Month: February 2023

The university professor challenged his students with this question,

“Did God create everything that exists?”

A student bravely replied, 

“Yes, He did!”

“Did God create everything?” the professor asked.

“Yes sir”, the student replied.

The professor answered, 

“If God created everything, then God created evil because evil exists, 

and according to the principle that our works define who we are 

then God is evil”.

The student became quiet at his assertion. 

The professor was quite pleased with himself.

 He boasted to the students that he had proven once more

that the Christian faith was a myth.

Another student raised his hand and said, 

“Can I ask you a question, professor ?”

 

“Of course”, replied the professor.

The student stood up and asked, 

“Professor, does cold exist?”

“What kind of question is this? 

Of course, it exists. 

Have you never been cold?” 

The students sniggered at the young man’s question.

The young man replied, 

“In fact sir, cold does not exist. 

 

According to the laws of physics, 

what we consider cold 

is in reality the absence of heat.

 

 Every body or object can only be studied

when it has or transmits energy.

 

Absolute zero (-460 degrees F) is the total absence of heat.

All matter becomes inert and incapable of reaction at that temperature. 

 

Cold does not exist. 

We have created this word to describe how we feel if we have no heat.”

 

The student continued, 

“Professor, does darkness exist?”

The professor responded, 

“Of course it does.”

The student replied, 

“Once again you are wrong sir.

Darkness does not exist either. 

Darkness is in reality the absence of light. 

We can study light, but not darkness. 

 

We can use Newton’s prism

 

to break white light into many colours 

and study the various wavelengths of each colour.

 You can`t measure darkness. 

A simple ray of light can break into a world of darkness and illuminate it. 

How can you know how dark a certain space is? 

 

You measure the amount of light present. 

Isn’t this correct? 

Darkness is a term used by man to describe what happens in the absence of light.”

Finally, the young man asked the professor,

“Sir, does evil exist?”

Now uncertain, the professor responded, 

“Of course, as I have already said. 

We see it every day.

Violence between people, many crimes and violence around the world.

 

These manifestations are nothing else but evil.”

To this the student replied, 

“Evil does not exist sir, 

or at least it does not exist unto itself.

 

 Evil is simply the absence of God. 

It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. 

God did not create evil. 

Evil is not like faith, or love which exists as light and heat. 

Evil is the result of the absence of Divine love in the human heart.

 It’s like the cold that comes when there is no heat 

or the darkness that comes when there is no light.”

The professor sat down.

The young man’s name was Albert Einstein.

 

What can I say about God?

What can I say to an unbelieving person about God?

What can I say to myself?

I often have nothing to say.

 

At times I can say very little, other times I can say more, at greater depth.

But there’s never a situation where I can say it all. 

This would be an absurdity. 

 

God is not an entirely clear subject. God is God. 

And He remains like that until the unknown, infinity is there.

 

         When believers try to explain and prove all the points, they do not understand that they humiliate God.

The God Who cannot be fully contained. 

 

There must always be a doubt in a true faith.

 

Self-doubt.

 It’s noble, it must be like that. 

The ability to contain begins with an inability to contain.

 I know that I know nothing. 

This happens when one stands still before the Great Extraordinary. That is exceeding his measure. 

 

But this is already an engagement. 

 And this engagement is with Him. 

With The One Who is.  And this is the main thing that we can say about Him. 

All the rest we can describe only partially, according to our spiritual age.

Therefore I’m whispering about Him very carefully, fearing to distort it or being misunderstood. 

But I can’t keep silent either, because He wants me to talk.  

 

             The atheist:

I want to ask you a very simple question. 

You believers, if you are truly believers, 

why don’t I see a miracle in your life? 

 

Why did it happen so often in the far past 2000 years ago? 

So far that its objectivity is eroded, any trust is being lost. 

 

This is a miracle of one of those who were in distant history and who cannot wake up and confirm anything. 

And where is your own miracle? This day’s miracle?

 The lame walk, the dumb talk; if they drink anything deadly, it shall not hurt them. 

They speak different languages.

Jesus Christ said,

 “If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, 

you can say to this mountain “move  from here to there, and it will move”. 

But I don’t see you have such faith. 

Or maybe you yourselves are non-believers

 Or Christ was not telling the truth? 

You’re disappointing me. 

 

Priest:

The most precious thing in a dialogue is sincerity. 

