In the second half of the 20th century, the study of God’s law, and even the keeping of the Bible itself, was not welcomed by the authorities; believers were persecuted; party and Komsomol workers were on duty in churches to prevent youth and children from entering Christian shrines. In the cities that were rapidly growing after the war, there was often no small church, and children were secretly taken to be baptized in remote villages, where the ember of faith still smoldered.
It was more than unrealistic to meet several generations of priests in one family after the executions and exiles of the pre-war years, but the Lord showed such a miracle in the hereditary family of the Sokolovs. Archpriest Evgeniy Sokolov is a sixth-generation priest, a highly intellectual, missionary, theologian and writer endowed with wisdom.
Archpriest Evgeny Sokolov
Bibliographic information about the family
On January 28, 1951, a son, Zhenya, was born into the Sokolov family. At that time, the place of residence of the priest’s family was the village of Voloshka, in the Konoshka district of the Arkhangelsk region. The father of the head of the family, the grandfather of the newborn boy, served as a priest in the Sretensky Church of the village of Mechetki in the Voronezh region. He was persecuted during the anti-religious campaign.
Archpriest Pyotr Sokolov was tried twice, imputed to him for anti-revolutionary activities; in 1925 he ended up in Siberia, where he spent 5 years in exile. Father Peter was arrested for the second time in 1937 for refusing to remember the family of Nicholas II, who was shot by the Bolsheviks, at services. They sentenced him to 10 years of strict regime, prohibiting all kinds of correspondence and visits, but only seventy years later the family learned that in 1938 the priest was shot.
Mother Varvara Alekseevna was a faithful worshiper of the Lord, but it so happened that her two sons were born sickly and soon died. Being pregnant for the third time, mother went on foot on a pilgrimage to pray at the relics of St. Mitrofan of Voronezh, vowing to name him Mitrofan in the event of the birth of a son.
In 1916, the father of Archpriest Evgeniy, Mitrofan Petrovich, was born, who grew up and began working as a carpenter, without advertising his origin. Mitrofan Petrovich, who hid information about his arrested father, was also arrested in 1937 and sentenced to 10 years in a northern colony.
After rehabilitation, Mitrofan remained to work in the Konosha district of the Arkhangelsk region, where the Lord granted him a meeting with Taisiya Ivanovna Vasilyeva. She was from a large family of 11 children and worked at a construction site in the village of Voloshka, where she met Mitrofan. His mother Varvara Alekseevna, who lived to be eighty, and his older sister Alexandra Petrovna, whose family died during the war, came to live with Mitrofan.
Mitrofan and Taisiya had to work a lot; their grandmother and aunt were raising their children, including Evgeniy. Alexandra Petrovna made a vow to God to preserve the Orthodox faith in the Sokolov family; every evening she read the children’s Bible to the boys, because there were practically no churches in those parts. Every year Zhenya traveled with his aunt to Leningrad to visit the grave of her son and go to the church for confession and take communion.
Rector of the temple: Archpriest Evgeny Sokolov
Choosing a Spiritual Dead End
On the moral side of the current political situation in Russia...
Pussy Riot and the Ioloya Foundation: paralysis of conscience
In the main Orthodox cathedral of Russia, immoral women staged satanic dances that offended all Orthodox people in the country. It would seem that let's give the floor to the law. There is no need to demand anything special, there is a law, and “let justice prevail.” Why! The bodies of inquiry had not yet begun to work when our human rights activists simply broke the chain. Calls for mercy began, discussions about the meaninglessness of punishments, and so on. Sorry, no one has punished anyone yet, the law has not yet spoken its word. It turned out, however, that human rights activists and others like them did not need the law at all in this case, when Orthodox Christians were insulted. Our liberal democrats' compassion for this category of people is much less developed...
About morality, tolerance and their relationship in our lives
This is the main practical victory of TOLERANCE - here is its final metastasis - in the proclamation of the hidden principle: there is no truth! You need to live without principles, without specific formulations, without spiritual rules, without a national idea. In a word, you need to live without God, because in this case “everything is permitted.” And in order to somehow try to start breaking this tolerant wall without spirituality, I decided to start my lectures at Orthodox courses with a definition of the concept of morality...
