Who is subject to this sin?
Every living person is tempted by fornication. It's easier to name people who haven't encountered it. Children are the first to come to mind. Do you know why? Because they do not know what it is and, accordingly, do not think about fornication. Everything starts in thoughts. Keep an eye on them to prevent them from falling.
But most situations arise in teenagers (the desire to try everything and not be considered somehow “different” among their peers), as well as in single adults who have had sexual experience. What does this mean? About the importance of preserving yourself, despite society and loneliness.
Venerable Moses Ugrin
The Monk Moses Ugrin (Pechersky), a Hungarian by origin, was in the service of the holy noble prince Boris. Moses, after the death of the prince in 1015 on the Alta River, hid in Kyiv. When the Polish king Boleslav captured the city, the monk, along with other captives, was taken to Poland.
A rich Polish widow really liked the young and handsome captive, who was inflamed with a passionate desire for him. The woman was going to ransom Moses and make her her husband, but he resolutely refused, since he had long known that he wanted to become a monk.
The Polish woman nevertheless bought the saint, after which she tried in every possible way to seduce him, using not only her feminine charms, but also her vast wealth. The saint rejected all this. And when one Athonite hieromonk passed through those places, Moses was tonsured a monk.
The Polish woman, having learned about this, ordered the saint to be beaten with sticks. Moreover, she asked Boleslav for permission to do whatever she saw fit with the prisoner. Every day the saint received a hundred blows, and then was castrated. After the sudden death of the king, who launched a persecution against the monks, and the death of a widow killed during the rebellion, Moses, having recovered from his wounds, came to the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery.
One brother, possessed by a lustful passion, turned to the monk for help. The holy ascetic always had a stick with him, without which he could not move due to the wounds he received in captivity. With this stick, Moses hit the chest of a monk who asked for help, who had vowed never to talk to women, after which he was freed from temptation. After the death of the saint (around 1043), the monks of the Kiev Pechersk Monastery began to resort to his relics with fervent prayer, thirsting for healing from carnal temptations.
Memorial Day of St. Moses - July 26/August 8.
Venerable Martinian of Caesarea (Palestinian)
From the age of eighteen, the Monk Martinian chose a desert life. For twenty-five years he labored in the desert near the city of Caesarea in Palestine. All this time, the devil did not cease to tempt the ascetic, exposing the saint to various temptations.
The fame of the hermit, who was granted the grace-filled gift of healing diseases from God, spread throughout Caesarea. One local harlot made a bet with depraved people that she would seduce the monk and spend the night with him in fornication.
When a woman, dressed in expensive clothes, came under the guise of a wanderer to Martinian and asked him to take refuge in his cell from inclement weather, the saint let her in. After this, the harlot began to seduce the ascetic, but he went out into the street, lit a fire and stood barefoot on the burning coals. At the same time, he said to himself that if it is so difficult to endure the pain from the temporary fire here, then what kind of torment will there be in the eternal fire, prepared for fornicators.
The action of the Monk Martinian so struck the sinner that she began to beg the saint to guide her on the path of salvation. With his blessing, the former harlot went to Bethlehem. There she entered the monastery of St. Paul, where she spent 12 years in repentance until her blessed death.
The Monk Martinian, after recovering from his burns, settled on a desert island. There he lived in solitude until the wreckage of a crashed ship brought a maiden named Photinia to his island.
The saint helped Photinia get ashore, gave her his supplies - bread and water, so that she could wait for the shipman, and he himself rushed into the sea and swam. With the help of two dolphins, he reached land and began to lead a wandering life. Two years later, while in Athens, Martinian fell ill and, feeling his imminent death, entered the temple and asked the local bishop to bury his body (5th century).
Memorial Day of St. Martinian of Caesarea - February 13/February 26.
Venerable Mary of Egypt
The Venerable Maria left home at the age of 12, after which she led a dissolute life in Alexandria for 17 years. As Maria herself told Elder Zosima, there was practically not a single man in the city whom she would not seduce.
God, who desires the salvation of every person, even the most sinful, did not leave His servant without His care. One day, Mary boarded a ship sailing with pilgrims to the Holy Land for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross.
During the voyage, Mary continued to seduce men, and when she went ashore, she and the pilgrims went to the Church of the Resurrection of Christ. All her attempts to enter the temple were unsuccessful. Some invisible force did not let the harlot inside. Mary realized that it was the Lord Himself who was not letting her in. Seized with horror and a feeling of deep repentance, she began to pray to God for forgiveness.
At the icon of the Mother of God, she made a promise to change her life and asked Her intercession before God. After this, the saint went to the Jordan desert, where she spent about fifty years in fasting and repentance. Saint Mary spent seventeen whole years in a fierce struggle with lustful passion and lustful thoughts.
Memorial Day of the Venerable Mary of Egypt - April 1/April 14.
The essence of the sin of masturbation
The sin of masturbation in modern language sounds differently: masturbation, masturbation , self-satisfaction, fapping. It's all the same concept. In simple and understandable language, this is when you achieve carnal satisfaction (orgasm) with the help of your hands or other objects.
Our society has become so perverted that masturbation is not discouraged, but even encouraged. Trying to find material for the article, I saw almost nowhere negative about this sin. Even doctors are starting to talk about the benefits of self-satisfaction, and in schools they are actively trying to introduce the subject “Sex Education”, where this topic will definitely be raised. Is everything really so good and there is nothing to worry about?
Why is masturbation a sin?
Indeed, if we compare masturbation with adultery or the same fornication, then there is nothing terrible and terrible in the sin of masturbation. But is this really so?
Let's turn to the Bible. The story of Tamar from the Book of Genesis. Her husband died. She conceived from his father, pretending to be a harlot, and gave birth to twins. One of them will be the ancestor of David himself, the King of the Jews, and subsequently of Jesus Christ.
But that's not the story. Why did she have to pretend to be a harlot and conceive, as we now say, from her father-in-law? Although her husband had a brother, his name was Onan. He engaged in this very masturbation and refused to conceive offspring. For which he was punished.
The Apostle Paul himself says:
He equates masturbation with mortal sins.
In addition, prodigal touches are inextricably linked with prodigal thoughts. And what does the Holy Scripture say about such thoughts:
Another argument against masturbation is the unnaturalness of the process. We are trying to go against the plan of the Creator and Lord, who gave the commandment to marry, be fruitful and multiply. And to break the law of God Himself is sin. If, according to God’s providence, a person was unable to marry, then he is still obliged to remain in both spiritual and physical purity and chastity.
