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Today, April 11, marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Elder Archimandrite John (Krestyankina, † February 5, 2006)
Here are some of his responses to questions about family life:

Dear in the Lord M.!
But you have to fight for your family, it's not just your relationship with your spouse. This is the broken life of your children from early youth.

The first thing to do constantly is to pray for your spouse and pray to Saints Guri, Samon and Aviv for the preservation of the family. The second, and no less important, is to look into your heart, take a closer look at yourself - is it not your fault that your husband fights off from home.

And my prayer is only for your help. Children repeat the mistakes of their parents!
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Dear in the Lord A.!
Human happiness lies in nothing else than in unity with God, the fulfillment of His saving commandments. So solve your vital problems for you from this position. You are a family man, and your marriage is blessed, which means that the most important thing for you is the salvation of the whole family, life in God for the whole family. The same vow you made to God also includes the material support of the family. So think and pray how it can be done in the best way. And for this, forgive me, the Lord gave us our head and mind. The confessor only slightly corrects your personally made decisions or plans. God bless you!

Dear A. and E.!
Both of you only, only felt that there are real values ​​in the world, but both of you have not yet touched them, but you are only admiring and thinking that you already possess these treasures. No, my dears, there is such hard work ahead of both of you that only time will tell if you will endure it and become the real owners of the treasures. You need to start working on eradicating a lot of bad habits with which you are related. And I would advise you not to rush to tie the knot until you are rooted in the Christian worldview. Now, in the period of spiritual warfare and formation, it is better not to bind yourself with worldly care for marriage. Yes, try to test yourself in pure friendship - it should form the foundation of a pure family.

Dear in the Lord N.!
A Christian woman, by God's command, must raise her children in faith and piety and children from her children. Judging by your letter, you did not do this for your children. So they would take care of the grandchildren.

And your husband is alive, and you could take the tonsure only if he wanted it too, that is, by mutual agreement. But you don't have this. Therefore, remain the wife of your husband and help your children raise their grandchildren. I cannot bless you for becoming a monk.
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T.!
You are an adult, and the little that you saw did not in vain alert you. A little will grow into a big one, and your children will receive even less of your attention than they receive now.

And you have to answer for them before God!

Now decide for yourself.

God bless you!
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M.!
Are you waiting for happiness, having put mortal sin as the basis of your relationship?!
After all, you and both of you cannot approach the cup of life now. And if you had asked your question when only the thought appeared.

Now who will be an accomplice in your sin?

Everyone thinks about themselves, but there is no thought about children, for whom responsibility before God lies.

God bless you!
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Dear in the Lord Oh!
In life, who did not have to make mistakes - pray to the Lord for your spouse and strive with all possible strength for family reunification. This is your feat and sacrifice to God. Well, if D. turns out to be deaf and blind and stagnates in the fall, then it will not be your fault, and the Lord will console you as an innocent victim. Sorrows teach us to pray and to feel the nearness of God's mercy. So, thank God for everything.

We will pray for you, committing you to the will of God, not as you wish, but as the Lord Himself!
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Dear L in the Lord!
Well, how can I help you? The lump of sin, which began with disobedience to the parental word, grew, grew, and grew. And just as the son did not pay any attention to the word of the mother, so no one, neither mom nor dad, will look at the grief of children's hearts. And there is no concept that life is a feat of the godfather, where you always have to sacrifice yourself to someone. And only for God and for the sake of God and for the glory of God will be the path of life to salvation. And the young have everything - either personal lusts and ambitions, or life is not in life.
Pray for your son, and for your daughter-in-law, and for your grandchildren, because our parental guilt is also in the fact that they are the way they are.

Help you, Lord. Pray that your son will carry his life's cross to the end for the sake of his children.

Dear in the Lord G.!
Your Christian patience, humility and love, at least a little, in due time, will do their job, and your soul mate, your husband, will come to life in spirit.

But for this, start working on yourself: he breaks down, you don’t break down. Understand that it is more difficult for him than for you, he does not know God, and the enemy leads him "or he does not want to."

Start praying for him constantly and with a feeling of pity, remember that it was difficult for him since childhood, just like for you. The rest is the work of God. Read 1 Corinthians, ch. 7 and remember that you are sick with your husband, because you two are one flesh.
And the fact that you pray secretly from him is good. This must be done without fail so as not to call him to blasphemy. The time will come when the secret can be done openly.

God's blessing To you!
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Dear in the Lord I.!
To be saved, one must live not in a dream, but in real life carry the cross that the Lord has already determined for you for salvation.

If it pleases God to see you not as a family man, but as a nun, then there is no obstacle for Him to free you from family baptism.

But this is not the case, and therefore one should not pay attention to demonic jokes - dreams.

Pray for your husband (he is sick), for your son - before God you are responsible for them. Grieve for them and pray - this is your spiritual work for the salvation of the whole family.

And you need to pray for a spiritual father, and if the Lord considers that you need him, then He will grant him to you.

God bless you!
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Dear A.!
In words, you seem to thank the Lord for everything, but in reality, with extraordinary ease, you would cut off, remove pain from yourself. And what to cut off - vows given to God.

Your spouse is sick, but tomorrow you can fall into the disease. And then - farewell to all vows. The same is true for the daughter.

At the wedding, they drink a common cup: wine mixed with water is drunk to the bottom. Wine - the joys of living together, water (and more of it) - common sorrows, troubles and pains. But we drank a cup, but we don’t want to confirm with life given to God vow. You are fighting for the soul of your daughter, but you must also fight for the soul of your husband - especially since he himself is praying, but so far the enemy is stronger. What did Photinia do to help her husband?

Here is my dear A.! Only patience and the bearing of the cross are commanded to us, and we all run away from the cross given by God, and are drawn to the self-willed and perish with it.

God bless you!
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Dear L in the Lord!
To be with the Lord means to do the will of God. It was not without the Providence of God that you became a family man, mother, wife, and now also a grandmother. It is in this rank that it is fitting for you to be saved, bearing this difficult cross with the help of God.

Monasticism, about which thoughts confuse you, is for you a violation of God's blessing and, therefore, the thought of an enemy.

After all, you, as a mother, had to raise your children in a Christian way. But since you couldn’t do this, at least you could help your granddaughter. And again, you're only caring about yourself.

