How the saints raised children. 5 Stories of Inherited Holiness

Saint Nona and Saint Gregory the Theologian

Orthodox parents often worry when they send their children to a regular secular school: will they pick up bad things from their peers, will a Darwinist teacher shake their fragile children’s faith, will the child be able to courageously refuse sausages in the school cafeteria during Lent?

So Saint Nonna, the mother of Gregory the Theologian, was worried when she sent her son to the best educational institution of that time - the Athens Academy, founded by Plato. Then, in the middle of the 4th century, the inhabitants of Cappadocia (the Asia Minor province of the Roman Empire), where the family lived, did not have many opportunities to give their children a quality education.

But Athens was the capital of pagan culture, which was then still in full bloom. Christianity had only recently established itself as the official religion, and Athens was still dotted with statues of gods, which were generously poured with incense and fumigated with incense. And the rhetoricians of the famous Academy often taught young men eloquence on very free mythological subjects.

Nonna was a Christian. She really wanted her son to also grow up as a Christian. Therefore, the first thing she taught little Gregory was to talk with God. Since childhood, the boy was accustomed to trusting Him with his most secret thoughts and experiences. And what was etched into his memory was a dream in which he ascended upward to the shining Throne, from which flowed an indescribable Light. The mother believed that the ability to pray would reliably protect her son from the temptations that would inevitably come as he grew up. And she herself set an example for him. “This was her very first thought every day <...> Who, when starting to pray, had so much hope of receiving what they asked for?” – her famous son later recalled.

Through Nonna’s prayers, her husband Gregory, who in his youth combined faith in one God with fire worship, became a Christian, and later a bishop. Prayer with thanksgiving to God was the first reaction of the mother of the future saint to any sorrow. She knew: God does not send tests beyond human strength.

Therefore, when Gregory grew up, his mother without hesitation sent him to the best educational institutions, although some of them were considered breeding grounds for paganism. The young man studied in the “metropolis of sciences” - Caesarea in Cappadocia, and in Palestine, and in Egyptian Alexandria, and, of course, at the Athens Academy and became one of the most educated people of his time.

It is interesting that around the same time, Constantine the Great’s nephew Julian, who later became emperor and was nicknamed the Apostate for his attempt to restore paganism, also studied in Athens. And it was Athens that strengthened him in his decision to break with Christianity. And Gregory turned out to have a powerful immunity to the pagan “infection”. Perhaps the decisive role here was played by the example of his mother: most of all, the young man was drawn to solitary reflection and prayerful standing before God. It is not for nothing that he went down in history with the name of the Theologian.

"Christianity in Action"

One of the most pressing problems of modern society is the lack of a clear ideology for raising children and adolescents. Nothing replaced the pioneer organization, and the void was filled by social networks with bloggers of dubious persuasion. Therefore, of particular interest are adults who manage to organize work with children in such a way that the children themselves find it interesting. Deacon Igor Mazepa, one of the inspirers of the organization and a cleric of the Church of St. Nicholas on the Three Mountains, talks about the activities of the National Volunteer Organization “Rus”.

— Father Igor, what qualities do you strive to cultivate in teenagers?

“We try to educate children and teenagers in the idea that it is necessary to serve their country, their homeland, their nation. To serve is not only to protect with arms in hand, if this is necessary due to historical events, but also in a peaceful, creative way, in the place where the Lord has placed you.

When working with teenagers, we do not push this idea; we try to get away from slogans. At some important moments, when children are ready to perceive and hear, we throw in this thought in relation to either historical events or modern reality: where and how specifically can I be useful, serve those who happen to be nearby? For the most part, this pays off after several years of constant work. We recruit children from the age of eight, from the age of twelve, but our work begins at a more mature age, when the boy and girl are trying to understand themselves in the world around them. At the age of 16–18, a person feels the strength of youth and the need to apply this strength somewhere. Then you can move from talking and preparing to doing. Until this moment, we teach children not so much practical skills as we try to form their characters, caring attitude, and responsible position.

Deacon Igor Mazepa - What methods do you use to solve this problem?

“We are trying to create a space where children themselves are responsible for organizing activities. Our work is carried out in teams and in teenage clubs. Children are responsible for cleanliness and proper functioning of camping equipment. They buy the materials needed for classes themselves. They make decisions about what we will do and how we will do it. All this forms that very caring position. When it is not an uncle-teacher or an adult who decided and came up with everything for us, but we ourselves get involved in the matter, and the result depends on how we do it.

— Tell us about the history of “Rus”.

— We trace our history back to Russian scouts. This movement arose in the Russian Empire even before the revolution: in 1909, the first groups of Russian scouts appeared. After the establishment of Soviet power, many of them emigrated, because the organization’s teachers were mostly officers of the Tsarist Army, and subsequently the White Army. But even in conditions of emigration, this movement continued to develop; and in the Soviet Union, a pioneer organization was created based on the scout model.

In 1990, descendants of Russian emigrants of the first wave came to Russia from America. All these decades in different countries they carried out scouting work, but they no longer called themselves scouts, but scouts. Thanks also to this movement, they preserved knowledge of the Russian language, Russian culture, and national identity in their children. In 2014, we flew to San Francisco for an Orthodox youth forum; there were scouts there - direct descendants of those who left Russia in the 20s of the twentieth century. This is already the fourth or fifth generation, but they consider themselves Russians to a greater extent than those who left the country in the 1990s.

— What was the scouting methodology originally based on?

— Tent camps, hiking, life in the forest, away from city comfort. Through overcoming everyday difficulties - character education, overcoming oneself. And overcoming challenges together helps to unite as a team. We are not engaged in professional tourism; We enrich our hikes with, for example, first aid training or basic forest survival practices. For the purpose of intellectual and creative development, we conduct quizzes and competitions. We make fires, sing songs, organize outdoor games.

When a child joins a squad at the age of 12, he meets older guys there who have already learned a lot and achieved a lot. They convey traditions, the way of interaction, the style of communication adopted in the squad. In addition, the newcomer immediately sees the prospect of what he should strive for: part of our methodology is a hierarchical intelligence ladder. Each scout regularly passes tests and receives the next rank, which reflects the level of his skills and knowledge. All ranks correspond to insignia on the uniform. Those who have already reached a certain level can receive a forest name. We try to create and maintain our own subculture, which is expressed in these forest names, songs of our own composition, traditions and ceremonies that are regularly held during hikes and gatherings.

— Do you support other skills in children?

— We are constantly trying to find new activities. About once a week we organize gatherings of squads or units. The squad consists of 15-20 boys and girls. They are divided into units based on gender. In addition, the teams are of different ages. When scouts get together, they are either preparing for a camping trip, a big re-enactment game, or learning something that interests them, such as new cooking skills or photography basics. We call this “specialty”. Each intelligence officer, in the course of the detachment’s activities, can master different specialties - a set of minimum skills in a particular area. Get to know each other and understand what is interesting to him and what is not. It happens that one of the specialties mastered by an intelligence officer later becomes his profession.

But our classes are not always practical. Sometimes we raise ideological issues, this is especially true for teenagers. The theme of freedom or the theme of “friend or foe” excites any child aged 14-15. We don’t just talk about this, but with the help of game mechanisms we experience the problems that children face in real life. We had a whole series of gatherings on the topic of “friend or foe.” The children were tasked with coming up with a mechanism by which they would determine who is “us” and who is “stranger” for them. Through these games, practices are developed that help in everyday life. And in general they help to decide: who am I? Why am I living? How do I feel about certain issues?

— What role does Orthodoxy play in your activities??

Ivan Borisovich Smolyaninov - The most important one. There was such a teacher, one of the founders of the scout movement in Crimea, Ivan Borisovich Smolyaninov. He owns the phrase “Scouting is Christianity in action.” We try not only to pray together, but also to receive communion together. During our hikes we often attend services. Despite the fact that we are all from different parishes, we try to gather for liturgy in one church once a month.

In my opinion, this is what keeps our community together: we are rooted in church life. It can be difficult for teenagers at a certain age to stay in the Church, and participation in detachment activities is sometimes the last thread holding them together. Of course, it all depends on the situation. It happens that children come from church families, full of Orthodox life, and they need to rethink their place in the Church. And sometimes children come who are not church members at all; they are brought by friends and classmates. Through participation in the life of the group, such children come into contact with Orthodoxy for the first time. As part of our classes, we study the basics of the Orthodox faith, key points that are important not just to know, but to understand what they are for. Why confess, why participate in the liturgy, why pray? Of course, we cannot say that everything works perfectly for us, but we are trying to communicate with children on these topics. We don’t just say that “it’s good to be good,” but we show that in the Church they can find answers to the questions that really concern them.

— Do you have a lot of people?

— Now the organization has about 400 people. There are detachments in Moscow, Tver, Obninsk, Penza, Samara, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Tagil. We have a succession mechanism, that is, many squad leaders are our former students. This is the highest quality teaching staff - guys who themselves went through training camps in childhood and learned everything naturally. And when they grew up, they realized that they wanted to teach the children following them, so that these children also had the opportunity to live such a rich childhood, which shapes their personality for the rest of their lives.

Sometimes adults come to us who are looking for some kind of community of like-minded people for their children and are ready to work with them themselves. They become familiar with our methodology and create new squads (or patrols for younger children). All this is based solely on enthusiasm; we do not receive any salaries for this. In addition to squad activities, everyone works somewhere to provide for their families.

— What is the source of adult enthusiasm? What makes you find time and energy for this activity?

- Firstly, there is a moment of joy. The joy of communication, the joy of joint voluntary action. It seems to me that in order for any person to feel the fullness of life, the fullness of being, it is necessary to do something selflessly for others. Secondly, this is service to one’s neighbors, to one’s country through the education of citizens who will build a life here. It is clear that 400 people are a drop in the bucket. But if they embrace the idea of ​​selfless service to others, it will bear fruit not only in their lives, but also in society as a whole.

— Is it possible to develop an organization on a national scale - say, to the size of a pioneer organization?

