Orthodox magazine for children “My Joy” (Donetsk diocese). For Orthodox Book Day (report and presentation)

Project passport

Project name	Literary-Orthodox lecture hall “To the origins of morality through the Orthodox book”
	Rylova Ekaterina Leonidovna, head of the innovation and methodological department of the Kirovo-Chepetsk Republican Center for Children's Educational Institutions
What problem does the project solve?	Problems of accessibility of Orthodox literature to readers of the Kirovo-Chepetsk region, informing the population on issues of Orthodoxy.
Objective of the project	Orthodox education of the population of the Kirovo-Chepetsk region through the recommendation of the best examples of literature.
Organizer	Municipal state-financed organization culture "Kirovo-Chepetsk regional centralized library system"
Target audience of the project (for whom it is intended)	Population of the Kirovo-Chepetsk region.
Main events	1. The origins of human happiness (introduction to the concept of “Orthodox literature”). 2. With love and gratitude ( female images in Orthodox literature). 3. The most important holiday of the year is Easter. 4. On the threshold of the temple (about the Velikoretsky religious procession). 5. A school where they teach to be kind (the image of a teenager in Orthodox literature). 6. My fortress (family in Orthodox literature). 7. Outpost (about Faith and love in Orthodox literature).
Implementation period	March - August 2011.
Bottom line	1. Educating the population of the Kirovo-Chepetsk region through mass events showing Orthodox films. 2. Conducting 7 lecture sessions. 3. Purchase of publications on Orthodox topics for libraries. 4. Strengthening partnerships with the Missionary and Educational Department of the Vyatka Diocese, the Sunday School library and representatives of the All Saints Church of Kirovo-Chepetsk, the Seraphim of Sarov Charitable Foundation. 5. Formation of a network of educational departments of Orthodox literature on the basis of libraries.

Project of the literary-Orthodox lecture hall “To the origins of morality through the Orthodox book”

Spiritual and moral education of the population of the Kirovo-Chepetsk district of the Kirov region still remains one of the main activities of the libraries of the MBUK "Kirovo-Chepetsk Republican Central Library". The urgent task of today is the formation of a unified information space in the spiritual and moral direction, and, in connection with this, the organization of a methodological information center on this topic on the basis of the central regional library.

To solve this problem of Orthodox education, a project of a literary Orthodox lecture hall “To the origins of morality through the Orthodox book” was developed.

Objective of the project

Orthodox education of the population of the Kirovo-Chepetsk region through the recommendation of the best examples of literature.

Project objectives

1. Educating the population through video lectures in 7 libraries in the Kirovo-Chepetsk region;
2. Formation of thematic collections of spiritual and moral literature in order to model their own unique fund of Orthodox literature in rural branch libraries;
3. Combining the resources of the Kirovo-Chepetsk Central Regional Library, the Kirov State Regional Scientific Library named after. A.I. Herzen, the Missionary and Educational Department of the Vyatka Diocese, representatives of the All Saints Church in Kirovo-Chepetsk, the Seraphim of Sarov Charitable Foundation for the implementation of the project;
4. Creating a public outcry and attracting a large number of readers in the villages of the region to this project.

Reason for the importance of the project

The task of all libraries is to help revive the best national spiritual traditions in society. This can be done only by systematically recommending to the reader the best examples of spiritual and moral literature, nurturing the reader’s artistic taste and reading culture from a young age. Until there is a unified concept of spiritual and moral education in the Kirov region, holding lectures is one of the possible ways of Orthodox education of the population of the Kirovo-Chepetsk region.

When and by whom was the project implemented?

The project implementation period is March-September 2011.

The project “To the Origins of Morality through the Orthodox Book” was implemented by the MBUK “Kirovo-Chepetsk Republican Central Library”, Kirov State Regional Scientific Library named after. A.I. Herzen, the Missionary and Educational Department of the Vyatka Diocese, representatives of the All Saints Church in Kirovo-Chepetsk, and the Seraphim of Sarov Charitable Foundation.

Resource base

Administrative resource

A cooperation agreement was signed between the Kirovo-Chepetsk Republican Central Clinical Hospital and the parish of the All Saints Church.

Financial resource

Equipment. Book and electronic products.

Name of equipment	price, rub.	Quantity, pcs.	Total, rub.	Available, rub.	Required, rub.
Projector	24 925		24 925		24 925
Portable screen	5 075		5 075		5 075
Purchasing literature			20 000	20 000
Purchasing films on electronic media			4 000	4 000
Total:			54 000	24 000	30 000

Name of cost item	Cost, rub.	Quantity per month, pcs.	Total, rub.	Available, rub.	Required, rub.
Copier paper White Colored
Total:			440	440	0

Human resources

• Human resources of the Kirovo-Chepetsk Central Regional Library: E.L. Rylova - leading methodologist for working with children (conducting lectures, creating publishing products) and E.A. Rylova is the head of the department for the formation and use of a single fund (purchase of literature and DVD films).
• Human resources of the Missionary and Educational Department of the Vyatka Diocese: teacher of the Church of the Holy Great Martyrs Faith, Nadezhda, Lyubov and their mother Sophia N.V. Demidov (speeches at training seminars).
• Human resources of the All Saints Church in Kirovo-Chepetsk: Orthodox missionary - catechist L.A. Zoroina and archivist V.P. Plotnikov (local history Orthodox education among the population of the Kirovo-Chepetsk region).

Material resource

To implement the project the following were involved:

• Kirov State Regional Scientific Library named after. A.I. Herzen (compiling the Orthodox magazine “Thomas”, “Family and School”, the weekly “Vyatka Diocesan Bulletin”;
• Donations to the fund of the MUK "Kirovo-Chepetsk Regional Central Library" by the Orthodox missionary of the All Saints Church in Kirovo-Chepetsk L.A. Zorina, employees of the Missionary and Educational Department of the Vyatka Diocese, readers of the Orthodox library "Blagovest" in Kirov. Priest Fr. John of the Holy Trinity Church. Kstinino signed the Kstinino library for children's Orthodox magazine"Candle".

Methodological resource

Employee of the Missionary and Educational Department of the Vyatka Diocese Repin I.V. provided a large methodological resource on Orthodox education: electronic presentations about Orthodox holidays, scripts for holidays, speeches at parent meetings, films about Orthodoxy, etc.; illustrative material: posters, calendars, advertising products of religious schools, lists of books recommended for reading by the Russian Orthodox Church, etc.

Temporary resource

The Sunday School library staff provided Orthodox thematic collections of literature for temporary use.

The principle of attracting partners to implement the project

Taking into account the results of a study conducted to study reader demand for literature with spiritual and moral content, incl. Orthodox literature, in various age groups, the Kirovo-Chepetsk Central District Library entered into a Cooperation Agreement with the local Orthodox religious organization of the parish of the All Saints Church in the city of Kirovo-Chepetsk. As part of an agreement with the parish of the All Saints Church, the staff of the Sunday School of Kirovo-Chepetsk formed a thematic selection of literature “Orthodox Family” for the libraries of the Kirovo-Chepetsk Regional Central Library.

As part of the joint project “Golden Shelf” from the Kirov Regional Scientific Universal Library named after. A.I. Herzen, the Orthodox magazine “Thomas”, “Family and School”, “Vyatka Diocesan Bulletin” first arrived at the RCBS.

Considering the Orthodox competence of the specialists of the Missionary and Educational Department, their involvement became important for speaking at educational library seminars.

The involvement of representatives of the All Saints Church in Kirovo-Chepetsk made it possible to conduct local history Orthodox education among the population in libraries of the Kirovo-Chepetsk region that were not included in the project.

Project progress

The lecture hall is designed to solve the problems of accessibility of Orthodox literature to readers of the region, informing the population on issues of Orthodoxy. These issues are especially acute in the villages of the region where there are no churches. During March - August 2011, classes were held in rural libraries in the Kirovo-Chepetsk region in an interesting and accessible form for various groups of readers. Each lesson was accompanied by films - winners of the International Orthodox Sretensky Film Festival. At the same time, meetings were held in the libraries with the Orthodox missionary of the All Saints Church in Kirovo-Chepetsk Zorina L.A., archivist V.P. Plotnikova. The purpose of these meetings was local history Orthodox education of the population of the Kirovo-Chepetsk region: telling and showing electronic presentations about churches and priests of the Kirovo-Chepetsk region.

As part of the project, thematic collections of spiritual and moral literature were sent to rural libraries in order to form their own unique fund of Orthodox literature in rural branch libraries. Information about the Seraphim of Sarov Charitable Foundation and the Kirovo-Chepetsk Regional Library project was posted on the website of the Government of the Kirov Region.

Work on the project “To the Origins of Morality through the Orthodox Book” began in March 2011 in the Kirovo-Chepetsk Central District Hospital. At the seminar for rural librarians (22 employees), an employee of the Missionary and Educational Department of the Vyatka Diocese, teacher of the Church of the Holy Great Martyrs Vera, Nadezhda, Lyubov and their mother Sophia N.V. spoke. Demidova.

In her speech, Nadezhda Vasilyevna highlighted current problems of spiritual and moral education and upbringing in the work of a modern rural library. At the seminar, Nadezhda Vasilyevna presented lesson presentations for use at parent meetings and class hours. Every word, every frame of the presentation found a warm response from those gathered.

From March 21 to April 1, 2011, at the Vyatka State Humanitarian University, with the participation of the clergy of the Vyatka diocese, regular courses were held for future teachers of the subject "Fundamentals Orthodox culture". The librarian of the Prosnitsa branch library, E.L. Kochurova, took part in them. According to her, N.V. Demidova’s speech at the regional seminar pushed her to participate in these courses.

The innovative methodological department of the Central District Hospital has developed a methodology for conducting the lesson “The Beauty of Old Vyatka” with elements of heuristic activity for a series of events for children under the general title “School where they teach you to be kind.”

Thanks to publishing products, libraries help readers navigate this information flow:

• Information digests “Spring Orthodox holidays”, “Summer Orthodox holidays”, “Autumn Orthodox holidays”, “Winter Orthodox holidays”;
• Poster information on the appointment of Archbishop Mark as Bishop of the Vyatka and Slobodsk diocese;
• “The Patron Saints of Rus': information digest”;
• “Day of Slavic Literature and Culture” - methodological recommendations;
• “Family is joy: July 8 is the Day of Love, Family and Loyalty” - booklet;
• A set of bookmarks for books dedicated to Orthodox literature;
• In each issue of the Chitalka newspaper, children wrote about the churches of their village;
• An advertisement for the Vyatka Theological School was distributed through the libraries of the Kirovo-Chepetsk region.

The Central District Hospital and the Sunday School library of the All Saints Church formed and sent to rural libraries in the region a selection of Orthodox literature: “Bright Faces” Ancient Rus'"(Prosnitskaya library), "Orthodox Shrines" (Pasegovskaya, Karinskaya, Polomskaya libraries), "Family is a small church" and "Your Orthodox home" (Fateevskaya, Filippovskaya libraries).

As part of the project “To the Origins of Morality through the Orthodox Book” of the Kirovo-Chepetsk Republican Central Library, agreements were concluded with the Orthodox publishing houses “Satis” and the Danilovsky Monastery for the purchase of literature and DVD films. Thus, the library system received 289 copies. books and 33 electronic publications on Orthodox topics.