You have no way to the monastery. Pray at home, suffer from your own, and pray for all of them. Yes, do everything with reason, so as not to irritate your loved ones and not cause them to rebel against God and blaspheme against Him.

As the Lord calls: “If anyone wants to follow Me, deny yourself, and take up your cross, and follow Me.” But you decided to throw your cross.

Be smart and help the Lord!
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Dear E.!
God bless you with love and patience. There was a time when the Lord patiently healed our infirmities through intercession for our loved ones, and the soul ripened invisibly to us, until one day it itself responded to the love and patience of others. Are you sad about native person, about the wife. And this sadness is designed to strengthen prayer.

But do not show your spouse your labors and efforts, live with him in one harness, not running far ahead in your religious zeal, all the time feel close to your S. A. M. St. Rev. Seraphim of Sarov would put a pen to his lips. Parents are inviolable for children - even if they suffer. If there is love, then it will give both understanding and sympathy for the state of the pope.

And sometimes you need to go for your spouse so that there is no glaring division in his life into the life of a single and family, and do not get ahead of events - you must go to the wedding responsibly and consciously, this is a Sacrament that obliges a lot. And since there is no such perception of the Sacraments yet, then there is no need to go.

We must work hard, beg the Lord to grant faith. At St. Gregory the Theologian's mother was a believer, and his father was a pagan. I think that there was no question about the wedding at that time. But the end crowns the deed. The mother raised the children Orthodox, and the father ended his life as an Orthodox bishop. And carnal love is one of the components of marriage - and it is blessed in the Sacrament of marriage, and a sin to those who dare to worsen marriage. God has blessed two paths to salvation - marriage and monasticism, and both paths of the cross. Your choice has already been made, and you must carry your cross to the end with love and desire. And how do you know if you will not save your spouse, who is sanctified by his believing wife? Read 1 Corinth, ch. 7. There you have an answer.

We pray about S., God grant you strength of strength and delicate wisdom, so that invisibly for your son to direct him away from harmful influences (especially from modern music, which upsets the psyche of healthy people, and not just sick people).
Dear E., thank you for everything, and forgive me for being so bold! We have been praying for your family for a long time. We got acquainted with M... And M. and it's time to be, if not the center (this is the place of the pope), but still a support to you. She is old enough.

Dear in the Lord V.!
Without A. turning to God, who can help him? Pray for him with your motherly prayer. After all, probably, your fault is that there is no true concept of life and its real values ​​in the soul of your son. I put in a prayer, which daily ask the Lord for a son. The fact that the baptized is, on the one hand, good, but have your children received communion, do they have an idea about God and the Sacraments of the Church? Probably, not.

This is where irreparable troubles grow from. And my prayer for a son is only to help your mother.

Wise and strengthen you Lord in the struggle for the soul of your son!
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Dear in the Lord V.!
You have already chosen the path and you have a daughter in your care, for whom you are responsible before God.

M. attracts the world - it should be so, your task is to instill in her a taste for good and teach her to understand what is good and what is sin and evil.

With the order: “March behind me to save myself,” you won’t do anything.

Holy Fathers on Family and Marriage

Saint John Chrysostom

In marriage, one must sacrifice everything and endure everything in order to preserve mutual love; if it is lost, everything is lost.

This is the strength of the life of all of us, that the wife be of one mind with her husband; it supports everything in the world.

Love is a strong wall, impregnable not only for people, but also for the devil.

A mother, giving birth to a child, gives the world a man, and then she must give the sky an angel in him.

Nothing saves love so much as forgiveness of insults to the guilty before us.

Let us instruct our children in such a way that they prefer virtue to everything else, and consider the abundance of wealth as nothing.

The corruption of children comes from nothing else, but from the insane attachment [of parents] to worldly things.

Even if everything in our life is well-organized, we will be subjected to extreme punishment if we do not care about the salvation of children.

Are you not causing yourself grief by the unbridledness of your son? You should have carefully restrained him, accustomed him to order, to the accurate performance of his duties and healed the diseases of his soul when he was still young and when it was much easier to do.

If there is unanimity between husband and wife, peace and the union of love, all good things flow to them. And evil slanders are not dangerous to spouses who are protected, as great wall, unanimity in God.

If everyone does his duty, then everything will be strong; seeing herself loved, the wife is friendly, but meeting obedience, the husband is meek.

Do not deviate from each other, except by agreement(1 Corinthians 7:5). What does it mean? The wife must not abstain against the will of her husband, and the husband must not abstain against the will of his wife. Why? Because from such abstinence comes great evil; from this often there were adulteries, fornications and discord in family life. The apostle said well: Don't shy away. This is done by many wives, committing a great sin against justice and thereby giving their husbands a pretext for debauchery and leading to disorder.

Whoever is negligent towards his children, even if he is decent in other respects, will suffer the utmost punishment for this sin. Everything we have should be secondary in comparison with the care of children.

If someone learns chastity, then he will consider his wife the sweetest of all, he will look at her with great love and have great agreement with her, and with peace and harmony all good things will enter his house.

Such is the power of love: it is not delayed by distance, it is not weakened by longevity, it is not overcome by temptations; but, conquering all this, he rises above all and rises to a height unattainable.

Hieromartyr Cyprian of Carthage

Take away patience from love, and it, as ruined, will cease to exist.

Reverend Isaac the Syrian

Do not exchange love for your neighbor for love for some thing, because by loving your neighbor you acquire in yourself the One Who is most precious in the world.

Reverend Mark the Ascetic

It is impossible to be saved otherwise than through your neighbor, as the Lord commanded, saying: Forgive and you will be forgiven(Luke 6:37).

Venerable Nil of Sinai

Prefer nothing to the love of your neighbor, except in those cases when, because of it, the love of God is despised.

Saint Basil the Great

Take care not to leave children on earth, but to raise them up to heaven; do not cling to the marriage of the flesh, but strive for the spiritual; give birth to souls and raise children spiritually.

Reverend Gennady of Kostroma

What happens between you in the family, do not take it out of your house to people, and if you see or hear evil outside the house, do not bring it into your house.

Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk

Many parents teach their children foreign languages, others teach the arts, but neglect Christian teaching and upbringing: such parents give birth to children for temporary life, and they are not allowed to eternal life. Woe to them, for it is not the bodies, but the souls of men, that kill with their negligence!

