Orthodoxy and intimate relationships - about sexual life in an Orthodox family. The attitude of the Orthodox Church to the main world religions

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Anastasius (Yannulatos),
Archbishop of Tirana and all Albania

The Orthodox Church lived both in conditions of religious pluralism and in a religiously homogeneous environment. Its relations with other religions were significantly influenced by the socio-political structures within which it existed.

(1) In the early centuries these relationships were confrontational, sometimes more and sometimes less acute. In the religious context of the Jewish and Greco-Roman worlds, the Church experienced powerful resistance, up to persecution, when she proclaimed the Gospel and offered new premises for personal and social life in the light of the mystery of the relationship between God and man.

(2) When the time of "Christian" empires came, the attitude of confrontation remained, although its vector changed. For the sake of achieving socio-political stability, the leaders strove for religious uniformity, suppressing adherents of other religious traditions. Thus, some emperors, bishops and monks were in the forefront of the destroyers of pagan temples. In the Byzantine Empire and, later, in the Russian, the fundamental principle of Christ "who wants to follow me..." () often forgotten. And if coercion did not reach such a degree as in the West, nevertheless, religious freedom was far from always respected. The exception was the Jews, who received some privileges.

(3) In the Arab and Ottoman empires, the Orthodox coexisted with the Muslim majority; they faced various forms of harassment from state power, explicit and hidden, which caused passive resistance. At the same time in different periods acted enough soft rules, so that Orthodox and Muslims coexisted peacefully with each other, or simply with tolerance, or reaching mutual understanding and respect.

(4) Today, in conditions of religious pluralism, we are talking about the Russian Orthodox Church and the harmonious coexistence and dialogue between the followers of the Church of different religions, while maintaining respect for the freedom of each person and any minority.

Historical overview of the Orthodox position

The theological understanding of the relationship of the Orthodox Church to other religions throughout history has varied.

(1) Turning to the earliest "layers" of the theological thought of the Orthodox East, we see that in parallel with the clear consciousness that the Church expresses the fullness of the revealed truth about the "economy" of God in Christ through the Holy Spirit, there were constant attempts to understand religious beliefs, existing outside the Christian confession, with the distinction and recognition that some revelation of God to the world is possible. Already in the first centuries, when both in theory and in practice the clash between the Church and the dominant religions reached its peak, Christian apologists, such as Justin Martyr and , wrote about the “seed logos”, about the “preparatory stage for renewal in Christ” and “reflections of the Divine Word ”, which can be found in the Greek culture preceding Christianity. However, when Justin spoke of the "seed word", this did not mean that he uncritically accepted everything that had been created in the past by logic and philosophy: "Because they do not know everything that pertains to the Logos, which is Christ, they often contradict themselves." The Christian apologist easily applied the name "Christian" to those who lived "in accordance with reason", but for him it was Christ who was the yardstick by which the theoretical and practical significance earlier forms of religious life.

After crusades the acrimony of the Byzantine polemic against Islam is somewhat reduced, and some form of coexistence is suggested. Political and military expediency also called for further displays of goodwill.

(4) Penetrating into Central, South and East Asia, Orthodox Christianity met with such developed religions as Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Hinduism and Chinese Buddhism. This meeting took place in extremely difficult circumstances and requires special study. Among various archaeological finds in China, we see a symbol of Christianity - a cross next to a symbol of Buddhism - a lotus, clouds of Taoism or other religious symbols. On the famous Xian-Fu stele, which was discovered in the 17th century and shows how Christianity penetrated China, in addition to the cross, you can see images related to other religions: the dragon of Confucianism, the crown of Buddhism, the white clouds of Taoism, etc. This composition, which includes various symbols, perhaps indicates the expectation that the Chinese religions will be brought into harmony with the religion of the Cross and find their fulfillment in it.

(5) At a later time, from the 16th to the 20th century, the Orthodox, with the exception of the Russians, were under Ottoman rule. The coexistence of Christians and Muslims was imposed de facto, but it was not always peaceful, since the conquerors made direct or indirect attempts to convert the Orthodox population to Islam (kidnapping of children by Janissaries, pressure in the provinces, proselytizing zeal of dervishes, etc.). In order to preserve their faith, the Orthodox were often forced to adopt a position of silent resistance. Deteriorating living conditions, a heavy tax burden, and various socio-political lures from the civil authorities left the Orthodox two main paths: either renounce their faith, or resist up to martyrdom. There were also Orthodox Christians who were looking for a third way, a compromise solution: outwardly giving the impression that they had become Muslims, they remained faithful to Christian beliefs and customs; they are known as crypto-Christians. Most of them in the next generations were assimilated by the Muslim majority in whose midst they lived. The Orthodox gained strength by turning to the liturgical life or by stoking eschatological expectations. During those bitter years of slavery, the belief spread that “the end is near.” Small treatises, written in a simple style, were in circulation among the people, the purpose of which was to strengthen Christians in their faith. They revolved around the statement, "I was born a Christian and I want to be a Christian." This laconic confession defines the nature of Christian resistance to Ottoman Islam, which was expressed either in words, or in silence, or through the shedding of blood.

(6) In extensive Russian Empire The collision of Christianity with other religions and the theoretical position of the Church in relation to them during the Modern Age took various forms, in accordance with the pursued political and military goals: from defense to attack and systematic proselytism, and from indifference and tolerance to coexistence and dialogue. In relation to Islam, the Russians followed the Byzantine models. Orthodox Christians faced serious problems after the onslaught of the Kazan Muslim Tatars, whose state fell only in 1552. In his missionary activities, both within the empire and in neighboring states Far East, the Orthodox of Russia met with almost all known religions: Hinduism, Taoism, Shintoism, various branches of Buddhism, shamanism, etc. - and they studied them, trying to comprehend their essence. In the 19th century a trend spread among the Russian intelligentsia characterized by agnosticism based on the conviction that God's providence is beyond what we can describe with our theological categories. This did not mean evading the problem, but rather indicated a special reverence for the terrible mystery of God, which is characteristic of Orthodox piety. Everything that concerns the salvation of people outside the Church is the mystery of the incomprehensible God. The echo of this position can be heard in the words of Leo Tolstoy: “As for other confessions and their relationship with God, I have no right and power to judge this” .

(7) In the 20th century, even before the Second World War, the systematic study of other religions began in Orthodox theological schools - the subject "History of Religions" was introduced. This interest was not limited to academia, but spread more widely. Dialogue with representatives of other religious faiths developed primarily within the framework of the ecumenical movement, the centers of which were the World Council of Churches and the Vatican Secretariat for Other Religions. Since the 1970s, many Orthodox theologians have taken part in various forms of this dialogue. Given this context, Orthodoxy without any difficulty and with complete certainty declares its position on this issue: peaceful coexistence with other religions and mutual contacts through dialogue.

Orthodox theological approach to the religious experience of mankind

(1) With regard to the problem of the meaning and value of other religions, Orthodox theology, on the one hand, emphasizes the uniqueness of the Church, and on the other hand, admits that even outside the Church it is possible to comprehend basic religious truths (such as the existence of God, the desire for salvation, various ethical principles, overcoming death). At the same time, Christianity itself is considered not just as a religious belief, but as the highest expression of religion, that is, as an experienced connection of a person with the Holy One - with a personal and transcendent God. The sacrament of the "Church" transcends the classical concept of "religion".

The Christian West, following the direction of thought set by Augustine, has come to a double understanding of reality. Thus, a clear distinction is made between the natural and the supernatural, the sacred and the voluminous, religion and revelation, divine grace and human experience. The various views of Western theologians on other religions are characterized by this tendency to emphasize the gap and then look for ways to connect what is divided.

The theology of the Eastern Church is characterized, first of all, by the conviction that the Trinitarian God is always active in creation and in human history. Through the incarnation of the Word, through the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, every gap between the natural and the supernatural, the transcendent and the mundane has been abolished. It was abolished by the Word of God, who took on flesh and dwelt among us, and by the Holy Spirit, Who, in the course of history, brings about the renewal of creation. The Eastern Church leaves space for personal freedom of thought and expression, within the framework of living tradition. AT Western world the discussion of the theological position in relation to other religions is mainly focused on Christology. In the Eastern tradition this problem is always considered and solved from a trinitarian perspective.

(a) In contemplating this problem, attention should be paid, first, to the radiance of the glory of God spreading all over the world and His constant providence for all creation, especially for humanity, and, secondly, to the fact that all human beings have one source of their being, share a common human nature and have a common purpose. One of the fundamental tenets of the Christian faith is that God is incomprehensible, inaccessible in His essence. However, biblical revelation breaks the impasse of the unknowability of the nature of God by assuring us that, although the essence of God remains unknown, the Divine presence is effectively manifested in the world and in the universe through Divine energies. When God reveals Himself through various theophany, it is not the essence of God that is revealed, but His glory; and only man can comprehend it. The glory of God the Trinity embraces the universe and all things. Therefore, all people are able to perceive and assimilate something from the radiance of the “Sun of Truth”, God, and join His love.

The great tragedy of the disobedience of the human race has not become a barrier to the radiance of Divine glory, which continues to fill heaven and earth. The Fall did not destroy the image of God in man. What has been damaged, though not completely destroyed, is the ability of mankind to comprehend the divine message, to achieve its correct understanding. God has not stopped caring about the whole world that He created. And not so much people are looking for God, how much He is looking for them.

(b) In the Christological dogma we find two main keys to the solution of the problem under consideration: the incarnation of the Word and the understanding of Christ as the "new Adam". In the incarnation of the divine Word, the fullness of human nature was perceived by God. The theme of the deeds of the Word before the incarnation and the deeds of the resurrected Lord is at the center of the Orthodox liturgical experience. The intensified eschatological hope culminates in the amazing expectation that the apostle Paul thus expressed: “... having revealed to us the secret of His will according to His good pleasure, which He had previously placed in Him [Christ], in the dispensation of the fullness of times, in order to unite everything heavenly and earthly under the head of Christ” (). Divine action has a global dimension - and exceeds religious phenomena and religious experience.

Jesus Christ does not exclude people of other religions from His care. At certain points in His earthly life, He spoke to people of other religious traditions (a Samaritan woman, a Canaanite woman, a Roman centurion) and provided them with help. He spoke with admiration and respect of their faith, which he did not find among the Israelites: "... and in Israel I did not find such a faith"(; cf. 15, 28; ). He drew Special attention to the feeling of gratitude on the part of the leper Samaritan; and in a conversation with a Samaritan woman, He revealed to her the truth that God is a Spirit (). He even used the image of the Good Samaritan to point to the core element of His teaching—the new dimension of love He preached. He, the “Son of God”, who at the Last Judgment will identify Himself with the “little ones” of this world (), regardless of their race or religion, calls us to treat every human person with true respect and love.

