Prodigal passion at any age. Stages of formation of passion. - And how good can be in marriage

Almost a week of time between the days of memory of the two great Kiev-Pechersk ascetics - St. John the Long-suffering (July 31) and St. Moses Ugrin (August 8). Both of them are known for their prayerful help in the fight against the passion of fornication.

Rev. John resisted her so much that he buried himself for the whole Great Lent up to his chest in the ground, and she attacked the saint in the form of a snake, so that his whole body burned with unbearable fire. And prp. Moses, having entered the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra already severely crippled for his desire to maintain chastity, had a gift from God with one stroke of the staff to heal the monks from the raging flesh.

Nowadays, we do not dig into the ground, does this mean that fornication is not as relevant for us as many hundreds of years ago for the Pechersk ascetics? If there is a difference between bodily hunger and overeating with excesses, then maybe not every carnal movement is a sign of fornication? Where is the limit of a person’s responsibility for his desires, if, for example, the Lord Himself said to a woman: “Your desire is for your husband”? ..

We decided to ask these and other questions to Archpriest Andrei TKACHEV, publicist and preacher, rector of two Kyiv churches - in the name of St. Agapit of the Caves and in the name of St. Luke Krymsky, united in one parish, known for its active missionary work.

The conversation took place on the day of St. John the Long-suffering. To the day of remembrance of St. Moses Ugrin, we bring it to the attention of readers.

“We are all capitulators before fornication. Therefore, there is no war, because everyone surrendered.

- Father Andrei, for whom is the conversation about this passion relevant, if it is relevant today at all?

- One person asked another person for help: I ​​am tormented by various thoughts. And he says to him: if you had no thoughts, you would have affairs ...

If a person does not recognize in himself the thoughts of fornication, which he feels as an invasion of himself and something else, then he is so immersed in fornication that he does not even notice it.

But there are no visible manifestations. It cannot be said that, for example, morals are loose in the Orthodox environment ...

- There are no visible manifestations in terms of committing fornication, in this sense? First, it only "appears". And secondly, the level of human biological activity has decreased. Previously, fasting was needed, for example, for a real weakening of the flesh, because the person was strong and healthy. In some recent 19th century for us, a man, as it is written in the life of the elder Siluan, could eat fried eggs from 200 eggs for Easter, kill a three-year-old bull with his fist (Sholokhov has such Cossacks in every village).

And over the last century man has seriously fallen in vital strength, he has become weak. And now he does not need fasting as a way to curb the flesh - the flesh is already weak. The post has already switched to the informative side: you need to limit yourself to information, filter out the unnecessary, give rest to your head, eyes, tongue; to be silent, to move away from irritants, to seek silence.

As for fornication... Are there any encroachments on some terrible outrages? Well, thank God it's not. But it seems to me that we, the children of modern civilization, are all capitulators before fornication. Therefore, there is no war, because everyone surrendered (this is speaking on a macro scale). This front has been surrendered, and therefore there is no one to fight with. But war is felt by those who suddenly said to God: "That's it, I'm going to You, God, away from all filth." And went. And he began to do something that is a little bit similar to how the Pechersk ascetics fought. And then this dormant, idle evil force, suddenly finding with surprise one not dead "Mohican", comes to him and begins to fight with him. And then literally the same thing happens to him that happened to John the Long-suffering.

John was so tormented that he could not look at faces: neither men's, nor women's, nor children's. That is, he simply could not look at people, could not be among them. Any stay among people, hearing a voice, touching any human part of the body - a shoulder, an arm - plunged him into some kind of hell. To do this, he went into a cave and lived there for a very long time, so that, without seeing anyone and fasting, he would kill, at least in himself, the source of irritation. And this was also not enough, because it all lived inside. He dug into the ground, and then the devil came to him like a serpent.

This struggle remains relevant for all people. Where there is struggle, there is the revelation of the devil. When there is a struggle, then he makes his presence known. Why reveal your presence around non-fighting people? For them to die of fear?

As for me, this question is quite understandable. Our civilization is a civilization of people who have capitulated to many sins and to fornication in particular.

Before the love of money, we capitulated. Before self-love - too. We love ourselves, we want to live comfortably, we love money, and we are enslaved to fornication in its various forms, including the mental one.

– And what to do?

- Good question. First of all, you have to be honest with yourself, I think. No need to pretend to be what you are not. No need to pretend to be a Christian of the first centuries. No need to pretend to be a winner over passions. You need to not pretend to be anything and honestly try to understand: “Who am I really?”

Having understood who I am, you need to understand what I can do. And this honest way of life in the face of God will probably be saving.

What to do? The Lord has not changed, He is the same forever. We must seek Him, and on the way to Him find ourselves, because we do not know ourselves. It may sound very general, but one must ask where the Lord is. It is written in the prophets that the priests will be punished for not asking where the Lord is from early in the morning. We need to seek God and strive for Him. And only on this path does a person begin to find himself, and what is hidden in him manifests itself.

In a folded form, all sins are present in us, and repentance must be brought to God not only for the facts of your sinful biography that you have committed, but also for what is hidden in you, which you do not know about yourself.

There is such a fabulous turn: are you ready to give me something that you yourself do not know at home? As a rule, people are ready. And what people do not know about themselves is either the most precious thing for them, or the worst thing about them. In terms of sins, perhaps the worst thing about us is that we do not know about ourselves. And the most precious thing is what we value the least. Probably so.

I think that all of us, people, are in a criminal state of soul and mind, in which we know neither good nor bad about ourselves. We do not appreciate the best in ourselves, we are not afraid of the terrible in ourselves. Therefore, it is probably impossible to save a person, because he does not know himself. Whom to save, if instead of you, a person, there is one continuous illusion, one continuous idea of ​​yourself and a set of masks ...

Spiritual life exposes a person. She does not automatically turn him into a devotee, but removes his masks. Our rickety, some kind of Paralympic attempts to portray the giants of the spirit - they are ugly in fact. Our fasting, our prayers, our spiritual education, in general, our way of life, are often ugly, unfortunately.

Words such as "temptation", "pride", "hell", "consolation", "grace", "paradise", "passion", "God's visitation", "withered passion", "awakened passion" - these are all not some archaic terms, but real phenomena. And real passions - they gnaw at you like dogs, and sting like wasps ...

In order to positively fill a person's life, it is necessary to fill all the gospel vocabulary, which we so easily use, with inner experience, a living sensation. In fact, it's all there. And then a person understands what he is, and in total it all gives rise to two words: “Lord, have mercy!”

“And gluttony comes to nausea. Fornication is dangerous because it has no end.

- Father, we have gone deep into the topic, but can I have a few questions that are on the surface? There is hunger when you want to eat, and there is a passion called gluttony. So in this case: where is the difference between the carnal hunger that a person experiences by nature, and the prodigal passion that fights him. How to distinguish them?

- The fact is that the ancients believed that the bodily needs of a person in terms of sexual intercourse with the opposite sex are as natural as eating food. That breathing, that food, that drinking, that the saturation of sexual needs and desires are equal in nature, respectively, they are not ashamed, not condemned, and there is nothing to cast a shadow on the fence. So they thought.

But the Apostle Paul says - and this is the novelty of Christianity - that “the food for the belly and the belly for food, but God will abolish both. But the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.”

The New Testament, as it were, invades, drives a wedge into these concepts and says that there will be another life - without food. But here the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body, therefore grace, which really acts on a person, gives him a new plane of being, in which new interests arise, and old ones disappear. A person is not abolished like a man, does not disappear like a woman, but something important appears in his life, and this main thing silences what used to speak loudly. Grace, without changing nature, fills a person with a different meaning.

Surely each of us knows from ourselves such states when the flesh is silent if we are busy with something serious: work, raising children, writing a scientific work, reading a good book, or standing up for a long service during Great Lent. Then you have everything secondary aside, and the flesh is silent, submissive to the spirit. She is, as it were, in a sacred slave state and does her job.

But we also know another state, when the flesh begins to assert its rights as a rebellious plebs: "I want!" The soul tries to squeak something in response, but it is not audible. The flesh rears up, and that's it: a person is already obsessed with some other desires, does not know what to do, how he languishes in the fire ... We all know both. We can all compare these two states.

There is a struggle with passion, when passion has awakened and demands its own, and you do not give anything - you grabbed each other by the throat and both strangle each other. This is now a rare thing.

We read in pateri that people, like fighters in the arena, grappled with passion: she crushes them, and they crush her. She kindles a person, but he takes and does not eat, for example, all day. She presses him further, and he lies down to sleep on the floor, and not on the bed. She presses him further, and he begins to bow. She is this, and he is this, and he crushed her or she crushed him - it happens in different ways.

It seems to me that modern people have completely forgotten how to do this. In terms of wrestling, we have completely lost experience. I apologize, but even among the monks it is difficult to find a person who would know this struggle and would lead it patiently.

There is another kind of struggle: when you do not fight with passion directly, but no matter how you notice it, you continue to do your own thing, something good. For example, taking care of the sick. And while you are caring for them, passion is suppressed by grace and does not manifest itself.

