"The Shepherd's Word" Issue dated October 8, 2021 (+Video)
The next episode of the author’s program of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus' “The Word of the Shepherd” was aired on October 8, 2021.
Good morning, dear TV viewers!
We received the following question: “Your Holiness! Today we see how all nations have taken up arms against Russia. For what? Are we really that bad? We try to help everyone, often to our own detriment, and instead of gratitude there is hatred and contempt. For example, take Bulgaria - such was the friendship that is inseparable, but now she is leading the persecution of Russia. It’s clear that Poland has historically had difficult relations, but Bulgaria? After all, we liberated, and so on. Will Russia survive? This question was asked by Alexey Bogomolov from the city of Labinsk, Krasnodar Territory.
I think it would be an exaggeration to say that other countries hate Russia, and it is certainly not true to say that the people of these countries hate Russia. I would say that, on the contrary, Russia’s authority is growing very much, and this is often expressed in various kinds of actions, statements and informal expressions of feelings of a huge number of people in most countries on planet Earth.
But as for the fact that many today take a position aimed at isolating Russia, limiting its influence in the world, and undermining its authority, this is obvious. I, of course, would not put Bulgaria ahead of the rest, and if we talk about the people of Bulgaria, then there is nothing like that. The vast majority retain warm feelings for Russia and gratitude for Russia’s liberation of Bulgaria from Ottoman rule. And besides these historical memories - the experience of living together, praying together, because the two fraternal Churches, Bulgarian and Russian, were and are in the closest interaction, in cooperation and joint prayer. Therefore, it cannot be said that Bulgaria, like many other countries, has some kind of negative attitude towards Russia.
But those in power often take a position that, to put it mildly, does not correspond to Russia’s position, or better yet, is aimed at limiting Russia’s ability to act at the international level. This stems from this. In order to have an independent foreign policy, a country must be sovereign, that is, independent from other countries. In Europe, most countries, including Orthodox countries such as Bulgaria and Romania, have joined the European Union. And joining the European Union presupposes the renunciation of a significant part of sovereign rights. Bulgaria does not have the sovereign right to determine its foreign policy; it subordinates it to the policies of the European Union. It is also well known that the policies of the European Union and the policies of the United States are closely coordinated. Therefore, we are talking about a manifestation of the political sentiments of the authorities of the United States and the European Union towards Russia. It’s not my business to enter into an assessment of this whole reality now, but I just want to say that we are undoubtedly dealing with the policy of the Western powers aimed at limiting Russia’s capabilities, including in actions in the international arena, and at reducing the authority of our Fatherland among other countries.
If you ask me why this is happening, the answer will be very simple: because Russia does not want to give up even part of its sovereignty to other countries. It pursues an independent policy, including in the international arena, and this policy is very warmly received by a huge number of people. We encounter expressions of this sympathy in different directions. Sometimes people - ordinary people - are even afraid to speak openly about their sympathies, but these sympathies exist, Russia is not alone, and very, very many people support it. But today we are in a difficult situation, and if so, then we must understand what price we need to pay in order for this situation to radically change: we need to give up our sovereignty, we need to give up our independence, we need to obey the strong, that is, obey others.
Someone may say: “What's bad? Let's obey. It seems like people live richer there, maybe we will live richer too.” Such a primitive everyday approach to this topic is wrong, because we are talking not only about technical and organizational issues - today we are talking about more. We see what is happening in many Western countries. We see how human morality is falling apart, how the law supports the most terrible manifestations of sinful human nature, how sin is being introduced under the slogan of protecting human rights. To become correct and good for countries that practice such internal policies means abandoning what is most holy and great for us - the spiritual tradition, which is rooted in the Gospel, in the Christian faith and which has shaped the spiritual image of our people, so no revolutions and upheavals could not destroy this natural morality of our people.
This does not mean that we are all good - there are many bad ones. This does not mean that everything is fine with us - there is a lot that needs to be corrected. But the moral and spiritual values adopted by our people from their ancestors and preserved today are the key to our victory. Because living according to God's law is life, but a life that disregards God's law is not life. By choosing loyalty to our tradition, we choose life. We believe that many people understand this already today, and I can’t help but think that this will be understood even better in the near future.
