Archpriest Fyodor Borodin: biography, wife, children, family

Many clergy take the path of serving God following the example of their parents, when dad or mom (and sometimes both) were believers, and from childhood they instilled love for the Lord in their child. Or, this happens from the opposite: if a person, initially an unbeliever, endured difficulties in life, went through trials, and believed that higher powers exist, that Christ is next to him and directs him to serve the Christian faith. Archpriest Fyodor Borodin is a unique figure in the world of the Orthodox faith. He was born and raised in a family of people far from the church, was not subjected to terrible trials, but came to the idea of ​​faith already in childhood, and as an adult he embarked on the path of serving God.

Fyodor Alexandrovich is highly respected by parishioners, he has a lot of fans: priest Borodin spends a lot of time in the church where he serves, often appears on television, publishes extensive materials on the Internet, and writes books. Interest in Archpriest Fyodor Borodin among his fans and followers is supported by his good deeds, but people are also interested in the biography of the clergyman. At what point did the young man turn to faith? How did his parents feel about the fact that their son began to believe in God? Did Fyodor Alexandrovich serve in the army, and how was his service? What interesting information is known about his family, wife, children?

Official data

• Last name, first name, patronymic: Borodin, Fedor Alexandrovich;
• Place of birth: Russian Federation, Moscow;
• Date of birth: 1968, April 8;
• Education: graduate of the Moscow Theological Seminary;
• Church rank: archpriest;
• Occupation: rector of the Temple of the Holy Unmercenaries Cosmas and Domian on Maroseyka (Moscow Diocese, Russian Orthodox Church);
• Marital status, children: married, spouse – Lyudmila Borodina; there are eight children in the family.

Childhood, school

Fyodor Borodin was indeed raised by parents who in his childhood were far from religion, like most Soviet people of that time. The boy grew up in a large family - in addition to Fedor, the Borodins also raised an eldest daughter and a younger son. But, despite their “socialist” beliefs, the father and mother of the future priest were decent and hardworking people, and they raised their heirs to be the same. For example, Fyodor Aleksandrovich said in an interview for “radiovera”: “Mom once called Anya (elder sister) and me and said that we should help her around the house: go for bread and milk, sweep in the kitchen and in the hallway, set and clear the table, wash the dishes.”

At school, the boy liked humanities subjects; he also loved to draw and draw. Vera Gorbacheva was the name of the woman who radically influenced the boy’s fate. Fedya met her when he was nine years old: a new neighbor appeared in the house where the Borodins lived. Vera Alekseevna's boy saw icons in Vera Alekseevna's house; she taught him and his sister prayers and took him to church. When Fyodor was in the ninth grade, and his sister was in the tenth, they chose to study after school: the young man wanted to enter an art school, Anya - to the Faculty of Philology. The conversation with the holy elder, Father Herman, came as a surprise to the guy, because the elder blessed his sister to enter a university, and told her brother: “You will be a priest.”

When a priest pokes an elderly parishioner

– It happens that a priest addresses a person “you” who is almost twice his age...

– When a young priest, who graduated from seminary yesterday, “pokes” an elderly parishioner who is old enough to be his grandmother and calls her “you”, points out to her her usually imaginary sins, I feel sorry that his father is not around to give him a good spanking . Because a person who has not learned to be simply polite cannot be a priest of God. This is unacceptable, simply disgusting. I can't find another word.

A priest is a person who must first become an impeccable Christian. And an impeccable Christian is a person who must first learn to be a good, decent and well-mannered person. But a well-mannered person cannot be a boor.

So, you can’t be a rude person and be a good Christian. Moreover, you cannot be a rude person and be a priest.

Recently my twenty-two-year-old son said: “Dad, I don’t want to be a priest.” I don’t put pressure on any of my sons; they will decide this issue themselves, but I asked: “Why?” And he told me that he witnessed the following episode in a church near Moscow.

A young priest, a strong, stately man, about thirty, sits on a bench in the church after the service. A grief-stricken old woman approaches him to talk. The eyes are all teary. And, sobbing, she begins to talk about how her husband drinks, her son drinks, her daughter’s family is falling apart, also because of drunkenness, she is not given grandchildren, they go out and don’t study.

