Leonov above the law can be love. Above the law can only be love, above the right - only mercy, and above justice - only forgiveness.
On December 5, 2008, Patriarch Alexy II died. His wise and considerate word always echoed in the hearts of millions of believers. And eight years later, the words of His Holiness are still valuable and important to us.
Christianity says that a person comes into the world so that after him the world becomes at least a little brighter and kinder. Christianity says that man comes into the world to give, not to consume. And above all, a person must give himself. I'm afraid that today a person is brought up in such a way that he perceives himself as a kind of single "sensory place", the delight of which the whole world around him should serve. I must warn that Christianity sees the place of man differently. Remember the Crucified Christ, remember how He loved the world. Or remember the words of Pasternak about human life: “Life is also only a moment, only the dissolution of ourselves in all others, as if they were a gift.” Being a Christian is difficult. But it was Christianity that rejuvenated the world...
I often pray that the Lord would let us quickly understand that only Love can be higher than the Law, only Grace can be higher than the Right, and only Forgiveness can be higher than Justice ...
Any crime in the name of religion is a crime against religion, because one cannot kill innocent people in the name of religious ideas.
One of the most spiritually dangerous occupations is the search for personalized enemies in society, in the state, among neighboring peoples. The only true enemy of a Christian is the evil in our own souls.
Orthodox theology ... interprets the fall primarily as a disease, and not as a legal condition. It's not about the wrath of God at the crime of man. It's about the sickness of the person. And God does everything to change a person (and not just remove his “conviction” by legally pardoning him). But you cannot change a person without his free consent. Christ brought us the opportunity of transformation. It depends on the personal choice of each person and each community of people whether the Cross of Christ will be effective in us or not.
Only holiness is normal for a person. Sin - any, even the most seemingly insignificant and widespread, is abnormal, because it distorts human nature ...
Today we can recognize that love among people is drying up. To return it to people, to return tolerance towards each other - that's what we need today. These are the bright ideals of mankind ...
Good can always be born and grow only in the free effort of each individual, and society can only protect this growth and create favorable conditions for it. And then, when such an understanding of the nature of state activity comes, spiritual imaginaryness will again be exposed, the inauthenticity of even the most sincere attempts at an instrumental-political attitude towards the Church.
The Creator gave us the earth. And we will have to give an answer in how we used the talent given to us. “Behold, Lord, we loved this land, and, living on it, we glorified You, its Creator; and we grew grapes and wheat, and brought wine and bread to your altars, so that with these simple earthly gifts You could join us to Yourself ". Or we will say: “Lord, we loved this land so much that we killed and drove out of it everyone who, besides us, wanted to call it their own...”.
... faith is essentially intractable, and it is impossible to enter into transactions with it. We cannot recognize it conditionally, to the extent that it is necessary for our purposes, even if they are legal ones. Faith fosters patience, self-sacrifice and curbs personal passions - this is true, but you can’t resort to it only when passions are played out, and only in order to someday reason or intimidate reprisals in the next world. Faith is not a stick, and in the hands of one who holds it like a stick to protect himself and frighten others, it shatters into splinters. Faith only serves those who sincerely believe.
In one ancient tradition, it is said that a certain monk condemned his brother. After a while, the one whom he condemned dies. And the judge saw a vision: an angel appeared before him with the soul of a brother and said: “So you undertook to judge him. Well, as you say, so be it. Tell me, is he worthy of eternal death? and will be...". And the man who easily made himself a judge in human affairs, in horror refused to make the final judgment...
I want to ask a person of any nationality: here in the face of Christ you met a person whom you consider your enemy and the enemy of your land and your people. And there - in the face of Christ - can you repeat your judgment and say: "Because he prevents me from living, let him be put to death"? And any other judgment that you could make and justify only by hiding from the face of God is unjust and deceitful.
If our people do not find God, they will not find peace, happiness, or well-being.
I am sure: no state should interfere in the personal life of a person. Being moral or immoral is, after all, a consequence of the free choice of the individual. However, in the public sphere, society and the state must support and encourage morality acceptable to the majority of citizens. Therefore, they should direct their efforts through the mass media, the system of social and public institutions, the education system to the reproduction of moral ideals associated with the spiritual and cultural tradition of the European peoples.
We know Yevgeny Leonov as a good comedian, but in life he was more of a tragedian. From childhood, Eugene was very shy, sad in life. The actor needed the usual warmth and understanding.
Moreover, Eugene himself radiated goodness and love, successfully splashing out unspent feelings in the cinema. When it became completely sad, Eugene wrote "Letters to his son." This book can be called a storehouse of worldly wisdom.