— The larger the scale, the more participants, the more difficult it is to maintain lively communication and continuity. It is almost impossible to carry out individual work with those who fall within your field of influence. Any mass production one way or another tends to reduce the quality of work. It seems to me that it is important not to create a single organization with a single ideology; what is important is the existence of many small movements and organizations, clubs that would work in a single field. After all, we are not for everyone; we have a fairly narrow framework: at a minimum, the fact that we profess the Orthodox faith and are members of the Church. It is written in our Charter that we profess the Nicene Creed and belong to the Moscow Patriarchate. Sometimes unbaptized people come to us, but at some point they need to decide on their attitude towards the Church. Parents who, for one reason or another, do not trust the Church or do not believe in God will not bring their children to us. Let the different communities not be united under a common banner - the state or the Church - but let them be vibrant, where children can truly grow and develop. On the same methodological principles it is possible to build not exactly the same organizations as ours, but similar ones. The main thing is to create space for growing and maturing. And this is only possible with the enthusiasm of adults.

Saint Emilia and Saint Basil the Great

In the middle of the 4th century, hardly anyone would call a family with three children large. But the married couple, who gave birth to ten children, still stood out against the general background. This could indicate both the good income of the spouses and their deep trust in God. The parents of St. Basil the Great, Vasily and Emilia, had both.

They lived in Cappadocia, but owned lands in two more Roman provinces - Pontus and Minor Armenia. And from their parents, who suffered for Christ under the Emperor Licinius, both inherited a deep and unshakable faith.

The family's life was quite prosperous until the father died. This happened shortly after the birth of Peter, Vasily's younger brother. Many women in Emilia’s place would have given up; some would have rushed to place their children in schools, with teachers. But she was sure that no one could replace the children’s mother, and she took their primary education into her own hands, trying to discern each person’s inclinations and interests and direct them in the right direction.

In addition, not even half a century had passed since the Roman authorities recognized Christianity, and Emilia was very afraid that the children would be influenced by loose pagan morals. Therefore, while the children were small, she protected them as best she could and taught them only what she herself considered necessary and correct.

Thus, Saint Emilia began teaching her eldest daughter Macrina not with Greek fables and love songs of Sappho and Anacreon, but with the psalms of David and the parables of Solomon. The girl learned certain fragments of the Holy Scriptures by heart. Everything dubious from a moral point of view - going to the theater or to the races (very common entertainment in that era) - the mother excluded from the children’s lives. And so that they had no time to be bored, she gave them various tasks - from working in the garden to helping in the forge, fortunately there was a considerable amount of farming.

All this played an important role in the further fate of the children of Saint Emilia - five of them were glorified by the Church: Saints Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Peter of Sebaste, Venerable Macrina and the holy righteous deaconess Theozva. “She gave the world... such lamps, sons and daughters, married and celibate; she is happy and fertile like no one else,” Vasily’s closest friend, Gregory the Theologian, spoke with delight about Emilia. - Three glorious priests, one participant in the mysteries of the priesthood, the others - the face of the celestials. I’m amazed at how rich this family is!”

When should we start teaching children the Law of God?

Do you want your son to be obedient? From childhood, raise him in the discipline and teaching of the Lord. Do not think that listening to the Divine Scriptures is unnecessary for him... let us force them to practice reading the Scriptures from an early age. ​Saint John Chrysostom[1]

Raise children in the teaching and admonition of the Lord. Teach children the basics of Orthodox culture. Teach children the Holy Scriptures. Teaching children the Law of God... All this is about the same thing. But how to approach this matter - the important, most important matter of parenthood? In the end, when exactly should we start, and at what age should we start? When to start reading the Bible and Gospel with children? When should we start preparing children for church holidays, when should we tell them about this or that event in the life of the Church? When should I start talking about the structure of the temple and worship services?

Teaching the Law of God in General

The law of God is a special subject. Of course, this is actually an academic subject, a set of certain knowledge. But first of all, it is something more – a way of life. This is how life is in general. Life within Orthodox culture. Life according to God's Law. And, in theory, we should bring our children into this life. In theory and in practice, in word and deed. Or, as the ancients said, βίον και λόγον - teaching “by life and word”[2].

If conditionally, then teaching children the Law of God can be represented in the form of such parts.

Verbal teaching-instruction

Obtaining information, knowledge; theory. This is just the actual educational subject. For example, the study of the texts of the Holy Scriptures, a consistent description of biblical events and their explanation. Or, for example, a description of the temple, its structure. Liturgics, hagiography and other lofty words also apply here.

Formation of an environment of life in the Law of God, life within the culture being studied

This is when we connect word with deed. When learning is connected to the life of the student. In short and simpler: when we arrange our home, the life of our family so that it is life within the Orthodox culture. Everything: the relationship between dad and mom, the daily and weekly routine, holidays, fasts - all this is built on the very Law of God, which is also studied by us all as a subject, as a theory.

By the way, this is a unique opportunity for family education. Opportunity to connect theory with practice. The opportunity to make a child’s education not a piece, not a fragment, but the fullness of life.

When we create a similar “learning environment”, “nurturing environment” in our home, we make our task much easier. With such practice, learning theory turns out to be natural, easy, literally built into the child’s life.

And also, when we practically teach children the Law of God like this, when we build our family as an “environment” of Orthodox culture, we get the opportunity to capture a mysterious, ephemeral and such a precious thing: to build our home as a small Church. After all, this is actually a small Church - when a family lives, it tries at least to live, just in the Law of God, just in the Orthodox culture.

Life in the Church

The pinnacle of learning the Law of God is life in the Church. Participation in the sacraments. Life in the rhythm of the church year. Teaching in this main school of ours - in our theological school, in the Church, where our teachers are priests and bishops. The Fathers of the Church, who taught and continue to teach us for more than two thousand years.

This is where theory turns into practice. Actually, we study the theory of the Law of God precisely in order to enter the Church, to understand, to learn, to understand the life of the Church.

Thus, the theoretical study of the Law of God turns out to be a stepping stone, a preparation for life in the Church. So the family - the small Church - turns out to be included in this great Church. Upbringing and education in such a family turns out to be preparation (and then consolidation) of church upbringing and education.

All this together is a single, inextricable process. All this taken together is “teaching children the Law of God.” Moreover, all these elements of “learning” exist in parallel, simultaneously. It’s not like they first “studied” something, then “mastered” it in home life, then “fixed it” in the Church. Here, first one thing, then another, without end or beginning, envelops, shapes and forms. And our children, and ourselves, and our entire home.

Start date

When we ourselves begin to live church life, when we ourselves participate in church sacraments, when we ourselves study something, read the holy fathers - then we begin to teach our children the Law of God. Even if we don't have children yet. Because this is how we prepare ourselves as educators and teachers for our children. Such a cunning twist: it turns out that our self-education is the formation of the personality of the teacher of our own children.

When we begin to build our family, our marriage, we are preparing the very “cultural environment” in which our children will be conceived, born and raised. From the basis on which father and mother build their relationship, their marriage, this is where the child’s teaching of the Law of God begins. Into these relationships, into this system of values ​​we will give birth - we will bring - our child-student.

There is no baby yet or it is only in the mother’s tummy - but the family culture is already being formed. For example, dad and mom already start and end their day with prayer. Already on Sundays they go to church. They are already taking communion. They are already trying to build themselves and their relationships on the Law of God, on the teachings of the Church. So “from his mother’s womb” our baby begins to “learn the Law of God.”

The baby has not yet been born, but is already in the church, where his mother receives communion. And dad is already praying for him

He's still in his tummy, but his mother is already taking communion. And dad prays for him and already blesses him before going to bed. The first vague sounds that the baby hears are, among other things, the sounds of worship in the temple.

The baby was just born, but he goes to church every Sunday. He doesn’t know anything yet, but they bring him to the icons, anoint him with holy oil, and give him communion. The temple, the choir, icons, incense, burning candles - all this is a part of his life, as organic as the usual prosaic things: a pacifier nanny, a stroller, mother's hair, the original chandelier on the ceiling in the bedroom...

The baby grows in all this. And in this way he is brought up and is already trained. Not verbal yet. Just life for now. Life within Orthodox culture. He breathes and is nourished by this culture. It becomes part of his life. This is his life.

But there is such an important point: in order for the family as a cultural environment, for the family as a small Church to truly be a space of education for our children, for this entire system to work as efficiently as possible, children must live within the family. Live in a family.

I’m not saying: isolate them from the world, not let them into schools, lock them away from friends and family - nothing like that, under no circumstances. But for a family to have educational significance, the home must be a significant place in the child’s life. Not the only one - but the significant one. Only a meaningful environment can have a real impact on the formation of a child’s personality. The child should simply be included in the life of the parents, in its rhythm. Otherwise, you get a slightly different picture, different conditions of the task, different approaches and ways to achieve your goals. And in general it turns out to be a completely different story.

Stages of training

We can always create an environment of Orthodox culture in our home. And before the baby is born, and during, and after. But when we talk about teaching itself, here, of course, we will have to somehow relate to the age of the student. And not so much with age, but with his ability, readiness to hear, listen, and assimilate something.

And here, by the way, we, parents, again have a completely unique opportunity: if we are attentive to our children, if we are close to them, then we can catch this elusive moment in time. We can start training our children exactly when they are ready for it.

When exactly, at what stage of a child’s development can we teach him the Law of God? The principle here is simple. All “ordinary” stages, classes - all this can turn towards “religious” training. Exactly the same, exactly parallel.

We tell the baby: “Look: a bird. Look: a flower." This means that we can already say: “Look: a temple. Look: the cross, and on it is our Lord.”

Is your baby able to look at pictures? Are you able to find the princess, the house, the sun in the book? This means we can show the baby the icon. Tell where what is shown. In your own words, pointing to each item, explaining. We can ask him to show: where is the little Mother of God on the icon of the Entry into the Temple? where is her dad, where is her mom? where are the candles?..

Is he already listening to fairy tales meaningfully? This means he can listen to Bible stories too.

Is your baby already listening to fairy tales and stories meaningfully? This means he can listen to Bible stories too. After listening to “The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Knights,” he can already answer the question, what was the name of the prince? This means that after the story about the creation of the first people, we can ask the child to name their names.

Has the baby learned to draw, at least somehow? This means that he can illustrate the biblical story he heard.

Is your child already making figures from plasticine? This means that he is able to make some crafts on a biblical theme.

Has your child learned to write and read in Russian? Or even just studying? This means that he is able to master Church Slavonic. At the same primitive level as the modern Russian language.

Does the child sing songs? This means he can also sing prayers. Even if it’s just humming at random, it means it can hum like that during a general home service.

