Family - small church of the Apostle Paul. Family - small church

Bishop Alexander (Mileant)

Family - small church

IN the expression “family is a small church” came to us from early centuries Christianity. The Apostle Paul in his epistles mentions Christians especially close to him, the spouses Aquila and Priscilla, and greets them and “Their home church” (Rom. 16:4).

There is an area in Orthodox theology about which little is said, but the significance of this area and the difficulties associated with it are very great. This is the area family life. Family life, like monasticism, is also Christian work, also “the path to salvation of the soul,” but it is not easy to find teachers on this path.

Family life is blessed in a number of ways church sacraments and prayers. In the Trebnik, a liturgical book that everyone uses Orthodox priest In addition to the order of the sacraments of marriage and baptism, there are special prayers over a mother who has just given birth and her baby, a prayer for naming a newborn, a prayer before the beginning of the child’s education, an order for the consecration of a house and a special prayer for housewarming, the sacrament of unction of the sick and prayers over the dying. There is, therefore, the Church's concern for almost all the main moments of family life, but most of these prayers are now read very rarely. In the writings of the saints and fathers of the Church it is given great importance Christian family life. But it is difficult to find in them direct, specific advice and instructions applicable to family life and raising children in our time.

I was very struck by the story from the life of one ancient desert saint, who fervently prayed to God that the Lord would show him true holiness, a true righteous man. He had a vision, and he heard a voice telling him to go to such and such a city, to such and such a street, to such and such a house, and there he would see real holiness. The hermit joyfully set off on his journey and, having reached the indicated place, found two washerwomen living there, the wives of two brothers. The hermit began to ask the women how they were saved. The wives were very surprised and said that they lived simply, amicably, in love, did not quarrel, prayed to God, worked... And this was a lesson to the hermit.

“Eldership”, as the spiritual leadership of people in the world, in family life, has become a part of our church life. Despite any difficulties, thousands of people were and are drawn to such elders and elders, both with their usual everyday concerns and with their grief.

There were and are preachers who can speak especially clearly about spiritual needs modern families. One of these was the late Bishop Sergius of Prague in exile, and after the war - Bishop of Kazan. "In what spiritual meaning family life? - said Vladyka Sergius. In non-family life, a person lives on his outer side - not on his inner side. In family life, every day you have to react to what is happening in the family, and this forces a person, as it were, to expose himself. Family is an environment that forces you not to hide your feelings inside. Both good and bad come out. This gives us the daily development of moral sense. The very environment of the family is, as it were, saving us. Every victory over sin within oneself gives joy, strengthens strength, weakens evil...” These are wise words. I think that raising a Christian family these days is more difficult than ever. Destructive forces act on the family from all sides, and their influence is especially strong on spiritual life children. The task of spiritually “nurturing” the family with advice, love, directions, attention, sympathy and understanding of modern needs is the most important task of church work in our time. Helping the Christian family truly become a “small church” is as great a task as the creation of monasticism was in its time.

A new conversation with Schema-Archimandrite Iliy (Nozdrin), aired on the Soyuz TV channel, is dedicated to the family.

Nun Agrippina: Good afternoon, dear TV viewers, we continue our conversations with Schema-Archimandrite Eli about life, about eternity, about the soul. The topic of today's conversation is family.

– Father, the family is called “Little Church”. In your opinion, is there a contradiction between public and family education these days?

In the first centuries of Christianity, the family was a small church in its entirety. This is clearly visible in the life of St. Basil the Great, his brother Gregory of Nyssa, sister Macrina - they are all saints. Both father Vasily and mother Emilia are saints... Gregory of Nyssa, brother of Basil the Great, mentions that their family held services and prayers to the 40 martyrs of Sebaste.

Ancient writings also mention the prayer “Quiet Light” - during the service, during its reading, light was brought. This was done in secret because the pagan world was persecuting Christians. But when the candle was brought in, “Quiet Light” symbolized the joy and light that Christ gave to the whole world. This service was performed in the secret circle of the family. Therefore, we can say that the family in those centuries was literally a small church: when they live peacefully, amicably, prayerfully, evening and morning prayers accomplish together.

– Father, the main task of a family is raising a child, raising children. How to teach a child to distinguish between good and evil?

– This is not all given at once, but is developed gradually. Firstly, moral and religious feelings are initially embedded in the human soul. But here, of course, parental education also plays a role, when a person is protected from bad deeds so that bad things do not take root and are not absorbed by the growing child. If he did something shameful or unpleasant, his parents find words that can reveal to him the true nature of the offense. The vice must be eliminated immediately so that it does not take root.

