What is smoked in the church. Attitudes towards smoking in the Orthodox and Catholic churches. Why is smoking considered a sin?

According to statistical studies, in our country almost every second man and every third woman smokes, many of them consider themselves religious, not really thinking about how smoking and the church are combined.

Church commandments have not changed much since the founding of religion, and smoking contradicts several basic church dogmas at once. The Orthodox Church has always condemned smoking - since the days when it was not so common. Back in 1905, priests delivered angry sermons in Orthodox churches, calling smoking the intrigues of the devil and considering tobacco a serious obstacle to the salvation of the human soul.

Such a sharply negative position of the church is quite understandable; modern priests, answering questions about smoking, also speak extremely negatively. And the point is not only that smoking does not bring any benefit to either the soul or the human body, the main reason is the harm that nicotine causes to the health of the smoker and his environment. Thus, a smoker simultaneously violates several important commandments - he destroys his own body, sinning against himself, as a creation of God, and in addition, harms the health of other people, which is condemned in any religion.
In addition to the commandment "do not kill" and "do no harm", people who smoke manage to violate several more church postulates, for example, smoking causes addiction to tobacco, which in itself is a sin and a violation of God's providence.

Some of the church fathers call smoking an “unnatural” occupation, others call for abandoning nicotine as a substance that destroys the body and mind of a person, weakens the soul and intensifies sinful passions.

And if you consider how many prayers exist against smoking and to strengthen the strength of those who quit smoking, it immediately becomes clear that smoking and the church are not only incompatible, but rather opposite concepts, and any sincerely believing person should give up cigarettes.
You can learn more about the issue of smoking and faith, as well as learn prayers and conspiracies against smoking on our website, which contains a lot of interesting information on all issues related to smoking.

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Hello Kirill Ilyich! The attitude of the Orthodox Church towards smoking can be understood from the statements of some people related to it:

Archpriest Boris Danilenko: At the theological level, the opinion of the Orthodox Church on this issue has not been expressed, but many prominent clergymen, monks, elders, and spiritual writers have a purely negative attitude towards smoking. This is a sinful skill that hinders a person in spiritual development. And what we call ascetic culture - this very concept excludes a person's attachment, in particular, to the destruction of his own organism.

But the fact is that some people, people of a high Christian life, really, unfortunately, smoked. Many admirers of Emperor Nicholas know that his addiction to smoking is one of the points that, for some of their opponents, seems to be an argument against his possible canonization. Attachment to smoking is often a direct obstacle for a person, for example, to taking Communion.

Priest Alexy Uminsky: Yes, smoking is a sin. But we must understand that there is a sin leading to death, and there is a sin not leading to death, not a mortal sin.. Smoking is a sin, which in general is not leading to death. It may not be an obstacle to salvation. We know saints who smoked. And now, probably, many priests and monks in Greece smoke: smoking is not so surprising there.

In the Orthodox tradition, and this is very correct, such an attitude has developed towards smoking as a sin, because any addiction, any habit that somehow introduces impurity, even if it is physical into a person, of course, is not useful, nor saving, especially when a person cannot refuse it.

But here one should not take such a hypocritical position: if a person smokes, then he is already everything. Drinking tea can also be a sin. After all, you can drink tea in such a way and enjoy drinking tea in such a way that this can also become a sinful habit. Or coffee, for example. So you can make an addiction out of any business.

Deacon Andrei Kuraev: You know, if a person cannot get rid of smoking in any way, let him at least try to extract some benefit from his sin. What? A smoking person is quite clearly convinced of his helplessness, of his lack of freedom. It would seem that some kind of trifle - a smoking stick, fuming, smelly, but, come on, it has such power over me!

And one day a person will wake up, be horrified by his bondage and think: who am I? Am I free or am I a slave to some wild things, some strange habits? to Christian repentance.

If a Christian at least once recognized himself as a son of God and saw his body as a temple, then with every puff he will feel that he has lost his Sonship of God, lost his freedom... And for what?! For that stink?! And the realization of one's lack of freedom and unrealness is already a step towards the struggle for freedom and for authenticity.

As far as Catholics are concerned, apparently, as such, there is no prohibition on smoking and drinking alcohol in the Catholic Church. Sin is only the abuse of smoking and alcohol.