Is the child able to repeat the phrase? This means he is able to read a short prayer

Is the child able to repeat a phrase or learn a quatrain by heart? This means that he is able to read some short prayer.

And so it is always, and so in everything.

For example, if we are talking about studying texts and plots of the Holy Scriptures, then the picture is something like this. At 2–3 years old, the baby simply looks at the pictures in the children's Bible with his dad, and looks at the frescoes in the temple with his mother. At the age of 4-5, he listens to biblical stories, answers simple questions after such stories, makes crafts on biblical themes - for church holidays or as a reinforcement illustration after studying some biblical story. And then the child will be able to analyze, compare...

Everything - literally everything - that a child can do and that interests him, we will turn towards the Law of God

At 3 years old, a child simply comes to church and knows what a dome and a cross are. And at the age of 10 he is able to master the topic of building a temple. After all, at school he was able to study “the water cycle in nature” and analyze the composition of a sentence.

Gradually, in a spiral, more and more new turns will be strung on the information received “in childhood” - in accordance with the interests and development of the child himself. We will analyze the geography of the Bible, everyday life, and other interesting factual information. Let's take a deeper look at the texts. Let's move forward in Church Slavonic - children will read and listen to the Bible in this language. If they master English well, we will read with them not only O'Henry's stories in this language, but also the texts of the Holy Scriptures. Or maybe we’ll analyze the Greek original... Everything – not even in accordance with age, but precisely with the needs, with the aspirations of the child himself. Everything that interests our children in “ordinary” life, everything that they can do in general - all of this - literally everything - we will turn towards the Law of God every time.

Parents as teachers

The sooner we start working with children, teaching them—that is, teaching them, explaining and telling them in words—the better. And the point here is not that our kids will understand and remember. They will understand little and remember poorly. We will repeat approximately the same thing, but more and more complexly and seriously, year after year, every year - and repetition will become the mother of learning.

But the most important thing in “early education” is this: if we teach (sit down, open a book, show, ask to repeat) children from infancy, then our children “with their mother’s milk” begin to perceive their parents as teachers. Accept parental teaching and their learning from parents as part of life. And in this case, teaching a seven-, ten-, thirteen-year-old child turns out not to be a revolution in the relationship between children and parents, but an organic part of the child-parent relationship.

From the very beginning of a child's life, we introduce these relationships into our home - educational relationships. When dad is not only a master of driving a car and a giver of pocket money, not only a scolder for bad grades and throwing children up to the ceiling, but also a teacher. When mom is not only a specialist in making cutlets, prohibiting 24-hour viewing of cartoons and a floor cleaner, but also... another teacher. And these roles already go without saying. Because “it has always been this way,” from birth.

In a large family

We can talk about at what age, when, how and what to tell children about the Bible. But this is when we are talking about one and only child. But in fact, we are only tuning in this way for our first child. Then our next baby is born and grows up. And we are already teaching them both. Then the third, fourth, fifth child appears, and the older ones grow up... And it turns out that our classes are aimed at three-year-old children, and at younger schoolchildren, and at teenagers.

Homeschooling is learning in a mixed-age group. Very diverse in age. So, our first child received everything “in accordance with his age”; we taught him taking into account his personal development. But the fifth child receives the same knowledge in a slightly different way: he participates in our home lesson, listening to a story aimed at the middle children of the family, with references to the older teenage child.

Seeing that everyone in the family is reading and studying Scripture, the child will learn that this is very important and interesting.

Who won, who lost? Everyone won – both seniors and juniors. It seems clear about the elders, for whom everything is special, specially oriented towards them. And this is what happens about the younger ones. The younger ones receive such things as advanced training, training taking into account the zone of proximal development, and all that other smart stuff. At the same time, in general, our younger students receive approximately the same things that their older brothers and sisters received. Because the Law of God is one: for the baby, for the youth, and for the elderly.

And our kids, who study together with their older brothers and sisters, receive a special powerful bonus. Children see, for example, that everyone studies the Holy Scriptures. They have before their eyes the example of older brothers and sisters who listen to their mother’s story about the vision of the prophet Isaiah. And these elders are passionate, they ask some questions... This means that this is all important, interesting, and worth attention. It turns out that this is how human life works: a mother with a Bible in her hands reads the texts, and the children listen to and understand it all...

Thus, older brothers and sisters become examples of discipleship for the younger ones. This is how the youngest children in the family find themselves in an already formed and organized educational environment. And by the way, this does not exhaust all the advantages of multi-age education. But that is another story.

***

It turns out that in a large family, where teaching children the Law of God is built into the life of the family, “has always been”, there is generally no such boundary as “the beginning of education.” Literally from birth, this baby is present at home lessons. And as he grows, he gradually becomes involved in this training. And, by the way, in this case it is even easier to notice the child’s readiness for one or another type of such training. For example, all the children received an assignment to draw something. And the kid from the imitation also draws something. You look - and he really depicted something on a given topic. So, here it is, the degree of his personal readiness.

***

How do we convey one lesson—one story, one reading—to each of our children? How to include them all in the overall work?

For example, you can ask children questions during the story. First to one, then to the other. Simple questions for the baby, difficult ones for the children. You can ask the elders to tell something to the younger ones. In this case, older children take on the role of teacher - which means they themselves remember something and repeat it. They learn to formulate, and in such a way as to convey their thoughts to the kids. Often the story of older children turns out to be incomparably clearer for kids than the story of an adult. When a ten-year-old tells something to a five-year-old, he doesn't lisp. And at the same time he doesn’t say too complicated things. He explains in a way that it would never even occur to us, adults, to explain. This is the thinking of a child - open-minded, imaginative, direct.

Often the story of older children turns out to be incomparably clearer for kids than the story of an adult

If we study, say, the story of the Flood, then we all together - both the “old” fourteen-year-olds and the little newborns - listen to the text of the Bible from daddy’s lips. Then we discuss - the little ones obviously don’t discuss, at best they just listen. With older children, the discussion can sometimes go into the depths of philology, history, geography and theological interpretation. And then we do crafts with the kids: we make an ark out of plasticine and put little animals in it. And teenagers may enthusiastically join in this modeling, or they may not even look in the direction of this infantile fuss. It turns out that different children participate in different stages of one lesson. But at the same time, the lesson remains the same for everyone.

Or here's another one. We are preparing a troparion for the twelfth holiday - in Church Slavonic. This means that in the simplest form we get acquainted with the divine service of the holiday. Let's get acquainted with the teaching of the Church about the holiday. We are preparing to participate in the service, because when the children learn the troparion, they will be able to understand and hear this text at the all-night vigil and during the Liturgy, they will be able to sing along with the priests and the choir... And in this way we are mastering the Church Slavonic language. Moreover, we are preparing decoration for the home interior - after all, we are hanging the beautifully prepared text of the troparion on the wall near the icons. It turns out literally all in one - a concentrated and practical lesson of the Law of God in the family. I have written about this many times before.

Here we will talk about how children of different ages can participate in this “lesson” on studying the troparion. We read the troparion aloud for all the children, listen together or watch a recording of this troparion on the Internet. Then a child, say, about ten years old, writes this troparion in Church Slavonic, beautifully. Then a child of seven years old draws up the initial letter: he makes the large first letter of the troparion special. And a five-year-old kid draws—perhaps with his mother’s help—an ornamental frame. In fact, everything always turns out differently. So, the text of the troparion, which seems to be the most difficult part, is prepared by a child of five or six years old, who in this case simply circles his mother’s text with a felt-tip pen. But the design is done by older teenagers, who themselves are interested in drawing and all this design. And, according to our tradition, they “isolate” the images of the holiday and capture these images on our poster with the troparion. For example, for the Feast of the Entry into the Temple, an ornate staircase is depicted.

Or another option: one child prepares the troparion himself, completely, another - kontakion, the third - magnification. And the elder writes this very troparion in Greek.

This is where the general and the individual are combined in multi-age education. Everyone does approximately the same thing, we all prepare together for the same holiday and study the same material for this. But everyone does what they can do and what interests them at the moment.

***

In general, when to start teaching children the Law of God, this question is resolved by itself. By practice. In the event that from the very beginning, from the beginning of our marriage relationship, we build our home as an environment of Orthodox culture. If we immediately, with the birth of our first child, begin to perceive ourselves as teachers and educators of our children. If we include teaching, teaching about faith, teaching about the Church in the life of our family. Into the daily and weekly routine. In your own circle of reading, in your own circle of interests. And if we involve our children in all this educational, learning and teaching. And at the same time, if we are attentive to our children.

Then our children are born not only as beloved babies, but also as our new students. And they come into the world of our family as if they were going to school. Where learning is not a painful duty, not a piece of life - but life itself. Interesting. Special. Full. Living in the teaching and admonition of the Lord (Eph. 6:4).

Saint Monica and St. Augustine

When Christian parents try by hook or by crook to convince their growing children to go to church and read pious books, they, as a rule, desperately resist or simply ignore their parents’ requests. It was approximately the same with Saint Monica and her son Augustine, whom the Church would later call blessed.

Monica's husband, Patricius, remained a pagan for most of his life, more out of tradition than out of conviction: he was, in general, indifferent to faith. At the same time, he was an extremely hot-tempered person, although easy-going; Augustine would later call his father “a man of extreme kindness and furious anger.” In addition, the Patrician often cheated on Monica. But she humbly endured her husband’s antics, trying not to provoke outbursts of his anger and not to argue - at least in those moments when he was irritated.

But Monica turned all the power of her conviction to her son. She did everything to raise him as a Christian, although in his youth he was more interested in the female sex. At the age of 16, at the insistence of his father, who predicted a career as a rhetorician for him, the young man went to Carthage - a city where temptations awaited him at every step - and threw himself headlong into this life. And reading my mother’s letters full of anxiety, I was more annoyed than repentant.

Finally he became interested in religion. But not Christianity, but Manichaeism. The Manichaeans believed that the world was ruled not by one God, but by two equal powers: one - light, divine, spiritual; the other is dark, demonic, material and corporeal.

And again Monica cried and called her son to Church, and again there was no answer. One bishop helped her, whom she asked to influence her son. “Leave him there,” he said, “and just pray to God for him. He himself, reading, will discover what a delusion this is and what great wickedness.” And he added: “Just as it is true that you live, it is also true that the son of such tears will not perish.”

