28. For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many. (Mark 10:45; Luke 22:27). The highest and clear example and model is offered to everyone familiar with the life of Christ. Christ was served by both Angels and people (Matthew 4:11; 8:15; 27:55;

17. For God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. Christ mentioned twice that He came to give people eternal life or, what is the same, salvation. Such a statement might seem to Nicodemus somewhat inconsistent with the recent speech

Pray that I become good, not that I feel good. On the day when Father Porfiry had to operate on a cataract on his eye, one girl, the spiritual child of the Elder, took other girls with her, and they went into the forest. There they shed streams of tears and prayed for healing.

2.5. Treatise “On the Structure of Man” in the aspect of its influence on the figurative and stylistic structure of canonical art. The doctrine of man by Gregory of Nyssa combined religious, philosophical, natural philosophy, natural science, and medical knowledge about man and his place in

Announcement 19 About constantly being attentive and sober against the temptations of the devil, and also about not being self-pleasing. Why monastic departure from the world? My brothers, fathers and children. The Divine Apostle teaches us to forget what is behind and to reach out to what is before (Phil. 3:13). That's why

Announcement 20<137>About embarrassment during your spiritual competition, and about not adorning yourself Monasticism - spiritual martyrdom and confession My fathers, and brothers, and children. Just as chicks, sitting on a nest, constantly wait for food from their mother, so

Announcement 76<521>That we should diligently compete in the spiritual arena until our death, in order to receive for this the crowns of righteousness from the All-King God, Brothers, fathers and children. Just as those who compete on the lists have special faces who, before running, encourage them and

Announcement 122<909>About mourning for runaway brothers, and also about holding your tongue Brothers and fathers. Last evening, after the announcement, you were informed that three brothers had broken away from our spiritual union. But how did it happen that you found out about this even earlier?

Marriage is a spiritual-physical connection. Not only mental, not only physical, but above all, spiritual-physical unity. The possibility, strength, stability of marriage is determined when this first condition is present. But, of course, this is not enough, everyone understands this perfectly well. Not enough, if only for a very simple reason.

Each person, like an instrument, is tuned in a certain way. And harmony is impossible where two, albeit beautiful instruments, are tuned differently. Take a violin and a piano, but tune them differently: one instrument, say, a semitone higher or lower. Try to play - there will be cacophony, not harmony. Therefore, every person by his very nature has this certain attitude. And there are people who, in a purely natural sense, can, when united, form harmony: “do” and “mi”, while others: only “do” and “re”, or “do” and “do-sharp”. What will happen? How important it is to see this in advance!

The acquaintance itself, if it is not fleeting, soon enough reveals: everything seems to be fine and... - constant dissonance. Constant disputes, constant misunderstandings, always something wrong. And they are drawn to each other, and all the time it’s not the same. We need to understand. You just need to know this. This means that here you are tuned somewhere, some are a semitone higher, and some are a semitone lower. This is very important to understand. Such rashness, when, based on some purely external signs, purely external attractions, people, without thinking and without understanding, get married, usually make a big mistake. It soon disintegrates or, unfortunately, people suffer literally throughout their lives. There is no satisfaction all my life. There is no point in being satisfied; they are dissatisfied all their lives. He is for her, she is for them, and so on.

The second point is very important to see in advance and it can be seen! - this is discovered during the dating process. I repeat once again how this is revealed - constantly - if not conflicts, but everything through the cracks, everything is not right - here and there, and everything goes wrong. One of the signs. It's not even about worldview. Yes, with the same worldview, it seems - both are Christians, but in reality they are irreducible to each other. Then you shouldn’t take the path of risk - it will not lead, as a rule - if we have assessed correctly - it will not lead to the only thing in which only marriage can be truly fulfilling.

