The fewest people in the church are teenagers. No matter how hard parents try to raise their children in the faith, sometimes there comes a time when a growing child refuses to go to church, confess and receive communion. Maybe this is the specificity of our time, which has given rise to Orthodox families that themselves have no experience of church education?
Or a natural age-related and spiritual crisis, which is not just inevitable, but even desirable? Is he really that scary? And what can parents do to minimize the damage from their child’s break with the Church?
We are talking about this with Archpriest Pavel Velikanov, candidate of theology, rector of the Pyatnitsky metochion of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra in Sergiev Posad.
Is faith inherited?
— Father Paul, can you see the specificity of the times in the fact that modern children in adolescence can leave the Church?
- I think it’s definitely possible. I can assume that such intensity of church life, which has been observed over the last 20–30 years in Russia in relation to children, has never existed before in our state and in our Church. Nowhere in written sources do we find evidence that children were brought en masse to church every Sunday, that they began the Holy Mysteries every Sunday, that they participated in various forms of extra-liturgical activities in the parish, such as Sunday schools, clubs, classes, and so on. .
“It would seem that as a result of all this, the child should be firmly rooted in the Church!”
- That's it! But in practice we see that one may not be particularly connected with the other. For some reason, the number of pubescent children in the temple is several times smaller than other age categories.
I think one of the reasons is this. We, parents, often want our children to mechanically assimilate the personal religious experience that we ourselves received as a result of certain life quests, mistakes, falls, and gains along the way to the Church and which is infinitely dear to us. And our children find themselves in the church fence from infancy, they do not have a painful search for the meaning of life, because this meaning has already been transferred to them “by default”! We observe our children bowing in church, confessing, taking communion, praying, and in this we see a certain identity with what is happening to us ourselves. But they simply imitate us in that which, perhaps, has not yet been born or matured in them.
Therefore, the child must move away, distance himself a little from what he has accepted “by default.” But for what? In order to return to the Christian leaven that was embedded in him, but at a completely new level of understanding and experience. Just as a teenager cannot gain autonomy, independence and independence if he does not break the “umbilical cord” connecting him with his parents, on whom he is absolutely dependent, so here the child needs to make a start from something. Therefore, it seems to me that the alienation of a certain part of girls and boys from the Church, starting from the age of 12–15, is quite understandable. And, I would not be afraid to say, sometimes it is even desirable - especially when a young person is “stuck” on his spiritual path, in his religious life everything is done “according to custom”, and not at all according to the dictates of his heart. And if this happens to someone, then you shouldn’t panic.
— Do you mean leaving as a rethinking of faith?
— I’m talking about moving away from the Church not as a decisive refusal to live according to Christian commandments, falling into various kinds of mortal sins and a destructive lifestyle. No way! I am saying that the child must determine for himself the extent and form of his connection with the Church. And the main thing is that he maintains this connection.
In addition, in adolescence, a child is very much attracted to what is unknown and unknown to him, and if he grew up in a church environment, the world will have such a special interest and attractiveness for him. There are only a few of those who, from childhood, are immune to life in the world, to its joys and delights. In most cases, the child does not have such immunity. Therefore, in my opinion, there is nothing terrible in the fact that the importance of the Church for him during this period will be lower than the importance of the youth environment, music, new friends, some kind of entertainment, pleasant pastime, hobbies, and so on. The main thing is that this significance is maintained at all.
church positions
From 1999 to 2003 - artistic consultant of the KhPP ROC "Sofrino".
Member of the Inter-Council Presence (convocation 2009 and 2014). Member of the commission on issues of spiritual education and religious enlightenment, commission on issues of theology, commission on issues of organization of the church mission, commission on issues of information activities of the Church and relations with the media (secretary of the commission). Member of the Information Group of the Inter-Council Presence.
Since November 2009 - member of the Expert Council of the Synodal Department for Religious Education and Catechesis.
Since 2011 - member of the Joint Expert Council of the Orthodox Initiative Foundation.
Since 2011 - member of the Expert Council of the Publishing Council of the Moscow Patriarchate.
Plumber from God
- Many parents strive to protect their child from temptations; from childhood they do everything so that the worldly things are uninteresting and disgusting for him...
- The experience that I have accumulated in relation to the children of priests, my friends, allows me to say the following: a conscious attempt to protect the child from secular life, from secular values, creating for him such a full-fledged greenhouse in which he would mature, become strong, strong , resistant to the raging waves of this sinful, passionate world, not only does not work, but often leads to the opposite results. Most often, the more harshly some “worldly” things were cut off, the greater the aspiration for these things, the thirst - I would even say, some kind of pathological thirst - the person then began to experience. And he couldn’t satisfy her, although it seemed like he could have stopped a long time ago - he was just breaking through and carried away!
