Schema-Archimandrite Abraham. About our habit of making excuses
Stereotypes of thinking
The city is considered to be the center of all kinds of passions and temptations, a noisy place where a measured rhythm of life is impossible. And it seems that a monk, for whom the main thing is fasting, prayer and reflection on God, has no place in the metropolis. However, this is just a stereotype. Indeed, in our time, temptations exist everywhere: both in urban and rural lifestyles, there are just a little more of them in the city. And trying to divide monasticism into urban and rural is, to say the least, unfair. Agree that in the village you can fuss and be distracted by unnecessary work, just as you can lead a focused lifestyle in the capital. Since ancient times, in large cities where there was more than one monastery, spiritual life flourished. But both then and now, monasticism in the city fulfills a special, missionary task. And this is not only the preaching of Christianity, the nourishment of the laity seeking a serious spiritual life - this is, first of all, an example of Christian life in the midst of worldly bustle and city rush. “Love everyone, run from everyone,” says one monastic proverb. Therefore, monks still avoid worldly communication and strive for solitude. But solitude is not always seclusion, and communication is not always direct contact. Joint participation in divine services, the creation of charitable institutions, missionary courses and orphanages (as in our monastery), holding charitable events - this is also communication and also our work.
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To give advice
And yet the primary task of the monastery remains the preaching of Christianity. True, many immediately have a question: can a monk find a common language with a modern layman, especially a city dweller? And how can a monk who has taken a vow of celibacy help in resolving family issues if he himself does not know what family life is?
What if the monk is also a city dweller and was also recently a layman? - I object. Will he really not understand the problems and needs of modern man, when he himself is part of modern society? After all, a monk is not an alien at all, but a person who has chosen a different, monastic way of life. Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov) says that the essential work of a monk is reading and prayer. He who reads a lot edifies not only himself, and on occasion he can help another.
Therefore, the task of a monk is not to think how to find a common language with a layman, but how to teach what he has acquired in spiritual life. And the monk must have something to say.
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Monastic path
I repeat: the essence of monasticism consists in constant communion with God, diligence in prayer, wherever the monk is, in the pursuit of perfection (according to St. Ignatius Brianchaninov). This is what brings people to the monastery, and not disappointment in life and failure, as many believe. People of all ages and social status come to the monastery, and most of them are energetic and determined: after all, in order to choose the monastic way of life, what is needed first of all is determination and courage. When I am asked the question of whether the monk’s path is more salvific and whether it is for everyone, I answer: “Monasticism is for everyone who desires it, but still it is the path of the few.” And before electing him, it is important to look around, think about whether you are ready for this. After all, having made a choice, you will need to remain faithful to him throughout your life and, according to the Savior, not look back, like Lot’s wife. I would like to warn those who believe that a monastery is a place where they can escape difficulties and failures. This is wrong. Of course, monasticism is partly a carefree way of life in the sense that it saves us from worldly worries and vanity. But this is a much heavier cross than family life. Both monasticism and family life are crucifixion. But if a person goes to a monastery only for the reason that he does not want to bear the family cross, then he will be disappointed. After all, having taken on the monastic cross, he will receive not relief, but greater difficulties. Although if he zealously fulfills his monastic vows, he will receive greater grace-filled consolation and greater success in spiritual life.
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Today, voices are also often heard that monasticism has completely outlived its usefulness. They say that the tradition has been interrupted, and communities that have developed over centuries cannot be created in a few decades... And I do not agree with this, because monasticism is part of church life. And therefore, to say that monasticism has outlived its usefulness means to say that Church Tradition is outdated. But this cannot be! Perhaps monasticism is partly changing its way of life, adapting it to modern times, but it has not outlived its usefulness - no! Monasticism presupposes internal work, so it will never become outdated. If there is no monasticism in essence, then neither the external side nor solitude will bring any benefit. And vice versa, if there is no solitude, but there is inner silence, then monasticism will remain itself and will be fruitful even in the midst of the most inconvenient, vain circumstances.
Photo by Valentina Svistunova
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit!
Several years ago, while conducting a conversation about such a problem as non-acceptance of TIN, I said that, most likely, two or three years would pass, all this would calm down, but some new problem would appear, for example, non-acceptance of new type passports. Unfortunately, my prediction was only partly true. They really don’t accept passports, but many people (usually poorly educated, but nevertheless making up a significant number of Orthodox Christians) continue to be sensitive and excited about the topic of Taxpayer Identification Number and the end of the world in general. It goes to extremes. Recently, in the Penza region, people who are called sectarians in the press (although they themselves consider themselves Orthodox: apparently, they went to church, prayed, and followed all church regulations), dug a dugout, locked themselves in it and are sitting there to this day. await the end of the world. If you look from the outside, this is, of course, funny, but there are children among them, and who knows what these people are capable of. They threaten to burn themselves or blow themselves up if they try to be removed by force. It may well be that they have containers of fuel, such as gasoline, and they can actually pull it off. It often happens that people who are apocalyptically minded, under the influence of certain false teachers, expecting the end of the world and seeing that it does not come, kill themselves, sometimes in a brutal way - by burning, for example, and thus bring about the expected end of the world, but only for themselves. Therefore, although it is funny to see the stupidity of these people, it is also scary at the same time, since this stupidity can lead to catastrophic consequences.
Well-known sectarian Alexander Leonidovich Dvorkin, expressing his opinion on what happened, said that now there is a certain sectarian movement within the Church, which has certain signs: non-acceptance of tax identification numbers, new passports, as well as the veneration of very dubious people as saints. Among them is Tsar Ivan the Terrible, who, although an outstanding historical figure, is better known for his vices and atrocities, for which he was nicknamed the Terrible. Among them is the so-called slandered elder Grigory Rasputin - also a very odious person: a libertine, seduced, or (which is not excluded) simply a charlatan. Some people manage to rank among these “saints” the tragically deceased singer Igor Talkov, who may have been a good person, but who cannot claim the title of saint. And even Stalin, such a bestial, terrible person, also wants to be considered a saint. But Alexander Leonidovich was probably embarrassed to talk about another important sign of the sectarian movement within the Church. This sign is a certain type of anti-Semitism (although some of the people belonging to this movement sincerely believe that they are not anti-Semites) - belief in the so-called Jewish-Masonic conspiracy. So, we have a certain picture emerging. People consider themselves zealots of Orthodoxy, but in fact they bear the obvious mark of sectarianism.
