Priest Pavel Ostrovsky: biography, social activities, work on social networks, Good Deeds group

Priest Pavel Ostrovsky is a popular young preacher. Conducting missionary activities on social networks, he gained trust and authority among modern youth.

“...I believe that a person who is not subscribed to God
should unfollow me."

Pavel Ostrovsky

priest

Father Pavel is a participant in the international project “Father Online”.

The priest became famous not only for his ability to tell complex things in simple words, but also for his good sense of humor, which cannot but attract attention.

Meetings of Father Pavel with schoolchildren and university students

short biography

Priest Pavel Konstantinovich Ostrovsky was born on July 7, 1982 into the family of a priest.

At the moment, he serves as rector of the St. Nicholas Church in the city of Krasnogorsk, Moscow diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church.

July 7, 1982

birthday of priest Pavel Ostrovsky

Head of the Krasnogorsk department of biblical and theological courses, teacher and publicist. Founder of the charity group “Good Deeds”.

In 2008 he graduated from the Kolomna Orthodox Theological Seminary.

On September 14, 2008, he was consecrated by Metropolitan Juvenaly of Krutitsky and Kolomna in Preobrazhenskoye in the church of Lyubertsy.

Blogging and social activities

Pavel Ostrovsky has a gift - he knows how to explain serious theses in simple words. It was this talent that helped the priest gain popularity among young people. Young people are interested in communicating with the priest also because he has a great sense of humor.

Pavel Ostrovsky takes part in the “Father Online” project. Many social networks have a special account or group in which young people can contact the clergy and get an answer. You can communicate with the clergy on Vkontakte, Odnoklassniki, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube.

Priests from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and the United States have noticed that young people need spiritual communication, but are embarrassed to come to church. Then the Church ministers decided to become closer to young people using social networks, where they spend most of their time.

Thanks to online communication with priests, teenagers learn the basics of faith and learn to understand the texts of the New Testament. With the help of social networks, clergy teach young people how to properly confess, talk about their sins and receive communion.

Father Pavel Ostrovsky himself preaches on Instagram and YouTube. Or rather, he records his sermons on video and posts them on the Internet. Father Pavel has his own VKontakte and Facebook accounts. According to the clergyman, in this way he wants to attract young people into the fold of the Church and help people find faith in God.

Priest Pavel - hereditary priest

With dad Konstantin Ostrovsky and older brother Konstantin (in the world Ilya Ostrovsky)
His father, Archpriest Konstantin Yuryevich Ostrovsky was born in 1951 in Moscow. Dean of churches of the Krasnogorsk district. However, before that, after graduating from the Moscow Institute of Electronic Engineering, he worked as a programmer. He received baptism in 1978 and began serving as an altar boy.

About the childhood and youth of Pavel Ostrovsky

What they write about him: a member of a family dynasty of priests is pure truth; Pavel Konstantinovich’s father and all three older brothers are deeply religious, and two of them dedicated their lives to serving God. We must first tell you who Father Pavel’s father is: Archpriest Konstantin Ostrovsky was born in Moscow in 1951, graduated from a mathematics school, then studied at the capital’s Institute of Mechanical Engineering, and after graduating he worked as a programmer. Interesting fact: Pavel Konstantinovich’s dad was baptized already in adulthood; he was baptized in 1978. The son told about his father (and Father Konstantin himself does not deny this) that his father in his youth was a very “aggressive” believer: for example, he so persistently persuaded his mother, Pavel’s grandmother, to go to church that he achieved the opposite effect: the woman began to attend temples only in a few years.

Pavel is 5 years old

The fact that three of the sons of Father Konstantin took holy orders, and all four are deeply religious people: this will happen later, when the brothers grow up - and in childhood, as Pavel recalled, they hardly thought that they would completely devote themselves to the church. One can even say more, from the words of Priest Ostrovsky: due to the fact that faith was preached too strongly in his family (he himself admits this and is not embarrassed to say so), the boy, with all his might, out of a sense of contradiction, wanted to run away from the faith, and “had to forcefully return to this faith,” his words. Even the fact that he was sent to church Sunday school did not instill obedience in him, but on the contrary - he tried to behave well at school, but after school he continued to be a hooligan.

