Enchanted soul. Why can't a woman be a priest? About psychotherapy, spiritual guidance

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Alexander Schmemann
DIARY

FOREWORD

After the death of Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann, eight notebooks written in his hand were found in the table of his office at St. Vladimir's Seminary, where he was dean. Father Alexander kept this diary from 1973 with short breaks until the beginning last illness. He wrote in Russian, in the language that had been native to him since childhood, spent in "Russian" Paris.

Father Alexander's diary is much more than a mere record of the events of the last ten years of his life. It reflects his whole life (the cadet corps in Versailles, the French Lyceum in Paris, the St. Sergius Theological Institute, moving to America, St. Vladimir's Seminary in Crestwood, church activities ...), his interests (with great employment, he read amazingly a lot and widely , writing out whole paragraphs from books that especially interested him in his diary), "carries" his thoughts, doubts, disappointments, joys, hopes. Any diary, especially one as consistent as Father Alexander's, is caused not by external motives, but by internal necessity. Before us are often purely personal, intimate records. Dean of St. Vladimir's Seminary, which under his leadership has become one of the largest theological schools in the Orthodox world, almost permanent secretary of the Council of Bishops of the American Metropolis (which, again under his influence, became, in cooperation with Father John Meyendorff, the autocephalous Orthodox Church in America), preacher and theologian, father of three children with numerous grandchildren, Father Alexander was also constantly on the road to read sermons and lectures, and weekly hosted a number of programs on Radio Liberty for Russia. It is hard to imagine a more fulfilling life, and the diary was, first of all, an opportunity for him to stay at least for short time alone with yourself. Father Alexander himself wrote about it this way: "Touch base (to touch oneself, - English) - this is the purpose of this notebook in my vain life. Not so much a desire to write everything down, but a kind of visit to oneself, a "visit", even if it is the shortest one. Are you here? Here. Well, thank God. And it becomes easier not to dissolve without a trace in the hustle and bustle." And one more thing: "... I want to write down not for the "story", but, as always, for the soul, that is, only what she, the soul, felt as a gift, and that suitable, therefore, for the “spiritual body”.

The diary of Father Alexander invariably impresses with the breadth of its scope. Both a connoisseur of literature and a lover of politics will be carried away by him, having met the subtlety of judgments on the most different topics, but above all, the depth of the religious understanding of life is striking. All everyday, private phenomena, all numerous impressions and evaluations are elevated to the main, to that highest meaning, which is embedded in God's plan for creation. And above all confrontations and sorrows, above all criticism and denunciations, the main tone of the diary is joy in the Lord and gratitude to Him.

A lot of people are mentioned in the diary - these are teachers in the cadet corps, and professors of the St. Sergius Institute, his friends and mentors, colleagues at St. wide He was interested in all people. He followed the events in Russia, rejoiced at the spiritual revival that was beginning there, to which he himself contributed - with regular broadcasts on Radio Liberty and, of course, with his books. My latest book, "The Eucharist. The Sacrament of the Kingdom", he immediately wrote in Russian as a tribute to the land, which he had never seen, but always considered his own. And, of course, the diary allows you to see through the eyes of Father Alexander his relatives - his wife Ulyana Sergeevna (in his diary he wrote about her like this: "On Saturday - Lyana is fifty years old! A whole life, and what a happy life, together!"), daughters Anna, Maria and son Sergei (again we quote his words: "What amazing, good children God gave me") and their families, brother Andrei and many others.

Father Alexander was diagnosed with a terminal illness in September 1982. For several months, no new entries appeared in the diary, and only on June 1, 1983, Father Alexander opened his diary for the last time. He wrote about the "height" to which his illness raised, about the love and care of loved ones, and ended the diary with the words: "What happiness it was all!" Six months later, on December 13, 1983, surrounded by loved ones, Father Alexander died at his home in Crestwood. The last words he spoke clearly were, "Amen, amen, amen."

Sergei Shmeman

FROM PUBLISHERS

This edition reproduces the diary almost in its entirety. In joint work with Alexander's father's wife, Uliana Sergeevna Schmemann, some repetitions, details concerning people still alive, as well as notes that could be misunderstood by an unprepared reader, were removed, but these cuts make up no more than three percent of the entire manuscript.

The manuscript was prepared for printing by Elena Yuryevna Dorman, she also made notes to the text and translated quotations into Russian, and also compiled an index of names. Invaluable assistance in this work was provided by Fr. Victor Sokolov (San Francisco), Jean-Francois and Lilya Kolosimo (Paris), Nikita Alekseevich Struve (Paris), Natalia Andreevna Shmeman (Paris), Viktor Maksimovsky (Finland) and others. Photos were kindly provided by Sergei Aleksandrovich Schmemann, Nikita Alekseevich Struve and others. Viktor Sokolov.

The text has been brought into line with modern spelling and punctuation standards, but the linguistic features characteristic of Father Alexander's speech have been preserved.

Prot Alexander Schmemann

DIARY 1973-1983

(Moscow: Russian way, 2005)

Book I
JANUARY 1973 - NOVEMBER 1974

Yesterday on the train (from Wilmington, Del.) I was thinking: 52, more than a quarter of a century of priesthood and theology - but what does it all mean? Or - how to connect, how to explain to yourself what it all comes down to, clair et distinct 1 , and is such an explanation possible and necessary? Twenty-five years ago, when this life (initiation, theology) that now defined me began, it all seemed that not today or tomorrow I would sit down, think and find out that it was only a matter of leisure. But now - twenty-five years! And, without a doubt, most of life is behind one's back, and there is much more obscure - in depth - than clear.

What exactly needs to be explained? The connection, which always surprises me myself, of some profound obviousness of that reality, without which I could not live a day, with all the growing disgust for these non-stop talks and disputes about religion, for these easy convictions, for this pious emotionality and, of course, , to "churchness" in the sense of all small, insignificant interests ... Reality: I felt it yesterday - going to church for mass, early in the morning, in a desert of winter trees, and then this hour in an empty church, until mass. Always the same feeling: time filled with eternity, fullness, secret joy. The idea that the Church is needed in all its "empiricism" only for this, so that this experience exists, lives. So, where she ceases to be a symbol, a sacrament, she is a horror, a caricature.

I was looking for a notebook in my desk. Found almost new - and in it one entry made by 1 November 1971. Almost ridiculous, how similar to the one that preceded this one: "religion" is the worst and the best in a person. Not only the best, but also the worst. Read Journal Litteraire Leautaud 2 - a strange attraction to this kind of books. Maybe because it is like a mirror for believers: this is how truthful people see us. A falsehood, a terrifying falsehood of "religiosity." Joylessness. Incompetent "seriousness". Is this really possible if you believe in God - in the eternal and most important tout est ailleurs 3 (Julien Green)? It is almost impossible to bear the "academic study of spirituality" any longer. How much unnecessary, empty, hypocritical.

1 Clearly and clearly (fr.).

2 "Literary diary" Leoto (fr.).

3 Everything is there, everything is different (fr.).

All morning at home, at the table! After a week in California, after celebrations at Wilkes Barre (the consecration of Bishop Herman), after a trip to Philadelphia (the funeral of I.M. Tsap), what pure happiness! In the dining room Tom 1 with whom I am always light and good. Snow outside the window.

Yesterday was a long evening at Seryozha's with Joseph Brodsky. First, the most boring reception at R.Payne. Snobbery. [Complex Company]. Some mysterious girls in pants. Why do they need Brodsky? Homes are very simple and cute. According to Seryozha, in the Pen-Club, in the afternoon, after reading his poems, to the question of some Jew why he is a Christian, Brodsky: "Because I'm not a barbarian..." Terribly nervous. The impression is that he is lost, does not know how to behave. Returning home at night, in a terrible frost, through the snow, from the station.

This morning is blissful! - in bed behind "Chevengur" by A. Platonov. Amazing book!

Liturgy at East Meadow. A joyful feeling that American Orthodoxy, for which so much blasphemy had to endure, is a reality, a thousand times more reality than the cheap pseudo-spirituality of all kinds [spiritual centers]. But, alas, people love cheap stuff, as long as it is covered with beards, crosses and familiar words.

Finished Chevengur last night. I read, and Akhmatov's line drilled everything in my mind: "Even in the west, the earth's sun shines ..." 2 . And here - immersion in the world, all woven, in essence, from some bottomless depth of ignorance, unconsciousness, obsession with undigested myths. As if there had never been anything in Russia except wild fields and weeds. No history, no Christianity, no logos. And it is shown, it is amazing. And it also comes to mind: “if the light that is in you is darkness…” 3 . Everything happens in some kind of enchantment, mental numbness, everyone grabs at some kind of straw ... An amazing rhythm, an amazing language, an amazing book.

Yesterday was a long evening at Viktor Kabachnik's with the "new ones" - Yuri Shtein and his wife Veronika (Turkina), a cousin of Solzhenitsyn's first wife. A long conversation - about Solzhenitsyn, about Russia, about o.V. Shpiller (whom they consider to be caught ...), etc. Of course, we have lost the habit of this incandescence. But there is also some confusion in her. Obsession-

1 Prot. Foma Hopko, husband of Anya's eldest daughter.

2 From the poem "What is worse than this century of the previous ones? Is it ...".

3 Wed. Matthew 6:23.

bridge by politics. It is difficult to find not only a common language, but internal communication - or maybe this is especially for me. Several times a heavy thought - rage, rage, and also "calm down." The unfortunate fate of emigrants: to come "open their eyes" to people who look the other way. Even more bitter: to meet with the previous layer of emigration, already "calmed down" and turned to internal squabbles (easier!). Creation of committees, mysterious calls to London and Moscow. The eternal path of the Russian intelligentsia is the path of an excited separation. And, at the same time, the only acceptable in Russia. Brodsky is covered with niello - academic. These themselves are striving for the "mob" of the political, without understanding that this is "mob". Ultimately, it seems to me, only one thing affects history: to speak one's own, without turning to anyone else, without calculation. "Telling the truth in a mournful world..." 1 This is why Solzhenitsyn is dear to me: when I think about him, I feel somehow light and warm. To my question, Veronica Stein confirms that she is a man of incredible and stubborn strength... And one more thing: never be afraid that "history" will pass by, don't worry, lest you miss it.

Veronica Stein talks about Solzhenitsyn's family drama. She is on Solzhenitsyn's side. The exploitation of all this is against Solzhenitsyn. The sad participation in this exploitation of o.V. Shpiller. From his letter Lawrence smells of depressing spiritual pride. Nothing in the world is as easy to play as "religiosity". And how many people that impure, unenlightened religiosity is the focus of the demonic in the world (the proof is "Chevengur", thoroughly permeated with terrible, dark religiosity).

I learned today about the sudden death in Los Angeles (during the anniversary banquet of the parish, while delivering a speech) of Illarion Vorontsov. Just two weeks ago (February 7th!) had breakfast with him in L.A.! Fifty-three years… It was one of the happy, even poignant memories of my childhood: the camp [in the south of France] in Napoule, the 33rd or 34th year, our friendship, the cloudless sun of those years, the south, the sea. Then, many years later, a meeting in California. His amazing beauty, the beauty of his whole appearance, quietness, love of poetry, the same (for me) perception of the Church, some kind of eternal dissatisfaction with earthly things, but without any ostentatious religiosity, without any craving for pseudo-spirituality. Several meetings over the years. Two weeks ago - his story about Athos, where he just went. And again - without loud phrases, even with humor, but I understood, felt, saw everything. His wife: "He sits in the bath and recites poetry out loud." Feeling of loss: almost never saw each other, never met, but each meeting was an unadulterated joy. Serafim Gisetti just called. He says that his speech (15 minutes, then he fell ...) was wonderful.

1 From O. Mapndelshtam's poem "Decembrist".

Confession. You instruct another: you need to start small, build, collect yourself, free yourself. And you?

It is a terrible difficulty for me to have personal conversations. Almost a repulsion from all sorts of "intimacy". Painful dislike to confess. What in Christianity can be so much "talk"? And for what?

Last night - from fatigue, several chapters of Alan Watts, In My Own Way 1 (autobiography, Vanya Tkachuk 2 gave it to me for Christmas. I've never been interested in Eastern religions, Zen, etc. In Watts, I am only interested in the fact that he was a priest and left for this, which always seemed to me shallow Orientalism. Therefore, I read only those chapters that relate to his five-year Anglican priesthood. Watts himself seems to me a very superficial thinker. These references to his "mystical experience ..."! But something in his criticism of Christianity deserves attention. About prayer: "... interpreted St. Paul"s "pray without ceasing" as chattering to Jesus all the time, mostly about how horribly one has sinned" (p.180)3. Belief in the forgiveness of sins seems to aggravate rather than assuage the sense of guilt, and the more these people repented and confessed, the more they were embarrassed to go creeping to Jesus again and again for his pardon. They feel simply terrible about drawing so heavily on the merits of the cross, infinite as they might be, and idealized being good children in their paternalistic universe…” (p.181)4. A good response to his syncretism from one of his friends: "There are many religions, but only one gospel..." Watts good example how Christianity, dissolved in "religion" and "mysticism", loses its uniqueness, its meaning and power as a judgment on religion.

Yesterday I had a conversation with Tom [Chopko] about V. They agreed that the source of his glaring shortcomings, that is, the shortcomings of his theology, is pride. All "sinology" comes down, in essence, to two sources: flesh and pride. But pride is much more terrible (after all, it destroyed the incorporeal forces). Christians have focused their attention, their religious passion on the flesh, but it is so easy to give in to pride. Spiritual pride (truth, spirituality, maximalism) -

1 Alan Watts. "Own Way" (English).

2 Holy John Tkachuk, husband of daughter Maria.

3 "...understood the words of St. Paul "pray without ceasing" as an endless chatter addressed to Jesus, mainly about their terrible sins" (eng.).

