Hieromonk Dorotheos (Baranov): Uncomfortable Faith, or Fasting, Because We Must! Dorofei (Baranov): “We must endure and the Church will become a home.” On the difficulties and mistakes of the first years of church life

Appeared in the village Orthodox church... Somewhere they restored an old, dilapidated one, somewhere they built a new one, in a new place, and somewhere the former state farm canteen or shop was given to an initiative group of believers: do whatever you want there, no one needs it anyway. Meanwhile, the village is dying out. To say “a dying village” today is like “sweet sugar”. The village means endangered. Everyone is used to it.

Further, a priest comes to this village. He comes, of course, not to raise this village (although he had to read about amazing priests who manage to do this in parallel). He comes to celebrate the Eucharist and preach the word of God. But, having arrived, he, willingly or unwillingly, becomes a participant in the local process. Therefore, the question of the future of the village will inevitably arise before him.

But first, other questions will arise: what is the difference between the rural flock and the urban flock? What and how should be done for these people in the first place? What can we oppose to despondency and the habit of seeing the cause of all misfortunes in anyone, but not in ourselves? How not to become discouraged yourself, looking at this picture?

Both of our today's interlocutors are Muscovites. Both have experience of ministry in the city. Both did not choose the village - they went to serve in obedience. We decided to talk to them about their ministry.

Hieromonk Dorofey (Baranov) was the rector of the Orthodox parish in Bagaevka, Saratov region. While the temple was being built there, Father Dorofey came with a tabernacle, served as a mass in the rural House of Culture. This went on for five years, and then Hieromonk Dorofey was transferred to Yurlovka - a village, in his words, even more abandoned and unhappy than Bagaevka.

- Father Dorofey, you were waiting for this, were you ready for this - to serve in a small, dying village?

No, of course, I did not expect this and did not prepare, although it may be strange for a priest and monk not to be ready for anything, for any service. When I took monastic vows, it seemed to me that life would turn out differently. But it so happened that I became the rector of a rural church under construction. And that really scared me. You can treat “going to the people” ironically, when you observe others from the outside, and when you need to do it yourself, then it is very serious.

Previously, I did not communicate with practically anyone except the townspeople, and the townspeople of the megalopolis, and getting to know completely different people - people, as I assumed, of a different civilization - seemed difficult and quivering. This fear was akin to the fear that a priest experiences when he goes to the hospital to see hopelessly sick people dying. Or to the children. You understand that you cannot hide, hide behind some column inside your soul. In the environment you are familiar with, in the city church, where you have served for a long time and have already got used to, and everyone is used to you, there is no such fear. There you can, in a sense, hide. There new, unfamiliar people come to you, but they are the ones who come to you, not you to them. They need you, and it's not so difficult for you to make a positive impression on them.

And when you arrive in a village, you find yourself under the gaze of the people you came to (and if you were called, then by no means everyone!) And who are now studying you and are afraid of being deceived. Getting their favor and trust is not easy at all. The village man will carefully and for a long time "try" the priest, but when he has already tasted, he will be convinced that the priest is good, kind - then he will love him wholeheartedly, and a strong connection will arise for many years.

And so, this period of "sampling" has passed in Bagaevka - and what, there is a connection? Dean Father Vladimir Parkhomenko said that they did not immediately fall in love with you there.

Hope. When this process of probing a person ends, then in the village more than in the city (in the city this is rarely seen), such a purely patriarchal relationship arises: you are a father, even if you are half a century younger than your other child. In village life, there is no city bustle, and that is why these relations remain strong, warm and, if everything was correct, they stand the test of separation. If a priest leaves the village and another priest comes to the village, he will also be perceived as the father of the family, but the former father will not be forgotten either. I am still invited to Bagaevka, when something extraordinary happens there, when a person whose coming to the Church I had a chance to facilitate is seriously ill or dies. It really is almost a family relationship - "our father". It is also for this reason that it is very difficult for the new priest to build relationships in the village - the village cannot immediately replace “its” priest with someone else.

- And how did you react to such appeals?

I petitioned the local administration! In the countryside, people are much more dependent on the authorities than in the city; a villager cannot create a “territory of freedom” for himself from the authorities. And it so happens that he can really come to an agreement with this authority only through a priest. As for family conflicts, a city dweller, no less than a rural dweller, tends to have claims to his loved ones and, instead of confessing his sins, tell the priest about strangers. It's just that in the countryside it is more open, naked, not hidden behind the outward appearance of “cultural behavior”. To convince a person that the cause of family misfortune is not only in others, but also in himself, to point out to him the sin of condemnation, to advise him to seek peace with loved ones - sometimes this succeeds. But life in a village is much more difficult than in a city, and therefore there are more gross domestic sins. It is not always necessary to stop a village woman who talks about her drinking husband and demand that she switch to her own sins, look for the reason in herself. Sometime she just needs to let her cry in front of God. There should be pastoral delicacy here, you need to see, feel that a person in this moment more needed - the correct pastoral instruction or the opportunity to pour out, at last, their sorrow. But I tried to avoid directly intervening in some family situations.

- So, the main difference between rural and urban flock is in special proximity to the shepherd?

For a city person, a priest is such a special person with whom he comes in close contact only in confession. And they expect, and very tensely, expect from the village priest that he will actively interfere in the life of people, that he will speak with them in some language that is very understandable and close to them. In a village, a priest cannot stop being a priest for a minute and become "just a man." There, everyone is looking at him all the time. The thirst for warm sincere communication, the need for love, for support - it is great everywhere, but there, in the village, especially.

- Have you been asked to "judge" family conflicts? "Father, tell my daughter-in-law .." - was that?

Of course it was. And they did not just offer or asked, but demanded. It seems to many in the village that the priest should fulfill the function of the Old Testament judge. And what is more, it is a mediator between the population and the secular authorities. Repair of the road, water supply - with all this, they also go to the priest.

- Why?

Because such interference could be beneficial in traditional society, where it is possible to appeal to some kind of communal morality. The village is already a community by definition, it was like that for a long time, but today they are scattered, strangers to each other, and someone else's misfortune often becomes a reason for gossip, entertainment in a monotonous life. I have already written about a boy from a drinking family who tried to commit suicide several times, and this was discussed by the whole village, but it was discussed superficially, not seriously, people did not see this as a tragedy or a problem. And finally the boy succeeded. What does this mean? The fact that there are no mechanisms of social influence, there is no healthy communal life, and the priest cannot fix anything, he can only somehow console an individual participant in this conflict. The city also lacks these mechanisms, but in the city it is not so naked, there it is hidden or dissolved in a large number population. And in rural life, this is all clearly visible, and the tragedy of our people there is obvious as nowhere else.

I myself am from the village, and from time to time I have to go to village funerals. It seems that people have become indifferent to death. Grief is the lot of those closest to you, and the rest do not seem to understand what happened. Earlier, in my childhood, this was not the case: I felt a kind of shudder before death, reverence for her.

The funeral in the village is sometimes really hard. Like most rural priests, I have to perform a funeral service almost every week, and against the background of the prayers of the burial rite, it becomes especially clear that the deceased, that death itself is for the survivors what needs to be driven out of my world. The priest is trying to prayerfully accommodate the deceased in the world of these people, to consolidate in their minds the simple idea that everyone is alive with God, and they are doing something contrary - they need to close the door behind the deceased and throw away the key so that nothing of him remains, did not disturb the living. This is not at all like goodbye in the Christian sense. It is very difficult to sing a funeral in this environment. After the funeral service, you try to say something to people and you see that the word is not something that does not reach - it bounces off. People do not understand what the priest is talking about. Why is that? Do not know.

- From many you can hear that despondency and hopelessness reign in the village today.

Maybe I will be subjective, but I will say that despondency and hopelessness are felt there less than in the city. On the contrary, the villagers have more hope for a good future. In the village, people think more about tomorrow from its practical side: they need to live tomorrow. Tomorrow there will be the same cows, the same pigs, the same vegetable garden and the same children who need to be fed. Urgent concerns - they are in the city, of course, but the city has more comfort, more space to philosophize, to comprehend, and this comprehension sometimes leads to tragic conclusions. In the village, there is more need to simply survive, to survive, and this need to survive leads a person to a healthy philosophy, a healthy outlook on the world. The village man understands better that the future is in his own hands... And you must be able to discern this, because outwardly everything looks exactly as you say - complete hopelessness, despair. If you come to the square on a market day and listen to what people are saying there, it will seem that now they will go home, lie in the prepared coffins and no longer get up. But in fact, the next day they will continue to live. Country man - he is cheerful and cheerful, while no one sees him, but as soon as he is approached stranger and asks him about something - everything is bad at once. This is such a feature of our people, a kind of psychological protection... And if you bring a person to the level of more trusting communication, you will draw in him even more hope, faith in the future than in a city dweller. A city dweller - rather, on the contrary, he appears to be a cheerful optimist at the first meeting, and after a short conversation it becomes clear that despondency reigns in him.