Additionally

Everyone knows how dangerous smoking is for physical health. Is there a spiritual danger? Why is this addiction considered a sin? Look, in Orthodox Greece, even priests smoke. For clarification, we turned to the pastors of the Russian Church.

Nicotine smoke takes the place of God's grace in the soul

Sure, smoking is a sin. I will share my priestly experience: I communed the dying, attended funerals and saw that the death of many people was directly related to smoking. And it is very difficult to get rid of this evil. Once I gave unction and communion before her death to a woman who was dying of cancer of the larynx, and in this state she could not quit smoking. Even before Communion, I took a few puffs! But since she was dying, I could not help but give communion to her. And how many people die from lung cancer caused by smoking! But not only the respiratory organs are destructively affected by tobacco - others too.

If you get up at night to smoke, if you take a drag in the morning, then how will you go to Communion later?

The perniciousness of this habit, which causes serious addiction, is also in the fact that many smokers cannot take communion because of smoking. If you get up at night to smoke, if you take a drag in the morning, then how will you go to Communion later? Or even you endured, took communion, and then what? When you leave the temple, do you greedily inhale? So this sinful pleasure deprives the smoker of the Sacrament.

The inability to quit smoking is a myth. I personally know several people who, being smokers with serious experience - 30-40 years, managed to quit smoking. With God's help, everything is possible. If a person turns to God, He helps him to quit this infection.

Elder Siluan: “It’s better not to do any work before which there is no undisturbed prayer”

- Even on the packages of cigarettes they officially write: "Smoking kills." How is it not a sin that kills, that torments, deprives of health, causes suffering to the smoker himself and upsets people close to him?

All our sins are divided into three types: sins against God, against neighbors and against ourselves. So smoking is, of course, a sin against oneself, a conscious shortening of one's life, that is, the destruction of the priceless gift of God given to us for the salvation of our souls. But in a sense, it is also a sin against neighbors who are forced to inhale cigarette smoke in public places.

Smoking is an addiction. It enslaves the will of a person, makes him again and again seek his satisfaction. In general, it has all the signs of sinful passion. And passion, as you know, delivers only new torments to the soul of a person, deprives it of its already small freedom.

Sometimes smokers say that a cigarette helps them calm down and focus internally. However, it is known that nicotine acts destructively on the brain and nervous system. And the illusion of calm arises because nicotine also has an inhibitory effect on brain receptors. Not a single person has ever benefited from smoking even a minimal amount, and I am sure that there is no such smoker in the world who, at least once in his life, has not regretted that he was so addicted to nicotine.

To justify smoking, they often refer to Orthodox Greece, where even priests smoke. Indeed, Greece has the highest per capita consumption of cigarettes in the world. But there is nothing good in this. Perhaps smoking spread there under the influence of Islamic traditions that allow smoking. But if we look at Athos, this example of a strictly spiritual life both for Greece and for the entire Orthodox world, we will see that there is no smoking there. The Monk Paisios the Holy Mountaineer was unambiguously negative about smoking. And the venerable elder Silouan of Athos, too.

Is smoking a sin? - Oh sure. Although now in Greece smoking is not considered a sin. Yes, what is there to be wise! Even intuitively, smoking is perceived as something negative: smoke, stench, harm to health ... And most importantly - it's a passion, and there can be no doubt about it. To be honest, I used to smoke when I was younger. Not for long, about five years, but so thoroughly that even "Belomor" smoked, "Prima" did not disdain. Who knows, he will understand... So, having been drawn into this pernicious passion, I very soon felt: I need to tie up with this matter - although I was not yet baptized at that time. But conscience felt. And out of the five years of my smoking, I “quit” for three years and could not quit. I distinctly remember my feelings. I woke up in the morning in a great mood with the determination not to smoke anymore, but by lunchtime the mood fades, the world around grows dim, and everything without smoking seems empty and meaningless - the first and surest sign of the action of passion. So after dinner you wash and wash and ... oh, just one! - you smoke with pleasure, “you will enjoy life”, and after a minute you already think with longing: well, you broke again. Indeed, you start smoking again. Or it even happened like this: you can last a week or two without smoking and you already feel like a “hero”, and then you find yourself somewhere in a company, relax and allow yourself the thought: “One cigarette does not solve anything”, smoke it - and then you understand: everything , broke. And for sure - you start smoking again and suffer from the fact that you cannot cope with this destructive passion. Moreover, even when I quit smoking, I dreamed for several years: I lit a cigarette - and with horror and longing I understand that now, I broke loose and everything starts all over again. This suggests that passion continued to nest in the soul. So how can you say after that that smoking is not a sin?