The emergence of a sect within the Church is not a new phenomenon. There are many known cases when people outwardly observed Orthodox rituals, but, in essence, were sectarians, forming a kind of closed group within the Church and being, so to speak, in an illegal position. One can cite the example of the so-called Johannites (more precisely, the Johannites, because in this sect there were mainly women), who revered St. John of Kronstadt as the Savior who descended to earth a second time, and others even as the incarnation of the God of the Trinity. But, of course, Father John had nothing to do with the establishment of this sect. Coming to church, confessing, receiving communion, observing all the principles and norms of Orthodox life, the St. John’s women at the same time formed a kind of separate society. Father John even anathematized them, but this had no effect on them.
In view of what has been said, it will not be superfluous to once again touch upon the apocalyptic theme, once again confirming the need to follow Orthodox teaching.
State power, indeed, is often opposed to the Church, or at least is not Orthodox, but this does not mean that we should be hostile to it. Prejudice often becomes a prerequisite for the formation of sectarian consciousness. If we take the New Testament, we will see two striking examples of how submission to government authority, for example to the pagan Roman emperor, not only was not sinful, but, on the contrary, served to fulfill prophecies.
The first event of this kind, known to all of you, is the participation of Joseph the Betrothed in the census that took place under the Roman Caesar Augustus. Thus, Joseph the Betrothed submitted to Roman authority in this, despite the fact that Augustus, of course, could not be called an Orthodox Christian or a true believer in any sense. Moreover, under him, in addition to all sorts of pagan cults common in the Roman Empire, the cult of the emperor developed extremely. The personification of the state was the goddess Roma, the Romans worshiped her and at the same time the genius of Caesar, as the representative of this state. At the same time, thanks to the fact that Joseph the Betrothed obeyed the orders of Caesar (of course, not in relation to the observance of the cult, but in relation to a neutral one - the collection of taxes), the ancient prophecy that the Messiah should be born in Bethlehem came true. It turns out that submission to state power was in this case a matter pleasing to God, since thanks to it the prophecy about the Messiah was fulfilled.
Another case, not so often noticed by us, but, nevertheless, very similar. It was revealed to the Apostle Paul that he should preach in Rome. And how did this prophecy come true? The Jews slandered him before the Roman authorities, first in Jerusalem, then in Caesarea. Seeing that there would be no end to this and that there was only one way to get rid of their accusations, he, being a Jew, being a Christian, was not ashamed to publicly proclaim that he was a Roman citizen, and even to demand the court of Caesar, the court of the emperor. So he ended up in Rome, after some time he was released, and the revelation that came to him came true - that he was to perform apostolic preaching in this great city, at that time the capital of the civilized world (see: Acts 21 -28). This means that submission to government authority is not always sinful or even neutral. It can also be pleasing to God, which is completely clear from these two examples.
Other, less striking examples from Holy Scripture could be given to confirm the fact that prudent submission to authority is a virtue. But we will not dwell on this, but will move on to that moment, which, unfortunately, is the most relevant, painfully relevant today - to the reflections of modern false zealots of Orthodoxy about the seal of the Antichrist. To do this, let us compare two episodes from the New Testament. They are very well known, everyone talks about them, but for some reason they are not compared. The first episode tells how the Savior was brought a coin, a denarius, which was used to pay taxes to Caesar. This is how the evangelist Matthew talks about this: “Then the Pharisees went and took counsel how to catch Him in words. And they send their disciples to Him with the Herodians, saying: Teacher! we know that You are just, and You teach truly the way of God, and do not care about pleasing anyone, for You do not look at any person; So tell us: what do you think? Is it permissible to give tribute to Caesar or not? But Jesus, seeing their wickedness, said: Why are you tempting Me, you hypocrites? show Me the coin with which the tax is paid. They brought Him a denarius. And he says to them: whose image and inscription is this? They say to Him: Caesar's. Then he says to them, “Render therefore the things that are Caesar’s to Caesar, and the things that are God’s to God.” Hearing this, they were surprised and, leaving Him, went away” (Matthew 22:15-22).
Who knows, maybe even now there is some special deceit in setting Christians against state power - in this way they can be easily compromised in the eyes of society. Show the Orthodox as some kind of renegades or, as they say now, marginalized. Present them as strange people with ridiculous, crazy opinions and thus cause contempt for Christianity. We can only guess about this. The important thing is that the Savior had nothing against the image of Caesar, nor against the inscription of his name on the coin. And at that time, the denarius depicted Emperor Tiberius, who was not distinguished by either morality or religious piety in the true sense of the word. I don’t know if he was pious as a pagan, but, from a Christian point of view, he was distinguished by extraordinary debauchery, and even got sick from it. At the end of his life, having entrusted the management of the empire to his confidant, he indulged in unbridled debauchery on the island of Capri for several years. And yet the Savior said that Caesar - not because of any of his personal qualities, good or bad, but because he is the head of state - must be given what is due to him. At that time, as I have already said, there was a cult of the emperor, established by Julius Caesar and widespread under the second Roman emperor, his adopted son Augustus. And the Savior allows us to give taxes to Caesar and does not condemn the image of the emperor on coins, but if we were talking about worshiping this image, then, of course, this would be forbidden by Him.
Now let us turn to another episode from Scripture that false zealots love to talk about - the story of the seal of the Antichrist. Outwardly it is similar to the previous one. And there we are talking about the image, and here. There they talk about the inscription, here about the outline. To discuss this episode, I will use the translation of the New Testament by Bishop Cassian (Bezobrazov) as more accurate - in this case it is of fundamental importance. “And it was given to him (that is, the false prophet of the Antichrist. - Scheigum. A.) to put spirit into the image of the beast so that the image of the beast would speak and do so that all who would not worship the image of the beast would be killed" (Rev. 13:15 ). And the image is mentioned here and there. And the emperor could not be called a pious man, and the Antichrist is depicted as a beast, that is, as having nothing human in himself. But still there is a difference. It is one thing for a sinful person, who may have something naturally good in himself, and another for one whose nature is so perverted that the Holy Scriptures call him not a man, but a beast. What does the Apocalypse say next? “And he acts in such a way that everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, should be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead” (Rev. 13:16).
