Three expulsions per hour. Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeev): I owe everything in my life to the Church

31.07.2019 Home and life

– Vladyka, you are turning 50 years old. I can't believe it. Tell me, when you made the decision to take monastic vows, did you (I appeal to the words of Patriarch Kirill and Father Evgeny Ambartsumov) make the decision for yourself at twenty, thirty, forty and fifty years old? Did reality live up to your expectations?

– When I took monastic vows, I was 20 years old, and I, of course, did not think about either my 30-year-old self or my 50-year-old self. I lived for that moment. But I had no doubt that I wanted to devote my life to the Church, that I wanted to build my life this way and not otherwise. And in the 30 years since then, I have never once been disappointed in the decision taken. There was not a single day, not a single minute when I regretted it.

I owe everything in my life to the Church. Some people say to me: “Why did you associate yourself with the Church? After all, you could practice art, conduct an orchestra, write music.” For me, serving the Church has always been the most important thing, everything else was built around this main core. And for me, the most important thing has always been to serve Christ.

– In one of your interviews, you said that the topic of death worried you from a fairly early age. How did this topic first arise for you, and how did your perception change?

– This may surprise you, but the topic of death first arose for me in kindergarten. I was 5 or 6 years old, and I suddenly realized that we were all going to die: that I was going to die, that all these children who were around me were going to die. I started thinking about it, asking questions to myself, adults. I don’t remember now either these questions or the answers I received. I only remember that this thought pierced me very sharply and did not recede for quite a long time.

In my youth, I also thought a lot about death. I had a favorite poet - Federico García Lorca: I discovered him at a very early age. The main theme of his poetry is the theme of death. I don’t know any other poet who thought and wrote so much about death. Probably, to some extent, through these verses, he predicted and experienced his own tragic death.

Grigory Alfeev (future Metropolitan Hilarion) in his school years

When I was finishing school, for the final exam I prepared an essay “Four Poems by García Lorca”: it was a vocal cycle based on his words for tenor and piano. Many years later I orchestrated it and renamed it “Songs of Death.” All four poems I chose for this series are dedicated to death.

– Why were you so interested in this topic?

– Probably because the answer to the question why a person dies depends on the answer to the question why he lives.

– Has anything changed since you became active in church life?

“It so happened that my coming to active church life coincided with several deaths, which I experienced very deeply.

The first is the death of my violin teacher Vladimir Nikolaevich Litvinov. I was probably 12 years old then. I loved him very much, he was a huge authority for me. He was an extraordinarily intelligent, reserved, subtle man; he taught his subject well, treated his students with great respect, and everyone adored him. He was still a very young man - about forty years old, no more.

Suddenly I come to school and they tell me that Litvinov has died. At first I thought someone was playing a joke on me. But then I saw his portrait in a black frame. He was one of the youngest teachers. It turned out that he died right during the exam, when his student was playing. He suddenly felt bad with his heart, he fell, they called an ambulance, and instead of Frunze Street they went to Timur Frunze Street. And when they finally got there 40 minutes later, he was already dead. I took part in his funeral, it was the first death in my life.

Some time later there was the death of my grandmother, then the death of her sister - my great-aunt, then the death of my dad. All this followed one after another, and of course, the question of death constantly arose in my mind, not as some kind of theoretical question, but as something that was happening around me with people close to me. And I understood that only faith can answer this question.

– Do you now have an internal understanding of what death is? For example, I understand all this well with my mind, but I cannot at all internally accept and understand the untimely departure of loved ones...

– A person consists not only of the mind, he also consists of the heart and body. We react to such events with all our being. Therefore, even if we understand with our minds why this is happening, even if faith strengthens us in enduring such events, nevertheless, our entire human nature resists death. And this is natural, because God did not create us for death: He created us for immortality.

It would seem that we should be prepared for death; every evening we say to ourselves, going to bed: “Will this coffin really be my bed?” And we see the whole world in the light of this event of death, which can befall every person at any moment. And yet, death always comes unexpectedly, and we internally protest against it. Each person is looking for his own answer, and it cannot be exhausted only by logically constructed arguments from a textbook on dogmatic theology.

One of the works that made a strong impression on me in my childhood and youth was Shostakovich's 14th symphony. To a large extent, under the influence of this work, I wrote my “Songs of Death.” I listened to him a lot then and thought a lot about why Shostakovich, at the end of his days, wrote exactly such a composition. He himself called it a “protest against death.” But this protest in his interpretation did not provide any access to another dimension. We can protest against death, but it will still come. This means that it is important not just to protest it, but it is important to comprehend it, to understand why it comes and what awaits us in this regard. And the answer to this is given by faith, and not just faith in God, but precisely Christian faith.

We believe in God, who was crucified and died on the cross. This is not just God, who looks at us from somewhere in heaven, watches us, punishes us for our sins, encourages us for our virtues, and sympathizes with us when we suffer. This is the God who came to us, who became one of us, who dwells in us through the sacrament of communion and who is next to us - both when we suffer and when we die. We believe in God, who saved us through His suffering, cross and resurrection.

It is often asked: why did God have to save man in this particular way? Didn't he really have other, less “painful” ways? Why did God Himself necessarily have to go through the cross? I answer this like this. There is a difference between a person who sees a drowning person from the side of a ship, throws him a life preserver and watches sympathetically as he climbs out of the water, and a person who, to save another, risking his own life, rushes into the stormy waters of the sea and gives his life so that another could live. God decided to save us this way. He threw himself into the stormy sea of our lives and gave His life to save us from death.

– An amazingly strong image, I’ve never seen anything like it, it’s really very understandable.

