Word 1st in the week of Orthodoxy, at the beginning of the rite of Orthodoxy

What do we want to do, brothers? Isn't there something that might offend some? Is there something for which perhaps some will condemn us? True, human judgment is not very important: human judgment may be far from the truth. Nevertheless, we must take care that the conscience of our brothers is not offended by our actions; we must show that it is not we who are making mistakes, but others. So, a few minutes to think: what do we want to do? What is this trial that we want to repeat? Our Savior Lord Jesus, giving healing to the sick man, before he healed him, said: Your sins are forgiven you. The Pharisees and scribes, hearing His words, said: This one blasphemes, who can forgive sins? The scribes were learned people; they understood, and rightly understood, that Christ Jesus, by assimilating to himself the power to forgive sins, assimilates to himself that which belongs to the one God. This one blasphemes, he blasphemes, they said, he takes upon himself what does not belong to him and belongs to the only God, otherwise he steals power from God. What was the mistake of the scribes? What did scientists not understand? They did not understand or did not want to understand that Christ Jesus is the Son of God, also omnipotent, as omnipotent as God the Father. His deeds showed that He is more than the son of man, that He is omniscient and omnipotent, like God. But people were blind from the action of passions and did not see it. The father does not judge anyone, but all judgment is given to the sons, as the Son of God taught. The power to judge, the power to bind and loose belongs to God, but it also belongs to the Son of God. This is who initially holds judgment over the conscience of people. Does it belong to anyone else? Without a doubt, it may belong to the one to whom the Son of God gives. Has power been given by the Son of God to anyone on earth? Dana. The Son of God himself speaks about this. “If the church disobeys,” He taught, “you will be like a pagan and a publican” (Matthew 18:17). What is it? The Savior said that if you see a brother sinning, then tell him about his sin in private. If he doesn't listen, take another brother. If even after that he does not correct himself: “the message of the church.” If he does not listen to the church: “Be like a pagan and a tax collector,” let him be for you the same as a pagan and a publican, let him be for you a person with whom you should no longer have any communication: he rejected the church, is rejected by the church, and you, who are in connection with the church, therefore should not be in connection with someone who no longer belongs to the church. – This is the exact teaching of the Son of God! “The trees that you bind on earth,” says the Son of God at the same time, “will be bound in heaven, and the trees that you loose on earth will be loose in heaven” (Matthew 18:18). – This is even clearer and stronger. What you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven. Who are you? First he gave the power to bind and loose the church; now he says: you will tie, you will resolve. Who are you? You can see that power is not transferred to the entire church, but to certain individuals. Who are these people? Aren't there only apostles? But the Savior said that He was transferring power to the church; track. no longer to the apostles alone, trace. some persons who were to be in the church after the apostles, who were to be the successors of the apostles. And why does He transfer His great power? “If your brother sins against you,” He says. What does it mean? The fact that power is transferred for the reason that sinners are possible. Imagine: if during the time of the apostles there were sinners who demanded the power to bind and loose: what can we say about the times that followed? Brethren! Are disobedient people tolerated in human society? No. And it punishes them. Which one? Does he even exclude others from his society and order them to die a political death? By what right? There is no power unless it comes from God. Tell me, why do they want a spiritual society to tolerate disobedient people? How to think that such a high society, whose members, while living on earth, live in heaven, was not authorized by the authorities to cut off those who were disobedient from themselves, or what, too, to anathematize. In the Corinthian church, one man committed a grave sin, such as, as the apostle wrote, was not heard even among the pagans: but the Corinthians did not pay judicial attention to it. And the apostle wrote: “in the name of our Lord..., to those who have gathered together, to us and to your spirits, deliver such a one to Satan” (1 Cor. 5:1-5). “Take away evil from you samekh” (1 Cor. 5:13). Here is an example of the fact that under the apostles there was a judicial authority that excluded a serious and unrepentant sinner from a pure Christian society! This is the experience of what the apostle learned not only for himself the power to strike the sinner with punishment, but he said that in the Corinthian church the sinner should be handed over to Satan. And so the church pronounces judgment on some because this judgment was given to it by the Son of God. After what has been said about the origin of church judgment over stubborn sinners, who would dare to take away the right of anathema from the church? Only people who “borrow and wander about with every wind of doctrine in the lies of men, in the deceit of the wiles of flattery” (Eph. 4:14) can dare to do this. Church tolerance of heresies and schisms was and can only be tolerated by people for whom truth and lies, ungodliness and piety are one and the same, people who waver at every step, having neither firm faith in their minds nor in their hearts; They are called Christians, but in their hearts they bow to either Mohammed or the Dalai Lama. Otherwise, those who know and love the truth cannot stand between truth and error. They do not hesitate to say: this is the truth and cannot be a lie; this is the truth and I am ready to defend it with my blood; or: this is a lie and cannot be the truth; this is a lie, and I will never agree to bow to it. To whom does the church pronounce anathema? She