Children look more at the life of their parents and reflect it in their young souls than listen to their words.

Saint Theophan the Recluse

You are a wife, you are a mother, you are a mistress. The duties of all these parts are depicted in the writings of the apostles. Look through them and take on the conscience to perform. For it is doubtful that salvation could be arranged apart from the performance of duties which are imposed by rank and status.

It is not necessary to watch that the child is not enough - from the first years one should begin to soften the flesh prone to coarse matter and accustom the child to possess over it, so that both in adolescence and youth, and after them, one can easily and freely manage this need. The first starter is very expensive.

Marriage love is love blessed by God.

Have a wife as a friend and with strong love force her to be submissive to yourself.

Reverend Anthony of Optina

Meekness and humility of heart are such virtues, without which it is impossible not only to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven, but neither to be happy on earth, nor to feel peace of mind in oneself.

Rev. Ambrose of Optina

Mercy and indulgence towards neighbors and forgiveness of their shortcomings is the shortest path to salvation.

Idleness and neglect of the fear of God in children are the cause of all evils and misfortunes. Without instilling the fear of God, no matter what you do with children, there will be no desired fruits in relation to good morality and a well-ordered life. When the fear of God is instilled, every occupation is good and useful.

Rev. Anatoly Optina the Younger

We are obliged to love everyone, but to be loved, we do not dare to demand.

Keeping family peace is a holy command of God. The husband must, according to the apostle Paul, love his wife as himself; and the apostle compared the wife with the Church. That's how great marriage is!

Venerable Nektarios of Optina

Happiness in married life is given only to those who fulfill the commandments of God and treat marriage as a sacrament of the Christian Church.

Reverend Nikon of Optina

The affairs of those with whom we have a different way of life are inaccessible to us. For example, a mother with babies cannot go to church every day for all services and pray at home for a long time. From this there will be not only embarrassment, but even sin, if, for example, in the absence of a mother, a child without a guardian mutilates himself or does pranks when he grows up. She cannot completely renounce property for the sake of personal achievement, for she is obliged to support and feed her children.

If you love someone, then you humble yourself before him. Where there is love, there is humility, and where there is malice, there is pride.

Holy Righteous John of Kronstadt

For each other, you should be an example of meekness and gentleness, abstinence, complacency, honesty and diligence, obedience to God's will, patience and hope; help each other; take care of each other, condescend to one another, covering each other's weaknesses with love.

Be as sincere, kind and affectionate as possible to your family: then all the troubles on their part will be destroyed by themselves, then you will overcome evil with good if they have evil against you and express it.

Do not be embittered by anything, conquer everything with love: all sorts of grievances, whims, all sorts of family troubles. Know nothing but love. Blame always sincerely yourself, recognizing yourself as the culprit of troubles.

If you live in mutual love, you will bring down on yourself and your offspring the grace of God, and God will dwell in you and crown all your undertakings and deeds with blessed success, for where there is love, there is God, and where there is God, there is everything good.

Ascetics of piety about family

Hegumen Nikon (Vorobiev)

"Keep peace in the family at any cost!"

“Love is above everything, all feats…”

With all the conviction, with all the strength of my soul, I beg you with love: humble yourself before Sergei, consider yourself guilty before him (even if you were right in something), ask for forgiveness for all the past; then make a vow to God to do everything for the sake of peace and the salvation of both. You cannot be saved without Sergei, and he cannot be saved without you. The death of one will be the death of the other. You are married, you are one person. If your hand gets sick, you don't cut it off, you heal it. You cannot cut off Sergei from yourself, just as he can cut you off. You need to save yourself or die together.

I will say a few words about your condition, which you seem to be inclined to consider as belonging only to yours, namely, feelings of loneliness, abandonment, and so on.

I have not met a single girl or single woman who did not suffer from this. This, obviously, lies in the nature of women. After the fall, the Lord said to Eve: And your attraction to your husband(Gen. 3:16). This attraction (not only carnal, but even more psychic, and sometimes exclusively psychic) ​​is obvious, and acts in all solitary people, being refracted and embellished unconsciously in the most diverse way. Taken from Adam's rib, it reaches into place to create one whole person.

Love one another, have pity on everyone, preserve peace at any cost, let business suffer, but peace be preserved!

You definitely need this time to be with your family, to help you get settled, to carry out all the tasks without grumbling, to show love to your people in this difficult time. Love is above everything, all feats. Then, when everything is arranged, it will be possible to think about yourself.

Love even for a person seeks to express itself by doing something pleasant for the beloved, no matter how much sacrifice it costs. How stronger love, the greater the desire to prove it, and selfless love can only be proved by sacrifice, and just as true love has no limit, so the thirst for sacrifice as a manifestation of love has no limit.

God is love(1 John 4:8); it is not said that God "has love", but - is love, Divine love, surpassing all human understanding. If human love sacrifices life for the sake of the beloved, then as the almighty Lord, for Whom it is not difficult to create entire worlds with one Word, Who is Love, – as He, who so loved a sinful fallen man, will leave him without His Providence, without help in need, in sorrow, in danger?! This can never be!

Passion [love] does not see the shortcomings of the other, therefore (and in many other ways) it is called blind - friendship and love see everything, but cover the shortcomings and help the friend get rid of them, overcome them, rise from step to step.

Schiegumen John (Alekseev), Elder of Valaam

"Fiery love without religion is very unreliable."

“God forbid you leave your husband…”

I do not advise you to dream of monastic life. The Lord leads you to eternal life worldly married life. Manage to live a family life for the sake of Christ, and the Lord, seeing your will, will help you to be saved in family life too - do not doubt it. Saint Macarius the Great cites as an example two women who pleased God, who came to perfection in spiritual life, were even higher than hermits. They had a desire to spend their life in a monastery, but for some reason they had husbands. The Lord, seeing their desire to please Him in the monastery, helped them to be saved in family life as well. At the present time, life in monasteries is not what you picture, and you, due to your inexperience in spiritual life, can only be tempted by monastic life.

Christ is in our midst!

