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This brochure contains a conversation with the professor of the Moscow Theological Academy A.I. Osipov, which reveals the essence of the beatitudes spoken by the Lord Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5: 3-12)

The brochure is intended for free distribution to those preparing to receive the Sacrament of Holy Baptism. The issue was prepared based on the materials of the Orthodox magazine “Foma” No. 3 (95), March, 2011. Website of the magazine “Foma” http://www.foma.ru/

The brochure was published:

1. Summer 2011 Printed in the Lyubin printing house "Circulation" Circulation - 300 copies format of each page A5, 29 pages, font - Arial, 12.

2. November 2013

3. In August 2014 Printed at Kvadro LLC, Omsk-42, 39 Marska Ave. Circulation: 500 copies.

THE BLESSINGS.

WHAT IS THEIR MEANING AND DIFFERENCE FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT COMMANDMENTS

Conversation with A.I. Osipov

When it comes to Christian commandments, these words usually mean the well-known to all: “I am the Lord your God<…>may you have no other gods; do not make yourself an idol; do not take the name of the Lord in vain…” However, these commandments, through Moses, were given to the people of Israel 1,500 years before the birth of Christ. In Christianity, there is a different code of relations between man and God, which is usually called the Beatitudes (Mt 5:3-12), about which modern man knows much less than about the Old Testament commandments. What is their meaning? What blessing are we talking about? And what is the difference between the Old Testament and New Testament commandments? We talked about this with Alexei Ilyich Osipov, professor at the Moscow Theological Academy.

- Today the word "bliss" for many means the highest degree of pleasure. Does the Gospel presuppose such an understanding of this word? Or puts some other meaning into it?

- There is one common thesis in the patristic heritage, which is found in almost all Fathers: if a person considers the Christian life as a way to achieve some kind of heavenly pleasures, ecstasies, experiences, special states of grace, then he is on the wrong path, on the path of delusion. Why are the holy fathers so unanimous on this issue? The answer is simple: if Christ is the Savior, therefore, there is some kind of big misfortune from which we all need to be saved, then we are sick, we are in a state of death, damage and spiritual clouding, which does not give us the opportunity to achieve that blissful union with God, which we call the Kingdom of God. Therefore, the correct spiritual state of a person is characterized by his desire for healing from any sin, from everything that prevents him from reaching this Kingdom, and not by his desire for pleasure, even heavenly. As Macarius the Great said, if I am not mistaken, our goal is not to receive something from God, but to unite with God Himself. And since God is love, then union with God joins us to that highest thing that in human language is called love. A higher state for a person simply does not exist.

Therefore, the very word “bliss” in this context means communion with God, who is Truth, Being, Love, the highest Good.

- What is the fundamental difference between the commandments of the Old Testament and the Beatitudes?

- All the Old Testament commandments are of a prohibitive nature: “Thou shalt not kill,” “Thou shalt not steal,” “Thou shalt not covet”… They were called upon to keep a person from violating the Will of God. The Beatitudes have a different, positive character. But they can only conditionally be called commandments. In essence, they are nothing but a representation of the beauty of the qualities of that person whom the apostle Paul calls new. The beatitudes show what spiritual gifts a new person receives if he follows the path of the Lord. The Decalogue of the Old Testament and the Sermon on the Mount of the Gospel are two different levels of spiritual order. The Old Testament commandments promise a reward for their fulfillment: that your days on earth may be long. Beatitudes, without canceling these commandments, elevate the consciousness of man to the true goal of his being: God will be seen, for beatitude is God Himself. It is no coincidence that such a connoisseur of Scripture as St. John Chrysostom says: "The Old Testament is separated from the New, as the earth is from heaven."

It can be said that the commandments given through Moses are a kind of barrier, a fence on the edge of the abyss, holding back the beginning. And the beatitudes are the open prospect of life in God. But without the fulfillment of the first, the second, of course, is impossible.

What is the "poor in spirit"? And is it true that in the ancient texts of the New Testament it says simply: “Blessed are the poor,” and the word “in the Spirit” is a later insert?