– I use this image in my catechism, which I just finished. There I tried to outline the foundations of the Orthodox faith in the most in simple language using images that are understandable to modern man.

– How does your catechism differ from the one that the Synodal Biblical and Theological Commission is working on under your leadership? Why was another catechism needed?

– In the Synodal Theological Commission, we wrote a large catechism for many years. The idea was to write a fundamental work that would contain a detailed exposition of the Orthodox faith. This task was given to me when I was not yet the chairman of the commission, and it was headed by Bishop Philaret Minsky. A working group was created, we first began to discuss the content of the catechism, then approved the plan, then selected a team of authors.

Unfortunately, some authors wrote in such a way that it was not possible to benefit from the fruits of their labors. Some sections had to be reordered twice or thrice. In the end, after several years of hard work, we had a text that we began to discuss at plenary sessions and collected feedback from members of the theological commission. Finally, we presented the text to the hierarchy. This text has now been sent out for feedback, and we have already started receiving them.

A few days ago I received a letter from one respected hierarch, who attached a review of the text of our catechism, compiled in his diocese. This review had a lot of praise, but also said that the catechism was too long, that it contained too many details that people did not need, that the catechism should be short.

When we created the concept of this catechism, the idea was to write a large book that would talk in detail about the dogmas of the Orthodox Church, about the Church and worship, and about morality. But now that we have written this big book at the cost of a lot of collective effort, they tell us: “But we need a small book. Give us a book that we could give to a person coming to be baptized, so that he can read what he needs in three days.”

To be honest, this review made me angry. So much so that I sat down at the computer and wrote my catechism - the same one that could be given to a person before baptism. I wish a person could read it in three days. And I wrote it, too, for three days - on a single impulse of inspiration. Then, however, a lot had to be rewritten, clarified and finalized, but the original text was written very quickly. In this catechism, I tried to present in the most accessible and simple way the foundations of the Orthodox faith, to present the doctrine of the Church and its worship, and to speak about the foundations of Christian morality.

– You write short religious texts very well – we constantly use your books for translations into English.

– The main thing here was not to write too much. I always had to limit myself, because, naturally, more can be said on every topic, but I imagined myself in the place of a person who came to be baptized: what should be given to this person so that he learns about Orthodox faith? The result is a catechism for those preparing for baptism, for those who were once baptized but did not join the church, and for everyone who wants to learn more about their faith.

By the way, I wrote it thanks to the fact that we didn’t go to Pan-Orthodox Cathedral. I had planned a two-week stay in Crete, but since we decided not to go there, suddenly two whole weeks were freed up. I devoted this time to the catechism: I wrote for three days and edited for a week.

– So, in the near future there will be two books in the Church: a detailed complete catechism and a succinct edition for beginners?

– These are two books of different status. One is the conciliar catechism, which, I hope, we will nevertheless bring to the required standard and receive conciliar approval of this text. And what I have just written is my author’s catechism. And I hope that it will be used, including in such situations, when a person comes to be baptized and says: “Give me a book so that I can read and prepare in 3-4 days.” It is for this purpose that this book was written.

– Your book about Christ has just been published. It's called "The Beginning of the Gospel." When I opened it I was simply speechless - how necessary, important and fantastically designed this book is! I’ve been looking at new book releases for a long time without any interest, but then I started reading the first chapter and realized that I couldn’t put it down, and that I urgently needed to order a hundred books as gifts for everyone. Thank you very much, this is some amazing joyful news, because well, we talk and write about everything except Christ. I really hope this will be a bestseller.

A lot of books have been written today about everything, and it is completely unclear how to write about Christ, how to talk to people about Christ in our lives. It’s clear how to read what prayer, how to speak in confession, but Christ is sorely lacking in everyday Christian life.

– I have been working towards this book for many years. In a sense, it is the result of at least a quarter of a century of my development, since I began lecturing on the New Testament at the then newly created St. Tikhon’s Institute. This was 1992–1993 academic year. Then for the first time I came into contact not only with the Gospel, which, of course, I had read since childhood, but also with special literature on the New Testament. But there was little literature then, and we had limited access to it. And my theological activity mainly revolved around patristics, that is, the teachings of the Holy Fathers. I studied patristics at Oxford and wrote a dissertation there on Symeon the New Theologian. Then, in the wake of “residual inspiration,” he wrote books about Gregory the Theologian and Isaac the Syrian. And then this entire array of patristic ideas and thoughts was included in my book “Orthodoxy.”

The book Orthodoxy begins with Christ, but I almost immediately move on to other topics. This was due to the fact that at that time I was not yet mature enough to write about Christ.

Meanwhile, the theme of Christ has occupied me throughout my life, at least from the age of 10. Of course, I read the Gospel, thought about Christ, His life, His teaching. But at some point, it was about two and a half years ago, I realized that I needed to become very seriously acquainted with modern specialized literature on the New Testament. This was due to the fact that, with the blessing of the Patriarch, I headed a working group to prepare textbooks for theological schools. And the question immediately arose about a textbook on the New Testament, on the Four Gospels. I realized that for various reasons I would have to write this textbook myself. To write it, it was necessary to refresh knowledge in the field scientific literature according to the New Testament.

My way of mastering literary material is summarizing. Until I start writing something, I cannot concentrate on reading, as in the famous joke about a man who entered a literary institute and was asked: “Have you read Dostoevsky, Pushkin, Tolstoy?” And he replied: “I’m not a reader, I’m a writer.”

–You said that as a child you read 500-600 pages a day...

– Yes, as a child I read a lot, but at some point I began to read much less, I began to read only what I needed for what I was writing. When I write, I reflect on what I read.