The Apostle Paul says: “Everything is permissible for me, but not everything is beneficial; everything is permissible to me, but nothing should possess me” (1 Corinthians 6:12).

Smoking is contrary to God's plan for man, like any nonsense

Of course, smoking is a sin. Like all meaningless things. What's the point of smoking? What good does a person get from him? No sense and nothing good. And the Lord created everything wisely and meaningfully. “And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). This means that smoking is contrary to God's plan for a person, like everything that is senseless and unnecessary.

Let's not forget that smoking brings many different harms to a person. And everything that harms a person, torments him, is also displeasing to the Lord. What harm it is, we all know very well. This is the destruction of health, given by God for the work of saving our souls, and material damage when we spend money on nonsense, but we could spend it on good things, for example, give alms.

But the main harm of smoking, of course, is spiritual. “Tobacco relaxes the soul, multiplies and intensifies passions, darkens the mind and destroys bodily health by slow death. Irritability and melancholy are a consequence of the sickness of the soul from smoking,” St. Ambrose of Optina teaches us. And yet we become slaves of this sin. “Whoever commits sin is the slave of sin” (John 8:34). And we are called to freedom in Christ: “And you will understand the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). The Gift of Love can only be accepted by a free person in Christ.

Therefore, help us, Lord, to get rid of everything harmful and unnecessary, so that we can be in joy and love, and not in torment here and in eternity. And they depended only on the Holy God, and not on cigarettes, sinful pleasures and, ultimately, on the devil, who is behind all this.

Who are you if you deliberately destroy the gift of God?

Each of us roughly knows what a pack of cigarettes looks like. It says in large letters: "Smoking kills." From this we can already conclude whether it is a sin to use something that kills us. Of course it is.

Often people turn to the Lord with a request for health. And most of our prayers are also about health to some extent. And we wish each other good health. And do we keep the health that the Lord has given us? How many of us go in for sports, do exercises in the morning? I think few. We eat before bed, although we know that this should not be done. We consume food in excess, realizing that this will lead to excess weight and health problems. And we must keep what the Lord has given. The health that is. Smoking will not improve your health.

If a smoker turns to the Lord with a request: “Lord, give me health!” Who will he look like in the eyes of God?

We all understand perfectly well what risks accompany a person who smokes: these are oncological diseases, and diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, and impaired brain activity ... Previously, smokers did not know about how tobacco undermines health. And if you know that smoking harms you, but you smoke, you are committing a sin: you are deliberately destroying your health. And if a smoker turns to the Lord with a request: “Lord, give me health!” Who will he look like in the eyes of God? And how to ask God for health with the same lips with which you just smoked a cigarette? This is some kind of nonsense. A glaring contradiction. And the Lord calls us to integrity, integrity of thinking above all. Why do we read the Gospel? So that our mind thinks according to the gospel, so that we are in Christ.

So smoking is a sin. Moreover, a terrible sin, causing damage to God-given health.

On the spiritual and physical harm of smoking ...

Articles under the heading "Spiritual space of Siberia" often receive responses from readers. Some of these responses are published in the "Feedback" section, others often become an occasion for subsequent articles. And sometimes articles on topics that journalists did not even think about ...

Sacrifice. You could be the next victim!

Dear editors! I have heard the words "sin of smoking" several times. I agree that smoking in itself is not a good thing. But why is it a sin?

Smoking does not violate any commandments of God. Nothing is said about the sinfulness of smoking in Holy Scripture or in the writings of the Fathers of the Church. Smoking does not harm another person (subject to elementary rules of politeness). I repeat: of course, smoking is a very bad habit, but it's probably still wrong to call it a "sin." When I shared these thoughts with my friend, he said that the Bible even has the words: "smoking makes the heart happy." I checked it with a special computer program "Bible Quote", and made sure that this phrase is actually present in the book of Proverbs (27:9)!

