Word of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill after the Liturgy in the Moscow Church of the Archangel Michael at the clinics at Devichi Field

On February 24, 2018, on the feast day of the Great Martyr Theodore Tiron, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia celebrated the Divine Liturgy in the Moscow church of Archangel Michael at clinics in the Maiden Field. At the end of the service, His Holiness addressed the believers with the First-Hierarchal word. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! During the first week of Lent, many Orthodox Christians daily visited the temple. The most zealous and free from other worries came in the morning and in the evening, plunging into the marvelous atmosphere of Lenten services, which have a very strong influence on our spiritual state. Those who pass through this field note that at the beginning of the journey it is very difficult - four hours in the morning, two hours in the evening, - but by the end of the first week, despite natural fatigue, they testify to an absolutely remarkable spiritual experience. Every day enriches us with thoughts, every day strengthens us in prayer, every day brings us closer to Christ. For reflection we are invited to read psalms, prayers, among which the special place is occupied by the prayer of the Monk Ephraim the Syrian "Lord and Master of my belly". It is read many times during the services, and during this week, I, together with the worshipers, meditated on the themes of this prayer. We talked about the spirit of idleness, despondency, celibacy, idle talk; the spirit of chastity, humility was also subjected to our comprehension. And today I would like to share with you my thoughts on what is patience. The third request of the second part of the prayer of St. Ephraim is just a request to give us a spirit of patience. Without patience there can be no hope, says St. John Chrysostom, and hope is the hope of salvation. There is no hope for salvation. And after all, St. John Chrysostom teaches so not only from his wisdom - he speaks from spiritual experience, and the spiritual experience of a pastor, especially of an archpastor, develops through the addition of spiritual experiences of many who turn to him, who confess their sins, who write letters, who believe in the hidden things. And John Chrysostom, the spiritual leader of ancient Constantinople, who possessed an indisputable spiritual authority, spoke first of all with those who turned to him their inquiries. The words that without patience there can be no hope, no hope, make us also think about what patience is. Surely everyone had to meet in life with a patient person who can with willpower endure physical pain. Especially often doctors face both those who start screaming even before they were touched by a syringe, and with those who are ready to suppress unbelievable physical pain with their will. Many control emotions precisely by will power. A person comes into conflict, feeling that he is being provoked into an inadequate reaction, and he would very much like to respond to the offender properly, but he is restrained by will and will, realizing that this reaction will be misinterpreted or will be harmful to him. This kind of patience, which is supported by willpower, has nothing to do with the Christian virtue of patience. These are different phenomena. It can not be said that the patience generated by willpower is bad - very good! But in this case it is not a matter of educating the will, but of virtue, without which there is no hope of salvation. It is quite obvious that such virtue can not be a strong-willed effort in response to a certain challenge addressed to a person-it would be too flat, too primitive. The thought of St. John Chrysostom is much deeper. If he connects salvation with patience, then patience is something completely different. What then is patience? Clenched teeth and cheekbones? Compressed fists? Tense muscles? Not at all! Patience is a state of mind, and this state is in no way connected with strong-willed efforts in response to the evils we just mentioned. A person is patient, if in his heart there is peace, joy, light. We leave the temple of God, especially after the sacrament of the Holy Mysteries of Christ, - in our soul there is joy and peace. And if something happens that would evoke negative emotions in the usual situation, now everything goes away and dissolves in some wondrous spiritual depth. This is the Christian patience. Christian patience is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit, this is spiritual life, when negative reactions, anger, irritability, anger have simply no place in the human heart. The reaction to external stimuli is different - both anger and irritability, and the desire to respond as rigidly as possible to the offender, as painfully as possible to hit him. And what happens at this moment in our heart? Is it calm? No. It is brought into a state of incredible excitement. Here is a simple example. A person comes to work in a very good, calm state of mind, and someone destroys this state. Most often we react as our offender programs. He knows for sure that we will be annoyed that we will be angry, that we will begin to build a strategy for combating it, although we have never had anything of the kind before. And if we respond to anger with anger, evil thoughts, then the offender has won us. He invaded our spiritual world and destroyed it. His anger, his evil thoughts, he brought into our consciousness, into our soul, made us think about the response. He broke our peace. And who is the winner? Is he! Even if we did not do anything in response, he already won, - embarrassing us, depriving us of the inner world. But if we live by divine grace, just as we live after the communion of the Holy Christ's Mysteries, then no hostile force can break our inner peace. This is patience without clenched cheekbones and without clenched fists, with an open heart and an open mind. This is a great power capable of crushing evil. It is about such patience that we ask the Lord in the words of the prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian, and let the Lord help us to gain this greatest virtue in order to have not only hope, but also salvation itself. Amen.