(c) If we look at non-religious experience from the point of view of pneumatology, we will open new horizons for our theological thinking. For Orthodox theological thought, the action of the Holy Spirit transcends all definition and description. In addition to the "economy of the Word", the Christian East, with firm hope and humble expectation, pays attention to the "economy of the Spirit". Nothing can limit His action: "The spirit breathes where it wants" (). The action and consonant power of the love of God in the Trinity exceeds the capacity of human thought and understanding. Everything sublime and truly good is the result of the influence of the Spirit. Wherever we encounter the manifestations and fruits of the Spirit, “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance” (Gal. 5:22-23), - we can discern the effects of the influence of the Holy Spirit. And much of what the apostle listed can be found in the lives of people belonging to other religions. The statement extra Ecclesiam nulla salus (there is no salvation outside the Church) appeared in the West and was adopted by the Roman Catholic Church. It does not express the essence of the Orthodox theological approach, even if used in a special, limited sense. For their part, the theologians of the Eastern Church, both before and now, emphasize that God acts "also outside the boundaries of the visible Church" and that “not only Christians, but also non-Christians, unbelievers and pagans can become co-heirs and members of the “one body and partakers of the promise of His [God] in Christ Jesus” () – through the Church, to which the pagans, the heterodox can also invisibly belong by virtue of their faith and saving grace given to them by God as a free gift, since both of them have an ecclesiastical character.(John Karmyris). Thus, instead of the negative expression "outside the Church", Orthodox thought emphasizes the positive expression "through the Church". Salvation is accomplished in the world through the Church. The Church, as a sign and as an icon of the Kingdom of God, is the axis that holds and directs the entire process of anakephaleosis, or recapitulation. Just as the life of Christ, the new Adam, has universal consequences, so the life of His mystical body, the Church, is universal in scope and effect. The prayer of the Church and her care embrace all mankind. The Church celebrates the Divine Eucharist and praises God on behalf of all. She acts on behalf of the whole world. It spreads the rays of the glory of the resurrected Lord to all creation.

(2) This theological position encourages us to treat the other religious experience of mankind with respect and at the same time with reason. Having studied the great religions, both as an academic and on research trips to countries where they exist today, and as a participant in many dialogues with intellectuals representing other religions, I would like to make the following points.

(a) The history of religions shows that, despite the difference in the answers they give to the main problems - suffering, death, the meaning of human existence and communication - they all open the horizon in the direction of transcendent reality, in the direction of Something or Someone that exists on the other side of the sensual sphere. Being the fruit of humanity's striving towards the "Holy", they open the way to human experience leading to the Infinite.

(b) In addressing certain religious systems, we must avoid both superficial enthusiasm and arrogant criticism. In the past, disordered knowledge about various religions led to "negative fantasies." Today, receiving fragmentary information about them, we risk coming to "positive fantasies", namely, to the idea that all religions are one and the same. There is also another risk: on the basis of what we know about one of the religions, geographically and theoretically closest to us, to create a generalized idea about all the others.

In our time, efforts aimed at deciphering the sacred symbols of other religions, as well as studying their doctrines from the sources available to us, require a highly critical approach. As systems, religions contain both positive elements that can be understood as "sparks" of divine revelation, and negative elements - inhuman practices and structures, examples of the perversion of religious intuition.

(c) Religion is an organic whole, not a set of traditions and cult practices. There is a danger of such a superficial reading of the phenomenology of religion, which leads to the identification of elements present and functioning in different contexts. Religions are living organisms, and in each of them the individual components are in connection with each other. We cannot extract some elements from a certain religious doctrine and practice and identify them with similar elements in other religions in order to create simple and "beautiful" theories.

(d) If we acknowledge the presence of innate values, even "seeds of the word," in foreign religious experience, we must also recognize that they have the potential to further grow, blossom, and bear fruit. concludes his brief reflections on the "seed logos" with the statement of a fundamental principle - and, strangely, this is not sufficiently noted by those who invoke his views. He emphasizes the difference between a "seed" and the fullness of life that is in it. He distinguishes between innate "ability" and "grace": “For the seed and some semblance of something, given according to the extent of acceptability, is another matter; and the other is the very thing of which the communion and likeness is bestowed by His [God's] grace.(Apology II, 13).

(e) Since man retains the image of God even after the fall, he remains the recipient of messages from the divine will. However, he often fails to comprehend them properly. To draw an analogy, albeit an imperfect one, with modern technology: a television set that is poorly installed or defective produces an altered picture and sound from that sent by the transmitter; or the distortion is caused by defects in the transmitting antenna.

Everything in the world is in the sphere of influence of God - the spiritual Sun of Truth. Various aspects of religions can be understood as "accumulators" charged by the rays of Divine truth coming from the Sun of Truth, life experience, various sublime ideas and great inspirations. Such accumulators helped humanity by giving the world imperfect light or some reflections of light. But they cannot be considered as something self-sufficient, they cannot replace the Sun itself.

For Orthodoxy, the Word of God itself, the Son of God, who embodies in history the love of the Trinity God, as it is experienced in the sacrament of the Church, remains the criterion. Love, which was revealed in His person and His action, is for the Orthodox believer the essence and at the same time the apogee and fullness of religious experience.

Dialogue with people of other religious beliefs is the right and duty of “Orthodox witness”

(1) The Orthodox position can be critical in relation to other religions as systems and as organic formations; however, in relation to people belonging to other religions and ideologies, this is always an attitude of respect and love - following the example of Christ. For man continues to be the bearer of the image of God and desires to attain the likeness of God, because he possesses – as innate components of his being – free will, spiritual intelligence, desire and the ability to love. From the very beginning, Christians were obliged to be in dialogue with people of other religious beliefs, testifying to their hope. Many of our most important theological concepts have been shaped by such dialogue. Dialogue belongs to church tradition; he was a major factor in the development of Christian theology. A large part of patristic theology is the fruit of direct and indirect dialogue with the ancient Greek world, both with religious currents and with purely philosophical systems, which sometimes led to antitheses, and sometimes to synthesis.

With the spread of Islam, the Byzantines were looking for an opportunity to enter into a dialogue with the Muslims, although this search did not always resonate.

Today, in the grand metropolis called Earth, in the midst of new cultural, religious and ideological ferments, dialogue becomes a new opportunity and challenge. We are all dealing with human achievements and striving for a global community of peace, justice and brotherhood, and therefore each person and each tradition must offer the best of what they have inherited from the past and, in the light of experience and criticism from others, cultivate the most healthy seeds of truth, which he possesses. Dialogue can facilitate the transfer of new seeds from one civilization to another, as well as the germination and development of those seeds that lie lifeless in the land of ancient religions. As noted, religions remain organic entities, and for living people who experience them, they are "living organisms" that can develop. Everyone has their own entelechy. They experience influences, perceive new ideas that come from their environment, and respond to the challenges of the time.

Various religious leaders and thinkers discover elements in their traditions that respond to the new demands of society. Thus, Christian ideas find their way through other channels and develop in the contexts of other religious traditions around the world. In this regard, dialogue is crucial.

From this perspective, the new questions posed by the recent technological and electronic revolution, and the new challenges shaking the world community, can be considered with greater constructiveness: for example, the demand for world peace, justice, respect for human dignity, the search for the meaning of human existence and history, the protection environment, human rights . Although at first glance all this seems to be "external affairs", a deeper look from a religious point of view may well generate new ideas and new answers to the questions posed. The doctrine of the incarnation, which abolishes the gap between the transcendent and the mundane in the Person of Christ, has a unique value for humanity, for it is impossible in any non-Christian anthropology.

“Orthodoxy, entering the third millennium with confidence, with a sense of fidelity to its tradition, is alien to anxiety, or fear, or aggression, and it does not feel contempt for people of other religious beliefs. The primates of the Orthodox Churches, who gathered for the solemn concelebration in Bethlehem on January 7, 2000, emphasize with all certainty that we are turning to other great religions, in particular to the monotheistic religions - Judaism and Islam, with a readiness to create favorable conditions for dialogue with them in order to achieve peaceful coexistence of all peoples… The Orthodox Church rejects religious intolerance and condemns religious fanaticism, wherever it comes from.” .

In general, the Church stands for the harmonious coexistence of religious communities and minorities and for the freedom of conscience of every person and every nation. We must engage in interreligious dialogue with respect, reason, love and hope. We must try to understand what is important to others and avoid unproductive confrontation. Followers of other religions are called upon to explain to themselves how they can interpret their religious beliefs in new terms, in the light of new challenges. Genuine dialogue generates new interpretations on both sides.

At the same time, we have no right, trying to be polite, to underestimate the significance of difficult problems. Nobody needs superficial forms of inter-religious dialogue. Ultimately, the search for a higher truth remains at the core of the religious problem. No one has the right - and it is not in anyone's interest - to weaken this force of human existence in order to achieve a simplistic conciliatory consensus, like those standard agreements that are negotiated at the ideological level. In this perspective, the essential contribution of Orthodoxy is not to hush up its own characteristics, deep spiritual experience and conviction, but to bring them to light. Here we come to the delicate issue of the Orthodox mission, or – as I suggested thirty years ago – “ Orthodox testimony».

(2) In any truly spiritual relationship, we always reach a critical point when we are confronted with a real problem that creates differences. When the Apostle Paul met with the Athenians in the Areopagus, after the dialogue () he moved on to direct testimony (17, 22-31). In his speech, he spoke of a common religious basis, and then turned to the very essence of the gospel: the meaning of the person and work of Christ. This announcement was completely alien to the ancient Greek worldview and contradicted not only the complicated polytheism of the common people, but also the sophisticated atheism of the Epicurean philosophers and the pantheism of the Stoics.

Abandoning the notion of a closed, self-sufficient cosmological system, autonomous and impersonal, Paul began to preach the action of a personal God, who created the universe from nothing, provides for the world, and decisively intervenes in history. In contrast to the idea of ​​an individual living automatically, the emphasis was placed on freedom and love, which are manifested in communion between God and man. With this paradox, which for the Athenians bordered on the absurd, Paul introduced new type thinking. He proposed a radical revision of Greek wisdom through the acceptance of Christ as the center of creation, the One who communicates real existence to the world. Until that time, the understanding of man by the Greek intellectuals was reduced to the idea of ​​a thinking being, aware of himself and his environment through the development of his mind. For Paul, the fundamental, turning point for humanity - his metanoia (change of mind, repentance) - must be directed towards the love of God, who is inaccessible to reason, but revealed in the crucified and resurrected Christ. Here we have a clear example of understanding and respecting ancient religious ideas and at the same time transcending them in the truth and power of Christian revelation. The Orthodox “witness” (or mission) means precisely the testimony of experience and certainty. We confess our faith not as an intellectual discovery, but as a gift of the grace of God. To neglect the duty of such personal testimony is to reject the gospel.

Personal knowledge of "the love of Christ that transcends understanding" () remains the most profound Christian experience and is directly related to authentic Christian mission and evangelism. Love releases inner forces and opens up new horizons in life that the mind cannot imagine. peculiar Orthodox Christian the feeling that he is united with all mankind, and the love he feels for every person compels him to inform every neighbor about the greatest good that has been revealed to him.

