Now the Orthodox Church is restoring its position. One by one, previously destroyed temples are being restored. This is a huge merit of ordinary people. Fortunately, there are still caring Christians and there are quite a lot of them. However, the Russian Orthodox Church itself does not abandon its parishioners and is actively engaged in the revival of the lost heritage.
One of the most famous revivalists of ancient traditions is Archpriest Alexander Ilyashenko. Who is he? How did his service to the Lord begin? What did he do for the modern Orthodox Church?
Origin and birth
Alexander Ilyashenko was born in 1949 in Moscow into the most ordinary Soviet family. Little is known specifically about the boy’s parents. What distinguished Alexander from other children was that from an early age he became interested in religion, and also began attending an Orthodox church.
Archpriest Alexander Ilyashenko
After graduating from school, Alexander Ilyashenko entered the Moscow Aviation Institute. In 1972 he graduated from the faculty of aircraft engines. After completing his studies, the young man worked for a long time at the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy. My whole life was devoted to interesting work. Alexander was engaged in neutron physical calculations of nuclear reactors.
Ministry of the Orthodox Church
The childhood dream of serving in church did not die in my soul. So in 1995, Alexander graduated from the theological faculty at the St. Tikhon’s Theological Institute. After this, the man was ordained to the rank of deacon. Alexander began to serve in the Vysoko-Petrovsky Monastery, the temple of St. Sergius of Radonezh. In the same year, the future archpriest became a priest.
2004 was a significant year for Alexander Ilyashenko. He was awarded for his faithful service to the Lord, for his zeal and endless faith by the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Alexy II himself. Alexander received the right to wear a pectoral cross. In the same year, together with his faithful parishioners, he created the website “Orthodoxy and Peace,” but more on that later.
In 2007, the priest was elevated to the rank of archpriest. The ceremony took place in the Assumption Cathedral of the capital, in the Moscow Kremlin.
Service of Father Alexander in the Intercession Prison Church
In 2015, Alexander was awarded the medal of the Order of St. Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir by the new Patriarch Kirill for his faithful service to the Church for 20 years in the rank of presbyter.
Family
Giving his entire life to the Church and the needs of Orthodox Christians, Archpriest Alexander Ilyashenko does not forget about his family. The relationships here are very strong, and you can boast about their size. Alexander's wife is Mother Maria, a pediatrician by training. She comes from an old but spiritual family. So her grandfather was shot in 1937 for his belief in the One Lord. He was a new martyr priest.
Alexander Ilyashenko and Mother Maria had 12 children. Many of them followed in their father’s footsteps and dedicated their lives to serving the Lord. For example:
- The eldest son, Philip, is a candidate of historical sciences and also a deacon. He graduated with honors from Moscow State University.
- The eldest daughter, Tatyana, became a candidate of philological sciences. She is a teacher at St. Tikhon's Theological Institute and School.
In addition to children, Father Alexander also has 36 grandchildren. “It’s great work and great joy to raise so many children and grandchildren,” the couple say. Unfortunately, disaster struck in 2015. One of Varvara’s daughters died of cancer.
Interview with Fr. Alexander Ilyashenko: is education a creative process?
Archpriest Alexander Ilyashenko is the rector of the Moscow Church of the All-Merciful Savior. Member of the Writers' Union, author of books and articles, including the book “Big Family, Great Expectations.” Father of twelve children and grandfather of eighteen grandchildren.
– Father Alexander, I know that you are not only the shepherd of numerous spiritual children, but also the father of many children, who raised twelve children. Are there, in your opinion, any ready-made recipes for upbringing that are applicable in any family?
– Of course, there is a general direction, general educational guidelines that must be adhered to in every family. But, as in life, so in education, there are no ready-made recipes.
All people are different, and all children are different, and it often happens that even in the same family, children are very different from each other. For example, in my family, even twin girls are completely different - not only in appearance, but also in their inner qualities, character and temperament.
