Archpriest Alexander Glebov

Today, to the question: “Are you a believer?”, most people answer: “God is in my soul and I don’t need intermediaries.” How would you comment on what, in the mass consciousness, is taken away from faith in God?

The question is very relevant. First of all, such a question stems from a misunderstanding by many people of the function of the Church and its purpose. Today the question about the Church is, first of all, a question about church culture, about church holidays, about the saints. More enlightened people can reflect on Christian philosophy and history. But it is extremely rare that the question about the Church concerns the essence of the Church itself. Despite the number of churches and the number of people who consider themselves, at least by the fact of their baptism, to Orthodox faith, the question of what it is and, in fact, why it is needed remains open for many today. Misunderstanding of the Church often leads to criticism of it. People's ideas about the Church are not identical to what the Church actually is. Therefore, before answering your question, it is necessary to say a few words about the ontological nature of the Church and its purpose. The Lord founded the Church with one sole purpose - to continue the work for which God came into this world, became a man, suffered, died and was resurrected: the work of saving people! After all, that’s what we call the God-man Jesus Christ – Savior. The theological term "salvation" is very different from what we call salvation in our Everyday life. When we use the word “salvation”, we mean delivering a person from some kind of danger. For example, doctors saved a patient, that is, they saved his life, cured him, and so on. This is clear to everyone, but the Holy Scriptures and, following it, Christian theology speak about salvation in a different way.

Salvation is God’s granting of eternal life to man. This is his salvation from the limitations, pain and decay of this world. God is the creator of life, not death. Death entered human life as a result of the wrong path chosen by man. This wrong path, which man took due to the freedom given by God, led him to falling away from God, and therefore to falling away from life, because God is life and God is the source of life. Everything that lives does not live autonomously, but because of its participation in God. If this connection is broken, then life ends. This false path, which led man to fall away from God and from life, which brought death into human life as the cessation of life, is called the word “sin.” By the way, in Greek the word sin itself literally means “missing the target, error, miss.” In order to save man from this state of mortality, God himself becomes Man. He, without ceasing to be God, takes upon himself the fullness human nature and, like every person, He dies, crosses this line of death, beyond which, as God, He performs a new act of creation. Creates for people new world- a world that is not distorted by sin, which means a world in which there is no place for death, where life reigns. This is the kingdom of life, that is, the Kingdom of God, because God is life. The Lord defined this world, this reality as the goal of human existence, the goal human life. He defined it as the highest value, moreover, as a value much more significant than our human life itself. This seems strange to us. Indeed, what could be more valuable and more important than our life? And the Lord says: “No, there is.” There is a sphere of existence for which in some cases one should abandon even this life. Remember, the Lord says: “Whoever wants to save his soul (that is, life) will lose it, but whoever loses his life for the sake of Me and the Gospel will find it” or “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” “,” “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul,” and so on. Such quotes can be continued for a long time. The Lord founded the Church as a means, as a way to help a person find this eternal salvation. All other functions of the Church are not primary. Functions such as: social service, calls for moral improvement, education. All this can be duplicated by secular institutions, but the Lord delegated the function of saving people only to His Church and to no one else. In the Church, God gives a person something that is impossible to get anywhere else. IN church sacraments The Lord gives man Himself: His Flesh and His Blood. He unites people with Himself, introduces them to Himself and leads them through the gates of death to eternity. Man is mortal. Man by himself cannot overcome death. Christ overcame death, He rose again. And He leads man to eternity when man becomes a partaker of Him, when he becomes a cell of His resurrected and glorified Body. Communion does not take place on the street or at home, it takes place in church, and those people are mistaken who say that they have their own, special relationship with God and they don’t need anyone else and they don’t need the Church. In this arrogance of theirs, they reject salvation, they reject the gift of eternal life, which the Lord extends to man in the Eucharistic cup.

You said the goal Christian life- salvation that we receive only by passing through death. Death opens the door to eternal life, so it turns out that a Christian should strive for death in his life?

The Lord, and after Him the Church, call not to death, but to life. A person does not inherit eternal salvation when he physically dies. Physically dying and gaining eternal salvation are not the same thing. Physical death may be followed by spiritual death, or perhaps eternal life. A person is born into eternity not when he dies, but when he lives here on earth. There is an episode in the Gospel of John when Christ talks with a member of the Sanhedrin, Nicodemus, and tells him that “to enter the Kingdom of God one must be born again.” Nicodemus, perplexed, says: “How is it possible that a person, already old, can again find himself in his mother’s womb and then be born again?” He took Christ's words literally. This “birth from above” or birth from water and the Spirit is what we today call the Sacrament of Baptism, which again takes place in the Church. This is not a repeated act of physical birth and is not birth human soul, but in the Sacrament of Baptism a person receives a different dimension of his life. He receives into himself, while living here on earth, the firstfruits of eternity, the firstfruits of that world, the firstfruits of the Kingdom of God, which he will have to cultivate throughout his life. Therefore, it is more correct to talk about physical death as a new stage of human life, and not as about the birth of a person into eternity. A person is born into eternity or a person rejects eternity here on earth, and death is already a certain result of his life choice. As the Apostle Paul wrote: “Whatever a man sows, this will he also reap: whoever sows to his flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but whoever sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.”