4 "Faith in the forgiveness of sins seems to increase rather than alleviate the feeling of guilt, and the more these people repented and confessed, the more they felt uncomfortable in constantly turning to Jesus for His forgiveness. They are very uncomfortable and ashamed to rely on the virtues of Christianity in such a way , no matter how endless they were, and they imagined themselves as good children in a world surrounded by fatherly care ... " (English).

the most terrible of all. The difficulty in fighting pride is that, unlike the flesh, it takes on an infinite number of forms, and the easiest of all is the image of an "angel of light." And also because in humility they see the fruit of a person's knowledge of his shortcomings and unworthiness, while it is the most divine of all God's properties. We become humble not because we contemplate ourselves (this is Always leads to pride, in one form or another, for false humility is just a form of pride, perhaps the most irreparable of all), but only if we contemplate God and His humility.

Small and meaningless lies. Saturday night M.M. (a poor, slightly crazy American woman who comes to me every two weeks to "talk" and confess) caught me in such a lie. To her question, did I manage to read her letter (and between visits she writes endless letters ...), I answered - why? I don’t know myself: “Only hastily and superficially ...” A minute later she found this letter on my desk - by accident! - unopened. I'm writing this down because I can't explain to myself why I said it. No need, no reason. Some kind of strange fear of "cutting off", fear of the truth in small things, while in the "big" it seems to me that I do not lie and even hate any lie. However, it is said: "Thou hast been faithful in little things ..." 1 .

Yesterday afternoon at Trinity Church 2 on Wall Street 3 about prayer. And immediately a statement like: "Isn't it more important to feed the hungry ..." Bored American cheap chewing gum and boredom.

It's a pleasure to get into this amazing quarter with its bustle, noise, crowd.

This morning a package from Finland is a Finnish translation of my Lent.

All these days, the pressure of an endless number of small matters and worries: the case of Evans, the affairs of students, calls from the church office, a trip to the Tikhonovsky monastery to the arch. Cyprian, etc., etc., etc. The soul gets tired and dries up from all this really fuss. One skylight: a two hour drive to South Canaan yesterday, on an amazing, sunny, "pre-spring afternoon". Since I arrived there in advance, I walked for an hour along the "country" roads, among transparent forests. Melting snow, water, sun, silence. Likewise back. In addition, fragmented time, an empty head, nervous fatigue, "this world" in its pettiness and boredom.

2 Church of St. Trinity (English).

3 Wall Street, New York City Financial District.

On Saturday, the confession of M.T. Painful reflections: what is right, what is wrong. And about how any schemes are broken about the real uniqueness of each life. "I am a witness" 1 .

Sunday - service at Paramus 2 .

Yesterday all morning until four o'clock at home for an article on the liturgical seminar. Once again - the conviction of the falsity of exclusively "academic" theology. The voice of one crying in the wilderness.

Dinner at the Andersons. Anna's dictation 3 (prayers on the first, eighth and fortieth day). A conversation with V., who, as always, disarms me with his logic, although this logic is always capable of proving only a part of the real truth, and even distorting it. The horror of logic that terrified Shestov. Her vital infertility. A reasonable and logical person is hardly capable of repentance. He is only capable of analysis.

The tragedy in Khartoum (the murder of diplomats by terrorists). Hatred for all ideologies. Hence, for sure, my shameful sympathy for Leautaud, commissaire Maigret 4 and ... Talleyrand. A hopeless dead end of human "beliefs". And just think that they consider faith to be “beliefs” aimed at “values”. The harm of theology: the reduction of faith to ideas and beliefs, and even scientifically (by a dozen Germans) "justified" ... (I also thought this, listening to L. Bouyer's lecture on the "Apostolic Ministry" on Saturday 5 . If this latter is so proved, then it is worthless...)

I just had a telephone conversation with N. How easily people lose heart, become discouraged! And then everything seems hopeless. Divine power of patience. Most of all, patience is needed to fight the devil, and it is the least of all in a person, especially a young one. The main danger of youth is impatience. Why is God patient? Because he knows And loves.

A letter from Nikita Struve with a wonderful, in my opinion, assessment of Platonov: "... Platonov is undoubtedly a wonderful writer who speaks some hitherto unheard of language, but, in my opinion, the writer is not a genius, because "with a madness" and a painful perception world. There is some understatement in him: everything in his worldview presupposes faith, and whether he had faith in God is unclear. He did not believe in death, but thereby removed, as it were, from human destiny her tragedy. To tell the truth, I don't understand Chevengur. Chevengurtsy are some kind of children of nature, deceived by the revolution, but the rest of them - from the blacksmith to the murdered bourgeois - how did they live? .. In a purely literary plan, Platonov is completely devoid of the gift of construction.

1 Words of a priest in prayer before confession.

2 Parish in Paramus, New Jersey.

3 Secretary Fr. Alexandra.

4 Commissioner Maigret, the hero of Georges Simenon's novels.

5 L. Bouillet on "Apostleship" (eng.).

"Chevengur" is his only big thing, and some kind of unfinished, unfinished. I recognize the genius of his language, the wit of his satire, but reading him does not enlighten me, it makes my soul ache and uncomfortable. This is some kind of Dostoevsky without faith, from Versilov's vision - a relaxed kind, but weak-willed humanity. Solzhenitsyn, with his strong-willed emphasis, with his strength and health, is much higher and, most importantly, much more necessary ... "

Yesterday, on the train and at home, reading French weeklies (L "Express, Le Point). Although a completely different, but also painful perception of the world. Antics, pseudo-depth that entered the blood. Hidden hatred for health, for clarity, for meaning. Depressing the sadness of it all...

Wednesday evening - "small synod" in Syosset 1 . Then - a meeting with a group from Sea Cliff. Conversations, stories about the fight against Beloselsky, about the participation of Grabbe and his clique in this, etc. The terrible decay of the Russian emigration... And to think that people literally live by all this, they see it as "activity", "struggle" and "loyalty to the Church". “So, in what a shameful puddle…” 2 .

The tragic news of the breakdown 3 in Los Angeles about. N.N. So the signs that struck me three weeks ago were real. I'm afraid that the reason is the same: "he plunged headlong into his work." But this is something you don't need. The complete impossibility at some point to see everything in perspective, to give up, not to let the fuss and pettiness eat the soul. And in essence it is the same pride (not pride): everything depends on me, everything is related to me. Then the "I" fills reality, and decay begins. A terrible mistake of modern man: identification of life with action, thought, etc. and almost complete inability live, that is, to feel, perceive, "live" life as a non-stop gift. Going to the station under a fine, already spring rain, seeing, feeling, realizing the movement of a sunbeam along the wall - this is not only an “also” event, this is the very reality of life. Not a condition For actions and For thoughts, not their indifferent background, but that, in essence, for the sake of which (so that it is, felt, “lived”) and it is worth acting and thinking. And this is so because it is only in this that God gives us to feel Himself, and not in action and not in thought. And that's why Julien Green is right: "Tout est ailleurs", "Il n" ya de vrai que le balancement des branches mis dans le ciel " 4 etc. The same is true in communication. It is not in conversations, discussions. The deeper the communication and the joy from it, the less it depends on words. On the contrary, then you are almost afraid of words, they will break communication, stop joy. I felt this with particular force on that New Year's, December evening, when I was sitting in Adamovich's attic in Paris. Everyone says that he preferred to talk about trifles. True, but not because there was nothing to talk about, but because it was communication that was so obvious. Hence my dislike for "deep" and especially "spiritual" conversations. Did Christ speak to his twelve as he walked

1 Syosset (Syoset) - a city on Long Island (New York State), in which the residence of the Metropolitan is located Orthodox Church in America.

2 A line from V. Khodasevich's poem "Stars".

3 nervous breakdown (English).

4 Julien Green: "Everything is there, everything is different", "The truth is only in the swaying of branches against the sky" (fr.).

on the roads of the Gagiles? Did he solve their "problems" and "difficulties"? Meanwhile, all Christianity is, in the final analysis, the continuation of this communion, its reality, joy and effectiveness. "Good for us to be here" 1 . That evening with Adamovich was such a “good”, and everything that was truly remembered was left from life as “good” and joy: dinners and evenings together at Veidle in Paris, even earlier corps friendship. A kind of "uniqueness", for example, Repnina in my life. We have absolutely nothing to talk about, and I always So well with him, although outside of these almost fleeting meetings in Paris, once a year, I hardly think of him. Brother Andrei: we haven’t said three “serious” words to each other over the past twenty years, but meeting and communicating with him is one of the main, most real joys of my (and, I know, his) life, an indisputable, obvious “good”. And vice versa, where actions, events and thought are in the center as the content of communication, there is no communication either. But with K.F. out! Indeed, “il n” ya de vrai .... Words should not be hatched in conversations (where they are so often - checks without coverage), but at a depth, in this very experience tout est ailleurs, as, in essence, evidence of Then they sound, they themselves become a gift, a sacrament.

So, if you remember, it turns out that the greatest strength and joy of communication in my life was from those who “mentally” meant the least to me: Repnin, Fr. Savva Shimkevich (in the corps, 1933-1935), Fr. Cyprian.

Today in the New York Times, an article by Natalia Reshetovskaya, Solzhenitsyn's first wife, is in response to a recent defense of Solzhenitsyn by Zhores Medvedev in the same place. The article is vile, evil, full of intuition and, moreover, unbearably "women". This attack, alas, is another confirmation of the "inspiration" of Spiller's letter.

What an amazing spring day! Almost hot. All day at home at the table. Happiness.

Yesterday - a long pastoral conversation with a woman in depression. Dropped by husband. Son gone to hippies 2 . Dropped out of school, lives somewhere. The twelve-year-old daughter also begins to become depressed. Everything is meaningless. The profession (medicine) is disgusting. Complete darkness. During the conversation, I felt with self-evident clarity the "demonism" of depression. The state of blasphemy. Consent to bullshit. Hence the ridiculousness of psychiatry and psychoanalysis. Should they compete with "him"? “If the light that is in you is darkness…”?3 I said to her: There is only one thing you can do, and that is to refuse blasphemy, to deny yourself in this lie, in this surrender. More you can not - but this is the beginning of everything.

The disease of modern (and not only modern) people is obsession. And they, and the priests along with them, want to treat her with psychiatric chatter.

2 hippies.

3 Compare: Matt. 6:23.

L. had had pain in his shoulder and under his arm for several weeks. Yesterday morning, Dr. Stevens told her that she must immediately cut in order to "know" ... What a deep, solemn life immediately becomes with such news. The whole day is like a quiet "presence". Tomorrow L. has an appointment with the surgeon.

"And darkness covered us..." 1 Two days of this "presence" in the house. They hardly talked about it. But, no, no, at a glance, at this or that word, it broke through.

My God, what a painful feeling of pity and tenderness then. How everything becomes transparent, fragile, doomed. Don't forget these two days. Today a call from New York from L.: her doctor categorically states that everything is in absolute order!

Forgiveness Vespers is very good, very authentic. Why can't you always live at this height? Today is a long, long morning. Alone in an empty altar, all the time feeling everything - and the "presence" (this is even before the joyful phone), and the "bright sadness" of Lent, and all that sigh, about which Lent is.

And the fuss is already breaking in: calls, a mountain of unanswered letters, even a meeting. How, with all this, to preserve, create inner, bright silence?

The painful fragmentation of time, even, behold, in these days of Great Lent. You leave the church - a meeting. "When can I see you ..." It's good only at home, only one. The torment of all contacts - and the further, the more. Inexpressibility, inexpressibility of the main thing. How tired I am of my profession, or, perhaps, of how it began to be understood and perceived. Such a constant feeling of falseness, a feeling that you are playing some kind of role. And the inability to get out of this role.

amazing, spring days. And as soon as I am left alone - like yesterday, in Harlem, missing the train - happiness, fullness, joy.

Yesterday a few hours with GB Udintsev. Scientist-oceanographer, works in one of the institutes of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Here on a scientific mission for eight months. Arranged a date with me through Helen Fisher (my former student in Columbia). "I wanted to see you, because back in Moscow I read your "Sighted Love" (about Solzhenitsyn). She went from hand to hand there a lot. I absolutely agree..." and it seems more

1 Ps.54:6: "Fear and trembling came upon me, and darkness covered me."

mythical. Admirer of Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov. From an intelligent family. I ask him about the Church. "Clogged, clogged, but... well, at least that way..." Amazing growth of Baptism. About "Rusyns" 1 : “there is nothing - Soloukhin, but there is also something sinister ...” He wants to read everything before leaving.

The first week of Lent was chaotic. Yesterday disturbing calls from Alaska, from o.D.G. etc. Articles about Anglicanism, about the parish. Mountains of unanswered letters. From all this, the soul is restless and it is "clogged" ...

At a meeting of the Metropolitan Council at the Gramercy Park Hotel, I listened to the most boring debate about the pension fund. Anguish from the level of all this "church life".

Three painful, tense, vain, difficult days: the Metropolitan Council and the Synod of Bishops. To describe all this there is no strength and desire. Eternal and passionate desire to leave, step back, not [participate] - and the objective impossibility of doing so. The hopelessness of this situation: to be eminence grise 2 so that, if possible, limiter les degats 3 , and ipso facto 4 to find yourself all the time at the same level, from [dislike] to which you participate in all this ...

Grigory Pomerants

When would you guess how much evil
Hiding in one false note
They would have abandoned all their affairs
And they began to help in my work.
Zinaida Mirkina

Schmemann's "diaries" provoked a neurotic reaction among Orthodox fundamentalists. Their attacks were convincingly answered by the priest Philip Parfyonov (2). I want to leave all this aside. As I read the Diaries, I became more and more fascinated by something else, the formation of a creative personality, whose roots went beyond the profession, ethnic group, nation, and at times even break through the boundaries of the Western cultural circle. In his Diaries, Schmemann frankly writes: If anyone ever “studies” the “sources” of my theology (!), he will hardly guess that I have always been incredibly melancholy, for example, Cabasilas, Dionysius the Areopagite, etc., and that in winding paths my worldview and, consequently, my thoughts and beliefs played a strange but undoubted role: serving in the church (corpus, rue Daru (3)), Russian and French poetry, André Gide, the diary of Julien Greene and the diary of Paul Leotaut (read all eighteen volumes - how surprised they both would be!) and an infinite number of the most diverse biographies (for example, Talleyrand and de Gaulle). How to explain to myself, first of all, that I I love Orthodoxy and more and more convinced of its truth and more and more Not I love Byzantium, Ancient Rus', Athos, that is, everything that for everyone is a synonym for Orthodoxy. I would die of boredom at the “Byzantine Congress”. Only to myself can I admit that my interest in Orthodoxy is inversely proportional to what interests - and so passionately - Orthodox (p.236–237).

