About the sacrament of confession as a personal conversation with God, a spiritual conversation and the blessing of a priest. Topics of conversations with priests Responsibilities of godparents

Conversation 1

1.Introduction.

Greetings. An explanation of why these meetings are needed. Explaining the structure of the conversation.

God created man in his own image and likeness: three components of the image of God in man: the immortal soul, reason, free will.

Why is Baptism needed?– it gives a person the opportunity to become a “Man with a capital H”, that is, to find his own meaning of life, different from the meaning of life of an animal (search for food, self-preservation, reproduction).

Human freedom: Does the Church limit human freedom? Yes, if by freedom we mean permissiveness. But such permissiveness is also limited by state laws; raising children is also a kind of restriction of freedom. The desires of some people often interfere with the desires of others, which leads to conflicts and disorder. Permissiveness has a detrimental effect on the human soul, as many examples from History show. The desire for one’s own little “truth” leads to all wars and conflicts, since if any conflict between people is analyzed in detail, it turns out that each side is right in its own way. This is why the Church exists, whose main role is to preach the Divine Laws - that Absolute Morality, the Absolute Truth, which should become common to all people. That is, the Church does not actually limit human freedom, but, on the contrary, helps to realize it, gives us freedom from our passions that enslave us, even if we limit ourselves in some desires, but with the help of Divine Laws we achieve the true meaning of life - the acquisition of the Kingdom Heavenly.

2. “The essence of religion.”

The basis of the teachings of any religion is God. Different religions have different views on the fundamental principles of their teachings.

How can we know about the existence of God, since we cannot see him? How we learn about the existence of air without seeing it with our own eyes - by its manifestations, air gives life to our body, although we may not pay attention to it. In the same way, we can learn about God by his action on each person individually and on the whole world as a whole.

How can we know God? Knowledge of God can be achieved in three ways: the first is through the world around us, the greatness of the Universe created by God. The study of the laws of nature by many scientists led to the idea of ​​the existence of a Single Creator. Second way: Through self-knowledge. Since man is the image of God, when we study our own soul, we see this very image. In the words of St. Anthony the Great, “whoever knows himself knows God.” And the third way of knowing God is through the analysis of human History, in which there are many examples of how Divine Providence influenced destinies as individuals, and the entire human civilization.

In Orthodoxy there is a clear understanding that it is completely impossible to know God, although we can know something about him. John of Damascus expressed this well when he said the following words: So, it is clear that God exists. And what He is in essence and nature is completely incomprehensible and unknown” - and “Whoever wants to talk or listen about God, of course, must clearly know that from what relates to the doctrine of God and the Incarnation, just as not everything is inexpressible, and not everything can be expressed in speech; not everything is inaccessible to knowledge, and not everything is accessible to it.”

The source of our specific knowledge about God is the revelation of God. It consists of the Holy Tradition - knowledge passed on by people from generation to generation, and the Holy Scripture - the Bible - books written by holy people - prophets and apostles, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Revelation of God is not so much Knowledge itself as a guide to human life, its goal is the salvation of the soul, therefore there is little information about the structure of the material world, the study of which is the task of science.

First of all, the Orthodox Church teaches that God is a Person, which means that you can come into contact with Him, you can turn to Him and receive an answer.

What is religion? - from lat. Religere- “Restoring the lost connection with God” Man, before his fall, lived in paradise and was in constant communication with God, being His perfect creation, but after he committed a sin, his nature was damaged, and this connection was destroyed.

Since ancient times, man has communicated with God (the first traces of worship of God can be found already in the Stone Age, about 50 - 100 thousand years ago; according to some sources, the proto-religion was monotheism). But over time, due to the “universal catastrophe”, his fall, man began to distort his ideas about God, he began to move away from communication with Him, losing a clear idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe “Interlocutor”. This is what led to the emergence of many religions, multiple views of God.

But the truth remains... And in order to speak clearly about it, so that certain people would not distort it, in the course of human history, it was meaningful that this knowledge about God needed to be preserved - expressed in clear, unambiguous formulations - dogmas.

Dogma - from Greek. Δόγμα “Thinking, believing” is the basis of the Christian faith. All Christian dogmas are revealed by God. Just as the path we follow must be clear to us, so the worldview must be specific.

3. Creed.

The main dogmas are expressed in the Creed - the text adopted by the 1st and 2nd Ecumenical Councils (a worldwide meeting of the clergy christian church). One may not agree with the dogmas set forth in this expression of faith, but by not agreeing with them, a person ceases to be an Orthodox Christian, because loses his Christian worldview.

1 member of the Creed. I believe in foodAndnaked God the Father, Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, visible to all and invisible.

(I believe in one God, the Father, Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, everything visible and invisible).

From the very first lines, the person reading this confession proclaims that he believes in one God! If you know a little about Christian doctrine, you can notice an imaginary contradiction. How can one say that God is one if Christianity preaches the trinity of the Divine (God is the Father, God is the Son, God is the Holy Spirit)? There is no contradiction here; Orthodox Christians believe that God is one, but in three persons. This dogma is incomprehensible to the human mind, although there are some analogies that, although far from being complete, try to explain the concept of the Trinity. One of the natural analogies is the sun and the rays and light emanating from it, just as the Son and the Spirit eternally and inseparably come from the Father. Another similar example is fire, which gives light and heat, which have unity and difference among themselves. These analogies are very far from expressing the essence of the Trinity dogma, since they are borrowed from an area far from spiritual and personal existence.

This one God is the Creator of the material world (people, nature) and the spiritual (angels, demons).

But it is worth immediately noting that God did not create demons - demons. By creating angels and people, God invested free will in them; these creatures can decide for themselves to follow God or not. So, demons are angels who have fallen away and resisted the Divine.

From the very fact of the creation of all things, one thought follows, well expressed in church hymns: “For with You is the source of life.” Indeed, God did not just create the world and forget about it, he contains the world with his energies, which is why it is scary to fall away from God; by falling away from Him, a person falls away from the source of being.

2nd member of the Creed. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, OneOthe one who was born of the Father before all ages; Light from Light, true God from true God, bornenna, uncreatedenna, consubstantial with the Father, by Him all bssha;

(I believe) in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages; Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not created, one being with the Father, through whom all things were created);

What is said in the second member of the Creed is the cornerstone of the Christian worldview; we are called Christians because we believe in the Divinity of Jesus Christ. It is not for nothing that the anathema of the 1st Ecumenical Council reads: “Those who say: There was a time when He [Jesus Christ] was not”..., or who proclaims that the Son of God is of a different substance or another essence, or that he is subject to change, catholic and the apostolic Church excommunicates the faithful from the community.” In fact, the Orthodox Church teaches that the second hypostasis of the Holy Trinity, Jesus Christ, is no different from God the Father, God the Spirit, except that “the Father alone is unbegotten, … and the Son alone is begotten…. And the Holy Spirit alone is emanating, not begotten, but proceeding from the being of the Father.” Based on this, we affirm that Jesus Christ is also the Creator of the world, also the Source of Life, etc.

3rd member of the Creed. For our sake people and our sake for the salvation of the United Statesecame from heaven, and was incarnate from the Holy SpiritIthat of the Virgin Mary and the Vochelovehshasya;

(For us people and for our salvation, he came down from heaven, took flesh from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became human);

The Orthodox Church teaches that the Lord became incarnate, i.e. took on human flesh, remaining true God and true man. Why did this event happen? John of Damascus answers this question: “The incarnation of God the Word was so that the sinned, fallen, and corrupted nature itself would defeat the seduced tyrant.” This phrase poses a number of questions to the human consciousness... Why is nature called fallen, sinned?

At the very dawn of human history, a “universal catastrophe” occurred; man, created not involved in evil, morally good, free from worries, but gifted with free will, chooses the path of violating God’s commandments. Adam, the first man, violates God’s only commandment about not eating certain fruits, and by violating this commandment, man falls away from the source of life - God, damaging his inner spiritual world. Man became susceptible to disease, he became more prone to evil than to good, but the most unpleasant, terrible thing was that man became mortal. And the further humanity developed, the further it deviated from God, the greater the gap became between the source of life - God and humanity.

Over time, people began to understand that their worldview, which is actually distant from God, is distant from the Truth, and accordingly there is a delusion... It is with this terrible awareness that the emergence of philosophy is connected, which tried to give some impetus to life, to understand the causes of the world, its ultimate goals... And it is precisely at this time, the time of general disappointment in polytheism, that the Savior comes into the world to sanctify human life, so that man can again become a Man, which is only possible together with God...

According to St. Athanasius of Alexandria, “God became Man so that man could become God,” that is, Christ gives people the path to perfection, re-opens for them the lost paradise.

This is how Jesus Christ is called the new Adam, the founder of a new chapter in the history of mankind.

4th member of the Creed. RaspIthe same for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered and was buried;

(He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, suffered and was buried);

But the Lord does not just come to earth, He suffers and dies according to human nature, sanctifying and destroying even death…. This fact puzzles many people. It seems incredible that God, the Creator of the world, the Almighty, suffers abuse from his own creation. But “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” That is, with his suffering and death, Christ atones for human sins.

5th member of the Creed. And resurrectedecame on the third day, according to the Scripture;

(And rose again on the third day, according to the Scriptures (prophetic).

The Lord destroys death by His death, He resurrects and thus death is no longer terrible for us. This is very strongly expressed by the words of the Easter troparion: “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and giving life to those in the tombs.” Now death is the third birth, birth into eternity, but, behold, into what eternity... To eternity with God or eternity without God depends only on us.... In other words, God took a step towards fallen humanity, now man is given a choice: take a step towards God or remain on the sidelines, on the sidelines of life...

6 member of the creed. And riseewent to heaven and sat downInow on the right handatyu Father;

(And ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father);

After his resurrection, Christ ascends to heaven, thereby showing that there is no sin in human flesh itself; as a creation of God, it is holy and perfect. And we are called to preserve the holiness of our body, keeping it from sins. The Holy Scripture says wonderfully about this: “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who lives in you, which you have from God...”

7th member of the Creed. And pAki ridgesathello to the glory of judgmentAndty alive and dead, EgObut the Kingdom will have no end.

(And who will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and of whose kingdom there will be no end).

What is said in this article of faith is the topic of much modern gossip... Only the lazy did not discuss the topic of the end of the world now... We, as Orthodox Christians, firmly know that the end of the world will happen, but “no one knows about that day and hour.” Unfortunately, there are many cases in history where some figures tried to capitalize on the gullibility of their fellow citizens by predicting the end of the world.

The best preparation for the “last times” is to organize one’s life according to the commandments of God; in general, for any specific person, the end can come at any second, this end will be his death. A Christian must always be ready to meet Christ. One church hymn expresses these thoughts very well: “Behold, the Bridegroom comes at midnight, and blessed is His servant, who will find him watching...”

8th member of the Creed. And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord Life-GiverIFor now, Who proceeds from the Father, Who with the Father and the Son is sungIema and sslAvim, who spoke the prophets.

(I believe) also in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, worshiped and glorified equally with the Father and the Son, who spoke through the prophets).

With these words, the Orthodox Church confesses the deity of the third hypostasis of the Holy Trinity, which differs from the other Persons only in that it comes eternally from God the Father. As a result, in churches equal worship is given to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit without diminishing or exalting any hypostasis.

9th member of the Creed. In EdAndwell, holyatyu, the Catholic and Apostolic Church.

(I believe) in the One, Holy, Catholic (Ecumenical) and Apostolic Church).

The very beginning of the ninth clause makes it clear to anyone reading it that there is one true Church. And this is the Orthodox Church, which preserves the true knowledge of God. Knowledge of the Truth, knowledge of Christ is a very important component of the life of a Christian, for the Holy Scriptures also say: “The Lord is near to all who call on Him, to all who call on Him in truth.” It is very important to know the truth about the Personality to which a person is addressing, otherwise he may fail, having false ideas, choosing the wrong words, doing the wrong things.

But another point may be confusing in the first lines. How can the Church be united if there are 15 independently governed Orthodox churches? In fact, these Churches are united in essence, united in doctrine, and it is this line that gives the right to speak of a single Church.

Moreover, the Church is called Holy and Catholic, because at its head is Christ - God, but the patriarch cannot fully govern the Church, for example, change dogmas, abolish canons; issues of governing the church on earth are dealt with by a local council - a meeting of clergy and laity of a given Church territories.

The holiness of the Church does not mean that anyone who enters it immediately becomes a saint. It only means that it gives us the path to holiness.

10th member of the Creed. IspoveI blow foodAndbut Baptism forsakeneremission of sins.

(I confess one baptism for the remission of sins).

In fact, Orthodoxy teaches that through the sacrament of Baptism a person enters the Church, he is, as it were, born for spiritual life, changes, sowing into himself a seed of grace, which he must cultivate by living as a Christian.