I note that the word “mark,” which is given in both the Slavic and Russian (Synodal) translations of the Apocalypse, in this case is more correctly understood as a mark, that is, as something integral to a person (as opposed to an “inscription”). Thus, we see that there is a difference between the inscription on the coin (which, in order to give to Caesar as a tax, a person, naturally, must first take in hand) and the mark of the Antichrist. I cannot, for example, in order to “not get dirty,” say: “Sister A., pay for me, I don’t even want to touch this money.” And there are such people. They told me about one elder who did not want to touch the money, saying that it was a sin. On the one hand, this, of course, was absurd, but on the other, the parishioners respected him very much for this, they said: “Since he doesn’t want to touch the money, it means he won’t steal anything.” That's why they made him headman. But such behavior is not always appropriate. If we are forced to pay for something, say, pay taxes, then we must first take this money. And if we take into our hands the image of Caesar, his “inscription” - even if this Caesar were the very Antichrist - then there is nothing wrong with that, because we will simply use this “inscription”. It’s scary if this “inscription” becomes a “mark,” that is, something integral to ourselves, and makes some kind of change in us that will be irreversible or will have the danger of irreversibility. I don’t know whether it will be possible for a person who has deliberately taken upon himself the seal of the Antichrist to repent. It seems to me that any person can and should repent. But, in any case, accepting a seal is extremely dangerous; it entails a change in the person himself.
Let us return to the Revelation of the Evangelist John: “And he acts in such a way that everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, should be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, and that no one can buy or sell , besides the one who has a mark: either the name of the beast, or the number of his name” (Rev. 13: 16-17). In order to understand that the seal of the Antichrist should not be taken literally as a brand, we must turn to history. In ancient times, slaves were branded. True, this was not always done and not everywhere; they mainly branded runaway slaves, but in some areas and at other times every slave was branded. Is it really possible that a person who had some kind of mark, a sign of his master, was burned onto his body, somehow changed because of this? After all, he did not accept it voluntarily—the man was forced to submit because he was forcibly deprived of his freedom. But even if he was deprived of his freedom of his own free will (sometimes there were cases when a person, due to extremely constrained circumstances, sold himself into slavery), this does not mean that he was internally subordinate to the one to whom he belonged. We, too, to some extent, are not free people and do not belong only to ourselves. We are forced to obey state laws, certain requirements of state administration bodies at various levels, but this does not mean that we obey them internally, that we accept their beliefs, which may be non-Christian or even atheistic.
And at a later time, it happened that people were forcibly deprived of their freedom (for example, imprisoned in camps) and assigned numbers. If in Stalin’s camps a number was sewn onto clothes and assigned to the prisoner’s personal file, then in Nazi camps, for example in Auschwitz, prisoners were often given numbers on their wrists. True, not to the right, but to the left, but I don’t think that this is of fundamental importance. It was a tattoo. And many prisoners, entering the camp, wanted to receive such a number, because if it was not assigned, it meant that the person would soon be destroyed, sent to the gas chamber, and therefore he was not subject to any accounting. And if you were given a number, it meant that for some time the camp authorities might need you as an employee. Naturally, in such conditions everyone wanted to survive, so they sought to be assigned a number. Can we really say about the prisoners of Stalin’s or Hitler’s camps that they thus submitted to the Antichrist? Weren't Stalin and Hitler the Antichrists? Of course, they were, because they acted completely inhumanly, contrary to all Christian morality, and even openly, each in their own way, rebelled against the New Testament Revelation.
Let us consider an even more striking example from ancient history, which shows that even in the most literal sense, a mark, that is, a mark placed on a person’s forehead, does not deprive him of his freedom, does not compromise him in any way, and, moreover, can serve as evidence of his zeal for God. The point, I repeat, is not that we have been labeled - anything can happen, but that we submit to someone voluntarily, and especially submit internally, spiritually. And if we remain free, if we follow the Christian revelation, the Church Tradition, then this stigma has no meaning and cannot remove us from God. Now I will read an excerpt from the story about two great ascetics of piety, Theodore and Theophan the Inscribed. The ascetics were so named for the reason that, having come with the blessing of the Patriarch of Jerusalem to expose the emperor of iconoclasm, they were subjected to terrible torture for this, about which we will read further:
“What they suffered at this time is clear from the letter they subsequently wrote to John, Bishop of Cyzicus. In this message they themselves tell the following about themselves: “...Then the king furiously turned to the ruler standing nearby and, burning with great anger and obscenely cursing, said:
“Take them from here and, having branded their faces, give them to two Saracens so that they can take them to their land.”
Not far away stood some poet, holding in his hands a charter with ready-made poems written regarding us. The king ordered him to read them and added:
- If the poems are bad, then don’t be embarrassed by it.
And he replied:
“Such verses are enough to desecrate them.”
Someone present also remarked:
“They, sir, are not even worthy of the best.”
Then the following verses were read:
(Since Theodore and Theophanes arrived in Constantinople from the Holy Land, they were slandered in the poem, as if they were expelled from the holy city of Jerusalem. - Schigum. A.)
Since everyone loves to visit the city,
Where the most pure feet of God the Word stood
To restore the universe, -
Appeared in an all-honorable place
And these wicked and unclean vessels.
Having done a lot of shameful things there,
Out of unbelief and wickedness,
They were driven out of there as apostates;
But having run to the reigning city,
And here they did not stop their frantic violence.
Therefore branded as villains on their faces,
They are condemned and expelled again.
After listening to the reading of the poems, the king ordered us to be taken into custody (this is what the saints said about themselves). When we left, someone caught up with us and, ordering us to return, hastily brought us back to the king.
Seeing us, the king said:
“It seems to me that when you left, you said to yourself: we outraged the king.” But first I will abuse you myself and then I will let you go.
Having said this, he ordered us to undress. After we were both stripped, they began to beat me first (says Theodore), and the king himself helped the torturers and constantly shouted:
- Hit harder!