>In the Sacraments of the Church, man is given the gift of grace. What is the contribution of the person himself?

One thing is required from a person in the matter of salvation - faith. An explanation should be given here, because in our country the very concept of faith has undergone a certain inflation. A person who recognizes the existence of God calls himself a believer. If we limit the concept of faith to only this characteristic, then we will have to recognize the devil as the most believing creature in the world, because he, unlike people, never doubted the existence of God. The concept of Christian faith is much deeper. A believer is a person who has unlimited trust in God. Trusting that everything that God sends in his life is aimed at his ultimate good, aimed at his salvation. It is this aspect of our faith that is most in doubt, because God does not send us bouquets of roses. God sends a cross to his followers, and sometimes this cross is very heavy. It is impossible to accept pain, suffering, trials as God’s mercy, as His love, as His care, as something leading to something greater. This is impossible neither by the power of the human mind, nor by human logic, nor by our ideas about justice or compassion. This is possible only by faith, only by boundless trust in God, that God, through His providence, thus leads a person to eternal salvation. Faith is also a gift, faith is a test, faith is a struggle. Sometimes people who profess to believe simply don't know what they're talking about. At best, they mean that, unlike atheists, they recognize the existence in the world higher power, which is called God, but this is where all their faith ends.

Father Alexander, what do you think people expect from the Church today?

People expect from the Church the same thing that His contemporaries expected from Christ: help and miracles. If you remember gospel story, then the people followed Christ when Christ somehow participated in their lives and helped them. For example, he performed the miracle of multiplying the loaves, fed five thousand people, and the next day this crowd wants to proclaim Him king. He raised Lazarus - the next day the enthusiastic people met Him in Jerusalem as the Messiah. But when He began to say that He came into this world not to solve some of their problems, but to give them eternal salvation, and that He was not going to be a king, because His Kingdom was not of this world, He immediately became of no interest to anyone and He was sent to the Cross. The same thing happens with the Church. If a person feels some kind of help from the Church, some kind of benefit, then he agrees to believe, go to church, and follow some church instructions. And if, apart from the promise of eternal salvation, he does not have any tangible help, then he simply does not see any point in it. Over the years of my ministry, I constantly communicate with people who come to church and ask what needs to be done to solve some of their problems. Problems related to health, personal life, professional life and many others. They ask who should pray to whom to light candles, but I have never met a person who would come to church and ask: “What needs to be done to gain eternal life? It turns out to be a paradox: people come to the Church and try to solve something that the Church does not solve, and the only question for which they need to come to the Church and for which the Lord founded the Church, the question of eternal salvation, remains the most unclaimed.

Spiritual and educational television project “The Word”
Presenter: Marina Lobanova

One often hears bewilderment and protest against the rules that an unchurched person encounters when he comes to Church. These people want to prove (primarily to themselves) that they don’t have to go to church, and they find a lot of reasons and arguments for this. This attitude towards the Church is caused by the fact that many do not understand its nature, the meaning of its existence. Unfortunately, the Church is often identified with secular institutions: schools, universities, hospitals.

And, based on this understanding, then, of course, these people are right. Indeed, education can be obtained at home, on your own or using the services of tutors. Treat various diseases You can also do it at home, by yourself or by inviting doctors to your home. During the war, complex operations were sometimes performed in field hospitals almost in the open air.

Why can’t you pray at home? Is it really necessary to go to church?

In order to answer the question posed, you need to figure out why a person comes to church. If you just pray, light a candle, venerate the icons, then you don’t have to go to church for this. Candles and lamps can be lit at home, there are also icons at home.

Then why do people go to the temple? When, I repeat, there is no genuine understanding of the nature of the Church, then “winged,” but deeply erroneous in meaning, cliches are born: “God must be in the soul,” “I believe in God, but without fanaticism,” and the like.

Let's try to understand the reasons for the “fanaticism” of believers, the issues of “dress code” and much more. Let's start with something simple, namely the so-called “dress code”.

The fact that the Bible supposedly says nothing about appearance is false. Quite a lot has been written, the format of a short note simply does not allow the possibility of citing all quotes from Holy Scripture, but read at least the messages of the first disciples of Christ - the holy apostles, and you will find in them quite a lot of words about what the appearance of a person entering the temple should be.

Of course, what is written can always be understood in different ways and, in order not to fall into controversy, let's honestly answer the question: will we go to the wedding feast in shorts or a tracksuit? What about an appointment with management? To the president, for example. I sincerely cannot understand why a person entering the Church does not want to understand that he is entering the house of God, on a visit to God?

People ask: “What about love, which should forgive everything?” Absolutely correct question! If I came to the anniversary of a loved one in dirty work clothes or in a half-naked state, then isn’t this a manifestation of dislike and extreme disdain for the hero of the day and his guests?

Take my word for it, if you enter the temple in indecent clothes, then you distract the people standing in the temple from prayer.