“My firm conviction is that I came to God so late, and it was Sunday school that had a very negative impact on this. Not because they taught bad things there, not at all! It’s just that my dad ran this Sunday school, and I was constantly trying to get away from his close tutelage,” his frank words. Paul also said that he read prayers very well already at the age of nine, but did not do it too sincerely: “I don’t even remember whether I prayed with all my soul then.” But those around him really liked how well the boy Pavel sang psalms or read prayers, and they said: “What a bright child!” And they didn’t even suspect that after church the teenager went to his hooligan friends to smoke and drink with them. Father Pavel spoke quite openly about his sinful past, without hesitation - surely with this honesty and sincerity he is now gaining such authority among young people.

carefree youth

An incident that Pavel Ostrovsky described in an interview: “A woman came up to me after prayer in church and with tears in her eyes asked: “Please pray for my son Vitenka (I changed his name), otherwise he smokes and drinks!” I promised to do this, and now I’m ashamed to say, I went after church just to that Vita, and we drank together...” Now the priest sincerely admits such terrible double standards, explaining his behavior like this: “The soul was empty, God was there for now there was none, and I filled this emptiness with rants, obscenities, and football fanaticism. They say it right - a holy place is never empty!” In his opinion, his parents made a mistake by sending him to be raised (in terms of faith) by other people, in Sunday school, and this led to the wrong result: his desire to believe in God was “formalized,” and on the contrary, they killed his intentions to sincerely believe.

Pavel Ostrovsky with his mother

Dad and mom, according to him, accomplished a real feat when he was a high school student: they finally stopped “pressuring” their son, deciding: “What’s the point of insisting if he still does everything his own way?” And in high school, according to Ostrovsky, “real hell” began for him! He graduated from the ninth grade with many C grades in his certificate, and because of his bad behavior, the boy was transferred to another class - to the same hooligans. The teachers wanted to correct him, but again the opposite effect happened: Pavel became the real leader of a hooligan gang in the class, and they “ruined the life of the whole school,” - his words. In the tenth grade, the student Ostrovsky skipped about half of his classes, in the eleventh - 60%, and in the school certificate he ended up with only one four, the rest - three.

high school graduation

“There was no “click”, no sudden change in the good direction, I decided to enter the theological seminary completely sincerely,” this is how he talks about his decision to become a priest after school. “I was even going to become a monk!” – says Pavel now. Joyfully going to fraternal prayer services, despite the fact that you had to get up at five o’clock in the morning, studying with pleasure: indeed, calmness gradually came to the soul after a stormy teenage period, faith in God became stronger - these were, according to Paul , some “beacons” that his faith was still sincere. “Nobody forced me to attend early morning prayer services, and it was very annoying, for example, when my fellow seminary students drank Cahors in the evenings. Perhaps the seed of faith was already sown in me, it just turned out to be buried so deeply that it was difficult to germinate,” his thoughts about the first period of study at the seminary.

And at the same time, he did not completely get rid of the habits that almost led him to disaster - Father Pavel also talks about this now without hesitation. For example, he admits that he went to confession, repented that he was drinking beer, and immediately after confession he went to drink beer outside the seminary! Or he was inwardly indignant that third-year students were abusing Cahors, but he himself periodically dabbled in strong alcohol. “The indifference that was in me - you can’t imagine what level it was then!” – now he laughs and shares the details of his youth. “Where could seminarians find alcohol if it was prohibited within the walls of the seminary?” – some will ask. Priest Ostrovsky revealed a terrible secret, telling about it: “On the territory of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra there was a cafe for foreigners, you could go there, say a few phrases in English, and pretend to be a tourist, and buy alcohol. That’s what I did!”

https://www.instagram.com/pavelostrovski/

Father Pavel certainly has a sense of humor; he talked about it in such a way in a radio interview on the “radiovera” channel that both presenters laughed with him. “The main thing is to come there without a seminarian’s jacket. I said a few English words, and that’s it – they give you alcohol,” another fragment from the conversation. Moreover, the leadership of the seminary, as Pavel honestly mentioned, did not inspect this institution, and therefore they never caught students engaged in an unsightly activity. The future priest was expelled for the first time not because of violations of discipline: “They tried to catch me for violations, but they couldn’t - I was very cunning,” - again his confession. The expulsion happened, according to him, for a completely different reason: he fell seriously ill, seemed to have recovered, and in the spring (Pavel was already in his second year) a relapse occurred. “The leadership of the seminary could not allow me to die from frontal sinusitis within the walls of the institution (I was seriously ill with it), and they took me and expelled me simply out of fear that the reputation of the seminary would be ruined by my death,” - this is what Paul openly said today. .

But this was, to be completely honest, a purely formal reason, and Pavel Ostrovsky also admits this fact: “After I was expelled, my father went to the rector to apologize for me, and they showed him my explanatory notes, and they showed only a small part of what I did, and what was explained in these papers.” It must be admitted that the young man’s parents did not swear at him at all after his expulsion from the theological seminary in terms of the fact that they were nervous about his future. His father and mother just talked to him, they wanted to understand what interests him, what he wants to do next. “We had conversations with my dad: he tried to find out what my calling was, the humanities and mathematics were discussed, but I wasn’t drawn to anything at all!” - from Pavel Ostrovsky’s sincere stories about that period.

https://www.instagram.com/pavelostrovski/

“Well, then you just need to go to work,” said Ostrovsky Sr., and the son went to “sexton”: Paul used this word in a story about life after expulsion from the seminary. He could not serve in the army - he was discharged after suffering severe frontal sinusitis (inflammation of the nasal sinuses). More words from the future priest: “I am very grateful to my parents that they did not force me to go to study, because even if I had, I would not have studied anywhere.” He didn’t completely turn away from the church, because he worked there, and he continued to go to services and prayed at home: “But still, I didn’t lead a very good lifestyle, I continued to drink periodically. True, he confessed and took communion. And there was no fornication! I clearly decided for myself that this cannot be done,” again his words.

