What is the attitude of the Christian Church towards Halloween? Impact on children
The American Halloween holiday is gaining popularity in the post-Soviet space - shops are filled with black and yellow decor and paraphernalia, educational institutions hold concerts and holidays for students. And what does Orthodoxy say about Halloween?
Despite the indignation of figures in the educational and cultural sector, there is no official ban on its holding. But many people categorically do not want to accept and support this festival.
Halloween: origin story
Does Orthodoxy express any opinion about Halloween? Of course, but before you get acquainted with it, you should learn the history of this festival. Initially, Halloween was part of the Celtic paganism, only it was then called Samhain and was not quite a holiday.
Celtic holiday Samhain
Samhain was the start of the new year, but it was not a kind holiday like today. The Celts and Druids believed that on this day the door opens between the world of people and the world of spirits, and the latter can safely visit the former. At the same time, the road was also open to people in the world of spirits, but unlike those, people never returned back.
How does it relate to non-church holidays:
Therefore, Samhain was a day of evil, because not good ghosts wandered on the street, but real monsters. They were filled with malice and sought to harm the person as much as possible. But they could be "appeased" - to bring a sacrifice. Some evidence says that the Celts sometimes even sacrificed their own children.
Druids on this day lit a fire on the mountain, which was supposed to protect the world of people from spirits. Throughout the country, no one should light a hearth, and only in the morning the Druids distributed firebrands from the fire so that people could light the hearth. This tradition is intertwined with another pagan holiday - Beltane. People were afraid of the death brought by the spirits, so they strictly observed both festivals.
The first who showed people the sinfulness of these rites was Saint Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. It was he who preached Christ throughout Ireland (namely, Ireland was the country of the Celts) and spoke openly about the sin that fell on people after sacrifices to spirits. It was thanks to Saint Patrick that the Celts were freed from superstition and paganism, as well as from all the terrible traditions that accompanied them.
The religion of the Celts is not just a beautiful story and belief in living trees, as they draw in films and cartoons today. This is a terrible, bloody paganism that poisoned people and prevented them from accepting the true Savior - Jesus Christ and the One Lord. The whole history of Samhain or modern Halloween is based on Celtic paganism and terrible traditions.
Important! Saint Patrick proposed instead of fear of spirits to celebrate All Saints Day on November 1, which was later approved by the Catholic Church and that today for an Orthodox Christian is closer than Halloween.
Saint Patrick
Attributes
The most obvious and important accessory of this festival is the pumpkin lamp - "Jack lamp". It is a large pumpkin, from which the entire inside is removed, a frightening muzzle is cut out and a lamp is placed so that when it is lit, the pumpkin becomes a “head” with a frightening expression on its face.
What is the meaning of Jack Lantern? In the world reference book from 1977, you can find such a description of this lantern - a harmless pumpkin with a lantern, in fact, is an ancient symbol of the soul that was cursed.
There are three versions of the origin of such a strange attribute:
- it was a symbol of the end of the harvest;
- was a way to scare away an evil spirit (therefore, it is imperative to draw an evil face);
- the last legend tells about the drunkard Jack, who made a deal with the devil. God did not forgive such an act and doomed him to eternal wanderings on earth.
Equally important, and for some the main reason for the celebration, is the tradition of going from house to house and begging for sweets, saying Trick-or-Treat - a sweet or a joke. His true essence is a ritual of sacrifice to evil forces. Celtic beliefs said that on this day spirits roam the earth, and so that they do no harm, they need to put a treat on the threshold of the house - a sacrifice, usually it was some kind of animal. Otherwise, the spirits will play a cruel joke - they will harm the house.
About evil forces:
In addition to these two main attributes, the whole of Halloween is filled with symbols and attributes of death, evil and the occult.
Halloween, or the so-called "Pumpkin Festival"
Orthodoxy and Halloween
The Russian Orthodox Church has a clear opinion - it does not bless Christians to participate in the Halloween holiday. Moreover, not only not to participate, but also not to support those who carry it out. There are several reasons for this:
- The origin of this holiday, its way of holding and the essence are strictly pagan and incompatible with the principles and foundations of the Christian faith.
- Halloween is a blasphemous mockery of All Saints' Day.
- Dressing people in costumes of sorcerers and monsters is unacceptable for a believer, because it contradicts Scripture and church canons.
- The paraphernalia of the holiday is unacceptable for an Orthodox person, since it is completely opposite to Christian values and replaces them: magic, witchcraft, evil spirits, pagan rites, sacrifice, evil jokes. The clear association of Halloween with paganism makes it impossible for a true Christian to take part in it.
- Halloween acts as a weapon to demonize the consciousness of children and youth, it promotes the fashion for the paraphernalia of death and witchcraft, exalts cruelty and levels mercy and kindness.
The last item on this list is especially important, since the child's mind is extremely vulnerable to information coming from outside. Children do not just dress up as evil characters, they identify with them, and this causes them to bond much more closely than an adult. That is why, it would seem, merry dressing causes serious destruction to children's consciousness.
