Epel T. A

Traditions and holidays

Traditions are usually associated with holidays. Before the revolution, they were tied to the church year, and this was beautifully described by I. Shmelev in the book “Summer of the Lord”, which became an anthology of Christian life for us, those who came to the Church after a long Soviet “pause” of unbelief.

We have tried our best to imitate the family structure that has developed over the centuries in tsarist Russia but often without success. Why? Because times have changed a lot. And if in Soviet time holidays were still tied to church holidays - the same New Year - to Christmas, March 8 - to Maslenitsa, May 1 - to Easter - then the post-Soviet time began to gravitate towards Western European values. It suddenly turned out that young people are celebrating Halloween and Valentine's Day with pleasure, about which there was neither a rumor nor a spirit before. Note that these holidays are in no way tied to Russian, traditional holidays. However, there was obviously an internal need to consolidate them, since they took root in our land.

Traditions and internal needs of the family

And yet, the creation of intra-family traditions depends only on the family itself: on its capabilities, on its orientation. The people of believers are inevitably fixed church traditions. For example, we always bake our own Easter cakes and paint eggs ourselves for Easter, despite the fact that many mothers of my age remark with surprise: “Why? You can still buy it in the supermarket, and quite inexpensively!”

To understand that these very actions and efforts to prepare your own special meal are a family tradition, you must try to accomplish this small feat yourself, at least once in your life! Here, my relatives have no questions about the appropriateness of such actions - and precisely because from year to year for more than ten years we have been preparing for the main Holiday of the year. And if Christmas traditionally still remains a universal holiday, according to its traditions - world-wide, then Easter and name days are already a purely our, Orthodox tradition. That is why it is interesting in the context of this article.

Church traditions as an established value

By the way, it is church holidays that bring into the life of a believing family many beautiful traditions fixed for centuries: birch twigs for the Trinity and fluffy willow for the Week of Vay, a Christmas tree and Easter cakes, birthday cakes and apples for Spas. But what a beautiful women's tradition - to wear blue headscarves for the Mother of God holidays, green - for the Trinity, etc.

All this came or passed on from those very prosperous times when family traditions fit perfectly into national politics. It was good for our ancestors to fast, when the markets all switched to the sale of lean products, meat was not served in taverns, even theaters stopped their work. By the way, my friend, who visited Greece during Lent, said that she could not visit the theater in Athens under the open sky, because the performances began only after Easter.

Family tradition strengthens the “cell of society”

I note that even such simple traditions did not appear as a result of the desire to consolidate them in our family, but arose naturally, based on the needs of our particular family, from its Everyday life, from the repetition of the annual cycle. It is all the more important for everyone to understand that only traditions, only repeated common actions can strengthen a family, connect everyone with each other by common interests and common values.

The Russian family has never been distinguished by individualism, like the Western one. It has always been strange for us to see people who lived in a family, each on his own, each with his own, separate and independent life. Our family has never been a free meeting of individuals contemplating each other at a distance, on the contrary, it is a joint common being, albeit forced in some way and not always easily tolerated, but living according to common laws.

The family is a reliable rear, this is what will always support, endure, calm and help in difficult times. That is why in a moment of joy - this is a common and inexpressibly multiplied by the number of participants, the joint joy of communication. Family tradition not only strengthens the family, it gives it the necessary impetus to live on, to love each other in sorrow and joy. Children, of course, do not make such vows to their parents, but relationships of mutual assistance are consolidated in joint actions and also become a good tradition.

We are the creators of modern traditions

I will only repeat once again: planting traditions from the outside is a completely useless exercise. Only those of them that are backed up by internal necessity take root, and therefore each family now has to develop its traditions - personally. Only with time can such traditions acquire a nationwide scale, as was the case with pre-revolutionary church traditions or with the tradition of celebrating Women's Day, about which so many copies were broken by church people, but which still remained the only women's holiday of such a general scale.

Now there are practically no such national traditions left. What is celebrated - by inertia and without the former scope. This speaks of the crisis of the state, but also of the crisis of the family as a whole. We must not allow our family to become an accidental place of residence for individuals. This state of affairs will gradually but steadily destroy our society from within.

Take all the best from the past experience of the Russian family and rework it in relation to specific modern conditions- this is the task that every family faces if it wants to remain friendly and strong.

So, it turns out that today we are the creators of new good family traditions. It is both pleasant and responsible at the same time. It turns out that it depends on us what the family of our child will celebrate later - Halloween or Easter.

