Archimandrite Savva Mazuko antimodernism. Archimandrite Savva (Mazuko): I am saddened by the nonsense that is passed off as Orthodox spiritual life

Archimandrite Savva (Mazhuko), a resident of the St. Nicholas Monastery in the city of Gomel, is a remarkable Belarusian writer. He speaks equally freely about religion, politics and culture, about our life, not imposing, but arguing his opinion. He does not give ready-made answers, but invites for reflection, reminds the reader of the main thing: the Savior loves us, loves all people and personally - you! The work of Father Savva leads the reader to the realization of the most important thing in the understanding of the world: God is life, life is the greatest gift of God to us, life is always beautiful.

The deep, clear, very optimistic and heartfelt prose of Archimandrite Sava is a rarity for modern Orthodox literature. “As an experienced speaker, he knows when to tell a life story and when to quote Holy Bible and say important words. The well-read and wise (with a sense of humor and measure) Father Savva wants to learn how to relate to life correctly ”(“ Literary Russia ”).

"Read a book in the morning from a quarter of an hour before work, and then think that you have read all day."

Venerable Ambrose of Optina

The old people were not afraid of pain. They did not look for her, but if they had to experience something, endure, endure, they walked calmly, with dignity. We weren't hiding. And before death they were not shy. They spoke of her without fear.

“Don't bury me deeply. As the Lord will call, so that I get up from the grave, dust myself off and go to the Court.

So one old woman used to say. From a remote Belarusian village. And my grandmother repeated the Gomel proverb:

- To die is a day to lose.

Why fear death? We will all die. So many good people have already died that it is not a sin for us to go to the grave.

Comfort and safety have changed us. The threshold of pain and sensitivity of a modern person greatly distinguishes us from our even our closest ancestors, and there is nothing wrong with that, I myself admire the miracle of hot water every morning and thank God for the light and warmth. But we are different. Having protected ourselves and secured our lives, in some ways we have become more vulnerable, and sometimes defenseless. The fact of mortality - ours and our loved ones - we now endure much harder and more painful than our great-grandfathers.

In the old days, a person was taught from childhood to the idea that he would have to bury his parents. And young people knew that they would not only have to experience the loss of their parents, but that they would bury them and do it beautifully and correctly. And there was also the wonderful word "watch", and the dignity of children was judged by how they comfort their dying loved ones, how they calm their dying old age. Think: they have been preparing for this since childhood. They were not afraid to frighten or shock children. How did you cook? They talked about death calmly, as about something natural, without softening its tragedy, did not lie to themselves and their children, did not hide from it. The old people gathered for themselves to die, prepared shirts and scarves - what would they put in the coffin, they were not afraid to receive communion often, were not afraid to write wills and - they cried, of course, they cried - how could it be without it? Who wants to die? So many things to do! So much work! But this cry was correct, it was allowed into a special ritual, a rite - grief was released, dressing up in funeral customs and traditions.

Preparing Jesus for Burial. 1894. Art. Nikolay Koshelev

And not only parents were prepared for death from their youth. Husband and wife - most likely someone will go to God earlier, and already during the wedding, people learned to be separated. Unknowingly, our ancestors taught their children one of the most graceful spiritual exercises. The late Seneca, the mentor of dying, advised his disciples: "We need to constantly think about the fact that we are mortal and those we love" ( Letters, 63.15). Thinking constantly. Stay in the memory of a mortal. Not to let vanity and cowardice hide the tragedy of the world from us. But Seneca is not just talking about the memory of the mortal in general, about the detached contemplation of the cosmic law. This contemplation is concrete. The philosopher called for a change in the very focus of "mortal contemplation." Believers are often, sometimes rightly, reproached for selfishness. In contemplation his finality really is something self-centered. But the fact that I die is not yet a great tragedy. Sometimes you wait for death as deliverance, joy. But - the people I love will die. This is really awful. The world is full of pain, misery, disease, but being alive is so good. When Sophocles, through the lips of one of his characters, says "the highest gift is to be unborn" ( Oedipus in Colon, 1225), a cosmic cold permeates the listener and reader, goosebumps run through the skin, a noble metaphysical longing overcomes and paralyzes - how epic, deep, beautiful! And only when you are sober from this antique cold, you begin to understand the lies of these words. Yes, this phrase will suit me, an excessively aesthetic egoist, but would I wish my clear-eyed nephew or cheerful brothers, my mother, my kind and patient friends, would never be born, would it be nice if they never born? Yes, the world is full of pain, grief, loss, but these people are the adornment of mankind, together with them, even this sick world entered both meaning and joy, and through grief we still rejoice that someone glorious was in this world, even just a little bit. But how painful it is to think that one day they will all have to die.

"A person begins by crying for the deceased." This is what the late Merab Mamardashvili said. A person begins not with crying for himself to a deceased or dying person, but with acceptance and excess the death of your loved ones. Good families have introduced this cry since childhood - so that the person in the child wakes up as early as possible, so that through the courageous acceptance of the mortality of his and his loved ones from the first days of his life, he learns to accept, bless this world and - to resist it. All our relatives and friends, beloved and good ones, are people whom we will one day lose. And also - these are people who will lose us.

Why preaching today sounds fake, will a culture of discussion emerge in the Church, why one should not be afraid of passion and enthusiasm and how to use them to get to know oneself - says Archimandrite Savva (Mazuko).

I will listen to your bullshit if you have a gray beard

- Why are we afraid to be ordinary people with normal human manifestations, and are looking for some kind of spiritual meanings in everything?

– It is necessary to treat everything easier. The fact is that our spiritual literature sometimes plays a bad joke with us. After all, these are all texts written by monks and for monks. And the monks of antiquity and the Middle Ages wrote those books that reflected their spiritual exercises: their level and the church, monastic context in which they lived. This is not always suitable not only for laymen, but even for monks of our time, because quite often we even have no idea what kind of spiritual exercises it was.

Here John Climacus writes about humility. We read with delight and rapture, but we bring our own meaning into this concept, maybe even erroneous, incorrect, dangerous. And then the complaints: The Ladder introduced me into depression. The ladder has nothing to do with it. He wrote his book with specific people in mind, his contemporaries - the Sinai monks. It never entered his head that lay people would read his book, especially women with children in their arms, or even secular priests. We do not take into account such obvious things and therefore we torture ourselves.

Archimandrite Savva Mazuko. Photo: Facebook

And here is a huge field of work for modern publicists and theologians: to speak in normal modern Russian language those experiences that constitute the very essence of Christian life. If you like, this is the work of a translator from medieval church to modern language... And in this effort, we ourselves find an adequate language for a conversation on these subtle topics. The modern Christian publicist should allow himself this noble ministry - to create a language of evangelism that is understandable to the contemporary.

What I am writing about is an attempt to show that spiritual things can be spoken in modern language. And I would like to wake up the authors who would also experiment with the language, church the modern language. And there is no need to be afraid of this case.

Speaking of language, I do not mean only literature, spoken or written speech. It is also a sign language, a style of communication, acceptable forms of relationships between Christians, no matter what hierarchical levels they occupy. This search is vitally important for us, because due to the adherence to the old forms, we are losing the eternally young content. We rob ourselves!

How is the sermon preached in an ordinary church? With those words and intonations that normal people do not say: "So let us also follow the feat of the martyrs Galaktion and Epistimia, leave everything and give thanks ..." - we don't talk like that! It sounds very fake today! And if the intonation is false, it means that the content of this speech, no matter how beautiful and truthful it is, will cause rejection in a person with a subtle instinct, because people do not tolerate lies!

Young people are especially sensitive to this. They see a strangely dressed man on the pulpit, who is talking pretentious nonsense. And they don't. And so they perceive the priest - like a cardboard fool.

Unfortunately this is the case. But we stick to these forms, and this very often leads to a kind of "spiritual schizophrenia", when you are here alone and another at home. Or to manipulations associated with the same forms: I will listen to you if you have a long gray beard, no matter what nonsense you may say.

There is a YouTube channel “Raising children. Orthodox view". 50,000 views is something unheard of for a religious program! A barmaley of some sort, ordaining himself, sits in a schematic cap, against the background of icons, and carries such a blizzard that a minute is enough to simply faint. 50,000 views! But he has a “marketable appearance”: a long gray beard, he speaks mysteriously, he is a schema — that is, it is a promoted brand that touches the sensitive heart of the consumer.

I had a case recently. On the street, a woman approached me in the monastery courtyard: "Father, I have a question ..." - and then our father Pavel walks past, and he has a gray beard. And she says, “Oh, I'm sorry! I'll ask my father! " - and immediately switched to "a real priest." Fraudsters and impostors are very clear about the weight of these brand markers, and simply by exploiting these forms, they drive people crazy. And this is wrong.

How we in the Church can stop lying to ourselves and learn to talk about problems

- You begin your book "Orange Saints" with a question about death, why?

- Thinking about death is a spiritual exercise, so it is natural for any believer to practice it regularly. This is fine. And to treat death correctly, and to cultivate the right attitude - this is also normal.

Death must be feared. And there is no need to beat yourself in the chest and say that since Christ is risen, it means that now we are not afraid to die. Fearfully.

I, too, must follow this close path. And Christ with bloody tears prayed that this Chalice would pass by - not only crucifixion, but also death. It's very scary. You need to be prepared for this. But if so many good people have died, it’s not a sin for me.

The fact is that the theme of death is being banished from our modern discourse very intensively. For example, I watch Hollywood movies, and if someone dies in the movie, there will rarely be a coffin in the house. This practically never happens, it is not shown, everyone is constantly hushing up this topic, hiding: “You don’t need to think about it”.

Why is it not necessary? These are absolutely natural things. My mother is a very simple person. She and I once attended the funeral of our great-uncle. We went in: “Oh! Uncle got prettier today! " She went up to the coffin, straightened the pillow, moved her head, the whisk: "Oh, today she looks fresh and cheerful." This is a healthy attitude! She seriously collects flowers dried from the cross into a pillow - it is necessary that there was a death pillow in order to put it in a coffin. This is completely normal.

And these are the patterns that teach us without words. Therefore, it is very useful for a person "spoiled" by higher education to spy on how ordinary people live, who, as experience shows, have more wisdom and courage than we who read Kafka and Hegel. But they have not read anything like that and think that Kafka is a kind of stomach ailment.

- Weren't you afraid to scare off the reader with the theme of death?

– If I scared away, then this is not my reader. I, as I understand it, have my own audience. I do not pretend to be inclusive. There are people who read. Are they interested, is it in tune with them? Wonderful! Now there are a lot of authors, and I am only happy about that. Priests, bishops, laity write; each has its own intonation, its own language, its own theme - and, therefore, its own audience. And we, different authors, need each other. We complement each other.

Archimandrite Savva (Mazuko). Photo: Efim Erichman

I am very glad that many priests are now writing. I remember the time when we knew only Kuraev, Osipov - that was all, but if some priest wrote on a topic, then I no longer need to write on this topic. I am for diversity. We need to have more Christian authors - interesting, lively and different, and to have more discussions.

In the Church we are just getting to the formation of the style of talking about our problems. We have not yet learned how to talk about our problems. This is a new, undiscovered genre. True, we have mastered the "dialect of triumph" well: we have celebrations, we have achievements, holidays, saints and commemorative plaques. This is wonderful and necessary, who can argue? But there are also problems, and only our opponents talk about problems, that is, we allowed them to do what we ourselves do not want to do. We don’t want to, or we don’t know how? But then you shouldn't be offended by your critics.

And the way out is to stop lying to yourself and learn to talk about problems without anathemas and without praise, that is, without extremes - honestly, calmly, openly, with respect for the opponent. We do not know how to do this yet. But we must come to this - this is a matter of survival, because the degree of lies within the church has already reached a critical point.

We lie to ourselves very much - it's dangerous. The church must regain its monopoly on the discussion and solution of its internal problems. It takes courage, creativity and, if you like, political will.

We need to discuss our problems with such honesty and high culture so that our critics have no work left outside, so that their external criticism simply pales and shyly hides in comparison with our discussions.

- What's the time?

– There is a topic that touches me for a living - this is the crisis of monasticism. In the "dialect of triumph" we are accustomed to broadcasting that monasticism is being revived in our country. But after all, there is no rebirth, monasticism is in the most difficult condition. To be completely honest, there is no monasticism, or rather, it barely flickers, barely survives. And something needs to be done with this, otherwise we will simply destroy it - it will disappear completely.

And here there is a practical way out. I once spoke about this at one of our Belarusian monastic conferences, and after that they stopped inviting me. The way out is quite simple, canonical.

Only stauropegic monasteries flourish in our country. It seems to me that there is no need to reinvent the wheel. We know about the order system among Catholics, but this system is not alien to Eastern monasticism either, because in the Orthodox East in the Middle Ages, each monastery was a separate order. Each monastery had its own charter and fasting and divine services, and it lived in the interests of its brotherhood - it did not have to serve the diocese, did not have to forge cadres for the episcopate, collect money for the construction of some churches, that is, the community lived its own life.

But in our time, all monasteries in our country canonically belong to diocesan bishops, and this is precisely what prevents the normal development of monastic communities. Because the bishops are replaced, there is no unity of diocesan politics, and the bishop, being canonically in the legal field, is the ruler of the monastery, that is, he controls the finances and human resources of the community. He says: “Now, there is no one to serve in such and such a parish, father. You will go there to serve. "

The well-being of individual monasteries is based not on the canonical structure, but on the personal qualities, decency of a particular bishop. Now he favors, but he died - another person came to his place and wanted to introduce such a charter in your monastery, or he wanted to replace the abbot, who inspires the entire brotherhood. And nobody can do anything because the bishop is right. He is by definition of rights, on his side both canon law and our internal church morality.

This is just one of the problems. There are problems related to the preparation of the clergy (I speak as a priest), and many, many other things. There are a lot of such questions. These problems are not critical - you can talk about them calmly, there is no need to blame anyone for anything.

After my speech, one of our Belarusian bishops said: “Are you scolding us again, Father Savva?” And accused me of being an enemy of the episcopate. I'm not an enemy. It's just that our church community has developed a habit of dividing the world into black and white. If you criticize, it means that you are an enemy of the Church and an unreliable person. But life is nuanced. Where will this spiritual color blindness lead us?

The most urgent task is church-wide efforts to foster a culture of discussion with respect for the opponent. This culture does not exist yet. We are looking. But we are not going anywhere - we will come to this anyway. Sooner or later, we will have to monopolize our problems. And now they are ransomed from people hostile to the Church.

If suddenly some trouble happened, if there is some indecent, bad episode in our church environment, the Church should be the first to speak about this, and not Nevzorov or other critics. We should be the first to talk about this - to take away their monopoly on our problems. And that takes honesty.

- And yet, despite all these problems, what inspires you in monasticism?

– I'm not sure if I'm inspired. I do not consider my monasticism to be some kind of heroic deed. The day I decided to become a monk (I was about 14 years old, I guess), I just realized that this is the lifestyle that suits me best. That's all. And I still feel comfortable with it.

I like living in a monastery. We have a very peculiar and cheerful community. She is small, but it suits me - I do not want to change anything. I like to live the way I live, and the rhythm of monastic life that we have. I'm just used to it and I don't know if it inspires me. I don't know - I just live and I like it. I take it very simply.

Photo: St. Nicholas Monastery in Gomel / Facebook

Our relationship with God is a fight

- You write a lot and speak a lot with conversations. Are there any topics that you do not like or that you would not like to talk about?

