It would seem that numerous psychics help people get rid of evil, remove damage and get rid of the evil eye. But why does the church not accept this and so categorically refers to all sorts of superstitions?

It should be said right away that such concepts as “damage” and “evil eye” have nothing to do with the Christian faith. For this reason, church ministers refer to them as superstitious concepts.

Confessors claim that superstition is one of the manifestations of spiritual illness. Most often, superstitions are born on the basis of real ignorance of faith. In this case, faith without certain knowledge very quickly becomes superstition, in which God, angels, demons are absurdly intertwined. Only there is not even a speech about the fight against sin by changing the way of life.

The man, who believe in superstition, feels himself in the very center of the struggle between the forces of good and evil. Therefore, his personal happiness and success here depends entirely on how successfully he will be able to defend himself from evil forces. Only now the thoughts about the will of God and the Providences of God and His allowances are completely alien to him. A superstitious person does not even realize that all the trials and sufferings on his path are a strong educational tool, and it is thanks to him that a person must realize his helplessness and understand the need for God's help. A person must repent and change his life for the better.

The Church directs a person to fight the forces of evil, but superstition does not believe in the effectiveness of this struggle, even in favor of good. Of course, numerous signs come true, and fortune-telling, sometimes, is true. But it is by faith that we will be rewarded, and this is an indisputable fact. Every day and hour God testing a person's faith in various actions and deeds, checking the reaction to certain situations in life. When faith descends to the level of superstition, the Lord very often allows various predictions, witchcraft spells to come true in order to reason with an unbelieving person. Only a lost person cannot realize his sinful life, it completely suits him, and he is not going to change anything in it.

An unbelieving person is only strengthened in the thought of the power of superstition, witchcraft and corruption. He has the idea that these misfortunes are the result of an evil slander. Therefore, in order to remove one negative action, he turns to psychics and healers for help in order to find another means to improve his life, but again sinful.

Get rid of spoilage you can only if you just forget about it, get it out of your head. It must be understood that all misfortunes and sorrows are only the result of a sinful life. The Lord thus calls everyone to repentance.

The Russian people, having adopted Orthodoxy, did not completely outlive pagan customs. They manifest themselves most visibly precisely in the burial rite, the secrets and many fears of which no one has been able to recognize. Death is not the end, death is the beginning. We mourn for our dead with a sense of deprivation, but with the hope of uniting with them in eternity.

The holy fathers and teachers of the Church have always warned against prejudices and superstitions, by which ancient Christians were sometimes deceived. It can be said with all obviousness that superstitions, adherence to all sorts of signs and customs, observance of the ridiculous external forms of some rites, including funeral ones, are explained by a lack of knowledge about them. Superstition, or vain faith, a faith based on nothing, is unworthy of true Christians.

The Orthodox Church teaches us, when we remember death, not to think of it unequivocally - either as a triumph or as a grief. The image that God gives us in the Bible and the Gospels is more complex. There is tragedy in death, death is monstrous, death should not be. Death is a consequence of our loss of God. However, there is another side to death: no matter how narrow its gates, this is the only hope to avoid the vicious circle of infinity at a distance from God. Death is not the end, death is the beginning. This door opens and lets us into the expanse of eternity, which would be forever closed to us if death did not release us from the slavery of the earth.

It is impossible not to grieve for us when, dying, those whom we love leave us. We will mourn our dead, because a loved one has left us, but we will mourn him in a Christian way. We weep over the dead, because man is not called to die, man is called to eternal life. Death entered life through human falling away from God Therefore, death as such is a tragedy. On the other hand, she is liberation. If it were necessary to live, never dying, in the limitations of earthly life that we know, there would be an inescapable nightmare .... There are a number of places in the service for the deceased, where he seems to say: do not weep for me ...

We mourn for our dead with a sense of deprivation, but with the hope of uniting with them in eternity.

