reflected in the condition of the child who is in her womb. And often, for example, we are surprised that a child born from a certain mother of not the most moral behavior (and left by her in the maternity hospital), subsequently ending up in a normal adoptive family, nevertheless inherits the character traits of his biological mother, becoming over time the same depraved, drunkard, etc. There seemed to be no visible influence. But we must not forget: he was in the womb of just such a woman for 9 months. And all this time he perceived the state of her personality, which left its mark on the child. This means that a woman in a position, for the sake of the baby, his health, both physical and spiritual, needs to protect herself in every possible way from what may be permissible in normal times.

— I have a friend, he has a large family. It was very difficult for him as a man to abstain for nine months. After all, it’s probably not healthy for a pregnant woman to even caress her own husband, since it still affects the fetus. What should a man do?
- Here I am talking about the ideal. And whoever has any infirmities has a confessor. A pregnant wife is not a reason to have a mistress.

— If we may, let us return again to the issue of perversions. Where is the line that a believer cannot cross? For example, I read that from a spiritual point of view, oral sex is generally not encouraged, right?
“It is condemned just like sodomy with one’s wife.” Handjob is also condemned. And what is within the boundaries of the natural is possible.

— Nowadays petting is in fashion among young people, that is, masturbation, as you said, is it a sin?
- Of course, this is a sin.

- And even between husband and wife?
- Well, yes. Indeed, in this case we are talking specifically about perversion.

— Is it possible for a husband and wife to engage in affection during fasting?
— Is it possible to smell sausage during fasting? The question is of the same order.

— Isn’t erotic massage harmful to the soul of an Orthodox Christian?
“I think if I come to the sauna and a dozen girls give me an erotic massage, then my spiritual life will be thrown very, very far away.

— What if from a medical point of view, the doctor prescribed it?
- I can explain it any way I want. But what is permissible with a husband and wife is impermissible with strangers.

— How often can spouses have intimacy without this concern for the flesh turning into lust?
— I think that each married couple determines a reasonable measure for themselves, because here it is impossible to give any valuable instructions or guidelines. In the same way, we do not describe how much an Orthodox Christian can eat in grams, drink in liters per day of food and drink, so that caring for the flesh does not turn into gluttony.

— I know one believing couple. Their circumstances are such that when they meet after a long separation, they can do “this” several times a day. Is this normal from a spiritual point of view? How do you think?
- For them, maybe it’s normal. I don't know these people. There is no strict norm. A person himself must understand what place he is in.

— Is the problem of sexual incompatibility important for a Christian marriage?
— I think the problem of psychological incompatibility is still important. Any other incompatibility arises precisely because of this. It is clear that a husband and wife can achieve some kind of unity only if they are similar to each other. Different people initially get married. It is not the husband who must become like his wife, nor the wife her husband. And both husband and wife should try to become like Christ. Only in this case will incompatibility, both sexual and any other, be overcome. However, all these problems, questions of this kind arise in a secular, secularized consciousness, which does not even consider the spiritual side of life. That is, no attempts are made to solve family problems by following Christ, through working on oneself, and correcting one’s life in the spirit of the Gospel. In secular psychology there is no such option. This is where all other attempts to solve this problem arise.

— So, the thesis of one Orthodox Christian woman: “There should be freedom between husband and wife in sex” is not true?
— Freedom and lawlessness are two different things. Freedom implies choice and, accordingly, voluntary restrictions for its preservation. For example, in order to continue to remain free, it is necessary to limit myself to the Criminal Code in order not to go to prison, although theoretically I am free to break the law. Also here: putting the pleasure of the process at the forefront is unreasonable. Sooner or later, a person will get tired of everything possible in this sense. And then what?..

— Is it acceptable to be naked in a room where there are icons?
— In this regard, there is a good joke among Catholic monks, when one leaves the Pope sad, and the second cheerful. One asks the other: “Why are you so sad?” “Well, I went to the Pope and asked: can I smoke when I pray? He answered: no, you can’t.” - “Why are you so cheerful?” “And I asked: is it possible to pray when you smoke? He said: it’s possible.”

— I know people who live separately. They have icons in their apartment. When a husband and wife are left alone, they naturally become naked, but there are icons in the room. Isn't it a sin to do this?
- There's nothing wrong with that. But you shouldn’t come to church in this form and you shouldn’t hang icons, for example, in the toilet.

- And if, when you wash, thoughts about God come to you, is that not scary?
- In the bathhouse - please. You can pray anywhere.

- Is it okay that there are no clothes on your body?
- Nothing. What about Mary of Egypt?

— But still, perhaps, it is necessary to create a special prayer corner, at least for ethical reasons, and fence off the icons?
— If there is an opportunity for this, yes. But we go to the bathhouse wearing a cross on our body.

— Is it possible to do “this” during fasting if it’s completely unbearable?
- Here again is a question of human strength. As far as a person has enough strength... But “this” will be considered intemperance.

“I recently read from Elder Paisius the Holy Mountain that if one of the spouses is spiritually stronger, then the strong one must yield to the weak one. Yes?
- Certainly. “So that Satan does not tempt you through your intemperance.” Because if the wife fasts strictly, and the husband is unbearable to such an extent that he takes a mistress for himself, the latter will be worse than the former.

- If a wife did this for her husband, then should she come to repent for not keeping the fast?
- Naturally, since the wife also received her own measure of pleasure. If for one it is condescension to weakness, then for another... In this case, it is better to cite as an example episodes from the life of hermits who, condescending to weakness, or out of love, or for other circumstances, could break the fast. We are talking, of course, about food fasting for monks. Then they repented of this and took on even greater work. After all, it is one thing to show love and condescension towards the weakness of one’s neighbor, and another thing to allow some kind of indulgence for oneself, which one could easily do without due to one’s spiritual constitution.

— Isn’t it physically harmful for a man to abstain from intimate relationships for a long time?
— Anthony the Great once lived for more than 100 years in absolute abstinence.

— Doctors write that it is much more difficult for a woman to abstain than for a man. They even say it's bad for her health. And Elder Paisiy Svyatogorets wrote that because of this, ladies develop “nervousness” and so on.
- I doubt this, because there are quite a large number of holy wives, nuns, ascetics, etc., who practiced abstinence, virginity and, nevertheless, were filled with love for their neighbors, and not at all with malice.

— Isn’t this harmful for a woman’s physical health?
- They also lived for quite a long number of years. Unfortunately, I am not ready to approach this issue with numbers in my hands, but there is no such dependence.

— Communicating with psychologists and reading medical literature, I learned that if a woman and her husband do not have a good sexual relationship, then she has a very high risk of gynecological diseases. This is an axiom among doctors, so does it mean it is wrong?
- I would question this. As for nervousness and other such things, a woman’s psychological dependence on a man is greater than that of a man on a woman. Because the Scripture also says: “Your desire will be for your husband.” It is more difficult for a woman to be alone than for a man. But in Christ all this can be overcome. Hegumen Nikon Vorobyov said it very well: a woman has a more psychological dependence on a man than a physical one. For her, sexual relationships are not so important as the fact of having a close man with whom she can communicate. The absence of such is more difficult for the weaker sex to bear. And if we don’t talk about Christian life, this can lead to nervousness and other difficulties. Christ is able to help a person overcome any problems, provided that the person’s spiritual life is correct.

— Is it possible for the bride and groom to have intimacy if they have already submitted an application to the registry office, but have not yet officially registered?
- Once you submit your application, they can take it away. Still, the marriage is considered concluded at the moment of registration.

— What if, say, the wedding is in 3 days? I know a lot of people who fell for this bait. A common phenomenon is a person relaxing: well, there’s a wedding in 3 days...
- Well, Easter is in three days, let's celebrate. Or I bake Easter cake on Maundy Thursday, let me eat it, it’s Easter in three days anyway!.. Easter will happen, it’s not going anywhere...

— Is intimacy between husband and wife allowed after registration at the registry office or only after the wedding?
— For a believer, provided that both believe, it is advisable to wait until the wedding. In all other cases, registration is sufficient.

- And if they signed in the registry office, but then had intimacy before the wedding, is this a sin?
— The Church recognizes state registration of marriage...

- But they need to repent of the fact that they were close before the wedding?
- Actually, as far as I know, people who are concerned about this issue try not to make it so that the painting is today, and the wedding is in a month.

- And even in a week? I have a friend, he went to arrange a wedding in one of the Obninsk churches. And the priest advised him to postpone the painting and wedding for a week, because a wedding is a drinking session, a party, and so on. And then this deadline was postponed.
- Well I do not know. Christians should not have drinking at a wedding, but for those for whom any occasion is good, there will be drinking even after the wedding.

— So you can’t space out the painting and wedding for a week?
- I wouldn't do that. Again, if the bride and groom are church people and are well known to the priest, he may well marry them before the painting. I will not marry people unknown to me without a certificate from the registry office. But I can marry well-known people quite calmly. Because I trust them, and I know that there will be no legal or canonical problems because of this. For people who regularly visit the parish, this is usually not a problem.

— From a spiritual point of view, are sexual relationships dirty or pure?
— It all depends on the relationship itself. That is, the husband and wife can make them clean or dirty. It all depends on the internal structure of the spouses. Intimate relationships themselves are neutral.

— Just like money is neutral, right?
— If money is a human invention, then this relationship was established by God. The Lord created people this way, who did not create anything unclean or sinful. This means that in the beginning, ideally, sexual relations are pure. But man is capable of desecrating them and does so quite often.

— Is shyness in intimate relationships acceptable among Christians? (And then, for example, in Judaism many people look at their wife through the sheet, because they consider it shameful to see a naked body)?
— Christians welcome chastity, i.e. when all aspects of life are in their place. Therefore, Christianity does not provide any such legalistic restrictions, just as Islam forces a woman to cover her face, etc. This means that it is not possible to write down a code of intimate behavior for a Christian.

— Is it necessary to abstain for three days after Communion?
— The “Teaching News” tells how one should prepare for Communion: to refrain from being close to the day of the day before and the day after. Therefore, there is no need to abstain for three days after Communion. Moreover, if we turn to ancient practice, we will see: married couples received communion before the wedding, got married on the same day, and in the evening there was intimacy. Here's the day after. If you took communion on Sunday morning, you dedicated the day to God. And at night you can be with your wife.

— For someone who wants to improve spiritually, should they strive for bodily pleasures to be secondary (unimportant) for him? Or do you need to learn to enjoy life?
- Of course, bodily pleasures should be secondary for a person. He should not put them at the forefront of his life. There is a direct correlation: the more spiritual a person is, the less some bodily pleasures mean to him. And the less spiritual a person is, the more important they are to him. However, we cannot force a person who has just come to church to live on bread and water. But the ascetics would hardly eat the cake. To each his own. As he grows spiritually.

— I read in one Orthodox book that by giving birth to children, Christians thereby prepare citizens for the Kingdom of God. Can the Orthodox have such an understanding of life?
“God grant that our children become citizens of the Kingdom of God.” However, for this it is not enough just to give birth to a child.

- What if, for example, a woman becomes pregnant, but she doesn’t know about it yet and continues to enter into intimate relationships. What should she do?
— Experience shows that while a woman does not know about her interesting situation, the fetus is not very susceptible to this. A woman, indeed, may not know for 2-3 weeks that she is pregnant. But during this period the fetus is protected quite reliably. Moreover, if the expectant mother takes alcohol, etc. The Lord has arranged everything wisely: while the woman does not know about it, God Himself cares, but when a woman finds out... She should take care of this herself (laughs).