Every line here is a paradox. And one of the first riddles - eighteen volumes of Leoto. Schmemann read a lot, a lot. But eighteen volumes - a diary! What was captivating there? Julien Green is at least a Catholic, and Leoto is an atheist. It seems that the diary genre itself attracted me. Reading diaries was the school that prepared Schmemann's Diaries, the school of sincerity. There are texts that are conducive to falsehood: advertising, protocol of interrogation. You say what is beneficial to you, and you are silent about what is unprofitable. And the diary lying on the table is the complete opposite. Schmemann, sincere by nature, got tired of the canons (and, roughly speaking, of clichés), inevitable in any church conversation, in any church service. The canons of Orthodoxy have not changed for fifteen hundred years, but people have. The modern priest has become a different person. He came from a world where personality is being formed. He is gifted in one, but in another he feels helpless, awkward. I know two reliable cases when Metropolitan Anthony of Surozh, after listening to a confession, did not plunge into the mire of trifles, but silently looked the person in the eye - for five, ten, fifteen minutes - and then spoke a few permissive words or simply transferred the conversation to another topic; and that was enough, the confessor left with the feeling that he had been raised to another level and his problem had been removed. Schmemann did not have this gift. He had other gifts. There is a wonderful entry in one of the last notebooks:

“At home”, “by myself” I realize myself only when I give lectures. Whatever it is, it is, in fact, my only gift. Everything else - guidance, "spiritual help" - everything from someone else's voice and therefore so painful. Lectures - I always feel this with surprise - I read as much for myself as for students. I don’t lie in them, and I don’t lie because someone else reads them in me, and often they simply surprise me: this, it turns out, is what the faith or teaching of the Church is ... Sometimes I want to stand up and say loudly: “Brothers , sisters! All that I have to say, to which I can testify, is all in my lectures. And I don’t have anything else, and therefore, please don’t look for something else from me.” For in everything else I not only lie, but I do not feel that anointing ... which is necessary to be authentic(p. 576).

This is not just a church issue. Never before has authenticity been such a hot topic as it is in today's society.

The time for prescribed roles is over. Thousands of ways are open. But it's hard to choose. Other people's voices tell you thousands of roads. And no one helps to say how Hamlet answered Rosencrantz and Guildenstern: You can upset me, but don't play me. Consciousness of oneself is formed, but not yet formed. Schmemann is a happy exception. He opened his own source in the soul, from which genuine words flow (we will read about this from him a little later). In the audience, at the lecture, - his "anointing". And it is more difficult to write for the press, each written phrase interrupts the flight of inspiration. And the way out was found - in the diary.

We will return to this later, but for now I would like to note the subtle semantic difference that Schmemann draws between the truth, which can be recorded from someone else's voice, and something genuine, born in the depths of the heart, in Berdyaev's words, transsubjective, rooted in the “kingdom, which is within us”, but not quite ours. Approximately at the level where God acts, acts unexpectedly for the speaker himself, - Schmemann calls this “anointing”. Compared to the real truth, the truth from someone else's voice is a little bit false. It left the imprint of someone else's speech, a written language with its vocabulary, grammar and syntax, sometimes still a foreign, dead language, the shades of which have died, only terms remained; but theology, Schmemann emphasizes, is closer to poetry than to science. This is a polysemantic fabric, which is woven from polysemantic, mysterious words. As in verse:

And the accumulation of silence
It's been so long,
What the heart has become audible
Angels in the sky
And the one who so long weaned
From loud words and strict formulas,
Comprehended the angelic language
And he began to babble about God.

* * *
You don't know God
You invented God
Many words have been said
But He is silent.
What is cognition?
Dive into silence
Heart to heart touch
And the evidence is alive.(4)

In free speech, as in poetic inspiration, “anointing” flickers, an unexpected surge from the last depth, which can be processed, polished in hindsight, but very carefully so as not to lose the inconsistency of living life for the sake of the harmony of the system, for the sake of tolerance, etc. When you speak with inspiration, you don’t think about what Princess Marya Aleksevna will say, but you write - and you become thoughtful.

IN contemporary culture the role of Marya Aleksevna is often played by information. Everything is good in moderation, including knowledge of the facts. A bunch of trifles, discovered in thousands of particular sciences, clogs the head and makes it difficult to see the whole, to see from a bird's eye view that words only lead to the main thing, about which one must be silent, what remains in the pause between words. Tyutchev once wrote beautifully about this:

Thought spoken is a lie.
Exploding, disturb the keys.
Eat them - and be silent.

This can be attributed to the inner world of the individual, and to the declaration of love, and to the secrets of faith. The word brings close to the mystery, but the mystery must emerge from the non-verbal depth.

However, in Russian culture Tyutchev's "Silentium" has remained a lonely paradox. And the French became Schmemann's teachers:

Reading Leoto, I suddenly realized that - among other things, his truthfulness is rooted, expressed in language. He is the last French writer who painfully feels the falsity and lies of that language that gradually decomposed from within French, the correlation in it of a word, a sentence with meaning, the triumph in it of abstraction, “ideologicalism” ... This is how everyone writes now, and not only in French(Alas! And in Russian. - G.P.). Our era has gradually created a new language, but also a new “sense of language”. The reason for this is twofold: “ideological”… and, more banally, the separation of culture from life, creativity out of nothing - and therefore out of “nothing” and consisting, an irresponsible play of forms and structures(p. 245). Why can an atheist be so free and truthful, honest and merciful in his own way, and why exactly these qualities are so tragically lacking in “religious” people?(p. 180). And now it seems to me that God, so to speak, cannot but love this “militant” (in words) atheist. It is precisely for truthfulness, for ruthlessness in depicting, retelling oneself, without humility, without any knowledge of it ... I don’t know, I don’t know: all these words somehow don’t fit, but I always read Leoto with spiritual benefit , with which, alas, I almost never read the so-called “spiritual literature”. He denounces in me any spiritual cheapness, unnecessary excitement, predilection for beautiful words, somehow internally liberates ...(p. 244).

For me, Byzantium was an unknown land. I managed to fall in love with the Byzantine and Old Russian icons and spent hour after hour in the department of antiquities Tretyakov Gallery. Compared with the Byzantines and Andrei Rublev, almost everything new seemed small to me. I regret that Schmemann was deprived of this experience. And I gladly accepted Averintsev's cautious invitation to attend his lectures on medieval culture. Sergey was cautious out of courtesy (he was thirty, and I was fifty), but I readily began to attend these lectures as a student. Seryozha, still young, unable to limit himself to a specific topic, swam in the sea of medieval life he resurrected, as in living modernity. Everything he read (and he read insanely much) became his own, and he felt much freer in this world than in modern times. It was his home, his inheritance.

I developed differently. I couldn't turn my back on the chaos of the 20th century. But only supplemented modernity: baroque music, Eckhart's "sermons and discourses", Suzuki and Watts' talks on Zen Buddhism, Krishnamurti's talks, Upanishads, contemplation of ancient icons. And I wanted to include medieval theology in this family, and above all the most mystical in it: Gregory of Nyssa, Pseudodionysius the Areopagite, whom Schmemann rejected in vain. The attempts of Pseudo-Dionysius to approach the non-verbal word, twisting and twisting ordinary words, seemed to him an empty game. This echoes the resistance that Dostoevsky and Marina Tsvetaeva evoked in him. He, however, understood, like Florensky, that there are truths that can only be expressed in hysteria, in an atmosphere of scandal, excessive pressure on words. Schmemann finally understood this in Tsvetaeva, but in Pseudodionisia he did not try; just as he did not give himself the trouble to understand the “orientalism”. We will be grateful to him for what he was able to see and understand. Moreover, he learned a lot from Dostoevsky. Some pages of the Diaries are no less a scandal than scandalous scenes in Dostoevsky.

As I read the Diaries, it became clear to me that Schmemann was a man of triple national roots. Born in Reval, renamed Tallinn, in a Russian Orthodox family, he was already a child of four, in 1925, he ended up in Paris. Here he studied in the Russian cadet corps, drew in Russian culture, spiritual and secular, with all the force of emigrant nostalgia ... But in Paris, surrounded by French culture, which entered into all the cracks, he imperceptibly grew into it. And I completely understand that France has become Schmemann's second home, and perhaps the first, if we talk about the structure of thought, about style.

Thinking about Schmemann's attempts to understand himself, you see how a childish and adolescent love for Orthodoxy passed through a French filter, passed like a universal faith, like a faith that did not obey the laws of logic, no principles (he quotes an anonymous English phrase, in spirit close to Anthony of Surozh: principles are what people substitute for God...). But Byzantium did not pass through the filter. Muscovy, suffocating in its inert isolation, did not pass. And his Russia - Petersburg, European-Russian culture, cut off from Byzantine icons and mosaics (there were none in Paris), cut off from Andrei Rublev and Dionisy with children ... Schmemann did not survive them and did not know them.

In the "Diaries" - constant quotes from Russian poets and writers, reflections on Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Tsvetaeva, Nabokov, Mandelstam, Pasternak, Brodsky. He harshly criticizes Nabokov, and he read Sinyavsky's book about Gogol, which was not accepted by almost the entire Russian emigration, with admiration and re-read it again to make sure he was right. But no less widely represented is French literature and the entirety of French culture. She became her own, together with the Russian, she captured with her virtues and caused shame with her vices.

Moving to America further expanded this circle of his. Having become an American at the turning point between youth and maturity, in 1951, Schmemann quickly takes root in the States. It is comparatively easy for a person who has emerged from unambiguous rootedness to pass from dual to triple. One can compare this with the unrealized project of transforming Austria-Hungary into Austria-Hungary-Poland. Before that, there was a project of Austria-Hungary-Slavia, but the shot of Gabriel Princip interfered, and in 1918 another project appeared, Austria-Hungary-Poland; this time the catastrophe in September prevented Western front. However, on a personal level, Schmemann created a solid tripartite state and lived peacefully in it.

It did not cause any split, any internal conflicts. The split was caused by something else: participation in the reforms of the church - with the understanding that deep reforms are impossible. A triple national identity was quite harmonious. This is a sighted love for Russia, France, America with a clear awareness of their shortcomings. Relying on one of his hypostases, Schmemann sees and criticizes others: the French tendency to left-wing phrases, Russian senseless disputes, where everyone shouts his own and no one listens to the other; a short American memory, a lack of understanding of the world around and the imposition of one-sidedness on everyone around. Following the political struggle in France, Schmemann feels right among the left and left among the right. In the disputes caused by Solzhenitsyn's journalism, he tries to stay in the center:

I cannot fully accept either side, and I see a terrible mistake in their 100% rejection of one another. Here again - the polarization of the Russian consciousness, this unfortunate “either - or”. Solzhenitsyn, and after him Ginzburg, want it to be the way they "experience it." They want to exist, in spite of everything, in all the darkness - an indecomposable, innocent Russia, to which it is possible, and therefore necessary, to return ... Therefore, they (but most importantly, of course, Solzhenitsyn) must reject people like Sinyavsky or Amalrik, etc. ., to deny their right to love Russia. And they love her, and they are offended, and infuriated, by their denial of love: love directed not at some imperishable, almost transcendent “essence” of Russia, but at “empirical” Russia, at homeland(“Yes, and such, my Russia!”). In design, I could adopt both attitudes. But in practice, Solzhenitsyn, in the name of “his” Russia, throws out of her half of her historical flesh (Petersburg, the 19th century, Pasternak, etc.), prefers to her as an ideal - Avvakum and the schismatics, but the “Sinyavskys” are still somehow they do not despise any of its “flesh” in any way, remain hopeless, “cultural elitists”. Conversation between them is impossible, not because of arguments or ideas, but because of keys inherent in each installation. Solzhenitsyn cannot bear Sinyavsky's refined, cultured "talk", his "culture", because he loves not "culture" in Russia, but something completely different. Some kind of “truth” inherent in it, which he, in essence, is not able to define, at least in abstract categories, in thought, but in relation to which any “culture”, especially Russian, seems to him petty. Sinyavsky, on the other hand, hates any “uterine” and from it the utopianism, maximalism, exaggeration that is born from it. In history, only cultural “cultivation” is possible on earth, but not the “transformation” of earth into heaven. The condition of culture is freedom, tolerance, principled “pluralism”, moral cleanliness, “respect for the individual” (pp. 473–474) (underlined by me. - G.P.).

Here I am ready to subscribe to everything. However, Schmemann's "universality" has its limits. Last night, Schmemann writes, from fatigue, a few chapters of Watts, "In My Own Way"... I'm not at all interested in Eastern religions. With Watts, I am only interested in one fact: that he was a priest and left for this, which always seemed to me shallow, Orientalism. Therefore, I read only those chapters that relate to his five-year Anglican priesthood ... (p.12).

I encountered the self-limitation of the usual cultural circle several decades ago at Averintsev's. Once he unexpectedly gave me two books on the art of the East. “I don't need it,” he said, “but you might find it useful.” At the same time, or somewhat later, I called him a “Mediterranean soil worker.” Apparently, he repeated the joke he liked as a self-determination, and in this capacity it fell into the memories of O. Sedakova. I think that Schmemann can also be called a soil worker or a homebody of his tripartite destiny.

However, it is interesting to compare Schmemann's “domain” with Averintsev's “domain”. The boundaries of Averintsev's "soil" go far back into history, to the Book of Job and the tragedies of Sophocles. This is a personally experienced tradition of the ancient and medieval book (which Schmemann pushes away from himself). The world of Schmemann - from the accession of Peter to the election of Mitterrand as president. But in space, the boundaries of the two spiritual empires converge: to the borders of Christian civilization.

