Why is laughter compared to sin? Orthodox faith - laughter - alphabet
D Good afternoon, our dear visitors!
E If joy is good, then why is laughter and laughter a sin?
Archpriest Alexander Lebedev answers:
"N It is important to make a distinction between joy and laughter. Orthodoxy does this because Christ Himself acted this way. He spoke of both laughter and joy. “Rejoice and be glad,” He said to some, and “Woe to you who laugh now,” to others. Different words mean different concepts, different human states, which means the attitude towards them should be different. Therefore, we will try to talk about both.
So, laughter. This is a way to escape reality - to forget, rather than solve problems. Humor is a painkiller that relieves pain, but does not cure the disease. Yes, such drugs are used in medicine; yes, they can be beneficial; Yes, you can’t live without them, but they don’t solve the problem. Likewise, laughter and humor help smooth out the situation, relieve tension, and make life’s troubles easier to accept. Sometimes a good joke can defuse the most explosive situation. But after a while the problems return. And from this point of view, the abundance of jokes on the screen and in life is a symptom that does not indicate the joy of our life. Demand creates supply. What is the state of our society if painkillers are poured into us in such doses!
Laughter - as a habit, as a refusal to take life seriously, as entertainment, as a way to fill an inner emptiness, as a worldview - is dangerous. This is probably what the Savior means when he says: “Woe to you who laugh now.” Now - that is, here, now. These words reflect the state of a person living one day at a time, not thinking about anything more important than momentarily maintaining the comfort of his existence. The one who laughs now is a person who is trying to drown out, fill, and replace the natural desire for eternal joy with laughter and artificial gaiety. That is why in literature intended to prepare a person for confession, laughter is mentioned among other sins.
It also matters, of course, what we laugh at. Most often, the deepest reason for laughter is some kind of human shortcomings that put people in a funny position.
Take a closer look at any anecdote: it will certainly expose some imperfection and sin of a person. From “my husband went on a business trip” and stories about Vovochka to a political joke - all these are stories about human sinfulness. It is important here to draw a line between the laughter of a Christian and the laughter of a sinner. A believer laughs compassionately, he ridicules sin, but sympathizes with the sinner, because he feels: yes, I myself am in many ways like that. Let us remember Gogol’s: “Who are you laughing at? You’re laughing at yourself!” Without this inner content, laughter becomes condemnation. And whoever condemns will be condemned by God.
There is also the social danger of being ridiculous. It occurs in cases where laughter concerns topics that are closed to him. Laughter is inappropriate in the area of the sacred, death, suffering and grief, and it should not fall below the belt. That, not even vulgarity, but obscenity, which is often fed to us by television and radio under the guise of humor, does not offend only a person with minimal moral baggage, that is, a child who takes everything at face value and grows up as an obscenity. I have not yet met a single happy and joyful obscenity, and it is unlikely that such a combination is even possible. Obscenity dulls the feeling of joy; it is another obstacle on the path to happiness, which is already difficult to achieve.”
Discussion: 6 comments
Regarding nervous tension: If you pray during problems that have occurred, the tension will go away immediately. And there the problems are resolved in the best possible way.
Regarding the company: Now in the yard Lent, and it’s better to go into posts laughing. In general, jokes and laughter, within reasonable limits, are quite acceptable.Answer
Karmin, everything depends on a person’s spiritual growth. If you have a need for laughter, then you are unlikely to have a need for prayer, for God. Laughter is nothing more than an expression of pseudo-joy.
As for laughter in general, there is no sin in it. You just need to know when to laugh and when not to. When is it permissible and when is it not?
For example, if you have problems, then you need to pray to the Lord God. It is unlikely that you can solve a problem with laughter...
May God make you wise!Answer
Genesis 21:6: ...Then Sarah said, “God gave me joyful laughter: ...
The biblical name Isaac means "Laughter"Psalm 126:2: ...At that time our lips were filled with laughter And our tongue cried out joyfully...
And there are also places in the Gospels where it is said that Jesus rejoiced at the news he received. And in general, if you carefully and soulfully read the Gospels, it is clear that the Savior is not at all a gloomy, insensitive person. There is plenty of evidence of this.
No, it should not burn out or kill the natural properties and qualities given to man by the Creator that color life and the world. And it is IMPOSSIBLE for a believer to walk around sad, deaf, deaf to everything - that means he is not a believer at all, for the Holy Spirit brings much joy.Answer
I agree with this, but if, let’s say! There are a great many problems, and from nervous over!tension it breaks through (Please forgive the jargon), to laugh. Constantly. What to do in this case?
And again. Take this situation. Let’s say there are problems. A lot. And a group of friends has gathered to support. In the process of support, naturally, there will be jokes. To relieve tension. And why refuse good people and don’t allow yourself at least a light laugh?
Answer
If you can’t laugh, if you can’t be happy that everything is fine, THEN WHAT GOOD CAN YOU EVEN SEE IN THIS LIFE? If even simple, sincere, kind laughter, even during problems, is forbidden?
Answer
But by nature, laughter is a completely natural emotion for humans. A small child, not yet learning to speak, laughs at a kitten who is joyfully playing and trying to catch its own tail - and there is nothing “evil” here, this emotion of the baby indicates that he saw this natural phenomenon as funny and surprising, and, therefore, Once again I was amazed at what a wonderful world I found myself in. Perhaps the interpretation of the word “laughter” is not just multifaceted, but even twofold?
Answer
Why do you want to cry (or vice versa, laugh) during prayer?
Reading a prayer (a monotonous phrase) leads to a temporary shutdown of consciousness (similar to meditation or hypnosis) and then, instead of thoughts, only emotions remain, directed towards the idea of prayer. The sincerity of the prayer determines the strength of the emotional response. Repentance also removes the armor of speculation and frees us from the influence of pride.
Tears or laughter are a defense mechanism of the body, which (in this case) has lost the protection of the mind (consciousness). These are reactions of the joy of liberation and the sadness of delusion; the melancholy of loneliness at unity with others.
If you feel like crying or laughing, then you have nervous system at the limit and you start from half a turn, as they say. It’s called a neurotic state.
The person at this time is on the verge of neurosis.
I experienced this condition myself and I know what I’m talking about.
I had a very difficult time, I lived on the edge of life and death every day. Then all the dangers passed and she overcame all the difficulties, but when she wanted to say something sincere, tears came to her eyes.
I understood that my nerves were not in order. I started sleeping more, not getting overtired, and everything went away.
You simply still have a rather weak spirit. When you pray, vibrations increase, and when they resonate with what you are used to, i.e. Lower vibrations produce tears. The soul begins to cleanse itself. If you practice prayer for a long time and every day, then, over time, you will not want to cry, but a state very similar to what is called trance will begin to occur. Later, during prayer, creative inspiration may come. Or suddenly answers and solutions that you have been persistently looking for, but could not find, may begin to arrive. Then it may happen that you yourself begin to feel the energies and vibrations emanating from all living things. Later, you may even begin to see and feel the spiritual world. Tears are an indicator that your soul has come into contact with the Divine.
During prayer, your soul is directed towards God. Probably that’s why there are tears, because the soul cries. But why she cries can be caused by different reasons: these can be tears of joy, tears of repentance, tenderness and something else that only God knows. Something like this.
So, pray sincerely, with tenderness. Then it’s good that you want to cry.
Now I also want to cry and I’m crying...
And, if you want to laugh while you are praying, this is a temptation, so the enemy attacks so that the prayer is not reverent.
More often, during prayer, a person just wants to cry, because in this way his soul responds to the given vibrations of prayer. And prayer is the strongest reaction of our soul to its words.
Prayer is not just words, every prayer contains its sacred meaning, which means something.
And to laugh during prayer is, of course, nonsense, and is not a completely adequate state. After all, the words of the prayer need to be repeated not mechanically, but to understand what they are talking about and the meaning of these words, usually this really is a release for the human soul. And release is letting go and calming down, and from there there may be tears.
Of course, I’m not a priest, so I can’t say it nicely...
But, my grandmother said about this, and she was a very wise woman, that if a person cries during prayer, it means his prayer is sincere and he opens his soul, and his soul is pure, and when tears flow by themselves in front of some icon, especially the Mother of God - it means his prayer was heard. With tears we receive cleansing.