- Truly, when a person takes everything into his own hands, problems begin... I would like to end with a major chord. What can you wish, Father Dimitri, for our readers?

— Don’t lose love, which is already so scarce in our world.

— Father, thank you very much for the conversation, which let me end with the words of Archpriest Alexei Uminsky: “I am convinced that intimate relationships are a matter of personal internal freedom for each family. Often, excessive asceticism is the cause of marital quarrels and, ultimately, divorce.” The shepherd emphasized that the basis of the family is love, which leads to salvation, and if it is not there, then marriage is “simply an everyday structure, where the woman is the reproductive force, and the man is the one who earns his bread.”

Bishop of Vienna and Austria Hilarion (Alfeev).

Marriage (the intimate side of the issue)
Love between a man and a woman is one of the important themes of biblical evangelism. As God Himself says in the Book of Genesis, “A man will leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife; and the two will become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24). It is important to note that marriage was established by God in paradise, that is, it is not a consequence of the Fall. The Bible tells of married couples who had a special blessing from God, expressed in the multiplication of their offspring: Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Rachel. Love is glorified in the Song of Solomon - a book that, despite all the allegorical and mystical interpretations of the Holy Fathers, does not lose its literal meaning.

The first miracle of Christ was the transformation of water into wine at a marriage in Cana of Galilee, which is understood by patristic tradition as a blessing of the marriage union: “We affirm,” says St. Cyril of Alexandria, “that He (Christ) blessed marriage in accordance with the economy by which He became man and went... to the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee (John 2:1-11).”

History knows of sects (Montanism, Manichaeism, etc.) that rejected marriage as supposedly contrary to the ascetic ideals of Christianity. Even in our time, we sometimes hear the opinion that Christianity abhors marriage and “allows” the marriage union of a man and a woman only out of “condescension for the infirmities of the flesh.” How wrong this is can be judged at least by the following statements of the hieromartyr Methodius of Patara (IV century), who, in his treatise on virginity, gives a theological justification for childbirth as a consequence of marriage and, in general, sexual intercourse between a man and a woman: “... It is necessary that a person ... acted in the image of God... for it is said: “Be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 1:28). And we should not disdain the definition of the Creator, as a result of which we ourselves began to exist. The beginning of the birth of people is the immersion of a seed into the bowels of a woman’s womb, so that bone from bone and flesh from flesh, having been received by an invisible force, are again formed into another person by the same Artist... This, perhaps, is indicated by the sleepy frenzy induced on the primordial ( cf. Gen. 2:21), prefiguring the pleasure of a husband during communication (with his wife), when, in the thirst for childbirth, he goes into a frenzy (ekstasis - “ecstasy”), relaxing with the soporific pleasures of childbirth, so that something rejected from his bones and flesh, formed again... into another person... Therefore, it is rightly said that a person leaves his father and mother, as if he suddenly forgets about everything at the time when he, united with his wife in the embrace of love, becomes a participant in fruitfulness, allowing the Divine Creator to take a rib from him in order to the son to become the father himself. So, if even now God forms man, is it not impudent to avert procreation, which the Almighty Himself is not ashamed to perform with His clean hands?” As St. Methodius further states, when men “cast semen into the natural female passages,” it becomes “participated in the divine creative power.”

Thus, marital communication is viewed as a divinely ordained creative action performed “in the image of God.” Moreover, sexual intercourse is the way in which God the Artist creates. Although such thoughts are rare among the Fathers of the Church (who were almost all monks and therefore had little interest in such topics), they cannot be passed over in silence when presenting the Christian understanding of marriage. Condemning “carnal lust,” hedonism, leading to sexual immorality and unnatural vices (cf. Rom. 1:26-27; 1 Cor. 6:9, etc.), Christianity blesses sexual intercourse between a man and a woman within the framework of marriage.

In marriage, a person undergoes transformation, overcomes loneliness and isolation, expands, replenishes and completes his personality. Archpriest John Meyendorff defines the essence of Christian marriage this way: “A Christian is called - already in this world - to have the experience of a new life, to become a citizen of the Kingdom; and this is possible for him in marriage. Thus, marriage ceases to be merely a satisfaction of temporary natural impulses... Marriage is a unique union of two beings in love, two beings who can transcend their own human nature and be united not only “to each other”, but also “in Christ.” .

Another outstanding Russian pastor, priest Alexander Elchaninov, speaks of marriage as a “dedication”, a “mystery” in which there is “a complete change in a person, an expansion of his personality, new eyes, a new sense of life, birth through him into the world in a new fullness.” In the union of love between two people, there is both a revelation of the personality of each of them, and the emergence of the fruit of love - a child, turning a two into a trinity: “... In marriage, complete knowledge of a person is possible - a miracle of sensation, touch, vision of someone else's personality... Before marriage, a person glides above life , observes it from the side, and only in marriage does it plunge into life, entering it through another person. This enjoyment of real knowledge and real life gives that feeling of completeness and satisfaction that makes us richer and wiser. And this completeness deepens even more with the emergence from us, merged and reconciled, of the third, our child.”

Attaching such exceptionally high importance to marriage, the Church has a negative attitude towards divorce, as well as second or third marriage, unless the latter are caused by special circumstances, such as, for example, a violation of marital fidelity by one or the other party. This attitude is based on the teaching of Christ, who did not recognize the Old Testament regulations regarding divorce (cf. Matt. 19:7-9; Mark 10:11-12; Luke 16:18), with one exception - divorce for “fornication” (Matt. 5:32). In the latter case, as well as in the event of the death of one of the spouses or in other exceptional cases, the Church blesses the second and third marriage.

In the early Christian Church there was no special wedding rite: the husband and wife came to the bishop and received his blessing, after which the two of them received communion at the Liturgy of the Holy Mysteries of Christ. This connection with the Eucharist can also be traced in the modern rite of the Sacrament of Marriage, which begins with the liturgical exclamation “Blessed is the Kingdom” and includes many prayers from the rite of the Liturgy, the reading of the Apostle and the Gospel, and a symbolic common cup of wine.

The wedding is preceded by an engagement ceremony, during which the bride and groom must testify to the voluntary nature of their marriage and exchange rings.

The wedding itself takes place in the church, usually after the Liturgy. During the sacrament, those getting married are given crowns, which are a symbol of the kingdom: each family is a small church. But the crown is also a symbol of martyrdom, because marriage is not only the joy of the first months after the wedding, but also the joint bearing of all subsequent sorrows and suffering - that daily cross, the weight of which in marriage falls on two. In an age when the disintegration of the family has become commonplace and at the first difficulties and trials spouses are ready to betray each other and break their union, this laying of martyr's crowns serves as a reminder that a marriage will only be lasting when it is not based on the immediate and fleeting passion, but on the willingness to give his life for another. And a family is a house built on a solid foundation, and not on sand, only if Christ Himself becomes its cornerstone. The troparion “Holy Martyr,” which is sung during the three-time circumambulation of the bride and groom around the lectern, also reminds us of suffering and the cross.

During the wedding, the Gospel story about the marriage in Cana of Galilee is read. This reading emphasizes the invisible presence of Christ at every Christian marriage and God’s blessing of the marriage union. In marriage, the miracle of the transfusion of “water” must take place, i.e. everyday life on earth, in “wine” there is a constant and daily celebration, a feast of love from one person to another.

Marital relations

Is modern man able to fulfill the various and numerous church instructions of carnal abstinence in his marital relationships?

Why not? Two thousand years. Orthodox people try to fulfill them. And among them there are many who succeed. In fact, all carnal restrictions have been prescribed to a believer since Old Testament times, and they can be reduced to a verbal formula: nothing too much. That is, the Church simply calls us not to do anything against nature.

However, the Gospel does not say anywhere about the husband and wife abstaining from intimacy during Lent?

The entire Gospel and the entire church tradition, going back to apostolic times, speak of earthly life as preparation for eternity, of moderation, abstinence and sobriety as the internal norm of Christian life. And anyone knows that nothing captures, captivates and binds a person like the sexual area of ​​his existence, especially if he releases it from under internal control and does not want to maintain sobriety. And nothing is more devastating if the joy of being with a loved one is not combined with some abstinence.

It is reasonable to appeal to the centuries-old experience of the existence of a church family, which is much stronger than a secular family. Nothing preserves the mutual desire of a husband and wife for each other more than the need to abstain from marital intimacy from time to time. And nothing kills or turns it into lovemaking (it is no coincidence that this word arose by analogy with playing sports) than the absence of restrictions.

How difficult is this kind of abstinence for a family, especially a young one?

It depends on how people approached marriage. It is no coincidence that previously there was not only a social disciplinary norm, but also church wisdom that a girl and a boy abstained from intimacy before marriage. And even when they got engaged and were already connected spiritually, there was still no physical intimacy between them. Of course, the point here is not that what was unconditionally sinful before the wedding becomes neutral or even positive after the Sacrament is performed. And the fact is that the need for the bride and groom to abstain before marriage, with love and mutual attraction to each other, gives them a very important experience - the ability to abstain when it is necessary in the natural course of family life, for example, during the wife’s pregnancy or in the first months after the birth of a child, when most often her aspirations are not directed towards physical intimacy with her husband, but towards caring for the baby, and she is simply not very physically capable of this. Those who, during the period of grooming and the pure passage of girlhood before marriage, prepared themselves for this, acquired a lot of essential things for their future married life. I know young people in our parish who, due to various circumstances - the need to graduate from a university, obtain parental consent, gain some kind of social status - went through a period of a year, two, even three before marriage. For example, they fell in love with each other in the first year of university: it is clear that they cannot yet start a family in the full sense of the word, nevertheless, over such a long period of time they walk hand in hand in purity as a bride and groom. After this, it will be easier for them to abstain from intimacy when it turns out to be necessary. And if the family path begins, as, alas, it happens now even in church families, with fornication, then periods of forced abstinence without sorrows do not pass until the husband and wife learn to love each other without physical intimacy and without the supports that she gives. But you need to learn this.

Why does the Apostle Paul say that in marriage people will have “sorrows according to the flesh” (1 Cor. 7:28)? But don’t the lonely and monastics have sorrows in the flesh? And what specific sorrows are meant?

For monastics, especially novice monastics, the sorrows, mostly mental, that accompany their feat are associated with despondency, despair, and doubts about whether they have chosen the right path. The lonely people in the world are perplexed about the need to accept the will of God: why are all my peers already pushing strollers, and others are already raising grandchildren, while I am still alone and alone or alone and alone? These are not so much carnal as spiritual sorrows. A person living a lonely worldly life, from a certain age, comes to the point that his flesh calms down, pacifies, if he himself does not forcibly inflame it through reading and watching something indecent. And people living in marriage do have “sorrows according to the flesh.” If they are not ready for inevitable abstinence, then they have a very difficult time. Therefore, many modern families break up while waiting for the first baby or immediately after his birth. After all, having not gone through a period of pure abstinence before marriage, when it was achieved exclusively by voluntary deed, they do not know how to love each other with restraint when this has to be done against their will. Whether you want it or not, the wife has no time for her husband’s wishes during certain periods of pregnancy and the first months of raising a baby. This is where he begins to look the other way, and she begins to get angry at him. And they do not know how to pass this period painlessly, because they did not take care of this before marriage. After all, it is clear that for a young man it is a certain kind of grief, a burden - to abstain next to his beloved, young, beautiful wife, the mother of his son or daughter. And in a sense it is more difficult than monasticism. Going through several months of abstinence from physical intimacy is not at all easy, but it is possible, and the apostle warns about this. Not only in the 20th century, but also to other contemporaries, many of whom were pagans, family life, especially at its very beginning, was depicted as a kind of chain of continuous pleasures, although this is far from the case.