To help a person in his Christian life, there are a number of sacraments that must be partaken of. There are two sacraments that every Christian must practice constantly. This is the sacrament of Communion, in which, under the guise of bread and wine, we commune with the Lord himself. And the sacrament of repentance, in which we repent of our sins. It is worth remembering, when approaching this sacrament, that repentance “is a decisive change for the better, a turning point in the will, a turning away from sin and a turning to God.”

11th member of the Creed. Tea is riseneniya of the dead.

(Looking forward to the resurrection of the dead).

Following Christ, all people will be resurrected. But, here, for what, to remain in God or outside of God, we decide here on earth, already now.

12th member of the Creed. And life wouldatthis century. Amen.

(And the life of the next century. Truly so).

After the resurrection there will be eternal life, again with or without God.

Conclusion.

Thus, the dogmas of the Christian Church are considered - the basis of our faith, which we must confess both internally - with our deep conviction in them and following the Divine Laws, and externally - with a confession of faith. The sign of the cross is an example of an external confession of faith, three fingers folded together symbolize the trinity of the Divine, two bent fingers - the dogma of the Incarnation. The cross applied to the body reminds us of the suffering of Christ for our sins.

Conversation 2

About spiritual life. According to the teachings of the 12 apostles, there are two paths in human life: the path with God and the path without God. It is impossible to follow two paths at once, so a person must choose one. The path without God is a sinful life, submission to one’s passions, one’s selfishness. And the path with God is spiritual life. It is impossible to begin without leaving a sinful life.

Spiritual life is not religious fanaticism. This is a sincere desire for perfection, for the state in which the first man was before his fall. The essence of spiritual life lies in the struggle with one’s sins, subordinating one’s passions to one’s will with the help of the Grace of God. It is impossible for a person to live completely without sin, but, as it is written in the Bible, “a righteous man will fall seven times and rise again; and the wicked will fall into destruction,” that is, the difference between the righteous and the sinner is not even in the number of his sins, but in the spiritual struggle with them, true repentance and striving for God. A spiritual person always looks into his soul and sees the reasons for the troubles that happen to him only in himself, and not in the people around him or in circumstances. Hence the struggle is with the cause itself - that is, with one’s internal imperfection.

There is an opinion that you can be a decent person even without faith. What is the difference between the holiness to which Christ calls us and ordinary human decency? Decency only implies control over one’s actions, that is, external manifestations. A decent person must be polite, condescending, and help others. However, his internal attitude towards this is not so important. Holiness implies, first of all, control over your thoughts, since thought gives rise to action. A holy person monitors his inner state and does not allow even a sinful thought into his soul. And good deeds and external manifestations are already a consequence of spiritual work on oneself.

According to the teachings of the church, a person has three components: spirit, soul and body. In a perfect person, the spirit dominates the soul and body, subjugates them to itself. When a person puts the desires of his body first, this destroys his spiritual life and turns a person simply into a rational animal. And although in this case a person satisfies all his whims, he still remains unhappy, since the integrity of his nature, called Chastity by the Church, is destroyed in him.

Purpose of life man is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit - that is, approaching the ideal that the Gospel gives us and to which the Lord calls. Often people commit many sins and do not even consider it necessary to repent of them, since everyone around them is doing the same thing. However, Christ calls us to take an example not from “everyone,” but from himself and the holy people. In order to make it easier for us to lead a spiritual life, the Lord gives us a list of commandments - that is, recommendations on how we should act in our everyday life. Spiritual progress is ultimately and best verified by only one thing: our ability to love. To love - in the sense of pure respect, service, selfless affection that does not require reciprocal payment;

The concept of commandments. During the Exodus of Israel from Egypt, God gave Moses the Ten Commandments of the moral law, on which all the diversity of interhuman and social relations is based. It was a certain minimum of personal and public morality, without which stability would be lost. human life and public relations.

Ten Commandments of the Old Testament

1. I am the Lord your God, and there are no other gods besides Me.
2. Do not make for yourself an idol or any image; do not worship them or serve them.
3. Do not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
4. Six days you shall work and do all your work, and the seventh—Sabbath—is a day of rest, which you shall dedicate to the Lord your God.
5. Honor your father and mother, that you may be blessed on earth and live long.
6. Thou shalt not kill.
7. Do not commit adultery.
8. Don't steal
9. Do not bear false witness.
10. Don't covet anything that belongs to others.

These commandments speak primarily of Love. To God (the first 4 commandments) and to our neighbors (the remaining 6).

The Lord Jesus Christ did not come into the world in order to abolish this law: “Do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill.”

The Savior's fulfillment of this law was required because since the time of Moses, the understanding of the law has been largely lost. Over the past centuries, the clear and concise imperatives of the Sinai commandments were buried under the layers of a huge number of various everyday and ritual instructions, the scrupulous execution of which began to be given paramount importance. And behind this purely external, ritual and decorative side, the essence and meaning of the great moral revelation were lost. Therefore, the Lord had to appear in order to renew the content of the law in the eyes of people and again put its eternal verbs into their hearts. And moreover, to give a person a means to use this law to save his soul.
Christian commandments, by fulfilling which a person can gain happiness and fullness of life, are called the Beatitudes. Bliss is synonymous with happiness.
On a hill near Capernaum in Galilee, the Lord preached a sermon that became known as the Sermon on the Mount. And He began it with a statement of the nine Beatitudes:

1 Beatitudes: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for to them is the Kingdom of Heaven”

Currently, there has been a mutation of life values, a change in all guidelines. Instead of ascending to God, serving Him and being in saving communion with Him, man directed all his strength to satisfy the needs of his own egoism. This state when a person lives for himself and has his own “I” as the center of his inner universe is called pride. If vanity appears in a person’s life, then it “crosses out” the person’s entire spiritual life. The state opposite to pride, when a person pushes his “I” to the side, and puts God at the center of life, is called humility, or spiritual poverty. To be poor in spirit means to have the spiritual conviction that we have nothing of our own, but have only what God grants, and that we cannot do anything good without God’s help and grace. Humility is the foundation of Christian life: when we attribute all our achievements to God, and our sins to ourselves. Briefly, according to the explanation of St. John Chrysostom, spiritual poverty is humility. Humility is born of great inner strength, and anyone who doubts this should try to move his own self slightly to the periphery of his concerns and interests. And put God or another person in the main place in your life.

When a person is born into the world, he has nothing “of his own,” there is only his nature, created by the Lord. And when he dies, he will also not be able to take anything with him. So a person is not the owner of his property, but only a temporary manager. Man's talents and gifts are the gift of God, and to him alone should the humble man attribute his achievements. Many talented people died spiritually (drunk, became drug addicts) when they began to attribute the gift of God to themselves.

Why doesn’t the Lord create every person talented in everything, but only in something different? It is precisely so that a person, in need of the help of other people, becomes more deeply aware of the imperfection of his nature.

2 Beatitude: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted”

In the second commandment, the name weeping should be understood as sadness and contrition of the heart for one’s sins. Sorrow for God's sake produces unchangeable repentance leading to salvation; but worldly sorrow produces death. In this commandment, the Lord promises consolation to the repentant, by which we should understand the consolation of grace, consisting in the forgiveness of sins and a pacified conscience. The promise of consolation is necessary so that grief over one's sins does not reach a state of despair.

However, true repentance is not just a statement of one’s sin, with the intention of continuing to commit it in the future, but a sincere desire to change one’s nature, to get rid of sin.

3 Beatitude: “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth”

Meekness is a State of soul in which anger, hatred, resentment and condemnation are eliminated from it. Christian meekness lies in the fact that we should not grumble not only at God, but also at people, and when something happens against our desires, not to indulge in anger, not to become arrogant.

4 Beatitude: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”

Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are those who do good, but do not consider themselves righteous; not relying on their good deeds, they admit themselves to be sinners and guilty before God. Those who desire and pray faith, like true food and drink, hunger and thirst for grace-filled justification through Jesus Christ.

Lie - This is a situation in which our words do not correspond to our thoughts, knowledge or actions. Untruth is always associated with double-mindedness or hypocrisy; it expresses a fundamental discrepancy between the external and internal aspects of our life. Man sinned at the instigation of the devil, he committed a sin under the influence of lies. The Holy Scripture definitely testifies to the nature of the devil: “When he speaks a lie, he speaks his own, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” A person who commits untruths and sows lies around himself is divided within himself, like a doomed kingdom, and loses the unity of his nature.

5 Beatitude: “Blesseds of mercy, for there will be mercy”

Grace, or mercy, is, first of all, a person’s ability to effectively respond to someone else’s misfortune. This commandment must be fulfilled through physical and spiritual works of mercy. The corporal works of mercy are to feed the hungry; give drink to the thirsty; clothe the naked (lack of necessary and decent clothing); visit someone in prison; visit the sick person, serve him and help him recover or Christian preparation for death; accept the wanderer into the house and provide rest; bury the dead in poverty and misery.

Spiritual works of mercy: exhortation to turn a sinner from his false path (James 5:20); teach the ignorant truth and goodness; to give good and timely advice to your neighbor in a situation of difficulty or in case of danger that he does not notice; pray to God for your neighbor; comfort the sad; not to repay the evil done to us by others; forgive offenses with all your heart.

Those who do not fulfill the law of mercy will receive their punishment on the Day of Judgment.

6 Beatitude: “Blessed are those who are pure in heart, for they will see God”

True purity of the heart is achieved by constant and unflagging feat of vigilance over oneself, expelling from the heart every unlawful desire and thought, attachment to earthly objects, with faith and love, constantly preserving in it the memory of the Lord God Jesus Christ.

The Word of God allegorically endows the human heart with vision and calls Christians to make the eyes of the heart see. Just as a healthy eye is able to see light, so a pure heart is able to contemplate God. Since the sight of God is the source of eternal bliss, the promise to see Him is a promise of a high degree of eternal bliss. God does not reveal himself to an impure heart. The moral state of the individual is an indispensable condition for the knowledge of God.

Wisdom does not enter into an evil soul. She does not dwell in a body that is guilty of sin.

A person's personal relationship with God goes through three successive stages - slave, hireling and son. A slave is the first stage when a person fulfills the commandments of God out of fear of punishment, a mercenary is pleasing God for the sake of reward in heaven. And a son is sincere love for the heavenly Father, for the sake of which a person strives for Him. That is, this is true purity of heart.

7 Beatitude: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for these shall be called the sons of God”

To be a peacemaker means to act in a friendly manner and not give rise to disagreement; stop the disagreement that has arisen by all means, even sacrificing one’s interests, unless this contradicts duty and does not harm anyone; try to reconcile those at war with each other, and if this is not possible, then pray to God for their reconciliation. the promise of being named sons of God signifies the height of the peacemakers’ feat and the reward prepared for them. Since by their deed they imitate the only begotten Son of God, who came to earth to reconcile sinful man with the justice of God, they are promised the gracious name of the sons of God and, without a doubt, a degree of bliss worthy of this name.

peace is not a negative concept, that is, characterized by a simple absence of signs of confrontation, but a deeply positive state: a kind of gracious reality that displaces the idea of ​​enmity and fills the space of the human heart or social relations. In the words of St. Seraphim of Sarov, “Acquire a peaceful spirit and thousands will be saved around you.” That is, we must create peace primarily in our own soul. So that there is no imbalance or contradiction within us.

8 Beatitude: “It is blessed to banish righteousness for the sake of them, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.”

Living in truth is hard work and a challenge that involves risk, because there are too many lies in the world we live in.. Those who desire bliss must be ready to endure persecution for the sake of the truth, without betraying it. In order to steadfastly endure persecution for the sake of truth, love of truth, constancy and firmness in virtue are necessary, as well as courage and patience in standing in truth and virtue in case of disaster or danger.

9 Beatitudes: “Blessed are you, when they revile you, and destroy you, and say all kinds of evil things against you lying, for my sake: Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is abundant in heaven.” Those who desire bliss must be ready to joyfully accept reproach, persecution, disaster and death itself for the name of Christ and for the true Orthodox faith. A feat corresponding to this commandment is called martyrdom. In the words of Tertullian: "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of Christianity"

The concept of prayer. Purpose of prayer.

Prayer is turning the mind and heart to God.

During prayer, we talk with God. Prayer is needed to connect a person with God. But not every prayer is heard: we will be heard if we prove worthy to receive what we ask; if we pray in accordance with God’s laws about prayer; if we pray unceasingly, if we do not ask for anything unworthy; if we ask for something useful; if we do what is due on our part. True prayer must, first of all, come from the heart and should not be hypocritical or formal.

Every day must begin and end with prayer. First, it is better to take a small prayer rule for yourself, the main thing is that the prayer is from the heart, and not just a formal pronunciation of words. You can pray in your own words, but it’s better when prayers written by holy people become close to our hearts.

The concept of fasting. Purpose of the post.

Fasting is the oldest church tradition.