It is clear that in raising each child an individual approach is necessary, and what is applicable and effective in relation to one child is completely unsuitable in raising another.
In general, pedagogy is a creative matter. When I ask educators and teachers what pedagogy is, they answer me: pedagogy is a science... Forgive me, please, pedagogy is, first of all, an art.
I would say that pedagogy is the art of getting a person to do what he does not want to do, but should. After all, children, for obvious reasons, are not always ready to happily do what teachers and parents demand of them.
To dispose them to this, to convince them of the necessity and benefits of their duties is a great art. Moreover, art is not about forcing a child to do this or that task, but about getting him interested and helping him see with our eyes how important and useful it is, first of all, for him.
For some reason, very often we immediately turn to forceful methods: force, coerce, achieve... Unfortunately, such measures are also necessary, but the task of parents is to resort to these forced methods only in extreme cases.
Education should be structured, as they say in Russian fairy tales, “without fights, fights and bloodshed” - so that all participants have fun and interest. I repeat, this is not always possible and not with every child.
And that is why I am talking about a creative approach: having clear goals - to raise a good person - each parent goes towards them in different ways, in accordance with the characteristics of both his own character and the character of the child.
Children have the ability to lure an adult into their field - where they have the initiative. The teacher needs to understand that playing on this field will not lead to any results. He must play on his own territory and not let go of the initiative.
Every teacher needs to master the situation - not like a policeman, not like a commander giving orders in a abrupt voice, but like an artist who knows how to skillfully control the attention of his audience.
This is the ideal to which we need to strive. The truth is extremely simple: if the teacher is interesting, then the children will obey him, and if education turns into tediousness and a dry set of instructions, then the children will simply stop listening to him.
Parenting is an energetic, meaningful creative process, full of goodwill and trust in the child.
– Nowadays there is a lot of talk about the fact that children need to be protected from the influences of the outside world, meaning the lifestyle and value system that is imposed on television screens and other media, dictating a certain model of behavior to young people.
With all the obviousness of this bad influence, isn’t such isolation of the child from the surrounding modern reality extreme?
– There are extremes in everything. But I will start by defending the point of view that you are talking about. There has been no TV in my house since 1980: we moved to a new apartment, and I left it on the street.
At the same time, in my childhood, television played a fairly large role, since then television met exactly the tasks that it was supposed to meet.
It was a window into the educational world, into cultural life; deep and interesting people often spoke to television viewers who really contributed to the intellectual development of a person.
They showed truly first-class films that had long since disappeared from the screens, giving way to completely obscene products.
Therefore, most young people simply have no idea about real cinema. Imagine that we throw out or consign to oblivion the works of Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy. Without this baggage, our cultural development will be flawed.
Even though cinema is not as important for our education as classical literature (perhaps simply because it arose later than literature), you must agree that genuine cinema carries the same educational, aesthetic functions as any other form of art.
It is necessary to instill taste in a child, but for this today a TV is no longer needed. Modern television is oriented towards a completely different viewer: in front of the screen you involuntarily find yourself as a puppet, dancing to the tune of those people whom you would not even allow onto your threshold.
What can we say about a child who, like no one else, is subject to external influences. Watching modern dynamic, bright, but, as a rule, meaningless, often immoral, and essentially mediocre films is much easier than immersing yourself in serious cinema, which makes you think and even reconsider your ideas about what is good and what is bad.
Taste is an ability that takes years to achieve, but is destroyed and distorted very quickly. Therefore, upbringing must include a very carefully thought-out program and a fairly strict selection of the material that the child perceives. Interestingly, when I mention that I don't have a TV, there is usually applause.
In the eyes of people, it looks like something extraordinary, unique: in other words, it is already difficult for a modern person to imagine life without a TV. But how did our grandfathers live, who were in many ways better, more cultured and more sophisticated than us?
In general, this problem is much broader than the issue of education. Why is it not a shame today to finance and create immoral works that corrupt people? And why aren’t we ashamed to watch them? We don’t invite a woman of “easy virtue” to our house!