At first I decided to write a textbook, but quickly realized that in order for it to work, I must first write a book. And so I began to write a book about Jesus Christ, which over time was to turn into a textbook. At first I intended to write one book, but when I started writing, I realized that the entire gigantic collected material won't fit. I ended up writing six books. The first one has now been published, four others have been written in full and will be published in order, the sixth has been written, as they say, “in the first reading.” In essence, the work is completed, although some editing of the sixth book will still be required.

– Tell us how the book is constructed?

– I decided not to follow the chronology of the Gospel events, alternately looking at episodes from the life of Christ, miracles, and parables. I decided to master the gospel material in large thematic blocks.

The first book is called "The Beginning of the Gospel." In it, firstly, I talk about the state of modern New Testament scholarship, I give some general introduction in all six books. Secondly, I look at the opening chapters of all four Gospels and their main themes: the Annunciation, the Nativity of Christ, Jesus going out to preach, the baptism of John, the calling of the first disciples. And I give some very general outline of the conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees, which in the end will lead to His condemnation to death.

The second book is devoted entirely Sermon on the Mount. This is an overview of Christian morality.

The third is devoted entirely to the miracles of Jesus Christ in all four Gospels. There I talk about what a miracle is, why some people don’t believe in miracles, how faith relates to a miracle. And I consider each of the miracles separately.

The fourth book is called "The Parables of Jesus." All the parables from the Synoptic Gospels are presented and discussed there, one after another. I am talking about the genre of parables, explaining why the Lord chose this genre for His teachings.

The fifth book, The Lamb of God, deals with all the original material in the Gospel of John, that is, material that is not duplicated in the Synoptic Gospels.

And finally, the sixth book is “Death and Resurrection.” Here we are talking about last days the earthly life of the Savior, His suffering on the cross, death, resurrection, appearances to the disciples after the resurrection and ascension into heaven.

Such is the book epic. I needed to write it, first of all, in order to re-understand for myself those events that form the core of our Christian faith, and so that later, on the basis of these books, textbooks for theological schools could be made.

– Is this a review, an interpretation?

– It is based on the Gospel text. It is examined against the background of a wide panorama of interpretations - from ancient to modern. I pay much attention to criticism of modern approaches to the Gospel text, characteristic of Western researchers.

There are many different approaches to Jesus in modern Western New Testament scholarship. For example, there is this approach: the Gospels are very late works, they all appeared at the end of the 1st century, when several decades had already passed after the death of Christ. There was a certain historical character Jesus Christ, He was crucified on the cross, and from Him there remained a certain collection of teachings, which was later lost. People were interested in this collection, they began to gather around it, and created communities of followers of Jesus.

Then they still needed to understand what kind of person he was who delivered these teachings, and they began to invent different stories about him: they came up with the story of the birth of the Virgin, attributed all sorts of miracles to him, and put parables into his mouth. But in fact, this was all the production of people conventionally designated by the names Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, who headed certain Christian communities and wrote all this for pastoral needs. This, in my opinion, absurd and blasphemous approach to the Gospels now almost dominates Western New Testament scholarship.

There are books about “Matthean theology” where not a word is said about the fact that Christ is behind this theology. According to these theologians, Christ is a literary character created by Matthew for the pastoral needs of his community. In addition, they write, there were apocryphal Gospels, and only then the Church weeded out what it did not like, but in fact there was a lot of other material.

In a word, many scientific myths have been created around the personality and teachings of Christ, and instead of studying His life and teachings according to the Gospel, they study these myths invented by scientists.

I prove in my book what is obvious to us, Orthodox Christians, but what is not at all obvious to modern New Testament specialists. Namely, that the only reliable source of information about Christ is the Gospel; there is no other reliable source. The Gospel is the testimony of eyewitnesses. If you want to know how something happened, you must treat eyewitnesses with confidence. As His Holiness Patriarch Kirill writes in his book “The Word of the Shepherd”: how can you recreate a traffic accident? We need to interview witnesses. One stood there, another here, the third somewhere else. Everyone saw it in their own way, everyone told their own story, but from the cumulative evidence a picture emerges.

We read the Gospel and see that the evangelists agree on many things. But in some ways they disagree, and this is natural, because everyone saw it a little differently. At the same time, the image of Jesus Christ does not split into two, is not divided into four different images. All four Gospels speak about the same person. I write in my book that the Gospels are like a safe with treasures, locked with two keys: in order to understand the Gospel stories and their meaning, you need to use both keys. One key is the belief that Jesus Christ was a real earthly man with all the properties of an earthly man, similar to us in everything except sin. And the other key is the belief that He was God. If even one of these keys is missing, you will never discover this Person to whom the Gospels are dedicated.

– What is the release schedule for your books about Christ?

- The first one just came out. The following will be published as soon as they are ready. Since I have already written them, their further fate depends on the book publishers.

The topic is too important and too broad. This kept me from reading books about Jesus Christ for many years. I beat around the bush: I studied the Holy Fathers, wrote about the Church, and examined various issues of theology. But I could not approach the person of Christ.

– Was it scary?

– I didn’t find my own approach, my own key. Of course, I studied what the Holy Fathers wrote about Jesus Christ, this is reflected in my books. For example, in the book “Orthodoxy” I have a whole section about Christology. But if we look at what the Holy Fathers wrote about atonement in the 3rd–4th centuries, then the main question was: to whom did Christ pay the ransom. The term "redemption" was taken in its literal sense - ransom. And they argued about who the ransom was paid to. Some said that the ransom was paid to the devil. Others rightly objected: who is the devil to pay such a high price? Why should God pay the devil with the life of his own Son? No, they said, the sacrifice was made to God the Father.