About main and secondary knowledge. About big bosses who know everything, and children who know how to love
And it suddenly dawns on me with what kind of real, sacrificial love this young baby loves her fallen parents. He sits for hours on homework, forcing his little sister to study well so that her parents are praised not by their drinking buddies and drunkards, but by the elite of the village - the teachers. He constantly gives them the opportunity to try to get back on their feet and leave their vicious lives. Tears began to treacherously burn his eyes and, not wanting to show them, he bent over to him, hugged him tightly and whispered in his ear: “Thank you, my dear, for existing, for being able to love so much. I, like you, have not yet learned to love. God bless you"…
About holy relics
What underlies the veneration of holy relics among Orthodox Christians? Of course, this is the Incarnation. Having accepted human nature in its entirety, the Lord forever established the dignity of human corporeality. Let us not forget that the Lord was the God-man. For a Christian, the body is not a prison or a random vestment of the soul, but one of the levels of the human personality, the connection with which the person mysteriously retains even after death...
About the spiritual ultimatum of power
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you close the Kingdom of Heaven to men, for you yourselves do not enter and you do not allow those who want to enter.” [Matt.; 23; 13]. These words were spoken 2000 years ago and addressed to all those in power. Is there really nothing scary at all? And please keep your good intentions to yourself, you who have contemplated the spiritual laws of God!
Archpriest Evgeniy Sokolov: “The community of Father John Privalov must repent of its heresy”
Then I learned that in this church, academician Sergei Averintsev and priest Georgy Kochetkov are recognized as almost teachers of the Church and creators of the canons. This also bothered me in detail. Of course, Academician Averintsev is the smartest person, but he is not the Father of the Church. And, despite this, in the Sretensky Church during the Liturgy the Gospel, translated into Russian by Averintsev, is read...
Passion for the Olympics
Isn’t it clear that after all this Olympic whirlwind, even if we win all the Olympic gold, spiritual devastation will come, just like after any SPECTANCY. Who today, except for a narrow circle of specialists, remembers the heroes of the Olympics in Rome, Tokyo, Grenoble, Moscow? Who in the world felt better because our athlete jumped the highest or threw the sports equipment the farthest? What has changed from this?...
“I want, I really want to believe”
Archpriest Evgeny Sokolov’s opinion on the current situation in Russia...
Right to execute
There is no forgiveness for this sin. No, because after death, when the soul goes to another world, it will be met by a pair (or maybe more than one) of children’s eyes and the question will be heard: “WHAT IS MOM FOR???!!!” Will this woman-mother remember her rights then?! And what will she say to her child there, in eternity. And are there any words at all that can explain to an innocent baby the reason for his murder? Is everything really going to be limited to human rights, women’s rights, mother’s rights legalized by the state? The right to execute...
About the Church
It is impossible to give a rational interpretation to the word Church. All the most refined formulations will not be able to capture the depth and mystery of the Church. You can only get closer to her by entering her inner life, touching her Mysteries...
Pedagogy of Father John of Kronstadt
It was Lomonosov who for the first time in Russia separated secular and religious education. When knowledge about the laws of dead matter was not coupled with spiritual laws, with the Creator’s plan about how this knowledge should be used by humanity for the common good. For they could have been obtained by completely immoral people without spiritual education. Knowledge is a terrible power. It is unacceptable to give weapons to an immoral person so that he does not commit large-scale evil. For then the one who gave this weapon to the villain bears special responsibility for the atrocities he committed...
Once again about the national idea
We are a mono-ethnic and mono-confessional country according to all the norms approved by international law. Really, stop blatantly lying to our supreme rulers about a multi-ethnic and multi-religious country. To be honest, I’m tired of reminding them about this...
People who have forgotten God
If we watch the meetings of the presidents of the club of eight leading world powers, we will see a highly strange picture. All these leaders of world powers talk about themselves as people of faith who recognize the existence of God. At their meetings they decide the fate of the world, outline the prospects for its development, but never once have they tried to understand the will of God on the issues discussed. And then the question arises: what is the faith of these people? What place do they assign to the will of God in the development of the surrounding world? What place does the Creator occupy in their plans?...
“River of Time”: the path to eternity or to a dead end?
In an attempt to cognize spiritual laws, to understand the meaning and rules of movement along the river of time, a believer turns to the Creator of these laws, to the Creator of time. Through Communion with God we touch the innermost secrets of the universe, and it is very important that this communication between man and God be correct. How often today can one hear a completely meaningless and blasphemous phrase: “The main thing is that God is in the soul.” I just can’t get people who profess this principle to tell me what they mean by it? Most likely, they convince themselves that the moral principles they profess are the truth...
Listening to the President and listening to the President...