But if so, why not see any progress in rural life? Why do people have nothing to do in your Yurlovka and Bagaevka?

There is always something to do in the village. After the collapse of the state farm, no one simply organized people for some kind of activity. And they can no longer organize themselves. For some reason, our people are unable to take the common fate into their own hands at the moment. The reason - and this applies not only to Yurlovka - is perhaps that we do not trust each other. People look at each other with great disbelief. There are examples where the external will of people organizes and people flourish. But if there is no external initiative, people are completely unable to do something together. The activist trying to get them to unite is a hopeless martyr. He will be the first to be blamed if something goes wrong.

Father, we have such a contradictory picture with you - both light, and kind, and terrible, and evil. But if a church is being built in the village, if at least a priest comes with some extra gifts and serves as a mass in some club. Is something changing in people's moods? Do you agree that the village where the cross is over will not die?

Bagaevka is located in such a natural amphitheater: the temple is in the center, from any point you can see a golden dome, a cross. Here a resident drives out the cattle early in the morning, here he goes to the market square or returns in the evening, not quite sober. And every time he walks past the temple. But something in the soul of people still happens ... It is we in the city all waiting for the end of the world, looking for and listening to prophecies, and the apocalypse crept into the village imperceptibly. I will say again that the madness that a person who has deprived himself of communion with God can reach is so obvious in village life that this is a lesson to all of us. And if there is an opportunity to somehow weaken this madness by building temples - even where no one asks about it, then this should be done. In conclusion, there is still an optimistic example: one man, who lived next door to a village church under construction, was terribly swearing that, they say, the mud was cleaned up and I’ll show you all ... In general, the security guard at the construction site was not superfluous. Recently I was invited to the patronal feast of this temple. After the service in the street, this little man comes up to me and honestly admits that he cannot enter the church yet, but how glad he is that they have built ... And then unintelligible sobbing, which, perhaps, is even more weighty than another "intellectual" confession.

* * *

For eight years, Archpriest Vladimir Parkhomenko served as the rector of the church in honor of the Transfiguration of the Lord in the village of Pristannoye in the Saratov region, then he was appointed rector of the Nativity of Christ Church in Saratov, and now he returned to the countryside, more precisely, to the village of Ust-Kurdyum, to the Ascension-Panteleimon Church under construction. The old Volga villages, in which Father Vladimir has to serve, are now simply being eaten by the city, turning into a zone of prestigious cottage development.

When you arrived in Pristannoe, you also faced a problem - to enter the rural environment, to find a common language with people?

Problems of this kind arise for priests who do not live on the spot, for those who come. Those who live the same life with their parishioners have no such problem - to find a common language, to become their own, as a rule. After all, any person in the mind has such concepts - "ours" and "not ours." Our chairman, our head of the club, our director. The priest must also be ours. People should know that he goes to the same village shop, that his children take the same bus to school. Until the priest lives on the spot, this "our" is heavily formed in the consciousness of the parishioners. It is forming, of course, but slowly. And with father Dorofey, although he did not live in Bagaevka, it turned out in the end, and everyone there loved him. But it took longer.

- Is a priest closer to a villager than to a city dweller?

In the city, the priest's private life is hidden from the parishioners, but in the village everything is in plain sight. How a priest behaves in everyday life, how his family lives, how he brings up children - people see all this. But even if they treat the priest with respect, sympathy, love to communicate with him, this does not mean that they become churched and unite in the church community. The villagers discussed with me the tricks of fishing with me (many survive there by fishing), but it was very difficult for me to lure these fishermen to the temple. They respect the faith and the way of life of the priest, but they themselves do not live a spiritual life. The level of acceptance of a priest by rural society does not yet speak of the level of church life.

But did you manage to somehow raise this level, bring people to the temple? What depends on the priest here?

You can't drag anyone into the temple by the ears. When you delve into rural life, you see that people have faith. They do not identify themselves either with atheists or with people of other confessions; they know about themselves that they are Orthodox. But at the same time they have a lot of excuses, reasons not to go to church, or stereotypes. It seems to people that the Church is something remote, closed, separate from their life; it seems to men that only women should go to Church: "Let the women go, but we have more important things to do." It seems to young people that the church is “for grandmothers”, but they “will have time yet”. Much depends on the priest's ability to break these stereotypes. If the barrier is broken, this will immediately facilitate the priest's task: people will come to the church, and then the church life itself will do its job.

Much depends on the priest, but not everything. Rural parish life is indeed very different from urban life. City parishes are replenished with parishioners of all categories; in any city parish there is a backbone and people around it. In the village, everything is the same. Moreover, a village from a village can be very different. This makes us remember the Gospel (see: Lk. 9 , 5; Mk. 6 , 11) and the Acts of the Holy Apostles: persecuted Paul and Barnabas and drove them out of their borders. But they, shaking off the dust from their feet on them, went to Iconium.(Acts. 13 , 50-51). As the Savior warned, in one village the apostles will be accepted, but in another they will not, and one must leave, shaking the dust off his feet. In city churches, you will not notice this, but in the outback, you will notice the difference between a receiving and a non-receiving village. There are villages where there is an active backbone, a good parish, where the priest is in demand so that he is simply devastated. And there are villages where it is very difficult to organize something. As a dean, this difference was clearly visible to me at one time.

- Why is it so?

You can understand the reason if you remember that the apple is not far from the apple tree. The unresponsiveness of another modern village is a legacy of the spiritless life of our ancestors. I come from Don, my grandparents lived there, and I knew from childhood that there are villages and villages with strict morals, but there are those that everyone treats with contempt: it is believed that only idlers, or thieves, or fornicators. The village is a very closed environment. In it, people live together - even forcedly: maybe I would not want to communicate with this person, but if I have a fire, I will need his help. However, this fellowship does not always serve godliness. If at some point the tradition of an impious life prevailed in the village, if a “black sheep” is found, it will be much more painful than in the city. Everything dissolves in the city. And in the village it is confirmed that with the reverend preyou will be like, and you will be innocent with an innocent husband;(Ps. 17 , 25-26). It is hard for the righteous to live in a society devoid of Christian morality, so the righteous do not stay in "difficult" villages.

- But if a parish community has arisen, then the people in it are together, and still not forcedly. Have you observed any positive process of bringing people closer together?

The fact that people are together also affects parish life: a quarrel between neighbors immediately spreads to parish life too. Much here depends on the priest's participation in the life of the parish, on his presence in any situation. If he has authority, if he really leads the community, then it will be one. If not, there will be confusion. If there is a head, then the body is one.

You already have a lot of experience. Can you say that you managed to do something? Break the stereotype, unite the parish, help many? Were you lucky to be in the villages, since they are different?

I do not like such questions, they give the Soviet accountability. Let the Lord judge what I have succeeded and what has not. And I was lucky that I am a priest. It's enough.

Let us put the question differently: what kind of a village priest should be in order for him to succeed in this - to change the situation for the better, to bring into the village life the light of genuine, spiritual life?

A person's life generally depends on how much the spiritual principle is present in it. A priest, by definition, should be a person who organizes everyone around him, creates. And in order for him to succeed, it is necessary that he does not live with momentary goals and his own interests. He must live by Heaven and his life must uplift and inspire other people. I knew priests who rushed from village to city, but in the city they simply died as priests. And I know other priests - who themselves, voluntarily left for the village. An acquaintance of mine served in a remote village in Mordovia. So they had the following mode of life there: on a winter morning they woke up and looked to see if there was smoke over each chimney. If there is no smoke over the chimney, everyone fled there. Because it meant: something was wrong with the owner. And if a person could not light the stove in time, it can end in death. Such is the general survival in difficult conditions.

A believer, and even more so a clergyman, should not put worldly goals at the forefront: where to serve, where to live, these are all secondary questions. And if you put it at the forefront, then you will definitely not get anything.

- Do you agree that despondency, hopelessness, a sense of a dead end reign in the village today?

The village is like a dead end, like a hopeless roadside of life - this is an ideological position. I ran into her. The task of the village priest is to change this consciousness, because a believer cannot reason like that. This reasoning is a legacy of the Soviet mentality, a burp of the Soviet worldview. Soviet people are dependent on external conditions, someone should provide him good life, to guarantee the future, to solve all the problems, and if they have not done and have not solved, then the trouble. What should this position be changed to? To the position of a believer who knows that there is a providence of God, that nothing is accidental, that it is not just that we come into this world. And we must take responsibility for our situation.

What will you answer to a person who comes to you with a non-churchly, seemingly unspiritual question: "Father, how are we going to live tomorrow?"