So why do we allow something indecent to unfold in our apartment, before our eyes? And here you need to turn your attention, first of all, to yourself: if parents watch dubious and immoral programs, then their children will watch them too.
And if from an early age a child is protected from such influence, then the sense of taste itself will not allow him to even stop his gaze on it. After all, taste is an immunity that protects a person from those fakes that, alas, are imposed on us today from blue screens.
In addition, irreparable harm to our psyche is caused not only by the content of modern television programs, but also by the incessant flickering on television itself. We do not feel how destructive it is to our attention, our thought process, our concentration.
And what can we say about a child, who is still in the process of forming the psyche and all the basic functions of the human body and reacts to environmental influences to a much greater extent than adults.
As for extremes, everything can go to the point of absurdity. Of course, we should not completely isolate children from everything external, putting them under our parental cap. And it is impossible to completely protect them from the corrupt influence of this age.
But we can give children those guidelines that will allow them to make their own choices and distinguish the genuine from the fake, the high from the low, the talented from the untalented.
– The tasks of parents, at first glance, are obvious: as you said, to be an example for their children, to show care, to adhere to certain moral rules...
And yet it happens that even in a prosperous family, children grow up who are far from the guidelines that their parents followed in their upbringing. What's the matter?
– As they say, chickens are counted in the fall. If the parents managed to raise strong, independent, morally stable people, it means that they fulfilled their creative task. If this did not happen, then such parents cannot be called ideal, although perhaps they are wonderful people and tried their best. This means that they still missed something, overlooked something, and were not sensitive enough.
Parenting is a very difficult task that requires wisdom, creativity and love. And love is manifested in the care and protection of children from those destructive influences of our modernity that we talked about.
There should be no sources of these destructive influences in the house - from television to obscene literature.
Participation in the life of a child, indifference to his tastes and interests will protect him from empty, meaningless music, which modern youth sometimes gets carried away with. After all, any child, if he is surrounded by love and care and is brought up with trust and respect for his parents, is receptive to the advice of adults and is able to listen and understand them.
And then these tips will not look like a system of prohibitions. At the same time, sensitive attention to the child’s life should not turn into his complete isolation from the outside world. Children cannot be deprived of communication with their peers and with modern culture. Of course, I am talking about a culture that lives up to its name and truly cultivates and cultivates, and does not disfigure and spoil.
– But what if the child is already interested in something that does not suit our tastes and does not fit into our ideas about culture?
– Firstly, life develops, and you cannot demand from children that they only like what their parents like. Time changes, generations change, fashion changes, hobbies change - of course, tastes change.
But change should not be a distortion. Even if we do not completely share the hobbies of children, even if we do not agree with them in some ways: it would be strange if children repeated their parents in everything. The danger arises only if such a hobby turns into drug addiction.
After all, what is a drug? This is the loss of human freedom, when, contrary to all common sense, a person moves towards certain death, and, moreover, being aware of this.
The problem of drug addiction in itself is an unambiguous and undisguised evil, deep down understandable even to drug addicts themselves. In this case, it is quite obvious that not only the child, but also the parents at some point made some kind of mistake when they overlooked, misunderstood, did not support...
But there is also drug addiction of a different order, when a child gets carried away with something obscene and destructive, losing his own face. In such cases, parents are simply obliged to intervene - for example, by trying to engage the child in an activity that would ennoble him and not corrupt him.
The most effective prevention against such diseases is, of course, education in the bosom of the Church and Orthodoxy.
It is very important that children, upon entering adolescence, already recognize themselves as members of the Church. This is truly parental luck. Because if a person is in the Church, then, with God’s help, any illness can be healed, difficulties can be overcome, and mistakes can be corrected.
– Is it possible to punish children?
– In some cases it is necessary to punish. But it is important to determine what punishment is and what it can be expressed in. In my opinion, the most fruitful and effective means is work. And more than once I had to resort to such special measures of education, for example, when my wife and I began to notice that our sons, when they were 15–16 years old, began to mess around, skip classes, be rude and generally play the fool in every possible way.