That's how, I think, you can distinguish the degree of struggle. That is, you can go above it without noticing it, or you can fight it.

And how to distinguish between natural desire or not? It is said: "do not turn the cares of the flesh into lusts." The needs for food and clothing are natural, but they can develop into gluttony, into delicacy, into some kind of panache.

Fornication is dangerous because it has no end. And gluttony comes to nausea. Any fat person, even if he does not dare to run in the morning, can do liposuction. But fornication tends to develop more and more, it reaches the wildest forms of satisfaction of the bred passions, the existence of which a person could not even guess in himself. Fornication expands the field of its activity and at some stage changes a person so that he can no longer look at the world with a more or less pure look, but sees a sexual object in everyone. Fornication changes the very view of the world.

And in this sense it is necessary to evaluate the role of marriage. The natural barrier to fornication is marriage - not asceticism, but marriage. Marriage introduces the sexual sphere into a clear channel, gives it a certain law. In this sense, marriage is invaluable, especially when a person loses the strength and ability to fight fornication. Then the virtues of marriage increase.

There were times when people were spiritually stronger and could afford to treat marriage lightly. The apostle says: unmarried people think how to please the Lord, and married people think how to please their wife/husband. The apostle recommended everyone to remain as he was - single.

But today, as we become less and less able to serve the Lord, the dignity of marriage is increasing. Marriage makes a person chaste, fulfills the most primary and necessary saturation of sexual needs, and the saturation is lawful, given by God, preventing lusts from developing into something unnatural.

“I think that in the Kingdom of Heaven we will be delivered from the vexation of the flesh”

- You mentioned the words of the apostle that the Lord will abolish both food and the womb. Do you have any idea how things will be with other bodily desires? Will that “thorn in the flesh” that the apostle speaks of, and in which many mean sexual intercourse between a man and a woman, go somewhere?

- I don't know if it will. Here it is appropriate to discuss how it would be if there was no fall. And how it will be then, it is difficult to think about, this is a question of the future, which has not yet been presented, it has only been determined. I think that such a metamorphosis awaits a person, comparable to the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly. When everything changes completely, when a crawling creature becomes winged.

Will everyone "abide like angels"?

- I think yes. The gospel teaches so. We are going to be delivered from this languor associated with the flesh and all these things. All this will temporarily and functionally wither away, because the function will fulfill itself.

Here Dostoevsky said (and not only him) that humanity, multiplying, strives for a certain goal. Because humanity is one thing. One person cannot within himself, in his one life, contain the achievement of the goal of all mankind. Everyone pours water into the common mill. We multiply because we strive together for a common goal. You have done some part of the work, you leave behind offspring, and it continues to do this work. Everyone adds something to this universal treasury.

There is a very correct intuition in this. Why has Western society stopped reproducing? People don't want to get married and get married. If they get married, they don’t want to give birth, and if they give birth, then one or two and say: “Stop, that’s enough.” Why? Because they feel they have achieved their goal. The society is developed, what else is needed? It is only interesting to move to other planets or decode the human genome. "We live comfortably and well, our rights and needs are balanced."

Mankind, multiplying, strives for a certain goal, this is unequivocal. Why shouldn't a monk breed? Because he (or she) reached the goal, he missed Christ. Did you find Christ? -Found. He clung to him, hugged his knees? What else do you want, where do you breed? All! Achieving the goal does not multiply. And he who is on the way prolongs himself in posterity.

Therefore, the need for reproduction will be abolished in the Kingdom of God. Resurrection of the dead will be the multiplication of humanity that has reached Paradise. So many of them have already been born that all the resurrected who lived before that will make up the fullness of humanity.

But to speculate how it would be if there was no fall, this is a curious thing, maybe not so easy to think about, not very safe, but interesting.

As far as I know, Western theologians, such as Blessed Augustine, believed that a person without lust would have multiplied if he had not sinned. He would impassively draw his girlfriend to him the way a friend hugs a friend. And all this in people would not be associated with some kind of shame, fear, passions, palpitations, insomnia, tormenting fantasies of an inflamed imagination, jealousy and other things. The mind would control it all.

That is, Western theologians think that a person would control everything that happens with his mind, everything would be, so to speak, cold and impassive.

And the Orientals think, on the contrary, that it would be as natural as the functions of, say, swallowing, blinking, which are not controlled by the mind. The mind does not interfere with 90% of what the body does.

It would be the same here: the function of reproduction would be given to where there is no sin, but there is also no mind, because sin arises where there is mind.

An interesting topic for reflection: how would it be if we were not sinners. You can understand a little how it would be by looking at truly loving people who do not cheat on each other, who got married for love. However, they also have a place for sin, because they, too, are sometimes jealous, quarrel, and envy.

“Marriage was not designed by God to be worn like shackles. Much has been created by God for man to enjoy.”

“You say marriage is holding back. But marriage is also different. For some, everything is easy - they love each other, and live together for pleasure, and take care of each other. And for others, everything is through force: joy is difficult, closeness is difficult, communication is difficult. Is it possible to say that those who in marriage do everything through force and forcing themselves are reprehensible, and those who have everything easy lead the right way of life?

- No, rather the opposite. He who does everything through strength is worthy of praise, because everything that is done out of duty, through strength, has a greater reward than what is done out of love and easily.

– But why does it happen? After all, it is natural to love children, a spouse, come home, take care ... Why can everything change at some point?

- You see, it seems to me that everything natural has become a rarity not today and not even yesterday. We are now in a very difficult situation, when what is natural has already passed into the category of the Red Book. Naturalness is dying.

And a marriage that was not made out of love or that quickly lost love is a catastrophe in general, it is a prison sentence. I can hardly imagine how millions of people who are married out of necessity, under the pressure of circumstances, out of habit, for the sake of children live in general ...

– Christians fall into this category in the first place, because they cannot get divorced in principle.

- Quite right. Christians are among the first to fall into this category, and they are bound by a large number of moral obligations. In this case, they, unfortunately, turn into galley slaves. Those, probably, will be saved by those who carry this heavy cross to the end.

But I don't think marriage was made for that. Marriage was conceived by God not to be worn like shackles, but on the threshold of Paradise, these shackles should be thrown off and enter Paradise. Much has been created by God for man to enjoy and through joy to know being. Being as the source of joy and God as the source of being.

But, apparently, everything has deteriorated so much that one can only groan and sigh about how the most sacred turns into a burden. Why is that? This is not our brains business, we will not be able to give a comprehensive answer. Maybe people are in a hurry to get married and get married. Maybe the marriage is under. we are under the pressure of some external circumstances - the pressure of parents or premature pregnancy. Maybe personal immaturity pushes people into each other's arms, and then, having matured, they suddenly realize that a stranger is nearby.

There can be a lot here. But, unequivocally, a marriage that is not sealed with true love is a punishment.

- So what to do?

- This is an even more difficult question, there is no answer to it. Because we are dealing with specific married couples. But since the marriage has already been concluded, children have been born, then what is there ...

Although voluntaristic people are not afraid of anything, they throw off any yoke that seems unbearable to them, they are looking for new happiness, they are trying to embark on adventures, or, while maintaining the appearance of marriage, they are looking for life on the side of their hearts.

Today, the responsibility for marriage has increased greatly.

- And how good can be in marriage?

- In marriage, it can be good to almost a heavenly state. Marriage is the real, maximum likeness of the union of Christ and the Church.

But even the most serious marriage must go through serious trials. The bitterness of a possible loss must go through the marriage, because the price of everything is determined by the fear of a real loss. Either this is a threat of death through illness, or separation through betrayal ... Cooling of feelings and then their resurrection - even the most successful marriage must go through all this, it seems to me.

This is what I think: it is important that every person at each stage of his life grows up and adequately changes his attitude towards the world and towards himself.

What do I mean. For example, a 3 year old child. He was taught to believe in God, he has some kind of faith that there is Jesus Christ, there is the Mother of God, there are commandments, there are some duties. Then he will be 7 years old. He will go to school, get into society outside the family. His faith must grow, that is, 3-year-old faith at the age of 7 will no longer satisfy him. Many questions arise: why is there so much evil in the world; why there are things that I do not want to do, but must; what does God say about it? He looks at me always or not; what is sin and so on.

Then there will be 14 years, and the faith of a 14-year-old person should be 14 years old. Then there will be 25 years and at 25 a person cannot believe with 14 years of faith. He needs to be trusted properly. Then he will be 50, then he will have to die, and in each of this period, faith must be adequate. That is, the faith of an old man is not equal to the faith of a child.

The same, I think, with love. People met, and they have their own share of love. If they want to live their whole life on this share of love, then this is stupid. Because when they get married, in a month they will already have a second measure of love, completely different from the one that was at the time of the meeting. And then they lived for two or three years, managed to break plates, tried to go to their mothers, or something else like that, they got to know each other more deeply - both in good and bad. And we must go through all this and love each other with a greater degree of responsibility. If their love does not catch up with them, and the experience of life does not pull up the experience of shared love, then this love will remain in the past, will die out as a rudiment. That, in fact, is the main conflict of marriage. It is necessary that feelings grow up along with a maturing person.