But if a person wants to laugh during prayer or service, it means demons are fighting for his soul or his thoughts are not pure.
In everyday life, such a person does everything in his own way. During a conversation, he interrupts his interlocutor, repeats the same thing several times, as if trying to hammer a nail into the head of another. Even the tone proud man distinguished by complete confidence in the correctness of his words. He speaks as if he is instilling his thoughts into a person, like a hypnotist into his patient.When such a proud person begins to practice the Jesus Prayer, he imagines that he has achieved a state of holiness and often shows signs of psychopathy. Some believe that these people were brought to this state by prayer and are afraid to pray themselves. But to think so is to insult God. In fact, unrepentant pride leads to delusion: a bee produces honey from the nectar of the same flowers, and a snake produces poison. Therefore, to do the Jesus Prayer, you need to have a vision of your sins and a feeling of repentance. The foundation of prayer is humility, and the cover of prayer is obedience.
Temptations during prayer include the following. A person is under the influence of light and dark forces, figuratively speaking, his soul stands at the crossroads of all winds, and it is difficult for him to distinguish the voice of the devil - an old thief and swindler - from the voice of his Guardian Angel, and the voice of his spirit from the voice of his spiritual passions.
When a child is born, Satan sends a demon-tempter to him, who follows the person to the grave, like his dark shadow. The demon is an experienced hunter and a marksman, he is an attentive analytical psychologist who has studied the human soul in all its manifestations. His goal is to establish contact with a person through thoughts, which he sows like tares into the consciousness. Sometimes these are absurd, blasphemous thoughts that make the soul tremble with fear; it seems to a person that this blasphemy does not come from outside, but that it is generated by his own soul. He tries to resist demonic thoughts, but they burst into his consciousness like a whirlwind. It seems to a person that his salvation is impossible and the only fate of a blasphemer like him is fiery Gehenna. Here the demon’s tactics are quite simple: to deceive a person so that he accepts the demon’s suggestion as his own thoughts, and blasphemy as the state of his heart.
A person is afraid to reveal in confession those vile blasphemies that ring in his ears; It seems to him that fire should come down from the sky and incinerate him for the insults that he mentally inflicts on the shrine. Such a person seems to withdraw into himself, gradually loses the habit of prayer, seems to run wild spiritually, comes to a state of hopeless despair, considering himself unworthy to pronounce the name of God, to cross the threshold of the temple, and comes to the idea that he should not approach God as if he were flames that will burn him. During his lifetime, he already included himself among the outcasts; he began to grumble and protest against God: why did God leave him to perish.
There is only one way to fight blasphemous thoughts - this is the realization that they are the suggestion of a demon, the black rays of Satan, which are reflected in the soul, as on a screen, that a person is not responsible for these thoughts, as for abuse that he hears from the outside. Anyone who has gone through the fire of mental temptation and blasphemy understands how vile the devil is, what hatred hell breathes. He sees, as if with his own eyes, that Satan is in such an abyss of apostasy and fall from which it is no longer possible to rise, that hatred of God has become the essence of Satan, that he cannot repent, just as darkness cannot become light. One should respond to blasphemous thoughts: “These are your thoughts, devil, and I do not deign to them.”
And yet, I must say that the temptation of blasphemous, nasty, blasphemous thoughts is not the worst thing in the devil’s obsessions. Here the soul shrinks from fear of them. A It is much more dangerous when the soul itself accepts the devil’s impulses, rejoices in them as an acquisition, desires them, enjoys them, and accepts the darkness of the underworld as light. The demon tries with all his might to distract the mind from prayer. During prayer, he puts brilliant thoughts and witty sayings into a person’s mind in a worldly way, and the person considers these thoughts to be a revelation received from an angel. He begins to repeat them in his mind in order to remember, continue, develop and interpret these thoughts and ends up losing his prayer and moving to another level - and this is what the demon needs. The devil is ready to turn a prayer book into a genius, if only he would give up prayer.
Therefore, during prayer, one must not turn the mind to the fireworks of thoughts that arise in a person, this is a trick - to exchange the best for the worst, but continue the prayer without diverting attention to extraneous thoughts. If the thought that arose in a person’s soul is from God, then it will remain in his memory even after prayer.The demon is called a jester. Sometimes during prayer he presents a person with some comic episodes or puts jokes into his head and the person suddenly laughs during prayer. It's hard to stop laughing. The state of such a person is not at all cheerful, but rather hysterical. Here it is useful to put the sign of the cross on yourself and say: “May God rise again and let His enemies be scattered.” Jokes during prayer or comical images in the mind are the clownery of the devil. If a person gets carried away by such jokes and looks at devilish masks and caricatures, then the grace of God will depart from him.
The next temptation is the most dangerous. Here the devil acts as a theologian. He offers a person questions related to the metaphysical world. We must remember that all the secrets of the heavenly kingdom are not revealed to us on earth, but the path to this kingdom is shown. Man, in his earthly existence, being limited in his cognitive abilities, a soul darkened by sins and shaken by passions, cannot understand much, and must make up for his limitations with faith. Truth is revealed by the grace of God, but not as philosophical abstractions, but as inner vision.
And here Satan begins to bombard a person with questions that he naturally cannot answer right away, and some of them are generally only the property of the next century. With such questions, the demon wants to instill doubt in the mind and heart, to show a person that faith is doubtful and contradictory. To waver in faith is to lose contact with the spiritual world, to leave communication with the Divine, to doubt the truth of God. And many people, not realizing that these doubts are a trick of the demon, like a catechism compiled by the devil, enter into dialogue with him, trying to give answers to questions asked, replace mystery with flat concepts, faith with rationalism, with its dead abstractions, and often entangle themselves like in a web.
In such cases, we must remember that on earth we live not by knowledge, but by faith, that our current state is incapable of penetrating all the secrets of divine providence, that here we see, as it were, reflections in a dim, darkened mirror, that knowledge of the mysteries of God is inseparable from the transformation of the man - his spirit and soul.
The beginning of the fall of our forefathers was the entry of Eve into dialogue with the demon. If she had answered him from the very beginning: “Get away from me, Satan,” then the tragedy of the apostasy would not have occurred in the world.
And here the soul must answer the demon: “Why am I obliged to answer these questions to you? After all, you don’t want to know the truth, return to God and repent? You are an ancient lie, seeking only to confuse and ensnare me.”
You should know that in such cases, victory is silence, which the devil cannot grab hold of. During prayer, one must not prefer anything to prayer itself and consider deviations from it as temptation and loss.
When reading my answers, some confusion may arise, namely, I have repeatedly mentioned that for the Jesus Prayer it is necessary to control the information received from the outside, that is, reduce the information field to a certain reasonable minimum, try not to open the floodgates of your memory, so as not to resuscitate and process the information received into past information, especially of a negative emotional nature. And in the same answer I write about people who, while engaged in complex and responsible activities that require extensive knowledge and concentrated attention, at the same time could achieve unceasing inner prayer.
As an example of this, I cited Gregory, the secretary of the Byzantine synclite, who, being in the midst of social and political events, was able to master the Jesus Prayer (or the Jesus Prayer to master his heart) and the teaching about prayer, as a precious heritage, he passed on to his son, a teacher and apologist of hesychasm, Saint Gregory Palamas, whom the Church called “the son of divine light.”
The Jesus Prayer is a commandment given by the holy apostles. It was supposed to sound both in royal palaces and in wretched huts, in the heart of a peasant who, dripping with sweat, works in the field, in the chest of a mother feeding her child, to fill the hearts of monks with light and to sound like a mysterious song in the silence of the cell and the silence of the desert.
The question arises: what should people who are burdened with work do? How should monks who perform complex and troublesome obediences in a monastery behave? We must remember that the Lord looks at the depths of the human heart: what it is attached to, to whom it is addressed, what it is looking for in this world. It is not so much external worries, duties and labors that plunder the heart, but passions - secret and obvious, which constantly shake and torment the heart, demanding satisfaction from a person. This requires courage and determination for an internal struggle, similar to a battle without rest or truce. Those people who have set the goal of their lives to acquire the Jesus Prayer, who cut off passionate movements, carnal attachments, hatred and enmity, who have submitted themselves to prayer, will be under the special protection and providence of God.