It is not at all easy to enter a prayerful state, but you can “knock” one out of it in an instant with your appearance, and the overly strong smell of perfume - and many other things.

And where then is the love for the people standing in the temple? Or should they tolerate my understanding of freedom? A strange situation is developing: we are calm about the fact that a dress code is introduced in secular institutions: at school, theater, even in a restaurant - but in the Church, it turns out, there are no restrictions on appearance there shouldn't be.

Why do people come to Church?

A non-believer who denies the existence of God need not read further. But for someone who was baptized himself and brought his children to Baptism, who is trying to communicate with his Creator, everything that is said below is the most important thing to understand.

Let's go back to basics. Man, God’s highest creation, is created in a special way compared to the rest of the material world. God revives man with His breath, which man assimilates and therefore can accumulate.

The acquisition (accumulation) of the grace of the Holy Spirit for the purpose of one’s deification is the main objective human life. And man was created hierarchically: spirit - soul - body.

As you can see, the main thing was the spirit, which allowed to primordial man to be in direct connection with God. After the Fall, human nature is distorted: the body comes first, which crushes the soul and fetters the spirit. All! The gracious connection with God is severed. And thousands of years pass while humanity is in battle with its mutilated nature, when carnal pleasures become supreme goal, gives birth to the Virgin, who was able to contain the Creator of the Universe within Herself.

God descends to earth, enlightening humanity with new spiritual teachings. The law of retribution “an eye for an eye” is replaced by the commandment to love one’s neighbor. But in order for the soul to have the strength to love, Christ leaves us the Sacraments, and the most important of them is the Sacrament of the Eucharist (Communion).

If our mutilated nature has made its flesh the main thing ( heat or a bad tooth will not allow us to pray with concentration, or solve a problem, or listen to music), then the grace of God comes to us through matter. The Upper Room of Zion, the Last Supper, the Lord blesses the bread and speaks secret words to His disciples: “This is My body, which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” He blesses the Cup and says: “This is My Blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.”

The word "covenant" means agreement. Agreement with God: You are for me, I am for you. I partake of Your Body and Blood, You give me Your grace, healing my nature.

As St. Gregory the Theologian wrote: “God becomes man so that man becomes god.”

In other words, the grace of God (in secular language, Divine energy) is given to man only in the Sacraments of the Church, which occur only in the temple. And the Church is not a mediator, but a bridge that connects a person with Christ.

The grace of God nourishes, cleanses and transforms the human soul. That is why he goes to Church, even if there is sorrow, injustice or rudeness in it. Yes, unfortunately, this happens.

How to treat priests who do not always behave highly spiritually?

There are bribe takers among university teachers and doctors, but does this make us stop recognizing science and medicine? If the director educational institution- drunkard, does this give us a reason to deny the role of education and not send our children to school?

Yes, there is a lot of disorder among the clergy - this can be judged by the moral state of society. Since it is in such a deplorable state, then first of all we, the priests, are responsible for this before God! And no one has freed us from this responsibility and will not free us, regardless of the form of secular power.

Without at all justifying our spiritual state and low spiritual level, I just want to explain its reasons. During the years of godless power, our ancestors destroyed more than 50 thousand churches and shot and tortured tens of thousands of priests and deeply religious people. Let’s not judge them for this, we have no right!

It is still far from clear how each of us would have behaved in those difficult years when the authorities publicly promised to put an end to “religious obscurantism.” But spiritual science (learning to correctly love God, neighbor, and oneself) is very complex. Very! It is extremely difficult to study it on your own. Yes, actually, I’ll give a simple example. Let's send 30 thousand of the best surgeons out of the country and see how the rest will diagnose and operate on patients.

Young sincere priests come, and a sea of ​​​​the most complex spiritual problems of the modern fallen world falls upon them, but there are no teachers! And the problems begin...

Christ warned us about the last times in simple, clear words: “And because iniquities abound, the love of many will grow cold.” Love, first of all, for the Creator, for it turns out that completely insignificant reasons prevent a person from coming to church, to visit God.

However, as it is written in the Bible, “peace is given.” “A slave is not a pilgrim,” our ancestors said. No one can force a person to love God, his neighbor and himself, or to follow the law that Christ left us.

Modern man himself decides how to correctly interpret and apply spiritual laws in his life, forgetting, however, that if “God must...”, then He is not the Almighty, but a subordinate.

The Creator owes nothing to anyone - this is a now forgotten theological axiom. But God does not take away our freedom, leaving us the right to reject His gifts. Otherwise, a person will turn into a biorobot, which is unacceptable with the Divine understanding of love.

Why is it important to observe laws in spiritual life?

In the Sacrament of Baptism, a person (and for infants, godparents) is asked three times: “Are you compatible with Christ?” And three times a person makes a vow to God: “I will marry.” In other words, I will unite with Christ. To warm your hands, you need to touch the warmth; to deify your soul, you need to touch God in the Sacrament of Communion. New Testament between God and his creation is concluded in the Upper Room of Zion with the words: “Come, eat...”

Why do you need to go to church? Why attend church meetings?