Is it necessary to try to observe fasting in a marital relationship if one of the spouses is unchurched and not ready for abstinence?

This is a serious question. And, apparently, in order to answer it correctly, you need to think about it in the context of the broader and more significant problem of a marriage in which one of the family members is not yet a fully Orthodox person. Unlike previous times, when all spouses were married for many centuries, since society as a whole was Christian until the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, we live in completely different times, to which the words of the Apostle Paul are more applicable than ever that “the unbeliever the husband is sanctified by the believing wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the believing husband” (1 Cor. 7:14). And it is necessary to abstain from each other only by mutual consent, that is, in such a way that this abstinence in marital relations does not lead to an even greater split and division in the family. Under no circumstances should you insist here, much less put forward any ultimatums. A believing family member should gradually lead his partner or life partner to the point that they will someday come together and consciously to abstinence. All this is impossible without serious and responsible churching of the whole family. And when this happens, then this side of family life will take its natural place.

The Gospel says that “the wife has no power over her body, but the husband does; likewise, the husband has no power over his own body, but the wife does” (1 Cor. 7:4). In this regard, if during Lent one of the Orthodox and church-going spouses insists on intimate intimacy, or does not even insist, but simply gravitates toward it in every possible way, and the other would like to maintain purity to the end, but makes concessions, then should he Should we repent of this as if it were a conscious and voluntary sin?

This is not an easy situation, and, of course, it should be considered in relation to different conditions and even to different ages of people. It is true that not every newlywed who got married before Maslenitsa will be able to go through Lent in complete abstinence. Moreover, keep all other multi-day posts. And if a young and hot spouse cannot cope with his bodily passion, then, of course, guided by the words of the Apostle Paul, it is better for the young wife to be with him than to give him the opportunity to “get fired up.” He or she who is more moderate, self-controlled, more able to cope with himself, will sometimes sacrifice his own desire for purity so that, firstly, something worse that happens because of bodily passion does not enter the life of the other spouse, secondly, in order not to give rise to schisms, divisions and thereby not to jeopardize family unity itself. But, however, he will remember that one cannot seek quick satisfaction in one’s own compliance, and in the depths of one’s soul rejoice at the inevitability of the current situation. There is an anecdote in which, frankly, far from chastity advice is given to a woman who is being raped: firstly, relax and, secondly, have fun. And in this case, it’s so easy to say: “What should I do if my husband (less often my wife) is so hot?” It’s one thing when a woman goes to meet someone who cannot yet bear with faith the burden of abstinence, and another thing when, throwing up her hands - well, since it can’t be done otherwise - she herself does not lag behind her husband. When yielding to him, you need to be aware of the extent of the responsibility you have assumed.

If a husband or wife, in order for the rest to be peaceful, sometimes has to give in to a spouse who is weak in bodily aspiration, this does not mean that they need to go to all lengths and completely abandon this kind of fast for themselves. You need to find the measure that you can now accommodate together. And, of course, the leader here should be the one who is more abstinent. He must take upon himself the responsibilities of wisely building bodily relationships. Young people cannot keep all the fasts, so let them abstain for a fairly noticeable period: before confession, before communion. They can’t do the whole of Lent, then at least the first, fourth, seventh weeks, let others impose some restrictions: on the eve of Wednesday, Friday, Sunday, so that in one way or another their life would be tougher than in ordinary times. Otherwise there will be no feeling of fasting at all. Because then what is the point of fasting in terms of food, if the emotional, mental and physical feelings are much stronger, due to what happens to the husband and wife during marital intimacy.

But, of course, everything has its time and timing. If a husband and wife live together for ten, twenty years, go to church and nothing changes, then the more conscious family member needs to be persistent step by step, even to the point of demanding that at least now, when they have lived to see their gray hairs, Children have been raised, grandchildren will soon appear, a certain measure of abstinence should be brought to God. After all, we will bring to the Kingdom of Heaven what unites us. However, it will not be carnal intimacy that will unite us there, for we know from the Gospel that “when they rise from the dead, then they will neither marry nor be given in marriage, but will be like angels in heaven” (Mark 12:25), otherwise , which we managed to cultivate during family life. Yes, first - with supports, which is physical intimacy, which opens people to each other, makes them closer, helps them forget some grievances. But over time, these supports, necessary when the building of a marital relationship is being built, should fall away, without becoming scaffolding, because of which the building itself is not visible and on which everything rests, so that if they are removed, it will fall apart.

What exactly does the church canons say about at what time spouses should abstain from physical intimacy and at what time not?

There are some ideal requirements of the Church Charter, which should determine the specific path facing every Christian family in order to informally fulfill them. The Charter requires abstinence from marital intimacy on the eve of Sunday (that is, Saturday evening), on the eve of the celebration of the Twelfth Feast and Lenten Wednesday and Friday (that is, Tuesday evening and Thursday evening), as well as during multi-day fasts and days of fasting - preparation for receiving the Saints of Christ Tain. This is the ideal norm. But in each specific case, a husband and wife must be guided by the words of the Apostle Paul: “Do not deviate from each other, except by consent, for a time, to practice fasting and prayer, and then be together again, so that Satan does not tempt you with your intemperance. However, I said this as permission, and not as a command” (1 Cop. 7, 5-6). This means that the family must grow to a day when the measure of abstinence from physical intimacy adopted by the spouses will in no way harm or diminish their love and when the fullness of family unity will be preserved even without the support of physicality. And it is precisely this integrity of spiritual unity that can be continued in the Kingdom of Heaven. After all, what is involved in eternity will be continued from a person’s earthly life. It is clear that in the relationship between husband and wife, it is not carnal intimacy that is involved in eternity, but what it serves as a support. In a secular, worldly family, as a rule, a catastrophic change of guidelines occurs, which cannot be allowed in a church family, when these supports become cornerstone.

The path to such growth must be, firstly, mutual, and secondly, without jumping over steps. Of course, not every spouse, especially in the first year of marriage, can be told that they must spend the entire Nativity Fast in abstinence from each other. Whoever can accommodate this with harmony and moderation will reveal a deep measure of spiritual wisdom. And for someone who is not yet ready, it would be unwise to place burdens that are unbearable on the part of a more temperate and moderate spouse. But family life is given to us in a temporary extent, therefore, starting with a small measure of abstinence, we must gradually increase it. Although the family must have a certain measure of abstinence from each other “for the exercise of fasting and prayer” from the very beginning. For example, every week on the eve of Sunday, a husband and wife avoid marital intimacy not out of fatigue or busyness, but for the sake of greater and higher communication with God and each other. And from the very beginning of marriage, Great Lent, except for some very special situations, should strive to be spent in abstinence, as the most crucial period of church life. Even in a legal marriage, carnal relationships at this time leave an unkind, sinful aftertaste and do not bring the joy that should come from marital intimacy, and in all other respects detract from the very passage of the field of fasting. In any case, such restrictions should be present from the first days of married life, and then they need to be expanded as the family grows older and larger.

Does the Church regulate the methods of sexual contact between a married husband and wife, and if so, on what basis and where exactly is this stated?

Probably, in answering this question, it is more reasonable to first talk about some principles and general premises, and then rely on some canonical texts. Of course, by sanctifying marriage with the Sacrament of Wedding, the Church sanctifies the entire union of a man and a woman - both spiritual and physical. And there is no sanctimonious intention disdainful of the physical component of the marital union in the sober church worldview. This kind of neglect, the belittling of the physical side of marriage, its relegation to the level of something that is only tolerated, but which, by and large, must be abhorred, is characteristic of a sectarian, schismatic or extra-church consciousness, and even if it is ecclesiastical, it is only painful. This needs to be very clearly defined and understood. Already in the 4th-6th centuries, the decrees of church councils stated that one of the spouses who deviates from physical intimacy with the other due to abomination of marriage is subject to excommunication from Communion, and if he is not a layman, but a cleric, then deposed from the rank. That is, the suppression of the fullness of marriage, even in the canons of the church, is clearly defined as improper. In addition, these same canons say that if someone refuses to recognize the validity of the Sacraments performed by a married clergyman, then he is also subject to the same punishments and, accordingly, excommunication from receiving the Holy Mysteries of Christ if he is a layman, or defrocking if he is a cleric . This is how high the church consciousness, embodied in the canons included in the canonical code by which believers must live, places the physical side of Christian marriage.

On the other hand, the church consecration of a marital union is not a sanction for indecency. Just as the blessing of a meal and prayer before eating is not a sanction for gluttony, for overeating, and especially for drinking wine, the blessing of marriage is in no way a sanction for permissiveness and feasting of the body - they say, do whatever you want, in whatever way you want. quantities and at any time. Of course, a sober church consciousness, based on Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition, is always characterized by the understanding that in the life of a family - as in human life in general - there is a hierarchy: the spiritual must dominate over the physical, the soul must be above the body. And when in a family the physical begins to take first place, and the spiritual or even mental are given only those small pockets or areas that remain from the carnal, this leads to disharmony, spiritual defeats and major life crises. In relation to this message, there is no need to cite special texts, because, opening the Epistle of the Apostle Paul or the works of St. John Chrysostom, St. Leo the Great, St. Augustine - any of the Fathers of the Church, we will find any number of confirmations of this thought. It is clear that it was not canonically fixed in itself.

Of course, the totality of all bodily restrictions for a modern person may seem quite difficult, but the church canons indicate to us the measure of abstinence that a Christian must achieve. And if in our life there is a discrepancy with this norm - as well as with other canonical requirements of the Church, we, at least, should not consider ourselves calm and prosperous. And not to be sure that if we abstain during Lent, then everything is fine with us and we can not look at everything else. And that if marital abstinence takes place during fasting and on the eve of Sunday, then we can forget about the eves of fasting days, which would also be good to come to as a result. But this path is individual, which, of course, must be determined by the consent of the spouses and by reasonable advice from the confessor. However, the fact that this path leads to abstinence and moderation is defined in the church consciousness as an unconditional norm in relation to the structure of married life.

As for the intimate side of marital relations, although it does not make sense to discuss everything publicly on the pages of the book, it is important not to forget that for a Christian those forms of marital intimacy are acceptable that do not contradict its main goal, namely, procreation. That is, this kind of union of a man and a woman, which has nothing to do with the sins for which Sodom and Gomorrah were punished: when physical intimacy occurs in that perverted form in which procreation can never occur. This was also said in a fairly large number of texts, which we call “rulers” or “canons”, that is, the inadmissibility of this kind of perverted forms of marital communication was recorded in the Rules of the Holy Fathers and partly in church canons in the later Middle Ages, after Ecumenical Councils.

But I repeat, since this is very important, the carnal relationship of husband and wife in itself is not sinful and as such is not considered by the church consciousness. For the Sacrament of marriage is not a sanction for sin or some kind of impunity in relation to it. In the Sacrament, that which is sinful cannot be sanctified; on the contrary, that which is in itself good and natural is raised to a degree that is perfect and, as it were, supernatural.