- If we take the edition of the New Testament in the ancient Greek language by Kurt Aland, where the interlinear references are given to all the discrepancies found in the found manuscripts and fragments of the New Testament, then everywhere, with rare exceptions, the word “spirit” is present. And the very context of the New Testament speaks of the spiritual content of this saying. Therefore, the Slavic translation, and then the Russian one, contains precisely “the poor in spirit” as an expression that corresponds to the spirit of the whole sermon of the Savior. And I must say that this full text has the deepest meaning.

All the holy fathers-ascetics constantly and persistently emphasized that it is the awareness of one's spiritual poverty that is the basis of the spiritual life of a Christian. This poverty consists in a person's vision, firstly, of the damage to his nature by sin, and secondly, the impossibility of healing it with his own strength, without God's help. And until a person sees this poverty of his, he is not capable of spiritual life. Poverty of the spirit is essentially nothing but humility. How it is acquired is briefly and clearly discussed, for example, by St. Simeon the New Theologian: “Careful fulfillment of the commandments of Christ teaches a man his infirmities,” that is, reveals to him the illnesses of his soul. The saints affirm that without this foundation no other virtues are possible. Moreover, the virtues themselves without spiritual poverty can lead a person into a very dangerous state, into vanity, pride and other sins.

- If the reward for the poverty of the spirit is the Kingdom of Heaven, then why do we need the rest of the beatitudes, after all, the Kingdom of Heaven already presupposes the fullness of the good?

- Here we are not talking about a reward, but about the necessary condition under which all further virtues are possible. When we build a house, we first lay the foundation, and only then we build the walls. In the spiritual life, humility - spiritual poverty - is such a foundation, without which all good deeds and all further work on oneself becomes meaningless and useless. This was well said by St. Isaac the Syrian: “As salt is for every food, humility is for every virtue… because without humility all our deeds, all virtues and all deeds are in vain.” But, on the other hand, spiritual poverty is a powerful stimulus to a correct spiritual life, the acquisition of all other god-like properties and, thus, the fullness of the good.

Venerable Macarius of Egypt

“... God, cleanse me, a sinner, since I have never done good before You,” one of the morning prayers in the Orthodox prayer book begins with these words. And there would be nothing unusual in them if their author were some repentant villain. But the strange thing is that with these words one of the greatest Christian ascetics, Macarius of Egypt, referred to God, whom other monks called during his lifetime nothing more than an earthly god. This man was so righteous that by prayer he could heal the hopelessly sick and even raise the dead. He devoted his whole life to fulfilling the commandments of the Gospel. And suddenly - "... I never did good before You"! How can this be understood?

In the life of Saint Macarius the Great there is one episode in which one can see an explanation for this paradox.

Once, after many years of living in the desert, while praying, Macarius heard a voice: "Macarius, you have not yet reached such perfection as the two women living in the city." The ascetic, taking his staff, went to the city and found a house where these women lived. They received him with joy, and the monk said: “For your sake I have come from a distant desert and I want to know about your good deeds, tell me about them without hiding anything.” The women answered with surprise: "We live with our husbands, we have no virtues." However, the saint continued to insist, and then the women told him: “We married brothers. For all the time of our life together, we did not say a single evil or offensive word to each other and we never quarreled among ourselves. We asked our husbands to let us go to the nunnery, but they do not agree, and we vowed not to utter a single evil word until death. Then Macarius thanked God for this lesson and said: “Truly, the Lord is not looking for a virgin or a married woman, neither a monk nor a layman, but appreciates the free intention of a person and sends the grace of the Holy Spirit to his voluntary will, which acts and governs the life of every person striving to be saved. ".

Of course, it would be absurd to believe that the life of these two women was higher than the life of Macarius the Great. The one who possessed power over demons and could resurrect the dead must have learned over the years of ascetic life to curb his tongue. The lesson that the Lord taught him through this incident was quite different. Women sincerely said about themselves that they do not have any virtues, completely attributing their righteous life to the action of the grace of God, and not to their own efforts. Not virtue, but humility, the great ascetic and miracle worker learned from women.