anathematizes those who do not recognize the existence and providence of God. But such people were also condemned by the pagans. She strikes with wrathful judgment those who claim that God is not Spirit, but flesh, or a person similar to us. And such people were condemned by the best of the pagans; and among the Christians dark superstitions approached them, believing the image of God in a man’s beard and mustache. She anathematizes those who do not recognize the consubstantiality of the Son of God and the Holy Spirit with God the Father and reject the Holy Trinity. But the matter is settled, these dogmas are the distinctive dogmas of the Christian revelation. She anathematizes those who claim that the coming of the Son of God into the world, His suffering and death are not necessary; condemns those who say that the atonement of the Son of God is not the only means of our justification before God. But people who do not feel the need for God to save people do not even have the initial feelings of Christian life and are worse than the pagans who were aware of their guilt. She anathematizes those who do not recognize the unmarried conception of the Son of God and honor Christ Jesus as a simple man. “But these are blind Jewish scribes.” She condemns those who claim that the prophets and apostles did not write their scriptures by inspiration of the Spirit of God and the Holy Spirit does not work in the hearts of believers; condemns those who do not accept St. sacraments But these are again people who do not understand themselves or the history of mankind and are satisfied with pagan truth. Finally, she condemns those who do not consider it a sin to rebel against sovereigns. But these are the enemies of man and God. Thus, the church anathematizes such people who are condemned by the revelation of God. Listen to what Christ’s beloved disciple John writes - “Every spirit,” he says, “who does not confess Jesus Christ in the flesh, this one is from God and is antichrist” (1 John 4:3). Listen to what the Apostle Paul preaches? He teaches: “If anyone does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be cursed” (1 Cor. 16:22). “If we, or an angel with He will bring you more good news from the heavens; let him be accursed” (Gal. 1:8). What else will they say against the church court? It’s scary, they say, to think what a terrible judgment the church pronounces - a church whose voice, it seemed, should be the voice of one love? Yes, brothers, it’s scary; It’s scary because the judgment of the church is the judgment of God, the judgment of the Son of God. ABOUT! who will give us the trembling of Jeremiah, who trembled for Jerusalem, struck by the wrath of God? Who will give the streams of tears that the prophet of God shed, mourning the fate of wicked Israel? But what do I say about Jeremiah's trembling and tears? Do we need such trembling, such tears, such sorrow when we hear the judgment of God condemning a sinner to eternal torment? ABOUT! brethren! “It is a terrible thing... to fall into the hand of the living God” (Heb. 10:31). And the court of the church, we repeat, is the court of God. But why is it not a court of love? Then, brethren, the unrepentant sinner does not understand and does not accept the judgment of love, while the church desires one thing for everyone - eternal salvation. “They are self-loving, majestic, proud, blasphemers, ... impudent, pompous, sensualists, ... having an image of godliness, but denying its power” (2 Tim. 3:2-5) do not heed any suggestions of love and, out of their pride, put themselves above the church, separating themselves from it. Let it be so, they say, let Arius, let Macedonius be struck by anathema: why is it repeated now? Yes, if we were so attentive to ourselves that there would be no Arievs and Macedonians between us: the church would not repeat its terrible judgment. We are not unhappy! How many Arievs and Macedonians are among us, even more daring in blasphemy than they were and brazenly preaching lies! How many people have separated themselves, as the proud Novat did, from communion with the Church and are taking measures to entice many others along with them! Not understanding what they say, not understanding what they want, what they are talking about, what they see in the dilapidated letter, they stubbornly evade those who would like and could say something useful to the soul, they evade themselves and reject others. What remains of St. Are churches in this situation? Is it not love itself that obliges it to strike superstition with fear and ignominious anathema? The pride of superstition finds food for itself in the fact that it thinks to live unpunished in its own way. Let her hear that there is a judgment against proud superstition, a judgment pronounced on earth and repeated in heaven. The doctor, not out of cruelty, but out of wise love, takes away an infected member of the body: he thereby wants to save the other members of the body from infection. St. does the same. church. With the fear of judgment on the disobedient, she warns the unwary from communicating with disobedient people; By putting error to shame, she saves simple minds from communicating with error. This is what the Apostle of God commanded a “heretic of a man” to do, if he does not correct himself after the first and second punishment and admonition, “deny, go away” (Titus 3:10). “I pray... you, brethren, beware of those who create strife and strife... and turn aside, move away from them” (Rom. 16:17). No, it is not the judgment, alien to the mother’s heart, that expresses the judgment of the church. You will see, you will hear how she and all her children will kneel before the Lord for the salvation of the erring. You will see, you will hear how she will beg the Lord Jesus through His merits, so that He would give a spirit of repentance to those who subject themselves to anathema. ABOUT! If only the lost themselves would be touched by the tears of their mother, which she sheds for them before the Lord and before all His saints! Glorifying the champions of Orthodoxy, what does the church want if not triumph for the truth, if not glory for that name, which alone is worthy of glory? Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen. You might be interested in: