Which is higher: marriage or monasticism? The holy fathers speak. Bogoroditse-Tikhonovsky (Tyunin) Convent

03.04.2019

Marriage is an opportunity for spouses to constantly discover something in each other, to get to know each other anew. In this sense, life in marriage can be compared with religious life, with communion with God. The external forms of our communion with God are the same from day to day. We read the same prayers, come to the same Liturgy - all this remains unchanged throughout our lives. But at the same time, if we seriously and deeply live a religious life, we each time open in familiar words new meaning and new content. And God reveals himself to us through these prayers and divine services every time in a different way, in a new way. Each Liturgy, each meeting with God in prayer is a kind of discovery. There is nothing monotonous, routine, everyday, ordinary in communion with God. So it is in marriage. In it, the spouses, despite the fact that they get used to each other, recognize each other's habits, abilities and capabilities, nevertheless do not stop discovering each other, and their life together does not cease to be a celebration of daily revelation, finding something new and beautiful. in close person. The freshness of mutual perception in such a marriage does not pass, does not disappear. Flowers, with which the communication of lovers in their youth began, do not fade, remain forever blooming.

Married couples are meant to complement each other. It is very important to learn to see and appreciate in another what you do not have.

In marriage, people realize that if they did not meet, they would remain incomplete, incomplete. This does not mean, of course, that marriage is the only possibility for self-realization. There are other ways. There is also the path of celibacy, the path of monasticism, when everything that a person lacks is replenished in him not by another human person, but by God Himself, when divine grace itself “heals weak” and “replenishes the impoverished”.

Any marriage that began as a simple cohabitation has the potential to develop into a sacrament if the spouses work on themselves, if they strive to become like Christ and the Church, respectively. A marriage that began as a cohabitation can acquire a new quality if the spouses perceive marriage as an opportunity to grow into some new unity, to enter a different dimension, to overcome their selfishness and isolation. It is very important to learn how to endure trials together. It is equally important to learn to endure each other's shortcomings. There are no people and couples who do not have flaws. There are no families where everything would go perfectly and smoothly. But, if the spouses want their marriage to be a sacrament, if they want to create a real, full-fledged family, they must fight the shortcomings together, perceiving them not as the shortcomings of the other half, but as their own.

It is very important that there be no other extreme, when mutual affection, love and fidelity become a source of jealousy, despotism and spiritual violence. This happens when one of the spouses perceives the other half as property, suspects him or her of infidelity, sees a threat in everything. It is very important that, with spiritual, mental, and bodily unity, the spouses be able not to encroach on the freedom of the other, to respect the personality in him, so that each recognizes the right of the other to have the opportunity to have some kind of life besides the one that takes place in family circle. This freedom, of course, should not be freedom from marriage ties, from moral norms, but it should help a person to reveal his individuality in marriage, as in other aspects of life.

A special theme is children. When the first child is born in a family, marital relations spouses enter a new phase: a third person appears, who, especially in the first years of his life, is completely dependent on his parents - not only physical, material, but also spiritual. Everything that happens to parents and between parents inevitably affects children. If the marriage of parents is a mysterious, full-fledged Christian marriage, which is based on love and self-sacrifice, if the spouses attend church, pray together, introduce the child to church life from an early age, to the grace that children receive unconsciously, but which is given to them just as abundantly , and sometimes more abundantly than adults, then in such a family the child grows in harmony with his parents, with others, with himself and with God. If there is disharmony in the relations of the spouses, if their joint existence is in best case cohabitation, then the child cannot absorb the feeling of unity and unity with his parents, because this feeling is not between them.

What happens to people if their marriage fails? They either get divorced or continue to live together due to certain external circumstances. And it's hard to say which is better.

On the one hand, of course, every divorce is a tragedy. does not welcome divorce, considering it an unnatural phenomenon, because if the union between a man and a woman is concluded, then it must continue in this and in future life. On the other hand, Christ says that divorce is permissible through the fault of fornication (). There are other situations when divorce is not only acceptable, but also desirable. There are families where living together turns into torture, for example, when one of the spouses suffers from alcoholism or drug addiction, when the family constant scandals, quarrels, when a husband beats his wife or children, etc. I do not think that in this case, even if the marriage was married, the Church will insist on preserving the family.

There are cases when a marriage, preserved de jure, breaks up de facto, when spouses live their own lives, cheat on each other, but for some reason they believe that for the sake of children it is necessary to maintain the appearance of a family, because if they divorce, children will be hurt. Indeed, the divorce of parents, as a rule, becomes a deep trauma for children, a wound that may not heal during their entire subsequent life. Furthermore, incomplete families- families in which there is no either a father or a mother - often turn out to be the cause of many difficulties for the child, because he does not have the experience of full-fledged and full-blooded family relationships. In the matter of raising a child, each of the parents has different and complementary functions - the father gives something to the child, which the mother cannot give, something that is inaccessible to the father, the mother gives. But if adults only pretend that everything is fine with them, when in fact it is not, children feel falseness, and much more subtle than adults. You can't fool the kids. They may not be able to rationally explain this, but on the subconscious and on emotional levels will feel the lie. It is not known what is better for parents in this case - to divorce or continue to create the appearance of a family.

I would like to emphasize once again: in order for marriage to be realized as a sacrament, it is necessary to strictly follow the Christian moral principles. One should not think that if, for example, he recommends that future spouses refrain from marital intimacy before the wedding, then this requirement is based on some outdated medieval norms, and that, since young people now live differently, then all this is not necessary to comply. These rules were not set by chance. They have been tested for many centuries by the life of many generations. Nowadays, many marriages break up, precisely because they are concluded without a solid foundation. It is enough for young people to feel in love - and they go to the registry office or to the altar. But after some time it turns out that they “didn’t get along in character”, but in fact they simply didn’t have time to get to know each other well.

Therefore, the closer the married man and woman will be to those moral standards, which established, the more strictly they observe these norms, the more likely they are that their life together in marriage will indeed become that sacrament, that daily holiday, which a Christian marriage should be.

Monasticism is the sacrament of the Church

Second. A person should not accept monasticism just because he failed to marry. Often young people, especially graduates of theological seminaries, face a dilemma: they are ripe for the priesthood, they have received a spiritual education, they are ready to start an independent adult life, but for one reason or another failed to "solve family matter to find a life partner. And it happens that the bishop begins to put pressure on such a person: since you are not married, then take monastic vows and be ordained. This, of course, is completely unacceptable, because both for marriage and for monasticism, a person must mature, and any haste, and even more pressure, is inappropriate and unacceptable here. Monasticism can be accepted only in one case - if a person feels an ardent vocation for this. The monastic vocation cannot be a momentary impulse: it must ripen in a person over a long period of time, become more and more obvious, more and more powerful. If a person is not sure of his vocation, hesitates, then it is impossible to accept monasticism. In a conversation about marriage, I spoke about the same thing: you can’t get married while there is doubt that this particular person is the one with whom you are ready to share your whole life, for whom you are ready to sacrifice your life. A similar approach should be taken with regard to taking monastic vows.

Third. Monasticism has different external forms. There are monks who live in monasteries, there are those who live in the world. There are monks who perform church obedience, for example, teaching in theological schools, there are monks who are engaged in charity or social service, taking care of the poor. There are monks - clergy in the parishes. In a word, the external picture of monastic life can be very different. But inner essence this does not change. And it consists, it seems to me, in two things - in loneliness and in constant standing before God. Therefore, a person who does not feel a call to loneliness, to giving his whole life to God without a trace, should not become a monk.

It happens that young people accept monasticism, focusing on certain opportunities that, as they believe, can be obtained by taking the vows.

A huge and tragic mistake is made by people who take tonsure for the sake of a church career. AT contemporary practice Orthodox Church Only a monastic can become a bishop. This leads to the fact that people with career aspirations take monasticism in order to reach church heights. But very few reach these heights, because there are many monks and few bishops. And often such people are already in adulthood they find themselves in a situation where they realize that their desire is unattainable, that they “fell out of the cage” or never entered the “clip” that supplies personnel for the hierarchal service. And a terrible crisis is coming. A person understands that he ruined his life, having lost a lot for the sake of illusion. Similar situations should be excluded. Monasticism can be accepted only if a person is completely focused on God, ready to give his life to God, to go through the narrow gates. Monasticism is the maximum expression of that narrow path that the Lord speaks about (; ). This is the way to achieve inner heights, the way of inner gains - with external losses. Taking tonsure for some external purpose perverts the very essence of monasticism.

Speaking about marriage, I noted that there are two types of marriage - marriage as a sacrament and marriage as cohabitation. The same can be said about monasticism: it may or may not be a sacrament. Monasticism, which is a sacrament, transforms the whole life of a person, changes it in a fundamental, radical way.