In general, the entire fabric of life in her hands crumbles away from her loved ones and from herself. And this priest loudly, for the whole church to hear, answers her, of course, using “you”: “Yes, it’s all your fault. It's all because of your sins. Go repent! Aren `t you ashamed. Why did you come to me? You need to look at yourself."

I think that sooner or later this priest himself will run into his own grief, and if he does not change by this time, no one will console him, no one will support him. In order not to understand that a person is feeling bad, and at the same time talk so boorishly from top to bottom - you have to have such a heart, such a callous soul!

All this shocked my son so much that he said: “I’m scared even at the thought that I could suddenly become like this. I don’t want to sin so badly.”

This manner of judging immediately, immediately denouncing everything, often without any experience, kills people’s trust in the priesthood. It is no coincidence that in Greece, for example, a very small number and only experienced and elderly priests have the blessing of the bishop to confess. Because if a priest does not have enough humility to understand his place, then the consequences of the pain that he can bring to people from his complacency, pompousness, and self-confidence can be simply terrible.

We all know many cases when the accusatory words of a priest became an excessive burden for a person, bent him to the ground and trampled him into terrible despondency.

I know the story about how a “meeting” with a priest in a temple was the last straw for a young man, after which he committed suicide. I don’t know which priest we’re talking about, I don’t want to accuse anyone of such a grave sin, but the fact remains that a person came to the temple with the last spark of hope... After the priest “accepted” him, there was no hope left...

- What to do?

– It is no coincidence that the age limit for ordination is 30 years. It is no coincidence that the Apostle Paul says: “Lay hands hastily on anyone” (Tim. 5:22). That is, it is impossible to ordain a person without testing him.

A person must have certain life experience. And specifically spiritual life. He must have time to be humbled by this experience before his consecration. Why is the Apostle Peter given the keys to the Kingdom of God? Because Christ knows that he will betray and will be forgiven. And here is a symbol of spiritual power - these keys of Christ can be given to such a person. And to the other apostles, because they also abandoned Christ and returned to Him.

When a person is young, when it seems to him that he can easily move mountains, when he has not yet learned his weaknesses as a Christian, he has the illusion that since he serves the liturgy, he has power over people, the power to decide how they should be, because he knows how to do it right. And this, unfortunately, is not the case.

Vladyka Anthony (Bloom) magnificently said that in the sacrament of ordination a person is given the grace of sacred rites, but wisdom is not given.

You have to be a very smart person to get involved in someone else's fate. But not everyone has this gift - the gift of spiritual wisdom. Some preach, some serve, and there are confessors. And if you understand that you are not a confessor, you do not have this gift or do not yet have this experience, just say that from Scripture, from the canons, from the Commandments of God, I would give such an answer, but I cannot insist.

Photo: VK/Simbirsk Metropolis

Army, receiving spiritual education

Fyodor Alexandrovich said that he was twice unable to enter the school - he tried to get there because he did not fully trust the elder. Then he was drafted into the army, and the young man had the prospect of going to Afghanistan: military operations were in full swing there with the participation of a contingent of Soviet troops, and Fedor was engaged in parachute jumping in the DOSAAF club. Surely God saved him from death in a foreign land in an unjust war, because the entire group of conscripted paratroopers in which the guy ended up was sent to Afghanistan, and he ended up in Lithuania. Fyodor Borodin took the Gospel with him into the army, a gift from his mother (by that time she had become imbued with her son’s faith and gave him an imported edition of the book for his journey).

He returned from the army in the late 80s, and immediately plunged into the atmosphere of perestroika: they no longer had such a negative attitude towards religion, it was possible not to hide their views, even without regard to the “special” authorities, they could enter a religious educational institution. That’s what Fyodor Borodin did - he entered the Moscow Theological Seminary. As mentioned on the “proreligiu” website, Fedor received a blessing for his further service to God from Archimandrite Kirill (Pavlov) - meaning one of the most revered elders of the Orthodox Church of Soviet and post-Soviet times, Archimandrite Kirill, confessor of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. The elder blessed the seminary graduate on the spiritual path, and Borodin began to serve in the St. Nicholas Church in Klenniki.