The state when a person considers only his own sins to be his “work”, and realizes everything good in himself as a kind of gift received from God, in Orthodoxy is called poverty of the spirit.

- Then the next question is: are the commandments of beatitude hierarchical and are they a kind of system, or is each of them completely self-sufficient?

- With full confidence we can say that the first stage is the necessary basis for obtaining the rest. But the enumeration of others does not at all bear the character of some logically connected strict system. In the Gospels of Matthew and Luke themselves, they are in a different order. This is also evidenced by the experience of many saints, who have a different sequence of acquiring virtues. Each saint had some special virtue that distinguished him from the rest. Someone was a peacemaker. And someone especially merciful. This depended on many reasons: on the natural properties of the individual, on the circumstances of external life, on the nature and conditions of achievement, and even on the level of spiritual perfection. But, I repeat, the acquisition of spiritual poverty, according to the teachings of the fathers, has always been regarded as an unconditional requirement, since without it the fulfillment of the remaining commandments leads to the destruction of the entire spiritual home of a Christian. The Holy Fathers give sad examples when some ascetics who have achieved great talents could heal, see the future, prophesy, and then fall into the gravest sins. And the fathers directly explain: all this happened because, without knowing themselves, that is, their sinfulness, their weakness in the feat of purifying the soul from the action of passions, in other words, without acquiring spiritual poverty, they were easily subjected to devilish attacks, stumbled and fell.

-Blessed are those who weep. But people cry for different reasons. What crying are you talking about?

There are many types of tears: we cry from resentment, weep from joy, weep from anger, weep from some kind of grief, weep from misfortune. These types of crying can be natural or even sinful.

When the holy fathers explain Christ’s blessing to those who weep, they are not talking about these reasons for tears, but about tears of repentance, contrition of the heart about their sins, about their powerlessness to cope with the evil that they see in themselves. Such lamentation is the turning of both mind and heart to God for help in spiritual life. And God will not reject the heart of the contrite and humble, and will certainly help such a person to overcome evil in himself and acquire good. Therefore, blessed are those who weep.

Holy King and Prophet David

One day, King David of Israel was walking along the roof of his palace and saw a woman bathing below. It was Bathsheba, the wife of the Hittite Uriah, the commander of the mercenaries who fought at that time on the side of Israel against the Ammonites. David, admiring the beauty of the woman, ordered her to be brought to the palace and entered into a love affair with her. When Bathsheba became pregnant, the king ordered that Uriah be sent to the most dangerous area of ​​hostilities, counting on his quick death. Uriah was killed in battle. And David took Bathsheba as his wife. Soon after that, the prophet Nathan came to the king and told him a parable:

- In one city there were two people, one rich and the other poor. The rich had a lot of small and large livestock, and the poor had nothing but one sheep, which he bought a small one and fed. She grew up with him along with his children; she ate of his bread and drank from his cup, and slept on his chest, and was like a daughter to him. When a guest came to a rich man, the owner became greedy and did not slaughter his cattle for the meal. He took the poor man's only sheep, slaughtered it, and made a treat out of it. Do you think he did well?

David became very angry and replied:

- Worthy of death is a man who did this and did not have compassion. Then the prophet Nathan said: - That person is you. You killed Uriah with someone else's sword, and you took his wife for yourself.

Struck by the abomination of his own act revealed to him, David wrote a psalm, which the Church to this day calls repentant: “Have mercy on me, O God, according to Thy great mercy, and according to the multitude of Thy mercies blot out my iniquities.” Subsequently, he lamented his crime in other verses: "... every night I wash my bed, I wet my bed with my tears."

Someone, perhaps, will ask: what is the bliss in such weeping? The fact is that every sin we commit inflicts a very real wound on our soul, which hurts, aches, and requires healing. However, if we do not pay attention to this pain, then slowly it goes away, but not at all because the wound has healed. After all, if a sick tooth is treated with analgesics, it will really stop hurting, but in the end it will die, rot and fall apart. So the soul can be brought to a state where it ceases to hurt, not because it is healthy, but because there is already nothing to hurt there.

