Author: ivermon

– My mother annoys her grandson, invents illnesses for him, drags him to various doctors and insists on his treatment… Recently I tried to limit their communication. She addressed the police, the Office of Public Prosecutor, the mayor’s office… She writes that the boy is sick and no one cures him. I tried to speak to her, but this was all in vain.  Child supervision officer advised me to file an application for compulsory restriction of contact between the grandchild and his grandmother. What should I do? Should I keep putting up with her attacks or   listen to the officer? 

– You should not put up with attacks, but you also should not file the application. Try to settle the issue naturally and peacefully. And it is better to live separately from your parents.  

Archpriest Sergiy Baranov

– I can’t find a spiritual guide and I have been living without spiritual guidance for five years already. In order to see myself from the outside, I started to keep a diary, where I put down all my spiritual questions. In some time, I discovered that I began to receive answers to my questions: from the quotes of the Holy Fathers and some Orthodox articles on the Internet, from conversations with different people, and from the sermons of the priests serving in our city. This is so amazing: does God Himself guide my spiritual life? Is this possible? What should I do now: continue to seek a spiritual father or keep my diary and see the will of God in the circumstances of my life? 

– It is not safe to be on your own. It will be safer if someone will look at you from the outside. Seeking answers to your questions in various sources is not enough and not very reliable. You may get lost while seeking. That is why you should find a guide. 

Archpriest Sergiy Baranov

– I hear from my grandson and from many people, even the faithful ones, the word “sugar.” They say it substitutes cursing. Is it a sin to pronounce it? 

– I am not a linguist and cannot interpret this word. Some people might pronounce it on purpose in order to curse, while at the same time, others may not give negative meaning to it. Expletive words do not necessarily correspond to something bad. But we should take care of our culture of speech. 

Archpriest Sergiy Baranov

– Dear Father Sergiy! I have recently got acquainted with you “by chance” via the Internet. My soul rejoiced, as I have found answers to many questions. Can you, please, answer one more question: what does it mean to pray inconspicuously and imagelessly? Please, explain how you understand this. Anyway, if we address the Person of Christ, we draw a certain image, regardless of our will. 

– I do not understand this, I just know this. This is not my notion; it belongs to the Holy Fathers. You will come to know this in time through your experience if you try to follow this way. This should be experienced. You can’t do it without experience, and in order to have it, you need to come a certain way. I give you this notion, and you will understand it in time. You need to avoid all images. Inconspicuousness is also filled with Christ. This is because God is the Spirit, and He takes a shape for us. While He does not need any shape… But I repeat: this notion will come to you with experience.  

Archpriest Sergiy Baranov

– Father, I have already asked you about my son, who converted to paganism. You advised me to love him and pray hard for him. What does it mean to pray hard? What prayer or akathists should I read? Forgive me, if I ask something wrong. I trust you and I need your advice very much. 

– Not the shape, but Christ is the most relevant in prayer. The most important is to find Christ in prayer. Then you will not need to explain anything to Him; He understands everything without words. Just say, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus…” all the time and you may make bows. You should not explain anything to him and amend your requests. You just need to appeal to Him, and He will do everything else. The Holy Gospel says, “Ask, and it will be given to you” (Mt. 7:7). That is why we need to pray the Jesus prayer without ceasing. The main thing is not our request, but Him. 

Archpriest Sergiy Baranov

– I am reading your book, “Fly High.” The following question came up. You write that the Lord took upon Himself our human flesh fully with sin existing in it, but except for the sympathy with sin. He died in this flesh and killed the sin. Then it comes out that there is an unforgiven sin remaining with humankind and this sin is our sympathy with sin. The Lord did not take it with Him to Golgotha, did He?     