It itself deserves respect. 

 

Frankness encourages me to put those very same questions about faith to myself.

             And it happens often. 

It is vital that one does not pretend to have faith, but  is looking for it with all one’s heart. 

The verb “to look for” suggests an action.

            Progressive movement forward from smaller to bigger. 

           My faith is little, paltry compared to the faith of the saints.

But it’s already within me, and faith urges me to move up, to search, to multiply it. 

It is most likely that it all starts with finding meaning in life, with facing losses, disappointments, and instability  for the first time, which then leads to a sharper sense of time. 

 

All things will pass… 

 

We’re constantly losing something, and in this regard, everything gets depreciated. 

If I was born to die, then even if I lived a long life, a relatively long one, as in comparison with eternity, my life is a moment. 

What’s the point of life?

 Is it to give birth to children who will also die and ask the same question? 

 

The wise Solomon asked these questions himself three thousand years ago in the book of Ecclesiastes,

perhaps in the final document of his eventful life: Vanity of vanities; . 

 

All things will pass and all is vanity

 This work could be described as deeply pessimistic, but the last lines were:

live like that and have fear of God. 

 

In the New Testament transcription, the word “fear” can be safely replaced by the word “love”. 

 

Thinking about the meaning of life is not yet faith, but it is well on the way towards it.

We’re peering at the world around us more closely, and curiously. 

 

We’re still not seeing God, but we begin noticing His traces and traces of His creativity everywhere, 

because wherever you look, you can see harmony  and wisdom. 

I often hear the response – this is just nature, and straight away I’m asking: 

What or Who is nature? 

Only “Who” can create the wise poetry of being. 

 

There is no personal creativity in “what”. 

             You know, when something has already happened inside between man and God, often there’s no desire to prove anything at all. 

Was asked and provided an answer, that’s it. 

Hence in this topic of God’s being exploration

through His creativity around us and within ourselves, I’m satisfied with 

the very first point…

 

The Big Bang, which is now being talked about a lot,

 trying to explain where everything came from, everything has come from nothing.

 Has anyone ever heard about an explosion that had great harmony in it instead of destruction?

You have to believe very strongly in a miracle 

to claim that after the explosion instead of a cacophony of sounds the thunder spread around like  Beethoven’s fifth Symphony  and 

instead of destruction – coherence and consistency.  

Observing the harmony of the universe gives confidence that there’s a Creator,

 with Whom you have not yet met as with an Individual Personality. 

 

But everything around the whole universe speaks about Him.

This is already a faith and at the same time it is not yet faith, the  faith that works miracles.  

All this can be just a beginning in the seeking out for Him and to return to oneself as an image and likeness. 

This is where the most difficult part begins, because that  faith supposes a permanent, gradual movement towards Him. 

 

This practice is called spiritual life,

 

 which involves overcoming one’s self, one’s imperfections, limitations. 

 

             Limitations of vision and experience. 

 

            God is located precisely beyond these restraints. 

            And only those overcoming these join into a one -to -one communication with Him.

 

And this is no longer just a reflection on the meaning of life, 

observation of the universe’s harmony,

 

not a belief in God’s  existence, or a  belief in Him, but a direct relationship with Him. 

 

Not many people have achieved this.

 But this particular state is called faith,

 the faith that is capable of performing  miracles.

 

 Unfortunately, believers often live vicariously, 

through the experience of saints, in whose lives this has taken place in an extreme, total way.

 The Lord said about them the following,  “they shall speak with new tongues; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them” and so on. 

Yes, unfortunately, this is often not our personal experience, but rather trust towards those people. 

 But you have to trust someone in your life. 

When you ask someone for directions, you often have to trust a complete stranger, and we do trust. 

 

But I have much more confidence in a saint who deserves trust by his very righteous life. 

 

He’s so decent that it’s impossible not to trust him.

 If you are lucky enough to meet a saint in your life, believe me, 

this meeting will not only inspire you with sympathy for his words,

but you will have an irresistible desire to experience his spiritual state. 

You’ll just see a really happy person. 

 

Made happy not by the external circumstances,

 but by internal content that does not depend on the external one. 

 

An atheist: 

I`m sorry. May I interrupt you right now? 

I don’t want to sound categorical, so I won’t  use “ALL”. 

I will use the word  “many”. 