QUESTION FROM JULIA
Today there are many people who consider themselves believers, but do not belong to any Christian church... And if they do belong, they only visit it occasionally. How does the Bible evaluate such a life position?

The question is interesting and important. Let's start by understanding what the church is and who established it?

In the Bible, the word Church does not mean a building, as some believers believe today. In the Bible the word church is represented Greek word ecclesia. It means a national gathering, gathering, meeting of summoned, invited people. In other words, these are people who general population stood out and united for some common goal. The concept of church is close in meaning to the Jewish concept of synagogue. In Hebrew, synagogue means a place of meeting. And church in Greek, in which the New Testament was written, means a gathering of people. That is, the meaning is close. It is worth noting that the ancient translation Old Testament The Hebrew to Greek Bible, called the Septuagint, also uses the word church - eklessia. The church in the Bible in the Septuagint translation is the congregation of the Israelites - the people of God.

The New Testament of the Bible clearly states that Jesus established His church - that is, His congregation, a society of people who, having believed in Him as the Son of God - Lord and Savior, would leave the world and other religions and enter His congregation. Jesus stated:

“I will build MY Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”(Matt. 16:18)

And so it happened - Jesus created His society, congregation. The followers of Jesus, who at first numbered only a few dozen people, created a church - a congregation of believers in Jesus Christ. Neither Satan nor those in power could destroy the Christian Church. Now Christianity is the largest religion in the world.

Why do you think Jesus started the church? He didn’t have to do this - let all those who believe in Him live separately without uniting in any societies or organizations. But no, Jesus Christ created the church and said that the gates of hell will not prevail against it. That is, Satan will not destroy His church no matter how hard he tries. Of course, Jesus did not create the church by accident, but for a very important purpose. And this purpose was well explained by His apostles.

The Apostle Paul compared the church to a body, where Jesus is the head, and all Christians are members of the body, where everyone plays their role for the full functioning of the body - the organism.

“God arranged the members, each in [the composition of] the body, as He pleased... so that there would be no division in the body, but all the members would equally care for each other. … And you are the body of Christ, and individually members” (1 Cor. 12:18-27)

Paul explained that just like the human body, each member of Christ's body, that is, Christ's church, has its own purposes and purposes. And even the most insignificant people, like the unseemly members of the body, play an important and necessary role in the life of the body.

Therefore, a reasonable question arises: if Jesus Himself established the church, then why today do people who believe in Christ - Christians - often not go to church?

There are many reasons for this. And this question is very broad. Previously, before the advent of Darwin's theory, when the world was religious, believers could not imagine life without going to church. Society even condemned those who did not go to church. Now, when the world is dominated by a materialistic atheistic idea of ​​the creation of the world, that is, Darwinian thinking, visiting church has become purely voluntary. Now only ardent believers and those who really want to receive something from God go to church.

The rest of the believers do not go to church at all. And the reasons are different. Someone is disappointed because he sees something he doesn't like in the church nearby. And he is afraid to go to other churches, since in our society today there is a widespread stereotype that there are many sects around. People are afraid to look for another church. There are actually dangerous sects, but they are few. And the rest of the churches are not sects - they are basically global Christian churches with tens of millions of members. Today it is not difficult to read on the Internet about such widespread Christian churches as Adventists, Baptists, Pentecostals, Lutherans, Methodists, etc. These Christian churches are found in almost all countries and in almost every locality a world where Christianity is not prohibited... And of course these are real churches, and they have nothing in common with sects. You can read more about this in the material specifically dedicated to

There is no need to be afraid to look for another church, but rather to seek the truth. The Apostle Paul teaches on the pages of the Bible:

“Test everything, hold on to the good”(1 Thess. 5:21).

There are also people who don’t even try to go to church. But they say that they believe in God... There are many such people today. And probably even the majority. Going or not going to church is often an external reflection inner world man and his spiritual aspirations. Many people think. I believe in God and that's enough. God is in my soul. They came up with a god that suits them, that suits them. Which corresponds to their concept of justice. As the song from the movie “Sandpit Generals” says, “You always pray to your gods, and your gods forgive you everything.”

The god they invented forgives them everything. Of course it's convenient.

And vice versa, it is uncomfortable when they show you that you are wrong, that this is not right, that you need to live differently. These believers understand that they have some obligations waiting for them in the church, so they don’t even try to go to church. After all, if a person comes to any church, they are faced with certain rules. Mostly in Christian churches, such as ours, these rules are based on the teachings of the Bible. And in some Christian churches other rules are added to them.

Naturally, people often do not want to change their lives. And even if they don’t really like it, it’s still familiar to them. Therefore, it is more comfortable for them to live in harmony with the god they have invented. I hope you understand that just because a person has hidden himself from not knowing God’s standards of morality and the rules of life set forth in the Bible, this does not mean that they will disappear. An illustration with an ostrich fits here. When he sees danger, he buries his head in the sand. But even though the ostrich now does not see the danger, this does not make the danger itself disappear.