By the way, there is a completely wrong tradition, inherited from the time when ours was under the strong influence of Western scholasticism, to draw a line between sacraments and rites and classify marriage as sacraments, and monastic tonsure as church ceremonies devoid of a mysterious character. Monastic tonsure is the same sacrament as the other sacraments of the Church, because it contains all the signs of a sacrament. A person who takes monasticism receives a different name, just as it happens in Baptism. He dresses in new clothes. As in the sacrament of Baptism, according to the faith of the Church, sins are forgiven a person, including those that are canonical obstacles to taking holy orders. And even in the very order of monastic vows, it is called a sacrament, when the tonsurer says to the one being tonsured: “You have begun this great sacrament.” But monasticism is realized as a sacrament only when it is accepted by vocation, in order to become a path of inner perfection, by ascending the “ladder” of acquiring virtues and fighting passions, which St. John of Sinai so beautifully depicted in his classic book.

In what case can one say that monasticism did not take place as a sacrament, that taking the tonsure turned out to be a failure or a mistake? In the case when a person took the tonsure either against his will, in obedience to another person, or in too early age by their own folly, or under the influence of mood or enthusiasm, which then passed. Such a person, already a monk, understands that he has made a mistake, that he is absolutely not destined for the monastic life. There are three outcomes from this situation.

At the first outcome, a person manages to break himself: he tells himself that as soon as he became a monk, as soon as he led him to this way of life, everything must be done so that monasticism really becomes the sacrament of union with God. And a person tries, with the help of God, to set his life in the right ascetic way. This is the best option, but, unfortunately, this outcome is quite rare. The second and third options are more common. The second option: a person remains a monk so as not to violate monastic vows, but at the same time he does not experience either joy or inspiration from the fact that he is a monk, but simply “pulls the strap”, cursing his fate. The third option: the monk leaves the monastery, "cuts his hair", as they say in common parlance, becomes a layman.

It's hard to say which is better. On the one hand, monastic vows are given by a person once and for all, and, according to the canonical rules of the Church, even a monk who has put off his monastic habit and entered into marriage continues to be a monk, but a fallen monk, living in sin. And with the rarest exceptions, former monks, when they get married, do not receive a church blessing for their married life and cannot be married in a church. This is the tradition of the Orthodox Church. In this sense, monastic vows impose greater obligations on a person than marriage vows: they can recognize divorce, but no “stripping” church canons do not recognize. And if you can enter into marriage twice, then monastic vows cannot be given twice.

During the first two years of my monastic life, I lived in a monastery where almost every second monk renounced his vows and left the monastery. Some of those who left got married. As a rule, such marriages were unsuccessful and soon broke up. I remember a case when a man abandoned monasticism a few months after being tonsured, which testified to his complete inner unpreparedness for monastic life. I also recall another case: a young man entered the monastery with great enthusiasm, sincerely wanted to renounce the world, lead a holy way of life, but by nature he was sociable, secular, and in the monastery he did not find that spiritual food, that spiritual guidance that could not only to keep him on the path of monastic life, but also to make this life spiritually filled. As a result, he began to lose sobriety, control over himself, began to go to the city, contacted women, began to play in a rock band (he was a musician in the past). Then there are alcohol and drugs. As a result, he left the monastery, married, divorced, and, before he reached the age of forty, died of a drug overdose. This and other similar cases strengthened my conviction that the decision to take monastic vows can only be made after very sober and serious reflection, only after a person has deeply strengthened his desire to live a monastic life, has become convinced that this is his calling, only after long trial.

I often have to communicate with young people who are at a crossroads. Some of them say: "I am thinking about becoming a monk, but I have doubts, hesitations." To these people, I usually answer that as long as they have even a shadow of a doubt, even a slight hesitation, they should not accept monasticism. I advise them not to rush, to wait at least three years, and then to check whether this desire has weakened, whether it has cooled off, and if it persists, then decide to become a monk. A mistake can have fatal consequences, because, having taken monastic vows, and then, realizing that monasticism is beyond his strength, a person is rarely able to return to normal life. He remains spiritually traumatized, morally crippled for the rest of his life.

Like marriage, monasticism has its own dynamics, and a monk can develop either in a positive or negative direction. In monasticism, a person does not stand still: he either follows the path to God, gradually accumulating spiritual potential, or gradually squanders that small initial reserve that every person who takes monasticism has. And in this sense, of course, it is very important that a person from the very beginning correctly set himself up. As in marriage, in monasticism there can be initial euphoria and subsequent disappointment. It happens that, having taken the tonsure, a person lives in the first days or months as if in heaven, he is happy, it seems to him that his dream has come true, that the monastic life is exactly what he aspired to. But then comes the sobering. A person begins to see that the monastic life has its own difficulties and temptations, for which he is not ready. It is very important to be able to survive this critical moment. If in marriage spouses can overcome critical situations together, then in monasticism a person is left alone with himself. Of course, he is not alone if he abides in God, but a monk often lacks support from people. Often he lacks proper spiritual guidance, especially in our time, when there are few experienced confessors.

There are many examples in the history of Christian holiness when monastic experience was passed on from teacher to student. The Monk Simeon the New Theologian was a disciple of the Monk Simeon the Reverent. Having received from the teacher deep knowledge in the field of ascetic and mystical life He wrote them down and passed them on to his students. Nikita Steifat, who wrote the life of Simeon the New Theologian, was his closest student. And Nikita Stefat himself, of course, had students. An uninterrupted chain of succession of spiritual experience continues from ancient times to the present day. And even in Soviet times, in the Russian Orthodox Church, this chain did not break, although it was weakened: spiritually experienced leaders, elders, were very rare in those years, but they still existed.

And what is happening now? A small monastery opens, the bishop sends a twenty-three-year-old hegumen there, he takes with him several twenty-year-old novices and begins to educate them. There is no guarantee that a young man who was appointed rector just because it was necessary, having received a monastery building at the church’s disposal, to urgently settle someone there, will become a really good mentor for these youth, who come, perhaps with great enthusiasm, with fire. , but with a lack of spiritual guidance, he may be disappointed and find himself on the wrong path.

It seems to me that, just as acceptance of the priesthood, acceptance of monasticism should occur in adulthood. In the ancient monasteries, not only fifteen- and seventeen-year-olds were not tonsured, but even twenty-year-olds. It took a very long time to prepare for the tonsure. Before entering a monastery, a person thought for a long time. No one insisted that he go to a monastery, as some confessors do now, pushing young people to become monks. Having entered the monastery, a person was in the status of a novice for a long time, and if he was disappointed, he could calmly leave to start full life in the world. And only if a person, having spent many years in a monastery, understood that this was his path, he was tonsured. Thus, tonsure was not the beginning of his monastic path, but a certain result of a long-term probation: tonsure confirmed that a person was called to monasticism, that his desire to become a monk was not hasty, hasty, that it was his own wish, and not the desire of another person who tried to force him into monasticism.

Of course, you can remind me that I myself took the vows in twenty years of age. To this I can only answer that I was lucky in a sense: my decision to become a monk was perhaps youthful, immature, but, nevertheless, over the past years there has not been a second when I was disappointed in this, when I thought, "Wasn't that a mistake?" Even in the most difficult moments, and there were many of them, I never felt that something else could become my vocation.

Others are much less fortunate. And I know many cases when, having taken monasticism in youth, a person after some time realized that it was a mistake, but continued to remain in the monastery, “pulling the strap” without inspiration, without joy. I have to see the monks who are in permanent state despondency and for whom everything in this life is disgusting. In order to somehow console themselves, they either go to consultations with psychotherapists, or listen to classical music or seek solace in alcohol.

If monasticism is accepted in compliance with all the above conditions, accepted by vocation, it can become a source for a person to reveal his inner potential, give him those opportunities that life in the world does not give. A monk, by definition, is free from many of the bonds that bind the life of a worldly person. A monk has the opportunity to focus on the most important thing, and if he orients his life to this main thing, to that which is “the only thing that is needed,” that is, to God Himself, his gains can be very great. First of all, he can learn from his own experience what that closeness of the human soul to God means, about which the Holy Fathers wrote in their interpretations of the Song of Songs. He can know God or, as Father Sophronius said, quoting the words of the Apostle John the Theologian, "see God as He is." He can acquire many spiritual skills and achieve holiness. Of course, the path to holiness is open to every person, regardless of whether he is a monk, priest or layman, lives in a monastery or in the world. But monasticism can create special conditions for a person under which he encounters fewer obstacles than worldly people. Other obstacles lie in the way of the monks - those temptations that are not familiar to people living in the world. This is a special struggle, a special feat. But, I repeat, the opportunity to reveal their inner potential, to dedicate their entire lives to God, is given to those monks who have taken tonsure according to their vocation.

Monasticism, as I have already said, is the most radical expression of that “narrow gate” to which the Lord calls all Christians. In the ancient Church, monasticism developed gradually. There were groups of ascetics, ascetics who took a vow of celibacy; some of them went to the deserts, others remained to live in the cities. Their main goal was spiritual work on themselves - what in the Old Testament was called "walking before God", when the whole life of a person was oriented towards God, when every deed, every word was dedicated to God. In the Syrian Church in the 4th century, these ascetics were called "sons of the Covenant" or "daughters of the Covenant": they took a vow of celibacy in order to devote themselves to serving God and the Church. In Cappadocia, during the same period, the monastic movement developed rapidly, ascetic communities were created. Important role the saint played a role in the formation of Cappadocian monasticism. Several collections of moral rules have come down to us from him. It is generally accepted that these are monastic rules, but the word "monk" is not used in them. The fact is that Basil the Great wrote his rules not only for monks, but for all ascetic Christians - all those who wanted to build their lives according to the Gospel. After all, in essence, monasticism is nothing but the evangelical way of life, the desire to fulfill the same commandments that are given to those living in the world. It is no coincidence that St. John of the Ladder said: “The light for monks is angels, and the light for people is monastic life.” And it is no coincidence that in the Byzantine era and in Russia, monastic life was perceived as a kind of standard, and the life of society was in to a large extent focused on ascetic monastic rules.