Activities for 7 libraries included in the project:

• An event “With Love and Gratitude” was held at the Kstinin Library as part of the project. Books were presented telling about the distinctive role of women in the Orthodox family, about the power of maternal prayer, about nuns, and about the wives of Orthodox priests. In the village Kstinino is a temple, so here we can talk about a fairly stable interest in this topic on the part of parishioners.
• In the Filippov Library - “Outpost: about Faith and Love in Orthodox Literature”. Since the event was attended by not only adults, but also teenagers, books were presented that may also be of interest to young people: Voznesenskaya Y. “My Posthumous Adventures”, Starikova E. “What Parents Don’t Know”, Kozlov M. “Children’s Catechism”, Zorin K. “What is hidden from the young.” The film so impressed the audience, most of whom were teenagers, that after some time a young reader of the Filippov Library wrote a review about the film to the regional library newspaper “Chitalka”.
• A lesson with elements of heuristic activity “A school where they teach you to be kind” was held in the Pasegovskaya library. Lesson with children." The children were presented with a book by N.V. Demidova “Old Vyatka”, then they were given coloring pages based on this book and asked to illustrate it using their favorite colors. For adults - “The origins of human happiness (introduction to the concept of “Orthodox literature”)” Considering the low level of education of the population in this topic, librarian T.N. Porubova. offered readers informational digests “Autumn Orthodox Holidays”, “Winter Orthodox Holidays”, “Spring Orthodox Holidays”, “Summer Orthodox Holidays”, compiled by the innovative methodological department of the regional library.
• For readers of the Prosnitsa Children's Library, the methodologist for working with children of the Kirovo-Chepetsk Regional Library conducted a lesson with elements of heuristic activity “A school where they teach to be kind. Lesson with children” The children were presented with a book by N.V. Demidova “Old Vyatka”, then they were given coloring pages based on this book and asked to illustrate it using their favorite colors. The children were shown the cartoon “St. Basil”.
• According to readers’ reviews, the event “On the Threshold of the Temple” in the Klyuchevskaya Library was very relevant and timely. There is no church in the village of Klyuchi, but thanks to the active position of rural librarians V.M. Ulanova and I.A. Gorkovchuk, the population of the village annually goes on excursions to Orthodox churches in the region. There is a great demand for Orthodox literature among readers of the Klyuchevskaya Library. After the event, a waiting list was created for the book “Temple Behavior.” Books by Yu. Voznesenskaya “Juliana. Or dangerous games”, “Juliana, or the game of kidnapping” were taken by parents for their teenage children. The books of Osipov A.I. aroused great interest. “Love, marriage, family: conversation with adults”, “Raising a child in Russian traditions”. The event was attended by the head teacher of the Klyuchevskaya school, who proposed to draw up a schedule of similar video lectures for students for the school year (2011-2012).
• The Polomsky library-district family museum held a lesson for readers “The most important holiday of the year - Easter.” After the event, readers came up and thanked us for the books and the film shown. Head of the kindergarten Polom, who was present at the event, invited her to join her team in September for a similar event. The most surprising thing was the confession of one of the readers who never went to church; according to him, there was no such need in him: “I need to go to church!”, “I need to take the Bible and read!” (There is no church in the village of Polom.)
• A meeting with readers was held at the Karinsky Library on the topic of family in Orthodoxy “My Fortress: Family in Orthodox Literature.” The meeting was attended not only by adults, but also by young people. The books by N. Sukhinina “The White Crow” and “The Practical Encyclopedia of the Orthodox Christian” aroused great interest among adults. Young people were interested in the books by Avdeenko E. “How to Get Married Correctly”, Torik A. “Dimon”, “Once More About Love”, Voznesenskaya “Lancelot’s Pilgrimage”, and “Cassandra’s Path”. The conversation covered the issues of choosing the right future spouse, the roles of men and women in the family (past and present), and in raising children.

As part of the project “To the Origins of Morality through the Orthodox Book”, readers were shown the winning films of the International Orthodox Festival “Meeting”: “Outpost”, “How People Live”, “Crystal Boy”, m/f for children “About St. Basil”, "Smart granddaughter"

Work in this area was carried out not only in the libraries included in the project. Rural librarians asked to speak in libraries not included in the project. Thus, evenings of sacred music, hours of Orthodoxy, and meetings with priests of the churches of the All Saints Deanery were held in the libraries.

In total, 1,028 people took part in various Orthodox events organized and held by district libraries and employees of the All Saints Church in Kirovo-Chepetsk. Orthodox films and literature aroused great interest among residents of the Kirovo-Chepetsk region. Considering the peculiarity of Orthodox literature - the desire to reread, analyze, compare - it brought great joy to the residents that Orthodox literature remains in rural libraries. After each performance, people came up, thanked me, and asked me to come again.

From teachers of kindergartens and schools in the region, offers were received to go out with similar classes to teaching groups and to attend classroom hours with students.

Teachers from the city of Kirovo-Chepetsk became interested in Orthodox events for children “A school where they teach to be kind.” Thus, events were held for the sports school for children and youth of the Olympic reserve and for the city club “Chaika” that were highly appreciated by teachers and children. The peculiarity of this audience is that many of these children are included in the so-called. "special attention group" These are children from large families, from families caused by pedagogical neglect and inattention to their upbringing.

The project “To the Origins of Morality through the Orthodox Book” showed that readers are interested not only in Orthodox fiction. They are interested in information of a practical nature: how to pray correctly, take communion, light candles and much more. Now readers of the six libraries announced in the project can find on the shelves the books “How to pray correctly?”, “How to prepare for confession and communion”, “How to get married correctly”, “How to pray and behave in church”, “Children’s Catechism . 200 children’s questions and non-childish answers about faith, church and Christian life”, “1380 useful advice from the priest to his parishioners”, “First steps in an Orthodox church”, “Practical encyclopedia of an Orthodox Christian”, etc. Many readers admit that they do not attend churches or do it not as often as they would like because they are not sure of the correctness of their behavior in the temple. Such literature will help many to acquire the necessary knowledge and instill confidence that their behavior in the temple will be correct. Among the acquired literature there are many books that can be used by librarians and teachers to conduct various conversations with both children and parents.

Yes, for younger children school age The Prosnitsa Children's Library held a lesson “The Wisdom of Russian Fairy Tales”. After answering the fairytale quiz questions, the children colored fragments of various folk tales. A piece of Whatman paper was prepared for the lesson, on which the name of the event was placed. Rays diverged from it in different directions. Each ray was signed: “kindness”, “mutual assistance”, “love”, “beauty”, “makes fun of stupidity”, “care of elders over the younger”, etc. While talking with the children, they placed painted leaves next to specific rays. The result was the conclusion that a huge number of Russian folk tales contain all of the above categories. And all these categories are concentrated in Russian folk tales.

In rural libraries, kindergartens and schools:

• Educational and creative hour “Easter Souvenir”, during which children, under the guidance of a librarian, made Easter baskets (Kstininsky Library),
• “The brightest holiday” (Fateevskaya Library-Museum) - at the exhibition of children's creative works were presented various crafts, the children enjoyed watching the presentation about Easter.

The event dedicated to the 66th anniversary of the Victory in the Veteran clubs aroused great interest. The event was based on stories from the collection “Miracles on the Roads of War.” Collection “Miracles on the Roads of War” - short stories about miraculous manifestations of the power of God. Such stories are based on specific facts attested by eyewitnesses in handwritten memoirs of war veterans and their relatives, in oral stories recorded by the compilers of the collection, as well as evidence from other sources. Miracles of God occurred on the fronts and roads of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.

“Acquaintance with facts of this kind,” notes Archimandrite Veniamin (Milov), “has deep religious and educational significance. He comforts the reader with a common faith, pours into his soul a whole stream of new holy experiences and truly sanctifies living water verbal beneficial energy."

Readers expressed their opinions on the books and gave examples from their lives and cases from the lives of other people. We wished to hold such events more often and invite clergy to them. For the bright holiday of Easter, the “Veteran” club held a lesson “Holiday of Spring and Goodness”

Project results

The project “To the Origins of Morality through the Orthodox Book” turned out to be successful.

The goal of the project - Orthodox education of the residents of the Kirovo-Chepetsk region - was achieved.

All assigned tasks have been solved: problems of accessibility of Orthodox literature to readers of the region, informing the population on issues of Orthodoxy. A public outcry was created and a large number of readers in the villages of the region were attracted to this project.

The project “To the Origins of Morality through the Orthodox Book” mobilized the work of the Central District Library in this direction and made it possible to launch a mechanism for the timely response of library resources to changes. (Creation of thematic collections of Orthodox literature, release of publishing products on Orthodox themes, development of methods for conducting events for children).

Concrete results were obtained that allow us to speak about the relevance of the project “To the Origins of Morality through the Orthodox Book”: 7 lecture sessions were held for 258 people. In addition, using the equipment purchased as part of the project, an additional 8 Orthodox-themed events were held for children (158 people). 289 copies were purchased for libraries. books, 33 Orthodox films. Received as a gift from Orthodox missionaries and the Orthodox library “Blagovest” in Kirov 47 books and 40 brochures. Kstininsky library priest Fr. John of the Holy Trinity Church. Kstinino subscribed to the children's Orthodox magazine “Svechechka”. Close cooperation has been established with the missionaries of the All Saints Church in Kirovo-Chepetsk, with the Orthodox publishing house "Satis", with the library of the Sunday School of the All Saints Church, and continued cooperation with the employees of the Missionary and Educational Department. Within the framework of the project, consultations for rural librarians were constantly held. Positive feedback, exhibitions, seminars, events - all this allows us to draw a conclusion about the effectiveness of the project “To the Origins of Morality through the Orthodox Book”, its sustainability and prospects.

The demand for such meetings among the population of the region turned out to be very high. The project showed growing interest in Orthodox literature not only among the elderly population, but also among people 30-45 years old and teenagers. People share their impressions of books and films with each other, with librarians, because... Everyone has problems that Orthodox literature raises. This includes raising children, family relationships, problems of mutual understanding in society. And video lectures like these can help in finding ways to solve these problems.

A form such as a video lecture helps to promote the best examples of Orthodox literature to the readership. Showing Orthodox films and talking about Orthodox books have significantly increased the book supply of Orthodox literature. One of the working moments in the implementation of the project, which became unexpected for us, was the increased interest in a similar topic in those settlements where there is no church (Klyuchi village, Filippovo village, Polom village, Chuvashi village, Markovtsy village). The number of wishes for new meetings and requests for Orthodox literature in these settlements were very high. The project “To the Origins of Morality through the Orthodox Book” showed that the Orthodox reader of the Kirovo-Chepetsk region needs his own library collection, and for its functioning, it is necessary to develop a methodology for the work of rural libraries on Orthodox education. And one of the logical links of this was the creation of a model of the fund of the Orthodox department in the libraries of the region during the implementation of the next project - the network of “Educational departments of Orthodox culture”.

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Orthodox calendar

St. Eutyches, Archbishop. Constantinople (582).

Equal. Methodius, Archbishop. Moravsky (885). St. Platonides of Syria (308). Mchch. 120 Persian (344–347). Mchch. Jeremiah and Archilius the Priest (III).

Mchch. Pyotr Zhukov and Prokhor Mikhailov (1918); sschmch. John Boykov presbyter (1934); sschmch. Jacob Boykov presbyter (1943); St. Sevastiana Fomina, Spanish (1966).

Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts.

At the 6th hour: Isa. LXVI, 10–24. For eternity: Gen. XLIX, 33 – L, 26. Proverbs. XXXI, 8–32.

We congratulate the birthday people on Angel Day!

Icon of the day

Saint Eutyches, Archbishop of Constantinople

Saint Eutyches of Constantinople, Archbishop

Saint Eutyches, Archbishop of Constantinople , was born in a village called “Divine” in the Phrygian region. His father, Alexander, was a warrior, and his mother, Sinesia, was the daughter of a priest of the Augustopolis church of Hesychius. Saint Eutyches received his initial education and Christian upbringing from his priest grandfather. Once, during a children's game, the boy wrote his name with the title of patriarch and thereby, as it were, predicted his future service. At the age of 12 he was sent to Constantinople to receive further education. The young man succeeded in studying the sciences and realized that human wisdom is nothing before the teaching of Divine Revelation. He decided to devote himself to monastic life. Saint Eutyches retired to one of the Amasian monasteries and accepted the rank of Angels there. During his strict life, he was made archimandrite of all Amasian monasteries, and in 552 he was elevated to the patriarchal throne.

When the convening of the Fifth Ecumenical Council was being prepared under the holy blessed king Justinian (527–565), the Metropolitan of Amasia was ill and sent Saint Eutyches in his place. In Constantinople, the elderly patriarch Saint Menas (536–552, commemorated August 25) saw blessed Eutyches and predicted that he would be patriarch after him. After the death of the holy Patriarch Menas, the Apostle Peter appeared in a vision to the Emperor Justinian and, pointing his hand at Eutyches, said: “Let him be made your bishop.”