Attention! Active participation in such activities leads to serious mental and personal disorders.
bible vs halloween
Any believer must correlate all movements in the world with the Bible, since this is God's word and informs people of the Lord's opinion regarding all events.
What does she say about Halloween? The Apostle Paul said:
"Keep away from all kinds of Evil...".
Darkness in the Bible personifies the devil and all the forces of demons that oppose the Lord, Who is Light.
Darkness is a symbol of everything worldly and pagan, all opponents of the Lord, all those who do not believe in Him. Darkness is a sin, godlessness, a Christian needs to run away from it. After reading the story of the celebration of Halloween, did it not become obvious to a Christian that one should not communicate with this? The Christian is the son of Christ, he does not belong to darkness (Eph. 5:4-13).
Satan uses all the tools, the brightest, most colorful things, to lure a Christian away from the truth, from God. A celebration with jack-o'-lanterns and scary costumes is one of Satan's tools. Don't young people want to have more fun than going to the temple or reading God's Word? The human mind is very quickly carried away and its perception becomes dull, it quickly clings to sin and completely loses touch with the Lord.
Young people should understand that it is impossible to stand on two chairs at the same time - it is impossible to love the Lord and walk in the streets dressed as monsters. Christians should bring light and love to the world, but is it possible to do this by participating in the processions of witches and mummies?
The Apostle John writes that it is impossible to love the world and God at the same time. Therefore, one should move away from everything worldly.
Is it possible to celebrate Halloween. Priest Igor Silchenkov
Orthodox Russians about Halloween
I enter into a round dance, laughing, and yet I am restless with them:
what if someone likes the executioner's mask - and he won't take it off
Vl. Vysotsky
The "holiday" imported to Russia in the early 2000s from the United States is approaching - Halloween. The Americans adopted it from the ancient Celts, who, according to their pagan calendar, celebrated the beginning of the new year on November 1st. In the Celtic tradition, it was believed that dark forces dominate the earth on Halloween night, and in order for them not to cause harm, they must be appeased in every possible way. From here originates the custom, rooted in the pagan world, to wander on Halloween night dressed up in costumes of ghosts, witches and other evil spirits.
This "holiday" has recently been spreading in Russia, the culture-forming religion of which is Orthodoxy. Alas, today's Russians, even those who call themselves believers, often do not realize that Orthodoxy knows about the world order.
In addition to the material world, which we can see, touch and study, there is a spiritual world that is not perceived by our senses. And yet, it is absolutely real. With God - the Creator of the material and spiritual worlds - each person can enter into personal communication. If, of course, he wants this, he comes to the Church of Christ, begins to participate in the Sacraments that mystically unite a person with God. Contact with the dark forces of the spiritual world is much easier to establish. Enough to call them, even if it's a joke. It is God who needs a conscious conversion of a person to Him, God loves us and is waiting for reciprocal love. Demons appear at the first call, because their goal is to deceive and destroy a person.
Modern man does not believe in the existence of demons (even among those who consider themselves Orthodox, about half consider them a fiction). That is what they are striving for. It is beneficial for evil spirits that people do not believe in it - in the darkness of disbelief it is easier to do their dirty deeds. And games like Halloween untie the hands of the devil's forces.
The "classic" Halloween celebration usually takes the form of a masquerade whose characters come from the world of the occult and magic. The outfits of witches, magicians, sorcerers, vampires, the dead, werewolves, ghosts, mermaids, fairies, elves, ghouls, ghouls, etc. are especially popular. Parties are accompanied by ominous, cemetery music, howling wolves, hooting owls and other frightening sounds. Fortune-telling, witchcraft, pagan rites of sacrifice to evil spirits, pranks of a dubious nature are welcome. Hanging posters depicting Dracula, witches, vampires and demonic paraphernalia (aspen stake, black rosary, etc.) are popular. Even the cheerful custom of placing pumpkins everywhere with scary faces carved on them carries an infernal meaning: the pumpkin symbolizes a severed head, a sacrifice made to the devil. It is better to keep silent about the names of the dishes served at such sabbaths, they are, to put it mildly, unappetizing.
Halloween is especially attractive to children and teenagers. The childhood dream of getting smeared with soot and scaring someone has become extremely accessible! The child is no longer afraid of evil! Skeletons, vampires, bloody zombies no longer cause a natural feeling of rejection. On this “comic holiday”, a person is given a “rare opportunity” to feel like a demon, to act like a demon ... The game of demonic attitude, like any game for a child, is connected with trying on the image of a hero. Children copy the human sacrifices of Satanists, mock human suffering and death - and this cannot pass without a trace either for their mental state or for personal development.
In Orthodoxy, it is clearly realized that such actions are demonic possession - that is, dark entities of the spiritual world - demons, invisibly participate in them. Vivid images, occult rituals, the "crowd effect" provide a strong emotional impact on all participants. In this case, there is a substitution and distortion of universal ideas about good and evil, beauty and ugliness, truth and lies. In other words, there is a real demonization of consciousness, a person falls under demonic influence.