Then, I think, people should fall in love with each other again after a certain period, for example, every 5-7 years. Because when we were 22, we had one love. When we reached 30, a lot has changed in our body, in our brains, and in our living conditions. There is a need to fall in love with each other again.

Why, for example, do spouses sometimes need to relax together without children, or break out somewhere without anyone, or just find time to talk to each other? Because people need to get to know each other again. Humans are deep enough beings. I can live side by side with someone, having some kind of primitive attitude towards the person. Then all of a sudden something happens and I say, “Look, you are such an interesting person. I have lived next to you for 20 years and did not know you.” A person opens up, and you are suddenly surprised - wow! He has in the depths a mass of some kind of folded talents, undisclosed potentialities.

In a perverse way, we can see this when someone else falls in love with your partner. And he sees in him something that you no longer see. You blurred your eye, and thanks to his eyes you suddenly discover with horror for yourself that next to you is a most wonderful person. But the other revealed it to you, he saw it, but you didn't. And then this third one opens your eyes to what you have. But it's better to be without it. It is better for you to open your eyes to a loved one.

In a word, all this is moving towards old age, and at each stage there is an opportunity, as it were, to recognize a person anew, to fall in love with him again. I think a few of these roller coasters - up and down breathtaking - a person should have in life. Otherwise, the marriage will fall apart. I am more than sure that a person needs to fall in love more than once in his life. And it is best to fall in love with your own wife (husband).

“There are things in life where you have to say: no, stop, I'm not going any further. Because the point of no return is coming.”

- Can I ask you a question about love? What's this? Can we say that this is a kind of passion for fornication?

– You see, I think that none of those who fornicated began to fornicate, because they decided so from the very beginning. Everything is much more complicated, more cunning. In general, it is the soul that wanders, not the body. The body obediently submits to the soul. That is, fornication begins in the brain, in the heart, in the mind, and then the rest of physics and mechanics are connected. Moreover, it connects obediently and inevitably, like a wife to her husband in a classical marriage, so matter obeys the spirit. Therefore, no one can attribute fornication to a bodily function alone. As Skovoroda said: "Do not condemn the world, this corpse is not to blame for anything." We ourselves are to blame for everything we do, the world does not play a role here at all.

So, as for amorousness, there are many interesting things here. Amorousness, it seems to me, corresponds to some kind of unfinished childhood, this is a property of an immature person. If this is a girl, then these are such wide-open eyes, and her spiritual portrait can be drawn with bows.

An amorous person is a curious person with a childish disposition of mind, he wants to be loved, to be paid attention to, to give him some time, to give some emotional part of his life. And he himself looks at the world with a childish view, and someone else's seems more interesting than his own. As they say, “a strange woman is an eternal girl”, she is always more interesting.

I repeat once again: this is a property of immature people. And since people grow up out of sync with the aging of the body (physically, he can mature a long time ago, but mentally, perhaps, he has not yet begun this process), they can fall in love until old age.

But if for some age it is completely natural, then at another age it will already be pathological. All this must come to an end sometime. If by the age of 40 a person has not outgrown this, then he seems to have retarded development.

And physical fornication comes later. For example, a woman is amorous and emotionally unable to hide her interest in someone. A person pays her in the same coin, either because of elementary gallantry, or with reciprocal interest. But there the spirit is not far from the flesh. And in general, hay with fire cannot be around for a long time, even if the hay is wet, it will still dry out and flare up. Physics will catch up with the psyche.

There is such a novel, I recommend reading it, Kobo Abe's "Woman in the Sands." Such a terrible little book, about the inevitability of certain things. An absurd novel, a novel about a trap that you didn't even know existed... A man finds himself in a sandy pit in which a certain woman lives - terribly ugly. And the person understands that he cannot get out of there, and that he will definitely sleep with this woman, although she is terrible, and if he were free, he would never have dared to do so.

That's how it all happens sometimes. There are some inevitable things that you cannot dodge if all the previous steps have already been taken in this direction. Imagine it in the form of a slide, a springboard. While you are walking up the stairs, climbing this springboard, you can stop at any moment and go down. And when you have already entered the springboard - this is the last point of freedom, you can still go down. But when he had already pushed off the springboard, then freedom ended, necessity began. You will fly it to the end, tear yourself away from it, and then you will land or collapse - there are options here.

So it is in human life. There are points where you have to say: no, stop, I'm not going any further. But there are points of no return, after which freedom ends and necessity begins. As a rule, then physics already comes into its own and fornication, which has already been committed in the soul, is simply mechanically committed.

Why is it said: I saw - I wanted, which means that I already committed adultery in my heart. That is, there, in the depths, everything has already happened, now the question is how it is actualized, how the body will be involved in what has already happened in the heart.

“The crisis begins with the main thing, and the main thing in the world is a man”

– Tell me, how much can we talk about the responsibility of a woman for desires, if the Lord said to Eve after the fall as a curse the words “your attraction to your husband.” According to these words, it turns out that a woman has a craving for a man more than a man for her ...

- A woman needs a man more than a woman needs a man, this is a fact. A woman needs a man essentially, she is attracted to him not for pleasure, but for life. Otherwise, she simply cannot live.

A man is attracted to a woman for pleasure. Essentially, he can do it without her, albeit with a creak, but he can.

Therefore, on a woman, accordingly, there is less sin - due to her inevitable attraction to a man. As a bird wants to go to heaven, so a woman wants to get married or under her wing. She is not to be blamed for this.

Why does a woman in the East wear a veil? Because a man looks at a woman as an object of desire. And when a woman looks at a man, there is no lust, there is a search for a master, there is a search for strength and wisdom. Therefore, she is allowed to look at men, but men are not allowed to look at her. That is, his gaze is impure, and hers is pure.

Although in our world everything doubles, triples and requires clarification. In the Middle Ages, a woman was classically considered the source of all evils. "The devil himself could not, so he sent a woman" - so they said. And great men fell through women, because a woman knows how to get where no one else can get. This is true. But this does not mean that all female nature is to blame.

As for responsibility... It seems to me that the responsibility for the whole world lies with men. I would not blame women for anything in the context of this conversation. I would say that the whole burden for being, for the world, lies on the shoulders of men. And if they remove themselves from responsibility for the world, then everything goes to dust. And our women would be more beautiful and amazing in every respect - from beauty to ingenuity, if men were real men - responsible, masters of the word, wise, strong, patient, for whom it is not a shame to hide.

The crisis begins with the main thing, and the main thing in the world is a man. The best if spoiled, then there is nothing to blame those who are on the sidelines. A woman in the world in the second role.

- And for the third time in this conversation I will ask the question: what to do? It is clear that you need to properly educate future men - little boys ...

It is terrible to say, but in many cases nothing can be done. On a macro scale, change is often impossible. It's been messed up too long and messed up too long. The condition is that something needs to be done, but nothing can be done. This is before the storm...

If you read history, literature, then before the most terrible changes in the world - before world wars, catastrophes - the best people of the world felt this dual thought. When you need to do something - this is the first thing. Secondly, there is nothing that can be done. And the multiplication of efforts only increases the chaos.

– Father Andrey, your thoughts are close to me personally, and in general what you say. But many people see you as a pessimist, they say that you are pushing too hard. And you can object to these words of yours: “Well, not everything is so bad. And Father Andrey threatens with some kind of misfortune ... "

- I'm not threatening. But I can't stop talking about what I see. If a person is rosy-cheeked, and analysis shows that he has a tubercle bacillus, then his rosy-cheekedness does not put the doctor in a state of complacency regarding his future health.

So the priest should be able to see Koch's sticks, which multiply in our people. We are too sick to hope for any comforting change.

My pessimism is balanced, fortunately, by the fact that I am a priest. My deep conviction for many years is that of the main thing we have the Liturgy. And raising the Liturgy to its proper height, turning it into a measure of church life and an ideological measure is the goal. She is like a lifesaver whose touch on any side of life can miraculously change the world. This is where God intervenes in life.

Moses, when he saw the dust from Pharaoh's chariots on the horizon, knew that this was the end. Actually, the end. His plans did not include the division of the Red Sea. It was neither his initiative nor his engineering idea.

So we see a process. From the point of view of mathematical analysis, a catastrophe is waiting for us very quickly. We are at a bad point on the spiritual map. And it would be a lie to say that everything is not so.

But there is a God. And some of the historians said that the complete predictability of the process is directly proportional to its lack of spirituality. The more we predict the process, the more unspiritual it is. And the process is spiritual when something happens that could not be foreseen.

So here. I repeat once again - there is a Lord who can part the sea, feed manna in the wilderness, multiply loaves and fishes for a large number of hungry people. I am by no means discounting this.

But I don't preach miracles either. A miracle can only be received as a gift.

- Thank you very much for the conversation! And a special thank you for such an ending.