I will try to unroll his brains, if only possible. I will say: how you live, so everything will be. You will drink and scold everyone except yourself - there will be no trace of you, you will get drunk, you will die, and other people will come to this earth. Both the city and the village are righteous. There will be no righteous among you - you will disappear.

The priest is often asked worldly questions. Its task is to give the person who asked the question a spiritual scale of the situation. A person has economic, political reasons in his head, and the priest must show him what is behind all these reasons. main reason- spiritual. It is she who is at the heart of all our misfortunes. For the piety of man, the earth and all the labors on it are blessed; for wickedness, everything is taken away. The Solovetsky and Valaam monks grew on stone rocks orchards- without any special technology. When a priest succeeds in saying this to a person, the person comes to life, begins to develop somehow. If it doesn't work out, the person remains spiritually dead.

Once we were driving along a rural road with an acquaintance of mine, a former sailor and a former collective farm chairman, who came to faith very seriously. We go, we see all these destroyed farms, and I - more out of habit - say: now, everything has fallen apart. And he says: how can he not fall apart, they built something with obscene rewind, without God. It is very important that people who recall Soviet times today with nostalgia understand this. Not because everything fell apart and the village found itself in such a sad situation that some kind of bad government came, but because they were building without God. Only by understanding this, you can start a new life.

Journal "Orthodoxy and Modernity" No. 24

Perhaps, no saint in our Church has such a warm and cordial attitude to the Mother of God. It is to her that we most often turn in prayers, we ask for help. The Church calls the Mother of God "the most honest cherubim and the most glorious seraphim without comparison." In this incomprehensible and unusual phrase for a secular ear, which sounds every day in churches during divine services, there is actually an amazing message: it turns out that there was a man in our history who surpassed the most beautiful and brightest angels - cherubim in the purity of his life and spiritual dignity and seraphim. And this person was precisely a woman, which, by the way, completely destroys all the attacks and accusations of skeptics who believe that in Orthodoxy a woman is a “second-class” person. To non-church people, the Mother of God often seems to be a kind of mythical character, and we ourselves, turning to Her in prayers, probably far from always understand that this is not a convention, but a living dialogue, and that the Mother of God hears us and looks at us at this very moment. On the eve of the Dormition Lent (August 14-27), we talk with the cleric of the church in honor of the Icon of the Mother of God “Satisfy my sorrows”, Hieromonk Dorofey (Baranov) about the special veneration of the Mother of God and Her intercession for us on the eve of the Dormition Lent (August 14-27).
CLOSE LIKE NOBODY

Father Dorotheus, I began to treat the Mother of God as a real, living person, oddly enough, after Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ. More precisely, it was the same before, but there all the Gospel events are shown so vividly and reliably that this feeling has intensified, has become more real. Why does it sometimes happen that live communication with the Mother of God is replaced in us by an attitude towards Her as to Someone legendary?
- It is generally characteristic of a person to treat what happened in antiquity as something fabulous. And Christians are not devoid of the prejudice that everything that was long ago is not entirely accurate in its historical nature. When we read the lives of the great ascetics of antiquity, we, of course, admire them. But everything that happened in their life seems to us so distant, incredible and unusual that it does not become a part of our life. This also happens in relation to the Mother of God, Who in fact, like no one is close to the human race, and church tradition says that She constantly dwells on earth and is the keeper of the whole world. And those who have gained faith, received it in suffering and trials, have won it from their stone hearts, feel Her living presence.
This presence is especially strongly felt in the so-called inheritance of the Most Holy Theotokos. These are the places that, according to church tradition, She Herself chose as her earthly fiefdom, which she patronizes, where She herself is constantly invisibly located. One of such destinies is Athos, and for the monks living on the Holy Mountain, there is no such problem - how to perceive the Mother of God. She is real, alive for them. And although most monks do not see Her with their eyes, they constantly feel Her presence and help. For some ascetics who live a strict ascetic life, the Mother of God is visible even today. And these are not fairy tales - the Church has many testimonies of this.
- In Russia, the Most Holy Theotokos was always revered, and She always reciprocated, repeatedly saving our country from many troubles. Is it possible in this context to speak about the special attitude of the Mother of God towards the Russian people? Or does She love all Christians equally?
- Any Christian people, of course, would like some kind of explicit patronage of the Mother of God. Both Greeks, Bulgarians, and Romanians, based on their history, can quite rightly say the same thing as we do. Rather, we are not talking about the special relationship of the Mother of God to any people, because Her love is enough for everyone, but about our special relationship to Her. One of the self-names of Russia is the House of the Most Holy Theotokos, and not only in terms of the number of churches. Such a reverent attitude towards the Mother of God among people is also because She is the Mother. Naturally, the mother in the life of each of us is the person who does not need to explain anything, who will regret and understand you in any case, no matter how lost and fallen you may be, who will not ask about anything, but will simply accept your hugs, that's all.
It is the inner natural craving of people for communication with their mothers that attracts us to the Mother of God. And the relationship of Jesus Christ with His Mother, which, among other things, bear the imprint of good nepotism, is fascinating. As if we come to visit someone and see good, correct family relationships, then we have a desire to stay in this family, to become a part of it, to enter the circle of communication and love that reigns here. This is how we look at the Mother of God and Her Son, and we want to be close to them.
"SIT
ON CLOUDS
AND EAT FRUITS "

The Church does not call the demise of the Mother of God death, but calls it the Assumption. And yet: how can such a sad and irreparable event in human understanding be a reason for joy?
- The feast of the Assumption in Russia has always been treated with reverence. In the Assumption and Ascension of the Mother of God to Heaven, our people saw great hope for themselves. Of course, the foundation of our faith is the Resurrection of Christ - "... if Christ is not resurrected, then our preaching is in vain, our faith is also in vain" (1 Cor. 15:14). And Christ as the God-man by His Resurrection and Ascension opened for people the possibility of extreme closeness to God. But the Mother of God - a common person, in flesh and in nature She is the same as we are. And the Lord was the first to honor Her human nature with the greatest event that had never happened to people before.
And on the feast of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos, we are not celebrating the death of the Mother of God - we are celebrating the opportunity that has opened to us for human nature to take bodily, full participation in divine life. People sometimes think that being with God “on the clouds” is such a semi-amorphous, disembodied and aimless existence: you sit on a tree and eat fruits, and moreover all this happens in eternity, that is, for an excruciatingly long time. But it turns out that you will be in communion with God with all your being. Understand this modern man it is not easy - he has so many problems of his own and so many interesting things here on earth that he does not care about what will happen after ...
- Why doesn't the Mother of God leave Her prayer for us? Why are we so dear to her?
- If I could answer this question, I would have to collapse immediately from conceit and pride. How can I, an ordinary person, know why the Mother of God acts in one way or another? I can only assume that She takes pity on us. That Her sorrow for the human race and her love for people compel Her to constantly intercede for us before God.
Why do we Christians, who out of the corner of our eye have seen what Divine love is, sometimes feel sorry for other people? We see how they, against their will, serve the enemy, and they themselves suffer from this. The love of the Mother of God for people is immensely great, she sees each individual person, how he suffers from his passions, how he himself cannot get out and does not stretch out his hand for help. This makes it even more painful - when a person is drowning, he looks at you, but does not ask for help.
The Most Holy Theotokos sees this world from the inside out, sees a fantastic abyss between the goodness of God, what the Lord has prepared for those who love Him, and the sinful swamp in which a person is now. And this abyss terrifies the inhabitants of heaven. It would seem that such - stretch out your hand, ask - and they will pull you out. But the person is stubbornly silent - the swamp slime clogs his eyes and ears, but he does not ask for help. And you cannot pull it out, because you cannot violate free will, and it is impossible to look at it ...