Happy father of his family

Father Pavel Ostrovsky has a family. His wife's name is Margarita, they got married in 2004. They have three children.

Paul says this about family life:

“I am immensely grateful to God for my wife:
for all her character traits: for her manner of behavior and communication...
To lie to you, dear readers, about
that my wife seems ideal to me, I won’t.
But the Lord arranged it this way,
that all my wife’s imperfections have a positive effect on me:
They educate me, humble me, teach me patience.
Family life is snowfall.
If you are at peace with your wife and love her, then flakes of snow in your face make you smile...
But if there is no peace, then the snow is annoying...
The devil knows that if there is no peace between husband and wife, then sooner or later love will leave.
Therefore, maintaining peace in the family is the most important thing.”

Pavel Ostrovsky

priest

Pavel Ostrovsky with his wife, daughters and son Nikita

See also the article Andrey Tkachev: biography, family photos

His difficult path to God

Those around him at that time were surprised: how could this young man combine completely sincere faith in God and at the same time far from perfect behavior? Here is another fragment of Pavel’s story about himself: “If someone began to openly blaspheme in front of me, he could get punched in the face from me! And at the same time I blasphemed and desecrated everything around me, that is, I set a terrible personal example - what was, was. The young man, while working as a sexton in the church, began to become interested in photography: “I was good at it, and I could even make money from it if I wanted. But I had enough money for sextonism and for the choir; I didn’t worry about money at all,” almost verbatim from Pavel’s revelations in an interview.

Pavel Ostrovsky in his youth (2008)

“When the bright light began to break through to God, at what point did it happen that you completely abandoned your past life?” – the journalist asked Pavel Ostrovsky in the conversation “The Path to the Priesthood.” “To be honest, I didn’t have such a bright flash, a meeting with the Lord, I woke up in the morning, went to work, my generally meaningless life continued,” was the answer given. In fact, he had an “outbreak” when his fiancee tragically died, and when the whole life of the simple sexton Pavel, who did not particularly show zeal in serving God, changed at once. And then the second important event in his life happened - a meeting with his current wife Margarita, who completely changed him as a person and sent him on the path that the priest is now walking: the details of Pavel Ostrovsky’s personal life will be described in more detail a little later.

One thing must be said now: having met a girl who was completely an unbeliever, but who began to be interested in Christianity, through conversations with her, he himself came to the decision that he needed to completely change and re-enter the seminary. “Does this really happen? For a guy who smoked, drank, and had real double standards (he worked in a church!) to suddenly change so radically?” – skeptics will ask. And their distrust will have a basis: in fact, it is difficult to believe that a person would so easily give up a terrible way of life, become an exemplary Christian, and begin to instruct others on the true path. In 2004, according to Paul, his brain “switched sharply”: there were no divine phenomena, no light of God that sent him a certain signal. It’s just that at twenty-one years old, Pavel Ostrovsky suddenly realized that before that there was “freezing, a kind of cryochamber, and not life” - again his statement.

Pavel Ostrovsky and Veronica Ivashchenko

Having entered the seminary, he began to actively participate in debates on the Internet, visiting various forums where they argued about faith. He did this anonymously in those years, and later commented with a laugh: “Thank God, my subscribers now cannot read what I allowed then in chats and forums! There was a terrible heresy there, and I used foul language terribly, defending the faith of God!” He started reading books because “heretics and Protestants constantly tried to put me in a puddle, and I had no arguments against their statements” - a fragment from an interview. And again we need to mention Paul’s wife, whom he met: the girl became his wife not only because of sympathy at first, and then because of love, but also because he found a like-minded person in her, bringing her to Vera. “I understood that when I got married, I would be with her for sixty years, if God gave us that much, and glory to Him that I made such a decision. I’ll even say more: I myself didn’t fully understand what the priesthood would be like, to which I was then drawn, but my wife fully supported me.” So he remembers with gratitude the period when he and Margarita just got married.

In 2008, Pavel Ostrovsky graduated from the seminary - he entered a religious institution, this time in Kolomna. It was a very long way to go to class, so the young man decided to study externally, by correspondence. But I still had to go to the exams: “It was hellish torment - first it took four hours to get there, and the same amount of time to go home. It was a cross, but there was also a benefit: I learned what I had not grown up to before,” so Pavel later talks about several years of study. And he was more and more drawn to the priesthood: he could be ordained after the second year, but Bishop Juvenaly did not give the student Ostrovsky permission to do this: “Wait another year.” “The Lord, through Metropolitan Juvenaly, “endured” me in this way so that I would fully mature and fully understand my path,” Pavel later said, describing how he clenched his teeth, but agreed to endure another year.