Therefore, the splendor of the funeral, the folk accompaniment of the coffin, the care for the burial, not sparing the costs, the arrangement of rich monuments somewhat comfort the living, but do not help the dead. They do not help, but vain prejudices, fabrications, such as those cited above, undoubtedly harm.

The Russian people, having adopted Orthodoxy, did not completely outlive pagan customs. They manifest themselves most visibly precisely in the burial rite, the secrets and many fears of which no one has been able to recognize. There are many unwritten and sometimes strange rituals, which, nevertheless, are passed down from generation to generation and are performed with almost more zeal than church prayer rites. In the 20th century, when the Church was in a disadvantaged position in society, these pagan superstitions became widespread. They are performed without thinking about the meaning, even by people who consider themselves atheists.

For example, there is a non-Orthodox pagan custom when an ax is placed under the coffin of the deceased, coins are thrown into the coffin, into the grave. Or, when a dead person is carried out, tables and chairs are turned over in the house. It is not necessary. All this is connected with pagan customs. Weeping for the deceased is also a non-church tradition.

It was believed among undeveloped peoples that if a person is buried without an arm or leg, then in that world he will remain a cripple. This pagan prejudice served as the basis for the delusion of some Christians, who feared that on the Day of Judgment they close person will rise from the dead without a limb and remain disabled for eternity. But if the limb, separated from the body, was considered by the deluded, to be buried along with the corpse, then the problem will be resolved, and the person will be resurrected in his full form. The severed limbs were carefully kept so that they could, when the time came, be placed in a coffin. Even teeth that had fallen out or torn out were kept, sometimes for many years, and placed in the grave along with their former owners. These notions often caused death when amputations were delayed until it was too late.

The custom of hanging mirrors in the house of the deceased is also associated with the tradition of folk origin and has nothing to do with Orthodox rite burial of the deceased. Explanations for this custom are ridiculously naive. Mirrors are closed so that the soul of the deceased, seeing himself, is not afraid. Another interpretation: so that the deceased does not frighten relatives. It is also believed that through the mirror the soul can go to the dark world of the “mirror”, where the devil reigns and demons rule.

It must be said that various funeral prejudices., is a problem not only of our time, when entire generations grow up in disbelief and ignorance of God. And in pre-revolutionary times, there were plenty of all kinds of superstitions associated with death and the burial rite.

Let us name some customs and beliefs that Orthodox Christians should not follow and take into account:

- put money, things and products in the coffin;

- put a pancake on the face of the deceased, and then eat it, believing that this destroys the sins of the deceased;

- to believe that a person who returned to the house after the removal of the body and before returning from the cemetery would certainly die;

- at the commemoration, put a glass of vodka and bread “for the deceased”;

- keep this "funeral glass" until the fortieth day;

- pour vodka into the grave mound;

- say: "May the earth rest in peace";

- to believe that the soul of the deceased can take the form of a bird or a bee;

- to believe that if the deceased is not revered, then his soul remains on earth as a ghost;

- to believe that a person who accidentally stood between the coffin and the altar during the funeral service will certainly die soon;

- to believe that the burial ground, which is given at the funeral service in absentia, cannot be kept at home for more than one day;

- to believe that cremation can cause illness in the children or grandchildren of the person being cremated;

- to believe that the bodies of those burned in the fire will not be resurrected on the Day of Judgment.

Cremation

Cremation is a special topic. Now this custom, unconventional for Orthodoxy, is being actively discussed in society to burn (cremate) the bodies of the dead. Around him, too, a lot of speculation and superstition.

This new custom for Russia, which is becoming popular due to its relative cheapness, came to us from the pagan East. Eastern religious teachings contain the idea of ​​reincarnation (reincarnation), according to which the soul repeatedly comes to earth, changing the bodily shells. That's why paganism sees in the body not the temple of the soul, but its prison. The term of stay in another prison is over - you need to burn it and scatter the ashes in the wind.