And vice versa. In those families of priests where parents, first of all, were involved with great responsibility in the comprehensive development of their children - they tried to give them a good education, to develop musical, artistic, sports, and intellectual abilities; where children did not feel inferior compared to their classmates, and in some ways they even felt more advanced - because everything was done with the utmost responsibility before God! — the teenagers in these families subsequently did not move away from the Church, but rediscovered it for themselves and then became priests and even monks and nuns. The period of youthful rebellion passed with minimal losses.
- Why is that? Does a high cultural level act as a vaccination?
- Yes, this is a kind of vaccination. For example, it is very difficult to satisfy the well-developed ear of a child who graduated from music school with cheap pop music - for him it will be organically unacceptable, because it is simply vulgar and base. He is imbued with other values, he has developed taste. And this approach, I think, can be transferred to the entire area of culture: what a child reads, what he listens to, what films, plays, musicals he watches. The main thing that parents should develop in a child is a taste for the real, for the beautiful and some kind of internal immunity to the vulgar, unworthy, no matter how hyped and attractive it may seem. Of course, here it is important to create the correct cultural context of life, filled with genuine values and correct meanings: the “omnivorous” so popular today is categorically unacceptable. Then these correct cultural values will become certain guidelines for him, such reference points as they are for both a believer and a secular person.
— In other words, the correct values are not only laid down by purely Orthodox literature, Orthodox performances, Orthodox films?
- Absolutely right. I would even say that the task is to instill in children real values not with a church cover, but, first of all, precisely outside the Church, so that they can feel confident while in the world and always know what they can rely on.
Parents must create conditions for the child that are most consonant with his spiritual structure and psychological characteristics and help him develop these abilities as much as possible. And the wisdom lies in the fact that the vector of such development should ultimately be directed towards God. It is necessary to let the child understand that, in essence, any of his activities should be a prayer to God, and any activity inside or outside the church fence is a certain form of his spiritual service, his work and his measure of responsibility before God.
— Could you give an example?
— A plumber once worked in my house. The person, in general, is not very churchy. But he made me think seriously, and here's why. Firstly, he was unusually responsible for every little thing! Where another would have done the work in one day and received his salary, this person carefully thought through what the consequences would be after such and such a period of operation, which connecting node would be better to install, and so on. And secondly, he charged about one and a half times less for his work than any non-professional plumbers in our city. At the same time, he constantly went to various exhibitions, was aware of all modern technical innovations, and took some advanced training courses. That is, the man lived entirely by his own business! And, you know, having encountered such deep professional integrity, I realized that he, in fact, is a deeply religious person. Because the motivation for his actions is not everyday, but ideal. From the point of view of worldly gain, he would have to do the same thing more simply, quickly, take more money and quickly transfer it to another object. And for him, his work is a form of service to his neighbor.
And I think that children who feel this way about their work - even if they chose the simplest profession - are happiness and a blessing for their parents.
education
In 1994 he graduated from the Moscow Theological Seminary, in 1998 he graduated from the Moscow Theological Academy with a candidate's degree in theology. Candidate's dissertation on the topic: “Orthodox assessment of the influence of technocratic civilization on the inner world of modern man.”
Since 1998 he has been a teacher of basic theology at the IBC.
From 1999 to 2002 - teacher of basic theology at Sretensky Theological Seminary.
From 1999 to 2001 - teacher of basic theology at the Faculty of Education of Military Personnel of PSTGU.
From 2001 to 2002 - teacher of the history of Russian religious thought at the MDA and MDS.
Since 2003 - Secretary of the Academic Council of the Moscow Academy of Sciences and Sports.
Since 2005 - Associate Professor at the Moscow Academy of Sciences. From June 9, 2010 to January 2013 - Vice-Rector for Scientific and Theological Work at the MDA. Head of the Department of Theology, MDA.
Since November 5, 2021, the first vice-rector of Sretensky Theological Seminary[1].
No crisis - no development
— You touched on a very interesting topic: how a person comes to God. It turns out that for parents, faith is a choice, but for children it is a passed down tradition? No search, no choice, no suffering? But is it necessary to go through difficult searches and trials to gain faith?
— You know, I think spiritual crises are absolutely inevitable in the life of any believer. Because where there is no crisis, there is no overcoming. Where there is no overcoming, there is no strengthening or development. In my life I have never met such a deeply religious person who could sincerely say that he never doubted anything, never went through a crisis of faith. Even if he grew up in a completely healthy, godly, full-fledged Christian family.
Another thing is that these crises occur in completely different ways inside the Church and outside the Church. The crises of intra-church life are much more severe and acute than when a person is in the space of obvious sin, unrighteousness and abnormality and from there looks closely at the Church. It is easier to leave the sinful world and enter the Church than, already being a Christian, to experience a crisis of faith. And here either faith is minimized, reduced to certain external manifestations that ensure the normal existence of a person in this coordinate system. Or it deepens significantly and acquires a different quality, often leading to conflict with the real church life in which a person lives.