In the Middle Ages in the Latin West, the doctrine of the Savior's sacrifice on the cross as the satisfaction of the wrath of God the Father developed. The meaning of this teaching is this: God the Father was so angry with humanity, and humanity owed Him so much with its sins, that it could not pay Him back in any other way except by the death of His own Son. Allegedly, this death satisfied both the wrath of God the Father and His justice.

For me, this Western interpretation is unacceptable. The Apostle Paul says: “This is a great mystery of godliness: God was revealed in the flesh.” I think that both the Fathers of the Eastern Church and Western writers at one time were looking for some answers to the question of what this mystery is, and therefore they created their theories. It had to be explained using some human-readable examples.

Gregory of Nyssa, for example, said that God deceived the devil. Being in human flesh, He descended into hell, where the devil reigned. The devil devoured Him, thinking that he was a man, but under the human flesh of Christ was hidden His deity, and like a fish that swallowed the hook and bait, the devil thus swallowed God along with the man, and this Deity destroyed hell from within. A beautiful image, witty, but it is impossible to explain redemption to modern man using this image. We must find a different language, different images.

– How do you answer this question?

“I think the most we can say about God is that He wanted to save us in this way and not in any other way. He wanted to become one of us. He wanted not only to save us from somewhere on high, sending us signals, giving us a helping hand, but he entered into the very thick of it human life to always be with us. When we suffer, we know that He suffers with us. When we die, we know that He is near. This gives us the strength to live, it gives us faith in the resurrection.

– Vladyka, you work with a large volume of literature on different languages. How many foreign languages do you know?

– Several languages to varying degrees. I speak and write fluently in English: I even thought in this language for some time when I was studying in England. I speak French, read, and write when necessary, but not so fluently. I speak Greek, but also less confidently (lack of practice), although I read fluently. Then - in descending order. I read, but don’t speak, Italian, Spanish, German. Of the ancient languages, I studied ancient Greek, Syriac and a little Hebrew.

– How did you learn foreign languages in general?

– I learned all foreign languages from the Gospel. I always started with the Gospel of John. This is the most convenient Gospel for memorizing words, they are constantly repeated there: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, it was in the beginning with God.” Experts say that the vocabulary of the Gospel of John is half that of the other Gospels, although it is not inferior in volume to them. This laconicism of the dictionary is due to the fact that many words are repeated.

Why is it convenient to learn a language from the Gospel? Because when you read a well-known text that you know practically by heart, you don’t need to look in the dictionary, you recognize the words. And that's how I learned Greek. First I read the Gospel of John, then I read the three other Gospels, then I began to read the epistles of the holy apostles, and then I began to read the Fathers of the Church in Greek. In addition, when I was learning Greek, I listened to a tape recording of the liturgy in Greek. I learned it in the pronunciation in which it is now used by the Greeks.

I learned the Syriac language a little differently, this was already at Oxford, I had an excellent professor, the best specialist in Syriac literature in the world, Sebastian Brock. But he immediately told me: I’m not going to learn the language with you, I’m not interested in it, I’m interested in reading texts. Therefore, we began to read the text of Isaac the Syrian, and along the way I read the Gospels in Syriac and mastered the basics of grammar and syntax using Robinson’s textbook.

The most important thing in a language is, of course, practice. No textbook can replace practical work with the text.

– Do you think priests need foreign languages today?

– I don’t have a definite answer. Some people may not need foreign languages. But a foreign language is useful not only for purely utilitarian purposes - to read or hear something in it, or to be able to say something to someone. It is useful, first of all, because it opens up a whole new world. Each language reflects the thinking of a certain people, each language has its own literature, its own poetry. I would say that for overall development, a foreign language will never harm anyone. Another thing is that some people may not have a penchant for languages, they may not have an interest in it.

Foreign languages are not at all necessary for salvation, and they are not even necessary for pastoral work. Although I think that for a priest reading the Gospel, at least some basic Greek language necessary. It is no coincidence that in the pre-revolutionary seminary they taught Greek and Latin - if only in order to understand the meaning of individual words, expressions, what Christ says in His parables, so that one could turn to the Greek original and verify.

– How do you structure your daily routine?

– My daily routine is subordinated to my official duties. I have various positions assigned to me by the clergy: I am the chairman of the Department for External Church Relations and ex-officio a permanent member Holy Synod, rector of the All-Church Postgraduate School, rector of the temple. I also head many different commissions and working groups that implement various projects.

Six days a year we have meetings of the Holy Synod, eight days a year we have meetings of the Supreme Church Council. Sunday is a day of worship. Every church holiday is a day of liturgy. Naturally, before each synodal day we have at least several days of preparation - we prepare documents, work through journals. I have visiting days at the DECR and at the All-Church Postgraduate School. Many meetings - with Orthodox hierarchs, with non-Orthodox hierarchs, with ambassadors of various states. A very important layer of my activity is travel. During the first five years of my tenure as DECR chairman, I made more than fifty foreign trips a year. Sometimes I flew to Moscow just to change planes.

– Do you suffer from aerophobia?

- No. But after these five years I began to travel less. Over the course of five years, I have visited everyone I need, and now I can maintain communication with many people through phone calls and email correspondence, that is, I don’t need to go somewhere special to communicate with someone.

In addition, if earlier I accepted almost all the invitations that came to various conferences, then at some point I myself felt, and His Holiness the Patriarch told me: “You shouldn’t travel so much. You should go only to the most important events, where no one else can participate except you.” Accordingly, the number of trips has decreased - I think, without harming the business.

From the days of meetings of the Synod and the Supreme Church Council, days of attendance at the Department and graduate school, church holidays and trips are basically what shapes my schedule. It is quite predictable for a year.