Many members of the Church don’t correspond with what you’re talking about.

 I’m not talking as much about holiness, but at least righteousness, 

not in words, as you usually like to participate in, but in real actions. 

 

Surely, you will say that it is not easy.

 

 It is  a massive task that shows you are actually moving ahead. 

 

             But from the outside, we’re seeing something completely different: 

someone who is not moving anywhere, 

             because a very comfortable position is taken and all is jolly good. 

So why would you  strain yourself? 

And some people have no intention of moving anywhere, 

faith for them is a kind of fairy tale, 

which does not oblige to do anything, 

you can talk about it, discuss it, but nothing more.

You need God as far as He does not interrupt your life.

Why are you ready to talk so much about the saints and you really don’t  want to do as they did and even get angry when you are told about Judas? 

There’s plenty of those in church.

Priest: 

-every twelfth. 

Of course, this is an allegory, no one knows the exact number, and of course it does happen. 

I see what you’re trying to say. 

I often hear this fair question.

 

We understand that there may be wicked people in the Church, it is clear that we are all human.

But why is the Church so laid-back in the struggle for self-purification, for decency within it? 

I hear these questions and try to answer them. 

In your worry about the presence of hypocrisy within the Church. 

I can hear anger in your worrying and I am worried too, but for me it’s rather painful. 

Our attitude to the same thing is of a different nature. 

And everything is consistent. 

You can’t have it in any other way. 

As the Church is something external to you, a completely alien institution,

for me, it is my own mother, so it hurts. 

Because it hurts, trust me, I care a great deal about that. 

Instead of “laid-back”, I would use the expression “careful”.

 For you to understand and accept the nature of this caution, I must explain to you one important thing. 

The Church is far from being liberal, rather, it’s conservative in its traditions.

 We have our own judicial and justice system. 

And here is the most important point:

 Is it the same sinners who are in charge of the punitive measures, the  one’s whose morality is reviewed by the Church tribunal?

 

 Sinners are judged by sinners. 

 

Not by deliberately hardened sinners, 

             but by sinners who repent. 

             Who see in everyone’s sin their own propensity to any sin, as well as  this particular  one. 

              Do you know how difficult it can be to make drastic decisions when you are constantly judged by your own conscience?

 

And really  wish there was an amnesty granted, another chance given, because you yourself are given it  by God, 

through all your life from confession to confession.

 Do not judge, so that you will not be judged.

              You can say that the clergy have high tolerance only for their own people.

 Priests absolve thousands of people from millions of sins every day. 

“I forgive and absolve” – these are the words that were blessed by Jesus Christ to the apostles to say as we know from the Gospel, followed by the blessing to clergy of the Church. 

He had this authority from the Father and He had it as He was entitled to it.

 At every judgment before God, there are always two defendants: 

the one who is judged and the one who judges. 

The defendant must demonstrate himself in repentance, 

the judge in mercy and objectivity, and this is a heavy responsibility.

           Historically, in both ancient and modern times, the people of the Church have accumulated a lot of illustrations of an amendment of life. 

This experience encourages us to long-suffering, leniency,

 and  to wisdom that takes its time. 

By and large, God is rarely in a hurry, more often He shows longsuffering. 

And one more important thought: 

in an aggressively acidic environment, the appearance of a small, delicate flower causes delight and awe. 

This is regarded as a miracle, a treasure.

             So, in our imperfect world, full of guile and sin, the birth of one saint is a great treasure, 

precisely because he had to define himself and express himself in an aggressive environment.

 And it’s worth a lot. 

This is the price of the soul of each of us. 

Whether we move closer to God or not 

 

An atheist: 

You talk a lot about a man, that every man can be treated with compassion because we’re all sinners, even saints.

 But often I don’t get God, especially the One from the Old Testament Who gave his blessing to attacking whole nations. 

And He punished people cruelly and mercilessly. 

This is the same God, of which

the Gospel says that God is Love. 

 

Is this love?

 

Priest:

– I want to tell you an important thing.

 There is a difference between the  intellect and the mind. 

Intellect is the ability to reason, and this is present to a greater or lesser extent in each of us.

 

 And the mind (in Greek patristic theology it is called “nous”  – cognition) is a knowledge of the essence of things. 

 

The first is from the nature of our mind, and it is good, but not perfect. 