Today the great Yevgeny Leonov is no longer with us. But we want to remember his unsurpassed statements that can help our readers make an important decision, change, become better and just find a life direction.
- Happiness is when you want to go to work in the morning and go home in the evening. ( movie "33")
- For some, God is in heaven, and for others, in their own hearts. And this God in the heart does not allow you to fall below a certain human level... He will not allow you to kick a dog, offend an old man, treat your parents badly. ( "I did not become Leonov, I was born Leonov." News)
- Through my whole life, as well as through the life of every person, so many faces and people have passed. I met someone closer, and with someone I just rode in a car from the shooting. But after all, every person, if you look into his eyes, is a whole world. Be receptive to these worlds. This is where art begins. ( "Letters to my son")
- My work day is irregular. There is no order. From this character is nervous, difficult for others. Ok, I'm quiet. I am silent when I need to speak. When it's not necessary, I'm talking nonsense. ( Movie "Long, Long Business")
- For some reason, I personally think that politics in itself is a clean business. But as for the people who make it, we need to talk about it. ( from last interview, 1993)
- In fact, I think there are no people who are completely incapable of goodness. It happens that a person becomes hardened and it seems to him that there is no place for kindness in his soul, but this is a mistake, this is temporary: without doing good deeds, a person feels uncomfortable in this world. From P letter to son")
- Fear is not weakness. Now, if fear makes you retreat, if you save your strength and as a result decrease yourself, this is weakness. ( "Letters to my son")
- And to know life, one must live. Do not protect yourself from conflicts of your own and others, do not be afraid of danger, risk, do not look for easier ways, do not run away from responsibility, do not think that your hut is on the edge and that the winds of time will not touch you. (" Letters to son)
- Is there a person in your life in front of whom you are not afraid to be small, stupid, unarmed, in all the nakedness of your revelation? This person is your protection. ( "Letters to my son")
- “Silence is some special state of the world and the human soul. It seems to me that we feel like a part of nature, only a drop of the ocean in silence. Outside of silence, beauty cannot be understood.” ( "Letters to my son")
Then she thought, tugging at the dark curl of hair above her ear, and added:
“And they can't. And you can't. Nobody can. This is inhuman business. There is something higher than justice.
Solovyov understood: if he hesitated for another minute, he would either really strangle her, this dirty, depraved, half-dressed girl, or ... He would go crazy and burst into tears like a child. With an effort of will, he forced himself to calm down. He took a deep breath.
No. All is decided. After all, she speaks from other people's words. Poppy bullshit...
Solovyov hesitated for a moment. Then he resolutely turned to the door and opened it. And on the threshold I heard:
They didn't buy me. They released me from prison... from the Lithuanian castle.
He stopped, waiting to continue, but Nastya was silent. Solovyov involuntarily turned around: it turns out that Nastya was silently crying.
“Why didn’t you… if you work for THEM, didn’t you take me to the police?” Solovyov asked quietly. Or didn't she shoot?
Nastya raised her tear-stained face:
- What are you talking about? The Lord is with you. I have a baby ... On Vasilyevsky, with a chuffonka. If it weren’t for the baby, I’d rather stay in the Lithuanian Castle than agree to spy…
For a moment, his heart stopped and it became impossible to breathe. With a terrible effort, he forced himself to turn away.
Late. Now you can't get anything back.
He slammed the door and ran down the dark stairs.
Part two
THE BLOOD IS COMING
Above the Law there can be only Love, above the Right - only Mercy, above Justice - only Forgiveness.
Seraphim of Sarov.
PETERSBURG.
A man in civilian clothes was squatting on the roof of the arch of the General Staff and looking through binoculars down at Palace Square.
“Not visible yet,” he said.
The second looked out from behind the chariot of Victory, drawn, by the will of the sculptors Pimenov and Demut-Malinovsky, by six horses. This second one was also in civilian clothes, but he threw a sheepskin coat over his coat - here, upstairs, the wind seemed icy. He, too, was armed with marine binoculars and also looked around the square from time to time.
“Random element,” he said thoughtfully. “You know, Baron, a random element hits the target more often than a directed one. Such, as they say, is the inexplicable law of nature...
“But we don’t need accidents,” the first one muttered. Therefore, we will not rely on nature.
For a while they were silent. The allegorical figure of Glory, driving the chariot, towered over them. And even higher, a huge black kite flew with a scream: its nest was somewhere inside the wagon.