– Breast-feeding. This is what does not inspire me. Once I was asked to write a review on breastfeeding for the Pravmir website. And, of course, I took this opportunity, because for a monk who lived in a monastery for twenty-three years, there must be some way out of his many years of experience in this area.

Of course, I am sometimes saddened by the nonsense that pretends to pretend to be Orthodox spiritual life. This, of course, is sad, but I take it with humor. And about those ... The fact is that I am an irrational person, so I just live right now. More often than not, I go out to the audience, not knowing what I will say. And the moment I see people's faces, something happens, and I say what it says itself; I just let it speak through me. Therefore, topics are unexpected, and I myself am interested to hear what I have to say.

And now my favorite topic is this one, for example, in a day it will be completely different. Everything is changing. I just live and I really like to live. And I usually talk about those things that excite me at the moment. I read a poem by Ezra Pound quite recently - it excited me, does not go out of my head. In a week, maybe some other text or another meeting will excite, or some film.

Yesterday I was talking about the theological meaning of the film "Suicide Squad" with Jared Leto and was surprised myself that I suddenly started talking about this film. And I think: “Oh, this is even interesting. Perhaps we should write it down? "

We must live now, and I allow myself to do it. And when I communicate with people, I just live at this moment - that's all, and I don't set myself any super-task. I do not pretend to anything. I am not some certified theologian, or youth leader, or anyone else. I just live - that's all. For some reason, people decided that they could listen to me - okay, fine. If you get a chocolate bar for that, it's even better.

- What should a monk do if he is an open, sociable person, loves young people, everything modern, alternative? And he, for example, is "knocked on the head" for this - they say, calm down. Do you have such a contradiction?

- We again return to the fact that there is no monk at all, there is no man at all. People are always very unique. They are original: this style suits someone - for someone it will be destructive.

I like being an adult. I am 42 years old now, and every morning I wake up with gratitude: Lord, thank you for being an adult. And you don't need to charm anyone, you don't need to somehow occupy your niche, fight for something, prove something to someone.

I just live and, thank God, have even earned some kind of authority. But up to a certain age I had very difficult situations, because neither our deceased bishop nor our late rector shared my style, and it was very difficult for me, excruciatingly difficult, and this lasted for years. I even wonder how I survived in this situation at all, because I could not do anything with myself.

How many humiliated and denounced me ... Our bishop went out to preach, and everyone looked at each other as usual, because the theme was known: "All-Church struggle with the pride of Father Sava."

I am a proud person, but I have come to terms with it. What can you do about it?

But I understand perfectly why they treated it this way, I have no resentment. I understand them - they were people of the old school, and I am not a gift. But, thank God, everything has passed, and I am grateful to them even for the lessons they gave me.

I say it again, this is the correct attitude - before you can condemn, you need to justify. That is, if people do not understand you, they probably have some reason to think so. But you, too, will one day be 50, 60 years old, and you will puzzle over whether it is possible to understand these young people at all ... I can already afford my own judgment, I can afford to disagree with someone, and this is great. I sincerely do not understand adults who hide their age, or try to somehow become young, or envy children. It's great to be an adult!

Photo: St. Nicholas Monastery in Gomel / Facebook

- And how to divide situations in which you need to defend your opinion, and where, for example, you just need to obey your elder, accept the situation?

– I proceed from the premise that all life is a battle. The learning process is a battle process. You open Hegel - it means that you are challenging him, and, most likely, you will lose; this is normal. The relationship between adults and children is a constant battle. Friendship is a struggle. Love is a battle. And this is completely normal. This is how the world works.

Our relationship with God is a fight, it is no coincidence that one of the deepest plots of the book of Genesis - Jacob, who fought with Someone by the river, Israel-the God-fighter - so touches. But this is not a fight against hatred, but a healthy passion, like children fight or a folder with a son. This is a healthy opportunity to feel your boundaries, to get to know “your shores”.

Therefore, it is only natural for someone to resist your style. It's good! It is good that it resists - you have the opportunity to hone your skill, the opportunity to justify it, love it even more, feel even more that it is mine and not someone else's, because if it is not yours, it will fall off during this discussion, in the process battles, battles. But that's important, that's okay. Treat this with a healthy passion. Now you have been sealed - great! - so alive!

Recently on "Pravmir" they publish my "", and this year it is some unheard-of stream of criticism, which I have not encountered before. I was constantly accused: I am a Jewish Catholic, then I am an ecumenist, then a renovationist, then something else like that, a continuous stream. And at first I was puzzled, and then I even liked it, because it reveals some interesting facets, including introducing me to myself.

Archimandrite Savva (Mazuko). Photo: Mikhail Tereshchenko

- And do they criticize in essence?

- In fact, I rarely come across criticism. It's a pity. I would like to be criticized on the merits, because I myself re-read my texts and see ten complaints at once, or even more, which could be promoted and presented to me, but for some reason no one notices them. Maybe those smart people consider it beneath their dignity to read such texts, but mostly criticize some nonsense, for example: “Well, how does he quote Nietzsche, and not the holy fathers? What is it? Where is his confessor looking? "

- One can tricky question at last? What if you fell in love?

– How is it? It's even useful, I think. I have dedicated a whole book to this, it is called "Love and Emptiness." It was written as a series of essays, united just by an attempt to make sense of such an experience. In general, it is useful to get involved. This is a rewarding experience. Any passion and enthusiasm should please, even if they are dangerous. Passion makes you feel alive and introduces you to yourself.

However, we must not forget that any hobby carries its own threats. Passion is dangerous, like all living things. But without danger, without risk, it is impossible to get to know oneself. Therefore, of course, sane people understand that any addictions, hobbies are fraught with danger. There is no need to look for these risks, no need to provoke passion, but if this happens, do not become discouraged, treat it as a worthy opponent.

But from my own experience, I was convinced that it is good to fall in love. You know yourself better. You part with illusions. If you come out of this battle unbroken, you will become much wiser. There is simply no other way to wisdom.

And we are actually looking for it, wisdom. And especially from monks, from priests this is exactly what is expected - so that at the end of our journey we could present some kind of experience of wisdom.

Young people intuitively seek wisdom from the elderly, and they only hear talk about raising their pensions. Where does wisdom come from if you were sitting quietly in the greenhouse and no hostile whirlwinds fluttered you? This is exactly what John Climacus writes about - that "blessing is the person who, having passed all the pits and swamps, managed to become a real teacher for another."

Archimandrite Savva (Mazuko). Photo: Efim Erichman

- Can a feeling in monasticism be real, or is it unacceptable?

- Goethe, as an old man, fell in love with a young girl. And Tyutchev, the smartest man, diplomat and public figure, ran across the street from his own wife to the schoolgirl. It struck him out of the blue. But, on the other hand, there can be such relationships as N.G. Chernyshevsky with his wife, who cheated on him, and he loved her wholeheartedly and justified until the end of his life. That is, all this is very personal. It happened to you or it didn't happen. I know people who have never fallen in love in their lives.

Love is not a program that you run. She overtook you and sealed you. And you fell in love. These are things that you cannot predict.

Nun Ioanna (Pankova)

Archimandrite Savva (Mazuko) was born and raised in Gomel in a non-church family. However, he came to God after reading a book about Sergius of Radonezh.
In 1995, at the St. Nicholas Monastery at the age of 19, he took monastic vows. In the same year he was ordained deacon and priest, hieromonk). In 2013 he was elevated to the rank of archimandrite.
Educated at the Moscow Theological Academy, the Orthodox St. Tikhon University and the General Church Postgraduate School.
Father Savva is a well-known publicist, theologian and preacher. Regularly writes for the pravmir.ru portal. He is the author of the "Non-Evening Light" program on the Orthodox TV channel "Soyuz". He holds the post of vice-rector for educational and methodological work of biblical and theological courses in the Gomel diocese, and also lectures on the subject "Fundamentals of Christian culture" at the philological faculty of Gomel State University.

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Archimandrite SAVVA (Mazuko): articles (essays)

Archimandrite SAVVA (Mazuko) (born 1976)- theologian, teacher and religious publicist: | | | ...

ECCE HOMO

And when I talk about the saint,
I'm embarrassed for my own voice ...
Al. Kartashev

I never thought that I could fall in love with irises. No, there was no hatred for them. Fiercely and fiercely, I only hated lilies, and there was a reason, but irises were something frivolously excessive, even rustic naive in their appearance, and therefore I did not even spend attention on these stupid flowers, because hatred is also attention.

But - treat your eyesight with pictures! - on the canvas of one terribly famous artist, I saw the same irises and - got excited. Both the color and slenderness of the plants were conveyed with the impeccable clarity of a naturalist, not a single feature was missed or distorted, he did not invent or embellish them - no tricks of artistic dressing, and naivety and redundancy remained in their places, but these were others flowers!

And I understood; no, even before I realized, I somehow deeply experienced that the maestro looked at the irises with different eyes: his gaze was the gaze of a lover. Indeed, as St. Clement wrote, “the cook and the shepherd see the same sheep differently”.


Van Gogh, Vincent Willem. Still life with irises. 1889.

Just think: in order to love flowers, I needed a lesson from a mediator. To love a person, I also need a mediator, because one anxiety has been gnawing at me for a long time: I do not love people.

In fairness, I must say that I have no constancy in this feeling - people are unstable in both love and hate: sometimes I am ready to kiss the whole world with all its vipers and cacti - and in a moment a change: leave me alone, my eyes you have not been seen.

In those times and moments when I hate fiercely or frighteningly indifferent to people, inwardly I realize the whole truth of the words of the Apostle John: a brother who does not love dwells in death (1 John 3:14), and not only realize, but my whole being is pierced by a dying cold , penetrating "to the separation of compounds and brains", killing me.

And this negative experience of dislike gives a clear understanding that the question of love for my neighbor is a matter of principle, a matter of life and death, and not only because the Scripture tells me to love my neighbor. All my Christianity is based on it. But can I call myself a Christian, that is, a disciple of Christ, if I do not have the main property of discipleship?

A simple “qualitative reaction” helps to establish belonging to the class of disciples: by this everyone will know that you are My disciples if you have love for one another (John 13:35). If this does not apply to me, if I have no love for my neighbor, am I a Christian? At best, I'm a sympathetic person. Can anyone call themselves a Christian at all? In other words, can anyone say that they love their neighbor? It is not difficult to love God: He is beautiful and perfect, He Himself is the source of love and everything wonderful and worthy of love, and when meeting Him it is impossible not to be hurt by love for Him with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind (Luke 10:27) ...

It is logical and useful to love God; after all, we owe our lives to Him. But to love your neighbor? How is this possible? We remember Pushkin's

He who lived and thought cannot
In my heart, do not despise people ...

And everyday experience rather confirms what the poet said than refutes. Without touching the audience's favorite themes of betrayal and misunderstanding, I would like to point to a well-known experience that Dostoevsky described vividly and artistically correctly.

Elder Zosima narrates the words of an elderly doctor: “I, he says, love humanity, but I am amazed at myself: the more I love humanity in general, the less I love people in particular, that is, separately, as individuals. In my dreams, I often, he says, came to passionate thoughts about serving humanity and, perhaps, would really go to the cross for people if it were suddenly somehow required, and meanwhile I am not able to live with anyone for two days. one room, as I know from experience. He is a little close to me, and now his personality crushes my pride and constrains my freedom. In one day I can hate even the best person: one because he eats for a long time at dinner, the other because he has a runny nose and constantly blows his nose. I, he says, become an enemy of people, just a little bit they will touch me. But it always happened that the more I hated people in particular, the more ardent my love for humanity in general became. "

Of course, there are people for whom sympathy for us is undoubted, pleasant people, but also more and more at a distance. Time separates us from Shakespeare and Pasternak, space and possibilities from other living geniuses (may their names not be named). We eavesdrop on their subtle and clever conversations through the apertures of letters and memoirs, immerse ourselves in the lace of poetry with our whole being, breathe the air of their paintings and are not ashamed of our truly beautiful love and grateful sadness, surrendering to the tender admiration of the genius through all distances and periods.

But Christian love is a different love. The ideal of this love is so deeply rooted in European culture by the Gospel that it seems to me that the tears and tragedies of love that have gained fame in our literature were largely born from an attempt not only to contemplate the ideal of this love, but to demand its embodiment in life. The Savior brought a hitherto unheard-of truth about selfless love for a person: love a person for his own sake, because that is how God loves him!

Or, to paraphrase the Königsberg elder: treat a person not only as a means, but also as an end. Any attempt to “tame” this ideal, to decompose it rationally into acceptable and practical schemes is a consequence of the usual human adaptation to the truths of the Gospel, which are unbearable and “incompatible” for the world.

But the question is: how much do Christians themselves hold to this ideal? We are not talking about the life of Christians: they love each other or do not even try, the problem is different: are we replacing this lofty ideal of unselfish love with something more understandable and accessible, with the one that bears all the birthmarks of the egoism of salvation and pious lies?

Middle: end or means?

There is an interesting episode in the life of the Monk Pachomius. Pachomius, a handsome and strong young man, was drafted into the army and sent along with other recruits to the duty station.

In one city, where the young soldiers had a stopover, unknown people bring hungry soldiers to eat, and completely free of charge, without demanding anything in return. Pachomius, then a pagan who had not heard anything about Christ, was struck by this attention to completely strangers, and he decided to learn more about Christians, their faith and way of life.

Today everyone knows how this interest ended: Saint Pachomius became the first reformer and organizer monastic life, became famous for miracles and went down in history with the nickname Great.

Another thing is curious, which is what we are talking about: Christians showed love to unknown people, without asking about their faith, about their attitude to the Church, about nationality and social origin. This is amazing and worthy of emulation.

But, moving from a particular case to general points of Christian practice: how disinterested are Christians in their love, in other words, what does it mean to love one's neighbor in the Christian understanding, and this question is not speculative, but is directly related to the life of everyone.

It can even be said that the answer to it actually sets the basic tone in which the whole life of a Christian “sounds” and with which his entire path of salvation is aligned, down to the smallest details. If there is a benefit, even a spiritual one - for example, as one old woman used to say, “earning a penny in the Kingdom of Heaven” - this feat of love still cannot be called disinterested, and if it is not, then there is no place for love in it.

Self-interest, even spiritual and intangible, is present here, and in this case, is it possible to talk about love, sublime and unselfish, when the person on whom you work out the deeds of love is only a means for you, even if for noble purposes - the acquisition of the Holy Spirit, exercises in love - but a means, not an end.

In this case, Christian love for one's neighbor is another version of religious hypocrisy that has been generously spiced with the history of mankind. What were the Christians who were feeding the Egyptian recruits looking for? Trying to create a good impression of the Church? Building your relationship with God? Did you “earn” a “pretty penny” on these soldiers in another world? Fulfilled the incomprehensible, but formidable covenant of their God? We are not in Egypt and do not know these people. Simply, according to the Christian tradition, we use them to solve the soul-saving issue.

I remember an argument with a wonderful old man. When his supply of arguments was exhausted, he said simply and piously: "You are a fool, brother, besides your holy dignity." The ability of Christians to speculatively “stratify” a person into honest from unworthy (see Jer. 15:19) is well known to us as practitioners: I honor the image of God in you and wish for salvation, and even give up my last shirt, but besides the image of God that is in you ... God save you. Let me give you a compliment: in situations like this, we think like Platonists. A man lived for himself, was saved, learned to see and love the image of God in his neighbor, it turned out - a Platonist!