At the beginning of the patriarchal ministry of Saint Eutyches, the Fifth Ecumenical Council (553) was convened, at which the fathers condemned the heresies that had arisen and anathematized them. However, a few years later a new heresy arose in the Church, the autodocetes, that is, the “incorruptibles,” who taught that the flesh of Christ before the Death on the Cross and Resurrection was incorruptible and did not experience suffering.

Saint Eutyches boldly exposed this heresy, but Emperor Justinian, who was himself inclined towards it, brought down his anger on the saint. By order of the emperor, soldiers seized the saint in the temple, tore off his patriarchal vestments and sent him into exile to the Amasia monastery (in 565).

The saint meekly endured his exile, remained in the monastery in fasting and prayer, and performed many miracles and healings.

Thus, through his prayer, the wife of the pious husband Androginus, who had previously given birth to only dead babies, had two sons born and reached adulthood. Two deaf and mute youths received the gift of speech; two children, who were seriously ill, recovered. The saint healed cancer on the artist's hand. The saint healed another artist by anointing his sore hand with oil and making the sign of the cross over it. The saint healed not only physical, but also mental illnesses: he cast out a demon from the young woman, who did not allow her to receive Holy Communion; expelled a demon from a young man who had run away from the monastery (after which the young man returned to his monastery); healed a drunkard leper who, having been cleansed of leprosy, stopped drinking.

During the Persian attack on Amasia and the general devastation of the inhabitants, at the direction of the saint, grain was given from the monastery granaries to the hungry, and the grain reserves in the monastery did not become scarce through his prayers.

Saint Eutyches received from God the gift of prophecy; Thus, he indicated the names of two emperors-successors of Justinian - Justin (565-578) and Tiberius (578-582).

After the death of the holy Patriarch John Scholasticus, Saint Eutyches returned to the see in 577 from a 12-year exile and again began to wisely govern his flock.

Four and a half years after returning to the patriarchal throne, Saint Eutyches on Thomas Sunday 582 gathered the entire clergy, gave a blessing and departed to the Lord in peace.

Troparion to Saint Eutyches, Archbishop of Constantinople

The rule of faith and the image of meekness,/ the self-control of the teacher/ will show you to your flock/ even the truth of things,/ for this reason you have acquired high humility,/ rich in poverty./ Father Eutyches Yes, / pray to Christ God / for our souls to be saved.

Translation: The immutable Truth was revealed to your flock by the rule of faith and the image of meekness and self-control. Therefore, through humility you have acquired high things, and through poverty you have acquired riches. Father Eutyches, pray to Christ God for the salvation of our souls.

Kontakion to Saint Eutyches, Archbishop of Constantinople

Let us all sing, O people, to the Divine faithful Eutycheus, / let us please him with love, as he is a great shepherd and servant, / and a wise teacher, and a banisher of heresies, // praying to the Lord for us all.

Translation: Truly, we all glorify Saint Eutyches, people, with love, as a great shepherd, a wise servant and teacher, and a banisher of heresies, since he prays to the Lord for all of us.

Reading the Gospel with the Church

April 19. Great Lent. We study the Holy Gospel history. About the Cross

Hello, dear brothers and sisters.

The Great Lent has come to an end. This week we remembered the most important events that were a prototype of the coming Passion of Christ. Ahead of us are the memories of the resurrection of Lazarus, the entry of the Lord into Jerusalem and Holy Week.

Every day you and I read the Gospel, becoming witnesses of God’s great blessings and listeners to the words of Christ’s Truth. But once a year, before the great holiday of Easter, for several days we read very terrible words about the betrayal and suffering of our Savior, about His death on the Cross. And today I would like to talk specifically about the Cross.

Even in the days when none of the apostles could even imagine that anyone was capable of raising a hand against Jesus Christ, our Lord began to warn His disciples about the suffering that lay ahead of Him. In the Gospel of Mark we read:

8.31. And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and on the third day rise again.

8.32. And he spoke about it openly. But Peter, having called Him away, began to contradict Him.

8.33. He, turning around and looking at His disciples, rebuked Peter, saying: Get away from Me, Satan, because you think not about the things of God, but about the things of men.

8.34. And calling the people with His disciples, He said to them: If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.

(Mark 8:31–34)

This part of the Gospel of Mark contains the central and important points Christian faith. So, from the conversation with Peter we learn that for Jesus as the Messiah, as the Christ, there is only one path, the path of suffering. And this road is for everyone who wants to follow Him. The Lord never tried to bribe people by promising them an easy path. He promised them the glory of the Kingdom of God, but he never promised people comfort. Therefore, the Savior Having called the people with His disciples, He said to them: If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.(Mark 8:34).

To tell a man that he must be prepared to bear his cross was to tell him that he must be prepared to be looked upon as a criminal, that he must be prepared to die. It is clear that the first Christians understood this expression differently than we do, but literally: “to bear the cross” means to be crucified.

The execution of crucifixion was the most shameful, the most painful and the most cruel. In those days, only the most notorious villains were executed with such a death: robbers, murderers, rebels and criminal slaves. The torment of a crucified man cannot be described. In addition to unbearable pain in all parts of the body and suffering, the crucified man experienced terrible thirst and mortal spiritual anguish. Death was so slow that many suffered on crosses for several days.

The Lord offers such a terrible image of following Him for a reason. The memory of the cross should not only frighten, bring to life the people who accompanied the Lord, but confirm their faith in Him when these same people become witnesses of the suffering of Christ.

The cross itself, as a form of shameful and painful death, will be transformed by the Honest Blood of the Savior into a symbol of sacrificial love - a clear example of all the Gospel words of the Savior. If in the first centuries the Cross was a symbol of suffering, now it is a symbol of glory for millions of Christians around the world.

But what does the Cross of Christ call us to? To only one thing – love! After all, the Cross is love, the all-conquering, merciful, compassionate love of God for every person. To be outside of this love means not to accept either the Cross of the Lord or the Gospel of Christ in general. And every Orthodox Christian is called to embody the Gospel, sacrificial service to one’s neighbor, in his life.

There is one instructive story in the life of St. Paisius the Svyatogorets. When Elder Paisios carried out his feat of prayer in Sinai, next to him were Greek missionaries who had come on a mission to the Bedouins. One day the monk learned that one of the missionaries had given his clothes to a Bedouin to wash for money. This caused the saint’s amazement, and he asked the missionary: “What were you doing while he was doing the laundry?” - to which the young man replied: “Like what? I read commentaries on the Holy Scriptures so as not to waste a minute of time without spiritual benefit.” Then the Monk Paisius wisely remarked: “Perhaps you haven’t lost time, but you’ve definitely lost the Gospel. You had to wash the Bedouins' pants yourself. Only then will the Gospel become your life. If you sit and read a book while others wash your clothes, there will be no spiritual benefit.”

The Monk Paisius himself was an example of evangelical love for people. To some, as a consolation or blessing, he gave icons of the Most Holy Theotokos and crosses, which he himself made from Athonite trees. Looking at this cross-blessing of St. Paisius the Holy Mountain and remembering the numerous instructions of the Athonite elder, you understand how important it is to accept Divine love into your heart, how important it is to respond to the Sacrifice of our Savior on the Cross and trust in God.

Ahead of us lies Holy Week, a time when we must give ourselves an account: who will we be at the terrible moment of Christ’s suffering? We will be idle and indifferent onlookers who watch the Gospel events with interest, not letting them into our hearts, or we will find ourselves among the faithful followers who bear their cross with Him.

Help us in this, Lord!

Hieromonk Pimen (Shevchenko),
monk of the Holy Trinity Alexander Nevsky Lavra

Cartoon calendar

Orthodox educational courses

THE BATTLE WITH OUR DEATH: A Word on the Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem

G The Lord is now entering Jerusalem, His city, to enter into battle with death. With whose death? With the death of each of us - with yours, with mine, with the death of each of the people. Enter the battle and win.

IN After all, death is not a one-time event when a person passes from this life to some state completely incomprehensible to him. What is called biological life ceases. Death continues on. This is only the beginning of death, what you and I sometimes witness - the death of our loved ones or some other people. This is just the beginning. And then it continues in another life. And as terrible and sad as it is when we see it here with our own eyes, it is infinitely more terrible when it continues in the spiritual world, when death covers not only the body, but also the soul. All thoughts, everything that makes up a person’s soul: his feelings, aspirations, the enormous experience that he has accumulated during his life, everything that we don’t even suspect is contained in the human personality - everything begins to undergo terrible destruction and decay.

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Hieromonk Irenaeus (Pikovsky)

Preparation for the Sacrament of Holy Baptism

IN section " Preparation for Baptism" site "Sunday school: on-line courses " Archpriest Andrei Fedosov, head of the department of education and catechesis of the Kinel Diocese, information has been collected that will be useful to those who are going to receive Baptism themselves, or want to baptize their child or become a godparent.

R This section consists of five cataclysmic conversations in which the content of Orthodox dogma within the framework of the Creed is revealed, the sequence and meaning of the rites performed at Baptism are explained, and answers to common questions related to this Sacrament are given. Each conversation is accompanied by additional materials, links to sources, recommended literature and Internet resources.

ABOUT course conversations are presented in the form of texts, audio files and videos.

Course topics:

• Conversation No. 1 Preliminary concepts
• Conversation No. 2 Sacred Bible story
• Conversation No. 3 Church of Christ
• Conversation No. 4 Christian morality
• Conversation No. 5 The Sacrament of Holy Baptism

Applications:

• FAQ
• Orthodox calendar

Reading the lives of saints by Dmitry of Rostov for every day

Recent Entries

Radio "Vera"

Radio "VERA" is a new radio station that talks about the eternal truths of the Orthodox faith.

TV channel Tsargrad: Orthodoxy

So, let's take a short excursion into history. Why was March 14th chosen to celebrate “Orthodox Book Day”? Everything is very simple. It was on this day, in 1564, that the first book, the liturgical “Apostle,” was printed by Deacon Ivan Fedorov. I would like to remind you that before the advent of the printing press, books were weighty folios. They were copied by hand, using very expensive materials such as parchment, i.e. specially treated leather. Such books were real works of art, combining calligraphy, painting and jewelry. Naturally, only the richest people could afford handwritten books. The advent of the printing press significantly reduced the cost of creating books, and they have now become more accessible and widespread. Thus, it is believed that the above-mentioned “Apostle” was published in a circulation of approximately 2000 copies.

It is safe to say that 1564 was a turning point, since the printed book gave a colossal impetus to the development of modern culture and science in Russia.

The holiday itself that we are talking about today is very young. It was established by the decision of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church on December 25, 2009. And, like any holiday, it has a function not only of a cultural and educational nature, when we meet with people, mainly young people, and talk about the Orthodox book as a kind of historical phenomenon, about its significance for the development of society and the state. Another important function of it is to highlight some of the problems faced modern education. We can say that the emergence of “Orthodox Book Day” is the Church’s reaction to the general decline in the cultural and, first of all, spiritual and moral level of man.

According to VTsIOM data for 2014, which we see on the presented slide, compared to 2009, the number of people who practically do not read books increased from 27 to 36 percent. I would like to note that in 1992 there were only 20 percent of such people. 43 percent of respondents said that they do not like to read at all. In another survey conducted by the Public Opinion Foundation, a more alarming trend can be seen: it turned out that 58% of Russians cannot name any books at all that would make a strong impression on them. Why is this happening? The answer to this question is found in the same statistics. For the modern reader, light, entertaining reading is of greatest interest - 37%. In second place is fiction- 29%, in third - literature in the specialty - 21%. In last place, unfortunately, is religious literature - only 5%. What share of this 5 percent Orthodox literature occupies is an open question; there are no such statistics, however, I don’t think it’s very large.