So the true God has not changed, because someone imagines Him differently. And God’s criteria of morality and rules of life in relation to man have not changed either, even if a person turns a blind eye to them. God, according to the Bible, is always the same, and His moral law has not changed, and His will in relation to man is also the same.

There are also people who went to church but stopped attending for some reason. This is often related to what we talked about earlier. A man began to study the Bible and saw that in his church they acted, as it seemed to him, differently from what was written in the Holy Scriptures. Then someone completely stops going to church, and someone looks for another church.

There are also cases when a person stops going to church because he is offended by the minister or by brothers and sisters in the community.

It is not right. It is necessary to separate the church and God. Yes, God established the church, but then people go their own way. That's why we see many churches. We are all sinful people... Therefore, both church members and their ministers make mistakes. God gave freedom to people, we see this right away in Eden. God did not want us to be slaves or robots... But just because someone in the church does not behave the way we want, this does not mean that we should stop going to church. After all, we go to church, not for people, not for show, but to GROW in God.

This is how we come to an important question. Why go to church?

Visiting church is necessary first of all for the person himself. Therefore, I would like to immediately note that there is no point in formally going to church. If you come to church and just stand or sit there, without listening to anything, without delving into the teachings of the Bible, into the law of God, then this is a formal faith. Then, whether you go to church or not, there won’t be much difference. Such a formal belief is close to superstition. Like, I go to church, because they say it helps, maybe it will help me too, or just in case... In this case, the person does not want to change, realize his sinfulness and repent of the bad deeds he has done... With a formal approach, the person’s soul is actually does not connect. He wants to receive a reward for simply performing some actions - rituals. So I came to your church - God grant me a reward! But God needs our heart, not formal attendance at worship services. The psalmist David says from the pages of the Bible:

“A sacrifice to God is a broken spirit; You will not despise a broken and humble heart (you will not leave it unnoticed), O God” (Ps. 50:19)

Therefore, when talking about visiting church, you need to immediately understand that we are talking about full participation in the meeting. Let us remember what a church is – a meeting of believers. The Bible lists what was done in the first Christian meetings, that is, in Christian churches in apostolic times:

1. This is the study of the Word of God - the Holy Scriptures. The Apostle Paul wrote:

“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.”(2 Tim. 3:16)

This Bible study can be in the form of Bible lessons or in the form of a sermon.

2. Glorifying God by singing psalms, hymns, reciting poems...

“Let us therefore...offer to God a sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of lips that glorify His name.”(Heb. 13:15)

3. Communication with brothers and sisters, as well as helping them if necessary. You also receive moral and even material help from brothers and sisters in the church.

“Do not forget also to do good and be sociable, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.”(Heb. 13:16)

4. And the fourth is the communion of the symbols of the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ who died for us.

“(Jesus) took the bread and, having given thanks, broke it and gave it to them, saying: This is My body, which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me. Likewise the cup after supper, saying, “This cup [is] the New Testament in My blood, which is shed for you.”(Luke 22:19,20)

The Lord wanted believers to REMEMBER the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made for us. And therefore, sipping a grape drink - a symbol of the blood of Jesus, we seem to come into contact with this sacrifice, mentally transported to the time when the Savior suffered for us on the cross. And by breaking and eating bread, we seem to commune with the body of Jesus, experiencing how His body suffered when the guards mocked Him all day long - so that Jesus Himself could no longer go to execution, but all the time fell under the burden of the cross. How Christ hung for 6 hours nailed to the cross!

By remembering Jesus' suffering for us, we better understand the love of God. And these rituals help us not to forget this love. It is no secret that our life, which is filled with various worldly experiences related to family, work, study, housing, etc., takes over our entire mind and we sometimes forget God. The way He loves us, cares for us. And confirmation of this is the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. The celestial being - the Son of God - descended from heaven to earth, became a mortal man in order to accept martyrdom for our sins... This is regularly reminded in the church.

5. And fifth is group prayer. Jesus said directly that group prayer has special power.

“Truly I also tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven, for where two or three are gathered in My name, there am I in the midst of them.”(Matt. 18:19,20)

Of course, this does not mean that prayer alone with God is not necessary. Jesus taught that you need to close yourself in a room alone with God to pray. But God also showed the value of the congregation—that is, the value of the church. If people gather and ask for something common, something important for everyone, then such a common prayer of the meeting will have a special blessing.

It was not for nothing that I noted that only in the church together can we effectively bring the Gospel to the world, although some believers claim that they do not know how to speak beautifully, and accordingly, they believe that they can help the church in little way.

This is fundamentally wrong! Every person can serve God. And a true believer should have such a desire. Look how the psalmist wrote:

“What shall I render to the Lord for all His good deeds to me?”(Ps. 116:3)

Every Christian can participate in the overall main mission of the church. What is the main mission of Christians? Talk about Christ, bring people to God, thereby saving other people. Each person has a role to play in this ministry. Let us remember that the church is the body of Christ. Each member of the body has its own tasks and functions. Some may not know how to speak beautifully, but they know how to cook well and can serve in a church canteen or in a missionary kitchen, telling people through their work how good the Lord is. And if he doesn’t seem to know how to do anything, then he can serve by helping to tidy up the church, so that people see cleanliness and tidiness in the house of worship, understanding that God is a God of order and He has the same children. Agree, there would be fewer parishioners if there was a pile of garbage on the church grounds or there was an unwashed, dirty floor in the building. Non-believers who came to such a church for the first time would think: what kind of God is this, that He has such sloppy followers... And they would not come to the church again. As you can see, any service is important in the activities of the church. Each member of the body of Christ is important in its place. And everyone can find this place where they will benefit Christ and His church.