We sent one son to work in a bakery, and for a month and a half he had to get up at five in the morning, walk through a dark, sleeping city to work, carry fifty-kilogram bags of flour, knead dough and participate in the work process along with adults.
A few years later, another son went to the Arkhangelsk region to a monastery, where he had to carry two hundred liters of water from an ice hole and perform other obediences.
It must be said that in the case of our children, healthy physical labor had a tremendous impact on their attitude to life and correctly placed emphasis. They realized that no one would pat them on the head for their inappropriate behavior, and they felt what it was like to live in harsh conditions, where there is no mother nearby, ready to feed, caress and feel sorry at any moment.
This pedagogical technique in relation to our children has fully justified itself. And for them, this became the necessary hardening that they were deprived of in the familiar, warm and sometimes, unfortunately, relaxing home atmosphere.
As for general recipes for upbringing, there are several simple rules that, it seems to me, should be followed in every family. Firstly, a child cannot be controlled from a distance. Suppose mommy is busy preparing dinner in the kitchen, and the child, being in another room, does something wrong.
So, you can’t shout at him through the door to stop or do something else. The child simply won't listen. After all, children know how to truly concentrate only on one thing and perceive only what is said to them in direct contact, in dialogue.
They will not perceive a cry from the kitchen: instead of fruitful communication, mutual understanding and dialogue, for them it will only be an annoying circumstance that interferes with their studies.
In other words, if you want to achieve something from a child, then put aside all your affairs, go up to him, pat him on the head, look into his eyes, get him to switch from the thing he is busy with, come into direct contact with him and only after that contact him with a request or advice.
Parenting is a constant process, and if such calm communication with a child becomes habitual, then the child will perceive us and listen to our words.
It is very important that he feels that he is treated with respect, and, although he is small, he is treated as an equal. The children will only be grateful to us.
Secondly, it often happens that mothers give their children several different orders at the same time. Let's say, “stop playing and get the spoon!” Here, too, the child faces difficulties in perception.
Firstly, it is very difficult for him to stop playing the game he is passionate about and switch to something else. Secondly, he must understand which spoon to bring and where to get it. Such a team puts him in front of great psychological difficulties.
The child must understand what they want from him and how he should act, so the dialogue with the child should be structured approximately like this: “Take a break for a minute! Come to me please! Listen to me. Look, do you see the spoon on the table? Bring it to me, please!” One team was divided into several actions - and the child understands exactly what his mother wants from him, who addresses him with warmth and respect.
Another important aspect of upbringing, which I also adhered to, is a strong prohibition against sneaking. There is a wonderful Russian proverb: “The whip is first for the informer.”
Children themselves can and should sort out minor conflicts. If one took a toy from another, then ask him to return it to you. If he doesn’t give it away, it’s okay, just be patient a little, let it remain on his conscience... Of course, if older brothers instill “hazing,” parents need to intervene decisively.
But the most important secret of parenting is unconditional trust in each other. If I had not trusted my twelve children, I would never have found the truth. Since you said it was so, it means it really is so, I believe you. If children feel such trust and straightforwardness, then they themselves will not want to deceive.
After all, the desire for truth is an innate quality that the Lord Himself puts into the soul, while lying, on the contrary, is an acquired thing, resulting from a distortion of those initial principles with which we are born.
And if in communicating with children we do not allow ourselves to be cunning, disingenuous and deceitful, then they will answer us in the same way.
– Father Alexander, it often happens that parents, sending their children to various sections and schools, make their education a field of their unfulfilled ambitions. Let's say, they failed to master this or that business at one time - and they try to make up for lost time through the child, without listening to his desires and needs.
Do you think this can interfere with the child’s growth and natural development, or does any work, one way or another, have a beneficial effect?
– I don’t think that mastering any activity can so much interfere with a child’s development. For example, I really regret that I could not give my children a good musical education. Probably, I didn’t have enough patience and organization...