And they beat me on the shoulders and chest without any mercy or mercy. While they were beating me, I loudly exclaimed:
“We have not sinned against you in any way, king!” (Since they did not submit to the iconoclastic heresy, and this heresy was implanted by the emperors, they were accused of treason and conspiracy. - Schigum. A.) And also:
- Lord have mercy! Most Holy Theotokos, come to our aid!
Then they began to beat my brother, who cried out in the same way:
- Most Holy Theotokos, who fled with Her Son to Egypt, look at my torment! Lord, Lord, who delivers the weak from the hands of the strong, do not take Your help from us!
Having abused us to his heart’s content, the king again ordered us to be taken into custody.”
The valiant sufferers themselves wrote all this about themselves to the Bishop of Cyzicus.
Four days later, they were again brought to the eparch, who kindly said to them:
“Just once, partake of the Holy Mysteries with us, and I will let you go wherever you want.”
Note that they said that they were not guilty of any treason, there was no conspiracy, but at the same time they stood firmly in their confession, following the Orthodox Tradition about the veneration of icons. They were ready to submit to the king as a sovereign, but not as a heretic, not as the instigator of the iconoclastic heresy.
“But blessed Theodore answered him:
“Your proposal, bishop, is as if someone had told me: I ask you one thing, let me just cut off your head, and then you can go wherever you want.” Know that turning us away from orthodoxy is as difficult as rearranging heaven and earth so that the earth is above and the sky below.”
“Then the bishop ordered their faces to be branded with the above verses inscribed on them. The wounds the sufferers had recently received had not yet healed and caused them terrible pain. Despite this, they stretched them out on boards with their faces up and began to stab their faces with specially prepared instruments, beating out the above verses on them. They were tormented with this mark all day, and only when the sun set and dusk came did the tormentors stop torturing them. Leaving the eparch, the depicted sufferers said:
“Know everyone here that the cherub standing guard over paradise will retreat upon our arrival, seeing these marks on our faces, and will lower his flaming weapon, giving us free access to paradise.” .
Theodore and Feofan said wonderful words that are very important to us. Due to the fact that they involuntarily received this seal - an inscription on their face, grace will not only not depart from them, but they will have free access to heaven. These words of theirs refute what the imaginary zealots of Orthodoxy say, who could be called funny if the absurdities expressed by them did not lead to terrible consequences, to human tragedies. Of course, for Theodore and Theophanes this was a reproach and humiliation, but even the Church itself gave them such an honorable nickname, which has been heard in the universe for more than a thousand years - “Inscribed.”
“...Know all those who are here that the cherub standing guard over paradise will retreat at our arrival, seeing these marks on our faces, and will lower his flaming weapon, giving us free access to paradise. For since time immemorial there has not been this new torment inflicted on us now. And in any case, these marks will be on the face of Christ, and the guilt for this will fall on you, for He says: “Because you have created one and the least of these brothers of mine, you have created for me” (Matthew 25:40).”
Please note that Theodore and Theophan interpret the Holy Scripture very correctly: whatever is done to one of these little ones, good or bad, is done to Christ. And if Christ was not ashamed to take this mark upon Himself (and we cannot help but believe these confessors and martyrs), then there is nothing shameful in it. From a human point of view, this is a shame, but before God it is glory. Therefore, those who say that we should not accept passports because they have a chip embedded in them, buy goods because they have a bar code, or accept an individual taxpayer number are contrary to Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition. Their views are opposite to the behavior of God's chosen ones - be it the Russian new martyrs who accepted numbers, or the confessors Theodore and Theophanes the Inscribed - or the innocent sufferers of the Nazi camps, even if they were not Christians. Who should we believe: the newly-minted “prophets” or the Holy Scriptures, Holy Tradition? Who is the greater authority for us?
The Lord Jesus Christ said that even if someone does signs, but at the same time does not follow the will of the Heavenly Father, he is a lawless person and He does not know this person. Let us turn again to the translation of Bishop Cassian. “Not everyone who says to Me: ‘Lord! God!" He who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter the kingdom of heaven. Many will say to Me on that day: “Lord!” God! Have we not prophesied in Your name? And was it not in Your name that they cast out demons? And have they not performed many miracles in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them: ‘I never knew you: depart from Me, you who practice iniquity’” (Matthew 7:21-23). Perhaps, indeed, there will be people who will imagine that they prophesied in the name of God. However, even if they were sincerely convinced of this and even if they really prophesied, but at the same time committed lawlessness - and the law, that is, the will of God, is known to us from the Holy Scriptures and Tradition - then the Lord would say that He did not knows, and would drive him away. This means that even if some person were a prophet or a miracle worker, we must prefer the word of God to his prophecies and not succumb to any temptations, we must learn to look at things soberly, not listening to fears and rumors, measuring what we hear with Divine Revelation . It will never be damaged, can never be supplemented with anything, for it contains the fullness of truth, through it the Lord speaks to us. From it we must learn the will of God, follow it and strengthen in faith.
So, we see that appropriating to a person by force or without his knowledge any means of accounting, perhaps clearly disgusting, unpleasing things, even if it were really the seal of the Antichrist, does not have any significance. What matters is only voluntary, conscious submission, that is, a change of mind. What is a forehead seal? You don’t need to immediately imagine a seal or brand in the literal sense of the word. We do not know by what technical means this will actually be achieved and whether it will be something external at all. The important thing is that a person changes his way of thinking, this will be the seal of the Antichrist, the mark of the Antichrist on a person’s forehead. This same mark on the hand means a course of action: for example, a person thinks correctly, but because of fear or some other considerations he acts humanely and sins. Therefore, the Apostle John the Theologian depicts submission to the Antichrist as a seal on the forehead and on the right hand, implying a way of action and a way of thinking - this is what we should fear and beware of, and not something external.
What is happening now borders on the absurd. “All this would be funny,” as the poet said, “if it weren’t so sad.” How, for example, do you think it is possible to get rid of the seal of the Antichrist allegedly contained in a passport? You take a microwave, put your passport in it, it is “fried” - and that’s it, the seal of the Antichrist has disappeared, you can safely use your passport. Of course, the passport is not actually fried, but the chip with the information actually gets spoiled. But please note that in this case you need to resort to the achievements of modern civilization, use a microwave oven, which most likely has a barcode on it. How then can you buy it? An insoluble dilemma. Please note that people do not want to use an ordinary frying pan - it does not remove the seal of the Antichrist; they need a microwave. They appeared recently. When I was young, no one had heard of such devices. And now, it turns out, this is what needs to be done... This is how people turn themselves into a laughing stock.