WHEN LOVE IS ENOUGH FOR EVERYONE

It is difficult to imagine what the Mother of God felt, standing at the Cross ... How could she survive this and not lose faith in her Son as in God?
- The feelings of the Mother of God that She felt for Her Son when He was a small child, when He went out to preach, when the guards seized Him and He underwent a terrible execution, these feelings are a hidden secret that you should not dare to spy on. Church liturgical tradition during the reading of the Twelve Passionate Gospels on Good Friday, she puts into the mouth of the Mother of God the words that She utters, addressing Her crucified Son on the cross. This is one of the most amazing stichera, it does not contain human weeping, romantic or serial, to which we are accustomed, it contains deep sorrow and bewilderment: "I see Thee now, my beloved Child and beloved, hanging on the Cross, and biting a mountaineer with my heart" ... In all their fullness and strength, these feelings are expressed in the Gospel - during the Crucifixion, the Mother of God is silent all the time. And by this Her silence at the cross, everything is said. All feelings, all emotions that we humanly want to understand - we can empathize with them. And, looking at the icon of the Crucifixion, participate in this silence ...
- Turning to the Mother of God in prayers, we call her the Intercessor, the Comforter, the Intercessor for us before the Lord. But there are so many of us, and She is one. How does She hear us all, how does She manage to respond to the sighing of so many hearts?
- This issue will be resolved when we cross the border of eternity and see the world as it really is. We now live in a fallen, sin-damaged world where we have many questions. For example, why does one person have so much love, and he shares this love, while another has so much grief that he kills himself and everyone around him? Every day in tens of thousands of temples Divine Liturgy and everywhere the same Christ unites with hundreds of thousands of people in the Sacrament of the Sacrament. How can this happen? How is it enough for everyone? Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov) found such an explanation through a simple analogy. As the sun is reflected in millions of drops, so Divine love spreads throughout our world, and the Mother of God has this love in its entirety.
- Why is it sometimes difficult for a person to feel and believe in this?
- Because faith is not conditioned by the world in which we live - neither our experiences, nor feelings, which are all from this world, nor suffering, nor troubles, nor volitional effort - a person cannot receive, acquire, earn faith in anything. She is not of this world. Therefore, when a person comes to me and says that he has no faith, I understand that he is deceiving himself - there is not a single person who does not have faith. Otherwise, a person would not have lived a day. It's all about trust. Is a person able to trust, as they say now, "the institution of the Church"? These two concepts are often confused - faith and trust. And people begin to trust the faith that they have through the trials that the Lord gives them, through prayer communication with the saints, with the Mother of God. A person who felt this, by no words or gestures - in any way, even to the closest person, will not be able to explain what happened to him. Trust suddenly arose in him. He trusted the Mother of God, Whom he had not seen and, perhaps, will never see except on the icon. He felt Her and trusted Her. It is difficult for a modern person to trust, he always thinks that he will be deceived. But trust is the shortest path to faith. And if a person follows it and tastes the taste of Christianity, he will no longer need any words, arguments, proofs and explanations of the holidays - he enjoys the taste.

Since apostolic times, the days of Holy Week have been in deep reverence among Christians. They conducted them in the strictest abstinence and fervent prayer. According to the testimony of the saint John Chrysostom, the first Christians in Holy Week intensified the ordinary exploits of fasting. They, imitating the Lord, tried to be kind and condescending to the weaknesses of their neighbors and to do more deeds of mercy. Christians of the first centuries considered it indecent not only to condemn someone, but also stopped all litigation, trials, punishments and even freed for this time prisoners in dungeons who were not guilty of criminal offenses.

(click on the image to open an enlarged copy)

On these holy days, neither the memory of the saints, nor the commemoration of the departed, nor prayer chants are performed. Since, as if participating in the suffering of the Savior, conforming to his death(Phil. 3, 10), church worship takes on the character of sorrow and contrition - "compassion" to the suffering of Christ.

According to the greatness and importance of the events that took place, each day of this week is called great. Church services represent all events last days Of the Savior happening before us, and we mentally go through the whole majestically touching and edifying history of Christ's sufferings. The Holy Church calls us this week to leave everything vain and worldly and follow our Savior.

The temple alternately represents the upper room of Zion and Gethsemane, then Calvary. The services of Holy Week are distinguished by sublime, inspired chants and a number of deeply significant rites, which are performed only on this week. Therefore, whoever is constantly in these days at the service in the temple, he apparently follows the Lord, who is coming to suffer.

Each day of the week a special memory is assimilated, expressed in hymns and Gospel readings of Matins and Liturgy. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of Holy Week are dedicated to the remembrance of the last conversations of the Savior with the disciples and the people.

The first three days

In a historical sense, the last week of the Savior's earthly life begins with the Lord's entry into Jerusalem. The inhabitants of Jerusalem greeted Christ with shouts of "Hosanna to the Son of David" - the conqueror of death, who resurrected the four-day Lazarus - they did not even suspect that a conspiracy had already been drawn up - "the fierce counsel of the wicked" - about the murder of the One who is now the expected earthly king for them ... And, probably, some of those who shouted "Hosanna", in just five days, will also loudly repeat after the embittered high priests - "Crucify".

The Savior foresaw the dire consequences of such a departure for the Jewish people that were dear to Him, and His heart was so filled with grief that He could not hold back his tears. In the midst of universal joy and exultation around His procession, Christ, seeing the city of Jerusalem ... wept for it(Luke 19:41).

Therefore, although the Week of Vai, or Palm Sunday, there is the master's twelveth feast, but in the evening of this day, not a great, but an all-day Vespers is celebrated, at the end of which for the first time sounds, foreshadowing the beginning of the memories of the Savior's suffering, the liturgical dismissal of the first three days of Passion Week: "The Lord comes to our free passion for the sake of salvation ...".

In the first three days of Holy Week, the Church prepares the faithful for a worthy contemplation of the Savior's sufferings on the Cross. In the hymns of the Triodion for these days, the Church encourages believers to follow the Lord, to be crucified with Him and with Him to be vouchsafed to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. A general penitential character is still retained in the divine services on these days.

Great Monday I recall the Old Testament patriarch - the chaste Joseph the Beautiful, who was sold by his brothers to Egypt out of envy and thus typified the sinless sufferings of the Savior. Christ, like Joseph, becomes the envy of His brothers in blood and faith - Jewish fellow tribesmen, He is sold just as Joseph's brothers sold. However, in the end, Joseph reigns in Egypt and feeds his brothers with earthly bread, and Christ after His Resurrection reigns over the whole world and feeds us with Heavenly bread - His Flesh and Blood.

In addition, on this day, the Lord's drying up of a richly leaved but barren fig tree is remembered, and Christ tells the Jews an instructive parable about the unrighteous winegrowers. The gospel of the fig tree with the parable of the winegrowers is read on Great Monday mornings.

An important feature of the modern practice of worship should be noted here. For the convenience of people who come to the temple, so that as much as possible more Christians had the opportunity to attend such important divine services, matins of the next day on all days of Holy Week are usually served the night before, and vespers of the next day - this morning. For example, Great Monday Matins, which we are talking about now, is served on Sunday evening, and Tuesday Vespers, in conjunction with the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts, on Monday morning.

The fig tree in the Gospel reading of Matins on Great Monday depicts the Jews, from whom Christ did not find true fruit, but only the hypocritical shade of the law, which He denounced and cursed. But this fig tree also represents every soul that does not bear the fruit of repentance. And in the parable of the evil winegrowers, the hardening of the Jews is seen, who beat the prophets, and with the coming to earth of the Son of God, they crucified Himself. It is impossible not to see in this parable the terrible condemnation of Christians who violate the commandments and thus, as it were, continue to crucify Christ.

How to avoid this condemnation, the Church invites us to learn from the troparion, performed after the peaceful litany at Matins on Great Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, "Behold the Bridegroom is coming ...". In this hymn, which, according to the Typicon, should sound "loud and sweet," referring to the Gospel parable of the ten virgins, it is indicated that our meeting (that is, the end of our earthly existence) with Christ (the Bridegroom of our soul) can occur at any time : "... and blessed is the slave, He will find him vigilantly", "He is unworthy of the pack, He will find him despondently." With the words of this troparion we appeal to our soul: "Be careful for my soul, do not be burdened by sleep, but you will not be put to death" - and so that this does not happen: "Rise up and call: Holy, Holy, Holy God, have mercy on the Mother of God."

And at the end of the canon of Matins, also in all the first three days of Holy Week, the so-called exapostilarium, or, in Russian, luminous: "I see Thy chamber, my Savior, decorated ...". It continues to reveal a deep liturgical image of the relationship between Christ the Savior and the human soul, as the relationship between the Bridegroom and the bride. The marriage of the soul with Christ is the mysterious union of God and man in eternity, in the Kingdom of Heaven. And this heavenly marriage “chamber” the Christian already sees, but laments that “the clothes are not imam,” that is, the fruits of spiritual life (see: Gal. 5:22), “may I enter it” (to enter it) ; and then a direct petition to God for the granting of the spiritual purity necessary for salvation: "Enlighten the garment of my soul, Light-Giver, and save me."

Also, according to the Charter, in the first three days of Holy Week at 3, 6 and 9 o'clock, the entire Four Gospels must be read. However, in practice, only the Gospel of John is often read in full, which is specially divided into nine parts.

Great Tuesday remember the denunciation by the Lord of the scribes and Pharisees, His conversations and parables, spoken by Him on this day in the temple in Jerusalem: about tribute to Caesar, about resurrection of the dead, The last judgment, about ten virgins and about talents.

