Orthodoxy [Theme] Page 2

The prayer of the saints is quick, because its path to the Lord is shorter. So far, we will shout through the veil of our grave sins.

Remember Lot's wife? Go don't look back. This is the first thing for us monks.

The liturgy is the center of our faith: all the cultural wealth, everything we have in the Church, is connected with the liturgy. Churches are beautiful, but they are needed in order to serve the liturgy. The bell ringing is melodic, but it only calls for the liturgy. The Holy Scripture is valuable in itself, but it is read at the liturgy and, torn from it, begins to be understood differently ...

Repentance is the renewal of the baptismal vows. Tears become Epiphany water in the sacrament of Confession.

How scary to say - I'm Orthodox. They look at you, moreover, they stare at you intently, look for a speck in your eye, examine you for virtue. Are we all excellent in Orthodox records? Or dead, skinny C-grades expose our essence, and we, in order not to light up, make a good face with a bad game?

A serious step towards Orthodoxy, because once calling yourself a Christian, you burn behind you the bridges of the life you lived in, in which you were just you. Now you are a servant of God and in this joyful bondage strength is drawn for adversity, and for defeat, and for injured pride, and for the highest art of sacrificial love.

Trouble, comrades, we have a sense of ourselves. Maybe not everyone, but many. And in the Church especially. Here, recently advised at a lecture to girls to write out on a sheet of all their positive qualities and then look at it all. Then he writes one to Direct: "Father Andronicus, I can't. I've been taught that you can't think well of yourself." That's it. Curtain.
I stand in confession and understand that such a problem, if not all, then through one. Because they read smart books with an immature consciousness and listened to the "right" advice. And then come those to confession, who directly say "I'm bad/bad", and who it just lips between the words. Recently, in very difficult cases, I have to conduct a little dialogue with people in confession. And since the format of confession implies that you have no more than a minute or two for psychotherapy, you have to develop clear and effective formulations.
So, when the "bad" ones come to me, I usually have the next conversation with them. The reaction is usually typical, but for convenience I will tell you an example. A familiar girl in her twenties came to me recently for confession:
- Father, I'm bad (Christian, wife, daughter, man - need to be inserted)
I answer:
- Look, if there are two opinions on any issue, yours and the Lord God, then what opinion should we choose?
"Lord God," he says.
- That's nice. Tell me, does God have bad ones?
- Nope.
- So what are you?
Pause... Then slowly:
- Not bad...
- Not bad, but..?
*inexplibly mooing*
- Speak up...
She looks up and says,
- Good? - and roars. Satisfied so stands, joyful, and roars.
Because they stuck a man. Because she was ashamed of herself to say she was good.
And then you need to explain to a person that we are all good for God, but at times assholes. That is, we have problems, there are sins and mistakes, yes. But the Lord looks at us as beloved children. Stupid, with a jerk, but loved. And after such a realization that I am good for God, but I have problems, it is already possible to talk about some adequate spiritual life.
If you have just read this text, and you think that now "everything is clear", please do a favor. Sit in an empty room in the presence of God, and say out loud, "I am good. But jerk. Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner." And you will understand that in such a mood you want to repent, and pray, and live.
Good luck to all. And remember, you're good!

I see some young guys - our compatriots, not read a single line from the gospel, begin to read brahminical, Buddhist literature, the Koran and the like. They go to an Indian guru. Then there is they have not like and they return to Orthodoxy, however, contracted in these Eastern cults a whole bunch of different [spiritual] germs. People are damaged and then it is difficult to find the truth. Let people first [life experience] knows Orthodoxy, and if Orthodoxy he doesn't like out of it. He knows Christianity is right and then compare it with various religious teachings, about which he hears. After all, knowing Christianity, people will be able to distinguish a fake from gold or to understand how pure gold, how many carats is it. Such a person will not spend on chaff, it does not take all for gold that glitters.

A Christian without prayer and the word of God as a warrior without a sword and gun.

In 1918, during the revolution, there was such case: at the crowded anti-religious rally, the old priest at the end he asked. He didn't want to give. "Only two words," he asked. - "Okay so, say your two words, but no more," was nasmeshnitsa Chairman. The priest ascended the pulpit, and, turning to the people, proclaimed: "Christ is Risen!" And if from one breast sounded vociferous response: "Truly he is Risen!" The old man now pulled and took. His fate is easy to imagine.

We, Russia, will never become Pro-Chinese civilization. Or Pro-American.
Vladimir Solovyov
Different cultural codes.
Alexey Maslov
I agree with Sergey Mikheev, that Orthodoxy is an ethnic-forming part of the Russian civilization. No matter you believe or not believe. The norms of behavior, culture is set to Orthodoxy. Yes, the Russian civilization was born before the Orthodoxy. And the Russian Orthodox Church has incorporated many of the old traditions. There is a long period of time, formed when the stability of the Russian civilization. It seems, and China.
And due to what was formed by American civilization? All were United by the idea of aggressive economic development spaces. And now this aggression back to them. I think America is trying to bring peace to aggressive behavior. In fact, this mirror is returned to the inside of American civilization. Because if you're aggressive, you're aggressive and in relation to itself. This is something that the system has gone bad. It is not just leaving the trump. The requirement to behave aggressively remain. This ultra-leftist slogan that came to the United States. And it is the most dangerous.

The leitmotif is the theme of the Third Rome. Many misunderstand this concept, and suggests that the separation of Ukraine and the rift with Constantinople marks the end of the concept of the Third Rome. In fact, it is exactly the opposite. The third Rome is not a concept of a world Empire, or even a large Imperial space. It is about something else. Rather, it is the concept of civilizational loneliness. After the fall of Byzantium, Moscow has realized that the world center of Orthodoxy in its previous form no longer exists, but rather that it is such a center. Itself is Rome. And the current self-discrediting of the Patriarchate of Constantinople causes similar sensations. And the geopolitical situation in the world, too, makes you remember or think about loneliness as a constant of Russian history. And in this sense it is correct to say that the time of the third Rome did not leave, they come back, and in my opinion, it was not the worst time in the history of the Russian Church and the Russian state.

By the grace of the Holy spirit is refreshed and flourish in the faith of the human soul. Therefore, from the first centuries of Christianity it was customary on the feast of the Holy Trinity to decorate temples and homes with flowers and green branches.

Moreover, if someone proved to me that Christ is outside the truth, and really it would be that the truth excludes Christ, I better would like to stay with Christ than with the truth.