Imagine that such an “Orthodox” will begin to preach stupid, distorted Orthodoxy to an unbeliever: he will tell him about the microwave, about passports, about how to destroy the seal of the Antichrist. How would a normal person react to this? People will turn away from the Church, they will say: “But there are crazy people there, how can you go there?” Thus, in addition to the fact that such “zealots of Orthodoxy” harm themselves, they also seduce others.
I’ll give you an example, maybe more terrible. When we were in the Holy Land, we met a security guard at a hotel. He comes from Russia, is a Jew, and is a member of the Messianic Jews sect. In dogmatics, it is similar to the Baptist sect, only with some national overtones, so they call themselves not Christians, but Messianic Jews - as if in the Jewish way: they replaced the word “Christ” with the word “Messiah”. How did he become a sectarian? He lived in Russia, somewhere in Siberia. I became interested in Christianity, naturally, first of all, in Orthodoxy. He had Orthodox friends, and he turned to them for help, so that they would give him some literature. And these kind, dear friends of his gave him “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” to read as apologetic literature. He read it, and the effect, naturally, was the opposite - he began to feel disgust for Orthodoxy. He had never heard anything about the “Jewish conspiracy”: Jews, as a rule, learn about it not from Jews. Constantly being among representatives of their nation, they do not know anything about this. And suddenly some Russian or Ukrainian gives a book and says: “This is what’s going on with you.” What reaction should a person have? What should he do? To say: “Yes, that’s right, this is happening here,” when he knows that there is nothing like that? Naturally, the person turned away from Orthodoxy. He was drawn to the Church, he was pushed away from it, and he ended up in a sect. This is the result of the preaching of the so-called zealots of Orthodoxy. But in essence this is not Orthodoxy, but sectarianism. And these sectarians, dressed in Orthodox clothes, are a temptation for many, many people - they themselves stray from the path of salvation, and they seduce others, presenting the Orthodox Church as a collection of, to put it mildly, drunken people.
Therefore, a drunken attitude towards tax identification numbers, passports, barcodes is not such a harmless and funny thing. This is a truly dangerous trend. As A.L. Dvorkin put it regarding the event in the Penza region, in the near future it may “explode” in other places - this absurdity has spread too much. We must strengthen ourselves in sober thinking and, in spite of everything and no one, follow exclusively the patristic Tradition. Establishing ourselves on it, we will be truly Orthodox, and not false zealots, who, instead of taking care of our souls and helping other people, on the contrary, confuse them, lead them away from contemplation and study of their souls, from the fight against sins - to ghosts, to the fight against windy mills, as the notorious Don Quixote did. Such people bring a lot of harm to themselves, their loved ones and compromise the Holy Orthodox Church. Amen.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit!
Saint apostle paul says: “God, rich in mercy, out of His great love with which He loved us, even us, dead in crimes, made us alive with Christ—by grace you are saved” ().
“God, rich in mercy”... God saves us not because we have done something good or have done something to deserve His mercy, His good deeds, but only because He is merciful. In other words, the only reason God saves us is because of His love: “Because of His great love with which He loved us.” This is also clear from the following verse: “And we, who were dead in trespasses, He made us alive together with Christ.” The last words can be translated from Greek more accurately: “And we, who were dead in trespasses, he made alive together with Christ.” This shade of meaning is extremely important, because the Apostle Paul points out that we are quickened, quickened together with Christ, we are quickened insofar as we are united with Him, and not on our own. “By grace you have been saved,” that is, it is a good gift, the gift of God, and not our merit. Next we should turn again to the Greek original. The Synodal Version says: “And he raised him up with him, and seated him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (), but we can better understand the meaning of these words if we pay attention to one detail in the Greek text. The words “resurrected” and “seated with Him” would be more correctly translated “co-resurrected” and “seated with Him”: “and raised with Him, and seated with Him in heaven in Christ Jesus.” This means that because we are one with the Lord Jesus Christ, a great miracle happens to us. In His humanity we are co-vivified, co-resurrected, and even co-reign with Him, seated in heaven. And if now we know about this only by faith and, as the Apostle Paul says, as if we see in a mirror and guess (see), then in the next century this will be revealed in full: “In order to reveal in the coming centuries the exceeding riches of His grace in goodness to us in Christ Jesus" (). The goodness of God, His love for us, causeless and in no way deserved by us, is manifested precisely in Christ Jesus, and we can comprehend it insofar as we are in unity with Him.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God” (). We are saved through faith, but this does not mean that faith is our merit. Faith is God's gift. St. Gregory Palamas talks about this beautifully, explaining that faith is a Divine action. And the very act of faith, and the object of faith that is revealed to us in this action, and even the very possibility of believing - all these are gifts of God. We can come to this conclusion, correct and sober, if we remember what we were like without God. We could not even think about Him, we could not understand anything or judge anything sensibly, we could not believe. And the change that has happened to us is so dramatic that the Apostle Paul calls it a new creation.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God: not by works, so that no one can boast” (). Indeed, we do not deserve salvation by works. If we did some good deeds that we think led us to faith, they only showed our disposition. By themselves, they meant nothing and were so insignificant that they, one might say, did not exist. “For we are His creation” (), that is, a believer who has found Christ and united with Him is so different from a person who is in a natural state, in which all the people around us are and in which we once were, that it can be called a new creation. Of course, outwardly we remained the same: neither our facial features nor our natural properties have changed, since they mean nothing. The Apostle Paul returns to this topic many times. And who, if not him, should know this if he himself experienced similar things, and to an extreme degree? From a persecutor he became a chosen vessel of God. Hating the Church of God, persecuting it and even trying to put the followers of Christ to death, he changed so much that he began to spread the faith of Christ and was already subjected to persecution and persecution, and in the end was executed as a criminal, although his only fault was that he apostle and witness of Christ.