There are pauses in this schedule that I need for what can roughly be called creative activity. For example, in order to write books.

– What days do you use for this?

– Firstly, all civil weekends. To paraphrase the words of a famous song, we can say: I don’t know of any other country where there are so many days off. In addition to vacations, the country enjoys ten days in January, and several days in February, March, May, June, and November. I use these weekends to write. Let's say the New Year period - from late December to Christmas - is the time when I write. I also write on Saturdays. I don’t have any days off in the traditional sense of the word. If a day is free from official duties, then I write on that day.

– Do you write quickly?

– I usually write a lot and quickly. I can think about something for a long time, but when I sit down to write, my average daily norm is 5 thousand words a day. Sometimes I don’t reach this norm, but sometimes I even exceed it.

– This is more than an author's sheet. With such an intense rhythm, you can write a fairly large amount of text in a fairly short period of time. Relatively speaking, I need 20 such days to write a book of 100 thousand words.

– Traditionally, books are measured by marks and author’s sheets...

– I have been measuring in words since Oxford. When I was at Oxford, I had a 100,000 word limit for my PhD. I exceeded this limit and found myself in a rather scandalous situation: I was required to shorten the text. I shortened it as much as I could, but still the excess was about 20 thousand words after the dissertation was bound (and binding there was insanely expensive). My professor, Bishop Callistus, had to specifically go to the rector’s office and prove that these additional 20 thousand words are absolutely necessary to cover my topic. Since then, firstly, I try to write concisely, and secondly, I consider the amount of writing in words, and not in characters.

– Have you encountered problems with constant distraction? Your computer is disconnected, for example, from the Internet, from Email?

– I remember that you respond to e-mails in record time.

– When I’m sitting at the computer and I receive a message, if it’s short and business-like, I try to answer right away.

– Are there many letters?

– At least 30 per day.

– But should there be some kind of pause?

- Yes. There are breaks for food. But since I served in the army, I have a habit (they say it is harmful to health) - eating quickly. Breakfast takes me 10 minutes, lunch – 15, dinner – 10–15. All the time I don't eat, sleep or pray, I work.

– Vladyka, tell us about your assessmentmodern worship? What are the problems with the perception of liturgical prayer?

– Orthodox worship is a synthesis of arts. This synthesis includes: the architecture of the temple, icons and frescoes that are on the walls, music that sounds during the service, reading and singing, prose and poetry that sound in the temple, and choreography - exits, entrances, processions, bows. IN Orthodox worship a person participates with all his senses. Of course, by sight and hearing, but also by smell - he smells the smell of incense, by touch - he applies himself to the icons, by taste - he takes Communion, takes holy water, prosphora.

Thus, we perceive worship with all five senses. Worship should involve the whole person. A person cannot be somewhere else with one part of his nature, and the other in the service - he must be completely immersed in worship. And our worship service is structured in such a way that while a person is immersed in the element of prayer, he does not turn off from it.

If you have been to Catholic or Protestant churches, you could see that the service there consists, as a rule, of disparate patches: first people sing some kind of psalm, then they sit down, listen to the reading, then they get up again. And our services are continuous. This, of course, helps a lot to immerse oneself in the element of prayer. Our worship is a school of theology and thought of God; it is full of theological ideas. It is absolutely impossible to understand worship without knowing, for example, church dogmas. This is why our divine service turns out to be incomprehensible to many people - not because it is in Church Slavonic, but because it appeals to the consciousness of completely different people.

Let’s say people come to listen to the Great Canon during the first week of Great Lent. The canon can be read in Slavic, or in Russian, the effect will be approximately the same, because the canon was written for monks who practically knew the Bible by heart. When a certain name was mentioned in this canon, these monks immediately had an association in their heads with a certain biblical story, which was immediately interpreted allegorically in relation to the soul of a Christian. But today, for most listeners, these associations do not arise, and we do not even remember many of the names that are mentioned in the Great Canon.

Accordingly, people come to the Great Canon, they listen to what the priest reads, but mainly they respond to the chorus: “Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.” And at the same time, everyone stands with his own prayer, with his own repentance, which in itself, of course, is good and important, but this is not exactly what the Great Canon was written for. Therefore, in order to understand worship, in order to love it, you must, of course, have a good knowledge of the dogmas and know the Bible.

– You communicate a lot with non-church people. What is the most important thing for a clergyman in communicating with a person who is far from the Church?

– I think the most important thing is that we must be able to tell people about God, about Christ, so that their eyes light up, so that their hearts ignite. And in order for this to happen, our own eyes must burn, we must live what we talk about, we must constantly burn with this, we must kindle within ourselves an interest in the Gospel, in the Church, in the sacraments of the church, in the dogmas of the church. And of course, we must be able to talk to people about complex things in simple language.

Metropolitan Hilarion (Grigory Alfeev) - hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan of Volokolamsk, head of the DECR MP, member of the Holy Synod, historian, Orthodox composer, translator of works on dogmatic theology from Syriac and Greek.

The future hierarch was born on July 24, 1966 in Moscow into the family of Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Valery Grigorievich Dashevsky and writer Valeria Anatolyevna Alfeeva, from whose pen the collections “Colorful Dreams”, “Jvari”, “Called, Chosen, Faithful”, “ Wanderers", "Pilgrimage to Sinai", "Non-Evening Light", "Sacred Sinai".

Paternal grandfather Grigory Markovich Dashevsky became famous thanks to historical works on the topic of Spanish civil war. The boy was named Gregory at birth. The parents' marriage did not last long - soon the father left the family.