The most necessary thing is to raise children according to God's laws. Instill in them the fear of God. After all, before a person could not allow some dirty tricks, dirty words in front of people, in front of his parents! Now everything is different.

- Tell me, father, howRightconduct Orthodox holidays?

– First of all, a person goes to worship on a holiday and confesses his sins in confession. We are all called to attend the liturgy, to receive the holy gifts of the sacrament of the Eucharist. As N.V. once wrote. Gogol, a man who has attended the liturgy, recharges himself, restores lost strength, and becomes a little different spiritually. Therefore, a holiday is not only when the body feels good. A holiday is when the heart is happy. The main thing in the holiday is that a person gains peace, joy, and grace from God.

– Father, the holy fathers say that fasting and prayer are like two wings. How should a Christian fast?

– The Lord himself fasted for 40 days while he was in the Judean desert. Fasting is nothing more than our appeal to humility, to patience, which a person initially lost through intemperance and disobedience. But the severity of fasting is not unconditional for everyone: fasting is for those who can withstand it. After all, it helps us in acquiring patience and should not harm a person. Most fasters say that fasting has only strengthened them, physically and spiritually.

– Airtime is coming to an end. Father, I would like to hear your wishes to TV viewers.

– We must value ourselves. For what? So that we can learn to appreciate others, so that we don’t suddenly inadvertently offend our neighbor, don’t offend him, don’t offend him, or spoil his mood. For example, when an ill-mannered, selfish person gets drunk, not only does he not take into account his needs, he ruins the peace in the family and brings grief to his relatives. And if he thought about his own good, it would be good for those around him.

We, as an Orthodox people, are endowed with great happiness - faith is open to us. For ten centuries Russia has believed. We have been given the treasure of our Christian faith, which shows us the true path of life. In Christ, man acquires a solid stone and unshakable foundations for his salvation. Our Orthodox faith contains everything that is necessary for the future eternal life. The immutable truth is that the transition to another world is inevitable and that the continuation of life awaits us. And this makes us Orthodox happy.

Living by faith is the key to a normal lifestyle both for our family and for all the people around us. By believing, we acquire the main guarantee for moral actions, the main incentive for work. This is our happiness - the acquisition of eternal life, which the Lord himself indicated to those who followed Him.

The expression “family is a small church” has come to us from the early centuries of Christianity. Even the Apostle Paul in his epistles mentions Christians especially close to him, the spouses Aquila and Priscilla, and greets them “and their home church.” When talking about the Church, we use words and concepts related to family life: we call the church “mother,” the priest “father,” “father,” and we call ourselves “spiritual children” of our confessor. What is so similar between the concepts of Church and family?

The Church is a union, the unity of people in God. The Church, by its very existence, affirms: "God is with us!". As the Evangelist Matthew narrates, Jesus Christ said: “...where two or three are gathered in My name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20). Bishops and priests are not representatives of God, not His deputies, but witnesses of God’s participation in our lives. And it is important to understand the Christian family as a “small church”, i.e. the unity of several people who love each other, bonded by a living faith in God. Parental responsibility is in many ways similar to responsibility church clergy: parents are also called upon to become, first and foremost, “witnesses,” i.e. examples of Christian life and faith. It is impossible to talk about Christian upbringing of children in a family if the life of a “small church” is not carried out in it.

Is such an understanding of family life possible in our time? After all, the modern social order and the dominant line of thought often seem incompatible with the Christian understanding of life and the role of the family in it. Nowadays, most often both father and mother work. Children with early age spend almost the entire day in a nursery or kindergarten. Then school starts. Family members meet only in the evening, tired, hurried, having spent the whole day as if in different worlds, being exposed different influences and impressions. And at home, household chores await - shopping, laundry, kitchen, cleaning, sewing. In addition, in every family there are illnesses, accidents, and difficulties associated with cramped apartments, lack of funds... Yes, family life today is a real feat!

Another difficulty is the conflict between the worldview of the Christian family and social ideology. At school, among friends, on the street, in books, newspapers, at meetings, in movies, in radio and television programs, ideas that are alien and even hostile to the Christian understanding of life pour in and flood the souls of our children. It is very difficult to resist this flow.

However, even in the family itself, you rarely see complete mutual understanding between parents. There is often no general agreement, no common understanding of life and the purpose of raising children. How can we talk about the family as a “small church”? Is this possible in our turbulent times?