Today jokes “about religion” in our country are a kind of trend. It seems that joking about church topics is becoming fashionable. A good half of Internet news about the Church is presented in the format of a joke. The same thing happens outside of social networks - in the media and even in everyday conversations. But is it possible to treat Orthodoxy with humor? Why are representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church so often ridiculed on television? Maybe it’s worth legislatively banning jokes on religious topics in a country like Russia?..
"Test of the Soul"
The more religious jokes I hear lately, the more I think there is something wrong with all of us. Here's a typical sequence of posts in my news feed: social network Facebook: the first friend is in all seriousness distributing another open letter in defense of traditional values, the second (on the contrary, trying to make a pun) suggests “pulling the beard” of its authors... One likes the statements of a famous priest, the other posts a caricature of the same on his page father. One quotes the holy fathers, the other quotes jokes about “fat priests.” What some people say absolutely seriously, others immediately laugh at. What some find funny, others consider completely vulgar.
I'm trying to understand why my friends laugh so differently. It is obvious that not only in terms of “religious jokes”, but also in terms of humor in general, there is a fundamental split in our society. It seems that we all experience the simplest, most basic things differently. What is good - what is bad. What is beauty - what is vulgarity. It's not about specific verbal definitions, it's about the attitude to life, which is conveyed in humor.
“Laughter is the truest test of the soul,” says Dostoevsky’s Teenager. “With laughter,” he explains, “some person completely reveals himself, and you suddenly find out all his ins and outs. Even undeniably intelligent laughter can sometimes be disgusting. Laughter requires, above all, sincerity.” And in fact, by observing how and what a person laughs at, we understand whether he is one of us or a stranger. It is through the opportunity to laugh together that we are able to feel our true community with other people.
For religious people, this “test of the soul” appears in a special light. This one doesn’t seem to be Orthodox, but he’s “our man”! Because he and I understand each other on a non-verbal level. We can argue about ecumenism and the results of the Second Vatican Council, but we can drink tea together and laugh heartily. But he seems to be Orthodox, but you still feel from the inside that he is somehow “not ours.” It’s somehow stuffy being around him. Either he doesn’t spread the butter on his bread quite right, or he’s interested in completely different topics... Or maybe we just have a different sense of humor?
Yes, of course, all the faithful are “one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). But is it easy to accept this not with your mind, but with your heart? In light of different attitudes towards humor, this question arises especially acutely. The so-called “cold spring of 2012” (as Protodeacon Andrei Kuraev called the period that began with the February scandal of blasphemy in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior) only brought to the surface questions that had long been torn to the surface: where are the limits of laughter? What can and cannot a Christian laugh at? Do humor and churchliness go together?
Orthodoxy or laughter?
“It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it,” said Gilbert Keith Chesterton. How can these words be correlated with modern Russian Orthodoxy? The status of humor in Orthodox culture is very specific. It’s not that humor is formally prohibited to believers, but the Eastern Christian tradition views it with obvious suspicion. It is very likely that here there is an influence of ancient philosophy on Eastern theology as a whole, namely, the adoption of the Aristotelian understanding of humor as a superficial phenomenon in relation to seriousness (“A joke is a relaxation of tension, since it is relaxation”). Saint Anthony the Great explained this idea through the image of a bow: “The string of a bow cannot always be stretched - the tree cannot withstand constant tension. Sometimes the bowstring must be lowered.” In other words, laughter for a Christian is only a necessary temporary respite in the daily struggle with passions.
In medieval Rus', an even more radical idea took hold at the level of mass consciousness, namely: laughter, in principle, is not permissible for a Christian. The history of the centuries-old struggle of the Russian Church with buffoonery confirms this. Researcher of “folk Orthodoxy” A. A. Panchenko notes that Russian medieval scribes were characterized by a literal interpretation of the words from the Gospel of Luke: “Woe to you who laugh now, for you will weep and lament” (Luke 6:25). As a result, in the pre-Petrine era, clerics imposed penance on parishioners for laughter, caroling, and feasts with dancing. of varying severity: “Whoever speaks himself, although people laugh, let him worship for 300 days”; “Laughing to tears, fasting for 3 days, eating dry, bowing for 25 days...”
The word “jester” in ancient Russian literature is often synonymous with the word “demon,” hence the very concept of “joke” in medieval Rus' turned out to be associated with demonism. The opposition between Christianity and laughter has also taken hold at the level of Russian folklore (typical folk proverbs: “Both laughter and sin”, “Where there is sin, there is laughter”).
A striking manifestation of the conflict between humor and Russian Orthodox culture is the personality of N.V. Gogol. It is no coincidence that mental illness and the death of a writer are sometimes associated with the fact that it is too difficult to combine a comedian and a mystic within oneself. The closest example of a similar internal conflict to us in time is the priest-artist Ivan Okhlobystin, forced to make a choice between serving at the altar and playing in a comedy series...
"Let's be people!"
And yet, “don’t tell me about monks who never laugh. This is funny...” This epigraph to the collection of lives of Catholic saints (“The Desert Fathers laugh”), in principle, can be attributed to all of Christianity of the 20th century.
It is surprising that the most cheerful Christians in the Orthodox Church in the era of persecution are precisely those whom literature and folklore of previous centuries depict as the gloomiest - monks. Many of the greatest confessors of the faith of the 20th century are also known as great humorists - this is St. Patriarch Tikhon (Belavin), and St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco (Maksimovich). The sermons of Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom) of Sourozh are full of jokes and funny stories. These people decisively break the stereotypical image of Orthodoxy as a religion of stern bigots.
Perhaps the terrible 20th century forced our Church to so decisively shift its emphasis in relation to humor. This “change of degree” is characteristic of the entire world Orthodoxy, which has experienced persecution unprecedented in the history of mankind. Among the believers of the Soviet “catacombs,” a characteristic inversion of the old proverb was widespread: “Previously there were golden vessels, and wooden priests, - but now there are wooden vessels, and golden priests.” When they again began to persecute and kill for their confession of faith, the place of the legendary “priest-silver forehead” was taken by a real good shepherd - a priest, open to people, soulful and, moreover, cheerful.
An example of how one can maintain a sense of humor even in the face of mortal danger is the legendary Patriarch of Serbia Pavel (Gojko). A man of small stature, who almost always walked and was famous throughout Serbia for his worn-out shoes, gained truly popular love for his simplicity and cheerful disposition. Despite his extremely ascetic lifestyle, the patriarch constantly joked. "Let's be people!" - these words of Patriarch Paul are known throughout the world as a symbol of Orthodoxy “with a human face.”
Laughter in itself is not a sin, it can even be a protection from sin, if it is a good laugh - this is the meaning of a truly Christian attitude towards humor, embodied by the saints and ascetics of the 20th century. “With a kind laugh you can silently dispel the accumulated clouds of evil argumentation, hatred, even murder,” said St. John (Maksimovich). And yet, “there are two laughter: light and dark,” he noted. - You can immediately distinguish them by their smile, by the eyes of the person laughing. It can be distinguished in oneself by the accompanying spirit: if there is no light joy, a subtle feeling that softens the heart, then the laughter is not bright. If the chest is hard and dry and the smile is crooked, then the laughter is dirty.”
Community - or corporation?
Why, then, does so much hurt and misunderstanding cause anyone to laugh in the modern Orthodox community? Perhaps because it is too heterogeneous. At one pole there are pious grandmothers, with the utmost seriousness, driving away the “patrons” from the carpet (“This is only for the priest!”), and at the other, unpious intellectuals writing jokes about grannies. As before the revolution, in the modern Church there are various subcultures: white clergy, seminarians, monastics, clergy members, lay clergy, representatives of “political Orthodoxy”...
Each of these groups has its own corporate culture, its own specific jokes. The parish priests talk about “narrow-minded parishioners”, the mistakes of trainee deacons, about mothers. The students talk about the difficulties of seminary life, the great and mighty Church Slavonic and the bends of scholastic theology. For monks and novices, they talk about typically monastic temptations, encounters with angelic and demonic forces, and harsh abbots.