The gifts of God cannot be selfishly kept to oneself—they must be available to everyone. Although certain acts of God may apply to some people and to some person, they nevertheless affect all of humanity. If we are convinced that the highest human right is the right to transcend the animal and intellectual levels of existence by participating in the love relationship of the Trinity God, we cannot keep that conviction to ourselves. For that would be the worst of injustices. However, all this does not mean that preaching to another can be accompanied by violence, that it can serve as a cover for achieving other goals, political or economic. It's about not about imposing anything on another, but about showing confidence, about personal experience. It is significant that in the first centuries Christians talked about martyria - about witness-martyrdom, about witness often at the cost of life. Everything that belongs to the human race should be used, but each person should remain completely free in the choice that he ultimately makes for himself. Respect for the freedom of every human person will always be the basic principle of Orthodoxy.

The Church, being the "sign" and sacrament of the Kingdom of God, the beginning of a new humanity transfigured by the Holy Spirit, must be given to the whole world. It should not be a closed community. Everything she has and everything she experiences exists for the sake of humanity as a whole.

Orthodox “witnessing” begins in silence, through participation in the pain and suffering of others, and continues in the joy of proclaiming the Gospel, which culminates in worship. The purpose of witnessing is always to create eucharistic communities in new places so that people can celebrate the sacrament of the Kingdom of God in their own cultural context spreading the glory and presence of God where they live. Thus, Orthodox witness is a personal participation in the spreading of the new creation, which has already been accomplished in Christ and which will come to its fulfillment in the "last times." In order to evangelize the world, the Orthodox Church does not need to use violence or dishonest methods, which sometimes distorted the essence of the “Christian mission”. It respects the peculiarity of man and his culture and uses her own methods - the liturgical life, the celebration of the sacraments, sincere love. The Orthodox mission cannot be limited to participation in the organization of education, the provision of medical care and the provision of funds for external development. It should carry to everyone, especially the poor and humiliated, the belief that each person has a unique value, that, since he is created in the image and likeness of God, his destiny is something of the greatest - to become a "Christ-bearer", to partake of divine glory, to achieve deification. It is the basis for all other expressions of human dignity. The Christian faith offers the highest anthropology, beyond any humanistic vision. To accept it or not is a matter of free choice and responsibility of people. Followers of other religions sharply criticize various Christian missions when they see that missionary activity is accompanied by a display of arrogance and pride or is associated with non-religious interests, including the interests of state power. At the same time, it would be wrong to identify the Christian mission in general with the errors characteristic of some part of Western Christianity or one historical period (for example, the period of colonialism). The harsh criticism is directed at "Christians" and not at Christ. Everything will change in the world if we Christians live and act and measure our mission, following in the footsteps of Christ. The power of God often manifests itself through the paradox of the absence of worldly power and can only be experienced in the sacrament of love, in outward simplicity.

We need constant honest self-criticism and repentance. This does not mean the limitation of the Orthodox witness, which will lead to a colorless dialogue, but rather the free acceptance of the logic of love, the always revolutionary logic of Christ, who “exhausted himself” in order to come and dwell in a special human reality. Following the image of His life and death in constant personal transformation "from glory to glory" (). The goal of the Orthodox is not to limit or minimize their "witness", but to live in accordance with the calling: to follow Christ.

“Those who lived in accordance with the Word (reason) are Christians, even though they were considered atheists: such among the Greeks are Socrates and Heraclitus and the like, and among the barbarians Abraham, Ananias, Azariah and Misail, and Elijah and many others; retelling their actions or names would be, I know, tiresome, and for the present time I will refrain from doing so.(Apology 1, 46). Source of knowledge. Part II. About heresies.

Theodore Abu Kurakh. Against the heresies of the Jews and Saracens.

Anastasios Yannoulatos. Byzantine and Contemporary Greek Orthodox Approaches to Islam. – Journal of Ecumenical Studies, 33:4 (1996), pp. 512-528.

Apart from missionary notes and general works on the history of the Church, we do not have a systematic study of this issue. Our topic includes the work of Bishop Chrysanth, rector of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, "The Religions of the Ancient World in Their Relation to Christianity" (St. Petersburg, 1878). In it, he cites the views of the Church Fathers on paganism and develops some theological considerations regarding the non-Christian world, primarily the ancient one.

The novel "Anna Karenina", VII.

For more on this theological position, see Anastasios (Yannoulatos). Emerging Perspective of the Relationships of Christians to People of Other Faith – An Eastern Orthodox Christian Contribution. – International Review of Mission, 77 (1988); Facing People of Other Faiths from an Orthodox Point of View – Holy Cross Conference, 3rd International Conference of Theological Schools: Icon and Kingdom: Orthodox Face the 21st Century. – The Greek Orthodox Theological Review, 58 (1993).

John Karmyris. The universality of salvation in Christ. – Praktikatis Akadimias Athinon. 1980. V. 55 (Athens, 1981). pp. 261-289 (in Greek); See also: The salvation of God's people outside the Church. - Right there. 1981. V. 56 (Athens, 1982). pp. 391-434.

Emperor John VI Cantacuzenus (d. 1383) remarks: “Muslims prevented their people from entering into dialogue with Christians, of course, so that they could not receive a clear knowledge of the truth during the interview. Christians, on the other hand, are confident in the purity of their faith, and in the rightness and truth of the doctrine that they hold, and therefore they do not create any obstacles for their people, but each of them has complete freedom and power to discuss faith with whomever he wants.(against Muslims).

interesting in this case An observation made by the French thinker René Girard of Stanford University in California: “The value system [Christianity] created 2,000 years ago continues to operate whether or not more people join the religion… Ultimately, everyone joins the Christian value system. What do human rights mean if not the protection of innocent victims? Christianity, in its secular form, has taken such a dominant position that it is no longer perceived as one of the religions. True globalization is Christianity!

From the joint message of the heads of the Local Orthodox Churches in the year of the 2000th anniversary of Christianity.

Why is the Orthodox Church so sharply negative about homosexuality? I'm not talking about gay parades, I don't understand it myself, although I live with a woman. How are we different? Why are we more sinful than everyone else? We are the same people as everyone else. Why are we treated like this? Thank you.

Hieromonk Job (Gumerov) answers:

The Holy Fathers teach us to distinguish between sin and a person whose soul is sick and needs treatment from a serious illness. Such a person evokes compassion. However, it is impossible to heal the one who is in blindness and does not see his disastrous state.

Holy Scripture calls any violation of the Divine law a sin (see 1 John 3:4). The Lord the Creator endowed a man and a woman with spiritual and bodily features so that they complement each other and thus constitute a unity. The Holy Bible testifies that marriage as a permanent life union between a man and a woman was established by God at the very beginning of human existence. According to the Creator's plan, the meaning and purpose of marriage is in joint salvation, in common work, mutual assistance and bodily union for the birth of children and their upbringing. Of all earthly unions, marriage is the closest: will be one flesh(Gen. 2:24). When people have sexual life outside of marriage, they pervert the Divine plan for a blessed life union, reducing everything to a sensual-physiological principle and discarding spiritual and social goals. Therefore, the holy Bible defines any cohabitation outside of family ties as a mortal sin, for the Divine institution is violated. An even more serious sin is the satisfaction of sensual needs in an unnatural way: “Do not lie with a man as with a woman: this is an abomination” (Lev.18: 22). This applies equally to women. The Apostle Paul calls this shameful passion, shame, lasciviousness: “Their women replaced natural use with unnatural; likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the female sex, were inflamed with lust against one another, men doing shame against men, and receiving in themselves the due punishment for their error” (Rom. 1: 26-27). People living in Sodomite sin are deprived of salvation: “Do not be deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor malacia, nor homosexuals nor thieves, nor covetous men, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor predators, shall inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).

There is a sad repetition in history. Societies that go through periods of decline are afflicted, like metastases, by some especially dangerous sins. Most often, sick societies are engulfed in mass self-interest and depravity. The offspring of the latter is the sin of Sodom. Mass depravity corroded Roman society like acid and crushed the power of the empire.

To justify the sin of Sodom, they try to bring "scientific" arguments and convince that there is an innate predisposition to this attraction. But this is a typical myth. A helpless attempt to justify evil. There is absolutely no evidence that homosexuals are genetically different from other people. We are talking only about a spiritual and moral illness and the inevitable deformation in the field of the psyche. Sometimes the cause may be childish depraved games that a person forgot, but they left a painful trace in the subconscious. The poison of unnatural sin that has entered a person can manifest itself much later if a person does not lead a correct spiritual life.

The Word of God, sensitive to all manifestations of human life, not only says nothing about innateness, but calls this sin an abomination. If it depended on certain neuroendocrine characteristics and sex hormones, which are associated with the physiological regulation of the reproductive function of a person, then the Holy Scripture would not speak of the unnaturalness of this passion, it would not be called shame. Isn't it blasphemous to think that God can create some people with a physiological disposition to mortal sin and thereby doom them to death? The facts of mass distribution of this type of debauchery in some periods of history testify against the attempt to use science as an excuse. The Canaanites, the inhabitants of Sodom, Gomorrah and other cities of Pentagrad (Adma, Seboim and Sigor) were infected with this filth without exception. Defenders of Sodomy dispute the notion that the inhabitants of these cities had this shameful passion. However, the New Testament directly says: “As Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around, like them, committed fornication and who went after other flesh having undergone the punishment of eternal fire, set as an example, so it will be with these dreamers who defile the flesh ”(Jude 1: 7-8). This is also evident from the text: “They called Lot and said to him: Where are the people who came to you at night? bring them to us; we shall know them” (Gen. 19:5). The words “let us know them” have a very definite character in the Bible and indicate carnal relationships. And since the angels who came had the appearance of men (see: Gen. 19: 10), this shows what disgusting depravity all (“from young to old, all the people”; Gen. 19: 4) inhabitants of Sodom were infected with. The righteous Lot, fulfilling the ancient law of hospitality, offers his two daughters, “who did not know a man” (Gen. 19: 8), but the perverts, inflamed with vile lust, tried to rape Lot himself: “Now we will deal worse with you than with them "(Gen. 19: 9).

Modern Western society, having lost its Christian roots, is trying to be "humane" in relation to homosexuals, calling them the morally neutral word "sex minority" (by analogy with the national minority). In fact, this is a very cruel attitude. If a doctor, wanting to be "kind", inspired a seriously ill patient that he was healthy, only by nature he was not like others, then he would not differ much from a murderer. Holy Scripture indicates that God “condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, having condemned them to destruction, turned into ashes, setting an example for the future wicked” (2 Pet. 2: 6). It speaks not only of the danger of losing eternal life, but also of the possibility of being healed of any, even the most serious and rooted spiritual illness. The Apostle Paul not only severely rebuked the Corinthians for shameful sins, but also strengthened their hope with examples from their own midst: “And such were some of you; but they were washed, but they were sanctified, but they were justified by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11).