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A year ago, the topic "Orthodox Traditions of the Russian Family" would have seemed new to me to a certain extent. Of course, every clergyman, especially every bishop who has a certain experience in church activities, has ideas about the problems of the family that have been formed in practice. But not everyone can talk about them competently, professionally. I'm not trying to sound like a professional, but I'll just say that in the past year this topic has become especially close to me.

This is due to the fact that last autumn in the ancient Russian city of Galich and in the very regional center - the city of Kostroma, with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia, the Synodal Department for Youth Affairs implemented a large-scale project - the II All-Russian Film Festival of Short Films "Family Russia". AT competitive program The festival was attended by more than 200 short films presented by authors from 48 cities in 28 regions of Russia and neighboring countries. Both in the process of preparation and, of course, at the festival itself, lively discussions were held, various ideas about the place were expressed Orthodox family in the modern world, ways and prospects for the formation of Orthodox family values ​​among the younger generation were discussed. I also had to take part in many discussions. With great attention, the participants of the festival got acquainted with wonderful, and in some cases, highly artistic films designed to affirm traditional Orthodox family values ​​in society - the joy of fatherhood and motherhood, the moral beauty of a pious marriage and the ideal of a strong large family.

By the grace of God, I have been serving in holy orders for more than twenty years. Over the years, I had to see many families - happy and unhappy, pious and not very, strong and broken. Probably, many will agree with me that at present it is very rare to see an ideal Orthodox family, where relations between spouses and children are not overshadowed by anything. Just as true personal holiness is a precious and rare divine gift, so is the perfection of family relationships also a gift of God. And just as personal holiness is achieved through unceasing spiritual achievement, so family virtue comes to spouses over time and by virtue of their spiritual labors.

The secret of Christian marriage is simple. Christian marriage is based on love. The ever-memorable wonderful Moscow pastor, Archpriest Gleb Kaleda, did not accidentally call Christian family true "school of love". But what kind of love are we talking about here?

The family is a certain fundamental sign of a person, the same as reason and religiosity. Saint Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow said: "God, having created the first people, entrusted them and their descendants with the further creation of people into the world, entrusted, as it were, the continuation of His creative action. What a great gift!" This gift, according to the saint, is associated with the gift of natural mutual love, which both parents and children naturally have: “Do father and mother need a feat in order to love their child? everything is done by nature, without feat and almost without the knowledge of man: where is the dignity of virtue? special occasions when it is exalted by the self-sacrifice and self-sacrifice associated with it. And yet the great teacher of the Russian Church believes that "natural" love alone is not enough for life in a family. "A sensitive and loving heart must be elevated from natural to spiritual love, so that, plunging into family ties, it does not get completely bogged down in one natural love. Therefore, assuming the source of goodness in God and His blessing that we have or receive, and the hope of goodness, whom we desire, we must exalt and illuminate the works of nature with the spirit of grace.

We all know the works of world literature about "first love". Of course, first love is a strong feeling. The lover experiences this state for the first time as the most extraordinary event in his (still so short) life. But, alas, we adults know well: the feeling of first falling in love does not last for life. And, if, obeying mutual attraction, the young man and the girl decided to tie their fates in marriage, then some other, much deeper relationship should come to replace him than the romantic feelings of the first days. If this does not happen, the laws of fallen human nature take their toll. "Do not love the world, nor what is in the world... And the world passes away and its lust, but he who does the will of God abides forever." (1 John 2:17). A marriage based solely on earthly feelings is easily destroyed over time.

There is also a downside to such love: a burning despair that overwhelms the soul if the object of love does not reciprocate. Let us recall that after the publication of Goethe's infamous novel The Sorrows of Young Werther, a wave of suicides shook Europe.

Here you can also recall that dark love that "... jumped out in front of us, like a murderer jumping out of the ground in an alley, and hit us both, like lightning strikes, like a Finnish knife strikes!", but reasoning on the topic " Masters and Margaritas" recent times got pissed off.

But let's now turn to the lives of the saints Orthodox Church. Many are well acquainted with the life of St. Alexis, a man of God. Even in his youth, the ascetic, who lived in Rome, left his parents' house, having escaped from the beautiful bride, and some time later, he returned and lived in the guise of a beggar at the threshold of his own house, in front of his parents who yearned for him, but did not recognize him.