In addition, it is not necessary to speak beautifully. Sometimes in church we hear what miracles God has done in the lives of believers. And in our lives, God also works miracles and we share them in church. And then we can tell our non-believing relatives or friends about our miracle or about a miracle we heard in church. And this will be a story about the love of God. Some of the non-believers or weak believers may become interested and also begin to seek the Lord. So, being able to speak beautiful sermons is not necessary to bring the message about our loving God.

So, going to church is really important both for the person himself and for other people, and of course, you need to attend services regularly.

Valery Tatarkin

Alexandra, St. Petersburg

Why is the Church needed?

Good afternoon. I want to ask this question: why do people need the Church? Only because of the Sacraments? After all, you can always pray at home. They quoted me a quote (sorry, I don’t remember verbatim): “Where there are two people, there I am.” As I understand it, it is implied that it is in the church that the a large number of believers, which means God is present there. But isn't He constantly present in everything around us? And if so, then why is the Church needed as a separate place?

Hello! " Where two or three are gathered in My Name, there I am among them!"(Matthew 18.19-20). Most likely, you were given this quote? Most likely, you are also familiar with the quote from the treatise of St. Cyprian of Carthage “On the unity of the Church”: “ One who does not have the Church as his mother cannot call God his Father.». « The Church is the manifestation of the Kingdom of God on Earth.” “Christ is the head of the body of the Church"(see Eph.5.23; Col.1.18).

I don’t know how or whether it’s worth convincing you that “there is no salvation outside the Church!” Most likely, you already have the conviction that “earthly” organizations are not needed by God. The “Being of the Highest Order” itself personal communication can reveal the necessary... For a reasoned answer to your question, more than one life is needed. Faith in God, in His Grace and the fact that He desires our salvation is truly a matter of Faith!

I can only briefly say that the Church is the heir to the Christian Tradition. That is, what was transmitted by Christ to his disciples is preserved among the spiritual descendants of the disciples of those disciples. According to apostolic succession, the grace of ordination has been transmitted to this day. This Grace, which opens the Path to Salvation, thanksgiving services, the Eucharist itself, the forms and essence of its celebration, came to Rus' under the blessed Prince Vladimir and has been preserved to this day.
The composition of the Holy Scriptures has been adopted Ecumenical Councils- this is also the Tradition of the Church. Without knowing how the words of Christ were understood by his disciples and the people whom He taught, to whom He addressed, without turning to their interpretations, trying to understand everything in our own way, now, in the 21st century, we will get a completely different “religion” - even the meaning of many words has changed beyond recognition. The words “God is Love” now, in today’s perception, can mean anything, but in the original it means Purity and Crystalliness (1 John 4.7-21).

It’s probably hard to take it on faith without feeling it, but the Church is the unity of people with God in the Spirit. You can and should pray to Him at home and “in every place of His Dominion,” and the Sacraments you casually mentioned are the doors that allow us to enter the House of God, having received His Gifts, allow us to touch His Manifestations here. The Sacrament of Baptism, as an opportunity to be born again (John 3.3); the sacrament of the Eucharist, as His Presence here, the opportunity for us to become partakers of Him, inheriting the Kingdom of God (read the description of the Last Supper by the evangelists and the Apostle Paul in the letter to the Corinthians and the words of Christ in Chapter 6 of the Gospel of John).

Having lost the Church and the need to communicate with her, a person risks being left alone with a “God” invented by himself, perhaps cozy, or perhaps evil, but his own, hardly related to the Creator whom the Holy Church professes in the Symbol Faiths:

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, visible to all and invisible. And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Only Begotten, Who was born of the Father before all ages. Light from Light, true God from true God, born, not created, consubstantial with the Father, by Him all things were. For our sake, man, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and became incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary became human. Crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, suffering and buried. And he rose again on the third day according to the scriptures. And ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father. And again the coming one will be judged with glory by the living and the dead, but His kingdom has no end. And in the Holy Spirit, the true and life-giving Lord, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified, who spoke the prophets. And into one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I confess one Baptism for the remission of sins. I hope for the resurrection of the dead. And the life of the next century. Amen.

In my opinion, today’s spiritual life is very similar to an impassable swamp: a lot of enticing lights, with an invigorating thought: “What, I can’t find the way myself!?” Perhaps you will find, or maybe take advantage of the road paved for us by the apostles and many generations of people who tried to save their souls and inherit the Kingdom of Heaven? Maybe it makes sense to find a spiritual mentor located in the Church and Tradition? The choice is yours! God help you in your reasoning!