- What, chilly, Mr. Gendarme? – asked, finally, the second.
- Yeah ... - The gendarme, not without envy, looked up at his interlocutor. - And let me ask, Mr. Writer: where did you get such a nice sheepskin coat?
The writer smiled smugly:
- But imagine: I borrowed from my own janitor!
- How is that?
- I went down to the janitor's room, I look - the janitor is not there, and here he is, hanging on a carnation. I grab him - yes to the back door, yes by the yards, and jumped out to Apraksin. From there to the Fontanka, I took a cab, drove around the block. I stopped at Gorokhovaya, where my own cab was waiting. Moved ... And, as they say, - look for the wind in the field, sir!
The gendarme said sternly:
- So, you simply stole the sheepskin coat.
- Exactly, sir. In a natural way! The writer laughed sweetly.
“Y-yes…” grumbled the Gendarme, turning up his collar and pulling his downy hat tighter over his ears. - Petersburg air is not very good for health ...
“And sometimes it’s even deadly,” said the Writer. - Walking along Petersburg squares is especially harmful ...
He took the binoculars from his eyes and exchanged glances with the Gendarme.
"That's right," he agreed. - It is known how the winter walk of the late Nikolai Palych ended ... And what good health the man was!
The writer got off the wheel and sat down next to the Gendarme.
- Yes, and the Taganrog air was not particularly healthy ...
The gendarme, who was looking through binoculars, looked up from the eyepieces.
- Hey, daddy! And did they remember Alexander Pavlovich? .. Yes, you are a dangerous person! But you write good articles about reconciliation ... under a pseudonym, really ...
It's not me who's dangerous. It’s the air in Russia that is dangerous,” responded the Writer. “Especially for the autocrats…
Then they looked at each other again, and both laughed forcedly.
– Wait a minute! said the Gendarme suddenly, rising above the parapet. - There is the Sovereign!
The man of letters jumped up, and with greedy attention clung to the eyepieces.
– Well, with God… Or not with him?.. – The writer smiled wryly.
On the other side of the chariot of Victory, under the very wheel, on a sheepskin short fur coat lay a shaggy, like a dog, gloomy man. He held Berdan's rifle in his hands and, having heard the last words of the gendarme, rose above the parapet.
The area lay in front of him as if in the palm of his hand. Having seen the tall figure of the Sovereign, the shooter lay down, spreading his legs, put the rifle on the rolled-up overcoat and took aim.
Only the closest people knew that the sovereign's daily walks were not only a tribute to etiquette, and not even a concern for maintaining health. Walks were all that the emperor had at his sole disposal. Only during walks did he remain alone with himself and feel inwardly free. But only inwardly, not outwardly: he knew that the guards were somewhere nearby, he knew that the curious public was staring at him. This means that during the walk it was required to observe the protocol form. Namely: the shoulders are straightened, the head is raised, the step is confident, clear. Mask. Armor.
But he thought not about the step, not about the bearing, not about the mask. Now, for some reason, he remembered an episode from his early childhood. This episode was rarely remembered, but, remembering, it did not go out of my head for a long time ...
ANICHKOV PALACE.
1821.
The guests arrived, by the standards of high society, not late, it was not midnight - it's time for balls. Tsarevich Nikolai Pavlovich heard how Alexandra Fedorovna met the guests - graduates of institutes, and among them Countess Medem, an important person and not useful for the house in the usual intrigues around the palace.
Beautiful, young Alexandra Feodorovna introduced the guests to the Tsarevich, the girls behaved boldly, but not impudently, they spoke French. This Countess Nikolai Pavlovich especially looked at. She is modest, smart, prefers Russian to French, although she is also fluent in English - she checked it on purpose. And, as usual, when he was happy with the guests, he decided to show off his heir, his firstborn. He turned to his wife and asked at home:
- What is Sasha? Sleeping?
"Asleep," Alexandra Fyodorovna answered curtly. She did not like these scenes, and did not like boasting. The boy is like a boy. Fanfare, applause - all this is yet to come. And intrigues, and peeping, and whispering: all this secret palace life, unknown to the rest of Russia.
Sleeping is not a problem! Nikolai Pavlovich said loudly. And then he said in his favorite genre - an aphorism: - A soldier must be ready for service at any moment!
He flung open the door to the nursery, pushed back the screen, and ordered the candles to be lit.
- Nicolas ... At least don't touch the drum, - Alexandra Fedorovna grimaced. She and the boy were sorry, and in front of the young guests it was uncomfortable.