A modern psychologist might interpret Alexei's flight as a typical emancipatory reaction to a parenting style defined as "conniving hyperprotection." And imagine what life would look like in the retelling of the popular journalists of "Moskovsky Komsomolets": What an outrageous case! What a scandal! What heartlessness of religious fanaticism towards parents and bride! Here, they say, dark side Orthodoxy, an Eastern contemplative religion, indifferent to the values ​​of civilization.

Meanwhile, in Russian Orthodox families, the life of St. Alexis was perhaps the most favorite reading, which was listened to by both adults and children. Why? After all, the author of the biography openly preaches the ascetic path, and even in the radical form of foolishness for Christ's sake. But Saint Alexis was loved and revered in large and friendly Orthodox families for a very simple reason: the members of these families felt well that their family was united and held together by the same “spirit of grace” that the ancient ascetic, who left his parental home and the young bride, carried in his heart. . This fertile spirit makes a marriage strong and indestructible. The Christian family becomes a receptacle for divine love, it accumulates this love, spreads the fragrance of the atmosphere of love around itself, attracting other families to itself. Recall that St. Seraphim of Sarov said: "Acquire a peaceful spirit and thousands of people around you will be saved." It would be fair to supplement the thought of the great saint: "Acquire the spirit of peace in your family and thousands of families will be saved next to yours."

First of all, the family becomes a source of love for children. The atmosphere of the family strongly influences the formation of the spiritual image of the child, determines the development of children's feelings, children's thinking. This general atmosphere can be called "the worldview of the family." Children who have grown up in an atmosphere of love carry it in themselves further, creating their families, filling the earth with this love. Love is the only creative force. So, the family is created as a source of love and creative power for all mankind. No love - and any methodology educational process doomed to fail.

The state is rightly accused of insufficient attention to the problems of motherhood and childhood. Despite the recent increase, the mother's allowance remains meager. As conscious citizens of society, we can only welcome the introduction of birth certificates, as well as the initiatives of local authorities aimed at supporting the birth rate in the regions. In this regard, I cannot fail to mention with the warmest feeling the program approved by the Governor of the Belgorod Region, Yevgeny Savchenko. You can and should invest in social sphere. But money alone will not solve the problem. Love will not come from money. Money can relieve social tension, make life easier, but happy family impossible to create. I think that each of you is familiar with Orthodox families raising two, three, and sometimes four children in the extremely cramped conditions of Moscow. one-room apartment. And there are countless examples of tragic family conflicts in the elite Ruble mansions. Such a quality as the willingness to sacrifice oneself daily for the sake of happiness loved one, is not adopted in the process of getting to know the basics of family psychology, but comes as a gift of God's grace. "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself for her to sanctify her..." (Eph.: 25).

Most of the films presented at the aforementioned "Family of Russia" film festival tell about real strong Orthodox families in which a genuine spirit of love reigns. There are more and more families like this. But in general, the institution of marriage and family is going through an acute crisis. It is a mistake to believe that this crisis began with perestroika. The Russian family was destroyed by communist ideology. Recall that the classics of Marxism believed that the family, based on private property, the right to inherit and the home education of children, should be abolished by the victorious proletariat. You can read about this in the "Communist Manifesto" by Marx and Engels;

In the first years of Soviet power, they tried to take away the opportunity to raise children from parents (primarily from the father). Leon Trotsky perceived the family as the main obstacle in the cause of the revolution. It was he (for sure, not without the approval of Lenin) in 1918 who became the author of the revolutionary decree on the "socialization of women." By "socialization" the Bolsheviks understood the rape of schoolgirls and schoolgirls by revolutionary sailors and Red Army soldiers, as well as in the cellars of the Cheka. This cynical decree quickly penetrated the very thickness of Soviet life. Of course, the mass rape of women ended in unnecessary pregnancies. Therefore, instructions and rules for abortion were urgently developed so that traces could be quickly covered. Soviet Russia became the first country to the globe, which legitimized mass kill their unborn citizens. Abortions became the norm of Soviet life. Oddly enough, our country uses these revolutionary abortion instructions to this day. To this day, the number of abortions in our country remains unheard of in any civilized country.