Priest Fyodor Borodin: serving God from 1992 to the present day

At the age of 24, the former paratrooper, who dreamed of drawing pictures in school, entered the temple as a priest and devoted himself to the church and parishioners. At first, conducting the sacrament of confession was a difficult task for him - many of his parishioners were much older than the young priest! From St. Nicholas Church he was transferred to Maroseyka, to the Church of Saints Cosmas and Domian. In the same 1992, Fyodor Borodin received the rank of deacon, and very soon was ordained by His Holiness Patriarch Alexy to the rank of presbyter. After 10 years, Father Fedor received the title of archpriest, and the rector of the church on Maroseyka still serves God and parishioners with joy and enthusiasm in this church.

Fyodor Borodin is not limited to communicating with people only in church. On the Internet resource “Foma” his discussions on important issues are regularly posted, for example:

• “How to Preach the Lord in a Modern School”;
• “Attitude towards childlessness”;
• “What is the unity of the peoples of Russia”;
• “Questions about the church community”;
• "Kayak Rescue"

The last article is devoted to the extra-church activities of Fyodor Borodin: he organizes kayaking trips with parishioners, where children are actively involved. In addition to kayak trips, the priest and parishioners go out into nature with tents: “Trips help to grow in church life, work and create short moments of life according to the commandments,” according to Fyodor Borodin for the “pravoslavie” website. The priest actively appears on TV and on the Internet: he is a frequent guest on the Spas channel, where believers happily await him. People listen to his speeches and also receive answers to questions online.

Personal life

When Elder Kirill blessed Fyodor Borodin, he set a condition for the graduate of the theological university: “First you need to get married.” A priest, upon receiving a parish, must really start a family - in Orthodoxy, marriage is possible before taking holy orders. Even a parish priest, if he has a family, can show parishioners by his example how to behave in marriage. Fyodor had no doubts about his choice of wife, because in the Lavra he met a wonderful girl Lyudmila - she painted icons there.

Fyodor Borodin with his wife and children. Photo https://www.instagram.com/filarethram/

The spouses raise their sons and daughter in the same spirit as themselves - in faith, in harmony with the world, in an understanding of Divine destiny. As a family man, Fyodor Borodin understands well what it means to have small children and how difficult it is to raise them. His interview in response to the article “Here they pray and give birth” received a great response: a woman told how hard it was for her to go to church with a baby, and in response she was showered with reproaches. Borodin condemned the dissatisfied: “It’s bitter to listen to those who attack a tired woman. The attitude of Christians towards childbearing should be careful!”

family

A priest must earn self-respect

– Can a priest not allow a person to receive communion because, for example, he did not read the rule?

– A priest can only deny permission if a person commits some kind of mortal sin.

In all other cases, the priest does not have the right to deny access to communion. This was enshrined in pre-revolutionary synodal decrees of the first half of the 18th century. Moreover, if my memory serves me right, then these synodal decrees say that the issue of preventing a person from receiving communion due to sins should also be decided by the ruling bishop.

Technically, this decree is impossible to implement, but it is clear that it was born of a situation where priests allow themselves too much.

Alas, we are faced with such a picture when a priest does not allow a person to receive communion without any canonical reasons, and this sometimes painfully wounds the person’s soul.

This is what happened to my mother when she was not allowed to receive communion, and for the first time in her life she was preparing to begin the sacrament. She had a very difficult period in her life. The family broke up, I remember how she lost 16 kilograms in a month. She came to the church, which was not closed, and there was such a crowd of people there that she had to push her way to communion. When she finally realized that the Chalice was being taken away and began to push through, the priest who administered communion saw her and said: “You are not allowed.” And he went with the Chalice to the altar. He was too lazy to turn his face to this suffering, grief-stricken woman and teach her the Body and Blood of Christ. Although she fasted, and confessed, and read the rule.

It was a terrible experience for her. Thank God that this did not turn her away from the Church.

– That is, the priest in such cases essentially abuses his power?

– Often a priest simply does not understand the nature of the power that rank gives. The nature of the priest's authority is likened to Christ's authority. And the power of Christ is to die on the cross for people. This power was fully explained by Him at the Last Supper, when the Lord, like a slave (because only slaves washed the feet of guests), washed the feet of His disciples.