The Orthodox Church allows cremation only under force majeure circumstances.- the lack of places in cemeteries or the extreme scarcity of funds for burial. All funeral prayers, including the funeral service, are performed over the cremated without changes. Before burning the body, the icon or crucifix must be removed from the coffin, and the aureole and sheet with the permissive prayer should be left.

There is a fear among Christians that burning will inevitably doom the deceased to hellish torments (parallels are drawn between the fire of the crematorium and the fire of hell). On this account, back in the second century, the Christian apologist Minucius Felix said: “We are not afraid ... of any damage in any way of burial, but we adhere to the old and better custom of burying the body in the earth.” In the book of the monk Mitrofan “How our dead live and how we will live after death” we read: “No matter how our body is destroyed, its elements are not destroyed; and it is possible for the omnipotence of God to resurrect the body from the existing elements, whether it be burned or eaten by wild beasts. The elements, having heard the voice of the Creator, will gather to fulfill their purpose to form the human body; they will gather in exactly the same way as the fish heard the voice of the Son of God and immediately gathered in nets, lowered into the sea by the holy apostles at the command of Jesus Christ. This is the great secret."

It should be noted at the same time that cremation, from the point of view of the Orthodox Church, is not an edifying act; it instills in the soul, rather, despair than hope for the resurrection. The posthumous fate of each deceased is in the hands of God and does not depend on the method of burial.

absentee funeral

Recently, there have been many superstitions around the rank of absentee funeral service. This question deserves special attention. In this regard, the following should be clarified. The practice of performing the funeral "in absentia" can only be justified when it is not possible to deliver the deceased to the temple of God.

Previously, an absentee funeral service was allowed by the Church only in the case when the body of the deceased was not available for burial (fires, floods, wars and other emergencies).

Now this phenomenon has become widespread: firstly, due to the lack of churches in many cities and villages; secondly, because of the high cost of transport and other funeral services, as a result of which the relatives of the deceased Christian decide to save money on the funeral service. The latter is extremely unfortunate, since it is better to refuse commemoration, wreaths, tombstones, but make every effort and bring the body to the temple, in extreme cases, call the priest home or at the cemetery. Nevertheless, the Church goes towards people and in special occasions performs an absentee rite of funeral service, somewhat shortened compared to the usual one.

An absentee funeral must be ordered on the day of the funeral, not forgetting to take the death certificate to the church. It is enough that at least one of the relatives of the deceased prayed in the temple. The priest will give him a whisk, a scroll of paper with the text of the permissive prayer and a bag of earth. As already mentioned, the whisk should be placed on the forehead of the deceased, prayer - in right hand, and scatter the earth over the body crosswise from head to feet and from the right shoulder to the left.

It happens that an absentee funeral is performed some time after the funeral. Then the burial earth should be scattered over the grave, and the whisk and prayer should be buried in the grave mound to a shallow depth. If the grave is very far away or in an unknown place, then the aureole and prayer are burned, and the earth is scattered on any grave on which an Orthodox cross is installed.

The funeral service, like Baptism, is performed once. But if it is impossible to establish for certain whether a person was buried or not, you need, without embarrassment, to order an absentee funeral service, and the sooner the better. To believe in prejudice means to be in confrontation with the Church.

To believe in prejudices is to be in confrontation with the Church

Many other signs and superstitions related to death and burial can be cited. Every settlement has its own peculiar burial traditions passed down from generation to generation. Mostly older women consider themselves knowledgeable and enlightened in these traditions and take upon themselves the right during the funeral to monitor their observance, often not only ignoring the blessing of the priest, but openly and publicly mocking him. They do not understand at all, and sometimes, on the contrary, they deliberately put themselves in confrontation with the teachings of the Church and the holy fathers.

Any sorcery and witchcraft is unacceptable in Orthodox traditions including burial traditions. Any such information must be approached with great caution, remembering the harm to the soul and health brought by contacts with such people. It must be remembered that the devil is the father of lies and with his army makes every effort to lead a person astray in the truth and alienate him from the Church and its true teaching. During the funeral, the only guide that can protect you from outright witchcraft and corruption can only be priest's blessing.