At Matins on this day, a passage from the Evangelist Matthew is read (chapter 22 from verse 15 and chapter 23), in which the Lord repeatedly (up to seven times), denouncing the scribes and Pharisees, repeats the following words: "Woe to you the scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites", and after these words, each time He points out what Christians should not do, so as not to become like the Pharisees in their deeds, which caused such anger of the Lord, and not to hear from Him the terrible words of curse: “Serpents, offspring of vipers! how will you escape the condemnation of hell? " (Matt. 23, 33).

In general, the content of the Great Tuesday service is borrowed from the Gospel parables about the ten virgins, about talents and from the story of the second coming of Christ. On the same day, in the evening, Great Lent Great Compline is celebrated for the last time.

Wednesday of Holy Week- this is the day of the tradition of the suffering and death of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Liturgical service on Wednesday remembers the “sinner” wife, who washed with her tears and anointed the Savior's feet with precious ointment, as well as Judas' decision to betray Christ to the Jewish elders for 30 pieces of silver.

Both happened when the Lord was in Bethany, a village not far from Jerusalem, in the house of Simon the leper. First, a certain “sinner” wife poured precious ointment on the head of the Savior and thus prepared Him for burial. And after that, as if in contrast to her disinterested act, a criminal intention was born in the soul of Judas on the basis of the passion of avarice to betray His Teacher and Lord to the lawless advice of the high priests.

On Great Wednesday morning, at the end of the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts, the Lenten prayer of the Monk Ephraim the Syrian is recited for the last time with three great bows. From this moment, bows to the ground at services are canceled, except for bows in front of the Shroud of the Savior in the center of the temple.

"This is My Body ..."

Thursday of Holy Week recalls the Last Supper, at which the Lord established the sacrament of Holy Communion (Eucharist), the Lord's washing of the feet of His disciples as a sign of deepest humility and love for them, and the Savior's prayer in the garden of Gethsemane.

Also in the service of this day, the theme of the betrayal of Judas continues. What he had planned on Wednesday, when Christ was in the house of Simon, now he decided to fulfill during the Last Supper (supper) of the Lord with His disciples. Best of all, the events of this day are conveyed by the touching troparion of the Great Four, which is also performed on the morning of Good Friday: When the glory of the disciple at the supper was enlightened (enlightened), then the evil Judas, ailment of avarice, darkened (distraught) and betrayed Thee, the Righteous Judge, to the lawless judges. See, the estates to the raiser (collector), who have used these for the sake of strangling: run unfulfilled souls, to the Teacher such daring (run away from the insatiable soul, seeing what she dared in relation to the Teacher). Alike all the Good, Lord, glory to Thee.

The Gospel in the morning, selected from the stories of the evangelists Matthew, Luke and John, tells about all the circumstances of this day that are significant for us. These are the events preceding, accompanying and following the Last Supper. The Liturgy of Basil the Great, which is served on this day, is also all dedicated to the commemoration of the establishment of the main Sacrament of the Church - Holy Communion. Therefore, the liturgical gospel reading of Maundy Thursday is composed of the descriptions of the Last Supper by all four evangelists. And instead of the usual "Cherubic" prayer during the Great Entrance, a prayer is chanted at the Liturgy, which we read every time before communion: Thy secret supper, Son of God, take me a partaker: it is not Thy enemy who will tell the mystery, nor will I kiss Ty, like Judas, but as a robber I confess Thee: remember me, Lord, in Thy Kingdom. The same prayer is sung in Maundy Thursday during the communion of the clergy in the altar and during the communion of the people in the temple.

"Darkness spreads over the whole earth ..."

Great Heel Day is dedicated to the memory of the condemnation to death, the sufferings of the Cross and the death of the Savior.

The services of the Great Heel begin on Thursday evening, when the following of the holy and saving Passions of our Lord Jesus Christ takes place. In the middle of the church, in front of the Crucifixion installed there, all the priests go out, and the longest fasting service begins - the reading of the Passionate Gospels. This succession is, as it were, woven into the composition of Matins. After the first five Gospel readings, special antiphons are sung, the general character of which could be conveyed by the words of one of the antiphons that “among those who deliberate” about the murder of the Savior of the Jews “You Himself stood invisibly Counselor”. That is, Christ Himself invisibly dwelt among the chief priests, who consulted about his surrender to death.

On the morning of the Great Heel, the hours that are usually called the Royal, or Great, are performed. Moreover, they pass according to the same rite as in the eve of the Nativity of Christ and the Epiphany. Liturgy on this day is not supposed to be celebrated as a sign of Christians' sorrow for the greatest atrocity - the crucifixion of the God-man.

Usually, at about two o'clock in the afternoon, Vespers of Great Heel is sent, after which, as in the liturgy, both the Apostle and the Gospel are read. A rather lengthy Gospel reading is devoted to a detailed, composed of three evangelists, a story about the condemnation of the Savior to death, His Way of the Cross to Golgotha, the very crucifixion of the Lord and what happened immediately after him. Moreover, the evangelists even convey to us the reaction of inanimate nature to the death of the Savior on the Cross: darkness was all over the earth ... the veil of the temple was rent in two, from top to bottom; and the earth shook; and the stones settled(Matt. 27, 45, 51, 52).

At the end of Vespers, the Rite of carrying out the Shroud of Christ is performed, depicting His position in the grave, after which the rector reads the touching canon "about the crucifixion of the Lord and the lamentation of the Most Holy Theotokos." After the reading of this canon, worship and kissing of the holy Shroud are performed, during which they usually sing a touching sticira about the Lord's position in the tomb: “Come, we will please Joseph of ever memorable…”.

Great peace

On Holy Saturday The church remembers the burial of Jesus Christ, the stay of His body in the tomb, the descent of the soul into hell to proclaim there the victory over death and the deliverance of souls who had faithfully awaited His coming, and the introduction of the prudent robber into paradise.

Matins of Great Saturday is usually performed on Friday evening and contains the reading of the so-called Immaculate - verses from 17 kathisma (so named after the first words of Psalm 118: Blessed blameless ...), interspersed with special praises to the Savior. This is the burial service of the Lord, which ends with the Procession of the Cross with the Shroud around the temple with the singing of the funeral Trisagion.

On Great Saturday, as on Thursday, the Liturgy of Basil the Great is served in conjunction with Vespers. But this is a very special service on a day unlike any other. church year... Christ has already left His tomb and descended into hell in order to destroy his power over people and free the souls of the Old Testament righteous from it. But the Church, imitating the ignorance of the apostles about the Resurrection of Christ, so far postpones this overflowing joy until Easter and looks with fear at the long-awaited destruction of hell. Great Saturday is a day of special silent concentration on the salvation of the human race, accomplished by the God-man Jesus Christ.

Best of all, the mood of Great Saturday is reflected in the reverent song performed at the liturgy instead of the "Cherubim": Let all human flesh be silent, and let it stand with fear and trembling, and let nothing earthly in itself think ...

At Vespers, before the beginning of this liturgy, 15 paremias are read, which contain the main prophecies and types relating to Jesus Christ as having redeemed us from his sin and death. Death on the cross and by His Resurrection. Instead of the Trisagion, "Elitsy was baptized into Christ" is sung and the Apostle is read about the mysterious power of Baptism. This singing and reading serves as a reminder of the custom of the ancient Church to baptize the catechumens on Holy Saturday. After the Apostle, instead of the usual "Alleluia", seven verses are sung, selected from the psalms containing prophecies about the Resurrection of the Lord: "Resurrect, God, judge the earth." During the chanting of these verses, the priests disguise themselves in white robes and re-clothe the throne and the altar in the altar. In a white robe, standing in front of the shroud in the center of the church, the deacon reads the last, 28th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, which tells about the event of the Resurrection of the Savior, and this is already a direct indication of the joy of Easter that is coming on the forthcoming saving night.

- Father Dorotheus, how to deal with temptations?

Learn to experience them correctly. For example, one often hears from people who succumbed to the temptation of a lustful passion that its strength was so great that they could not resist it. This is just an attempt to justify their own unwillingness to fight evil. There are no temptations that a person cannot cope with. Actually, any temptation makes us answer the main question in life: “Who do I want to be? Do I want to be a moral person, living according to the spiritual laws that God gave people, or does it not matter to me? "

You can choose the second way - to get out of the circle outlined by God's commandments, but then you need to be prepared for a spiritual catastrophe in your life. There is no need to harbor illusions, it is inevitable. As a priest, I see it every day. There has never been a single case when a person who violated a moral prohibition would be happy after that. People destroy families, hoping that they will be more fortunate in their second marriage. Sometimes it even seems to them that they are happy in a new relationship, but this happiness is poisoned with bitterness. And a person lives without understanding why his child is growing up as a drug addict, or at work there are continuous problems, or illnesses are pursuing ... He is still looking for some reason, but the reason is the same: he crossed the moral line and became defenseless against evil. In the end, after wandering around the endless circle of worldly "consolations" with which they usually try to drown out this bitterness, a person realizes that he still needs to come to an agreement with God, and comes to confession. Until the weight of sin is washed away from the soul by repentance, a person will be tempted. Therefore, if trials are haunted, you need to analyze your life, remember the broken commandments and bring repentance to God.