Such self-restraint has nothing to do with the diasporophobia that is widespread in our country, starting with the rejection of the classical diaspora, dating back to the Babylonian captivity of the Jews, to the diaspora of Chechens, Azerbaijanis, and others emerging right before our eyes. It has nothing to do with what Strakhov called “the struggle with the West ". The West for both Averintsev and Schmemann is in his own circle. Alien - in the East. There you can lose more than you gain by going beyond known boundaries. Lose the uniqueness of Christ? To leave Christianity only the place of a petal in the “rose of the world”, as in Daniil Andreev?

But why didn't Alexander Men have this fear? This active preacher of Christianity among the unbelieving Soviet intelligentsia was deeply attentive to the Indian spiritual experience and wrote a talented book about it, At the Gates of Silence. The religions of India are interpreted by Menem as open questions to which Christ was the answer. You may not agree with this, but the book is interesting, bright.

I think the secret here is in the unequal share of apophatic knowledge of God (that is, the path to the mystery of God through the denial of all definitions and all images of God) - and the knowledge of God cataphatic, positive, visibly figurative, when all the fullness of spiritual truth is contemplated in the icon of Christ, in icons close to Him, venerable saints, in the Holy Virgin who gave birth to Him… Apophatic knowledge of God is theoretically recognized by Christianity, but most Christians do not know it, do not understand it, and do not consider it necessary to know it. It is enough to focus on the Son of Man, free from ego and becoming the visible face of the invisible and inscrutable spiritual world.

This has been enough in the past. But not now, when four cultural worlds, almost unaware of each other for centuries, found themselves squeezed into a suddenly narrowed space in front of suddenly growing problems that threaten a global catastrophe. Without the spirit of dialogue, without understanding each other, conflicts will pile up and pile up. The West's arrogant confidence in its superiority has been washed away by events. The search for common values is by no means reduced to fashion, to cheap “orientalism”. People like the Dalai Lama and Thomas Merton are drawn into the dialogue. Despite the huge differences in metaphysics, the dialogue between Buddhism and Catholicism is developing quite successfully, in any case - more successfully than the dialogue between the two branches of the Universal Church, which split in 1054.

However, global problems do not at all become personal problems for everyone. Not a single mind is capable of covering all tasks. Each peculiar thinker develops his own zone of creative interests in which he is able to act fruitfully, the zone of “mine”, limited from “not mine”, where, as Schmemann would say, this person there is no "anointing", where he is only able to repeat, from someone else's voice, general ideas. This is the meaning of the old adage: a genius must limit himself. And Averintsev's self-limitation by what I called "Mediterranean soil" and Schmemann's self-limitation by his "trialistic power" were not their mistake. Each found support against religious and ideological fanaticism within the boundaries of his own circle, defending the priority of culture as a whole over the swelling of a separate sphere of culture, individual ideas and principles.

Today there is no single global culture that has reached spiritual heights, and its formation goes through super-ethnic, but at the same time sub-global spiritual organisms that resist global chaos. And if, while reading the Diaries, I do not agree with them in something, I see their limitations in something, then this does not interfere with my love for this book. And we are surrounded by a common hatred. It is no coincidence that Averintsev was called Jew Evreevich in the circle of “Our Contemporary”, and the books of Alexander Schmemann were burned by the fanatic bishop along with the books of Alexander Men. The abyss runs between the spirit of love, limited by this or that limit, and the spirit of hatred.

The Holy Spirit, blowing everywhere, is one, but the images that He takes in the human heart, and then in the words of the prophets, body-satists and saints, are different in each cultural circle. Zinaida Mirkina, translating Rilke, Ibn al-Farid and other mystic poets, came across this in her work. She always tried to feel a kind of holistic, not divided into words and phrases, the language of the Holy Spirit and transmit it in Russian, sometimes deviating from the German text and interlinear from Arabic. This is how good translations are made. Based on this experience, we in our common book “Great Religions of the World” define the holy scriptures as “translations” from the holistic language of the Holy Spirit, “heard” (inner ear), and then decomposed into separate words and phrases of their culture, using vocabulary and grammar of Hebrew, Sanskrit, Pali, Chinese, Arabic. The Holy Scriptures are attempts to convey in words the non-verbal flow of truth, the non-verbal flow of the Spirit. Their virtues are the virtues of classical translation. Their shortcomings are the shortcomings of any translation. And when the Apostle Paul says that the letter is dead and only the spirit gives life, and when Schmemann rebels against the deadening of religion, they both mean an outdated, dead translation. In Schmemann, one can sometimes understand the very word “religion” in this way as a generally accepted, but deadened shell of living love and faith: According to the Gospel, it is so clear: God is loved by saints and sinners. He is not loved and, when they can, “religious” people crucify him.(p. 302).

The non-verbal word (perhaps close to what Swedenborg wrote about the language of angels) can best be conveyed from eye to eye, from heart to heart, as in the conversation of St. Seraphim of Sarov with Motovilov and in the fellowship of other great elders with their students (in Orthodoxy, in Hinduism, Buddhism, Sufism, Hasidism). You can’t convey anything to a wide circle of believers like that. Reading into books (as with Jews and Protestants) often gives root to the letter. It's no better than a cult.

Pastor Rubenis named cult religious theater with a libretto from Scripture, using music, icons, candles. The cult creates a mood, direction, conveys to people who are not capable of the personal effort of an ascetic, some kind of unity with God, or at least a shadow of unity. Alexander Schmemann devoted much effort to ensuring that the Eucharist was experienced in this way. But he himself experienced an epiphany on the balcony with the sun shining on the car glass. And for many other people, the experience of the reality of a bright spiritual abyss, embracing the abyss of space and time, came unexpectedly, inadvertently. Although a detailed analysis of a person's path to grace almost always reveals a long painful search for an answer to "damned questions." And God is always closer to Job than to his godly friends.

However, the letter, which Schmemann mercilessly denounces, does not cease to be holy to him, like a vessel in which antiquity and the Middle Ages brought to us a spirit that is barely audible in the modern noise of cars and the hustle and bustle of the meeting. The word "religion" in Schmemann's "Diaries" does not have an unambiguous meaning. Each time we must take into account anew what he contemplates with his mental gaze: help in faith? or distortion of faith?

Evil appears when we lose the spirit of the whole and begin to tear great texts into pieces, into separate phrases. This rule must also be applied to the reading of Schmemann's Diaries. His book is true as a whole, and most of all when it is based on the culture as a whole. Here is an example that speaks for itself: Russia needs Pushkin much more than Typikon(Handbook on worship. - G.P.). In the name of Pushkin, one cannot hate, cut and imprison. And in the name of the Typicon, it’s very possible(p. 81).

Let us now try to follow the trail of Schmemann and confirm everything that has been said in fragments, preserving the unity characteristic of the Diaries through the lack of system: Reality: just yesterday I felt it - going to church for mass, early in the morning, in the desert of winter trees, and then this hour in an empty church, until mass. Always the same feeling of time filled with eternity, fullness, secret joy. The idea that the Church is needed in all its “empiricism” only for this, in order for this experience to exist, to live. Where she ceases to be a symbol, a sacrament, she is a horror, a caricature (p. 9).

Think about it: why does Schmemann feel more of God in an empty church than when serving mass? Because contemplation is a space for the Holy Spirit, and worship is a work, although it is holy, and the priest partly gives himself to the work, and not to God as the Spirit. Your icons separate me from You,- Rilke wrote in the Book of Hours. So could Schmemann write if he were a poet.

Us. 14 find a conversation with V., who, as always, disarms me with his logic, although this logic is always capable of proving only a part of the real truth, and even distorting it. The horror of logic that terrified Shestov. Her vital infertility. A reasonable and logical person is hardly capable of repentance. He is only capable of analysis. Here you involuntarily recall the novel "Crime and Punishment". While Raskolnikov is reasoning, he cannot understand Sonya, who thinks with her heart. While Raskolnikov is in his cell, he does not doubt logic. On the islands, at sunset, he is immediately freed from the nightmare.

Schmemann fences himself off from the “orientalism”, but now it has come (see p. 15) tragic news of a nervous breakdown in Los Angeles with N.N. So the signs that struck me three weeks ago were real. I'm afraid that the reason is still the same: "he plunged into his work." But this is something you don't need. The complete impossibility at some point to see everything in perspective, to give up, not to let the fuss and pettiness eat the soul ... The terrible mistake of modern man is the identification of life with action, thought etc. And already almost complete inability to live, to feel, to realize the movement of a sunbeam along the wall - this is not only an "also" event, this is the very reality of life. Not an effort For actions and For thoughts, not their indifferent background, but, in essence, for the sake of (for it to be, felt, “lived”) and it is worth acting and thinking. And this is so because it is only in this that God gives us to feel Himself, and not in action and not in thought. And therefore Julien Green is right: “Everything is there, everything is different”, “There is nothing true except the swaying of branches against the sky”(p.15).

The swaying of branches against the sky is the Zen answer to the Zen question: what is the Tao? Or: what is Zen? (Several variants are possible, but they are all of the same kind.) Schmemann quotes a Zen thought twice, borrowing it from a book by a French Catholic. The dominance of abstractions in modern culture pushes towards intuition based on quiet contemplation. The craving for contemplation pervades today the creative minority in the West as well. Everywhere there is a search for the real truth, and the debate between Zen and Confucius continues.

And here is another example of the search for truth in contemplation, grasping being as a whole, not torn into pieces (see on p. 20). Humble beginning of spring. Rainy Sunday. Silence, emptiness of these small towns. The joy of the underlying life of everything that is behind deeds, behind activism, that which is the very substratum of life. And late at night again darkness, rain, lights, illuminated windows ... If you don’t feel this, then what can the words mean: “We sing to you, we bless you, we thank you.” And this is the essence of religion, and if it is not there, then a terrible substitution begins. Who invented (and we now live in this) that religion is the solution of problems, these are the answers ... It is always a transition to another dimension, and, therefore, not a solution, but the removal of problems.

Such is the understanding of religious life as an inseparable connection with all surrounding life, but in general, in unity, in the non-duality of nature. And through the page - in the integrity of life at the family hearth (on p. 22): What is happiness? This is to live like we live now with Liana together, enjoying every hour (in the morning - coffee, in the evening - two or three hours of silence, etc.). No special "discussions". Everything is clear and therefore - so good! And probably if they had begun to “formulate” the essence of this self-evident happiness, they would have done it in different ways and, looking at it, would have quarreled about words. Mine would seem to her not the same and vice versa. "Misunderstanding"! And happiness would be confused. Therefore, as we get closer to “reality,” fewer words are needed. In eternity, there is only “holy, holy, holy…” Only words of praise and thanksgiving, prayer, the whiteness of fullness and joy. Therefore, only those words are genuine and necessary that are not about reality (“discussion”), but reality itself: its symbol, presence, manifestation, mystery. The Word of God. Prayer. Art. Once upon a time, theology was such a word: not only words about God, but divine words - “appearance”. But I was seduced by the lentil soup of discussions and proofs, I wanted to become a scientific word - and it became emptiness and chatter. And he imagined himself, and became necessary only to the same other talker, but Not man, Not depth of human culture.

I am convinced that these are, at a depth, those revelations (“epiphanies”), those touches, phenomena of the other, which then determine the “perception of the world” from within. Then you learn that in those moments a certain absolute joy was given. Joy about nothing, joy from there, the joy of God's presence and touching the soul. And the experience of this touch, this joy (which, indeed, “no one will take away from us”, because it has become the very depth of the soul) then determines the course, direction of thought, attitude to life, etc. For example, that Great Saturday, when before going to the church, I went out onto the balcony and the car passing below glared blindingly at the glass that the sun had hit. Everything that I have always felt and recognized in Holy Saturday, and through it - in the very essence of Christianity, everything that I have tried to write about it - in essence, always an inner need to convey to myself and others that which flared up, illuminated, appeared in that instant. When you talk about eternity, you talk about it. Eternity is not the destruction of time, but its absolute composure, integrity, restoration. Eternal life is not something that begins after temporal life, but the eternal presence of everything in integrity. "Anamnesis" (unforgettable. - G.P.). All Christianity is a grace-filled memory that really overcomes the fragmentation of time, the experience of eternity now and here (The definition of eternity is underlined by me. - G.P.). Therefore, all religions, all spirituality, aimed at the destruction of time, are false religions and false spirituality. “Be like children” means “be open to eternity”. The whole tragedy, all the boredom, all the ugliness of life lies in the need to be “adult”, from the need to trample on the “childhood” in oneself. Adult religion is not a religion, period; and we plant it, discuss it, and therefore pervert it all the time.“You are no longer children - be serious!” But only childhood - seriously. The first murder of childhood is its transformation into youth. An adult is able to return to childhood. Youth is a renunciation of childhood in the name of adulthood that has not yet come. Christ is revealed to us child And How adult. But he is not revealed to us as youth ... a person becomes a person, an adult in good sense when he longs for childhood and is again capable of childhood. And he becomes a bad adult if he drowns out this ability in himself.(pp. 24–25).
This is the depth at which all great religions converge. A depth that is not accessible to reason and open to poetry, even outwardly alien to theology.

Footnotes:

1 Prot. Alexander Shmeman. Diaries. 1973–1983 M.: Russian way, 2005. Further pages are indicated in the text.
2 “A new Middle Ages is approaching us ...” - “Continent”, No. 132.
3 That is, in the cadet corps and in the Cathedral of St. Alexander Nevsky on the street. I give in Paris.
4 Z. Mirkina.
5 As expected, according to the views of LN Gumilyov.
6 Alexander Ginzburg (1936–2002), prominent dissident.