Yulia Kominko

Fornication is an addiction to carnal, sinful desire by thought or by the deed itself. There are three main types of fornication: natural fornication (intimate relations of free persons of the opposite sex outside of marriage) and adultery (intimate relations when one or both are related to another person by marriage); unnatural fornication - sodomy (intimate relations of persons of the same sex), masturbation, incest, etc.; and the third - fornication in thoughts (acceptance of impure thoughts, conversation with them, delighting them, slowing down in them). One of the manifestations of the sin of fornication can be attributed to: women's jewelry and cosmetics, short skirts, cutouts, transparent and tight clothes, the use of perfumes and colognes.

Fornication is a passion that makes such a deep impression on a person that the fornicator, in accordance with the apostolic rules, must be excommunicated for many years from the holy mysteries of Christ. The Holy Fathers impose from 3 to 15 years of excommunication from Communion for this sin.

The number of days in a year when the Church offers abstinence from conjugal communion is significantly greater than even fasting days (about 300), due to abstinence on the eve of Sundays and holidays, as well as during Christmas time and bright week.

Holy Scripture on Passion

“You have heard what the ancients said: do not commit adultery. But I tell you that everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Mat. 5:28).

“It is also said that if a man divorces his wife, let him give her a divorce paper. But I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for the guilt of adultery, gives her an occasion to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery” (Mat. 5:31-32).

“Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither fornicators ... nor adulterers, nor malakia, nor homosexuals ... - they will not inherit the kingdom of God ”(1 Corinthians 6: 9-10).

“I have made a covenant with my eyes, that I should not think of a maiden” (Job 31:1).

Ways to fight passion

The main means of combating the passion of fornication is chastity.

1) Refrain from excessive consumption of food and wine. Rev. John of the Ladder says: “Satiation is the mother of fornication; and oppression of the womb is the cause of purity” (Lestv. 14:5).

Multi-eating and multi-sleeping were the cause of the uprising of prodigal warfare among the monk: The brother was fighting fornication and went to the elder, asking him to pray to God for his release from the battle. The elder took pity on his brother and prayed to God for him for seven days. When on the eighth day the brother came to the elder according to the order given to him, the elder asked him: “Brother! How are you scolding? He replied: “Father! It didn't make me feel any better." The old man, hearing this, was surprised. At night he began again to pray for his brother. Then the devil appeared to him and said: “Believe me, old man, on the first day when you began to pray to God for him, I immediately departed from him, but he has his own demon and his own battle from the larynx and his womb; it's not my fault! He causes abuse to himself by eating, drinking and sleeping without measure, as much as he wants; for this reason, swearing bothers him.” (Bish. Ignatius. Fatherland. S. 452. No. 33).

2) Do not be idle, engage in physical work or labor.

3) One of the strongest ways to deal with lustful thoughts is confession.

Many feats: swimming in the snow, staying in the cold did not quench the strong passion of the ascetic, only confession before the elder gave him peace: The Solovetsky elder Naum said: “Once they brought me a woman who wanted to talk to me. My conversation with the visitor was not long, but a passionate thought attacked me and did not give me rest day or night, and at the same time, not for a day or two, but for three whole months I suffered in the struggle with a fierce passion. Whatever I did! Snow bathing did not help either. Once, after the evening rule, I went outside the fence to lie down in the snow. Unfortunately, the gate was locked behind me. What to do? I ran around the fence to the second, to the third gates of the monastery - everywhere is locked. I ran to the tannery, but no one lived there. I was in only a cassock, and the cold penetrated me to the bones. I barely waited for the morning and almost alive reached the cell. But the passion did not subside. When Philip's fast came, I went to my confessor, confessed my grief to him with tears, and accepted penance; only then, by the grace of God, did I find the desired peace.” (Solovki patericon, p. 163).

4) Avoidance of voluptuous conversations, reading, radio and television broadcasts. Rev. Ephraim the Syrian writes: “Do not let your eyes wander here and there and do not peer into someone else’s beauty, so that with the help of your eyes your adversary does not depose you.”

5) Prayer against fornication and constant teaching in the Holy Scriptures.

6) Exercise in humility. Rev. John of the Ladder says: “Whoever tries to quench this battle by abstinence alone is like a man who thinks to swim out of the abyss, swimming with one hand. Combine humility with abstinence; for the first without the last is of no use” (Lest. 15:40).

7) Temperance of the tongue.

Abba Pimen advised his brother to observe abstinence in food and language to avoid fornication: Once a brother came to Abba Pimen and said to him: “What should I do, father? I am tormented by a delusional thought. I went to Abba Ivistion, he said to me: “Do not let this thought remain in you for a long time.” Abba Pimen answers his brother: “Abba Ivistion, his deeds are high, he is with the Angels and does not know that you and I have fornication thoughts. If a monk restrains his belly and tongue and lives like a wanderer, then believe me, he will not die.” (Memorable legends. S. 201, No. 62)

Another case from Fatherland tells about the difficulty of dealing with this passion.

Fornication abuse from the young monk passed to the inexperienced old man for his admonition : A young monk turned to a certain elder, very zealous for his life, with the aim of his prosperity and healing. With simplicity, he confessed to the elder that he was worried about carnal lust and the spirit of fornication: he hoped to find in the prayers of the elder confirmation of his feat and healing from the ulcers he received. The elder began to reproach him with the most cruel words, saying that, having allowed vicious desires, he became unworthy of the name of a monk, but worthy of all contempt. Instead of consolation, he inflicted such a severe wound on him with reproaches that the monk left the cell of the elder in the greatest despondency, in mortal sadness, in despair. He left, oppressed by anguish, deepened in thoughts no longer about the healing of passion, but about satisfying it. Abba Apollos, the most experienced among the elders, suddenly meets him. By the expression on his face and the desperate look of the young man, guessing about the inner confusion and heavy despondency with which his heart was secretly agitated, Abba Apollos asked about the reason for such a state. Forced by the convictions of the abba, the monk confessed that he was going to worldly villages as incapable, by the definition of such and such an elder, of monastic life. Not being able to curb the lusts of the flesh with a feat and not finding a cure for its actions, he decided, leaving the monastery, to return to the world and get married. Saint Apollos tried to soften him with the most merciful word, assuring him that impure thoughts and feelings disturb him daily, the more natural it is for a young person to be exposed to them. For this reason, one should not indulge in despair, should not be surprised as something unusual intensified action of warfare, in which victory is gained not so much by a feat as by the mercy and grace of the Lord. The elder begged the young monk to return to his cell and endure at least one day, while he himself hurriedly went to the monastery of the said elder. When he approached this monastery, then, raising his hands to the mountain, he said the following prayer, accompanying it with tears: “Lord! Turn the scolding of this young man on this old man, so that he learns, even in his old age, to condescend to the weakness of the ascetic and to sympathize with the indulgence of the young to passions. When he finished his prayer, sighing, he saw a gloomy Ethiopian standing in front of the elder's cell and directing fiery arrows against him. Stung by them, the old man jumped out of the cell, began to run hither and thither, as if mad or drunk, he entered the cell, then he left, he could no longer remain calm in it, and, finally, indignant, went the same way to which he directed the young monk. Abba Apollos, seeing that the elder had fallen into the position of a mad and raging man, realizing that the arrows of the devil, directed at him, pierced his heart, produced in him a clouding of the mind and an unbearable passionate indignation in feelings, went up to him and said: “Where are you going? are you in such a hurry? What makes you forget the sedateness that befits an old man and run so fast in anxiety, like a boy?” The elder, seized with shame, could not give any answer, his conscience rebuked him, he was rebuked by his appearance, which reflected vicious indignation. He realized that the passionate desire of his heart was guessed, that his secrets were revealed to the abba. “Return,” Saint Apollos then continued, “to your cell and understand that until that time the devil either didn’t know you or despised you. Learn from your own experience to sympathize with the ascetic, not to cast those who are tempted into the ruin of despair, not to confuse them with cruel words. They should be encouraged with a gracious word of comfort. No one could escape the wiles of the enemy, or extinguish or even restrain natural carnal lust, like a blazing fire, if the grace of God did not help our weakness, would not cover and protect us. Now this salvific watching over us has ended, with which God deigned to free the young man from pernicious kindling, and to teach you compassion for your neighbors and how strong the enemy's temptations can be. Let us beg God with common prayers that He command to hold back the scourge, which He deigned to use for your spiritual benefit, and that he would quench with the dew of the Holy Spirit of His fiery arrows of the devil, with which he allowed to stung you at my intercession. Through the prayer of Abba Apollos, the Lord took away the temptation with the same speed with which he allowed it. (Bish. Ignatius. Fatherland. S. 420. No. 5)

Look at : Commandments of God.