Archpriest Valerian Krechetov

God in the soul is the main thing. God must be in a person's soul. But, alas, in my soul for the most part It is not God, but many other things: our passions, our unkindness, envy, and so on.

If a person has God in his soul, this means that he has fully fulfilled the commandment “thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind” (Luke 10:27).
Regarding the common expression that “the main thing is that God is in the soul,” one can also say that for the fullness of life, one main thing is not enough, everything else must be there. In the body, for example, the main thing is the head and torso. The hand is not the main thing, but without a hand it is not very convenient. And without arms, without legs, a person lives, or rather, exists. Therefore, when the soul and church life are divided into what is important and what is not important, the fullness of spiritual life disappears.

Also, when they say that the Church is a relic, the question arises, how do people even know about faith? Who keeps the knowledge about faith, from whom do we know about faith and about God, even in the soul? The Church preserves and transmits this knowledge. The Church contains all the treasures of spiritual life. Therefore, when they say that you can believe without the Church, what you get is superstition, when a person feels something, but cannot figure out what exactly. I'm not even talking about the fact that there can be no spiritual life without the grace of God; in order to gain God in the soul, one must strive very hard for this, put in a lot of work, and church life and the sacraments help in this matter.

The Lord left behind the Church in the person of the apostles, the priesthood, the Holy Scriptures, and the sacraments. If the Lord left all this, then all this is necessary. One young man once told his grandmother: “What difference does it make what I eat, it doesn’t matter whether I fast or not.” She answers him: “The Lord himself fasted, but you say, ‘it doesn’t matter’.” As I later realized, a more convincing argument was not required.

In every field there is continuity, experience, and knowledge. In any field, a person does not become self-taught. Whether he wants to become a carpenter or a stove maker, he uses the experience of others. In the spiritual field, people sometimes believe that they can discard all accumulated experience and comprehend everything from scratch themselves. This, by the way, also applies to sectarians who do not completely, but partially reject spiritual experience, in particular the holy fathers, and put themselves in their place.

IN modern world There is some kind of belief that we are now the smartest, and previous generations were backward and narrow-minded. The reason for this phenomenon is simple to the point of primitiveness. There is an expression - they will call you a pig, you will grunt. This has been going on since people began to be taught, and are still actively taught in schools, that they originated from a monkey and were not created by God (For more on this, see “ The evolution of man from ape, more precisely: how it never happened" - approx. ed.). This monkey hypothesis is directed against honoring elders and against recognizing the experience of older generations, they say, they were stupid, underdeveloped.

In fact, everything was the other way around, and St. Nicholas Velimirovich speaks about this beautifully: “The first people did not know much, but understood everything, then they began to know more, but understand less, and the latter will, perhaps, know a lot, but not anything.” understand". Aristotle said the same thing in his time: “A lot of knowledge does not presuppose the presence of a mind.”

– There is a widespread belief that after death a person's fate will be determined not by what religions he professed or did not profess, but by how decent a person he was in life, i.e. the balance of his good and evil deeds, despite the fact that an unbeliever can also be a good person.

Here we must not confuse two things: faith is one thing, and life is somewhat different. Among those who recognize God and dogmas, i.e. There are enough believers who, to varying degrees, act as faith teaches: some do things by faith, others do not. The apostles have this expression: “even the demons believe and tremble” (James 2:19). A person can believe, but not act on faith. This is present in every religion. Therefore it is said that in every nation he who does righteousness is acceptable to God. And about how the Lord will judge, I think Elder Silouan said: the one who believed, confessed and lived by faith will receive a reward, and the one who simply did not know, but tried to live according to his conscience, may be pardoned , but will not receive that glory.

But this is God’s judgment, not our mind’s business. We only firmly believe that there can be no injustice with God.

– For many, the obstacle to churching is that real life Orthodox Christians strongly diverge from the ideals that we profess. And accusing priests of having foreign cars has already become the talk of the town among the majority of the population who are far from the Church. Many people are confused by expensive Cell phones priests or communication with " strongmen of the world this." What can we say here?

Suppose you came to the hospital and were cursed at. So what, you won't go to the hospital anymore? Medicine is not to blame.

Let's take, for example, security agencies public order. You will fall into the clutches of some of them - they will put the drug in your pocket and wash yourself off, pay the money or go to jail. This does not mean that such structures are not needed at all. This is how life has become. This didn’t happen before, well, people were different, there were different people everywhere, not only in the Church, and now embarrassing behavior is a kind of sign and result of life in our time.

In the examples given, attention is drawn not to the essence, but to people. Getting personal is a sign of a weak position. Yes, they often say: “But so-and-so...”. So what follows from this? Next to the Son of God Himself was Judas, who saw everything, but fell away from Christ. So, now we should look up to him, or what?

– It is difficult for many to enter the life of the Church, not for rational reasons, but because of an inexplicable and strong rejection of everything churchly, as they said in Soviet times, “cultic”. Let me give you an example. The granddaughter invites the 80-year-old grandmother to go to confession, and in response she begins to scream and almost cry, which is completely out of character for her. At the same time, she cannot explain her strange reaction. What explains this and can it be overcome?

