“There are saints around me,” a priest’s story about how he first confessed

Svyatoslav Ivanovich Shevchenko
(born 1977), priest, cleric of the Annunciation Cathedral Born on November 25, 1977 in Blagoveshchensk, Amur Region, he received the name Stanislav at birth. In 1983-1992 he studied at secondary school No. 9 in his hometown.

In 1992-1996 he studied at the Blagoveshchensk Communal and Construction College. He served in the army in the border troops. He worked as a janitor, watchman, fireman, plumber, waiter, bartender, and journalist.

Came to the Church through journalism. He was baptized in 1999 in Blagoveshchensk, taking the name of the holy noble prince Svyatoslav Yuryevsky [1].

On July 4, 2004, he was ordained to the rank of deacon and until 2011 served as a cleric of the St. Gabriel-Arkhangelsk Monastery.

In 2007, he graduated in absentia from Blagoveshchensk State Pedagogical University with a degree in teacher of Russian language and literature.

Since December 6, 2011 - Head of the Public Relations Department and Press Service of the Annunciation Diocese.

On February 15, 2012, Bishop Lukian of the Annunciation ordained him to the rank of priest and appointed him a priest of the Annunciation Cathedral.

He was a member of the Councils for Interreligious Relations and the Harmonization of Interethnic Relations under the Governor of the Amur Region, the Expert Council under the Commissioner for Children's Rights of the Amur Region, and the Coordination Council for the Problems of Teaching ORKSE under the Ministry of Education and Science of the Amur Region. Teacher of “Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture” at the private school “Our House” in the city of Blagoveshchensk.

On June 26, 2014, he was relieved of his position as press secretary in order to free up more time for public relations.

On September 18, 2014, she was released from the post of head of the Public Relations Department due to the abolition of the position with an expression of gratitude from the ruling bishop for the work she had done [2].

On October 23 of the same year, by decision of the Holy Synod, he was included in the Inter-Council Presence of the Russian Orthodox Church, in the Commission on the Information Activities of the Church and Relations with the Media [3].

Taranushenko Georgy

Mitred Archpriest, Rector of the Church of the Holy Martyrs and Passion-Bearers Boris and Gleb in Degunin (Moscow)

Publications on the site:
Articles, reports, sermons: 1.

Priest Svyatoslav Shevchenko: “The main meaning of any family is to make their loved ones happy”

Priest Svyatoslav Shevchenko for “The ABCs of Marriage”

Father Svyatoslav Shevchenko, a famous Orthodox blogger, chairman of the commission on family issues of the Annunciation diocese, answered several questions for the ABC of Matrimony website.

‒ What questions and problems do family parishioners come to you with? What advice do you give them?

- Indeed, 80–90% of all questions addressed to me as a priest are related to family. Most of these questions are about the relationship between husband and wife. The next group of issues that are asked about is about raising children and building bridges with teenage children. In third place I would place questions regarding the family’s relationship with the spouses’ parents. I formulate advice individually, based on each specific situation. But in most family conflicts between husband and wife, I propose to introduce a “negotiation table” project. A constant day and hour is chosen when the spouses meet alone at the table over a cup of tea or even a glass of wine - and calmly take turns expressing what annoys them about each other. The key to success is that each party promises to work to eliminate irritating factors.

‒ Are there any unusual problems?

- Almost every individual case has its own unusualness. So much so that at least write a script and shoot a series. For example, a teenage daughter starts listening to heavy music and paints her hair and nails black, which scares her parents. In another situation, the husband is stuck playing a computer game. In the third case, the mother-in-law methodically and inventively destroys the families of her children.

‒ What most often destroys peace in a family?

- There are many such reasons. But the most disgusting motives are selfishness, indifference, understatement. Love is a category of need, and if a wife stops feeling that her husband needs her, and vice versa, then the marriage begins to fall apart at the seams. Suddenly there are two egoists in the same living space, for whom it is important to insist on their own. They don't care about the opinions of the other side. Well, the game of silence adds fuel to this fire. For example, it seems to a woman that the man guesses about the true causes of the conflict, but in reality he is neither in sleep nor in spirit.

‒ How to strengthen a family, what would you advise?