It is good sometimes to remember your past sins, because humility is born from this, and when despair comes from the memories of past sins, then the enemy is obviously trying to anger the soul. Do not listen to him, calm down, do not hesitate, do not lose heart, try to drive away such outrageous thoughts with prayer. The Holy Spirit says through the prophet Ezekiel: "If a sinner turns from his sins, then his sins will not be remembered" (see Ezekiel 33:11). The Lord does not want the death of the sinner. So live for your family, be wise like a serpent, and meek like a dove, but keep silent about your inner life, and they won’t understand you. If when your husband stumbles, be patient, do not be embarrassed, but pray more fervently. Remember: you stumbled too.

Here is what I noticed: under old age, time flies faster, because it is felt that everything is over, the time of transition to eternity is approaching; somehow all interests disappeared. But open the minds of the young and you will see how their fantasy plays: they will be happy, they will get a good groom, they will be rich, and family life will go well, and much more on this topic, these pictures will pass through their heads, and be alone again.

It pleases me that you have a desire for the one thing you need. Try not to lose your spirit. The marriage union should not embarrass you, for it is blessed by God. However, try to bear each other's burdens and thus fulfill the law of Christ. Wise you, Lord! Of course, the world demands its own: labors, troubles and worries, it cannot be otherwise.

When you arrived in New York, your husband was looking for an Orthodox church, he even stood for the entire Easter service; but now he has changed a lot, he doesn’t even want to take his son to church. Unfortunately for us, we can expect that he will not want you to go to church. Even though he good man, as you write, but under the influence of his relatives he has already changed. And fiery love without religion is very unreliable. I pity you that you got into such an environment. However, do not lose heart and do not be cowardly, pray and hope for the help of God and the Queen of Heaven.

Christ is in our midst!

Here's my advice to you: decline the request of the lady who asked you to speak to her husband. Let them figure it out themselves, because you don’t know the reasons, and you don’t need to find out family troubles. We, confessors, have to listen to stories about various family troubles, we, of course, are obliged, since we can also advise. You did a good job of advising her to pray, and pray yourself, but the request to talk to her husband and advise him on something, reject again. Wise you, Lord.

When we are subject to passions—I speak of self-conceit, vanity, anger, slyness, and demonic pride—then under their influence we think that all people are guilty and not good. However, we do not have such a commandment to demand love and justice from others, but we ourselves are obliged to fulfill the commandment of love and be fair ...

Mankind has invented politeness instead of love, and under this politeness are hidden: vanity, hypocrisy, slyness, anger and other passions of the soul. If you meet someone who looks like just a human soul, you won't understand him right away. And since the foundation is not based on love, its inner state is revealed very soon, because such a person is dual: in words he says so, but in deeds he says otherwise.

And whoever has love at the root, such a person is no longer dualistic, because he has simplicity, frankness and naturalness. This feature occurs only among ascetics of piety. There are people who by nature have such talents, but they are recognized by their fruits. Vinegar and water have the same color, but the taste is different, because the larynx distinguishes food.

Do not despair, do not be discouraged, calm down. “Sin and misfortune were not with anyone,” says a Russian proverb. The Pharisees brought to Christ a woman taken in adultery, and they say to him: “Teacher, what will you command to do with her” (read in the Gospel of John 8, 3-11).

God forbid you leave your husband, be patient and pray, the Lord, in His mercy, will help you survive this trouble. Your husband is very humble, crying and asking for forgiveness, you, by the commandment of God, forgive him, and never reproach him, and do not remind him of this temptation. Enough shame and disgrace for him when I found him at the scene of the crime, it is very difficult for him to endure, help him, Lord. Do not sadden him, but try to show him a cheerful look, you will thereby ease his mental torment. The holy apostle says: "Carry one another's burdens, and thus fulfill the law of Christ" (see Gal. 6:2). If you do this, then your prayer will be more pure. The Holy Fathers write: "Cover your neighbor's sins, the Lord will cover yours too." Of course, this happened to him in a drunken state ...

I answer your questions of the second letter as follows: try to be faithful to your husband, do not cheat on him and obey him in everything. Of course, excluding requirements Orthodox faith. On the religious themes there is no need to talk, and if he speaks himself, answer what you know, but first mentally pray to God. Teach him not by words, but by a virtuous Christian life. Don't force him to go to church; if he wishes, that is another matter; be pleased and grateful that you are not hindered from walking. Pray for him simply, like a child: “Save, Lord, and have mercy on my husband N., save and enlighten him.” And leave everything else to God's mercy and be calm.

Pray for your husband, but do not bother and do not tell him to be Orthodox: with your advice you can offend and push him away from Orthodoxy; pray and dispose yourself to the will of God, and leave everything else to God's mercy.

Do not grieve and do not condemn him, because everyone has his weaknesses and shortcomings. He, too, is not without infirmities and not without shortcomings. So, learn from each other to bear burdens and thus fulfill the law of Christ.

Archimandrite John (Krestyankin)

“Happiness must be cultivated patiently and with many labors.”

“Children are living icons, work on them,

do not distort the image of God in them ... "

... And you need to keep your family with a wise and patient attitude towards your spouse. It's just easy to say: "I'll get a divorce!"

You do not need to become someone else, and not the one that your husband loved. You need to dress with taste, and comb your hair to your face, and everything else, because you are not a monastic.

And you should have common interests with your spouse, and do not embarrass him with your ostentatious religiosity, but observe the measure in everything and take into account the spiritual illness that has befallen him. Pray for him secretly. In a word - keep peace and love in the family, patiently condescending to his mental weakness. Faith will come to him in response to your labors and wise behavior with him in everything.

With whomever a person begins to build a family life, he will go through periods of temptation. After all, there is no ready-made happiness ... Happiness must also be cultivated patiently and with many labors on both sides.

Accept all the sorrows that you experience through your child as a cleansing punishment for your past, and learn to thank God for everything, consciously and responsibly accepting everything from the Hand of God.

Do not leave children and their upbringing to chance, on TV and on the street. This is a sin, and a big one. Pray and, as far as possible, influence their choices in life. Of course, not by violence, but by suggestion and awareness of the fatality of modern consciousness, imposed from outside.

Children are, after all, living icons, work hard on them, do not distort the image of God in them with your inattention and neglect.

And many, many other holy fathers (especially those who lived in recent times). They are short, concise, only to the point, the fruit of prayer for a person and the action of the Holy Spirit, but not just from the mind and pompous chatter, which are filled with letters from people of a non-spiritual warehouse. How often his letters set the brain in place, helped find a way out of difficult situation, drove away despondency, encouraged.