And it doesn’t matter at all whether a person consciously enters the area of dark mysticism, or just mindlessly having fun. Dark, satanic meanings were originally embedded in the event outline of such games. Demons are guaranteed to show off those who try to flirt with them.
What children play today largely determines what they will do in the future. Haven't holidays like Halloween spawned, for example, the so-called "school shooting"? This is already a special term that has appeared, which refers to the massacres of students, carried out, most often, by the students themselves. Teenagers shoot at people, whom no one introduced to the elementary rules of spiritual security (and how many adults know them now?), but they were opened to the world of dark spirituality. So, from 2000 to 2013, such crimes were committed 125 times in the USA and Canada, 27 times in the rest of the world, and 1 time in Russia. Until once. Do we need to "catch up with America"?
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us sinners.
If someone close to you is planning to celebrate Halloween, give them this leaflet to read.
If they are going to celebrate at the school where your children study, bring to the consciousness of the teachers that they, thereby, renounce Orthodoxy and betray themselves into the hands of Satan. And it's not a joke. Our deeds can be either "for God" or "against God." There is no middle, "neutral" way.
What does light have in common with darkness?
What agreement is there between Christ and Belial?”
(2 Corinthians 6:14-15)
As you know, this vile holiday, imposed on us by the West, is approaching. I would like to warn all the Orthodox so that they are not accidentally dragged into this obscurantism. After all, Halloween was banned by the Orthodox Church back in the days of the Russian Empire. For a long time, the holiday was banned, as it is of pagan origin. The worst thing is that after the collapse of the USSR, this holiday is now increasingly cultivated in Russia. Undoubtedly, such a trend indicates an ever-increasing propaganda of Satanism everywhere. Let's see where the roots of this "holiday" come from.
The "Halloween holiday" originates from the Celtic ritual festival of Samhain, assimilated by the Germanic tribes (Angles, Saxons and Jutes) who migrated to Britain after the 6th century AD. Halloween has become one of the main folk holidays in British Ireland. In the 19th century, waves of Irish emigration brought the holiday to the United States, where it has been celebrated since 1846. In the United States, the holiday has become especially popular thanks to the gay community. In the 1970s, drag queen shows in the city's gay neighborhoods became popular in San Francisco. They put on bright theatrical costumes and held a parade along the street of the district. Over time, such events began to be held everywhere, with the participation of children or adolescents. The costume tradition has been stylized after existing images of monsters and characters in children's horror stories.
X Halloween has a very rich paraphernalia, interest in which is actively exploited by modern companies producing goods for children (costumes, masks, sweets, jewelry, etc.). The desire of various companies (mostly American) to increase their profitability is largely responsible for the spread of Halloween outside the United States, since in this country the market for Halloween goods is already oversaturated.
One of the main attributes of the "holiday" is the "Jack lamp" in the form of a head carved from a backlit pumpkin. Cornices, balconies and entrances of houses are usually decorated with artificial cobwebs, spiders, bats, witches, owls, cats, witch brooms, etc.
Halloween costumes are also based on the themes of witchcraft and its images in cinema and literature. Children dressed in costumes and masks go begging for sweets from homeowners while saying the traditional phrase "Trick or Treat!" - "candies or life!". The outfits of witches, magicians, sorcerers, vampires, the dead, werewolves, ghosts, mermaids, fairies, elves, various nocturnal animals (cat, bat, wolf, etc.) are especially popular. Parties, carnivals are held, accompanied by sinister, cemetery music, howling wolves , hooting owls and other sounds recorded in audio or video format. Hanging posters and spread out books depicting Dracula, witches, vampires and their symbols (aspen stake, black rosary, etc.) are popular.
It turns out that a new era of infernal propaganda has begun. Social occult propaganda! If earlier only a small part of society could touch the secrets of magic, now the door handle to the world of demons is made low enough that even a child, without much effort, can open it.
Ccultism begins with sweets, colorful fancy dress, orange lights and "harmless" caspers dangling helplessly in the trees. The childhood dream of getting smeared with soot and scaring someone has become extremely accessible! The child is no longer afraid of evil! Cemeteries, skeletons, bloody zombies no longer cause a natural feeling of rejection. Everything that for years was perceived as a fiend now causes fun. It turns out that evil can be good, and even necessary. This is called releasing adrenaline into the blood. Have you noticed that children love to play hide and seek and at the same time scare each other with shouts? Most rides offer "risk your health". You will be thrown head down, twisted, lowered down steep hills, driven through a dark cave with mysterious rustles and sudden cries of Egyptian mummies, you will be attacked by the cemetery dead. Scream, screech are so natural at the same time, because it is for such a “pleasure” that you paid!