When the boy was 12 years old, Valery Grigorievich died in an accident. Valeria Anatolyevna took full responsibility for raising her son. At an early age, Gregory began studying at the music school at the Gnessin School. The boy’s first and favorite violin teacher was Vladimir Nikolaevich Litvinov.

In 1977, Gregory underwent the sacrament of baptism. Hilarion the New became the heavenly patron of the youth, whose day is celebrated on June 6 according to the old style. The history of the Orthodox Church knows two more great righteous people - the ancient Russian Metropolitan Hilarion of Kyiv and Hilarion, Abbot of Pelicitsky. The saints became famous for their exploits of monastic immaculate life.

In 1981, the young man began church service as a reader at the Church of the Resurrection in the Assumption Vrazhek area. Two years later he began to serve as a subdeacon with Metropolitan Pitirim of the Volokolamsk and Yuryev diocese, and also to work part-time at the publishing house of the Russian Orthodox Church MP.

Metropolitan Hilarion in the army

Having entered the Moscow Conservatory in 1984 with a degree in composition, the young man immediately went into the army for two years. Alfeev was assigned to the company of the army band of the border troops. Returning to Moscow in 1986, Grigory returned to university and studied for a year in the class of Professor Alexei Nikolaev.

Service

In 1987, Alfeev decided to leave worldly life and took monastic vows at the Vilna Holy Spirit Monastery. Archbishop Victorin of Vilna and Lithuania ordained the new monk as a hierodeacon. On the Feast of the Transfiguration, Hilarion accepted the rank of hieromonk, and for 2 years the young priest was appointed rector of churches in the villages of Kolainiai and Tituvenai of the Vilna and Lithuanian diocese. During these same years, Alfeev graduated from the Moscow Theological Seminary, the Moscow Theological Academy and received a candidate's degree in theology.

Hilarion does not stop there and becomes a graduate student at the Moscow Academy of Sciences, and then a student at Oxford. In the UK, Alfeev studies Greek and Syriac under the guidance of Sebastian Broca, defends doctoral dissertation"Reverend Simeon New Theologian and Orthodox Tradition." In parallel with scientific activities Hilarion does not leave ministry in the church. A young priest cares for the parishioners of the churches of the Sourozh diocese.

Since 1995, the Doctor of Philosophy and Theology has become an employee of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, and a teacher of patrolology in seminaries in Kaluga and Smolensk. Hilarion lectures on dogmatic theology in different parts light: in Orthodox seminaries in Alaska, New York, Cambridge. On Easter 2000, Hilarion was elevated to the rank of abbot, and a year later Alfeev accepted the bishopric in the Kerch diocese, which is located in Great Britain. He also becomes vicar of Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom).

Bishopric

In 2002, on the Feast of the Circumcision of the Lord, Hilarion accepted the bishopric and served for a year in the Podolsk diocese. The Patriarchate instructed the young bishop to participate in international meetings of the European Union, where issues of religious tolerance were resolved.

In 2003, Hilarion was appointed Bishop of Vienna and Austria. Under Alfeev, restoration work is being carried out on two large churches of the diocese - Vienna cathedral St. Nicholas and the Church of Lazarus the Four Days. In addition to his main ministry, the bishop continues to work in the representative office of the Russian Orthodox Church in Brussels.

Since 2005, Alfeev has been a private assistant professor of theology at the University of Friborg. In 2009, he assumed the post of Chairman of the DECR of the Moscow Patriarchate, was ordained to the archbishopric rank, and appointed vicar of Patriarch Kirill. A year later he becomes metropolitan.

Social activity

At the end of the 90s, Hilarion began social activities, becoming the host of the “Peace to Your Home” program, which aired on the TVC channel. Alfeev openly enters into dialogue with unchurched people, explaining the features of the Orthodox faith. Hilarion manages to explain complex theological concepts and terms in simple and accessible language, thereby making Orthodoxy closer to people who want to understand its essence. In the early 2000s, the bishop’s fundamental work, “The Sacred Secret of the Church. Introduction to the history and problems of the Imiaslav disputes.”

Metropolitan Hilarion is on the editorial boards of Orthodox publications “Theological Works”, “Church and Time”, “Bulletin of the Russian Christian Movement”, “Studia Monastica”, “Byzantine Library”. The Doctor of Theology has five hundred articles on the problems of dogmatics, patristics, and the history of the Orthodox Church. Alfeev creates books “. Life and Teaching", "Catechism", "Orthodox Witness in modern world", "The main sacrament of the Church", "Jesus Christ: God and Man" and others.

Hilarion manages to competently conduct dialogue with people of other faiths as a member of the Executive and Central Committees of the World Council of Churches. Alfeev is on the commission for negotiations with the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany.

In 2009, he participated in the preparation of the year of Russian culture in Italy and Italian culture in Russia; a year later, Hilarion was appointed a member of the Patriarchal Council for Culture and the Board of Trustees of the Russkiy Mir Foundation. In 2011, he headed the Synodal Biblical and Theological Commission.

Music

Music occupies an important place in the biography of Metropolitan Hilarion. Since 2006, Alfeev has returned to composing, creating a number of works on Orthodox themes. These are, first of all, the “Divine Liturgy” and “All-Night Vigil”, “Matthew Passion” and “Christmas Oratorio”. The theologian's works were warmly recognized by the creative community of performers, the music was successfully performed by symphony and choral groups under the direction of conductors Vladimir Fedoseev, Valery Gergiev, Pavel Kogan, Dmitry Kitayenko and others. Concerts take place not only in Russia, but also in Greece, Hungary, Australia, Canada, Serbia, Italy, Turkey, Switzerland, and the USA.