In Plato, interest in man, love for man is a necessary step in the ladder of ascent to the beautiful in itself. The stage has been passed - and nothing remains of the former “preparatory” love, it must be overcome and forgotten, having fulfilled its pedagogical mission. Man is a means, not a goal of philosophical ascent, due to his imperfection and relativity of being, he cannot be an object of love, they only learn to love perfect being, looking for reflections of his perfection in wonderful people. And even being at the level of love for a person, it is not he himself that is loved, but what is in him from the truly beautiful, reflections of the beautiful in itself. As the great Christian Platonist Blessed Augustine said, "One must love one that is worthy of love."

And what is worthy of love? Saint Augustine explains this: “Of all objects in general, only those are worthy of love, which above I called eternal and unchangeable; the rest should only be used as means contributing to the achievement of the said good disposition of the soul ”. And quite directly: “You should not love a person for his own sake,” and if so, “let your neighbor not be angry with you when you love him for God's sake as well”. This means that it is impossible to love a person for his own sake, love should be beneficial, use justifies and justifies love. My brother is just a springboard, a necessary support to grow into the sky. I use my neighbor, my neighbor uses me, we all love each other with benefit, moreover, this is how God loves us: “God does not delight in us, but uses, that is, uses us as a means”.

A person can come to terms with the fact that he does not love anyone. They don't die from this. But to know that no one loves you, that you yourself do not arouse disinterested interest in anyone - that is what can kill. And it will kill more quickly the fact that God Himself is not such disinterested love: He uses me, uses me as a means.

Let us assume that the ideal of disinterested love is born of mankind from melancholy and hopelessness, from an unquenchable thirst to love and be loved, but what kind of God is this that the ideal of love, invented by man, is higher and purer than this God himself? Isn't love an illusion or a useful fiction? If everyone is looking for their own: people for me are only means - to acquire grace, to move to a new level spiritual development, I myself am someone's instrument for God and people. If even in Christianity there is such a utilitarian approach to loving a person, simply by virtue of its usefulness, what should we rely on in life?

Everyone simply has their own interest and there is nothing to expect from people of love, disinterested help, understanding. People betray, lie. People are simply weak. And there is no one to be angry with: the object of anger disappears. Therefore: in a heartless and loveless world, live according to Schopenhauer: do no harm to anyone, but help as much as you can. At least it would be so honest, because there really is no disinterested, genuine love.

But a person who says “there is no love” is simply paraphrasing the well-known “There is no God,” for God is love. But the Christian experience says the opposite: love for one's neighbor is not extinguished as the ascetic ascends to God-Love, but becomes brighter, acquires its true sound, is cleansed of everything ghostly and nasty, while remaining love for a specific person. The apostle Paul is a witness of this, who, out of love for his fellow tribesmen, wanted to be excommunicated from Christ (Rom. 9: 3) - what could be more terrible for a Christian?

People who do not know Christ, who did not meet Him on their way - can they really imagine what sacrifice the Apostle is ready to make out of love for his cruel relatives, who caused him so much grief and torment? And this remark is not just a beautiful turn, successfully applied to reveal the drama; he begins his words with an oath: I speak the truth in Christ, I do not lie, my conscience testifies to me in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 9: 1). Such is the love of the Apostle for his neighbors that he is ready to renounce salvation, unity with God, genuine Life and Beauty, and completely disinterestedly. After all, Christians have one self-interest: caring for neighbors contributes to unity with God. The Apostle renounces this union.

Another moment that strikes me much more strongly: the Apostle loves God not out of self-interest, not for the sake of the benefits that He gives; Paul loves God for His own sake, that is, completely unselfishly, and is ready to give up all the blessings given by God in order to love Him and his brothers. The Apostle Paul appears in this episode as a true Apostle of love. It is impossible not to recall here his famous hymn of love, the first verses of which draw in the negative a portrait of a Christian who uses correctly, but does not like:

If I speak in human and angelic tongues, but have no love, then I am a ringing brass or a sounding cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and I know all the secrets, and I have all knowledge and all faith, so that I can move mountains, but I do not have love, then I am nothing. And if I distribute all my possessions and give my body to be burned, but I have no love, there is no benefit to me (1 Cor. 13: 1-3).

What happens if you translate a portrait of a Christian without love into a positive one? There is an ascetic, Father Ixias, rich in spiritual gifts: he is subject to the gift of speaking in tongues, he is perspicacious and accurately predicts future events; he investigated the truths of theology and the secrets of faith to perfection, not only speculatively, but his faith and zeal in God is so strong that he is able to perform miracles, accessible only to the ancient saints and prophets. Finally, he is an example for the faithful in deeds of love: he gave all his property without a trace to the poor, and his ardent desire for God prompted him to a martyr's death, which he endured with the dignity of a true confessor. Isn't it the life of a saint? And the Apostle, nevertheless, compares such a pillar with a not very venerable musical instrument. Taking advantage of others is not beneficial. The ascetic remains zero according to the standards of the Gospel, if his movement forward is not a movement of love. He is like the legendary Achilles, who, despite his legendary and invincible prowess, will never catch up with the meek and silly turtle, which has no idea who it is overtaking.

It is also important to note that in his hymn, Paul clearly distinguishes between love for one's neighbor and works of love. Social activity is not evidence of an inner awakening of love for people, it is not a yardstick or an equivalent of disinterested interest in them. The Apostle pointed out the possibility of replacing love “from the right”, when natural human asceticism, erotic Puritanism of the Platonic type, pretends to be the original of the Gospel love.

Regarding Blessed Augustine, it seems to me that his words are a warning against substitutions "from the left." In one of his major treatises, the saint writes that love (caritas) is often confused with lust (cupiditas): “when the creation is loved by itself, then this is lust. And then it does not help the one who uses it, but harms the one who enjoys it ”.

Then if God loves creation in itself, is that also a passion? There is some misunderstanding on our part. It is obvious that the Hippo prelate is dominated by the moment of ascetic pedagogy. In the love of created things, it is important to avoid passionate infatuation, and as an ascetic and a teacher, Augustine is right, and it would be daring and stupid to challenge him in this matter. In addition, we should remember that, as a genius thinker, Augustine was not afraid to express the most unexpected and controversial judgments. He was a genius of questions, the answers to which sometimes he could not find.

The above quotation from “Christian Science” reads as follows: “God does not delight in us, but uses, that is, uses us as a means, for if He does not delight and does not use us, then I cannot understand how He loves us ”. Blessed Augustine, the teacher of true Christian humility, does not hesitate to admit his powerlessness before the great secret of God, for the love of Christ surpasses all understanding (Eph. 3:19). But we are talking about love for our neighbor, and it is important for us to establish the very principle of gospel love, its foundation. The Lord tells us to learn to love not the image of God in a person, but this person himself, my neighbor. Undoubtedly, through love for the person whom we see, we ascend with love for God, whom we do not see. And in this case, the neighbor still acts as a means, we cannot avoid this. But here it is more likely not the use of a person, but cooperation, mutual assistance of people to each other, the main thing is that my neighbor is not only a means, but also an end for me.

Who is my neighbor?

When it comes to a person - keep your ears open - any generalizations can turn into idle chatter if the owner lets them off the leash. Generalization - the slave cattle of particular specific questions, born of my human experience delivered by my life. You can't talk about love in general, about man in general, about God in general - there are none, these are just shadows of objects. But give them free rein, and they, like dumb animals, will begin to devour everything around them and reproduce their own kind.

There is a specific person and his story, and when we talk about a person or about the image of God in a person - do not let the words go far and do not really trust them, these are just words, with suffixes and prefixes, they are capable of deceiving and blowing smoke into our eyes, but they are dead, and your neighbor is here.

The Christian's love is not love for “a person in general,” for a transcendental subject, but for a neighbor - that is, for a specific person, a person with his own history, a contemporary, a neighbor. No matter how we liked the solemnly sad immersion into the depths of personalism, no matter how graceful and witty definitions of personality beckoned to us - ecce homo, here is a person - my visible or even hated neighbor, who was born in this city two years earlier than me with congenital dislocation in a family of workers, he studied at my school and played hockey - this story can be continued, everything is important in it, because it is part of his name, his personality, unique due to the uniqueness of anyone, never and nowhere in his history, that is exclusively his path, which was cut at the edges of the convergence of points in space and time.

But - why should I learn to love him? Why did no one suggest: there are neighbors, a good choice, we will watch? An insidious question of love and freedom! We love who we didn't choose, and the options offered are often not of the highest quality. “To love others is a heavy cross” (B. Pasternak), besides, one must start with the closest circle, that is, the circle of Christians, and as my wise friend once remarked, “in the Church there is the right faith, but in the world there are good people, and why they will never meet. " Not only is it that according to the Gospel statistics every twelfth Christian is a Judas, I am also doomed to love these church people, of whom there are not many wise in the flesh, not many strong, not many noble ones (see 1 Cor. 1:26). I am not free in love!

What is freedom associated with us? First of all, it is freedom of choice. And is he, this choice? First, there is always a gap between what I want and what I can afford. The set of what I can afford is small. And who, in fact, forms this set itself and by what principle? Why should I choose only what is offered?

I choose: should I go to Ireland or Malta; or: fly there or sail on a ship; work or mess around; sleep or stay awake. Why isn't there something else: another way of getting around, another way of living. The number of our parents is too limited: only dad and mom; there are only two floors, physical dimensions - you can't boast. That is, I don’t choose my parents, I don’t choose my gender, nationality, time of birth and life expectancy.

In the end, no one asked me if I wanted to be born or not. I should have been born in the thirteenth century that way, in Scotland, in a castle with dragons. A good aristocratic family, a cozy castle, mountain air, solid natures, in the courtyard there is an octahedron library tower. In the evenings I read the Romans in the original and dine with my family: talk about poets, ancient legends, a cat dozing on my knees. And so that there was certainly a pony, so cute, affectionate. But I was born without asking in the Soviet Union in a small town in a simple family and I did not have a pony, and now I am doomed to love those with whom I am destined to be contemporary.

Moreover, I do not choose the God I love, there is simply no other, and I know that too well. As Etienne Gilson wrote, “if you have already become a Christian, you cannot but be one. The truth is that you simply have no choice. ”

This discovery may have been made by the Apostle Peter, as we read about it in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John: after the conversation about the Bread of Life, many disciples left the Savior; addressing the rest, Christ asks if they want to leave; Peter's answer is: Lord! who should we go to? You have the verbs of eternal life (John 6:68). There is no other full-fledged God, even if I wanted to go to him and submit to him, there is no other truth either: truth is one, God is one. And this God, without asking for my consent, created me and let me into this life, and put in me, again without waiting for my permission, an alarming need for truth, love and freedom. We are doomed to love, and here we really have no choice, in this we are not free.

And maybe the most challenging thing in all this is that you need to learn to love exactly these people given to me by my contemporaries, and I understand very well internally that this is the correct solution to my life task. As in the old mathematics solvers: the problem is given, and at the end of the book there is the correct answer, but between the condition and the answer is the path of my solution, which can sometimes surprise the mentor. I know that I must learn to love my neighbor, and the Scriptures provide two clear guidelines: I must love my neighbor as well a) as God loves me and b) as I love myself. How does God love me?

I don't like funerals. Then I get sick for several days. It is generally accepted that Christians should love and welcome funerals and all kinds of burials as a reminder of death or the hope of union with Christ. And I do not love, and I am not ashamed.

One, however, the moment at the burial of the dead I really like. Have you noticed how often the name “Humanitarian” is mentioned at the funeral service? No other church service sows this holy name so abundantly. Our God is a Man-lover! Not just God-Love, but - Humanitarian, He loves people, He loves me, He loves the deceased, and nothing else so comforts me in the loss of loved ones, as trusting the Humanitarian.

What does it mean that He is a Man-lover? We have Revelation and our personal experience of communicating with Him. But even before the Savior came to the world, honest and wise people guessed about something like this. "There is an undoubted certain force," writes Cicero, "which watches over the human race and does not then raise and nourish it, so that after overcoming so many labors, it will cast it into death, as into an eternal calamity."

We know and believe that the Lord is the Creator of this world, its Author. As Plato's Diotima said, “everything that causes the transition from non-being into being is creativity,” and we are the fruit of His creativity, we are called from non-being into being by His love: You love everything that exists, and you do not disdain anything that you have created; for he would not have created if he had hated anything (Wis. 11:25).

Usually the Author is invulnerable, he is thoroughly and reliably hidden from the worries of the world he creates. But we know love in the fact that He laid down His life for us (1 John 3:16). Christ, the Author of this world, Himself becomes the character of the work created by Him, so that, without trampling on the freedom of His creatures, to save His heroes, of whom each is dear to Him. He becomes vulnerable and suffering, He is truly killed, He remains in this story forever, His humanity indissolubly unites with His Divinity, forever. God proves His love for us by the fact that Christ died for us (Rom. 5: 8). And the time will come, or rather, the time will pass, and we will meet Him face to face. I will finally see my Author, and isn't this the most exciting meeting of my life?

If Anna Karenina met Count Tolstoy once, what would the conversation be like? Perhaps she would reproach him for making her overweight and Vronsky balding, or would she immediately rush to tear the count's beard because he forced her to fall in love with Alexei? I am afraid this meeting will not happen, although it would be curious to bring some authors to their heroes for purely educational purposes.

What can we expect from the upcoming Meeting? We are unrequited before the face of the Humanitarian. This meeting is called the Last Judgment. Where does the fear come from? Why fear? What is this fear of God anyway?

I think that this is the experience of your insignificance in the face of true life, life in abundance, and surprise and awe at contemplating the very core of life, its very source. It is difficult even to imagine what a dizzying amazement awaits us at this meeting! And this ocean of life loves me so much that it allowed me to call Him Father, not a master, not a ruler, but a gentle Father: Look what love the Father gave us so that we can be called and be children of God (1 John 3: 1).

Truly, no one will ever be able to fully and completely comprehend the love of Christ that surpasses understanding (Eph. 3:19), and in her face “silence is more convenient”.

Cherry jam

As a child, I could spend hours looking at pictures in children's books. The mouse sits in a burrow. It's so cozy and warm there. The bed is covered with a modest patchwork quilt, on the wall is a shelf of books, a lamp, and a portrait of a mouse's grandmother.

The glare from the candle falls on the bedside rug and homespun runner. The sideboard is covered, but the bowls and jug are on the front - this is the next day.

And the moon rises above the mink, and it is dark and damp in the forest, but this is not at all scary, because - the mouse will finish the tea with cherry jam, put the cup on the table, wrap herself up in a warm blanket and, after extinguishing the lamp, will listen to the nocturnal rustles, deaf the sobs of the swamps and the soft tread of someone large and heavy in the distance.

I was recently given a bed. Usually they give books or teddy bears, but the life of a monk is full of unexpected foolishness. In the monastery, somehow you don’t think about beds — it’s stupid and immodest — so I slept all the time on a narrow trestle bed, rather hard and ascetic, and did not think that it could be otherwise. Sleeping on a hard board is useful and saving, although the dream is not the same and you toss and turn all night like a hedgehog.

The new bed appeared unexpectedly and immediately began to influence the whole order of things, tacitly showing that the bed was only in name, but in fact it was the organizing principle of the cell universe. Cabinets with books shyly pushed aside, embarrassedly moved desk- the authorities of the past reckoned with the new mistress. The bed, although a gift, required unforeseen costs: I bought a new blanket, a pillow with boats, and hung a rug on the wall. At the head of the bed - a lamp - read books even until the morning. Everything is new, clean, soft - turn as much as you want - you won't fall out of nowhere.