There is also a very vague but large group of young lay catechumens (that is, neophytes undergoing catechesis). They act as collectors of church humor, absorbing, like a sponge, every drop of humor available to them, both seminary, monastic, and church-bureaucratic... It is this category that created the majority of topics and groups dedicated to “Orthodox humor” in popular social networks and forums. Most of these jokes are about how complex and incomprehensible the Orthodox subculture is. Here the “more advanced” Orthodox believers laugh at the “less advanced” ones. For example, the famous story about pineapples. An elderly woman comes to the temple with a large bag: “Where do they give out pineapples?” The candle makers are at a loss. It turns out that when during the religious procession the priest sprinkled the parishioners with blessed water, the grandmothers, on whom the water did not fall, shouted: “What about us?!” And what about us?!”... The quintessence of jokes “about ignorance” is “let’s put it aside.” This is when, during the singing of the Cherubim - “Let us now put aside every care of this life!” - someone inevitably starts rustling bags and putting crackers and cupcakes on the table.
Another source of church anecdotes is the territorial-parish division of the Russian Orthodox Church. The modern Russian Church is like a honeycomb. There is only one church, but the “partitions” between the “cells” are clearly striking. Each truly living parish community is essentially a separate world, with its own jokes and special parish slang. “Liberals” and “Stalinists”, “banner bearers” and “Menevites”... Perhaps it is their humorless rejection of each other that creates among the non-church public the image of an Orthodox Christian as a person completely devoid of a sense of humor?
From the outside
"Life without humor is dangerous." These words of Patriarch Kirill in 2010 during a visit to Odessa were replicated by all news agencies. The words of His Holiness that “the majority bad people lack a sense of humor” and that humor “lowers the degree of human conflict and helps defuse the situation” were met with thunderous applause.
Probably, the patriarch made it to the top of news feeds because, from the point of view of journalists, he said something atypical. Unfortunately, for the mass consciousness, churchmen are still stern, gloomy people who not only do not have a sense of humor themselves, but are also ready to send those who do have it to the Inquisition. The media are actively working to promote this stereotype, fabricating headlines like “Orthodoxy and humor are incompatible,” circulating news about how Church representatives once again criticized this or that humorous show.
At the same time, not all priests are equally interesting in modern media. Only that representative of the Church can certainly get on the screen who, voluntarily or unwittingly, played the role of Repetilov, a kind of comic reasoner who, as soon as he appears on stage, falls with a roar (“Ugh, I made a mistake!”)... Appearing on camera or on a newspaper page, such the priest is simply obliged to say or do something ridiculous, absurd, “ridiculous.” Something from the realm of the absurd, depriving any word he utters of depth and seriousness. So that the viewer or reader would probably think: poor fellow, what does church obscurantism do to people! A striking example of such a favorite means mass media The priest is Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin. He is the only one who not only supplies the press with material for jokes, but also turns the process of communication between a priest and a journalist into a role-playing game. Unlike all other famous church speakers, Father Vsevolod seems to be deliberately aiming for tabloid headlines. In other words, he speaks on purpose in order to be published. For example, Father Vsevolod’s phrase that “it would be nice to come up with an all-Russian dress code, but it doesn’t need to be extended to strip bars and brothels,” was not missed by any major media outlet. Without the catchy word “dress code” and the mention of hot spots, it is unlikely that the clergyman’s calls for decency in dress would have interested any of the journalists.
In a similar way, priest-artist Ivan Okhlobystin tried to “play” with the media when he announced his desire to run for presidential elections. However, Father John’s joke didn’t work out: information very quickly leaked to the media that the priest was not a freak or crazy, but simply wanted to create an information occasion around himself and sell unsold tickets to his own show in Luzhniki. Seeing the priest as an ordinary showman and businessman, the press quickly lost interest in him and crossed him off the list of “media elders.” Perhaps “that” Father John didn’t seem funny enough to her?
Indignation is often heard in the church environment - we have so many spiritual mentors, theologians, writers, there are people to talk about Orthodoxy seriously... So why are there only “jokers” at the forefront?!.. Perhaps here it is worth thinking not so much about the position of the hierarchy and “distribution of roles” in the church apparatus - how much about the nature of modern television and the media in general. For some reason, publishers/producers/editors-in-chief unanimously decided that modern Russians are not interested in “ordinary parish pop”. The priest who tinkers with “social orphans” and takes them to museums and hikes is not interesting; the church charity missions, which in Krymsk worked side by side with volunteers to eliminate the consequences of the flood, are not interesting. Apparently, it is habitually assumed that our people are only interested in “Petrosyan” - be it from politics, even from art, or even from religion.
"Atheists at the machine"
Is it possible to protect believers from ridicule? Shouldn't it be legally prohibited to joke about church topics? Lately, these questions have been heard more and more often.
The West (for some - progressive, for others - decaying) has already covered this topic. And with the Index librorum prohibitorum, which included all “objectionable books” (among those “forbidden” to be read by Catholics in different years were not only the works of atheists, but also the works of believing philosophers - Descartes, Kant, Berkeley). And with the ban on broadcasting anti-clerical comedies on TV.
One of these comedies was the film “The Life of Brian” by the British group Monty Python. This is the story of a young Jew, born at the same time and in the same place as Jesus Christ, and mistaken by his compatriots for the Messiah. The film, produced in 1979, was completely banned in Norway (1979–1980), Singapore and Ireland (1979–1987). In a number of cities, the ban on The Life of Brian was lifted quite recently - for example, in Aberystwyth, Wales, it was lifted only in 2009. Church activists in Europe and America dedicated more than one protest to The Life of Brian, accusing the creators of the film of blasphemy.
I remember how in my first year my friends and I, who were then actively interested in all kinds of “smart cinema,” got hold of a cassette with this rarity. I remember that in some places it was really funny, in others it was strange. But we were able to understand half of Monty Python’s “jokes” only after the comments of the history teacher. The main residue that remained with me after the first viewing of “The Life of Brian” boiled down to the following: awareness of my own dullness... Because the authors’ witticisms concerned the details of the gospel history, the history of Judea, as well as the Essenes, Sadducees, Pharisees; I imagined all this very vaguely. By the way, it was this film that inspired me to read the Gospel and some literature about early Christianity. So in my case, the impact of the anti-clerical film turned out to be quite missionary.
In general, in my opinion, the quality of anti-clerical humor, no matter how we treat it, is the clearest indicator of the religiosity of a society. The nature of popular jokes on church topics indicates how great the authority of religion is in society, what is the level of religious culture of its citizens. In this regard, it is characteristic that there is nothing like “The Life of Brian” in modern Russian cinema. Moreover, we do not have anti-clerical comedies like those filmed by Buñuel and Fellini. After all, in order for the viewer to understand them, he needs to know the Gospel parables, understand the basics of dogma, understand terms like “transubstantiation” and “divine humanity”... Otherwise, what is happening on the screen seems simply meaningless rubbish.
Modern Russian anti-clericalism in terms of humor has not generated anything except a couple of hundred vulgar jokes and several dozen primitive demotivational pictures, as if made in the same studio by student trainees. The subject of laughter in all these jokes is a strictly limited set of images: a priest with a fat belly; greedy priest; a priest in a Mercedes; the priest's stupid wife. Typically, Orthodox laypeople almost never become the butt of jokes. Apparently, the anti-clericals really don’t notice us...
Modern Orthodox apologists often say that today’s critics of the Church, in terms of their level of culture, are approaching the militant atheists of the times of Emelyan of Yaroslavl. I would venture to guess that things are much worse for our anti-clericals. In the “Union of Militant Atheists,” there was, after all, an “ideological struggle against religion.” If we look at the legacy of Soviet atheism of the 1920s and 1930s, we can see how detailed the denunciators of religious prejudices imagined church life. They were guided by church calendar, knew the lives of the saints. It is no coincidence that for historians and cultural experts, issues of “Atheist” are an invaluable source of knowledge about church life in the country.
The quintessence of early Soviet “atheism” is the image of the Moscow street child Antipka, the hero of Moore’s famous cartoons, which “decorated” almost every issue of “The Godless Man at the Machine.” “God exists, but we don’t recognize him,” Antipka said. But the current atheists, it seems, have not grown up to Antipka. Which is not surprising - after all, most of Yaroslavsky-Gubelman’s associates were “former believers.” They could generate not only vulgar poems and primitive pictures. They could make high-quality feature films for those times - for example, “The Feast of St. Jorgen,” a comedy by Yakov Protazanov based on a script by Sigismund Krzhizhanovsky, attracted full cinemas throughout the country in the early 1930s.