In the view of the classics of Soviet political education (such as A. Kollontai and A. Lunacharsky), a man and a woman in a family should be, first of all, bound by bonds of love and camaraderie, as well as a consciousness of collective responsibility. The educational function of the family was delegated to society. The family, as an independent agent of raising children, could not fit into a totalitarian system. All politics Soviet power was aimed at reducing the educational role of the father to zero, and shifting all responsibility for education to society. But society could not cope with the task, and gradually, as modern psychologists convincingly show (for example, V.N. Druzhinin), the entire burden of responsibility for the family and children fell on the shoulders of the mother. The ease of the divorce procedure placed on the woman additional responsibilities of upbringing. The role of women has increased even more due to mass death men during the period of mass repressions and the Great Patriotic War. In the Resolutions of the CEC and the Council of People's Commissars, in fine arts, in cinema and architecture, in mass propaganda campaigns, the role of women was exalted in every possible way. 0 men were silent.

All this led to the deformation of the entire system of family relations. After all, the Orthodox teaching about the family is quite definite: “The dominance of a husband over his wife is natural. older than wife by creation. He appears as something fundamental, and the wife as something following ... But as soon as the wife seeks and really achieves superiority over her husband, she will immediately bring confusion into own life and to the whole house.", - wrote at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, a prominent specialist in the field of Orthodox family psychology, Archpriest Evgeny Popov.

In the 60s and 70s the crisis Soviet family received a further extension. The fact is that during this period there was a strengthening of the economic and ideological independence of the family from the totalitarian state, the socio-political role of men increased. Curious studies were carried out by the St. Petersburg psychologist V. Semenov. He reviewed art publications in the most popular magazine of those years, Youth, from 1955 to 1984. In total, 123 novels and short stories with 236 conflict situations were analyzed. The number of unresolvable family conflicts increased from the 50s and 60s to the 70s and 80s by 6 (!) times. There is clear evidence of the disintegration of the family and the disintegration of marital relations.

Over the past decade and a half, in Russian society, already free from totalitarian ideology, the institution of family and marriage has changed continuously and so rapidly that it is sometimes quite difficult to catch the trends of these changes. The very concepts of "marriage" and "family" only at first glance seem familiar and understandable to us. In fact, in the representation of various social groups and, in particular, in the ideas of modern youth, they have a meaning that we often do not even guess.

Terrifying statistics are known concerning the decline in the birth rate, the increase in the number of divorces and officially registered marriages, the growth of out-of-wedlock births, the growth in the number of single-parent and so-called problem families, and the increase in crimes on family and domestic grounds.

Here is an observation describing one of the conflicting trends: Today, the traditional family model and officially registered marriage are being replaced by new forms of marriage: trial marriage, marriage not for life. Family structure has changed everywhere. One of the main distinguishing features of marriage and family relations in recent decades the so-called nuclearization of the family. (from lat. nucleos - core). Unlike the patriarchal family, where cohabitation of three or four generations was considered the norm, today such a norm has become a nuclear family, consisting of one nucleus: parents and children. On the one hand, the nuclear family suggests a simpler relationship structure. But, on the other hand, in such a family, the everyday and psychological burden that falls on the spouses increases sharply: numerous responsibilities for housekeeping, raising children, organizing leisure activities, etc. are carried out only by husband and wife, which entails their interdependence and connectedness. And as a psychological consequence - an increase in the personal responsibility of each family member, a variety of family roles performed, often not traditional for men and women. What happens next? A man, as you know, is not very eager to share household responsibilities with a woman. So, for example, men show relatively weak activity in a very laborious occupation - the upbringing of their children. They are even less willing to join in domestic work. Thus, the load in women increases over the years, and in men it decreases. The larger the gap in workload between husband and wife becomes, the less satisfied the spouses are with their marriage. The unwillingness of a man to take on part of everyday worries leads to the formation conflict situation, to an increase in women's dissatisfaction with their marriage. The family is heading towards divorce.

His Holiness Patriarch Alexy repeatedly pointed out that "... the church parish should become the center of all educational work. Boys and girls should be given the opportunity for interesting and useful activities, social service at the temple." Years have shown that in those parishes where rectors offer a meaningful program of extra-liturgical activities; and also where intense spiritual life takes place, that is, near monasteries, Orthodox communities are formed, including dozens of strong young families.

One of the most successful examples here was the St. Petersburg Orthodox youth club "The Seagull", created in 1996 and uniting young people, parishioners of the church of the St. John's Monastery on the Petrograd side. "We have come together for the sake of mutual assistance, communication, organizing joint leisure, serving the Church and our neighbors. We are mainly young people from 17 to 30 years old. We are grateful to God for giving us the opportunity to get together, make friends and find spiritual unity in life together in Christ. Striving for unity and mutual understanding is one of our goals. We would like to convey a piece of our joint joy to all of you," they say about themselves in "The Seagull".