And only growing up, we understand that there is no Santa Claus, and Kashchei the Deathless is not so immortal. Teens get bored! The search for such adrenaline is even more intensified and here, like a magic wand, the "good holiday" Halloween comes. It brings a slight nostalgia for childhood and at the same time makes it possible to spend this time not at all childishly.
The Russian Orthodox Church does not bless its children to participate in the pagan holiday Halloween in any form for a number of reasons:
1. The origin, form and essence of this "death festival" are pagan and incompatible with the belief in the Resurrected Christ - the Conqueror of hell and death. Its origins are attributed to the beliefs of the ancient Celts, who believed that on this night the door to the other world opened and the inhabitants of hell penetrated the earth. Glorifying the pagan god Samhain (Lord of Death), the ancient Celts made sacrifices to him, hoping that the “appeasing” Samhain would allow the souls of the dead to visit their homes that day. This is where the custom rooted in the pagan world originates to wander on Halloween night dressed up in costumes of ghosts, witches and all sorts of other spirits, symbolizing communication with the afterlife and evil spirits.
2. Halloween is a blasphemous mockery of the day of All Saints and the saints themselves: on the day when the saints are remembered, Christians put on costumes of demons, which, in accordance with church canons, is a grave sin.
3. In addition, the very celebration of All Saints' Day on November 1 is unacceptable for Orthodox Christians, because the Orthodox Church celebrates All Saints' Day not on November 1 (on this day the memory of all saints has been celebrated by the Western Church since 835), but on the Sunday following the feast of Pentecost, that is, at the beginning of summer.
4. All the symbolism of this holiday is unacceptable for an Orthodox Christian, because it is a substitution of Christian values and ideas for anti-Christian ones: fortune-telling, witchcraft, the personification of death and the spirits of evil, pagan rites of sacrifice to evil spirits, the custom of putting up a pumpkin with a terrible face carved on it, which serves as an image dead, as well as pranks of a dubious nature. The association between the wild "rites" of Halloween and Satanic cults is so obvious that even in the United States itself, many consider Halloween to be a holiday for Satanists.
5. Halloween is a means of dehumanization and demonization of children's consciousness, introducing a fashion for paraphernalia and clothing depicting death, destruction, disharmony, poeticizing cruelty. The game of demonic attitude, like any game for a child, is connected with trying on the image of a hero. Children copy the human sacrifices of Satanists, mock human suffering and death - this cannot pass without a trace either for their mental state or for personal development. The removal of taboos, natural for the human and especially vulnerable children's psyche, and internal censorship on mockery of the death and suffering of a person, on the use of the blood of the victims even in a playful form as a treat, acts of vandalism, etc., leads to serious mental and personal disorders of the child.
At the same time, all beliefs that Halloween and similar holidays, despite their obvious pagan origins and idolatrous nature, are harmless, innocent and of little importance, thereby undermine traditional spiritual foundations. If, for any reason, an Orthodox Christian was drawn into the blasphemous rites of this holiday, he needs to offer sincere repentance before God at confession.
The officially registered American Church of Satan openly proclaimed Halloween as its main holiday. For them, the purpose of the celebration, which ends with the most important black mass of the year, is to demonstrate their worship and devotion to the devil. In addition to Satanists, it was chosen as their main holiday by those who in our days deliberately betray themselves to the service of evil - sorcerers, witches, all kinds of restorers of ancient pagan cults. Halloween night for them is the time of one of the four main covens.
Despite all this, Halloween is slowly starting to become a national holiday. (Why would that be?) Sociologists consider the adoption of such holidays by society the most disturbing sign of our time. In their opinion, the celebration of Halloween and similar events speaks of a cultural crisis. People simply cease to distinguish between good and evil.
The traditions of this holiday, presented as harmless fun, are in fact ancient rites of imitation of the dead, sacrifices to spirits directly associated with Satan. On this "joking holiday" you have a "rare opportunity" to feel like a demon, to act like a demon...
True, an interesting prospect?
For believers, such words sound like a betrayal. This is a betrayal of God, a betrayal of one's own culture. There are things that you can't do even playfully. For example, playing terrorists who have taken hostages... Also, the Halloween game with obligatory sacrifice to demons is a spiritual betrayal. Remember why children are forbidden to play with matches - you can start a fire, with electricity - because it can shock, with a knife - so as not to inadvertently cut yourself.
On the territory of some schools in Russia, Halloween is officially banned, on the territory of others it is quietly celebrated. The Orthodox Church and Muslims are strongly opposed to this, in Krasnodar, on the occasion of Halloween, a special “Orthodox patrol” has even been created, but this does not make the action less popular. What is the reason for this state of affairs?
The debate about what kind of holiday this is - Halloween - and whether Russia should adopt this Western tradition, has been going on for more than a year, at least since the beginning of the 2000s, or even earlier. Representatives of traditional Russian religions, primarily the Russian Orthodox Church and the Islamic Ummah, are categorically against it. But, despite this, Halloween continues to be celebrated, if not everywhere and officially, then within the framework of private and commercial initiatives quite widely.