Based on these data, it is not surprising that today the question of the need to carry out work to popularize books with spiritual and moral content arises. But it’s one thing to make a book popular, and another thing to awaken the reader’s interest in this topic. The latter is the most difficult, since the modern world, with all its nature and widespread propaganda, imposes on us the idea that it is good for a person to conform to a certain fashion, a certain trend. Suffice it to remember the excitement that appears when the next Hollywood film is released. At this moment, especially among young people, you can often hear the question: did you watch? At the same time, it is surprising that the plot of the film itself can be retold in just a couple of minutes. I don’t presume to say what this plot is, good or bad, films are different. But we are attracted more by the picture and the “cool” special effects in isolation from the real content. There are very few people who, after watching another picture, will try to find the literary work on which it was based. Even fewer people are able to comprehend what they see and hear. This probably happens because by the time such a sensible idea can arise in our heads, we are already being carried headlong by a new wave of fashion. In addition, we are very lazy, because thinking about morality is hard work, and we want something easy that can instantly cheer us up. Unfortunately, everything I just said about films is also true for literature.

However, each of us has an idea of ​​enduring, that is, permanent, values, which include love for our Motherland, knowledge of its history and culture. All this is a sign of education for us. I think that everyone present here will agree with me if I say that being an educated and cultured person is better than being uneducated and uncultured. And it’s no secret that the development of our state is closely connected with the Church. You cannot run away from this fact or pretend that it simply does not exist. And if I love my country, if I want to be useful to my compatriots in the future, if I care about who my children will become, then I have no right to throw into the dustbin of history that huge layer of culture accumulated by the joint efforts of the Church and the state, starting from Prince Vladimir, who was baptized more than 1000 years ago, in 988. And in such a situation, the book, as a material carrier of knowledge, should be of great interest to us.

The Orthodox Church has always set and still sets as its main task the spiritual and moral development of the individual, and the state, especially since the era of Peter I, encourages scientific knowledge. Let's think about what an educated, but unspiritual and immoral person can become? You don’t have to look far for examples; just remember the inhumane experiments that were carried out on prisoners during World War II in Nazi concentration camps. So, so that we, or our descendants, never become those who trampled on everything human, we need to now learn to be People, People with a capital “H”. And naturally, in this teaching it is best to turn to the experience of the Church, which dates back more than 2000 years.

Today, on the shelves of our bookstores, or in online libraries, you can find entire sections called “Orthodox literature.” And what is not included in it: calendars indicating the days of remembrance of saints, prayer books, cookbooks, lives, teachings, answers to everyday life questions from Orthodox priests, stories, historical and theological works, etc. However, few people have any idea what exactly is called an Orthodox book and by what criterion can one judge its Orthodoxy?

Indeed, according to generally accepted opinion, an Orthodox book can be called one in which there are no contradictions with the teachings of the Church and its dogmas. Also, it will most likely talk about something that is to one degree or another connected with Orthodox traditions and faith.

But is it possible to find a book that is both Orthodox and does not contain an explicit mention of Orthodoxy? The answer to this question is more interesting, but at the same time complicated, since it “does not lie on the surface.” It is complicated because here we face such problems as assessing the personality of the author and the reader himself. Who are they? Atheists of today or the past? Liberals who consider it possible to revise the doctrine of the Church in favor of new discoveries in natural science? Maybe sectarians? Or, what is even more terrible, people close to the church, those who often mix the Orthodox faith and popular superstitions?

It should be understood that the division that exists now into secular and spiritual literature is in fact conditional, since there is a deep connection between them. Suffice it to recall the works of our classics, such asG.R. Derzhavin, A.S. Pushkin, F. M. Dostoevsky, N. V. Gogol, A. I. Kuprina or K. G. Paustovsky, etc. The works of these writers constantly raise themes of love, humanism, the meaning of life, the place of man in the world, the constant struggle between good and evil and the choice between them. All these are Christian themes that were present earlier in ancient Russian literature. And the main goal of the latter was precisely the education of our ancestors, former pagans and idolaters, through the assimilation of Christian truths, through familiarization with the vast spiritual heritage of the Byzantine Empire and, naturally, through faith in God. The result of this upbringing is a huge country with a rich culture that managed to preserve itself in very difficult times and emerged victorious. This is what our Orthodox literature is. However, it should be understood that its heart and primary source is the Gospel and no other works can replace It.

So, if you decide to start reading serious literature, then which book is better to take first? Of course, it is difficult to please everyone's tastes at the same time. Moreover, on the Internet, if you set yourself such a goal, you can find a huge list of works, at least one of which will suit you. And yet, to begin with, I would suggest you read the book by a modern author, Archimandrite of the Russian Orthodox Church, Father Tikhon (Shevkunov), “Unholy Saints.” The book includes short stories from the life of the author. Many of them are related to, where the author began his monastic life. As Archimandrite Tikhon himself said: “I told almost all the stories that were included in the book during sermons. All this is part of our church life. Sermon... after all, it is based on understanding the Holy Scriptures, on the interpretation of church eventsholy fathers and examples from life."

Another work, general Christian, and by its name should be familiar to all of you, is “The Chronicles of Narnia”,cycle out of seven children's fantasy books (fairy tales ), written . They tell about the adventures of children in a magical land calledNarnia where animals can talk,magic no one is surprised, butgood struggling with evil . The Chronicles of Narnia reveals the meaning of a large numberChristian ideas in a form accessible to readers.

If you want to get acquainted with modern Orthodox periodicals, then your attention should be focused on two wonderful magazines. The first is called "Thomas", whichpositions itself as “an Orthodox magazine for doubters.” The name of the magazine is in the nameApostle Thomas , denoting an incredulous listener (due to the apostle's initial unbelief inresurrection of jesus christ ). Main theme: a story about Christianity and its role in cultural and social life. “Thomas” is addressed to all interested readers, regardless of their religion, attitude to faith and political views.

STATISTICS According to VTsIOM data for 2014, compared to 2009, the number of people who practically do not read books increased from 27 to 36 percent.

EXCITION - Artificially caused excitement, excitement in order to attract attention to something. (Ozhigov’s Explanatory Dictionary)

“Remember that the earthly Fatherland with its Church is the threshold of the heavenly Fatherland, therefore love it fervently and be ready to lay down your soul for it.” (right. John of Kronstadt)

In the destinies of the present and in the destinies of the future of Orthodox Christianity - this is the whole idea of ​​the Russian people, this is their service to Christ and their thirst for exploits for Christ. This thirst is true, great and unceasing in our people since ancient times, unceasing, perhaps never - and this is an extremely important fact in the characteristics of our people and our state. (F.M. Dostoevsky)

1. About our publication

Orthodox magazine for children “My Joy”.

The first issue of the magazine was intended as a gift for the children of Donbass for the Bright Feast of the Resurrection of Christ in 2003. The editorial board decided to ask the young readers themselves what they would like the magazine to be called. A competition was announced among Sunday schools for the best name for a children's Orthodox magazine. From all the variety of name options, we singled out Bogdana Vorobyova’s proposal - the greeting of St. Seraphim of Sarov - “My joy, Christ is Risen!” It seemed to us that the words from the reverend’s address most suited our idea of ​​the magazine. The magazine aroused genuine interest among readers and our Bishop Hilarion blessed it to be published monthly. Last year, “My Joy” celebrated its fifth anniversary. On this moment 80 exciting and colorful numbers were released.

2. Why are we doing this?

“My Joy” is an educational and at the same time soul-helping magazine. With the help of the magazine, we strive to create a counterbalance to the consumer worldview and modern trends penetration of Western culture. We try to show the younger generation Orthodox guidelines, i.e. landmarks of our culture.

3. Who are we doing this for?

Initially, the magazine was created for Sunday school students. To some extent, this limited the magazine: in terms of information - to the regional level, in terms of presentation of material - to the level of knowledge of Sunday school students. Subsequently, it was decided to expand the readership. We tried to create a magazine that would be interesting to read not only for church-going children. We opened new sections, found accessible forms of storytelling and presentation of material, as well as our own design style.

Today, the magazine has a fairly extensive rubricator, allowing it to comprehensively develop and satisfy the spiritual interests of the young reader.

If we talk about the age category, then these are children from 10 to 15 years old.

3. What do we consider the most important thing in our work?

“My Joy” is an Orthodox publication, and, of course, its concept is based on the basic commandments of Orthodoxy: faith, love of God, love of neighbor.

The magazine can highlight several vectors of communication with young readers. One of them is aimed at the personality of the reader himself: through the heroes of the magazine, age-related (psychological) problems are raised and ways to solve them are proposed.

Another vector can be designated as historical. Here the reader learns and world history, and the history of his native land, and the history of the Orthodox faith.

The educational vector introduces the reader to the basics of Orthodoxy, the Holy Scriptures, and the lives of saints and devotees of the faith.

We can also highlight the vector of leisure, which is presented through the aesthetics of the poetic and artistic headings “Ringing Pipe” and “Vernissage”, as well as “Our Quiz” and “Crafting with Your Own Hands”, which have been loved since the first issues.

4. Which side of our publication do we consider strong and why?

It is not in the spirit of Orthodoxy to praise oneself. The strongest side of any media project is its relevance: when there is a permanent audience that watches, listens, reads, gives feedback, and lives with us.

Our editor receives many letters. We enjoy reading them out loud. Some people simply write to us about themselves, others send us their poems and drawings. Let’s admit, these are the most exciting and joyful moments of our work. And we are grateful to everyone who reads and writes to us for their participation and love.

We consider our team to be our internal achievement. The creative editorial team is working on the creation of the magazine: the editorial board, production editors, proofreaders, designer, artist.

It is especially pleasant that we have formed our own team of authors who regularly write to the magazine. These are students and graduates of the spiritual culture department at the Faculty of Additional Professions of Donetsk National University, correspondents (employees) of the press service of the Branch of the Donetsk Metallurgical Complex, on whose technical basis the magazine is published.

5. What does our publication look like?

Volume - 36 printed illustrated full-color pages in A4 format, with your original logo.

Publication frequency - once a month

Circulation - 10,000 copies.

Editor's page - a thematic appeal from one of the representatives of the editorial board to young readers (published on the occasion of the emergence of informational occasion, for example, the Great Resurrection, the Nativity of Christ, the anniversary of the magazine, innovations, competitions).

Topic of the issue - the central section of the magazine, which sets a cross-cutting theme that touches on current issues for our category of readers, refracted through the prism of the Orthodox worldview (for example, friendship, habits, relationships with parents, bravery and courage, good deeds, the image and likeness of God in man, etc.) P.). The section is aimed at positioning the Orthodox view of the reality around us.

History lessons - description of historical events (important, significant episodes of world history). Returns the reader to history, culture, traditions, gives an understanding of the patterns in history, shows the power of God, God's providence.

Your calendar (chronograph) - links significant Orthodox memorial and historical dates into a single calendar chain, highlighting the most interesting, from the point of view of the young reader, events of these memorable dates.

Reached the skies - about ascetics and saints; examples of their lives contribute to the formation of a pious personality and the need for missionary service to one's neighbor.

Basics of Orthodoxy - acquaintance with the basics of Orthodoxy, its culture and traditions; realizes the educational goal.

Pray, child - introduces the prayer practice of Orthodoxy; teaches the child to pray.

Holy image - about icons (the history of miracles) and icon painters. Realizes educational goal.

Holy warriors - the lives of holy warriors, reveal the theme of self-sacrifice and martyrdom for the sake of Christ, contributing to the formation of a pious personality.

Food for the soul - soulful reading - wise stories, stories and fairy tales for children. Reveals the beauty of the world created by God, His wisdom and providence.

let's get acquainted - meeting interesting people and the activities of Sunday schools. Exchange of experience, involvement in community life.

Cyrillic - teaches the basics of the Church Slavonic language in a form accessible to children (with instructive, historical examples).

Children's stories - the world through the eyes of a child, i.e. children's perception of the surrounding reality in an Orthodox arrangement (with Orthodox analytics).

Chronicle - diocesan events - interesting events in the Orthodox life of children at the level of the district, city of the region. Realizes the information goal.

Vernissage - children's work (drawings, crafts). Reveals the beauty of the world created by God, teaches children to glorify the Lord through their creativity.

The ringing pipe - poems and songs (including those sent by readers). Reveals the beauty of the world created by God, teaches children to glorify the Lord through their creativity.

It's interesting to know - facts, events worthy of attention. Realizes educational and educational goals.

Little feet to holy places - pilgrimage trips to holy places. Implements an informational and educational goal, introducing the reader to the shrines of Orthodoxy.