Since 2011, Alfeev and Vladimir Spivakov have been organizing the Moscow Christmas Festival of Sacred Music. A year later, the Volga Festival of Sacred Music starts, the director of which, along with Metropolitan Hilarion, is violinist Dmitry Kogan.

Personal life

Metropolitan Hilarion has served faithfully in the church since his youth; he was tonsured a monk at the age of 20, so personal life There is no need to talk about Alfeev. His only beloved and dear person in the world remains his mother Valeria Anatolyevna. Metropolitan Hilarion’s entire life is subordinated to the service of the church.

The theologian works a lot on dogmatic works, participates in divine services, and in organizing international and intra-church projects and commissions. Alfeev maintains active correspondence with Orthodox hierarchs, with people of other faiths, and diplomatic representatives of foreign states.

Date of Birth: January 6, 1948 A country: USA Biography:

First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, Metropolitan of Eastern America and New York, Archbishop of Sydney and Australia-New Zealand

Born January 6, 1948 in Spirit River (Canada). I spent my childhood in a rural area; I had to walk to school three miles from home. Later he moved to another school in Blueberry Creek, and then returned to finish high school, where he received his matriculation certificate in 1966.

WITH early years attended the Holy Trinity Russian Church, located near Spirit River. There was a lot of unrest among the parishioners, since one group of Ukrainians wanted the church to belong to Ukrainian autocephaly. Later the parish was annexed to the diocese of Archbishop Panteleimon (Rudik), who served first in the Russian Church Abroad, and then transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate. Young Igor found himself a confessor in the Russian Church Abroad in the person of His Grace Sava (Sarachevich), Bishop of Edmonton, a Serb and great admirer of St. John (Maksimovich; +1966).

WITH teenage years had an affinity for the Church, loved to read magazines and books with spiritual and moral content. In 1967 he entered the USA.

After graduating from the seminary in 1972, he entered the Holy Trinity Monastery as a novice. On December 2, 1974, he was tonsured into the cassock with the name Hilarion in honor of the Monk Hilarion, schema-monk of Pechersk, Metropolitan of Kyiv.

On December 4, 1975, Archbishop Averky (Taushev; +1976), under whom he served as a cell attendant, ordained him a hierodeacon.

May 18, 2008, on the 4th Sunday after Easter, in the Synodal Church of the Sign in New York, the newly elected First Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad, Metropolitan Hilarion of Eastern America and New York.

By the decision of the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Church Abroad of December 8-9, 2016, the parishes of the British Diocese were subordinated (as the Chairman of the Synod of Bishops of the ROCOR).

June 9, 2017 His Holiness Patriarch Moscow and All Rus' Kirill the right to wear two panagias.

By the decision of the Synod of Bishops of the ROCOR dated October 2, 2017, temporary administration was entrusted.

By the decision of the Synod of Bishops of the ROCOR dated September 20, 2018, from the management of the parishes of the British and Western European dioceses.

Diocese: Diocese of Sydney and Australia and New Zealand (ROCOR) (Ruling Bishop) Diocese: Eastern American and New York Diocese (ROCOR) (Ruling Bishop)

Latvian Illarion Girs grew up and was born in Riga. Having received his education there, he soon established himself as a professional lawyer. After 4 years in a large law firm, he opened his own business, the geography of his practice was extensive, from Riga he flew on foreign affairs to more than a dozen countries.

And everything would have been fine if it weren’t for Girs’s civic position towards Russian Latvians and his independent view of the history of his home country. Since 2011, he has been openly involved in the public life of the country, and quickly became one of the leading figures of the Russian protest movement in Latvia, serving as the chief lawyer and deputy chairman of the Latvian party “For the Native Language!” and the Russian Dawn partnership.

Every year, the demonization of his personality in the Latvian media intensified - it got to the point that the chairman of the ruling party in Latvia publicly recognized him as a threat to national security, and the head of the Latvian Ministry of Internal Affairs admitted that Illarion is one of those public leaders whose suppression is carried out by the police intelligence service subordinate to him .

Over the 4 years of his socio-political struggle, they tried to charge him with 7 crimes in Latvia, five of them simultaneously, which is still an unsurpassed anti-record for the modern Republic of Latvia in relation to a Russian social activist.

Hilarion thought about emigrating even before engaging in active politics in Latvia; the neo-Nazi features in it did not suit him. Russia, Canada, Australia and New Zealand then looked in the direction of these countries to move to. My soul called to Russia, but it was the worst thing here, he said: “It’s difficult to get on your feet here. It’s a harsh country for an expat.”

His entry into politics was his attempt to make Latvia fundamentally better for himself and his fellow countrymen, but he did not have enough strength, and he admits that he was below his task. Under pressure from circumstances and in full agreement with his fellow fighters, he left in the summer of 2016.

Being a Russian idealist, he went to Russia. Having arrived, Hilarion Girs asked for political asylum here and received it. Soon it will be exactly one year since he lives and works in Moscow. He spoke about what Russia really turned out to be, as well as about Latvia’s relations with Russia, in the following video:

Illarion Girs is one of those foreign citizens who asked for political asylum in Russia. Last year, a criminal case was opened against a human rights activist in Latvia for his civic position towards Russian Latvians and his independent view of the history of his native country. Not hoping for a fair trial, Illarion decided to leave last year. The choice fell on Russia.

During a year of living in Moscow, the Latvian realized that real Russia and the way it is portrayed in the West are strikingly different from each other.

For example, Hilarion found the main contradiction in the West’s attitude towards Russia and its people as barbarians in Russian culture and scientific achievements:

How can it be that barbarians reach such heights: in music, painting, sculpture, science. There is such a paradox.