Happy Halloween, Christians!
“Vampire fangs with Swarovski crystals or a fancy mobile phone - what, by and large, is the difference?”
This year, All Saints Day suddenly became the subject of a near-political agenda. Crimean Governor Sergei Aksyonov said that there should be no Halloween-related events in the schools of the peninsula in principle. He ordered the Ministry of Education of the Republic to monitor the fulfillment of his demand. "Experts - teachers, psychologists - express reasonable fears that games with images of evil can be dangerous for a fragile child's psyche," he said.
Journalists subsequently addressed a question on this occasion to the press secretary of the President of Russia. Dmitry Peskov informed that this topic was not discussed at all in the Kremlin, as "there are a lot of other issues on the agenda." “In general, this is not really our holiday, and, apparently, formally there is no such celebration in any schools,” he said.
Formally, Peskov is not entirely accurate. Events related to the holiday are also held in some schools, for example, in Sakhalin " as part of acquaintance with the traditions of English-speaking countries". Such wording of representatives of the church usually does not reassure.
One of the first public statements on the theme of the holiday was the remark of Father Vsevolod Chaplin in 2003: “When, as if jokingly, they turn to evil power, glorify it, flirt with it, this is reflected in the fate of a person, because it teaches him to think about the permissibility evil, about the normality of sin, about the fact that evil spirits are something pleasant, fun, or at least not dangerous.
A photo |
And last year, Father Dimitry Smirnov, among others, spoke sharply about Halloween: “People put on demon masks, all kinds of antics, disgusting behavior - this is more like all sorts of horror films than the feast of all saints. This is a completely emasculated European tradition. We have a completely different tradition in Russia. In our country, even when mummers walked in some regions of Russia - at Christmas, it wore sweeter forms, and the Church has always said that any clowning around on the highly solemn and holy day when Christ came to earth is completely unacceptable.
In the same monologue, the father archpriest asks a rhetorical question: why then in Russia, along with Halloween, not to glorify the Indian god Ganesha? And as he looked into the water - the question was not rhetorical. In 2015, a resonant event in religious circles was the holding of the “Indian festival of colors Holi” in a number of regions of the country. This is an event with a very clear Hindu and religious context, and it also deals with the struggle of deities with demons. In general, some attempts at cultural infiltration take place not only from the West, but also from the East.
On the eve of this Halloween, a number of theologians also expressed themselves quite clearly. And not only the Orthodox. For example, the imam-hatib of the White Mosque of Tatarstan Ruslan hazrat Farkhutdinov said: “The meaning of this holiday needs to be explained to the child. Any adequate person who distinguishes white from black understands that there is no benefit from this holiday. If children need miracles, then it is better to look for them in Christianity and Islam. Jesus Christ and Mohammed performed many miracles. They were prophets, and the Lord rewarded them with the gift to work miracles. And there is nothing miraculous about the disgusting satanic holiday of Halloween. On the contrary, it depresses the child's psyche. Now there is a planting of someone else's ideology, close in spirit to the very shaitan - Satan. But we need to explain to children that miracles should not be looked for in Satanism - they should be looked for in traditional religions.
The cleric of the Tatarstan Metropolis, Priest Sergiy Karpukhin, echoes the words of the imam: “The Russian peoples have their own culture and their religious traditions, so Halloween is not a holiday for us. Halloween is imposed from outside, from the West. The Russian Orthodox Church clearly states that this holiday is pagan and demonic, so Christians should not celebrate it. We must observe our traditions, including religious ones.”I agree with these theses and the infamous deputy of the St. Petersburg Sachs Vitaly Milonov, who came up with how to replace the celebration of Halloween in Russia. According to him, “if you call the diasporas in the same park named after Babushkin - Chechen, Tatar, Crimean Tatar, Evenks - and say: “Guys, let's do this - come and make a festival of your kitchens”, do you know how many people will come with pleasure? And with children, and without children, and pensioners.
Not all Orthodox, however, are ready to fight Western tradition in such a peaceful way. For example, in Krasnodar, Orthodox community members and activists are planning to "carry out several raids on clubs where Halloween will be celebrated." This was stated in the media by the leader of the "Orthodox Union" Roman Plyuta, explaining that "in the event of any excesses, the members of the patrol plan to make comments to violators of public morality." “In case of blatant disregard for the rules of public behavior, activists intend to apply to law enforcement agencies - the police and the prosecutor's office,” he said. In general, a good deed, but why only on this holiday? They would introduce an "Orthodox public patrol" every Friday evening. They would teach the morals of vacationers.
In this context, the “justified Halloween” initiative, which will take place in Khabarovsk, looks much more positive. The event is held by Orthodox youth from the Kurs-Vostok movement. The program includes a prayer service and a pumpkin pie with a lecture on the essence of the feast of All Saints' Day.