On the same issue, I will parablessage Solomon, king of Israel, taken from the biblical Book of Proverbs of Solomon: “1 My son! listen to my wisdom, and incline your ear to my understanding, 2 that you may keep discretion, and that your mouth may preserve knowledge. 3 for the lips of a strange woman ooze honey, and her speech is softer than oil; 4 but the consequences of it are bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword; 5 Her feet descend to death, her feet reach to hell. 6 If you wanted to comprehend the path of her life, then her ways are fickle, and you will not recognize them. 7 So, children, listen to me and do not depart from the words of my mouth. eight Keep your way far from her and do not come close to the doors of her house, 9 so that you do not give your health to others and your years to the tormentor; 10 lest strangers be satisfied with your strength, and your labors should not be for someone else's house."(Prov. 5:1-10).

26 My son! give me your heart, and let your eyes watch my ways, 27 because a harlot is a deep abyss, and another's wife is a narrow well; 28 she, like a robber, sits in ambush and multiplies lawbreakers among people.(Prov. 23:26-28).

“32 He who rejects instruction is careless of his own soul; but whoever listens to reproof acquires understanding” (Prov. 15:32);

“17 The way of the righteous is to turn away from evil: he guards his life who keeps his way” (Prov. 16:17);

« 11 Punishment of the Lord, my son, do not reject and do not be burdened by his reproof; 12 for whom the Lord loves, he punishes, and favors him, as a father does to his son ”(Prov. 3:11-12) (BIBLE. Book of Proverbs of Solomon).

“In the New Testament there are much stricter concepts of chastity, about the attitude towards the body, corresponding to the revealed highest destiny of man - union with God: the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body (1 Cor. 6:13).Apostle Paul calls the body the temple of the Holy Spirit living in Christians (see 1 Cor. 6:19) and contrasts the way of life of the sinner, who becomes one body with a harlot, to the union of the believer with the Body of Christ - His Church (see 1 Cor. 6:15-17) » [Orthodoxy. Dictionary-reference book, 2007].

Taking into account the severity of sin, in the first half of the 4th century after the Nativity of Christ, weekdays were excommunicated from communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ for seven years. Saint Basil the Great teaches: “Let the fornicator not partake of the Holy Things for seven years, and let him be weeping for two years, listening for two, crouching for two, and standing only with the faithful for one year; in the eighth year he will be admitted to communion” [Symphony based on the works of St. Basil the Great, 2009].

In order to understand what abyss the fornicator voluntarily plunges himself into, let's try to understand what our body and flesh are according to the teachings of the Church?

Apostle Paul teaches: “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I, therefore, take the members from Christ, to make them the members of a harlot? Let it not be!”; “Or do you not know that he who copulates with a prostitute becomes one body with her? for it is said, "the two shall be one flesh"; “He who unites with the Lord is one spirit with the Lord”; “Run fornication; every sin a man commits is outside the body, but a fornicator sins against his own body” (1 Corinthians 6:15-18).

In a letter to the Galatians, St. says: “The works of the flesh are known; they are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, magic, enmity, quarrels, envy, anger, strife, disagreements, [temptations,] heresies, hatred, murders, drunkenness, outrageousness, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do so will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal. 5:19-21).

From my more than 25 years of practical work as a dermatovenereologist, I know that the peak incidence of STIs falls on the following holidays: December 31 - January 1 (New Year's Eve), March 8 and February 23. Only to these dates it is necessary to add the incubation period that any infectious disease has. And, as a rule, prodigal sexual intercourse is preceded by a festive table and alcohol.

The way to the healing of sinners is indicated in the words Jesus : «<…>those who are not healthy need a doctor, but those who are sick, go and learn what it means: I want mercy, and not sacrifice? For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance(Matthew 9:12-13). In the Holy Gospel of Luke, He says: “I tell you that in this way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous who have no need of repentance.” “So, I tell you, there is joy among the angels of God even over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:7, 10).

With the life of the great ascetic of piety, our reverend mother Saint Mary of Egypt , which has forever become an image of repentance for all those striving for salvation, can be found when watching an Orthodox film "Image of Repentance".

Holy Reverend Mary of Egypt.

(doctor - surgeon, professor of medicine V.F. Voyno-Yasenetsky) in« Word on the Day of Remembrance of the Holy Forty Martyrs of Sebaste » [see Andrey Kondrashov's album] told his flock about cleansing by repentance.

Archbishop of Tambov Luke (Voyno-Yasenetsky). 1945

Forty Holy Martyrs of Sebaste.

Saint Luke says: “Repentance, an example of which the saints showed us, for example reverend Barbarian , ex-robber. Thinking once about his life and shuddering from sins, he came to the priest and asked to be allowed into a pig barn, where he lived with the pigs for three years, walking on all fours. Thus he repented, and the Lord vouchsafed him the gift of miracle-working.

Saint Reverend Barbarian.

Reverend Jacob , miracle worker, seer, by the tricks of Satan fell into a serious crime and, despairing of the possibility of salvation, wanted to return to the world. But the holy monk found him and convinced him that God's mercy to sinners who repent with all their hearts is immeasurable. Then the Monk Jacob shut himself up in a cave filled with the bones of the dead, and lived in it for ten years, repenting of his grave sin, and was forgiven by God, and again received the gift of miracles” [Selected Creations, 2007].

Medicine does not deal with the prevention of fornication, as well as the call of sinners to repentance. It even happens the other way around. The result of an incredible spiritual and professional degradation is the advice, unfortunately, now of many psychotherapists and doctors that if, they say, you have sexual incompatibility with your husband (wife), find yourself a partner (partner). Just like looking for a partner for a harmless, chaste game of checkers. I also know many cases when a urologist recommended that patients engage in masturbation in order to improve the outflow of prostate secretion, in the treatment and prevention of prostatitis. And not in the house of the Aesculapius, that the aching organ should not be raped, and even in such an unnatural way. He forgot (or maybe did not know) that the Lord created a man in such a way that he endowed him with the possibility of wet dreams. In fact, this is known to medical science. But due to professional degradation, he is not aware of this. So, in adults, nocturnal emissions usually occur due to sexual abstinence. This phenomenon ensures regular evacuation of sperm and facilitates hard-tolerated manifestations of abstinence, for example, after concentrating the psyche on sexual topics, after spontaneous erection (excitation of the penis), and the like. For adult men who have not been sexually active for a long time, wet dreams at night are an adaptive mechanism for eliminating excessive accumulation of seminal fluid in the genitals. Moderate nocturnal emissions are not dangerous to health. In a sense, they compensate for sexual life, and when it comes, they stop on their own. The age of the onset of the first wet dreams and their frequency depend on the individual innate characteristics of a person (body composition, temperament, and others), on the general state of health, lifestyle and focus of interests. Some sexologically healthy men never have wet dreams at all. On average, wet dreams occur in adolescents and young men once a week, in adults - once a month. However, during sexual abstinence, wet dreams become more frequent, and their uniformity disappears. Pollution is not a deviation from the norm, but, on the contrary, a sign of the normal hormonal work of the gonads.

I'll bring one example. As a dermatovenereologist, I was called to a hospital consultation with a 19-year-old young man with a preliminary diagnosis of acute gonorrhea. During an elementary examination, it was found that there was no gonorrhea, and a specialist was called in to diagnose wet dreams. Who called the consultant? Just don't be too surprised - a certified young man with a husband and two teenage sons.

Saint John of the Ladder in "The Ladder", Word fourteen "On the womb, which is dear to all and the crafty master," he says: "Satiation is the mother of fornication, and oppression of the womb is the cause of purity" (14: 5) [St. John of Sinai, 2007]. He teaches: “After we are full, this unclean spirit departs and sends a prodigal spirit upon us; he announces to him in what state we are left and says: “Go stir up such and such: his belly is full, and therefore you will not work much.” This one, having come, smiles and, having tied our hands and feet with sleep, he does everything he wants with us, defiling the soul with vile dreams, and the body with expiration ”(14: 27) [Ibid.]. This great father, in his glorious Ladder, the Fifteenth Word, About imperishable purity and chastity, which corruptibles acquire through labor and sweat" warns: "Do not think to cast down the demon of fornication with objections and evidence, for he has many convincing justifications, as warring against us with the help of our nature. Whoever wants to fight with his flesh and conquer it with his own strength struggles in vain, for if the Lord does not destroy the house of carnal lust and does not build the house of the soul, then he who thinks to ruin [it] is watching and fasting in vain. Present to the Lord the weakness of your nature, recognizing your impotence in everything, and you will receive the gift of chastity in an imperceptible way” (15: 24-26) [Ibid.].

Saint John of Sinai.

Holy Righteous John of Kronstadt P leading words apostle paul that: “Drunken ones will not inherit the Kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:10)” [St. rights. John of Kronstadt, 2007]. I think that every person should decide whether he wants to inherit the Kingdom of God? And if he wants, then he needs to follow the advice of the Bible, the apostles and the Holy Fathers.

St. Righteous John of Kronstadt (1829-1908)

In the first letter to the Corinthians says: “Do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor malakia, nor homosexuals, "neither thieves, nor covetous men, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor predators - they will inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Cor. 6: 9, 10) .