Before going to bed I drank tea with cherry jam - delicious, with sourness. He put on a pea shirt, lit the lamp, lay down. He tucked the blanket on all sides, fluffed up the pillow. So quiet and warm. It is drizzling outside the window, old apple trees are gradually whispering. Soft light, soft bed, under the lamp - Virgil, and - still a lot of time until the morning, a lot, a whole mountain of time.

And this simple and accessible experience of coziness awakened in me something completely unusual, which cannot be called either a thought or a feeling, but rather an experience, a kind of integral feeling that I am alive! The pillow has a scent of lavender, subtle, barely perceptible, the book breathes its incomparable scent, I touch the yellowed page and feel the delicate relief of letters and lines, the woven pattern of the sheet resonates in my palms. I run my hand over the carpet and the books hanging over the bed. The books are silent, but I can read their spines with a touch, their names kiss my fingers. I'm reading this!

I absorb the smells of the world around me, this my heart beats with joy and excitement, it is in my mind that some wonderful melody sounds continuously, which does not allow me to come close and does not let me go far from myself. And suddenly I realized that this feeling of oneself alive and special is love for oneself. The Lord bequeathed us to love our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:39), but if I experience myself alive and exceptional, then this coincidence of love and life shows me that in the same way I must learn to experience the life and uniqueness of another ...

After all, my neighbor is not quite alive for me: I do not feel him as alive as myself. He is external, he is not alive enough for me. Another person's fingers, his hair, his lips - are they quite the same as mine? Outwardly, yes. But in everyone there is a consciousness of some kind of special exclusivity: I am different, I must not and cannot vanish in vain, there is something pricelessly important in me and this whole world will die with me if I die. But I will not die, this cannot happen to me, I am special, there have never been and never will be:

I am the bearer of great thought -
I can’t, I can’t die!
(N. Gumilyov)

Why does this consciousness of one's own exclusiveness, a strong faith in one's own special path, faith in one's indestructibility and peculiarity, live persistently and restlessly in every person? What is it? Pride? Or is there something more solid and natural here, which is by right and age older than the most ancient vice? The gift of life, the joy of being - is the purpose and meaning of human life. Man was created to live and receive joy from it. The main work of our life is to learn to love our neighbor as ourselves. Learn to experience it as alive and unique as I am. The near one is like an alien planet on which I must discover life.

For a lover, the beloved is too alive, their lives are mutually permeable and mutually vulnerable:

Your pains hurt in me, your strength accumulates in me.
(A. Dementyev)

Both the pain and the joy of a loved one are experienced as my own pain and joy - alive and real. The mother feels her child too alive, grows with him, the two of them are teething and a tummy ache, and it happens that the son grows up and travels far, far away, but the mother feels his life and dying, grief and joy even on the other side of the world.

Love for oneself in a person is so deep and irreducible either to taking care of oneself, in whatever way it manifests itself, in spiritual or material, or to anything else. This love manifests itself and emerges extremely rarely and, like many deep human phenomena, often does not reach consciousness and therefore cannot be subjected to reflection. But this love is in such a core of a human being, where the roots of self-consciousness and self-preservation converge and intertwine. This is a wonderful and unstable facet of being, caused by the Creator from non-being. Here, at this point, all the roots of a single human essence converge, here the heart of the Whole Man beats, single in nature and numerous in hypostases.

It is in this depth that one should look for love for one's neighbor, because he is an inseparable part of myself. Moreover, this love is natural to man. It is unnatural not to love your neighbor, for that is suicide. I think that it is in the church as a Eucharistic community, a community of the unity of life and love, not only images of life and love, but a living and real communion with them, and this consubstantial human race appears. Apparently, the Descriptor speaks about this experience of the first Christian community: The multitude of those who believed had one heart and one soul; and none of his property called his own, but everything they had in common (Acts 4:32).

But there are so many people and they are so different. In the fact that there are such a huge number of people, often faceless and uninteresting, there is some unjustified excess, something superfluous. But a cat is also something superfluous. This pet does not provide any practical benefit in most cases. Asking cat lovers: why do they need this useless beast - unintelligible impressionistic answers can be reduced to one remark: because cats are u-di-wit-tel-e! The Lord gave us cats to make us happy and surprised. The Lord gives us our neighbors so that we learn to rejoice and wonder at them as a miracle, as a mystery, as a beauty that is always redundant and inexplicable.

To love one's neighbor as oneself is a matter of grace, but the first effort must be made by the person himself. We are very inattentive to each other, frighteningly inattentive, and before indulging in ascetic deeds, we should learn simple human attention, about which the Apostle Paul wrote tirelessly: be brotherly to one another with tenderness; warn one another in reverence (Rom. 12:10). Simple and beautiful!

Most likely, I do not love my neighbors, one might say that I have a strange attitude towards the very love of my neighbors. But I know too much that people are something truly beautiful, this is a beauty that I will definitely learn to admire. People, like flowers, are useless and beautiful, there are many of them, they are capricious, but the Lord created them for the joy of an excess of love, and I am also involved in this joy. I hear the distant sounds of her melody and I just can't make out the tune, but this is something wonderful, they sing it for me!

Another's joy is just like your own,
It torments her and breaks out of her heart,
And the girl rejoices and laughs
Overwhelmed by the happiness of being.
(N. Zabolotsky)

"The monks also put their finger on each other"

Once we were sitting at a festive meal in the monastery, I began to ask the brothers questions: who dreams of what? Our choir director said with a sigh: "You know, Savva, I very much dream of stroking a wolf or a chanterelle on the head." Valeria Mikhailova discussed with Archimandrite Savva (Mazuko) his new book "Orange Saints" and understood a lot for herself.

Children who don't dance to music

It is interesting that in the book with the cheerful title “Orange Saints. Notes of an Orthodox Optimist ”, the first and last articles are related to the topic of death. Is this no coincidence?
- It so happened that all three books that I published were edited without me. I wrote only texts, and what happened to them further was the policy of the publishers. So when I saw that I was an optimist, I laughed for a long time! Because I'm not an optimist at all. I'm a realist, rather.

- Why?
- Because optimism is a certain extreme, like pessimism, and life in its wholeness takes place somewhere else. Maybe you will agree with me if I say that a real work of art - in cinema or in literature - touches when the plot develops on the verge of tears and laughter, when something real is highlighted. The real reality is where the limit of the tragic and the comical. Somewhere they converge, and at the junction of these two vectors there is something that really touches. Yes, life is tragic, we will all die, this is the law. We all know that. And this is great!

I know many people who just do not think about it, close their eyes to death and suffering and live beautifully.
- I think that in this case a person limits himself. Why limit yourself to such an interesting experience, a wonderful experience? It is on this cliff that the deepest human intuitions manifest themselves, the most authentic ones, do you understand? If you live a very comfortable life, hiding from pain and joy, you are depriving yourself of something very important.

- Why hide for joy?
- But we are also afraid of joy, joy in full voice, this is also inaccessible to us. Quite recently we had a holiday for children from low-income families, we always arrange it at Christmas. We did a small concert for kids, and I was surprised that when the music was playing, very funny, the children did not dance ...

- How old were they?
- The first - the sixth grade - such a "breakdown". They didn't dance because they were already a little crippled by the school. It's so great when the music is playing and the person starts dancing right away! Yesterday I went to the presentation of the book, and at the pedestrian crossing we were waiting for the green light of the traffic light, and in the distance a live orchestra was playing - they were blowing out copper, tormenting the drums. “Black Eyes”, as I remember now, was playing. And the girl right at the crosswalk, waiting for the green light, began to dance. It was so great! If I didn’t wear a cassock, I would also dance.

So I was offended for those kids, because none of the adults showed them that they can dance.

- Why does this prohibition exist, in your opinion - a prohibition on the expression of emotions, on joy, on sorrow?
- Because we live in a small world. You know, in fact, a person needs a lot of space, and we have to limit ourselves, because we live in small apartments, houses, travel in tight vehicles, wear tight clothes. What I like about the priestly clothes - they are wide, as if wrapped in a curtain, there is some kind of space in it. On the one hand, this is some kind of restriction, on the other hand, it allows you to take a wide step or something, and a wide gesture. I do not think that the closeness of people in big cities is some kind of tragedy. This is just a sketch from our reality ...

But it seems to me that the most genuine feelings, the brightest, that very healthy fury in which a person is beautiful, it is highlighted only in tragic moments of life, or in very joyful ones.

These extreme points of the spectrum are not to be feared, especially since none of us can escape them. Woody Allen said: "I'm not afraid of death, I just would like to be absent at this moment." Of course, this is a pun, but on the other hand, I believe that one should be present! Because death is part of my biography, and I have to go through it.

Of course, it's good to say that when you are healthy and it seems to you that you still have a lot of time.

You know, we constantly hold the Liturgy for our disabled, disabled children on big holidays. It always takes place on a weekday, when there are practically no people in the church. And just imagine, the whole church is filled with crippled children: someone cannot speak, someone has cerebral palsy, someone has autism, someone twitches, someone in a wheelchair cannot walk. Here they come with their parents, and the whole church is in these children and in these parents.

You know, this is always a revelation to me. I admire, looking at parents and children, because they do not need to pull themselves back and reflect on those people who are nearby, to justify themselves somehow or be ashamed of their child, ashamed of his illness. They are completely open here, they are among their own people, they look at their children with such delight, with such admiration! These mothers are truly proud of their children. A child who cannot say two words normally, but she is proud of him, she is happy that he is! He is - and for her it is infinitely much.

Ordinary people are closer to life

Any person, looking at such children, looking at the innocent suffering, probably at least once in his life asked himself the question: "Lord, how is that?" Have you ever doubted God?
- No, I have never had such problems, to be honest, because I was brought up among very simple people. I grew up in the area that we call Selmash - this is a factory area, a gangster area. And from time to time I act as an interpreter between two different worlds- the world of the intelligentsia, refined, and the world of these simple factory people who do not understand the tragedy and problems that intellectuals and "sophisticated", as we call them, are tormented by - people who are accustomed to some kind of high aesthetic models. On the other hand, intellectuals do not understand what these ordinary people are tormented by!

You know, I just saw how my grandmother or great-grandmother, mother, grandfather, father reacted to some difficulties in life, illness, and so on - I never saw any admixture of murmur or some kind of protest. People took difficult circumstances for granted, because this is life. Someone should have such children - it means that I was born. There is some very wise simplicity here, I think.

- It turns out that ordinary people are closer to life?
- Yes, you said correctly, they are closer to life. These ordinary people, especially people who knew poverty and hunger, they very much appreciate the very fact that they are alive. The very fact. Any philosophy begins with this fact, with the experience that you are alive.

I recently read about Nikolai Rybnikov - he is one of my favorite Soviet actors. Remember "Spring on Zarechnaya Street", "Girl without an Address"? He sings the famous song: "When spring comes, I don't know ...". So at the age of 11 he was evacuated with his mother, in 1941, to the safe city of Stalingrad ... No one then knew how it would end. And when the city was watered with fire, the inhabitants simply chaotically crossed the river, as best they could. This 11-year-old boy, who could not swim, grabbed the sides of boats, his arms were beaten off, trying to unhook him, because the boats were overloaded, but he still clung, held on and somehow swam across the river.

I was shocked by his phrase when he remembered this event. He said that after this crossing he was so bursting with a thirst for life that he could not breathe in any way, could not cash in! This recognition is worth a lot.

It seems to me that the Lord sometimes pulls us down so that we quit chasing illusions, such as career, money, recognition, fame, and survive the very fact that we are alive.

Ordinary people who experience with their skin that they are living, they may not be able to reflect it, but they are delighted with it!

The remarkable French writer Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt recently published a book of a very confessional nature. Maybe in a literary sense it is weak, but ... I just always suspected that he was a Christian! In this book, he talks about how he gained faith. From his idle Parisian life, he decided to indulge in extreme tourism and went to the Sahara on an excursion. And there he got lost, having fought off their expedition ... He spent a little over a day alone among the sand and sky, and in this horror he found God. And this writer also admits that his biography began from the moment when in childhood he began to think and suddenly experienced the discovery that he was alive. It seems to me that you need to hold on to this - that you are alive, for the fact that someone is alive.

Do you know how Christianity comforts us? The fact that if you are alive, then this is already forever, nothing can ever be done about it!

Even if your life is tragic, even if some terrible episodes happen, you are still alive. And this is so much that nothing can be added to it. What this life will be like, whether there will be a lot of happiness, joy, fun in it or not - this, in fact, even in comparison with the very fact of life, is not so significant.

How do you think, how can we, "refined intellectuals", return to this simplicity? Not everyone will go to the Sahara, will they?
- Need to do. The discovery that I made in my life quite recently is something that needs to be done. We constantly think, hesitate, decide something, but we need to start doing something. One friend of mine once wrote to me in a letter: “I sat on New Year's Eve sad and sad and thought that it was like this for a year - and here I didn’t work out, and there I was burned, and it didn’t grow together. She sat, nodding into the salad, almost dripping a tear into the champagne. And then it dawned on me: if you want to rejoice, please the other! I went into the next room, changed into Baba Yaga, drew on blush, tied a handkerchief, went in and played out a whole scene with my relatives and friends. And she turned this seemingly sad and lonely evening into a fountain of joy. " You see, we have to do it!

I once made this discovery: I start to breathe easier when I give gifts to people. You can, of course, do some kind of creativity, for yourself, but it's good if it's for someone. If also with someone ... Because all the most beautiful things happen to us when we do something.

The strongest friendship begins ... with a fight

There is such a judgment: that a person is always one. No matter what we do for others, no matter who we are friends with, we are alone - at some deep level, only man and the Lord always remain. Do you agree?
- No, I do not agree. Man is never alone. Loneliness is, more often than not, the other side of the longing for loneliness. Rilke once wrote to one of his lovers: "I want to become a hedgehog, turn my face completely and look only at myself and not show it to anyone." But it never works, there are always some people, even portraits of people.

It seems to me that humanity is a single organism, and you can't get away from it. Maybe we suffer from loneliness precisely because we want to somehow retire, but this never works, because each person pulls a whole train of other people with him.

- Here a man comes home after work, he is alone, sits and is sad - what does he care about humanity?
- I will say a very simple thing - you have to pray. You know, I myself, for example, force myself. When I walk down the street or watch the news, I always try to tie a prayer for the person who participates in it to this news or to this event. When you pray for another person, you begin to feel through your skin that you are one. You walk down the street, see how the ambulance has gone, and say to yourself: “Lord, help the patient, help the doctor,” and these are no longer strangers to you.

- Is monasticism about loneliness? About a hedgehog that folds so that no one interferes?
- No. In monastic books such a paradox is found, in Philosophy, for example - the more a monk removes himself from the world, the closer he is to it. It seems to me, holy people, the more they pray and feel themselves, the more they begin to feel other people. Hence the gift of clairvoyance, for example, it is from the skin!

Remember, Zabolotsky has a poem about an ugly girl? He admires this girl - ugly, red-haired, in a tattered dress. She sees how the father gave a bicycle to two boys, and rejoices, laughs, experiencing this joy of theirs as her own. And Zabolotsky at the end says:

And if so, what is beauty
And why do people deify her?
She is a vessel, in which there is emptiness,
Or a fire flickering in a vessel?

When someone else's joy is experienced as your own, you have no barrier of possessiveness. It seems to me that holy people, getting closer and closer to God, understand that everything is ours, everything is mine. And I am someone's, and not only God's, and yours. "Sincerely yours" means literally to be understood.