The cult of consumption
In general, if you walk through the media field, a rather strange picture emerges. None of the federal speakers says anything good about the notorious holiday. Either bad or nothing. But a lot of people continue to celebrate it. Like Valentine's Day or St. Patrick's Day, like the same Holi holiday already mentioned above. Why so?Many theologians speak of a kind of "imposition from the West." But who are these “imposed” and how can a holiday be imposed at all? Hard work can be imposed, which, due to the very fact of imposing, will be carried out under duress and purely formally. With the same Halloween, the problem is rather that it is colorful, noisy and, of course, stupid, like most carnivals - this is their task. Carnival action is a rest for the mind. And at the same time, of course, they do not impose it, but promote it commercially.
In Europe and the USA, any holiday, be it Halloween or Christmas, is, first of all, a commercial project that, within the framework of some ritual conventions of a single cult of consumption, increases the voluntary spending of the population and, accordingly, the profits of various structures. From a pumpkin shop to a Christmas decorations factory, depending on the holiday.
As for schools, this amateur celebration there is partly due to the fact that it is necessary to load the reporting on extracurricular activities with something. The Sakhalin teacher outlined this residual (since the 90s) trend with textbook clarity: “we are familiar with the traditions.” In practice, we will add.
However, given the media resonance, it seems that in the next couple of years, Halloween will leave schools and other educational institutions, remaining in clubs, bars and pubs, and even then not all of them. In principle, this is probably correct. To forbid people to spend time in this way, if it does not violate the law, means to stimulate mass interest. And without that heated commercially.
But to recommend not to participate - why not? The country has freedom of speech. The freedom of holidays, even the most exotic ones, also applies to this. From a religious and, more than aspirations, a moral point of view, in the case of Halloween, one should rather not talk about Satanism or the occult. Citizens who approach the issue of this holiday in this way and call it, as a rule, Samhain, also exist, but this is a separate story, which is rather within the competence of sectarians, law enforcement officers and psychiatrists (depending on the "hardcore" ceremonies conducted by especially ideological citizens ).
In the case of Halloween, it is rather about postmodern eclecticism as part of stimulating the thirst for consumption. This consumer cult penetrates everywhere and everywhere so easily because it can mimic a variety of forms, remaining basically simple, maximally material and based on simple things (such as a thirst for status and success) action. Vampire fangs with Swarovski crystals or a fancy mobile phone - what, by and large, is the difference?
- Father Pavel, very soon part of our population will rush to nightclubs, take to the streets to celebrate a "holiday" called. All Orthodox Christians already know that this is bad, so I would like to talk about something else: how to behave in a situation where some relatives and friends begin to go crazy?
– As a parish priest, I have repeatedly heard questions from parents of children and adolescents who are somehow drawn into all this at school; sometimes even such an initiative comes from the school administration, from teachers. The celebration is especially typical for private educational institutions. And although people of completely different views on life, different confessions study in schools, this, nevertheless, is not taken into account at all. When I was at school, we also had masquerade balls, carnivals, and parents had to help their child make some kind of costume so that he would wear it at a New Year's or another ball. But now special costume parties are being held with masks of vampires, zombies, witches, all kinds of evil spirits, and, of course, children who do not yet have spiritual experience do not really understand what is happening. Moreover, they perceive everything with confidence, since it comes from a teacher - an adult, authoritative person.
How to proceed in this case? First of all, it seems to me that, first of all, we need to understand what is being imposed on us in general. Probably, many of the various sources know that it has purely pagan roots, although it is formally called the evening on the eve of All Saints' Day. In fact, this is a purely pagan holiday of sacrifice to the Celtic god of death during the holiday of Samhain. People serving the prince of darkness put on the masks of all kinds of monsters, depicting the dead, who returned to their homes if the god was satisfied. Gradually, this pagan holiday actually replaced and supplanted the memory of the feast of All Saints, celebrated by the Western Church on this day, and there was no connection between them other than the calendar. So Halloween has nothing to do with Christianity and is a pagan holiday. And for every Christian, even formal participation in paganism, in pagan rites, is a betrayal of Christ.
A Christian should always feel responsible for what is happening around him, and first of all - for his own actions. And as it is said in Holy Scripture, a person will give an answer at the Last Judgment not only for an act, but even for every idle word. Especially for the action associated with a pagan cult.
I recall the lives of the martyrs for the faith, who were offered formally (this is known from the protocols) to renounce the cross. They were told: “Remain Christians, bow to Christ, pray to Him. You don’t even need to utter any renunciation, just lower the incense on the altar to Zeus or Artemis ... By doing this, you will testify your reconciliation with paganism and law-abiding to our pagan laws ... ”But Christians never went for it, they understood that God is betrayed even by silence, and not something that direct participation in a pagan cult.
Here it is the same: they are trying to drag us into an action that is completely alien to us in terms of culture and ideology, alien in terms of our nationality and religion. We Orthodox Christians cannot participate in pagan rites. It is known that this "holiday" came out of Irish and Celtic cults and is common in English-speaking countries, but why do we need it?