In conclusion, it must be said that every Christian who has even a modicum of courage and civic responsibility is simply obliged to help a fellow believer or a person who is almost ready to set foot on the Church's path of salvation in Christ, in a correct understanding of Divine truths. We are all mortal, but this irrefutable truth is deprived of spiritual depth and turns into a banality outside the teachings of the Church, which testifies that man was created by God for immortality. All superstitions and fabrications around this main issue are destructive for the soul of an Orthodox Christian.

Hieromonk Dometian, priest of the house chapel “The Savior Not Made by Hands”, Novosibirsk

Do not cut the round, eat the land, cast spells - how to deal with "Orthodox" superstitions?

Many superstitions are associated with the feast of the Beheading of John the Baptist: you can’t eat round, use a knife, dance. But vain faith often substitutes for the spiritual life of even church-going Christians, not only on this day, it sometimes lies in wait in the most unexpected places and at unexpected times. About the influence of superstitions on parish life and ways to combat this phenomenon, we talk with Archpriest Sergiy Rybchak, rector of the Peter and Paul parish of the city of Polevskoy, Yekaterinburg diocese.

Photo: "Greek curiosities"

Polish atheist - the first teacher in the faith

“There was no one to teach me. The first book that gave me an idea of ​​faith was the book of the Polish atheist Kosidovsky "Biblical Tales". In this book, some text from the Holy Scripture was given, and next to it there were two pages of comments.

Since the comments were three times as long, naturally I only read what was shorter.

And, of course, there were illustrations for the Bible by great artists. I still remember how long I looked at the picture where Abraham sacrifices Isaac. I was so worried about this Isaac, why does my father want to kill him! And my grandmother then could not answer me. And my second grandmother said: you'd better read the Bible, otherwise you won't become a priest. This was in those days when priesthood was not even a question!

I remember when I first bought the Gospel in a second-hand bookstore, it cost 50 rubles, and my salary was 80 rubles. He even hid from his wife how much it costs. I read avidly, and little by little all my questions fell away.

Fuck-tibidoh - and became "spiritual"

– What superstitions do you have to deal with as the rector of a parish?

- For me, the wildest superstition has always been an inadequate attitude towards all kinds of shrines. At one time, it was shocking that pilgrims from Diveevo brought earth from the canal Holy Mother of God and didn't know what to do with it. No one explained why to take this land, how to use it. Someone even advised adding it to food.

There were also superstitions associated with the famous Jerusalem bread, sourdough, which was distributed on the sly, and it was necessary to read certain incantatory words so that there was happiness, health, peace, and so on.

It is clear that if a person does not have some kind of serious spiritual life, then find an easy form, with the help of which - "fuck-tibidoh"! – everything falls into place, it is always easier. It all depends on fantasy and ignorance.

In the 90s, when people did not have spiritual knowledge, did not read the Holy Scriptures, all kinds of occultism surged and immediately somehow took root. People had a thirst, they absorbed everything connected with the spiritual life, even if it was in quotation marks.

And from here arose the syncretic superstitions that we received later and with which we fought all these 20 years.

Not according to Shmelev

– The rite, like clothing, is certainly needed. Like the atmosphere. But when the rite itself replaces the spiritual life, then near-church superstitions arise. We, the clergy, are constantly faced with this problem: a person does not go to church, but asks a friend: you give a note there so that everything works out for me at work or in the family. Such people already require spiritual resuscitation. You ask: have you turned to God at least at home?

First of all, they answer: but I had no time. I say: well, let's try, we will stand with you and read at least the prayers "Our Father", "Our Heavenly King" for five minutes. How long will it take if we pray carefully? And you will see that in 24 hours a day you can find 5 minutes to pray. And since you did not find it, it speaks of your deep spiritual defeat.