- Rubbish! Our duty, Romanovsky, is this - always, at any moment ...
Did not finish, climbed to the boy.
Alexandra Feodorovna objected, forbade - Nikolai Pavlovich had already pulled the child out of bed, snorting: soldier, but they are wrapping up like a frail young lady!
The apostle and evangelist John the Theologian is called the apostle of love for his love for the Lord and love for people. With his life, he fulfilled the commandments given by Christ: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. And love your neighbor as yourself." In these two commandments, the whole law and the prophets, the Old and New Testaments, our present and future.
Love is called the queen of virtues. Without it, all other virtues cannot exist. Without love, they simply become vices, passions.
Faith without love turns into fanaticism, into ritualism, when the Sabbath obscures a person. Hope without love is despair, sadness and despondency. The mind without love is cunning, but with love it is wisdom. A heart without love is a stone or a block of ice.
Our late His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II said wonderful words, simply amazing in their power: “Above the law can only be love, above truth only mercy, and above justice only forgiveness!”
Love is higher than the law, higher than truth and higher than justice, for at the basis of mercy and forgiveness lies love, on which these virtues rest. Therefore, justice without love turns into cruelty, mercy into condemnation, and humility without love turns into hypocrisy.
Here is what Rev. Justin Popovich about love. (Rev. Justin (Popovich). PATH OF KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. Gnoseology of St. Isaac the Syrian.)
"From prayer is born love," just as prayer is born from faith. virtues consubstantial each other, and therefore are born one from the other. L love for God is a sign that the new reality, into which a person is introduced by faith and prayer, is much better than the previous reality. Love for God and people is the result of prayer and faith.Actually, true philanthropy is impossible without faith and prayer.
In the feat of faith, a person changes the world: from the limited he enters the boundless, where life is not according to the law of sensuality, but according to the law of prayer and love. Saint Isaac especially emphasizes his conviction, received by the grace-ascetic experience, that the love of God comes from prayer. "Love is the fruit of prayer" . Love can be begged from God, but it cannot be obtained without a prayerful feat. To the extent that a person acquires the knowledge of God by faith and prayer, to "love is the child of knowledge" .
Through faith, a person renounces the law of egoism, renounces his sinful soul; loving the soul, he hates sin in the soul; through prayer he tries to replace the law of atheism with the law of theism, replace passions with virtues, replace life according to man with life according to God, and thus heal and heal the soul from sins. Therefore Saint Isaac teaches:"The love of God consists in the self-denial of the soul."
Impurity and sickness of the soul are unnatural additions to the soul; they are not constituents of its essence, "because cleanliness and health are the kingdom of the soul." A soul afflicted by passions is the most suitable soil for the cultivation of hatred, and "love can be found only when the soul is healed."
Love is from God, "for God is love" (1 John 4:8); "He who finds love will be clothed with it by God." God has no limits, therefore love is limitless and knows no limits. Whoever loves through God and in God loves everyone equally without distinction, and Saint Isaac says of such a person that he has reached perfection. As an example of perfect love, Saint Isaac cites the desire of Saint Agathon: "I would like to find a leper and take his body and give him mine."
In the realm of love, the antinomic opposites of reason disappear; the ascetic of love anticipates heavenly harmony in himself and in the world of God around him, since by the feat of faith he left his egoistic, sollipsistic hell and entered the paradise of divine values and perfection. Saint Isaac says: "Paradise is the love of God, in which there is the enjoyment of all blessings." Not having the love of God is hell, "those who suffer in hell become those who suffer from the scourge of love." When one obtains the perfect love of God, one attains perfection. Therefore, Saint Isaac advises: "We must first find love, which is the primary contemplation of the Holy Trinity."
Freeing himself from passions, a person is gradually freed from selfish, selfish hominism and humanism, selfish, selfish humanity and humanity, leaves the sphere of murderous anthropocentrism and enters the sphere of the Trinity Deity, where a great, divine world descends into the human soul, where opposites and contradictions from the category time and space cease to be deadly and where victory over sin and death is felt.How to measure love?
Love is measured by sacrifice.
There is no greater love than if a man lays down his life for his friends. (John 15:13)
They say that the mother of a soldier who was condemned to death came to Emperor Napoleon and asked for mercy.
"He's justly condemned!" the emperor said sternly.
“But I didn’t come to ask for justice, but for mercy…”
“Your son does not deserve mercy!”
“Sir,” said the mother quietly, “mercy is not deserved, it is granted ... Therefore, I ask for pardon.