We also received the following question: “There is an opinion—I don’t know where it came from—that all of Russia’s troubles are due to the fact that it once made the wrong choice and accepted Orthodoxy. This influenced the further character of the people and relations within the country; this still prevents Russia from entering the pan-European family and joining civilized countries . This question is asked to us by Nina Vasilievna Prokhorova from the city of Krasnoyarsk.
And one more question, which echoes the one just asked, is asked by TV viewer Valentina Nikolaevna Bednova from the city of Kamensk-Uralsky, Sverdlovsk region: “Sometimes it seems to me, Your Holiness, that the Church is the only barrier against the pressure of general decay and degradation, indeed,” the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). But why do many people, if not most, do not want to understand this? Or maybe they feel good enough and don’t feel any degradation?”
I will try to answer these very difficult questions based on Holy Scripture. Let's talk about our religious and civilizational choice and about the role of the Church in shaping the characteristics of our people. In no case should it be assumed that the choice of Prince Vladimir was wrong. Firstly, because the Church was generally united at that time and no division into East and West actually existed. Therefore, Prince Vladimir chose the Christian faith and through Baptism entered the united Ecumenical Orthodox Church. Later there was a division into the eastern and western parts of Christianity, and the entire subsequent life of Russia, the fate of the Russian people was, of course, connected with the Eastern Orthodox tradition.
And now the most important question: is this a good thing for our country and for our people, or maybe it’s really a mistake? The answer is simple. The Orthodox Church infallibly preserves the faith that the Universal Christian Church received from the Lord and Savior Himself through the holy apostles. You can treat the Orthodox Church as you like, but no one can refute the fact that for 2,000 years the Church has preserved everything that the first Christians were taught, everything that was passed down from generation to generation, from one bishop to another. For 2,000 years, the same faith that was taught to the first Christians has been maintained. That is, we possess, the Church possesses, Divine truth.
Now let’s think: if Divine truth is eternal and unchanging, and the world is changing, then perhaps we should pose the question differently - where is the world going, which is moving further and further away from this Divine truth? The second question states this idea very clearly. The Church is the pillar and affirmation of the truth, and if many things go to hell, if the human personality is destroyed, the moral foundations of human existence are destroyed, and the Church preserves its testimony, then of course, for many who do not agree with this, the Church looks like a restraining, conservative force, as if out of step with modern development. But we are taught by Divine revelation that the Church is the pillar and foundation of the truth. This says it all, and if someone deviates from this Divine truth, then this is the problem of those who deviate from the truth, but not the problem of the Church. The task is to ensure that a person’s moral state corresponds to God’s plan for man, and this God’s plan is transmitted by the teaching in the Orthodox Church.
With this I end our program, and may God's blessing be with you all.
Good morning, dear TV viewers!
Our program received a question from Vasily Alekseevich Klokov from the Altai Territory, from the village of Krasnoshchekovo: “I would like to ask Your Holiness: how to learn not to be afraid of death? After all, as they say, death, like the sun, cannot be looked at point-blank. But where can we get away from this? And further. Why do people die so differently? Sometimes you see how a pious and kind person dies a terrible death in a catastrophe, terrible for a Christian - without communion and blessing. And some evil type, who never even went to church, and even made fun of the faith, lo and behold, he received unction and received communion before his death.”
As for the attitude towards death, you are right: no matter what arguments we support our desire, our desire not to be afraid of death, it always evokes in a person, at best, a feeling of rejection, but usually fear and even horror. Of course, Christian beliefs help alleviate this fear and horror. Moreover, we are talking not so much about intellectual, mental beliefs, but about the religious experience of life. Here are holy people, devotees of piety, who were not afraid of death. And we know from history, from the experience of holy people, that many even joyfully prepared themselves for this moment of transition from one life to another. When a person lives in communion with God, when he is nourished by Divine grace, then fears in general are overcome by Divine power, including the fear of death.
