By Fr. Alexander Men
……….. Always, today, and everywhere, there’s a risk in granting man freedom, this terrible but magnificent gift. And so man falls, and God knows he will sin, but he still prefers this open model to that worthless and rather quaint closed model. That’s precisely why the model I told you about, the church model, doesn’t correspond to God’s plan; not just, let’s say, to my taste. I would be much more comfortable with it. (A voice from the audience: “Because of our weakness, Father, because of our weakness, eh?”) Yes, but the Lord God also knew human weakness, yet for some reason He endowed man with freedom. He endowed him. This kind of, so to speak, wind-up world doesn’t align; it’s not found in Scripture. It has a completely different spirit and a different letter. And of course, all of this is less convenient, for the pastor and for the flock. How wonderful it would be… (A voice from the audience: – Monastic-like…) Yes, yes, “opium of the people,” “opium of the people.” It corresponds, so to speak, well, to certain pagan models; it means hiding in this way, what Marx so insightfully called opium. Because it’s an escape from all problems, an escape from life, an escape from responsibility, and finally, an escape from humanity. God sent you, and you ran away. And by some miracle you sit here, and even seem to have come to an agreement with Him, as if you’ve even dedicated everything to Him… (A voice from the audience: – You serve Him.) Yes, you serve Him, and overall – complete pleasure. Well, of course, there are some inconveniences, but they are compensated by a feeling of complete complacency and self-sufficiency, but this doesn’t correspond, it doesn’t coincide. So, the problem of monasteries is a very complex one, and we must say right away that a monastery, ideally, was first and foremost a gathering of people who are monks, who knowingly live a life that distinguishes them from all other Christians. That is, it is a specific form, not a model form. Not a model form. The Epistle says: “Let us go out to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach.” Let us go out there, into the world. It doesn’t say at all… After all, the only time the Lord speaks is when the days come, the last days of Jerusalem, then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. But if He were a monastic preacher, He would have come straight away and said: “Flee, all of you, to the mountains from here!” And that’s it. (A voice from the audience: “To the mountains—does that mean to a monastery?”) Well, somewhere far away. Moreover, the monastic type of life was quite developed in the time of Christ; A few kilometers from the Jordan were the Essene monasteries, where there was obedience, celibacy, and everything, right down to the uniform—everything. But He spoke out against them constantly, constantly. In the Gospels, we find many passages, as it now turns out, directed against them. For example, in their statute it says: “The Sabbath must be observed in such a way that if a donkey or an ox falls into a pit, do not pull them out.” Christ says exactly this, but in the opposite sense. And so on, there are constant echoes of this kind. Besides, they said: “You must love your own, who sit here in the monastery, and hate all the children of darkness.” And the children of darkness are everyone, the whole world. And so on. And they, of course, eagerly awaited the time when everyone would be crushed, and were ready to take part in it themselves. Well, Father Cavignac, he was studying the manuscript of “The Rules of War,” and there was this crazy essay about how the righteous should act when the angels rise and so on, the devils clash. They should… There’s a military charter there modeled on a Roman military camp: weapons and everything, and they march out… (Laughter.) Yes, the righteous march out, and they split into cohorts, what weapons they have, it’s all spelled out. That is, in the materialistic sense. They immediately go, and then they get a beating on their heads, along with the angels and everyone else. That’s how those nuns thought. They were very dangerous, just something to be done on occasion. But there was, of course, some good in there, all of that, of course; what was good is permissible… But, in general, monasticism is a separate topic, I won’t touch on it. It certainly exists, and it’s a pre-Christian phenomenon, and…
Natasha says, “It’s complicated.” I’ll tell you right away, Natasha, that no one told you it was all simple. In the inner sense. When I say it’s very simple, you don’t believe me. I always mean “simple” in the sense of integrity, clarity, and not because I can do it all in one fell swoop. Yes, it’s complicated, and the mysteries of the Gospel are complicated, and even theology is complicated; Chesterton said he was proud of its complexity because, after all, it’s not just a sloppy jot; there’s some truth to it. So, there it is… In any case, monasticism exists… You see, a “monk” is a “different person,” and the exception only confirms the rule, confirms the rule. And besides, monasticism is a non-Christian phenomenon. For centuries, even millennia, pagan religions had monasticism with all its practices; but Christianity in its early days didn’t have it, and, say, Protestants don’t have it at all; but on the other hand, every Christian—you and I—we are also monks in some way. Here’s the question is subtle. In some way, in some inner sense.
Source in Russian: Home Conversation (File MJr_4B1.WAV), https://damian.center/men/