“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works” (). Pay attention to the contrast, which is not immediately noticeable. “By grace you have been saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not by works, so that no one can boast” - and further: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.” If we do good deeds, it is not our merit. We have become a new creation, a new creature in Christ Jesus, and the works we do are a natural manifestation of our renewed, newly created being. We must realize this and at the same time understand that if we live according to passions and turn back, like Lot’s wife, we can lose everything we have acquired. In addition, as we move forward, we must remember what we are striving for, what we are and what we have been given - we were created to do good deeds. Not renewed, not redeemed, not cleansed, but, as the Apostle Paul says, precisely created. Perhaps this is not visible to others, and we ourselves, unfortunately, do not always realize this and attribute goodness to ourselves, our merits and will. But we are obliged to believe the holy Apostle Paul, the words of the Holy Spirit proclaimed to us through him, namely, that we are a new creation and therefore do good deeds. What kind of good deeds are these? Here the Apostle Paul does not talk about them, but we must understand that good works can be called those that correspond to the Gospel. This is not only alms, as is commonly understood in the narrow sense, but also spiritual poverty, and renunciation of the world, and meekness with humility, likening us to Christ Himself, and even hatred of what turns us away from the love of God. All these are briefly called good deeds. It is not enough to just have a desire for virtue. The sign of a new creation is activity consistent with the teaching of the Gospel. Activity can be called not only physical affairs, but also spiritual ones: prayer, humility and other virtues, perhaps invisible to anyone and not understood by anyone. They are equivalent to the virtues associated with bodily activities. In addition, we cannot perform a real good deed if it does not originate within us, and in this sense, we also must expand our understanding of what a good deed is.
Doing good deeds is our destiny, it is natural for us. If we live as we should, if we are truly a new creation, and not considered to be one only insofar as it is said so, then, of course, good deeds, both spiritual and done through the medium of the body, should be visible. But we are visible not because we are looking for glory, but because it cannot be otherwise. And at the same time, every person who has been renewed to such an extent that in essence he is already a new creation understands, or more correctly, lives in the consciousness that his deeds are not his, but the gift of God. This is the deepest humility. The Apostle Paul, like every pious person and ascetic, spoke, of course, from his own experience. Having accomplished many apostolic deeds, preached the Gospel throughout the world, experienced many sorrows for the sake of this preaching, enduring both bodily illnesses and suffering, the Apostle Paul, teaching us, said what he knew and experienced as the truth: “This is not from us, but from God.” gift". There are other words of the Holy Apostle Paul that contain the same meaning. When he said that he worked more than all the apostles, he added: “However, not I, but the grace of God that is in me” (see). Such is the apparent boasting of the Apostle Paul. He also said: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (). In other words, Christ worked, not I, He gave me faith, made me a different person, and He Himself works in me. This is the consciousness and attitude of a true Christian, and in this the Apostle Paul is an example for all of us.
Even if we acquired everything that the Apostle Paul had: fullness of knowledge, extraordinary revelations, the rapture of the soul to God, the gift of miracles, then at the same time we should have the same humility as he had, the same self-awareness, expressed in the words “this is not from us, but the gift of God,” “not we, but the grace of God that is in us,” “we do not live, but Christ lives in us.” If such a great man as the Apostle Paul humbled himself, then we, having almost nothing in comparison with him, should humble ourselves all the more. However, paradoxically, the more grace a person has, the more he humbles himself, and the less grace he has, the stronger the passions act in him, including, of course, pride. But we, understanding from the words of the Apostle Paul what we should be, will at least humble ourselves and reproach ourselves. If we had everything that he had, we would have to realize that it is a gift from God, and if we do not have it, then we have nothing to boast about. And therefore, let us humble ourselves, repent and, to the best of our ability, imitate the Apostle Paul, to which he himself calls us: “Imitate me, as I imitate Christ” (). Amen.
Who is a confessor, and does a layman need one? How to confess correctly? What should a person do to get the right advice from a priest? The confessor of the Novo-Tikhvin Convent and the Svyato-Kosminsk Hermitage answers these and other questions.
- Father Abraham, who is he? How is he different from an ordinary parish priest to whom they go to confession?
– The confessor must have a special gift, which is considered the highest in the Orthodox ascetic tradition – reasoning. Any priest can perform the Sacraments, but not every priest, even a zealous one, has reasoning.
In the Greek Church, for example, there is such a practice: confessors are appointed there, and only they can accept confession. The Russian Church has a different tradition. But in any case, the main thing that can be advised to those who want to find a confessor is that they look for a person who has life experience, is reasonable and sensible.
And one must understand at the same time that the gift of reasoning can manifest itself in different degrees: the reasoning of a God-bearing elder, an ascetic is one thing, and the reasoning of a simple confessor, especially one who confesses to the laity, is another thing.
– Does a layman actually need a confessor?
– Of course, it is advisable for a layman to have a confessor. However, there is one important point to remember. People often turn to confessors, asking for advice on practical, everyday issues. But the confessor is not an adviser in this. For example, an engineer asks about something in connection with his professional activities. But the priest may be incompetent in this area, and therefore should not advise anything.
Both the confessor himself and the spiritual child must understand this. A confessor is a specialist in the moral field. It is needed to help a Christian consider any life situation from a spiritual and moral point of view.
– What should a priest rather teach his parishioner - obedience or independence and responsibility?
- Both. Obedience is also necessary; advice is needed in everything. But it is necessary to teach a person independence, because a confessor cannot constantly, so to speak, be in touch with his spiritual child in order to give him the necessary advice at any time.
In principle, obedience is a means to accustom a person to independence and responsibility. There is no need to contrast these two things. When a person, through obedience, acquires the skill to live a moral life, he can then independently make a moral choice in order to avoid sin and act virtuously.
– Does a layman need the virtue of obedience, and what should it consist of?
– Of course, a layman must obey the priest, but not for formality and not because it is simply necessary. Obedience is necessary in order to be told how to behave like a Christian in a given life situation, and suggested by a person who has more reasoning than you. This is the value of a confessor.
Actually, we should not be talking about whether a layman needs the virtue of obedience. It would be more correct to ask: does a layman need to live like a Christian? If he is a Christian, then this naturally follows from his exalted title. But we cannot always figure it out on our own and correctly apply this or that commandment to certain life circumstances. And therefore we need an adviser in this regard, a more experienced person.