In all centuries, the strengthening of the position of Christianity in European culture was accompanied by a deepening of anti-Christian polemics, including the spread of anti-Christian humor. As Christians carried out a “hidden takeover” of the Roman Empire, “anti-Christian” satirical writers Lucian, Celsus, Porphyry, Libanius appeared... Russian Empire, where the Church had state status, anti-clerical humor was represented by the poems of Pushkin and “Essays on the Bursa” by Pomyalovsky... The modern enemies of the “churchmen” in Russia are defended, it seems, not only by two writers - Vladimir Golyshev, Dmitry Bykov, but increasingly by the hooligan antics of feminists (which, however, is more politics than humor). Jokes “about priests” cannot at all be considered a weapon of anti-clerical propaganda - for the most part, they are simply not funny, not to mention the crudeness of meaning unknown to their authors.
In essence, modern anti-clerical humor resembles the so-called “gallows humor” (German: Galgenhumor). This is the humor of a person in a hopeless situation. A person who is not really funny at all, who experiences inner horror in the face of impending death, but tries to forcefully joke and show others that he doesn’t care.
Is the impotence of modern atheist humorists good or bad? On the one hand, of course, it’s good that Orthodox Church today, unlike the first centuries and Soviet times, it does not experience persecution. On the other hand, every action (both in nature and in society) is usually associated with a reaction. And if the opposition is so pathetic, the question arises: was there real action? Was Orthodoxy able to penetrate so deeply into the fabric of public life that jokes about “churchmen” became truly sharp and deep? Apparently not.
Anastasia Koskello
Illustrations: Ksenia Naumova
1. Scripture on Laughter
Also, foul language and idle talk and ridicule are not becoming for you, but, on the contrary, thanksgiving is (Eph. 5:4).
Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you; Cleanse your hands, you sinners; straighten your hearts, you double-minded. Lament, weep and howl; Let your laughter turn into crying, and your joy into sadness. Humble yourself before the Lord, and He will exalt you (James 4:8-10).
You see, God does not reject the blameless and does not support the hands of evildoers.
He will also fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with joyful exclamations (Job 8:20-21).
There are ways that seem right to a man; but their end is the path to death.
And when laughing [sometimes] the heart hurts, and the end of joy is sadness (Proverbs 14:12-13).
About laughter I said: “stupidity!”, and about fun: “What does it do?” (Eccl. 2:2).
Lamentation is better than laughter; because with a sad face the heart becomes better.
The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, and the heart of fools is in the house of joy.
It is better to listen to the reproofs of a wise man than to listen to the songs of fools (Eccl. 7:3-5)
2. Ridiculousness
Ridiculousness is the sin of untimely, inappropriate laughter, inextricably linked with the sins of idle talk, idle talk, condemnation, slander, lies, slander, temptation, blasphemy.
St. Theophan the Recluse writes about the main reason for the passion of laughter:
“These are glazers, talkers, debaters. Staggering around the squares, marketplaces, streets and houses, they scout everything out, and it’s not surprising that they deliberately spy, enter into disputes, where the fervor, strife, abuse and all the disorder in society come from. “To those living in idleness “, - writes Theodoret, - idle talk, talkativeness, useless curiosity are characteristic.” Ecumenius also points out the reason for this: “God gave us, he says, an active mind, therefore, when we remove it from deeds (that are pleasing to God), it is not able to remain. in inaction, he indulges in the affairs of the devil, in curiosity, talkativeness, slander, ridicule and the like.” Theophylact also writes: “Our mind is constantly moving; therefore, when we do not occupy it with useful things, it indulges in indecent matters, like exploration. others live, and from here comes gossip, idle talk and idle talk.”
Rev. John Climacus:
Timeless laughter... Sometimes born from the demon of fornication, and sometimes from vanity, when a person internally shamelessly praises himself; sometimes laughter is born and from pleasure (of food).
St. Basil the Great writes:
“Sin, committed in the tongue and in deeds, is very convenient and diverse. ... The tongue is for you and a weapon of untruth, if it does not speak from the heart, but to deceive others... Our life is filled with the sins of the tongue: shameful, ridiculous, stupid, obscene speeches, gossip, idle talk, false oaths, false testimonies (slanders, slander ) - all this and many more evils are a product of language. ...
One should not utter idle words that are of no use. For saying or doing even good things does not build up faith. means to insult God's Holy Spirit.
An idle word is a word inconsistent with the deed, false, breathing slander, and also... an empty word, for example, causing laughter, shameful, shameless, indecent."
“To express spiritual joy with a bright smile is not contrary to decency, since only what is written is expressed: the heart is glad, the face blooms (Proverbs 15:13). But to laugh loudly, to have the whole body shake involuntarily, is characteristic of an unbridled, unskilled person who does not know how to control himself.”
Rev. Simeon the New Theologian:
He who believes does not laugh, but weeps and weeps over his sins, for he hears that those who laugh in this life will weep and weep in the next.
He who believes does not unworthily partake of the Most Pure Mysteries, but cleanses himself from all filth, from gluttony, from rancor, from evil deeds and shameful words, from disorderly laughter, from nasty thoughts, from all impurity and from every sinful movement within, - and thus receives the King of glory; on the contrary, in those who unworthily partake of the Most Pure Mysteries, the devil quickly breaks in and enters their heart, as happened with Judas when he partook of the Lord’s Supper; which is why the divine Paul says: “Let man examine himself, and in this way let him eat of this bread and drink of this cup. For whoever eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks condemnation for himself, without considering the Body of the Lord. That is why many of you are weak and sick, and many are dying” (1 Cor. 11:28-30).
Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk:
Many do not consider idle talk a vice... But Christ says: “I tell you that for every idle word that people speak, they will give an answer on the day of judgment” (Matthew 12:36).
Rev. Barsanuphius the Great and John the Prophet explain the reasons for ridicule:
Question 451. One Christ-loving man asked the same elder: it often happens that when I am with certain people... often meaningless laughter is added to the words, and somehow something is done completely against my desire, then I am very sad about this and wonder what to do. ...
Answer. This happens to us because of the envy of the devil. He, wishing that neither we nor those who talk with us would benefit, brings us such tares in order, if possible, to seduce those who talk with us. The fear of God is alien to all confusion, all disorder and rumor. So... let us delve carefully into our hearts, why we are embarrassed and laugh, for There is no laughter in the fear of God. Scripture speaks of fools: “a fool lifts up his voice in laughter” (Sir. 21:23). And the word of the foolish is confused and devoid of grace. About the righteous he says: “a prudent man will hardly smile quietly.”
3. The destructiveness of laughter
Through laughter the soul robs itself and plunges it into the sea of sins.
1) Laughter drives out virtues
According to the testimony of the holy fathers, laughter drives out virtues, kills love, it causes crying for sins to dry up, repentance is lost, living faith and fear of God fade away. It opens the doors of the soul, through which the warmth of the heart immediately comes out: reverence, attention, sobriety, prayer. Ridiculousness devastates the soul.
Rev. Ephraim Sirin clearly teaches about the destructive effect of laughter:
“The beginning of mental corruption... - laughter and freedom. When you see something in yourself... know that you have come to the depths of evil. Don’t stop praying to God to deliver you from that death... laughter deprives a person of the bliss promised to those who cry (Matthew V, 4), ruins the good internal dispensation, offends the Holy Spirit, harms the soul, corrupts the body. Laughter drives out virtues; it has no remembrance of death or thoughts of torment.”
“Nothing makes those who in the world are given over to drunkenness and fornication so much as accomplices of the world, and nothing removes us so much from the treasures of wisdom and the knowledge of the mysteries of God, as laughter and bold soaring of thoughts.”
Rev. John Climacus:
“Variety and ridicule give rise to lies... Lies are the destruction of love.
Just as wax melts from fire, so crying is easily destroyed by rumor, bodily cares and pleasures, especially by verbosity and laughter.”
“Much verbiage is... the door of slander, the guide to ridicule, the servant of lies, the destruction of heartfelt tenderness, the invocation of despondency, the forerunner of sleep, the waste of attention, the destruction of heart storage, the cooling of holy warmth, the darkening of prayer.”
“Having achieved crying, guard it with all your strength, for before it is completely assimilated, it is very easily lost, and, just as wax melts from fire, so it is easily destroyed by rumor, bodily cares and pleasures, especially from verbosity and laughter.