– This is not about sympathy with sin, this is about the existence of sin among us. Sympathy with sin is a sin itself. If we start analyzing Christ, look how deep He went into the nature of a human after the 40-days fast. He allowed satan to tempt Him – to approach and tempt Him. We usually read this extract without paying too much attention to it. However, if you reflect on it, you will see the great humility of Christ and the madness of satan. If he only realized Who he was tempting, he would have never approached Him. But Christ allows tempting Him. The Holy Fathers say that sin does not start with one’s thoughts. The Lord permits thoughts to come and tempt every one of us, in order to see if we are loyal to Christ or not. At that moment, our freedom of choice starts to work. The Holy Fathers say, when a thought has just come, this is not a sin yet, but a sin begins with slowing down and coming into a relationship with this thought. There was a moment when satan was allowed to come and tempt Christ, in other words, test His quality, if I may say so. And the Lord showed His quality. He did not sympathize with sin even for a moment. He denied it at once. I do not say the nature of Christ was sinful. Not at all! But this nature, as well as ours, had the freedom of choice. 

And, of course, Christ, being the Perfect Goodness, did not stop for a second at those thoughts. 

Archpriest Sergiy Baranov

– What should we strive for and how do we understand whether we have any success in spiritual life and how long will it take? 

– It is good to set goals, but to think you have reached something is dangerous. The purpose of each Christian for all our life is Christ. We should try to imitate Him. We should work hard and pursue this goal. 

Archpriest Sergiy Baranov

– Father, what is your view on the Orthodox psychology? 

– Psychologists’ capabilities are limited as they work using their own reasoning. And our reasoning is also limited. What is the difference between a psychologist and an elder? An elder receives a revelation from God and speaks on His behalf. A psychologist also uses a tool given by God – his or her logic and builds psychological constructions to help people. Nevertheless, their possibilities are significantly reduced.    

Archpriest Sergiy Baranov

– Could you please tell me where they practice the Jesus prayer on Holy Mount Athos?

– They do it all over Athos.

Archpriest Sergiy Baranov

– How do I love, with all my heart, my husband who is an alcoholic?

– “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Mt. 19:26). It is very hard to love a husband who tortures you, your children, relatives, and all people around you by his drinking. You can do it fully only with the help of the Grace of God.   In our faith, this reflects in compelling yourself to patience. Of course, it does not mean we should stimulate the person to further drinking by our patience. We should cry and persuade, and speak strictly sometimes… but keep trying. There are extreme cases when even the Church blesses to leave such people. There are options stipulated by the Social Concept of the Church, adopted in 2000, where even the Church gives its blessing for leaving a drinking husband, if he is a threat to his wife’s and children’s lives, and if he has degraded so much that he becomes socially dangerous.  However, these are extreme cases. 

Archpriest Sergiy Baranov

– I live in a constant state of quarrel with my relatives and myself. I have no peace of soul; rather, I have a feeling of defeat. I am worn out and tired of all of this. I realize my inability to have a correct reaction to external irritants is transmitted to my children; I can see their nervousness and intemperance. This tortures me even more and makes me feel concerned about their future. I lack the will and consistency to observe the Jesus prayer rule every day. I observe it for several days, then I give it up, start it all over, and skip again. I am tired of myself. Please, I need your reassurance!   

– The Jesus prayer is precious for having no special conditions. It can be pronounced anywhere and at any time. If you fail to say it with your mind and heart, you may pronounce it aloud. You only need to get used to it. Say it during your work, a walk, or in bed. If you set up for yourself big aims, you strain yourself, and this may result in a breakdown. Set some smaller objectives and keep accomplishing them… The prayer is short and simple. Pronounce it all the time, and experience will gradually come.  

Archpriest Sergiy Baranov

– Father, could you please tell me about the inverted perspective in icons. I read some time ago that it represents the space inside of a human.  The lines of single-point perspective, going inside the onlooker. That means that its place is not up there, but inside. What will you say about this?  

– This is absolutely correct. “The Kingdom of God is within you” (Lk. 17:21). Saint Nicephorus the Recluse said a very exact phrase in the “Philokalia,” expressing that after the Fall, the activity of the human mind was directed outwards. In order to come back to God, we need to change the direction and to bring our mind inwards.  Inverted perspective in icons shows that. It guides our mind to the place where the Kingdom of Heaven is. In other words, it brings us to our hearts.  

Archpriest Sergiy Baranov