It is desirable that this be a confessor, but sometimes, in exceptional cases, it can be some virtuous, sensible layman, our spiritual friend. There is such a proverb, very wise: “Whoever you mess with, you’ll gain from it.” According to reasoning, if we are friends with pious people, this shows that we ourselves are pious.
Actually, obedience is a zeal to live morally. And it is clear that this is necessary. And the confessor is our senior comrade, who is superior to us in reasoning, and therefore we resort to him for advice.
– Is the virtue of obedience even possible in our time? wrote about the “impoverishment of living vessels of Divine grace,” which made obedience in the classical sense impossible. On the other hand, he said that obedience is a sacrament. Where is the truth?
– Obedience is a thing without which one cannot exist. After all, we obey not only our confessor. We obey our bosses, our parents, our friends. And if we obey our boss, diligently and zealously, in order to make a career, but we don’t obey our confessor, then this means there is a clear imbalance in our lives. If we obey our friends in some everyday situations, but neglect the opinion of our confessor, then this is an even stronger imbalance. Therefore, it is impossible to do without the virtue of obedience.
Another thing is how to understand it. If we remember what St. Ignatius says about obedience, we will see that he does not deny it, as some believe, but limits it, explaining that not in all cases one can unquestioningly obey one’s spiritual leader. At the same time, he talks about the benefits of revealing thoughts, about obedience to elders in the monastery.
He also says that because of true obedience, the devil can even excite abuse. He writes: if it so happens that you have found a true leader, then this already serves as a reason for the devil to raise a fight. Therefore, we should not say that the virtue of obedience is impossible in our time. Unquestioning obedience is impossible in our time. And Saint Ignatius did not completely deny obedience, but spoke about the general order of things due to the fact that there were few true spiritual leaders.
It is especially impossible for a layman to find such a person whom he could obey unquestioningly. Therefore, you need to perceive your confessor as an adviser, as a more experienced person. And not in such a way as to simply do everything he says, without explaining anything to him, without explaining your situation.
This can be compared for metaphor with what happens in other areas of our lives. Does a person need medicine? Of course it is needed. But this does not mean that if we go to a doctor, he will immediately cure us. Doctors make mistakes, there are more experienced and less experienced doctors. But because of this, we do not cross out medicine. You need to look for a more experienced doctor, understand that the doctor cannot immediately prescribe the necessary medicine, he selects it gradually.
In the sense in which we say that medicine is needed and a doctor is needed, in the same sense that obedience is needed and a confessor is needed. To count on the fact that an ordinary priest will have a prophetic gift would be presumptuous. Yes, we probably would not have even listened to such a person and, quite possibly, we would have been subjected to greater condemnation from God for the fact that, when faced with such a person, we showed self-will. And this way we get more leniency.
– What is “revelation of thoughts”, who needs it and why?
– This is a special type of obedience that befits monastics: when a person talks not only about his actions, but about his entire inner life, constantly paying attention to himself. This virtue is unusual for the laity, and is not needed.
Even if they wanted to, they would not be able to do this, because, being in constant activity, or, as they say, in the bustle of the world, they cannot take such careful care of themselves. And they do not have the opportunity to constantly reveal their thoughts to their confessor. If they can see their confessor once a week, then this can be considered happiness. To tell him for a whole week everything that we experienced internally would be a burden for both him and us.
– How to learn to keep track of small everyday sins and thoughts? How can one “not strain out a mosquito and not swallow a camel”? After all, we often notice little things, but hard-heartedness, pride, and indifference do not...
– There must be a reasonable attitude here so as not to be overly attentive. This is not befitting people living in the world. It may indeed turn out that they will strain out a mosquito and sort out all sorts of their thoughts, will be immersed within themselves, and at the same time will not monitor their actions.
We need to monitor not the little things, but what obsessively acts in our mind. If some thought is imposed, then it needs to be confessed. If we have committed some kind of misconduct, it means that we need to tell our confessor about it and be prepared to listen to a reprimand from him and, perhaps, even receive penance. That is, you need to take care of yourself, but not fall into excessive suspiciousness.
Suspiciousness is such an apparent virtue when it seems to us that we are carefully watching ourselves, repenting, but in fact we are simply provoking excessive mental activity.
– How should a proper confession take place?
– Confession should be short and specific. It seems to me that these two words contain the answer to what correct confession is. If we talk in too much detail, we may pay attention to some minor thing and miss the most important thing. There is no need to talk about any accompanying circumstances if they are not directly related to what we profess.
At the same time, we need to speak specifically, that is, talk precisely about this or that sin that we have committed, or about the issue that worries us. Because if we talk vaguely, then the confessor will not understand us. And then, through our own fault, precisely because we speak too broadly and inaccurately, it may turn out that the confessor gives us the wrong advice. And it will not be he who is to blame, but our overly suspicious attitude towards what is happening to us.
– What to do if you know in your head that you are doing wrong, but you don’t feel it in your heart?
– If a person knows that he is doing wrong, then, although his heart is silent, this is already some kind of step towards repentance. At the very least, let us repent of what we recognize as sin. And gradually sympathy for virtue will come, and aversion to sin will appear. If we immediately seek the highest degree, neglecting the one on which we stand, then we may not make any progress at all. We will stand still, and we will not have any movement in the sense of moral development.
– What sins are the most dangerous and common today, in your opinion?
– I believe that this is, firstly, a sin of arrogance, or, as we otherwise call it, pride, and, secondly, a sin of negligence, or, in other words, laziness. Laziness in spiritual and moral terms. From these two sins come all others.
For pride, grace leaves us, and we are in danger of falling into prodigal sins, drunkenness and many other things, which we understand that this is bad, but we cannot resist, the whirlpool of passion carries us away. And all this is because pride has deprived us of the blessed cover.
Negligence is also extremely dangerous, because we wait for everything to happen by itself, we do not show jealousy or self-force, and therefore we can also fall into the most terrible sins.
Until then, this will all happen until we understand that we need, on the one hand, to humble ourselves and seek help from the one God, realizing our complete powerlessness, on the other hand, we need extreme compulsion of ourselves, because if we do nothing ourselves , then God will not help us. As St. Pimen the Great says: if we fight, then the Lord will fight for us, and if we are inactive, then the Lord will not help us.
