Mother John from the Angels Diary of Rural Masterpieces. Holy Righteous Joachim and Anna

Archpriest Fyodor Borodin, rector of the Church of the Holy Unmercenaries Cosmas and Damian on Maroseyka (Moscow).

« Please tell me why things in life are better for non-believers than for believers, namely: children study for free, have a decent spouse, parents are able to buy apartments for their children, but believers cannot buy apartments, and so on, their children study for a fee , they can’t pass the test (she prayed), there is no worthy couple?..“- such a letter came to the editor of “Foma”, and I was asked to answer it. And I immediately remembered several stories. Not everything about them is about faith. They are about a worldview, about an approach to life, which from the outside may seem “loser.”

Here's the first story. It was told to me by a priest who serves in the Moscow region. Between services, a woman came to the temple - a well-groomed beauty with a lot of security, saw the priest and began to say that nothing was working out in life: the children were far away - they were studying in London, her husband hardly remembered her, it seemed like she had everything for happiness, but somehow she feels bad. To all the priest’s questions about confession, prayer, and repentance, she answered through clenched teeth that none of this worked. Father got tired of the bickering, and he said: “You know what, honey, get in your car and go to any orphanage and help the children there.” She snorted and walked away.

She returned a few months later. A different look, shining eyes. She came with words of gratitude: “Father, thank you! At first I was very offended by you, and then I decided to try. I went, saw how children live without parents and began to help them. She shook her husband up for this help and organized all her friends.”

And how can one then assert that “everything in life goes better for non-believers than for believers”? People live for themselves, they are provided with money, but the family is falling apart, there is no peace. And then one of them decides to act like a “loser”: not to take, but to give, to step over oneself, to sacrifice. And suddenly - glimpses of happiness...

Second story. My father worked at Metrostroy. And in 1968, there, as elsewhere in the country, a meeting was organized so that the people would support the introduction of troops into Czechoslovakia. And my father was almost the only one at this meeting who did not raise his hand. Instead, another person was appointed head of the site, who did everything “correctly” and “logically.” Has my dad become more unhappy because he has lost his benefits? I'm sure it's the other way around - he gained more.

Third story. An NKVD officer came to Boris Pasternak with a request to sign a letter against some new “enemy of the people” from among the writers. Pasternak refused: “I can’t do this. I won’t sign.” His wife exclaimed: “Think of the child!” To which Boris Leonidovich replied: “If I sign, my child definitely doesn’t need such a father.” Is this the logic of a loser? Or maybe it’s just a different logic?

Now let's get back to the reader's letter. It seems to me that its author encountered a similar situation among his friends, but in vain extended it to all Orthodox Christians in general. I know many believers who are successful in life from the point of view material well-being. As I know those in need... Both among believers and non-believers there are people with different material incomes, social status, and so on.

Another thing is that faith does not guarantee success in earthly life. We do not believe in the Lord so that He will help us here. We love Him, and that is why we try to live the life that He commanded us, we go to church, participate in the sacraments in order to get closer to Him. And we believe that He shapes the life of each person in accordance with what is necessary and useful for a person, and we trust Him.

Thanks to this trust, the believer feels happy. Although everyone's concept of happiness is different. For some it is just material well-being, for others it is peace with oneself, with one’s conscience, and most importantly, with God. In Christian terms, the state of happiness and bliss is closeness to the Lord. You can be a loser in life and still be happy man. Or you can be a very wealthy person, but absolutely unhappy.

Of course, it is easier to live when you are wealthy, but in reality it does not bring happiness. Comfort does not bring happiness. And people don’t go to church for comfort.

Believers strive for self-restraint, and from the outside this may look like some kind of violence against themselves. But even effort associated with self-restraint brings a person closer to the Lord.

Archpriest Fyodor Borodin
Thomas Magazine

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The news often describes people of faith as hopelessly behind-the-scenes fanatics, picketing funerals, and initiating anti-science campaigns. Non-church people - like me, whose childhood did not pass in a church environment - believe in all these stories from the mass media. When I surrendered my life to Christ, I saw the true beauty of Christ and realized that many of my ideas about Christians were erroneous.

Below are six of the most common stereotypes about Christians. My prayer is that we love unbelievers, despite their false judgments about us, and try through our lives to show the fallacy of their false ideas about the followers of Christ.

1. Christians are boring people

It's not much fun to hang out with those who give up alcohol, smoking and gambling- this is what non-believers think. What we call holiness they consider “depriving oneself of the joys of life”. Christians are labeled as “boring” because they do not watch certain types of films, do not listen to certain styles of music, and do not go to places of entertainment where honest people usually gather - bars, nightclubs, etc. This is exactly how (boring) I thought Christians were before my conversion.

2. Christians are constantly judging others.

People don't like it when their immoral lifestyle is pointed out to them. Non-church people grew up in a society where they were not taught that drunkenness, immodest clothing and promiscuity were bad. On the contrary, they are accustomed to the fact that all this is, in fact, encouraged. Therefore, when they hear Christians call all these things sinful, for which “Hell awaits them, the unbelievers”, they explain this by the tendency of believers to judge others, to invent and impose rules that no one needs.

3. Christians are hypocrites

Often all I had previously heard about Christians was some latest scandalous news. Another shepherd was caught in adultery or stealing money; and immediately everyone began to talk about the hypocrisy of Christians. The world expects us as believers to hold ourselves to high moral standards, so until our words come true, there will be plenty of reason for non-believers to think that all Christians are nothing more than hypocrites. One moral failure is enough for the stain to fall on all believers.

4. Christians are too closed off

Unless Christians are involved in evangelism, they typically have very few or no unbelieving friends. We are constantly told from the pulpit that “Friendship with the world is enmity against God”. However, by rejecting worldly values, we often reject ourselves. worldly people. When non-believers see that we are friends only with “co-religionists,” they perceive us as a closed, proud “caste of saints.”

5. Christians live on another planet

Ordinary “normal” people don’t understand phrases like: “I have been sanctified and washed in the blood of the Lamb.”. For some, these words make their blood run cold. When people hear such specific church phrases, it seems to them that Christians live on another planet. They experience culture shock by hearing our words, music, Christian “one-liners,” watching our films and observing our traditions.

6. Christians are spiritual enemies

Scripture contains a rhetorical question in 2 Cor. 6:14: “What fellowship has righteousness with iniquity? What does light have in common with darkness?” Sometimes Christians are hated simply because they bring light. Christians are criticized for bad deeds and they are often hated for their good deeds. No matter how much good we do, no matter how much love we show - even if we become ideal - we will still be enemies of the world, since the Holy Spirit dwells in us.

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What's the conclusion?

This short list will help you see yourself through the eyes of outsiders. I believe that in the matter of evangelization the best strategy should be the following: by our way of life, we refute many of the negative ideas that nonbelievers have about us. If we show unbelieving people that we are actually better than the image they have of us, many may think that God is actually much better. better than that the idea they had before about Him. So it is: God is incomparably better!