- Sounds great, but why can't everyone?
- We have cowardice, we are afraid - we are afraid to be friends, we are afraid to love.

Any friendship and love, for example, for me is always a kind of struggle. In general, I believe that the strongest friendship must surely begin with a fight, as well as the strongest love.

- Fighting with what, with whom?
- This is not an aggressive fight, but here, rather, a sporting passion, do you understand? When you read a book, you are fighting the author. You enter into single combat, for example, with Leo Tolstoy, grab onto his beard, try to pull it out, that is, understand what he wants to say. Understanding is also a kind of struggle, and here the author puts me on his shoulder blades. I read Anna Karenina five times and could not finish reading to the end, I threw this thick volume! In the end, for the sixth time I read the novel in one breath, something came to me, something happened. I won this sparring, it seems to me.

- And what does fighting in friendship mean?
- In friendship - the same thing. We must constantly make efforts to confirm our friendship. The effort is that we get to know each other every time we meet this person. And it's the same in the family. Why do spouses need to be together more often, in no case be separated for a long time, not to let go of each other, because every morning the wife gets to know her husband, and the husband gets to know his wife. By the way, it's the same with raising children. With children you are fighting - who wins!

What about Saint-Exupery? Who wrote that love is when you look in one direction, and not when you fight ...
- The wife makes her husband look in one direction, her husband in the other, and - who wins! In the end, the side will appear where they both need to look. Vasily Rozanov said that in fact the girl was only half made by her parents, everything else was done by her husband. The same is true of a man - a man is done by a wife in marriage. It's a fight!

As a sculptor ... You know, as Michelangelo said: "I take a piece of marble and cut off everything that is unnecessary." It is a great effort to work with a stone, to turn it into something graceful, to give it a shape is very difficult. In marriage, this is exactly what happens: the wife molds something from the husband, the husband something from the wife, and in the end, something beautiful is obtained.

A person is never alone, he is always "married" with someone. Monasticism is also a marriage, only it is a marriage made with the community.

The monastic community is my family, and it also happens there. Monks also sometimes put fingals at each other. What did you think? I have before my eyes an episode from our monastic life, when one archimandrite chases a hieromonk with a stick around a haystack, and the hierodeacon separates them. So much for your struggle ...

Dream: stroking a fox

Father Savva, did you dream of becoming a priest as a child?
- No. I wanted to be a lot. And when I started going to church, I did not dream of becoming a priest, I just knew that I would become one. This is very strange, but true.

I made an amazing discovery recently, and I am still experiencing it. Once we were sitting at a festive meal in the monastery, I began to ask the brothers questions: who dreams of what? Our choir director said with a sigh: "You know, Savva, I very much dream of stroking a wolf or a chanterelle on the head."

The man is 60 years old, and he dreams of only one thing: to pat a wolf on the head! It was a real revelation for me. I asked myself this question and realized that I was dreaming of nothing, it even somehow frightened me. I somehow have everything, and for a very long time, I have nothing to even ask for - everything I need, I have. Therefore, I did not dream of becoming a priest.

- Do you often come across human claims against the Church, addressed specifically to you as a priest?
- It happens. I recently drove from Moscow to Gomel, and not only our compartment attacked me, but I was also attacked from the side. They wanted me to give an answer why priests drive Mercedes. I say: “Guys, I'm going with you in a reserved seat on the top shelf. What are the complaints against me? I don't even have a car. " But no - give me an answer, please.

Most often, when people start making such claims, they do not want to hear the answer. They just want, for example, to express their resentment or to blame someone. Sometimes these claims to priests cover up elementary envy or licentiousness - this is honestly so: people simply envy, seeing a priest, for example, in a good car. They just envy. For some reason, it is believed that the priest can be rude, for example. In a word, all the problems are from licentiousness and bad manners.

It happens that a person sees such disorder in the Church, and this repels him ... So in your book, for example, there is an article about bishops, about the abuse of power and conflicts. Should a church man turn a blind eye to such things?
- Do not generalize. We are just people, we are just people. A priest can be your neighbor, he can stop by your store, buy kefir and stand in line next to you, he can have gastritis or stomach ulcers, or diabetes mellitus. They are just people.

Why is this all? The reason for the condemnation is still in our savagery. We live in non-religious country... We are a wild people. Perhaps this is felt more in Belarus than in Russia, because Belarus was the most atheistic republic. We have not yet grown to a culture of discussion - that is the problem! Maybe bishops and higher clergy are ready to discuss many painful things, but culturally, civilizationally, we are not ready.

You see, the Church now lacks precisely civilization. After all, what is civilization? This is a set of well-established mechanisms that help to close pain points and problems. For example, there are certain issues related to church finances - a very painful point. Envelopes, various taxes, deductions, some unfair claims. There is no need to break into an open door here. There are mechanisms already developed in other churches or in secular institutions that allow you to keep track of finances. They just need to be implemented.
The problem is that our discussion turns, most often, into mutual insults and swearing. You have the Valdai Discussion Club in Russia - what I read about it impressed me a lot. Here we need a church "Valdai"! Not officialdom, when a bishop or an archimandrite comes out and reads a report, and everyone else slumbers, starting from the second row and even in the podium, but a lively discussion, very frank.

And for now, if a person disagrees with you, you must certainly impose an anathema on him for some reason ...

How much does it cost to consecrate an apartment?

To abide by strict rules and anathematize those who do not abide by them, maybe just easier? ..
- I think not everyone is just inclined to such a conscious, free church life... It's just that not everyone has this talent, so a small group of people has to be free for the rest of the community - this has always been and will be. I am sometimes asked simply as a priest who is invited, for example, to perform a funeral service for a person or to consecrate an apartment: "How much will it cost?" This is a very simple question and very painful, because it is more convenient for people who ask to know the exact price - it is more convenient for them that way. They do not know how to position themselves correctly, they do not want to offend the priest. I usually laugh it off and say in Belarusian: "Get a penny in your wallet." Yes, just kidding! Although I had one such episode, when they gave them to me - all the money with the wallet together. Just horror! ...

Do you think Christ comes first for us, for our peoples, for Orthodox people? Or on the first, rather, ceremonies, the consecration of apartments, cars?
- Of course, Christ. Yes, maybe people read the lives of the saints more readily than the Gospel. But I think this is awe.

For example, I have long dreamed of writing a book about Christ. No, I don’t dream ... I don’t dare to dream about it, but if I could do it once, it would probably be something wonderful. But I dare not simply, you see, because it is something sacred, so deeply intimate that we don’t even remember it in our speech.

It seems to me that this is the case. Not that we are pagans, as sometimes it is imagined that the saints are closer to us than God, and so on. The saints are really closer to us, because they are just people, and Christ is the One who invented you. It’s such a dizzying sensation that I don’t even know what to say!

I was once asked to write a review of a book by Metropolitan Longinus of Saratov, Christ was depicted on the cover of this book. You know, I am always in awe of this image, which is very dear to me, - Christ of Sinai.

- Sinai Savior?
- Yes, Sinai Savior is something, you know, completely unthinkable. I do not keep this image in my cell, precisely because it is too expensive for me. It's so dear to me that I don't want to see it. It was enough for me to see this icon once.

I remember how Vladyka Aristarchus - this is our bishop, now deceased - who read my articles and constantly criticized me, so he, after reading a review of Vladyka Longin's book, said: "It is very bad that the image of Christ is placed on the cover of the book." Vladyka Aristarchus was a very simple man, one of the peasants, but at the same time he was a pupil of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. And for him it is something unthinkable - to put the image of Christ on the cover of a book.

It seems to me that our people are just like that. They are not pagans, just Christ is so dear to them that they keep His image in their hearts, because not everyone can withstand their presence before the gaze of Christ ...

Of course, Christ is at the center of our perception of the world. But this is that intimate area of ​​some genuine depth, where we do not always allow even our confessors, maybe ...

I remember talking with one of my disciples, a student, and told him about a priest who renounced his dignity, declaring that he did not believe in the deity of Christ and even in His reality. This guy amazed me by what he said in response (although he is not particularly religious, but he is a believer): “How could you say that ?! After all, what God is is much more real than what I am. "

There is one more thing. We have no language for speaking about Christ. This is a feature of our Orthodox speech - we do not know how to talk about God. And maybe not worth it.

Everything that is connected with the authentic is always inexpressible. A gesture is more appropriate here. The Apostle Paul says that the Holy Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that cannot be expressed. Christ is exactly where the groaning is unspoken. He is exactly there ...

Therefore, do not say that our people do not love Christ, no, we only live by him! Yes, that's exactly it.

It's simpler than babbling ...

- Do you have any favorite passages from the Gospel that are especially touching?
- There are a lot of them. I will honestly say that the Gospel is a book that I am afraid to read. For me this is always a feat. This morning I opened the Gospel, and it is always a definite effort for me. It is not connected with the fact that I force myself somehow ... It's just an event, I will say so.

I am especially touched by the Gospel of Mark: there are things that you probably will not find in other evangelists - such details of the humanity of Christ, which just sometimes brought me to some kind of numbness, not even a momentary one.

For example, Christ prays over Jairus's daughter, he raises her from the dead, performing this epic miracle, absolutely amazing, unthinkable, incomparable, and then says: "You give her something to eat, you feed the girl." It's so touching!

Or, in the same Gospel of Mark, the disciples accept people - such a strange detail that the apostles also had such “visiting hours”, and when they got tired of people, Christ tells them: “Go, rest, because you worked all day, the whole have been in public for a day, you need rest. " You see, this is human involvement, it touches me very much.

Or is this why Christ multiplies the bread? In the Gospel of Mark there is, again, a small slip of the tongue - when he saw people, he took pity on them: "They didn't eat." You see, this is so human!

There is a wonderful film, in my opinion, of the early 60s - "The House I Live In", the actor Zemlyanikin was also filmed there. The film is amazing, I love it very much! Even as a child, I was shocked there by a scene when the guy played by Zemlyanikin comes from the front on vacation, finds out that his beloved girlfriend is here, in the next apartment. And he runs to visit her, and she, from powerlessness, cannot even open the door for him. He runs home, grabs a can of canned food, says to his mother: "Mom, she's hungry!" This is such a phrase, and it is said so! This can probably be understood by a person who has experienced the hunger of another as his own.

Christ, when he worries about a girl who did not eat, or tired disciples or hungry people ... It seems that He himself has now experienced this hunger much more vividly than their own hunger and weakness, their fatigue. If we talk about Christ, Who He is and what He is. Is it possible to find any suitable words to add something else to this? You see, if you are talking about Him, then you need to say very simple things. The gospel is just that - it's very simple. This simplicity is sometimes even frightening, because it is much wiser than any philosophy, any Husserles and Heideggers. And at the same time, it is simpler than infant babbling - this is precisely its authenticity and depth, which scares and makes dumb.

- You mentioned the "single combat" with Tolstoy. Is combat with the Gospel possible?
- This is a special book ... The Gospel is a book that always puts you on your shoulder blades! And all the same, you enter into single combat with her, knowing that you will lose. But this is a very good loss, a bright, joyful loss, a joyful failure. An encouraging failure!

Interviewed by Valeria Mikhailova

Archimandrite Savva (Mazuko)

The locked garden is my sister, my bride,
the enclosed well, the sealed fountain.()

Gloomy autumn evening. Brest railway station. In a secluded corner “all in suitcases” a young monk sits and fearfully fingering his rosary. A peasant with a bored look is walking by. The monk noticed:

How are you, virgin?

Usually, when I tell this, everyone laughs or at worst smiles. Funny. Laughter is always born where there is a delicate and delicate situation. Everything related to gender is always delicate, therefore, while people are alive, the lion's share of humor will be accounted for by “sexual” jokes. Or in other words: laughter can be viewed as a mechanism of mental protection - where a person is too vulnerable, that is, in the sphere of sex, laughter is the last defense, and this must be accepted as a fact that needs to be understood.

The feat of virginity - when smart and healthy people take upon themselves the cross to keep themselves clean, not for some time, but all their lives, and carry this work defiantly openly is a delicate situation. When there are young people, contrary to fashion and even the opinion of adults, keeping themselves clean before marriage, and living in marriage defiantly honestly and cleanly is also a delicate situation, which means that it runs the risk of being ridiculed.

In our time, the conversation about virginity, oddly enough, is a serious conversation about the funny, and nothing can be done about it: the word itself virginity for most of us, it lives exclusively in an ironic context. Foolish word. And this is true not only for secular vocabulary. Can we imagine that the Patriarch would send a message to the virgins? It is clear that for our time this is absolutely impossible - their own will not understand, others will mock. But in the ancient Church, such epistles were commonplace, and almost every saint of those times has such texts. It's just that the word itself has become so overgrown with ambiguities that I would not be surprised if very soon they will be ashamed to pronounce it in a decent society, if there is still such a thing. The disease of the profanation of a saint, of the suspicion of the sacred did not begin today, and even at the beginning of the 20th century, N.A. the words" .

Old words cannot be surrendered without a fight, especially since intuitively we all, even non-believers, understand that virginity is a sacred thing and a miracle of beauty. One of the hymns in honor of the Mother of God begins with the words "The angels are amazed at the beauty of Thy virginity." Virginity is beauty, and it is with beauty that the lives of holy ascetics and ascetics conquer us. No books and articles about the benefits of virginity and chastity are capable of infecting with the beauty of virginity so much as the true story of a holy virgin or an ascetic who shines with purity. We are comforted by these stories, and perhaps that feeling of “unspoken silence” (in a word) that one experiences over the pages of his lives is the experience of meeting the beauty of virginity. “Christ Himself,” writes the holy martyr Methodius of Patara, “praising those who are firmly in virginity, says: that the lily is between the blacks, then my beloved is between the girls(), comparing the gift of virginity with a lily in purity, fragrance, pleasantness and beauty. Genuine virginity is a spring flower that grows tenderly on its ever-white leaves the color of incorruptibility ”(Feast VII 1). Lilies, tenderness, spring, flowering - these are the words the saint breathes when he speaks of virginity.

But we ask ourselves: is it possible - for a healthy young man to keep himself clean? Let's write out the names: Descartes, Pascal, Spinoza, Hume, Kant, Newton, Leibniz. This is not a listing of the pillars of modern philosophy, these are the names of people who were in a celibate state and, at the same time, were not noticed in perversions. History remembered them as honest scientists, devoted to their work, who love philosophy so much that they did not succeed in this love. harass to someone else. All these people grew up in Christian Europe, and the fact that the skill to spend the power of love on spiritual labor was a natural skill for them - this is the merit of Christianity. “Through age-old educational exercises,” asserts C.G. Jung, “Christianity has achieved a very significant weakening of animal instincts-drives, characteristic of the eras of barbarism and antiquity, so that a large number of instinctive energy (vitality) was released to build a civilization ”. It turns out that our civilization and culture are the fruit of upbringing in chastity. If this is so, then civilization was given to Christians too dearly, because the lily of virginity is very capricious and requires special care, and when we read about the exploits of the monks in our lives, it’s scary to even think how much blood the struggle for purity cost them. “Aspiring to the spirit, the Desert Fathers mortified their flesh in order to escape from the extreme crudeness of decadent Roman culture,” continues C.G. Jung. - Asceticism is a forced sublimation, and it always takes place where animal drives are so strong that they have to be expelled by force. " Here are the ancient ascetics and carried their heavy cross of deed among the obstinate and depraved race(). And of course, if we talk about the social benefits, about the role in history - this is wonderful and commendable - but - here's a young man who enters life - how will the near and distant ones pity him, how will they be discouraged if they find out that he is decided to go to the monks! Where does this fright come from among completely church people? Why is virginity scary?