A. Yu. Vorontsov, Biysk.

Here is a letter. We can safely assume that in a society where the vast majority of men and about half of women smoke, many will agree with the point of view of the author of the letter. Especially since these same "many" (according to opinion polls) consider themselves Orthodox Christians. And who wants to count the "extra" sin? Moreover, in some ways the reader seems to be right.

Nothing is really said about the dangers of smoking right in the Holy Scriptures. Tobacco appeared in our world many centuries after the creation of the Bible. The date of "discovery" of smoking is known very precisely. “On October 12, 1492, the expedition of Christopher Columbus landed on the island of San Salvador,” wrote Bishop Varnava (Belyaev). “The sailors were amazed by an unprecedented sight: the red-skinned inhabitants of the island let out clouds of smoke from their mouths and noses! The Indians celebrated their sacred holiday, on which they smoked a special herb whose dried and rolled leaf, like today's cigar, was called "tobacco" among them, whence the present name of tobacco comes from.

The natives smoked "tobacco" to the point of complete stupefaction. In this state, they entered into communication with certain "demons", and then they told about what the "Great Spirit" had told them. Smoking was part of the rituals of worship of the pagan gods of the Aztecs, who were brought, among others, and human sacrifices.

The sailors of Columbus took the mysterious herb with them to Europe. And very quickly the new "pleasure" became widespread. As Bishop Barnabas wrote: “And so, with the benevolent participation and secret prompting from demons, literally a general fever of tobacco smoking began throughout Europe and even Asia. Whatever the government and the clergy did to stop this evil, nothing helped!”

Not only Christians, but also Muslims tried to actively fight against smoking. In 1625, in Turkey, Amurat IV executed smokers, and flaunted severed heads with pipes in their mouths. In Persia, Shah Abbas the Great ordered to cut off lips and noses as a punishment for smoking, and burn tobacco dealers along with their goods. Even in always free Switzerland in 1661, the Appenzel magistrate considered the tobacco trade as a sin, tantamount to murder!

In Russia, smoking has become a custom since Peter I, who himself smoked and even dared to stack smoking pipes in the manner of the bishops' dikiriya (two candlesticks) and trikiriya (three candlesticks) and "blessed" the people with them during his drunken "assemblies". But this is Peter, and before him, Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich in 1634 ordered "smokers to be executed by death." Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich in 1649 ordered smokers to "smack their nostrils and cut their noses," and then "exile them to distant cities."

We will talk about the assessment of the patristic spiritual thought of the sin of smoking later, but for now we note that in fact, indirectly, the sin of smoking is still spoken of in Holy Scripture. God created the first people healthy and took care of their physical and spiritual perfection. "Love your neighbor as yourself," says one of the commandments of Christ. From this it follows that before loving your neighbor, you must "love yourself." To love and take care of the gift of life, which is given to all of us from God. And what kind of "careful attitude" to one's health as a smoker, if everyone knows that tobacco contains more than 30 harmful substances. The most dangerous of them is the nicotine alkaloid. There are especially many patients with bronchopulmonary diseases among smokers. And the most formidable consequence of smoking is cancer of the larynx and lungs. The fact is that tobacco smoke contains carcinogens that cause cancer. These are benzopyrene and its derivatives.

... It is no coincidence, as experts have calculated, that every minute in Russia three (!) People die from diseases caused by smoking ...

Everything that is given to man by God should be used for good. Bodily health is a priceless gift, and every action of ours that causes harm to health is a real sin before the Creator. Many holy teachers of the Church point to this. Here are the words of St. Nektarios of Aegina: “In order for a person to be blessed and worthy of his calling, it is necessary that he be healthy both in body and soul, because without the well-being of both, neither bliss nor capacity to fulfill the appointment can be acquired. take care of strengthening both the body and the soul, so that they are strong and strong.