To answer these questions, it is worth trying to think about the meaning of what the “Church” is. Church has never meant prosperity. In its history, the Church has always experienced troubles, temptations, falls, persecution, and divisions. The Church has never been a gathering of only virtuous people. Even the twelve apostles closest to Christ were not sinless ascetics, not to mention the traitor Judas! The Apostle Peter, in a moment of fear, denied his Teacher, saying that he did not know Him. The other apostles argued among themselves about which of them was first, but Thomas did not believe that Jesus had risen. But it was these apostles who founded the Church of Christ on earth. The Savior chose them not for virtue, intelligence or education, but for their willingness to give up everything, to give up everything in order to follow Him. And the grace of the Holy Spirit filled their shortcomings.

Family even in the most hard times- this is a “small church” if at least a spark of desire for good, for truth, for peace and love remains in it, in other words, for God; if it has at least one witness of the faith, its confessor. There have been cases in the history of the Church when only one saint defended the truth Christian teaching. And in family life there are periods when only one remains a witness and confessor of the faith and Christian attitude to life.

The times are gone when one could hope that church life and the traditions of folk life could instill faith and piety in children. It is not within our power to recreate the general church way of life. But it is now that parents have the responsibility to educate their children personally, independent faith. If the child himself, with his soul and his mind, to the extent of his childhood development, believes, knows and understands what he believes in, only in this case will he be able to resist the temptations of the world.

In our time, it is important not only to introduce children to the basics of Christian life - talk about gospel events, explain prayers, take them to church - but also to develop religious consciousness in children. Children growing up in an anti-religious world must know what religion is, what it means to be a believer, a churchgoer, they must learn live like a Christian!

Of course, we cannot force our children into some kind of heroic conflicts with environment. We need to understand the difficulties they face and sympathize with them when, out of necessity, they have to hide their beliefs. But at the same time, we are called upon to develop in children an understanding of the main thing that needs to be held on to and what to firmly believe in. It is important to help the child understand: it is not necessary to talk about good - you have to be kind! You may not talk about Christ in school, but it is important to try to learn as much as possible about Him. The most important thing for children is to gain a sense of the reality of God and understand what the Christian faith covers personality and human life in integrity.

Today, a serious problem is the question of what a Christian family and marriage is. Now this concept is quite difficult to comprehend in parish life. I see so many young people who are disoriented in what they want to see in their family. In their heads there are a lot of cliches of relationships between a boy and a girl, which they focus on.

It is very difficult for modern young people to find each other and start a family. Everyone looks at each other from a distorted angle: some have gained their knowledge from Domostroy, others from the television program Dom-2. And everyone, in their own way, tries to live up to what they read or see, while abandoning their own experience. The young people who make up the parish very often look around them to find a mate who might suit their ideas of family; How not to make a mistake - after all, an Orthodox family should be exactly like that. This is a very big psychological problem.

The second thing that adds a degree to this psychological problem: separation of concepts - what is the nature of the family, and what is its meaning and purpose. I recently read in a sermon that the purpose of a Christian family is procreation. But this is wrong and, unfortunately, has become an undiscussed cliche. After all, the Muslim, Buddhist, and any other family have the same goal. Procreation is the nature of the family, but not the goal. It is laid by God in the relationship between husband and wife. When the Lord created Eve, He said that it was not good for man to be alone. And I didn’t mean just childbearing.

First declaration of love

In the Bible we see Christian image love and marriage.

Here we meet the first declaration of love: Adam says to Eve: bone of my bones and flesh of flesh. Think about how wonderful this sounds.

In the wedding rite itself, it first speaks of helping each other, and then only the perception of the human race: “Holy God, who created man from the dust, and from his rib formed a wife, and combined with him an assistant suitable for him, for it was so pleasing to Your Majesty, so that man may not be alone on earth.” And therefore having many children is not the goal either. If a family is given the following task: it is imperative to reproduce and reproduce, then a distortion of marriage may occur. Families are not rubber, people are not endless, everyone has their own resource. It is impossible to set such a colossal task for the Church to solve the demographic issues of the state. The Church has other tasks.

Any ideology that is introduced into the family, into the Church, is terribly destructive. She always narrows it down to some sectarian ideas.

Family – small Church

Helping a family become a small Church is our main task.

And in modern world the word about the family as a small Church should sound loudly. The purpose of marriage is the embodiment of Christian love. This is a place where a person is truly and completely present. And he realizes himself as a Christian in his sacrificial attitude to each other. The fifth chapter of the Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Ephesians, which is read at the Wedding, contains the image of the Christian family that we focus on.

U o. Vladimir Vorobyov has a wonderful idea: the family has its beginning on earth and has its eternal continuation in the Kingdom of Heaven. This is what a family is created for. So that two, having become a single being, transfer this unity to eternity. Both the small Church and the Heavenly Church became one.