And the second is more of a charismatic nature. 

It’s like a revelation, and it’s from God.

 As you, an unbeliever, would say from Nature.

 Adam had this state of mind in Paradise when he named animals according to their essence. 

He didn’t analyze anything, he just knew and had an intuition. 

Why am I talking about this? 

Because I will not be able to answer all your questions to satisfy you. 

Not because there is no answer, but because there’s a need for the ability to listen, and that comes from intuition.

 Different people reading the Bible in fact don’t read the same book because of their non-identical abilities to follow the same content.

 It turns the entire  consciousness of some people upside down and radically changes their lives, while others remain completely indifferent to the same book; 

the  same content and such distinctive actions. 

Spiritual topics need a spiritual approach, not with pure cold intellect, but more with instinct. 

 It’s like in music, it is not composed logically, other mechanisms of our psyche must be activated. 

And only then everything happens.

 The questions you ask are also of my concern.

When I’m trying to resolve those questions, I dive into that area of my psychic existence where there’s a possibility to find the answers. 

Complicated questions are not solved by intellect, it is rather a field of prayer, and you do not try to make it out, but ask God and get an answer, 

an answer that we are able to hear and accept, otherwise there’s only silence. 

The question of the cruel Old Testament God was also before me, and I queried that and was not happy with the answers.

 That’s why I stopped asking the questions and stopped pondering. 

I began to pray and got an answer that satisfied me. 

But this is my answer, the response to me, to my spiritual state, if you will. 

For you, it may not sound right in this case, I apologize I’ve got limited abilities.

 

 All that we see around us and in the endless darkness of space is light. 

 

Everything that is not light remains dark.

 Light emanates from a source of light and also can be reflected from the surfaces of objects. 

 

The first light can be called a pure light, virgin light, because it carries information only about itself.

The nature of the second one, the one  being reflected, gets modified. 

it includes the information of the reflected object, so, in fact, 

we can see it with our eyes.

It is no longer a pure virgin light, 

but rather a synthesis of it and its reflected object. 

The Bible often speaks of God as the Light. 

It is convenient for me to use this concept now. 

God, as a pure virgin Light, floats in the existence of this world, 

which He created within the boundaries of time and space. 

This world reflects Him, 

it reflects Him and fills it with the information about itself, as it is at this current moment in history.

God’s pure, virgin idea of the world includes the present state of this world, 

the state of a free man who chooses between good or evil by  his will.

 

 The harsh God of the Old Testament and the God of Love of the New are the same.

 There are no contradictions in Him,

  it’s all about man,

who is not light, but only a reflecting object endowed with free will. 

 

There is a concept that God permeates even hell, but hell remains hell. 

Thus, a holy person in a state of Godlikeness partially refracts the virgin light of the Divine, 

sharing His nature, 

while a fallen sinner fills the virgin nature with information about himself. 

 

And this happens both in individuals and in entire populations of a certain historical era. 

 

An atheist:

That is always the case. 

I suspect that when you have nothing to say, you talk in a difficult way to confuse and mess someone up. 

 

I’m not satisfied. 

 

Priest: 

Please don’t be angry with me.

 I’m not being sly, I am being honest with you.

 There are just things that are very tough to explain, and you can only experience them. 

 How can I explain to someone who has never loved in his life what love is?

 

I’ll just have to sigh with shrugging my shoulders and

 trying to choose the right  concepts, admitting eventually that that’s not possible. 

 

You have to live it out. 

Without personal experience, we will always come to a dead end.

Christianity is not a theory, it is a practice, it is life itself. 

That’s probably the place to start. 

 

All in all this does not matter that much, I would not only like to share the information with you, but to share love itself, as the energy of the Divine. 

This is the main miracle and acquisition of my faith.

 If there is love in me, 

not delicacy, good breeding, good emotionality, 

but love itself, in its highest manifestation-

to the point of love for enemies, 

God will be in me, and here the word stops, just a slight smile and a kind look in your direction.

 It’s just that we are different, we can say we’re “parallel”. 

You live in your world, which is real for you.

 I see and feel differently. 

But I’m very happy.

 A philosopher once said, 

 

“If there were no God, it would be worth it to invent  Him, because without Him everything collapses.

He is like a bracket that holds the whole meaning of being.”

I don’t need to invent Him, He is in my life.