Having postulated this position, we can give the following analogy: a person who has worked a lot, has done his job - no matter whether it is physical or intellectual: a reaper, a blacksmith or a soul catcher - when he comes home, he certainly has the right to expect from a loving wife a delicious lunch, and if the day is not fast, then it can be a rich meat soup or a chop with a side dish. It will not be a sin to ask for more and drink a glass of good wine after righteous labors, if you are very hungry. This is a warm family meal, looking at which the Lord will rejoice and which the Church will bless. But how strikingly different this is from those relationships that have developed in the family when husband and wife choose instead to go somewhere to a social event, where one delicacy replaces another, where the fish is made to taste like poultry, and the bird tastes like avocado, and so that it doesn’t even remind you of its natural properties, where guests, already satiated with various dishes, begin to roll grains of caviar across the sky in order to get additional gourmet pleasure, and from the dishes offered by the mountains they choose an oyster or a frog’s leg in order to somehow tickle their dull taste buds with other sensory sensations, and then - as has been practiced since ancient times (which is very characteristically described in the feast of Trimalchio in Petronius's Satyricon) - habitually causing a gag reflex, empty the stomach in order not to spoil your figure and be able to Indulge in dessert too. This kind of self-indulgence in food is gluttony and sin in many respects, including in relation to one’s own nature.

This analogy can be applied to marital relationships. What is a natural continuation of life is good, and there is nothing bad or unclean in it. And that which leads to the search for more and more new pleasures, one more, another, third, tenth point, in order to squeeze out some additional sensory reactions from one’s body, is, of course, improper and sinful and something that cannot be included in life of an Orthodox family.

What is acceptable in sexual life and what is not, and how is this criterion of acceptability established? Why is oral sex considered vicious and unnatural, since highly developed mammals leading complex social lives have this kind of sexual relationship in the nature of things?

The very formulation of the question implies the contamination of modern consciousness with such information, which it would be better not to know. In previous, in this sense more prosperous, times, children were not allowed into the barnyard during the mating period of animals, so that they would not develop abnormal interests. And if we imagine a situation, not even a hundred years ago, but fifty years ago, could we find at least one in a thousand people who would be aware that monkeys engage in oral sex? Moreover, would he be able to ask about this in some acceptable verbal form? I think that drawing knowledge about this particular component of their existence from the life of mammals is at least one-sided. In this case, the natural norm for our existence would be to consider polygamy, characteristic of higher mammals, and the change of regular sexual partners, and if we take the logical series to the end, then the expulsion of the fertilizing male, when he can be replaced by a younger and physically stronger . So those who want to borrow the forms of organization of human life from higher mammals must be prepared to borrow them completely, and not selectively. After all, reducing us to the level of a herd of monkeys, even the most highly developed, implies that the stronger will displace the weaker, including in sexual terms. Unlike those who are ready to consider the final measure of human existence as one with that which is natural for higher mammals, Christians, without denying the naturalness of man with another created world, do not reduce him to the level of a highly organized animal, but think of him as a higher being.

in the rules, recommendations of the Church and church teachers there are TWO specific and CATEGORICAL prohibitions - on 1) anal and 2) oral sex. The reasons can probably be found in the literature. But I personally didn't look for it. For what? If it’s not possible, then it’s not possible. As for the variety of poses... There seem to be no specific prohibitions (with the exception of one not very clearly stated place in the Nomocanon regarding the “woman on top” pose, which, precisely due to the ambiguity of the presentation, may not be classified as categorical). But in general, Orthodox Christians are recommended to even simply eat food with the fear of God, thanking God. One must think that any excesses - both in food and in marital relations - cannot be welcomed. Well, a possible dispute on the topic “what to call excesses” is a question for which there are no rules, but there is a conscience in this case. Think for yourself without guile, compare: why are gluttony (immoderate consumption of excessive food that is not necessary to saturate the body) and laryngeal madness (passion for exquisitely tasty dishes and viands) considered a sin? (this is the answer from here)

It is not customary to talk openly about certain functions of the reproductive organs, unlike other physiological functions of the human body, such as eating, sleeping, and so on. This area of ​​life is especially vulnerable; many mental disorders are associated with it. Is this explained by original sin after the Fall? If yes, then why, since original sin was not fornication, but was a sin of disobedience to the Creator?

Yes, of course, original sin consisted primarily of disobedience and violation of God’s commandments, as well as unrepentance and impenitence. And this combination of disobedience and unrepentance led to the falling away of the first people from God, the impossibility of their further stay in paradise and all those consequences of the Fall that entered into human nature and which in the Holy Scriptures are symbolically called putting on “leather vestments” (Gen. 3:21 ). The Holy Fathers interpret this as the acquisition of fatness by human nature, that is, bodily fleshiness, the loss of many of the original properties that were given to man. Soreness, fatigue and much more entered not only our mental, but also our physical composition in connection with the Fall. In this sense, human physical organs, including organs associated with childbirth, also became open to disease. But the principle of modesty, concealment of the chaste, namely chaste, and not sanctimonious-puritanical silence about the sexual sphere, primarily comes from the Church’s deep reverence for man as the image and likeness of God. Just like not showing off what is most vulnerable and what most deeply connects two people, what makes them one flesh in the Sacrament of Marriage, and gives rise to another, immeasurably sublime union and therefore is the object of constant enmity, intrigues, distortion on the part of the evil one . The enemy of the human race in particular fights against that which, in itself being pure and beautiful, is so significant and so important for the inner correct existence of a person. Understanding the full responsibility and severity of this struggle that a person wages, the Church helps him by maintaining modesty, keeping silent about what should not be spoken about publicly and which is so easy to distort and so difficult to return, for it is infinitely difficult to convert acquired shamelessness into chastity. Lost chastity and other knowledge about yourself, no matter how hard you try, cannot be turned into ignorance. Therefore, the Church, through the secrecy of this kind of knowledge and the inviolability of it to the human soul, strives to make him uninvolved in the many perversions and distortions invented by the evil one of what is so majestic and well-ordered by our Savior in nature. Let us listen to this wisdom of the two-thousand-year existence of the Church. And no matter what culturologists, sexologists, gynecologists, all kinds of pathologists and other Freudians tell us, their names are legion, let us remember that they tell lies about man, not seeing in him the image and likeness of God.

In this case, what is the difference between chaste silence and sanctimonious silence? Chaste silence presupposes inner dispassion, inner peace and overcoming, what St. John of Damascus spoke about in relation to the Mother of God, that She had extreme virginity, that is, virginity in both body and soul. The sanctimonious-puritanical silence presupposes the concealment of what the person himself has not overcome, what is boiling in him and with what, even if he fights, it is not with an ascetic victory over himself with the help of God, but with hostility towards others, which is so easily extended to other people, and some of their manifestations. While the victory of his own heart over the attraction to what he is struggling with has not yet been achieved.

But how can we explain that in the Holy Scripture, as in other church texts, when the Nativity and virginity are sung, the reproductive organs are directly called by their proper names: the loins, the womb, the gates of virginity, and this in no way contradicts modesty and chastity? But in ordinary life, if someone said something like that out loud, either in Old Church Slavonic or in Russian, it would be perceived as indecency, as a violation of generally accepted norms.

This just means that in the Holy Scripture, which contains these words in abundance, they are not associated with sin. They are not associated with anything vulgar, carnal, exciting, or unworthy of a Christian precisely because in church texts everything is chaste, and it cannot be otherwise. For the pure, everything is pure, the Word of God tells us, but for the unclean, even the pure will be unclean.

Nowadays, finding a context in which this kind of vocabulary and metaphors could be placed without damaging the soul of the reader is very difficult. It is known that the largest number of metaphors of physicality and human love is in the biblical book of Song of Songs. But today the worldly mind has ceased to understand - and this did not even happen in the 21st century - the story of the love of the Bride for the Groom, that is, the Church for Christ. In various works of art since the 18th century we find the carnal aspiration of a girl for a young man, but in essence this is a reduction of Holy Scripture to the level of, at best, just a beautiful love story. Although not in the most ancient times, but in the 17th century in the city of Tutaev near Yaroslavl, an entire chapel of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ was painted with scenes from the Song of Songs. (These frescoes have still been preserved.) And this is not the only example. In other words, back in the 17th century, what was pure was pure for the pure, and this is further evidence of how deeply man has fallen today.

They say: free love in a free world. Why is this particular word used in relation to those relationships that, in the church’s understanding, are interpreted as prodigal?

Because the very meaning of the word “freedom” has been distorted and it has long been interpreted as a non-Christian understanding, which was once accessible to such a significant part of the human race, that is, freedom from sin, freedom as freedom from the low and vile, freedom as the openness of the human soul to eternity and to Heaven , and not at all as his determination by his instincts or the external social environment. This understanding of freedom has been lost, and today freedom is understood primarily as self-will, the ability to create, as they say, “what I want, I do.” However, behind this is nothing more than a return to the realm of slavery, submission to one’s instincts under the pitiful slogan: seize the moment, take advantage of life while you are young, pick all the permitted and unlawful fruits! And it is clear that if love in human relationships is the greatest gift of God, then to pervert precisely love, to introduce catastrophic distortions into it, is the main task of that original slanderer and parodist-perverter, whose name is known to everyone reading these lines.

Why are the so-called bed relationships of married spouses no longer sinful, but the same relationships before marriage are called “sinful fornication”?

There are things that are sinful by nature, and there are things that become sinful as a result of breaking the commandments. Suppose it is sinful to kill, rob, steal, slander - and therefore this is prohibited by the commandments. But by its very nature, eating food is not sinful. It is sinful to enjoy it excessively, which is why there is fasting and certain restrictions on food. The same applies to physical intimacy. Being legally sanctified by marriage and put on its proper course, it is not sinful, but since it is prohibited in another form, if this prohibition is violated, it inevitably turns into “prodigal incitement.”

From Orthodox literature it follows that the physical side dulls a person’s spiritual abilities. Why then do we have not only a black monastic clergy, but also a white one, obliging the priest to be in a marriage union?

This is a question that has long troubled the Universal Church. Already in the ancient Church, in the 2nd-3rd centuries, the opinion arose that the more correct path was the path of celibate life for all the clergy. This opinion prevailed very early in the western part of the Church, and at the Council of Elvira at the beginning of the 4th century it was voiced in one of its rules and then under Pope Gregory VII Hildebrand (11th century) it became prevalent after the fall of the Catholic Church from the Universal Church. Then compulsory celibacy was introduced, that is, compulsory celibacy of the clergy. The Eastern Orthodox Church has taken a path, firstly, more consistent with the Holy Scriptures, and secondly, more chaste: not treating family relationships only as a palliative against fornication, a way not to become overly inflamed, but guided by the words of the Apostle Paul and considering marriage as the union of a man and a woman in the image of the union of Christ and the Church, it initially allowed marriage for deacons, presbyters, and bishops. Subsequently, starting from the 5th century, and in the 6th century, finally, the Church forbade marriage for bishops, but not because the marriage state was fundamentally inadmissible for them, but because the bishop was not bound by family interests, family concerns, concerns about his own and his own so that his life, connected with the entire diocese, with the entire Church, would be completely given to it. Nevertheless, the Church recognized the marital state as permissible for all other clergy, and the decrees of the Fifth and Sixth Ecumenical Councils, the Gandrian Council of the 4th century and the Trullo Council of the 6th century directly stated that a cleric who evades marriage due to abuse should be prohibited from serving. So, the Church views the marriage of clergy as a chaste and abstinent marriage and most consistent with the principle of monogamy, that is, a priest can only be married once and must remain chaste and faithful to his wife in the event of widowhood. What the Church treats with condescension in relation to the marital relations of the laity must be fully realized in the families of priests: the same commandment about childbearing, about the acceptance of all children whom the Lord sends, the same principle of abstinence, preferential deviation from each other for prayer and post.