If nothing is more in agreement with humility than crying, then, without a doubt, nothing is so opposed to it as laughter.
...Often one word destroys crying, but it would be wonderful if one word brought it back.”
St. Theophan the Recluse:
“... talkativeness, laughter, idle talk, jokes. They impose silence on the inner word of the spirit - prayer."
Ancient patericon, sayings of elders who grew old in asceticism:
“He also said that laughter and insolence are like fire burning the reeds.”
Rev. Abba Isaiah:
“Do not open your mouth... to laugh, for this is a sign of an absent-minded and careless soul.
Where there is laughter, there is no decorum, no fear of God, no inner spiritual preservation.
If any ridiculous word breaks out between you, beware of allowing your voice (of laughter) to rise to the point of being heard, for this is a sign of the lack of training and fearlessness of God, because there is no guard within you.”
Rev. Neil of Sinai:
Beware of excessive laughter; He relaxes the soul, and the soul, having relaxed, easily throws off the bridle of the law.
Rev. Ambrose Optinsky spoke about laughter:
“Laughter drives out the fear of God.
Bold and bold with laughter - therefore, there is no fear of God.
Laugh less, otherwise unnecessary thoughts will come from this.
If your thoughts say: there are no great sins, that you laugh a lot - (a great sin).”
St. John Chrysostom calls laughter “the work of the demon” and speaks of its destructiveness:
“Therefore all things were corrupted and fallen; Everything has become ridiculous among us - both mutual address and politeness; there is nothing thorough, nothing solid. ... and surprisingly, even during the prayer itself, many do not stop laughing; the devil triumphs everywhere, has bound everyone, possesses everyone; Christ is dishonored and driven out; the church is considered nothing. Do you not hear the words of Paul, who says: “Profanity and idle talk and ridicule do not become [you],” let them be taken away from you (Eph. 5:4)? ...And you still laugh? ... tell me: why are you laughing? Have you ever heard Christ do this? Never, - on the contrary, He grieved often. When He looked at Jerusalem, He wept; when I imagined a traitor, I was indignant; when he intended to resurrect Lazarus, he cried; are you laughing? If the one who does not grieve over the sins of other people is worthy of condemnation, then can the one who does not grieve over his own sins and laughs be worthy of forgiveness? The present time is a time of sadness and sorrow, contrition and humility, struggle and exploits; are you laughing? Do you not know how Sarah was convicted? Do you really not hear the words of Christ, who says: “Woe to you who laugh now! For you will weep and lament” (Luke 6:25)? ... But, perhaps, some are so absent-minded and frivolous that they even laugh even at this reproach, precisely because we are now talking about laughter; Such is the property of frivolity and such is the property of unbridledness that even reproach is insensitive. ...
But you say: what kind of evil is laughter? Laughter is not evil, but evil is when it occurs without measure, when it is inappropriate. … Serve God with tears so that you can wash away your sins.”
"Meanwhile our teachers not only is lust eradicated, not only is the (criminal) action punished, but They condemn a shameless look, offensive words, and obscene laughter...
Meanwhile, We only say what the devil inspires: we mock, we make wit; sometimes we curse and offend, sometimes we swear, we lie and break our oaths...
... I demand tears shed not for show, but out of contrition, shed secretly, in a secluded room, without witnesses, in silence and silence, tears from the depths of the heart, from inner grief and sadness, shed solely for God...
If you cry the same way, then you are imitating your Lord. And He wept over Lazarus (John 11:31), over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41), and was troubled in spirit over Judas (John 13:21). Yes, and it often happened that He was seen crying, but that He laughed, or even smiled a little, no one ever saw this - which is why not one of the evangelists mentioned it. Also, Paul himself testifies to this that he wept, and wept day and night for three years (Acts 20:31), and others say this about him; and that he ever laughed, neither he himself, nor another apostle, nor any of the saints, nor about him, nor about anyone else like him, speaks about this anywhere. Scripture speaks about Sarah alone (Gen. 18:12), for which she received a reproach, and also about the son of Noah, who for this reason became a slave from a free man. However, I say this not forbidding laughter, but restraining from immoderate laughter. Tell me, why do you rejoice and laugh beyond measure, when you are subject to such responsibility, when you must one day appear at the Last Judgment and give a strict account of everything that you have done in life? We must give an account of all our voluntary and involuntary sins... You will need to give such a strict report, and you sit and laugh, joke and think about fun? But you say: what good is it if I cry instead? Enormous benefit - such that it cannot be expressed in words. At the human court, no matter how much you cry, you will not escape punishment when the determination is made; but here, if you just take a breath, the sentence is destroyed and forgiveness is received. That is why Christ so often tells us about tears and calls those who cry blessed and those who laugh poor.
... With all this, some are so insensitive that, despite what has been said, they say: it’s better for me never to cry, but God forbid I always laugh and play. What could be more reckless than such a thought? It is not God, but the devil who teaches you how to play. Listen to what happened to those playing: “And the people sat down,” says Scripture, “to eat and drink, and then they stood up to play” (Ex. 32:6). This is how the Sodomites behaved, this is how those who lived before the flood behaved. The Scripture says about the first that they are in pride, and in abundance, and “satiety and idleness” (glory - in the satiety of bread they indulged in voluptuousness) (Ezek. 16:49). And those who lived under Noah, having seen the ark being built for so long, had fun carefreely, not thinking at all about the future; For this very reason the flood destroyed them all, and then subjected the entire universe to shipwreck.
So, do not ask God for what you get from the devil. It is God's nature to give a heart that is contrite and humble, sober, chaste and self-controlled, repentant and tender. These are the gifts of God, because we have the greatest need of them. Indeed, we have a difficult feat ahead of us, a struggle with invisible forces, a battle with the spirits of evil, a war with the principalities, with the authorities; and it would be good if, with all our diligence, sobriety and vigilance, we could resist this ferocious horde. If we laugh, play and always indulge in laziness, then even before the battle we will fall from our own carelessness. It is not our business to constantly laugh, have fun and live cheerfully; this is the case actors, shameful women, and people destined for that purpose, parasites, flatterers; This is not characteristic of those who are called to heaven, who are not written in the city on high, who have not received spiritual weapons, but of those who have doomed themselves to the devil. It was he, he himself, who invented such an art to attract the soldiers of Christ to himself and weaken the strength of their spirit. That’s why he built theaters in the cities and, having trained laughers, this plague infects the whole city. What Paul commanded to run away (Eph. 5:4) - I mean idle talk and jokes - the devil persuades to love; and what is worst in this is a reason for laughter. When those presenting funny things in the theater say something blasphemous and shameful, then many, being even crazier than they, laugh, are amused by it... and for such pleasure they prepare a fiery furnace for themselves. After all, those who praise those who speak such speeches thereby encourage them to do so; and therefore it is fairer for the punishment that is prescribed for laugh-makers to fall on those who laugh, because if there were not a single spectator, then there would be no actor. ...However, I am not saying this to apologize to them, but to make you understand that the beginning and root of this lawlessness actually comes from you, from you, who spend the whole day on this, subjecting an honest marriage to ridicule, disgracing the great sacrament. Truly, it is not so much the one who represents in the theater who sins as in comparison with him you, who force him to do it; and you not only force, but also take care of it, you rejoice and laugh, praise the performance, and help in every possible way demonic work».
St. John Chrysostom especially denounced those who allowed themselves to laugh in God’s temple as doing the work of the devil and dishonoring the shrine:
“And the church is filled with laughter. One will say a sharp word, and laughter immediately spreads among those sitting; and surprisingly, even during the prayer itself, many do not stop laughing; the devil triumphs everywhere, has bound everyone, possesses everyone; Christ is dishonored and driven out; the church is considered nothing.”
Therefore, one should enter the church quietly and reverently, as into the house of God, into the mysterious dwelling of the Heavenly King. Noise, conversations, and even more so laughter when entering a church and staying in it insult the holiness of the temple of God and the greatness of the God who dwells in it. Due to the magnitude of the sin, laughter in a holy place or at a holy person brings upon the sinner the inevitable punishment of God for the blasphemer.