– I remember Ivan Shmelev’s “Summer of the Lord”: we see a certain model there: here is the Russia that we lost, in which there was an ideal life. And there are so many of these pagan traditions! For example, they are guessing, and a positive, church character, Gorkin, says: “And we, the baptized, would rather throw it at the circle of King Solomon, a sacred thing.” Or he teaches: “Whoever eats an apple before sprinkling - he will have a worm in his stomach.” This can often be found even now, especially in rural parishes.

- I must say - many people probably will not like it - but the harm in this is colossal. Superstitions, dressed up in supposedly church clothes, destroy the true understanding of the spiritual life. And then there is a situation that our country experienced in the twentieth century.

After all, when the cataclysms occurred, it was not someone from abroad who came and arranged it, it was just those people who called themselves believing Orthodox Christians. They broke crosses and set fire to churches, burned icons, because new people came to them and said that this is all nonsense, that stupid people believe in God, and you are now enlightened, you must break all this. This is the kind of ignorance that is rooted in a person with the help of superstitions, in the end, and degenerates the very essence of spiritual life.

Illustration for the book by I. Shmelev “Summer of the Lord”

The gospel is the main cure for superstition

If a person wants to understand what the spirit and way of life of a Christian should be, then let him open the Gospel, the epistles of the apostles, there is a lot of life literature. And see real examples. And how many examples of those worthy people whom the Church today glorifies as new martyrs!

When I came as a young priest to the parish of the Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, I encountered many superstitions. Unfortunately, the priest who was in front of me turned out to be their breeding ground. He had no spiritual education - then there was a huge need for clergy, churches were returned, there was no one to serve, and the first believers who came across were appointed. There was no one to explain.

For a whole year or more, I gathered parishioners in the temple two or three times a week and simply talked with them. We read the Gospel, I explained to them what Christ teaches, what the apostles teach, what the Church teaches, and from everything else that is not connected with this or contradicts this, you move away. I didn’t break anyone, I didn’t try to immediately stigmatize, they say, you are ignorant of the law, I tried to approach delicately. But he taught them to check all the traditions based on the Holy Scriptures and Holy Tradition. Here are the two pillars!

And until now - and I have been in this parish for 21 years - every Sunday we gather in the assembly hall, and I talk with parishioners. With those who are preparing for baptism, we meet for two or three months, we try to answer all the questions and instill at least some interest in the true source of knowledge - in the Gospel and the teachings of the holy fathers.

There will always be superstitions. This is how a person works: even without the virtues of love and humility, he will be driven by fears: for his life, for his loved ones, and since fear lives in the heart, it gives rise to all sorts of monsters.

What to do if you were "made to death"

– What do you say to people who come and complain about damage or the evil eye?

- I often come across this: “I was jinxed” or “I was made to die” - these are, as a rule, believers, but absolutely non-church, and therefore it seems to them that there is some power that is greater than God.

Since they do not know God, they do not have real faith and experience of life with God, they have a dualistic view of the world: there is good, there is evil, but evil is more insidious, so it must be fought with some specific ways. On the one hand, perhaps this is true, but it is terrible for them when they endow evil with such supernatural abilities, stronger than those that are given in gifts from God.

Modern man lives in constant stress. The radio will turn on: everyone is shouting that the ruble has fallen, the dollar has risen, the war is on, famine is looming, and then there is the boss or subordinates, stupid, eternal stress in the family. And it turns out that the most difficult thing for a person is to go to repentance.

To repent is a real reversal, a real change in his life. No wonder many people are afraid of this. They think that you will come, and they will turn you inside out, as if under interrogation, so that you will definitely enlighten all your dark corners of your soul at once.

No, repentance comes from the moment when a person becomes acquainted with the teachings of Christ. When he begins to compare: what did Christ teach? How do I live? And when a person understands this, he slowly begins to pray and change his way of life.

The main thing for people who believe that they have been jinxed or spoiled is to calm down and then come to the temple. At least stand, pray, and if possible, talk with a priest or a reasonable, spiritually experienced person.