That's how it all happened. Having gotten to know the Manichaeans better, Augustine became disillusioned with them, becoming convinced that they were mostly ignorant people and not always decent. The complete opposite of them turned out to be the same bishop - Ambrose from the city of Mediolana (present-day Milan), whom Augustine met in Rome. From him he eventually received Baptism. Monica was happy and died with a light heart. And Augustine became a priest, and later a bishop, a world-famous father and teacher of the Church.

Thus, humbly admitting the futility of her efforts to turn her son onto the true path and handing him over into the hands of God, the mother personally became convinced of the truth of the Savior’s words: What is impossible with men is possible with God (Lk 18:27).

Text of the book “The Basics of Orthodoxy for Children”

Basics of Orthodoxy for children Shpolyansky M., Maksimov Yu.V., Fomin A.V.

HOW TO EXPLAIN TO A CHILD IN AN ACCESSIBLE LANGUAGE THE ESSENCE OF THE ORTHODOX FAITH, WHO IS GOD, WHAT IS THE COMMUNION, WHY TO GO TO TEMPLE AND PRAY
in exposition

Deacon Georgy Maksimov, priest Mikhail Shpolyansky, Alexei Fomin

Recommended for publication by the Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church IS 13-221-1827

Full or partial reproduction of this publication by any means, including electronic, mechanical or magnetic media, including photocopying, is permitted only with the written permission of NEW MYSL PUBLISHING HOUSE LLC.

All rights reserved.

All rights to the publication and title are reserved.

Reproduction is possible only with the written permission of NEW MYSL PUBLISHING HOUSE LLC.

Website of the publishing house “NEW THOUGHT” www.novm.ru

Everything you learn from this book actually exists next to you, and this is not a fairy tale. But this is more amazing and wonderful than any fairy tale. These are the main secrets of the world! Even some adults don’t know them, but you will!

Remember well everything you hear here, because it will be useful to you for the rest of your life!

Listen to the most beautiful and amazing story, the most important secret of the world, like a fairy tale in which you live without noticing it, but in which everything is true!

God

Once upon a time, a very, very long time ago, many, many years ago, there was nothing: no Earth, no sky, no people, no birds, no plants, no Sun, no Moon. To somehow imagine this, you can close your eyes. When you close your eyes, you see nothing. So in the beginning there was nothing and nothing existed.

God is the One who created the entire world around us out of nothing. In the beginning He created the heavens and the Earth. At His word, light, water, rivers, seas, dry land, the Sun, the Moon and the stars appeared. God created this world for every person, and therefore for you, so that you could be happy.

After all, God loves us like a good father loves his children.

The Lord God is one, and there are no other gods.

He is invisible, but is always next to you.

Without Him, we could neither move nor breathe... Only those who have a pure heart, who believe in Him and become like Him through their good deeds can see Him... You can visit Him - in church - and talk with Him . He hears and sees everything, and helps... and punishes... and knows everything... He loves us all.

When God created the Earth, there was nothing and no one on it. Then He created plants, animals, fish, birds and humans, and everything, everything, everything that we see in nature. And majestic sunsets, and mighty trees in the forest, and the sea surf, and the starry sky - everything was created so beautifully and wisely that thousands of poets from all nations did not tire of singing, and thousands of artists - painting this beauty of God's world.

God gave life to each of us. He created the first people - Adam and Eve, then they had children, and they had their own children, and so entire nations were gradually formed.

God has always been, He has neither beginning nor end. He can do whatever he wants, He is more important than everything in the world, He controls everything in heaven and on Earth. He takes care of you every minute, sees you, and knows all your thoughts, deeds and actions. But it does not take away your freedom, but, on the contrary, gives you the right to choose: to love Him and be with Him or not to love Him and be far from Him.

Since God is the source of real happiness, people who love Him become happy, and those who do not love God and do evil become unhappy. The Lord wants all people to be happy and calls everyone to Himself, but does not force anyone.

You know that if you touch something hot, you can get burned, if you throw a ball up, it will fall, and if you put a bottle of water in the freezer, the water will turn into ice. All this is connected with the laws of nature, that is, that part of the world that we can see with our eyes or study with the help of instruments, for example, a microscope or telescope. The laws of nature are established by God.

But besides the visible, there is also an invisible world - it cannot be seen not only with the eyes, but even with the most precise instruments. But we can feel this world a little with our soul. And it also has its own special laws, which God and those who trust Him know about.

Angels

Before creating our world, God created Angels - invisible to us, good spirits who live with God in the spiritual world, serve Him and treat us with great love.

Angels help us avoid danger, protect us in difficult moments, and ask God for people.

They help in good deeds, support in difficult circumstances, save from sudden death and from various dangers. In a word, Angels are our intercessors before God, our helpers in troubles.

Also, the Lord sometimes sends them to Earth to proclaim His will to people. Each of us has our own Guardian Angel. You can't see him, but you can feel that he is nearby.

God instructed him to take care of you. If you love those who are next to you, if you want to help others, if your soul is light and joyful, then your Guardian Angel has spread its bright wings over you.

He supports and consoles you, tells you how to do the right thing. But when a person does evil, he does not hear his Guardian Angel and is deprived of his help.

Demons

A long time ago, one of the great angels, whose name was Dennitsa (Lucifer), became proud and proud, so much so that he even wanted all the other Angels to worship him as God. He rebelled against the Creator and infected some more angels with his pride, and since they did not want to repent, they were expelled from the angelic world. They ceased to be angels, and Dennitsa began to be called Satan (the enemy) and the devil (the slanderer), and those who followed him were called demons or demons. There is nothing good left in them, they hate God and everything that He created.

These forces turn people against God, inspire them that there is no God, strive to persuade people to do dirty, vile deeds (sins), and encourage them to do things that violate the will of the Lord. They want to make others like themselves, so that people would suffer the same way they suffer. They love to mock people and intimidate them, including through nightmares.

The devil and demons are invisible. They suggest evil thoughts to people, and in such a way that people think they are their own thoughts. Through this, demons push people to do bad things, incite them to break the law established by God, so that later the person becomes unhappy and perishes.

Demons can offer bad things to you, too, so when evil, nasty thoughts come to mind and you want to do something bad (for example, call someone a name, insult, hit, deceive, steal, leave in trouble) - know what it is. vile demons offer you to make you miserable.

Either they will start persuading you to sleep or fool around instead of praying or instead of helping your elders, then they will deceive you, or even take something that belongs to you. Or they begin to kindle some bad feelings in us - resentment, anger, envy or greed.

But he who knows about their tricks is not easily deceived by them, and they cannot harm a Christian who loves God in any way. Demons are brave only against those who are weaker than them, but they are cowardly in front of the strong, and they fear God and our friends, the Angels, who are stronger than them. Demons themselves cannot do anything to us; they gain power over a person only if he himself begins to trust them, listen to them and choose evil.

They are very cunning. If they see that you are not listening to them and are avoiding their evil deeds, then they can influence you through another person. For example, they inspire him to advise you to do an act that violates the commandments of God.

But they cannot force you to do bad things without your decision. You can disagree, and when they incline you to evil, pray to God to protect you. They are afraid of this, and they have no power over a Christian believer. When demons throw bad thoughts at you, you can fight them off with prayer.

Angels and demons are next to you

You can tell who is talking to you (demons or angels) like this: if you have in your thoughts a feeling of malice, resentment or anger, irritation, if you don’t want to do anything, you just want to be capricious, angry, or, for example, the thought of hitting someone is born - to deceive, not to share with someone - this is the demons attacking you.

If you have calmness and peace in your soul, kindness, and love for others, it means that Angels are next to you.

So watch your feelings, thoughts, desires, actions and words!

After all, sin is not only some bad deed (action), but also bad desires. Every bad deed begins in thoughts. If a person refuses it in his thoughts, he will no longer do it, but if he agrees with an evil thought, he will do an evil deed. Therefore, holy people conquered evil by discarding bad thoughts.

If you have already begun to be capricious, angry, rude and shout loudly, or offend someone, you have already succumbed to the desires of demons, and they write down your evil deeds and rejoice in the fact that you will be punished for them.

Do not give in, drive away vile demons from yourself, do not listen to their nasty tips, but, on the contrary, consult with your holy Guardian Angel more often. Pray to him, ask him for help and listen to what he tells you in your conscience - and so you will begin to live in harmony with God and you will be happy.

You can drive away demons from yourself through prayer, the sign of the cross, regular visits to church, and Communion - we will talk about this later.

Keep your soul unsullied, pure from sins. If you suddenly happen to do a bad thing, hurry to cleanse yourself of it, asking for forgiveness from God and the one you offended, and no longer allow demons to deceive you and draw you into sin again.

The first people - Adam and Eve

Immediately after God created the first people, Adam and Eve, He placed them in a beautiful garden called paradise. There was everything you need for a happy life, they were surrounded by such beauty that we can’t even imagine.

The tree of life grew in paradise - eating its fruits, man remained immortal, did not feel pain, did not get sick.

The Lord created man to share His happiness with him. But only those who love can share this happiness. God loved Adam and Eve and gave them a commandment: they could eat the fruit of any tree in paradise, except one. God gave such a commandment so that the first people could, by obeying it, show their love for God. And then they would be happy with God forever and never die.

But Adam and Eve did not want to love God that way, and therefore they trusted the advice of the devil, who suggested that they break God’s commandment. And they ate from the fruit of the forbidden tree, and thus committed the first sin. The Lord was ready to forgive them if they repented, but instead of repenting, Adam and Eve each began to justify themselves and shift the blame onto the other. And then they were expelled from paradise, and became subject to disease, old age and death.

If you cut a flower or branch, it will remain green for a while, but very soon it will wither and die. So Adam and Eve, when they tried the forbidden fruit, immediately found themselves cut off from God, from the source that fed their life, and eventually died.

First sin

Immediately after Adam and Eve followed bad advice, committed sin and did not want to repent of it, they were separated from God and fell under the power of Satan. And since Adam and Eve were the first people on Earth, our ancestors, then through them all people became sinners. The Bible says that even newborn children are already sinners.

Just as there are diseases that are inherited from parents to children, so sin was inherited from our forefathers, so we all need someone who would free us both from hereditary sin and from the sins that we have committed of your own free will.