It is impossible not to say a few words about Abbot Abraham (Reidman), judging by the words of L. Miller herself, he is spiritually close to her and her work of exposing “dark forces.” It was he who organized her meeting with “monastics and laity” at the Novo-Tikhvin Convent in Yekaterinburg. He was the initiator of the publication of that notorious brochure with the pretentious title “I Wrote the Truth...”.
But who is this abbot himself? His name appeared in the press almost for the first time in 1999 in connection with the parishes of the Yekaterinburg diocese organized by him and the dean of the Ekaterinburg diocese, located in places of imprisonment, Fr. Thomas Abel of the scandal surrounding Bishop Nikon of Yekaterinburg and Verkhoturye. And although the Synodal Commission “did not find sufficient evidence that would confirm this or that accusation against Bishop Nikon,” the case started by the “Yekaterinburg fellows” ended with the transfer of the Bishop from the pulpit to the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery, as they would have previously put it “under the leadership.”
“...Father Abraham,” wrote the newspaper “NG-Religions,” “is accused of excessive love for expensive church utensils, because the abbot himself founded the monastery of the All-Merciful Savior with significant financial support from Ural businessmen. At the request of Abbot Abraham, religious objects were made from noble metals and precious stones... [...] Payment for religious objects came mainly through donations from famous businessmen Vadim Churkin and Igor Altushkin, who are members of the board of directors of the largest pure copper production plant, Uralelectromed JSC. . It was at this enterprise that a gold production site was opened in 1997. Some of the gold bars are allowed to remain at the disposal of the region. It was in this direction that law enforcement agencies attempted to investigate. But no violations were found. As for Igor Altushkin and Vadim Churkin, both businessmen were awarded more than once by Patriarch Alexy II for good deeds in the name of the prosperity of the Church. One of the gifts, a panagia decorated with diamonds and emeralds, made at the Yekaterinburg jewelry factory, Father Abraham took as a gift to the secretary of the Jerusalem Patriarchate, Metropolitan Timothy of Vostra, without receiving the blessing of the [ruling] bishop.”xiv.
These gifts (we mean, first of all, the geographical location of the recipient) were, in all likelihood, far from accidental. “Abraham (Reidman), says one of the Internet forums, had (has?) close contacts with the Golden Ring of the Urals corporation: jewelry industry, workshops, etc. During the work of the Synodal Commission, they surfaced, but were “extinguished “facts of the dumping of church and jewelry values into Israel”xv.
Answering a question from NG-Religion employee Maxim Shevchenko (“In connection with this scandal, the connection between local diocesan officials involved in the scandal with structures that are engaged in the mining and processing of gold and precious stones is mentioned. And the real background of the conflict is seen by some to be precisely that that in the diocese there is a kind of division of ownership in relation to enterprises related to precious stones. How true is this? "), the head of the Synodal Commission, Metropolitan Sergius (Fomin), did not deny the very existence of the problem, refusing only to indicate in the best Soviet traditions ("if anyone - sometimes here and there") specific persons: “I cannot say how true this is. The region is indeed very complex both politically and economically - scandals do not survive there. [...] Representatives of law enforcement agencies informed us that the clergy, unfortunately, are involved in some criminal stories that involve precious stones, drugs [!!!] and alcohol. I would like to remind such clerics that not all money is good for the Church.”xvi.
It should also be said about some features of the spirituality of Abbot Abraham, before the tonsure of Peter Isaakovich Reidman, according to materials on the website of the Yekaterinburg diocesan “Orthodox Newspaper”, “an Odessa Jew by origin. Once he was engaged in spiritual activities in Tobolsk, but was expelled from there for immoral behavior, that is, for drunkenness and adultery. Some Orthodox priests are still perplexed as to how such a person could become a clergyman. After being expelled from Tobolsk, Abbot Abraham comes to Yekaterinburg, taking with him a number of Tobolsk monks.”xvii.
“...Father Abraham,” emphasized the chairman of the Synodal Commission, Metropolitan Sergius (Fomin), “denies the holiness of some saints. This is unthinkable for a monk! It became known that Father Abraham uses physical force during confession, beating not only the monks, but also the parishioners, hitting them on the cheeks and on the head. The closeness of his conversations in the monastery, where “uninitiated” are not allowed, is also characteristic. There is serious evidence of people expelled from these meetings, at which there were anti-hierarchical speeches”xviii. At one of these “secret” gatherings, L.P. Miller was “honored” to speak about Grigory Rasputin.
“The Holy Synod,” said Metropolitan. Sergius, - made the decision that such a person cannot head the monastery..."xix Having learned about the actions of this abbot, the young priests of the Yekaterinburg diocese "wrote a letter to His Holiness with a request to defrock Father Abraham for lying"xx. But with Fr. Abraham is like water off a duck's back. He retained his rank and remained the confessor of the Ekaterinburg Novo-Tikhvin Convent. Moreover, according to eyewitnesses, “seriously considered himself a grace-filled elder and demanded unconditional submission to himself for the “education of a new man””xxi.
And here is the result: in July 2004, on the initiative of Archbishop Vincent of Yekaterinburg, hearings were held in the diocesan disciplinary commission, in which the defendants were Abbot Abraham (Petr Isaakovich Reidman) and Abbess of the Novo-Tikhvin Monastery Lyubov (Alla Gennadievna Nesterenko). They were accused of losing “control over their passions,” a false understanding of Christian forgiveness, violence against the individual, and “anti-social and anti-state claims.” “The industry of personality suppression and the use of the image of the Russian Orthodox Church in illegal activities,” said the document of the accusing party, “places the so-called “religious community” of Reidman-Nesterenko in the category of a sect, especially dangerous precisely because it has been legalized to some extent successfully in the post-Soviet socio-political space”xxii. The subtitle of the publication from which the quoted material is taken is noteworthy: “The Judaizing abbot established a totalitarian sect in an Orthodox monastery.”
This last circumstance, bearing in mind the active role of Fr. Abraham in disseminating Miller’s slanderous fabrications about Rasputin’s Khlystyism, on the issue of the thief’s hat burning...