***

"Don't you know that you are the temple of God," said the Apostle Paul, "and the Spirit of God lives in you? If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will punish him: for the temple of God is holy; and this temple is you." For a smoker, this temple is smoky and smoky, and Christ cannot move into this temple. It is not human nature to smoke. Breathe air, eat, drink, sleep - yes. But smoking, poisoning your body with poison, breathing fetid smoke is a requirement of sin, and not a requirement of nature.

Medicine says a lot about the dangers of smoking for bodily health. But nothing mentions that the fetid smell of tobacco covers up the smell of spiritual decay. It has been established that negative mental states lead to a change in the hormonal background of a person. Chemicals formed during stress and other internal conflicts are excreted from the body, and these secretions have a very heavy smell. Tobacco use makes it impossible to recognize the spiritual state of others at the deepest biological level. Smoking is licentiousness not only of the body, but also of the soul. This is a false calming of your nerves. Many smokers refer to the calming of the nerves after smoking a cigarette, not realizing that the nerves are the carnal mirror of the soul. Such reassurance is self-deception, a mirage. This narcotic sedation will be the source of soul torment. Now, while there is a body, this "calming" must be regularly renewed. And then it will become a source of hellish torment. It must be remembered that after death, after the separation of the soul from the body, the passions that manifested themselves in bodily life do not leave the human soul. Not freed from this or that passion, the soul will transfer it to another world, where in the absence of the body it will be impossible to satisfy this passion. The soul will languish and burn with an unceasing thirst for sin and lust. He who is insatiable in food will suffer after his death with the inability to fill his belly. The drunkard will be incredibly tormented, not having a body that can only be soothed by alcohol. The fornicator will experience the same feeling. Selfish too, and a smoker too. If a smoker does not smoke for several days during his lifetime, what will he experience? Terrible torment, but torment softened by other aspects of life. But that is two days, and the deceased has eternity ahead. And eternal torment...

Meanwhile, the army of smokers is rapidly getting younger. The age of initiation to smoking in Russia has decreased to 10 years for boys and 12 for girls. Smoking has a particularly detrimental effect on children's bodies. Among other things, smoking adolescents form a complex of neuropsychic abnormalities. As a result, attention, memory, sleep suffer, mood "jumps". Teen smoking has a devastating effect on reproductive function. It is no coincidence that today more than 70 percent of boys and girls have serious problems in this "part" by the age of 15.

If we return to the "spiritual component" of the harm from smoking, then we should dwell on the lack of freedom of the smoker. Many of the smokers (especially in adulthood) would like to quit smoking. According to sociologists, 100 (!) percent of smokers after 30 would like to give up a harmful and sinful habit. Alas ... Smokers develop nicotine syndrome. This is the same dependence as on alcohol and drugs, only less damaging to health. Although, how to say: lung cancer, cancer of the larynx - the argument is not at all in favor of the harmlessness of such a harmful addiction as smoking.

It would be useful to mention that in the new classification of diseases that came into force in 1999, tobacco dependence is officially recognized as an illness. And we will add - a sinful disease. Smoking is self-indulgence, a form of self-indulgence. It is no coincidence that in Russia there has long been a saying: "To smoke - to incense for demons."

When a person smokes, Orthodox priests say, his soul is captured by demonic forces. And he adds another heavy link to the chain of slavish attachments; his will is weakened, and behind all the excuses for smoking, the voice of a weak-willed person is heard. Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote in The Brothers Karamazov: “I ask you: is such a person free? I knew one“ fighter for the idea ”who himself told me that when they deprived him of tobacco in prison, he was so exhausted by deprivation of strength that he almost went and betrayed his "idea" so that they would only give him tobacco. But such a one says: "I'm going to fight for humanity." Well, where will such a person go and what is he capable of?

Do you smoke? Realize your sin

Medical statistics have calculated that each cigarette smoked shortens a person's life by at least seven minutes. In general, smokers in Russia live five years less than non-smokers. Most smokers know this. Nevertheless, he cannot leave the sinful habit. Here is what the famous Orthodox writer S. A. Nilus wrote about the state of a smoker in the first part of the book "On the Bank of God's River."