The time of fasting is a time especially important for spiritual life. By fasting we must understand not only abstinence from food, but the totality of all ascetic means in the fight against passions. It is necessary to observe both physical and spiritual fasting. Physical fasting is our sacrifice to God; we limit ourselves in our desires and do not eat what we want most. But physical fasting is only an auxiliary means for spiritual fasting - that is, cleansing your soul, intensive work on yourself. The gastronomic component of fasting is not a goal, but only a means for a correct spiritual life based on prayer and the sacraments of repentance and Communion. The main purpose of fasting is spiritual improvement. Fasting also serves to prepare a person for some church holidays.

About the temple. The church is a hospital for the healing of human souls. Therefore, every Christian should constantly attend church services. First of all, a temple is a place for Christians to pray together. The Church also offers us seven sacraments - that is, sacred rites revealed in Orthodox church rites, through which the invisible Divine grace or the saving power of God is communicated to believers, strengthening them in spiritual life and helping them in getting rid of sins. It is accepted in Orthodoxy seven sacraments: baptism, confirmation, eucharist (comunion), repentance, sacrament of priesthood, sacrament of marriage and consecration of oil.

The two main sacraments that every Christian must constantly attend are the sacraments of Repentance and Communion.

Repentance(Confession) serves to cleanse the soul of a Christian from sins. Every confession should become, on the one hand, a look back at the past, and on the other hand, a program for future exploits, for struggle, for victory over oneself in the name of God and in the name of one’s neighbor.

Communion(Eucharist) - Communion is a Sacrament in which the believer, under the guise of bread and wine, receives the very Body and Blood of Christ for eternal life. In this sacrament, a Christian spiritually unites with the Lord Jesus Christ himself and becomes a participant in eternal life. Communion is the main part of all Christian worship. Before receiving this sacrament, every Christian must clear his conscience by repenting of his sins, which is facilitated by fasting and prayer.

Thus, visiting the temple is not a strict obligation, but a necessity. Just as we take food not because we like it and not because someone forces us to do it, but simply because we feel the need for it, so attending Divine services should be a constant need of our soul.

Reading spiritual literature. A Christian must constantly correlate his life with the Divine Laws and with the experience of the Church. To do this, you need to constantly read the Holy Scriptures and spiritual literature. When we read an ordinary book, we are imbued with the spirit of the author who wrote it, and when we read the Holy Scriptures, the Grace of the Holy Spirit acts on us. Holy Scripture contains the foundations of our faith. The historical pages of the Bible are still dear to us because they not only truthfully present the events of the past, but put them in the correct religious perspective. In this respect, no other secular ancient or modern book can compare with the Bible. And this is because the assessment of the events described in the Bible was given not by man, but by God.

The Holy Gospel describes the earthly life of Jesus Christ - the ideal to which Christians should strive.

It is necessary to constantly, throughout your life, read one chapter from the Gospel and the Epistles of the Apostles every day. It is better to read the Holy Scripture with interpretations of it - they reveal its content more deeply.

Responsibilities of godparents:

“Godparents” have 3 main responsibilities towards their godchildren:

1. “Prayer room.” The godfather is obliged to pray for his godson, and also, as he grows up, to teach prayer so that the godson himself can communicate with God and ask Him for help in all his life circumstances.

2. “Doctrinal.” Teach your godson the basics of the Christian faith, and if you yourself are not knowledgeable enough, then first fill in the gaps yourself.

3. “Moralizing.” Using your own example, you must show your child human virtues - love, kindness, mercy, etc., so that the child grows up to be a truly good Christian.

No matter how much one talks about confession, it will never be enough. This topic is always relevant, and especially during Lent. One of the traditional Sunday evening meetings with parishioners was dedicated to this very sacrament. Archimandrite Ambrose (Shevtsov), abbot of the St. Nicholas Monastery, sincerely answered numerous questions.

Let's talk about confession

We know that confession is a sacrament, one of seven. Sacrament of repentance. We know that for the first Christians repentance was not just a sacrament, but a special state - a person found Christ and brought repentance for his entire past godless life. This experience of repentance is unique, and therefore can only be experienced once in a lifetime - during Baptism. In Baptism, a person is forgiven all his past sins. He dies to a life of sin and is born in Christ through being immersed in water three times. Water is a symbol of Christ’s three-day stay in the tomb. By dying with Christ, a person is reborn to new life in Christ. For the first Christians, repentance was immediate, after which a person had to live a normal Christian life, keeping himself from sin and living his life holy.

Centuries later, the internal burning fire of the Christian life began to subside. Our life, its moral level began to decline, and the sacrament of confessing our sins to the community entered the Church, as if it were a second baptism. A person publicly repents before the community of his crimes before the Christian conscience, the commandments of God, before the Gospel, and in the actions that he committed. I must say that this was an exciting event in a person’s life. It is impossible for us, modern Christians, to experience every confession the way the first Christians experienced it then.

In the Russian Orthodox Church, the following practice has developed: Confession is performed before Communion. And it turned out that two sacraments: Confession and Communion - merged together. I repeat, this was not the case before. In some churches now this is not the case either. Whether it’s good or bad, we won’t judge it. Although, thinking about this, you can find your pros and cons, but, first of all, you must understand that Confession and Communion are two separate sacraments.

And confession, we must remember, is our personal conversation with God. The priest in this case is only a witness to this conversation, and a silent witness. This needs to be clearly understood. We do not come to confession for forgiveness to a priest, we ask God for forgiveness for our sins and transgressions. This is not even a conversation with God, but, in some way, a monologue.

In his report on Diocesan Assembly of Moscow December 23, 2014 His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus' said about the role of the priest in the sacrament of confession: “Careful delicacy, laconic attention, reverent fear of harming a person’s living soul, readiness to patiently wait for even his timid independent steps towards Christ and, most importantly, unchanging respect for the penitent, for no matter what age, rank or social position it belongs to - this is what should form the basis of our pastoral approach to the Sacrament of Penance.” Note the phrase “mindful attention.” This is very important. Further, His Holiness the Patriarch says: “The priest is not a judge, not a director of human destiny, not an categorical arbiter of human destinies, but a humble witness of repentance before God.” We must understand this all too well.

And again: when approaching a priest for confession, we must remember that this is not a spiritual conversation. And the priest, of course, patiently listens to the stories that “son p’e, muzhik unknown kuda paishou...”, of course. But we ourselves must understand that other people are waiting for us to confess. For spiritual conversation, you need to choose a different time. And the priest will listen and give advice based on his life and spiritual experience. But you cannot turn confession into a spiritual conversation. She is not. Once again: confession is a repentant conversation with God. I come and say, for example: “Lord, I ask your forgiveness for these and those of my sins, for quarreling with this and that, insulting that, saying a bad word, looking wrong, saying wrong, not I saw something, I did something wrong... I ask you to forgive me, Lord, for not living according to the Gospel, Your commandments and laws. I will try, as best I can, to overcome these shortcomings of mine and hope for your help to correct the passions in myself.” That's it. Enough. As soon as the confession ends, the prayer of permission is read, the questions begin: “Oh, father, how will you tell me... how will you bless...” This is impossible. We must understand that other people also want to confess and then receive communion. All conversations are at another time. His Holiness the Patriarch says that confession should be held separately from the liturgy, at a special time. A person is preparing for communion and is nervous, rushing about: I will have time to confess, I won’t have time, and is distracted from the course of the service. And we must gradually come to the point that confession does not take place during the Divine Liturgy. We will carry out the blessing of the Patriarch and conduct confession between services.

How important is it in the life of a Christian to seek the blessing of a priest?

The priest is not an oracle, not a judge, not the truth in last resort. “Father blessed - and that’s it...!” If we go to ask the priest’s blessing for something, we need to think 10 times. Why? Firstly, if we go to ask for a priest’s blessing, we must pray that the Lord will instruct the priest to give the answer that will be useful to us, so that this will be a blessing from God. Secondly, if we have taken a blessing, we must fulfill it! Breaking a blessing is serious! We must be prepared for the fact that we will not always receive the blessing we expect. It seems that everything has been decided, planned, all that remains is to secure a blessing, we approach, and the priest says: “No.” “How not? – the lady is indignant, “I already bought tickets to Pochaev, but you don’t bless me.” If you take a blessing, you need to think about whether I can accept the blessing that the priest will give me. I would not advise “running” every time for a blessing in connection with insignificant, everyday moments of our lives. If this is not related to the violation of God’s commandment, or it is not a choice of life and death, or some other serious decision, we have a prayer before starting any good deed: “Lord, bless!” Otherwise this happens:

Bless the tomatoes planting.

God bless you. Plant it.

And in the morning there was frost, the seedlings froze. And what? Is it Father’s fault? The priest is not a meteorological center or a certified oracle. These are simple everyday questions.

More serious questions: “Father, I ask for your prayers, is this or that issue being resolved, or I ask for your advice, advise how best to do this or that.” And the priest will say his word, but you will still have to act one way or another, it is your choice, no one will make it for you. Moreover, I will say that advice and blessings on serious, vital issues should be asked from your confessor, and not from the first priest you meet in the church. For example, personal life is being decided, a wedding is being prepared: “Father, bless me to get married.” But it’s not for a priest to live with his chosen one or his chosen one! There is no need to shift responsibility for decision made on the priest and the blessing that he gave at your request.

How to find a confessor?

There is no need to look for elders. They are gone now. Bishop Aristarchus said: “Don’t look for miracles, create miracles yourself.” The confessor is the priest to whom you regularly confess. In our monastery there is a schedule, which each time indicates who is taking confession for the current week. Choose a priest and visit him regularly. There is no need to tell him: “Be my spiritual father.” Father will already know you very well, your spiritual mood and state, and this will help you both receive useful instruction from Father and give advice to the priest. If you confess in turn to the entire Gomel diocese, and ask advice from different priests, and then make a decision based on the answer you like best, then it is difficult to get soul-helping advice. It's like talking to a doctor. A regular doctor knows your medical history, how you react to medications, what contraindications you have, etc. You tell the doctor where it was pricked, where it pinched... And the doctor offers treatment that will help you. So is the priest. If you say: “Yes, I am a sinner, I am a sinner for everyone,” then in order to help a person, the priest turns into an investigator and begins: “Did they blow up the World Center in New York? - No. - Did you steal the horses? - No. – Did they shoot down a Malaysian plane? - No. “Well, that means I’m not a sinner in everything.” Each person has specific sins, individual ones. Don't make an investigator out of a priest. I turn again to the words of the Patriarch: “And even if, as many elders do, the priest says almost nothing during confession, and then the penitent asks him: “Father, will you tell me something,” then we can say the following: “ The most important thing that needed to be said, you said, repenting before God.” Confession is your personal conversation with God and the priest should not say anything special.

To give advice, should the priest have experience, e.g. family life?

Certainly! Undoubtedly! In ancient times and today in some Orthodox countries, not all priests can accept confession.

Advice can be given by confessors - people who have lived for decades, have experience as a priest, rich life experience, family, paternal “experience”, etc. What advice can a monk give for family life? A monk, of course, can advise on how to live better, but again based on what people come and tell, but this will be someone else’s experience, not the monk’s experience. A monk can tell you how to live in a monastery, but everyone has their own experience. There is a remarkable story in the Ancient Patericon. Two monks met - an old man and a young man. The young monk says: “I have ALREADY lived in this monastery for three years.” And the elder answers him: “And I’m STILL only 43.”

It is very important that the priest has experience. But we have lived through a time when, out of necessity, we ordained priests who were not entirely prepared for such service. We, people who came to church service in the early nineties, were ordained to the priesthood at the age of nineteen or twenty. What was our experience then? There was no experience, but there was “torture”: it was necessary to confess to grandmothers who survived the war, and more than one, famine, who raised children in difficult conditions. What advice can a young priest give to such people? But I had to. And, thank God, these grandmothers perceived us as priests, and not as grandchildren.

How to treat notes in confession?

What’s interesting is that it was we, the priests of the nineties, who introduced these notes, and now we ourselves are fighting them.

When the monastery opened and we became priests, the tradition of confession for each person was approximately this: “I am a sinner in deed, in word, in thought. I repent. Maria". All. There was one temple for the whole city. Crowds of people. We are young and zealous. They began to explain to the grandmothers: sit at home, think, write down. Multi-volume books with entire lists and registers of “sins” appeared on sale. Among others, there were, for example, the following: “I was not baptized when the bells rang.” And the grandmothers copied it all into notebooks. Today we have church censorship, and there is much less such literature. And in those years? Or: a person comes to confession for the first time and cries. Can't say anything. Cries and that's it. After all, grace touches the human heart, and tears flow by themselves. Thank God for that too. Therefore, you advise a person: sit at home, think calmly, remember not your sins, but your life. Conscience will tell you: in this case I did the wrong thing, and here I offended my colleague, or the whole class skipped class, let the teacher down. When preparing for confession, a person writes on a piece of paper, but this should not turn into a nervous hobby, into a mania. There is no need to copy books into notebooks. Now, thank God, people no longer carry such notebooks.

In my practice, I have met people who prepared for confession very carefully. A person brought repentance to God, analyzing his life into moments associated with some passions. I asked the Lord for forgiveness and received it.