— If faith is the result of one’s own choice, crisis, rethinking of life values, then what role does parents transfer their personal religious experience to their children?
- The fact is that, as one priest said, all children are pagans by nature. In the most literal sense! What is paganism? This is the religion that is most understandable, convenient and feasible from the point of view of man in his current fallen, sinful state in which we all find ourselves. And in general, it is closer to the Old Testament paradigm of law and retribution.
For example, children are told: “You need to pray, because if you don’t pray, God will punish you”; “Don’t sin, because God will punish you, do good deeds, fast, work, and you’ll see - the Lord will comfort you and make you happy.” This kind of “legal” building of certain contractual relations between a person and God is completely normal for a child, understandable and doable: you need to take communion in order to feel good; taking communion is right. And the child walks calmly, happily, does everything he needs to do, and really experiences joy. Grace acts on a child’s heart in a completely different way than on adults burdened with passions and sins...
This childhood religious experience, of course, is incomparable. Under no circumstances should it be replaced by the transmission of adult religious experience to children. Adult perception is fundamentally different from children’s: the latter is primarily positive. For him, the joy of being with God is normal and natural. And for an adult, this is almost aerobatics, because we have something to repent of, we have something to regret, we have something to ask God for forgiveness for. And the worst thing is when I see how parents begin to transmit this model of their religious experience to their children. Forcing them to repent of sins that they have no idea about, or to create a drama on a global scale out of a small child’s misdemeanor, is deeply wrong. Well, the child lied, but who hasn’t? Have you never lied in your life? And a child who is raised in this way will instantly learn to play “role-playing games”: to pretend to be a repentant sinner, a confessor, saturated with world sorrow - and as soon as he leaves the threshold of the temple, such “armor of righteousness for parents” is quickly shed and he becomes an ordinary, normal child. And this is not the worst option; It is much more dangerous when a child is saturated through and through with similar artificial experiences that are inadequate for his age and consciousness and therefore begins to feel “exceptional”, “not of this world”, and arrogantly distance himself from his peers - to the delight of newly churched parents and to the misfortune of his mental health.
— Let’s say the law can be passed down as a family tradition. Is it possible to have a personal relationship with Christ?
— A child’s discovery of Christianity as the religion of Christ is a completely different matter. But in order for him to understand Christ as a Savior and Redeemer, he must understand from what, in fact, he needs to be saved and what exactly to redeem. And a child until a certain age is simply not able to realize this! Therefore, I do not see any great danger in the fact that children live for quite a long time in a space of largely formal observance of external Christian instructions, in such an Old Testament paradigm where there is a clear law, punishment and reward - but with a clear perspective for development in the direction of Christian values.
— Isn’t it true that in adolescence, when a person explores the boundaries of his freedom, a terrible and punishing God and the whole law will not cause protest?
- I would rather agree with you. But, if we are talking about young children, a different approach would mean blurring the criteria. Competent, good, experienced psychologists recommend building your relationships with children so that they clearly understand where the space of their freedom is, where they are conditionally limited and where they are absolutely limited, where the “forbidden zone” is. And if the child does not have this, then he will think, in the end, that everything is allowed to him, unless the parents see.
The understanding that correct behavior is not an attempt to avoid punishment and earn dividends in the Kingdom of Heaven, but simply the only normal model of behavior, the only possible manifestation of gratitude to Christ for what He has done for us, must at some point mature in the child. And I think that it is precisely youthful crises that are the moments of maturation of this understanding, as if growing through this Old Testament paradigm of religious childhood into something adult.
I read somewhere about this incident: on Good Friday, two girls from Sunday school, who went to church and were completely integrated into church life, suddenly stood in front of the Cross, looked at Christ crucified on it, and each other with sincere horror in their eyes said: “Wait, did they kill Him for us?” It suddenly dawned on these children that the Gospel is not some kind of myth, not some kind of instructive story that happened a long time ago and has nothing to do with you specifically, but that it is connected with you personally. Everything that they had heard about Christ before may have worked as a kind of foundation, but it did not reach their souls.
Children actually have their own logic. And every child (and an adult too - it’s not about age) has a personal encounter with Christ in a very different way. And the moment when the soil, plowed by all parental efforts, will sprout a personal relationship between the child and God, and in what form it will be - in the form of gratitude, in the form of overcoming some acute crisis, acute pain, sorrow - does not depend on us at all! This is the work of God and the child.
- What is required of us in this case?
“We are required not to interfere, to prepare the conditions, to raise the child, on the one hand, in piety, but, on the other hand, in a healthy, open atmosphere. And the Lord himself will manage everything else. We should not act here as intermediaries or as translators - this is His business.
press
Since 2005, he has been the author of the weekly program “Religious Encyclopedia” on Radio Russia (the cycle “World. Man. Word”), as well as a participant in “Pastoral Conversations”.