The ghost of the waters

The pious Milanese aunts and mothers would not let their daughters into the church if the saint preached there: he spoke of virginity in such a way that the girls left their suitors - the most successful parties - forgot the light, luxurious life and joined the ranks of virgins. However, the modern reader is hardly moved by the speeches of St. Ambrose. The remarkable Russian philosopher found the classic text about the virginity of the holy martyr Methodius of Patarsky "The Feast of the Ten Virgins" to be mediocre. VV Rozanov called the epistle of the saint to the virgins "an epistle to the old fly agarics." Of course, we can say that such texts still need to be learned to read, but at a young age, when it is already necessary to solve something with virginity, there is simply no proper skill of reading serious literature, and when the skill appears, it happens that there is nothing to store - not all processes are reversible! At the same time, it is not so obvious to most of our contemporaries that virginity has any value at all. Isn't it an ugliness - to restrain a natural impulse, a natural, I must say, striving for procreation and for a normal need for bodily pleasures? Who will take over the power to take away the natural right of man to the joy of the body? And if this joy is natural, then it is precisely the preservation of virginity that is unnatural, it is a perversion, a delay in development, a disease, an infection on the body of mankind. Did Christ bequeathed the keeping of virginity? Did the Apostle not say: regarding virginity, I have no command of the Lord()? And isn't this whole sermon of abstinence, unfolded by monastic Christianity, a crime against humanity, and is it not the cause of all sorts of family ailments, misfortunes - is it not from this constraint, constriction, fear of bodily intercourse? - This is how you can put the question, and this is how V.V.Rozanov put it in his time! Vasily Vasilyevich was tormented by this topic at the beginning of the 20th century and hoped to get rid of the dominance of the monastic “seedless” type of holiness for the sake of a different religious ideal - fertility, family, solar religion of sex. Now is the beginning of the XXI century: the people have become liberated, the monasteries are empty, Christianity has no previous influence, and nevertheless, the birth rate is falling, families are falling apart; without chastity, Europe is dying out faster.

There is, however, a version of reconciliation proposed by the famous German virgin I. Kant: to keep chastity - healthy: “chastity(pudicitia) - self-compulsion, concealing passion - yet as an illusion it is very useful in order to maintain a certain distance between the one and the other sex, so as not to make one sex a mere instrument of pleasure for the other. - In general, everything that is called decency(decorum), this is exactly what it is, namely, there is nothing more than a beautiful appearance ”. Chastity is a social virtue, and it appeared at a certain moment in the development of mankind as a necessary condition for the comfortable coexistence of people. But for the Christian reader it is obvious that this remark captured a change in ideals: the measure to which a person grew up was called holiness, that is, organic, existential permeation with Divine energies; when Christians looked up to the image of a saint, virtues were real and alive, and Protestantism and rationalism put a decent man in the place of a saint. But they will come up and ask: is it really bad to be a decent person? No, this is a normal and necessary stage of a person's moral development, but we are called to greater, for the better, and how can we call St. Seraphim or St. Sergius decent people? Can we call Christ a decent man? They are holy, their faces exude light, light living good rather than imitating it. We can say that Kant is ethical nominalist: for him chastity is only a name, for Christian ascetic writers an ethical realism: chastity is real initiation into holiness and true purity. After all, if chastity is only a name, a beautiful appearance, an illusion that has absolutely nothing under it, then keeping virginity is only a form of a flirtatious game of virtue - why hold on to such a wrapper? Then the attitude towards chastity and the sanctity of virginity becomes different: “Women, priests and Jews usually do not get drunk, at least carefully avoid being shown in this form, since in civil they are weak in relation to them and they need restraint (and this, of course, requires sobriety). Indeed, their external dignity rests only on faith others in their chastity, piety and separate laws ”.

Kant, however, clarifies that "even the appearance of goodness in another person should be dear to us, because from this play of pretense, perhaps undeservedly earning respect, in the end something serious can turn out." Only illusions do not warm, and the old man of Konigsberg himself said that 100 thalers in my imagination still does not have 100 thalers in my pocket, that is why the image of a chaste person, born of contractual morality, safely collapsed under the blows of psychoanalysis. “What shone in the 19th century,” wrote Jung, “of course, was not always gold, this applies equally to religion. Freud was a great destroyer, but the advent of the new century provided so many opportunities for breaking that even Nietzsche was not enough for this. Freud still had something to do with it, which he did thoroughly. Having awakened the healing distrust, he thereby indirectly pushed to heighten the sense of true values. Dreams about a noble man, which had dominated the public's minds since it ceased to perceive the dogma of original sin, were dispelled to a certain extent under the influence of Freud's ideas ”.

So, a decent man crumbled, and those who saw in him the limit of human holiness rushed to glue the broken idol and curse the destroyer. Or maybe all this was allowed by Providence, so that people began to look for genuine good and the ghost of the waters turned into a lake(cm. )? What should we learn so important about virginity? First of all, the fact that it was not Christians who invented to appreciate it.

Empty world

The pre-Christian world clearly distinguished between natural virginity and mystical virginity. The first is very clear to us: a girl should keep herself until marriage. But why? Historians most often give an explanation in terms of legal and property relations. The owner, that is, the husband, must be sure that the firstborn, to whom everything will pass, will be his son. Therefore, the bride must be a virgin by definition. Our very ancient word “bride”, which is often deciphered as “unknown”, “unknown”, is a hint to us. When in ancient times a ransom was made for a bride, it was virginity that was bought, for it was bargaining. In one of his wedding songs, Catullus recounts the words of parents reproaching their daughter-bride:

Is all your virginity yours? There is also a share of parents in it:

The third part from the father, and also from the mother the third,

You have only the third part! So do not persist against two

Kohl over you the rights with the dowry were given to the son-in-law.

(Catullus 62, 60-65)

Virginity is claimed as real estate, and there is a temptation to believe that it all came down to this legal point. But virginity is also beautiful, and in ancient times they knew how to value beauty no worse than ours. The ever-memorable Catullus, who was never blamed for the excessive chastity of his verses, nevertheless has the following lines:

But only the flower, cut by a thin fingernail, will wither,

Boys don't like him anymore, and girls don't like him anymore.

The girl is the same: as long as she is not touched, everyone loves her.

But only innocence will the defiled body lose its color,

She no longer attracts young men, and she is not sweet to her friends either.

(Catullus 62, 43-45)

Let us note two points: the pagan poet speaks of the beauty of virginity as an obvious fact, without explaining as an intelligent person why virginity is considered beautiful. Second: a body that has lost its virginity is defiled, reviled, profaned. That is, the beauty of virginity is sacred, sacred. And this is not a legal language, but a religious one. Here natural virginity coincides with mystical virginity, and it seems to me that the observance of virginity before marriage was not so much connected with the requirements of law, as it carried a deep intuition of virginity as a preservation of the power of love, creative power, and therefore - the power of mystical, which was necessary for the creation of a family and clan, was considered exhaustible, and therefore needed a talisman.

The priestesses of Vesta were virgins. Vesta is the ancient Roman goddess of the hearth, the goddess of the earth, the virgin goddess. The protection of the family and the well-being of the Roman state was entrusted to the virgins. Vestals were deeply respected by the Romans, as evidenced by their unusual privileges: wherever the vestal went, she was always accompanied by a lictor, who cleared the way for her, if she acted as a witness, she was not required to take an oath if she accidentally met a criminal led to execution. he was left with life, the vestals had the right to be buried within the city. Outwardly, the Vestals looked like nuns: they were ordained through tonsure, they wore a special ascetic attire. However, the sanctity of the vestal was directly associated with her purity, and for breaking the vow of virginity, the priestess could be buried alive in the ground, because the violation of virginity promised misfortune to the Roman republic. The body of the vestal was considered sacred, and although the priestesses were allowed to marry after 30 years of service, few of them, as Plutarch wrote, enjoyed this right, “and those who did this did not benefit themselves, most spent the remainder their days in repentance and despondency, and they brought such a religious horror to others that they preferred virginity to marriage until old age, until death. " The nature of Vesta is fire, she, the disembodied virgin goddess, demanded servants similar to herself. But is it by chance that the family was kept by virginity? In Greece, Hestia, the patroness of the hearth, corresponded to Vesta. The Inca religion knew alcas- “virgins of the sun”, keepers of the solar fire - they lived in a special temple, and only they were allowed to sew clothes for the emperor and prepare food for him.

A similar connection between virginity and marriage is demonstrated by the cult of Artemis. On the one hand, she is the patroness of childbirth, the guardian of marriage, on the other, the virgin goddess and protector of chastity. Before the wedding, the girls donated a lock of hair to her in honor of Hippolytus, who suffered for his chastity. Euripides' hero Hippolytus, keeping virginity for the sake of Artemis, brings her a wreath from a virgin reserved meadow, which was not touched by a sickle, on which no goats were grazed. Hippolytus lives like a monk: he does not eat "nothing that breathed", studies prophetic books, participates in the mysteries. The religion of Mithra also knew a kind of monasticism, both female and male.

There is also another aspect: virginity as a condition for acquiring wisdom and knowledge. The virgin (παρθένος) was the owl-eyed Athena, highly revered in Greece, the goddess of wisdom, the patroness of creativity and the giver of beauty. In the temple of Athena there was a room where clothes for her statue were hidden - this work was entrusted only to girls. The famous prophetess Kumskaya sibyl was a virgin. In ancient India, as soon as a young man entered the age of a disciple and gave himself up to a brahmana for education, he certainly had to take a vow of chastity, because it was believed that a person who lost virginity already loses the ability to nurture knowledge and mature spiritually. Education stopped immediately as soon as they learned about the violation of the vow of chastity. Refraining from communicating with wives for the sake of preserving wisdom was taught by Pythagoras and Empedocles.

In any case, the virgin has always been considered the best, because religions that knew human sacrifice, preferred untouched young people: the Maya sacrificed beautiful virgins to propitiate the rain gods; At the end of the year, the Incas buried about 500 virgin boys and girls alive in the ground.

The history of religion knows many examples of the simple magic of virginity. The Germans had divine maidens who tended the springs and divined from the water; the heroine of the Nibelungen epic Brunhild (Brunhilde) possessed a fierce strength that was directly associated with her virginity: she loses this strength with the loss of virginity. In Belarus, during the period of lack of rain, it was the girl who went to the well with a jug, threw it there and whispered incantations. For many traditions, for example for Ancient Egypt, it was characteristic to treat children as prophets: children are pure and pure, they are closer to heaven and hear his will more clearly. I must say that the magical perception of virginity is the most tenacious of these intuitions. An insidious villain or a vampire can do nothing to a virgin and wait, hiding, to change her status - this is one of the motives of American horror films. The celibate Jedi Knights in Star Wars are also a modern example of virgin magic. Curiously, all the truly cosmic troubles in this film begin when the main character, Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker, breaks his vow of chastity.

We should stop here and make two caveats. First. After all of the above, there is a temptation to think that Christianity actually did not offer anything original, but simply borrowed an already known form of religious life, which was called monasticism. In the age of postmodernity, it is natural to talk about the endless quotation and death of the author, and the reader along with him, but here, it seems to me, everything is easier. Kant showed us that our reason works only within 12 categories, and even geniuses cannot break out of this cognitive grid, which we sort of throw onto the world in an act of cognition and are forced to create within its boundaries, if only to be understood. And these limits of reason not only do not interfere with originality, but rather help its birth. Religious archetypes are just as universal. Any more or less developed religious tradition invariably comes to temple worship, ritual, priesthood institution, monasticism - all these are universal forms that are sometimes filled with completely different materials. Our Christian attitude tells us that this net religious archetypes are a consequence of a single very ancient primal religion of Eden, from which we all trace our origins, and a Christian can and should even learn husk of the wildest beliefs and rites of anticipation of true revelation, fully revealed in Christianity.

Second. The virginity of the pagan world is another virginity. In that world, magic and unconscious premonitions of the truth about man reigned. The pagan world was drowning in debauchery, and virginity was treated rather magically. The same vestals, according to the testimony of many ancient historians, allowed themselves to participate in the most disgusting amusements - the main thing was that bodily virginity was preserved. writes with disgust about galli - the servants of the Great Mother, emasculated in her honor (On the City of God VII 24–25), and this disgust is shared with him by pagan authors. Suetonius wrote about the great Virgil: “Moderate in food and wine, he had a love for boys<…>As for the rest, he was so pure all his life in thought and speech that in Naples he was usually called Parthenius (virgin). " Comparing pagan virginity with the Christian ideal, it should be noted that only the same name connects these phenomena.

Having mentioned Virgil, one cannot but emphasize the fact that shortly before the birth of Christ, the word "virginity" began to be used in relation to men. After all, virginity is an exclusively feminine property and virtue, and Virgil is called a virgin, in the novel of Achilles Tatia (II century) "Leucippus and Clitophon" the main character repeatedly calls himself a virgin, proving his loyalty to his beloved (V 20; VI 16; VIII 5) , constantly making a reservation: "I have preserved my virginity until now, if such a concept is appropriate in relation to a man." All of this was unusual, because the four classic virtues the ancient world- prudence, justice, courage and moderation - were exclusively masculine virtues, at least the first three were inaccessible to a woman, she seemed to fall out of ethics, and she was left only with moderation, which was often identified with chastity. And here is such a strange exchange of virtues. And already among Christians, who considered a woman in the same way of God as a man, capable of acquiring gifts of grace and deification, virgins were not ashamed to bear the denunciation of female origin.

However, our survey would be incomplete without a reference to the Old Testament church. Here we can see both universal and specific moments. Whenever God came out to meet people, or people approached the shrine, a requirement appeared: don't touch wives(; cf.). Closeness to God demanded a special holiness from a person, a special state. This is a universal moment. Among the Jews there were people who observed this condition for a long time, and sometimes for the whole life, and in the 6th chapter of the book of Leviticus, the rules of the Nazarite vow are described. But these were still temporary vows, which is explained by the special value of the family and clan. The Jews were waiting for the birth of the Messiah, it could be any newborn boy, and any girl could become his mother. The seven deadly sins for a Jew begin like this: a man who has no wife or has a wife but no children. Such - kill their people and violate the first mitzvah - "be fruitful and multiply." Therefore, every Jew, upon reaching the age of 18, was obliged to marry. Blessed Jerome very accurately explains such an arrangement of value priorities: "Then the world was empty and, with the exception of types, all the blessing was in children." And although Blessed Jerome points to the rarely appeared in Old Testament figures of virgins (Elijah, Elisha, Jeremiah, Daniel), nevertheless, the rooting and comprehension of this state became possible only after the appearance of the Primordial Christ.