Below are a few of them about family life.

My dear, the time has come when every sorrow needs to be stabbedbow down

and kiss her hand. After all, only sorrows intercede for our salvation.

Yes, I think that at all times our salvation is made on the cross. So that,

glory to God, sorrows announce that we are walking the path of salvation.

Archimandrite John (Krestyankin)

Dear in the Lord V.!
With your illness, who can guarantee your well-being. The family itself involves the birth of children, and at the wedding they pray for this and receive God's blessing for childbearing, but the parents are supposed to be healthy.
What can I tell you? If you had written to me before marriage, I would not have advised you to get married, but now I will simply keep silent. Your cross is heavy, and nothing more. Everything is in conflict.
Marriage is a complete family with children, and in Christian families and not with one child, but as many as God wills. And infanticide - the death of children - promises hellish torments also on earth, and not only in the future.
Pray to the Mother of God Feodorovskaya and to Her parents - saints righteous Joachim and Anna, and the parents of John the Baptist - the holy righteous Zechariah and Elizabeth. Pray to God and commit yourself to His holy will.

Dear in the Lord A!
Your request for prayer for your family I fulfill. Pray for your spouse, he is obsessed with a serious illness, and wherever he lives, he is your spouse.
And if one member of our body is sick, then the whole person is sick. So are you. Let us pray that the Lord would give you strength of spirit and undoubted faith to be a spiritual support for both your husband and your children. And despondency is the enemy's pressure on you, and you need to know this, and pray, and take communion more often.

Dear A. and E!
The time of Great Lent is not very suitable for solving your problem. But since it has arisen, we will pray that the determination to embark on the path chosen in life will ripen in both of you on Krasnaya Gorka.
Roses will be only at the beginning of the journey, and thorns (no family can avoid them) will appear later. But their number and soreness will depend on your wisdom, and most importantly, love. If your feelings include the apostolic definition of the concept of love, then you will not be far from happiness.
And you will take blessings from your parents.

Dear in the Lord, Fr. AT.!
So the time has come for you to give a qualitative analysis of your faith and your ministry. Who hasn't made mistakes in life? And now, both for your mother and for you, a spiritual exam has begun, which, by the way, did not arise without your own efforts. And you can’t stand it, at the first stage a comforter appeared. But as in God's way it is necessary - there was a conflict in the family, pray, do your best to save the family. Well, we are talking about the monastery only when the spouse creates her own family. And one cannot even think of any helper-comforter. It's a sin. Disastrous.
Dear father, this is for you the very seal that everyone is afraid of, and without the frightening three sixes. What about children! Nobody cares about them. There is no thought, but you will have to answer for them.

Dear in the Lord M.!
You can't live like that. Threesome love is a great sin. And you need to make every effort to save the family. And the most important thing in these efforts is prayer for a spouse and frequent communion. But let her make a choice, after considering everything well. You will talk to her - after all, she has no hope at all that she will create a new family. So she needs to think carefully before crossing out all her earthly life and plunge into the abyss of death. Yes, and punishment for her delusions from God will follow soon - these are modern serious illnesses. After all, when this happens, she will have no one to give water to. Show her this letter. And I will pray for both of you. Such a terrible stupefaction at such an age, well, death will come. Where will we go? After all, those torments that have now found you are already the threshold of hell. And then what? Think.

Dear in the Lord N.!
Answers your questions spiritual father. And there is no other way to get out of the impasses yet. Pray, ask God's mercy. That's just about one thing I would advise you to think seriously - this is your relationship with your ex-husband.
No, my dear, there can be no sisterly relationship between husband and wife. And your closeness is not a help to him at all, but, on the contrary, an irritant that pushes him to all sorts of lawless acts.
That is why you need to solve this problem in the first place: either you legitimize your relationship with him and live as spouses should, or leave and give him the freedom to arrange his life. My dear, this is a serious problem, and you can’t think only about yourself and your desires here. Pray for mother and children. And thank God that He brought you out of the darkness of destruction. And everyday hardships and poverty are nothing compared to the spiritual disaster in which you were.
God bless you and strengthen you.

Dear I.!
By the command of God, the first and most important blessing for the creation of a family, you must both receive from your parents. They are given sacramental knowledge about children, bordering on providence.
Therefore, your question should not be addressed to me. And the second and also important is the blessing of your confessors.
And I would only advise you to take up the Sacrament just before your graduation ceremony at the end of the seminary. And K.'s studies will be in big question. Family debt fundamentally changes a person's lifestyle. And these family responsibilities are paramount.

Dear S.V. and G.V.!
My memory has kept memorable date Your life is the birthday of S., and the same day promised to become a blessed day for your family, when God's blessing rested on your marital relationship, and this day became a birthday Christian family crowning you with glory and honor.
I really want to congratulate you on this day, because there is no greater joy for a priest to see that the light of Christ's love and truth illuminates life.
Many, many years to you in joy, love and unanimity.
P.S. I am sending you a folded icon for this only significant day in your life. She has always been with me since her appearance, even on trips I took her with me. Well, now let it be with you - guarding, sanctifying, admonishing on all paths of life. Keep the Lord and He will keep you.

Dear in the Lord V.!
Life is art. And there is no general recipe for all occasions. One thing is certain - the vows taken must be fulfilled. And you, bringing your spouse to the altar of the Lord and promising him before God love, fidelity and obedience, violate the duties you have taken on. After all, one must patiently wait for the spouse to have the beginnings of religious concepts.
In the meantime, they are not, we must yield to him. When you got married, you perceived life in the same way with him, do not run too far ahead of him.
You can still take cards, because there is no question about your religion.
Learn to save your family. With love, sympathy and understanding, regain the location of your husband. God bless you!

Dear in the Lord A.!
You will have to decide the issue of marriage with your mother and confessor. Introduce both mother and father V. to S., and the Lord will give them both the knowledge whether you and S. need to start a family. And I’ll tell you one more thing: in any case, with whomever a person starts to build a family life, he will go through periods of temptation, because there is no ready-made happiness, and it depends not only on the husband, but also on the wife to the same extent.
Therefore, learn and look closely at each other. Make friends without overstepping boundaries. After all, if sin is put at the foundation of the family, then prosperity is no longer to be expected.
In the last year of the institute, it will be a high time to show determination in choosing a future life path.