"... July 7, 1909. Tonight I had a severe attack of choking cough. Serve it right! - this is all from smoking, which I cannot quit, and I have been smoking since the third grade of the gymnasium and now it is so thoroughly saturated with nicotine that it has already become, probably an integral part of my blood. It takes a miracle to wrest me from the clutches of this vice, and I don’t have enough will of my own. I tried to quit smoking, didn’t smoke for two days, but the result was that such melancholy and bitterness that this new sin was becoming worse than the old one. Father Barsanuphius forbade me even to make such attempts, limiting my daily portion of smoking to fifteen cigarettes. Before, I smoked without counting ... "

"Your hour will come," said Father Barsanuphius, "and the end of smoking will come." “Hope, do not despair: in due time, God willing, you will quit,” Father Joseph told me about the same smoking, from which I could not fall behind in any way. And a miracle, according to the word of both elders, happened to me. And it was so.

We live with my friend, my God-given wife, as they say, soul to soul, in the full sense of the Gospel word, so that we are not two, but one flesh. This great mercy of God, bestowed on us from above, is due to our deep and convinced faith in the Sacrament of Marriage, which we both at one time approached with fear and trembling. And so, in June 1910, my wife fell ill with some strange illness, which neither the Optina paramedic nor the invited doctor could determine: in the morning she was almost healthy, but in the evening she had a temperature of up to 40. And so the week, and another, and the third! I see my joy melting before my eyes, like a wax candle, and is about to flare up for the last time and go out. And then my orphaned heart was filled with great, immeasurable great sorrow and grief, and I prostrated myself before the icon of the Mother of God Hodegetria of Smolensk, which stood in the corner of my office, and I wept before Her, and was horrified, and yearned, and spoke to Her as if she were alive. : "Mother Queen, my Blessed Mother of God! You, I believe, gave my angel's wife, You save her for me, and for that I give you a vow never to smoke again. I make a vow, but I know that I can’t fulfill it with my own strength, and not to fulfill is a great sin, so you yourself help me! So it was about ten o'clock in the evening. After praying and somewhat calming down, he approached his wife's bed. Sleeping, breathing is quiet, even. He touched his forehead: his forehead was moist, but not hot - my sweet dove was fast asleep. Glory to God, glory to the Most Pure! The next morning the temperature was 36.5, in the evening - 36.4, and a day later she got up, as she did not hurt. And I forgot that I smoked, as I never smoked, and I smoked for exactly thirty years and three years, and my whole body was so saturated with cursed tobacco that I could not live without it not only for a day, but even a minute.

In this whole story, I would like to focus not so much on the miracle that happened, but on the hero's awareness of sin itself. Without such awareness, a miracle would not be possible. And from here follows the first rule for those who want to quit addiction: one must realize the sinfulness of smoking. Actually, the overcoming of any sin begins with such a step ...

"Before you smoke, pray"

Now let's stop at the place in the reader's letter where he says that the church fathers did not say anything about the dangers of smoking. It's not like that at all. Another thing that you should know is that in the Russian Orthodox Church there are no boundaries of patristic instructions. Say, until some relatively old time - these are patristic instructions, and the instructions of those who, say, are ranked among the host of saints in recent years - this is something not authoritative enough. There are no such borders in the Russian Orthodox Church. Today's ascetics often absorb and develop the teachings of their predecessors, and every word of every holy ascetic is valuable in itself. Here are just some of the sayings of the Holy Fathers about the sin of smoking.

“Man has perverted the very pleasures of the senses. For smell and taste, and partly for breathing itself, he invented and burns almost incessantly sharp and odorous smoke, bringing this, as it were, a constant censer to a demon living in the flesh, infects the air of his dwelling and the external air with this smoke. , but first of all it is saturated with this stench itself, - and here you are, the constant coarsening of your feelings and your heart by constantly absorbed smoke cannot but affect the subtlety of the heart's feelings, it imparts to it carnality, rudeness, insensitivity.

Saint righteous John of Kronstadt: "Tobacco relaxes the soul, multiplies and intensifies passions, darkens the mind and destroys health by slow death. Irritability and longing are a consequence of the pain of the soul from smoking."

St. Ambrose of Optina: “In 1905, Elder Silouan of Athos spent several months in Russia, often visiting monasteries. On one of these trips on the train, he took a seat opposite the merchant, who, with a friendly gesture, opened his silver cigarette case in front of him and offered him a cigarette.