The Holy Fathers point out that the center of gravity of all passions (including carnal ones) is in the realm of the human spirit - in its damage. The passions are the result of man's separation from God and the resulting sinful depravity. Therefore, the starting point of healing must be the determination to “leave Sodom” forever. When the angels were leading Lot's family out of this city of vile debauchery, one of them said: “Save your soul; do not look back” (Gen. 19:17). These words were a moral test. A parting glance at the corrupted city, to which God's judgment had already been pronounced, would testify to sympathy for him. Lot's wife looked back, because her soul had not parted from Sodom. We find confirmation of this idea in the book of wisdom of Solomon. Speaking of wisdom, the author writes: “At the time of the destruction of the wicked, she saved the righteous, who escaped the fire that descended on five cities, from which, as evidence of wickedness, there remained a smoking empty earth and plants that did not bear fruit in due time, and a monument wrong souls - a standing pillar of salt (Wisdom 10: 6-7). Lot's wife is called an unfaithful soul. Our Lord Jesus Christ warns his disciples: “On the day Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all… Remember Lot’s wife” (Luke 17:29, 32). Not only those who have looked into the abyss with their experience, but also all those who justify this vice, one must constantly remember Lot's wife. The path to a real fall begins with the moral justification of sin. One must be horrified by the eternal fire, and then all liberal speeches about the “right” to what the Lord said through the lips of the sacred writers will seem false: “The depraved one is an abomination before the Lord, but with the righteous he has fellowship” (Prov. 3: 32).

It is necessary to enter into the fertile experience of the Church. First of all, it is necessary (without delay) to prepare for the general confession and go through it. From this day on, we must begin to fulfill what the Holy Church has prescribed for its members for centuries: regularly participate in the sacraments of confession and communion, go to feast and Sunday services, read morning and evening prayers, observe holy fasts, be attentive to oneself in order to evade sin. ). Then the all-powerful help of God will come and heal you completely from a serious illness. “He who knows his weakness from many temptations, from bodily and spiritual passions, will also know the infinite power of God, delivering those who cry out to Him with prayer from the bottom of their hearts. And his prayer is already sweet. Seeing that without God he can do nothing, and fearing a fall, he tries to be relentless with God. He is surprised, thinking about how God delivered him from so many temptations and passions, and thanks the Redeemer, and with thanksgiving receives humility and love, and no longer dares to despise anyone, knowing that as God helped him, so He can help everyone, whenever he wants” (St. Peter of Damascus).

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, 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, of which three are represented in our country as traditional; we call these religions traditional because they have historically existed with 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 highlight in general terms 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 being of Jewish origin. Judaism thinks of itself not as a world, but as a national religion. Currently, it is practiced by about 17 million people who live both in Israel and in many other countries of the world.

Historically, it was Judaism that was the base 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, performed the customs of the Jewish religion. For some time, Christianity remained somewhat dependent on Judaism. In science, there is even a term “Judeo-Christianity”, which refers to the first decades of the development of the Christian faith, when it was still 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 the Christian community.

The turning point for the history of Judaism was the 70th year, when Jerusalem was sacked by the Romans. From that 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 certain 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 controversy of Jesus Christ with the Jews and their religious leaders - the Pharisees, whom He severely criticized and who treated Him with an extreme degree of hostility. It was the religious leaders of the people of Israel who secured the condemnation of the Savior to death on the cross.

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

Meanwhile, among Jews and Christians, a significant part of the Holy Scriptures is common. All that we call the Old Testament, with the exception of some of the later books, is also Holy Scripture for the Jewish tradition. In this sense, Christians and Jews retain a certain unified 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, the Mishnah, the Halakha. All these books, more precisely, 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 of Christ as the God-man rejected, and the Old Testament remains the main holy book.

The attitude towards the New Testament and towards the Christian Church in general among the Jews was sharply negative. In the Christian environment, the attitude towards the 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 controversy that has been going on for centuries between representatives of the two religions. The essence of the disagreement lay in the attitude towards Jesus Christ, because if Christians recognize Him as the Incarnate God and the Messiah, that is, the Anointed One about whom the prophets foretold and 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 as a political leader who will be able to restore the might of the Israeli people, the territorial integrity of the Israeli state.

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

The Talmud contains many insulting and even blasphemous statements about Jesus Christ, about the Most Holy Theotokos. In addition, Judaism is an iconoclastic religion - there are no sacred images in it: neither God nor people. This, of course, is connected with the tradition dating back to the Old Testament times, which generally forbade any images of the Deity, saints. Therefore, if you enter 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 the God of the Israeli people first of all, and only in the second place - 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 people of Israel perceived God as their own God, in contrast to the gods of other peoples: if they worshiped pagan deities, then the people of Israel worshiped the True God and considered this their rightful privilege. Ancient Israel did not have at all, just as there is still no in the Jewish religion, any missionary calling to preach among other peoples, because Judaism is thought, I repeat, as the religion of one - Israeli - people.

In Christianity, the doctrine of God's chosen people of Israel was refracted in different epochs in different ways. Even the apostle Paul said that "all Israel will be saved" (Rom. 11:26). He believed that all the people of Israel would sooner or later come to 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 so many historiosophical concepts within Christian theology, there was an understanding according to which the God-chosen people of Israel ended after they rejected Christ, and moved on to " new Israel, the Church.

In modern theology, this approach has been called "substitutionary theology." It's about the fact that new Israel as if replacing ancient Israel in the sense that everything said in Old Testament in relation to the Israeli people, it already refers to the new Israel, that is, the Christian Church as a multinational God-chosen people, 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 the Christian-Jewish dialogue. This new understanding practically did not affect the Orthodox Church, but found a fairly wide recognition in the Catholic and Protestant environment. According to him, the people of Israel continue to be God's chosen people, because if God chooses someone, then He does not change His attitude towards a person, towards several people, or towards a particular people. Consequently, God's chosenness remains a kind of seal that the people of Israel continue to bear on themselves. The realization of this God's chosenness, from the point of view of Christian theologians adhering to this point of view, lies precisely in the fact that the representatives of the Israeli people turn to faith in Christ, become Christians. It is known that among people who are Jews 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 has existed for centuries in different countries and has also 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 tragic fate the Israeli people, including in the 20th century, when they underwent mass repressions, extermination, primarily 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, rethink the relationship with Judaism, including in a religious context, and establish a dialogue with the Jewish religion. Dialogue now exists at the official level, for example, there is a theological commission for dialogue between Christianity and Islam (just a few weeks ago, another session of such a 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 rapprochement of positions, 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. At present, 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 between Christians and Jews, as well as representatives of other traditional faiths, there is a very high degree of agreement.

Well, and the most important thing that, probably, should be said: despite the quite obvious differences in the field of dogma, despite the cardinal difference in the approach to the personality of Jesus Christ, between Jews and Christians, what is the basis of all monotheistic religions remains: 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 Israelite 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 Israelite people is a 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 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 to interact, conduct a dialogue and work together for the benefit of people even today.

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 ancestor 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 Quran, and Muslims believe that it is dictated by God himself, that every word of it is true, and that the Quran 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 are divine revelation.

Christianity and Islam have a lot in common in terms of doctrine. Just like Judaism, like Christianity, Islam is a monotheistic religion, that is, Muslims believe in the One God, whom they call the Arabic word "Allah" (God, the Most High). They believe that, in addition to God, there are angels, that after the death of people, an afterlife reward 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 Qur'an, and they are mentioned repeatedly and quite respectfully. Christians are called in the Qur'an "People of the Book" and followers of Islam are encouraged to treat them with respect.

The 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 a fast, but only Christians and Muslims fast in different ways: Christians in certain days they abstain from certain types of food, while for Muslims, fasting is a certain time period, called Ramadan, when they do not eat food and do not even drink water from sunrise to sunset. For Muslims, almsgiving is obligatory - zakat, that is, an annual tax that each of the Muslims with a certain income must pay in favor of his poorer brothers. Finally, it is believed that a faithful Muslim, in the presence of physical and material capabilities, at least once in his life must make a pilgrimage to Mecca, which is called the 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 confessions, 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, in recent times an ever greater role, including in world politics, is played by the radical wing of the Islamic world - Salafism (or, as it is often called now, Wahhabism), from which the leaders of official Islam disown as a perversion of Islam, because Wahhabism calls for hatred, puts its goal is to create a worldwide Islamic caliphate, where either there will be no place for representatives of other religions at all, or they will become second-class people who will have to pay tribute only for the fact that they are not Muslims.

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

Islam, on the contrary, is not only religious, but also 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, religious elements in Islam are very closely intertwined with legal and political elements. It is no coincidence, for example, that religious leaders are in power in a number of Islamic states, and, unlike Christian ones, they are not perceived as clergymen. 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 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. In the history of Russia there were no interreligious wars. We had inter-ethnic conflicts - this explosive potential still persists, which we observe even in Moscow, when in one of the microdistricts of the city one group of people suddenly rebels against another group - against people of a different ethnic origin. However, these conflicts are not of a religious nature and are not religiously motivated. Such incidents can be characterized as manifestations of hatred at the household level, with signs of interethnic conflicts. On the whole, the experience of coexistence of Christians and Muslims in our state for centuries can be characterized as positive.

Today in our Fatherland there are such bodies of interaction between Christians, Muslims and Jews as the Interreligious Council of Russia, chaired by 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. Within this council, a very high degree of interaction has been achieved, 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 in the face of state power represents the common agreed position of the main traditional confessions on many issues.

The 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, in North Africa, in some states of Asia, 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, which smashed Christian churches, set them on fire, killed Christian clergy, because of which we are now witnessing 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 are in power. There is an almost complete extermination of Christians, mass desecration of Christian shrines.

Tension, which is growing in the Middle East and a number of other regions, requires political decisions and the efforts of religious leaders. It is no longer enough to simply state that Islam is a peaceful religion, that terrorism has no nationality or confessional affiliation, because we are increasingly seeing the rise of radical Islamism. And that is why, in our dialogue with Islamic leaders, we are increasingly telling them about the need to influence their flock in order to prevent manifestations of enmity and hatred, to exclude the policy of eradicating Christianity, which is being implemented in the Middle East today.

Orthodoxy and Buddhism

Buddhism is a religion that is also represented in our Fatherland. Buddhism is practiced by a considerable number of people, while this religion, in terms of its doctrinal foundations, is much further from Christianity than Judaism or Islam. Some scholars do not even agree to call Buddhism a religion, since there is no idea 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, kneel down. However, the quality of the Buddhist and Christian experience of prayer is quite different.

As a student, I happened 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 utter, but a conversation with God, the Lord Jesus Christ, or with the Mother of God, with one of the saints. Moreover, our religious experience confirms convincingly for us that this conversation is not conducted only in 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 may come in different forms, for example, in the form of insight that 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 occur in the form of some life circumstances, lessons.

Thus, the entire experience of a Christian's prayer 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, answer our questions and prayers. In Buddhism, however, such a Personality does not exist, therefore Buddhist prayer is rather a meditation, reflection, when a person plunges into himself. All the potential for good that exists in Buddhism, its adherents are trying to extract from themselves, that is, from the very nature of man.