Grigory Pomerants- was born in 1918 in Vilna (now Vilnius). Graduated from IFLI. Member of the Great Patriotic War. In 1946 he was expelled from the CPSU(b) for "anti-Party statements". In 1949 he was arrested on charges of anti-Soviet activities, convicted; released (1953) and rehabilitated (1958). Philosopher, culturologist, publicist. Author of the books “Dreams of the Earth” (Paris, 1958), “Unpublished” (Munich, 1972), “Openness to the Abyss. Meetings with Dostoevsky” (M., 1990), “Collecting oneself” (M., 1993), “Out of a trance” (M., 1995), “Experiences in philosophy and cultural studies” (M., 1995), “Passionate one-sidedness and dispassion of spirit” (M. – St. Petersburg, 1998), “Notes of an ugly duckling” (M., 1998), etc.; together with Z. Mirkina “Fire and Ashes” (M., 1993), “Great Religions of the World” (M., 1995). Member of the Russian PEN Center. Lives in Moscow.

Alexander Dmitrievich Shmeman

DIARY 1973-1983

Alexander Dmitrievich Shmeman

Eight notebooks of diaries of one of the most significant figures of the Church of the 20th century, preacher and theologian, Archpriest Alexander Schmemann (1921-1983) are not “a simple record of the events of the last ten years of his life”, but the opportunity to “stay at least for a short time alone with yourself”, "do not dissolve without a trace in the bustle." All the phenomena of everyday life, numerous impressions, his own life, literature and politics correlate with Fr. Alexander with the highest values are subjected to religious reflection. Variety of interests. Alexander, the depth and subtlety of his judgments make his "Diaries" interesting to a wide variety of readers.

FOREWORD

After the death of Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann, eight notebooks written in his hand were found in the table of his office at St. Vladimir's Seminary, where he was dean. Father Alexander kept this diary from 1973, with short breaks, until the onset of his last illness. He wrote in Russian, in the language that had been native to him since childhood, spent in "Russian" Paris.

Father Alexander's diary is much more than a mere record of the events of the last ten years of his life. It reflects his whole life (the cadet corps in Versailles, the French Lyceum in Paris, the St. Sergius Theological Institute, moving to America, St. Vladimir's Seminary in Crestwood, church activities ...), his interests (with great employment, he read amazingly a lot and widely , writing out whole paragraphs from books that especially interested him in his diary), "carries" his thoughts, doubts, disappointments, joys, hopes. Any diary, especially one as consistent as Father Alexander's, is caused not by external motives, but by internal necessity. Before us are often purely personal, intimate records. Dean of St. Vladimir's Seminary, which under his leadership has become one of the largest theological schools in the Orthodox world, almost permanent secretary of the Council of Bishops of the American Metropolis (which, again under his influence, became, in cooperation with Father John Meyendorff, the autocephalous Orthodox Church in America), preacher and theologian, father of three children with numerous grandchildren, Father Alexander was also constantly on the road to read sermons and lectures, and weekly hosted a number of programs on Radio Liberty for Russia. It is hard to imagine a more fulfilling life, and the diary was first of all for him an opportunity to remain at least for a short time alone with himself. Father Alexander himself wrote about it this way: "Touch base (to get in touch with oneself - English) - this is the purpose of this notebook in my hectic life. Not so much the desire to write everything down, but a kind of visit to oneself, a" visit ", at least and the shortest. Are you here? Here. Well, thank God. And it becomes easier not to completely dissolve into the bustle." And one more thing: "... I want to write down not for the "story", but, as always, for the soul, that is, only what she, the soul, felt as a gift, and what is suitable, therefore, for the "spiritual body" ".

The diary of Father Alexander invariably impresses with the breadth of its scope. Both a connoisseur of literature and a lover of politics will be carried away by him, having met the subtlety of judgments on a variety of topics, but above all, the depth of religious understanding of life is striking. All everyday, private phenomena, all numerous impressions and evaluations are elevated to the main, to that highest meaning, which is embedded in God's plan for creation. And above all confrontations and sorrows, above all criticism and denunciations, the main tone of the diary is joy in the Lord and gratitude to Him.

A lot of people are mentioned in the diary - these are teachers in the cadet corps, and professors of the St. Sergius Institute, his friends and mentors, colleagues at St. wide He was interested in all people. He followed the events in Russia, rejoiced at the spiritual revival that was beginning there, to which he himself contributed - with regular broadcasts on Radio Liberty and, of course, with his books. He immediately wrote his last book, "The Eucharist. The Sacrament of the Kingdom", in Russian as a tribute to the land, which he had never seen, but always considered his own. And, of course, the diary allows you to see through the eyes of Father Alexander his relatives - his wife Ulyana Sergeevna (in his diary he wrote about her like this: "On Saturday - Lyana is fifty years old! A whole life, and what a happy life, together!"), daughters Anna, Maria and son Sergei (again we quote his words: "What amazing, good children God gave me") and their families, brother Andrei and many others.

Sergei Shmeman

FROM PUBLISHERS

The text has been brought into line with modern spelling and punctuation standards, but the linguistic features characteristic of Father Alexander's speech have been preserved.

Prot Alexander Schmemann

DIARY 1973-1983

Book I

Yesterday on the train (from Wilmington, Del.) I was thinking: 52, more than a quarter of a century of priesthood and theology - but what does it all mean? Or how to connect, how to explain to oneself what it all comes down to, clair et distinct 1 , and is such an explanation possible and necessary? Twenty-five years ago, when this life (initiation, theology) that now defined me began, it all seemed that not today or tomorrow I would sit down, think and find out that it was only a matter of leisure. But now - twenty-five years! And, without a doubt, most of life is behind one's back, and there is much more obscure - in depth - than clear.

I was looking for a notebook in my desk. I found an almost new one - and it contains one entry made on November 1, 1971. Almost ridiculous, so similar to the one that preceded this one: "religion" is the worst and the best in a person. Not only the best, but also the worst. I read Journal Litteraire Leautaud 2 - a strange attraction to this kind of books. Maybe because it is like a mirror for believers: this is how truthful people see us. A falsehood, a terrifying falsehood of "religiosity." Joylessness. Untalented "seriousness". Is this really possible if you believe in God - in the eternal and the main thing tout est ailleurs 3 (Julien Green)? It is almost impossible to bear the "academic study of spirituality" any longer. How much unnecessary, empty, hypocritical.

1 Clearly and clearly (fr.).

2 "Literary diary" Leoto (fr.).

3 Everything is there, everything is different (fr.).

All morning at home, at the table! After a week in California, after celebrations at Wilkes Barre (the consecration of Bishop Herman), after a trip to Philadelphia (the funeral of I.M. Tsap), what pure happiness! In the dining room Volume 1, with which it is always light and good for me. Snow outside the window.

Yesterday was a long evening at Seryozha's with Joseph Brodsky. First, the most boring reception at R.Payne. Snobbery. [Complex Company]. Some mysterious girls in pants. Why do they need Brod ...

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From the editor. Father Alexander Schmemann's book of diaries aroused wide interest. In the previous issue of the magazine we placed a review of it; the Publishing Council hosted a round table discussion dedicated to its discussion (see the materials on the Internet on the Blagovest-Info website dated March 29). However, the discussion seems to be far from exhausted: both the volume and the content of the book do not allow us to fully reflect the impression of it even in a series of articles. Therefore, our editors decided to choose a different way of discussion: without claiming completeness, we asked several authors to comment on the issues that attracted them Special attention, and offer a selection of these opinions to the reader.

Archpriest ALEXY GOSTEV

The diaries of Father Alexander Schmemann turn us to issues that remain relevant today, that is, almost thirty years after his death, the issues of his books, articles and reports. The value of the diary is that it lets out some ideas that Father Alexander either did not have time to, or did not consider it possible and timely to present in his writings, the formulations are finally honed, thereby crystallizing the “basic myth” of his worldview, his perception of Christianity. I'm not talking about the fact that in the diaries we see a person of grandiose proportions, a pastor, a man of the Church and culture in the widest and most deep sense, we see an example of a truly Christian perception of political and social life end of the twentieth century. How prophetic many of his assessments and forecasts sound today. If some realities look different, then the very position of Father Alexander, his main principle of “attributing” all events not only to church, but also to cultural and public life to the reality of the Kingdom of God, remains extraordinarily vital and inspiring.

Naturally, some features of perception, some judgments of the author of the diary can cause disagreement, encourage controversy. I think that Father Alexander himself would be happy to hear about just such a reaction, corresponding to his own spirit. It is obvious that he would also take as something natural the rejection of his discourse by those who are alien to this spirit. However, to criticize a personality of such a magnitude, without risking being in the position of a pug from Krylov's fable, obliges, at least, to correspond to a given spiritual and intellectual level. It would be just as pitiful and inadequate to admire and quote excitedly, without having lived and thought through the problems of Father Alexander on his own.

I would like to dwell, inevitably briefly and only in the very first approximation, on what seems to be the most significant, that is, to try to formulate the essence of his Christian worldview and worldview. It is about the experience of the Kingdom of God, about the perception of the Church in its depths as an eschatological community, this Kingdom of the future age that manifests, subjecting the world to its judgment, proclaiming its joy and salvation.

pp. 58, 59. “... we are now living in an era of a real exam for Christianity in general and Orthodoxy in particular. How does it itself live and give life?.. I have this answer... it is... a worldview in which the central and decisive... is the “translucence”, the “relationship” of everything to the “other”, the eschatologism of life itself and everything in it, which antinomically does everything in it valuable and significant. The source of this eschatologism, that which makes this “translucence”, this “relatedness” possible, is the sacrament of the Eucharist, which therefore determines the Church from within, both in relation to itself, and in relation to the world, and in relation to each individual man and his life… “The image of this world passes”… this image in Christ became “passing”, dynamic, “related”, open… so that this experience becomes possible… in this world the experience of that very thing, to which everything is” referred” and related, which “shines through” everything and gives everything meaning, beauty, depth and value: the experience of the Kingdom of God, the sacrament of which is the Eucharist ... The Church is left in the world to celebrate the Eucharist and save man, restoring his Eucharist. But the Eucharist is impossible without the Church, that is, without a community that knows its unique, irreducible purpose to anything in the world - to be love, truth, faith and mission ... to be the Body of Christ.

S. 343. “The Church has only two tasks: to be a partaker of the Holy Spirit and the Kingdom of the future age revealed and bestowed by Him, to bear witness to this before ‘this world’.”

S. 215. “... in order for the “social” not to drown religion in itself, the Eucharist is left at the center of the Church, the whole point of which is to explode everything from within all the time - referring not just to the “transcendent”, it is as much as you like in the social, but to Christ and His Kingdom."

S. 633. “The Eucharist is the sacrament of turning not only bread and wine into “heavenly food”, but also the world itself, the very life in it – in anticipation, a foretaste of the coming Kingdom of God. Therefore, the Eucharist was (in the early Christian period and always remains - P. A. G.) the sacrament of the Church - the Church as a community (synaxis), the Church as love (mercy, Agape), the Church as knowledge (the Word of God), the Church as the “fulfillment” of everything in Christ.”

pp. 642, 612. The Church is "recognition here and now -" in our midst "- of the coming Kingdom in joy in Christ." It “requires of us that we introduce this experience of a new life into the world. So that we purify this world, enlighten it with the “otherworldliness” of the experience of the Church.”

The experience contained in the passages cited from the diaries of Father Alexander is a truly evangelical experience of the Kingdom of God, the threshold of which is the Church as the presence in the history of the Risen Christ in the fiery tongues of the Spirit, as “righteousness, joy and peace in the Holy Spirit.” The center of her being is the Eucharist, authentic, deep meaning which Father Alexander Schmemann reveals in his books, and especially in the last of them, dedicated to the Eucharist as the sacrament of the Kingdom and the sacrament of the Church.

The historical existence of the Church is a shell of this reality, a kind of shell, the tissues of which can sometimes be petrified, but it is precisely this shell that contains the precious pearl. The densification of tissues, their petrification, which is the church life on the surface - the kenosis of Christ continuing until the return in glory. About how unbearably it is to realize the distortions, perversions of the life of the Church as the threshold of the Kingdom, we find many bitter reflections on the pages of the diary.

And yet: “No matter how sick the Church is, no matter how coarsened or worldly her life is, no matter how much “human, all too human” triumphs in her, only through her does this light of the Kingdom of God shine through” (p. 379).

History is Tradition and doing, but it is also crucifixion and cross. Father Alexander felt it at the utmost depth. He was unusually acutely aware of the deformations of church life, but he was also unusually deeply devoted to the Church, not accepting equally blind conservatism and superficial modernism. However, the main thing that inspired and nourished him on the paths of theological creativity and church activity, and what, in my opinion, is the most important thing in his testament for us, is the all-encompassing feeling of joy and gratitude born from the experience of the Kingdom.

“This joy is not one of the “components” of Christianity, it is its “tonality”, which permeates everything - both faith and “worldview”. Where there is no joy, Christianity, like religion, becomes "fear" and therefore - torment ... ".

“You cannot know that God exists and not rejoice. And only in relation to it - are the fear of God, and repentance, and humility correct, genuine, fruitful.

“...joy can only come from God, only from above. But that is why Christianity entered the world as joy. Not only joy about salvation, but salvation as joy. Just think - every Sunday we “meal” with Christ, “at His meal, in His Kingdom”… God saved the world with joy, “but your sorrow will become joy”, “and no one will take away your joy from you…” (S. 297, 314).

“Whoever is able to give thanks is worthy of salvation and eternal joy” (p. 661).

Abbot PETER (MESHCHERINOV)

I read Father Alexander Schmemann's book of diaries as if I were drinking clean, fresh water. It was a pity when the book ended, I did not want to part with it. Father Alexander's diaries are a bright atmosphere, direct posing of questions, honest answers to them. It was a great joy for me to have many of my thoughts and intuitions confirmed, expressed clearly and precisely, and in addition by a person whose ecclesiastical authority is very significant. The book can serve many people as a kind of answer to the question of how to live in the Church. Orthodox Christians often ask this question. Communities somehow do not add up, individual asceticism does not bring the expected results, conservatism and guarding on the one hand, a certain impulse for renewal on the other, cease to captivate over time, often turning into a tedious form or “type of activity” without the life-giving content of Christ ... And here we are an example is the life of Father Alexander, captured in his diaries. It is not necessary to break the external established traditions, but to comprehend them, to reach their source, that is, to live by Christ, to be His Church yourself, personally and responsibly. To fill every minute of your life with a joyful experience of the Kingdom of Christ already given to us in the Church, to include in it both culture and modernity, and everything that a person comes into contact with - this is the path that is possible for everyone. This path will require from us intense reflection, and sometimes even rethinking, of many things in our personal and general church spiritual life; but only this, in my opinion, leads a person to God, to himself, to honesty before himself, gives a place in a person to the Holy Spirit. When He touches our heart, everything makes sense - we are already in the Kingdom of Christ; and without this, neither outward ecclesiasticism, nor protection, nor renewal, nor anything else is worth a damn. With the experience of this touch of the Spirit of Truth to man, I met on the pages of the diaries of Father Alexander; it is this experience that is their main content.