But perhaps even more important to marriage is being prepared for marriage. From a Christian point of view, preparation for marriage is of the greatest importance. What does this mean? This means very serious things. They become especially acute in our time, when there is a rampant propaganda of depravity that we see now, which has never happened in Russia. Never in history has it happened. If Peter cut a window into Europe, then this stinking breath touched our aristocracy. That's right, it really affected me. And we see how it got there. And by the way, the degradation of our elite has begun - the state, noble, aristocratic elite. Corruption has begun. Therefore, you are not surprised when you see what we came to in 1917. This breath of the West amazed. There was only a window. Now - thanks to Gorbachev and then Yeltsin, our wall was simply destroyed. Can you imagine the wall now - once! - and fell. All. It’s one thing to open a window - cold air will come in, it will be noticeable if it’s thirty degrees below zero. It will touch someone - those standing closer to the window, like the aristocracy then. She had the most contact with the West, not the peasants, right? And when the wall is destroyed, we all already feel it.

I must tell you that the West, unfortunately - great regret, became corrupt a very long time ago. There are many reasons for this. We just need to talk about this separately, but the West in this regard has gone, oh, how far - terrorism, atheism came to us from there. I came from there, this didn’t happen in Russia. All atheistic ideas, all atheistic authors came from there, from the West. Those who were once involved in religious studies and studied the history of atheism know this very well. All this came to us from there.

So, the end of the twentieth century for Russia was a test that I don’t know how we will endure. The wall is destroyed. It is no longer a stream coming through the window, but we are already acquiring the unity of the atmosphere with that world. How soon this will happen is more difficult to judge, but this air that comes from there is already mixing here. Everything is mixed, a process is underway when the wall is destroyed. What kind of process is going on now? In particular, I draw attention to the issue that we are dealing with - the issue of marriage and family.

There is no need to say what is being promoted now. What ugly forms, what a view on marriage itself. What is the relationship between a man and a woman, a boy and a girl. We all know this very well. It is directly preached - brazenly, (forgive me for this word) such bestiality is preached as we have never had before. They literally want to turn us into cattle, into two-legged cattle. The basic principle by which this propaganda operates is completely obvious, clear, and has long been known about it. Those who are familiar with the relevant literature know very well, because the literature of previous centuries already spoke about the main principle of Freemasonry. What is this main principle? "Unbridled to bridle." And now, frankly, without hesitation, to the fullest, this principle is being implemented in life - unbridled. The people who manage to be unbridled will be bridled in any way they want, as those who managed to unbridle want. I am sure that it is absolutely clear that it is absolutely impossible to explain in any way the fact that our media is filled with such abominations. Who needs it? For what purpose? What good does this give a person? What good does this give to our families, our children, our society, our state - what? None. I would say this: if we are a democratic state - democracy (“demos” - people, “kratos” - power), it would probably have been necessary to conduct a survey long ago and ask the population: do you want this debauchery, this violence, these the bullying of people that we see - so that it is constantly carried out? In front of everyone. Children can watch things that older people didn’t know about and couldn’t imagine. Do you want it or not?

We do not want.

Everything should be banned.

What did you say - ban? Long live freedom! Freedom is higher than any democracy, higher than anything!

Whose freedom? Who needs freedom? Why freedom? Then let's give freedom to murderers and thieves!

How worried they are about the body! In relation to the soul - that is, the main thing that is in a person - “complete freedom”. In fact, it is not freedom, but arbitrariness. "Unbridled to bridle."

And one of the most powerful means of unbridling a person, turning him into a bestial state, is something that is so close to our topic. Readiness for marriage - who is really ready for marriage, who can really get married and have a happy family? And now it is suggested: this is the one who will try everything before marriage. What it turns into - any psychologist will tell you, although I don’t know what they teach in psychology now. But, at least, any sensible psychologist will tell you - any simply reasonable person: the person who shows nothing else as the principle of his life, sees nothing more than pleasure - (no matter what the quality) - this is the person who seeks them and puts them above all else - “pleasure above all”, this person very soon turns into a complete egoist. An egoist who can betray everything in the world: his wife or husband - it doesn’t matter, depending on who we are talking about: parents, children. For him, the most important thing is pleasure. And this poor man, who has embarked on this path, turns into a complete egoist who is not ready for marriage. He cannot be married - you see, what’s the problem, for him marriage is only one of the moments of the search for pleasure. But when he or she saw something else on the side - there was a wife or husband on the side - there is something more attractive. He is not ready for marriage.