In Orthodoxy, there is a danger in the very class of the clergy - in the fact that, as a rule, the children of priests become clergy. Catholicism has its own danger, since the clergy is constantly being recruited from outside. However, there is an advantage to the fact that anyone can become a cleric, as there is a constant influx from all walks of life. Here, in Russia, as in Byzantium, for many centuries clergy were actually a certain class. There were, of course, cases of tax-paying peasants entering the priesthood, that is, from the bottom up, or vice versa - representatives of the highest circles of society, but then, for the most part, into monasticism. However, in principle it was a family-class affair, and it had its own shortcomings and its own dangers. The main untruth of the Western approach to celibacy of the priesthood is its very disdain for marriage as a state that is permissible for the laity, but intolerable for the clergy. This is the main untruth, and the social order is a matter of tactics, and it can be assessed differently.

In the Lives of the Saints, a marriage in which husband and wife live as brother and sister, for example, like John of Kronstadt with his wife, is called pure. So, in other cases, the marriage is dirty?

A completely casuistic formulation of the question. After all, we also call the Most Holy Theotokos Most Pure, although in the proper sense only the Lord is pure from original sin. The Mother of God is Most Pure and Immaculate in comparison with all other people. We also talk about a pure marriage in relation to the marriage of Joachim and Anna or Zechariah and Elizabeth. The conception of the Most Holy Theotokos, the conception of John the Baptist are also sometimes called immaculate or pure, and not in the sense that they were alien to original sin, but in the fact that, in comparison with how this usually happens, they were abstained and not fulfilled excessive carnal aspirations. In the same sense, purity is spoken of as a greater measure of chastity of those special callings that were in the lives of some saints, an example of which is the marriage of the holy righteous father John of Kronstadt.

When we talk about the immaculate conception of the Son of God, does this mean that in ordinary people it is flawed?

Yes, one of the provisions of the Orthodox Tradition is that the seedless, that is, immaculate, conception of our Lord Jesus Christ occurred precisely so that the incarnate Son of God would not be involved in any sin, for the moment of passion and thereby distortion of love for one’s neighbor is inextricably linked with the consequences of the Fall, including in the generic area.

How should spouses communicate during their wife’s pregnancy?

Any abstinence is then positive, then it will be a good fruit, when it is not perceived only as a negation of anything, but has an internal good filling. If spouses during their wife’s pregnancy, having given up physical intimacy, begin to talk less to each other and watch TV more or swear in order to give some outlet to negative emotions, then this is one situation. It’s different if they try to pass this time as wisely as possible, deepening spiritual and prayerful communication with each other. After all, it is so natural, when a woman is expecting a child, to pray more to herself in order to get rid of all those fears that accompany pregnancy, and to her husband in order to support his wife. In addition, you need to talk more, listen more carefully to the other, look for different forms of communication, and not only spiritual, but also spiritual and intellectual, which would encourage the spouses to be together as much as possible. Finally, those forms of tenderness and affection with which they limited the intimacy of their communication when they were still bride and groom, and during this period of married life should not lead to a worsening of the carnal and physical in their relationship.

It is known that in case of some illnesses, fasting in food is either completely canceled or limited; are there such life situations or such illnesses when the spouses’ abstinence from intimacy is not blessed?

There are. Just don’t need to interpret this concept very broadly. Now many priests hear from their parishioners who say that doctors recommend that men with prostatitis “make love” every day. Prostatitis is not a new disease, but only in our time is a seventy-five-year-old man prescribed to constantly exercise in this area. And this is in years when life, worldly and spiritual wisdom should be achieved. Just as some gynecologists, even with a far from catastrophic illness, a woman will definitely say that it is better to have an abortion than to bear a child, so other sex therapists advise, no matter what, to continue intimate relationships, even non-marital ones, that is, morally unacceptable for a Christian , but, according to experts, necessary to maintain bodily health. However, this does not mean that such doctors should be obeyed every time. In general, you should not rely too much on the advice of doctors alone, especially in matters related to the sexual sphere, since, unfortunately, very often sexologists are open bearers of non-Christian worldviews.

The doctor’s advice should be combined with advice from a confessor, as well as with a sober assessment of one’s own physical health, and most importantly, with internal self-esteem - what a person is ready for and what he is called to. Perhaps it is worth considering whether this or that bodily ailment is allowed to occur for reasons that are beneficial to a person. And then make a decision regarding abstinence from marital relations during fasting.

Are affection and tenderness possible during fasting and abstinence?

Possible, but not those that would lead to a bodily revolt of the flesh, to kindling a fire, after which the fire needs to be poured with water or a cold shower must be taken.

Some say that Orthodox Christians pretend there is no sex!

I think that this kind of idea of ​​an external person about the view of the Orthodox Church on family relationships is mainly explained by his unfamiliarity with the real church worldview in this area, as well as a one-sided reading of not so much ascetic texts, which almost do not talk about this at all, but texts either modern parachurch publicists, or unfamous devotees of piety, or, what happens even more often, modern bearers of secular tolerant-liberal consciousness, distorting the church interpretation on this issue in the media.

Now let's think about what real meaning can be put into this phrase: the Church pretends that there is no sex. What does this mean? That the Church puts the intimate area of ​​life in its appropriate place? That is, it does not make of it that cult of pleasures, that only fulfillment of being, which you can read about in many magazines with shiny covers. So, it turns out that a person’s life continues insofar as he is a sexual partner, sexually attractive to people of the opposite, and now often of the same sex. And as long as he is such and can be in demand by someone, there is meaning in living. And everything revolves around this: work to earn money for a beautiful sexual partner, clothes to attract him, a car, furniture, accessories to furnish an intimate relationship with the necessary surroundings, etc. and so on. Yes, in this sense, Christianity clearly states: sexual life is not the only fulfillment of human existence, and puts it in an adequate place - as one of the important, but not the only and not the central component of human existence. And then refusal of sexual relations - both voluntary, for the sake of God and piety, and forced, in illness or old age - is not considered as a terrible catastrophe, when, in the opinion of many sufferers, one can only live out their lives, drinking whiskey and cognac and looking on TV something that you yourself can no longer realize in any form, but that still causes some impulses in your decrepit body. Fortunately, the Church does not have such a view of a person’s family life.

On the other hand, the essence of the question asked may be related to the fact that there are certain kinds of restrictions that are supposed to be expected from people of faith. But in fact, these restrictions lead to the fullness and depth of the marital union, including fullness, depth and happiness, joy in intimate life, which people who change their companions from today to tomorrow, from one night party to another, do not know. And the complete completeness of giving themselves to each other, which a loving and faithful married couple knows, will never be recognized by collectors of sexual victories, no matter how much they swagger on the pages of magazines about cosmopolitan girls and men with pumped up biceps.

It’s impossible to say: the Church doesn’t love them... Its position should be formulated in completely different terms. Firstly, always separating sin from the person committing it, and not accepting sin - and same-sex relations, homosexuality, sodomy, lesbianism are sinful at their very core, as is clearly and unambiguously stated in the Old Testament - the Church treats the person who sins with pity, for every sinner leads himself away from the path of salvation until he begins to repent of his own sin, that is, to move away from it. But what we do not accept and, of course, with all the measure of harshness and, if you like, intolerance, what we rebel against is that those who are the so-called minorities begin to impose (and at the same time very aggressively) their attitude to life, to the surrounding reality, to the normal majority. True, there are certain areas of human existence where, for some reason, minorities accumulate to form a majority. And therefore, in the media, in a number of sections of contemporary art, on television, we continually see, read, and hear about those who show us certain standards of modern “successful” existence. This is the kind of presentation of sin to the poor perverts, unhappily overwhelmed by it, sin as a norm that you need to be equal to and which, if you yourself can’t do it, then at least should be considered as the most progressive and advanced, this is the kind of worldview, certainly unacceptable for us.

Is it a sin for a married man to participate in the artificial insemination of a stranger? And does this amount to adultery?

The resolution of the anniversary Council of Bishops in 2000 speaks of the unacceptability of in vitro fertilization when we are not talking about the married couple themselves, not about the husband and wife, who are infertile due to certain ailments, but for whom this kind of fertilization may be a way out. Although there are limitations here too: the resolution deals only with those cases where none of the fertilized embryos are discarded as secondary material, which is for the most part impossible. And therefore, practically it turns out to be unacceptable, since the Church recognizes the fullness of human life from the very moment of conception - no matter how and when it happens. When this kind of technology becomes a reality (today they apparently exist somewhere only at the most advanced level of medical care), then it will no longer be absolutely unacceptable for believers to resort to them.

As for the participation of a husband in the impregnation of a stranger or a wife in bearing a child for some third party, even without the physical participation of this person in fertilization, of course, this is a sin in relation to the entire unity of the Sacrament of the marriage union, the result of which is the joint birth of children, for the Church blesses a chaste, that is, integral union, in which there is no defect, there is no fragmentation. And what more can disrupt this marriage union than the fact that one of the spouses has a continuation of him as a person, as the image and likeness of God outside this family unity?

If we talk about in vitro fertilization by an unmarried man, then in this case, the norm of Christian life, again, is the very essence of intimate intimacy in a marital union. No one has canceled the norm of church consciousness that a man and a woman, a girl and a boy should strive to preserve their bodily purity before marriage. And in this sense, it is impossible to even think that an Orthodox, and therefore chaste, young man would donate his seed in order to impregnate some stranger.

What if newly married newlyweds find out that one of the spouses cannot have a full sex life?

If an inability to cohabitate in marriage is discovered immediately after marriage, and this is a kind of inability that can hardly be overcome, then according to church canons it is grounds for divorce.

In the case of impotence of one of the spouses due to an incurable disease, how should they behave with each other?

You need to remember that over the years something has connected you, and this is so much higher and more significant than the small illness that exists now, which, of course, should in no way be a reason to allow yourself some things. Secular people admit the following thoughts: well, we will continue to live together, because we have social obligations, and if he (or she) cannot do anything, but I still can, then I have the right to find satisfaction on the side. It is clear that such logic is absolutely unacceptable in a church marriage, and it must be cut off a priori. This means that it is necessary to look for opportunities and ways to otherwise fill your married life, which does not exclude affection, tenderness, and other manifestations of affection for each other, but without direct marital communication.

Is it possible for a husband and wife to turn to psychologists or sexologists if something is not going well for them?

As for psychologists, it seems to me that a more general rule applies here, namely: there are such life situations when the union of a priest and a church-going doctor is very appropriate, that is, when the nature of mental illness gravitates in both directions - and towards spiritual illness, and towards the medical. And in this case, the priest and the doctor (but only a Christian doctor) can provide effective assistance to both the entire family and its individual member. In cases of some psychological conflicts, it seems to me that a Christian family needs to look for ways to resolve them within themselves through the awareness of their responsibility for the current disorder, through the acceptance of the Church Sacraments, in some cases, perhaps, through the support or advice of a priest, of course, if there is a determination on both sides, husband and wife, in case of disagreement on one issue or another, rely on the priestly blessing. If there is this kind of unanimity, then it helps a lot. But running to the doctor for a solution to what is a consequence of the sinful fractures of our soul is hardly fruitful. The doctor will not help here. As for assistance in the intimate, genital area by the relevant specialists who work in this field, it seems to me that in cases of either some physical disabilities or some psychosomatic conditions that interfere with the full life of the spouses and require medical regulation, it is necessary just see a doctor. But, however, of course, when today they talk about sexologists and their recommendations, then most often we are talking about how a person, with the help of the body of a husband or wife, lover or mistress, can extract as much pleasure as possible for himself and how to adjust his bodily composition so that the measure of carnal pleasure becomes greater and greater and lasts longer and longer. It is clear that a Christian, who knows that moderation in everything - especially in pleasures - is an important measure of our life, will not go to any doctor with such questions.