 And I’m so happy that I don’t want to argue, just a slight smile and a kind look in your direction. 

 

When I proposed the theory of relativity, very few people understood me.

 

And what I tell you now to transmit to mankind will also meet the misunderstanding and prejudice in the world.

 

I ask you to keep this letter for as long as necessary.

Years, decades, 

until society is sufficiently developed to accept what I will explain below.

 

There is a very powerful force 

that science has not yet found an official explanation for.

This force includes and controls all other phenomena that work in the universe.

 

This universal power is love.

When scientists were looking for a unified theory of the universe, 

they forgot the most powerful invisible force.

Love is the light that enlightens those who give and receive it.

Love is an attraction

 because it makes some people feel attracted to others.

             Love is power, 

because it multiplies the best 

that is in us, that we are.

And it allows humanity not to be immersed in blind selfishness.

For love we live and die.

Love is God, and God is Love.

This power explains everything and gives meaning to life.

This is a variable that we have ignored for too long.

Maybe it’s because we’re afraid of love.

To understand love, I made a simple substitution in my most famous equation.

 

If instead of E=mc2, 

we acknowledge that the energy for healing the world can be obtained through love 

multiplied by the speed of light squared, 

we conclude that love is the most powerful force, 

because it has no limits.

Only through love we can find meaning in life and

Save the world 

And every sensible or sentient creature.

 To help our civilization to survive.

 

Perhaps we’re not ready to make a bomb of love yet.

A device powerful enough

to completely destroy the hate,

selfishness and greed,

all the things that devastate the planet.

However, each individual carries a small 

but a powerful generator of love whose energy is waiting for its release.

 

When we learn to give and get this universe’s energy, 

dear Lieserl, 

We endorse that love conquers all and it is capable of overcoming anything.

Because love is the quintessence of life.

I deeply regret 

that I could not express what is in my heart, 

which has quietly beaten for you all my life.

Maybe it’s too late to apologize.

 

 But as time is relative.

I have to tell you 

that I love you very much 

and thanks to you I have reached the final answer.

 

Amen.

 

Man, from the point of creation, is given a need of thirst. He wants to drink, to eat, he desires comfort and entertainment, he seeks interaction, yearns for creativity, knowledge, new impressions, friendship, love. He has a need to speak and to be heard. He wants to listen, there’s an interest within him. He strives to quench his thirst, in all its various forms, for the entirety of his life. And once he has gained everything, he still has that thirst for the unknown left within, a longing for something he doesn’t know, something he hasn’t yet experienced. He longs, he yearns, he’s not satisfied. That is just the way we were created by God; if one doesn’t dream, it means one’s soul is dead. Saints grow indifferent to everything of the world, but it does not mean that their thirst has ceased, it’s just that it has changed its course and direction. They hunger and thirst for the heavenly, for the spiritual. Man cannot get to know God in His full measure, it is beyond our ability. But it’s still the greater Good. That means there will always be the unknown. That means that movement, dynamics, and life will not cease. That means there will always be a point.

 

Greetings to you, my dear friend. It’s exactly how I’ll address you, with love and sincerity, despite the pivotal differences in our views: my precious, dear Orthodoxy and your dismal, bleak nihilism. Everything could change. I’ve been a witness to that more than once. It’s just that, may it only change for the better… Please, o Lord.

I’m writing to you from the Holy Mount of Athos, sending you my sunny, spring mood. It’s still early spring back home in Russia. It’s still all frosty and snowy in March back there, and here in Greece it’s already pretty warm. It’s all green here on the foreland, the so called “Paschal blossom”, or lilac, is in full bloom, bumblebees are fluttering around, and the birds are chirping. I breathe in the fresh, spring air deeply, joyfully, and wholeheartedly exclaim in delight, “Glory to Thee, O God, glory to Thee!”. I can’t get the last conversation we shared before I left out of my head. Or should I say, an argument, because we couldn’t succeed at holding a conversation. My extreme zeal is to blame. I ask you to forgive me, sincerely, from the bottom of my heart. It’s not how you are supposed to talk about God, He should be spoken about with love and long-suffering. So what I couldn’t convey face-to-face, I’ll do my best to express on paper.