The Life of Our Holy Father Gregory the Wonderworker, Bishop of Neocaesarea indicates that mockery of a saint, as blasphemy, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit dwelling in him, is punished by God:
“Once, when Saint Gregory of Neocaesarea was returning from the city of Comana, where he had been for the election and consecration of a bishop, some Jews wanted to laugh at him and show that he did not have the Spirit of God in him.
To do this, on the path where the saint was supposed to go, the Jews laid one of their comrades, as if dead, naked, and they themselves began to weep over him. When the miracle worker walked past them, they began to pray to him to show mercy to the deceased and cover his body with clothes. He took off his outer clothing and, giving it to them, moved on.
The Jews began to joyfully mock and curse the saint, saying: “If he had the Spirit of God in him, he would have known that the man was lying not dead, but alive,” and they began to call their comrade to get up. But God rewarded them for such a reproach by making their comrade actually dead. They, thinking that he had fallen asleep, pushed him in the ribs to wake him up, and cried out loudly over him, but there was no answer, for he fell asleep in an eternal sleep. Seeing him dead, they actually began to weep; so their laughter turned to crying, and the dead buried their dead.”
Prologue in teachings describes another case of punished blasphemy:
“One pious man, who had a special love for the holy Great Martyr Artemy, took candles and oil and went to his relics. On the way, he met an acquaintance and asked: “Where, friend, are you taking the candles and oil?” “I’m going to pray to Saint Artemy,” was the answer. The man he met, mockingly, said: “Don’t forget, friend, to catch the disease from him and bring it here when you go back.” The one who went to the great martyr did not respond to the mockery and, having prayed at the relics of the saint, went home. What then? On the way back, he was truly overtaken by a severe illness: he felt unbearable pain in his body, it began to swell in places, and he was unable to walk home. Since the house of that same mocker stood on the way, he had no choice but to wander there. And when he arrived, he felt that his illness had intensified even more. Something like a demon attacked him, his tongue became numb, and it seemed that he was about to die. However, after some time he came to his senses and, believing that the illness happened because of the mocker, he said: “Why am I suffering so much? Is it because of my friend’s words?” The same, for his part, began to reproach the patient and mock him again. Things had already reached the point of an obvious quarrel between them, so that many stopped and asked about the reason for the quarrel. The sick man told them about his meeting with his friend on the way to Saint Artemy and about his blasphemy and, having said this, he immediately felt completely healthy. But, oh horror! His illness instantly spread to the blasphemer, who began to shout: “Woe is me! Woe is me!" Those present were horrified to see this, and glorified God and the holy saint: “God’s judgment is righteous! For you have found what you sought, and through you may others be admonished not to impute to blasphemy and ridicule the miracles that come from God to His saints.” (Prot. V. Guryev. Prologue).
Archimandrite Raphael (Karelin):
“St. John Chrysostom... compares the tongue of a jester and a foul speaker, when they stand for prayer, with a hand smeared with dung, with which a person wants to touch the Lord’s robe.
Jokes and swearing represent a caricature of a person. In every joke there is an outrage against the human person, humiliation of it, the desire to replace his face with an ugly mug, as in the distorting mirrors that were shown in booths. In a joke, respect for man as the image and likeness of God disappears. And along with respect, love disappears. If a person's heart softens during crying, then when joking it becomes hard as stone.
During jokes and laughter a person's mind becomes darkened, he cannot think about anything high and holy, he looks for ugliness in others. Mockery is the joy that man, the image of God, is dressed in clothes turned inside out. The first joker was Ham, who laughed at his father's nakedness, and even earlier, a demon who laughed at the gullibility of primordial people. It is not for nothing that the demon is called a jester and is often depicted in the clothes of a buffoon. A joke is a short attack of hysteria, during which a person is freed from some energy accumulated in his soul. He seems to throw it out into the face of another, like spit. By this he seems to remove the contradictions that have accumulated in his soul. This release of energy associated with clouding of consciousness brings apparent relief, but in essence it is relief of the same nature as foul language, that is, thanks to the humiliation of another, a person develops the illusion of his own dignity.
They say that jokes make you feel good, but this is not true. After prolonged jokes and laughter, a person feels devastation. It has been noted that caricaturists and clowns in their personal lives are distinguished by a gloomy and irritable character, and often by attacks of black melancholy, as if jokes and laughter are dark pitfalls of the soul in which the light of the mind goes out and spiritual powers disappear. If a person, after listening to a dozen jokes and laughing at them to his heart's content, begins to pray, then he will see with his own eyes the ugliness of his soul. There is a psychological complex of a joker, which always and everywhere looks for incongruity and ugliness; for him all life is a constant paradox. If he doesn’t joke for one hour, then he feels some kind of internal discomfort, like a drunkard deprived of alcohol, or a drug addict left without drugs, as if some forces were bursting his soul from within. He feels bad in the full sense of the word. He begins to joke with the greed with which hungry people pounce on food. A person gets so used to joking that he jokes almost mechanically. In his subconscious there is a constant search and processing of jokes. He jokes even unexpectedly for himself. When such a person begins to pray, his prayer sometimes turns into blasphemy. Habit forces him to look for ugly associative images, as if some kind of mimicking of prayer words.
The devil is a lover and connoisseur of jokes. This is the invisible director of the clownery that occurs in the human mind. The most terrible consequence of sin is that it removes the grace of the Holy Spirit from the soul. Nowhere on the icons are saints depicted laughing or smiling, for laughter deprives a person of self-knowledge, and jokes deprive a person of repentance. But the devil is often depicted with his teeth bared in a smile. ... The Lord said: “Woe to those who laugh” (cf. Luke 6:25) - woe, because they drive out the Holy Spirit from their souls; grief, because they mock man - the image and likeness of God, and through creation - the Creator; grief because they are losing precious life time; grief, because they deprive themselves of the depth of repentance and purity of prayer.”
2) Multiplication of passions
Wasting virtues, laughter makes a person prey to passions. The Holy Fathers teach that laughter gives rise to many sins, such as slander, lies, condemnation, despondency, negligence, relaxation, disobedience, insolence, blasphemy, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.
Rev. John Climacus writes that laughter is one of the products of the passion of gluttony, and those passions that he lists after laughter are also its products:
“The sea of evil thoughts, waves of defilements, the depth of unknown and ineffable impurities come from me. My daughters are: laziness, verbosity, insolence, ridicule, blasphemy, bickering, stiff-neckedness, disobedience, insensibility, captivity of the mind, self-praise, insolence, love of the world, followed by defiled prayer, soaring thoughts and unexpected and sudden misadventures; and behind them comes despair, the fiercest of all passions.”
The Holy Fathers point out the connection between laughter and fornication and warn that inappropriate and immoderate laughter is followed by fornication temptation.
St. John Chrysostom:
Laughter makes the bonds of chastity weak, laughter repels, laughter does not remember the fear of God, laughter is not afraid of the threat of Gehenna, laughter is a guide to fornication, playfulness is an exposure of an unbridled person, laughter produces the fact that we fall into carelessness...
Fatherland(The sayings of the elders, mainly Egyptian, especially the elders of Skete, whose names have not reached us):
Uncleanness is the lustful touching of one's own and another's body, as well as ridicule and free treatment of others.
St. Theophan the Recluse:
“In all the holy ascetics we find an indication that idle talk and ridiculousness is in direct connection with lust. He who laughs is himself in a state of lust, which through his idle talk he spreads around. Saint Chrysostom says: “Do not utter words, neither joking nor shameful, and you will extinguish the flame, for words lead to deeds. Just as there (above, speaking against irritable passion) the Apostle destroyed the quarrels that support anger, so now he cuts off foul language and jokes leading to debauchery».
Rev. John Climacus:
Timeless laughter... sometimes born from the demon of fornication, and sometimes from vanity, when a person shamelessly praises himself internally; sometimes laughter is born from pleasure (of food).
Rev. Theodore the Studite:
Consider... laughter as fornication.
Rev. Barsanuphius the Great and John:
Question 455. What is free speech and obscene laughter?
Answer.... And how in general It is said about free circulation that it is useless to have it, so one should not hesitate in laughter and give yourself freedom, but restrain your thoughts in order to decently avoid that laughter. For let those who give themselves freedom in it know that they from this they fall into fornication.