Thus, there is no contradiction not only between monasticism and marriage, but also between monasticism and life in the world. St. Isaac the Syrian says that "the world" is a collection of passions. And the monk leaves such a "world" - not from the world as God's creation, but from the fallen, sinful world, mired in vices. He leaves not out of hatred for the world, not out of disgust with the world, but because outside the world he can accumulate in himself that spiritual potential, which he then realizes in serving people. Saint Silouan of Athos said: many accuse the monks of eating bread for nothing, but the prayer that they offer for people is more valuable than much of what people do in the world for the benefit of their neighbors.

monastic vows

Taking vows, a monk takes three basic vows: non-possession, chastity, and obedience.

Reluctance can be understood in different ways. We can talk about complete voluntary poverty, when a person refuses all earthly goods, from all property. But in most cases, we are talking about the fact that a monk, possessing one or another material wealth, treats everything he has as if it were borrowed. A monk should also treat life as if it were given to him on loan. The “Ladder” and other monuments of ascetic literature speak of the virtue of wandering, when a person understands that he does not have here on earth “a resident city, but he seeks the coming one,” because his spiritual home is Heavenly Jerusalem. And it is to him that the spiritual gaze of the monk is directed.

The vow of chastity is not limited to celibacy. Chastity is a Slavic word that carries a very deep meaning. It says that a person should “completely philosophize”, that is, in all his actions and thoughts, be guided by the wisdom descending from above, which is Christ Himself.

Ultimately, obedience is listening to the will of God, the desire of a person to bring his will as close as possible to the will of God. And a monk is one who voluntarily renounces his will, placing his whole life in the hands of God. A monk should strive to achieve such a complete merging of his will with the will of God in order to become like Jesus Christ, Who in Gethsemane cried out to His Father: “My Father! if possible, let this cup pass from me; however, not as I want, but as You ”(). These words manifested, on the one hand, His human will and the fear of suffering, natural for every person, and, on the other hand, complete devotion to the will of God and complete readiness to entrust His life to God.

In conclusion, I would like to say that monasticism, unlike marriage, is the destiny of the elect - the elect not in the sense that they are better than others, but in the sense that they feel a calling and a taste for solitude. If a person does not need to be alone, if he is bored alone with himself and with God, if he constantly needs something external to fill in, if he does not like prayer, is not able to dissolve in the prayer element, go deep into it, approach through prayer to God - in this case, he should not accept monasticism.

Orthodox spirituality is available to all people, its acceptance is not limited to any special classes of people. All those baptized in the name of the Triune God must keep the commandments of Christ. There are no exceptions on the path to deification, on the path from the state "in the image of God" to the state "according to the likeness." The apostle Paul clearly says, "All of you who were baptized into Christ have put on Christ" (Gal. 3:27).

It follows from the previous chapters that the essence and purpose of Orthodox spirituality were defined by Jesus Christ and the holy Apostles. The passages of Scripture cited above show that the early Christians lived a truly spiritual life, achieved enlightenment of the mind, and had unceasing prayer.

Speaking about virginity and marriage, the Apostle Paul writes that the unmarried man cares about the Lord's things, how to please the Lord; but the married man takes care of the things of the world, how to please his wife (1 Cor. 7:32-33), but at the same time he emphasizes: “I tell you, brethren, the time is short, so that those who have wives should be as those who have not” (1 Cor. 7 :29). In apostolic times, even those who entered into marriage lived in achievement and had personal experience spiritual life. It must not be overlooked that all the letters of the Apostle Paul to the various Churches were addressed to Christians who were married and had families. And it is in these epistles that the Apostle Paul speaks of the purification of the heart, the enlightenment of the soul, the acquisition of mental prayer, unceasing prayer of the heart, the sonship of God by grace, and life in the Holy Spirit. These epistles reveal that the Christians of the first apostolic churches lived the way monks live today in holy monasteries. However, later, when, with the end of persecution, Christianity became the official state religion, secularization penetrated the Church, and the ascetic way of life was largely lost. It was then that monasticism developed as an attempt to preserve the very essence of spiritual life.

Therefore, the holy fathers emphasize that monasticism is a kind of continuation of the apostolic times and the life of the first Church, and the monks “living in the angelic image” are those who bring the deepest repentance and strive to strictly observe the commandments of Christ. Every Orthodox monk who lives by such rules is an apostle of Christ, a martyr and a prophet. Monasticism is an apostolic, prophetic and martyr's life.

To comprehend the essence of monastic life, one should read the Beatitudes. The monk begins his life with deep repentance, tearful weeping, which brings the mercy of God, and purification of the heart. In the Gospel and the epistles of the Apostle Paul there are all those elements that make up the content of true and patristic monasticism. The same elements are highlighted in the Follow-up of monastic tonsure. It shows that during the probation, the future monk remains, as it were, in the rank of catechumens, living in deep repentance and undergoing purification of the heart. This is the “first love” that the Evangelist John speaks of in the Apocalypse. When repentance is completed, monastic tonsure takes place, which is called the "second Baptism."

“O new rank! O gift of mystery! accept the second baptism today, brother, with the wealth of the God of gifts, and you are cleansed from your sins, and you are the son of Light, and Christ our God Himself rejoices with his holy angels about your repentance, slaughtering the well-fed calf for you. (Announcement from the rank of tonsure to the great schema)

The monastic tonsure is called a Sacrament, because the monk experiences the action of the purifying and enlightening power of God. In addition, the second Baptism, according to the words of St. Simeon the New Theologian, is the Baptism with the Spirit, that is, the enlightenment of the mind and the acquisition of mental prayer. During monastic vows, it is said: “And you are cleansed from your sins and become a son of the Light,” and this shows that a monk experiences purification of the heart before vows, and upon vows, he gains enlightenment of the mind. In monasticism, the apostolic life and spiritual dispensation of the first Christians are revealed, as evidenced in the Epistles and Acts of the Apostles. “Make his organ good-tempered, the psalter is red of the Holy Spirit, as if from here, through progress, the old man, smoldering according to the voluptuousness of the charmer of the diverse serpent, was put on the New Adam, created according to God in reverence and truth. Establish him always with ulcers and wear the cross of Jesus on your body, by whom the world will be crucified, and that peace.

The monastic life is an apostolic and evangelical dispensation, for it is preceded by the mortification of the old man, and the monk becomes the temple of the All-Holy Spirit. In the prayers of the rank of tonsure, this idea is emphasized.

Married Christians are also called to live according to the gospel and the commandments of Christ. Nobody is exempt from responsibility. Everyone must go through repentance, overcome selfishness and acquire love for God and neighbor.

It is quite obvious that the circumstances of life in marriage are different than in a monastery, so some correction is needed. After all, what is a monastery for a monk is a family for a married man. It is the family that is the place of achievement for the one who lives in marriage. In the family, he is called to fulfill the will of God.

“The Most Holy Lord Himself ... bless this marriage, and give Thy servant this belly of peace, long life, chastity, friend friend love, peace union; a long-lived seed, about children, grace, an unfading crown of glory; make me worthy to see the children of the children, keep the bed with her hatefully. And give ima from the dew of heaven from above, and from the fat of the earth. Fulfill their houses with wheat, wine and oil, and all kinds of blessings, so that they teach to those who demand, bestowing richly and those who are with them all even to the salvation of petition. (Prayer of the Sacrament of the Wedding)

The Church placed its teaching on marriage in the prayers of the Sacrament of the Wedding. Spouses should live in love and chastity, following the commandments of God. And the above prayer affirms that in married life chastity, love, mercy should be observed, and main goal family life is salvation.

The prayers that complete the Sacrament are important, when the priest prays that both spouses fulfill the commandments of God.

“Be magnified, bridegroom, like Abraham, and be blessed like Isaac, and multiply like Jacob, walk in the world, and do the commandments of God in righteousness. And you, bride, be exalted like Sarah, and rejoice like Rebekah, and multiply like Rachel, rejoicing about your husband, keeping the limits of the law, for such a blessing God. (From the prayer of the Sacrament of the Wedding)

The mention of the men and women of the Old Testament, who were worthy of the Divine Vision, and the prayer for keeping the commandments of God and the laws of nature show the ascetic and salvific character of marriage in Christ.

The Holy Fathers teach that the conception, womb-bearing and birth of a person are the “leather robes” in which Adam was clothed after the fall. However marital relations were blessed by God.

St. Maximus the Confessor writes that marriage, as we know it today, is the result of the Fall.