It is unthinkable to talk about the revival of the Orthodox family without preparing young people for marriage. The latter should consist in cultivating all those virtues without which it is difficult to imagine a prosperous family: mutual understanding, goodwill, attentiveness, participation, readiness to help, and, if necessary, to sacrifice oneself. In order for young people to be able to harmoniously build their relationships in a future marriage, they need to know the features of the psychology of communication, interpersonal relationships in a modern family. Young people need to be patiently and intelligibly told about all this.

All these personal qualities formed during school years. And, above all, as early as possible, it is necessary to instill in young people ideas about the value of the family as such. Along with school system preparation of youth for marriage, it is necessary to continue the work begun educational work and with student youth within the framework of university courses: "Psychology of family and marriage", " Social Psychology"," The family in psychological counseling ". And in parallel with this, the values ​​of the family and marriage should be promoted by means of mass media.

It is very difficult to replace the gaps in family upbringing of children with school upbringing and upbringing in a church parish outside of school time. In parish life, we encountered the following phenomenon: it is easier to raise a family as a whole than individual offspring. In the activities of the Synodal Department for Youth Affairs, for many years they have successfully proven themselves summer camps family type. These camps are held by the Brotherhood of Orthodox Pathfinders during the school holidays. Children and parents are invited to participate. Here both children and their mothers and fathers are churched and brought up in Christian virtues.

A nation that has no concept of family has no future. It is simply doomed to extinction. The culture of entertainment and the consumerist worldview imposed by the media are doing their job. Those substances that made it firm and courageous, capable of sacrificial deeds, are washed away from the character of a nation.

Children and youth need protection not so much from acts of terrorism, but from aggressive preaching of immorality and a lifestyle that is destructive to soul and body. A stereotype is imposed: to live means to enjoy, "Take everything from life." The Orthodox Church resolutely declares its strong disagreement with the image young man living by the standards imposed by modern pop culture. There is no sadder sight for the Christian heart than the spiritual cloning of young people with the same expression in their eyes, drinking the same Coca-Cola, dancing to the same musical rhythms, speaking the same and feeling the same.

Unfortunately, we have already lost many children and teenagers! Today's task is not to lose the new generation for the country. And, therefore, they need to instill high ideals from childhood, including family life. His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia said at the All-Church Congress of Orthodox Youth in May 2001: “The time has come to unite the efforts of those who feel acute anxiety for the rising generation. we'll lose the country."

http://www.pravmir.ru/article_1110.html

Modern society is divided into people of believers and atheists, into true Christians who live according to the laws of the church and honor God and people who are far from the Faith, vegetating in worldly fuss. Family spiritual values ​​are passed on from generation to generation, but many families are just starting their Orthodox path from the very beginning, having lost continuity due to almost a century of persecution of the Church. How to create an Orthodox family in modern society and to preserve the traditions of the Orthodox family, this question is asked by many truly believing Christians who are striving to create a Small Church out of the family.

Orthodox marriage

The Russian Orthodox family implies the union of a baptized man and woman, blessed by the Church, and living according to the laws Orthodox faith. The bride and groom who are in love with each other gradually come to mutual love in Christ. One of the most important goals of the Orthodox family is the goal of maintaining an honest immaculate marriage, which consists in avoiding lust, carnal pleasures and adultery. The undeniable wisdom of Christian marriage lies in the fact that the husband and wife do not exert pressure and do not limit the freedom of action of each other, that is, such a marriage is built on the absolute trust of the husband and wife. And this trust and confidence in each other is secured by the blessing of God on marriage.

How are children brought up in an Orthodox family?

There are often many children in an Orthodox family, and every child is loved. The upbringing of children in an Orthodox family is based on love and trust in each other. The elders help their parents to educate the younger ones, while gaining experience for their future family life, and the younger ones take an example from them. Children who are baptized at an older age have a harder time accepting the Church than children who are baptized as infants. Babies live and grow up with a sense of Faith instilled in them by their parents. Joint prayers support the traditions of the Russian Orthodox family, unite it and allow children to get used to the fact that it is impossible to live without talking to God. Children in an Orthodox family for the first time in their lives are faced with submission to the authority of their father and mother, and this experience is the most important in a difficult time. life path, softened by love for a person who dominates and requires submission. By following the instructions of the parents and observing the prohibitions, the child gains inner freedom, realizing that the authority of an older person is not intended to break his character, humiliate or enslave. Accepting punishment not as a punishment, but as an indication, the child learns to live correctly. In an Orthodox family, parents must learn to restrain and suppress their anger, not to be irritated, and to be able to punish with love.