See yourself in your true light

But temptations also haunt those people who try to live attentively and do not commit serious sins. What, then, is the point for them in such tests?

We have come to a very important point in understanding the meaning of temptations: they also serve as a litmus test for the manifestation of our inner spiritual wormholes. For example, if, in our opinion, we are being unfairly oppressed by our superiors, we may be thinking too much of ourselves. And when a person attacks us for no reason at all, perhaps we should look into ourselves and see the pride in ourselves, which demanded such a treatment.

Something constantly happens in our life that outrages us, especially when we hear impartial assessments in our address. How do we usually act in response? We strive to justify ourselves, we seek arguments to prove our innocence. If we stay in this position, similar temptations will be repeated over and over, until we see that all our failures in relationships with people are rooted in our pride. But as soon as we change the approach - treat the attacks with humility, we will find that they stop. God gives grace to the humble.

In general, temptations are useful. Passing through them, a person gets the opportunity to correctly understand his life and soberly evaluate himself. Flattering assumptions about oneself and derogatory ones about others are crumbling. Think yourself worthy of better success than others? And so, he rolled to the very bottom. Constantly demanded something from others, without delving into their situation? Now you are being oppressed, persecuted, slandered. He considered himself better than others and faced the gross violence of sinful thoughts. It is easier for a pious person than for a sinner to fall into spiritual delusion about his spiritual gifts and successes, and temptations serve as a cure for this disease. In such circumstances, a person sees with his own eyes his weakness in judgments, actions, deeds, emotions and humbles himself. Good learners learn lessons quickly and correct mistakes. Therefore, if in temptations we become spiritually more mature, humble and skillful, then temptations are endured by us incomparably easier. Some of them may even bypass us in the future. But if we persist in pride, self-conceit and murmuring, then we fail the exam, and our humility will require more severe trials than those that were.

How to cope with internal temptations - for example, with such when haunted by bad thoughts about the person who offended us? Sometimes this condition lasts a very long time.

To fight thoughts, you need to consider yourself worse than other people. Put any person who offended you, hurt you, showed injustice, disrespect, rudeness towards you, above yourself. Look at him from the bottom up, and then unpleasant collisions with people will be minimized as much as possible, because you will always be ready to give in, not to answer evil for evil, to apologize. You can not believe in the effectiveness of this recipe and look for thousands of reasons not to resort to it, but this is the only way to achieve peace of mind. When a person inside himself believes that he is the very last insect, it is impossible to offend him. When Christ came into the world, he showed that the only way out of the world of evil that surrounds us is to give this evil absolute freedom, to give evil the opportunity to do whatever it wants with you, but at the same time not to lose hope in God. “God will not leave his own people,” - such is the saying among Christians. This combination of readiness not to respond with evil to evil and trust in God makes a Christian absolutely invincible. We think that if everyone in a row gives up a place in the queue, you will not reach the counter, but I know a person who decided on such an experiment and was escorted to the cash register by grandmothers to the applause of the whole queue.

V modern world a person is so accustomed to defending his space - personal and family, that he is constantly in a state of readiness to reflect the aggression of the world around him. Today, the desire to give in, help someone, postpone their business and take care of someone else's is perceived by people as some kind of feat. In the meantime, look at how the saints lived. Holy Blessed Matrona. It would seem what position could be lower: born blind, not walking, not leaving home, and meanwhile she influenced the fate of millions. Therefore, the only way, if not to remove, then to minimize temptations, is to destroy yourself as a self-valuable person, to say: “I do not belong to myself, I belong to God. He decides what is good for me and what is bad. " With such internal installation evil in the form of temptations does not stick to a person. And if it sticks, then quickly retreats.

Help won't slow down

- So, no matter what temptation God sends us, it is always beneficial?

Yes. Moreover, if He sends a temptation, it means that at this moment He more than ever wants us to humble ourselves and learn patience. We often believe that temptation prevents us from doing what would be more pleasing to God. And by this we are falsely deceived, because we think that we know God better than please Him more. And the very idea that we please God when we do some kind of good deed deceives us, elevating us in our own eyes, and this arrogance negates the good deed.

- Does prayer help you to endure temptations more easily?

Of course! This is evident from the words of the Lord's Prayer "Our Father" - a prayer that Christ himself uttered, telling his disciples that they should pray in this way. Therefore, if a person is faced with a moral choice, and it is very difficult for him to make this choice, he must call on God for help. That is why it is so important to know at least this prayer: in order not to be left alone with trouble in a difficult situation.

If the temptation is associated with condemnation, hostility or enmity towards someone from your neighbor, then you need to remember all the good in this neighbor and begin to regularly pray for him. And the help of the Lord will not slow down. Your state becomes clear, temptation is understandable. And as soon as it is cognized, the temptation dissipates like smoke.

The Holy Fathers say that the Jesus Prayer also helps in temptation, especially when a person falls into anger or despondency.

Undoubtedly. The Jesus Prayer is a verbal expression of the constant memory of God. A person seems to cling to the robe of Christ: "Lord, do not leave me, as I do not leave You." The Jesus Prayer is a constant invocation of God, but for a modern person living in the world, it will be difficult to do it incessantly. This is in Byzantium at the time of Gregory Palamas (1296-1359, Archbishop of Thessaloniki, Byzantine theologian and philosopher, Orthodox saint. - O. L.) in the market, a blacksmith and tanner could argue for hours about the practice of the Jesus Prayer. Today, such a level of prayer is possible only in monasteries. Although, if a person is exposed to some difficult inner temptations, he should resort to this prayer as a weapon in the fight against enemy attacks.

I would only warn the reader against the magical attitude towards prayer, which is very common in our time. Some people even perceive prayer as a conspiracy: read it - and you're done, the effect is obvious. This is not true. Prayer is just a conversation with God. We seem to open a window to the sky and shout, we call God. Of course, we expect help from Him. But, if she does not come, this does not mean that God does not hear us, and therefore we must run to psychics. This suggests that, in God's opinion, it is more useful for us to endure troubles. Patience of temptations, even those of long duration, is also a spiritual exercise.

Nothing that happens to us in life happens outside of God's providence. At the same time, the providence of God sends to each person only such temptations, punishments (from the word "command" - a lesson) that are necessary for him to save him. Not only bodily sorrows of a Christian must be accepted as from the beneficent hand of God, but also the evil that people or evil spirits inflict.

The Lord sees a person's heart, knows its capabilities, and if we cannot endure some difficult temptation, it is not sent to us. And the other is subjected to very strong temptations, but only because God knows that he can bear it. “If there were no temptations, no one would have received the Kingdom of Heaven,” said the Monk Anthony the Great. So let us thank God for all the temptations through which He leads us to Himself.

Newspaper "Saratov Panorama" No. 22 (950)
Interviewed by Oksana Lavrova

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Entering church life is always not only an inspiring joy of discovery, but also inevitable difficulties. How do you relate to them, how not to give up, realizing that there are much more mistakes than achievements? We conducted a small survey and asked its participants to tell us about their difficulties on the path to churching. Then, with the questions that arose, they turned to Hieromonk Dorofey (Baranov).

Olga, 31 years old

At first, I really wanted to teach everyone everything - new life, living in the light of the Gospel - seemed so overwhelming to me that I did not understand how I could live without faith before. Moreover, she could not leave her relatives to live "in the dark." It seemed to me that I should definitely tell them how important it is to keep the commandments, how good it is to go to the temple every week, and how great it is to help other people. Naturally, I had no time to do household chores. When to cook dinner, if you need to rush to the evening service? Iron your husband's shirt in the morning? Maybe iron it myself, but I need to read prayer rule! Have a familiar problem? Of course, I can help - it doesn't matter that she lives on the other side of the city, but I need to pick up my son from the kindergarten - my grandmother can do it. And at the same time she will cook dinner, and stroke, and play with her granddaughter. But when I return, how many interesting things I can tell you! About how the apostles lived, and how the Christians of the first centuries died for Christ, and what deeds the saints performed ... Only now my relatives stopped listening to me.

Then, when the neophyte fervor cooled down, I realized how important it is that words do not diverge from deeds. First, you need to try to become a Christian herself, in order to have the right to teach someone. And it's nice to learn how to obey the commandments - at least in your family. Then there will be no need to teach and "enlighten" anyone. Deeds tell better than words how great it is to live in the light of the gospel.