Father Siluan thanked for the offer, refusing to take a cigarette. Then the merchant began to say: “Isn’t it because, father, you refuse because you consider it a sin? But smoking often helps in an active life; it’s good to break the stress at work and rest for a few minutes. life..." And then, trying to convince Father Siluan to take a cigarette, he continued to speak in favor of smoking.

Then, nevertheless, Father Siluan decided to say: “Sir, before you light a cigarette, pray, say one thing:“ Our Father. the answer remarked: “So, any work before which there is no undisturbed prayer, it is better not to do it.”

Now about the quotation from the Bible from the book of Solomon's parables "smoking gladdens the heart." Of course, we are not talking about smoking tobacco. Smoking in ancient times was called the burning of aromatic substances and fragrant oil. People in all ages have loved incense, and in ancient times fragrant incense was added to the sacrifices. Fragrant plants and exotic incense were highly valued in religious ceremonies. They were worth their weight in gold and silver. So, the Queen of Sheba brought aromatic substances to Solomon as a gift. Incense was kept in the royal treasury. This is the kind of "smoking" that the Bible talks about. Smoking pleases the heart, and a friend's heartfelt advice is sweet - this is how this quote from the book of Proverbs looks like. Today, "smoking" in the temple can be called censing - when the priest passes through the temple with a censer, from which incense is burned. “At Divine services they burn incense, how can the slaves of sin not invent a kind of incense?” said St. Nicodemus the Holy Mountaineer. “The first is pleasing to God, the second should be pleasing to God’s enemy, the devil.”

Church warns: smoking harms your soul

Today, many experts say that in recent years the world center for sales of cigarettes is increasingly shifting to Russia. In the United States and Western Europe, thanks to the measures taken, the number of smokers is reduced by tens of millions every year.

What are these measures? Smoking bans in public places - in restaurants, airplanes, on the street, in clubs, offices, etc. No less effective is the promotion of the dangers of smoking. Posters about the dangers of tobacco are placed literally everywhere. Plus, the tobacco companies literally overwhelmed with lawsuits those who fell ill due to smoking. The claims amount to hundreds of millions of dollars, and the courts very often satisfy such claims. Perhaps even more important in the West is the high price of cigarettes. A pack of cigarettes in Europe costs at least five euros, that is, 160-180 rubles in terms of the Russian ruble. If such a pricing policy were in Russia, many people would think about whether it is worth putting such money into the smoke.

In Russia, it's a completely different matter. Due to the extremely low excise taxes, our cigarettes are quite inexpensive. They are accessible to everyone and, unfortunately, even to children. In Russia, global tobacco companies feel like a businessman. Having skilfully taken over almost all the country's tobacco factories (now there are only two (!) domestic tobacco companies operating in Russia), foreign firms have thrown huge amounts of money into smoking advertising. If almost everywhere in the world advertising of cigarettes is strictly prohibited, then in our country hundreds of billboards of tobacco products "decorate" the streets of almost all cities in the country. At the same time, Russian advertising legislation is violated roughly and everywhere (including in Novosibirsk, Tomsk, Kemerovo, Barnaul). With the help of simple tricks, the inscription that smoking is harmful to health takes up a much smaller part of billboards than the law provides. This is done very simply. The percentage of the area is calculated according to the strip allocated for such an inscription, while the warning inscription itself is much smaller.

At the same time, foreign tobacco companies are trying in every possible way to create for themselves in Russia the image of companies that are extremely concerned about the negative impact of smoking on health. Abroad, this is impossible according to the laws. There, tobacco companies are legally prohibited from participating in charity events, sponsoring sports and all kinds of other events.

... In Los Angeles, on Santa Monica Boulevard, there is a scoreboard counting the number of deaths from addiction to cigarettes. In Russia, there is no such scoreboard in any city yet ...

It is not surprising that such a situation has caused serious criticism from both Russian public organizations and government officials. In particular, they propose to bring the inscriptions on cigarette packs warning about the dangers of smoking into line with Western standards. First of all, it is proposed to make this inscription (as well as abroad!) not in some inconspicuous size, but in half a tobacco pack. And here it makes sense to return to where we started, to the fact that smoking is not only harmful to health, but is a serious sin.