The consequences of Adam and Eve's sin affected not only them, but also their children, and their children's children, you and me, all over the Earth.

We live in the world and constantly suffer from this curse. We face illness, pain, weakness, toil, natural disasters, sadness, grief and death. Nothing like this existed before the fall of Adam and Eve.

To help people, the Lord gave His commandments in the Bible as law so that people could know His will. Because good is what is in accordance with the will of God, and evil is what is contrary to His holy will. Knowledge of God's commandments helped to avoid committing new sins, but did not save people from those sins that they had already committed, and through which Satan gained power over them.

Savior

Therefore, God, through His prophets in the Bible, promised that one day someone would appear in the world who would deliver people from sin and free them from the slavery of the devil. Since then, all subsequent generations have been waiting for this promised Savior to finally come.

If a traveler walking through a swamp falls into a quagmire, he cannot get out on his own. Only those who stand on solid ground can pull it out. Likewise, a person who fell under the power of sin could neither cleanse himself nor help another sinner. And all of humanity was in the quagmire of sin, waiting for the One who, being Himself without sin, could save those who were perishing.

And God the Father sent His Son Jesus Christ to earth to save the world from the power of sin and death. And so in a small cave (nativity scene) the Infant Jesus was born. His mother's name was Virgin Mary. And we also call her the Mother of God, because She gave birth to the God Jesus. Jesus did not have an earthly father. The Father of Jesus Christ was Heavenly God the Father.

Until the age of 30, Jesus Christ lived with His family, and only the closest people knew that He was God who became man. And at the age of 30, Christ went out to serve people in order to bring them closer to God. He called his disciples - the apostles - and began to teach people to live according to the will of God and in true love.

The Lord Jesus Christ performed many miracles. The blind began to see, and the sick were healed only by touching the hem of His garment, and He freed those who were tormented by demons, driving away their tormentors.

Once with five, and the next time with seven loaves, He fed several thousand people in a deserted place, so that there was enough for everyone. He walked on water, calmed storms with a word, and even raised the dead.

And so, when He learned that He would soon be killed, He wanted to gather with His disciples for the last time for a festive meal.

When the disciples sat down with Jesus Christ at the table, He took the bread, broke it and distributed it to them, saying: “This is My Body.” Then He took the cup of wine and said to them: “This is My Blood.” This is how Jesus Christ gave communion to people for the first time and bequeathed that all who love Him should also receive communion.

The leaders and rulers thought that He wanted to take away their power, they became embittered with Him and began to persecute Him. Christ could punish them all, could burn them with fire - He is Almighty God! – but He pitied everyone, even these evil people.

Examples from life will help us understand what happens during Communion.

When a person is very sick and has bad, diseased blood, doctors do a blood transfusion, pouring the blood of a healthy person into him, and the patient recovers. And when a person has very sick kidneys and he may die, someone healthy gives him his kidney, that is, part of his body, and doctors transplant a healthy kidney into the patient’s body so that he recovers.

Likewise, in Communion we receive the sinless Body and Blood of Christ, so that our body and blood may be healed from the disease of sin. But man cannot eat body and blood, so the Lord makes it so that in a miraculous way we can accept His saving Body and Blood under the guise of bread and wine. When a person receives communion in church, he gives himself to Christ, and Christ enters into him, into his life.

Crucifixion

Good people loved Jesus Christ, but the evil and proud hated Him. And especially the Jewish elders and scribes hated Him because He exposed their false teaching and lawless life, and envied Him because the people respected Him for His teaching and miracles more than them. Therefore they slandered Him and condemned Him to death.

And so the enemies of the Son of God - Jesus Christ - attacked Him, seized Him, began to mock Him and, finally, decided to execute Him. But even then Jesus did not take revenge on them, but asked God the Father to forgive them, and said that they did not know what they were doing.

He was in terrible pain. They put on Him a crown of thorns made from plants with thorns. After this they beat Him on the head with a cane. Before the crucifixion, Jesus Christ was given over to be scourged. After this there was the most difficult, painful and deadly test: crucifixion. His hands and feet were nailed to a wooden cross with huge nails and left to die.

Before His enemies took Him, the Lord Jesus Christ said: “I lay down My life in order to take it up again. No one will take it away from Me; but I myself give it away.” He could instantly defeat the villains who came to take Him away to torture and execution, but He did not resist them. Why?

Because He knew that the devil, who was accustomed to controlling people and destroying them, was working through them. People came under his power because of the sins they committed, and, as punishment for sin, they received death, and after death - hell. But Jesus Christ did not commit any sin and, by voluntarily accepting death, He destroyed the power of the devil, because He said: “I accept death for the sins of those who believe in Me.” This means that they are already freed from the need to follow the path leading to hell.

It happens that a person borrows money from someone and then cannot pay it back. And then they tell him: if you don’t repay the debt, we will put you in prison! He is afraid, but cannot give it away because he has no money. And suddenly someone comes who pays his debt with his money in order to save the debtor from prison.

The Lord did the same for us, only he paid not with money - they mean nothing in the spiritual world - but with His life. And this is proof of His great love for us, because for our sake He sacrificed Himself so that we could live forever with God in the Kingdom of Heaven.

He died, but death could not hold Him, and three days later Christ came to life and rose from the dead!

Resurrection

The soldiers guarding the tomb learned with horror about the resurrection of Christ when the Angel of the Lord rolled away the stone with which His tomb was closed, and at the same time a great earthquake occurred; Angels announced the resurrection of Christ.

So Jesus opened the way to salvation for us - he broke down the doors of the prison of death. And since then, death is no longer scary, its power has ended. Now everyone can follow Christ, and, like Him, in the future can be resurrected and live forever - but only with the Risen Christ, only by believing in Him, only by fulfilling His commandments.

And all good people, all Christians, children of Christ, on the brightest and most joyful holiday of the year - Easter - sing that Christ conquered death, rose from the dead and gave us eternal life. Everyone cheerfully says to each other: Christ is Risen! And in response they hear the same joyful cry: Truly He is Risen!

The Holy Trinity

Christians believe that God is one, for He is one by nature, and that God is trinitarian, for one divine nature has three Persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. But these are not three gods, but one triune God. Love makes the Father, Son and Spirit one.

If we take three lit candles and connect the flame, then there will be three candles and one flame. Likewise, the divine nature, pouring out from the Father into the Son and the Spirit, is not divided, but all three Persons exist one in the other. Just as the flame of a candle, lighting another candle, does not decrease, so the Father, giving birth to the Son and giving up the Spirit, did not decrease in any way.

God is always Trinity. There was no “moment” when the Father did not have a Son or Spirit. Any action of God is an action of the Trinity. The Father does not act separately from the Son or from the Holy Spirit - and vice versa.

When, having heard about this, the pagans asked St. Patrick, the enlightener of Ireland, “how can three be one?” then the saint bowed to the ground, plucked a clover shamrock and said: “Don’t you see that this is both one leaf and three leaves? So in the Trinity there is one nature and three Persons.”

And when another Orthodox saint, Cyril, the enlightener of the Slavs, was asked the same question, he pointed to the Sun, saying: “Do you see a brilliant circle in the sky, and from it light is born and heat emanates? God the Father is like a solar circle, without beginning and end. From Him the Son of God is born, like light from the Sun, and just as heat comes from the Sun along with the light rays, the Holy Spirit emanates. Everyone distinguishes separately the circle of the sun, and light, and heat, but the Sun is alone in the sky. So is the Holy Trinity: there are three Persons in It, and God is one and indivisible.”

Since God created the world, we see in it examples that help us understand the mystery of the Trinity. But these are just examples, and it is impossible to fully comprehend God. However, although a person cannot drink the entire lake, he can and it is necessary for him to drink the water little by little, and so it is with the knowledge of God. The mystery of the Holy Trinity cannot be comprehended in one moment, because it is impossible to fit God, Who is greater than the whole world, into the small head of a person. But we can comprehend it gradually, as we cleanse our hearts of sins.

Saints Alexy and Sergius Mechev

Usually children are pampered when they are small, and then strictness begins. In the family of Archpriest Alexy Mechev, rector of the Moscow Church of St. Nicholas in Klenniki, everything turned out the other way around. While the children were small, he did not allow them much: he did not order them to make noise, to enter his room when people came to him, or when he prayed...

Everything changed in August 1902, when his wife Anna Petrovna died and father Alexy was left alone with four children. The youngest daughter Olya just turned six, and son Seryozha - ten. Father Alexy could not leave his priestly ministry and devote himself entirely to his children. Moreover, Father John of Kronstadt, who visited him shortly after the death of his wife, strongly advised him not to isolate himself within four walls, but to go to people and “unload” their burdens.

Therefore, Father Alexy entrusted the daily care of the children to the sister of his late wife, Olga Petrovna Kadmina, and he himself devoted only free hours to them, which became fewer and fewer as the parish community grew. And, as often happens in such cases, his attitude towards children's pranks became much more tolerant. Now Olga Petrovna acted as a strict teacher. She even reproached her father: he allows them too much, he wouldn’t spoil them. And he responded: “Be quiet, auntie, because they don’t have a mother...”

The children grew up, and Father Alexy still treated them the same. In 1913, already studying at Moscow University, his only son Sergei went to Italy. The young man was interested in ancient Christian art, and he really wanted to visit all the museums and definitely visit Rome. To make this dream come true, he even sold his favorite bicycle. But money was still running short. I was ashamed to ask my father - he was already denying himself a lot. But he insistently suggested in each letter: “Write how much more money you need and where to send it. Don’t deny yourself anything.” And the young student reluctantly... agreed.

As a result, Father Alexy’s gentleness and compliance with his children bore wonderful fruits: his two daughters, Alexandra and Olga, became school teachers, and his son himself accepted the priesthood, led the church community in Klenniki after the death of his father, and went through prison during the persecution of the Church. exile and camps and was shot in 1942, and 58 years later glorified by the Russian Church as a martyr.

At the same time, in 2000, the glorification of his father, the holy righteous Alexy Mechev, took place.

Children about the Orthodox faith. Book One: A Guide for Sunday School Classes

This book still remains as popular as it was after its first publication in 2003. It has proven itself well and is a serious help for parents who want to help their children comprehend the wisdom of the Orthodox faith. Nowadays, Sunday schools operate on its basis in many parishes. Patriarch Kirill, while still Metropolitan of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, recommended teaching it in his diocese.