I now, praise God, have no desire to overargue you. I only have the desire to share my treasure of faith with you. God help me to do it sensibly…

You sincerely wonder how you can believe something that cannot be seen, touched, smelled, or experienced. I’ll partially agree with you that with our senses, such as sight, touch, or hearing, it is difficult to behold God. But, pay attention to this, we do not see many things in this world, we do not feel them, how much is left out of the bounds of the spectrum of our sight, the scale of sound, how many subtle things, unavailable to touch.

Unbelievers often refer to science. But it’s the modern science that says that humanity on this stage of development sees, hears, feels, not only with the senses, but also with modern ultra precise devices a truly small percent of material and energy of the universe. The greatest portion is left out of the bounds of our knowledge. Absolutely elusive in hypotheses and guesses. All of this that is beyond today’s human possibilities, the scientists call the dark materials or the dark energy. Not in the sense of its negativity, but in the sense of it being unknown. And that which we do not know, is much greater than what we have experienced. You say: to see, to hear, to touch, to know. But knowledge has long divided from the senses. Modern science is no longer experiencing this world by touch, and has for long. We have gone out of these bounds. The scientists make their discoveries, already not just by looking through a microscope or a telescope, the greater portion of discoveries is made on paper through mathematical formulas and physical equations hypothetically. In the course of our conversations you once fervently said that to believe in God you must be out of your mind. I do not know what exactly you have put into these words, but in part, I agree: it is indeed so. If by sanity we understand logic, logical rational thinking. Here I’ll say to you, and any scientist will confirm this: the world is much wider than we can comprehend. Let’s take the quantum physics.  To be in this field of science, one must partially give up on logic, the mind must become irrational, otherwise everything will crumble, break, clash. You trust your mind very much, your personal being seems objective, conclusive. You are the center of the universe. Well try to get to the height of the bird’s flight, and from there you’re already a point. Let’s fly higher, farther. From the space you no longer exist, and the Earth does not seem endless. Higher and farther – and in the blackness of space disappears the Earth. And the Sun became but a small star. Go farther – and there’s no sun. Other stars, other galaxies, farther and farther. You’re already not even the dust of the universe, the very objectivity of your being became an illusion, and we can still fly and fly… And that is about space, what about time? A snippet of your life is worth something, there are so many events and impressions in it. And in a thousand years, either forth or back in time? What about a million? A billion? Your life is not just lost in this scale, it loses its objectivity, it’s no longer even a moment, it just isn’t, at all. If we cannot understand such things as the endlessness of time and space, how then can we understand God? The insanity of faith comes to know the unknowable. In order to enter the field of the supernatural, one must leave the field of the rational. There, out of the boundaries of your mind, outside that bound, there’s life. Not a life of mind, but life of the spirit that goes according to its own, and often very different, laws. But it’s not an illusion, it is objective. The way the endlessness of space is objective, the point of your physical being. And all of a sudden, from the center of the universe, from “something” we become “nothing”. Nothing by ourselves, senselessness, zero. This weird reality makes us fall silent, tremble in endlessness, in the blackness of space and time. 

And in this sad, eerie loneliness we start to need HIM. Him Who knows the point. Him Who is the point. God is in the sphere of outside the borders of our mind. But He can be known. This antipathy can be explained if we divide the notions of mind and reason. The mind contains reason, but it also lives different, subtle charismatic properties of our soul, that do experience the spiritual. 

This is the state of prayer that by its nature differs from reflection. When the mind prays, it does not think within the frame of the usual. The state of the praying mind is not at all like wandering the labyrinths of logic. The praying mind acquires the objective knowledge charismatically, through inspiration. Here on the Holy Mount, are still retained the notions of the state of mind in prayer, and not just notions, it is practiced daily and nightly. This practice is known as noetic doing. The principle of which is the state of mind outside of logic, reflection. Reflection is subjective, for it is constantly connected to doubt. A person is inclined to either this or that. Faith is not inquiring conviction. It’s a state that does not need process. The Lord spoke of faith in the Gospel like this: “If you believe and do not doubt in your heart”. How precisely He described the state of prayer with one sentence – not doubt in your heart! Faith is not testing, not a controversy: yes or no. It’s a short “yes” that is like a bolt of lightning. A moment – and you’re in the light of mind. Everything is understood for you with no testing or reasoning. In the earthly life they call it: dawned on me. There you go – and that’s it! You yourself, not understanding this, said a very correct phrase: “To believe, you must be out of your mind”. 