Seeing how parents love him in a Christian way, the child learns the experience that will be useful to him in the future in the matter of how to create an orthodox family, to create in it an atmosphere of striving for God, i.e. to approve the statement "family - Small Church".

Unchanging traditions of the Orthodox family

Keeping Orthodox family traditions, we become a part of the body of the Church and pass on from generation to generation national characteristics Russian Orthodox Church. The behavior of each member of the Orthodox family in everyday life, at feasts, holidays should be of a religious nature with the preservation of spiritual values. It is difficult to imagine a Christian family without the traditions and customs handed down by great-grandfathers. The culture of patriotic fidelity and national feeling was brought up in the family, having in its basis a special relation to the veneration of ancestors and paternal graves. The main goal of the Orthodox family today, as at all times, remains the preservation and transmission of spiritual and religious values ​​from generation to generation.

The report of Archpriest Nikolai Donenko read at the XII International Scientific and Educational Znamensky Readings.

Christian Values ​​in the Modern World

When we hear about values, including Christian ones, we must understand that everything of value can be easily replaced with something of equal value, including something deeply anti-Christian and alien to national life. Only a genuine living relationship to Christ builds true proportions between the earthly and the heavenly, the coming and the eternal, man and God: “Jesus Christ is unchangeable: He is the same yesterday, today and forever” (Heb. 1:7). Eastern Christian civilization, in which we were born and formed and outside of which we cannot be ourselves, is essentially Christocentric. Everything authentic in it comes from Christ and returns to Christ, transforming national life and history.

In the face of triumphant unscrupulousness, incessantly dechurching being, a sense of the fallacy of this world, Orthodox Christians are called to the most complete embodiment of the gospel commandments.

The history of human delusions is immensely great, and the result of these delusions is obvious. But no matter how great our errors are, they are incommensurable with the Wisdom of God, His philanthropic Providence, which never leaves a person both at the peak of his ascent and in the abyss of spiritual fall.

When the darkness becomes almost impenetrable, and the actions of a person are meaningless and chaotic, overt and covert prejudices and superstitions entwine human, - without alternative, great upheavals are coming, with which the Russian twentieth century abounded. Events, as a rule, come suddenly, bringing with them unpredictability. New circumstances give rise to new meanings: previous victories made in other conditions become history. In the place of a “rebellious” person, as A. Camus spoke about, “playing”, as I. Huising defined him, and finally a reasonable person, a lost person came who, unlike prodigal son, does not remember either his father's house or his father. He is no longer able to think, rebel, or play, and at the same time surprisingly retains his heart disposition to an insurmountable delusion that affects the mind and will. Such a person becomes lukewarm, and the main motive of his life becomes comfort, for the sake of which he is ready to give up the Truth without regret.

Such a person consigns national shrines, foundations and traditions to oblivion, moreover, he is able to consciously and actively deny them. As a result, spiritual ties are broken, orientation in the historical space becomes impossible. Focused on the gloomy pulsation of his being, he cannot determine his true location and the true meaning of life. Left to himself, a lost person is doomed to meaningless movements until someone from outside interferes in his life situation, possessing spiritual guidelines and able to show him the way to God.

Obviously, every generation must be evangelized and churched. This can be done only taking into account the specifics of the time, the nature of the challenges and temptations. As a rule, we see the misunderstandings of the past clearly, without much effort. But we distinguish the temptations of our time with difficulty and not immediately.

We have lived through the last decades great amount various crises - cultural, political, economic and others. But the most terrible of all possible is the crisis of our identity... We have questioned our birthright, our historical destiny, the appropriateness of our presence in the world of the rich and successful. The pagan cult of success, imposed on our minds, fragile hearts, offers a different system of values ​​that is not compatible with the Christian way of life.

The great Russian philosopher V. Solovyov said that it is important not so much what a person thinks about himself and the historical destiny of his people, but what the Almighty God thought about him.

Modern man needs concrete contact with the Orthodox Tradition, with living and convincing examples of Christian holiness.