Vladyka Yuvenaly refused Paul in both the third and fourth years! “And around me, my classmates were already ordained one after another, and the fire was already burning inside me, but I held back my patience, I understood that the Lord was testing. Well, when I graduated from the seminary, then I was definitely ordained,” - this is how Father Paul’s long journey to real service to God ended. “And it’s good that I wasn’t ordained after my second year!” – says Pavel Ostrovsky, explaining it this way: “I was burning with the desire to become a priest, but now I understand that then I was not fully mature enough to do so. The seminary, in which I studied to the end, and only then became a clergyman - it helped me to fully understand what until then I had not truly understood deeply; correctly, I was denied for several years in a row.”

The rector of the temple in the Pavshinskaya floodplain of Krasnogorsk near Moscow - this is the appointment Pavel Ostrovsky received, and where he went after the seminary with his wife. And again we need to mention this amazing woman, because when her husband said to her: “We’ll go to the region, we’ll take care of the housework, and maybe you’ll even have to milk the cow,” she happily agreed. “She was confident in me, that’s why she went with me without looking back,” he notes now with a smile. Almost immediately upon his arrival in Krasnogorsk, in addition to his main activities, Pavel Ostrovsky set out to create a Gospel circle, although many, even older parishioners, did not understand him: “Why is this necessary? And so everyone knows the Gospel!” But Father Pavel insisted on his own, despite the fact that at first only two or three people came to the circle. He very quickly gained the trust of people in the city with his sincerity and sincerity, but Pavel Ostrovsky undoubtedly won the greatest popularity among believers with his activities on the Internet and on television.

A little about the project “Father Online”

As reality shows, today's youth are in dire need of spiritual communication. This can be seen by observing how students ask numerous questions to priests at relevant events. But there is not enough time to answer everyone in detail.

Therefore, it was decided to develop an international project “Father Online”, where anyone can see a priest in real time. More than a hundred priests from different cities of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, the USA and other countries are taking part in the project.

There is a VKontakte group, there are accounts on Instagram, Facebook, Periscope, Twitter, YouTube, Odnoklassniki.

Topics raised here: man - the Image of God, the Personality of the Savior and His Divine and Human nature, the New Testament and how to correctly understand it, Spiritual life in modern society.

But the most common and painful question always remains the question of confession and Communion. Young people are afraid and embarrassed to tell their sins in confession. The priest’s task is to calm and psychologically prepare for participation in the sacraments in the church.

See also the article by Evgeniy Popichenko

About his personal life and family

Now Pavel Ostrovsky is the head of a large family, he has a wife and three children, and he tries to raise them so that they choose their own path. This does not mean that in Father Pavel’s family everything is left to chance, and his children can at any moment “go into all sorts of troubles, not at all! Father and mother unobtrusively but firmly guide their offspring on the right path in life, showing by their example that faith will help in any doubts and will always lead to the right path.

But was everything smooth for Pavel Konstantinovich in terms of his personal life? Did he immediately find the woman who agreed to share with him the difficult life of being a church minister? The man does not hide the fact that he did not come to his current family happiness right away: he was first destined to experience a terrible tragedy, the loss of a loved one.

2004 Pavel Ostrovsky was united with his wife Margarita in the Sacrament of Wedding

Anna Guseva was the name of the girl who was Pavel’s fiancee, but never became his wife. Pavel Konstantinovich knew Anya from early childhood, as well as her parents; they maintained friendly relations in childhood, and when they grew up, they began to meet. Both Pavel’s parents and Anya’s mom and dad were sure that their children, when they became conscious and “ripened” to the decision to start a family, would themselves want to get married. That is, no one put pressure on Pavel, did not force him to marry Anna, but at the same time all the relatives expected them to start a family, and this is, in principle, normal when young people meet constantly and they have common interests. Pavel himself, in a program on the “Faith: Bright Radio” program, said that he and Anna were unusually close spiritually: “Anya was a very bright girl, pious, modest, and at the same time educated and well-read,” - his words.

with his wife

The priest in the same program named the exact date when he and Anya decided to get married and went to church to ask for blessings for the marriage - it was the third of June 2003. They went for a blessing to Father Georgy Breev: meaning Georgy Pavlovich Breev, rector of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Moscow district of Krylatskoye. The relatives of the young people, of course, knew that the couple had gone to ask for blessings for the marriage, and no one doubted: after the conversation with Father George, an engagement would follow, and then a wedding. Paul himself later said: “When a guy and a girl have been dating almost since childhood, both are believers, and their parents are on excellent terms, the couple is immediately blessed for marriage, and we expected the same.” However, Priest George did not give a blessing, but he did not categorically refuse the young people, he simply said to Paul: “Come back in a year, then we’ll talk.”