We, as people who believe in the One God, do not doubt that God acts in the very different environment, including outside the Church, that He can affect people who do not belong to Christianity. Recently, I talked with our well-known 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 the temple for worship 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 either, but meanwhile, in a conversation with me, he used such words as “God”, “Most High”. 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 to this world only once in order to live here human life and then go on to eternal life. Moreover, during his stay on earth, the soul unites with the body, the soul and body become a single inseparable being. In Buddhism, there is a completely different idea of ​​the course of history, of the place of man in it, and of the relationship between soul and body. Buddhists believe that the soul can wander from one body to another, moreover, that it can move from a human body to an animal body, and vice versa: from an animal body to a human body.

In Buddhism, there is a whole doctrine that a person's actions committed in this life affect his future destiny. We Christians also say that our actions in earthly life affect our fate in eternity, but we do not believe that a person's soul can pass into some other body. Buddhists believe that if a person in this earthly life was a glutton, then in the next life he can turn into a pig. The Dalai Lama, in his book, spoke of a dog who, no matter how much he ate, always found room for another bite. "I think that in 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 for good, helps to release the potential for good - 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 calmness and cordiality of the monks. They always smile, and this smile is not worked out, but quite natural, it stems from some kind of their inner experience.

I would also like to draw your attention to the fact that throughout the history of our country, Christians and Buddhists have been peacefully coexisting 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 have developed between Muslims and Christians - the main population of Russia. However, the peculiarity of this experience is that there are much more Christians in the country than Muslims. Is there any long and effective experience of good cooperation and good neighborliness in countries where the majority of the population is Muslim?

“Unfortunately, there are far 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 built 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, and so on. This strict constitutional representation of religious communities in government bodies helps to maintain the peaceful coexistence of different religions in the country.

– Are we in Eucharistic communion with Ethiopian Christians, with 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 doctrine itself as the terminology with which this doctrine was expressed.

The Eastern Churches are now often referred to as 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 complete man. In fact, these Churches believe that Christ was both God and man, but they 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 the Jewish holidays? Do adherents of Judaism have any sacred rites, and is it acceptable for a Christian to participate in their rites?

— We forbid our believers from participating in the rites 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 may attend a service in a Catholic or Protestant church, but he must not receive communion from non-Orthodox. We can marry a couple if one of the future spouses is Orthodox and the other is Catholic or Protestant, but you 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 Temple in Jerusalem. When it ceased to exist - now, as you know, only one wall remained from the temple, which is called the Wailing Wall, and Jews from all over the world come to Jerusalem to worship it - a full-fledged worship service became impossible.

A synagogue is a meeting house, and synagogues were not originally 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. So, the Gospel tells how Christ entered the synagogue on Saturday, opened the book (that is, unfolded the scroll) and began to read, and then to interpret what He had read (see Luke 4:19).

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

In Judaism, there are also some rites, and the main one is circumcision, a rite preserved from the Old Testament religion. Of course, a Christian cannot participate in this ceremony. Although the first generation of Christians - the apostles - were circumcised people, already in the middle of the 1st century the Christian Church adopted the doctrine 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 modernity, the Apocalypse of St. John the Theologian looks rather ridiculous, because not a single aspect of the evolution of mankind is mentioned there. It turns out that he saw the revelation about the end of the world, but did not see, say, skyscrapers, modern weapons, automata. Such statements look especially strange from the point of view of physics, for example, that one third of the sun will close during some kind of punishment. I think that if one third of the sun is closed, then the earth will not have long to live.

- First of all, I 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 possesses. We call sacred books divinely revealed, but we do not say that they were written by God. Unlike Muslims who believe that the Quran is a book written by God and dropped 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 experience in books, but it was a religious experience, and when they wrote, they were affected by the Holy Spirit.

The Apostle John the Theologian describes what he saw in supernatural visions. Of course, he could not see, let alone describe skyscrapers or automata, because such objects did not exist then, which means that there were no words to designate them. The words familiar to us - automatic, skyscraper, car and others - then simply did not exist. Therefore, it is natural that there could not be such images 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 the 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 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 first one Gospel, then the second, the third, the fourth. Then there are 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 ridiculous.

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

—For the first time I hear about such judgments and I will 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 does not matter. What matters is how a person believes and how he lives.

For our self-willed, self-loving nature, with its affections directed at some people, hatred towards others and with its indifference to others, the commandment of Christ seems difficult and impossible to fulfill: "Love your neighbor as yourself."

If there is a category of people who are able to love to the point of self-sacrifice of some of the elect, then there are much more numerous people who love no one but themselves, do not strive for anyone, do not yearn for anyone and resolutely do not want to lift a finger for anyone.

The category of people who really love their neighbors look at every decisive person as if they were their neighbor, as the merciful Samaritan looked at a Jew beaten by robbers - the category of such people is extremely small.

Meanwhile, the Lord, wanting to affirm this view of people on each other, wanting to spread this all-encompassing love among people, spoke a word that reveals the greatest meaning of this love, giving it such a meaning, such a height that would make people educate it in themselves in every possible way.

Describing the Last Judgment, the Lord speaks of the conversation that will take place there between the formidable 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, bless my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Get hungry, and give Me food, get thirsty, and drink Me; strange beh, and introduce Mene. Naked and clothed Me, sick and visiting Me, in prison beh and come 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: inasmuch as you create one of these my least brethren, do it to 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, prisoner, weak, suffering, offended and sinful person, in the place of every person whom we pity with the impulse of our hearts and to whom we will help. It is 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 man, He accepts as done directly for Him.

Such an all-encompassing height He gives to the feat of love, mutual human help and favor ... This is how He facilitates this feat by prompting us, as it were: “When you have a person in front of you who needs help, no matter how little you are attracted to him, no matter how no matter how unpleasant and disgusting he seemed to you, say to yourself: “Before me lies Christ, helpless, unhappy, requiring help; may I not give this help to Christ.”

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

One could see that the commandment that one must love one's neighbor as oneself caused outbursts of discontent.

I love individual people, many say, but I cannot love and I do not understand love for humanity. I love by choice, by indefinite inclinations, by a commonality of views, by those qualities that conquer me in people, by their nobility ... but how can I love such a many-sided huge being as humanity? Can I look like a brother, treat me like a personally dear being, someone who arouses in me disgust, a disgusting feeling that I can only despise and hate ... not to mention the fact that more some people didn't even exist for me. I love a few, I hate others, I am completely indifferent to the rest, and more cannot be demanded of me.

But let a person who thinks like this 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 reasoned towards the majority of people, what would have happened if the Lord had treated him with hatred, perhaps deserved by him, or only with indifference?

The Lord, whatever he is, showed towards him an equally great work of His immortal love.

The Lord, who equalized everyone in this love of His, the Lord, illuminating with the rays of His sun, sending His gifts to both the good and the graceless, the Lord, commanding 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 at least a small fraction of the indulgence with which he treats us and all of them. He is the source of perfection, the most radiant Holy ...

* * *

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

The horror of condemnation lies primarily in the fact that we appropriate new rights that do not belong to us, that we, as it were, are heaped up on that throne of the Supreme Judge, which belongs only to the Lord - “Vengeance is mine and I will repay.”

And let there not be a single judge in the world, except for the terrible, but also the merciful Judge - the Lord God! .. How can we judge, who do not see anything, do not know and do not understand? How can we judge a person when we do not know with what heredity he was born, how he was brought up, 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, what speeches the human enemy whispered to him, what examples acted on 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 repentant thieves, 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 your premature and blind erroneous judgment on people.

He who condemns people shows his disbelief in Divine grace. The Lord, perhaps, for this reason allows people to sin, who will later be great righteous people and His great glorifiers, in order to protect them from the worst evil - spiritual pride.

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

It happened that an elder would send him with an order: “Tell that elder that he is a demon.”

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

Irritated by such a soft and affectionate greeting, that elder will say: “And you tell your elder that he is a donkey.”

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

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

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

There was such a person who breathed love, indulgence, forgiveness - the Sarov elder Seraphim. He was so affectionate that when he saw people approaching him, he first beckoned them to him with words, then suddenly, not mastering the pressure of the holy love that overwhelmed his soul, he quickly went towards them with a cry: “Come to me, come.”

He saw in every person the Son of God standing behind him, honored, perhaps, barely smoldering, but still invariably present in every person a spark of the Divine, 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 in others either. And when, for example, he heard that children began to condemn their parents, he immediately closed the mouth of these condemners with his hand.

Ah, if only we could adhere to the same holy rules of love and indulgence in mutual relations!

Why is this not so? Look at our manners.

Here is someone sitting there. They are friendly, affectionate with him, trying in every possible way to show him that he is pleasant and even necessary for these people. They say that they miss him and ask him to return as soon as possible. And as soon as he went out the door, his most severe condemnation begins. They often invent, slander him with various fables, which they themselves do not believe, drag others in here, and when one of these others appears, they will exclaim:

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

But as they recalled, this, of course, they will not say.

A person enters into some large society: how many suspicions about him, how many sidelong glances directed at him! Does anyone succeed in life: "This man takes his impudence, an amazing climber." Does anyone in life sit in his place, not moving and not rising: “What a mediocre person. It is clear that he is unlucky, who needs such people!

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

It 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 endures him, just as He endures you, perhaps a thousand times more worthy of condemnation than this man.

The heart boils with indignation when you see how distorted our mutual relations are, how we can do nothing in the simplicity of thought and in the nobility of Christian love.

Look at how many different measures this person has for meeting, talking and addressing people, how many different tones, ranging from sugary, searching, as if he is crawling in front of the person 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, because you got me to this place, I owe you so much that I am ready to do anything you want. I assure you - if you asked me to clean your boots, I would do it with pleasure.

To the faces he was looking for, he was surprisingly sweet, flattering them as best he could; he treated people he did not need with boorish self-confidence; to persons 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, gentle, alien to flattery, on the one hand, arrogance and arrogance, on the other, indifferent to all people.

There is a lofty concept in England, which in Russia is understood in a completely different way than in this country of remarkable development of character. This is the term "gentleman". In English, "gentleman" is a person who deliberately does not do anything to another that could hurt this other, cause him any harm or trouble. On the contrary, this is a man who will do everything he can to everyone, and to the extent that he can.

It is in this concept of gentlemanship that, of course, lies true Christian attitudes towards people. To meet with a person in order to give him, at least embarrassing himself, help and sympathy; and if you do not do him a favor, then at least look at him kindly and with disposition - this is an act that is truly a gentleman.

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, take on the trouble of checking in the baggage of the lady you meet - 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 - his treatment of you will be equally even and pleasant.

* * *

Often the good that we do to people requires a feat from us, requires the exertion of our strength, requires that we deprive ourselves of something for these people. But a good person, besides this hard-to-fulfill goodness, will find many cases to apply his kindness where this kindness, having brought a very significant benefit to a person, does not require any work from him, any hardships.