This edition of the book is characterized by a clear, lesson-by-class presentation of all the accumulated educational material, which will certainly facilitate the teaching of considerable questions of faith in an Orthodox school. The publication is also supplemented by: interesting, touching children's stories, musical notation of the most famous prayers and beautiful church hymns, and architecturally amazing images of temples.

Approved for distribution by the Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church. Author-compiler - Z. I. Zinchenko. 6th edition, revised and expanded.

CONTENT

PART ONE. Basic information about the Orthodox faith

ABOUT THE WORLD Summer (A. Pleshcheev) Forget-me-not

ABOUT GOD The Great Mystery King and Creator of the Universe God is Spirit (Ya. Grot)

ABOUT THE HOLY ANGELS My Guardian Angel (L. Koshlina) Angel at the cradle of a child (L. Charskaya)

ABOUT SIN Learn from the bees (Archpriest I. Naumovich)

ABOUT THE CROSS AND THE SIGN OF THE CROSS The power of the sign of the cross

ABOUT HOLY ICONS Tolga Icon of the Mother of God Kazan Icon of the Mother of God

ABOUT THE TEMPLE Queen-path (I. Rutenin)

ABOUT THE BLESSING OF THE PRIEST The power of blessing

PART TWO. Prayers

ABOUT PRAYER Egorka’s Prayer (I. Rutenin)

LORD'S PRAYER Our Father Glade of Goodness and Love (P. Prokhorova)

SONG OF THE HOLY VIRGIN “Ask the Mother of God!..” (S. Kutsko) Song of the Most Holy Theotokos

PRAYER TO THE HOLY SPIRIT Help us, God! (S. Radkevich)

SONG OF PRAISE TO THE HOLY MOTHER OF GOD It is worthy to eat the Holy Fathers about prayer

JESUS ​​PRAYER The mystery of prayer (B. Ganago)

PRAYER TO THE GUARDIAN ANGEL Christmas Angel

PRAYER FOR THE LIVING Prayer for father and mother Mom You really love me! (L. Ganago)

PART THREE. Holy saints of God

ABOUT HOLY PEOPLE

HOLY PROPHET ELIJA Prophet Elijah (E. Dyakova. “Before the holiday”)

HOLY APOSTLE ANDREW THE FIRST CALLED Death of the “Varyag” (Ya. Repninsky)

HOLY CHIEF APOSTLES PETER AND PAUL Baptism of Cornelius by the Apostle Peter (O. Chumina)

HOLY EQUAL OF THE Apostles GREAT PRINCE VLADIMIR Equal to the Apostles Prince Vladimir (E. Dyakova. “Before the holiday”)

THE HOLY Blessed GRAND PRINCE ALEXANDER NEVSKY The Blessed Prince Alexander Nevsky (E. Dyakova. “Before the holiday”)

REVEREND SERGIUS OF RADONEZH, WONDERWORKER Amazing abbot (E. Perekhvalskaya. “Reverend Sergius of Radonezh”) Reverend Sergius

REVEREND SERAPHIM OF SAROV, WONDERWORKER Healing by the cross Reverend Seraphim

HOLY GREAT MARTYR AND HEALER PANTELEMON Children's prayer (From the collection of Archpriest G. Dyachenko “Spark of God”)

ST. NICHOLAS THE WONDERWORKER Help for the birthday boy

HOLY RIGHTEOUS JOAKIM AND ANNA Healing (B. Ganago) Soothe my sorrows

HOLY BLESSED KSENIA OF PETERSBURG “Your son will live” (B. Ganago)

HOLY UNBREAKERS COSMAS AND DAMIAN

PART FOUR. Orthodox holidays and fasts

ORTHODOX FASTS Clean Monday (I. Shmelev. “Summer of the Lord”)

BRIGHT RESURRECTION OF CHRIST Easter ringing (K. Fofanov, 3. Zinchenko) Easter (I. Shmelev. “Summer of the Lord”)

CHRISTMAS Christmas (I. Rutenin) Christmas (I. Shmelev. “Summer of the Lord”) Christmas (3. Zinchenko)

BAPTISM OF THE LORD Baptism (I. Shmelev. “Summer of the Lord”) In the distant country of Palestine

ENTRY OF THE LORD INTO JERUSALEM Palm Sunday (I. Shmelev. “Summer of the Lord”)

ASCENSION OF THE LORD “Christ’s stairs” (I. Shmelev. “Summer of the Lord”)

DAY OF THE HOLY TRINITY Trinity Day (I. Shmelev. “Summer of the Lord”)

COVER OF THE HOLY VIRGIN Intercession (I. Shmelev. “Summer of the Lord”)

PART FIVE. Brief summary

Part one. Basic information about the Orthodox faith Part two. Prayers Part Three. Holy saints of God Part four. Orthodox holidays and fasts

Holy royal passion-bearers Nicholas, Alexandra and their children

The wealthier the parents, the more they tend to “invest” in children - in clothes, toys, the smartest smartphones and computers, and environmentally friendly products. And then - to the most prestigious educational institutions, the newest cars... The list is easy to continue.

At the beginning of the 20th century, there seemed to be no richer person in the world than the Russian Tsar. “The owner of the Russian land” - Nicholas II designated his occupation in 1897, filling out a questionnaire during the population census.

Nevertheless, the children of Nikolai Alexandrovich and Alexandra Fedorovna Romanov were not brought up in luxury. From early childhood, they were taught to sleep on soldiers' beds, to eat simple food and not always to their fill: during ceremonial dinners, the dishes reached them last, and they were supposed to get up from the table as soon as the emperor did. The royal daughters wore their dresses one after another, and if home clothes were torn or frayed, they were repaired and darned.

Growing up, the princesses began to perform “adult” duties - they replaced the empress at various official events. “It’s good to let girls work independently,” the mother said. “Moreover, they will get to know them better, and they will learn to be useful.”

When the First World War began, they, along with the Empress, worked for many hours in the hospital: caring for the wounded, assisting in operations, and doing bandages.

Once, when Nicholas II and his two eldest daughters, Olga and Tatiana, were visiting Hamburg, during a walk, a mail carriage came around the corner to meet them. A sharp turn and a parcel fell out onto the pavement. The Emperor immediately picked up the box and handed it to the postal worker, who, not recognizing the Russian Tsar, barely nodded in gratitude. Those walking were accompanied by a close friend of the Empress, Anna Vyrubova. When she expressed bewilderment at the king’s action, he only shrugged: “The higher a person is, the sooner he should help everyone and never remind of his position in his address; This is how my children should be!”

Later, after abdicating the throne, while already under arrest in Tsarskoe Selo, the sovereign and his daughters worked hard and with pleasure: they uprooted stumps, dug beds, sawed off branches. “After all, if you give him a piece of land and he works on it himself, he will soon earn all of Russia for himself again,” the soldiers watching the tsar were surprised.

The habit of living simply and not thinking twice about helping those in need helped them greatly in the last months of their lives. For some reason, the guards never heard any complaints about everyday inconvenience from royalty.

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About church education of children

When I talk to my 6-year-old child about God, when I teach him the words of prayer or take him to church, my greatest fear is of harming him. To do or say something that will cool his natural ardor, which will make his faith formal and ultimately alienate him. How to talk to your child about faith so that this doesn’t happen?

How to instill in him a feeling of the living God, how to teach him to look for meaning in life, so that life does not seem empty and boring to him, so that he does not get lost in it one day? And so that, even if he gets lost, he always knows who he can turn to, who he can call on? This is a series of conversations with the rector of the church in the name of the holy great martyr and healer Panteleimon in the village of Ust-Kurdyum, the father of eight children, Archpriest Vladimir Parkhomenko .

Rule #1. Don't overdo it

— Father, how to talk correctly with a child about God, so that everything connected with Him does not turn into a duty for him?

— First, you need to remember that children play games differently from the way adults play. For a child, play is practically reality; he lives by it, without clearly distinguishing play from life in his mind. Therefore, the most important thing is that everything that surrounds the child in the church sense - church, prayer, kissing a cross good night, praying before meals - so that it is not from his point of view, but from your point of view, not a game, so that it is completely natural and organic. How natural it is to wash your hands when you come from the street, and also naturally when you wake up, the first thing you do is offer at least a short prayer to God. If in your mind it is not a game, then he will learn to take it seriously.

“When my child wakes up, the first thing he does is rush to his toys.” Although I explain to him that first he needs to approach the icon...

— Not necessarily to the icon. If the child is small, you can teach him, when he gets up, to turn to God with words of gratitude, lying straight or sitting in bed: thank you, Lord, that I woke up, that you give us life, this day...

It doesn’t need to be long, just like this, in your own words, briefly. I agree, all children are different, but I have not yet seen a single child, including my own children, who could meaningfully recite the Lord’s Prayer at the age of 5-6. That is, yes, his grandmother memorized it with him, he memorized it like a poem and now he’s babbling. But that doesn't mean he understands.

- That's for sure. My child chatters quite smartly, but, of course, doesn’t fully understand. But as a child, not every adult will understand it right away...

- This prayer is simple, but, on the other hand, very deep. And its meaning is sometimes very difficult to explain to a child. But I know that at 7-8 years old, when growing up and school are already underway, it can be much easier to explain.

In our family, we did not set a goal for our children to already know “Our Father” by the age of 6. But it turns out that, living in a church family, by the age of 7-8 they learn it themselves naturally. If mom and dad pray, then the child hears and remembers this prayer.

- In some church books you can find a list of what a child, from the point of view of the authors of these books, supposedly should know by a certain age - what prayers for three years, for six...

- Yes, and by ten he should already know as much as our seminarian does not know!

This is weird. Firstly, this is not written down anywhere, not in any canons. Who came up with this, who said it, on what basis? It is clear that sometimes they refer to authoritative priests, but here it must be taken into account that even an authoritative priest could say something on a private occasion, or taking into account a certain environment.

I believe that the most important thing is to teach a child to pray. Not to memorized texts, but to prayer as a way of communicating with God, so that he gets used to communicating with God. As the holy fathers said, the habit of good things helps and saves. Therefore, in a good sense, a habit must be formed. Let it be brief - “Lord, have mercy”, “Most Holy Theotokos, save us”...

Rule #2. Don't turn it into a formality

- And if the child does not yet understand what he needs to be saved from and why have mercy?