Dear in the Lord Oh!
But it's true, your eyes have run away, and your mind is in turmoil. If you were alone and were not responsible for your spouse and son, then this could somehow be understood and explained. Well, now I would like to call you to a sober perception of life and a sense of responsibility. After all, our salvation depends on the fulfillment of the will of God, and not on self-will.
You are a family man, and everything in you must be subordinated to the fulfillment of the vows of a family man. And therefore, you cannot allow any skete residence, which will finally destroy the family. And with your zeal you turned your spouse away from the Church and faith, which means that here you need to change your dispensation. God bless you!

Dear O.!
Take care of your good relations and do not break them either with a break or with unlawful acts. Take care of each other. If sin is the basis of the future family, then nothing good can be expected. And there is no need to hurry with the wedding.
Two years is just the trial period that will make your feelings deep and tested. Be smart.
Choosing a life path and starting a family is a very serious step.

Dear S.!
And you do not run far ahead of your spouse. When you created a family, you and A. were unanimous in your ignorance, and now you are leaving your spouse, and he is not yet able to understand for whom and why such changes in his wife.
And view C should not yet differ sharply from that to which the spouse is accustomed. Do not rush to change the external. But in the inner emphasis should be on prayer. After all, A. loves you, after all, he went to church to get married. And now your main task, S., is to save your family. It will be hard for your heart to make concessions to your spouse, but it is necessary.
The Lord sees your suffering, and He forgives us more easily and simply than even close people. God bless you!

Dear Yu in the Lord!
The desire to start a family is blessed for you, but the blessing specifically for marriage with A. The first and most important thing is parental, the second must be taken from your confessors who profess you.
Remember only both, so as not to lay the sin of premature rapprochement in the foundation of creating a family, otherwise it will be difficult to build what you reach for in your desire. And also remember that happiness must also be cultivated patiently and with many labors on both sides.
Only when both of you have a deep sense of responsibility before God will a family be built.

Servant of God L.!
Any treatment must be preceded by an appeal to the Doctor of souls and bodies, to the Lord, in the Sacraments of unction, confession and communion. And with the help of God, the disease will be cured. And you need to keep the family with a wise and patient attitude towards your spouse. It's just easy to say: "I'll get a divorce!"
You can say when you think and know only yourself, and if you also think about your spouse, and about your children, then you will make every effort so that the children know their father, and the husband knows his family. God bless you!

Dear in the Lord N.!
What can I tell you? Faith is building up life with much, much patience and love. And when faith becomes the cause of ruin, then there is clearly something wrong and rather self-will, when God's help recedes. You have come to faith, but your spouse has not.
And you, with extraordinary ease, at the word of a stranger, cut off your half, husband and wife are one flesh. They didn't think about him or the children.
But when you created a family, you and your spouse were like-minded. And it was necessary to work hard, bear his infirmity, begging for a loved one.
But this did not happen. And here you are alone to carry your homemade cross. And sons need a father, and they will remind you of this more than once.
I promise to pray for you. Well, I’ll get rid of the advice, the work has been started without me and it’s not for me to complete it. Wise you Lord.

Dear M.!
I don't know what you want to hear from me in return? I can only testify that neither you nor your wife think about your future, that life is short and that ahead is eternity.
You and she had connections with others, and talk about it so calmly, without a hint of embarrassment or remorse. And I would tell you that it's time to wake up from a sinful sleep, it's time to think about yourself. If the wife does not think about restoring the family, then do not interfere with her divorce and dissolve the church marriage with the bishop. Only when you become free, it will be possible to think about creating a new family, but until you are divorced, do not ruin your life with mortal sins. According to the canons of the Holy Fathers, the one who initiates the breakup of a family must remain alone, and the one who is offended can start a family again.
Pray for your daughter, she was sent to study in a school that I would not wish on anyone. After it, it will be difficult to embark on the path of salvation, and is it even possible?

Dear in the Lord N.!
I will fulfill the request for prayer, and God grant you wisdom and patience in order to keep your family and love in it.
You do not need to become someone else, and not the one that your husband loved. You need to dress with taste, and comb your face, and everything else, because you are not a monastic.
And you should have common interests with your spouse, and do not embarrass him with your ostentatious religiosity, but observe the measure in everything and take into account the spiritual illness that has befallen him. Pray for him secretly.
In a word - keep peace and love in the family, patiently condescending to his mental weakness. Faith will come to him in response to your labors and wise behavior with him in everything. And A. learns about his own mother when he grows up, otherwise it will be difficult for you to keep your son within the framework. He, like your V., will not be able to properly survive your "religiosity", while external. God bless and help you!

Dear L!
And I think that you, the whole family, and in particular, you forget little or completely to thank the Lord. We must learn to ask, to receive, and to give thanks.
Let the husband ask the help of the holy martyr Tryphon.
M. does not despair and is not in a hurry to repeat the mistake. She can create a family a second time according to the canons of the Church, but everything must be done with prayer in order to find not ephemeral happiness for a year, but for the whole life here.
And you, L., should not lose heart. Firstly, this is a sin and no small one, and secondly, the climate in your family largely depends on your condition. Therefore, remember the Lenten prayer of Ephraim the Syrian more often and do not forget to see the blessings that the Lord will give you.
It's obvious to me. And you?

Dear in the Lord V.!
You are a family man, and, therefore, you cannot solve your problem alone, but only with your spouse together. And if the votes are divided at the family council, then the voice of the spouse should be taken at the head.
After all, the family and its preservation is the main thing, because this is the fulfillment of a vow taken upon oneself.
Here is what you should be guided by. And they live now and everything is difficult, with the exception of the elite, which we do not envy.
After all, the main and fundamental thing in life is walking before God and living in God, and poverty not only does not interfere with this, but contributes to the development in us of hope only in God, and believers are not put to shame.

Dear O.!
How many wives does your friend have? And why do you suddenly think that you will be better than them. No wonder the priest suspended your intentions for a while, because this was done to clarify the situation in your relationship.
And then the fog dissipated around, but not in your mind and feelings. Think Oh! What are the stories about love? He loved one, made another happy with a child, lulled the third with the prospect of love.
And in the end: the modern concept of love, in no way corresponding to love-feat.