What guided Georgy Breev, and why he did not give his blessing for the wedding - Father Pavel never talked about this, but he admitted today that he was very upset: “I already had thoughts in my head about an imminent wedding, that there would be a family, the words of my father George made me terribly upset.” But a year later, the young lovers were unable to come to the priest with a second attempt at blessing. This is how Pavel Konstantinovich himself describes this terrible day on March 6, 2004: “It was nine o’clock in the morning, the second oldest brother (this is Father John) came to me and said so simply: “Anya crashed her car.” The girl Anya, according to her fiancé, was very loved by everyone who knew her, and this was a terrible tragedy not only for Pavel and her parents, but for all her friends. The would-be groom described his feelings this way when his older brother brought this news to him: “It seemed to me that all my skin instantly peeled off...”

But he felt not only pity for his dead bride, although, of course, first of all, Pavel experienced incredible grief. This is how he himself described his feelings in the first moments when he learned about Anna’s death: “I had pity for Anna, yes, but not for myself! Although everyone around me was egging me on to pity and tears: how could it be, such a misfortune, the bride died! I suddenly realized that I could die too, and no one has power over my life, it could happen against my will at any moment. This death led many people to God, but it turned me completely to the Lord. The realization that I could die, like my bride, put the thought into my head: if I now suddenly appear before the Lord as I am, then I’m ruined!” This is an almost verbatim quote from his story with the words he used.

He soon met a girl named Margarita, and then skeptics will probably say: “Pavel didn’t spend long killing his dead bride, not much time passed before he started dating someone else!” In fact, this acquaintance at first did not have any hint of secular meetings: the girl, according to Paul himself, was not a believer, and after a chance acquaintance with Paul she became interested in faith. “We walked, talked, and somehow imperceptibly a spiritual unity arose between us, and on the third of June 2014 I came to Father George for a blessing, already with Margarita,” - the words of our hero. Another quote from his story: “Romantically minded young ladies will terribly judge me: how is it that two months have not passed since the death of his beloved girl, and he was already planning to marry someone else! But what’s surprising is this: in the case of Anna, Father George told me: “Wait, come back in a year,” and when I came with Rita, he immediately said: “Get married!”

year 2014

Marriage to someone who, it would seem, was terribly far from him in matters of faith (Margarita was a complete unbeliever before meeting Paul), finally turned his life around and completely turned him to God, and this is not a joke, not posturing, when the priest himself he told me this. Pavel admitted that when he was already dating Margarita, and even after the blessing, he continued to “hang out” with old friends, but after the wedding... This happened about two months after they got married. According to Pavel Ostrovsky, in the evening an old friend called him with the words: “My child was born, let’s go celebrate and wash him!” Another wife would have been immediately indignant and began to persuade her husband not to go drinking (and this was exactly what was to happen), but Margarita calmly told her husband: “If you want, go.”

“She’s generally very calm, she never tried to re-educate me, change me, that’s why she reacted like that,” Pavel’s words. That evening he got dressed, already left the house, and suddenly thought: “But this is wrong! I got out of bed with my wife, and now I’m going to the house of a man I don’t remember well, in order to have a drink with him!” He turned sharply and went home, and “this was the end of it” - that’s what Paul himself said. More of his thoughts on this matter: “From that moment on, marriage became for me a kind of purgatory, a turn to God, and my family should save me from all previous sins - that’s what the Lord wanted.” All this may seem like empty words, even a pose, but it was after this unsuccessful trip to visit a friend, and after the failed drinking session, that Father Pavel decided to re-enter the theological seminary and become a clergyman, and not just a religious secular person.

By the way, Pavel Konstantinovich later published the exact official date of registration of his marriage with Margarita in his VK account ten years later. “On the twenty-fifth of August 2004, I married my beloved wife, and I congratulate her on the tenth anniversary of our union!” – these were the words his subscribers saw. Particularly attentive fans of the priest asked in surprise: “Is it really possible to get married during Lent?”

The question arose because in 2004 the great Assumption Fast ended on August twenty-seventh - two days earlier than the date indicated by Pavel Ostrovsky. To the surprised question of his subscribers, the priest replied: “It was the day of official registration, and family life began at the end of Lent.”

Pavel Konstantinovich’s wife is currently the mother of three wonderful children, two older daughters and a son, Nikita. Her husband writes about her on social networks next to her photographs: “My wife does not actively use Facebook or VK, she actually has no friends, she communicates with few people except relatives. She simply doesn’t need it - Rita has enough family and her closest friends. Maybe that’s why everyone respects her so immensely?” But this is truly happiness when you don’t feel the need to do anything on the Internet, engage in idle talk in chat rooms: it’s wonderful when your family and husband give you everything that makes you happy in this life! Margarita Ostrovskaya is an incredibly beautiful woman, she now looks so young that in the photo with her daughters, those who are not familiar with her family doubt: is this their mother or an older cousin?