Can you ask for forgiveness immediately after you have sinned, when you understand what you have done?

Yes. Necessarily.

And if there is no peace. I have already repented and received communion, but there is no peace. What to do?

This means something is wrong. We must repent again. And sometimes you have to forget. If you do not repeat the sin, then this obsessive thought should be abandoned. You have stopped sinning, but a habit remains, an attraction that gives you no rest. The “medicine of oblivion” helps well against such a scourge. Some elders advise putting such thoughts and memories “in the back drawer of the chest” and forgetting, letting it “decay.” And if you often take out the “woolen cape” to ventilate it and warm it up in the sun, then the moths will not start. How can he “decay”? We must try to forget so that this painful memory turns to dust. So it is with sins. If you don’t remember, don’t disturb your passions, then the skill will go away. And if you start to remember, then, in the end, you may not resist and repeat this sin. If the wound is not irritated, it will heal faster. Therefore, repented sins should be forgotten.

What about idle talk? If you confessed and sinned again. He came, repented and again.

Remember: the ancient Christians burned with faith. If they repented before baptism, then sinning was tantamount to spiritual and physical death. We do not have such ardor of faith, we are relaxed. And sometimes we don’t even think about idle talk, we don’t consider it a sin. If we led a spiritual life in the struggle with our passions, then there would be no place for idle talk. The words of the Savior would burn before our eyes with a red flame: “For every idle word you will give an answer.” All. We would constantly remember this if we paid attention to our spiritual life. Why did people go to the desert? We were looking for solitude so as not to get distracted by the bustle. Yes, now we are surrounded by bustle. We are used to talking first, then thinking. There is a good proverb: “Think what you say, don’t say what you don’t mean, and don’t say everything you think.”

Father is not only a witness of repentance, he also allows you to begin communion. Or maybe not allow it?

This happens too. Firstly, when the priest does not see the confessor’s repentance for sin. From confession to confession a person repeats the same sins. Doesn't fix it. The meaning of confession is not to commit these sins, to strive to cleanse oneself.

Secondly, when there is no forgiveness. There have been cases when a person has everyone to blame, but not himself. A person cannot receive forgiveness if he does not forgive himself. These are the words of the Savior.

Confession is an event in life, and it is not the norm, it is the exception. Christians are called to live holy lives, we are called to do so. We have to try.

The priest keeps the secret of confession, but can the confessor tell?

No. It should be mutual. Even the law on freedom of conscience states that the state recognizes the secret of confession.

Can a priest point out sin?

The priest has to indicate during confession, but this is extremely wrong, it is difficult to bear this burden and this is a problem. A priest is a living person. The priest also confesses together with the confessor. The man speaks about his sins, and the priest speaks with him: “Lord, forgive me too.”

We know that there is a degree of development of sin: motive, thought, pleasure, etc. How can a worldly person cope? If you allowed it in your thoughts, but have not yet come to the point of falling? Is it necessary to repent of thoughts?

In confession you need to talk about your thoughts. If we accepted them, talked with them, agreed with them, this is a sin. “In deed, in word, in thought...” If we did not pay attention to the thought, drove it away, did not accept it, then there is no need to talk about it and should be forgotten, otherwise we will begin to be proud: oh! I'm struggling with thoughts.

We must understand that all ascetic rules were written by monks and for monks. And for the world? What did Saint Ambosius of Optina advise? “Don’t worry about living,” i.e. don't get discouraged. What causes despondency? From idleness. “Do not judge anyone” is the most important thing: “do not judge and you will not be judged.” We are all sinners. “Don’t annoy anyone” - this is also very important - to be attentive to people, careful, even reverent, and therefore ends with St. Ambrose his instructions: “and my respect to everyone.” Here is a sufficient guide to action.

There is no need to impose on yourself feats and “unbearable burdens.” If we have a prayer rule, it should be feasible, feasible and regular. So that our prayer is a prayer, a prayerful appeal to God, and not just a set of words. And it certainly doesn’t behoove us to be proud: “Today I read five akathists.” For what? What's the point? It would be better if I helped people, supported them with words, helped with deeds, and there would be more benefit than from reading five akathists.

What to do with icons that people bring from abroad, from Catholic countries?

You can bring it, but you must understand that canonical images are written strictly according to the canons. How is an icon different from any other image? The icon is always signed; it must have the name of the person depicted on it. If there is no inscription, even if it seems canonical, it is not yet an icon. For any Orthodox icon there must be an inscription, because we pray not to the board, but to the one who is depicted on it. The icon of St. Luke - we pray to St. Luke, and not to the icon case; the icon of the Mother of God of Vladimir - we pray to the Mother of God, and not to paints, boards, glass.

In pre-revolutionary Orthodox magazines, for example, I saw images of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna with an heir in her arms. She is wearing a crown and holding a baby, like Madonna. Alexandra Feodorovna Tsarina? Queen. Alexey Tsarevich? Tsarevich. Can I depict it? Can. Signed: “Her Majesty Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and His Highness the Heir Tsarevich Alexei.” It is clear that this is a painting, but it plays out a well-known plot.

Is Charbel a saint?

There are saints who are not glorified in the Orthodox Church. Nowadays Saint Charbel is very popular. There is no such saint in the Orthodox Church, we do not pray to such a saint. We have our own saints whose relics are warm and incorruptible. Saint Alexander of Svir (1448 - 1533) – the relics are imperishable, as if the person had just fallen asleep. Therefore, do not look for other people’s saints, you can turn to our saints, we have many of them - just pray! Pray to your saints, don't look for exotic things.

On April 10, at the Optina Metochion in St. Petersburg, another Sunday spiritual conversation took place under the leadership of the abbot, Abbot Arseny (Mosalev).

According to established tradition, the first part of the conversation was devoted to reading by heart chapters from the Gospel and the Apostle. Then, Abbot Arseny and Abbot Ephraim talked with the parishioners on spiritual topics; questions were asked by the parishioners of our church who had gathered in the refectory after the service. We bring to your attention some of the Sunday conversation and advice from the brethren of the monastery.

At the beginning of the conversation, we talked about reading patristic works, in particular, about the “Ladder” of St. John of Sinai (6-7 centuries), whose memory is celebrated by the Orthodox Church on the 4th Sunday of Great Lent.

IGUMENE ARSENY: We are accustomed to paying attention to the sins of other people, to apply the Gospel to others. “Why did you see the mote in your brother’s eye, but did you not sense the log that was in your eye?”() Why is this so? For many reasons. It is much easier to fight, for example, for the purity of Orthodoxy, because it seems to be clear: you cannot pray together with Catholics and so on. It is much easier to fight against disorder in church life, monitor the behavior of church bishops and the like. It is much easier to treat external things strictly and demand, for example, from others to read the rule before communion of the Holy Mysteries... And besides, everyone is someone else, and we strive for them, apply the Gospel to others. But all the Holy Fathers say that the Gospel must be applied, first of all, to oneself. The gospel is addressed personally to everyone. The Lord says that “and the hair of your head is counted out”(). We talked about fulfilling God’s commandments, and that the commandments are not just moral laws, what is good and what is bad. But, as Christ said: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Belly”(), that is, this is our path to Christ, to the world of Christ. And the Lord says: “The Spirit of truth, Whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him, knows Him lower: you know Him, because He abides in you and will be in you.”(). But the modern world, we, today's Christians, do not know the peace of Christ. We must clearly understand this and be horrified by it, because we are among those chosen, as the apostle says, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.”(). But, in essence, we are not like that, because we know everything by the letter of the law: we always invite someone else to repent, we fight for the purity of Orthodoxy, and so on. And in order to cleanse our heart, and Christ entered into it, how to do this - we don’t know, we don’t know at all! So what next? This is the worst thing... We forget about keeping our hearts pure. We don't know how to clean it. And it is said “nothing evil enters the kingdom of heaven”(prayer to St. Prophet John the Baptist). We show our ignorance. Let me remind you that the three giants that prevent us from purifying our hearts and coming to Christ are 1) ignorance, 2) oblivion and 3) despondency, or despondency, as you can call it. But so that we do not constantly remain in these three sins, so that these three giants do not frighten us, the Holy Fathers left us a lot of creations for guidance, not about what is good and what is bad, but how to cleanse your heart and come to Christ.. One person knows from experience what to do. The other one follows an experienced person, and it is easier for him in spiritual life. The third is guided by the works of the Holy Fathers. The saddest thing is that, despite all the wealth left to us by the Fathers, we leave it in oblivion, remain ignorant and treat the words of Scripture with laziness. In oblivion - because they read it once and forgot. In ignorance - we read, but we do not participate (we are not guided) ... And we end up with such a vicious circle. Of course, here it is very important to know and clearly understand the essence of this struggle (against passions), gradual, correct. Now Week of St. John Climacus, as he described in his book "The Ladder" 30 steps, according to the number of the Savior’s life before going out with a sermon. Saint John clearly described, ascending each step, how gradually a person begins to grow spiritually, and what struggle he encounters at each step, how for us to correctly walk the path of Christian life in order to purify our hearts. There is a short, ascetic path that we cannot do today; an example of such a path is shown in Chapter 5 of “Ladders” in the section on "Dungeon"(located in the monastery itself), when it speaks of a youth, a young monk who, out of obedience, decided to live among the “condemned” and soon, through tears of repentance, achieved purification of his heart and reposed in the Lord. Most follow the middle path, also called the “royal” path, little by little overcoming one struggle after another, triumphing over passion or falling; but by falling, we also gain experience, because, as the Apostle Paul says: “Tribulation makes patience, and patience is an art, and art is hope, but hope does not disgrace.”(). That is, we know that if we act again, for example, badly, then we will “fall” again.

PARISHIST: So spiritual vision appears?

IGUMENE ARSENIY: Not spiritual vision, but experience. Spiritual vision is a littleother. Spiritual vision is the second stage of spiritual reasoning, it is an intelligent feeling that allows one to accurately recognize and distinguish between good and bad, that which is contrary to good, and that which is natural to man. And a person, from long experience in spiritual life, already sees this struggle, he can suggest and give advice.

PARISHIST: May I ask a question? Is it possible to have spiritual vision at a young age or is this only characteristic of old people? It just seems to me that I have met people who at an early age have a sense of spiritual vision.

IGUMENE ARSENY: Saint Isaac the Syrian writes that such a state occurs over a long period of time and through many sorrows.

PARISHIST: That is, at a young age - no.

IGUMENE ARSENY: All the fathers talk about the duration of the test, and we know that the Lord does not lead everyone to the path of old age. I once again draw your attention so that we do not abandon patristic reading, and especially “The Ladder,” which was considered the most beloved book in Rus' and the most read, it was read by both monks and laity. If we lead a lukewarm life, if we become fixated on our pseudo-Christianity, then we will remain a burden to ourselves and others.

IGUMENE EFREM: When was the last time you read “The Ladder”?

PARISHIST: I haven’t read it yet. Now I’m reading St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov). But “The Ladder” is such a lofty work, you are simply amazed at the greatness of the thought, but at the same time you understand that it is very difficult to perform... this feat is needed...

IGUMENE ARSENIY: “The Ladder” is reread every year during Great Lent. As usually happens, you read it for the first time and say to yourself: “Now I will do everything according to the Ladder.” And during this year we realized that we didn’t do everything we wanted to do according to “Lestvitsa”, we couldn’t do it. And they decided that next year you will definitely do as it says in “The Ladder.” And the next year it turned out twice as bad as last year. And also in the third year... And in the fourth - you understand your weakness, that without God we cannot do anything.

PARISHMAN: In the first chapter of “The Ladder,” the first step is "Renunciation of the World". Tell me, please, what does renunciation of the world mean for a layman?

IGUMENE EFREM: “The Ladder”, in fact, was written more for monks, and everything that is written in it is about monastic society. How can you apply it if even for monks today it is impossible to say what renunciation of the world means, since love of peace (hereinafter the word is used in the meaning “ world love") has amazed everyone so much that we don’t even know what renunciation of the world is? The Apostle spoke “You don’t love the world, not like the world” (), "The world lies in evil"() and so on, so on. Of course, if a person gives preference to the material rather than the spiritual, this will be a love of peace... They said that they read St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov), he wrote a lot about love of peace, that modern society is permeated with a love of peace, that it is not useful for a monk to communicate with worldly people , because they bring peace to monastic life. But you yourself must somehow limit yourself, and your conscience tells you how much you have deviated into attachment to the world. For example, you are walking along the road and there is some beautiful advertisement: you can pass by and not look at it. And so in every moment. You can abstain from food and everything else. You can behave meekly in society, with people. Suppose Saint Ambrose of Milan had his own theological school, and he could already determine the inner world of a person by his gait. And he did not take some into his theological school, because their gait gave away the person.

PARISHMAN: May I ask a question? For example, when a person chooses the monastic path, he sets a very high bar for himself that he must overcome, and he renounces the world, makes vows, and they are specific, the person will have to fulfill them, and what if he doesn’t fulfill them?