David's soul was so deadened by sin that he could not recognize himself in the parable of the poor man's sheep. But tears of repentance are capable of healing a soul dead from sin. And this can be confirmed by everyone who at least once had a chance to mourn their sins in confession.

- Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. What does it mean?In the sense that all the unmeek will eventually kill each other, and only the meek will remain on earth?

- First of all, it is necessary to explain what meekness is. Saint Ignatius (Bryanchaninov) wrote: “The state of the soul, in which anger, hatred, remembrance and condemnation are eliminated from it, is a new bliss, it is called meekness.” Meekness, it turns out, is not some kind of passivity, weakness of character, inability to repulse aggression, but generosity, the ability to forgive the offender, not to return evil for evil. This property is completely spiritual, and it is a characteristic of that Christian who has conquered his egoism, conquered passions, primarily anger, which push him to revenge. Therefore, such a person is capable of inheriting the promised land of the Kingdom of Heaven.

At the same time, the holy fathers explained that here we are not talking about this, our earth, filled with sin, suffering, blood, but about that earth, which is the abode of the eternal future life of man - the new earth and new heaven, about which the Apostle John the Theologian writes. in his Apocalypse.

Reverend Seraphim of Sarov

Saint Seraphim of Sarov is usually depicted on icons as a bent old man, leaning on a staff or hatchet. But in his younger years, he was a tall, stately man with great physical strength. He became disabled with a bent back after a tragic accident that happened to him at the age of 45.

The Monk Seraphim then lived in a separate cell - a hut that stood in the middle of the forest five kilometers from the monastery. Once, when he was chopping firewood in the yard, three robbers came to him and demanded money. The saint said that he had no money. The bandits didn't believe him. One of them tried to knock him down, but failed to do so and fell himself. The attackers hesitated: they came to rob the fasting elder, and in front of them stood a strong man, and even with an ax in his hands. The monk could easily fight off the uninvited guests, but instead he suddenly threw the ax on the ground and said: "Do what you need."

Then the robbers knocked him down and beat him half to death. With the butt of an ax, they broke his head, broke several ribs, broke his chest, knocked out his teeth ... Finding nothing in his tiny hut, except for a few potatoes and an icon, the bandits tied the man crippled by them and left him to the mercy of fate. The saint came to his senses only the next day, managed to untie the ropes and somehow reached the monastery. There, the bloody, beaten ascetic was given help, but for eight days he was on the verge of life and death.

Those who attacked him were found fairly quickly. It turned out to be the peasants of one of the surrounding villages. They were to be judged and sent to hard labor. But the Monk Seraphim demanded that they be released. However, the case of the attack on the saint outraged the whole district, and they certainly wanted to judge the criminals. Then Seraphim of Sarov said that if the people who attacked him were convicted, he would leave these places forever. And the robbers remained free, rejoicing at the naivety of their victim.

After some time, during a thunderstorm, a fire broke out in their village. Lightning burned the houses of the attackers, not touching anyone else's home. The frightened victims of the fire ran to St. Seraphim to ask for forgiveness. The saint received them with love, invited them to his cell and talked with them for a long time. After that, none of them ever engaged in robbery again. And Seraphim of Sarov has since forever remained bent and could walk only leaning on a stick. At the cost of his own health, he corrected the lives of three criminals.

Reverend Ammon

“- To hunger and thirst for the truth of God, - not empty, human. Divine Truth appeared to humanity in Divine Mercy, and commanded us to become like God in perfect mercy, not in any other virtue,” said St. Ignatius (Bryanchaninov).

A convincing example of such a difference between the truth of God and human ideas about it can be seen in one of the episodes from the life of the Monk Ammon, an Egyptian ascetic monk who lived in the 4th century.

One day Abba Ammon stopped in a monastery for the night while traveling. In the desert, he was known as a man of holy living, so the monks welcomed him with joy. But just on that day, a scandal broke out in the monastery: it suddenly became clear that one of the inhabitants of the monastery had secretly brought a harlot to his cell. The indignant monks wanted to punish the outrageous themselves, but then they decided that it would be better to turn to Abba Ammon and give this dirty deed to his court. The saint agreed to go with them.