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

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

Imagine that a person has entered a large, unfamiliar society of people who are higher than him. If this person is also shy, he goes through extremely unpleasant moments for him. And there will be someone who will notice how he is constrained, how uneasy he is, and will approach him, speak affectionately to him - and then the constraint of the person disappears, and he is no longer so afraid.

After the first one, the second one will come up to him - and the ice that he felt in this society seemed to crack. 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, a casually thrown word is extremely helpful to a person who is embarrassed by 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 render even the slightest service to another.

I once had to be present at a quarrel between two spouses of different spiritual moods, who did not suit each other at all and who soon had to disperse.

It was in the huge Pavlovsk park, where it is so easy for the unknowing to get lost. The couple were walking when a panting lady came up to them and asked:

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

The young husband, who knew the park perfectly, 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 lead her to a place where a straight and clear road lies. He immediately said to the lady:

Allow me to accompany you, - and quickly went with her.

His wife, who constantly made scenes for him, indignantly raised her eyes to the sky, and when he returned five minutes later, having led the lady to the right place, she began to reproach him for leaving her, having treated her extremely impolitely and disrespectfully.

She saw her husband twenty-four hours a day and found that spending five minutes with a person in trouble meant treating her with disrespect... a peculiar and certainly wrong look.

* * *

It is strange that in childhood there are some manifestations of senseless, sophisticated cruelty. How much they take out, for example, from comrades, the so-called "newcomers." Indelicate questions, all sorts of injections, kicks, pinches on the hand under the guise of trying matter with questions “how much did they buy it”, and the same anger of the tormentors, whether the boy answers the swearing with swearing or timidly presses 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 themselves a position in the class and who stand up for the unjustly persecuted beginners.

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

There are still such characters who are cruelly offended and excited by any violence of a person against a person. These people were worried about the injustices and abuses of the landlords over the peasants in the days of serfdom. These people, with weapons in their hands, will rush to defend the rights of an entire people, trampled on by another, stronger people. Such 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 man who has this power.

not without reason the best people For all ages this power has been feared and often abandoned. Those Christians who set their slaves free when imbued with Christ's covenants, of course, realized how wrong it was to command other people, and themselves, like the great merciful Peacock, Bishop of Noland, themselves preferred to become slaves than to keep others in slavery. .

In the days of serfdom, many flagrant iniquities were committed. Peasants endured many unheard-of, most cruel insults from other landlords who, intoxicated with their power, reached some kind of bestiality and often even (the height of sinful depravity) found pleasure in torturing 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 sufferings are happening before us with our own eyes. If we see a person who is trembling in the cold, barely covered with rags; if we hear a voice escaping with difficulty from this stiff body; if timid, hopeless eyes 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 in some way ... But a higher mercy consists in foreseeing such grief, which we do not we see, to go towards such suffering, which still does not climb into our eyes.

This is precisely the feeling inspired by the actions of people who found hospitals, shelters, 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, pity them in advance.

Frosty. Deep evening over quiet Ukraine. In the city of Belgorod, everything was hidden from the cold in the houses. Trees with mangy branches shine, drenched in the silvery rays of the moon. In the frosty air, the quiet tread of a man dressed as a commoner is heard. But when the moon shines on his face, one can immediately guess that this person is of high birth. He approaches the poor huts, carefully looks around to see if anyone sees him, and then, quickly placing on the windowsill or a bundle of linen, or something from provisions, or money wrapped in paper, knocks to attract the attention of people inside , and quickly disappears.

This is Bishop Joasaph of Belgorod, the future great miracle worker of the Russian land, makes a secret tour of the poor before the feast of the Nativity of Christ, so that they meet this holiday in joy and satiety.

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

* * *

Great mercy towards people, a caring attitude towards them does not in the least exclude wise firmness and the application of punishment measures where a person sins. Some researchers of the life of the same great Saint Joasaph are at a dead end before the fact that, despite the extremely developed mercy in him, with the most tender and touching manifestations of it, he, on the other hand, was severe with the guilty. But there is nothing strange and inexplicable in this. The saint preferred that a person suffer punishment better on earth than in heaven, so that the sufferings suffered in the form of punishment would purify his soul and relieve him of responsibility in eternity.

How much wiser was the view of the saint in this regard than the modern view of crime, which is 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.

That person with common sense, who recently had to be a juror, was simply horrified at the sight of the extent to which we reach leniency towards a criminal. There are absolutely outrageous cases, in which the jury definitely pushes the people they justify to new crimes.

I had to be present at a hearing in a case where several healthy guys were accused of having robbed an old woman under seventy, attacking her in her room, and cutting out of her skirt one and a half thousand rubles, accumulated by her life's work and representing the only the source of her existence.

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

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

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

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

One artel worker, who worked in a large bank, appropriated and squandered something about ten thousand rubles. An artel worker, a capable man, who was in military service, about forty years old, was married in the village and had children. In the city, he was in connection with a person who was present at the case as a spectator in an elegant dress and an incredibly large hat. There were rumors that the spent money was used by him to buy this lady a dacha at one of the stations along the Finnish Railway.

As always happens with embezzlement in artels, the amount spent was supplemented by contributions from all other artels, all married and multi-family people. You can imagine that among the jury voices were heard 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 questions. 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 Himself, 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 make a sacrifice on the cross in order to remove from a person the curse under which he brought himself into sin. Understand only the full power of these words, that Almighty God could not violate the law of retribution established by Him. And since the fall into sin was so great that by no measure, by any suffering, a person could make amends for the crime he had committed, then in order to make amends for this crime, the sufferings of the Divine were needed. The weight of the scales of justice could not rise upward without the greatest burden, the burden of earthly life, humiliation, the burden of suffering and the death of the Son of God, being placed on another cup.

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

When a certain crime is committed, an appropriate retribution must be brought for it. This is the establishment of God's law, against which one cannot go, which cannot be violated. And the punishment must be in accordance with the suffering that this crime inflicts on another person.

Imagine that some scoundrel encroached on the honor of a young girl or a child who has not yet developed: 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 a scoundrel, a tormented semi-corpse returns to her, with a crumpled, wounded soul, with shame indelible on itself, with a painful memory until the end of days.

How can you cry out 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 person, politely put 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 just people would demand the most severe punishment for such a person, from whom, as they say, the blood would freeze in the veins, so that the person who made the unfortunate girl and her loved ones suffer so madly would suffer even worse.

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

Nowadays, the crimes of dousing with sulfuric acid are terribly common. That is a young student, the only son of a millionaire engineer, doused in the face with sulfuric acid by an old chorus girl, who bothered him with her harassment, and the unfortunate man was left mutilated, with an eye barely and half saved, and with another dead. That interested groom, who was refused by a rich bride after she exposed his low soul, pours her over to blindness. Then the clerk, who serves at a rich merchant and made a marriage proposal to his daughter, a young student, and was refused, douses this girl with sulfuric acid, and at the same time, along with her, her sister.

Let us now see whether the petty modern punishments for such horrendous crimes are proportionate to the misfortune 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, unnecessary to anyone, with a face that a few days ago shone with beauty, and now is a solid ulcer, which the nearest people cannot look at without a shudder .

And he, after a polite judgment with him, will serve several years in prison: five - six - ten, - and will again return to life 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 appease these incredible crimes would be very simple.

It suffices to establish a law that a person who pours sulfuric acid on another person is subjected to 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 vicious such scoundrels are, they tremble above all for their own skin, and the prospect of being left without eyes or mutilated will undoubtedly take away their ferocity.

When we go crazy with such crimes, we commit the greatest evil by spreading 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, the honest, working victim, pitying the frantic scoundrels, parasites and dirty tricks.

* * *

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

This is such a good that we agree to out of pity 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.

First of all, the pampering of people belongs to the category of such goodness - whether it will be the pampering of a small child, a teenager, an adult man, an empty lady who begs her husband for money that he cannot give according to his means, for those excessive outfits that she demands from empty and dangerous female swagger.

In one family, a two-year-old girl was over-indulged. She had a lot of elegant dresses, all kinds of shoes, an innumerable number of hats, umbrellas, not to mention toys. They did not know at home how and with what to please her, they fulfilled her every whim.

Several times a day, the girl was capricious and cried - this happened neatly with every dressing - after sleep, as well as when going to bed in the evening.

She was not relieved otherwise than if she was given sweets or something was given to her. Looking at this madness, I was involuntarily horrified that her parents were spoiling her in the future. First, they undermined her nervous system by these repeated cries and whims a day, with which she earned, so to speak, the constant fulfillment of her fantasies. And most importantly, they prepared for her the saddest fate in the future.

Already now, in these infantile years, she was the manager of the whole 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 anything was denied.

But then that was to come real life which is rather too cruel than soft, which gives nothing for free, in which everything comes from the fight and which in most cases destroys our best dreams one by one.

What terrible sufferings later threatened the life of this utterly spoiled creature! How could one hope that her fantasies would all be fulfilled in life just as exactly as their unreasonable parents fulfilled? How could one be sure that everything she wanted in life would come true? How could one guarantee that she would be given everything to which she stretched her hands? And who could promise that if she loved someone, she would be answered 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 on the part of the parents to indulge her in everything, instead of affirming her in the thought of everyday struggle, of the trials ahead of her, of how rarely fate delivers to a person what he dreams of, no matter how sometimes these dreams may seem simple, easily attainable, legal.

To accustom a child to struggle, to accustom him to refuse what he wants from higher considerations, and from the same considerations to be able to do what he does not want and what is extremely unpleasant for him, is the main task of correct education.

Breaking character, helping to make everything later in life seem 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 without reasoning to fulfill all sorts of requests from people.

It is well known that the Russian youth has lately taken on a disgusting habit of living above their means.

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

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

Do you know, - says one of these officers, - how much was the last time I had dinner in a good restaurant with my friend, they charged me for a small bowl of fruit? Twenty-five rubles, and the whole bill came out at sixty.

Meanwhile, this young man received from his father, who had no other means than seven or eight thousand salaries, fifty rubles a month in allowance, which was already hard for the father, since he had three more adult children in his arms and all of them. helped.

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

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

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

It will take a day, but you will have to pay yourself.

To the horror of his family, he became friends with one of those ladies who live at the expense of others, and this increased his expenses. He was not embarrassed with government sums and once arrived early in the morning to a comrade with the pleasant news that he had squandered the money of recruits 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 them that same morning, in nine o'clock. If he had not done this, then there would have been a major service scandal.

At that time, the comrade did not have money at home, he had to borrow from several people at such an early hour in order to cover this crime.

Several close acquaintances, after a few days, were discussing 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 those constant services that all his acquaintances render to their own detriment , only give him the opportunity to burrow deeper and deeper. A great catastrophe in the form of expulsion from the service, in which, however, he is completely useless, alone could bring him to reason. He would have realized at last that it was no longer possible to live like this and that he had to make a sharp turn. As a capable person, able to work well, if he doesn't run wild, he could still get on his feet.