IGUMENE EFREM: We were just talking about “The Ladder”. And Climacus clearly states why you need to go to a monastery. Read “The Ladder”, find this place yourself, everything is written there. And we are not talking about some kind of plank if a person sinned... The harlot crawled to Christ and washed His feet with her tears, and the Lord said: “Go, your faith has saved you”(). That’s how we all crawled to Optina Pustyn, there was no talk of any plank, we hadn’t even read “The Ladder.” And what is sung during tonsure, do you know what troparion is sung during tonsure? “The Father’s arms are open to me, and I have spent my life fornication...”, and we crawl to the abbot in white shirts, like the prodigal son. There was no talk of a high bar, it wasn’t like they just read “The Ladder” and came. That’s right, Father Arseny explained now that every year we read “The Ladder” and understand that we are further and further from God. Remember what the prodigal son said when he came to his father, simple words: “Those who have sinned in heaven and before you”(). And the whole monastic life consists of awareness of one’s weakness and repentance. And the more you live in a monastery, the more you understand this.

PARISHMAN: Bless, father. The Holy Fathers have this idea that learn to pray, and prayer will teach you everything. What meaning do they put into these words?

IGUMENE EFREM: The main thing is that Christ should always be in the heart, this is the most important thing, this is the meaning. If we pray unceasingly, then naturally we will be in sobriety, and we will evaluate every word, every thought, whether it pleases God or not. But speaking in context, now there are no such people who could pray unceasingly and be constantly sober. If, perhaps, there are examples on Mount Athos, then in Russian monasticism, I do not know of such examples. You asked about peacefulness, but our very trouble is peacefulness and inconstancy, inconstancy in prayer.

PARISHIST: What to do with the fact that I come to confession every time with the same sins...something “falls away”, something is repeated again?

IGUMENE ARSENY: The Lord Himself said how many times to forgive when the apostles asked him: “I will not tell you seven times, but seventy times seven.”(), that is, infinitely. But a person must constantly notice his sins and mistakes. Therefore, Saint Isaac the Syrian says that cleansing from the sins from which you speak takes place over a long time, a very long time, and through many sorrows. But we are impatient and cowardly, we repeat sins - and we begin to get irritated, and add sin to sin, instead of reproaching ourselves and moving on.

PARISH MEMBER: Or maybe it’s because you don’t sincerely repent, because if you sincerely repent, in fact, you won’t repeat this sin.

IGUMENE EPHREM: As the Apostle John the Theologian says that there is a sin leading to death, and there is a sin not leading to death(By ). If the sin leads to death, this is a special issue. And if we commit a sin that does not lead to death, then what we constantly confess, and in which we cannot help but sin: with thoughts, and feelings, and smell, and taste, and touch. We must understand that our fallen nature will manifest itself in any case.

PARISHIST: But in confession I promise not to sin. It turns out to be a contradiction that I promise not to sin, but I understand that I will come to confession next time with the same sins - does this mean that on a subconscious level I am already making an insincere promise?

IGUMENE ARSENIY: Father Ambrose said, “where it’s simple, there are a hundred angels, but where it’s tricky, there’s not a single one.” Be simpler, without any subconsciousness: if you sinned due to human weakness and infirmity, then you repented. And most importantly, have patience and patience, first of all, with yourself.

PARISHMAN: What does it mean to tolerate yourself?

IGUMENE ARSENY: This means tolerating ourselves when we promise, try to improve and do the same thing again. This is one piece of showing patience to yourself.

PARISHMAN: Father, this probably refers to what is written in the prayer to the Mother of God in the evening rule, that we promise and sin again: “I find myself lying before God...

IGUMENE ARSENIY: ...and I repent, trembling, lest the Lord strike me, and little by little hour I do the same again.”

PARISHMAN: And in the Follow-up to Communion of the Holy Mysteries the same thing is written about this, that I stand before the temple and before the Chalice, but still a sinner.

IGUMENE ARSENIY: Of course.

PARISHMAN: Father, should continuous prayer be performed, even if you are working, for example?

IGUMENE EFREM: Of course, if there is no one around and the work is simple, for example, moving nails from place to place, then you can constantly repeat the Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.”

PARISHMAN: And it happens, father, that prayer itself “flows”... My grandmother taught me prayer as a child, when I didn’t even understand what prayer was, and when there was a difficult period in my life, for years, and prayer was “Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy...", automatic. Can this be called the Jesus Prayer?

IGUMENE EFREM: Yes, yes. The Lord may be specially giving us such circumstances so that through circumstances we learn the Jesus Prayer. Remember how Elder Silouan told how a warrior came to his bookstore, and they started talking about prayer, and he told how he prayed on the battlefield when bullets whistled. And what did Elder Silouan say then? That he saw real prayer, how a person prays. Although he was a worldly man and learned to pray during the war. Here you are. It happens that such sorrows come upon people that all that remains is to call on the name of God: "Lord, have mercy." And the Lord puts us in circumstances so that we constantly learn prayer. And in sorrow, the only hope remains - God, and no one else and nothing, and to whom will we go, if not to God, to whom will we turn, if not to God, who else can hear us? The Monk Ephraim the Syrian says specifically that God Himself knows that no one will help us except Him. Christ Himself knows that there is no other helper for us except Him. And you are right in saying that you need to pray, you just need to try to do it, and do it constantly, but we don’t do it.

PARISHMAN: But for me the prayer itself comes, “flows”...

IGUMENE EFREM: If what you say is true, then it’s better not to tell anyone about it, only discuss it with your confessor.

PARISHMAN (other): So you can’t even share with a friend?

IGUMENE EFREM: If you have a friend who could understand you, then you can. But there are probably only a few such people with whom one could talk about prayer, let’s say, communicate, and understand each other. But more often there is misunderstanding - this is at best, and at worst it is ridicule. But we cannot bear ridicule, because we are talking about the secret. Therefore, in this way, perhaps the Lord is making us understand so that we learn to live in our hearts, and when Christ is in the heart, this is completeness, and we no longer need anything else.

PARISHIST: Father, how valuable is earthly life in relation to heavenly, Eternal life? If you can say, then in percentage terms - how much is earthly, how much is eternal?

IGUMENE EFREM: In percentage terms, it’s probably difficult to judge. We cannot distribute the grace of God on interest...

IGUMENE ARSENIY: “God does not give the spirit in moderation” ().

IGUMENE EFREM: Yes. I think that the more a person is blessed, the less he will love earthly life. As the Apostle Paul said: “I have a desire to be resolved and to be with Christ, because this is incomparably better”(). That is, Christ already lived in him, and he wanted to come to Christ, but for the sake of preaching, for the sake of the disciples, for the sake of building the Church of Christ on earth, the Lord left him. As much as we fear death, we love life; the less we fear death and strive for Christ, the less attention we will pay to this life. For example, I’ll tell you a story about an old man from "Benevolence", be sure to read this book: they came to one old man, and he was so in prayer, so blessed and in contemplation, that when he raised his hands, he no longer remembered either time or anything earthly, and for several days he could stand with his hands raised , therefore, when students came to him, he raised his hands and immediately lowered them, so as not to go into contemplation.

PARISHMAN: Wow...

IGUMENE EFREM: Imagine, he could stand in prayer for several days, and the disciples were still worldly, earthly, so he quickly gave up, so as not to go away in contemplation and leave the disciples without teaching.

PARISHIST: But earthly life also matters.

IGUMENE EFREM: Earthly life matters for the future life. But if the goal itself is earthly life, to have life, then I don’t know...

PARISHMAN: May I ask a question? What to do in situations in which feelings of joy or sadness arise. It turns out that these states arise automatically, and there is no choice whether to experience this state or not. And if you can still fight with joy, when, for example, things are going well. With sadness it’s impossible... How to be in this state, how to extinguish it?

IGUMENE ARSENIY: How can I pay it off? If you notice a feeling of sadness, then pray, and in prayer, in the Jesus Prayer "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me" just reproach yourself, and then tell me in confession.

PARISHMAN: The fact is that when I pray, I find even greater sorrows.

IGUMENE EFREM: We are constantly in battle, in spiritual war, and the evil one sees that you have begun to pray and call on God. Naturally, there may be even greater attacks.

IGUMENE ARSENIY: The evil one may begin to confuse you, confuse you, and send you thoughts that this sadness is because you are praying. Therefore, there must be experience in wrestling.

IGUMENE EPHREM: If you have not read the letter of St. John Chrysostom to Olympias, who was a devoted disciple of the saint, then read it. She was very sad that she parted with him when, as you know, he was banished into exile, and she was left without her teacher. And so the saint in letters to her writes about sadness, read, and writes to her that even the Apostle Paul, when he did not find Titus, he was saddened (see). That is, the saints also had that worldly feeling of sadness that does not immediately go away. Sometimes the sadness doesn’t go away for years, and you just hold on to "Lord have mercy" that's all. And nothing else can save us, no other thought, as soon as "Lord have mercy". And this is typical of people, and we can’t get away from it. Sadness always haunts us. Sadness, grief, illness... And sometimes the Lord does not specifically hear us and makes us understand what it means to be without God, to feel abandoned, and often this is the case in our time, a time without grace, and it happens so that we feel what it means to be without God.

Also, at the Sunday spiritual conversation, some other issues were discussed.

On September 17, 2017, Fedor Efimovich Vasilyuk, Doctor of Psychology, Professor, Chief Researcher of the Laboratory of Consultative Psychology and Psychotherapy of the PI RAO, Head of the Department of Individual and Group Psychotherapy of the Moscow State University of Psychology and Education, President of the Association of Understanding Psychotherapy, passed away. Today, on the day of the funeral service and funeral of the servant of God Theodore, the website Pravoslavie.Ru publishes an interview with a psychotherapist given to our portal 3 years ago.

About whether clergy need knowledge of psychotherapy and about the experience of teaching psychotherapy to students - a conversation with Fedor Efimovich Vasilyuk, psychotherapist, Doctor of Psychology, professor, head of the department of individual and group psychotherapy at Moscow City Psychological and Pedagogical University.

Such cases are not so frequent, but, nevertheless, we are pleased when priests find themselves in psychology and psychotherapy classes. In particular, I remember one archpriest near Moscow. He explained his interest in psychology this way: “I’m not going to become a professional psychologist, I’m a priest. I have a lot of tasks at the parish, school, social ministry, work with children's families, and I need different specialists - and psychologists in particular. I want to understand what they can do, I want to manage this process competently, and that’s why I get such an in-depth education.” Here is one of the motives.

- Why did others need psychotherapy?

I can remember another Moscow priest who is currently undergoing a long-term program. First of all, he would like to deepen and, perhaps, make more precise the way he conducts spiritual conversations with parishioners. It seems to him that in child, family and adult psychotherapy he will find some tools that he can integrate into his priestly ministry and counseling.

- Actually, pastoral counseling and psychotherapy are not the same thing.

Not to analyze and give advice, but to participate in a person’s experience of some kind of misfortune or problem.

This is a double-edged sword, because psychology can sometimes imagine itself to be so self-sufficient, helping as if from itself. But church counseling nevertheless builds this work of help in such a way as to call on the Lord to participate, to participate in this, in overcoming trouble, crisis, in family troubles, etc. This, it seems to me, is a cardinal difference.

- Please tell us about your course that you taught to seminarians.

It takes a total of three years, on the basis of higher psychological education, to prepare for “Understanding Psychotherapy.” We proceed from the fact that in psychotherapy we meet a person who is in crisis, in some hopeless situation, in a situation of impossibility, when he cannot do anything about his misfortune, loss, or some kind of betrayal. Nothing can be done, it has come true... Some kind of trouble has happened, but we must live. And what remains for a person? All he can do is survive this situation. To survive means to do such mental work that will rethink some values, your attitudes, your attitude towards life. This work of experiencing is the main one in “Understanding Psychotherapy”, so the psychotherapist’s job then is not to analyze and give advice, recommendations, etc., but to participate in this work of experiencing. And what a psychotherapist does we call “empathy.” This is not only an emotional response, but also intellectual participation, and inclusion in the analysis of his situation. Empathy is everything a therapist does to help a person through their experience. This is the main meaning, and the method by which a person does this is the method of understanding. With the students, we mastered the basic techniques of understanding another person. It turns out that this is not the simplest thing; maybe even the most difficult one is understanding. This is what the course was dedicated to - this alphabet of techniques for understanding another person in trouble.

- And what did you ultimately manage to achieve in such a short course?

Well, I think the students have learned this ABC. Maybe you remember - and I remember - that joy when suddenly for the first time on the street a word is formed from letters that you already know. There were just letters, and now - a word! “Bread”, you read, “Milk”. This is great joy. It seems to me that the students not only mastered these letters, but also learned to read “Bread” and “Milk”. They have taken the first step in such professional psychological assistance.

- How successfully did they achieve this without having a psychological education?