Let us remember the reaction of the holy apostles. They were categorically against it. They can be understood. They were scared. This should not have happened; their Teacher could not wash their feet. But He insisted and then explained: “So, if I, the Lord and Teacher, washed your feet, then you should wash each other’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do the same as I have done to you.” (John 13:14-15).

This is precisely about the power of the priest. The apostles were so against it also because Christ carried out the previous leadership of that community in a completely different way. First, He led them unconditionally; He did not consult with them. He didn't listen to their opinions. He was definitely a Teacher for them. And, moreover, He was very strict with them. He did not indulge their mistakes or passions. And it is enough to remember the words that He says to the Apostle Peter: “Get behind Me, Satan!” (Matt. 16:23). Perhaps these are the harshest words in the Gospel. He addresses the most devoted, the eldest of His disciples.

This model of behavior between teacher and students was completely broken by Christ at the Last Supper by washing his feet.

The priest in relation to the parishioners must be guided by both. And washing one’s feet should always be implemented as a principle of serving parishioners.

But a priest must earn and earn respect for himself as a teacher. He has no right to insist on it.

Interesting Facts

1. Fedora's dad loved physical labor and often helped neighbors with moving and renovations. A man, in principle, far from religion, after meeting his neighbor Vera Gorbacheva, and seeing her icons, he asked the woman to become godmother for Fedya and Anya.
2. Alexander Borodin was a cultured and well-read man. He often read the Bible as fiction, wrote poetry and prose - one of his plays was performed at the Taganka Theater.
3. During his childhood, Fyodor’s house was often visited by people of art: Zhanna Bichevskaya, the Akhedzhakova and Kocheishvili spouses came. Eduard Limonov even stayed with Fedor’s dad and mom for some time.
4. Fyodor Borodin told his children fairy tales of his own composition with continuation and instructive content when they were little. He inherited this talent from his dad: he also wrote “multi-part fables” (as he called them) for his three children.
5. When Fyodor was appointed to serve on Maroseyka, the building had just been returned to the church - there was Ilya Glazunov’s workshop there. The whole Borodin family helped restore the church: sister Fedora, for example, prepared food for the builders.
6. Mother Lyudmila, the wife of Fyodor Borodin, is also from a family far from the faith. Six of Lyudmila’s ancestors were repressed, and she was raised by her great-grandmother, a convinced communist.
7. The Borodins' life brought them together with the most interesting people, one of them was a spiritual writer, a mitred archpriest, Father Valerian (Krechetov). One of Fyodor’s sons, after talking with his father Valerian, said: “Gandalf is resting!”
8. Fedor Alexandrovich is the author of two most interesting and useful books. These are “Create Love: How to Raise a Happy Child” and “Grow with the Gospel: How to Raise a Child in the Gospel Spirit.”
9. In the words of priest Borodin: “I dreamed of being an artist, and did not think about going to church. But God brought me here, and now I can’t even imagine something more significant. When I serve the liturgy, I am absolutely happy!”

About discipline and punishment

— How do you resolve conflict situations that arise between children?

- When children quarrel, fight, conflicts arise, we always ask two questions to each of the participants in the quarrel: “What is your part of the blame?” - and: “What could you have done, but did not do, to ensure that there was no conflict?”

If the child knows that these questions will be asked, there will be much less conflict. You should definitely ask your children these questions. If your child has a fight with someone on the playground, you don’t need to immediately rush headlong into a fight over him. Maybe he's wrong. If you defend him in the wrong, you will sin against him. If a child is wrong, he must be taught and punished. He must see justice from an adult. And if you protect the child in any way, you are betraying him, causing him harm. The Holy Scripture says: “Whoever spares his rod hates his son” - not “mistakes” or “loves little,” but “hates.” If parents do not limit the evil that grows in the child, they are terribly guilty of him, they spoil his future life.

Unfortunately, many parents now do not understand this. It can be completely obvious that a child is behaving incorrectly, but parents, like blind people, do not want to see this - this is my child, my continuation, so he is always right. And nothing can be proven.

It is clear that now there is no need to use the rod to punish, but it is necessary to punish. If there are conflicts at our summer camp, we punish them with additional duty. And we punish swearing or its imitation by bowing.

Also in the camp, we categorically prohibit any gadgets, together we experience withdrawal, which invariably occurs in a child who is accustomed to sitting at the computer for hours with a tablet, but then children blossom.