- Spouses need to remember why they initially chose and fell in love with each other. That is, you need to start looking for positive aspects and happy moments in your life together. Then turn on the mode of caring for your chosen one: ask how the day went, what happened at work, wish you “enjoy your steam” and “good night”, offer to go somewhere together, and so on.

- Why do quarrels arise out of nowhere? It happens that later the spouses do not understand what the conflict was about.

- In fact, the causes of quarrels turn out to be secondary or even an afterthought. Because in a house that is filled with the “gas” of mutual dissatisfaction, claims and alienation, one spark is enough. Do the same as residents behave when there is a gas leak in the apartment: first you need to turn off the gas supply valve and ventilate the premises. Likewise, spouses should relieve tension between themselves. This is impossible without compromises. To do this, you will need to dampen your pride.

‒ How not to delve into everyday problems so as not to lose love in the family?

- Learn to notice and appreciate the people you love around you, thank God for what he has given us. After all, the main purpose of any family is to make their relatives happy. Unfortunately, we often get the opposite. We only poison the atmosphere around us. Remember Dolina’s song that “The most important thing is the weather in the house, and everything else is vanity”? This line should become the slogan of any family. After all, it is we who create those thunderclouds, the stormy wind with all that it entails.

‒ The family needs to be supported, what would you advise?

- Let everyone start with themselves. And first of all, you need to change the motivation for creating and existing a family in your mind. We find the ideal model in Christian marriage. In it, a man and a woman are thought of as halves of one whole, a single team that sails on the waves of the sea of ​​life on a ship called “Family”, on the course “Earth - Kingdom of Heaven”. That is why a family of believers is called a small Church, where the head of the family loves his wife as himself, and his wife loves him so much that she is afraid to upset her betrothed. And children, seeing such love in the family, will be able to create their own healthy family without any problems. As the holy fathers say, put God in the main place, and everything else will fall into place.

Interviewed by Alexandra Gripas

Russian weapons deal a blow to the dollar monopoly

There are several professions and callings that, due to their specificity, expose a person to the danger of turning into a cynical specimen of homo sapiens. I’ll name just a few of them off the top of my head: a doctor, a funeral service worker and a priest. Can you guess what they have in common?

Absolutely true: all three are constantly faced with death and grief.

When you see the tears of your loved ones bending over the deceased for the hundredth time, they no longer touch your heart

It’s like in war, according to the stories of combatants, at first you feel sick at the sight of the dead, and then you get used to it. It’s much easier with a funeral service employee. He doesn’t need to be in as close contact with people as a doctor or a priest. Maybe this is why good doctors and priests are worth their weight in gold?

I will say even more: it is much more difficult for a priest to remain a sensitive, empathetic person for a physician. And there are several factors for this:

Pharisee effect

When you read the same prayers day after day for several years, hear popular Gospel passages during services, they begin to blur and lose their original, deep meaning. Little by little, you don’t have time to notice how for you it becomes something superficial, a set of dry schemes and rules. You stop thinking about what you read and hear. The worst thing is that you suddenly stop identifying yourself with this coordinate system. Gospel truths turn in your mind into stock phrases, into dead catchphrases.

The grayness of everyday life

When the novelty of the first religious sensations, the freshness of the feeling of meeting with God begins to dull, a period of dullness begins in everyday life. When, behind a series of demands and services, you no longer see the image of God in every person, you turn into a machine for fulfilling demands. When you see the tears of your loved ones bending over the deceased for the hundredth time, they no longer touch your heart. When you give communion for the thousandth time to a terminally ill person who is already looking into eternity, it is already a burden for you to feel even a hundredth part of his experiences. When you celebrate the liturgy endlessly, you often forget that God is nearby.

Church navel

Here he is - a young priest. And he will have to go through a serious test. When they kiss your hand (after 200–300 blessings you already forget that it is through your blessing right hand that God blesses), when gray-haired elders ask you for advice, when you broadcast your sermons from the pulpit... It may suddenly seem that it is you who is revolving around you. church world. Suddenly it seems that people are for you, and not you for people. When your own “I” has become so swollen that it has obscured Christ.

Even though I have described the extremes in the spiritual life of a priest, these are real temptations for each of us that prevent us from carrying church obedience high above our heads. Therefore, my dears, do not condemn us once again, because, according to the word of St. John Chrysostom, few of us will be saved in eternity.

Source: Blog of Priest Svyatoslav Shevchenko