This had its difficulties, but the seminarians overcame them brilliantly. Of course, a number of concepts require some kind of preparation, reading books. But, nevertheless, the lack of this knowledge in this case could be compensated for by two things, it seems to me. Firstly, due to logic. After all, the course was taught to graduate seminarians; these were guys with very well-trained thinking. It is important to be able to think well. They have such an organized mind. And second: they are quite sensitive emotionally. It is, in fact, the presence of mind and heart that made it possible to overcome the lack of education in the field of psychology. So I'm happy with the result.

Fedor Efimovich, how do you perceive the difference between seminarians and psychology students at secular universities?

Of course, in universities, lectures do not begin with “Heavenly King...” But this seemingly external difference leaves its mark on the internal space of communication. Students at mainstream universities seem more open; Seminary students at first were so more reserved, as if their uniforms were buttoned up to all the buttons. Students at regular universities are more emotionally animated, but seminary students... one feels that they have a lot of feelings, emotions, emotional life, but it seems to be boiling like in a nuclear reactor, so contained. Both students of secular institutions and seminary students may have a lot of water, but there the water is splashed everywhere, but here it is collected in a well and there is a feeling of greater depth.

- What made the most, perhaps, most vivid impression on you?

It was somewhat of a surprise to me that at the very beginning of the course, many seminarians, who needed to respond to some complaint of a conditional patient, suddenly began to give a small sermon, instructions, explanations of why this happens to people due to sinfulness. There was sometimes such an excess of edification in this, for my taste... But it passed quite quickly. I was amazed at how quickly they went through this path in just a few lessons to allowing themselves more open, free, lively communication in a situation that they would encounter every day when they needed to support someone.

During breaks and after classes, I know that students asked you questions and came up to you. What did they ask?

The questions were very different. One of the students is exactly the case when such discipline does not reach any inhuman limits, and they remain just people, just young boys, and thank God! - so, one of the students asked a question at the lecture, and then, while we were discussing other questions, he fell asleep. And when I came to answer his question, I asked the seminarians sitting nearby to wake him up. They woke him up. He, poor thing, woke up, and I said: “I now answer your question, keep yourself awake for a minute.” I answered and said: “Well, now you can continue to sleep.” The man is tired, apparently. But then he came up with a very personal question. He has some kind of defect, his own speech peculiarity, which he wants to correct as a future priest, because he understands that he needs to preach. And he asked me to advise him of a colleague, a psychologist, who would help him overcome and cope with these speech characteristics. That is, these were these kinds of very personal questions, sometimes aimed at helping. There were also: where did it come from and why is it needed? does it not pretend to replace the Church? and the like. Such acute, important, living questions. So thank you very much for the opportunity to teach this course.

This outline plan has been compiled to help catechists starting their catechetical practice. It can be taken entirely as a basis when constructing conversations or partially, as their individual elements.

The author considers the main goal of catechumen conversations, conducted in accordance with the minimum requirements, to encourage those catechumens to build personal relationships with God and to enter church life.

When drawing up the outline plan, we took into account basic principles catechesis: churchliness, integrity, consistency, accessibility and feasibility, personal nature of catechesis, connection with life, visibility.

The following aspects of the conversations given in the outline can be highlighted:

– even in conditions of brevity, the announcement contains three main aspects: doctrine; morality and asceticism; prayer and worship;

– the presentation is subject to logic, consistency and is based on what is already known and understandable to the speakers, what is present in their experience;

– the attention of the listeners is fixed on the fact that the material presented is based on the Holy Scriptures and the Tradition of the Church;

– an attempt has been made to present it in a language accessible to the public;

– the ability of the hearers to perceive doctrinal knowledge is taken into account, therefore, in particular, the Creed is proposed to be analyzed not in one, but in both conversations;

– a person-oriented presentation of material and dialogue with those announced, posing and solving problematic issues are expected;

– means of semantic clarity are used ( examples, images), as well as images of icons;

– it is proposed to read and discuss some passages of Holy Scripture during the conversations themselves in order to instill the skill of reading the Word of God.

1. Plan of conversations

First conversation:

getting to know the people being announced. Explanation of the meaning of public conversations as necessary for preparation for further correct life with God;

identifying the reasons why people want to be baptized or have children baptized. An explanation of the meaning of receiving the Sacrament of Baptism, in which a person is freed from the power of sin and receives the seed of a grace-filled life in Christ (the words of the Apostle Paul are cited about the power of sin (Rom. 7:19-23)). The need for faith and repentance;

a story about Divine Revelation, which is necessary for knowing God and His will for us; scripture; reading gospel passages (the Savior's parables about the prodigal son, the lost sheep and the lost coin);

conversation about faith in God, about what we know about Him: God is the Trinity, Consubstantial and Inseparable - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God is the Creator and Provider. Properties of God;

man: the image and likeness of God; human life in paradise; fall; life and death; the need for salvation;

reading the Creed;
about prayer;
homework assignment: read the Gospel of Mark (the Bible is given to the catechumens); read the Creed and pray to God (the Creed and prayers are given in the handout); reflect on the place of God in your life;

answers to questions; prayer.

Second conversation:

a brief repetition of the main questions of the previous conversation. Answers to questions on the Gospel and other topics. Reading a Gospel passage;

reading the Creed;

Christ is the Son of God incarnate from the Most Holy Theotokos - Savior;

The Lord Jesus Christ died for us and rose from the dead;

He ascended with His most pure body and, as the God-man, has the same glory as God the Father, and will come at the glorious Second Coming to judge the living and the dead;

He sent from the Father the Holy Spirit, whom we can acquire in the Church;

the door to the Church is the Sacrament of Baptism. Sacraments of Penance and Eucharist;

we look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the age to come;

Decalogue as the basis of Christian morality (brief analysis);

about Baptism (explanation of rites, practical questions);

summing up, briefly repeating the main points of the conversations;

practical issues of preparation for the confessional conversation (the Sacraments of Confession and Communion); answers to questions;

final parting words and proposals for forms of further churching, opportunities for entering the life of a given parish;

2. Outline of conversations

First conversation (Approximate course of the conversation)

1. Prayer

2. Getting to know the people being announced. Explanation of the meaning of public conversations.

Hello! My name is _____________, I am the catechist of the temple ________________. I am glad to welcome you to the public conversations that are held so that your Baptism or the Baptism of your children is performed with the necessary awareness of the meaning of the upcoming Sacrament and subsequent churching. You will also be able to get to know the life of the Church and our temple, of which, I hope, you and your children will become parishioners. It is important for you, as parents and godparents, to become an example, a model of Christian life for children, to raise them in the faith, to introduce them to the temple of God, to the Sacraments of the Church. Our conversations can help this.

In Soviet times and two decades after it, preparations before Epiphany were virtually not carried out for various reasons. But several years ago, the Hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church decided to hold at least two catechetical conversations (from the word “clarification” - oral instruction, teaching) before the Sacrament of Baptism. It is important that you and I come to such conversations not because these are the requirements, but because we ourselves see a living need to prepare for such an important step as Baptism.

It should be noted that in the 2nd–4th centuries AD. those who wished to receive Baptism underwent 2–3 years of preparation, which allowed them to be baptized while already strengthened and established in the Orthodox Christian faith and life. The condition for infant Baptism has also always been deep faith, churchliness and virtue of parents and recipients. Nowadays, unfortunately, few are ready to work seriously in preparing to receive the Sacrament of Baptism or Baptism of children, so the Church meets our infirmities and weaknesses and offers as little preparation as possible. But it is impossible to do without it completely, moreover, it is simply dangerous.

As an example, I will say that when entering college or wanting to drive a car, we must pass an exam that will confirm that we can study at a university or drive a car. And in order to pass the exam, you need to study first. We agree with this. Because if you do not acquire the necessary knowledge, skills, and abilities, further study at a university will be practically impossible, and being on the road will be life-threatening. It's the same here; During this extremely short period of time during which our meetings will continue, we need to prepare to live the rest of our lives correctly. And, I hope, you will see and agree that what we will talk about is not abstract conclusions and lifeless constructs, but concerns each of us, and not partially - our education, profession, some then everyday needs - but us entirely, our present and future.

Maybe you already know a lot about our Orthodox faith. Then, as they say, we will compare notes on these most important issues. But, I hope, there will definitely be something new and necessary, so I am convinced that you will not regret the time and effort spent.

3. Identifying the reasons why people want to be baptized or have children baptized. Explanation of the meaning of receiving the Sacrament of Baptism.

You have already filled out the forms, I will carefully review them after our meeting. But in order to understand now, please tell me which of you will receive the Sacrament of Baptism yourself, which of you will be future godparents, and which will be parents? (Answers.)

Let's first talk about why Baptism is necessary, which you will soon receive or your children will receive. What motivates us to be baptized or to baptize our children?

(There may be different answers, often relating to health, spiritual protection, national identity, etc.)

Everything you said is important (unless there were clearly inappropriate answers), but not entirely sufficient. Baptism gives something more. It makes us completely new compared to what we were before. It frees us from slavery, which few of us even suspect. What kind of slavery is this? And how does it manifest itself? How do you think?

(We bring to mind the slavery of an unbaptized person to sin.)

One of the most prominent followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, the holy Apostle Paul, drew attention to this. He said wonderful words that each of us can at least partially attribute to ourselves: “The good that I want, I do not do, but the evil that I do not want, I do. But if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me” (Rom. 7:19-20).

Indeed, for each of us conscience, which is, as is often said, the voice of God in man, tells us how to live. But we ourselves often do something completely different and feel that we are unable to do otherwise. As in the material world: an object falls on its own, and in order to lift it, you need to apply force; It’s the same in spiritual life: it’s easy to do evil, but to do good requires effort, which we sometimes don’t find in ourselves. Perhaps someone will object that he did not commit any great sin: he did not kill, did not steal, did not cheat. But even such a decent person, if he honestly looks deep into himself, can see that he is, for example, captive of selfishness, many addictions, some kind of pettiness, that he lacks integrity and harmony and that he spends whole days, often without even remembering God, without connection with Whom one can only talk about life conditionally. Despite his decency and honesty, such a person may still be very far from that wonderful state to which each of us is called - the state of unity with God, our Creator. Sin separates us from him. This word just means a miss, missing the target. Our sins are not just a set of wrong transgressions, they are an internal distortion, damage to our thoughts, feelings, our entire personality, which each of us, like a disease, inherits at birth. And even those babies for whose Baptism we are preparing, those who themselves have not yet done anything evil, carry within themselves this law of sin. Whether we like it or not, we have this “disease”, and on our own we cannot fully free ourselves from it. And if we do not free ourselves, we will perish, because this “disease” is fatal, it deprives us of connection and unity with the Source of Life - God, and, on the contrary, makes us captives of the source of evil - the devil, Satan. How and why this tragedy happened to us, we will say later today, for now it is important to see and acknowledge its presence. But how can we free ourselves from slavery to sin? Only in one way - through the One whom we truly call Savior. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, saves us from slavery to Satan, from spiritual death, by His death and Resurrection. And in Baptism we become partakers of the salvation accomplished by the Lord. We are not only freed from the power of sin over us, but we also receive the seed of a new grace-filled life with Christ. However, this does not happen automatically. We must have faith in God, as the Lord himself said: “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; but whoever does not believe will be condemned" (Mk. 16.16). But we need to have the right faith, and for this we need to understand the most important concepts underlying the Orthodox faith. For this purpose, there is a memo in front of you with the text of the Creed - summary all the main truths of the Orthodox faith, which it is important for you to learn to read and understand. But the main thing is to try to sincerely and fully accept these truths. The Creed is read by heart by the person being baptized during the Sacrament of Baptism. Today we will start talking about it in more detail.

But as another disciple of Christ, the holy Apostle James, said: “Faith without works is dead” (James 2:20). That is why, along with faith, our repentance is necessary, our willingness to change our lives, to leave what is not God’s, what is not good. And the most important thing that must change is that God must enter our lives, and not on its periphery, when we turn to Him only if we need something, but at the very center of life. Most often, this is a rather long process, but each of us is called to start moving in this direction now. At the end of our conversations, for those who are preparing for Baptism, a repentant conversation will be held with the priest, and parents and godparents of children should prepare for Confession and Communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ. In order to help you with this, next time we will talk in detail about the Commandments of God, with which we need to compare and correlate our lives. Before the Sacrament of Baptism itself, those being baptized or, if a baby is baptized, his parents and adoptees must take baptismal vows: renunciation forever of Satan and serving him through the creation of any, even seemingly small, evil deeds, and the combination, that is, the union forever, of one’s life with Christ. Thus, one must make, on one’s own behalf and on behalf of the person being baptized, a firm and irrevocable choice in favor of serving God, which presupposes knowledge and fulfillment of His good will.