“The former goal was that we should not be born from corruption through marriage, but the transgression of the commandment brought marriage.” Saint Maxim the Confessor

St. John Chrysostom teaches that the Gospel commandments are common to all people - both for monks and for those who are married. “For everything we have in marriage has in common with the monks, except marriage. Moreover, Paul orders on this occasion to be equal with them in everything, saying that the image of this world is passing by, so that those who have wives will be as if they had not. St. John Chrysostom "From all people obedience to the Gospel is required: both from monks and from those who are married." St. Basil the Great St. Gregory Palamas, speaking of purity of heart, believes that those who are married can be diligent in this.

"And for those who live in marriage, it is possible to acquire this purity, but with much more difficulty." Saint Gregory Palamas

The fact that many saints of both the Old and New Testaments who were married had noetic prayer shows that marital relations cannot interfere with a correct Orthodox spiritual life. The prophetess Anna, the mother of the prophet Samuel, kept mental prayer in her heart and prayed unceasingly when she was in sorrow of the soul (1 Sam. 1:10).

Thus, from the point of view of Orthodox spirituality, the division of Christians into single and married, monks and laity is not essential, while the distinction between those who have the Holy Spirit and those who do not have it is very important. Orthodox tradition does not divide people into privileged and unprivileged. Under the guidance of a spiritual father, everyone can follow the commandments of Christ and live according to the rules

Instead of an intro:

An old church anecdote: “The novice asks the confessor - “Father, were there saints among the married?” "Of course," the abba answers, "moreover, most of them are martyrs."

What is higher - monasticism or marriage?

1. Marriage is good, but monasticism is better.

Difference by apostle Paul between Marriage and Virginity - good and better.
“Therefore, he who marries his maiden does well; but he who does not marry does better” (1 Cor. 7:38)

Saint Ambrose of Milan(c.333-397):

"Marriage is good, because through it a way is found for the continuation of mankind, but virginity is better, because through it the inheritance of the Kingdom of Heaven and heavenly rewards are acquired."

Saint John Chrysostom(c.344/354-407):

“Having said: There is a difference between a married woman and a virgin, (the apostle) here explains what their difference is from each other. hallmark He supplies virgins and non-virgins not with marriage or continence, but with freedom from worries (for one) and many worries (for the other). It is not cohabitation that is evil, but an obstacle to wisdom."

Apostle Paul:"But I want you to be without worries. The unmarried cares about the Lord's things, how to please the Lord; but the married one cares about worldly things, how to please his wife. There is a difference between a married woman and a virgin: an unmarried woman cares about the Lord's things, how to please the Lord, so that body and spirit; but the married woman is concerned about the things of the world, how to please her husband" (1 Corinthians 7:32-34).

Saint John Chrysostom(c.344 / 354-407): "Having said: there is a difference between a married woman and a virgin, (the apostle) here explains what their difference is from each other. He supplies not marriage and not abstinence, but freedom from worries (for one) and many worries (for the other). Not cohabitation is evil, but an obstacle to wisdom."

At the same time, it must be remembered that monasticism, strictly speaking, is a kind of marriage - a spiritual marriage. The monk must be unfaithful to Christ. The soul of a monk through tonsure becomes the bride of Christ, as if entering into a mystical marriage union with the Lord.
Saint Gregory the Theologian:

"You will remain entirely Christ's until you finally see Christ Himself, your Bridegroom."

Holy Father of the Church 3rd century Hieromartyr Methodius of Patara(Olympic):

“The Church is likened to a flowering and most varied meadow, as adorned and crowned not only with the flowers of virginity, but with the flowers of childbearing and abstinence.” It is very touching that procreation and abstinence of St. father puts next.

2. Preference for piety

Severian Gabalsky(d. c. 408): "Paul explained the reason why virginity is preferable to marriage: not in relation to cohabitation or abstaining from cohabitation, but in relation to the fact that marriage is full of cares, and virginity [allows] to occupy the mind with godliness according to God."

Saint John Chrysostom(344/354-407): "Virginity, by its very nature, is a great thing ... And since many had a high concept of it, so that someone, keeping it, does not indulge in carelessness, as if he had already done everything, and did not neglect the rest, Christ gives this parable (the parable of the ten virgins (Matt. 25.1-13)), which can convince you that virginity, even if it was combined with all other virtues, being alien to the works of mercy, is condemned together with adulterous people, and both the inhuman and the unmerciful are placed on a par with them. And very justly: the carnal passion possesses them, but the love of money possesses the foolish virgins. The carnal passion and the love of money are not equal in strength, the former is stronger and more painful. Therefore, the weaker the opponent, the less the conquered virgins deserve forgiveness. That is why Christ calls them holy fools, because, having accomplished a greater feat, they lost everything for not accomplishing a lesser one. Here He calls the lamps the very gift of virginity, the purity of holiness, and philanthropy, oil, mercy and help to the poor.

About virginity bodily and real

Saint John Chrysostom(344/354-407): "How can she be a virgin whose conscience is burned? A virgin must be pure not only in body, but also in soul, if she wants to receive the holy Bridegroom ... If it is necessary to remove even worldly cares from this bridal chamber as inconsistent with its goodness, then how will she be able to preserve the beauty of virginity, within which an unholy thought dwells? the best part her - mental thoughts; and what good is it that the fences remain when the temple is destroyed? Or what is the use of keeping the place of the throne clean, if the throne itself is defiled? Or rather, her body is not free from defilement.

Saint John Chrysostom(344 / 354-407): "Whoever says: I am a virgin in body, but in my soul envies my brother, he is not a virgin: his virginity has corrupted the connection with envy. The vain one is also not a virgin: his virginity has corrupted the love of slander; And whoever hates his brother is more of a murderer than a virgin, and in general, whoever is possessed by an evil passion, corrupts his virginity with it. Therefore, Paul removes (us) from all these evil ties and commands us to be virgins, so that we voluntarily do not accept into our souls any nasty thought."

Saint John Chrysostom (344/354-407): "Uncorrupted in soul is a virgin even though she had a husband; she is virgin with true, wonderful virginity; the most bodily virginity is a consequence and a shadow of this virginity, and it is true virginity.

3. Ways to salvation

Saint John Chrysostom(344/354-407), explaining the parable of the sower (Mt. 13.1-8), he says: "In His mercy, He not only showed the way and did not say that he would be alienated who does not bear a hundredfold fruit; he will be saved," He says. "And he who bears fruit sixty times, and even who bears thirty. This is for this He said, in order to ease the path to salvation for us. So, you cannot endure the difficult state of virginity? Get married and live chastely. You cannot completely part with wealth? Give a part of your possessions. Is this burden too difficult for you? Share your possessions with Christ. Do you not want to give Him everything? Give at least half, or a third part ... ".

The conditions of social and family life are not an obstacle to virtue

Saint John Chrysostom(344 / 354-407): "I do not offer you anything inconvenient; I do not say: do not marry; I do not say: leave the city and retire from public affairs; but I exhort you, remaining with them, to be adorned with virtue. I would even to make people living in cities more different good life than those who retired to the mountains. Why? Because it would be of great use. No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bushel (Matt. 5:15). That is why I would like all the lamps to be placed on candlesticks, so that great light would spill from them. Let us kindle the fire of this light, and let us see to it that those who sit in darkness are delivered from error.
Don't tell me: I have a wife and children, I run a house, and I can't do it. If you had none of this, but remained careless, you would not have received any benefit from it; and if in all this you are diligent, you will be enriched with virtue. Only one thing is required - the affirmation of the spirit in good dispositions: then neither age, nor poverty, nor wealth, nor many deeds, and nothing else can be an obstacle to us. After all, old people, and young men, and married, and obliged to raise children, and artisans, and soldiers managed to fulfill everything commanded. Daniel was a young man, Joseph was a slave, Akila was a craftsman, a porphyry seller ran a whole establishment; another was a prison guard, another a centurion, like Cornelius, another had poor health like Timothy, another even fled from the master, like Onesimus: and yet, none of them was held back by any obstacle, but they all led a glorious life, and men, and wives, and youths, and elders, and servants, and free, and warriors, and commoners.
So let's not hide behind useless and empty apologies, but let's affirm a good intention in ourselves. Then, whatever our rank, we will, without a doubt, preserve virtue, and be worthy of the blessings to come by the grace and love of mankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom to the Father, with the Holy Spirit, glory, power and honor, now and forever and forever and ever. . Amen"

ABOUT MARRIAGE

As a monk, of course, I can't say anything about marriage from my own experience. What I base myself on is the experience of communicating with so many people, including couples with whom I am intimately familiar and with whom I have communicated over the years.
The church perceives marriage as a sacrament, and the sacrament is not so much the wedding as the marriage itself as the union of a man and a woman. Not a single religion, not a single worldview relates to marriage in the same way as Christianity, which blesses the miracle of the union of two people into one flesh, one soul and one spirit.
The strength of a marriage is not always ensured by a wedding. Sometimes people get into church marriage, a wedding was performed over them according to all the canons, but the marriage did not survive, broke up. And vice versa, one can give many examples when, for one reason or another, the spouses did not get married, but at the same time lived for many years as a single inseparable whole, as a strong Christian family.