Dear in the Lord E.!
The feat of the wife's life is over. And the sea of ​​\u200b\u200blife is safely crossed by her. We pray for her and thank God for mercy to her and to your family, for neither she nor you were exhausted by the hardships of her suffering. And communion and unction before the Exodus testify to God's love for her.
We pray for you and for your children, so that the Lord gives courage to endure the bitterness of the loss of something dear and such right person, and multiplied strength for the forthcoming feat of life.
After all, you have to accommodate in your heart the maternal warmth of the departed spouse.
Thank God for everything and feel His closeness at this sad moment of your life.

Dear in the Lord G.!
I am fulfilling your request for prayer for you and your loved ones. And you pray to the Mother of God "All-Tsaritsa".
Indeed, commit yourself and your son to the will of God. We will not live two lives, but the Lord knows how and by what means to lead us to salvation. Just pray for your son. His work is nervous, and not everyone can stand it.
And also try to thank God for everything, and for sorrows too, because only sorrows also intercede for us for our salvation.
Life is short, we will endure everything, and our Savior Christ the God will save us.

Servant of God A.!
You are not fit to be a wife for a priest. You have not yet comprehended what you want in life and from life. You are still playing and playing along with your whims.
And the cross of being a mother is special both in meaning and in severity. For the father, he is the only one for life. And what will it be like for him if he gets an actress instead of his mother. God bless you.
Read 1 Corinthians, ch. 13. And in the light of what you have read, examine yourself.
Only this concept of love promises a future family life for salvation.

Dear L in the Lord!
You, knowing well your morbid condition, answer the question that you asked me yourself. Family life is a feat in every way. You need a lot of strength: both physical, and moral, and spiritual, to be a wife, and a mother, and a mistress.
And if these forces are not there, then it is not worth thinking about marriage. Otherwise, you yourself will suffer, and your loved ones will suffer.
God bless you. Pray to the Lord to give you the strength to live in God.

The family is not only the basic cell of society, but also the most important school Christian love. It is easy to love people who live at a distance and rarely appear in our lives. Loving loved ones and out of love for them to smooth out the shortcomings of one's character is much more difficult.

Sirs and ladies, let me bring to your attention today a small collection of wise sayings dedicated to the institution of the family by the Holy Fathers, Church leaders, scientists and writers. Somewhere they will be encouragement, and somewhere advice, which sometimes each of us needs:

“Family relationships should be subordinated to spiritual needs. Marriage has much consolation, but it is also accompanied by many anxieties and sorrows, sometimes very deep. Keep this in mind so that when something like this comes, you will not meet it as a surprise. Now you two. And joys are stronger, and sorrows are easier to divide in half.
Cherish your love with your wife. This is the source of a happy family life. But you have to watch it so it doesn't get clogged. Most of all, be afraid to lose trust in each other or shake it somehow. Saint Theophan the Recluse.

“When you love, you do not want to drink any other water than the one you find in your favorite spring. Loyalty in this case is a natural thing. In a loveless marriage, in less than two months, the spring water becomes bitter.” Stendhal

“One person asked me: “Geronda, what connects a husband with a wife most of all?” “Gratitude,” I replied to him. One person loves another for what he gives him. A wife gives her husband trust, devotion, obedience. The husband gives his wife confidence that she is under his cover, protection. The wife is the mistress of the house, but also the main servant in it. The husband is the ruler of the house, but also the bearer of his burdens.
Between themselves, spouses should have purified love - in order to receive mutual comfort from each other and be able to fulfill their spiritual duties. In order to live in harmony, they must, first of all, put love at the foundation of life - that precious love that lies in spiritual nobility, in sacrifice, and not false, worldly, carnal love. If there is love and sacrifice, then one person always puts himself in the place of another, understands him, feels pain for him. And accepting a neighbor into his suffering heart, a person receives Christ into his heart, Who again fills him with His inexpressible joy.” Reverend Paisios Svyatogorets

“Good spouses have two souls, but one will.” Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

“In marriage, everything must be sacrificed and everything must be endured in order to preserve mutual love; if it is lost, all is lost. True wealth and the greatest happiness is when husband and wife do not disagree with each other, are united with each other as one flesh. Such spouses, even though they lived in poverty and were humble, can be the happiest of all, because they enjoy true happiness and live in everlasting peace.
Value unanimity in the family above all, and do everything in this way and direct it so that peace and silence are constantly preserved in marriage. Then the children will imitate the virtues of their parents, and virtue will flourish throughout the house, and there will be prosperity in all affairs. Saint John Chrysostom

“Without a crown, one cannot live even a minute. Don't have an abortion. It will be nightmarishly terrible to answer before the Living God for violating the holy commandment of God: “Thou shalt not kill!”. Elder Nikolai Guryanov

“A just husband commands his wife, not as the owner of property, but as the soul of the body: taking into account her feelings and invariably benevolent.” Plutarch

“At the wedding, they drink a common cup: wine mixed with water is drunk to the bottom. Wine - the joys of living together, water (and more) - common sorrows, troubles and pains ...
Roses will be only at the beginning of the journey, and thorns (no family can avoid them) will appear later. But their number and soreness will depend on your wisdom, and most importantly, love. If your feelings include the apostolic definition of the concept of love, then you will not be far from happiness. Elder John (Krestyankin)

“The dependence of family life makes a person more moral.” Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin

“Celibacy is created by promiscuity. Both sexes avoid the union that should make them better, and stay in the union that makes them worse. Charles Louis Montesquieu

“The main misconception about family life today is that everyone is looking for and expecting happiness from family life as something ready-made, which they must certainly find without labor and effort. But there is no such ready-made happiness in any way and nowhere on our earth: here everything is obtained by labor.
Imagining that a happy choice of a party secures family happiness forever and that it is strengthened by the first inclination, many spouses now lose sight of the fact that at the first time of marriage they still do not know each other as they should, or even themselves in their new position. Only by standing close to each other, as spouses stand, and only by time can they study the way of thinking, tastes, inclinations, habits of each other, and, to the surprise of many, significant shortcomings are revealed in the chosen ones of the heart along with the virtues that attracted love.
The discovery of shortcomings, unexpected thoughts, desires and demands sometimes strike both spouses as something extraordinary, dangerous for happiness and proving a mistake made in the choice. With further detection of shortcomings, this idea is confirmed, and multiplying collisions, disputes and quarrels with a lack of observation of oneself and indulgence towards each other are taken as proof that happiness flies away, that marriage has failed, that it is impossible to live together, that it is necessary to disperse. Meanwhile, as the rules Christian life they demanded that both spouses, in gratitude to God for the virtues found in each other, be on their guard and wait for the discovery of shortcomings as an inevitable belonging of each person; study them, treat them with all the indulgence that mutual love requires, and take to correcting each other with meekness and patience. Archbishop Ambrose (Klyucharev)