“Personally, I would cancel private confession altogether, except for the case when a person committed an obvious and specific sin and confesses it, and not his moods, doubts, despondency and temptations” (p. 35). Father Alexander repeatedly returns to this topic, he writes that it is difficult for him to confess and conduct private spiritual conversations with people. And I don't like to confess, perhaps because in the Russian Church confession is "tied" to Communion. For people who become churchgoers, this is not bad; But isn't our church life, our liturgical and penitential practice stuck at the level of churching? A conscious, free, mature Christian life is being replaced in our country by a permanent “kindergarten”… To separate confession from Communion, as is done in the American Church, to which Father Alexander belonged? This can be very useful - independence will be brought up, clericalism will decrease. In ancient times, they confessed extremely rarely, when they really committed sins ... but they often took communion. Now what are they confessing? I didn’t look like that, I didn’t think it, I can’t go to akathists regularly, I don’t have tearful repentance, my face is cold, I rarely feel the omnipresence of God, the recollection of bad songs, the lack of desire to provide hospitality to the homeless, I wore light clothes during fasting, a can of baptismal water on I’ve set the floor, I’m arguing with my husband, he’s an unbeliever, he doesn’t want to get married, he threw away last year’s dried willow, the children don’t obey me, the elder doesn’t want to go to Church, she was preparing for Communion, she’s a sinner in everything, there is no constant Jesus prayer (and there are no wings for back - maybe also repent of this?), but this, father, I don’t even know if it’s a sin or not a sin, judge for yourself ... You listen to all this (and these are examples from practice) and think: why are they needed, such confessions… only torturing the priest (imagine Maundy Thursday, a five-hour confession) and cement yourself in a completely wrong understanding of Christianity ...

There are also “bright confessions”, as their father calls them. Alexander - when a person really repents of his sins before God (and does not retell the brochure of St. Ignatius Brianchaninov) with an understanding of what he is doing. There are few such confessions, but they are a holiday for a priest. But it often happens that after confessing “lightly” several times, a person again slides into a tiresome “report on the work done” before Communion.

“I cannot get rid of the conviction that the Church (Orthodox, although not only she, of course) eaten"piety". All this chatter about monasticism, about icons, about spirituality - to what extent all this is petty, false, is a game of vanities ... We live in a world fakes"(S. 575). I'm just leafing through a thick, well-published book - "The Jesus Prayer: The Experience of Two Millennia." Volume two, the first is already out, and two more are expected. What's not in this book! And bad America, and the materialistic West, and memories (completely mundane) of Metropolitan Pitirim, and Danilevsky, and Dostoevsky, and Drang nach Osten, and the Russian people are the most spiritual, and hold on to tradition and resist renovationism, and terrible Peter I ... but, What does the Jesus Prayer have to do with it? It's the same as if I write a book on differential and integral calculus and in it I will talk at length about the bottom topography Atlantic Ocean, about the ratio political parties Great Britain in the 19th century, about the design features of the city of Singapore, about gardening, about the difference between winter and summer diesel fuel, etc. etc. (despite the fact that I, in fact, do not understand anything either in differential or in integral calculus). And why write multi-volume books about the Jesus Prayer? Hasn't enough been written about her? Wouldn't it be better to do it modestly? - Very accurately determined father Alexander. This forgeries And chatter. “Christianity “talking” is, in essence, a new chapter in its history. When people posed “problems”, they stopped rejoicing, thanking and praying” (p. 93).

“Only the one who gives thanks knows life” (p. 200). It is interesting from this point of view to see what our most common relationship with God is. First, it is “give”. We constantly ask God for this or that, spiritual or material. Give me health, well-being, success, give me salvation, give me prayer, don't give me that, protect me from this, etc. Secondly, "forgive." We are accustomed to constantly repent before God, even if at the moment we have nothing to repent of. We are afraid of this even more than when we really have something to repent of: why, we do not see our sins, which means we fall (or already fell) into delusion… and we begin to look for what we have sinned in the current moment and squeeze out of ourselves repentance in some kind of “all-sinfulness”. Read the evening prayers - the third, the last: often we repent of what we did not do and did not think at all. The fourth prayer for Communion is even often omitted from prayer books (or edited): it is written there that, by the way, is generally incompatible with Communion ... and we read all this and force ourselves to squeeze the appropriate feelings out of ourselves (this is called an “ascetic feat”). Let's compare the amount of repentance and requests and the amount of thanksgiving to God in our regular prayers - in the morning, Evening Rule, following Communion. The ratio is far from in favor of thanksgiving. Meanwhile, without thanksgiving, both our requests and our repentance become petty and tiresome. Love for God is obviously expressed in gratitude more than in requests. Modern church life does not teach us first of all to give thanks, to glorify God, to rejoice in Him, and then to annoy Him with petitions and repentances. Why? Don't know. Some emphasis has shifted. This shift could look like if we omitted in the Lord's Prayer:

May your name be hallowed,

Let your kingdom come

May Thy will be done, as in heaven, and on earth ...

About communion. “Reflections ... about a strange, mysterious repulsion from him in the Church (on Athos - “they do not partake”, in our Church - suspicion towards those who seek “frequent communion”). Mystically is the central question. The transformation of the sacrament into “sacred”, into a taboo and thus its paradoxical “naturalization” (as “terrible”, requiring “purifications”, etc.). deafness absolute you just- “take, eat ...”, simplicity and humility, which alone “correspond” to the absolute transcendence of the Eucharist” (p. 468).

And here is what one bishop says in an interview:

“In the N-Cathedral on Easter, the laity do not receive communion, only children. It is an ancient Russian tradition for the laity to abstain from communion in Easter night. Church people who strive for spiritual life know that it was possible to take communion throughout Great Lent, and on Easter the Orthodox break their fast. Those who seek to receive communion at Easter are, as a rule, people who do not have humility. They want to be higher in their spiritual life than they really are... It must be remembered that communion is possible not only for the healing of the soul and body, but also for judgment and condemnation. If the priest in his parish allows the laity to take communion on Pascha, then he does not sin in anything, for this the Liturgy is served. And those laity who decide to take communion on this holy day should take a blessing from their confessor.”

So, on Easter, Christians do not take communion, but break the fast. Those who seek to take communion at Easter are people who do not have humility. No comments.

“Signs of humility: joy. Pride excludes joy. Further: simplicity, that is, the absence of “return on oneself”. And, finally, trust - as the main attitude in life, in relation to all this (this is “purity of heart”, in which a person “sees God”). Signs of pride, respectively, are joylessness, complexity and fear ”(S. 365). The usual answer of our confessors to the question: Father, why is my Christian life “not sticking together”? - “but because there is no humility in you, there is a lot of pride” ... This widespread pastoral admonition, of course, is completely unconstructive. But in the interpretation of Father Alexander, it is absolutely true: there is no humility, therefore nothing works out. “Humility is not that bruised plus hypocrisy that it has become in the church “style”, it is a royal and royal virtue, for true humility comes precisely from wisdom, from knowledge, from touching “overabundant life” ”(S. 496). It is characteristic that Father Alexander in the concept of “pride” includes such a thing as stupidity. The essence of pride "is that, being stupidity - blindness, self-deception, baseness - it "cunningly" impersonates intelligence" (p. 549). “The essence of faith is in the healing of the mind, in freeing it from the stupidity that has conquered it” (p. 299). Holy Bible considers stupidity a sin (see the book of Proverbs of Solomon). Of course, what is meant here is not an insulting to a person indication of a lack of an intellectual level (after all, the Lord Himself gives people this or that measure of abilities), but something else - inadequacy, a moral inability to perceive things without lies, as they are, substitution of the main thing for a secondary one. . You often think: well, why do so many things “not work” in our personal, church, and public life? there are probably important and complex reasons for this ... And you'll see Just, and you think: yes, because they are often based on stupidity (in the biblical, I repeat, not at all in the “offensive” sense), and therefore pride; but God, as we know, opposes everything that is proud, and only gives grace to everything humble (cf. 1 Peter 5:5).

“Whoever loves the Church in its essence, necessarily suffers from the “church”” (p. 339). This is true. Many feel this, few dare to formulate the problem as clearly as Father Alexander did. Indeed, suffer, who - from what. Many treasures of the Church are hidden, there is no access to people. For example, the beautiful, deeply meaningful, highly poetic Easter triplets (because of which the Colored Triodion, in fact, is called the Triodion) are hardly read in the churches of our Church, and the people are often stuffed with mediocre akathists and semi-magical prayers. Or from the fact that, while claiming to participate in the life of society, the church community does not want to do anything to create and normalize the internal life of the parish. Or from the fact that within the Church people are atomized, disunited, have no support. “In the depths, Orthodoxy, it seems to me, has long been “protestantized”: each one “believes” in it in his own way, but all are united by “religion”, that is, by the temple and ritual” (p. 348). And, alas, there are many reasons for those who love the Church of Christ to suffer… But, on the other hand, there is no some abstract essence of the Church that one can partake of by rejecting the “church” and turning one’s back on it. Always, from the time of Christ, they are together - the Church and the “church”, and experience, tact and flair are needed in order to separate one from the other - for oneself, not at all for reformations and revolutions.

"I I love Orthodoxy and more and more convinced of its truth, and more and more Not I love Byzantium, Ancient Rus', Athos, that is, everything that for everyone is a synonym for Orthodoxy. I would die of boredom at the “Byzantine Congress”. Only to myself can I admit that my interest in Orthodoxy is inversely proportional to what interests me - and so passionately! - Orthodox” (p. 236–237). “I love Orthodoxy, I don’t love, I can’t love<…> nominalism, inertia, triumphalism, lust for power, deification of the past, pseudo-spirituality and womanish piety” (p. 248). From many people in confession, I heard that in the Church they became bored, uninteresting and empty. Moreover, it was not neophytes who said this at all, but people rooted in the Church, who have been trying for at least ten years to live “as it should be” ... What to answer them? Earlier, when I was younger, more self-confident and “schematic”, I said: well, you need to look into yourself, it may be passions, or a demonic temptation allowed for pride or disobedience ... but now I see that this is far from always the case. The human soul longs for Christ, and in the process of church life (very often, alas) He is replaced by rules, rituals, schemes, prohibitions, everyday life, and everything that Father Alexander writes about. On behalf of the Church, as it were, it is said: keep this, this and this, do this and that and that, think this way and that way, in no case think that way - and you will receive Christ. People do so hard, and they work hard! - but there is no result ... I remember that in Soviet times we were taught: "practice is the criterion of truth." And the Gospel says the same thing: a tree is known by its fruit (cf. Mt 7:17). And it turns out that such a church life cannot stand the test of practice: a person “observes” everything, but the soul languishes, there is no Christ in life, the Holy Spirit does not dwell in the hearts of Christians. For clerics, this situation turns the Church into work, for children brought up in church families - “to get out of this as soon as possible”, for the laity - into a dull inertia, an obligation, occasionally still sanctified by the Spirit barely breaking through all this bark ... By the way, one can say, that this is also a devilish temptation, but only not allowed to this or that particular Christian, because he is “bad”, but rightly comprehending us for our common pride (which, as we found out, is stupidity). “Sometimes it seems to me terribly obvious that everything in ‘religion’ that is not from Christ, not in Him, not through Him, and not to Him — everything is from the devil. According to the Gospel of John, the Holy Spirit, “when he comes, he will inform the world about sin…”. The sin is that they do not believe in Christ… Sin is “not translating” religion into the knowledge, love and life of Christ…” (p. 217). “Historical piety is, in fact, “narrowness and narrowness”. And it poisons “churchness” more than anything else… Everything in the world is “boring” until the ray of the Spirit, joy, and freedom touches it” (p. 360). This does not mean, of course, that rules, forms and traditions should be swept aside and destroyed. No, they must be animated by the Spirit of Christ; then, for everyone in their measure, they will be both useful and interesting.

Russians Orthodox people for the most part they are insensitive to freedom. Freedom for them is by no means one of the main Christian values. old style, for example, or the preservation of church-national external traditions is much more significant and more important than sometimes undesirable and even dangerous freedom. Why is that? Father Alexander replies: “Christianity grants freedom and requires from a man of freedom: freedom, first of all, from enslavement to oneself, freedom of sight, hearing, conversion of the mind and heart. For only in this freedom does “joy about ...”, admiration light up, only in it everything becomes transparent and restore the lost original sin integrity... ". Freedom “is not needed if the past is absolutized, requiring only protection, for which freedom is dangerous. It is not needed if the future is identified with the "end". Freedom is needed for doing, it is always in the present and about the present: what to do now, which road to choose at the crossroads. But if the soul and heart yearn for the past or for the "end", then freedom is definitely not needed" (p. 360, 480). Brilliantly said! But from here it is clear that this is how you can test yourself. Insensitive to freedom? but is your Christian work okay then?