The priest's wife, despite the fact that she has a very limited circle of friends, is not a recluse at all! She and her children often go to visit close friends and relatives, go to church with her husband, and enjoy being photographed. The husband is happy to show his beautiful and smart wife on his social networks, posting photos of her and the children. Pavel Konstantinovich, taking into account his tossing and turning in his youth, treats the upbringing of his children very carefully, tries not to force them on an acceptable, in his opinion, path in life. He decided that it was not worth sending his daughters and son to study in special schools with a religious bias: his daughters Seraphima and Vasilisa, it is known for sure, went to an ordinary high school.

happy orthodox family

“Christians live in marriage not for themselves, but for the sake of glorifying God,” says the priest, and then adds: “My highest praise to the Lord will be my words: “Thank God that I have such a wonderful wife!” I don’t idealize either Margarita or myself: we are both weak people with our own shortcomings - but how wonderful it is that we have each other exactly as we are.” Complete harmony - this is how you can describe the family life of Pavel Ostrovsky. The only thing he complains about is that, due to his busy social work, he cannot devote as much time to his wife and children as he really wants. “Victims of my social work,” he once jokingly wrote next to a photo when he finally went for a walk with his children and wife.

Father is the head of the VKontakte charity group “Good Deeds”

Through the group, assistance is provided to low-income and large families. And also for children, the elderly, the disabled and everyone in need of help.

The “Good Deeds” group cooperates with the social protection of the population of Krasnogorsk and with the rehabilitation center for minors. For several years, the group has been funding children's trips to monasteries and museums around Russia.

During its existence, the group raised and sold almost 9 million rubles. It is planned to expand this project to the regional and then to the all-Russian level.

Pavel Ostrovsky's father made one of the first Christian books for him as a child

Father and son Ostrovskys
In the eighties, when Pavel was still a child, Orthodox literature had not yet been published, not to mention spiritual education on television. His dad, Konstantin Ostrovsky, not yet a priest at that time, made a gift for his children.

It was a homemade book, “The Lives of the Saints,” sewn from notebooks into a thick volume. Father wrote by hand, in block letters, the stories of the saints, in a language that was understandable and interesting for children. This manuscript is based on the collection of St. Dmitry of Rostov “Lives of the Saints”.

Who would have thought that a few years later this book would be published under the title “Lives of Saints for Children.” In addition, Archpriest Konstantin is the author of the books: “Orthodox Family Reading for Every Day”, “Plays of the Paterik Theater” and “We Cannot Die”.

Priest Pavel Ostrovsky: “The Church condemns Petrosyan for his relationship with a young girl”

Yevgeny Petrosyan tried to debunk his marriage with Elena Stepanenko

Photo: Mikhail FROLOV

Recently, Komsomolskaya Pravda reported on Yevgeny Petrosyan’s failed attempt to debunk his marriage to Elena Stepanenko. Most often, a church marriage is considered invalid when a person enters into a second church marriage, for which it is not at all easy to ask permission.

By the way, some stars did it. It is known that Alla Pugacheva entered into a church marriage for the second time with Maxim Galkin (the first was with Kirkorov). And the singer Valeria has a second church marriage with Joseph Prigogine (the first time she got married to the father of her children, Alexander Shulgin, but they were debunked, recognizing that church marriage as invalid).

Petrosyan seems to have difficulties with the debunking. His church marriage with Elena Stepanenko is still not debunked. And the church ministers have very ambivalent views on his relationship with the young woman.

Let us remind you that the reason for the divorce of the couple of comedians Evgeny Petrosyan and Elena Stepanenko in the press is called his assistant Tatyana Brukhunova, who burst into social life and is trying to prove her importance in isolation from the famous chef - on the social network platform. However, everyone understands that interest in her is caused primarily as Petrosyan’s passion. Many compare her with Vitalina Tsymbalyuk-Romanovskaya, who also managed to promote an over-aged famous man (Armen Dzhigarkhanyan). Everyone knows what happened next. Recently, Vitalina wrote to the page of her “follower” Brukhunova, saying, “We were close to you” (meaning a restaurant in , - Vitalina left an emoticon with a smile. “Seriously? I haven’t seen you!” - Brukhunova was touched and sent her a flower The attention of famous ladies seems to flatter her.

The two ladies are really somewhere nearby, on the same level in public perception.

Vitalina irritates many with her “tricks” with Prokhor Chaliapin.

comedian Elena Vorobey told KP

And Brukhunova arouses envy with boastful photos of her beloved self on her Instagram, where she regularly posts expensive things, which are always accompanied by a label or the name of the manufacturing company. Someone watches with passion and delight what Brukhunova wears.

But the church ministers are somewhat skeptical about this high-profile story in Petrosyan’s life.

Alla Pugacheva entered into a church marriage for the second time with Maxim Galkin

Photo: Evgenia GUSEVA

Father Pavel Ostrovsky, a hereditary priest and rector of St. Nicholas Church in Krasnogorsk, told KP — Divorce is a sin. And adultery is a grave sin.