Why is it so popular in America? When a certain phenomenon of mass madness, demonic possession occurs, one should always ask the question: who benefits from this? This is very easy to figure out because there are real numbers. Every year, shows, attractions related to Halloween, generate income from 300 to 500 million dollars, and this is only in the United States. But in other English-speaking countries, this holiday is also very common. Only in 2006, income from the sale of costumes, masks of vampires, werewolves and other evil spirits in the same United States amounted to about 5 million dollars. It is clear that Halloween, in addition to a completely godless, occult, dark basis, also has a purely commercial component, like. This is such a marketing ploy necessary for a certain group of people in order to sell more goods and entertainment.
I would like to emphasize once again that in any case, even formal participation in paganism has always been very and was tantamount to a betrayal of faith.
– But some schools may insist on participation in Halloween and Orthodox children – along with all other classmates. What should Orthodox parents do to protect their children from this?
- I think that this holiday is absolutely not obligatory for everyone, it has nothing to do with the education system. Therefore, you can simply evade participation in it under some pretext or directly explain to the teachers. In times not so distant, many courageous believers even went as far as not agreeing to their children joining the pioneers. Why? Because there it was necessary to take an oath “to live, study and fight, as the great Lenin bequeathed, as the Communist Party teaches”, to kiss the red banner, that is, also to undergo a kind of pagan rites of initiation. Some accepted it, tied a pioneer tie, some - steadfast people - did not. Everything depended on the degree of faith and personal courage. But now everything is much simpler: we are free in our choice. In the current evil time, when the world is deeply aggressive in spirituality and morality, our task is all the time to educate firmness and fortitude in our children, to show that a Christian is a person who cannot behave like everyone else, live like everyone else, even if there is no there is no condemnation for his actions. As St. Barsanuphius of Optina said: “Try to live as God commands, and not as everyone lives, because the world lies in evil.” The world lies in evil - this is just about our time.
Every time has its challenges. The Soviet period, for example, had some kind of morality, decency, but made its own challenges - communist, atheistic, and the task of parents was to show the children why teachers - seemingly authoritative, respected people - sometimes tell a lie and not always they need to be obeyed. I remember when I was in school, we had an atheist's corner until the late 1980s. For some unknown reason, he was placed in the chemistry room, where some atheistic books and pamphlets were collected. Now is a time of calm, a time about which one can say in the words of Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov: “It is hard in learning - easy in battle”, a time when we must learn to resist these challenges and get used to the fact that our faith should not be hidden under any pretext that we shouldn't be ashamed of it. On the contrary, now we must educate children in what is completely natural - going, for example, to a cafe, to pray before eating; passing by the temple, cross yourself at the church. This is what I try to teach my children. If someone laughs at us for this, then this is not an inferiority complex that educates us, but the ability to resist, build up armor, and train willpower. Conversely, when a person goes with the flow, he is weak. Whoever is faithful in small things will be faithful in big things, and whoever is not faithful in small things will show weakness in another situation.
And maybe some other holiday will be offered, much worse. We do not know what awaits us in the future, “what the coming day is preparing for us,” although it is still known that world history must end with great persecutions of Christians and. Maybe we won't live to see it, maybe our children or grandchildren will live to see it. And our task is to educate the soldiers of Christ, and not weak-willed squishies who will be tolerant of any infection.
- What words to explain to a child that Halloween is not just fun? And how to instill in him an understanding that this is a tradition alien to us?
- On the Internet, in other sources, it is very, about its pagan, occult roots - in our time, information is very accessible. But if we want to prohibit something for a child, we must undoubtedly justify our prohibition. From a child, simply shouting, coercion will not achieve anything. We must talk to him as a person, as an adult - reasonably, reasonably. Therefore, it is necessary to collect more information and conduct a conversation with the child. I have a familiar dad - one might say, an ascetic of family education: he has not only his own, but also adopted children, a very large family. So, he regularly after dinner holds conversations in the evenings with his entire large family: about the dangers of foul language, smoking, drinking wine, etc. - and this is bearing fruit. Thus, he delivers such preemptive strikes, because he knows that children will still face this. Moreover, this must be done if you already see some similar manifestations in your children. So you need to talk with children, and, of course, tell them about your holidays, about your traditions.
Now we see how one ideology that had its own holidays collapsed, and people needed some other pseudo-celebrations, because “the soul wants a holiday,” as the main character of the film V. Shukshin said. But this character, like a modern person cut off from spiritual roots, did not know what a real holiday was, what a genuine one was. And the desire for a holiday, joy, something bright, some experiences, emotions is an ordinary human desire. And even more so the child's soul craves. Children's impressions of the holidays are remembered all my life. Remember, in I. Shmelev, in his famous books “The Summer of the Lord” and “Praying Prayer”, it is the holidays that appear as the most joyful, memorable childhood memories?