Holy Righteous John of Kronstadt teaches: “The enemy (the devil) corrupted mankind at the beginning, before the flood, all fornication, all kinds of sins, and God brought the flood on the earth in order to save future offspring from the greater spread of fornication and all sin. So even now the devil corrupts people mainly with all kinds of fornication. He says: “Satan plunges the prodigal poison into the heart and into the loins and into the whole body with the greatest flattery. Be strong, servant of Christ, and remember that your pleasure is incorruptible and pure - Christ. For Him, keep your heart from all impurity.” The same holy father teaches: “And you, the fornicator, will you receive pardon at the trial, if you do not repent and give up your adultery, do not mourn for it, do not make amends for it with alms and abstinence? So all those who are attached, addicted to the shadow of this world, its deceptive passions will not be pardoned if they do not repent. Oh, how many who have sinned and repented have been pardoned! How many former fornicators, murderers, covetous and repentant have entered Paradise and are enjoying bliss!” [St. rights. John of Kronstadt, 2007].

instructs: “He who gives to harlots becomes ridiculous and shameful; he will have many quarrels, and the pleasure will be short, or rather, he will not even get a short one. No matter how much he gives to outcast women, they will not be grateful to him at all: a strange house is a bored vessel (Prov. 23:27). Moreover, this kind is shameless, and Solomon likened the love of such a woman to hell. She then only calms down when she sees her lover already having nothing. It would be better to say that even then she does not calm down, but magnifies even more, tramples on the lying person, betrays him to great ridicule and gives him so much evil that it is impossible to describe” [Symphony based on the works of St. John Chrysostom, 2009].

Saint Demetrius of Rostov says: “All sins are displeasing to God, irritate Him and incite to angry vengeance, but not to the same extent, for every sin that a person commits is outside the body,” as the apostle says, “but the fornicator sins against his own body (1 Cor. 6 :18), against the body which Christ has redeemed with His precious blood and prepared to be the temple of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, He is especially angry with the fornicator and invents the wrath of vengeance against him” [Symphony based on the works of St. Demetrius of Rostov, 2008].

Rev. Ephraim the Syrian instructs: “Just as it is pleasant for a pig to wallow in mud, so demons find pleasure for themselves in fornication and uncleanness.” He told: “One brother, enduring scolding from fornication, forbade the demon and said: “Go into darkness, Satan! Do you not know that although I am unworthy, yet I bear the members of Christ”? And immediately the disintegration ceased instantly (as if someone, having blown, extinguishes the lamp); so he marveled at it to himself and glorified the Lord.” This great father teaches: “If the spirit of fornication bothers you, rebuke it, saying: “May the Lord consume you, full of stench, demon of uncleanness!” For we know him who said: The carnal mind is enmity against God (Rom. 8:7).” And he also said: “If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will punish him (1 Cor. 3:17), says the Divine Scripture. Like a dog, strongly resist the demon of fornication; do not agree to be carried away by such a thought, because from a spark there will be many coals, and from a bad thought, bad wishes multiply. Try to destroy the memory of them more than the secret stench. This great father says: “Listen to him who said: Flee fornication (1 Cor. 6:18). Do you want to know what a grave sin is fornication? Whom the remorse of snakes in the wilderness could not kill, fornication in the land of Midian brought them down, and then they agreed to eat the sacrifice of an idol, for which twenty-three thousand of the people died in one day (1 Cor. 10: 8). He teaches: “If you want to conquer fornication, love vigilance and thirst, always think about death and never have conversations with a woman, and you will win” [Symphony based on the works of St. Ephraim the Syrian, 2008].

Rev. Ephraim Sirin

Saint Ignatius(Bryanchaninov) teaches: “The sin of fornication has the property that it unites two bodies, although unlawfully, into one body (see 1 Cor. 6:16); for this reason, although he is forgiven immediately after repentance of him and confession of him, on the indispensable condition that the repentant leave him, but the purification and sobering of the body and soul from prodigal sin requires a long time, so that the connection and solitude established between the bodies, planted in the heart that infected the soul was worn out and destroyed. To destroy the unfortunate assimilation, the Church considers those who have fallen into fornication and adultery very significant periods for repentance, after which it allows them to partake of the all-holy Body and Blood of Christ. He also says: “Some argue that falling into fornication with the body and falling into it with the mind and heart is a crime of the same gravity and significance. This is the opinion of the Savior: everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart (Matthew 5:28). Unfair opinion! This is said in addition to the Old Testament commandment, this is said by those who recognized only bodily fornication as a sin, not understanding that evil thoughts, to which the thoughts of fornication are ranked, come from the heart ... defile a person (Matt. 15:19-20), move away from God (Wisdom 1:3), they take away purity - a means of seeing God. Pleasure in fornication thoughts and feelings is fornication of the heart and defilement of a person, making him incapable of communion with God, while fornication of the body is a change of the whole human being from mixing with another body (see 1 Cor. 6:16), is a complete estrangement from God, there is death, there is death. To get out of the first state, one must sober up; in order to get out of the second, one must rise again, one must be born again with repentance” [Symphony based on the works of St. Ignatius (Bryanchaninov), 2008].

Look at website of Archimandrite Januariy (Ivliev) : Sinful passions. Development and classification.

How do the Holy Gospel and the Holy Fathers teach us to deal with those who succumbed to the passion of fornication?

The Gospel of John says that one day Jesus preached in the Jerusalem Temple. “Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to him a woman taken in adultery, and placing her in the middle, they said to him: Teacher! this woman is taken in adultery; but Moses in the law commanded us to stone such people. What do you say? They said this, tempting Him, in order to find something to accuse Him. But Jesus, bending low, wrote with his finger on the ground, paying no attention to them. When they continued to ask Him, He raised himself up and said to them, He who is without sin among you, let him first throw a stone at her. And again, bending low, he wrote on the ground. But they, having heard this, and being convicted by their conscience, began to leave one by one, beginning from the elders to the last; and Jesus alone was left, and the woman standing in the midst. Jesus, rising up and not seeing anyone but a woman, said to her: woman! where are your accusers? nobody judged you? She answered: no one, Lord. Jesus said to her: Nor do I condemn you; go ahead and don't sin"(John 8:3-11).

Reverend Abba Dorotheos told us: "Don't judge your neighbor: you know his sin, but you don't know repentance" [Spiritual flower garden. Thoughts and sayings of saints and great people, 2010].

Saint Demetrius of Rostov He speaks : “A person who condemns others is like a mirror that reflects everyone in itself, but does not see itself.» [Ibid].

Saint John of the Ladder teaches:"Judgement is a shameless theft of God's dignity» [Ibid].

Saint John of the Ladder He speaks:“The one who pleases the womb and wants to overcome the prodigal spirit is like one who wants to extinguish the fire with oil.» [Ibid].

Venerable Nil of Sinai teaches:“Avoid carnal thoughts, because they corrupt the body and defile the soul.» [Ibid].

Reverend Abba Isaiah said: “If bodily beauty seduces your heart, then think what stench it will turn into, and you will calm down.» [Ibid].

Saint Ambrose reminds us that: Saint Mark the Ascetic says in his spiritual law: "the root of lust is the love of the praise and glory of man." Lust intensifies, as other holy fathers say, when a person loves bodily rest (in food, drink and sleep) and especially when he does not keep his eyes from objects that tempt ”[The soul-beneficial teachings of the venerable Optina elders, 2009].

Rev. Ambrose of Optina

Reverend Mark the Ascetic

So, Reverend Anatolyolder teaches : “The prodigal passion of all is at war. And during the ordeals, the demon of fornication boasts before all the princes of darkness that he gave prey to hell more than anyone else. Be patient and ask for God's help. To speak to the sisters for the good is good, but to remain silent is even better. And reproaching yourself, praying for them is even better.”[Ibid].

Fornication is a very insidious passion. It takes possession of the human mind, and indulgence in it can become one of the main incentives for human life. In order to ennoble "lust", it is often called love. And from time to time this very love is not reduced solely to physical attraction, but nevertheless, it is often the fornication that lies at its base. We often hear: "I love her, but I don't want to marry her." Well, tell me, please, what kind of love can we talk about (even if we use the word love in a purely human passionate sense)? This very love is an absolutely integral part of life. "How are you? we ask when we meet. - How's your work? And on the personal front?

So if there are interruptions in work, it's nothing. And if there is a lull on the personal front, then things are bad. Very often, when one of the friends gets married, then the women have nothing to talk about (provided that the woman is faithful to her husband), the same thing happens among friends. I know many cases when, after marriage, a man almost completely broke with all his former surroundings: simply because the topics of conversation were completely exhausted.

“Just as it is pleasant for a pig to wallow in mud, so demons find pleasure for themselves in fornication and uncleanness.”St. Ephraim Sirin

One of my acquaintances, an unmarried woman, thought about going to confession and generally starting churching. The only thing that stopped her by and large was her unwillingness to leave fornication.

And what about not making love at all? But that's impossible. Without it, life almost loses its meaning. I can't wait to get married! After all, I'm not going to get married in the next couple of years.