I believe that the church should not support Petrosyan in his relationship with a young woman. If you asked to debunk it, so what? Perhaps he will even find some bishop who will be horrified by the greatness of Yevgeny Petrosyan and say: “Yes, okay, I’ll debunk you.” The Gospel says: what God has joined together, let no man separate (13:28). It is impossible to debunk a marriage, it is impossible to stop it.

Petrosyan may want to debunk the marriage, but this will not remove his sin of adultery.

Nowadays you often see older men starting relationships with young people. Perhaps secular society is loyal to this, but I am conservative in this regard - I condemn this fornication. Faith is work. And we must fight temptations.

The story with Petrosyan turned out to be public. And what can I say, everything is clear - he cheated on his wife, committed adultery. And in old age. Is it possible to justify Yevgeny Petrosyan for what he did? No, the church cannot justify him.

Elena Stepanenko may have suspected her husband’s infidelity, but she behaves piously. For her, this is a terrible tragedy, like death. There is always hope to restore the family. If he breaks up with a young, incomprehensible girl, comes to his wife, asks for forgiveness, then they will move on with their lives.

Marriage, family union, “marital bond.” “Uzy” is an Old Church Slavonic word, in Russian “handcuffs, shackles.” The husband in marriage serves his wife. She told him.

And when just sex and romantic relationships are important to you, that is, when “I receive”, not when “I love, sacrifice myself, give,” but when instead of the high there is an animal, base and primitive, then, accordingly, Evgeniy Petrosyan receives a young, attractive body, and the girl receives from him, in the best sense, an interesting man with big money, or just just big money, for the sake of which she can endure everything else. It is clear that this girl will not be in his life forever. Marriage is love, and fornication is these “wants”.

When people get married, they give their word of fidelity. This is very important and valuable, but I know that this sounds conservative, for a huge number of people today it has lost its depth and meaning. In their time, people fought duels for their word of honor, but today for someone to say “I love you” to one, and tomorrow to another, is no problem...

For adultery, the church even excommunicated people from communion for up to 20 years. This is a serious crime, essentially like killing your wife.

I talked to loving women whose husbands cheated on them - and for them, when it was unexpected, and they literally died, for them it was like death. What does Stepanenko feel and experience? If she loves him, then this is a difficult test for her.

The Church is always in favor of preserving marriage and encourages a person to restore his family.

Petrosyan seems to have difficulties with debunking

Photo: Personal page of the hero of the publication on the social network

Believers are tormented by the sin of adultery as much as women are tormented by the sin of abortion. This is a mortal sin. Even the understanding that God condescended to me and forgave me, but this sin is such a heavy blow to the soul that, despite the fact that God forgives, and a person has the opportunity for Salvation, for the Kingdom of Heaven, but here in this life he suffers greatly .

“A situation like Petrosyan’s, unfortunately, is quite common and ugly today,” Archpriest Alexander Ilyashenko told KP. — The church condemns treason. And who, generally speaking, welcomes betrayal?! Treason is treason. But, unfortunately, now our society is quite loyal to the fact that men find themselves young. Some people start saying, “he left his wife, found new happiness, how great.” There is nothing good here. Unfortunately, we now have such a system for educating men, when they are irresponsible towards marriage, towards their wives, and can they even be called men, and is it even possible to do business with them? Women find themselves in an insecure position with such men. According to modern law, any peasant can leave his wife, and somehow society will not judge him harshly. Previously, this was simply impossible. Now they say that it was very bad before, and, indeed, there were a lot of shortcomings, otherwise the revolution would not have broken out, but at the same time there were very correct attitudes, and the family was strong, and everyone very closely monitored the strength of the family.

And now we often have a free man in a free country who can betray and change women like gloves, and everything is in order for him.

Modern society treats this, in my opinion, completely wrong.

If everyone were categorically against it and condemned it, then the person would be careful not to ruin the marriage and would behave much more strictly, and not so freely and feeling impunity.

The reason for the divorce of the couple of comedians Evgeny Petrosyan and Elena Stepanenko in the press is called his assistant Tatyana Brukhunova

Photo: Personal page of the hero of the publication on the social network

— Is it modern life that gives older men the feeling that it’s good to find a young woman?

“Sometimes immoral men take a young woman as a kind of accessory. Is it really possible to treat a living person as an accessory?! But the abnormal situation with divorces both here and in the West is a process that occurs both here and there. In Muslim culture, in the East, morals are still strict.

To say that only society is to blame for the fact that people have become unruly is wrong. A believer must overcome temptations and trials. It depends on the person. Sorry, he wasn't forced to fall in love with this girl. What is he, a rag or something? Such a “delicacy” that he cannot refuse? Well, that means he's a weakling!

— Perhaps this is a consequence of a person’s weak faith?