I would like to draw your attention to this - this is especially important for young people to know. Be careful when you get married, do not fall for a complete egoist who does not seek anything more than pleasures - sometimes animal pleasures. That's it, you will die there, you will not get anything there, there will never be a marriage, you will live for two weeks and escape from this monster, who only enjoys pleasure and is not interested in anything else.

This is, first of all, what Christianity talks about. Christianity warns loudly: make no mistake! Corruption before marriage is death for marriage; there can be no happiness there. This is understandable. We all know who an egoist is - he is not able to give up anything for his pleasure. He is already a potential traitor to his family - in the full sense of the word.

What is marriage? This is, if you like, a promise, honestly, this is an oath of fidelity until the grave to those with whom I unite. The Oath of Allegiance - I emphasize again. It is no coincidence that he is always accompanied by witnesses - whether a person is getting married or being registered. There are witnesses. What are the witnesses? Witnesses of the oath. Here he is swearing now: an unbeliever in the face of his brothers, sisters, friends. Believer: in the face of people and God - to be faithful to death.

That's what marriage is. And then, this being who is accustomed only to his own pleasures - it costs him nothing to break this oath. And he really becomes a moral criminal. Only because he or she saw something prettier, something more interesting, or something richer, or something more exciting. And away with all my oaths of allegiance.

Readiness for marriage is a very serious thing. It's not anything. And what we have now - I’m talking about the media, about this unfortunate advertising in which we see everything - all of these are potent drugs that destroy the soul, the very spirit of a young man, which then makes marriage incapable. After all, now more than half, in my opinion, statistics say, people are drifting apart. Marriages break up. What is the reason? They can't agree on their personalities.

“Go wash the dishes.”

“No, you go.” Where does it start: “You go to the store”

“No, you go.”

“I’m used to being looked after only, and then suddenly they tell me that I have to! So why did I get married? You have to do everything!”

“Why did I get married? What do you want me to do - I’ll be a dishwasher?”

And it begins... Why does it begin? They got together - and they didn’t get together out of love, but sometimes they got together out of elementary attraction. Attraction - there is no talk of love. We must see the difference between attraction and love.

Love is always associated with that lofty concept that we know in history - friendship. What characterizes both - attraction and love-friendship? Attraction is always blind - eyes are closed, they don’t see any shortcomings, everything, as we say in Rus' “okay”, there can’t be anything better.

Love - friendship means: yes, I see these shortcomings, I see them. But I see something else too. I see those advantages that, from my point of view, are more valuable and less scary for me, therefore these are the same disadvantages. Friendship sees flaws. Friendship can handle this with generosity. Love can cover the shortcomings that I see. When we talk about attraction, which we often call love, it is not without reason that they say that love is blind. In fact, this is not the same love, if you want - different types of love. One word, but many meanings. True love sees, condescends - why? - because I see them in myself too. She has one, I have another. I'll tell her about my shortcomings, or she'll tell him. Friendship is pure water, not honey. And you know, you can’t drink too much honey for a long time. As it is written in the Holy Scriptures: “Having found honey, eat it in moderation, so that you don’t become too full and vomit.” Isn't that great? These are some amazing things. And when a person gets married simply out of attraction, they are looking for this honey, then very soon the “vomiting” begins. Here it is, what a problem...

If you want, true love is also friendship. Yes, of course there must be love, there must be feelings. And in general, it must be said that a full-fledged marriage occurs when there is love. But not blind. Because blind love very soon makes itself felt by all those negative things that lead to the destruction of a marriage. Under no circumstances should there be blindness. There must be a sober attitude with this love and generosity towards the shortcomings that everyone has, but I can still bear these shortcomings. I can carry this pound, but I can’t carry two pounds anymore. This must be seen, and there must be a certain reciprocity in this.