Here are the main words of the book. “The beginning of a false religion is the inability to rejoice, or rather, the rejection of joy. Meanwhile, joy is so absolutely important because it is the undoubted fruit of the feeling of God's presence. You can't know that God There is and not rejoice. And only in relation to it - are correct, authentic, fruitful and the fear of God, and repentance, and humility. Outside of this joy - they easily become "demonic", a perversion at the depth of the most religious experience. Religion of fear. Religion of pseudo-humility. The religion of guilt: all these are temptations, all these are "delights". But how strong it is not only in the world, but also within the Church... And for some reason, joy is always under suspicion among “religious” people. First, foremost, the source of everything: "Let my soul rejoice in the Lord ...". Fear of sin does not save from sin. Joy in the Lord saves. Feelings of guilt, moralism do not "liberate" from the world and its temptations. Joy is the foundation of freedom in which we are called to “stand”” (p. 298–299). And then Father Alexander asks with pain: “Where, how, when did this “tonality” of Christianity become perverted, muddied, or, to put it better, where, how and why did Christians begin to “deaf” to it? How, when, and why, instead of releasing the tortured to freedom, did the Church begin to sadistically intimidate and frighten them? (Ibid.). I cannot answer this question. But it seems to me that the point here is freedom. Freedom in Christ is that new, which is one of the foundations of the New Testament; but our modern (and perhaps historical) church life does not know it. Freedom assumes that you are respected and requires responsibility; neither one nor the other is cultivated in our society or in the church environment. The root here is the lack of honesty before oneself and Christian (and simply elementary human) respect for oneself. Until we realize this, we will not begin to educate these things in ourselves, educate them pastorally, purposefully - we will not see either freedom or joy. And, consequently, Christianity.

Deacon MICHAEL PERSHIN

Anxiety about “Christianity”

Most often, the name of Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann is associated with the ideas of liturgical revival - renewal Orthodox tradition through contact with her historical roots, on the one hand, and to the height of her liturgical practice, on the other. Critics of Father Alexander see in this the danger of utopianism, supporters - an opportunity to return to modern Christianity the fullness of its grace-filled forces. But the long-term discussion around the legacy of Father Alexander itself shows that the pathos of his thought reached its goal: they began to take the problems he raised seriously.

I am afraid, however, that both critics and supporters of Father Alexander lose sight of one very important thing - the reason that prompted him to turn to the meaning and significance of the Sacraments of the Church. The published "Diaries" allow us to hear the voice of the rector of St. Vladimir's Seminary again - to hear not from the pulpit, but in those deeply personal intonations and experiences that clarify a lot in the origins of his theological position.

Here are some quotes:

S. 55: “People stopped believing not in God or gods, but in death, and, moreover, eternal death, in its not only possibility, but also inevitability, and therefore - and in the rescue. The "seriousness" of religion was primarily in the "seriousness" of the choice felt by man as self-evident: between death and salvation. They say it's good that the religion of fear has disappeared. As if it's only psychology, a whim, and not the main thing - the basic experience of life looking into death. Saints did not become saints out of fear, but in holiness they knew the fear of God. Cheap modern understanding religions as spiritual consumer goods, self-fulfillment [‘self-fulfillment’]… Removed the devil, then hell, then sin - and now there is nothing left but this consumer goods: either obvious fraud or vague humanism. However, there is much more fear, even religious fear, in the world than before, only this is not the fear of God at all.

Father Alexander's observations are analysis, diagnosis and prognosis. They are quite pessimistic. It is noteworthy that in key positions, Father Alexander, the most prominent Orthodox theologian, here coincides with the most prominent theologian of modern Protestantism. In the same years, Richard Niebuhr wrote bitterly that in American liberal Protestantism, “a certain God without wrath leads a man without sin into the Kingdom of God without judgment through Christ without a cross.”

However, according to Father Alexander, it is even sadder that such views can be found not only in the mass consciousness, but also among the educated clergy:

S. 309 : “Reading in an airplane “Les deux visages de la theologie de la secularization” [‘Two images of the theology of secularization’]. Surprisingly and frighteningly: these "theologians", in the vast majority of them - priests, Dominicans, doctors and professors of theology - talk about Christianity and the Church, never mentioning God. “Constantinian Church”, “post-Constantinian Church”... And behind all these smart, subtle and - within its own logic and perspective - correct reasoning, some terrible, irrational desire shines through - finish off Christianity, to dissolve it without a trace in “l’emacipation de l’humain” [‘emancipation of the human’]. As if nowhere and never is and cannot be vertical, one continuous horizontal ... I read and ask myself - where does this come from, where is the root of this real hatred for the Church, its history, its essence?

You can continue to comment on the “Diaries”, however, as it seems, the quotes already given are quite convincing in the fact that the initial motivation for all the work of Father Alexander was the realization of the crisis in which the Christian world found itself - an almost apocalyptic premonition that “salt has lost its strength” that pseudomorphosis occurs in front of everyone Christian tradition which the Christian world has overlooked, or, worse, simply refuses to notice. The patriarch and liturgist, the author of the "Diaries" cannot calmly write about how the words and concepts dearest to him are filled with a completely different meaning than the one that the Apostles and ascetics of the Church put into them. And it is precisely this substitution of Christianity by various ideologies - museum-monarchical, as in the case of individual representatives of the Russian Church Abroad (which is mentioned more than once in the Diaries), or pseudo-humanistic, as is the case with a number of Western Christian denominations - that was, in my opinion, with the anxiety that moved Father Alexander in books and speeches to seek and find the way of grace-filled communion with the God of the Resurrection.

The apocalyptic vision of the entire depth of the crisis was not for Father Alexander a reason for a dull search for enemies. He offered one thing - stop playing Christianity and start living it. And the first thing to start with, in his opinion, is to try to return the words to their original meanings. And then we will see a completely different reality of Christianity, very unexpected and really good. Some aspects of such a Christian otherness conveys, for example, the following observation of Father Alexander:

S. 496: ““Quiet and silent living” is the pinnacle of intelligence, wisdom, joy and, I would say (I don’t know how to put it better), “interesting”. Humility is not that bruised plus hypocrisy that it has become in the church “style”, it is a royal and royal virtue, for true humility comes precisely from wisdom, from knowledge, from touching “abundant life” ... I increasingly think that it is not scholars and unctuous books about "ascetic theology" are needed now by the world, and some humble, divine humor”».

M. ZHURINSKAYA

pp. 25–26.““Be like children” - this means “be open to eternity” ... The first murder of childhood is its transformation into youth. This is really a nightmarish phenomenon, and that is why the modern cowardly cult of youth is so nightmarish... Youth is a renunciation of childhood in the name of “adulthood” that has not yet come. Christ is revealed to us child And How adult carrying the gospel, accessible only to children. But He is not revealed to us as youth... A person becomes an adult when he loves childhood and children and ceases to listen with excitement to the quests, opinions and interests of youth. It used to be that the youth wanted to become adults that saved the world. And now she was told that she, just like youth, is the bearer of truth and salvation ... Young people, they say, are truthful, do not tolerate the hypocrisy of the adult world. Lie! She only believes in crackling lies, this is the most idolatrous age and, at the same time, the most hypocritical. Are young people looking for? Lies and myths. She is not looking for anything, she is full acute feeling oneself, and this feeling excludes seeking.

These words of Father Alexander sound surprisingly sharp, not only to the socio-political glorification of youth, but also to the dominant trend in work with youth in society. Here are some thoughts on this.

Young people are usually very unhappy and mentally dysfunctional. Fear of failure (not to become great or simply not to get a decent profession - it’s different for anyone), fear of loneliness, mysterious maturation processes, interest in which replaces the problem of growing up, the search (often at random) for landmarks of personality formation ... but you never know what else. Fear, as befits an immature being, is tried to be hidden behind a bravado that causes rejection by adults; this is followed by resentment at misunderstanding, etc. It is probably useful to pay attention to such a contradiction: I want to live like adults live (in a certain system of concepts, this means enjoying all rights), and at the same time guarding my golden childhood (that is, not having duties ). And it doesn’t happen like that: if you want to be a child, listen, if you want to be an adult, act reasonably and be responsible for your actions. A protest against the words that there is something higher than rights is an essentially infantile protest, even if gray-haired and partly bald citizens come forward with it (by the way, they are very fond of speaking on behalf of young people). It already seems risky to talk about duties that are logically inextricably linked with rights, and yet growing up is largely based on the awareness of one's duties (although, if we judge this way, then there are extremely few adults in general).

The loneliness of young people, their abandonment to themselves (with the inevitable formation of so-called “informal groups” that are not much different from a flock) is also a consequence of the collapse of a large patriarchal family, in which girls first imitate their mother (boys imitate their father), then help, and by the age of marriage they are already qualified housewives and hosts. Interestingly, in some Russian and Ukrainian dialects eldest daughter in the family is called nurse, which corresponds to its function, and even a she-bear keeps one of the cubs with her for a year to help her take care of the babies, and such a cub is quite humanly called pestun. Moreover, in the human society, in the classical case, upbringing, education, formation and maturation take place in the family or on the basis of the family.

Since it is not really possible to restore a large patriarchal family as not only widespread, but also typical - and neither appeals nor examples of individual large families will help here, one has to think about how to give this unfortunate youth some kind of support, although in order to soften the intensity of neurotic ambitions. There are numerous youth associations in which, despite the presence of a formal structure and leadership, in fact, sooner or later the same spirit of the “informal group” prevails; two or three leaders for two or three hundred “flocks” do not help anything. Church youth associations are diligently looking for forms of activity that would not blindly copy secular youth organizations, but would carry the seeds of spiritual life. Sometimes things work out, sometimes things don't...

As for the youth in the parish, it is quite possible that the orientation towards secular forms of “youth work” here can be simply harmful, because it creates the impression of intense activity, but not only rarely affects the spiritual essence of the growth of young people, but also creates division where there should be unity. Of course, a lot (if not all) here depends on the rector of the parish, on the confessor, and the complexity of counseling work is such that it cannot be unambiguously described even with a minimum degree of generalization; the less appropriate any recommendations in this area. Probably, the problem of the growth of the young should always be solved at the level of one soul in its relationship with God, and for a priest, “spiritual work” with young people is the same work as with old people.

But one general principle, perhaps, can be said. It seems that it would be more natural (more family-like, so to speak) not to single out “work with youth” in a special column and not to create special groups of young parishioners, but to include them in the general life of the parish. So, hiking and pilgrimage is a wonderful thing, but it would be nice to have (almost) as many adults as young people participate in them, because in this case the adults set the tone, and the young learn to grow up, which is required. The same can be said about concerts, evenings, discussions of literary works.

And I would like to say separately about parish charity, more precisely, about helping the elderly. Here I can argue more or less freely only because, due to age and ailment, I myself need help. It seems reasonable that the parish guardianship of the infirm should not be carried out by “Timurov” groups (if only because girls are most often inexperienced in the household and, even more difficult, in communicating with the elderly), but middle-aged women, to whom the girls are sent to help, who thereby gain experience, and this experience can be safely compared to family.

Drang nach Osten (German) ‘onslaught to the East’, the slogan of the German colonial expansion of the 2nd half. XIX - 1st ed. XX centuries - Red.

Note that if a person seeks to achieve freedom in Christ, then he acquires and love of Christ, - and then he no longer needs to fight against, for example, the old style or the Church Slavonic language, as because this struggle does not require integrity personality, and because someone these things are very expensive. - Red.

The book of diaries I read Alexander Schmemann as if I were drinking pure fresh water. As the book drew to a close, I regretted more and more that there was only one volume of diaries ... I was sorry when the book ended, I did not want to part with it. Diaries about. Alexandra is a bright atmosphere, direct questions, honest answers to them. It was a great joy for me to have many of my thoughts and intuitions confirmed, expressed clearly and precisely, and in addition, by a person whose church authority is very significant. The book can serve as a kind of answer for many people - how to live in the Church? Orthodox Christians often ask this question. Communities somehow do not add up, individual asceticism does not bring the expected results, conservatism and guarding, on the one hand, a certain impulse for renewal, on the other hand, they cease to captivate over time, often turning into a tedious form or “type of activity” without the life-giving content of Christ ... And here is an example for us - the life of Fr. Alexandra, captured in his diaries. There is no need to break the external established traditions, but you need to comprehend them, bring them to their source, that is, live by Christ, yourself, personally and responsibly, be His Church. To fill every minute of your life with a joyful experience of the Kingdom of Christ already given to us in the Church, to include in it both culture and modernity, and everything that a person comes into contact with - this is the path that is possible for everyone. This path will require from us intense reflection, and sometimes rethinking, of many things in our personal and general church spiritual life; but only this, in my opinion, leads a person to God, to himself, to honesty before himself, gives a place in a person to the Holy Spirit. When He touches our heart, everything makes sense - we are already in the Kingdom of Christ; and without this, neither outward ecclesiality, nor protection, nor renewal, nor anything else is worth a broken penny. With the experience of this touch of the Spirit of Truth to man, I met on the pages of the diaries of Fr. Alexandra; it is this experience that is their main content.

* * *

“Personally, I would abolish private confession altogether, except for the case when a person has committed an obvious and specific sin and confesses it, and not his moods, doubts, despondency and temptations” (p. 35). Father Alexander repeatedly returns to this topic, he writes that it is difficult for him to confess and conduct private spiritual conversations with people. And I don't like to confess, perhaps because in the Russian Church confession is "tied" to Communion. For people who become churchgoers, this is not bad; But isn't our church life stuck, our liturgical and penitential practice only at the level of churching? A conscious, free, mature Christian life is being replaced in our country by a permanent “kindergarten”… To separate confession from Communion, as is done in the American Church, to which Fr. Alexander? This can be very useful - independence will be brought up, clericalism will decrease. In ancient times, they confessed extremely rarely, when they really committed sins ... but they often took communion. Now what are they confessing? I didn’t look right, I didn’t think right, I farted during prayer, I can’t go to akathists regularly, I don’t have tearful repentance, my face is cold, I rarely feel the omnipresence of God, the recollection of bad songs, the lack of desire to provide hospitality to the homeless, I wore light clothes during fasting, I put a can of Epiphany water on the floor, I swear with my husband, he is an unbeliever, he doesn’t want to get married, I threw away last year’s dried willow, my children, father, don’t obey, the elder doesn’t want to go to Church, I was preparing for Communion, I’m a sinner in everything, no constant Jesus Prayer (and there are no wings behind your back, I wonder if I looked, maybe I can also repent of this), but this, father, I don’t even know if it’s a sin or not a sin, judge for yourself ... oh-oh-oh !!! you listen to all this (and all these are examples from practice) and think: why the hell are they needed, such confessions ... only to torment a priest (imagine some Maundy Thursday, a five-hour confession) and cement yourself in a completely wrong understanding of Christianity ...