But it is very difficult to find an Orthodox psychiatrist, especially a sex therapist. And besides, even if you find such a doctor, maybe he only calls himself Orthodox.

Of course, this should not be just a self-name, but also some reliable external evidence. Here it would be inappropriate to list specific names and organizations, but I think that whenever we talk about health, mental and physical, we need to remember the gospel word that “the testimony of two people is true” (John 8:17), that is, we need two or three independent certificates confirming both the medical qualifications and ideological closeness to Orthodoxy of the doctor to whom we are turning.

What contraceptive measures does the Orthodox Church prefer?

None. There are no contraceptives that bear the seal “with the permission of the Synodal Department for Social Work and Charity” (it is he who deals with the medical service). There are no and cannot be such contraceptives! Another thing is that the Church (just remember its newest document “Fundamentals of a Social Concept”) soberly distinguishes between methods of contraception that are absolutely unacceptable and those allowed due to weakness. Abortive contraceptives are absolutely unacceptable, not only the abortion itself, but also that which provokes the expulsion of a fertilized egg, no matter how quickly it occurs, even immediately after conception itself. Everything connected with this kind of action is unacceptable for the life of an Orthodox family. (I will not dictate lists of such means: those who do not know are better off not knowing, and those who know, understand without it.) As for other, say, mechanical methods of contraception, I repeat, I do not approve and in no way Considering birth control to be the norm of church life, the Church distinguishes them from those that are absolutely unacceptable for those spouses who, due to weakness, cannot endure complete abstinence during those periods of family life when, for medical, social or some other reasons, childbearing is impossible. When, for example, a woman after a serious illness or due to the nature of some treatment during this period, pregnancy is extremely undesirable. Or for a family that already has quite a lot of children, today, due to purely everyday conditions, it is unbearable to have another child. Another thing is that before God, abstinence from childbearing must always be extremely responsible and honest. Here it is very easy, instead of considering this interval in the birth of children as a forced period, to indulge ourselves, when crafty thoughts whisper: “Well, why do we need this at all? Again, the career will be interrupted, although such prospects are outlined in it, and here again a return to diapers, to lack of sleep, to seclusion in our own apartment” or: “Only we have achieved some kind of relative social well-being, we began to live better, and with the birth of a child we will have to refuse a planned trip to the sea, a new car, or some other things.” And as soon as this kind of crafty arguments begin to enter our lives, it means we need to stop them immediately and give birth to the next child. And we must always remember that the Church calls on Orthodox Christians who are married not to consciously refrain from bearing children, either because of distrust of God’s Providence, or because of selfishness and the desire for an easy life.

If the husband demands an abortion, even to the point of divorce?

This means that you need to part with such a person and give birth to a child, no matter how difficult it may be. And this is exactly the case when obedience to your husband cannot be a priority.

If a believing wife for some reason wants to have an abortion?

Put all your strength, all your understanding into preventing this from happening, all your love, all your arguments: from resorting to church authorities, the advice of a priest, to simply material, life-practical, any kind of arguments. That is, from carrot to stick - everything, just to avoid it. allow murder. Clearly, abortion is murder. And murder must be resisted to the last, regardless of the methods and ways in which this is achieved.

Is the attitude of the Church towards a woman who, during the years of godless Soviet power, had an abortion, not realizing what she was doing, the same as towards a woman who is now doing it and already knows what she is doing? Or is it still different?

Yes, of course, because according to the Gospel parable about the slaves and the steward, known to us all, there were different punishments - for those slaves who acted against the will of the master, not knowing this will, and for those who knew everything or knew enough and nevertheless did it . In the Gospel of John, the Lord says about the Jews: “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin” (John 15:22). So here is one measure of guilt of those who did not understand, or even if they heard something, but internally, in their hearts, did not know what untruth there was in it, and another measure of guilt and responsibility of those who already know that this is murder ( It’s hard to find a person today who doesn’t know that this is so), and perhaps they even recognize themselves as believers if they then come to confession, and yet they do it anyway. Of course, not before church discipline, but before one’s soul, before eternity, before God - here is a different measure of responsibility, and therefore a different measure of pastoral and pedagogical attitude towards someone who sins in this way. Therefore, both the priest and the entire Church will look differently at a woman who was raised as a pioneer, a Komsomol member, who, if she has heard the word “repentance,” then only in relation to stories about some dark and ignorant grandmothers who curse the world, even if she has heard of The Gospels, then only from a course on scientific atheism, and whose head was filled with the code of the builders of communism and other things, and to that woman who is in the current situation, when the voice of the Church, directly and unequivocally testifying to the truth of Christ, is heard by everyone.

In other words, the point here is not a change in the Church’s attitude towards sin, not some kind of relativism, but the fact that people themselves have varying degrees of responsibility in relation to sin.

Why do some pastors believe that marital relations are sinful if they do not lead to childbearing, and recommend abstaining from physical intimacy in cases where one spouse is not a church member and does not want to have children? How does this relate to the words of the Apostle Paul: “do not turn away from one another” (1 Cor. 7:5) and with the words in the wedding ceremony “marriage is honorable and the bed undefiled”?

It is not easy to be in a situation where, say, an unchurched husband does not want to have children, but if he cheats on his wife, then it is her duty to avoid physical cohabitation with him, which only indulges his sin. Perhaps this is exactly the case that the clergy are warning about. And each such case, which does not imply childbearing, must be considered very specifically. However, this does not in any way abolish the words of the wedding ceremony, “the marriage is honest and the bed is undefiled,” it’s just that this honesty of marriage and this cleanliness of the bed must be observed with all restrictions, warnings and admonitions if they begin to sin against them and deviate from them.

Yes, the Apostle Paul says that “if they cannot abstain, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to become inflamed” (1 Cor. 7:9). But he undoubtedly saw in marriage more than just a way to channel his sexual desire into a legitimate channel. Of course, it is good for a young man to be with his wife instead of fruitlessly getting excited until the age of thirty and earning himself some kind of complexes and perverted habits, which is why in the old days they got married quite early. But, of course, not everything about marriage is said in these words.

If a 40-45 year old husband and wife who already have children decide not to give birth to any more children, does this not mean that they should give up intimacy with each other?

Starting from a certain age, many spouses, even churchgoers, according to the modern view of family life, decide that they will not have any more children, and now they will experience everything that they did not have time to do when they were raising children in their younger years. The Church has never supported or blessed such an attitude towards childbearing. Just like the decision of most newlyweds to first live for their own pleasure and then have children. Both are a distortion of God’s plan for the family. Spouses, for whom it is high time to prepare their relationship for eternity, if only because they are now closer to it than, say, thirty years ago, again immerse them in physicality and reduce them to something that obviously cannot have a continuation in the Kingdom of God . It will be the duty of the Church to warn: there is danger here, here the traffic light is, if not red, then yellow. Upon reaching adulthood, putting what is auxiliary at the center of your relationships certainly means distorting them, maybe even ruining them. And in specific texts of certain shepherds, not always with the degree of tact as we would like, but in essence absolutely correctly, this is said.

In general, it is always better to be more abstinent than less. It is always better to strictly fulfill the commandments of God and the Church Rules than to interpret them condescendingly towards oneself. Treat them condescendingly to others, but try to apply them to yourself with the full measure of severity.

Are carnal relationships considered sinful if the husband and wife have reached an age when childbearing becomes absolutely impossible?

No, the Church does not consider those marital relationships when childbearing is no longer possible as sinful. But he calls on a person who has reached maturity in life and either retained, perhaps even without his own desire, chastity, or, on the contrary, who has had negative, sinful experiences in his life and wants to get married in his twilight years, it is better not to do this, because then he It will be much easier to cope with the impulses of your own flesh, without striving for what is no longer appropriate simply due to age.

On October 22, 2013, at the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI, in continuation of the special course “History of Christian Thought,” a lecture on traditional religions and their relationship with Orthodoxy was given by the head, chairman, rector, professor and head of the Department of Theology of MEPhI.

Today I would like to say a few words about the relationship between the Orthodox and representatives of world religions, three of which are represented in our country as traditional; we call these religions traditional because they have historically existed among us for centuries. These are Judaism, Islam and Buddhism. I will not talk in detail about each of these religions, but I will try to outline their differences from Orthodox Christianity and talk about how we build relationships with them today.

Orthodoxy and Judaism

First of all, I would like to say a few words about Judaism. Judaism is the religion of the Jewish people: it is impossible to belong to it without having Jewish origin. Judaism sees itself not as a world religion, but as a national religion. Currently, it is professed by about 17 million people who live both in Israel and in many other countries of the world.

Historically, Judaism was the basis on which Christianity began to develop. Jesus Christ was a Jew, and all His activities took place within the then Jewish state, which, however, did not have political independence, but was under the rule of the Romans. Jesus spoke Aramaic, that is, one of the dialects of the Hebrew language, and followed the customs of the Jewish religion. For some time Christianity remained somewhat dependent on Judaism. In science, there is even the term “Judeo-Christianity,” which refers to the first decades of the development of the Christian faith, when it still remained associated with the Jerusalem Temple (we know from the Acts of the Apostles that the apostles attended services in the temple) and the influence of Jewish theology and Jewish ritual on Christian communities.

The turning point for the history of Judaism was the year 70, when Jerusalem was sacked by the Romans. From this moment begins the history of the dispersion of the Jewish people, which continues to this day. After the capture of Jerusalem, Israel ceased to exist not only as a state, but even as a national community tied to a specific territory.

In addition, Judaism, represented by its religious leaders, reacted very negatively to the emergence and spread of Christianity. We find the origins of this conflict already in the polemics of Jesus Christ with the Jews and their religious leaders - the Pharisees, whom He harshly criticized and who treated Him with extreme hostility. It was the religious leaders of the Israeli people who achieved the condemnation of the Savior to death on the cross.

The relationship between Christianity and Judaism over the course of many centuries has developed in the spirit of polemics and complete mutual rejection. In rabbinic Judaism, the attitude towards Christianity was purely negative.

Meanwhile, Jews and Christians share a significant part of the Holy Scriptures. All of what we call the Old Testament, with the exception of some later books, is also Holy Scripture for the Jewish tradition. In this sense, Christians and Jews retain a certain single doctrinal basis, on the basis of which theology was built in both religious traditions. But the development of Jewish theology was associated with the appearance of new books - these are the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds, Mishnah, Halakha. All these books, or rather collections of books, were interpretive in nature. They are based on the Holy Scripture, which is common to Christians and Jews, but they interpreted it differently from those interpretations that have developed in the Christian environment. If for Christians the Old Testament is an important, but not the primary part of the Holy Scripture, which is the New Testament, which speaks of Christ as God and man, then the Jewish tradition rejected Christ as the God-man, and the Old Testament remains the main holy book.