Virgin Logos

Saint Chrysostom begins his "Book of Virginity" with the words "the beauty of virginity is despised by the Jews, and this is not at all surprising if they did not honor Christ Himself, who was born of the Virgin." However, in fairness, it must be said that in philosophical and theological use the word virginity was introduced by a Jew - the Platonist Philo of Alexandria (1st century). Continuing the philosophy of Eros Plato and trying to combine it with biblical revelation Philo taught about heavenly eros as the source of all virtue. Eros is striving and love for virtue; the eros of knowledge as a gift from God is a force that impels one to knowledge. “Communication between God and man at the highest levels is designated by Philo by the name of virgin charisma, a gift (τ¾ν παρθένον χάριτα), - writes I. I. Adamov, - here we mean the stage of the closest communication with God, when nothing remains between God and the soul average ”. The attentive and grateful reader of Philo, the saint already spoke about the Virgin Logos (παρθενικός λόγος), whom he identified with the face of the Savior. “The soul enjoys joy and gladness when it has a virgin Logos παρθενικός λόγος, because Christ suffered and was crucified for it, who is the παρθενικός λόγος virgin Logos. Possession of this Logos also evidently takes place at higher levels, because it is characterized by joy, and the deprivation of the Logos is accompanied by sorrow and repentance: the soul in which the word of God died due to its intemperance, or παρθενικός λόγος, falls into pity. "

It even looks somewhat unusual - "virgin logos": "logos" is an extremely spiritual term, cleansed of any impurity of the bodily, and "virginity" is a term taken from the field of physiology, meaning, of course, special purity and holiness, but - the holiness of the body, - the very combination of "holiness of the body" for the ancient philosopher was the same oxymoron as "fiery snow". Plotinus, I remember, was generally ashamed that he had a body. But - The word became flesh() - which means that it not only sanctified corporeality, but also justified the body, showed that holiness is a normal and only natural state for the body. Therefore, only in Christianity it became possible to talk about the true holiness of a person who does not need to get rid of the body to achieve deification, and virginity has become synonymous with the perfection of a justified and deified person. Therefore, as the Hieromartyr Methodius of Patarsky wrote, “the high priest, the first prophet and the first angel should also be called a primogenitor. In ancient times, man was not yet perfect and therefore was not yet able to contain perfection - virginity. He, created in the image of God, still had a need to be in the likeness of God<…>For this, He, being God, also deigned to put on human flesh, so that we too, looking as if in a picture at His Divine way of life, could imitate the one who drew it ”(Feast I 4). The mystery of virginity, only anticipated in the pre-Christian world, was revealed in the God-man when Christ was born of the Virgin and chose the way of life of a virgin. The Hieromartyr Methodius compares the Savior to the Artist, who inscribed for people the image of a virgin life. The completeness of communion with God, given in Christ, the closeness to God that we received in Him, requires a special, extreme holiness from a person, and if the Lord, appearing to Israel on Sinai through images of fire, smoke, earthquake, that is, indirectly, commanded people to refrain from of carnal communion, then what kind of holiness does the gift of being consanguineous and one-bodied with Christ require from us? People quickly get used to everything and easily lose the ability to be surprised, but if you think about a rather simple and obvious fact for everyone: the relics of the Monk Euphrosyne are venerated in the city of Polotsk - that is, the body (!) Of a dead (!) Woman (!) Is considered sacred. For the world of antiquity, this is madness! For the Jews it is a temptation, but for us who are called - God's power and God's wisdom(Wed).

The classic text on virginity is Mt 19: 11-12: not all can contain this word, but to whom it has been given, for there are eunuchs who were born out of their mother's womb in this way; and there are eunuchs who are emasculated by people; and there are eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven. Who can accommodate, let him contain... Here virgins are called eunuchs not literally, but figuratively. Their gathering makes sense only for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven. But the Lord notes that only those to whom it is given are able to bear this feat. “But if it depends on the will,” Chrysostom reflects, “then someone will ask: why did he first say: they do not contain everything, but they are given to eat? In order for you, on the one hand, to know how great a feat is, on the other, not to imagine it necessary for yourself. Given to those who want ”. In the 7th chapter of the Epistle to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul also notes that regarding virginity he does not have the command of the Lord, but gives advice as one who received mercy from the Lord to be faithful to Him(). First of all, let us note that virginity is not a command of God, but advice; the feat of virginity is not a path for everyone. “Why then does the Apostle not have the Lord's command about virginity? - asks Blessed Jerome, “because what is offered without compulsion deserves a great reward”. Another point: virginity is a grace to be faithful to God. Faithfulness to God in virginity means total surrender to God, and therefore - virginity is higher than marriage: an unmarried woman cares about the Lord, how to please the Lord, in order to be holy in body and spirit; and the married woman cares about the worldly, how to please her husband(). In other words, virginity is a special charismatic service, a special mission. And so the Apostle Paul sees this mission in a double testimony of virginity: the testimony of the Cross and the Resurrection, so that the holy ascetics of chastity are called saints - they are likened in their purity to the Primate Christ, testifying with their lives and holiness the reality of the life of the century to come even in this life.

God paints white

The feat of virginity is in the testimony of the Cross and the Resurrection. It sounds nice, but the phrase is rather vague. First, how correct is such a union of words - "feat of virginity": after all, feat is something active, dynamic, energetic, and virginity is a rather passive, protective state? In addition, virginity is a state inherent in a person from birth, it is not necessary to seek it, it is not necessary to fight for it, it is given, it is only necessary to take care of it, hence - is not the whole feat reduced only to fulfilling the function of a watchman, to bearing the guard over one's innocence?

It is a common mistake to see in virginity and, in general, in a chaste life only asceticism, that is, negative passively protective spiritual work or the suppression of passionate impulses. In addition, it is generally accepted that such suppression leads to neuroses, and this is indeed a fact that cannot be dismissed. However, if we turn to the texts of ascetic writers, we will see that the feat of virginity at its core is not simple abstinence and self-restraint, without which it, of course, is impossible, but they only formalize this work, make it possible. "Chastity," writes the monk, "is preserved not by the aid of severity (abstinence), as you think, but by love for him and the pleasure of his own purity." The soul must “turn all the power of love from carnal objects to the contemplation of mental and immaterial beauty,” says St. Gregory. “The perfect soul is that,” teaches the monk, “whose passionate power is all completely directed towards God.”

This truth is universal; sometimes it is called the principle of sublimation, that is, the reorientation of the power of love, eros to the Source of love, beauty and holiness. Plato also argued that lust is curbed not only by laws, that is, by limitation and suppression, but by the best desires (State IX 571 b), and his entire dialogue "Feast" is devoted to the education of eros in love for the truly beautiful for the sake of real communion with it. And the insights of the Fathers are not just borrowings from their predecessors, but a universal common human intuition, naturally inherent in every person as a bearer of the image of God. We will find motives for the education of eros both in Indian mysticism and in the teachings of the Sufis. The difference between the Christian worldview lies in the fact that we know that the truly beautiful, in love for which a person grows, is not a faceless, albeit powerful force, as was the case with Plato or the Hindus, but God is a Human Lover, who loved me and gave himself for me(cm. ). The principle of the education of eros is simply and easily formulated by the Apostle Paul: walk in the spirit and you will not fulfill the desires of the flesh() - it is important not only to curb and suppress desires, but also to live, that is, to actively act and build oneself in the spirit. If there is no work to educate eros, but there is only suppression and restriction, then the disease really begins, the very state of neurosis, which is persistently sought omniscient and ubiquitous psychologists.

A virgin ascetic is not just a fearful watchman, but a person who lives life in its true fullness, for God gave us the spirit, not fear, but strength and love and chastity(). “Virtue,” explains Chesterton, “is not the absence of vice or flight from moral dangers; she is alive and unique, like pain or a strong smell. Mercy is not about not revenge or punishment, it is concrete and bright, like the sun; you either know it or you don't. Chastity is not abstinence from debauchery; it burns like Joan of Arc. God paints with different colors, but His drawing is especially bright (I would say - especially impudent) when He paints with white ”.

Thus, the feat of virginity has two sides - negative and positive - abstinence and the upbringing of the power of love - and must certainly pass along these two lines, at the intersection of which, like on a cross, the ascetic carries his labor. The path of virginity is the path of self-mortification and crucifixion. “The intervention of death is necessary,” writes H. Yannaras, “in order to so that the mortal is swallowed up by life(). It is to this death that the monks voluntarily venture. They reject marriage - the natural way of self-denial and love - and strive to hypostatize eros and flesh in the image of the Kingdom of God. Their goal is to acquire hypostatic being through obedience and asceticism, performed in renunciation of nature. Then the only source of existence and life becomes a love appeal addressed to man by God. "

Prisoners of love

The Hieromartyr Methodius writes that virgins should be counted among the martyrs, because they endure bodily hardships “not some short time, but suffering throughout his life and not being afraid to pursue a truly Olympic feat of virginity. " In the stichera to the holy martyrs (Octoichus on the verse on Wednesday evening, voice 5) it is sung: “ Unsatiable love of the soul(my italics - and. WITH.) Christ was not rejected, holy martyr ... ”. Virgins choose the path of abstinence because of the insatiable thirst for God, which in an ordinary person only slumbers or manifests itself in an unconscious striving for everything beautiful and good.

“Whoever achieves love,” writes the Monk Macarius of Egypt, “becomes already a prisoner and a captive of grace. And whoever almost (παρ¦ μικρόν) approaches the measure of love, but does not yet reach the point of becoming a prisoner of love, he is still under fear, he is threatened with abuse and fall; and if he is not strengthened, then Satan will overthrow him. This is how others have been misled. Since there was grace in them, they thought that they had reached perfection, and said: "Enough of us, we have no more need." The Lord is infinite and incomprehensible, so Christians do not dare to say, "We have comprehended," but they humble themselves day and night, seeking God. " "Whose mind is attached to God with love," says the monk, "he neglects anything visible, nor about his own body, as if it were alien to him."

Ascetic writers sought an identical experience of love among the heroes of Sacred history. The saint, who gazed very closely at the life of the prophet Moses, sees him as a participant in the same path: “So Moses, with his mouth to mouth conversation with God, as Scripture testifies, was brought into an even greater desire for such kissing, and after the Epiphany, as if not who has seen God, asks to see the Desired. So all the others, in whom the Divine love was deeply rooted, never stopped in lust, everything given to them from above for the pleasure they desire, turning them into food and the maintenance of the strongest lust ”.

So, the saint insists that desired strength, the power to love, or eros, cannot be left in idleness or simply suppressed, but must be purified and directed to the only worthy object of love - to God, Who is the source of beauty, goodness and love, and Himself is Love, Goodness and Beauty. And it is precisely with this true beauty of God that the ascetic is hurt and communes with it in the measure of self-purification.

So, the meaning of the exercise in virginity becomes clear: the ascetic who has experienced the revelation of Divine beauty takes upon himself a dual feat, firstly, of cleansing, collecting and curbing his eros, and secondly, the correct direction of his energy to the source of Love and Beauty - God - for the sake of the closest unity with Him.

But it is not entirely clear what has virginity to do with it? Why is bodily innocence of such value among ascetics, so that even the feat itself is named after virginity?

Rotting lilies

Saint Gregory of Nyssa has such an unusual phrase: “we find it useful for the weaker, so that they resort to virginity, as to a safe fortress, and not evoke temptations against themselves, descending to the custom of this life”. Why is virginity for the weak? Why is virginity a safe fortress?

This is a rather subtle topic. Both theologians and philosophers used the language of images to clarify this problem: if the power of love, eros, was likened to a stream of water, then the experience of sexual relations, especially the first experience, was compared with the channel that is laid by the stream. It is very difficult to align the flow vector, laid by the flow along the usual channel, or to give the flow a different direction. The reverend, speaking about virginity, uses such a terrible image: "If the beast gets used to the flesh of eating, the fiercest will be created for old age." As a bear who has tasted human meat can no longer eat anything else, so a person who has lost virginity, with the first sexual experience, acquires a skill that requires the implementation of eros in a familiar way. Therefore, among Christians, bodily virginity was so valued - it is easier for those who preserved it to have the labor of educating eros. The feat of virginity is a labor of gathering waters of desire, - and collecting water is not easy. “If anyone,” writes St. Gregory, “connects all the randomly flowing streams, and encloses the water that has spilled in many places in one channel, he can use the collected and concentrated water with great benefit and benefit for life. So, it seems to me that the human mind, if it constantly spreads and scatters to what pleases the senses, does not have at all sufficient strength to achieve true good. "

Sometimes the Fathers also use another image: offering the best to God, so quite often we can find the motive of virginity as a sacrifice; let us remember here about the pagans who sacrificed virgins to their gods. And here is the reasoning of the Monk Macarius of Egypt: “After all, patriarch Abraham to the priest of God, Melchizedek, brought as a gift the best of the booty, and for this I received from him blessings(Wed). What does this fortune-tellingly allow the Spirit to understand, leading to the highest contemplation? Is it not that we must always first of all bring God the highest and fat, the first principles of the entire composition of our nature, that is, the very mind, the very conscience, the very disposition, our most right thought, the very power of our love, the beginning of our whole person, the sacred the sacrifice of the heart, the best and first of the right thoughts, constantly exercising in remembering God, in meditation and love? For in this way we can daily have an increment and advancement in Divine love (œρωτα) with the help of the Divine power of Christ. ”

In a word, the lack of waste of a person, his intactness are of great importance for the success in the feat of virginity. However, bodily virginity in itself acquires value only when it is imparted with a truly Christian meaning. Innocence is not yet a virtue, but only a convenient condition for its implementation. "From that time," writes St. Athanasius, "as you began to abstain for God, your body became sanctified and the temple of God." Abstinence is valuable when the motivation is right: when it is being attempted for god... Physical virginity is not the goal of a heroic deed, but a means of its realization.

The ascetic authors, clarifying the meaning of virgin feat, used the expression “exercise in virginity”, thereby emphasizing that the feat of virginity is an intense inner work, in the absence of which the preservation of bodily virginity itself loses its true meaning. “For the apostle,” writes the Monk Macarius of Egypt, “clearly teaches what souls should be who move away from carnal marriage and worldly bonds and want to fully exercise (™ ξασκε‹ ν) in virginity, says: Virgo cares for the Lord to be holy Not only body but also spirit(see), - to be free from real and mental, that is, from obvious and secret sins, commanding the soul as the bride of Christ, who wants to be united with the pure and unfair Heavenly King ”. Saint Gregory of Nyssa speaks out a little harder: “Let the exercise in virginity be laid as some foundation for a virtuous life; and on this foundation may all works of virtue be based. For although virginity is recognized as a very honorable and godly deed (it really is what it is revered): but if all life does not agree with this good deed, if the other forces of the soul are defiled by disorder, then it will be nothing more than an earring in the nose a pig or a pearl trampled under the feet of pigs ”.

Thus, virginity "does not refer to only the body, but mentally extends and penetrates all the actions of the soul that are recognized as correct." We are talking about the virginity of the body and the virginity of the soul, but we must clearly realize that for a Christian the center of gravity The virtue of chastity lies primarily in the deed of the soul. Reflecting on the sad fact of the barbarians' abuse of the nuns of Rome, he writes that violence against the body cannot harm the virginity of a person who does not deign to this lawlessness: “God would never have allowed this to happen to His saints, if the holiness that He had communicated to them and whom He loves in them, could perish in this way ”(On the City of God I 28).

The ascetics certainly mention these seemingly understandable truths in their texts, because a person has always been distinguished by the ability to distort any correct idea, and therefore, as one of Dickens's characters said, “vice is a virtue taken to the extreme”. There have always been, are and will be people who are able to bring the idea of ​​virginity to the point of absurdity, even to fanaticism. The English have a saying: "rotting lilies smell worse than weeds." If the Lord allowed manna, the heavenly bread, to rot, He gave freedom to rot and the lily of virginity. Views putrefaction varied. First, the already mentioned neglect of inner work: "if you apparently keep your body from corruption and fornication, but inwardly commit adultery before God and commit fornication in your thoughts, then your virgin body will not benefit you." Secondly, excessive, even excessive enthusiasm for an external feat, when virginity from a means turns into an end, when the very meaning of exercising in virginity is forgotten, so that the ascetics “are not able to freely ascend with the mind and contemplate the higher, being immersed in the concern that depress and crush your flesh. "

But the most terrible rot is pride and the associated abhorrence of neighbors. Saint Athanasius warns: "If a person labors in asceticism, but does not have love for his neighbor, then it is in vain and labors."