4. About the Holy Scriptures.

Now it is important to say the following. Everything that we are talking about and will talk about is not human invention. It is based on what God has revealed to people about Himself, about you and me, about our world. Agree that it is impossible to sufficiently get to know a person if he does not tell about himself, does not express himself. And if we want to know about God and His will for us, we must turn to what is called Divine Revelation. One of its sources is the Holy Scripture or the Bible. Before you lies our gift to you - the Bible, which you keep and be sure to read. (A short story about the Bible and its composition.)

The Bible included books written by holy people - prophets, kings, apostles, but they wrote exactly what was revealed to them by God, which is why the Holy Scriptures are called the Word of God. Today we have already cited words from the Bible written by the holy apostles.

You need to read the Holy Scriptures for spiritual purposes: “instruction in faith and encouragement to good deeds”; with faith, trust in what is written, reverence. In understanding the Holy Scriptures, it is important to rely on how the Church understands it, which is revealed mainly through the interpretation of biblical texts by holy ascetics.

Let's open the Holy Bible to page ... and read together small fragments from the books of the Bible called “Gospel” (“Good News” about the salvation of people by the Lord Jesus Christ).

Excerpt “The Parable of the Prodigal Son” (Luke 15:11–32).

(What is this parable about? Why did the youngest son leave and what prompted him to return? What was his repentance? What did the father do? What did the eldest son do? Who are the image of the father and sons? Does this have anything to do with us? What are the practical conclusions from this can they follow?)

Excerpt: “Parables of the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin” (Luke 15:1-10).

(What are these parables about? How does God act towards people who are “lost”, have left God or have not found God? How does God look for them, how does this manifest itself? Does this have anything to do with us?)

We read parts of the Gospel of Luke. I would like to ask you to read the Gospel of Mark next time - the shortest Gospel of the four. It won't take much time to read, but I hope it will be useful to you. Please write down any questions you have.

5. About faith in God. God and Man. Symbol of faith.

Now, before turning to the Creed actually compiled by the Church, let's talk about our faith in God and what we already know about Him.

“Without faith it is impossible to please God” (Heb. 11:6). Without it, it makes no sense to accept Baptism and baptize a child. But what does it mean to believe in God? Firstly, this is our confidence, conviction in His existence and correct idea of ​​Him. Secondly, this is complete trust in God, His will and Providence, that is, the good action of God towards us. Thirdly, this is our loyalty to God and his commandments.

What do we know about God? What is He like? Is He “What” (energy, space) or “Who” (He to Whom we can turn personally)? He, of course, is Who, Person, Spirit, Eternal and Unchangeable, Intelligent, All-Knowing, Omnipresent, Free, Holy, All-Righteous, Perfect, Almighty. We can turn to Him in prayer and have the hope of being heard. And He addresses us through His Revelation, through the circumstances of our lives. We have living communication with Him in divine services and the Sacraments of the Church. Orthodoxy teaches us that God is one in three Persons (Personalities). God is the Father, God is the Son, God is the Holy Spirit. God the Father is Unbegotten, God the Son is eternally born from God the Father (in an inexplicable way); God the Holy Spirit comes from God the Father. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit have one divine being, one honor, one glory. But we believe that there are not three Gods, but one God - the Holy Trinity. This is a great mystery that we can only accept with our faith (an image of the Trinity icon by St. Andrei Rublev is shown and commented on). The relationship between the Persons of the Holy Trinity can be described in one word - love. “God is love” (1 John 14:16), the Word of God tells us. What is love? What do we know about love? (discussion; reading a fragment of the “Hymn of Love” by the Apostle Paul (1 Cor. 13, 4–8)). Love presupposes dedication, sacrifice of those who love. And it is precisely this kind of self-giving to each other that is the content of the life of the Holy Trinity. God is all-good and is the source of all good and life itself. And it was out of an abundance of love that God the Trinity created our world so that it would participate in Divine grace, Divine love. And he didn’t just create and leave, but preserves, cares and acts in it with His good Providence. How do you think His Providence is manifested in the world and in our lives? (Discussion.)

We call God the All-Wise Creator, Creator, Provider. The first book of the Bible is “Genesis,” its initial chapters talk about how God created the world. Let's say the main thing: God created the angelic world invisible to us and our visible world. The pinnacle of all creation was man, created in the image of God. The latter is very important. Man is the image of God, and this means that he is like God. How? As we have already noted, God is eternal, and man has an immortal soul; God is Wise and we are wise; God is absolutely free, and man has free will; God is the Creator, and we have the ability to be creative and create; God is the Almighty, has power over the Universe, and He has given man the power to possess and rule over the earth. Man is called to reveal, realize in himself the features of the image of God and become like God in moral qualities: in mercy, love for God and other people, in caring for the whole world. Man was created perfect, without sin, but he still had to grow spiritually and achieve godlikeness. His perfection was not absolute, but presupposed the possibility of further improvement.

However, if man was created so perfect, where did that slavery to sin that the Apostle Paul speaks of come from? And where does evil come from in the world, if God created everything good? The source of evil is the misuse of free will given by God to rational beings - angels and people. What is evil anyway? This is a distortion, destruction of the true, correct order of things, determined by the Creator. The basis of this order is to honor, love and listen to God, just as the basis of order in the relationship between young children and parents is to honor, love and obey their wise parental word. One can freely accept or reject this order. And evil begins when the union of trust, loyalty and love for God is rejected and broken. This happened with some of the angels, the main one of whom, from a bright Angel, due to his pride, due to his enmity against God, turned into a dark fallen spirit, the devil, Satan; and through his evil action this happened to the first people: Adam and Eve. As you probably know, the home of the first man, Adam and his wife Eve, was the Garden of Eden - Eden. It's hard for us to imagine their lives. She was different. But we know that man had everything he needed and the center of his life was God, through trusting relationships and communication in love with Whom he would grow spiritually and become like God.

To educate a person’s free will in goodness, God gives him the commandment “you will eat from every tree, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day that you eat from it you will die” (Gen. 1, 16–17). First, Eve entered into a conversation in paradise with the devil in the form of a serpent, who aroused in her distrust of God. He convinced her that if people eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they will not die, but will know good and evil and will be like gods. Eve was seduced by this promise and the sight of the fruit and ate it; Adam, instead of preventing and stopping what was happening, also ate the fruit according to her example. “It became deadly for a person to eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, since it was associated with disobedience to the will of God,” and not because the fruit itself was bad or poisonous. “Disobedience separated a person from God and His grace and alienated him from life in God. The name “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” corresponds to itself, because through this tree man learned from experience what good lies in obedience to the will of God and what evil lies in opposing it.” Man had the opportunity to repent and restore his relationship with God, but sin had already begun to produce its destructive effects; and Adam said to God the following: “The woman whom You gave me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate” (Gen. 3:12), effectively shifting all the blame onto God and the wife.

It was from these events that damage occurred in the first people, affecting the entire human nature that we, their descendants, inherit. A visible manifestation of this damage is, in particular, that we are constantly, like a magnet, drawn to evil, that in every situation we are forced to make difficult moral choices. Also, as a consequence of man’s sin, death entered the world. Those disorders that we see in nature and the world are also a consequence of the fall of man, his king and ruler.

The question often arises: could the Omniscient and All-Good God prevent the event that we call the Fall? He gave man every opportunity to prevent it from happening, but God cannot force us to love and listen to Him.

The fall of the first people had a detrimental effect on themselves and on the entire material world created by God. So what's next? What's the solution? God offers a way out. Like is cured by like. Therefore, after a certain time, God - the Second Person of the Holy Trinity - God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, becomes a man to save us. As we have already said, the Gospels tell about this.

Next time we will continue the conversation about the main truths of our faith. Now let's read the Creed itself. The first time I will read it, and the second time - each of you will read one fragment. As you can see, there are 12 of them, they are called members. (The Creed is read.) I ask you, make it a rule from today to read the Creed every day.

We were just talking about God, about faith in Him. Please reflect during this week, Who is God to you? How can you meet God in your life? How can we see His actions in it?

6. About prayer.

Our conversation today is gradually coming to an end. I would like to end it by saying a few words about prayer. We started our meeting with her. We have already said that prayer is our opportunity to turn to God. Just as relationships between people are impossible without communication, so it is impossible to establish a relationship with God without a personal appeal to Him. What can we turn to God with? With a request? Asking for what? And with what else? Can we thank you? For what? Can we express our attitude towards Him? How?

Your memo contains some prayers with which the Church addresses God. The main one is the one left by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. This is the “Lord’s Prayer” or in another way – “Our Father” (a brief explanation of the Lord’s Prayer).

We can turn to God in our own words, but the Church gives us high examples of prayer, which it is important for us to base our prayer practice.

Along with reading the Creed, it is important that a prayerful appeal to God, even a short one, as given in the memo, becomes daily for us. In this way our connection with Christ will be maintained. It is important to consecrate your day with prayer in the morning and in the evening prayer becomes the outcome of the day.

7. Answers to questions.

8. Prayer.

Second conversation (Approximate course of the conversation)

1. Prayer.

2. Repetition of the main questions of the previous conversation. Answers to questions on the Gospel and other topics.

3. Reading a passage from the Gospel of Mark.

Now let's read an excerpt from the Gospel of Mark.

Excerpt: “Healing of the paralytic in Capernaum” (Mark 2:1-12).

(Discussion: What is a miracle of God? Why does God perform miracles? What are they? Do they happen in our lives? How do they manifest themselves? What is the peculiarity of the miracle performed by the Lord described in this passage? How are we like the paralytic? Why is it required faith for healing to occur? Whose faith prompted the Lord to perform this miracle? What practical conclusions can be drawn from this? How should the life of the healed person be related to sin?) How does this apply to us?

4. Creed (continued).

Let's read the Creed again. Like last time, let's read one term at a time.

We settled on the fact that man cannot free himself from the consequences of the Fall on his own. Before Baptism, he can only believe in God with all his soul, try to keep the commandments, but the sinful damage that distorts a person and separates him from the Lord remains. Man needs salvation from destruction, and God incarnate, free from all sin and uncleanness, saves him. Both faith in the Holy Trinity and faith that Her Second Person, the Son of God, truly took on human nature for our sake, forms the basis of our entire Orthodox faith. When we make the sign of the cross - a visible sign, a confession of our faith, we fold the fingers of our right hand like this (depicted). Three fingers joined together mean faith in the Holy Trinity, and two fingers pressed to the palm mean faith that the Lord Jesus Christ is true God and true Man.

The Lord Jesus Christ, eternally existing, at a certain point in history took on human form, was born from the Blessed Virgin Mary under the action of the Holy Spirit in the Judean city of Bethlehem (an image of the icon of the Nativity of Christ is shown). As you know very well, the chronology of the new era in which we live is based on this greatest event. The Most Holy Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, was the highest gift that humanity, awaiting the coming of the Savior, brought to God. Although she inherited sinful damage, original sin from her forefathers, She protected herself from the sin that depended on Her, and dedicated Her whole self to the Lord. And the Lord chose Her for the highest mission - to become His Mother. But this did not happen without Her will. To the angel who announced the good news to Her, She answered the words that determined the further course of history: “Behold, the Servant of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). Likewise, each of us has a good will, God’s Providence, and it is important to see it, accept it and respond in the same way as the Most Holy Theotokos.

From the very beginning of His earthly life, the Lord Jesus Christ showed humility. He was born not in the royal palace, but in a cave where cattle were driven in bad weather. He immediately showed that His Kingdom is not of this world (see John 18:36) and that He “did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28 ).

In order to heal the mortal damage of sin to our entire nature, the Lord Jesus Christ, who accepted it, Himself completely free from sin, endured suffering and death. Even 7 centuries before the birth of Christ, the prophet of God Isaiah received from Him a revelation about the future suffering of the Savior: “But He took upon Himself our infirmities and bore our illnesses... He was wounded for our sins and tormented for our iniquities; the punishment of our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we were healed... He was tortured, but He suffered voluntarily and did not open His mouth” (Isa. 53:4-7). If the first man - Adam - rejected the will of God, then the God-man - our Lord Jesus Christ - was obedient to the will of God to the utmost: “he humbled himself, becoming obedient even to death, even death on the cross” (Phil. 2:8). And, having fully fulfilled His own words: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13), He died for us and, having conquered death, was resurrected. Thus, He healed our human nature in Himself.

So, the Lord taught people a perfect holy life, and not only taught, but showed in Himself a model of such a life and opened the way to it for us through His voluntary death on the cross and Resurrection, which saved us from original sin, spiritual death, and made physical death a dormition , a dream after which eternal life with God is possible.

The Lord, in His Ascension, raised our human nature to God, thereby, through our connection with Christ, we gain such a degree of unity with the Heavenly Father.

The Lord will come into the world for the second time with glory to judge us. This will be a court of love. If in earthly life we ​​were with God, we became like Him, then in eternal life we ​​will be with Him, and if in earthly life we ​​were not with God, did not do deeds of love, then we cannot be with Him in eternal life, as darkness is incompatible with light.