The attitude towards the New Testament and the Christian Church in general among the Jews was sharply negative. Among Christians, the attitude towards Jews was also negative. If we turn to the writings of the 4th century Church Fathers, such as John Chrysostom, we can find very harsh statements about the Jews: by today's standards these statements could be qualified as anti-Semitic. But it is important to remember that they were dictated, of course, not by some kind of interethnic hatred, but by the polemics that had been going on for centuries between representatives of the two religions. The essence of the disagreement was in the attitude towards Jesus Christ, because if Christians recognize Him as God Incarnate and the Messiah, that is, the Anointed One about whom the prophets predicted and for whom the Israeli people expected, then the Israeli people themselves, for the most part, did not accept Christ as the Messiah and continue to expect the coming of another messiah. Moreover, this messiah is conceived not so much as a spiritual leader, but rather as a political leader who will be able to restore the power of the Israeli people and the territorial integrity of the Israeli state.

It was precisely this attitude that was already characteristic of the Jews of the 1st century, which is why many of them did not accept Christ quite sincerely - they were sure that the messiah would be a man who, first of all, would come and free the Israeli people from the power of the Romans.

The Talmud contains many offensive and even blasphemous statements about Jesus Christ and the Most Holy Theotokos. In addition, Judaism is an iconoclastic religion - it does not have any sacred images: neither God nor people. This, of course, is connected with a tradition dating back to Old Testament times, which generally prohibited all images of the Divine and saints. Therefore, if you go to a Christian temple, you will see a lot of images, but if you visit a synagogue, you will see nothing but ornaments and symbols. This is due to a special theological approach to spiritual realities. If Christianity is the religion of God Incarnate, then Judaism is the religion of the Invisible God, Who revealed Himself in the history of the Israeli people in a mysterious way and was perceived as God first of all of the Israeli people, and secondarily as the Creator of the whole world and the Creator of all people.

Reading the books of the Old Testament, we will see that the Israeli people perceived God as their own God, in contrast to the gods of other nations: if they worshiped pagan deities, then the Israeli people worshiped the True God and considered this their legitimate privilege. Ancient Israel did not have at all, as there is still no in the Jewish religion, any missionary calling to preach among other peoples, because Judaism is conceived, I repeat, as the religion of one - the Israeli - people.

In Christianity, the doctrine of God's chosen people of Israel was interpreted differently in different eras. The Apostle Paul also said that “all Israel will be saved” (Rom. 11:26). He believed that the entire Israeli people would sooner or later believe in Christ. On the other hand, already in the theology of the Church Fathers of the 4th century, which, as we remember, was the time of the formation of many historiosophical concepts within Christian theology, there was an understanding according to which the chosenness of God of the Israeli people ended after they rejected Christ, and passed to “ new Israel”, Church.

In modern theology, this approach is called “replacement theology.” The point is that the new Israel, as it were, replaced ancient Israel in the sense that everything said in the Old Testament in relation to the Israeli people already applies to the new Israel, that is, the Christian Church as a multinational chosen people of God, as a new reality, the prototype of which was the old Israel.

In the second half of the 20th century, another understanding developed in Western theology, which was associated with the development of interaction between Christians and Jews, with the development of Christian-Jewish dialogue. This new understanding practically did not affect the Orthodox Church, but found fairly wide recognition in the Catholic and Protestant environment. According to him, the Israeli people continue to remain God's chosen people, because if God chooses someone, He does not change His attitude towards a person, several people or a specific nation. Consequently, God's chosenness remains a kind of stamp that the Israeli people continue to bear. The realization of this chosenness of God, from the point of view of Christian theologians who adhere to this point of view, lies precisely in the fact that representatives of the Israeli people turn to faith in Christ and become Christians. It is known that among people who are Jewish by ethnic origin, there are many who believed in Christ - they belong to different faiths and live in different countries. In Israel itself there is a movement “Jews for Christ”, which was born in a Protestant environment and is aimed at converting Jews to Christianity.

The hostile attitude of Jews towards Christians and Christians towards Jews existed for centuries in different countries and even reached the everyday level. It took a variety of, sometimes monstrous, forms, right up to the Holocaust in the 20th century, right up to the Jewish pogroms.

Here it must be said that in the past, until very recently, in fact, until the 20th century, as we see from history, contradictions in the religious sphere very often resulted in wars, civil confrontation, and murders. But the tragic fate of the Israeli people, including in the 20th century, when they suffered massive repressions, extermination, first of all, from the Nazi regime - a regime that we cannot in any way consider connected with Christianity, because in its ideology it was anti-Christian - prompted the world community at the political level to rethink its relationship with Judaism, including in a religious context, and to establish a dialogue with the Jewish religion. Dialogue now exists at the official level, for example, there is a theological commission on dialogue between Christianity and Islam (literally a few weeks ago the next session of such dialogue was held with the participation of representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church).

In addition to this official dialogue, which, of course, is not aimed at bringing positions together, because they are still very different, there are other ways and forms of interaction between Christians and Jews. In particular, on the territory of Russia, Christians and Jews lived in peace and harmony for centuries, despite all the contradictions and conflicts that arose at the everyday level. Currently, the interaction between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Jewish community of the Russian Federation is quite close. This interaction concerns, first of all, social as well as moral issues. Here there is a very high degree of agreement between Christians and Jews, as well as representatives of other traditional faiths.

Well, and the most important thing that probably needs to be said: despite the quite obvious differences in the area of ​​doctrine, despite the cardinal difference in the approach to the person of Jesus Christ, between Jews and Christians what is preserved is what is the basis of all monotheistic religions: the belief in that God is one, that God is the Creator of the world, that He participates in the history of the world and the life of every person.

In this regard, we are talking about a certain doctrinal similarity of all monotheistic religions, of which three are called Abrahamic, because they all go back genetically to Abraham as the father of the Israeli people. There are three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam (I list them in order of appearance). And for Christianity, Abraham is a righteous man, and for Christianity, the history of the Israeli people is Sacred history.

If you get acquainted with the texts that are heard at Orthodox services, you will see that they are all filled with stories from the history of the Israeli people and their symbolic interpretations. Of course, in the Christian tradition, these stories and stories are refracted through the experience of the Christian Church. Most of them are perceived as prototypes of the realities associated with the coming of Jesus Christ into the world, while for the Israeli people they are of independent value. For example, if in the Jewish tradition Easter is celebrated as a holiday associated with the memory of the passage of the Israeli people through the Red Sea and the deliverance from Egyptian slavery, then for Christians this story is a prototype of the liberation of man from sin, the victory of Christ over death, and Easter is already thought of as feast of the Resurrection of Christ. There is a certain genetic connection between the two Easters - Jewish and Christian - but the semantic content of these two holidays is completely different.

The common basis that exists between the two religions helps them today to interact, dialogue and work together for the benefit of people.

Orthodoxy and Islam

The relationship between Christianity and Islam in history has been no less complex and no less tragic than the relationship between Christianity and Judaism.

Islam appeared at the turn of the 6th and 7th centuries, its founder is Muhammad (Mohammed), who in the Muslim tradition is perceived as a prophet. The book that plays the role of Holy Scripture in the Muslim tradition is called the Koran, and Muslims believe that it was dictated by God himself, that every word of it is true and that the Koran pre-existed with God before it was written down. Muslims consider Mohammed's role to be prophetic in the sense that the words he brought to earth were Divine revelation.

There is quite a lot in common between Christianity and Islam in terms of doctrine. Just like Judaism, like Christianity, Islam is a monotheistic religion, that is, Muslims believe in One God, whom they call the Arabic word “Allah” (God, the Most High). They believe that, besides God, there are angels, that after the death of people, reward after death awaits. They believe in the immortality of the human soul, in the Last Judgment. There are quite a few other Muslim dogmas that are largely similar to Christian ones. Moreover, both Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary are mentioned in the Koran, and they are spoken about repeatedly and quite respectfully. Christians are called the "People of the Book" in the Koran, and followers of Islam are encouraged to treat them with respect.

Islamic ritual rests on several pillars. First of all, this is the statement that “there is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet.” It is obligatory for all Muslims to pray five times a day. In addition, just like Christians, Muslims have fasting, but Christians and Muslims fast differently: Christians abstain from certain types of food on certain days, while for Muslims fasting is a certain period of time called Ramadan, when they do not eat food or even drink water from sunrise to sunset. For Muslims, alms are obligatory - zakat, that is, an annual tax that each Muslim with a certain income must pay in favor of his poorer brothers. Finally, it is believed that a devout Muslim, if he has the physical and material capabilities, must make a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in his life, which is called hajj.

In Islam and Christianity, as I said, there are many similar elements, but it should be noted that just as Christianity today is divided into different faiths, so Islam is a heterogeneous phenomenon. There is Sunni Islam, to which, according to various estimates, from 80 to 90 percent of all Muslims in the world belong. There is Shiite Islam, which is quite widespread, but mainly in the countries of the Middle East. There are a number of Islamic sects, such as the Alawites, who live in Syria. In addition, recently an increasingly important role, including in world politics, has been played by the radical wing of the Islamic world - Salafism (or, as it is now often called, Wahhabism), which the leaders of official Islam disavow as a perversion of Islam, because Wahhabism calls for hatred, aims to create a worldwide Islamic caliphate, where either there will be no place at all for representatives of other religions, or they will become second-class citizens who will have to pay tribute only for the fact that they are not Muslims.

When talking about the differences between Christianity and Islam in general, we must understand one very important thing. Christianity is a religion of free choice of one person or another, and this choice is made regardless of where the person was born, what nation he belongs to, what language he speaks, what color his skin is, who his parents were, and so on. In Christianity there is not and cannot be any compulsion to faith. And, besides, Christianity is precisely a religious, not a political system. Christianity has not developed any specific forms of state existence, does not recommend one or another preferred state system, and does not have its own system of secular law, although, of course, Christian moral values ​​had a very significant influence on the formation of legal norms in European countries and in a number of other countries continents (North and South America, Australia).

Islam, on the contrary, is not only a religious system, but also a political and legal system. Mohammed was not only a religious, but also a political leader, the creator of the world's first Islamic state, a legislator and a military leader. In this sense, in Islam, religious elements are very closely intertwined with legal and political elements. It is no coincidence, for example, that in a number of Islamic states, religious leaders are in power, and, unlike Christian ones, they are not perceived as clergy. Only at the everyday level is it customary to talk about “Muslim clergy” - in fact, the spiritual leaders of Islam are, in our understanding, laymen: they do not perform any sacred rites or sacraments, but only lead prayer meetings and have the right to teach the people.

Very often in Islam, spiritual power is combined with secular power. We see this in the example of a number of states, such as Iran, where spiritual leaders are in power.

Turning to the topic of dialogue between Islam and Christianity, the relationship between them, it must be said that with all the bitter experience of the coexistence of these religions in different conditions, including the history of the suffering of Christians under the Islamic yoke, there is also a positive experience of living together. Here again we must turn to the example of our country, where for centuries Christians and Muslims have lived and continue to live together. There have been no interreligious wars in Russian history. We had interethnic conflicts - this explosive potential still exists, which we see even in Moscow, when in one of the city's microdistricts one group of people suddenly rebels against another group - against people of a different ethnic origin. However, these conflicts are not religious in nature and are not religiously motivated. Such incidents can be characterized as manifestations of hatred at the everyday level, having signs of interethnic conflicts. In general, the experience of coexistence of Christians and Muslims in our state over the centuries can be described as positive.

Today in our Fatherland there are such bodies of interaction between Christians, Muslims and Jews as the Interreligious Council of Russia, the chairman of which is the Patriarch. This council includes leaders of Russian Islam and Judaism. It meets regularly to discuss various socially significant issues related to people's daily lives. A very high degree of interaction has been achieved within this council, in addition, religious leaders jointly carry out contacts with the state.