We Orthodox are happy people: we have no shortage of holidays. You just need to take care of organizing the celebrations. For example, to cooperate with other parents and during the holidays to organize Christmas and Easter holidays for children in the parish, with a performance, concert, distribution of gifts. To release the birds after the service. Every year in our church, parish children help on Holy Saturday with the blessing of Easter cakes, sing the kontakion of the holiday and go with the priest, collecting donations in a basket - eggs and Easter cakes. And of course, the child should feel the atmosphere of the holiday at home. If the children are interested and happy at home with their parents, brothers, sisters and friends, they will not want to run away to some dubious school parties.
When a person enters adulthood, what is mostly left of childhood? Something bright and positive. The bad is forgotten, the good remains. And God forbid that our children have a memory of the night Easter procession, of the celebration, of how they traveled with their parents on some kind of trip, for example, along the Golden Ring, which shrines they visited, how they bathed in springs. This should remain in the children's memory, and not terrible ugly masks and some kind of demons.
It seems to me that in any normal person all these demonic feelings do not cause other feelings than disgust. Although, of course, some people have a craving for all sorts of horrors, the infernal world. And what this leads to, Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol very well described in his story “Viy”: Khoma Brut showed curiosity, looked at Viy, although he had an inner voice not to look, and thereby opened the doors to evil spirits that broke through the protecting his barrier... What happened next, we know. Each person, of course, has a certain craving for the unknown, but this attraction is completely unhealthy and unsafe.
- And what examples to give, explaining why it is impossible to put on the guises of witches, vampires, ghouls and just evil spirits?
- Sometimes we are told that, of course, there are Satanists, there are occultists who absolutely really believe in all this, practice in this, serve Satan and quite consciously are real worshipers of evil spirits, but - this is just a kind of show ... They say, and in America does not believe in evil spirits either. But there, in my opinion, most likely they don’t think about anything at all: it just works very powerful advertising, very powerful Halloween propaganda. But they are still connected by their roots with this holiday, unlike us. In Russia, some rudiments of paganism have also been preserved: fortune-telling at Christmas time, burning Shrovetide, dancing on Ivan Kupala - and this also needs to be fought.
So, someone can say that all this is not serious, pretend, and it makes no difference whether to wear a vampire costume or, say, a Cheburashka costume at a matinee. However, the difference is big. Let's not forget that for a child, play and reality are always a little intertwined. For example, it is much easier for a child to get hooked on a computer game than for an adult, who is mentally stronger, and for him virtual game reality and ordinary reality always have a clear boundary. And for a child, this line is very blurred, so even indirect participation in pagan rites can seriously affect him.
I had to talk with creative people, with actors who are engaged in acting. Acting is putting on some kind of mask, a mask in order to continue to portray something, the representation of some kind of image. And even for these people, this does not pass without a trace. These people are, in general, unhappy in their own way, because, on the one hand, they are very sensitive, they are drawn to faith, it is even easier for them, perhaps, to come to faith, to God, than people with some technical specialties, more mundane - but it is much more difficult for them to lead a spiritual life, because in order to enter into some kind of image, especially if a person is a professional actor, reincarnation is required, and not formal entry. One woman who used to be an actress told me that now she has moved away from this, has taken up other activities because the necessary reincarnations, getting used to the image, working on the role very much interfered with her spiritual life. For example, if a person plays a hero-lover, he himself sometimes needs to experience the same passionate emotions, love, which he is going to play. Some actors become just love addicts. It is no coincidence that the creation of a full-fledged family, relationships for life is a very, very rare thing for actors, actresses, because they constantly fall in love with one, then another, then a third and can no longer live without it. It happens that they flirt: playing lovers on stage, on the same set, they often become lovers in real life.
So even on the nervous system of an adult, with an already established psyche, on his mental and spiritual health, first of all, acting plays a very strong influence. He becomes already a kind of carrier of the image that he embodies, especially the dark one. And very many believing actors refuse when they are offered to play evil spirits; it is also very common among actors, for example, to have a prejudice against scenes where you have to play your own death: there is an opinion that this can end badly.
I repeat: a person for every idle word - not just for an idle action - is responsible before God.
Nothing goes unnoticed. Any person who has watched a horror movie is also impressed by what he saw for a long time, these images haunt him for a long time, appear in dreams. That's the effect, to tickle the nerves of a person and seriously affect his mind, his subconscious.
And personal participation in paganism, occultism, even just a formal one, without any faith in it, cannot go in vain. People open the gates to these very entities that they portray, in which children try to play, putting on the guises of demons, vampires and other evil spirits.
Interest in the infernal, demonic theme does not go unnoticed. Several horror films have been banned in China as schoolchildren began to copy the behavior of their characters. In Russia, a group of teenagers, after watching movies about vampires, lured a girl into the forest, killed her and drank her blood.
So our task as parents, as educators, is by all means to monitor what our children are watching, with whom they communicate, what games they play and what holidays they celebrate.