The worst thing is when we make our human judgment about what is hidden from us. It seems outrageous to us that a criminal or an atheist, or some person generally unworthy - and suddenly received the Holy Mysteries of Christ, and even confessed. Do such events happen by chance? Or maybe this confession on the eve of death and unction were the crown of his life? Perhaps he had been working towards this event all his life and the Lord gave him a taste of this grace on the verge of death. But the holy man, who constantly received communion and confessed, was taken to the Lord in other circumstances, without confession and communion, because he was worthy to cross the line separating this life from that other life without confession and communion.
“In your sermons, you often point out to people sins, especially those that have plagued our society in recent years: the thirst for money, selfishness, indifference to others. But it seems to me that the most terrible and widespread sin now is vanity. It is for the sake of his satisfaction that everything is often sacrificed - kindness, compassion, modesty, and dignity. How to overcome this sin? - asks Margarita Aleksandrovna Ulyanova, Leonovo village, Vladimir region.
Margarita Alexandrovna, vanity, indifference, selfishness, and all those sins that you have listed and which you have not listed have the same nature: sin grows on the soil of evil and is introduced into people’s consciousness through temptation. And therefore, everything that I said in general about overcoming a person’s sinful attraction, about spiritual growth, can be fully attributed to vanity. A person who controls himself, who exposes himself to objective criticism before the face of God, before his conscience, he will see this dangerous sin. And it is not so easy to discover it in everyday life, when vanity is often presented in people’s minds as a certain force and even a driving factor for success. It is control over spiritual life that helps us separate good from evil and sin from virtue.
Elena Vasilyevna Grigorieva from St. Petersburg writes: “It seems to me that there are many unclear and mysterious places in the Gospel. So, in the Gospel of Luke we read that the Lord tells his disciples to take a bag, a sack, sell their clothes and buy a sword, or knife in Slavic. And when He heard that there were already two swords, He mysteriously said: “That’s enough.” Your Holiness, I would like to know what this means and why they bought swords for the apostles.”
This question has bothered not only you, but has also bothered many people in the past and is probably also bothering us in the present. There is a clear misunderstanding of the Savior's intentions here. And the fact that we are not talking about a physical sword is clear from His somewhat irritated remark “Enough!”, which can be translated as follows: “I told you, I told you, I taught you, I taught you, and now the end is approaching - and again you are not you understand! And again, when I talk about a sword not physical, but some other, you say that there are two knives... Enough!..”
Indeed, we are not talking about a physical sword, but these words of the Savior were literally understood in the past, and, in particular, inspired the crusaders, who believed that they should buy a sword and assert their truth with fire and sword. We know what this terrible attempt led to - to assert Christianity with the sword. It gave rise to enormous suffering of people, and not only those who did not belong to Christianity, but also Orthodox Christians, whom the crusaders no longer considered theirs. If we talk about at what point the division of the united Christian Church into the Eastern Orthodox and Western Catholic actually took place, then first of all we must talk about the IV Crusade, when the crusaders took Constantinople and with the very sword, which they perceived as a sacred instrument for achieving the truth, they began to kill Orthodox people and desecrate Orthodox churches. When blood was shed, then the real division of the Church occurred.
Therefore, it is very dangerous to take these words of the Savior literally. And then what are we talking about? I will quote wonderful words from the Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Hebrews: The Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword: it pierces even to the dividing of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart (see Heb. 4:12). We are not talking about a physical sword, but about the sword that will judge the thoughts and thoughts of people’s hearts - the sword of faith.
Why does the Lord use this strong image of a sword? But because in response to His word a person cannot be indifferent. The Word of God, indeed, is sharper in power than any two-edged sword. It entails a rethinking of one’s life, a change in consciousness. If the word of God is taken seriously, it cannot leave anyone indifferent. This is a formidable weapon that ultimately helps a person pass his own judgment on his thoughts and thoughts.
“Please tell me, Your Holiness, is not the general fascination with the topic of the end of the world an indicator of the degradation of our consciousness? Or is it an instinctive sense of danger, a feeling of apocalypticism that penetrates even the brains of the average person?” From a letter from Fyodor Lobanov, Semenovsky village, Ivanovo region.