I think there are two types of marriage. The first is marriage as a sacrament, the second is marriage as cohabitation. Marriage as a sacrament is when two people are connected to each other so completely, deeply and inseparably that they cannot imagine life without each other, when they make a vow of fidelity to each other not only for earthly life, but for all eternity to come.

An image of marriage as a sacrament can serve as the fate of the first married couple in history - Adam and Eve. They were created to exist together, the Lord gave them one to the other. They accepted each other as a gift, they had no choice, no hesitation. They lived together in paradise, were expelled from paradise together, started life on earth together, raised children together, survived the death of Abel and other sorrows that befell them together. They went to another world and ended up in hell together. The icon of the Descent into Hell depicts Christ leading these two people out of hell, who remained faithful to each other both in heaven and hell, both in joy and in sorrow, both in days of success and in moments of falls. They lived together, died together, and rose together. It is no longer about two human destinies, but about one destiny of two people, connected inextricably, forever.
Mysterious is a marriage that is made out of love, by mutual agreement, but has grown into something much more than the original love. In such a marriage, the spouses are determined to experience together not only bright, but also mournful moments, not only everything good and beautiful, but also that bitter, with which earthly life is inevitably connected.

Marriage often begins with genuine, ardent, sincere love. People make a vow of fidelity to each other, being in a state of impulse, flight, inspiration, and sometimes rapture, blindness. At first, lovers see only good in each other, idealize each other. But the rapture passes with time, the holiday is replaced by everyday life, and then the spouses begin to see each other's shortcomings with bitterness. Much of what used to seem bright and beautiful suddenly turns out to be dull, colorless, dark. Such insight can come in a few months, and in a few years. If the spouses manage to overcome this crisis, survive it together, the marriage is saved; if it fails, the marriage cracks and things start to go to divorce.
Marriage as a sacrament can take place only if from the very beginning - and even before the beginning - it meets the requirements that apply to marriage Christian church. Why did the Church establish strict rules regarding, in particular, the relationship between the bride and groom before marriage?

Why are there separate betrothals and weddings, which in ancient times took place in different time, and the time interval between them was sometimes several years? Now, as a rule, both the betrothal and the wedding take place at the same time, but the original meaning of these two events is completely different. The betrothal testified that a man and a woman decided to belong to each other, that they had given each other a vow of fidelity, that is, in fact, they had already entered into marriage, but their marriage before the wedding was not yet a full-fledged family life: they, in particular, must refrain from marital intercourse. They meet and part, and this experience of being together and apart lays the foundation on which the solid building of marriage will then be built.

In our time, marriage often breaks up precisely because he did not have solid foundation: everything was built on passing infatuation when people, not having time to drive piles into the ground, determine what the "design" of their future home should be, they immediately begin to build walls. Such a house inevitably turns out to be built on sand. The winds blew, the rivers overflowed - and he falls. It is precisely for this reason that the Church sets a preparatory period for spouses, so that a man and a woman can build a marriage not only on passionate sexual desire, but on something much deeper - on spiritual, spiritual and emotional unity, on joint desire give life to each other.
A mysterious marriage is concluded, so to speak, with a warm heart, but with a sober head. Haste is inappropriate here. A man and a woman should have enough time so that the first passion that runs the risk of passing is tested by time. The experience of living together and apart should give them an answer to the question of whether they are ready to live together, whether each of them is ready to say: “Yes, this is exactly the person with whom I can share my whole life, to whom I can give everything that I have there is".
You cannot marry if one of the parties has at least some doubts about the correctness of the choice. You cannot go down the aisle if somewhere, even on the most distant horizon of consciousness, there is a “third”. As long as there is duality, as long as there are doubts and hesitations, it is impossible to hurry with the conclusion of the marriage union. If preparation period passed, and people not only did not fall out of love with each other, but, on the contrary, became even more attached to each other, became related, realized that they were ready to unite their destinies, then after the wedding their marriage was completed, gained fullness through physical intimacy.
There is a false, erroneous opinion - that the Church is against marital communication, that, according to the teachings of the Church, it should be reduced to a minimum. Some clergy spread the opinion, passing it off as the teaching of the Church, that the communication of spouses in marriage is permissible solely for the purpose of childbearing, that is, for conceiving a child; during the rest of the time, sexual intercourse should be abstained. This is not the teaching of the Church and never has been. God would not have created people as they are, would not have put attraction to each other in a man and a woman, if all this was necessary solely for the sake of procreation. Marital intimacy has its own value and meaning, being an integral part of the marriage union. Of course, the Church establishes certain days and periods when spouses are called to refrain from marital intercourse - this is the time of Great Lent and other fasts, that is, the time that is given by the Church so that people can concentrate on spiritual life, the time of ascetic feat, trials. Addressing spouses, the apostle Paul says: "Do not turn away from each other, except by agreement, for a time, for exercise in fasting and prayer, and then be together again, lest Satan tempt you with your intemperance" (1 Cor. 7:5 ).

Marriage is an opportunity for spouses to constantly discover something in each other, to get to know each other anew. In this sense, life in marriage can be compared with religious life, with communion with God. The external forms of our communion with God are the same from day to day. We read the same prayers, come to the same Liturgy - all this remains unchanged throughout our lives. But at the same time, if we seriously and deeply live a religious life, each time we discover a new meaning and new content in familiar words. And God reveals himself to us through these prayers and divine services every time in a different way, in a new way. Each Liturgy, each meeting with God in prayer is a kind of discovery. There is nothing monotonous, routine, everyday, ordinary in communion with God. So it is in marriage. In it, the spouses, despite the fact that they get used to each other, recognize each other's habits, abilities and capabilities, nevertheless do not stop discovering each other, and their life together does not cease to be a celebration of daily revelation, finding something new and beautiful. in a loved one. The freshness of mutual perception in such a marriage does not pass, does not disappear. Flowers, with which the communication of lovers in their youth began, do not fade, remain forever blooming.

Married couples are meant to complement each other. It is very important to learn to see and appreciate in another what you do not have.

How does marriage as cohabitation differ from marriage as a sacrament? Marriage as cohabitation means that at some point fate brought two people together, but between them there is not that commonality, that unity that is necessary for marriage to become a sacrament. Two people live - and each has his own life, his own interests. They would have divorced long ago, but life circumstances force them to stay together, because, for example, it is impossible to share an apartment. Such a marriage, whether "married" or "unmarried," does not possess the qualities that a Christian marriage should have, when, as the Apostle Paul says, the husband is to the wife what Christ is to the Church, and the wife is to the husband. the same as the Church is for Christ. In such a marriage, there is no close, inextricable relationship, fidelity, sacrificial love. People in such a marriage do not step over their egoism and, having lived together for many years, each remain closed on himself, which means that they are strangers to each other.
Any marriage that began as a simple cohabitation has the potential to develop into a sacrament if the spouses work on themselves, if they strive to become like Christ and the Church, respectively. A marriage that began as a cohabitation can acquire a new quality if the spouses perceive marriage as an opportunity to grow into some new unity, to enter a different dimension, to overcome their selfishness and isolation. It is very important to learn how to endure trials together. It is equally important to learn to endure each other's shortcomings. There are no people and couples who do not have flaws. There are no families where everything would go perfectly and smoothly. But, if the spouses want their marriage to be a sacrament, if they want to create a real, full-fledged family, they must fight the shortcomings together, perceiving them not as the shortcomings of the other half, but as their own.
It is very important that there be no other extreme, when mutual affection, love and fidelity become a source of jealousy, despotism and spiritual violence. This happens when one of the spouses perceives the other half as property, suspects him or her of infidelity, sees a threat in everything. It is very important that, with spiritual, mental, and bodily unity, the spouses should be able not to encroach on the freedom of the other, to respect the personality in him, so that each recognizes the right of the other to have the opportunity to have some life of his own, apart from the one that takes place in the family circle. This freedom, of course, should not be freedom from marriage ties, from moral norms, but it should help a person to reveal his individuality in marriage, as in other aspects of life.

A special theme is children. When the first child is born in the family, the marriage relations of the spouses enter a new phase: a third person appears, who, especially in the first years of his life, is completely dependent on his parents - not only physical, material, but also spiritual. Everything that happens to parents and between parents inevitably affects children. If the marriage of parents is a mysterious, full-fledged Christian marriage, which is based on love and self-sacrifice, if the spouses attend church, pray together, introduce the child to church life from an early age, to the grace that children receive unconsciously, but which is given to them just as abundantly , and sometimes more abundantly than adults, then in such a family the child grows in harmony with his parents, with others, with himself and with God. If, however, there is disharmony in the relations of the spouses, if their joint existence is at best cohabitation, then the child cannot absorb the feeling of unity and unity with his parents, because this feeling does not exist between them.
What happens to people if their marriage fails? They either get divorced or continue to live together due to certain external circumstances. And it's hard to say which is better.
On the one hand, of course, every divorce is a tragedy. The Church does not welcome divorce, considering it an unnatural phenomenon, because if the union between a man and a woman is concluded, then it must continue in this life and in the future. On the other hand, Christ says that divorce is permissible because of fornication (Matt. 5:32). There are other situations when divorce is not only acceptable, but also desirable. There are families where life together turns into torture, for example, when one of the spouses suffers from alcoholism or drug addiction, when the family has constant scandals, quarrels, when the husband beats his wife or children, etc. I don’t think that in this case, even if the marriage was crowned, the Church will insist on the preservation of the family.