Natalia, 30 years old

The main difficulty in the early years of church life is the struggle against laziness. I don’t know how anyone else, this passion prevailed over me all the time. It was difficult for me to get up on Sunday morning to go to the temple. I was too lazy to read the prayer rule and I sometimes shortened it, and sometimes even canceled it ... In general, the lack of discipline and inability, unwillingness to accustom myself to order greatly interfered. However, they interfere even today, but it seems to me that I have made some progress in my unequal struggle.

It was hard to break oneself and behave in the church in a way that I was not used to doing anywhere else. Be friendly and even, do not be clever and do not joke unnecessarily. Although from time to time the serious faces of other parishioners evoked, if not melancholy, then some kind of despondency. It really seemed to me that a real Christian has no right to relax, laugh at a kind joke, talk about something other than piety and Orthodox literature. Because I felt different - no better, no worse - just different and did not want to become like "Orthodox women", real intimacy in the church did not work out with anyone. Only with a priest - but then there was a danger that I became too attached to a person, seeing in him almost God Himself, expecting his approval more than God's mercy ... The last, by the way, a big problem is a separate issue that deserves special attention.

Elena, 34 years old

The most difficult thing for me in the first period of my church life was self-discipline. It was difficult to make church life turn into a system, into a kind of self-evident habit. More often than not, everything happened according to the principle - there is inspiration - there is a service, a trip to the temple, a prayer rule, etc. If there is no inspiration, there is a break in the church life.

Once my father did not allow me to take communion only because I came to confession and said that for about six months I had not lived a full church life and that I wanted to start over again. I went home without communion, although I was preparing. Then she came again.

Even now, when seven years have passed since my first arrival in the Church, I am experiencing almost the same difficulties, and if I have advanced along the path of self-discipline, then not much. I still have difficulty going to church every Sunday, reading the morning and evening rule without interruptions for fatigue and laziness, for lack of desire.

But still, I want to believe that although there is little progress, there is still. And sooner or later I will learn to manage myself so that I will not be ashamed later that I overslept the service or relaxed, deciding to leave the prayer rule for later.

Inna, 28 years old

I was 19 years old when I came to faith in earnest. The reason for this was illness, but very soon I realized that I wanted to go to church not only to ask God for healing. As is usually the case with everyone, the first time in the Church was very happy, despite very poor health. It is almost impossible to convey in words: there was a feeling that the Lord took me out of my previous life, without Him, in the palms of my hands. I don’t remember any special difficulties, on the contrary, the Lord gave everything for free: both strength and burning, yes, and somehow I was tolerated more successfully. And I wanted to do everything for God!

And there were mistakes, and even very terrible ones. The biggest of them, it seems to me, is the desire to immediately become a different person. In fact, it is true, but only it must be embodied wisely, with reasoning. It seemed to me then that I had to abandon myself completely, indiscriminately. It is necessary, relatively speaking, to simulate a Christian in his imagination and simply turn into him. But how can this be done in an instant? You will only be able to play. This very same game of Christianity led to a big trouble, although then it seemed to me that I was doing everything honestly, and not playing at all. Today I am sure that you need to change yourself on the basis of your own "human material", because it is you who become a Christian. One must create a Christian in oneself from oneself. And only this kind of you will be needed by God, the real one, you, even if you are bad at it. Becoming a Christian is a lifelong work.

Alexander, 35 years old

The most difficult thing, in my opinion, is to step over yourself. To cross the very line that separates the churched person from the unchurched. To defeat the main enemy is pride. Bow at the entrance to the temple, cross yourself, enter and ask: “Lord, help! I cannot do anything on my own, without You! " The road to God begins with this.

Father Dorotheos, many people find it difficult at the beginning of their church life, they cannot immediately fit into a new life for them. A person comes to the church, looks around, everyone around is smooth, people confess, receive communion, participate in the life of the parish, but he stumbles and stumbles. How to relate to your own difficulties, mistakes, or are they inevitable for everyone?

One of the participants in our survey, Natalya, says that she felt her otherness among the parishioners, could not become like the people who surrounded her. And one of the main difficulties that people face when they come to Church, I call it - surprise to oneself. While you are in the world, you may be covered in sores, but you will not notice them. They are already covered with a crust, hidden under clothes and do not make themselves felt. But as soon as a person comes to the Church, he has a feeling that all his sores are ripped off and begin to bleed, it hurts. A person suddenly notices that he actually has a lot of sores. The biggest problem of modern people is narcissism, the turning of a person exclusively inside himself. When a person enters the Church, he is faced with the need to merge into a new environment for him, which is not a collection of individuals, but a kind of single whole. Our contemporary can feel great at a work meeting, in a cafe, at a stadium, at a party, he has no problems with communication. But as soon as he gets into the Church, literally everything that happens to him begins to hurt him - how they look at him, how other people evaluate him. He does not understand why he should do the same as everyone else, stand during the entire service, bow in the temple with everyone, at a certain moment come and kiss the icon. He does not like that he is suddenly made to understand that he is not free even in the choice of clothes. Of course, a person feels extremely uncomfortable in such a situation. But you need to treat this inconvenience correctly, it is actually a confirmation that the person has come to the right place.

The Apostle James says: “whoever wants to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God” (James 4: 4). A person comes to the Church in order to love God and to feel - the love of God for a person. But for this to happen, it is necessary in a certain sense to enter into enmity with the world. And when a person begins to be at enmity with habits, with stereotypes of behavior, thinking that have taken root in him as part of the world, he begins to fight with himself. And this war brings suffering to a person, but they are inevitable.

In the hospital, everyone is sitting with sad faces. There are, of course, lucky ones who run out from the doctor happy, because they turned out to be healthy. But more often people leave the doctor's office sad, someone even learns about the terrible diagnoses. I recently read somewhere that if you look into the faces of people in the temple, you will feel uncomfortable, there is no special joy on their faces that should have been brought about by communication with God. And a person makes hasty conclusions that everything that happens in the Church is not useful. But this is not the case. It is narcissism that tends to fumble around with the eyes in order to find in them an excuse for their shortcomings. And when a person has self-absorption and good hatred for himself, he tries to avert his gaze from other people, and direct it only inward. That is, when you come to church, you first need to deal only with yourself, your soul.

So a person who has just come to the temple finds himself in a state of a certain numbness from his own shortcomings, irregularities, from his own angularity and the inability to find comfort and peace in the temple. This is exactly what they are looking for in the West, a person comes to church, sits on a bench and he feels good - they sing touchingly, a wonderful tall Catholic cathedral, it smells nice, the candles vibrate beautifully and the person understands that he has found his place. In the Russian Church, just as long as he does not have a state of complacency, everything will be fine, and in the Church the right things will happen to a person - the healing of his nature, his soul.

And you don't need to be shy, afraid of your angularity, it is better to accept your own imperfection or even ugliness against the background of what you expected from yourself in the temple, and patiently work to ensure that your nature is at least partially healed. When this happens (and this may not happen right away, perhaps a good half of the church life will pass before), you will naturally feel at home in the Church. But still, at first, some work of getting used to the new environment, and only then getting the fruit. You just need to be patient for a while.

- That is, there is no churching without difficulties and problems?

Moreover, I will say that if a person, having come to church, becomes akin to the thought that something is wrong with him, it means that he is on the right path. Of course, living with this thought is extremely uncomfortable for a modern person, there is a natural desire to eliminate the problem. I want to make everything look good, I want to look the way it is supposed to, to speak the way it is supposed to, so that the people around me have a pleasant idea. But if we understand and accept the thought that something is wrong with us, it means that our spiritual work on ourselves has begun.

A person, having come to the Church, finds himself in an unnatural environment for himself - an abyss between the world and the Church. It would seem that everything was done just one step - through the threshold of the temple, but beyond this threshold other laws are in force. Of course, anyone feels like a fish, thrown out of the water onto the shore, begins to suffocate. But time will pass, and the gills will be reborn into the lungs. Then, on the contrary, it will be difficult for a person to live in the world.

It turns out that the desire to be an excellent student in church life is not entirely correct? It just often seems to a person that in the Church, as a special place on earth, he has no right to be a C grade.

If we draw a parallel with the learning process, then a person striving to be an excellent student in the Church in the world will instantly make a mistake, this is inevitable - he will not light a candle correctly or will do something else wrong. Or maybe he even confesses, will stand at the service and still suddenly feel that here, in the church, he is a C, and maybe even a C. From this, of course, a shock, a state of discomfort, inconvenience can arise.

But in the Church, a person passes one of the most serious examinations - the knowledge and fulfillment of the Gospel in his life. And in this sense, the not so long ago popular phrase about the endlessness of the learning process: “Learn, learn and learn,” for a Christian is the everyday Creed. Christianity religion books - Bibles, Gospels. Without the Gospel, it is impossible to correctly assess either oneself or one's relationship with God and the world.