4. How to overcome the tendency to laugh?
The Holy Fathers reveal to us that the source of laughter is the lack of fear of God, which gives rise in the soul to deceit, relaxation, and freedom in dealing with others. Accordingly, they also indicate the way to combat inappropriate (sinful) laughter: establish yourself in the fear of God, adhere to silence, meekness and humility, prayerfully call on the name of God, learn from the Holy Scriptures that our every word should be filled with grace. If our laughter comes not from sin, but from natural gaiety, then we must do everything possible to try not to seduce their neighbor and remain within the limits of decency, because freedom in dealing with a neighbor, inevitably associated with laughter, always carries the danger of offending, offending or seducing him. Necessary try to acquire the skill of decent and restrained communication. You should also sober up so that by immoderation in laughter you do not give over yourself the power of the passion of fornication.
The Holy Fathers advise limiting and even avoiding communication with those who are subject to the passion of laughter.
Rev. Barsanuphius and John teach how to avoid the temptation to laugh during conversations:
Question 451. Answer. ... The fear of God is alien to all confusion, all disorder and rumor. So, before the conversation, let us establish ourselves in the fear of God and delve carefully into our hearts, which is why we are embarrassed and laugh, for there is no laughter in the fear of God. Scripture speaks of fools: “a fool lifts up his voice in laughter” (Sir. 21:23). And the word of the foolish is confused and devoid of grace. About the righteous he says: “a prudent man will hardly smile quietly.” So, if we arouse in ourselves the remembrance of God and the thought that we must talk with our brethren with humility and silent thoughts, we reflect on this and always have before our eyes the Last Judgment of God, then this preparation drives out every evil thought from our hearts, for where silence, meekness and humility, God dwells there. What has been said will be enough for you to guide you in the conversations that happen. If the enemy persists in fighting us, thinking with his shamelessness to catch us and overthrow us, then we will not weaken, so that he does not drag us into his nets. But let us learn a lesson from the first case, and so on; It is said: “A righteous man will fall seven times and rise again” (Proverbs 24:16). ...But most of all let us remember what we need call on the holy name of God, for where God is, everything is good; It is obvious that where the devil is, everything is evil. ...let us remember what the holy Apostle Paul said: “Let your word always be with grace, seasoned with salt” (Col. 4:6). And if we learn from this, then, in His compassion, the Almighty God will give us a perfect dispensation in His fear. To him be glory forever, amen.
Question 455. What is free speech and obscene laughter?
Answer. Free circulation is of two kinds: one comes from shamelessness and is the root of all evil, and the other comes from gaiety; however, this last one is not entirely useful to the one who holds on to it. But since only the strong and strong can escape both, and we according to our weakness we cannot do this, then at least let us sometimes allow that free circulation that stems from gaiety, watching so as not to give his brother a reason for temptation through him. Those who are among people, if they are imperfect, cannot yet get rid of this second kind of free circulation. And if we cannot, then let this serve us as an edification, and not as a temptation, especially when we will try to shorten the conversation connected with him, because verbosity is not very useful, even if, apparently, it does not contain anything obscene. The same must be said regarding laughter, for it is a branch of free circulation. Whoever has foul language combined with free speech, obviously the laughter of such a person is also dirty; if free circulation comes from gaiety, then it is obvious that his laughter is only cheerful. And just as it is generally said about free circulation that it is not useful to have it, so in laughter one should not hesitate and give oneself freedom, but restrain one’s thoughts in order to decently avoid that laughter. For let those who give themselves freedom in it know that from this they fall into fornication.
Rev. Isaac the Syrian:
“Walk reverently before your friends.; when you do this, you will benefit both yourself and them, because the soul often throws off the reins of caution under the pretext of love. Beware of conversations, because they are not useful at all times. In meetings, prefer silence, because it prevents much harm.”
“Whoever loves to laugh and loves to ridicule people will not be your friend, because he leads you into the habit of indulging in relaxation. Do not make your face happy with those who are dissolute in their lives; but beware lest you hate him; If he wants to rebel, give him your hand and take care until death to acquire him. If you are still weak, then turn away from this healing, for it is said: give him the end of your rod, and so on."
(We read about this from St. John the Prophet: “Keep this servant with you, teaching him and yourself through him. And if he improves, good. If he continues to behave as before and you tolerate him for God’s sake, then that’s good too , for you will receive a reward for patience. But when you see that you are unable to endure, but are receiving harm through it, then let it go, bringing to mind the words of one of the saints: “When you see someone drowning in a river, do not give him your hand, so that he does not drag you away with him, but give him your rod, and if you can save him with the help of the rod, then it will be good, but if not, then let go of the rod, so that you do not perish along with the drowning man" ( Answer to question 660)).
St. Theophan the Recluse:
Try to get used to it, and you will get used to it so that you will see the funny and not laugh.
St. Basil the Great:
“The habit of using unsuitable words serves as a certain path to deeds. Therefore with every precaution we must protect the soul so that, finding pleasure in words, you do not quietly accept something bad, just as others swallow poison with honey.”
Saint Demetrius of Rostov:
“Silence is the true beginning of the purification of the soul and easily fulfills all the commandments. For the tongue is “uncontrollable evil, it is filled with deadly poison. With it we bless God and the Father and with it we curse people,” says the apostle (James 3:9). “Who He does not sin in word, he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body” (James 3:2). It is dangerous to speak: with what disposition to speak, at what time, what to say and for what purpose must he remember all this, but he who is silent must remember all this. committed and fulfilled.
Beware of idle talk, laughter and blasphemy even to the smallest idle word; for you will answer for every idle word on the day of judgment, as the Lord said (Matthew 12:36). David also prays about this: “Put a guard, O Lord, over my mouth, and guard the door of my mouth; do not let my heart turn aside to evil words to excuse sinful deeds” (Ps. 140: 3-4). And further: “I said: I will take heed to my ways, lest I sin with my tongue; I will bridle my mouth while the wicked is before me. I was dumb and voiceless..." (Ps. 38:2-3)."
5. Why are we given the ability to laugh?
St. John Chrysostom:
“The ability to laugh has been given to us so that we can use it when we see friends after a long separation, so that when we see someone exhausted and discouraged, we can cheer him up with a smile, and not to laugh and laugh constantly; The ability to laugh is implanted in our soul so that the soul sometimes receives relief, and not so that it relaxes. And carnal lust lies in our nature, but it does not follow from this that we must necessarily satisfy it or use it without measure; but we need to manage it, and we do not say: it is embedded in us, therefore we must satisfy it. Serve God with tears so that you can wash away your sins. ...
So let us weep, beloved, let us weep so that we may truly laugh, so that we may truly rejoice in the time of real joy. Real joy is always mixed with sadness and is never pure, but that is real joy, not feigned, not containing anything insincere, not having any admixture. Let us rejoice in that joy, let us try to receive it; and it is possible to receive it only by choosing here not what is pleasant, but what is useful, and even experiencing some sorrow voluntarily, and enduring with gratitude everything that happens. In this way we can be considered worthy of the kingdom of heaven...”
St. Gregory the Theologian gives advice that you can cool down an angry person with a joke:
“I’ll tell you one artificial way. Although he is not worthy of the attention of those who prefer meekness, I will nevertheless name him, because he can extinguish trouble... Try to bring down the one who is enraged with jokes. Laughter is the most powerful weapon for victory over anger... Anyone who insults a person who is not angry at his attacks, but laughs at him, is most upset and weakened by this. On the contrary, if he encounters resistance to himself, it brings him some pleasure, because new food for anger is provided, and anger is very pleasant to him.”
Rev. John Climacus writes about true joy - about spiritual laughter, the grace-filled joy of a soul purified by repentance:
“God does not require, brothers, and does not desire that a person should cry from heart disease, but that out of love for Him he rejoiced with heartfelt laughter. Sin will be washed away, and painful tears will be unnecessary for sensual eyes, for when there is no wound, then there is no need for a plaster. Adam had no tears before his crime, just as there will be none after the resurrection, when sin is abolished; for then sickness, sorrow and sighing will flee away (Isaiah 35:10).”
“Whoever has put on blessed, gracious lamentation, as in a wedding garment, has come to know spiritual laughter of the soul (that is, joy).
...Reflecting on the property of tenderness, I am amazed at how crying and so-called sadness contain joy and cheerfulness like honey is contained in a honeycomb. What do we learn from this? Because such tenderness is truly a gift from the Lord. ...God comforts the brokenhearted in hidden ways.”
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