The fight against the spirit of fornication of St. fathers call the struggle fierce. Fornication begins to overcome from the “first age of maturity” and does not stop before victory over all other passions. In order to overcome fornication, it is not enough to observe physical abstinence and chastity, but one must all the time be in repentant contrition of the spirit and relentless prayer against this most unclean spirit. There is also a need for bodily labor and needlework, which keeps the heart from wandering and returns it to itself, and most of all, deep true humility is needed, without which no victory can be gained over any passion.
The start of the fight

A difficult struggle with the passion of fornication must begin, first of all, with abstinence in food (“Punish thoughts with the poverty of food, so that they think not about fornication, but about hunger” - Nilus of Sinai), that is, from fasting, because, according to St. Fathers, gluttony invariably leads to the passion of fornication: "The pillar rests on its foundation - and the passion of fornication rests on satiety" (Nil of Sinai). Drunkenness is especially dangerous from this point of view.
First, drunkenness lowers a person's ability to control his actions and manage his desires.

Secondly, as you know, alcohol kindles lust. Many examples of this can be found. How often do you hear that something happened “drinking”. And here it is impossible to speak only about the loss of control, since it also happens that “drunken” happens to that person with whom it is quite difficult to even imagine intimacy when “sober”. However, as is again known, at a certain stage of intoxication, desire already disappears and intercourse, on the contrary, becomes absolutely unattractive or even impossible. The demon of fornication is replaced by the demon of despondency.

Among the sins caused by fornication, St. Ignatius Brianchaninov refers:
- Prodigal irritation, prodigal sensations and positions of the soul and heart.
- Acceptance of impure thoughts, conversation with them, delight in them, permission to them, slowing down in them.
— Prodigal dreams and captivity.

- Failure to keep the senses, especially the sense of touch, which is an audacity that destroys all virtues.
- Swearing and reading voluptuous books.
- Natural prodigal sins: fornication and adultery.
- Sins of prodigal unnatural.

“The dog of this prodigal demon”, when he comes to you, drive away with the spiritual instrument of prayer; and no matter how much he continues to be shameless, do not yield to him.” St. John of the Ladder

Non-keeping of feelings (meaning five senses: touch, smell, hearing, sight, taste) - we very often do not notice this sin, considering it the norm of things. It must be said that intemperance in feelings is considered in our time a sign of looseness and uncomplexity and is put more in a plus for a person than a minus. Of course, this is not about gross harassment, which is still not encouraged. If among the older generation close physical contacts are not yet very popular and familiar pats on the shoulder cause embarrassment, then among the youth they are quite accepted.

However, there are occasional examples of the opposite.

The girl met a young man. After talking with him for a while, she was surprised to notice that he did not look into her eyes during the conversation.

“Listen, why do you always look away when you talk to me? Well, you're not my girlfriend. Eye contact is quite intimate. I can not stare at an unfamiliar young lady. It's the same as hugging you or kissing you.

Delight in the sight of beautiful women and men is also considered to be non-storing of sight. And addiction to all kinds of perfumes, colognes and other perfumes is non-storing of smell, since, as you know, certain components are added to perfumes that act on a person exciting.

Lack of hearing can be called not only the desire to listen to seductive speeches, but also the love of compliments about our appearance, sexuality, etc. There is, for example, a wonderful saying that “a woman loves with her ears.” However, this is true not only for women, but also for men, too, since flattering speeches often provoke a feeling of love, which is closely associated with sexual desires. Vanity is very often an aid to fornication.
Acceptance of impure thoughts, delight in them.

Pleasure with unclean thoughts, firstly, is a sin in itself, and secondly, it leads to inflaming carnal desires and often provokes a person to commit physical fornication.

A child, learning for the first time “where children come from”, experiences a rather unpleasant feeling, a feeling of disgust. And only then, having already got used to the concept of the technology of conceiving a child, does he begin to feel desire and attraction to a being of the opposite sex.

In the process of arousal, our psyche plays the biggest role, not physiology. If we assume that nothing depends on our will, then it will turn out that we should react to any individual of the opposite sex in exactly the same way. But that's not how things happen in life.

Having understood that the physical process of arousal directly depends on mental processes, we begin to realize why it is so dangerous to accept impure thoughts. Without driving away the thought from yourself, you already, as it were, agree to sin, you already commit it. And from inner consent to sin to committing it on the physical level is within easy reach. The gospel says: Whoever looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.».

One brother, being indignant with fornication, came to the great old man and asked him: “Show love, pray for me, for the lust of fornication revolts me.” The elder prayed to God for him. The brother comes to him another time and says the same thing. And again the elder began to pray to God, saying: “Lord, reveal to me the condition of this brother, and from where does the devil attack him? Because I prayed to You, and he still didn't get peace." Then he had a vision: he saw this brother sitting, and next to him - the spirit of fornication, and the brother communicates with him, and the Angel sent to help him stands aside and is angry with the monk, because he did not betray himself to God, but, delighting in thoughts, he gave over his whole mind to the workings of the devil. And the elder said: “You yourself are to blame, because you are carried away by your thoughts,” and taught the brother to resist thoughts.

When a lustful thought is accepted and agreed to settle in a person’s head, it gradually takes possession of his mind, and erotic pictures are already drawn in the human brain that delight him. In this case, we can already talk about prodigal dreams.

In fact, the difference between accepting thoughts and dreaming is not so great. The first almost inevitably leads to the second, and the second is necessarily the result of the first. We speak of prodigal dreams when the enjoyment of prodigal thoughts occurs on a conscious level. A person begins to draw images that excite him, invent various situations and plots on this topic, and in general indulge in thoughts about fornication.

Often a person obsessed with prodigal dreams, in search of nourishment for them, turns to erotic literature, to cinema, goes to nightclubs to watch striptease, etc.

When tempting a person, demons first draw beautiful romantic pictures, which later, as they indulge in fornication, turn into ugly, anti-aesthetic, blackish panels, which are much closer in essence to what the demon of fornication looks like in reality.

Obscene language is also considered a manifestation of fornication. Foul language is the use of words related to taboo (forbidden), informal vocabulary. Basically, such words are connected precisely with the sexual life of a person. Other expressions that are considered rude and abusive (for example, vocabulary denoting mental abilities, or rather, the absence of them, or character traits) do not apply to foul language. In principle, it is swear words that, according to the assumption of some scientists, in ancient times did not have a negative connotation, but were ritual and were replaced by euphemisms, because they had a sacred meaning, are considered bad, forbidden.

Finally, the most pronounced manifestation of fornication is the extramarital intercourse of a man and a woman. If a person who indulges in fornication is single, then his sin is called fornication, if a person cheats on his spouse, then adultery.
The most extreme degree of depravity is unnatural forms of fornication such as sodomy (homosexuality), etc.

Of course, starting to fight with the passion of fornication, it is necessary, first of all, to stop indulging it, that is, to stop all extramarital sexual relations. However, this first step is quite obvious, because priests often refuse to forgive sins for people who live extramarital sex. Repentance for adultery or fornication implies a willingness to end a life of fornication and turn to chastity.

An extramarital union can be broken or, on the contrary, legalized. Marriage (married) can be annulled in case of infidelity of one of the spouses. If the family breaks up, the Church allows remarriage and even remarriage, clearly preferring it to illegal cohabitation.

Teaching the fight against the passion of fornication, St. fathers advised:
Refrain from food. “He who feeds the flesh of his body, the flesh feeds evil lusts, and shameful thoughts will not fail him” (St. Ephraim the Syrian). “Saturation of the womb is the mother of fornication, and oppression of the womb is the source of purity” (St. Ephraim the Syrian). Abstinence in food has a dual meaning. First, as it was already said above, by mortifying the flesh, we thereby strengthen the spirit to fight passions. Secondly, by strengthening the flesh, we thereby strengthen its desires, that is, purely carnal passions. A weak and infirm person will never suffer from fornication as much as a strong and healthy one.
Refraining from speech.

Once a brother came to Abba Pimen and said: “What should I do, father? I suffer from prodigal lust. And now I went to Abba Ivistion, and he said to me: do not let her stay in you for a long time. Abba Pimen answers his brother: “The deeds of Abba Ivistion are lofty — he is in heaven, along with the Angels — and does not know that you and I are in fornication! But I will tell you from myself: if a person restrains his belly and tongue, then he can control himself.

Abstinence of speech, and at best, of thought is very important. Idle talk, like idle thought, can lead far. In principle, any idleness gives rise to prodigal lust, which manifests itself either in thought or in word.

The girl in confession mentions idle talk as one of her sins. The priest, hearing this, picks up her speech:

- Well, if idle talk, then it means condemnation, and slander, and foul language, and many other sins of the word.