We make it with our own hands - accustoms the young reader to creativity.

Our quiz - the theme raised in the issue is reinforced in a playful manner.

New categories have been introduced - Visiting the master - introduces the young reader to the profession of people working for the benefit of the Orthodox Church (bell caster, prosphora maker, icon painter, wall painter, wood carver, gold seamstress, etc.). Sections introducing the young reader to famous personalities (Storytellers and their tales, 12 great people of history).

1. Introduction

With the blessing of His Holiness, His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Rus', for the first time in the history of our Church, in this anniversary year we are holding the Congress of the Orthodox Press.

The founders of the Congress are the Publishing Council of the Moscow Patriarchate, other Synodal Departments, the Ministry of Press Affairs of the Russian Federation, the Union of Journalists of the Russian Federation, Moscow State University, the Orthodox Society "Radonezh" and a number of other organizations. According to today's data, about 450 people from ten countries and 71 dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church arrived at the congress, most of all from Russia (about 380 people from 52 dioceses), then from Ukraine (from 12 different dioceses), Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Latvia, Estonia and from the Berlin diocese. Among the participants are representatives of diocesan media, secular media writing on church topics, and Orthodox journalists from Local Orthodox Churches.

The goals and objectives of the Congress are:
- consolidation of the efforts of Orthodox journalists in the matter of Orthodox education and familiarization of the general public with the position of the Church on the main issues of socio-political life;
- work to improve the qualifications of Orthodox journalists;
- strengthening cooperation of the Church with secular journalists writing on church topics;
- creation of the “Union of Orthodox Journalists of Russia” and the formation of its regional branches.

We intend to consider at the Congress such aspects of journalism as freedom of speech and information in the modern world, independence and responsibility of the press, issues of journalistic ethics from the Orthodox point of view.

Our congress is taking place in the anniversary year, on the threshold of the third millennium after the birth of Christ, so we inevitably have to not only talk about current problems, but at the same time keep in mind a broader perspective, take stock of a wider period of time. The last 10 years in the life of the Church have turned out to be very important for the revival of all aspects of church life, including Orthodox journalism.

A few words should be said to explain the main theme of the Congress. Two thousand years ago, the greatest event in human history took place: the appearance in the flesh of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. This event radically changed the world: as it became Christianized, people realized more and more clearly that man, being the image and likeness of God, is free: he has the inherent right to life, the right to freedom of belief, and finally, freedom of speech in defending his beliefs.

No matter what they say now about the reforms of the last decade in our country, no one denies one thing: our society has gained freedom of speech. The only question is how we use this freedom.

The past century has been tragic for our long-suffering Fatherland. The world has witnessed confrontation, intolerance, and bitterness in society, which led to civil war, bloodshed, the death of millions of people.

But even today, don’t we feel that the spirit of division is beginning to take possession of our souls? After gaining the freedom to profess and preach any beliefs, a period of violent clashes immediately began. And again people contrast “theirs” with “theirs”, again “their” power, “their” ideas - they consider them more valuable than “theirs”, and not only ideas, but also lives! This means that 1917 is not an accidental page in the history of Russia!

The power of the media is enormous, but like any power, it can be both detrimental to the people and beneficial.

Recently, many archpastors, clergy and believers of the Russian Orthodox Church are increasingly expressing concern that the state remains indifferent to the promotion of violence, interethnic, interfaith, social and other hostility, moral debauchery, debauchery, as well as other phenomena that contradict both Christian and and natural, universal morality, through printed and audiovisual products, radio and television. As a rule, the press perceives such judgments as an attack on freedom of the press. But the activities of modern media can be considered as an attack on a person’s freedom to live morally, since the imposition of a cult of immorality just as restricts the freedom of human choice as cruel censorship.

Therefore, recognizing ourselves as citizens of a great country, heirs of a great Orthodox culture, we can and must resist the vulgarity, cynicism, and lack of spirituality of modern life, no matter who we are, no matter what we do, no matter where we work: in a newspaper, in a magazine, on the radio , on TV. Not allowing the human soul to get bogged down in everyday worries, reminding it of its original calling to reach divine heights is an important part of journalistic service to society.

And first of all, it is the Orthodox press that must be moral and responsible, free and independent.

2. The state of Orthodox periodicals before the revolution

The question arises: isn’t what has been said a mere declaration; are free and independent Orthodox media possible in reality? I must say that on the eve of the present congress there was a series of publications in the secular media aimed at casting doubt on this possibility. The newspaper "NG-Religions" made a special effort here, devoting a whole selection of materials to the upcoming Congress; except for an interview with a member of the Congress Organizing Committee, priest Vladimir Vigilyansky, posted, apparently, “for objectivity”, everything else is kept in a sharply critical tone, as evidenced by the very titles of the articles: “Strangled Word”, “Closed Nature of Activities”, “Deal with Everyone” , “Is church journalism possible?” Of course, it is impossible if we understand freedom of journalism in the way that is now convenient for most secular journalists. But today we have already heard the answer to such questions in the Word of His Holiness the Patriarch, who reminded us of the Orthodox understanding of freedom. Another answer to the same question is given by church life itself - both current (the existence of many Orthodox periodicals) and the past, our church history, to which we must constantly turn, comparing our actions with church tradition. Therefore, I think it is appropriate to give a short historical information about the state of Orthodox periodicals before the revolution.

Its beginning dates back to the first quarter of the 19th century, when the reforms of theological educational institutions gave a new impetus to the development of our Theological Academies. In 1821, the St. Petersburg Theological Academy was the first to publish the journal Christian Reading. But it was a scientific, theological journal, and the first popular, publicly accessible publication was the weekly Sunday Reading, which began publishing in 1837. It contained articles of an edifying nature and was published by the Kyiv Theological Academy. The first seminary periodical was the Riga magazine "School of Piety" (1857). Thus, we see that the beginning of Orthodox periodicals is closely connected with our Theological school. It should be noted that before the revolution, our four academies published 19 periodicals. Theological seminaries also published about a dozen magazines, of which the most famous is the Kharkov theological and philosophical magazine "Faith and Reason", founded in 1884 by Archbishop Ambrose (Klyucharyov).

In the second half of the 19th century, in addition to academic ones, many other spiritual journals appeared, which can be called theological and journalistic. Along with theological articles, they published sermons, reviews of current events in the Orthodox Churches and the heterodox world, criticism and bibliography of current book and magazine publications, essays about remarkable church figures, biographies of devotees of piety, stories from church life and poems of spiritual content. Among the most famous magazines of this kind, we note the St. Petersburg "Wanderer" of Archpriest Vasily Grechulevich (in the appendix to it the "Orthodox Theological Encyclopedia" was published in 1900-1911), the Kiev sharply polemical "Home Conversation for People's Reading" by Askochensky, the Moscow "Soulful Reading" and a lot others. All these theological and journalistic publications of the 1860-1870s were characterized by a bold discussion of church and church-social issues.

Speaking about official publications, it should be noted that before the revolution, each diocese had its own printed organ - the Diocesan Gazette. The initiative to found them belongs to the famous 19th-century hierarch, outstanding preacher, Archbishop of Kherson Innocent (Borisov), who developed their concept in 1853. Its main element was the division of the magazine into two parts: official and unofficial. The official part was intended for decrees and orders of the Holy Synod, news of the highest state authorities, especially for a given diocese, for orders of the diocesan authorities, for reports of movements and vacancies, for extracts from the annual reports of various diocesan institutions. In the unofficial part, excerpts from the works of the holy fathers, sermons, articles of an edifying nature, local historical, biographical, local history and bibliographic materials were published.

However, only six years later this concept was submitted for approval to the Holy Synod by Archbishop Dimitri (Muretov), ​​Bishop Innocent’s successor in the department. The Synod not only approved it in 1859, but also sent the proposed publication program to all diocesan bishops. The following year, diocesan bulletins began to be published under this program in Yaroslavl and Kherson, and after another 10 years they were already published in most dioceses. It is interesting to note that remote dioceses acquired their own journals before the capital ones.

Even later, central bodies appeared, that is, published by the Synod or some Synodal department of the Russian Orthodox Church - in 1875 the “Church Bulletin” began to be published, and in 1888 - “Church Gazette”.

Closer to the beginning of the 20th century, the number of publications increased in which the main place was occupied by publicly accessible religious and moral articles for edifying reading, such as “Russian Pilgrim”, “Sunday Day”, “The Helmsman”, “The Rest of a Christian”. Of the popular edifying pre-revolutionary magazines, 30 were published by Orthodox monasteries. In particular, the “Trinity Leaves” published by the Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra were very popular. There were also special church magazines devoted to apologetics, public education, the fight against schisms and sects, naval clergy, and a bibliography of theological and church historical literature. As for parish periodicals, before the revolution there were few of them, only about a dozen.

3. Church journalism in Soviet times

However, all these Orthodox periodicals (about four hundred titles) ceased to exist within the first five years Soviet power- just like the publications, mainly renovationist ones, that arose after 1917. True, there were still emigrant Orthodox publications, for example, “Bulletin of the RSHD”, “Orthodox Thought” and others, but in the former USSR they were practically inaccessible to the average reader, being the property of special depositories.

For many decades, the only periodical publication of the Russian Orthodox Church was the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate. We also had some periodicals that were published abroad and were intended for a Western audience, for example, “Bulletin of the Western European Exarchate” in France (in Russian and French), “Voice of Orthodoxy” in German.

As for our oldest magazine, ZhMP, which will celebrate its 70th anniversary next year (it began publishing in 1931, was closed in 1935 and was resumed again during the Great Patriotic War, in September 1943), then , despite the well-known limitations of the era of totalitarianism, the magazine still played a very large role in the life of the Church. Of course, in terms of its level it was not comparable with pre-revolutionary publications - neither in terms of volume (suffice it to recall that in the 30s it had 8-10 pages, in the 40s - 40-60, and only starting in 1954 - the current 80 ), neither in terms of circulation (it was almost impossible for an ordinary believer to get it), nor in terms of content. And yet, it was that small flame that the hostile winds of the era could not extinguish. All the theological and literary church forces that were few at that time were drawn to him and gathered around him. Outstanding Russian theologians, liturgists, church historians, and Slavic scholars worked for the Journal at different times and collaborated with it. This tradition continues today. Its editors carefully preserve and promote church traditions, supporting the high culture of Orthodox journalism.

During all these years, the “Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate” has been the voice of the Russian Orthodox Church, bringing the word of the Gospel to the believers of Russia, an invaluable source of information about the events of church life. He made a significant contribution to the preparation of future Orthodox pastors, to the Christian education and enlightenment of church people, to the preservation of the purity of our faith.

Throughout its existence, the “Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate”, in fact, was a chronicle of the works and days of the Russian Orthodox Church. Patriarchal messages, greetings, statements and decrees, Decrees of the Holy Synod, Acts of Councils and Bishops' Conferences, and official reports on important events in church life were regularly published on its pages. Materials were also published about the naming and consecration of newly installed bishops - from these publications one can trace the path of service to the Holy Church of each hierarch. Since the basis of the spiritual life of the Church is worship, the Journal always contained messages about the services of the Primate of our Church. The Journal paid a lot of attention to parish life, monasteries and Theological schools, constantly told readers about the life of other Local Orthodox Churches, and paid great attention to the development of fraternal inter-Orthodox relations.

Over the past decades, the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate has published many hundreds of sermons dedicated to Orthodox holidays, doctrinal and moral themes; hundreds of articles devoted to the explanation of the Holy Scriptures, Orthodox dogma, moral and pastoral theology, liturgics, canons, church history, patristics, hagiology, and church art. Services, akathists, and prayers to saints were published; some liturgical texts were printed for the first time from handwritten monuments.

Recently, the volume and proportion of articles devoted to understanding the historical past of our Church, ways of reviving the Orthodox Fatherland, and other church and social problems from an Orthodox position have begun to increase. The magazine began to regularly publish materials about martyrs, confessors and devotees of piety of the 20th century, to acquaint readers with the religious views of Russian cultural figures, and with the theological heritage of the Russian emigration. The Journal reflects all areas of modern church life, including problems of spiritual education, pastoral care, social service of the Church, its interaction with the Armed Forces, and missionary work. On the pages of the Journal you can read both about the primal trips of His Holiness the Patriarch, and about the works and concerns of a small church community. It publishes articles on all sections of theology, sermons, church historical works, and bibliographic reviews. The section of the Journal "Our Publications" is devoted to materials from the rich heritage of representatives of Russian theological and religious-philosophical thought of the 20th century.