In the end, this officer had to leave military service and take a humble place in the civil service. He broke with his family when his lady forced him to marry her, and went completely out of the circle in which he was born.

Fate, as they say, told fortune to a man. He bore a good, honest name, had good abilities, influential kinship and acquaintances, was pleasant in conversation and, prominent in 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 did all this serve? I am sure that the first extra ruble that his parents gave him when he began to beg from them against the monthly money due to him, the first piece of paper borrowed by him from acquaintances, while he always had enough, had a fatal significance in his life. to support yourself with dignity.

It is in Russia that parents should be especially strict about themselves in the matter of pampering children. It happens that all the children are hard-working and modest, and one was on a binge, and before they have time to look back, he has already made debts. And then, in order to save, as they say, family honor, to pay off these debts, shamelessly increased by usurers, the family property goes, the sisters' dowry is spent, the whole life of the family changes ... Why? Why should many suffer because of the madness of one?

As if, in a Christian way, they took pity on one, but at the same time offended many and, in essence, crowned vice and shamelessness, punishing virtue.

* * *

In the broad question of our relationship to our neighbors, an important side is our relationship to the lower ones.

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

First, these people are digging themselves, so to speak, a hole. For if I make such a distinction between myself and below me standing man how should I expect another person to make the same difference between me and myself, standing above me as much as I consider myself above that other person whom I despise.

Thus, I must inspire myself in advance that people who are much higher than me should already consider me for the most complete scum and insignificance ...

How flattering this is for me!

In our country, especially in Russia, as a relic of serfdom, some kind of attitude towards the lower people has been preserved, which can only be called boorish.

In foreign lands, the servant does not allow you to talk to yourself the way we talk to her. There is no such custom to speak with the lower people on "you".

Let us recall here, by the way, the remarkable opinion of the elder Seraphim of Sarov on this important issue. In general, he found 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 after all, 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 is just the opposite.

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

Let me advise you, - said the servant, - since you do not know American customs, do not 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 for you, then I think you should just be grateful for this and treat me with care... It's a pity that you in Europe look at it differently.

This lesson of the American servant would not hurt us all to kill on our noses.

Indeed, what a service all these cooks, maids, lackeys render us, and the extent of this service is visible with your own eyes when suddenly you, even if for a day, will be left without them: then everything goes topsy-turvy, and you are helpless.

Meanwhile, 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, people are not so badly placed. In Europe, not a single servant will fit in the kitchen. There is no custom in large houses to set aside cellars for servants. In England, in rich mansions, the upper floor is allotted for them. They have, like gentlemen, their own baths, they do not eat on the go, in the meantime, but strictly fixed hours are set for their meals. They sit down decorously at a table covered with a white tablecloth, with crockery not scattered, and it would not occur to any of the masters to disturb them during this meal, just as the masters themselves do not have the custom of disturbing their guests during their meal.

In addition to holidays, they have the right to go out in the evenings.

It seems to be insignificant. But this is a brilliant example of the Christianization of human relations.

In general, our attitude towards people subordinate to us cannot but cause bitterness in the souls of those just people who are witnesses of 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 from ourselves that, probably, these Angels retell to God about the grievances that these lower ones suffer because of the cruelties of these higher ones.

Elder Seraphim of Sarov, a contemporary of the abuses of serfdom, deeply mourned the grief of serfs. Knowing that one general had poor managers and abandoned peasants, the elder persuaded the same Manturov, who had become impoverished to build the Diveevo Church, to go to this estate as a manager. And Manturov in a short time raised the welfare of the peasants.

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

In today's disagreements between masters and servants, the servants are also to blame. The fragrant type of the former devoted faithful servants, who love the family they serve and live in the interests of this family, disappears almost without a trace.

Remember Savelich, the good nurse and friend of Grinev's mischievous youth, the groom " captain's daughter»; Evseich - the glorious tutor Bagrov-grandson of S. T. Aksakov, Natalya Savishna from "Childhood" of Count L. N. Tolstoy, the nanny of Tatyana Larina from "Eugene Onegin"; the ascetic nanny Agafya from Turgenev's "Noble Nest", who formed in her pet, Lisa Kalitina, her noble, harmonious, integral worldview.

How far these fragrant images are from contemporary 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 of theirs: what an abyss separates these Agafies, Savelyichs, Yevseichs from the current brunchy, irritable and unhappy servants.

What a plague it is - this dishonesty of theirs, with which the owners must be in constant struggle, be constantly on their guard. They cheat in the most blatant way. When they are convicted of theft, they swear by such oaths that it’s just scary to listen: “Yes, God break me, but don’t leave this place if I was self-interested in your penny ... so that I don’t see the light of God ... they swear on their heads relatives” - and obviously lie at the same time.

The servant does not value his place at all, not at all taking root in the family - not taking root in the house, as even the most crafty, ungrateful and vile of domestic animals - cats take root.

They change jobs not because they are dissatisfied, not because the work was unbearable or the owners are unbearably demanding and capricious, but simply because they lived a long time.

What! Healed: that's the whole explanation for you.

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

Again, you need to look at foreign lands. There, the servants value places so much - especially in France - that they often consider changing a place not only a misfortune, but also a disgrace. There, people very 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 way of life and the life of 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 any one evening to throw dust in the eyes of society, where they eat on gold and the master's car for the departure is daily decorated with fresh flowers - there 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 servant, whose monthly salary does not exceed twelve rubles, begins to sew silk dresses 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 of sound concepts.

An ugly village girl lived with one lady, asking her for a salary in advance during the sixth week of Great Lent, and at the same time constantly asking her to "go to the dressmaker."

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

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

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

Yes, is it possible to join in a worn dress! After all, I will hang out with my friends. There will be our fellow guys who live here locally. They will laugh if one of us in an old dress appears.

And the dress was sewn: some kind of awkward, with a long train, while Easter was early, and there was nowhere to go from the sticky mud on the streets.

The 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, why are the ladies themselves 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 that requires complete concentration of the spirit.

The gentlemen are scouring the cars - now give the servants a car. Many maids now make it a condition for their fiancés that there must be a taxi for the bride - otherwise she won’t go to church.

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

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

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

And what should a servant who has no relatives do when she grows old - how not to beg!

It would be fair for families who use the work of servants to be subject to at least a light tribute - for example, one ruble per month and more or less, depending on the salary paid to the servants, and thus constituted an inviolable capital, from which the person who lost her ability to work servants could receive a pension or be kept in an almshouse.

Sometimes people seem decent and well-mannered to you, just as a sudden dash of them in relation to the servants breaks your assumption.

A company was sitting in one rich house, talking about various interesting issues ... They were drinking tea. The landlady's son, who had recently arrived, an officer of a smart regiment stationed in the vicinity of the capital, rudely interrupted a young lackey, who gave him something not as he wished.

Donkey, bastard, - he angrily missed under his sleek mustache.

I noticed how one very well-mannered man, who had big influence. An hour later, we simultaneously descended the stairs with him.

That's how he was brought up, - he said thoughtfully. - I thought that Marya Petrovna's children were brought up differently.

This young officer later had to serve under the command of this gentleman. They said that he somehow does not give him a move. And more than once I happened to recall at the same time that fleeting scene in which this influential person with a subtle soul, he noticed an unbearable rudeness for him in this seemingly polished, but in essence rude and impudent youngster. 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 one - polite before some and impudent before those. who could not resist him - a man ...

* * *

In the question of the relationship between superiors and inferiors, the question of workers and employers cannot be bypassed.

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

But the force, in most cases, is on the side of the employer, and it is easy for him, as they say, to "squeeze" the employee.

In the village, these people are called "kulaks".

A "fist" 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 with the fact that he returns this grain to him from the harvest in double quantity. For these loans, the money will be forced to work twice and three times against the prices existing in that area.

To the category of these people belong those worthless individuals who take advantage of social disasters for their own gain: anticipating an imminent famine, they stealthily buy up stocks of grain in order to resell it later at a terribly high price.

Of course, such abuses, such exploitation of human calamity for one's own gain, is the gravest of crimes. About these people, we can say that they drink human blood.

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

“Listen, you rich people: weep and wail for your calamities that come upon you.

Your wealth is rotten, and your clothes are moth-eaten.

Your gold and silver have corroded, and their rust will be a testimony against you and will eat your flesh like fire: you have stored up for yourselves treasure in the last days.

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

You lived in luxury on earth and enjoyed; nourished your hearts as if for the day of the slaughter.”

"Let others live" - ​​this is the motto that Christianity gives for the relationship - the owner and the worker.

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

In one French novel, I happened to see the perfectly noticed movement of the soul of one rich man. A young millionaire from Paris takes an overnight train to the seaside city 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 early morning, long before dawn, crossing the area with coal mines, he sees many black figures of miners heading to 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, who are in constant danger of being crushed and suffocated by collapses of coal and gas developing in mines, this, in essence, not bad, a person becomes uneasy ...

Some kind of remorse gnaws at him. He feels that at that moment he would have been 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 put into practice - in varying degrees - active assistance to the workers who depend on them.

Of course, you have heard of various auxiliary institutions, superbly equipped in various factories, which arose from the idea of ​​the owners of the factories and were carefully maintained by them. There is also a magnificent hospital, a nursery for children, where working mothers can rent their little children who need care for the whole working day, and artel shops, where you can get everything at a cheaper price and better quality, and reading rooms with light paintings. which can provide such healthy entertainment to the workers and contribute to the replenishment of their meager knowledge, and an almshouse for single workers who have lost the opportunity to work, and free schools that prepare from the children of workers knowledgeable specialist workers with a high price for their work, and a funeral fund that facilitates the worker's family in difficult days at the death of the head of the family, and various other institutions that the warm heart and resourceful mind of a person who seeks 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, inventive boy with a living spark of talent in him to receive a higher technical education, to build his own church for a factory remote from the villages: how many innumerable ways can there be for a hearty entrepreneur to serve his workers.

There are bosses whom the workers call "fathers"... What a lofty name, 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 being 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, it is impossible without a shudder to recall the history of Lena, where the Lena Gold Industrial Association, bathed in gold, forced the workers to go on strike with their heartless attitude, which ended in the beating of innocent workers to death.

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

In the eyes of the partnership, which received fabulous incomes, 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 a price set by the partnership from the shops of the partnership, which also profited from this and bought for a pittance obviously rotten, rotten and spoiled goods, so that for a high price, as they say - with a knife at the throat, to force the workers who are in in a hopeless situation, since nowhere, as in the shops of the partnership, you can not get anything there.

In the eyes of feeling and thinking people, this comradeship will forever remain 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, in spite of, or rather, precisely because of this money they stole, this work sweat and blood turned into gold. They would not have been given a hand, they would have been spit in their eyes, they would have been loudly called thieves and murderers.

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

The exhaustion of strength from the worker during unemployed time, the fall of a woman into severe poverty, bought by a rich voluptuary, 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 choke. And terrible will be the hour of reckoning. Terrible is the moment when the Last Judgment these offended, driven, humiliated people, in 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 miserable excuses will be in vain, by which these enemies of the people were justified before the personable judges of men.