Truly! You must consciously give up on the worldly, crude, rational, logical mind, to live subtle spiritual states.   

In the world, there is a lot which we are unable to comprehend, but are able to live, not understanding the nature of the phenomenon. Isn’t it a pity for you, you lessen the endlessness of this world to the narrowness of your own ability to understand it? I only believe in that which I can understand – how limited. Don’t you want to go out of the frames and borders of your logic? Exactly, go out, stepping there, beyond the line of your mind, there’s a whole world there, that your mind cannot contain, but that which a person can live with other means of the soul. Logic isn’t the whole me. I am wider, deeper. What I’m telling you right now, isn’t  philosophy, it’s the life of the Athos monks. The usual life in the state of prayer. They do not speak of it, they live it. Naturally. Coming to the Holy Mount, they gradually are taught, by their elders and teachers, to live prayer in the state of no images or imagination. For the logical, image thinking to not contain them in the bounds of the understandable and crude. After years of dedication and persistence, they, still limited by the laws of flesh, go out into the endlessness of the moving toward God. They become spiritual eagles, able to ascend high above the earthly. And if fleshly people look at the horizon, the spiritual from their height, see far beyond it. You think that logic is your treasure, but in reality it’s chains that do not allow you to go far beyond it.

Here on the Holy Mount, there are many illiterate monks, illiterate in earthly sciences, etiquette, unable to speak beautifully. But among them there are those that you feel small, nothing next to them, acutely experiencing that theres a giant of spirit before you. His world is boundless in comparison to yours. You’re nothing, a pathetic, a lowlife with all your knowledge, talents and abilities, in the bounds of the earthly, crude being. And at the same time, they have long stepped outside these bounds into the spiritual endlessness. This doesn’t need to be proved, they don’t really strive to. You’ll just feel it with no words. There are situations in life when words aren’t needed. Forgive me, maybe I’m speaking in complex terms, unclearly. I want to say, only a fool understands everything. A thinking person always faces a mystery on every step and in connection to this, always sees his own limitations. Constraint, being captive to borders, that humanity has always wanted to broaden. This has always been like this in science, culture, religion. A person not thirsting for knowledge is a dead person, boring, wingless. One of the venerable fathers of our time said to his disciples: “Oh how I would love for you to become poets. Poets not in the literature sense, but spiritually. Fly outside of your earthly limitation, fly high. Let them say of you: they’re out of their minds. May we be fools, out of our minds for Christ Whom we have loved and desired. We need insanity for spiritual poetry”.

Archpriest Sergiy Baranov

“Do not judge” (Mt. 7:1) as a part of the commandment “you shall love” (Mt. 22:39) theoretically is very simple. But as far as the practice, or, in other words, our real life is concerned, many questions arise in each specific case. And those questions may bring confusion. Thank God that it happens this way. Since primitivism is common only with fanatics.  I use the notion “primitivism” instead of “simplicity” deliberately. Because I see the big difference between them. Simplicity comes from the Holy Spirit, while primitivism is the alternative of the evil one, who tries to reduce simplicity to absurdity. 
The reasoning of fanatics is primitive. The mind of the saints is simple. 
“Do not judge” is a short and seemingly simple phrase. But I ask myself: Then, what did the Holy Fathers do at the Ecumenical Councils? – They judged. One can reject it with a common phrase: “They judged the heresy, but justified the man”. Excuse me, but I cannot agree with it. They judged both the heresy of Arius and his proud stubbornness, which resulted in blasphemy. Moreover, they did not only judge, but they placed him under the ban, that is, punished him.

We received the commandment “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged” (Mt. 7:1) directly from Christ. At the same time, the topic of Our Lord’s conflict with the Judaic lawyers and their hypocrisy dominates the narration of the Holy Gospel. Christ judges them very obviously and passionately.  

We may find contradiction and even confusion in this issue, if we will reflect primitively, but not wisely.

I trust in Christ, Who is the final authority for every Christian. And I try to understand Him in order to act wisely and in the way He wants me to do it.