The Lord sent us the Holy Spirit and created the Church into which we enter through Baptism. And other Sacraments of the Church are necessary for us - first of all, the Sacrament of Repentance, in which, with sincere repentance, we receive cleansing, forgiveness of sins that we constantly commit, again moving away from God, and the Sacrament of Communion, in which we are both physically and spiritually close in this way we are united with Christ. For a Christian, participation in these Sacraments over time becomes an integral part of his spiritual life.

Our church life, and through it communion with the Holy Spirit, bears precious fruits that can be fully acquired only in the Church. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control” (Gal. 5:22-23). It is under the influence of God's grace, and not just our own efforts, that we are able to find genuine, sacrificial, selfless love; true spiritual joy and peace, which we so lack; strength and ability to endure difficulties, sorrows, insults, without losing the newfound peace in the soul; God-like kindness and mercy towards people and the whole world; strong, ever-increasing faith; gentleness, non-irritability, humility; strength to not indulge passions and sinful inclinations.

We hope, we intensely expect that, like Christ, after our death, as we have already said, our dormition, we will be resurrected with our bodies for eternal life with God.

5. God's commandments.

Now let us turn to the commandments of God, which in the Old Testament, through His prophet Moses, the Lord gave to the people of Israel, and through him to all humanity. There are ten main ones. They are not something alien, unnatural for us, but are an organic law of the moral and spiritual life of all people. Many of you know these commandments, let's remember them (see Ex. 20: 1-17):

1. I am the Lord your God; Let you have no other gods before Me.

The Lord establishes a personal relationship of love with us and commands us to remain faithful to Him (sins: unbelief; despair; commitment to the occult; astrology; magic; belief in omens).

2. Do not make for yourself an idol or any image of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth below, or that is in the water below the earth; do not worship them or serve them.

God is indescribable. You can only portray God incarnate, the Lord Jesus Christ. And you cannot serve anyone except the One God (sins: imagining God, actually putting “idols” in the place of God - money, power, political leaders, sports team, artists, spouse, children, yourself, etc.).

3. Do not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

The mention of God's holy name should only be in prayers and pious conversations (sins: godhood; foul language; idle talk).

4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy; You shall work for six days and do all your work in them, and the seventh day, the Sabbath (Heb. - “rest”), is for the Lord your God.

In our lives, it is important to set aside time devoted directly to God, prayer at home and in church, and participation in the Sacraments. The temple is the house of God. Of course, God is present everywhere and you can turn to Him everywhere. But it is in the temple, a place dedicated specifically to God, that His special gracious presence is present. In the temple He is waiting for us so that we can gather together and serve Him, and He will serve us. If we rarely visit the temple, let's think about why this happens? We can say that we are sorely short of time. But if we are honest with ourselves, we will admit that the real reason is that it is of no value to us, it is not important. When we need something, we find time and energy for it. That is, again, it means that God is not yet at the head of our lives. Let's think about what can be changed in this regard (sins: life without remembering and dedicating it to God, visiting the house of God).

5. Honor your father and your mother, so that it may go well with you and that your days on earth may be long.

Love for parents and honor for them is the foundation of our relationship with God and people (sins: disrespect, dislike, rudeness towards parents, refusal to care for them, condemnation of them; disrespectful attitude towards mentors and all elders).

6. Don't kill.

Life is God’s gift, we do not have the right to take it away without permission (sins: voluntary and involuntary murder and actions (or inactions) leading to death, suicide, abortion, anger, hatred).

7. Do not commit adultery.

Love is sacred, it cannot be betrayed. It is necessary to maintain marital fidelity and purity, abstain from intimacy before marriage (sins: adultery, fornication, viewing obscene images, etc.).

8. Don't steal.

We should not appropriate what does not rightfully belong to us (sins: theft of all kinds).

9. Do not bear false witness against your neighbor.

The father of lies is the devil. You cannot be like him (sins - lies, slander, gossip).

10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house; You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his field, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor any of his livestock, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.

We are called to trust God and be content with our own (sins: envy, murmuring against God).

It may seem to us that in real practical life these commandments or some of them are impossible to fulfill (give examples). But that's not true. If we really want, they will be fulfilled for us with God’s help, and even in perfect form. I ask you to read about this in the Gospel of Matthew, the moral instructions of our Lord Jesus Christ, which are called the Savior’s “Sermon on the Mount” (Matthew 5:1–7:29).

Let each of us think about himself, which of the commandments he does not keep and in what ways, what and how he can change in his life, what is needed for this. All commandments can be expressed through two main ones, as the Savior says: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is similar to it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and the prophets are based on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:37–40); “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, let you also love one another. By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35). As we have already said, the Lord loved us with sacrificial love and it is to such perfect love that he calls us ourselves.

Excerpt: “The Parable of the Good Samaritan” (Luke 10:25–37).

(What can we learn from this parable? How can sacrificial love be expressed in our practical life? To whom should our love and mercy be directed? What if the person in need of them is our ill-wisher or even an enemy? (Matthew 5:44–45)) .

The Lord said: “If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the Gospel will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his own soul” (Mark 8:34-36) (Explain this fragment what it means to bear your cross).

6. About Baptism.

As we have already said, the Sacrament of Baptism is the door to the Holy Church, the spiritual birth of a person who believes in God into a new grace-filled life with Christ.

The sacrament of Baptism is performed once in a lifetime and cannot be repeated under any conditions (by analogy with physical birth).

Godparents (godparents)

In the Sacrament of Baptism, the recipient, on behalf of the baby, who is not yet able to manifest his will, brings the vows of Baptism, receives the child from the baptismal font and makes a promise to God to pray for him and to promote his upbringing in the Christian faith.

Thus, along with his parents, he is responsible for the spiritual formation of his godson or goddaughter.

Actually, a boy needs only a godfather, and a girl only needs a godmother. But according to ancient Russian tradition, as a rule, both are invited.

Main requirements for receivers:

– love for the child and the desire to help him grow in the Orthodox faith and piety;

– high morality and church involvement (experience of regular church life), because only such a person can become a good mentor.

Who can be present at Baptism

The rules of the Church do not limit the presence of relatives or close people during the Sacrament of Baptism. However, until the fortieth day after giving birth, the rules instruct the mother not to enter the temple. On the fortieth day, special prayers are read over her, and she can again participate in the Sacraments and attend the Baptism of the child.

For Baptism you will need the following:

– a new white (baptismal) shirt for infants or a white shirt for an adult newly baptized;

– a pectoral cross (a cross not purchased in a church should be given to a priest for consecration);

- towel.

Before entering the temple, you should turn off the sound of your mobile phone.

(Other practical and technical issues related to the upcoming Sacrament of Baptism.)

Naming

At the beginning of the Rite of Baptism, the priest names the Christian name of the person being baptized, with which he will participate in the Sacraments of the Church.

According to church tradition, a Christian is named in honor of the holy saints of God, revered by the Russian Orthodox Church. As a rule, several saints are glorified with the same name. Therefore, a name is usually given in honor of a saint whose memory is closer to the date of birth of the person being baptized or the date of the Sacrament of Baptism, although sometimes out of connection with these dates. A Christian name may differ slightly from the name given at birth. Oksana becomes Ksenia, Yuri or Egor becomes Georgy, Artem becomes Artemy, etc. If the name given to the person being baptized at birth is not contained in the calendar (list of names of saints) and does not belong to the derivatives of the names contained there, then the priest names a new name, having first consulted with the parents of the baby or with the person being baptized if he has reached the age of majority. For example, it is customary to baptize Karina with the name of Catherine or Irina, Stanislav with the name of Vyacheslav, etc.

But if a person received a Christian name at birth, then it is not customary to change it at Baptism. In most cases, such a desire is due to the occult and superstitious desire to protect the baptized person “from the evil eye,” which is incompatible with the Orthodox understanding of Baptism. After all, it is God’s grace that saves a person, and not the fact of changing his name.

Renunciation of Satan

After reading prohibitory prayers, the priest invites those being baptized and recipients to turn their faces to the west (spiritual symbol of the power of darkness) to renounce the devil and everything connected with him (including from a sinful life, from magic, turning to “grandmothers”, healers and psychics). At this time, the person being baptized (if this is a baby, then his successors), in response to the questions of the priest, pronounces in Church Slavonic renunciation of the devil, first three times in the form of the present tense (“I deny”), and then - as a fait accompli - in the form of the past tense (“I deny”). renounced").

After the priest’s call to blow and spit on the devil (“both blow and spit”), the person being baptized (or the recipients of the baby) should blow three times and spit towards the west. This action is a sign of contempt for Satan, an outward expression of a complete break with evil.

Combination of Christ

Next, the person being baptized or the recipients turn to the east (the symbol of the light coming into the world) and also three times in the present and past tense affirm the combination (union) with Christ (“I combine”, “are combined”). Then the recognition of Christ as King and God is proclaimed three times. From now on, the life of the person being baptized (both adult and infant) belongs and should be dedicated not to himself, but to Christ.

After the priest’s call “and bow down to Him” (i.e., God), the adult person being baptized or his recipients bow towards the altar (to the east).

At the end of the Rite of Annunciation, the Sacrament of Baptism itself begins with the exclamation “Blessed is the Kingdom...”.

At this time, the priest anoints the person being baptized with blessed oil. At this point, the child should be completely freed from clothes and taken out of the towel.

The priest anoints the person being baptized's face, ears, upper chest, arms and feet.

Then follows Baptism - three times immersion in water sanctified by the Holy Spirit with the invocation of the name of the Holy Trinity.

After it is completed, it is necessary to wipe the head and body of the person being baptized with a towel, after which the priest puts on a pectoral cross and a baptismal shirt. This means that man returns to the wholeness and innocence that he possessed before the Fall, the restoration of his true nature, distorted by original sin.

Sacrament of Confirmation

Holy Chrism (Greek – “fragrant oil”) – a special mixture vegetable oils, fragrant herbs and fragrant resins. At each anointing with Chrism, the priest says: “The Seal of the Gift of the Holy Spirit,” to which the recipients or the baptized person himself respond “Amen” (i.e., “truly so”).

In the Sacrament of Confirmation, the Heavenly Father bestows the grace of the Holy Spirit on the baptized person.

After this, the recipients with the child make a procession around the font, following the priest against the movement of the sun, as if towards Christ, called the Sun of Truth.

At this time we hear the words of the Apostle Paul from his Epistle to the Galatians (3:27): “You who were baptized into Christ, all of you have put on Christ.” Next we read an excerpt from the Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Romans (Rom 6: 3–11), which reveals the meaning of Baptism as the burial in water of the “old man” (death to sin) and resurrection with Christ for a new and eternal life dedicated to God (excerpt read).

After reading the Apostle, the priest blesses those gathered and reads an excerpt from the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 28: 16-20) about how the Risen Christ commanded the apostles to bring the news of Himself to all nations, to baptize those who believed in the name of the Trinity and to teach them spiritually (the excerpt is read ).

After this, the priest prays for the person who has received Baptism, washes the parts of his body anointed with the holy myrrh, and performs a symbolic tonsure of the baptized person. This means cutting off the sinful will and accepting the will of God, readiness to serve God.

The last rite of the Rite of Baptism is Churching (i.e., the first steps in church life). At this time, the baby is handed over to the priest, after which he reads the prayer of churching.

In this case, a male child or an adult man is brought into the altar to worship God in front of the holy throne (since men can serve God in the altar). The parent or recipient participating in the churching of the baby, without entering the altar, must wait for the priest in front of the royal doors, take the baby in his arms and return to the place where the recipients stand.

The Rite of Baptism ends with a prayer in which the priest asks God to save everyone present through the prayers of the Mother of God, as well as with the prayers of the heavenly patrons of the temple in which Baptism took place and the person who received it.

The sacrament of Baptism has been completed. But it is only an open opportunity to achieve salvation. And if it is not followed by renewal of the whole life, spiritual rebirth, and a decisive renunciation of the deeds of the “old man” (i.e., sin), then in itself it does not bring salvation.

7. Summing up, briefly repeating the main points of the two conversations.

8. Practical issues of preparation for the confessional conversation (the Sacraments of Confession and Communion).

(Explain in general terms what should be discussed during the confessional conversation and confession, how to prepare for Holy Communion (fasting, prayer, reconciliation with neighbors.)

9. Answers to questions.

10. Final parting words and suggestions for forms of further churching and opportunities for entering the life of a given parish.

In conclusion, I would like to hope that what we talked about was close to you and will become a guide to action. I invite you all to a small two-month course of practical churching, where we can talk in more detail about our faith, and about divine services and the Sacraments, and about prayer, fasting, rules of behavior in the temple, about icons and other important practical aspects. We will try to answer any questions you may have. I hope that participation in church services, the Sacraments of Repentance and Communion, and prayer will become a living, urgent need and activity for you. It is also important for parents and adoptive parents to give communion to your children as often as possible. (Talk about the practical possibilities of entering the life of this parish.)

I wish you all God's help! May the Lord, His Most Pure Mother and all the saints protect you!