“From our parents we received the greatest and priceless gift- life. They nurtured and nurtured us, sparing neither strength nor love. And now that they are old and sick, it is our duty to cure and bring them out!” Leonardo da Vinci

“The legitimate purpose of union with a woman should be the birth and rearing of children. When the one entering into marriage has in mind only sensual pleasures, strives only to please the lusts of his flesh, then he is deeply mistaken and by such union with a woman brings disorder into life relationships, the bad consequences of which quite naturally resonate with himself and his offspring. Saint Maxim the Confessor

“Life with a wife is not easy, but life without her is impossible at all.” Mark Porcius Cato the Elder

“Wife and children teach humanity; bachelors are gloomy and severe. Francis Bacon

“The spirit of obvious or secret pride and vanity possesses us, so that almost each of us thinks a lot and highly of ourselves and little and low of others ... Hence, in the family and society, instead of love, consent and mutual services, mutual intransigence, mutual hostility, envy reign. and hatred for each other, quarrels, strife, contentions. Archimandrite Kirill (Pavlov)

“A good wife in the house is like an ant, and an evil wife is like a leaky barrel.” Menander

“In family life, everyone should forget himself completely, think only about others - such an attitude of family members to each other welds the family together so that they all feel that it is impossible for each of them to live without others.
Wise by experience, the groom tries to be as strict with himself as possible, and more carefully with his new girlfriend, and if some shortcomings are noticed in the bride, then they should not be attributed to her, but to her parents, and try to cover everything with love. Seeing the love and disposition of her husband, in turn, the wife tries to repay the same and, noticing the roughness of her husband’s character, the wife, not wise by experience, covering everything with love, imperceptibly tries to correct these shortcomings, roughness and acts as a guide of the heart very skillfully, and through this mutual love relationship to each other, two beings, perhaps at first being and completely opposite to each other, approach and become close and live to the point that one heart and one spirit are formed. Righteous Alexy Mechev.

"A happy marriage is a marriage in which the husband understands every word the wife does not say." Alfred Hitchcock

Compiled by Andrey Segeda

In contact with

O. John (Krestyankin)

Orthodox from all over the world went to the Pskov-Caves Monastery for advice, he says this about raising children: “Remembering the pious family of Joachim and Anna and the blessed Daughter born to them, will we not look back at ourselves, at our time with its spirit of ruin, and And let's not ask ourselves the question: what is the reason, where is the root of the cruel and gloomy bad weather that surrounds the world and puts it on the brink of death?

Are we not the destroyers of the home church, are we not the violators of the ancient rules of family order, are we not the ones who gave our children to be raised in a country far away, where they feed them with thistles and thorns and take them away from the Heavenly Father, take them away from earthly parents.

Life is hard work. And it becomes unbearably difficult when God is expelled from it. After all, when God is driven out of the house, the worst spirits come in His place, sowing their deadly tares. Gloom and darkness have long begun to carry out their deadly plans, rebelling against the family, against motherhood, which hides the future of the world - the upbringing of offspring.

And we need to understand this, because this is our present and our future.
And this is our responsibility to God. Terrible responsibility!

And how many tears and heartache it cost a mother's heart to see how the little that could be done at home, in the family, was trampled down in the soul of a child at school.

Tears flowed, prayers flowed. Do not think that they are not seen and not heard. People may not hear or understand, but not God. And for God, these are not just tears, they are - way of the cross a Christian mother fighting for her child against the whole world, against the devil himself.

It's not even just a cross. This is martyrdom. Martyrdom for Christ. And the grace of God has always strengthened the martyrs, it has strengthened you in your unequal struggle for children, and it will strengthen you now. If only Christian conviction and striving did not weaken - our faith ...

But it is scary and destructive if for us, adults, faith in God remains only in words, and does not transform our everyday life and is accompanied in us by spiritual barrenness, which does not have the living life force of the Spirit of God. But ask for this miracle, and it will be given to you.

We all need to understand now that we urgently need to save from the corrupting spirit of the times and return to God our small church, our family. It is necessary to kindle in it the lamp of the Christian life in God. And only in this is the salvation of the world, our salvation.

We will not succeed immediately, it will be extremely difficult for us, but we must do it for the sake of life in eternity.

After all, fathers and mothers, God-blessed creators and patrons of their children, are responsible for them and for themselves. And isn't it our job now, in the desert of the world, where loneliness, vanity and indifference, anxious self-doubt and anger reign, to create a center of prayer. It must be remembered that where two or three are gathered in the name of God, there is the Lord in the midst of them - then the house will come to life! And one, and the other, and the third. The orders of the inner life of the family and of each person, disturbed by atheism, will be arranged. And the Kingdom of God, having returned to the soul, will again begin to transform the world. And the children will return to God, and they will return to their parents from the bad weather of the surrounding world...

Fathers and mothers! Alone, without your children, you cannot be saved - and this must be remembered! ..

And I will end with the words of the holy teacher of the Church, John Chrysostom: "There is no higher art than the art of education. A wise educator creates a living image, looking at which God and people rejoice."

So that we don’t cry now from our children, so that we don’t mourn for them and ourselves when they grow up, and so that today’s tears do not become the beginning of future ones, let’s not do God’s work - raising children - with neglect.

Our friends, if we still do not feel the danger of the spiritual savagery of mankind, which is gradually losing the image and likeness of God, threatening us, if we do not stop the process of apostasy and loss of faith in our families, in ourselves, then the time is near when the words of Christ the Savior will come true: "Son When a man comes, will he find faith on earth? (Luke 18:8) Amen."

Archimandrite John (Krestyankin).