There is also a Council for Interaction with Religious Associations under the President of the Russian Federation, which meets quite regularly and before the government authorities represents the general agreed position of the main traditional faiths on many issues.

Russian experience of interaction between Christians and Muslims shows that coexistence is quite possible. We share our experience with our foreign partners.

Today it is especially in demand precisely because in the countries of the Middle East, North Africa, and some Asian countries, the Wahhabi movement is growing, which is aimed at the complete eradication of Christianity and the victims of which today are Christians in many parts of the world. We know what is happening now in Egypt, where until recently the radical Islamic party “Muslim Brotherhood” was in power, they destroyed Christian churches, set them on fire, killed Christian clergy, which is why we are now seeing a mass exodus of Coptic Christians from Egypt . We know what is happening in Iraq, where ten years ago there were one and a half million Christians, and now there are about 150 thousand of them left. We know what is happening in those areas of Syria where the Wahhabis hold power. There is an almost complete extermination of Christians, mass desecration of Christian shrines.

The tension that is growing in the Middle East and a number of other regions requires political decisions and the efforts of religious leaders. Now it is no longer enough to simply declare that Islam is a peaceful religion, that terrorism has no nationality or religious affiliation, because we are increasingly seeing the growth of radical Islamism. And therefore, more and more often, in dialogue with Islamic leaders, we tell them about the need to influence their flock in order to prevent cases of hostility and hatred, to eliminate the policy of eradicating Christianity, which is being implemented today in the Middle East.

Orthodoxy and Buddhism

Buddhism is a religion that is also represented in our Fatherland. Buddhism is professed by a considerable number of people, while this religion, in its doctrinal principles, is much further from Christianity than Judaism or Islam. Some scholars do not even agree to call Buddhism a religion because there is no concept of God in it. The Dalai Lama calls himself an atheist because he does not recognize the existence of God as a supreme Being.

However, Buddhism and Christianity have some similarities. For example, in Buddhism there are monasteries, in Buddhist temples and monasteries people pray and kneel. However, the quality of the prayer experience of Buddhists and Christians is completely different.

Even as a student, I had the opportunity to visit Tibet and communicate with Tibetan monks. We talked, among other things, about prayer, and it was not clear to me who Buddhists turn to when they pray.

When we Christians pray, we always have a specific addressee. For us, prayer is not just some kind of reflection, some words that we say, it is a conversation with God, the Lord Jesus Christ, or with the Mother of God, with one of the saints. Moreover, our religious experience convincingly confirms for us that this conversation is not conducted in only one direction: by turning questions to God, we receive answers; when we make requests, they are often fulfilled; If we are perplexed and pour it out in prayer to God, then very often we receive admonition from God. It can come in different forms, for example, in the form of insight, which occurs in a person when he is looking for something and does not find it, rushes about, turns to God and suddenly the answer to the question becomes clear to him. The answer from God can also come in the form of some life circumstances or lessons.

Thus, the entire experience of prayer for a Christian is an experience of interaction and dialogue with a living Being, Whom we call God. For us, God is a Person who is able to hear us and answer our questions and prayers. In Buddhism, such a Person does not exist, therefore Buddhist prayer is, rather, meditation, reflection, when a person immerses himself in himself. Its adherents try to extract all the potential for good that exists in Buddhism from themselves, that is, from human nature itself.

We, as people who believe in One God, have no doubt that God acts in a variety of environments, including outside the Church, and that He can also influence people who do not belong to Christianity. Recently I talked with our famous Buddhist Kirsan Ilyumzhinov: he came to a television program that I host on the Russia-24 channel, and we talked about Christianity and Buddhism. Among other things, he talked about how he visited Athos, stood for six or eight hours in a church during a service and experienced very special sensations: he called them “grace.” This man is a Buddhist, and according to the laws of his religion, he should not believe in God, and yet in a conversation with me he used words such as “God”, “Almighty”. We understand that the desire to communicate with the Supreme Being exists in Buddhism too, only it is expressed differently than in Christianity.

There are many teachings in Buddhism that are unacceptable to Christianity. For example, the doctrine of reincarnation. According to Christian doctrine (and both Jews and Muslims agree with this), a person comes into this world only once in order to live a human life here and then move on to eternal life. Moreover, during his stay on earth, the soul is united with the body, the soul and body become one inseparable being. In Buddhism there is a completely different idea of ​​the course of history, the place of man in it and the relationship between soul and body. Buddhists believe that the soul can migrate from one body to another, moreover, that it can move from the human body to the animal body, and vice versa: from the animal body to the human body.

In Buddhism, there is a whole teaching that a person’s actions in this life affect his future destiny. We Christians also say that our actions in earthly life influence our destiny in eternity, but we do not believe that a person’s soul can pass into some other body. Buddhists believe that if a person was a glutton in this earthly life, then in the next life he can turn into a pig. The Dalai Lama in his book talked about one dog who, no matter how much he ate, always found room for another piece. “I think that in a past life she was one of the Tibetan monks who starved to death,” writes the Dalai Lama.

In this regard, Buddhism is very far from Christianity. But Buddhism is a good religion. It helps to cultivate the will to goodness, helps to release the potential of goodness - it is no coincidence that many Buddhists are calm and cheerful. When I visited Buddhist monasteries in Tibet, I was very struck by the constant calm and hospitality of the monks. They always smile, and this smile is not developed, but quite natural, it stems from some kind of internal experience.

I would also like to draw your attention to the fact that throughout the history of our country, Christians and Buddhists have peacefully coexisted in different regions for centuries and there is no potential for conflicts between them.

Answers to questions from the audience

— You spoke about the unique experience of the Russian Empire, in which good relations developed between Muslims and Christians - the main population of Russia. However, the peculiarity of this experience is that there are many more Christians in the country than Muslims. Is there any known long and effective experience of good cooperation and good neighborliness in countries where the majority of the population is Muslim?

— Unfortunately, there are much fewer such examples. There is, for example, Lebanon, where until relatively recently there were probably more Christians than Muslims, then they became approximately equal, but now Christians are already in the minority. This state is structured in such a way that all government posts are distributed among representatives of different religious communities. Thus, the president of the country is a Maronite Christian, the prime minister is a Sunni Muslim, etc. This strict representation of religious communities in government bodies, enshrined in the Constitution, helps maintain the peaceful coexistence of different religions in the country.

—Are we in Eucharistic communion with Ethiopian Christians and Egyptian Copts?

— The word “Coptic” means “Egyptian” and therefore indicates ethnicity, not religious affiliation.

Both the Coptic Church in Egypt and the Ethiopian Church in Ethiopia, as well as some others, belong to the family of the so-called pre-Chalcedonian Churches. They are also called Eastern or Oriental Churches. They separated from the Orthodox Church in the 5th century due to disagreement with the decisions of the IV Ecumenical Council (Chalcedon), which adopted the doctrine that Jesus Christ has two natures - Divine and human. These Churches did not accept not so much the teaching itself as the terminology with which this teaching was expressed.

The Eastern Churches are now often called Monophysite (from the Greek words μόνος - “one” and φύσις - “nature, nature”) after the heresy that taught that Jesus Christ was God, but was not a full-fledged man. In fact, these Churches believe that Christ was both God and man, but believe that the Divine and human natures in Him are united into one divine-human composite nature.

Today there is a theological dialogue between the Orthodox Churches and the Pre-Chalcedonian Churches, but there is no communion in the Sacraments between us.

— Could you tell us about Jewish holidays? Do adherents of Judaism have any sacred rites, and is it acceptable for a Christian to participate in their rites?

“We prohibit our believers from participating in the rituals and prayers of other religions, because we believe that each religion has its own boundaries and Christians should not cross these boundaries.

An Orthodox Christian can attend a service in a Catholic or Protestant church, but he should not receive communion from a non-Orthodox church. We can marry a couple if one of the future spouses is Orthodox and the other is Catholic or Protestant, but we cannot marry a Christian with a Muslim woman or a Muslim with a Christian woman. We do not allow our believers to go to prayers in a mosque or synagogue.

Worship in the Jewish tradition is not worship in our sense, because in the Jewish tradition, worship itself was associated with the Jerusalem Temple. When it ceased to exist - now, as you know, only one wall remains of the temple, which is called the Western Wall, and Jews from all over the world come to Jerusalem to worship it - full-fledged worship became impossible.

A synagogue is a house for meetings, and initially synagogues were not perceived as places of worship. They appeared in the period after the Babylonian captivity for those people who could not make at least an annual pilgrimage to the temple, and were perceived rather as places of public gatherings where holy books were read. Thus, the Gospel tells how Christ entered the synagogue on Saturday, opened the book (that is, unrolled the scroll) and began to read, and then interpret what He read (see Luke 4:19).

In modern Judaism, the entire liturgical tradition is associated with the Sabbath as the main holy day, a day of rest. It does not involve any sacred rites or sacraments, but involves general prayer and reading of the Holy Scriptures.

There are also some rituals in Judaism, and the main one is circumcision, a ritual preserved from the Old Testament religion. Of course, a Christian cannot participate in this ritual. Although the first generation of Christians - the apostles - were circumcised people, already in the middle of the 1st century the Christian Church accepted the teaching that circumcision is not part of the Christian tradition, that a person becomes a Christian not through circumcision, but through baptism.

— From the point of view of modern times, the Apocalypse of John the Theologian looks quite funny, because not a single aspect of the evolution of mankind is mentioned there. It turns out that he saw a revelation about the end of the world, but did not see, for example, skyscrapers, modern weapons, machine guns. From the point of view of physics, such statements look especially strange, for example, that one third of the sun will be covered during some kind of punishment. I think that if one third of the sun is covered, the earth will not have much time left to live.

— First of all, I would like to note that a person who writes this or that book does it in a certain era, using the concepts accepted at that time and the knowledge that he has. We call the holy books revealed, but we do not say that they were written by God. Unlike Muslims who believe that the Qur'an is a book written by God and fallen from the sky, we say that all the holy books of the Old and New Testaments were written by people here on earth. They wrote about their experiences in books, but it was a religious experience, and when they wrote, they were influenced by the Holy Spirit.

The Apostle John the Theologian describes what he saw in supernatural visions. He, of course, could not see, much less describe, either skyscrapers or machine guns, because such objects did not exist then, which means there were no words to designate them. The words we are used to - machine gun, skyscraper, car and others - simply did not exist then. Therefore, it is natural that such images could not exist in the book of Revelation.

In addition, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that very often in such books, in particular in the books of the prophets, various symbols were used. And a symbol always has a diverse interpretation, and in each specific era of human development it can be revealed in a new way. The history of mankind shows how the biblical Old Testament and New Testament prophecies came true. You just need to understand that they are written in symbolic language.

And I would also like to advise: if you decide to take up reading the New Testament, then start it not from the end, but from the beginning, that is, not from the Apocalypse, but from the Gospel. Read one Gospel first, then the second, third, fourth. Then - the Acts of the Apostles, the epistles. When you read all this, the Apocalypse will become more understandable to you and, perhaps, will seem less funny.

— I often come across the opinion that if a Jew becomes Orthodox, then he stands above an ordinary Orthodox person, that he rises to a higher level...

“This is the first time I’ve heard about such judgments and I’ll tell you right away: there is no such teaching in the Church, and the Church does not approve of such an understanding.” The Apostle Paul also said that in Christ there is neither Greek nor Jew, neither slave nor free(see Gal. 3:27) - therefore, nationality in moral and spiritual terms has no meaning. What matters is how a person believes and how he lives.