Author of quotes: Aleksandr Dmitrievich Schmemann

So, the word "Lord", as a baptismal symbol, entered the life of a Christian from the very beginning. This word is as much a source of theology as the word "Christ." And if the first source of theology is baptism, then the confession of the Lord is also great theology.

Ideally, of course, the whole life of a Christian is and should be a preparation for Communion - just as it is and should be the spiritual fruit of the Communion. "We offer you our whole belly and hope, Vladyka Humanity ..." - we read in the liturgical prayer before Communion. Our whole life is judged and measured by our membership in the Church, and hence by our participation in the Body and Blood of Christ. Everything in her must be filled and transformed by the grace of this participation. The worst consequence of current practice is that it separates our very lives from preparing for Communion, making it even more mundane, more divorced from the faith that we profess. But Christ did not come to us so that we could devote a small part of our life to the fulfillment of "religious duties." It requires the whole person and his whole life. He left us in the Sacrament of the Sacrament of Himself, in order to sanctify and purify our entire existence, to unite with Him all facets of our life.

Theology or "theology" (Greek) is the doctrine of the Divine; it existed even before the advent of Christianity. Theologians in ancient antiquity were called those poets who dealt with the origin of the world (cosmogony) or gods (mythology), in contrast to philosophers who considered things by themselves.

A lot of confessors. Amazing, sunny, cool day. God, the world, "a life that is abundant." What else do people need? What else can you crave for? "Videhom the true light ..." And dominates us.

What does it mean to "believe in a person"? What can such faith be based on and what can it be? And then - what kind of person are we talking about? About some abstract, a team man with a capital letter, who does not yet exist and who will appear, so to speak, in the future? Or about each individual, living, specific person? From a Christian point of view, there are no difficulties here. When Christianity speaks of man, it really means every single living person. For his sake, it is said in the Gospel, ninety-nine other people must be abandoned, he is clothed with the image and likeness of God, he is called to eternity, and therefore his fate, the fate of even the most insignificant and socially insignificant person, is as important as the fate of the leader, genius, scientist. Even the Christian doctrine of death and salvation, the doctrine over which the propagandists of godlessness are so fond of mocking, is based on faith in the personal responsibility of each person and on faith in his freedom: I want - I am saved, I want - I die; and no one, not even God, can do anything against this freedom. I repeat: when Christianity talks about faith in man, it is clear. This doctrine can not be shared, it can be argued with, but it is impossible to deny that it is based on the affirmation of each individual human person as an infinite value, and value, moreover, eternal. "What good is it for a man if he acquires the whole world, and damages his soul?" (Matthew 16:26). As long as these words are heard on earth, as long as people remember the paradoxical Evangelical arithmetic, according to which one is always more valuable and more important than ninety-nine, it will not be possible to destroy the human personality, it will not be possible, therefore, to build to the end an already collectivized humanity, which will call its slavery freedom, its subordination to the impersonal benefit - rights, its prison - an earthly paradise. How terrible that so many do not yet understand that totalitarianism in all its forms is opposed on our earth only one thing - faith in God, who created man in His image and in his likeness, who called him to freedom and to eternity - this, and nothing else. The dispute of our age is a religious dispute and a dispute about religion; not to understand this, not to see the connection of all the terrible problems of our time with the depths of religious worldview - this is the same as hiding your head in the likeness of an ostrich under the wing. Distant or near? Man or humanity? Where to start, in the name of what to create? - Here are the questions that sooner or later, but will have to be answered by all mankind.

In happiness, true happiness, there is always the touch of eternity to the soul, and therefore it is open to death: the like is known by the like. There is no eternity in vanity, and therefore it is terrified of death.

The TV shows how American tanks of Jews attack the same American tanks of Arabs. And this shows everything. And even the stifling smell of oil comes from the TV. And all the chatter about the “right” - Israel to existence, Arabs to Palestine - is all nonsense. The Jews came and took it, saying: "This is our right." And before them the Arabs came and took. And before them the Turks, Byzantium, Phenicia and so on. And everyone has "rights". And the question is always and only in force ...

Everyman - the man whose mental horizons are limited daily.

"But the words: flower, child, beast..." (Khodasevich). Think about those words, looking for gold, the afternoon sun penetrated the trees outside the window, the cat on the way to school children. This is me a hundred times more turning to God, than all the worship and religious conversations together. And another comes to mind: "Who told you that man needs something to do on this earth...

The Church is first of all flow, continuity of flow, sound, melodies. You can and should rebel against their senseless in the perception, consciousness and piety, but without this thread and this continuity, there would be the fact, "why" can and should rise... In fact, hence the meaning of this "stream" of the Church, that it is always possible to find the "image of the ineffable glory", the transcendent reality, which the people still "fall apart", how many Edges does not appear... Let this thread polluted with pagan piety, the parish committees, the narrow "theology", neither truth nor the force of the flow does not diminish.

Wonderful cool, Sunny days. Yesterday went home from Vespers among the triumphant beauty shining in the sun trees and thought how much undeserved happiness God has given us.