The sacred point of the Slavic world, of course, is Chersonese - the place where antiquity and Byzantine civilization met with Kievan Rus, where, according to legend, Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir was baptized and, having baptized his people, impregnated them with Eternity. For a thousand years, Russian saints, by prayer and deeds, have woven the heavenly threads of true faith into the national soul, thereby helping us to become subjects not only of earthly history. For long centuries, the best sons of our people, holy princes, saints, philosophers, writers, faithful children of the Russian Orthodox Church, up to the great host of new martyrs of the twentieth century, overcoming external twilight, defended the Russian world. Throughout their lives and even deaths, people of different stages of Russian history confirmed the spiritual and civilizational choice once made by Prince Vladimir. At every historical turn, with heavenly and earthly bonds, they held Russian reality as a spiritual choice and historical belonging. And this was nothing more than a confirmation of one's birthright, a special service to Christ and His Church at all levels of national and cultural existence.

The experience of our time indicates that it is not enough to win a great and bloody war. We still need to realize this victory and, most importantly, to keep its results, to make it finally our own. We see how the sunny Victory of 1945, bestowed by God on our people, is being slandered, humiliated, or even canceled as a non-existent one. It is enough to listen to the hysterical statements coming from near abroad. If the best of best sons of our people throughout their lives and even deaths confirmed the spiritual and civilizational choice of Prince Vladimir for a millennium, the Maidan would-be reformers decided to change the historical paradigm in favor of new European values, thereby proposing new script different from our experience of Eastern Christian civilization. Who was Prince Vladimir and what is his great legacy, we are well aware. But the choice of reformers from the Maidan, their spiritual and cultural preferences are fundamentally unacceptable for us. It should be noted that the new European values, such as juvenile justice, same-sex marriage, euthanasia and others, are in irreconcilable contradiction with the values ​​of old Christian Europe and great culture, philosophy and science. And if Kyiv’s opponents of the Grand Duke were looking for a dialogue with the old Christian Europe and its now living bearers, this would still be understandable, but that’s the horror – the Kyiv elite, falling into historical and cultural nihilism, drags its people into the spiritual abyss . The break with the Russian world, with the Eastern Christian civilization, is nothing but a renunciation of one's birthright and great heritage, of one's vocation and mission.

Lies and substitution, manipulation of human consciousness have become the norm, threatening the national and spiritual security of a great civilization. The tragic experience of the past century, unique in many respects, showed that the main wealth of our Fatherland is not material values, money or goods, not even vast territories with an army and weapons, but people. And first of all, those who were able to remain human even in inhuman conditions. But if people begin to degrade, their souls and hearts deviate from God, becoming cold and incapable of sacrificial deeds and compassion, then no social structure with "human rights" will not make the state strong, will not be able to return it to its former greatness.

We know that a hero is not one who, having sensed the spirit of the times, can make convincing statements or demonstrate expressive gestures, but one who has an immovable center inside, not subject to momentary expediencies. And if this center, turning to heaven, comes into contact with Divine grace, which sanctifies the future of the soul and body, a person becomes involved in Eternity. Ultimately, what deserves attention is not what a person possesses - property, intellect or physical data, but how much he can, ignoring prohibitions and obstacles, come into contact with Christ with his whole life. Ultimately, it is important not to have much, but to be many, which is possible only in the bosom of the Orthodox Church.

Only action does not need an alibi! And we see how the act of the Holy Prince Vladimir resonated in the hearts of subsequent generations and continues to live in our history. Once Peter the Great "cut a window" to Europe, which greatly influenced the historical appearance of our Fatherland, brought to life a new type of person with European ideas and preferences - new circumstances give rise to new meanings. But we remember Chersonesos, another window cut through at the dawn of our history, thanks to which we came into contact with the Byzantine world and became its heirs. We must resort to anamnesis - a historical and cultural mechanism for remembering our past, which connects us not only with European culture, but first of all with the Byzantine, and through it with the classical Greco-Roman world. In other words, we have a connection with the classical Greco-Roman world, and European mediation, presented for a long time as the only possible one, has its own legitimate alternative. In all cases, we are already familiar with the experience of the European presentation of antiquity, but we still have to look at the classical world through the eyes of the patristic tradition. Without a doubt, such an angle of view will expand our consciousness, help us gain new meanings and feel a different quality of being, without which we will not be able to fully experience our involvement in higher principles and restore historical continuity.