The frightened sinful monk hid his guest under an empty barrel. When Abba Ammon entered the cell, he immediately understood where the woman was hiding. But instead of denouncing the fornicator, the abba sat on this barrel and ordered the brethren to carefully search the cell. Naturally, the search turned up nothing. Then Abba Ammon asked: “Why did you bring me here?” Discouraged, the monks asked the owner of the cell for forgiveness and left. And the Monk Ammon took him by the hand and said, pointing to the barrel: "Think about your soul, brother." After that, he also left, shutting the cell door behind him.

Frankly speaking, there is not much human truth in this story. On the other hand, the truth of God, which Abba Ammon showed in his love for his fallen brother, has been carefully preserved in the tradition of the Church for more than a millennium and a half.

- Blessed are the merciful, for they will have mercy. That is, it turns out that God treats the merciful differently than the unmerciful. He favors some and not others?

- It would be a mistake to understand the word “pardoned” in a legal sense, or to believe that God, having anger against a person, but seeing his mercy towards people, transferred His anger to mercy. Here there is no judicial pardon for the sinner, nor a change in God's attitude towards him for his kindness. Rev. Anthony the Great explains this beautifully: “It is absurd to think that the Deity was good or bad because of human deeds. God is good and does only good things, remaining always the same; but when we are good, we enter into communion with God - by our likeness to Him, and when we become evil, we separate ourselves from God - by our dissimilarity to Him. By living virtuously, we become God's, and by becoming evil, we become rejected from Him; and this does not mean that He had wrath on us, but that our sins do not allow God to shine in us, but they unite them with tormenting demons. If later, by prayers and good deeds, we gain permission in sins, then this does not mean that we have pleased God and changed Him, but that by means of such actions and our turning to God, having healed the evil that is in us, we again become able to taste God's goodness; so to say: God turns away from the wicked is the same as to say: the sun hides itself from the blind. That is, pardon here does not mean a change in God's attitude towards a person for his mercy, but this mercy towards his neighbor makes a person himself capable of perceiving God's unchanging love. This is a regular and natural process - like is combined with like. The closer a person becomes to God through his mercy to his neighbors, the more God's mercy he becomes able to accommodate.

Saint Peacock the Merciful

At the beginning of the 5th century, hordes of vandals fell upon Italy. Burning and destroying everything in their path, they mercilessly killed local residents, and drove the survivors into slavery. The bishop of one of the areas captured by the vandals at that time was a man named Peacock. All the money and property that were at his disposal, the bishop began to give for the ransom of the captives and for the food of the impoverished from the invasion. Finally, he gave away everything he had.

One day a poor widow came to him:

- My son was taken prisoner, and I found out where he is. I beg you: give me money to ransom. Bishop Pavlin looked around him sadly: everything that could be sold, he had already sold earlier. Then he said: “I have nothing left but myself. Take me, sell me and ransom your son, or give me into slavery in exchange for him.

The woman at first did not believe that the bishop was serious. But Saint Peacock persuaded her to believe, and was not afraid to sell the bishop into slavery in order to free her son. Together they went to the vandals. The widow got her son back, and Bishop Pavlinus remained in slavery in his place.

Sometimes you can hear that only those who have enough funds are able to give alms. However, this is not at all the case. Of course, not everyone is able to give themselves into slavery for a complete stranger. But everyone, even in the most straitened circumstances, can help someone in need of help. And not necessarily money. Charity can be some kind of service, good advice, and finally just a word of compassion. The main thing is not to remain indifferent to someone else's grief, to show active love for a person who is feeling bad now. And how it is better to do it - everyone decides for himself.

- Who are the pure in heart, and how are they able to see God, who is the Spirit and about whom it is said: No one has seen God?

- Under the "pure heart" the holy fathers understand the possibility of achieving dispassion, that is, liberation from slavery to passions, for everyone who commits sin, according to the word of Christ, is a slave of sin. So, as a person is freed from this slavery, he really becomes more and more a spiritual spectator of God. As we experience love, we see it in ourselves, so, like this, a person can see God - not with external vision, but with an internal experience of His presence in his soul, in his life. How beautifully the Psalmist speaks of this: Taste and see that the Lord is good!