But, of course, when choosing activities for your child, you cannot ignore his individual characteristics, abilities and desires.
It seems to me that boys should definitely be raised to be athletic. Sports certainly won't hurt them. It is advisable to choose those sports that develop not only strength and agility, but also nobility. For example, fencing, horse riding.
Team sports games like football or basketball are also good for boys: these sports develop not aggression or vanity, but the ability to interact in a team, the desire for mutual assistance. This is very important for a boy - to learn to stand up for himself, protect the weak, come to the rescue, and be able to overcome challenges.
As for girls, music or other forms of art have always been included in the list of traditional classical education. I don't think it can do any harm. Music is very disciplined, develops taste and teaches hard work. And it is advisable to bring every task - and especially music lessons that require many years of work - to completion. This will teach the child to firmly know that the work started cannot be abandoned halfway.
If a child openly protests and does things “under pressure,” then most often he simply does not want to work and make an effort on himself.
Of course, there are exceptions, but in most cases this behavior of children is the result of our mistakes: we failed to properly set up the child, explain, arrange, interest.
The teacher must be sensitive, observant and trust the child - then the children will enjoy the process.
The goal of any lesson is the same - to teach the child to work fruitfully, intensely, and in an organized manner. If music gives him such an opportunity, great, if sports gives him such an opportunity, great, but he must be able to work. This is a guarantee and guarantee of his future happiness.
– Father Alexander, I know that you have published a book “Big Family, Great Expectations”, which touches on issues of family and education that largely intersect with the topic of our conversation...
– Indeed, much of what I said about raising children is reflected in this book. In addition, I dwell in it on the topic of chastity - an amazing virtue, unfortunately, almost forgotten in modern reality.
In our country, even the word “chastity” itself has long fallen out of use. But this is an extraordinary Divine gift!
If you analyze our classical literature and especially poetry, you will notice that external beauty often becomes the subject of admiration. The images that arise in the mind of an ardent, passionate, hot-tempered young man, and even more so a poet, are most often associated with admiring appearance.
God created the female sex as beautiful, and one would have to be a hypocrite to deny this, but true beauty, in fact, manifests itself not so much in the harmony of external forms, but in the image of a beautiful, chaste soul. This is a very special harmony that is difficult to convey in words.
A figurative, metaphorical comparison is more suitable for her. Imagine a picture of a dewy meadow on an early summer morning, when droplets of dew shimmer under the morning sun... Such is the beauty of a chaste female soul.
Now imagine that a truck drove by and splashed mud from a puddle, and now the droplets on the blades of grass no longer reflect anything. This is already a picture of lost purity, lost chastity. The problem of modern man is precisely the loss of beauty and purity, given to all of us from above.
And of course, the ethical program for raising our children cannot ignore this topic - preserving the gift of chastity, the ability to see and protect the beauty and harmony of the inner world, the human soul.
Alexandrina Vigilyanskaya Magazine for parents “Grapes”, No. 1 (33), 2010 Electronic version
Publications
One of Father Alexander's hobbies is writing books. Several of his works were published:
- “Crisis in the family. What threatens family happiness";
- “Husband and Wife in a Christian Marriage 20 Centuries Later”;
- “Big family, big hopes.”
Book by Alexander Ilyashenko “Confession”
As the titles suggest, all works are dedicated to family. Father Alexander, based on personal experience, speaks about the relationship between husband and wife, as well as the spiritual essence of the home.
pathological speech
stamps
- We, who know nothing and see only the negative... “You only see the negative, but the positive
.”
for the positive
[5]. - Globalization
: The destruction of the idea of national history is one of the powerful and most important means of globalization[6].
swear words
ghetto
- Orthodox journalism: ways out of the information ghetto
. Report about. Alexandra Ilyashenko at the festival “Faith and Word” in 2006[7].
slogans
Conquer the hateful strife of this world
- Neither class struggle nor hatred can unite people. Only holiness can overcome the hateful discord of this world[8].