In Latvia itself, where Girs left, they are actively promoting the idea that, after increasing tensions with the European Union and the United States, Russia is in a “fever” such that its citizens are below the poverty line, and sanctions have hit so hard that the economy is about to collapse:

In Latvia, such comical stories do not spread as in Ukraine, that in Moscow, as a result of sanctions, they began to eat hedgehogs that were caught at the entrance to the city. But it is cultivated that Russia is almost bursting at the seams due to sanctions. But any sane person understands that this is not so.

On the other hand, Hilarion does not deny that sanctions have affected our economy:

Sanctions, naturally, had a certain restraining effect on the development of Russia. But there is also positive points. You go into a store and see that import substitution is working one way or another. This can be seen in the products, in their quality.

Another myth cultivated by the Latvian authorities and local media is the so-called “Russian aggression”:

There are many reasons for this. In addition to the fact that someone benefits from this, they also maintain their regime in this way. Because as long as people are intimidated, they will not think about changing. Although in fact there are plenty of reasons for a change of power in Latvia.

An unfriendly attitude towards Russia, according to Illarion Girs, will lead to only one thing:

Impoverishment of the people. In former Soviet times, Latvia was a showcase republic, but today it is the second poorest republic in European Union. This is an objective picture. Now that Russia is exporting cargo flows from Latvia, redirecting them to its ports, which I think is correct, because it is not right to feed the country, state, regime that is attacking you. Wrong. If they bite the hand that feeds, you need to remove that hand.

The catastrophic economic consequences for Latvia can already be seen:

Everything is bad in Latvia, except the environment. And even that is not the merit of the current ruling regime of the Latvian ethnocracy, since the entire industry was liquidated and there is nothing to pollute. And if there is no humor, then everything is really flawed. Latvia has lost more than a quarter of its population over the past quarter century. There was no plague, no war.

As a comparison, the Latvian recalled deportations during the USSR:

The Latvian establishment loves to reproach the Soviet Union and Russia, as the successor of the USSR, with Stalin’s deportations. But the extent to which the current ruling regime of the Latvian ethnocracy and the Soviet regime forcibly deported from Latvia was unimaginable. After all, a significant loss of population occurred not because of mortality, but precisely because of need: people leave in search of work, it simply does not exist within the country.

The reasons also lie in external influence on Latvia, because today the country’s state sovereignty, according to Girs, is just empty words:

Latvia is not a subject in world politics today. In fact, she is an object. Game piece in the game of superpowers. First of all, the USA and Russia. But today, in fact, Latvia is the 51st state of America. If they were invited to join, the entire establishment would be in favor. Independence, democracy - these are all big words, which, although they are spelled out in the Latvian constitution, but in fact, upon a careful look, it is clear that this is not so.

In fact, Latvia has never been independent. As soon as I left the Soviet Union, I immediately went to another. To NATO and the European Union. All sovereignty is delegated. The only thing in which they have freedom is in their attitude towards the Russians. Discriminate against Russians. This is what they can do, this right is still given to them.

Along with this, abstracting from his relationship to power, Hilarion never tires of repeating that he loves his native country:

I love Latvia. This is my small homeland. Leaving there was not easy. But at the same time, having arrived in Russia, I don’t feel like I’m in a foreign land, because this is my big homeland. It so happened today that I had to move from the small one to the large one. I think this is a historical misunderstanding. Everything will get better, the regime of the Latvian ethnocracy will exhaust itself, in fact, there are already signs of this.

Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeev) imagined himself to be higher than the Court April 4th, 2017

“Streets and squares cannot be named after executioners. The names of terrorists and revolutionaries should not be perpetuated in our cities,” Metropolitan Hilarion

Has your father taken on too much? Will your back bend under the weight of your luggage?

***
IA Red Spring
It was possible to rebury the body of Vladimir Lenin immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union, now this issue can only be resolved after public agreement on it, stated the head of the Synodal Department for External Church Relations, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk.

The Metropolitan demonstrated a tough position towards the leaders of the revolution: “ Streets and squares cannot be named after executioners. The names of terrorists and revolutionaries should not be immortalized in our cities. Monuments to these people should not stand in our squares. The mummified bodies of these people should not lie and be exposed to public display. ».

However, Metropolitan Hilarion emphasized that today no one wants to “ open old wounds, stir up our society, provoke a split" He declared: " I would say that we are already a quarter of a century late with these decisions. They should have been accepted immediately then. When the monument to Dzerzhinsky was removed from Dzerzhinsky Square (in 1991 - note by Krasnaya Vesna News Agency), then it was necessary to remove Lenin’s body from the mausoleum. If they didn’t do this then, now we need to wait for the moment when there is agreement in society around this issue.”.

Let us remind you that March 12 Synod of Bishops ROCOR addressed a message in which he called for the removal of Vladimir Lenin’s mausoleum from Red Square and the removal of his monuments from the country’s squares.

A few days later, on March 16, the first deputy chairman of the synodal department for relations of the Russian Orthodox Church with society and the media made an official statement Alexander Shchipkov. Shchipkov called the idea of reburying Lenin untimely. Then he stated the following: “ His presence on Red Square has nothing to do with Christian traditions. But we can raise the issue of reburial no earlier than the decommunization and de-Sovietization campaign in the post-Soviet space ceases. And subsequently, when raising this question, we are obliged to proceed exclusively from religious, and not political considerations.”.
***
Let us also recall that Fr. Hilarion (Alfeev) belongs to the community of confessors of the “Butovo training ground” project, the victims of which have been announced with aplomb for a quarter of a century, but have not been found.
Where is he in a hurry?
Metropolitan?
=Arctus=