Surprisingly, it is a fact: for the Church, which is obliged to fight against prejudices, these very prejudices are one of the most serious problems, and they are connected with nothing else than church tradition. Since the time of Prince Vladimir, the Church has been denouncing superstitions, books have been written, but, unfortunately, many of the parishioners prefer to trust oral sources of information - our unforgettable grandmothers, and what is remarkable: educated, intelligent people become the “spiritual children” of these grandmothers. This means that the love of our people for superstitions cannot simply be explained by illiteracy, everything is much more complicated here. So what is religion in our Church, and what is myth? And what is the difference between religion and myth?

A person is characterized by a desire for spiritual life, everyone has a thirst for communion with God, regardless of nationality, age or profession. But if a person is deprived of knowledge about the divinely revealed religion, then his spirit begins to work "offline", and the natural religious feeling begins to synthesize its own religion. Sometimes it happens en masse, sometimes individually, long-term or short-term.

God does not restrict freedom. But it is impossible to invent a true religion - it is given directly by God in Revelation. In the pre-Christian period, such a religion was Old Testament Judaism, but superstitions and prejudices were also encountered there: this is a constant desire to fall into idolatry, and the other extreme is the traditions of the elders, often condemned by Christ. (Mk. 7:3, Mt. 15:3).

If a person is deprived of faith in the True God, then whatever he does not believe in - he is a pagan, paganism permeates all spheres of his life, his worldview, especially at the level of everyday life. Deprived of a religious component, paganism is transformed into ideological and social forms Let's remember at least Soviet time: there was no religion, in the usual sense of the word, but the cult remained: faith in a "bright future" replaced the aspirations of the life of the next century. Paganism is psychology, this is when spirituality is replaced by sincerity, this is the state of the soul without God. Strange as it may seem, this can often be observed in the church fence.

The sister of paganism is magic, i.e. the desire of man to subdue the spiritual world, to be like God (Gen. 3, 5). Here is what he writes about it. Alexander Men: “For a magician, the joy of mystical communion with God is an empty phrase. He seeks only the attainment of power in Everyday life- in hunting, agriculture, in the fight against enemies, this antagonism remained even when magic began to be intertwined with religion. Magizm expects only gifts from Heaven, he wants to enslave nature, in human society he reigns violence. The tribe and power become over the spirit. A person, merging with the family, falls under the hypnosis of collective ideas. Thus, the basis of magicism is the principle: "you - to me, I - to you."

Such an attitude towards God can often be observed among our contemporaries, remember the proverb: "thunder will not strike - a peasant will not cross himself." Oh, how often we behave this way, and in the Catholic Church this is generally the norm.

People run to the temple to put the thickest candles, as if God needs them in full confidence that all the problems in life are due to the fact that they were “spoiled” by a neighboring sorcerer. With the same success, such comrades turn to all kinds of "grandmothers" and psychics.

The other extreme is when the ritual is not a religious, but a purely psychological concept without a deep spiritual component. Such people go to church to "cry". I had to see how some lady, after a tearful “prayer” and raising her hands to grief, could not say anything at all in confession, arguing that she “had no sins.” And when I refused to give her communion, all her “piety” vanished, and a whole stream of indignation fell upon me. For her, the priest and church rules are nothing. She came to the temple to "consume" grace, giving nothing in return.

Returning to the topic of "candle piety", I cannot but notice that for many people the most elementary act of lighting candles in a church is almost the most basic in their spiritual life. (It's like if a person willing to buy jewel, would be limited only to unscrewing the doorknob in the jewelry store and, completely satisfied, without even going into the store, would go home, proud of the acquisition). God forbid someone to pass a candle with his left hand, or to rearrange the candles previously set by someone. This will instantly cause a storm of anger, and someone who encroaches on someone else's candle can even be accused of witchcraft.