Saint Ignatius (Bryanchaninov)

Saint Ignatius had a vicar in the monastery, distinguished by his face and height, active, talented in various fields, a favorite of many. Coming from peasants, he greatly valued the high position he had achieved in the monastery.

One day his brother came to see him, a simple village peasant in a gray caftan. The proud governor felt ashamed to accept such a brother: he refused him and sent him out. He was very upset and told about his misfortune to one of the monks. This story also reached St. Ignatius. He immediately ordered the peasant to be brought to him, received him in the living room, treated him kindly, sat him down, ordered tea to be served, and at the same time sent for the viceroy. When he entered, Saint Ignatius, turning to him, said: “Here, my friend, a brother has come to you, greet him. He is dining with me, and you sit down to dine with us.” The archimandrite's father fed and watered the peasant and gave him money for the journey. And when he saw off the guest, he made a suggestion to his "shy" governor.

On another occasion, a monk who taught arithmetic, grammar, and calligraphy to village boys hit one of the boys in class. Then, convicted by his conscience, he went and told Saint Ignatius about this. He listened to the unfortunate teacher and said: "Hit me." He replied that he could not do it. Then Saint Ignatius asked: “And if you cannot hit me, how could you hit a boy who, like me, was created in the image of God?”

St. Ignatius considered the heart, in which only goodness moves, to be a pure heart, capable of seeing God: “... a heart, in the likeness of the Divine, moved by an immeasurable feeling of mercy towards all creatures.”

About the same way one can achieve such purity, he spoke quite definitely: "Fulfill the commandments of the Lord - and in a miraculous way you will see the Lord in yourself, in your properties."

- Blessed are the peacemakers - who is this about? Who are the peacemakers and why are they promised bliss?

These words have at least two conjugate meanings. The first, more obvious, concerns our mutual relations with each other, both personal and collective, public, international. Those who disinterestedly strive to establish and preserve peace are gratified, even if this was associated with some infringement of their pride, vanity, etc. This peacemaker, in whom love overcomes his often petty truth, is gratified by Christ.

The second meaning, deeper, refers to those who, by the feat of struggle with passions, cleansed their hearts from all evil and became able to receive into their souls that peace about which the Savior said: My peace I give you; not as the world gives, I give to you. This world of the soul is glorified by all the saints, who affirm that he who acquires it acquires true sonship with God.

Holy Martyrs Boris and Gleb

Saints Boris and Gleb were the younger sons of the Kyiv prince Vladimir the Red Sun. Born shortly before the Baptism of Rus', the brothers belonged to the very first generation of Russian people brought up in the Christian faith. When they reached adulthood, the father made Boris a prince in Rostov, and Gleb - in Murom.

Once scouts reported to Vladimir that the Pechenegs were coming to Rus'. The Grand Duke was at that time seriously ill. Realizing that he himself would not be able to stand at the head of the army, Vladimir summoned Boris from Rostov, gave him his squad under his command and sent him on a campaign against the steppe nomads. Vladimir soon died. At that time, Svyatopolk, the elder brother of Boris and Gleb, was in Kyiv. Taking advantage of the situation, he immediately declared himself the Grand Duke of Kyiv.

When Boris was returning from a campaign with an army, he was informed about the death of his father and about what had happened in Kyiv during his absence. The governors immediately began to persuade him to go to Svyatopolk and take his father's throne, since Boris had the entire Kiev squad at his disposal. But the holy prince did not want to arrange an internecine massacre and dismissed his father's soldiers with the words: “I will not raise my hand against my brother, and even against my elder, whom I should consider as a father!”

However, Svyatopolk did not believe the sincerity of Boris. In an effort to protect himself from the possible rivalry of his brother, on whose side the sympathies of the people and the squad were, he sent assassins to him. After that, Svyatopolk just as treacherously killed Gleb.

You can evaluate the act of princes Boris and Gleb in different ways. But there is one important circumstance in this story that is difficult for us to understand today without additional explanations. The fact is that with the dynastic succession of power in those distant times, even the murder of the closest relatives was not considered something shameful. And the fullness of the rights to the inheritable throne was ensured by the military force on which the applicant relied. And now Boris, having under his command the entire Kyiv squad, suddenly refuses to come to power, because for this he would have to kill his older brother. Following him, for the same reasons, Gleb also renounces power. At the cost of their own lives, they establish among the Russian aristocracy a completely new, previously unseen ideal of relations. After the sacrificial feat of Boris and Gleb, none of the Russian princes could calm his conscience by saying that all means are good in the struggle for power.

- Well, the last question - the exiled for the sake of truth. Isn't there a certain danger here for a modern person - to confuse their personal problems, which have caused unpleasant consequences for you, with persecution for Christ and the truth of God?

- Of course, this danger exists. After all, there is no good thing that cannot be spoiled. And in this case, we all (each one, to the extent of our susceptibility to passions) are sometimes inclined to consider ourselves persecuted for that truth, which is not at all the truth of God. There is an ordinary human truth, which, as a rule, is, in mathematical terms, the establishment of the identity of relations: twice two - four. This truth is nothing but the right to justice. V. Solovyov very accurately said about the moral level of this right: "Law is the lowest limit or a certain minimum of morality." Exile for this truth, if we correlate it with the modern context of the struggle for freedoms and human rights, it turns out, is not the highest dignity of a person, because here, along with sincere aspirations, vanity, and calculation, and political considerations, and others, not always disinterested, are often manifested. , motives.

What kind of truth did the Lord speak about, promising the Kingdom of Heaven to those who were exiled because of it? Saint Isaac the Syrian wrote about her: “Mercy and justice in one soul is the same as a person who worships God and idols in one house. Mercy is the opposite of justice. Justice is the equalization of the exact measure: because it gives to everyone what he deserves ... And mercy ... compassionately bows to everyone: whoever is worthy of evil, he does not repay with evil, and whoever is worthy of good, fills him with excess ... Like hay and fire they do not tolerate being in one house, so justice and mercy are in one soul.

There is a good saying: "Demanding your rights is a matter of truth, sacrificing them is a matter of love." God's truth is only where there is love. Where there is no love, there is no truth. If I say to a person with an ugly appearance that he is a freak, then formally I will be right. But God's truth will not be in my words. Why? Because there is no love, no compassion. That is, the truth of God and the truth of man are often completely different things. Without love, there is no truth, even if everything looks quite fair. And, conversely, where there is not even justice, but there is real love, condescending to the shortcomings of the neighbor, showing patience, there is true truth. St. Isaac the Syrian cites God Himself as an example: “Do not call God just, for His justice is not known in your deeds ... more than He is good and gracious. For he says: There is good to the evil and the ungodly (Luke 6:35). The Lord Jesus Christ, being a righteous man, suffered for the unrighteous and prayed from the Cross: Father! forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. Here, it turns out, for what kind of truth one can and should really suffer - for love for a person, for truth, for God. Only in this case, those persecuted for the truth will inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.

Saint John Chrysostom

When John Chrysostom was appointed archbishop to the see of Constantinople, he sold precious church vessels for the benefit of the poor, replacing them with less expensive ones, sold silk and gold altar decorations, carpets, and the richest church vestments. He also sold at auction rare expensive marble prepared for the decoration of the church of St. Anastasia and entire marble columns lying on the ground in anticipation of the architect. With the proceeds, the saint established almshouses and hospitals for the poor and destitute inhabitants of Constantinople. Such an active social activity of Chrysostom was not to the taste of the capital's nobles and clergy. In the aristocratic environment of Constantinople, he had many enemies who weaved various intrigues against him for several years.

However, this hostility could not significantly harm the archbishop, beloved by the people, until he entered into an open conflict with the Empress Eudoxia herself. Chrysostom sharply denounced her for her wild life and oppression of the poor residents of the city. This confrontation with the empress ended with the fact that the saint was unjustly convicted on false charges and sent into exile.

He was exiled to Kukuz, a remote village within the present Transcaucasia. The journey there lasted 70 days. The scorching sun is overhead, hot dust is underfoot. No wind, no trees to rest in the shade. The convoy was ordered to avoid cities and stop only in villages where only dry, moldy bread could be found and brackish water from deep wells. Saint John on the way suffered greatly from fever and pain in the stomach. The climate in Kukuza was too harsh for him. For the first time in his life he saw snow on the surrounding mountains and barely survived the unusually cold winter.

But these sufferings were not enough for the enemies of Chrysostom, and they obtained permission from the emperor to exile John to Pitiunt (now Pitsunda), the most remote place of the Empire. The convoy was ordered to treat the exile without any pity. The weak, sick saint was again driven off-road. He walked most of the way. Not far from the village of Komany, John fell down - his strength betrayed him. He was brought to the nearest temple and laid in one of the buildings. The next day he died. His last words were: "Thank God for everything."

Hieromartyr Nicholas (Tokhtuev)

On the eve of Easter 1940, Protodeacon Nikolai (Tokhtuev) was summoned to the district branch of the NKVD in the city of Mytishchi. Threatened with eight years in the camp, the investigator suggested that he give a signature on cooperation with the authorities to identify the so-called "anti-Soviet individuals" in the church environment. The protodeacon agreed, and the investigator ordered him to report back to the NKVD after the weekend. One can only imagine what this Pascha could have been like for Fr. Nikolai with the “receipt” he had already signed for thirty pieces of silver…

But immediately after the holiday, he collected things that could need him in prison, and brought a statement to the head of the district NKVD. “Comrade chief,” he wrote, “I refuse my subscription and gave it only because I had the opportunity to meet Easter and say goodbye to my family. According to my religious convictions and rank, I cannot be a traitor even to my worst enemy ... ”The head suggested that he think more and let him go home. Then Protodeacon Nikolai wrote a new statement with a detailed explanation of his position: “Citizen boss! Permit me to explain myself to you in writing: I don't know how to talk much due to my lack of education. What you want me to do, I can't do. This is my last and final decision. Most of us go to such a deed to save ourselves and destroy our neighbor, but I don’t need such a life. I want to be clean before God and people, because when the conscience is clean, then a person is calm, and when it is unclean, then he cannot find peace anywhere, and every person has a conscience, only it is drowned out by dirty deeds, and therefore I cannot be what you want...

... And I can’t serve you as you want, and prevaricate before God. So I want to be cleansed by the sufferings that will be imposed on me from you, and I will accept them with love. Because I know that I deserve them.

... You consider us enemies because we believe in God, and we consider you enemies because you do not believe in God. But if you look deeper and in a Christian way, then you are not our enemies, but our saviors - you are driving us into the Kingdom of Heaven, but we don’t want to understand it, we, like stubborn bulls, want to evade suffering: after all, God gave us such power, so that it cleanses us, because we, as they say, have eaten ... Is this how Christ commanded us to live? Yes, no, and a hundred times no, and therefore you need to whip us, and even more whip, so that we come to our senses.

Soon, Protodeacon Nikolai was arrested and sentenced to 8 years in the camps. He died in custody on May 17, 1943, a few days before his fortieth birthday.

Lectures by Professor of the Moscow Theological Academy A. I. Osipov Osipov Alexei Ilyich

Ten Commandments of God's Law

Ten Commandments of God's Law

1st commandment. I am the Lord your God; may you have no other gods but me.

2nd commandment. Thou shalt not make for thyself an idol, nor any likeness of that which is in heaven above, that which is on the earth below, that which is in the waters under the earth; do not bow down and serve them.

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

4th commandment. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

5th commandment. Honor your father and your mother, that you may be well and that you live long on earth.

6th commandment. Don't kill.

7th commandment. Don't commit adultery.

8th commandment. Do not steal.

9th commandment. Do not bear false witness against another.

10th commandment. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, covet not thy neighbor's house, nor his field, nor his servant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor any of his livestock, anything that belongs to your neighbor.