I remind you once again that in order for a marriage to be stable and correct, conditions are required. One of them is the purity of the premarital state. All nations have always insisted on this - don’t think that only Christians. Look at Islam? They stone people there. Look, in the United Arab Emirates, for example, or in Saudi Arabia not so long ago, they found a woman (there, however, relations are completely unequal - a man, of course, will be punished with whips, given in such a way that he will remember for a long time), - but women are buried up to their heads in the ground and stoned.

It's horrible. Yes - it's really terrible. But where did this horror come from? These are the terrible things they are trying to hold back, trying to hold back that dam coming from “enlightened” Europe and “over-enlightened” America, which are ready to sweep away everything in their path. Like a mud avalanche - like recent avalanches that destroyed so many houses and people. These cruel measures, as it seems, are strong, these laws are generated directly by intuition, designed to somehow preserve, to keep a person from debauchery and from the destruction of the most important unit in society - the destruction of the family. After all, the unit of society is not a person. A person is an atom, and a family is a molecule. Where the family is destroyed, everything is destroyed, society is destroyed. Where there are no stable families, there will be no sustainable society.

Alexey Ilyich Osipov,

Professor of the Moscow Orthodox Theological Academy.

I will give you one example from the history of pre-revolutionary Russia. This was during the First World War. The Germans captured several thousand Russian Muslim soldiers, and Emperor Wilhelm ordered them to be gathered together and set up a demonstration camp. Fabulous! They even built a mosque. When everything was completed, an imperial dignitary came to receive the camp and was pleased with what he saw. The soldiers were also pleased, and there were mullahs among them. But the most interesting thing is that the prisoners responded to the nobleman’s request to sing a prayer for him. Do you know what they sang? "God Save the Tsar"!

Even when the dignitary waved his hands in indignation, they did not understand and fell to their knees. We sang three times! No antagonism. Muslim soldiers served the Fatherland in the Orthodox Russian army. In fact, we see how many people live nearby, and there is no hatred.

Now what is being done? Hatred is fueled! It is kindled through television, through the press. Thus, Beslan is one of the strong provocations for everyone to grab hold of - let's beat the Muslims. They are counting on this.

- Alexey Ilyich, can you specifically suggest who is behind the incitement of the conflict?

Making such assumptions is the lot of politicians, but we see the surface without knowing the kitchen; we are unlikely to be allowed there. Therefore, who did it, how - I don’t want to guess on the tea leaves. But pay attention, the same powerful provocation happened on September 11 in America. And who is blamed? Muslims. But when the same America destroys Serbia, when it invades Iraq, when women and children are destroyed in much greater numbers - it’s nothing.

Divide and conquer is an ancient principle. Christianity is a powerful religion, Islam is a powerful religion... What if they collide? Remember how one tailor defeated two giants?... There is a struggle against the religion of those who use a different worldview. We do not believe in any way that Satanism is not just some kind of whimsy of the young. Satanism is an ideology whose - I don’t know, but the fact that people who have enormous capabilities in our earthly reality are infected with this ideology is beyond doubt. After all, such facts cannot be explained by anything; when the Beslan terrorists did not put forward any demands, they did not need anything. Cause? Nobody answers this. There is a provocation.

Satanists can be among any people, any race. As you know, every family has its black sheep.

Thus, oil, money, power are in this case only a mechanism that feeds something more significant that will not be mentioned in the news?

It's not about material gain. Does a sadist benefit when he tortures his victim? Ask him why, he will grin. Passion is a terrible thing. We still have no idea what stands behind the word “Satanism”. Anger, the limit of which, God forbid, will never be seen, and this anger is looking for expression. Satanism is a force, and an active force. Now even a psychologist will reveal the formulas of some fallen pleasures, only he will paint everything in even darker colors. Where is the sound logic? Why might people like blood, suffering and torture? From a Christian point of view, I find no other explanation.