Many parishioners just need to “bath” during the water-blessing prayer, the words “a drop sanctifies the sea” are not for them - they say, they poured water over me - now both health will be, and sins will be forgiven.

Unfortunately, some representatives of the clergy are not free from superstitions and prejudices. So, it is known that in some villages there is a custom: when the time comes for some villager to give birth, the priest hurries to the temple to open the Royal Doors, blasphemously associating them with the female womb in order to ensure a successful birth. This is the so-called homeopathic (imitative) magic, So among Voodoo sorcerers, a rag or clay doll is associated with the person himself, to whom the harm caused to the doll extends.

There are priests who forbid parishioners to receive communion on the twelfth feasts without much motivation – all of you, they say, are unworthy today, forgetting that the Eucharist is the center of Christian life.

In the list of church superstitions, gerontomania should be put in a special place - the search for elders, or, to be more precise, for prophets and sorcerers who would satisfy the thirst for spiritual slavery by taking care of someone else's salvation. Moreover, now we are experiencing the time of another eschatological psychosis in the form of INNenism and the authority of the so-called. "elders" who oppose themselves and their doctrine to the Church and its teachings.

This also includes technophobia - the fear of progress. According to technophobes, computers, ATMs, cell phones, etc. are demonic. The "old man", the fear of technology and the identification of the TIN with the "seal" of the Antichrist usually go hand in hand.

It is worth mentioning the so-called. church nationalism. For example, some believe that it is impossible to read the books of some Orthodox theologians only under the pretext that they have non-Russian surnames (Kern, Meyendorff, Schmemann, Blum), in everything incomprehensible one sees the intrigues of the enemies of Orthodoxy, driven into the framework of one Local Church. Thus, the psychology of the "small shopkeeper" replaces the conciliar consciousness. Even insignificant differences in traditions between different parishes are not acceptable: "... but in our church they always take out dinner notes for a prayer service!".

As a priest, I very often have to deal with a whole complex of superstitions that can be grouped under the name of necrophobia - the fear of the dead and everything connected with them. This primitive magical fear has nothing to do with the Christian attitude towards death.

People involved in witchcraft try to get the water with which they washed the deceased, or the rags with which they tied his feet and hands, in the vain hope that these items will help them in ungodly deeds. Not far behind the sorcerers and relatives of the deceased. After raising the coffin, they turn over the stools on which the coffin stood so that no living person sits on them. Mirrors and other reflective surfaces are hung, but not in order not to preen on the day of mourning, but in order not to see the soul of the deceased in the mirror, and they are afraid to carry the earth after the funeral in absentia. But no one is afraid to turn the memorial dinner into an orgy.

Of course, I have not listed all the superstitions and prejudices that are reliably registered in church life. I have not yet mentioned the superstitions associated with Communion, the fact that it the best remedy from diseases of the stomach and increases hemoglobin. And how “it is necessary” to receive communion and what to do before and after that is a topic for a separate article.

Another thing is important: people are looking for magic, worldly benefits in Christianity, not seeking to cleanse their souls and devote their lives to God, as required. Orthodox Church. Of course, there is an element of pastoral guilt in this. The priests themselves often do not explain the basics of the Orthodox faith to the parishioners well enough. But I am sure that if a person believes in Christ, then he strives to learn as deeply as possible and in more detail about his faith, as truly loving person wants to know everything about the object of his love.

Therefore, the best cure for lies and delusions is love for God, for His holy law and for the Church as the receptacle of Divine grace, and this love is achieved through repentance, awareness of sinfulness proper. Every believer needs to understand that he himself, due to his sinfulness, is the cause of his spiritual and worldly problems, and not the sorceress living next door. Here is the realization of one's sinfulness - the most unpleasant, but also the most necessary in the life of a Christian. It is this trouble that many run like fire.

Undoubtedly, the temptation to turn Christianity into a mystical household appendage is great, but Christianity is a religion of salvation. This must not be forgotten. The sleep of the spirit is capable of producing even greater monsters than the sleep of the mind.