Family is an expression of the anthropologically inherent churchliness in a person. In it the fulfillment of the Church, implanted by God in man, is realized. Overcoming, building oneself in the image and likeness of God is a very serious spiritual ascetic path. We need to talk a lot and seriously about this with our parish, with young men and women, with each other.

And reducing the family to stereotypes must be destroyed. And I believe that the large family- This is good. But everyone can do it. And it should not be carried out either by spiritual leadership or by any council decisions. Procreation is exclusively the fulfillment of Love. Children, marital relationships are what fill the family with love and replenish it as a kind of impoverishment.

Marriage is a relationship of love and freedom.

When we talk about intimate relationships in a family, many difficult issues arise. The monastic charter by which our Church lives does not imply discussion on this topic. Nevertheless, this question exists, and we cannot escape it.

The implementation of marital relations is a matter of personal and internal freedom of each spouse.

It would be strange, because the spouses take communion during the Wedding Rite, to deprive them of their wedding night. And some priests even say that spouses should not receive communion on this day, because they have a wedding night ahead of them. But what about those spouses who pray to conceive a child: so that he is conceived with God’s blessing, should they also not receive communion? Why is the question raised about the acceptance of the Holy Mysteries of Christ - God Incarnate - into our human nature with a certain impurity in the relationship consecrated by the Wedding? After all, it is written: the bed is not bad? When the Lord visited the wedding in Canna of Galilee, He, on the contrary, added wine.

Here the question of consciousness arises, which reduces all relationships to some kind of animal relationship.

The marriage is celebrated and is considered undefiled! The same John Chrysostom, who said that monasticism is higher than marriage, also says that spouses remain chaste even after they rise from the marital bed. But this is only if their marriage is honest, if they take care of it.

Therefore, marital relations are relations of human love and freedom. But it also happens, and other priests can confirm this, that any excessive asceticism can be the cause of marital quarrels and even the breakdown of a marriage.

Love in marriage

People marry not because they are animals, but because they love each other. But not much has been said about love in marriage throughout the history of Christianity. Even in fiction The problem of love in marriage was first raised only in the 19th century. And it was never discussed in any theological treatises. Even in seminary textbooks it is not said anywhere that people who create a family must love each other.

Love is the basis for creating a family. Every parish priest should be concerned about this. So that people who are going to get married set themselves the goal of truly loving, preserving and multiplying, making it that Royal Love that leads a person to Salvation. There can be nothing else in marriage. This is not just a household structure, where the woman is the reproductive element, and the man earns his bread and has a little free time to have fun. Although now this is exactly what happens most often.

The Church must protect marriage

And only the Church is now still able to say how to create and maintain a family. There are a lot of enterprises that make it possible to enter into and dissolve marriages, and they talk about it.

Previously, the Church was indeed the body that took upon itself the responsibility of a legal marriage and at the same time carried out the church blessing. And now the concept of legal marriage is becoming more and more blurred. Ultimately, legal marriage will be diluted to the last limit. Many people do not understand how a legal marriage differs from a civil marriage. Some priests also confuse these concepts. People do not understand the meaning of marriage in government institutions and they say that they would rather get married in order to stand before God, but in the registry office - what? In general, they can be understood. If they love each other, then they do not need a certificate, some kind of formal certificate of love.

On the other hand, the Church has the right to enter into only those marriages that are concluded in the registry office, and here a strange thing happens. As a result, some priests say strange words: “You sign, live a little, a year. If you don’t get divorced, then come get married.” Lord have mercy! What if they get divorced because there was no marriage? That is, such marriages do not seem to be considered, as if they did not exist, and those that the Church has married are for life...

It is impossible to live with such a consciousness. If we accept such a consciousness, then any church marriage will also fall apart, because there are reasons for the dissolution of a church marriage. If you treat state marriage in this way, that it is such a “bad marriage,” then the number of divorces will only increase. A married and an unmarried marriage have the same nature, the consequences of divorce are the same everywhere. When the strange idea is allowed that one can live before the wedding, then what will our marriage itself be like? What then do we mean by indissolubility, by “two - one flesh”? What God has joined together, man does not separate. After all, God unites people not only through the Church. People who meet each other on earth - truly, deeply - they are still fulfilling the God-given nature of marriage.

Only outside the Church they do not receive that grace-filled power that transforms their love. Marriage receives the power of grace not only because it is married in the Church by a priest, but also because people take communion together and live together the same church life.