There are cases when a marriage, remaining “de jure”, breaks up “de facto”, when spouses live their own lives, cheat on each other, but for some reason they believe that for the sake of children it is necessary to preserve the appearance of a family, because, if they divorce, the children will be traumatized. Indeed, the divorce of parents, as a rule, becomes a deep trauma for children, a wound that may not heal during their entire subsequent life. Moreover, incomplete families - families in which there is neither a father nor a mother - often cause many difficulties for the child, because he lacks the experience of full-fledged and full-blooded family relationships. In the matter of raising a child, each of the parents has different and complementary functions - the father gives something to the child, which the mother cannot give, something that is inaccessible to the father, the mother gives. But if adults only pretend that everything is fine with them, when in fact it is not, children feel falseness, and much more subtle than adults. You can't fool the kids. They may not be able to rationally explain this, but on a subconscious and emotional level they will feel a lie. It is not known what is better for parents in this case - to divorce or continue to create the appearance of a family.

I would like to emphasize once again: in order for marriage to be realized as a sacrament, it is necessary to strictly follow Christian moral guidelines. One should not think that if the Church, for example, recommends that future spouses refrain from marital intimacy until the wedding, then this requirement is based on some outdated medieval norms, and that, since young people now live differently, then all this is not necessary to comply with. These rules were not set by chance. They have been tested for many centuries by the life of many generations. Nowadays, many marriages break up, precisely because they are concluded without a solid foundation. Enough for young people to feel in love - and they go to the registry office or to the altar. But after some time it turns out that they "did not agree on the characters", but in fact they simply did not have time to get to know each other well.

Therefore, the closer a married man and woman are to those moral standards that the Church has established, the more strictly they observe these standards, the more chances they have that their life together in marriage will indeed become that sacrament, that daily holiday. the way a Christian marriage should be.

Questions and answers

Will marital ties continue after death? After all, Christ says that in the Kingdom of God they will neither marry nor be given in marriage...
- In the next century they will neither marry nor marry, but, I think, they will not divorce either. Those people who have not entered into marriage here on earth, there, of course, will not enter into it. But to the question of whether the unity of the spouses is preserved there, concluded here and here, grown and formed, became mysterious, I think one can answer quite definitely: yes, it will be preserved. And at the Last Judgment, I think, such spouses will stand together. If people live together, but without love, without mutual understanding, then this, of course, is not a full-fledged marriage. Such cohabitation can be long - up to the death of one of the spouses. But in the next century, these people will remain strangers to each other, because they were strangers here.
- You painted a wonderful picture perfect marriage. But after all, a person is sinful, and since none of us is perfect, then, in my opinion, there can be no ideal marriage at all, there can only be a desire for it. But just as with every believer from time to time there is a distance from God, a feeling of being abandoned by God, so in marriage, it seems to me, such stages are inevitable. Therefore, marriage, in order to take place as a sacrament, must be a constant co-creation of two.
- Of course, there are no ideal spouses, but still there are marriages, albeit not ideal, but, in any case, corresponding to what is called a Christian marriage. It seems to me that the point lies in the fact that from the union of two far from ideal people who have decided to unite destinies and live in such a way that the shortcomings of one are compensated for by the virtues of the other, something, if not ideal, then very close to the ideal of a truly Christian life, can grow.

ABOUT MONASSY

There is something essentially in common between marriage and monasticism. These are not two opposite paths, but two paths that are close to each other in many respects. Man as an individual is not a fully-fledged creature, he is realized as a person only in communication with another. And in marriage, the filling of the missing occurs through the acquisition of the second "half", the second "I", through the acquisition of the "other". In monasticism, this "other" is God Himself. The secret of monastic life lies in the fact that one who has accepted monasticism completely orients his life towards God. A person consciously and voluntarily refuses not only marriage, but also many other things available to ordinary people in order to concentrate on God as much as possible and devote his whole life, all his thoughts and deeds to Him. And in this sense, monasticism is close to marriage. It is no coincidence that many Church Fathers compared monastic life with married life and spoke of the aspiration of the human soul to God in the same terms in which they spoke of married life. It is significant that one of the main texts used in the ascetic literature devoted to monasticism was the biblical Book of Songs of Solomon, which, speaking of love between a man and a woman, touches on such depths of human nature that it is equally applicable to the love that exists between the human soul and God. The soul of a Christian is the bride of Christ, and it is in this plan that the “marriage potential” that every person has is realized in monasticism. Everything that a person, an individual lacks in order to become a person, a person, in order to realize his personal existence in unity and communion with another, is acquired in monasticism through communion with God. This is the first.
Second. A person should not accept monasticism just because he failed to marry. Often young people, especially graduates of theological seminaries, find themselves in a dilemma: they are ripe for the priesthood, they have received a spiritual education, they are ready to start an independent adult life, but for one reason or another they have not been able to "solve the family problem", find a life partner. And it happens that the bishop begins to put pressure on such a person: since you are not married, then take monastic vows and be ordained. This, of course, is completely unacceptable, because both for marriage and for monasticism, a person must mature, and any haste, and even more pressure, is inappropriate and unacceptable here. Monasticism can be accepted only in one case - if a person feels an ardent vocation for this. The monastic vocation cannot be a momentary impulse: it must ripen in a person over a long period of time, become more and more obvious, more and more powerful. If a person is not sure of his vocation, hesitates, then it is impossible to accept monasticism. In a conversation about marriage, I spoke about the same thing: you can’t get married while there is doubt that this particular person is the one with whom you are ready to share your whole life, for whom you are ready to sacrifice your life. A similar approach should be taken with regard to taking monastic vows.
Third. Monasticism has different outward forms. There are monks who live in monasteries, there are those who live in the world. There are monks who perform church obedience, for example, teaching in theological schools, there are monks who are engaged in charity or social service, taking care of the poor. There are monks - clergy in the parishes. In a word, the external picture of monastic life can be very different. But the inner essence of this does not change. And it consists, it seems to me, in two things - in loneliness and in constant standing before God. Therefore, a person who does not feel a call to loneliness, to giving his whole life to God without a trace, should not become a monk.
It happens that young people accept monasticism, focusing on certain opportunities that, as they believe, can be obtained by taking the vows.

A huge and tragic mistake is made by people who take tonsure for the sake of a church career. In the modern practice of the Orthodox Church, only a monastic can become a bishop. This leads to the fact that people with career aspirations take monasticism in order to reach church heights. But very few reach these heights, because there are many monks and few bishops. And often such people, already in adulthood, find themselves in a situation where they realize that their desire is unattainable, that they "fell out of the cage" or never entered the "cage" that supplies personnel for the bishop's ministry. And a terrible crisis is coming. A person understands that he ruined his life, having lost a lot for the sake of illusion. Such situations must be excluded. Monasticism can be accepted only if a person is completely focused on God, ready to give his life to God, to go through the narrow gates. Monasticism is the maximum expression of that "narrow" path that the Lord speaks of (Matt. 7:13; Luke 13:24). This is the way to achieve inner heights, the way of inner gains - with external losses. Taking tonsure for some external purpose perverts the very essence of monasticism.

It is unacceptable to accept monasticism and obedience. Unfortunately, it often happens that a person at some stage in his life cannot decide whether to accept monasticism or marry. Not having sufficient internal strength for an independent decision, he says to himself: "I will go to the confessor (option: I will go to such and such an elder), and what he tells me, that will be the will of God." This approach is flawed. All responsible decisions must be made by the individual. And take full responsibility for them. Of course, there is no guarantee that an error will not occur. Many people make mistakes in choosing their life path. But a person who made a mistake himself can correct it himself, even if it costs him dearly. If the mistake was made by someone else and the person understands that his fate did not take place, because once, due to unreason, he recklessly entrusted the decision of his fate to another, then there is no one to correct such a mistake.
In a conversation about marriage, I said that there are two types of marriage - marriage as a sacrament and marriage as cohabitation. The same can be said about monasticism: it may or may not be a sacrament. Monasticism, which is a sacrament, transforms the whole life of a person, changes it in a fundamental, radical way.
By the way, there is a completely wrong tradition, inherited from the time when our Church was under the strong influence of Western scholasticism, to draw a line between the sacraments and rites and classify marriage as sacraments, and monastic tonsure as church ceremonies devoid of a mysterious character. Monastic tonsure is the same sacrament as the other sacraments of the Church, because it contains all the signs of a sacrament. A person who accepts monasticism receives a different name, just as it happens in Baptism. He puts on new clothes. As in the sacrament of Baptism, according to the faith of the Church, sins are forgiven a person, including those that are canonical obstacles to taking holy orders. And even in the very order of monastic vows, it is called a sacrament, when the tonsurer says to the one being tonsured: "You have begun this great sacrament." But monasticism is realized as a sacrament only when it is accepted by vocation, in order to become a path of inner perfection, by climbing the “ladder” of acquiring virtues and fighting passions, which St. John of Sinai so beautifully depicted in his classic book.