You can buy this book

Psychology is becoming more popular every day. Now this is not just one of the sciences, it is one of the most relevant practical and applied disciplines that enter our life: journals on psychology are published, books on near-psychological topics are sold in increasing numbers, many get used to visiting a psychologist regularly. Increasingly, questions about psychology are being asked to our site. We want to acquaint readers with the answers to some of them.

Recently, I have become interested in books on psychology, I would like to know the attitude of the Orthodox Church towards this science.

Hello Igor!

In the Fundamentals of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church, adopted by the Jubilee Council of Bishops in 2000, we read: “XI.5. The Church considers mental illness as one of the manifestations of the general sinful damage of human nature. Highlighting the spiritual, mental and bodily levels of its organization in the personal structure, the holy fathers distinguished between diseases that developed “from nature” and ailments caused by demonic influence or resulting from passions that enslaved a person.

In accordance with this distinction, it seems equally unjustified to reduce all mental illnesses to manifestations of possession, which entails the unreasonable performance of the rite of exorcism, and the attempt to treat any spiritual disorders exclusively by clinical methods. In the field of psychotherapy, the most fruitful combination of pastoral and medical care for the mentally ill, with a proper delimitation of the areas of competence of the doctor and the priest.

That is, the Church is for fruitful cooperation with psychology and psychotherapy, provided that the methods of influence and areas of competence are adequately distinguished in accordance with the situation of each person.

Hello, father! In practical psychology, there is a method of directed visualization. When the client presents various images that the psychologist offers. This should improve the client's well-being. Most often these are natural images: to feel the cool water of a stream, the smell of flowers, imagine yourself as a flying butterfly, etc. But it also happens that it is proposed to imagine, for example, a waterfall of light, how it warms, soothes, and then you need to thank this waterfall for help. In my opinion, this is in conflict with Orthodox teaching. Could you explain to what extent the use of this method is justified. Thank you in advance.

Ekaterina, child psychologist.

Christ is Risen!

Your doubts about the legality of using directional visualization in the dialogue option are quite justified. The danger is too great that the spiritual answer to the search in such a state will be given from outside. And precisely from the side of the infernal forces of evil. Although the method itself is very powerful and allows you to deal directly with the subconscious, it is better to use it, especially in children, without dialogue.

Sincerely, priest Mikhail Samokhin.

Many of my acquaintances are passionate about a psychological theory called “Reality Transurfing”, this is a powerful technique that gives the power to create things that are impossible from an ordinary point of view, namely, to control fate at your own discretion. (Quote from the book) But besides this, they also consider this theory close Orthodox faith. Our fights are heated. I would like to know your opinion about such teachings, stating that a person can do anything. And also advise me, please, literature on this issue. Thank you in advance. Maria

Hello Maria! The magical methods and presentations of Vadim Zeland's books, in my opinion, have nothing to do with Orthodoxy. Rather, the doctrine of energies, pendulums and the like is closer to occult mysticism. The described visions also have nothing to do with Orthodoxy. As for the preaching of human omnipotence, we read from the Apostle Paul: “I can do everything in Jesus Christ who strengthens me". (Philippians 4:13) There is no place for Christ in the theory of transurfing. And the ideas of human omnipotence without Christ are not only outside Orthodoxy, but are clearly anti-Christian in nature. Sincerely, priest Mikhail Samokhin.

Tell me, please, is Luula Viilm's book “I Forgive Myself” harmful? If yes, please tell me why! Thanks a lot! God bless you! Julia

Hello Julia! Luule Viilma's method only at first glance resembles Orthodox repentance. She considers herself a parapsychologist and clairvoyant. A certain energetic nature of diseases is affirmed. There is no place for God in her concept of forgiveness. Man forgives everything to himself. This is a hidden education of pride and exaltation over others. The danger of this book is that it does not tell lies, but half-truths. The unconditional need for reconciliation with others is elevated to the rank of the pinnacle of spirituality, while Orthodoxy speaks of the need for repentance before God. Of course, this book can also become the first step on the path to true repentance. But, very likely, it can lead to a dead end in energy-parapsychological occult research.

Sincerely, priest Mikhail Samokhin.

Hello! I work as a teacher at a university, I am interested in psychology interpersonal relationships. For personal growth, I visit sometimes. I have a question for you. I was offered to take the training “Dance of Life”, i.e. It is clear from the name that a technique will be applied there with the help of dance to reveal the inner potential and bring to the conscious level what is in the soul. I want to ask: how does Orthodoxy regard this kind of action? Is it possible to go to such a training or is it not from God? Looking forward to your reply, thanks in advance. Tatiana

Hello, Tatyana! The training you have named is part of the direction of body-oriented psychotherapy. This is quite interesting psychological method but it has nothing to do with Orthodoxy. Patristic counseling presupposes the path of repentance and prayer. It seems to me much more direct and effective than the methods of modern psychology. At the same time, participation in such a training is not a sin and can bring some benefit if situations that provoke unchaste thoughts are not allowed during the training.

Sincerely, priest Mikhail Samokhin.

Hello father, I have a question for you: Do you know such a book “Learning to speak in public” written by Vladimir Shahidjanyan? My brother is completely engrossed in this so-called work. As a sister, I worry about him, especially since he will soon have a child.

Personally, I found this book highly suspicious. Since in it the teacher teaches young people who read his books, delusional thinking, and making absurd sentences, asking questions to people who do not know the answer to these questions, for example: where to buy a crocodile or how to get to the theater, although he himself knows how to get to him. Svetlana

Sincerely, priest Mikhail Samokhin.

What is the attitude of the Russian Orthodox Church towards the works of Abraham Maslow, the founder of modern humanistic psychology? Anthony

Hello Anthony!

The attitude towards this or that phenomenon of the Russian Orthodox Church can be expressed only in the resolutions of the Local, Bishops' Councils or the decrees of the Holy Synod, His Holiness the Patriarch. The teaching of A. Maslow does not apply to such problems of Orthodox counseling, for which there are similar general church definitions. Therefore, the opinions of various representatives of the Church may not completely coincide.

The very fact that in his holistically dynamic concept of personality A. Maslow left Freudianism and put forward the idea of ​​self-actualization as a motive for human development deserves respect. The thesis that the transformation of a person into a full-fledged one is the development of higher forms of motivation inherent in a person is in full agreement with Orthodox anthropology. But V. Frankl already noted that Maslow does not imply for a person to go beyond himself in search of the meaning of life. Whereas in Orthodoxy without such a way out spiritual development basically impossible.

The limitation of Maslow's theory is that the self-expression of a person's authentic motivations cannot be the true meaning of life. It is not enough to express motivation. It must be lived, that is, realized. Without prejudice to his spiritual state and to those around him, a person can realize the highest motivations only in the communion with God commanded to him. And only religion, and Orthodoxy in particular, can help a person in this and save him from the many traps that lie in wait on the way.

Sincerely, priest Mikhail Samokhin.

Good afternoon, father. Answer, please, how to relate to the mood of Sytin? They write that even astronauts used them, there was a result. Some of my acquaintances (albeit, non-church people) also felt a sense of relief. And I'm afraid of something. Sincerely, Leah.

Hello Leah!

Attitudes, as a method of positive psychology, are used not only by G.N. Sytin, but also by N. Pravdina, Louise Hay and many others. Attitudes are a surrogate for prayer, a kind of persuasion of oneself. It acts as a psychological pain reliever. The danger of such therapy is that the real problem, which often goes back to sin, is not solved, but driven inside.

But the trouble is that it will still manifest itself through another sin, somatic disease or otherwise. Another harm from such a surrogate for an Orthodox person is that he tries to replace prayer with himself, that is, he turns away from the true Physician of our souls and bodies, the Lord Jesus Christ. Sincerely, priest Mikhail Samokhin.

Hello! Father, recently Valery Sinelnikov's books fell into my hands. I have been a church person for over a year now, and I am wary of all non-church literature. In reality, this is quite difficult, because there is still no spiritual experience that would allow one to take it more calmly, so I ask for your help. The fact is that something there is really of interest and can be adopted. But some things cause me doubts, because they do not agree with what I read in church literature. How much attention should be paid to the books of this particular author? Can they be useful? Alexandra

Hello Alexandra!

The danger of the writings of Valery Sinelnikov and other representatives of the school of “positive psychology” (L. Hey, N. Pravdina and others) is that they, like painkillers, drown out spiritual problems with the help of suggestion, without healing their causes, rooted in sins. Instead of saving the soul, a person exalts his pride. Problems are not solved, but driven into the depths of the soul, which then turns into new completely unexpected problems. So they can hardly be spiritually useful to an Orthodox Christian.

Sincerely, priest Mikhail Samokhin.

Father, hello! Today, a lot of literature on psychology is published (for example, books by Andrey Kurpatov and many others) about the relationship between a man and a woman. Tell me, please, can it be useful both for a married person and for a person who has not yet married? Thank you in advance! Alexandra

Hello Alexandra! Unfortunately, in most of these books, including those of Dr. Kurpatov basis relationship between a man and a woman in marriage is the physiology of intimate relationships. From the Orthodox point of view, the family is created for mutual assistance in the salvation of the soul, in everyday difficulties. The fact that a family is, first of all, a union of love, friendship and mutual respect, and only then an intimate union is completely forgotten by modern psychology.

Despite the importance of this area family life excessive focusing only on her can mislead a person when thinking about the motives for the actions of a spouse. They are not always to be found in bed.

Sincerely, priest Mikhail Samokhin.

Hello! Marina is writing to you, I am very grateful for your answer and again I turn to you with a question. I am a teacher-psychologist, I work with children from dysfunctional families and orphans. According to my observations, almost all children (and this, of course, has its own reasons) have a very pessimistic outlook on life, they do not see any good in the present or prospects for the future. I would like to help them learn to enjoy life and build positive models for the future. Please tell me how Orthodoxy relates to the techniques of positive thinking, those, of course, that do not have mystical overtones. Thank you in advance!

Hello Marina! The general church judgment, expressed in the documents of the hierarchy, according to the so-called. There is no “positive psychology”, due to the fact that it falls under the concept of modern occultism.

As a specialist, you probably see that the school of positive psychology, creating its affirmations, parodies prayers, transferring them from the sphere of personal communication between a person and God, to some mystically and occultly understood forces of nature. In addition, instead of solving internal problems rooted in the sin of a person or his parents, she offers a simple consolation, a kind of spiritual pain relief. But spiritual contradictions in such a person, opposing oneself to God and the world by this technique, are only “driven” inside.

It is much more fruitful for children to realize the presence of God and His providence in the world, to gain deep love for Him and humility before His will, albeit incomprehensible to us, but always good. It's harder psychological techniques, but adapts a person to the world without putting rose-colored glasses on him. Unfortunately, faith cannot be taught, it can only be shown. God grant that your sincere personal faith will help orphans to believe. Pray about it and the Lord will help you. Sincerely, priest Mikhail Samokhin.