The next live communication between the President and the residents of the country has ended. Analysts summarize the first results, systematize questions and answers, show the hasty reaction of officials to fair criticism, people thank the leader of the country for his help. Everything is as usual…. It is also common that in all these years not a single question has been asked about the problems of morality and spirituality in our society. Never! Not a single question! And this is strange and incomprehensible to me. Why?
Dead ends of modern science
Maybe that's enough? Maybe, after all, we will humble ourselves before the will of God, people of the scientific world?! Or once again, with increasing persistence in the new time of globalization, we will begin to build new global castles with the help of ever-developing science. Of course, with the best intentions, of course, without knowing the will of God. But won't the next global Towers of Babel collapse, and won't they bury us and the great achievements of science under their rubble? Looks like it's only a matter of time...
Stories from the provinces
And suddenly he began to remember his life after school, all five years before that tragedy with him. He spoke with his eyes closed, recalling truly terrible episodes from his life. And at the end he turned to me and said: “You know, maybe it’s good that the Lord punished me like that. It is not yet known what I would have done if I had remained in full health.” After this meeting, he somehow calmed down strangely. My sister said that he began to remain silent more, asked not to disturb with unnecessary conversations and slowly fade away...
Christmas post
Actually, carnal fasting is only a means, a kind of lever in acquiring spiritual fasting. Indeed, it is very difficult for a well-fed person to resist mental and, especially, spiritual entertainment. A well-fed flesh simply asks, demands pleasure and entertainment. When this flesh remains half-starved, then entertainment fades into the background. This needs to be well understood. Fasting is not vegetarianism or fasting; fasting is an attempt to break free from the slavery of the flesh. This is a period when a person tries to check what place the carnal component occupies in his life, to what extent he is a slave of the flesh...
Christmas readings: the main thing was not said...
Essentially, our rulers are the same atheists, only under the beautiful slogan of liberal democratic values. By the way, the Bolsheviks had an equally beautiful slogan: “freedom - equality - brotherhood.” Just as it was false then, it is false now. But we remained silent once again; we probably didn’t have the courage to tell the authorities that without the revival of morality no economy could be built. There were a lot of topics at the 15th Christmas readings, there were a lot of good reports, a lot of everything, but the small demand from the authorities to revive morality in Russia on the basis of the national idea: “Holy Rus' preserve the Orthodox Faith” - again they could not raise it...
Path of the Priesthood
1996 became a turning point in the fate of Evgeniy Sokolov, he was ordained as a deacon, and in the same year he became a student at the Orthodox St. Tikhon's Theological Institute. Two years later, he was ordained a priest, and on April 11, 1999, he was awarded the gaiter.
Father Eugene is the rector of the Church of St. John of Kronstadt
This year Father Mitrofan dies. The seeds sown by my aunt yielded a rich harvest. The Orthodox Church has received a faithful servant who is eager to bring the Word of God to the world. Until he graduated from theological institute, Father Sokolov served in the Novodvinsk Church of the Intercession of the Virgin.
On January 6, 2000 he was awarded the right to wear a kamilavka, and on April 30 he received a pectoral cross.
In 2001, on April 15, Evgeny Sokolov was ordained archpriest, after which he was transferred to Ertsevo. The village of Ertsevo, Konoshsky district, is a special regime zone, where Father Mitrofan served his exile. The new rector of the Kazan Church communicates weekly with the convicts for three years, drawing patience and humility from them.
Interesting! In 2003, the house church at the State University of Righteous John of Kronstadt in Pomorsk received a new rector in the person of Father Evgeniy Sokolov.
The idea of founding a house church belonged to L. Tolkacheva; she taught at the state university, which was formerly the Arkhangelsk Theological Seminary, where St. John of Kronstadt studied.
Initially, it was planned to establish only a museum of the saint, but the idea of creating a church was supported by the rector and professors of philology. The North-West of Russia received the first church in an educational institution, whose archpriest was Evgeniy Sokolov, who led the first liturgy on February 15, 2003.
Over the ten years of service, Father Eugene has done a tremendous amount of work to spread the Word of God and strengthen the Orthodox faith among students:
- an Orthodox wall newspaper is published;
- there is an Orthodox cafe;
- Internet website developed;
- Orthodox song and poetry competitions are regularly held.
Father Sokolov headed the missionary department in the Arkhangelsk diocese. On April 22, 2008, he received a club as a reward, and on April 9, 2012, a cross with decorations.