— Faith requires great strength. Go ahead and try to resist - they are seducing you, but don’t be tempted. Well done if a person turns out to be higher and stronger than these tests.

— What if a person breaks down, gets divorced, but there is a chance that he will return to his family?

- It already depends on the generosity of his wife, how much she loves him, how much he asked for forgiveness, and she forgave. The horse has four legs and stumbles. You can wish for the family to recover, but this is not an easy process. Everyone must actively participate in it, but, of course, the party that is most at fault is the one at fault.

— Elena Grigorievna often comes to our church and actively participates in the life of our church, bringing fresh flowers all the time. She’s great, ” Priest Andrei Dorokhin, a minister of the Church of Elijah the Prophet in Obydensky Lane, told KP. “Once, when we needed to decorate the halls, she brought a whole truck of flowers at her own expense. She constantly participates in the decoration of the temple - she has good taste. In this sense, she is an irreplaceable person - at least in terms of decorating the temple. You can always turn to her, and she will respond. And even when you don’t ask, she always brings flowers. Therefore, there are always a lot of fresh flowers in the temple; it is very pleasant for people to come to the temple.

Elena Grigorievna is a deeply religious person. I see her regularly at work. Well done, he goes regularly. Yes, she asks for a blessing, we bless her, naturally.

— Did you hear that she donated icons to churches?

- Maybe. But what a person consistently does is striking. Here is the decoration of the temple - she likes it, maybe she found herself in this, let’s say.

— The situation of Petrosyan and Stepanenko is public, known, what do you think about it?

“Whenever something happens, it happens for a reason.” From a spiritual point of view, a person tries to resolve the situation with God, and this is correct. I am confident about Elena Grigorievna - in the sense that the person did everything he could, everything possible. She behaves godly. And I practically don’t communicate with Evgeniy. I don’t see him, I don’t communicate, so it’s hard to say whether he did everything possible from a spiritual point of view to resolve the situation.

— The fact that Petrosyan cheated on Stepanenko and got divorced – I don’t feel good about it. This is not human and not Christian. This means that he has weak faith, ” the humorist Lukinsky expressed his opinion to KP . – Divorce is a sin. If they reunite their family, it will be right.

BY THE WAY

How the appearance of the Mother of God from the icon prevented a tragedy

It is a fact that in the monastic chronicle of the Tikhvin Monastery there is a record of a miracle with actress Elena Stepanenko - in 2004, she in some sense saved 150 lives of passengers and crew members of the Tu-154 aircraft, warning the pilots of the mortal danger.

“People’s artist Yevgeny Petrosyan visited the Tikhvin Monastery,” says the monastery chronicle. — While the Tikhvin Icon was in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow, Evgeniy Vaganovich and members of his family came to venerate the Shrine. The artist told the dean of the monastery, Hieromonk Alexander, about the miraculous escape of his wife and administrator from death in a plane crash. On October 3, 2004, Yevgeny Vaganovich’s wife Elena Stepanenko and the administrative group flew from Moscow on tour to Vladivostok. Some time later, the airliner was struck by lightning. At this time, Elena Stepanenko saw (through the porthole - Ed.) the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God, which seemed to be calling her towards the pilot's cabin. She went. Elena saw that the pilots were confused, and the nose of the plane was smoking. The Tikhvin icon seemed to be calling to return. Elena asked if the pilots could see the icon. They didn't see. But Elena insisted on turning the plane around and making an emergency landing. Many were surprised by the successful outcome of this case.

“The fact of the appearance of the Mother of God during an airplane flight is recorded in the chronicle of the Assumption Cathedral in Tikhvin,” said the then director of humorists, Yuri Diktovich. - Why there? The fact is that the Mother of God appeared to Elena, who is depicted on the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God - a famous Christian shrine kept in the monastery of the city of Tikhvin. This incident with Stepanenko is described in the chronicle of miraculous events that occurred after the return of the miraculous Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God from the USA to Russia.

Hierodeacon of the Tikhvin Monastery Abel recalled: “Why did the Mother of God appear specifically to Elena Stepanenko... the then governor Nazdratenko said that before that he and Petrosyan were in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, when in 2004 the icon was returned from America, and it was in the temple for several days. I myself remember their visit. In those days, I was on duty at the store, and they bought a book in my presence. “The Tale of the Icon” is an expensive reprint, it cost 10,000 rubles. Apparently, the image of the Mother of God was imprinted in the artist’s memory; she turned to the Tikhvin icon in prayer. Why does God show such miracles? The providence of God is unknown to people. But one thing is clear - of course, for salvation. When a person turns to God, faith arises, he changes, tries to sin less, to act not according to his own will, but according to the will of God.”

Divorce between Petrosyan and Stepanenko: this is not a joke

Comments

Denis
:
02/23/2019 at 12:01
Interesting
Answer
Anonymous
:
06/24/2019 at 11:13
Thank you!
Answer

By leaving a comment, you accept the user agreement