Warning labels on cigarette packs can be of very different content. Abroad, such inscriptions warn potential buyers that smoking is fraught with cancer. That smoking is extremely harmful to pregnant women. The fact that for young people smoking often turns into impotence. It seems that the Russian Orthodox Church will in every possible way support the proposal of the newspaper "Honest Word" that one of the inscriptions read: "The Russian Orthodox Church warns: smoking is a sin." The wording of such a warning can be specified, but there is no doubt that it is appropriate (and necessary!).

On the one hand, the voice of the Church today is very significant for many, on the other hand, very few (especially among young people) are aware of how (and why) the Orthodox Church treats tobacco smoking. And such a warning, no doubt, will bring positive results.

Alexander Okonishnikov

Honestly - 11/01/2006.

Prayer from the passion of smoking to the Monk Ambrose of Optina

Reverend Father Ambrose, you, having boldness before the Lord, begged the Greatly Gifted Vladyka to give me an ambulance in the fight against impure passion.

God! Through the prayers of your saint, Saint Ambrose, cleanse my lips, make my heart chaste and saturate it with the fragrance of Your Holy Spirit, so that the evil tobacco passion will flee from me far away, to where it came from, into the womb of hell.

Nicotine smoke takes the place of God's grace in the soul

Undoubtedly, smoking is a sin. I will share my priestly experience: I communed the dying, attended funerals and saw that the death of many people was directly related to smoking. And it is very difficult to get rid of this evil. Once I gave unction and communion before her death to a woman who was dying of cancer of the larynx, and in this state she could not quit smoking. Even before Communion, I took a few puffs! But since she was dying, I could not help but give communion to her. And how many people die from lung cancer caused by smoking! But not only the respiratory organs are destructively affected by tobacco - others too.

If you get up at night to smoke, if you take a drag in the morning, then how will you go to Communion later?

Elder Siluan: “It’s better not to do any work before which there is no undisturbed prayer”

Even on the packaging of cigarettes they officially write: "Smoking kills." How is it not a sin that kills, that torments, deprives of health, causes suffering to the smoker himself and upsets people close to him?

- Is smoking a sin? - Oh sure. Although now in Greece smoking is not considered a sin. Yes, what is there to be wise! Even intuitively, smoking is perceived as something negative: smoke, stench, harm to health ... And most importantly - it's a passion, and there can be no doubt about it. To be honest, I used to smoke when I was young. Not for long, about five years, but so thoroughly that even "Belomor" smoked, "Prima" did not disdain. Who knows, he will understand... So, having been drawn into this pernicious passion, I very soon felt: I need to tie up with this matter - although I was not yet baptized at that time. But conscience felt. And out of the five years of my smoking, I “quit” for three years and could not quit. I distinctly remember my feelings. I woke up in the morning in a great mood with the determination not to smoke anymore, but by lunchtime the mood fades, the world around grows dim, and everything without smoking seems empty and meaningless - the first and surest sign of the action of passion. So after dinner you wash and wash and ... oh, just one! - you smoke with pleasure, “you will enjoy life”, and after a minute you already think with longing: well, you broke again. And indeed - you start smoking again. Or it even happened like this: you can last a week or two without smoking and already feel like a “hero”, and then you find yourself somewhere in a company, relax and allow yourself the thought: “One cigarette does not solve anything”, smoke it - and then you understand: everything , broke. And for sure - you start smoking again and suffer from the fact that you cannot cope with this destructive passion. Moreover, even when I quit smoking, I dreamed for several years: I lit a cigarette - and with horror and longing I understand that now, I broke loose and everything starts all over again. This suggests that passion continued to nest in the soul. So how can you say after that that smoking is not a sin?

The Apostle Paul says: “Everything is permissible for me, but not everything is beneficial; everything is permissible to me, but nothing should possess me” (1 Corinthians 6:12).

Smoking is contrary to God's plan for man, like any nonsense

Who are you if you deliberately destroy the gift of God?

If a smoker turns to the Lord with a request: “Lord, give me health!” Who will he look like in the eyes of God?

So smoking is a sin. Moreover, a terrible sin, causing damage to God-given health.