Yes, having come to church, a person felt like a C, but he has a colossal motivation to be an excellent student. What does he start to do? He begins to learn the rules of this new world for himself. If he is not shocked by these new rules, if he accepts them, and he has a good desire to be an excellent student in church life, he begins to take an interest in it and move on. An excellent student in the world is always a sinner. An excellence in the Church is a person who is being saved who is trying to walk the path of a righteous life. And on the account of whether it is possible to be an excellent student at the same time in the world and in the Church - this is a moot point.

It happens that a person comes to the Church, but he does not want to seriously study the new rules of life. And then for quite a long time he remains in the Church with poor grades. He calms down and gets used to the fact that he is a C grade. This is due to the fact that a person is often torn between the world and the Church, between the life of the world and the church. Why is it difficult to remake yourself? Because, leaving the Church, a person lives according to the same rules, and when he comes to the Church, he understands that he needs to live according to different rules. And so in the Church he remains a C, and when he goes out into the world, he satisfies his worldly desires, his thirst to be an excellent student, to get A's, to be the first.

Then he runs to the temple, reluctantly stays there for a while, and again jumps out into the world. That is, the main life of a person actually takes place in the world, where he, if we have already adopted such an image, is an excellent student. In this way, a person can exist for quite a long time, and this is also a big problem in churching, which can be called complacency. A person, even having spent ten years in the Church, and in all respects being a church-going person (i.e., confessing, receiving the Holy Communion) can simply rest on the fact that he will never become an excellent student in the Church. He may decide that being a C-grade student in the Church is his height, his level, and he no longer has a desire to raise the level higher. Although, in fact, you have to jump higher, run farther and farther, never calming down.

- And how can you notice that you are living in delusion, or on this stage making some mistake?

There is a prayer of the first hour, which is recited by the priest at the end of the morning service: "Christ, the true Light, enlightening and sanctifying every person who comes into the world!" That is, in the light of Christ's truth, or the Gospel truth, any facet of the human soul and any flaw is highlighted. The person himself sees himself smooth, without roughness, but only as long as he is out of this light. And as soon as a person rises into this light, he immediately begins to understand that there are many facets of sin in him, and all of him is one big mistake. The Christian life begins not with the recognition that God exists, but with the experience of an urgent need for God. As soon as a person sees himself as one big mistake, he rushes with all his might to the One who can correct this mistake, to the Savior. A Christian is born when he realizes that apart from Christ, no one will pull him out of the swamp in which he finds himself. Moreover, he realizes that a little bit more, and without God, he will plunge into this swamp with his head and no longer come out.

We, priests, confessors are sometimes reproached for the fact that we say little about simple things, somehow we complicate everything very much. Here is one simple, but very important truth - without reading the Gospel it is impossible to become a Christian. Constant reading of the Gospel necessarily changes the nature of a particular person, even after a long time. A person ceases to love sin, he begins to hate sin.

Reading the Gospel, regular Confession and Communion make a person courageous, help him not to be afraid of his own mistakes. And so the fear of possible mistakes... It will no longer be scary to approach a priest, and this is also a problem for many, a person will not be scared that he will do something wrong, he will say. He read the Gospel and realized that he was dying, and he needed to be saved, and he would only be worried about this one thought. And since this is very important for him, he will approach both the priest and the bishop. And he will come up until he knows what he needs to do to be saved. Because priests, spiritual mentors are needed for this, in order to facilitate a person's path of churching, to lead him along this path.

- And what are the most common difficulties and mistakes on the path of churching?

The biggest problem for those who find themselves inside the Church and have adopted Christianity for themselves as their worldview, as a way of life is the need to reject themselves. Saint Ignatius Brianchaninov in his "Ascetic Experiments" said this very clearly. A person became so close to sin in everyday life that he stopped noticing it, sin became a part of his life. And having come to the Church, a person understands that sin hinders his happiness, his closeness to God, and one can reject sin only by rejecting oneself. The Lord in the Gospel says: "Whoever wants to follow Me, deny yourself, and take up your cross and follow Me" (Matthew 16:24). The main difficulty is to understand that our main enemy is ourselves, our soul, poisoned by sin. That is, a person is his own enemy. And while this thought is pronounced like some kind of reasoning over a cup of coffee with friends, it is very easily accepted. You can talk about this topic, and say a smart word. And in the church, a person understands that according to this rule he has to live on, otherwise life in the Church will simply not work out. And when it turns out that you need to declare yourself the enemy, then the person is seized with horror. In the light of the Gospel, in the light of Christian truths, he begins to see how much of what he loved very much, to which he was accustomed, needs to be turned off from his life. This problem, which looks very abstract, can be broken down into more specific difficulties.

When asked about difficulties, they named similar problems - laziness, pride, and a desire to teach others. Laziness on this list is the most easily eradicated flaw. With laziness, a person can fight by his own efforts, by an effort of will. By forcing yourself to some kind of work, laziness can be defeated. And the respondents acknowledge their partial victory.

A person cannot cope with pride on his own. The source of humility for us is God. The very fact of the Incarnation is an act of humility, Christianity began with humility, with the union of the divine and human nature in Christ, God himself became man. And there is only one way to fight with pride - to fall to God as often as possible. One can fall to God in church sacraments, primarily in the sacrament of the Sacrament. And the person who deliberately, consciously often takes communion not immediately, but not after some time, begins to feel the sweetness of humility in himself, when in some situation he can retreat from some person, from himself and give in his life the ability to act for God. He can listen to an impartial statement from another person and not answer anything to it and even agree with what was said.

But pride is the wound inflicted by Adam and Eve human nature and which will never be healed. If a person can get rid of laziness, then he will not get rid of pride until his death. Even the saints, until their last breath, carefully watched themselves and were afraid to fall from pride. Only death, as a solution from the struggle with pride, is deliverance for the righteous. The Apostle Paul says that death is a gain for him (Phil. 1:21). The acquisition of a new life entirely in Christ, where there is no longer any struggle.

The desire to teach others about which Olga said stems precisely from pride. But as a problem, a person perceives such an aspiration only in the Church. If we look at how people live in the world, without looking back at Christ, we will see that they are constantly sometimes jokingly and sometimes seriously lecturing others. This is often justified by situations, circumstances, but more often such teachings are conditioned by the desire to be the first and most respected person among some group of friends, acquaintances, and work colleagues.

And in the Church, unfortunately, a person does not always cope with this problem, and continues to live according to the laws that operate in the world. But in the Church they hurt both this person and those around him, and they hurt the Church itself. Because, having entered the Church, a person becomes a part of her body.

- One of the participants in our survey says that a person, becoming a Christian, can, as it were, squeeze himself into some kind of scheme and live according to it, thinking that he really is. And only after some time to see that he played too much, that he lives more with some kind of dream about himself. And then you have to return to your real self. Here's how to notice in time that we may be playing the Christian life rather than living it seriously?

Yes, you can probably play with Christianity and think of yourself that you are a Christian, but in fact this is some kind of dream or dream about yourself. And when a person wakes up, he realizes that nothing has happened to him in the real world. But in discussing this problem, we will be forced to repeat what we have already said. Spiritual life according to Christian laws and rules is regulated by the Gospel. A person who lives in a Christian way must constantly return himself to the real world, checking to what extent his mode of action corresponds to living according to the Gospel. The only way to avoid the described mistake is to wake yourself up all the time, to be sober. And the gospel should be that prick that will keep you from falling asleep. With its help, you can prevent dreams of yourself.

The second way to avoid this mistake is to have a spiritual mentor who, sometimes in very unpleasant ways, essentially the same pricks, but will return a person to the real world. If a person is dreaming about himself, then the confessor may say some words that can be painful for a person and lead to bewilderment, but he will wake up and look at himself with different eyes. When we read the ancient patericons, fathers, legends about the ascetics, we learn that earlier the mentors, raising their spiritual children, dealt with them rather coolly. So they accustomed a person to constantly being in a state of wakefulness in relation to himself.

But even if a person does not have a mentor, and he is not inclined to take the Gospel in his hands every day and delve into it, the Lord will still not leave. But only he teaches already through some life circumstances that force a person to act in a given situation in a Christian way, to do in life right choice... For example, it might be the need to take care of someone. It often happens in priestly practice, a young girl comes to confession, she tries to investigate her soul, reads something, she has a feeling that she has made progress in her spiritual life, asks deep questions... But if this continues for a long time, and a person lives without caring about anyone, there is a danger that he will fall asleep in such a state and will live a really dream about some of himself, which in fact does not exist. But this girl is getting married, and her confession immediately becomes simple and short, without theological and ascetic details. And at first she is horrified, because before she went into some depths of her soul, and now she does not have time for anything. But the priest looks at her and rejoices, because now she is awake and has become real.

- Thank you for this conversation. I hope that we will definitely continue it.