Many people do not see the essence of marriage behind the wedding ceremony. Marriage is a union that was created by God in heaven. This is the mystery of paradise, heavenly life, the mystery of human nature itself.

Here there is a huge confusion and psychological obstacles for people who are looking for a groom or a bride in Orthodox youth clubs, because as long as there is an Orthodox with an Orthodox, and there is no other way.

Preparing for marriage

The Church needs to prepare for marriage those people who do not come from within the church community. Those who could now come to the Church through marriage. Now a huge number of unchurched people want a real family, a real marriage. And they know that the registry office will not give anything, that the truth is given in the Church.

And here they are told: get a certificate, pay, come on Sunday at 12. The choir is for a separate fee, the chandelier is for a separate fee.

Before getting married, people must go through a serious preparation period– and prepare for at least several months. This should be absolutely clear. It would be good to make a decision at the Synodal level: since the Church is responsible for the indissolubility of marriage, it allows it only between those who regularly came to the Temple for six months, confessed and received communion, and listened to the priest’s conversations.

At the same time, civil registration in this sense recedes into the background, because when modern conditions it makes it possible to secure some property rights. But the Church is not responsible for this. She must comply with very clear conditions on the basis of which such a Sacrament is performed.

Otherwise, of course, these problems with debunked marriages will only grow.

Answers on questions

When a person understands that he is personally responsible for every thought, every word, for every action, then the person begins to real life

– What are you doing in your parish to restore the value of marriage?

Marriage is a value of the Church itself. The task of a priest is to help a person acquire these values. Young people today are often disoriented about what marriage is all about.

When a person begins to live church life and partake of the Sacraments, everything immediately falls into place. Christ and we are next to Him. Then everything will be correct, there are no special tricks, there shouldn’t be any. When people try to invent some special techniques, it becomes very dangerous.

– What solutions exist to solve this problem? What advice do you have for young people?

– First of all, take your time and calm down. Trust God. After all, most often people do not know how to do this.

Free yourself from cliches and ideas that everything can be done somehow in special ways, the so-called recipes for happiness. They exist in the minds of many Orthodox parishioners. Allegedly, in order to become such and such, you need to do this and that - go to the elder, for example, read forty akathists or take communion forty times in a row.

You need to understand that there are no recipes for happiness. There is personal responsibility for one's own own life, and this is the most important thing. When a person understands that he is personally responsible for his every word, for his every step, for his action, then, it seems to me, a person’s real life will begin.

And give up the unnecessary: ​​external, far-fetched, what replaces inner world person. The modern Christian church world now strongly gravitates towards frozen forms of piety, without comprehending their usefulness and fruitfulness. It focuses only on the form itself, and not on how correct and effective it is for a person’s spiritual life. And it is perceived only as a certain model of relationships.

And the Church is a living organism. Any model is good only insofar as it is. There are only some direction vectors, and a person has to go himself. And you shouldn’t rely on an external form that will supposedly lead you to salvation.

Half

– Does every person have their own half?

– The Lord created man in this way, removing a part from him to create the second half. It was the Divine act that made man incomplete without union with another. Accordingly, a person therefore looks for another. And it is fulfilled in the Mystery of Marriage. And this replenishment occurs either in family life or in monasticism.

– Are they born with halves? Or do they become halves after the wedding?

– I don’t think that people are created this way: as if there are two such people who need to find each other. And if they don’t find each other, they will be inferior. It would be strange to think that there is only one and only one who was sent to you by God, and all the others must pass by. I don't think so. Human nature itself is such that it can be transformed, and relationships themselves can also be transformed.

People look for another precisely as a man and a woman, and not at all as two specific individuals who exist in the world. In this sense, a person has quite a lot of choices. Everyone is suitable and unsuitable for each other at the same time. On the one hand, human nature is distorted by sin, and on the other hand, human nature such enormous power that by the grace of God the Lord creates children for himself even from stones.

Sometimes people who grow hard on each other suddenly become so indivisible, unity in God and with each other’s efforts, if desired, with enormous work. And it happens that everything seems to be fine with people, but they don’t want to deal with each other, to save each other. Then the most ideal unity can fall apart.

– Some people are looking for and waiting for some internal signal that this is your person, and only after such a feeling are they ready to accept and stay with the person whom God has placed in front of them.

– It is difficult to fully trust such a feeling, on the one hand. On the other hand, you can’t help but trust him absolutely. This is a Mystery, it will always remain a Mystery for a person: The Mystery of his mental anguish, heartache, his anxiety and his happiness, joy. No one has an answer to this question.

Prepared by Nadezhda Antonova