There are also “bright confessions,” as Fr. Alexander - when a person really repents of his sins before God (and does not retell the brochure of St. Ignatius Brianchaninov), with an understanding of what he is doing. There are few such confessions, but they are a holiday for the priest. But it often happens that after confessing “lightly” several times, a person eventually slides down to a tiresome ritual “report on the work done” before Communion.

* * *

“I cannot get rid of the conviction that the Church (Orthodox, although not only she, of course) eaten"piety". All this chatter about monasticism, about icons, about spirituality - to what extent all this is petty, false, is a game of vanities ... We live in a world fakes» (p. 575). I'm just leafing through a thick, well-published book - "The Jesus Prayer: The Experience of Two Millennia." Volume two, the first is already out, and two more are expected. What's not in this book! And bad America, and the materialistic West, and memories (completely everyday) of Metropolitan Pitirim, and Danilevsky, and Dostoevsky, and Drang nach Osten, and the most spiritual Russian people, and holding on to tradition and resisting renovationism, and the terrible Peter I ... but, What does the Jesus Prayer have to do with it? It's the same as if I write a book on differential and integral calculus, and in it I will talk at length about the topography of the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, about the correlation of political parties in Great Britain in the 19th century, about the design features of the city of Singapore, about gardening, about the difference between winter and summer diesel fuel etc. etc. (despite the fact that I, in fact, do not understand anything in either differential or integral calculus). And why write multi-volume books about the Jesus Prayer? Hasn't enough been written about her? Wouldn't it be better to do it modestly? - Very accurately identified Fr. Alexander. This forgeries And chatter. “Christianity “talking” is, in essence, a new chapter in its history. When people posed “problems,” they stopped rejoicing, giving thanks, and praying” (p. 93).

* * *

“Only he who gives thanks knows life” (p. 200). It is interesting from this point of view to see what our most common relationship with God is. First, it is "give". We constantly ask God for this or that, spiritual or material. Give me health, well-being, success, give me salvation, give me prayer, don't give me that, protect me from this, etc. Secondly, "forgive." We are accustomed to constantly repent before God, even if at the moment we have nothing to repent of. We are afraid of this even more than when we really have something to repent of: why, we do not see our sins, which means we fall (or already fell) into delusion… and we begin to look for what we have sinned in the current moment and squeeze out of ourselves repentance in some kind of “all-sinfulness”. Read the evening prayers - the third, the last: often we repent of what we did not do and did not think at all. The fourth prayer for Communion is even often omitted from prayer books (or edited): it is written there that, by the way, is not compatible with Communion at all ... and we read all this and force ourselves to squeeze out the appropriate feelings (this is called "ascetic feat") . Let's compare the amount of repentance and requests and the amount of thanksgiving to God in our regular prayers - morning, evening and the Rule for Communion. The ratio is far from in favor of thanksgiving. Meanwhile, without thanksgiving, both our requests and our repentance become petty and tiresome. Love for God is obviously expressed in gratitude more than in requests. Modern church life (and modern church teachers) do not teach us, first of all, to give thanks, praise God, rejoice in Him, and then bother Him with petitions and repentances. Why? Don't know. Some emphasis has shifted. This offset might look like this:

— Our Father, Who art in heaven!

Give us our daily bread today,

And leave us our debts ...,

And lead us not into temptation,

But deliver us from the evil one. Amen.

- Oh, yes, exactly, exactly, there is still there, thanks for reminding me:

May your name be hallowed,

May your kingdom come

May Thy will be done, as in heaven, and on earth ...

* * *

About communion. “Reflections ... about the strange, mysterious repulsion from him in the Church (on Athos - “they do not partake”, in our Church there is suspicion of those who seek “frequent communion”. Mystically, this is a central issue. The transformation of communion into “sacred”, into a taboo and thus, its paradoxical “naturalization” (as “terrible”, requiring “purifications”, etc.). deafness absolute you just– “take, eat…”, simplicity and humility, which alone “correspond” to the absolute transcendence of the Eucharist” (p. 468).

And here is the opinion of one bishop on this matter. I will allow myself to quote it because this is not a secret statement, but a public interview given to one of the media:

Today - Clean Thursday, the day on which all Orthodox traditionally partake of the Holy Mysteries of Christ. It was on the Thursday before His suffering on the Cross that Christ made last supper and commanded his disciples to do it in remembrance of him. Communion on Maundy Thursday is always massive, but on Easter, far from all churches receive communion. Readers turned to our editorial office with a request to explain ... why in some parishes, in particular inN-sky Cathedral, on Easter, the laity do not receive communion. With this question, we turned to the archbishopN-skyNN. Here is what he replied.

"INN-sky Cathedral on Easter, the laity do not receive communion, only children. It is an ancient Russian tradition for the laity to abstain from communion on Easter night. Church people who strive for spiritual life know that it was possible to take communion throughout Great Lent, and on Easter the Orthodox break their fast. Those who seek to receive communion at Easter are, as a rule, people who do not have humility. They want to be higher in their spiritual life than they really are... It must be remembered that communion is possible not only for the healing of the soul and body, but also for judgment and condemnation. If the priest in his parish allows the laity to take communion on Pascha, then he does not sin in anything, for this the Liturgy is performed. And those laity who decide to take communion on this holy day should take a blessing from their confessor.”

So, on Easter, Christians do not take communion, but break the fast. Those who seek to receive communion at Easter are people who do not have humility. As they say - no comment.

* * *

“Signs of humility: joy. Pride excludes joy. Further: simplicity, that is, the absence of "return on oneself." And, finally, trust - as the main attitude in life, in relation to all this (this is “purity of heart”, in which a person “sees God”). Signs of pride, respectively, are joylessness, complexity and fear” (p. 365). The usual answer of our spiritual fathers to the question: Father, why is the Christian life “not sticking” for me? – “But because there is no humility in you, there is a lot of pride”… In the context of “you are a fool yourself”, this widespread pastoral admonition, of course, is completely unconstructive. But in the interpretation of Fr. Alexandra - absolutely right: there is no humility, so nothing works out. “Humility is not that bruised plus hypocrisy that it became in the church “style”, it is a royal and royal virtue, for true humility comes precisely from wisdom, from knowledge, from touching “overabundant life” (p. 496). It is characteristic that Fr. Alexander in the concept of "pride" includes such a thing as stupidity. The essence of pride "is that, being stupidity - blindness, self-deception, baseness - it "cunningly" impersonates intelligence" (p. 549). “The essence of faith is in the healing of the mind, in its liberation from the stupidity that has conquered it” (p. 299). Holy Scripture considers stupidity a sin (see the book of Proverbs of Solomon). Of course, what is meant here is not an insulting to a person indication of a lack of an intellectual level (after all, the Lord Himself gives people this or that measure of abilities), but something else - inadequacy, a moral inability to perceive things without lies, as they are, the substitution of the main by the secondary . You often think: well, why do so many things “not work” in our personal, church, and public life? there are probably important and complex reasons for this ... And you'll see Just, and you think: yes, because they are often based on stupidity (in the biblical, I repeat, not at all in the “offensive” sense), and therefore pride; but God, as we know, opposes everything that is proud, and only gives grace to everything humble (cf. 1 Peter 5:5).

* * *

“Whoever loves the Church in its essence is bound to suffer from the “church”” (p. 339). This is true. Many feel this, few dare to formulate the problem as clearly as Fr. Alexander. Indeed, suffer, who - from what. For example, from the lack of meaning. "Let's execute morning prayer our Lord's" in the evening, and, for example, Great Lent, and "evening" - in the morning ... well, stupidity? however, most "resign" to this, and do not even notice the stupidity. Or from the fact that many treasures of the Church are hidden, people do not have access to them. For example, beautiful, deeply meaningful, highly poetic Easter triplets (because of which the Colored Triodion, in fact, is called the Triodion) are not read none temple of our Church (well, or almost none), and the people are stuffed with mediocre akathists and semi-magical prayers. Or because, while stating many claims to participate in the life of society, the church community does not want to do anything to create and normalize the internal life of the parish. Or from the fact that within the Church people are atomized, disunited, have no support. “In the depths, Orthodoxy, it seems to me, has long been “protestantized”: each one “believes” in it in his own way, but all are united by “religion”, that is, by the temple and the rite” (p. 348). And, alas, there are many reasons for those who love the Church of Christ to suffer... But, on the other hand, there is no some abstract essence of the Church, to which one can partake, rejecting the "church", turning one's back on it. Always, since the time of Christ, they are together - the Church and the "church", and experience, tact and instinct are needed in order to separate one from the other - for oneself, not at all for reformations and revolutions.

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"I I love Orthodoxy and more and more convinced of its truth, and more and more Not I love Byzantium, Ancient Rus', Athos, that is, everything that for everyone is a synonym for Orthodoxy. I would die of boredom at the "Byzantine Congress". Only to myself I can admit that my interest in Orthodoxy is inversely proportional to what interests me - and so passionately! – Orthodox” (pp. 236 – 237). “I love Orthodoxy, I don’t love, I can’t love the Orthodox Church, the nominalism, inertia, triumphalism, lust for power, deification of the past, pseudo-spirituality and womanish piety triumphing in them” (p. 248). From many people in confession, I heard that in the Church they became bored, uninteresting and empty. Moreover, it was not neophytes who said this at all, but people rooted in the Church, who have been trying for at least ten years to live “as it should be” ... What to answer them? Earlier, when I was younger, more self-confident and “schematic”, I said: well, you need to look into yourself, it may be passions, or a demonic temptation allowed for pride or disobedience ... but now I see that this is far from always the case. The human soul longs for Christ, and in the process of church life (very often, alas) He is replaced by rules, rituals, schemes, prohibitions, everyday life, and everything that Fr. Alexander. On behalf of the Church, as it were, it says: keep this, this and this, do this and that and that, think this way and that way, in no case think that way - and you will receive Christ. People do so hard, and they work hard! - but there is no result ... I remember that in Soviet times we were taught: "practice is the criterion of truth." And the Gospel says the same thing: a tree is known by its fruit (cf. Matt. 7:17). And it turns out that such a church life cannot stand the test of practice: a person “observes” everything, but the soul languishes, there is no Christ in life, the Holy Spirit does not dwell in the hearts of Christians. For clerics, this situation turns the Church into work, for children brought up in church families – “to get out of this as soon as possible”, for the laity – into a dull inertia, a duty, occasionally still sanctified by the Spirit barely breaking through all this bark ... By the way, one can say, that this is also a devilish temptation, but not allowed to this or that particular Christian, because he is “bad”, but rightly comprehending us for our common pride (which, as we found out, is stupidity). “Sometimes it seems to me terribly obvious that everything in “religion” that is not from Christ, not in Him, not through Him and not to Him, is all from the devil. According to the Gospel of John, the Holy Spirit, "when he comes, he will inform the world about sin ...". The sin is that they do not believe in Christ… The sin is “not to transform” religion into the knowledge, love and life of Christ…” (p. 217). “Historical piety is, in fact, “narrowness and tightness.” And it poisons “churchness” more than anything else… Everything in the world is “boring” until the ray of Spirit, joy, freedom touches it” (p. 360). This does not mean, of course, that rules, forms and traditions should be swept aside and destroyed. No, they must be animated by the Spirit of Christ; then, for everyone in their measure, they will be both useful and interesting.

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Russian Orthodox people, for the most part, are insensitive to freedom. Freedom for them is by no means one of the main Christian values. The old style, for example, or the preservation of church-national external traditions is much more significant and more important than sometimes undesirable and even dangerous freedom. Why is that? Father Alexander answers: “Christianity grants freedom and requires from a man of freedom: freedom, first of all, from enslavement to oneself, freedom of sight, hearing, conversion of the mind and heart. For only in this freedom does “joy about ...”, admiration light up, only in it everything becomes transparent and restored lost in original sin integrity... "Freedom" is not needed if the past is absolutized, requiring only protection, for which freedom is dangerous. It is not needed if the future is identified with the "end". Freedom is needed for doing, it is always in the present and about the present: what to do now, which road to choose at the crossroads. But if the soul and heart yearn for the past or for the "end", then freedom is definitely not needed" (pp. 360, 480). Brilliantly said! But from here it is clear that this is how you can test yourself. Insensitive to freedom? but is your Christian work in order then?

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Here are the main words of the book. “The beginning of a false religion is the inability to rejoice, or rather, the refusal of joy. Meanwhile, joy is so absolutely important because it is the undoubted fruit of the feeling of God's presence. You can't know that God There is and not rejoice. And only in relation to it - are correct, authentic, fruitful and the fear of God, and repentance, and humility. Outside of this joy, they easily become "demonic", a perversion at the depth of the most religious experience. Religion of fear. Religion of pseudo-humility. The religion of guilt: all these are temptations, all these are "charm." But how strong it is not only in the world, but also within the Church… And for some reason, joy is always under suspicion among “religious” people. First, foremost, the source of everything: "Let my soul rejoice in the Lord ...". Fear of sin does not save from sin. Joy in the Lord saves. Feelings of guilt, moralism do not "liberate" from the world and its temptations. Joy is the foundation of freedom in which we are called to "stand" (pp. 298-299). And further on. Alexander asks with pain: “Where, how, when did this “tonality” of Christianity get distorted, or, to put it better, where, how and why did Christians begin to “deaf” to it? How, when, and why, instead of releasing the tortured to freedom, did the Church begin to sadistically intimidate and frighten them? (ibid.). I cannot answer this question. But it seems to me that the point here is freedom. Freedom in Christ is that new, which is one of the foundations of the New Testament; but our modern (and, perhaps, wider - and historical) church life does not know it. Freedom assumes that you are respected and requires responsibility; neither one nor the other is cultivated in our society, or in the church environment. The root here is the lack of honesty towards oneself and Christian (and simply elementary human) respect for oneself. Until we realize this, we will not begin to educate these things in ourselves, to educate them pastorally, purposefully - we will not see either freedom or joy. And, consequently, Christianity.