Editor-in-chief of the organ of Church reform - the portal "Bogoslov.Ru" (from August 2007 to 2021). Since August 2009 - head of the joint educational Internet project “Radio of Russia” and the portal “Bogoslov.Ru” “World. Human. Word".
Since 2021, he has been directing the Internet project “Academy of Faith”.
Regular contributor to the Orthodoxy and Peace website. Author of the radio station “Vera”, host of the program “Gospel of Sundays and Holidays”.
Editor-in-chief of the publishing house "Sreda"[2].
Works by Fr. Pavel Velikanov is published by the Dar publishing house.
Severity - proportional to age
— Father Pavel, how do your own children feel about the church?
— My eldest daughter lives in another city, separately from us, and is just in such a difficult teenage period, but she does not lose contact with the Church - she goes to services, participates in the sacraments. Not with such frequency and intensity, of course, as I would like, but it does. She observes fasting, again, to the extent that it is now acceptable for her. I cannot say that I am absolutely calm for her, but I understand that she is now actively searching for herself. And I don’t see those forms of search that would cause me decisive rejection or protest.
The other children are all very different. One of my sons can happily stand through the entire service in church, without moving, and with joy, without being particularly distracted and doing everything that needs to be done - being a sexton, for example. And the other son will stand for a while, and then he will toil, not knowing where to hide, what to do, he will walk from one corner to another, talk to someone, and so on. Different personalities, different characters! But in general, the temple for them is a place where they run with joy. And missing a service is something painful. Even when a child is sick, he may cry and get upset if you don’t take him to church. I think, among other things, this is due to the fact that we have a very rich children’s program at the parish: a cartoon studio, calligraphy lessons, Sunday school, and music lessons, where they learn chants to sing at the children’s Liturgy (the service at which children sit at the altar, read and sing in the choir - Ed.), and lessons in so-called practical science, when they study the properties of different materials or make postcards with mechanical or electrical “filling”.
- But they say that if children are connected with the temple only by a party, a set of hobbies, then when they grow up, they will leave all this...
“Perhaps there is some truth in this.” But in any case, I think what is much more important is how the children perceive the space of the temple. If this is a space of attention and love for you, and not a territory of law and punishment, it is not so important what exactly happens there. Children feel that some events are organized for them not in order to send a report to the Patriarchate, but simply because they are loved.
— How much do children need church discipline? Is prayer obligatory, going to church, fasting is obligatory?
“It’s definitely necessary to discipline children.” Children should live in some well-defined, designated space, because this helps the child to structure his life. Another question is the degree of severity of this discipline. I think it should be inversely proportional to the age of the child. The younger the child, the greater the degree of discipline should be. This is not about forcing a child, but simply in the family there should be such a mood: when, say, everyone goes to church, we have no other options. We don’t even ask the question: well, are we going to church or not? When a child asks the question: why do we go to church on Sundays? - we can explain to him why.
“And if the child says: “Can I not go to church this Sunday?”
“You can, for example, say this: “Wait, where are you going?” Will you sleep? Please sleep, and we will go to the temple and return joyful and satisfied.” I think the ideal situation is the one that Archpriest Vladimir Vorobyov once described: when in Soviet times, in religious families, going to church still had to be earned! And here in our parish, I see, by some miracle, such a model has been built for the participation of children in divine services and the richness of parish life and extra-liturgical events that children run to church. For them, this is a holiday, not a problem, a headache or “lost personal time.” I don’t know what will happen next when the kids grow up. Let's see!
- There is such a point of view: when a child grows up and begins to separate himself from his parents, there should be a significant adult nearby - a godfather - who will be an authority for him. What would you say to this?
- You know, my private opinion is this: I still have little faith in the institution of godparents. Because becoming an authority for a child is a big problem. And becoming an authority, so to speak, under duress, is a threefold problem. Not every parent is an authority for their child, but a stranger, an external person who does not live in the family, does not constantly communicate with children - how can he earn their trust? In theory, I can allow this, but I think this is more an exception than a general practice. Real education can only happen when you are involved in the family life of your godson: you can come to the family at least once a week and communicate with him, take him for a walk somewhere (not necessarily to church). And the role of a person who appeared in the house once every six months is questionable.
Another thing is that in changed circumstances everything can turn 180 degrees. In adolescence, it is quite possible that the child will be drawn to his godfather, want to make friends with him, and enlist his support. I would not completely rule out the possibility of godparents participating in the lives of their wards during such periods of crisis. But God forbid that at least every tenth family has a godfather who can pick up the falling banner of parental authority and carry it. Unfortunately, I am not like that.