Alexey Ilyich, if you look at the mechanics of what is happening, there is a systematic incitement of war. Wars of extermination?

Apparently yes. The first reason is everyday, six billion is a lot. Secondly, religious ideals are abhorrent to some people. It seems that many people are at least to a small extent familiar with the internal concept of “bad”. Hence - divide and conquer, and if you manage to push nations together, war cannot be avoided.

Why does the New Testament speak with such fear about the Antichrist and the end of the world, about what people will be like and what awaits them? Yes, because freedom will open to evil. But now there is still a holding principle, there are still many people who have not lost their conscience, who are fighting for truth and justice, who preach love.

- Is it easy to realize this?

It is necessary to show what lies behind the understanding of freedom. Where is true freedom, and where is freedom of arbitrariness? It is very important.

True freedom, when a person controls himself, passions do not dominate him, his soul by its nature strives for God - the Truth, this thirst is limitless and satiable. The opportunity to “freely” fly in passions gnaws at a person and leads to what we see with a shudder in the news. We must remember that man is by nature more perfect than cattle, but he is capable of slipping into a devilish state.

Pyotr Pivkin talked with Professor Alexey Osipov

07 / 02 / 05

ABOUT THE SPIRITUAL ASPECT OF AGGRESSION: “UNBRIDGE TO BRIDGE...”

Professor of the Moscow Theological Academy Alexey Ilyich Osipov comments on the spiritual aspects of recent events in Iraq

Source - website "Policy and Discussion" (Osipov's page - http://www.polemics.ru/authors/?authorID=380&itemPage=1)

Naturally, my comment will not concern the political side of this matter. I am not a politician, and, moreover, I believe that giving political assessments of such events is not at all an easy matter. You need to know too much to say it correctly. I look at this situation from a different point of view: trying to understand the spiritual origins of these phenomena and the consequences (I would say, positive consequences) that they can have for modern man.

Perhaps the most basic, central universal religious truth is the following: "the spirit creates its own form". And now this war in Iraq is, perhaps, another illustration when we can see what it is like American spirit.

Everyone talks about America. Everyone is talking about what this phenomenon is. And now we see how this spirit manifests itself. What does it consist of? War is already the most crude, obvious consequence, about which everyone is shouting and making noise... In fact, this is only a form, or an extreme manifestation, and the spirit of Americanism (in its very essence) is the spirit of mammon, or, in patristic language , spirit of the flesh. Carnal spirit. To better illustrate what he is, I will cite very interesting and revealing words of the well-known billionaire Rockefeller, which he said not just anywhere, but at Sunday Christian school.

I will quote verbatim: "The growth of business activity is simply the survival of the fittest. The American rose can be grown in all the splendor of its beauty and fragrance, which will delight those who contemplate it, only mercilessly pruning weak sprouts around her. It's just the implementation of the law of nature and God's law.".

Do you see what kind of faith a person lives by? What does he see as the Law of God and the Law of Nature? It is to mercilessly prune the weak shoots in order to grow this fragrant and most beautiful rose of America. How contrary this is to the entire Christian worldview: the Christian understanding of man, the Christian understanding of the law of relations between people, in my opinion, there is no need to comment!

It is absolutely clear that “love one another” and “no one has greater love than someone who lays down his life for his friends” - this idea, this spirit, this thought is not here.

That is, this spirit is anti-Christian. He is completely infected with the search for external glory, external (or worldly) wealth, worldly life.

One of the books in America, which has now come out in its 42nd (and now, perhaps even larger) edition, Hill’s best-selling book, is called: “Think and make money, or think and get rich!” Why is it revealing and interesting? There he talks about things that are simply difficult for many people to even imagine. He writes this: “We have the freedom of unlimited private property, the freedom to accumulate super-wealth without the annoying pestering of ideologists of various stripes, the freedom to concentrate in one hand as much wealth as can be collected.” And perhaps the most central idea is expressed in his words: “You will never become rich unless you bring your passion for money to a boil!”