Return of the monks

One of the varieties of oppression to others is the condemnation of marriage. Such a view of marriage can appear only in a person who has not understood the most important thing: Christianity does not know and does not accept the celibate state at all, because virginity itself is a spiritual marriage, the most real, not metaphorical. Saint Gregory even allowed himself to talk about a marriage contract with God: “A soul that has clenched itself to the Lord in order to be one spirit with Him, having concluded, as it were, some kind of contract of life together - to love Him alone with all its heart and soul, will no longer cling to fornication, so as not to be one body with him. "

If God is real - and He is too real - if a person is real who burns with love for Him, if the dialogue of love between God and man is real - and the ascetics testify to the authenticity of this dialogue both with their lives and with their appearance, then we have a genuine marriage, the perfect marriage union, because it is selfless and eternal. Therefore, it is wrong to erect the name monk to the adjective μόνος ‘lonely’ - this is true linguistically, but not in essence. Better to say this: "monk" means "monogamous." Monks are not single and not alone, they are in a very serious and responsible marriage state (although marriage is serious and responsible by definition).

But we all know perfectly well how stable and tenacious the opposition of monasticism and family life is. Why is that?

Why lay people dislike monks is not so important. Most often this is from misunderstanding or unwillingness to understand; in any case, here we will find more emotions than thoughts. But the claims of monks are sometimes formalized in a clear position, the main element of which is a suspicious attitude towards bodily communication of the spouses. Reflections on this score can be found in many ascetic writers. Published and widely distributed, these texts confuse many Christian spouses, but it is important to understand their origin: these texts are part of monastic spiritual exercises, meditations on the themes of corruption and sinful defeat of man and the entire cosmos, in a word, monastic didactics, and as such, this didactics is useful and is good in its place, but to elevate it to the absolute is unreasonable and even harmful.

Marriage and virginity are so closely related that neglect of one element leads to the death and corruption of another. Marriage explains the virgin feat, the virgin life justifies marriage. Genuine virginity is not opposed to marriage, but itself, being perfect marriage, pulls out natural marriage to its true height and integrity. Where this aspiration is absent, where natural marriage has nowhere to grow, the very idea of ​​marriage is vulgarized and profaned. “For marriage is not dishonorable only because,” says the saint, “virginity is more honest than him. I will imitate Christ, the pure Bridegroom and Bridegroom, who works miracles in marriage, and by His presence brings honor to the marriage. ”

Ancient Christian writers have always fought for marriage, fought with heretics who abhor the marriage life, and since that time, the attitude to marriage as a blessed and sacred feat has become a criterion of orthodoxy and fidelity. apostolic church... “The Church,” writes the holy martyr Methodius, “is likened to a flowering and varied meadow, as decorated and crowned not only with the flowers of virginity, but also with the flowers of childbearing and abstinence.” This will seem strange for many modern Christians, but the Holy Fathers wrote with special reverence about such things as, for example, the conception of children, calling it a sacred rite, because, as the saint says, “man, contributing to the origin of man, becomes the image of God” (Educator II 10). The same thoughts are expressed by the holy martyr Methodius, and where! - in a treatise on virginity! The husband, “having united with his wife in the embrace of love, becomes a participant in fruitfulness, leaving the Divine Creator to take a rib from him in order to become a father himself from a son. So, if even now God forms man, then is it not audacious to turn away from childbirth, which the Almighty Himself is not ashamed to perform with His clean hands ”(Feast II 2). Here our holy writers do not create any new perspective on the communication of the sexes and conception, but continue the biblical tradition. Let us at least recall with what virgin and childish surprise and gratitude the book of Job speaks of the conception of man: You poured me out like milk and like cottage cheese thickened me(cm. ). We have become too spoiled to read such texts! Fathers teach us pure sight and reverence for man, not only for his soul, but also for the body. “We are not in the least ashamed,” writes St. Clement, “to name the organs in which the conception of the fruit takes place, for God Himself was not ashamed of their creation” (Teacher II 10); this sounds unexpected and reproachful to us, but it is a very important lesson in asceticism. A person who has not learned to accept his gender, to accept with gratitude, cannot bear the feat of virginity. You have to understand too much and accept that you are a man or a woman, that is how the Lord created you and that He accepts and loves You. You are not an incorporeal spirit, and no one expects from you the life of an incorporeal angel, you are beautiful in the eyes of God and pleasing to him as a person, precisely as a person woven by Him from bones and lived, and your body is your closest neighbor, in need of care and understanding demanding reverent attitude as an accomplice in your eternity. Therefore, the ministry of the virgin is the ministry of justifying the body, believing in the body, no matter how strange it may sound. Monasticism does not outgrow Christianity, it is not something that is higher than it, more esoteric. "Both paths - monasticism and marriage - are equally recognized and revered by the Church, since they lead to a common goal:" true life ", independent of space, time, decay and death."

At the beginning of the last century, Archpriest PI Alfeyev wrote: “The ideal of Christian marriage follows from the ideal of Christian virginity. Where virginity is trampled upon, polluted and cast down from the height of its moral greatness, purity and holiness, there marriage is destroyed. " When omitted top bar moral values, this entails a deformation of the entire system of life. GK Chesterton, to confirm this idea, even wrote a whole novel - “The Return of Don Quixote”, which ended with amazing words: “One thing I know for sure, although many would laugh. When the monks return, the marriage returns. ”

There is an unwritten law in choir singing, well known to musicians: the upper voice in the choir must sing positionally slightly above the general key, then it will be convenient for the choir, without lowering, to sing a piece in its own key. When monasticism is humiliated in society (often the monks themselves), they try to adapt this ministry to some social or even educational task, this will certainly have a very bad effect on the institution of the family. “You can sometimes hear such a judgment: we do not understand the meaning of those women's monasteries where, apparently, there is no service to others,” the holy martyr writes in his diary. it is assimilated. They are often called among us “girlish”, meaning by this that virgin purity is their calling, their service to the Lord. Service to suffering humanity is inexplicably high, but the development of purity of heart should be the first and indispensable goal of all women's abodes without exception, and at the same time such a goal that sometimes may be sufficient for salvation. Without this first goal, the second, that is, serving others, will be performed under compulsion, with a murmur, will be dead and fruitless. "

According to the Fathers, even the problem of demography directly depends on virgin ministry: “If anyone thinks that the human race is decreasing as a result of the consecration of virgins,” argues St. Ambrose, “let him pay attention to the following circumstance: where there are few virgins, there are fewer people; and where the striving for chastity is stronger, there is a comparative more people <…>According to the experience of the universe itself, the virgin way of life is not considered harmful, especially after the salvation came through the Virgin, which fertilized the Roman land. "

Thus, in the discussion about virginity, we have identified three interrelated positions: virginity is called

1) natural virginity of the body, or innocence;

2) a spiritual exercise that is possible even for those who have lost their innocence;

3) the state of perfection, deification of man, christening.

In patristic writing, virginity is a spiritual exercise traditional for Christian asceticism, the purpose of which is to cultivate the power of love, or eros, for the sake of total aspiration to the only object of love of the ascetic - Christ. In this sense, the natural virginity of the body is the basis for practicing virginity. Virginity has nothing to do with a celibate or single state, because virginity is the spiritual marriage of an ascetic with God. As a true marriage, virginity is not opposed to the natural marriage relationship, but is the ideal that natural marriage is equal to, finding in it its true spiritual foundation. Not marriage is an image of virginity, but virginity is an image of marriage, if you will, eidos marriage. Christian virginity is marriage, the union of a believing person with Christ without an intermediary, a school of love in which a person's personality is enriched, revealing itself in love for Christ, with whom it has become enraged. Both in marriage and in virgin ministry, the Scriptures and the Holy Fathers see the path to communion with God, a necessary condition for which is the growth of a person in love. The meaning of marriage is not limited to childbirth: its essence is in the mutual love of the spouses, which grows into love for God. In the same way, virginity is not only abstinence from sexual intercourse, but above all the acquisition of love for God, a true union with Christ.

Round dance of Angels

On Cheese Week, people usually do not go to church - they are gaining strength before Lent. And this, oddly enough, always suits gourmets divine services: there are few people in the church, and with pleasure and knowledge of the matter, you unweave the graceful pattern of the most complex services of the annual circle. And on Friday night - main dish- the canon to All the reverend fathers who shone forth in exploit. Anyone who has read this text at least once will fall in love with it forever and will wait for this service as a miracle of meeting with the blessed elders and elders, whose feat is sung by the canon. “Flowers of the desert”, “good beads”, “flowers of the living”, “birds who have lived” - peaceful elders, fragile and simple-minded like flowers, thin like birds, barely touching the ground with their feet - and a lot of light - “light shining "," lightly fasting "," brilliantly miracles "," lamps of reasoning "," rays of the sun of righteousness "; with them and the wives of the God-wise - "the fiery Theodula", "unwise Marina", "Christ-bearer Vriena". Not a canon, but a celebration of light and purity! Stung by love for the truly beautiful - did they know rest in their labors, did the world not abhor them as eccentrics and free-thinkers? Proidosh in mercy, and in goatskin, deprivation, mourning, anger. The whole world is not worthy of them either, wandering in the wilderness and in the mountains and in the nativity scenes and in the abyss of the earth ().

They - the prophets of Beauty - imitated their Lord in everything and became like Him, like Him in an abundance of beauty and love for mankind. “You are truly beautiful,” St. Gregory turns to the Savior, “and not only beautiful, but always such in the very essence of the beautiful, constantly dwelling in the fact that You yourself are in Yourself, do not bloom for time, but at other times you cease to bloom again, but for eternity. life is extended Thy beauty; her name is philanthropy ”.

But many drowned in love

Do not shout - no matter how much you call, -

They are counted by rumor and idle talk,

But this account is involved in blood.

And we'll put candles at the head

Those who died from unprecedented love ... (Vysotsky).

"Blessed is he who is fasting all the time of this life, because, having settled in the heavenly Jerusalem, he will circle in a joyful round dance with the Angels and will rest with the holy prophets and Apostles."

Berdyaev N.A. Reflections on eros // Eros and personality. SPb., 2006.S. 201.

Bitter experience shows that the greatest harm to chastity comes from books in defense of chastity. Why? In virtue itself there is no intrigue, and there is no intrigue - there is nothing to write about. All virtuous people are the same, Aristotle noticed this, and only a genius can find luck in describing good, but you need to write something about chastity, and they write according to the principle “by contradiction”: “Long live chastity, because - they knew what are they doing there ”; then there is a detailed enumeration of what is not chastity, with a large number of examples from life to the great delight of the “sober” reader, and you thank God only for the fact that none of these authors came to mind to publish their masterpieces with illustrations.

Such "wild" morals reigned in Königsberg late XVIII century. ... Book of poems. M., b. S. 47–52. Saint Gregory of Nyssa Decree. op. P. 395.

Of course, this corruption should not be underestimated. In the experience of sex, one should always remember the Gorgon principle: from the gaze of Medusa the Gorgon, the man turned to stone, and only Perseus guessed to look at her indirectly, through a polished shield - that is why he was able to win. The utmost caution requires us to care for chastity, and everything related to gender, be it a positive experience or an experience of mistakes, should not be looked at directly, we must resort to mediation: carefully choosing words, avoiding the remembrance of our own and others' sins, clearing the meanings.

Saint Clement of Alexandria... Decree. op. P. 188.

Yannaras X... Decree. op. P. 121.

Cit. on: Neganova E. The ideal of marriage in Orthodoxy // Theological Conference of the Russian Orthodox Church"Teaching of the Church about man." Moscow, November 5–8, 2001. Materials. M., 2002.S. 278.

Chesterton G.K. The Return of Don Quixote // Selected Works. SPb., 2001.S. 504.

Hieromartyr. The light is quiet. M., 1996.S. 172.

Saint Ambrose of Mediolan... On virginity // On virginity and marriage. M., 1997.S. 147.

Saint Gregory of Nyssa... Explanation of the Song of Songs of Solomon. P. 110.

St. Athanasius the Great Decree. op. P. 134.

The overwhelming majority of Orthodox Christians, even if they fast, do not at all in the way prescribed by the Typicon, i.e. church charter. But the conscience of all of us is alive and sensitive. We are believers and it is very difficult for us to experience the very fact of violation of the canons. Yes, the confessor can advise, the doctor can prescribe, the parents feel sorry, but - the feeling of guilt remains, which means that every post is for modern layman this is not a time of spiritual exercises, but, first of all, of terrible moral stress - I do not do it as it should be, I violate it, I do it wrong. We cannot put up with this burden of guilt, if only because orthodox person and so it is all to blame. With a sense of guilt, we are always somehow too zealous. Do you want to unmistakably find a believer in the crowd? It's easy. The usual Orthodox woman such an expression as if it was her son who unleashed the Second World War.

The current charter of church posts does not work. I will say a completely seditious thing. There is simply no such charter. He does not exist. What we read in the Typikon or in the calendar is an edition of one of the many monastic rules, I emphasize two words - “monastic” (!), “Numerous” (!).

Read our Typicon. This is a book for a monastery, there are even chapters on the behavior in the meal, brotherly clothing, and so on. But we cannot live according to the rules written in the Middle Ages, especially not for the laity, but for the monks, and not just for the monks, but for the monks of a particular Palestinian monastery. Isn't it true that the life of a married St. Petersburg programmer is very different from that of a medieval Palestinian monk? [...] We live in a different world, with new challenges, requests, temptations. The world has changed. The rhythm of life is different. The food is different. We are different. We live longer, read more, wash more often, rarely kill, and rarely go to executions. We have microwaves, vacuum cleaners and no serfs at all.

We all know that Peter's Lent is a spiritual exercise for people who have not been able to carry out Great Lent. Why, then, should I, a great faster, also keep Peter's fast? The Nativity Fast and the Dormition in ancient times were observed only by monks, and even then from some monasteries, because each monastery had its own Lenten and Liturgical charter, and this is absolutely normal. On Christmas fast, the laity fasted only for the last five days, and on the rest of the days they abstained only from meat, eating dairy products. There was a time when the laity on Rozhdestvensky, Petrov and Dormition fasting were allowed to eat dairy food. Why not return to this practice? After all, the food has changed, hasn't it? Eating fish, squid, mussels and trendy mushrooms is a luxury today, and you don't have to deceive yourself - it’s a terrible ugliness to spend more on food during fasting than during non-fasting times.

People want to do everything right, "as it should be", this is a natural property of good people... Therefore, it seems to me, it is necessary to find the right approach in solving this problem, clearly understanding that we will not find its solution in the canonical texts compiled mainly by monks and the celibate episcopate, which means that the creative effort of modern canonical thought will be required, and this should not be dread because it is an effort should have been a long time ago awaken and take on the solution of the church problems that have accumulated over millennia.

It may be argued that such creativity is contrary to the obedience of the church. Are we not part of this family, are we adopted, stepchildren, no one asks our opinion? Now our theologians will draw up the Statute, the people of God will accept it, the bishops will approve it - and we will obey it all together, thanks to God in fasting and prayer.