To this day, in the house church of the university, every Thursday an akathist is read to St. John of Kronstadt, and on Mondays a prayer service is held, on Wednesday parishioners and students come to read an akathist to the holy image of the Mother of God, and every Sunday the Liturgy is performed.
In 2015, Archpriest Evgeny Sokolov was transferred as rector of the Church of the Presentation of the Lord to the village of Zaostrovye, located in the Primorsky district of the Arkhangelsk diocese.
Evgeniy Sokolov’s lectures were included in his book “On Life and Death”
The priest's family has three children, son Vladislav is a specialist in applied mathematics, Olga graduated from the State University in Pomorsk, and Maria chose the profession of a doctor. Eight grandchildren are a real gift from God for Archpriest Eugene and Mother Taisia.
The missionary preaches the meaning of life in its entirety
The head of the missionary department of the Arkhangelsk diocese regularly meets with schoolchildren and students to convey the meaning of life and understand issues that concern young people. With students they discuss topics about literature and its spiritual content. Father notes that they are deeply concerned about topics about events in the world, as well as about pagan signs, UFOs, and anomalous phenomena.
Evgeniy Sokolov’s lectures are included in his new book “On Life and Death.”
His videos posted on YouTube, such as “How to find a life partner,” on the catechism, as well as eschatology, aroused great interest. The videos received tens of thousands of views, and reviews came from even Canada and Bulgaria. It became clear that the topics turned out to be very relevant. People want to understand simple truths and need a living word.
This is how the idea of writing the book “On Life and Death” was born. The first edition was published in 2021 with a circulation of 1,000 copies and sold out in a matter of months. The book includes speeches from international seminars, conferences, symposiums and missionary congresses, interviews with regional and federal media, articles on topics about the meaning of life, sin and virtue, the teachings and Sacraments of the Church, faith and unbelief, problems and ills of modern society.
The author’s main pain can be traced – the suffering and sorrow of the Russian people. The greatness of a state should not be based on the presence of pop stars. God's Providence for the people is what should be the idea of the Russian people, believes Father Evgeniy. He noted that prophecies about the end times are now coming true. Apparently it is coming to an end, because God’s Providence is ignored by humanity.
Books by Evgeny Sokolov: online store “Patriot of Pomorye”
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Work with children
The children cope well with the tasks that Evgeniy sets for them. They understand every gesture of their teacher, trying to please him in order to be sure to get on the set of his next masterpiece. The skill of working with children is not given to everyone. This is probably some kind of special gift - to find a common language with capricious and restless creatures. But the spontaneity with which children play in films helps to find the most necessary solution in finding images of the characters in the films.
"Hope is the last to go"
It is worth dwelling in detail on who Evgeny Sokolov is and where he was filmed. After all, he not only became a great director. Evgeniy Sokolov proved himself to be an excellent master of transformation. The Russian actor starred in the film “Hope is the Last to Leave.”
This is a real and fantasy-like story from the life of a woman living in the 90s. The heroine becomes strong and courageous at the moment of searching for her happiness. She achieves great success. Journalist Orlov, played by Evgeny Sokolov, played an important role in the fate of the woman. Everything happens before his eyes.
Theater work and acting career
Starting in 1981, Sokolov got a job in the theater, where he worked for only one year. However, it is impossible to say that his year was wasted. It was this period that became decisive for Sokolov’s future career. After a while, the actor begins to work at the Mackevicius Drama Theater. His acting skills help Evgeny move forward, but in fact Sokolov is interested in a completely different direction. For many years he has been dreaming of working as a cameraman, and with the onset of 1985, Evgeniy Viktorovich Sokolov gets a job at the famous Mosfilm film studio. Here men are trusted with the most difficult jobs. And this despite the fact that he is an assistant cameraman.
Accomplished as an operator
He works as a camera assistant. He is trusted with the most difficult combined shootings in several films. These are the films “Stalingrad”, “Eve”, “Children of the Cast Iron Gods” and others. Taking up cinematography becomes a dream, quite feasible for a young and persistent Ural guy. He enters the VGIK department of cinematography and successfully graduates in 1991. He studied in the workshop of Valentin Zheleznyakov.
Evgeniy Sokolov, while at the institute, performs diploma and test works at the highest level of director, cameraman and screenplay. This is directly related to the dream of becoming a film director. His works receive very good reviews. For example, his diploma work, a full-length film called “I won’t let you go anywhere,” participated in the Turin competition and won a prize.