Apocalypse - the end of the world, the end of history - is a state of society, a state of the human race that is incompatible with life. Death is a state of a person, his body, incompatible with life. The end of history is a state of society and the human race that is incompatible with life. God is life. God is the source of life. And if God is forced out of human life, from personal, family and social life, then such life ceases to be capable of continuing. And the fact that people today have apocalyptic sentiments is no coincidence, because it is in our time and in our era that something happens that did not happen before - when the law of God is not recognized as an absolute value; when the moral postulates embedded by God in human nature are trampled upon and not just trampled upon, but by the force of law in some countries, by the force of government, they are approved as the norm of behavior. The end of history is the victory of evil, it is the victory of sin, it is the rejection of God. And if the human race continues along this path, then apocalyptic sentiments will increase.
We are truly living in very important times now. We all need to focus, collect our thoughts, think about the past, think about the present and pray for the future. And I believe that the Lord will show mercy to the human race if the human race is able to return God to the center of its life.
“Your Holiness! In one book about the Athonite elders, I found the expression “eternal advice.” What it is?" From a letter from Lidia Dmitrievna Borovleva, Voronezh region, Panino village.
We are talking about eternal advice.
These words are used not only in books about the elders, but also in our Orthodox hymnography. “Revealing the eternal counsel to You, the Young Lady, Gabriel appeared,” this is the first stichera on “Lord, I cried,” the eve of the Annunciation. We are talking about the council of the Holy Trinity, which is eternal, which is beyond all time, which is beyond all space, which always exists. This is the thought of God, which is realized by human history. Therefore, God’s plan for the creation of the Universe, the creation of the world and man, the incarnation of the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, and many other Divine acts are also called eternal council. The whole world, we all are the result of the Divine eternal council. This concludes our program. May God's blessing be with you all. And see you again.
The Shepherd's Word (TV program)
The program was first broadcast on April 23, 1994, Holy Saturday, on the Ostankino channel at 8:40; was announced as “The Word of the Shepherd. Moral sermon of Patriarch Alexy II”[3]. In the same year, Metropolitan Kirill (Gundyaev) began to host the TV show on a regular basis. Until June 29, 2002, in printed program guides, the program was announced as “The Word of the Shepherd. Metropolitan Kirill" (later the name was shortened).
The program was initially developed by the creative team of the religious program “Now”, which aired on Ostankino Channel 1 in 1992-1994[4]. In addition to setting out the moral and doctrinal principles of the Church, the Metropolitan expressed in the program his position on some current events in the Church and the world, such as the celebration of the 1020th anniversary of the baptism of Kievan Rus and related political events in Ukraine; and other. At various times, filming took place in offices, universities, military units, and also in holy places. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, program releases consisted mostly of responses to letters from viewers. Basically, 3-4 programs were recorded with the Metropolitan during the filming cycle[4].
As of 2014, a total of 960 programs were broadcast on television[5].
On February 1, 2009, the program, for the first time since 2001, aired on Sunday, before the broadcast of the enthronement of the new patriarch[6], and was dedicated to the biography of its presenter.
After his enthronement, Patriarch Kirill stated that he would continue to host the program, but its format would be changed[7]; the program began to largely cover the preaching activities of the Patriarch, but approximately once a year the program is broadcast in the same format.
After awarding the employees with high Patriarchal orders and certificates, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill made his speech about the project[8]:
“The Word of the Shepherd program has existed for 20 years. It is carried out by the forces of the team that is represented here. We have worked with many of you from the very beginning. During these 20 years, of course, a lot has happened in the life of our Church, our country, in the life of our people.
In a sense, our programs, if you look at them critically, were a reaction, first of all, to what was happening to all of us. And even by the tone of the broadcasts one can judge that over these 20 years the Church, the country, and our people have come a very long way. I am deeply satisfied that these programs have not lost their relevance for 20 years, and that we are all working together to ensure that they are a source of not only knowledge, but also spiritual enthusiasm for many, many people. I would like to sincerely thank you all"