In what case can one say that monasticism did not take place as a sacrament, that taking the tonsure turned out to be a failure or a mistake? In the case when a person took the tonsure either against his will, out of obedience to another person, or at too early an age due to his own unreason, or under the influence of mood or enthusiasm, which then passed. Such a person, already a monk, understands that he has made a mistake, that he is absolutely not destined for the monastic life. There are three outcomes from this situation.

At the first outcome, a person manages to break himself: he tells himself that as soon as he became a monk, as soon as God led him to this way of life, everything must be done so that monasticism really becomes the sacrament of union with God. And a person tries, with the help of God, to set his life in the right ascetic way. This is the best option, but, unfortunately, this outcome is quite rare.

The second and third options are more common. The second option: a person remains a monk so as not to violate monastic vows, but at the same time he does not feel joy or inspiration from the fact that he is a monk, but simply "pulls the strap", cursing his fate. The third option: the monk leaves the monastery, "cuts his hair", as they say in common parlance, becomes a layman.

It's hard to say which is better. On the one hand, monastic vows are given by a person once and for all, and, according to the canonical rules of the Church, even a monk who has put off his monastic habit and entered into marriage continues to be a monk, but a fallen monk, living in sin. And with the rarest exceptions, former monks, when they get married, do not receive a church blessing for their married life and cannot be married in a church. This is the tradition of the Orthodox Church. In this sense, monastic vows impose greater obligations on a person than marriage vows: the Church can recognize divorce, but church canons do not recognize any "disowning". And if you can enter into marriage twice, then monastic vows cannot be given twice.

During the first two years of my monastic life, I lived in a monastery where almost every second monk renounced his vows and left the monastery. Some of those who left got married. As a rule, such marriages were unsuccessful and soon broke up. I remember a case when a man abandoned monasticism two days after being tonsured, which testified to his complete inner unpreparedness for monastic life. I also recall another case: a young man entered the monastery with great enthusiasm, sincerely wanted to renounce the world, lead a holy way of life, but by nature he was sociable, secular, and in the monastery he did not find that spiritual food, that spiritual guidance that could not only to keep him on the path of monastic life, but also to make this life spiritually filled. As a result, he began to lose sobriety, control over himself, began to go to the city, contacted women, began to play in a rock band (he was a musician in the past). Next - alcohol, drugs. As a result, he left the monastery, married, divorced, and, before he reached the age of forty, died of a drug overdose. This and other similar cases strengthened my conviction that the decision to take monastic vows can only be made after very sober and serious reflection, only after a person has deeply strengthened his desire to live a monastic life, has become convinced that this is his calling, only after long trial.

I often have to communicate with young people who are at a crossroads. Some of them say: "I'm thinking about becoming a monk, but I have doubts, hesitations." I usually answer these people that as long as they have even a shadow of a doubt, even a slight hesitation, they should not accept monasticism. I advise them not to rush, to wait at least three years, and then to check whether this desire has weakened, whether it has cooled off, and if it persists, then decide to become a monk. A mistake can have fatal consequences, because, having taken monastic vows, and then realizing that monasticism is beyond his strength, a person is rarely able to return to normal life. He remains spiritually traumatized, morally crippled for the rest of his life.

Like marriage, monasticism has its own dynamics, and a monk can develop either in a positive or negative direction. In monasticism, a person does not stand still: he either goes along the path to God, gradually accumulating spiritual potential, or gradually squanders that small initial reserve that every person who takes monasticism has. And in this sense, of course, it is very important that a person from the very beginning correctly set himself up. As in marriage, in monasticism there can be initial euphoria and subsequent disappointment. It happens that, having taken the tonsure, a person lives in the first days or months as if in heaven, he is happy, it seems to him that his dream has come true, that the monastic life is exactly what he aspired to. But then comes the sobering. A person begins to see that the monastic life has its own difficulties and temptations, for which he is not ready. It is very important to be able to survive this critical moment. If in marriage spouses can overcome critical situations together, then in monasticism a person is left alone with himself. Of course, he is not alone if he abides in God, but a monk often lacks support from people. Often he lacks proper spiritual guidance, especially in our time, when there are few experienced confessors.

In Soviet times, the Russian Orthodox Church had only 18 monasteries, but even then there were complaints about the lack of experienced spiritual leaders. Today, the number of monasteries has exceeded 500, but spiritually experienced mentors have not increased from this. After all, spiritual leaders have to grow up over decades, and for them to grow up, there must be a strong monastic tradition. Confessors themselves should be students of experienced mentors. The strength of monasticism lies precisely in the succession of spiritual guidance, which, like the apostolic succession, comes from early Christian times: spiritual experience is passed from teacher to student, and then the student himself becomes a teacher and passes on the experience to his students.
There are many examples in the history of Christian holiness when monastic experience was passed on from teacher to student. The Monk Simeon the New Theologian was a disciple of the Monk Simeon the Reverent. Having received from the teacher deep knowledge in the field of ascetic and mystical life, he wrote it down and passed it on to his students. Nikita Steifat, who wrote the life of Simeon the New Theologian, was his closest student. And Nikita Stefat himself, of course, had students. An uninterrupted chain of succession of spiritual experience continues from ancient times to the present day. And even in Soviet times, in the Russian Orthodox Church, this chain did not break, although it was weakened: spiritually experienced leaders, elders, were very rare in those years, but they still existed.

And what is happening now? A small monastery opens, the bishop sends a twenty-three-year-old hegumen there, he takes with him several twenty-year-old novices, and they begin to educate each other. There is no guarantee that a young man who was appointed rector just because it was necessary, having received a monastery building at the church’s disposal, to urgently settle someone there, will become a really good mentor for these youth, who come, perhaps with great enthusiasm, with fire. , but with a lack of spiritual guidance, he may be disappointed and find himself on the wrong path.
It seems to me that, just as acceptance of the priesthood, acceptance of monasticism should occur in adulthood. In the ancient monasteries, not only fifteen- and seventeen-year-olds were not tonsured, but even twenty-year-olds. It took a very long time to prepare for the tonsure. Before entering a monastery, a person thought for a long time. No one insisted that he go to a monastery, as some confessors do now, pushing young people to become monks. Having entered the monastery, a person was in the status of a novice for a long time, and if he was disappointed, he could calmly leave in order to start a full life in the world. And only if a person, having spent many years in a monastery, understood that this was his path, he was tonsured. Thus, tonsure was not the beginning of his monastic path, but a certain result of a long-term trial: tonsure confirmed that a person was called to monasticism, that his desire to become a monk was not hasty, hasty, that it was his own desire, and not the desire of another person, trying to force him into monasticism.

Questions and answers

Why is monastic status necessary at all? It is necessary to give people who have this inclination the opportunity to live such a life. And the status of monasticism, perhaps, should be given only to people who have reached spiritual heights, who have spiritual authority, who have entered a mature or advanced age.
This would help avoid mistakes.
- I do not think that monasticism is the destiny of some old people. I do not think that only people who have attained spiritual experience should be tonsured as monks, because this experience is precisely acquired through monastic life. Extremes must be avoided. I think if for marriage best age- from twenty to thirty, then for monasticism - from thirty to forty. You can, of course, take the tonsure earlier, but then the degree of risk increases. It is categorically unacceptable, in my opinion, to cut the hair of persons under twenty years of age. I know cases of accepting monasticism even at an earlier age, which later served as a reason for such monks to abandon monastic vows. I think that in similar cases tonsure can be declared invalid, because a teenager, almost a child, cannot be ready for such a serious step.
- You said that monasticism is the most "narrow path". I want to argue with this. We, living in the world, do not go away voluntarily from difficulties. We have families, we have to work, earn our bread by the sweat of our brow, we have difficult relationships with others. And the monks, in my opinion, have secured a more peaceful life for themselves in the monasteries, they are busy with self-improvement, which we should also strive for. But making time to read the same great books as them is much more difficult for us, because we have families, children, grandchildren. They have enough time for that. Don't you think that our path, if we also want to be good Christians, is in some ways even more difficult than the monastic one?
- Seems. When I say that monasticism is the most radical expression of the "narrow path", I do not mean that it is something super difficult. In many ways, living in the world is much more difficult. Monasticism is a "narrow path" in the sense of renouncing many things that are rightfully theirs to ordinary people. And monastics renounce many external things for the sake of internal gains. But I do not think that monasticism is higher than marriage, or that it is more conducive to achieving holiness than marriage. Any path that a person chooses, if he aspires to God, is a difficult path, it is a "narrow gate." And if a person strives to live evangelistically, he will always meet obstacles and will always overcome them. Monastic life, like life in marriage, is given to a person so that he can realize his inner potential to the maximum. It was given to gain the Kingdom of God, which can become the lot of each of us after death, but we can already experience it here on earth.

