Step to a change of heart

On the eve of the holiday of the Blessed Christ Resurrection, according to the tradition, the chairman of the Synodal Department for the Relations of the Church with the Society and the Media, V.R. Legoyda gave an interview to Rossiyskaya Gazeta. - Vladimir Romanovich, what has the Church managed to - really - break in the life of society in the last year? Decreased the number of abortions? Decreased drunkenness? - The heart of the church life - in the meeting of man with God. And we are interested in concrete social results as the fruit of the "change of the heart" of man. But they are. Much has changed in the situation with abortion: their number has been reduced by the efforts and will of the authorities. And people who dealt with the demographic theme, I know this, were driven by Christian duty. This topic is generally closely related to religiosity, and, by the way, not only Christian. I do not support the idea that the goal of the family is the birth of children. No, of course, love. And children are the fruit of love. There are situations when God does not give children. And what, throw a loved one? Childless families are not families? Are they aimless? My parents had no children for 16 years. And they lived these 16 years, not parting and not betraying each other. Maybe that's why they have such love now, in 60 years. - Are you the first child born after these 16 years? - Yes. The church and community council under the leadership of Bishop Tikhon (Shevkunov) achieved a lot: restrictions on the sale of alcohol, and the recognition of beer (albeit weakly, but) with an alcoholic beverage. And this is also a good social result. In education, everyone is used to looking at the Church as one of the lobbyists with their own interests. But for us it is important not only to teach the basics of religious culture and secular ethics (and it is very primitive to think that to "recruit" people into the Church, if so pragmatic to look at, then more likely for the sake of our common security is a good vaccination against terrorism and extremism ). The church as a social force today does not just agitate for "its subject", but worries about the quality of education in general. We understand that a single system of education largely creates a nation. The church today is present in the army, in prison ... The first children's hospice in Russia - almost nobody knows this - was opened in St. Petersburg by the priest Alexander Tkachenko. Still, as Gleb Zheglov used to say, "charity is a priest's word." Vote for anyone you want - Recently I heard in the monastery as a joke "She will vote for whom we need". And this, by the way, is not a rough pressure, but the effect of a serious human connection, the interaction of people with an important value choice. - No, for us the ban on participation in the election campaign is a conscious necessity. - But I recently heard from a church person, who is critical of many things in the Church: the Church behaves like a ministry of propaganda in the state. I think he meant not an explicit but widely read and, for them, existing indirect support for the current political picture of life in the country and the leading president in the elections. - Of course, we support state programs - to preserve cultural monuments, "maternity capital", an anti-alcohol program. But do not go for some well-defined flags. And during the pre-election period, they very strictly monitored that there was no propaganda and agitation, and that no one and nowhere crossed the line of neutrality and blessed any one political force. The state will always seek support in a certain religious and moral consensus, and not only in Orthodoxy. This is not related to the Russian Church and the specific president. It is in any country, at any time. In our country, among the intelligentsia, there are people who will be treated only by the open opposition to the regime in the Church. And this definitely will not happen. Because the Savior did not call for this. And we do not have the blessing for this: to be in opposition to the regime. Why did the New Martyrs emphasize that they do not oppose the evil and atheistic Soviet system. And today, I'm sorry - the state is not Soviet - does not oppress the Church, does not close or destroy the temples. And why should we treat him worse than towards Soviet power? And be in the indispensable opposition? - The New Martyrs had a wide range of reactions. Someone was telling him leading him to be shot: throw a Red Army overcoat over me, or people will raise a riot. And someone from the Permian bishops, putting aside the shovel that was digging his own grave, and looking straight into the eyes of a Cheka man, said: "We are enemies irreconcilable. And we change places, I would not spare you. And you respect both. And the courage of the sobering assassins of ressentiment - on the edge of the grave - too. - But at the same time the new martyrs did not oppose the government as such. Today, many have started talking about the importance of state ideology, they say, a society like ours can not do without it. I'm not afraid of the word "ideology" at all. I think that the negative in relation to it is connected with the Soviet time. However, ideology - as Merab Mamardashvili wrote - is a social glue of any society. Therefore, I do not see any problems in the fact that the state seeks support in the Church as a bearer of Christian principles. And it would be strange if I thought it was bad. For me, only an Orthodox atheist who shares an ideology is unacceptable, but does not believe. Nastya Rybka is not Sonechka Marmeladova - In the Patriarch 's Christmas TV interview a very important topic was voiced: overcoming the stratification in society. And from it grows the theme of justice. There seems to be no fracture. And as long as the usual feeling that priests look at the rich as a good financial resource pragmatically, and expect from them benefits - for the temple and for themselves. When still poor people will collect on a copeck, and here at once the rich person the temple will build, etc. And these rich, problem-free sponsors are not cheated in their minds to the level of the righteous? When a Kuban priest calls an "escort girl" Nastya Rybka an instrument of black spiritual forces sent into the beautiful personal life of a big capitalist, here you will not understand what's more: naivety, unwillingness to notice reality, preferring profitable moral pictures? What can the Church do in the affairs of justice? - Social stratification is one of the most serious problems. And his apparent injustice is morally unacceptable. I think that the Church should talk about it more rigidly. I will never forget how, in the early 2000s, I was at the house of an outstanding scientist and went out vexed and angry: a man who has done so much for our science receives a year less than nothing comparable to him that he made a nouveau riche in a day. It does not fit. And this is dangerous from all points of view. Being below the poverty line - and we still have terrible figures here - is a humiliation of human dignity. And the Church must oppose this humiliation. While this all sounds not rigid enough. Although the Patriarch repeatedly said that if a person confessed and communed on Sunday, and on Monday took or gave a bribe, then he has obvious problems with understanding and living the Gospel. But this is not fully understood by people. I, however, oppose the linear perception of the blessings of the rich people in favor of the Church: they say, they so want to pay off ... I like one similar anecdote: a new Russian comes to death after the death to the gates of paradise, and he is told that he is not on the lists. He: this can not be. And begins to list how many he built temples and stuff. What does the apostle Peter say to him: yes, do not worry, we'll refund your money. To one my friend this anecdote changed the attitude to life. He is generally a profound person - he read the Gospel, wept at confession, but all the same, by his own admission, he believed that his victim gives him some kind of guarantee. And suddenly - "the ways of the Lord are inscrutable" -this is an anecdote to him, as he slapped something into the forehead: "My friend, the money will be returned to you." Not only the grandmothers of the "candle" change in the church, the rich too. And do not, by the way, think that the "sveshnitsa" father should forgive everything, and the oligarch must certainly be whipped. Shepherding is not to shame, but to tell a person something that will change his heart. And a good priest will think the same way about how to do this with a "candle", and with an oligarch, with a teacher, and with a scientist. - And with Nastya Rybka? - To be honest, it seems to me that there is a lot of fictional and strange in this story. "And the old priest is partly right?" - He is certainly right that Nastya Rybka is not Sonechka Marmeladova. The priest lives in a glass house - Unfortunately, now out of our lives worldview conversations go away. - Why? - Maybe, as Dmitry Buck, my interlocutor on Parsun, recently remarked, "the curse of the information society": all information is, but practically inapplicable. This is the price of speed, the price of easy access is 5 minutes to find everything in Yandex ... I grew up in Kustanai (Northern Kazakhstan) and I remember that we all knew that one person, a university teacher, has a Bible at home. And he, with the risk for career and freedom (then the article for the distribution of religious literature still operated), gives it a reverence. And in 1989 in the hostel of the Ural University I spent the whole night reading the samizdat texts of Karl Jung ... Perhaps, the "year of calm", the year without scandals - is a respite, giving us a chance to return worldview disputes. But attention to the Church becomes more and more intimate, and the phrase "The priest lives in a glass house" sounds almost literally today. And for us - besides responsibility - this is a great missionary chance. If we are listened to, we should talk about the most important thing. About young priests - Now, when (thanks first of all to the efforts of the Patriarch) the church administration has been put in order, we in the Church begin to discuss the "cross-cutting themes" of our life. For example, training priests. And the emphasis is on preparing pastors. Those who would "cry with crying." - And what kind of generation of young priests has come now to the Church? Inspired, well educated and motivated, with a Christian background and, in my senses, non-possessors. But when one of them advises me the seventh time to read only thin brochures, I can not stand it. I can not, I say, get used to thick books. Dissatisfied: for he is a shepherd, and I am a sheep. My first confessor of every man considered the living universe. And he suspected the cleaning lady of the opportunity to read and comprehend Berdyaev. - And right. - I'm not talking about the constantly sounding in the sermons topic "Here you decide whether to buy or not to buy a second apartment." What is buying apartments? This is the poorest district of Moscow. One priest, much younger than me, after learning that I was a journalist, winked: "Well, is it not always possible to write the truth?" I say: "I'm writing about the Patriarch. Your question remains in force? "Well, at least the wink has evaporated. From the monk who poured me a priest in some "desert", I was always saved by the 18th paragraph of my confession "How I Hate Men!" (With reservations, of course) - arrogance as it never happened. My sins correct his sins. But how to be with these good people, no one but themselves, not hearing the priests? - Comparing their great confessors with young priests, we will not forget that reality is changing. In the era of our confessors, there were few priests, and the people who became them passed through the camps. It was a great price and another reality. In the 90s the priests were added to the Soviet priests by the "university conscription" - often candidates of science. The first course of seminaries today is boys 17-18 years after the Unified State Exam. These people still need to grow to a different attitude towards man. We can not put them into the head of the experience of 50-year-old elders. The Church is aware of all this. We have spent a lot of time on the recognition of our education by the state, on obtaining licenses, on the transition to the bachelor's system. And now we need to pay attention to the atmosphere in the seminary and the time of preparing the shepherd for confession. Well, we do not have "other writers" for you. Besides these boys. In 5-6 years they will become priests. I hope that they are good. - In the meantime, do they tolerate them with love? "I'm not sure what to tolerate." Let's prepare together with them for the answers. Interviewed by Elena Yakovleva