In the new conditions, when a resurgent Russia not only with increasing interest, but also with hope turns its gaze towards the Church, when church life arouses increasing interest in society, the desire to understand it, understand its features, and then join it grows , a periodic body is especially needed that promptly and fully informs about everything that happens in the vast church body. The Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate is such a body.

It should be noted that in the current conditions of the still unusual absence of censorship and, as a consequence, the excessive “liberation” of other authors, when a mass of various religious publications have appeared, the role of the periodical publishing official documents of the Church, covering the activities of its Primate - His Holiness Patriarch Alexy, introducing the reader to the official point of view of the Russian Orthodox Church, greater than ever.

With the beginning of perestroika in 1989, one of the first church newspapers, the Moscow Church Bulletin, appeared in the Publishing Department of the Moscow Patriarchate. The history of its formation is replete with many twists: it was also published on coated paper in a very small edition, received in the amount of 2-3 copies per diocese, so that some bishops hung it in the church as a wall newspaper. It was published for some time and as a supplement to “Evening Moscow” with a circulation of over 300 thousand copies. Currently, it is published twice a month; the newspaper publishes a quarterly supplement “Review of Orthodox Publications”, which contains reviews and annotations on published church literature.

4. The current state of Orthodox periodicals

Characterizing the situation as a whole, it can be noted that over the past decade the Church has not only restored its periodical press in its traditional forms (magazine and newspaper), but is also actively developing new forms of such activity. Their appearance is due to modern technical progress, the achievements of which are not always bad in themselves - it is only important to use them for good purposes. Thus, the Publishing Department of the Moscow Diocese has not only revived the Moscow Diocesan Gazette, but is also releasing a video supplement for it (two issues have been published so far).

Nowadays, almost all dioceses have their own church media. Of course, they differ greatly in volume, frequency and, of course, quality, which, unfortunately, often remains low. There are many reasons for this, including economic ones: the lack of funds to attract bright and highly qualified journalists.

In Moscow alone, about 30 different Orthodox periodicals are published. Some newspapers, for example, "Radonezh", are well known not only in Moscow, but also far beyond its borders. This newspaper is characterized by high professionalism, competent construction of materials, the level of many articles in it is high, and the newspaper is easy to read. Among Moscow newspapers, we should also note the famous parish newspaper “Orthodox Moscow”, the publishing team of which successfully works in the field of Orthodox journalism, sowing the reasonable, the good, the eternal. We can say that such newspapers as “Moscow Church Bulletin”, “Orthodox Moscow” or “Radonezh” have their own identity, in some ways they were able to advance further than others, some are more professional, some are more ecclesiastical.

The activity of Orthodox youth brings to life Orthodox youth publications - first of all, here we should mention the student newspaper of Moscow University "Tatyana's Day", the student magazine of the Moscow Theological Academy "Vstrecha", the magazine for doubters "Thomas". Unfortunately, the number of Orthodox children's magazines for which there is a very great need is still small; First of all, it is necessary to note the magazines “Bee”, “Font”, “God’s World”, “Sunday School”.

A special type of periodical is the Orthodox one. church calendar, published once a year. As you know, now many organizations, both church and private, are striving to publish calendars, since they are invariably in demand among the population. And this cannot but be welcomed. But it’s one thing when we are talking about popular publications that contribute, so to speak, to the gradual “churching” of the ordinary secular calendar, and quite another thing when it comes to the publication of the Patriarchal Church Calendar. The latter has its own special tasks: intended primarily for the clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church, it serves to streamline worship and to achieve liturgical unity of the Church. A secular calendar is one thing (indicating holidays in it does not make it church), and quite another is a calendar with liturgical instructions and readings: the problems that arise when compiling the latter are such that in a number of cases even experienced employees of the Publishing House of the Moscow Patriarchate have to contact for clarification to the Divine Service Commission of the Holy Synod, and sometimes personally to His Holiness the Patriarch. It is unacceptable that in the calendars of different dioceses these problems are solved differently (as sometimes happened in pre-revolutionary Russia). Moreover, interference in solving calendar problems of private individuals is unacceptable.

The most common type of publishing activity in dioceses is the publication of a diocesan newspaper. It may be multi-page or just a piece of paper, but one way or another it carries information about the life of the diocese. Moreover, in a number of cases, not one, but several newspapers are published in a diocese (and I do not mean the Moscow and St. Petersburg dioceses, where the situation with publishing and journalistic activity is special).

The number of dioceses in which Orthodox magazines are published is significantly smaller. This is understandable: publishing, say, a monthly magazine is much more labor-intensive than a monthly newspaper (which, by the way, is often published as a supplement to some secular newspaper and uses the appropriate resources). The practice of reviving Orthodox publications published before the revolution in new conditions deserves all support (for example, the oldest Orthodox magazine “Christian Reading” was revived at the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, etc.).

It is important to note that in a number of dioceses church periodicals are published not only in Russian, but also in the language of the nationalities living there (for example, in the Komi language in the Syktyvkar diocese, in the Altai language in Barnaul, etc.).

As an example of a diocesan newspaper, one can cite the weekly “Word of Life”, which has been published in the Tashkent diocese for many years. This publication worthily fulfills the important task of spiritual nourishment for the Orthodox Central Asian flock, and one of the reasons for its success lies in the great attention paid to publishing by Archbishop Vladimir of Tashkent and Central Asia. For all his busyness, he by no means limited himself to the archpastoral parting words for the new periodical, but, in fact, became its most active author: almost every issue of the newspaper contained his word, sermon, message. An important place in the newspaper is given to Christian pedagogy, the thoughts of the holy fathers on raising children, excerpts from the works of Ushinsky and Aksakov, essays about the Tashkent theological school, about Sunday schools in various parishes are printed. From the very first issue, the newspaper covers the history of the diocese; Thus, an essay on the history of the creation of the monthly magazine "Turkestan Diocesan Gazette" was published - in fact, the predecessor of the current newspaper: a number of publications were devoted to the initial sermon of the Apostle Thomas in Central Asia, articles were published about outstanding Central Asian hierarchs, as well as materials related to the name of the student and follower of the last Optina elder Nektarios, confessor of the Central Asian diocese in the 50s-60s of our century, Archimandrite Boris (Kholcheva; †1971). The specificity of the Central Asian diocese is its location among the Muslim world; Therefore, a number of the newspaper’s materials pursue the goals of improving mutual understanding between Christians and Muslims and dispelling the atmosphere of omissions and suspicion. The publication of this newspaper, which can be considered an exemplary diocesan publication, has been going on for nine years.

5. New types of media

a) Radio, television

Both in the capital and in the regions, the Church is actively developing radio broadcasting. In Moscow, it is worth noting the many years of activity of the radio channel "Radonezh", the "Logos" program of the Department of Religious Education and Catechesis, the program "I Believe" on radio "Russia" and others. There are certain achievements in the field of cinema (it should be emphasized the great importance of the Golden Knight film festival held annually by the Union of Cinematographers) and television, where the same role is played by the annually held festival-seminar of Orthodox television, the founders of which are the Publishing Council of the Moscow Patriarchate, the Orthodox society "Radonezh" " and the Institute for Advanced Training of Television and Radio Broadcasting Workers. Over the past years, many interesting programs have been created on television, such as “Orthodox Monthly”, “Orthodox”, “Canon” and of course the author’s program of the Metropolitan of Smolensk and Kaliningrad “The Word of the Shepherd”. Unfortunately, not all of them have survived to this day. Of great importance in the development of the Orthodox presence on television is the activity of the Information Agency of the Russian Orthodox Church, which covers the most important events in church life (previously this was done by the PITA agency), as well as such television programs as “Russian House” and some others.

The main wish for these forms of media is greater interaction with the Hierarchy. It is unacceptable that speakers on radio stations or on television sometimes put their opinions above canonical norms - this causes temptation among believers.

b) Internet

Two words should be said about the beginning of the development of a new type of publication by church organizations - electronic media. I mean the worldwide computer network Internet, which has become a common means of obtaining information in Western countries and is now becoming widespread in Russia. Using this network, each user can receive information from anywhere in the world. A number of church structures, both in the center and in dioceses, are now making efforts aimed at installing computer equipment to provide access to the Internet. This will allow the Church to use another channel of influence on the minds of our contemporaries, with the help of which the most enlightened part of the youth audience, as well as the Russian-speaking population abroad, will be able to gain access to the treasury of Orthodoxy, as well as the Russian-speaking population abroad, where our periodicals practically do not reach due to the high cost of postage.

Currently, there are already dozens of Orthodox servers in Russian. Both Synodal institutions and individual dioceses, churches and monasteries, and educational institutions access the Internet. One of the largest is the “Orthodoxy in Russia” server, created with the assistance of the Russian Cultural Initiative Foundation; In particular, such newspapers as “Radonezh” and “Orthodox Moscow” are posted on its pages. Such a server was also created by the Publishing House of the Moscow Patriarchate; it hosts all the official publications we publish, including the “Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate”, the newspaper “Moscow Church Bulletin”, the Orthodox Church Calendar, the Chronicle of the Patriarchal Ministry and much more.

6. Orthodox topics in secular media

In connection with the increasing public importance of the Russian Orthodox Church in our country in recent years, the direction of journalism associated with the coverage of church life has been intensively developing in secular media. At first, such information was distributed in the media through cultural departments; now many secular magazines and newspapers have special columnists writing on church topics, and some media outlets have special sections, sections, strips, tabs and supplements entirely devoted to church life.

Examples include the “Lampada” column in the “Trud” newspaper, the “Blagovest” column in the “Rabotnitsa” magazine, and many others.

But there are also publications that have long exposed themselves as obvious enemies of Orthodoxy. Their goal is clear: to cause maximum damage to the Church, to tear the Orthodox people away from it. Even the world celebration - the 2000th anniversary of the Nativity of Christ - some of these publications used to publish blasphemous articles on their pages.

What are the reasons for the, to put it mildly, unfriendly attitude of many secular media towards the Church? There are, of course, conscious enemies who, as before, imitating Emelyan of Yaroslavl, look at the Church as a breeding ground for alien ideas. Such people are extremely alarmed by the great and constantly growing authority of the Church in society. However, most often, I think, this is a reaction to the ideological dictates of the recent past, a kind of complex. In the Church they see not an opportunity for renewal of life, but a threat of the spread of a new ideology associated with certain self-restraints, whereas they would like to live without any ideology, absolutely “free.” But it is not without reason that they say: a holy place is never empty, and, rejecting the good yoke of Christ, they doom themselves to much worse slavery to various idols. For freedom without the restraining principles of Christianity is self-will and arbitrariness. And the fruits of such freedom are disastrous for humans, dooming our civilization to extinction.

7. So-called independent Orthodox media

Recently, supposedly “Orthodox” publications have appeared that proudly call themselves “independent.” Let us ask ourselves: independent from whom? When such titles or subtitles appear in secular media, this must be understood, of course, not as an indication of true independence, since we know that the periodical press is very dependent on its economic owners, on sponsors, etc., but as an indication to the absence of censorship on the part of the authorities, as opposed to all kinds of official press organs published in budget resources. When a publication that calls itself Orthodox simultaneously calls itself “independent,” then it either uncritically uses a stamp suitable only for secular media, or it really wants to be independent from the authorities - from the church authorities, from the Hierarchy. But is this possible?

The Church is built on a hierarchical principle and there is not and cannot be any structures or associations independent of the Hierarchy. There was already a period in our church history when, after the overthrow of the monarchy in 1917, meetings were held in many dioceses that removed unwanted bishops and elected new ones. We all remember with what wave of renovationism, betrayal, and break with the Orthodox Tradition this period ended. “Without a bishop there is no Church” - this cornerstone principle, first clearly formulated by the holy martyr Irenaeus of Lyons, is true in all its strength today. Therefore, in my opinion, a newspaper cannot be considered Orthodox if its publication was not given the blessing of His Holiness the Patriarch or the ruling bishop.

In this matter, the current situation is to some extent reminiscent of what took place in relation to the Orthodox brotherhoods, which were created in dozens at the beginning of perestroika. Some of them engaged in political and other activities that not only did not benefit the Church, but also directly harmed it. The Council of Bishops in 1994 even had to make a special decision to re-register the Statutes of Orthodox brotherhoods, adding to them a clause stating that they are created only with the consent of the rector of the parish and with the blessing of the diocesan bishop, so that they would be under the responsible guardianship of the rectors.

It is obvious that we will have to return to this same topic more than once, since such “independent” media are waging an open struggle with the Mother Church. There are a variety of reasons for this. Ostensibly worrying about church problems that cannot be resolved, in reality such newspapers only introduce new discord into the church body and work to weaken the Church. Behind the articles published in them, one cannot help but see far-reaching plans aimed at splitting the Church and, above all, at belittling its role in the national-state revival of Russia. In this, such “zealots of Orthodoxy” join forces with the most rabid enemies of the Church.

In their publications they throw mud at prominent church figures of the past and current hierarchs. Meanwhile, not only ordinary believers, but also priests and even bishops continue to take part in such newspapers - either indirectly (by subscribing, reading) or directly (by writing articles, providing interviews, etc.). The question is: is this canonically permissible? Of course, this is a rhetorical question - for a truly Orthodox consciousness it should be clear: such publications destroy church unity.

Speaking about Orthodox media, it should be noted that in the full sense, only those publications that are established by the official structures of the Russian Orthodox Church - directly the Patriarchate, Synodal institutions, monasteries, parishes - can be called church publications. Of course, there are many publications that are not, in the strict sense, church publications, but which turn to the Hierarchy for the blessing of their activities. Most of these media outlets employ church-going lay people, and we support them. At the same time, one cannot fail to take into account that legally they are private enterprises that are not responsible to the Church for the content of their publications. This is fraught with a number of dangers, since under certain circumstances the editorial policy of such structures can and is influenced by factors and forces alien to the Church. Therefore, it seems especially important that the founders of religious media include official structures of the Church, which would have the opportunity not only to formally bless, but also to actually direct the line pursued by this or that publication into the church mainstream.

I note that from the point of view of non-church consciousness, what I am talking about now looks simply like a struggle of the Church with independent church media and secular journalists covering church issues. Such an interpretation does not frighten us, since the Church is by no means a parliament where pluralism of opinions and factional struggle reign. But when such judgments are accompanied by fictitious reports, such as the one that recently appeared on the pages of Russian Thought, that the Publishing Council allegedly sent out to all Diocesan administrations a “black list” of media outlets, from meeting whose journalists clergy are advised to refrain, we must clearly state that this is slander.

In essence, there is no need to be surprised at this: you know well that the world, since the emergence of Christianity, has been at war with it; and in war as in war, they do not disdain any means. But this general consideration at the moment, in relation to Orthodoxy in Russia, also has a purely political component: Orthodoxy is the last stronghold of Russia, and therefore for many in the West it is the main target. At the same time, attacks on the Church of Christ are carried out both from outside and from within. And the enemy within the Church, who puts on the mask of a zealot for the purity of Orthodoxy, is more dangerous than the external enemy, because he is more difficult to recognize. His favorite technique is slandering the Hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church, using unclean methods of lies, distortion of facts, and their biased interpretation. In the name of what are these people zealous? The answer is simple: the authors and leaders of such newspapers either themselves want a split in the Church, or are simply carrying out someone else’s order.

8. General problems of Orthodox journalism

a) Addressee, language, subject

The first question that arises in relation to Orthodox periodicals is their addressee. Are they internal church publications, designed for already churched readers, or should the main tasks they set for themselves be missionary, that is, they must address first of all those who stand only on the threshold of the church? The choice of language, the choice of topics, and the volume of necessary commentary depend on the solution to this main question.

In my opinion, both are necessary: ​​there must be publications designed for a prepared reader, well acquainted with church life, theology, and history; and there should be editions for beginners. But given that the service of the Church is now taking place in conditions of a significant de-churchification of a society that has moved far away from its spiritual foundations and, so to speak, does not remember its kinship, I believe that the missionary bias in the Orthodox media should be predominant. In accordance with this, the language of newspapers and magazines should be understandable to most people. But there is also some danger here that I would like to point out. Whatever missionary goals journalists set for themselves, not every language is suitable for articles and notes that deal with the lofty and the sacred. A commendable desire to expand the readership, to get in touch with one or another social group for conducting Christian preaching in it must also have its own boundaries. It is unthinkable, for example, when bringing the Good News to those in chains, to present it, “applying” to the mentality of criminals, in their language; It is clear that such a journalist will lose himself and will not gain readers. The same can be said about the use - in an effort to capture young hearts - of the jargon of youth parties.

Now about the topic. There is a type of publication called a newsletter. The intensity of church life is now very high, and filling newspaper pages with news (with the Internet this is very easy to do) is the simplest thing an editor can do. But for most newspapers and magazines, information about events in church life is too little for the publication to be truly interesting to readers. A simple reprint of passages from the patristic works is not enough. The good news of the Lord Jesus Christ is addressed to every person, but each generation of people perceives it in its own way, because it is in a new historical situation. And the main thing that may interest the reader is how the eternal truths of Christianity are refracted in the consciousness of his contemporary. Therefore, I believe that the main place in the Orthodox media should be occupied by the speeches of modern clergy, religious scientists and cultural figures, and Orthodox publicists.

Today, many preachers speak in a language drawn from books of the last century; they do not strive to revive their knowledge and convey it to modern people. Such preaching is not effective; one should speak about the deepest truths of the Gospel and about church life in clear, modern language.

I would like to note one more point related to the language of the press. It is very characteristic of the modern ideologized consciousness that the understanding of this or that publication in the old sense, i.e. following the author’s arguments and similar work of thought are often replaced by the identification of “one’s own” or “someone else’s” by a few conventional signs that can be detected in the material during the most cursory viewing of it. At the same time, reading texts and listening to speeches turns into a search for a few key words such as “patriot”, “democrat”, “nationalist”, “ecumenist”. I urge Orthodox journalists to use less such cliches, which inevitably vulgarize thought and do not contribute to unity in society.

Another example is provided by people who talk a lot about the need to translate divine services into Russian for better understanding (I note in parentheses - an extremely delicate matter that requires many years of work), but in fact limit themselves to saying “again and again” instead of “packs and packs.” again", instead of "let's listen" - "listen" and instead of "belly" - "life", which adds absolutely nothing to the understanding of the liturgical text. Here these altered words, an example of bad taste, also have the functional meaning of a password, an identification mark intended to demonstrate progressiveness to all surrounding conservatives.

The most important topic for Orthodox media is the fight against the dominance of information that corrupts our society in secular media. The church press should participate in the development of mechanisms to protect itself from the corrupting influence on the media of freedom, which is not restrained by either Christian morality or a sense of responsibility.

I would also like to wish Orthodox journalists that the church press would better reflect the opinions of the older generation of clergy who endured the heavy cross of standing in the faith during the years of the atheistic regime. There are not many such people left now, and we must hurry to talk with them, interview them, and learn from their spiritual experience. A comparison of their views and thoughts on key church issues with the opinions of younger people, Orthodox journalists, would, I think, be extremely useful.

b) Controversy in Orthodox media

Another question: is it necessary to cover in the Orthodox media the unrest and conflicts taking place in the church environment, or, in professional terms, what should be the relationship between positive and negative? You know that not all is well in our church life. The Church is a living organism, and it would be strange if some of its members did not get sick from time to time, especially in the conditions of such rapid changes that we have been experiencing in recent years. Yes, we now live in an open society, and the Church has no secrets either from its members or from society as a whole. But when covering these conflicts, it is necessary to exercise wise balance. For Orthodox journalists, there are no prohibited topics. It is only important to remember the words of the Apostle Paul: “Everything is lawful for me, but not everything is useful... not everything edifies” (1 Cor. 10:23). The task of church journalists is creation, not destruction. Therefore, criticism in the church press should be sharp, but not murderous, but benevolent.

It is important not to give in to emotions, to show spiritual sobriety. It is not always useful to criticize publicly noticed shortcomings, knowing that this will primarily cause cries of newspaper scoffers in the secular press. Sometimes it is more useful to contact the hierarchy directly with a request to take action. The point is not so much to expose this or that sin or shortcoming; it is important to correct it, and in such situations the church press should, without succumbing to provocations, help not to inflate, but to heal such conflicts, their final disappearance from our church life.

We live in difficult times, we still do not have the strength and means for many things, and we must keep this in mind and try to understand the actions of the Hierarchy, instead of ardently blaming him for certain sins.

Getting carried away with criticism is also spiritually unsafe. It's not just about the danger of breaking the Lord's commandment “do not judge.” The polemical attitude gives rise to a special lightness in the publicist, the habit of solving sometimes difficult, dogmatically difficult problems - from the shoulder, with extraordinary speed. The consequence of all this is the loss of a sense of reverence for the holy, the loss of piety, that is, the traditional Orthodox mindset.

Particularly unsightly is the desire of some publicists writing on church topics to appeal to secular public opinion in their polemics with the Hierarchy. Of course, there are no direct provisions in the holy canons prohibiting such an appeal, but I think that it can be considered in exactly the same way as an appeal to civil authority in church matters, which is expressly prohibited by the canons. I will also note that the same canons say that before considering a complaint from a clergy or layman against a bishop or cleric, one should study the question of the complainant himself: what is public opinion about him and whether his motives are pure.

Many problems are caused by insufficient contact between Orthodox journalists and the Hierarchy. It is clear that for technical reasons this contact is not always easy to achieve, but everyone must remember that we are doing a common cause and therefore must strive to understand each other.

c) Ethics of an Orthodox journalist

An Orthodox journalist must approach issues of journalistic ethics very seriously. It is important that the Orthodox press does not adopt the unscrupulous practices of some secular publications, that, while not shying away from pressing problems, it does not engage in slander and sow discord between believers and pastors, between faith and culture, between the Church and the state. It should be remembered that the words of the Lord apply to journalism, more than to any other sphere of human activity: “for every idle word that people speak, they will give an answer on the day of judgment: for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” (Matt. 12:36-37).

An Orthodox journalist must constantly remember the commandment to love one’s neighbor, to be responsible for every word spoken, and to show respect for the author or interlocutor. If he makes any changes to the words spoken or written by him (whether by literary adaptation or abbreviation), then it is imperative that the author be acquainted with them before publishing or broadcasting them. Before publishing, be sure to show the text to the person with whom you were having a conversation.

Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for editors of Orthodox newspapers to reprint materials from other Orthodox publications not only without appropriate permission, but also without any references. The point here, of course, is not a matter of copyright, and many authors take this practice quite calmly, believing that if their publications benefit people, then thank God; but we are talking about a certain culture of relations, of which Orthodox journalists should be an example.

d) The problem of censorship

We now live in a society that is still experiencing the euphoria of freedom. And this prevailing mentality in a certain way influences us, and therefore we seem to be embarrassed to talk about the need to restore church censorship. Meanwhile, there is a need for it. The lack of even basic theological training among many authors writing on church topics leads to significant distortions of Orthodox dogma in their works.

As a result, “spiritual” literature appears, on the pages of which one can find blatant heresy, discussions about damage and the evil eye, and a lot of unverified rumors. But many truly wonderful events took place in the past century, but they are literally drowning in this sea of ​​legends and myths. Therefore, I believe that the problem of church censorship has not been removed from the agenda today.

Currently, a definite replacement for the institution of spiritual censorship is the placement on the relevant publications of the stamps: “printed with the blessing” of His Holiness the Patriarch, the ruling bishop - or “printed by decision of the Publishing Council.” In my opinion, all literature of spiritual content sold in churches should have a mark indicating that it has passed the appropriate examination and the name of the censor should be indicated.

I should note that, through the efforts of modern media, the idea of ​​​​the unacceptability of censorship as such is being introduced into the church consciousness. But censorship for us is not an attack on freedom, but a way to preserve our church wealth, accumulated over thousands of years. Restrictions on the ways in which authors express themselves may upset pluralists of all kinds; but in matters of salvation, that is, life and death, the Church has other priorities.

As for periodicals, in my opinion, only church media (diocesan, parish) can have the stamp “printed with blessing” on the first page. When we see such a stamp on a secular Orthodox publication, this raises questions: does any of the persons authorized by the Hierarchy review these publications? Otherwise, the publisher is given a blank form with a signature, a kind of carte blanche, and sooner or later problems may arise.

The fact that in this matter one can reach complete absurdity is evidenced by the practice of placing a “blessing” of the late Metropolitan of St. Petersburg and Ladoga John on the title page of one Orthodox “independent” newspaper. Meanwhile, more and more new authors appear in it, whom the late Vladyka did not even know, and the tone of the newspaper has changed significantly in recent years.

The advent of the Internet essentially provided the opportunity for everyone to have their own media. At the same time, from the user’s point of view, purely externally, personal sites are indistinguishable from those created by well-known press organs. Moreover, to publish traditional media you need to obtain a license from the Ministry of Press of the Russian Federation, but to create an electronic newspaper no permission is required. It is clear that in these conditions the problem of church blessing of such publications will become especially acute, and we will be faced with this in the near future.

e) The need for state support for Orthodox media

Following its sacred duty - to promote the spiritual and moral improvement of society, the Russian Orthodox Church makes significant efforts to publish spiritual literature and Orthodox periodicals, which are in dire need of many of our compatriots who have lost their spiritual guidelines. This task is very difficult in conditions where considerable resources are allocated to various anti-church campaigns. But even those secular media that do not directly oppose the Church are characterized by a desire for “spiritual exoticism” - theosophy, magic, occultism, Eastern religions and similar materials that are dubious from the point of view of the Church.

Unfortunately, the activities of the Orthodox media are not noticeable enough against this background. The main reason here is economic, arising from the general difficulties of our state. The Moscow Patriarchate invests all its main funds in the restoration of churches destroyed by the state - this is not only its sacred duty, but also the duty of the entire society; There are practically no funds for large-scale journalistic projects.

The Church especially currently lacks its own central newspaper, in which it could, without in any way interfering directly in politics, evaluate certain phenomena in society from spiritual and moral positions, so to speak, “from the point of view of eternity.” This line, strictly followed in the newspaper, would contribute to the rapprochement of various opposing forces, to soften the bitterness of the political struggle, and to the unity of society as a whole. It seems to us that such a position and the church-wide newspaper expressing it deserve state support, despite the fact that the Church in our country is separated from the state. Spirituality and morality are something without which a nation cannot be healthy.

It seems that the creation of a pan-church Orthodox newspaper is truly a state matter and therefore we have the right to count on state support, which is provided to many secular “independent” media. A detailed plan for such a publication exists and will be submitted by us to the Press and Information Committee of the Russian Federation.

9. Management of Orthodox periodicals

Considering the great importance of the media in the modern world, I would like to draw the attention of the Bishops to the need to pay the most serious attention to those Orthodox media that are published in the dioceses they govern. Moreover, we are talking not only about the need to provide them with all possible support, including material, but also about the support of the relevant publications, about their spiritual guidance. Then the current conflicts between the press and church structures will not arise.

The Publishing Council of the Moscow Patriarchate is called upon to provide general management of Orthodox publishing activities, including church media. The hierarchy of our Church attaches great importance to its activities, as evidenced by the fact that last fall, by the Decree of the Holy Synod, it was given the status of a Synodal Department. But for now, the main direction of the Council’s activity is connected not with periodicals, but with book publishing - it reviews manuscripts voluntarily sent by publishers with a request to bless their publication. In most cases, submitted manuscripts are subject to favorable criticism and, with amendments and comments, are recommended for publication, but there are still those for which the Council cannot give the requested blessing due to serious defects, or even the completely non-Orthodox nature of the work.

The Publishing Council is ready to extend the already accumulated experience of such reviewing to periodicals, but the necessary conditions for this do not yet exist. With regret, I must note that we do not yet receive all the newspapers and magazines that are published in the dioceses. Perhaps an all-church competition of Orthodox media should be organized, within the framework of which it would be possible to compare various periodicals with each other and give them an Orthodox assessment.

10. The need to publish a church-wide newspaper and create a press center under His Holiness the Patriarch

Looking around at the activities of the Orthodox media, one cannot help but feel that there is a dispersion of forces. Many different periodicals are published, while there is clearly a lack of one truly large, reputable, influential publication. In addition, most of our periodicals are, in fact, internal church publications; their topics and language are not always understandable to a wide audience, therefore, they cannot perform a missionary function. In other words, there is clearly an urgent need to create a mass all-Russian weekly Orthodox newspaper that would write not only about intra-church life, but also about the world from the point of view of the Church and the Orthodox worldview.

When discussing the concept of a Russian Orthodox socio-political cultural and educational newspaper, first of all we must determine several important positions: its addressee, principles for selecting information, sources of information, material resources, and the like.

As for the addressee, in our opinion, such a newspaper is needed by the widest circle of readers, all those people in Russia who profess themselves Orthodox and sympathize with the Church, but are not churchgoers (according to some estimates, 60% of the entire population of the country are such). Considering that people are tired of newspaper lies and slander, the political bias of Russian publications, their propaganda of debauchery, witchcraft and violence, worship of material values ​​and base " popular culture", then the presence of an Orthodox community newspaper covering all topics from the point of view of Christian values ​​will attract a huge number of readers to it.

The main task of such a newspaper is to consider current problems of modern life from the point of view of the Church with the aim of influencing public opinion and political institutions. Of course, in addition to its utilitarian purpose - to be a source of information - an Orthodox newspaper must be a witness to the Truth: carry this Truth, affirm and defend it.

Of course, the reader has no right to expect impartiality from such a newspaper; the selection of information is already some kind of bias. But if for non-Christian consciousness the criterion of objectivity is completely earthly ideas about truth, then for Christians such a criterion can only be the One Who Himself is “the Way and the Truth and the Life.” An important approach for us to the Christian idea of ​​“objectivity” was given by St. John Chrysostom: “Whether we pray or fast,” he wrote, “we accuse or forgive, we remain silent or talk, or do something else: we will do everything for the glory of God.”

The question of the material base of the publication is very serious. Nowadays, control over information is power, so I am sure that many political forces will want to support it financially. However, financing in the modern sense is always “ideological” control, so direct control by the Church is extremely important here. It is possible that such a newspaper could become an organ of the “Union of Orthodox Journalists”, which we propose to create at this Congress. In any case, the activities of newspaper sponsors should not contradict Christian commandments.

As for sources of information, the Church today practically does not have its own information service, with the exception of the Information Agency of the Russian Orthodox Church, which is focused mainly on television. Such a service needs to be created, and the sooner the better. Its basis could be the “press service” under His Holiness the Patriarch. Of course, to some extent, church information passes through ITAR-TASS and other agencies, but existing secular agencies should be used with caution - many of them are associated with political parties and certain ideological structures. The task of creating a pan-church Orthodox news agency is now quite real, because finding believer correspondents at Diocesan administrations and large city churches throughout Russia and abroad is not so difficult.

The newspaper in question should be made not just by Orthodox Christians, but also by church journalists. There are such journalists in Moscow. An Orthodox newspaper must necessarily become a center uniting the church intelligentsia.

Of course, it would be ideal if such a newspaper were daily, but at the moment this is hardly achievable. However, we are quite capable of publishing a weekly newspaper for the first two or three years. This simplifies the work in terms of prompt response to events and facts, but also obliges us to be analytical, eliminating the “right for error” and any unreliability.

Regarding the distribution of such a newspaper, the Church has a unique communication system: Diocesan administrations, dean districts, churches - on the one hand; and shops, kiosks, trays selling church utensils and church literature - on the other. Only they, in addition to subscriptions, can ensure the distribution of at least one hundred thousand copies of the newspaper.

The newspaper should not only not avoid “difficult” topics, but, on the contrary, look for them, talk about them with the reader, presenting a Christian understanding of these problems. Of course, the priority topic for it will be church life: the newspaper must inform about the events and problems of the Russian Orthodox Church and give them a proper assessment, as well as resist anti-church actions and anti-Christian publications in the secular press. Priority topics also include social problems: disadvantaged people (refugees, disabled people, orphans, pensioners, sick people, etc.), people captured by passions and those who have rejected God (alcoholics, drug addicts, criminals, gamblers, etc.), problems not generally “human rights” ", but the rights of specific people. The newspaper should take the position of fundamental non-partisanship, protection of national and state interests, openness to everyone who promotes stability (regardless of party affiliation and religious affiliation), who seeks ways of understanding, unification and peace in society.

11. Issues of training journalists

In connection with the intensive development of Orthodox journalism in recent years, the issue of training journalistic personnel has become very relevant. The Moscow Patriarchate Publishing House pays great attention to this problem. Five years ago, the Institute of Church Journalism was created under him, two years ago it was transformed into the faculty of the Russian Orthodox University named after John the Theologian, for which the 3rd intake will be accepted this year. Now future church journalists receive more thorough training in theological disciplines and study ancient and modern languages. Many students today are already full-time employees of various church publishing houses. As an educational practice, they publish their student newspaper "University Bulletin", where they do everything themselves - from writing articles to computer layout. The second issue of this newspaper is currently being prepared.

There are many requests from dioceses to open a correspondence department at the faculty; this issue is currently being studied.

12. Creation of the "Union of Orthodox Journalists of Russia"

The facts presented in the report indicate that in the field of media, the Church and society have been taking ever new steps towards each other in recent years. Meanwhile, the activities of the Union of Journalists of Russia proceed as if this new phenomenon in the life of the country, a new direction of activity of journalists, simply does not exist. Church journalists are not offered to become members of the Union; we are not sent invitations to various events held through the Union - round tables, professional competitions, etc. Among the many negative consequences of this situation, one can point out the extremely low level of publications on church issues in secular periodicals.

It seems that the conditions are ripe and the time has come to correct this situation. A year ago, participants in the “round table”: “Publishing activities of the Russian Orthodox Church”, held as part of the VII Christmas educational readings, having discussed the state of church periodicals in our country, expressed the opinion that one of the significant shortcomings in this area is the disunity of church media workers mass media. As a measure to help improve coordination and interaction between church journalists, a proposal was made to create a Union (or Brotherhood) of Orthodox Journalists. This proposal found unanimous support among those gathered and it was decided to turn to the Hierarchy with a request to bless the creation of such an association. Having received such a blessing, we propose to discuss at our Congress the question of founding such a Union.

In our opinion, the “Union of Orthodox Journalists of Russia” should be a creative public association established to assist the Russian Orthodox Church in educating society, promoting Orthodox spiritual, moral and cultural values, improving the professionalism, skill and mutual support of its members. In carrying out its activities, the Union will comply with the canonical rules, doctrinal, theological and other traditions of the Russian Orthodox Church. Its members will be Orthodox professional creative workers of diocesan publishing houses, editorial offices of newspapers and magazines, editorial offices of radio, television and Internet channels, news agencies, as well as individual journalists and entire public associations that share the goals and objectives of the Union and promote its activities.

Among secular journalists, there is a certain fear that the creation of the Union of Orthodox Journalists of Russia will lead to the division of people who have the common profession of journalist along religious lines. But we consider our future organization not in opposition to the existing All-Russian Union of Journalists, but as its division.

On the other hand, it is important not to repeat the mistakes that were made during the registration of the Union of Orthodox Brotherhoods, the Charter of which did not comply with church law and state regulations. This discrepancy consisted in the fact that the Union declared itself a public organization, but determined the directions of its activities at the general church, diocesan and parish levels, without providing for interaction with canonical church structures and responsibility to the hierarchy.

Concluding my speech, I would like to wish the participants of the Congress success in their upcoming work and fruitful discussions on the issues I briefly outlined in the presented report.

Archbishop Tikhon of Bronnitsky,
Chief Editor publishing house of the Moscow Patriarchate