During the first centuries of Christianity when the fundamental notions determining our faith were being formed, among the multitude of heresies there appeared the heresy of Manichaeus. The essence of their teaching was a denial of the value of the physical world and, in particular, of the human body which is the vehicle of soul. Therefore, they were indifferent to the fate of the world and neglected the process of history. They considered it irrelevant and non-spiritual.  The Spirit is not interested in it. It is too earthly and alien for him. But what kind of spirit? The spirit of pride, which sets himself beyond the Earth. At the same time, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of impartiality, descends to any historical figure or event.  He is always present everywhere in His entirety. He is unchangeable. It is a matter of people and our ability to live through any historical event correctly.  I empathize, “to live”, to be a part of it, instead of staying out of it and considering it non-spiritual.
The difference between the Holy Fathers and the people who live through our history using their damaged mind is in the change of attitude to the transformation of this attitude. It is not in the denial, but in the change of attitude. The essence of this change is the presence of the Holy Spirit in your reasoning of any issue or event. The Holy Spirit gives a correct appraisal to everything.  To speak through the Holy Spirit, you need to be in the Spirit, but not in the emotion of the moment. When we fight for truth, we need to realize that God’s truth may differ from the human truth. 

At this moment I make a considerable note. The difference is not in the emotional contrast of the good and the evil, which is perceived partially, here and now. God thinks long-term and His actions will have a result in the future. Very often we do not understand it, and it argues with our limited “Self”.

The notion “the evil one” is the exact definition of the person who seizes the moment for upsetting the relations between God and a human. He shakes our faith in God and casts doubt upon our obedience to the providence of God with the help of our emotional goodness and a sense of justice.  We end our relationship with an “unjust” God and wander away from Him to another, antagonistic, person. While this person is waiting for us, ready for understanding, reassuring and taking the place of God. If Our Lord is unjust, the antipode will talk about justice. If God is strict, the evil one will simulate love, trying to take the place of the real love. God is almighty, but He cannot be hypocritical. The satan can do many things, but he cannot become the truth. The truth, which is perceivable here and now, provided that you are in the Holy Spirit (as the result of your consistent, long and sincere life in repentance).    

Otherwise, if you are not in the Spirit, you are in a state of excitement. And the evil one takes his part perfectly while performing God. The words “Christ” and “antichrist” differ only by the prefix, but they have the same root. Often we pay our attention to that “anti” and suppose that he will look like an antipode of Christ. In fact, the evil one will copy the visible part in detail. The difference will be in the deep and subtle matters, undistinguishable by a non-spiritual person. The antichrist will try to hide the prefix “anti” and lay an emphasis on the root “Christ”. He will try to imitate love, goodness, truth and justice. He has already succeeded in doing it in a post-Christian Europe, in a civilization where the Christianity with its values and unchangeable principles became outdated. The visible remnants of the architecture, history and art are still present. But the inner world is hollow and it is being filled with some other “culture” living off the Christian notions such as “do not judge” and “you shall love”.  The mere word “love” became so relative that it is used to define all kinds of shame and a consent to it. 

The philosophy of the “non-judgementalness” and the freedom of the individual have ardently rallied to the defense of the moral degradation. Moreover, at the same time, they fiercely turned against the traditional notions of the good and the evil and the purity and the truth of God.    At this point we can see the prefix “anti”. The fundamental notions remain, but their sacred meaning is perverted. The word “love” remains, but being besmeared by what is alien to it. The word “freedom”, as a notion of the independence from a sin, is being twisted by permissiveness. The truth is determined by the momentary conjuncture. We are being deceived by the shape, and do not look inside. 

There is a diptych at the gallery of   Ilya Glazounov in Moscow called “Christ and the antichrist”. The two images are very hard to distinguish, as the outer shape is almost identical. I think the idea of the artist was to illustrate how much the antipode tries to imitate Christ outwardly. 
Saying “outwardly”, I do not mean the appearance, but the words and ideas, which will not correspond to the essence of their content.  

Nowadays the notion of God became relevant, as we do not know Who He is. God is Love. But this Love is perverted and besmeared. “Do not judge” has turned into permissiveness. “Thou shall not kill” has suddenly transformed into the defense of the Scandinavian maniac, who killed dozens of people and who is gaining the suits on the cold coffee against the prison administration. 
Minor issues may be discussed, but the fundamental ones must remain unchanged. It is life-threatening. Moreover, it is dangerous for our spiritual life. Our earthly life will come to its end. While the space of the Spirit is eternal.
Once Solomon asked God for wisdom and gained all the rest together with it. 

So, please, be wiser.

March 20, 2022