- Yes, you are right, he doesn’t understand, because he doesn’t yet have a feeling of guilt. Therefore, let him pray like this: “Glory to you, Lord!”, “Most Holy Theotokos, pray to God for us.” “Pray,” not “save.”

The main thing is to offer praises to God, praise Him, thank Him, glorify Him. Doxology is the highest form of prayer, and it is precisely this that, in some miraculous way, turns out to be understandable to a child.

You can pray to a saint: “Saint,” let’s say, “Andrey, pray to God for us.” And so explain to him that you have a saint who will pray for you before God so that everything will be fine with you. That is, such simple things.

But the most important thing in religious education is to form in the child the idea that God is alive. That He is everywhere, sees everything, hears everything. He even knows what is in a person’s thoughts, in his heart, so you need to turn to God with your heart—say such phrases to a child.

This does not need to be done on purpose, but on occasion when you talk about God, you need to put this into your consciousness. Then he will not form the idea that the icon in the corner is God, that God is a picture. This attitude incorrectly shapes religious consciousness; it smacks not only of idolatry, but of such a pagan attitude towards God.

— How can we help him feel God as a living Person? After all, God cannot be seen or touched; a child sees only an image from a picture...

— An image is also good, you just need to explain that God is depicted on the icon as He came to earth. But as God He is everywhere. If a child asks questions, you can say - well, you see how air is everywhere or like light, also the Lord - He is the Spirit and therefore is present everywhere, hears everything, knows everything, so you can turn to Him always, at any time. It is clear that these are imperfect images, but they help to understand the analogy.

That’s why we teach children: “When you go to school, pray, or to kindergarten, or before doing something, briefly: “Help me, Lord,” and then the Lord will help, and your work will become better...” That is, this is the simplest way to explain it to him. At least that's how it is in our family. We don't sit down with children and go over the catechism with them.

Then, when the children begin to grow up, you can give them a book to read, give them the Gospel at a certain age...

— By the way, at what age should you start reading the Gospel with your child?

— I don’t know, I have a complex attitude towards the children’s Gospel. If all this happens in church families, then I don’t see the danger. It is clear that a child grows up in a church family, and when he grows up, he will become acquainted with the adult Gospel. But I came across several adults who grew up in not very church families who were simply given these children's Bibles at one time. They read something there with their parents, remembered something, but the attitude remained the same - like a fairy tale, like children's stories like that... Therefore, if the children's Gospel is read in a non-church environment, then I think that this is hardly good.

Rule #3. Speak simply and in a timely manner

— When reading the Gospel, my child is very concerned about the moment of the crucifixion; he asks questions about why Christ is on the Cross, why they killed Him, etc. Worried. I try to explain to him, but he still doesn’t fully understand. How can this be made accessible?

— Yes, sometimes even a child of 5-6 years old wonders why the Lord is on the Cross?

This is all very difficult to explain if you try to explain it like an adult. It must be explained simply, in a form accessible to the child. There is no need to go into the physiological details of the execution of the cross. It must be explained that the Lord ascended to the Cross voluntarily. You still cannot understand this, but He did this to free man from the power of the devil. It is necessary to explain that the devil is a fallen angel who does evil and seduces people into evil. A child may not really understand death or eternal life, but he understands what evil is, what is bad, that there are forces of evil, that there are spirits that are on the side of evil. And so, in order to free us from their power, Christ made such a sacrifice that destroyed their power over man. There is no need to explain how it was destroyed, just state this fact.

And the most important thing is not to separate the crucifixion from the resurrection. He was crucified in order to be resurrected - this is how it must be linked in consciousness. So that the crucifixion is not fixed in the consciousness separately, by itself.

— By the way, about the resurrection. Nowadays, many boys have been playing various computer games since childhood, where the heroes have many lives, where they seem to be constantly resurrected. And they sometimes confuse Christ with a computer hero. A child asks me: Mom, what, God was “unkillable”?

- Yes, yes, resurrection is another bonus... I also encountered this. You see, to say that Christ is “unkillable” means that death meant nothing to Him. No, here we need to move away from these paradigms that are imposed by such games. It must be said that the point is not that He is “unkillable,” but that He truly died. This is the miracle. If He had not died, no miracle would have happened.

In general, with regard to religious education, the situation here is approximately the same as with sex education. Just as one should not tell a child about intimate relationships between a man and a woman ahead of time, so one should not initiate them into the deep secrets of faith ahead of time. Because the child will immediately have a lot of questions that, in principle, cannot be answered. In principle, he will not be able to understand this yet...

Childhood crisis

— Father Vladimir, you said that there is no need to talk about complex theological things with a small child, that due to his age he will not understand much. How do you know when a child is ready? Feel intuitively?

— The child must have a request. At the age of 13-14-15, children begin to rethink, they begin to ask more serious questions - about evil, about suffering and their cause, and then it makes sense to have a serious conversation about this or give them a good Christian book. If a child grows up in a church family, these questions naturally arise in him. And the child’s faith is reborn into a more meaningful faith.

- Is this a painful process?

- Someone like. It's different for my kids. It all depends on the mindset, on the personal characteristics of the person.

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, for example, describing his childhood, said that when he went through such a period of questioning, he did not see in either his grandfather or grandmother the faith that would answer these questions. Both grandfather and grandmother were believers, but Anton Pavlovich writes that the God of my grandfather was such a punishing judge, and the God of my grandmother was absolutely powerless. He just sat on the clouds, dangling his legs down, looked at all sorts of outrages and did not interfere in any way. That is, neither his grandmother nor his grandfather, apparently, were able to convey to him the true light of the gospel truth at one time. Their answers did not satisfy him, as a thinking and developing person, and did not light the fire of faith in him. This was the reason for the cooling in faith that arose for him for some period.

But just for some reason. There is an opinion, and I agree with it, that in terms of the strength of his religious search, Chekhov is the most religious of all Russian writers. Apparently because he himself experienced all this.

“It worked out well with Chekhov, but we also know more serious cases when teenagers literally rebel against the faith of their parents. Does this mean that the parents missed something in their relationship with the child?

- Hard to tell. You see, a person develops, and parents need to understand this, the child grows up, he will have his own life. This is how the Lord created Adam, risking that Adam might leave him, so a parent, giving birth to a child, must understand that the same thing can happen to him. We need to be prepared for this; this is the basis of our teaching about human freedom. No matter how tragic it may be, no matter how difficult it may be...

Yes, you can, up to a certain point, put commandments into a child, as the Lord did with Adam in His time, you can raise him, but he may even go to the other side. This is a parental cross, John Chrysostom also wrote about this.

“But doesn’t going to the other side mean that the parent made some mistake at one time?” He was false here, he was deceitful there, he didn’t understand something perhaps important, he didn’t show love?

- I'll tell you this - no. One can then ask, did God make some mistake when he created Adam? Adam left Him after all. But we understand that God could not make a mistake, Adam simply used the freedom given to him by God the way he wanted.

If we talk specifically about parental mistakes, then one of the most noticeable and tragic should be considered religious violence (let’s call this phenomenon that way), when a child is inadequately churched, completely out of proportion to his infirmities.

I once already gave such an example - in our Russian monasteries there were so-called monastery dachas. Why was this done? So that a monk who, due to a certain period of spiritual development, finds it difficult in the monastery, can rest a little. There was an easier regime of worship, the food was better, and a person could really just relax. That is, a person is overloaded, a person is tired, but spiritually one can also get tired. Remember what St. Anthony the Great wrote about this, his comparison with a bow? That the bow cannot be understretched, then the arrow will not shoot, and it cannot be overstretched, otherwise the bowstring will burst. There must be moderation in everything.

- It’s the same with a child - you can’t overload him...

- Absolutely right. Well, he doesn’t want to go to church on Sunday, he wants to sleep off - let him sleep off.

- That is, there is no need to force him, convince him, argue about this?

- Certainly. If he doesn’t get enough sleep today, tomorrow he will say – go to the bathhouse with your temple. The child will form a protest not on a religious, but simply on a physiological level. Just tired.

Or, let’s say, a child behaves badly in church - he is capricious, crying, because at that time there are a huge number of people in the church. Well, come to the temple at another time, when there are few people! On the contrary, there are children who feel uneasy when the temple is empty; this space scares them. Well, come when the temple is not empty...

Confession is reconciliation

“One of my friends is indignant that small children are dragged to church to receive communion, even for night holiday services. Are you for or against?

“As many parents as I know, no one drags their children to night services unless they themselves ask for it.” What does drag mean? If children want to sleep, they are left at home or do not go to work. And if they do, it’s the other way around, because the children want to. Moreover, they try to make sure that the children can sleep longer before the night service, everything is done adequately. One can, of course, assume that there are parents who drag it out - “I don’t know anything, you’ll go because you have to.” “Why is it necessary?” “Well, that’s it.” Well, then this is wrong, this is already a deadly number...

It’s the same thing when in families some people join the church and others don’t. Anyone who joins a church, this world is open to him. Why is he going to the temple? Because, speaking in secular language, he gets a thrill there, grace.

And if you force him there, he will stand, suffer and leave, because the world has not yet opened to man. It's the same with a child.

— What else is included in the concept of religious violence towards children?

- Well, this is, as people say, an “overdose”, that is, an overload of services, the same fasting...

— Do children from 7 years old fast?

- Yes, there is no such rule. Where did you get this from?

- By analogy with confession.

- Where did you get the idea about confession?

— Everyone says that children need to confess from about 7 years old.

- There is no such rule. The child must confess as needed. There are children who can go to confession even at the age of 5; they do it very well. And there are children who at 8 and 9 years old still do not understand.

It happens that parents bring their child to the first confession - “here, father, they brought him, he is 7 years old...” This, I think, is the worst option for the first confession. The most ideal option is when a child did something like that, some serious offense, and the parents noticed it. For example, a 5-year-old child gets angry with his mother and tells her in his hearts, “I’ll kill you!” And the mother can answer him: “You said such serious words, for which they usually ask for forgiveness...” The child, for example, realized his guilt, said to his mother, “I’m sorry,” and his mother answered him: “I, of course, will forgive you, but for such things we must ask God for forgiveness. And in order to ask God for forgiveness, for this you need to go to confession...”