Empty chatter, seemingly harmless at first glance, always makes a person more licentious. Wandering in a word, one way or another, we begin to touch on certain subjects, discussing which we kindle passions.
“Do not let your eyes wander here and there and do not peer into someone else's beauty, so that with the help of your eyes your opponent will not depose you” (St. Ephraim the Syrian). To this advice can be added the recommendation to restrain all five of your senses. First of all, of course, touch, since the most seductive is not sight, but still touch. In the future, you need to pay attention to vision. A wandering glance often betrays the lust of nature. In particular, in the Caucasus, a woman staring around is considered a dissolute person and invariably provokes a lot of indecent proposals. However, in Europe the situation is not much different, just the causal relationship is less conscious.
“Restrain, brother, from jokes, lest they make you shameless; shamelessness is the mother of indecency” (St. Ephraim the Syrian).
It happens that the evil one inspires you with such a seductive thought: "Satisfy your lust, and then you will repent." To this answer him: "And how should I know that I will have time to repent if I indulge in fornication."
In the same way he will say to you: “Satisfy your passion one day and you will calm down.” But remember that the more you eat, the more you want. Your stomach is stretched and requires more food, but if you abstain from food, then the need for it decreases every day. So it is with prodigal passion. The more you indulge her, the more she overcomes you. Abstinence, on the other hand, leads in the end to the weakening of warfare.
And, seeing that you lusted for a woman (man), the demon will tell you: “You have already committed a sin by lusting a woman in your heart, so now satisfy your passions, for to do and to lust are one and the same. Since you have already sinned, what is there to lose now?” But answer him: “Although I have fallen in my eye and committed adultery in my heart, yet now it is better for me to repent of this and ask God for forgiveness, rather than aggravate my sin by committing adultery also in the body.”
“Whoever tries to stop this warfare with one restraint is like a man who is trying to swim out of the abyss of the sea, acting with one hand. Conjugate humility with abstinence; because the first without the last turns out to be useless ”(St. John of the Ladder).
"Don't be fooled, young man! I saw some people praying for the faces they loved, who, being impelled to do so by fornication, thought, however, that they were fulfilling the duty of holy love ”(St. John of the Ladder).
Do not allow yourself to think about the dreams that were in a dream during the day; because the demons are striving for this, in order to defile us who are awake with the help of dreams.
Do not remain in idleness, because “idleness gives birth to love, but having given birth, it protects and cherishes” (Ovid). The fact that labor, especially physical work, helps in the fight against any passions, St. fathers write quite often. As for the prodigal passion directly, then work is an especially good medicine for it.

But deepening into work can only somewhat weaken the fornication, and in no way eradicate thoughts from the heart. Tearful prayer, repentance and frequent participation in the Sacraments of confession and communion heals from fornication.
It is extremely difficult to achieve complete victory over prodigal passion.

There are often stories in the patericons about how young monks came to the elders with the words: “I want to leave the monastery and return to the world, because fornication thoughts overwhelm me too much.” To this, the wise fathers answered: “I am many times older than you, and as far as I can remember, fornication thoughts have always overcome me. And I still can’t cope with them, and you thought to overcome them in your youth. And the brothers remained in the monastery in order to continue to fight with fornication.

St. Ephraim the Syrian writes: “If carnal warfare arises in you, do not be afraid and do not lose heart. By this, you will give courage to the enemy against yourself, and he will begin to instill seductive thoughts in you, suggesting: “It is not possible to stop burning in you once if you do not satisfy your lust.”/…/ But do not be cowardly, God will not leave you.”

Acquisition of the virtue of chastity is a direct road to the Kingdom of Heaven. St. John Kas

The Monk John the Long-suffering is one of the most amazing saints resting in the Near Caves of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra.

He is amazing in that he stood face to face against the passion from which Scripture calls to flee. “Flee fornication” (1 Corinthians 6:18), wrote the apostle Paul. And following the chief apostle, patristic experience also gives advice regarding this sin: run. Run from the source of temptation, run from impure thoughts.

One of the saints said that fornication is a passion that cannot be looked into the eyes. And indeed, of all the feats that the saints lifted, the most terrible in their torment were generated precisely by the struggle against fornication. Remembered today, Rev. John the Long-suffering, fighting with fornication thoughts, buried himself up to his chest in the ground, so that the lower part of the body festered and swarmed with worms. Rev. Martinian (Caesarea), enduring the temptation of a harlot, entered the flames of the fire and stood there until he was burned half to death. Rev. Mary of Egypt endured unbearable suffering for 17 years in a lifeless desert so that the spirit of fornication departed from her. Another ascetic, mentioned in the Fatherland, smeared his clothes with the pus of a decomposed corpse and walked around in it until God healed him of fornication.

Direct struggle with this passion is terrible. Are you sure you can handle it? If not, then you better run. Run from where you are tempted, run from the one who tempts you. This is what the fearless Paul says, this is what the vision of the universal infection with this passion suggests.

A prodigal demon will not be driven away by any, even the most skillful doctor.

Paul also remarks, "every sin a man commits is outside the body, but a fornicator sins against his own body" (1 Corinthians 6:18). Indeed, fornication leads a relatively small family of sins, which in themselves carry punishment - not only the soul, but also the body of a person is destroyed. Such is the drunkenness that turns a blossoming man into a trembling insect. Such is drug addiction, drinking all the vital juices from the body. Such is gluttony, because of which the flesh rages. But fornication is worse than them, because it is not cured by human means. A prodigal demon will not be driven away by any, even the most skillful doctor. Only when Christ and His Most Pure Mother come between a person and his passion will it become easier for a person. But even at the same time, the cunning and terrible demon of fornication will not go away completely, but will only wait for an opportunity.

By the way, according to the Apostle Paul, it is impossible to write about fornication. “Fornication and all uncleanness and covetousness should not even be named among you, as befits saints” (Eph. 5:3), said Paul. How far are we today from these words! In our confessions, the mentioned sin is rarely not heard, with the addition of the word “mental”. But, at the same time, there is a positive side to our deplorable state. For repentant harlots, Christ promises a better fate than for high priests (Mt. 21:31).

Fornication takes away the kingdom of God from a person

If Paul had lived in our time, then perhaps he would not have written so categorically that only in fornication does a person sin directly against the body. Modern scientists (believers) say that any passion (even one that seems absolutely spiritual) has a destructive effect on the body.

For example, pride is a common companion of psychopathy, schizophrenia, and spinal diseases. Despondency acts as a catalyst for depressive neuroses and psychoses, diseases of the kidneys, the immune system, and oncology. Vanity contributes to diseases of the cardiovascular system and neuropsychiatric ailments. Covetousness and envy are associated with neuropsychiatric disorders. Anger affects the development of hypertension, coronary heart disease, angina pectoris, myocardial infarction, strokes, urolithiasis and cholelithiasis, neurasthenia, psychopathy, epilepsy*...

Yes, every passion kills a person, but fornication is still worse. He takes away the Kingdom of God from man. “Do not be deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor
adulterers, nor malakis, nor sodomists... - they shall not inherit the Kingdom of God" (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).

Fornication destroys the personality from within and attacks the highest powers of the soul - mind and will. Surprising as it may seem, but fornication is capable of clouding even the greatest mental abilities, turning the most intelligent and well-read person into a laughingstock. The mysterious connection between heresy and fornication is quite accurately indicated by the Wise Solomon. “The excitement of lust corrupts the mind” (Wisdom 4:12), wrote the wisest of people. Perhaps that is why many heretics were pronounced fornicators.

Fornication drives the Holy Spirit out of a person, turning the temple of his heart into an idol's temple. The one who surrenders to fornication capitulates to all other passions, turning into a toy of unclean spirits and his own enraged nature. How devastating the consequences of fornication can be seen in the very rigidity of the struggle against it by those who were once committed to it. Let us again remember Mary of Egypt and her incomprehensible spiritual warfare in the wilderness. This is a struggle on the verge of life and death, tension to the extreme limit of human strength. Because the war is waged here with the prince of this world himself. It is not for nothing that on the frescoes of ordeals depicted at the entrance to the Near Caves of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, the ordeal of fornication is headed by Satan himself - he differs from other demons by a red mantle, a parody of royal dignity. The devil personally oversees the passion of fornication, this is his favorite sphere of influence. And here his world power is growing from year to year.

Run, don't test yourself

Fornication today has a very different arsenal of weapons than it did in Paul's time. Fornication attacks modern man from all sides. It penetrates through the eyes - which is helped by a computer monitor, a TV screen and the usual shamelessness of a feral European who goes out into the street half-dressed. Fornication pours in through the ears - a depraved song, a vulgar anecdote, an indecent joke. Fornication enters through the nostrils - special spirits that excite human flesh. Fornication lies in wait at every step, because they speak and sing about it with delight, write apologies in its honor, film it, photograph it, draw it. Therefore, Paul is a thousand times right when he says: Flee fornication. Run, do not test your strength and do not tempt God. Don't play with Leviathan. Don't put your hand in the lion's cage. Be afraid to fall - who knows if you'll rise?

Let's shut up on this. This is not a topic that is useful to talk about a lot. The danger is obvious, and vigilance must be proportionate to the threat of a fall. Saint John, help. Our holy venerable fathers of the Kiev Caves, pray to God for us. Lord, save Your people from all the diseases of this world.

* About this - in the book by Irina Siluyanova "Anthropology of the disease", the chapter "Variety of forms of "unihabitation" of the soul and body."