These words touched Napoleon, and the soldier was pardoned. Mercy is higher than justice - this was the principle used by Russian juries before 1917...
All this came to my mind in connection with a heated discussion about the introduction of juvenile justice in our country. And how many people in Russia have an idea of what juvenile (from Latin Juvenalis - young) justice is, that is, the juvenile justice system?
Today there is a significant increase in juvenile delinquency. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, cases of unlawful behavior of minors are detected twice as often as in adults, especially serious crimes against a person. Over the past five years, juvenile delinquency has increased one and a half times, the number of juveniles detained for offenses has almost doubled - there are more than a million of them.
It seems that no one really fights against child and juvenile delinquency in the Russian Federation, state bodies for working with juvenile delinquents are absolutely ineffective. So we decided to introduce juvenile justice, they say, we work, we try ...
What is the purpose of juvenile justice? Allocate offenses committed by children and adolescents into a separate category, which is dealt with by judges, psychologists and lawyers who specialize exclusively in the "children's issue". There will also be juvenile courts.
Adherents of this justice are sure that it will help to understand the reasons that prompted a teenager to commit an offense and answer the question: is a teenager dangerous to society or not?
There is another important direction in juvenile justice: the protection of the rights of children from the cruelty of adults. Unfortunately, this phenomenon is becoming more and more widespread. Juvenile justice offers children to report the cruelty of their parents to special agencies, whose representatives will have the right to interfere in the life of the family, and if they see fit, then take the children away from families. This can also hit good parents hard.
Archpriest Alexander Novopashin, President of the Novosibirsk Charitable Foundation “In Defense of the Life of Unborn Children”, Rector of St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral writes: “Thanks to the destructive activities of corrupters hiding under the mask of virtues, chastity is now perceived as a major drawback, as a result of an inferiority complex, developmental delay . And early sexual relations, that is, in other words, sexual debauchery, are regarded as a completely normal, modern phenomenon.
Of course, parents try to intervene, but often without success. But even with a decent upbringing, there is still a danger emanating from the environment of the child. "Bad company corrupts good morals" (1 Cor. 15:33). And in such a situation, if respectable parents persist, children will begin to complain about them to juvenile services specially created for this in schools, they say, parents do not allow us to live as we want, they infringe on our rights. Do you think they won't start? Let's start! And if the children themselves do not think of this, adults will tell them. There are already entire enterprises that are funded by foreign organizations and are actively promoting juvenile justice in Russia and, of course, are interested in having all its mechanisms involved.
Such a case happened in independent Latvia. A boy of twelve stole a salary from a single mother and squandered it in a computer club. Mother, not yet armed with European juvenile experience, armed herself with a belt. There was a bruise on the teenager's hand, which the teacher noticed. The boy said that they beat him for the cause, but no one cared about his opinion. Representatives of the competent authorities sent the boy from school to a boarding school and initiated a case to deprive the mother of parental rights. The unfortunate woman went to the boarding school every day and begged in vain to be allowed to see her son.”
Archpriest Alexander Ilyashenko, rector of the Moscow Church of the All-Merciful Savior, believes that the main danger of introducing juvenile justice is that it is initially based on the provocation of a crime. The child knows that his conflict with his own parents will find support from the law, the state, and does what he wants.
Is this not the destruction of the family, the alienation of children from their parents, and alienation by the state?
Currently, in Russian law there is no such term as "juvenile justice", "juvenile court". But Russian advocates of juvenile justice believe that we need to transfer the Western “highly effective and humane” experience to our soil. Practice shows that much of what we have adopted from the “civilized countries” over the past decades has not only not taken root in Russia, but has brought us a lot of harm.
Now, when there are heated debates in society about the introduction of juvenile justice, I would like to ask: on what principles will it be built? Liberal-democratic, where everything is bought and sold, or on evangelical values?
The principle of Christian justice is not so much to punish the criminal as to help him repent and reform.
About those who are in power and write laws, the Savior said: “They bind burdens that are heavy and unbearable and lay them on the shoulders of people, but they themselves do not want to move them with a finger” (Matt. 23:4).
How to judge fathers and mothers, if often they got into trouble through no fault of their own? A society that aims to make a profit at any cost has no future. Plants and factories are closing, hundreds of thousands of healthy people are out of work, villages are dying out, small towns are emptying. Children who are left without proper care cannot live without committing offenses.
A person brought up on the values of such a system paves the way to hell with his good intentions. Living without God, he loses his life orientation... Think about it! Is it necessary to create a “child protection system” that is not based on Christian moral standards?