– There is an invisible world that has a very real effect on every person, and then the person himself really cannot explain the reason for his hostility. How, for example, can you explain that a person is out of sorts? This is the impact evil spirits. About it Venerable Seraphim said: “Are you in the spirit?” Or inspiration, what is it? Where does this rise come from? Pushkin said:
“When the Divine verb touches the sensitive ear,
The poet’s soul will perk up like an awakened eagle.”

– Non-believers will probably explain this rise biological processes in organism?

- The fact is that nervous system and spirituality are different, just like the mind and the brain. The brain is an instrument of the mind, just as the nervous system is an instrument influenced by the spirit.

Tell me, is it possible to fight the mood?

– It’s possible, although it’s hard... So you mean that if you can overcome this condition by willpower, then it is not in the category of physical, since, for example, pain cannot be extinguished by willpower?

- Absolutely right. Moreover, this condition is treatable. By prayer.

There is a theater called “the theater of one actor,” and our world is a theater of one prompter. This prompter is the devil. People only listen to him and give out his remarks and actions, considering them their own.

- Father, how can you explain that people who are far from the Church, even if they admit the existence of God, who supposedly is in their souls, completely deny the existence of Satan - so that it is even seriously impossible to talk about it.

– One of the holy fathers wrote that the most important achievement of the devil is to make people think that he does not exist. He pushes people, but they don't see it, like a dog that chews on a stick and not on the hand that holds it. The person often speaks like a puppet. He says, for example: “I didn’t say that.” There is part of the truth in this in the sense that a thought came to him, he immediately gave it away, it was not his thought. They say that an idea came to me. And if it comes, then from somewhere, it cannot come from nowhere. In a state of irritation, a thought flies in and out immediately. This third-party influence also manifests itself very clearly during prayer.
Chance is the pseudonym under which God acts in the world

– Some people believe that faith is some kind of superstition. What is the difference between faith and superstition?

– They say that first there was paganism in Russia, and then Christianity. An absolutely correct statement, but only with the caveat that we not only had paganism before. It still exists. For example, having a glass of vodka at a wake is pure primitive paganism. Or worry about the cat crossing the road and believe in such signs. There is true faith, and there is superstition.

Superstition differs from true faith in that superstition is an attempt by fallen human reason to comprehend the providence of God. These attempts occur because a person, without realizing it, understands that everything in the world does not just happen, everything is not by chance. Pascal once said: “Chance is the pseudonym under which God acts in the world.” The Gospel says on this occasion that even a hair will not fall from the head without the will of God. The awareness that everything in the world is connected and that there are certain warnings, without understanding their source, leads to superstitions.

But there really are warnings. Just yesterday I heard a story about how during the war one man heard a voice: “Get out of here.” Then he says to his comrade: “Let’s leave here.” He refuses, the first one leaves and a shell immediately falls in this place. Here is an example of how a person listened to the voice of a guardian angel. And the one who recognizes the guardian angel is trying to understand what is happening in outside world.

Sometimes animals see angels. Classic example The Bible gives when Balaam was riding on a donkey... “And the donkey saw the Angel of the Lord standing on the road with a drawn sword in his hand, and the donkey turned off the road and went into the field; and Balaam began to beat the donkey in order to return it to the road... And the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the Angel of the Lord standing on the road with a naked sword in his hand, and he bowed down and fell on his face. And the Angel of the Lord said to him: Why have you beaten your donkey these three times? I came out to hinder [you], because [your] way is not right before Me; and the donkey, when she saw Me, turned away from Me three times already; if she had not turned away from Me, I would have killed you and left her alive” (Num. Ch. 22).

The basis of spiritual things is the spiritual mind, and the spiritual mind embraces everything, while the worldly mind embraces only the visible, therefore it is like the surface of an iceberg. For many, the underwater part of the iceberg simply does not exist. In earthly life we ​​can only see external events, but their reasons lie deeper, and through some fragments people try to understand these relationships, which sometimes leads to superstitions.

– Isn’t overcoming life’s obstacles then resistance to the guardian angel?

– The most important thing is to try to find out the will of God. There are two types of obstacles: either the Lord takes you away, or the enemy interferes. To determine God's will, you need spiritual experience, time. So one priest once wanted to cast lots in order to determine whether to act this way or that according to God’s will. And then I thought that maybe God has a third option, in addition to the two that he offers Him.

Interviewed by Natalya Smirnova

Father Valerian Krechetov was born into the family of Archpriest. Mikhail Krechetov, who suffered persecution for his faith and went through camps in the city of Kem and Solovki. For almost forty years, having been an example of zeal and fortitude for the clergy and laity, he bears the difficult cross of sacrificial pastoral service. He has a number of church awards. Author of many articles and sermons. The head of a large large family.

One of the sons of Fr. Valerian - priest Tikhon Krechetov serves at the Martha and Mary Convent of Mercy (Bolshaya Ordynka St., 34), where we invite everyone.

O. Tikhon is ready to talk with you or accept confession every Sunday after the evening service, from 18.00