When the child comes, the priest will explain everything in detail about confession, but a reason is needed for the child to come with the understanding that confession is where reconciliation with God occurs. And not just: I’m 7 years old, here I come. No guilt, no repentance, nothing.

— That is, the child must develop a need?

- It needs to be formed. But for this you need a reason, and not like I had - a girl came, so happy, dressed up, wearing bows, she came solemnly to her first confession - well, this is a contradiction to everything! That is, the child came to confession happy, thinking that he was already 7 years old and had a holiday, and suddenly he had to tell about himself how bad he was. Well, this is nonsense! This is a contradiction of confession.

— Do parents need to tell their child what to confess?

- This is the priest's business. You can simply warn the priest that the child is confessing for the first time, so that he pays attention to him.

Sometimes you can hear as an argument against children's confession that young children cannot yet adequately fight sin. What does this have to do with it? Even adults cannot fight sin with dignity. It doesn't always work out for adults either. Which of us will say that he repented in confession, and then did not repeat this sin again? No, and this is not even possible - human nature is such that passions are not immediately cured.

The main thing is that correct confession helps to form a correct repentant consciousness. A child who repents of disobedience will understand that this is a sin, it will be easier for him to obey and it will be easier for him to correct his mistakes.

Moderation and reasonableness

- What about fasting?

- According to need, according to time. If a family fasts, then, as a rule, children at a certain age usually also want to fast with their parents. I don’t know of a single case where they didn’t want to. There is no need to explain to your child the ascetic meaning of fasting; you won’t explain it to your child anyway. The best explanation is that a special time comes when the whole Church fasts, and we fast with it. This will give the child a proper sense of belonging. There is no need to go deeper.

— What about restrictions? Children cannot fast like adults. Or can they?

— The most important limitation for a child is the limitation in entertainment. Computer games, TV - all this can be excluded during fasting. And then in ascending order - sweets and chocolate, ice cream. Older children, if they can not eat meat, can be limited in meat, except, say, on weekends. If a child cannot live without meat, let him know for sure that fasting is a time when ice cream and chocolate are not allowed. For him, this will also be a fast; he will form the correct attitude of refusing something symbolic that gives pleasure. You cannot torture a child with fasting; a child’s fast should be moderate and reasonable. However, just like an adult.

— That is, the parents themselves establish the rules of fasting for the child?

- Certainly.

— What if the child still wants to eat candy and starts begging and being capricious?

- We need to look at the situation. Mom should already feel this. If the child is already, as they say, off the charts, you can give it, but say, look, eat it now, and then fast again.

The image is in you

— Many questions arise about attending services with young children. On the one hand, I want the child to stand longer at the service, pray, and think. On the other hand, this “standing” - it should be meaningful for the child, he shouldn’t stand there like a candlestick - just because he has to. How to explain to a child the meaning of worship? How to interest him?

— It’s very easy to get interested—start with the simplest things. There is no need to study the catechism with him or explain the meaning of liturgical texts.

How a child first tastes ordinary life - he licked it here, touched it there, absolutely everything is the same in church life. I went into the church and smelled it: incense, candles burning beautifully... I smelled it, felt it, looked... It’s all absolutely normal.

When the child has grown up, you can try to explain to him the symbolic meaning of the service. First, the symbol of the temple, what is in it and why, why is this so, what does it mean when the priest comes out with the Gospel, what does censing mean, etc.

—What does it mean, by the way?

- This is a very ancient pious custom. The priest, censing an icon or a person, honors the image of God in it and in those saints who are depicted on the icons. And to a child, if he suddenly asks, you can say that this is such a form of respect and that the priest in this way honors the image of God, which is in the saints and in you. Because you are God’s creation, that’s why they burn you incense too. Just imagine how interesting it will be for him...

Violence and untimeliness are two mistakes of religious education. There is no need to tell your child: “Ahhh, you don’t understand anything about worship?!” Let me explain to you now!..” This is nonsense; it suits a child neither in the village nor in the city, neither in the mind nor in the heart. Let him understand what he understands, what is available to him, and over time...

When they say that if you don’t explain anything to a child, but just give candles to smell, then his spiritual life will remain at this level, I don’t believe it. It may remain if there is no further development. But any normal child develops. Including spiritually.

And this moment cannot be missed. Does your child like to light candles? Great, so be it. Tell him, as if by chance, the symbolic meaning of the candle, why it is a candle, what it is made of, why they put a candle like this, and not a black one, not a blue one. That it is made of wax that burns and that it is a symbol of the burning of the human spirit, etc.

“Packs, packs, like cherubs...”

— How to teach a child to understand Church Slavonic? Adapt, translate, explain the meaning of words?

- What for? Fifty percent of the liturgical text that a child hears in church is understandable to him. The same litanies “Lord, have mercy!” Is it really not clear to him?

- And everything else?

“And everything else still needs to be developed.” Now if I translate some theological texts, you still won’t understand anything. There are levels, like in school - first grade and eleventh grade. It's the same in spiritual life.

For the Church, the Church Slavonic language has never been a problem; I believe that this is an artificially invented problem when they say: “Oh, I’m standing in the church, I don’t understand anything at all!” This is nonsense, I will never believe it. Why? Because this can be said by a person who is not standing in the temple.

So I myself was a Soviet cadet, I was never taught any Slavic language, I was in it boom-boom. But when I came to the temple, I can’t say that I didn’t understand anything, because I understood the main thing: “Lord, have mercy” and the prayer “Our Father.” And the rest of the texts are okay, everything has its time. The apostles followed Christ—they also didn’t understand everything right away. There is no need to make a problem out of this. Don’t think that if you don’t understand something, the prayer has passed you by. Nothing like that.

By the way, in church texts are not just read. There is also the rhythm of the service, its symbolism, when the priest enters, leaves, this movement - what is it for? Including in order to outwardly express those ideas that may not be perceived by ear. This is the meaning of worship; it has a comprehensive impact on a person. Will a deaf person come to church, for example? He does not hear what is said and sung in the temple, but, seeing the outside and knowing in principle what is happening, he is included in it and participates in it.

What is language and how does a child learn it? You don’t explain to him the meaning of each word, he just hears and compares, because he has a brain and the ability to analyze. So is the Church Slavonic language. How many people I know who go to church, they never studied the language specifically, but over time they began to understand everything perfectly. It has become as natural to them as the language they have been speaking since birth. They never looked in the dictionary, but the meaning of the word “like” will be explained to you.

The light in which God lives

— When you bring a child who already understands something to the Chalice, how can you explain to him what is happening and what the Body and Blood of Christ are? My 6 year old child doesn’t really understand...

“When they start telling a child, don’t cry, now they’ll give you delicious bread, sweet water or something like that - this is a mistake.” No need to say this! Here it is better to use such a concept, on the one hand, little understandable for a child, but great for every person, as a shrine. “This is a great shrine, through it we are sanctified by God Himself...”

-What is a shrine?

- This is what sanctifies a person, spiritual light. You can explain it this way: there is physical light that you see, and there is also spiritual light, invisible. This is the light in which God lives. And you are sanctified by this spiritual light. Therefore, all evil departs from you and God Himself is present in you.

And this cup is not simple, it is Christ’s; one can even say that Christ Himself invisibly abides in it. There is no need to focus on the bread, it must be said that in the Chalice there are such mysteries of Christ that you accept into yourself and through them you are sanctified.

When the child has grown up and is 8-9 years old, then you can already tell how this all happens, how in the Chalice wine and bread turn into the Body and Blood of Christ. What Liturgy is is the most important service, and this is why it is served, so that during this service the prepared bread and wine, after the Holy Spirit descends on them through the prayers of the priest, become the Body and Blood of Christ. Say that this is a secret, and it is impossible to completely clear it, but the entire history of the Church, all its experience testifies that this is really so.

It can be added that many different miracles occurred from communion; you can read, for example, the life of Sergius of Radonezh, where it is described how fire descended into the Chalice when he took communion from it...

- How can you explain to a child who the saints are? He sees icons, lights candles, he must understand who and who these people are.

- This is very good, this is where churching should begin. It must start from the bottom up, not from the top down. Just before you put a candle to the icon, especially if he starts asking, you need to say: “Here, you see? There are many different icons here, these are images of holy people...” And you yourself must know the lives of at least some saints in order to approach your child and tell him in three to five sentences about the life of this righteous man.

- So that he understands that this was a living person who lived an ordinary earthly life, and not just a picture on the wall...

- Yes, and not just an ordinary life, but a holy life, because he united with God. And now he is close to God. That you can end your life and be in darkness, or you can connect with the Light.

It can be explained that in spiritual life everything is the same as in physical life. “It’s good for you when you’re warm, when the sun is shining, or you turn on the light bulb at home, because you’re used to living in the light, it’s good in the light... Now imagine how you would live in the darkness. And in order not to live in darkness, you need to be a saint, and for this you need to get closer to God. But this saint did it in his life in such and such a way. That's roughly how to explain it.

To do this, you need to know in advance where each icon is. It is not necessary to light candles for all the icons every time. “Let’s light a candle to this saint today and ask him to pray for us...” And then you tell his story. And then everything will be normal and natural, as it should be.

The little ones are sleeping...

— If a child is tired and doesn’t want to stand, do you need to convince him to stand a little longer or let him go for a walk?

“Now all the churches have playgrounds, especially so that children can play, so that they don’t associate the church exclusively with this “standing.”

I was once asked a question: why did you set up a kindergarten here? And everything is very simple. In Soviet times, there were simply no children in churches, and there was no such problem. And today, thank God, there are children.

Everyone understands that a child cannot just stand still. Even if he is with his mother and does not make noise, he still moves, this is natural.

Even when we take children to serve at the altar (we have this practice in churches), we constantly ask if they are tired. There are children who really want to serve and are simply eager to go to the altar. But the service is over, and it’s as if the wind is blowing them away. Once - and they are already on the street - running, playing, laughing...

Some priests who do not have adult altar servers have one problem that they come to terms with. According to the rules, the altar server must come to the temple before the priest and begin preparing everything in the altar for the service. But the little altar boys are usually still sleeping at this time. Naturally, you allow them to come later so that they can sleep longer on Sunday. At least one day a week...

Newspaper "Saratov Panorama" No. 22 (1052)

Source: https://eparhia-saratov.ru

Elena Balayan talked with Archpriest Vladimir Parkhomenko

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