Metropolitan ANTONY BLOOM

The assertion that the purpose of marriage is procreation is not only debatable, but simply unacceptable for Orthodox theology. The purpose of marriage is marriage. The birth of children is his component, but one does not marry in order to have children; one enters into marriage in order to realize the life of mutual love, that is, the overcoming of individual isolation, the expansion of the personality, which one German author calls "the life of a single person in two persons."

We have , in Orthodoxy, there is a theology of matter, a theology of the body, based on the proposition that God created man as a being not only spiritual or mental, but also material, connected with the totality of all visible and tangible creation - a theology based primarily on the Incarnation. The Incarnation is not just a Divine act in which God becomes a man; this is such a Divine action in which God takes upon Himself the visible and tangible substance of the world created by Him. He unites not only with humanity, He unites with the cosmic reality of matter, and our attitude towards matter is very different from the so often encountered Monophysite attitude towards it.

Marriage as an image of the highest joy. Marriage of the Lamb. Church: purpose and formation.

Marriage and monasticism are two aspects of the church's nature, the church's essence. Marriage and monasticism are not, in the ecclesiastical experience, simply a way of life chosen by one or another person; Marriage and monasticism are, as it were, two sides, two expressions, exhausting in themselves, from a certain point of view, the nature of the Church.
If you read the Old Testament, and even the New Testament, especially the book of Revelation, you will see that the image of marriage is the image of the fullness of life, completeness, perfection of life. Marriage appears in this respect as the ultimate victory of love, that is, the ultimate triumph of God, but not over man: God does not triumph over man, but the triumph of God in man himself, the realization of all fullness and Divine, and human life. The Old Testament gives us many images of fullness, happiness, joy, bliss in pictures of marital love; and in the New Testament, in the book of Revelation, it speaks of the marriage of the Lamb, of that union in love—already inseparable love, love that has both conquered and victorious—which unites the whole creation with God.

There are two completely different aspects to the Church. She is the miracle of the meeting of God and man, of all creation with God; she is a miracle and rejoicing that God is so infinitely close and has become so dear, so his own ... In this respect, there is deep rejoicing in the Church, and the Church is not just human society, not just a society of people who are gathered in the name of God, who are obedient to His precepts, who live by His gifts; The Church is a much greater miracle. This is a body, a living body, an organism that is both divine and human, in which on an equal footing - because love makes the unequal equal- God and man meet, unite, become inseparable. The Church is the place where this miracle of meeting takes place, mutually surrendering to love, eternity has already come, the victory of love over all strife.
In this respect, the Church already now, in a sense, contains the marriage of the Lamb. Saints - what am I saying: not only saints, but also sinners know this: at some point, suddenly we feel that God is so close; that His - love is so tender and quiet; what happiness is - to know Him and to be loved by Him, and to respond with love to love to the best of our ability. And at the same time, .. in the Church is striking - human weakness, fragility, sin. But we know that, despite this, the Church is more than all this.

This happens sometimes in families: great, deep, strong love has united and keeps people who once saw each other as they are in the eyes of God - clothed in glory, in beauty, deep. And sometimes people around see only difficulties, tension in this family, hear the dispute and do not understand that behind it there is such a deep, strong love, that only because this dispute is possible, this stormy, painful becoming, that there is this unshakable love.
We see this in the Old Testament between humanity and God; we see a constant dispute between God and man, we see that it becomes dark for minutes, and then in this darkness Jacob and the Angel of God intertwine in a painful struggle. And while it is dark, this battle will continue, and the Angel will overcome it - then the sinner, then God - then the man. But in this interweaving of forces, in this opposition, in this struggle, something very deep happens, because when it dawns, Jacob raises his eyes and learns that he wrestled with the Angel all night, and bows down to him in the ground, and asks for his blessing (Gen. 32:24 et seq.).
This is what happens in the Church. There is something visible: this is Jacob's struggle with the Angel in the darkness of incomprehension, in the darkness of becoming, in some kind of torment of incompleteness, which strives for fullness and has lost its way to it; and at the same time, the struggle itself speaks of the fact that God and man are bound inseparably, forever with each other, and that nothing can tear them apart. This is the miracle of the Church: in her painful development, in her painful inner life, where the human and the Divine intertwined, become one, but not always in each of us have reached this unity. And yet, this is already a meeting forever, this is already a connection forever, this is already some kind of premonition, and for minutes and a foretaste of what the time will come when the struggle is overcome and only the unspeakable joy of the creature, united with its Creator, remains.

Identity of marriage and monasticism.

And so, in the Church, marriage and monasticism are an expression of this complex combination of the already won victory and the experienced triumph of love - and that way of the cross, which should lead the whole world someday into the Kingdom of God. If you think about the main features mutual relationship marriage and monasticism, you will see that they have a lot of similarities. The first vow that a monk makes when taking tonsure, the first answer to the question of the tonsurer: “Do you undertake to remain in this brotherhood until your death?” - is usually perceived, according to the practice and experience of the Church, as an obligation, having entered the brotherhood, not to leave it; having entered the monastery, not to leave it. But there is, of course, much more behind this; behind this stands fidelity and stability: fidelity to one's first or final love and stability, that is, the readiness, whatever the circumstances, despite the pressure of all hostile forces, to remain face to face with those whom our love has chosen. This stability for a monk means that he will stand before the face of God, whatever his mood, whatever the circumstances; will stand before God's face, worshiping and serving, will never turn away from the One whom he loved and to whom he promised his life and heart.
AT married life we are talking about marital fidelity, and this, in essence, is also a vow of such stability (I am talking now, of course, not about those marriages that are the result of chance, but about those that are the result of a mature choice).

But whether it's monasticism, whether it's marriage - it all starts with the fact that we seriously, thoughtfully, heartily make a choice; the choice of love and the choice of faith - that we will remain true to this choice forever. This is called marital fidelity, this is called monastic stability, stability, and without this there can be nothing further.

Then we talk about monastic vows of poverty, non-acquisitiveness, obedience, chastity. But they are just as real in married life as they are real in monastic life! Poverty as a material condition is only one aspect of true poverty; to be materially destitute does not mean to be evangelically poor... Do you remember the first beatitude: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who understand that they are nothing, that they have nothing of their own; but beyond that - who, using everything that life gives: existence itself, life, friendship, kinship, food, drink, shelter, air, beauty, truth, etc. - knowing that none of this belongs to them , is able to recognize that everything they have is a sign Divine love or human love. And at the moment when we can say about some thing: it is mine, no one can take it away from me and no one can give it to me, because it belongs to me by right - we withdraw this thing, exclude it from the miracle love. Only when we realize that everything that we have speaks of love, when we have no more rights, there is nothing “ours”, then we entered the Kingdom of love ... The vow of poverty, the search for spiritual begging, which Christ offers not then for individual people, but for every Christian, both a married person and a monastic person are equally necessary, because without them there is no Kingdom of God. If a person does not achieve this in marriage, then he will have an earthly marriage, which will not open into the dimension of eternity and the Kingdom. If a monk starves, becomes cold, and possesses nothing, but does not grow up to the extent of precisely this detachment, this freedom, then he will not be in the Kingdom of God...

The next monastic vow is about obedience. We always understand obedience as subordination, subservience, and in the pedagogical order of raising a monk, raising a child, obedience is expressed and presented in this way. But obedience is fundamentally something completely different. Obedience is the state of a person who listens, listens, who inclines his ear in order to hear .... Obedience is a living, impetuous desire of a person to perceive everything: not only to hear words, but to catch a thought; not only to catch a thought, but to understand why this thought was born and found expression for itself, from what depths of experience of this person these words come.
This is how a novice, a young monk, treats his elder, but this is how an elder treats his novice and his mentor, because only he can teach and lead another who is himself a disciple and novice. Ultimately, obedience to a person must go much further than this person; listening to what the elder says, the novice must hear what God is saying to him through this elder. It is not in vain that Christ says: You have one Instructor - Christ (Matt. 23:10). The condition under which an elder can teach something to a novice is inner transparency, such a transparency that would allow the light of Christ Himself to shed through him and reach the disciple.
... But this law of obedience, this listening, attention to another person is also the law of all human relations, and especially marriage. If two people who have entered into marriage, through addiction, through being blinded by each other, do not turn one another into an idol that covers God for them, if both will simultaneously listen to each other and listen to God, become transparent to God's influence, so that the light of God can shed on the beloved, then the same commandment of obedience is fulfilled. And here it turns out that obedience and freedom are not only compatible, but that they are so deeply intertwined that they are one. He is free who is loved and who loves, who has freed himself from himself, who has transferred the center of gravity of his whole self, his whole life to another, be it a person (if this person is not made an idol through god-like worship), be it God Himself. Freedom is a state of love... When we talk about love, we are talking about a very complex feeling and state, but in the end, love, as we see it in God, in Christ, is that state of the soul, that attitude towards another, in which a person forgets himself to the end and remembers only his beloved; a state in which a person for himself, subjectively, ceases to exist, he exists only because he is loved and approved by another - a person, God.
Freedom, obedience, mutual attentiveness ultimately go back to their original source - be it in marriage, be it in monasticism. This is an ability, but it is also a feat when we say to ourselves: get away from me, Satan, go astray! I no longer want to listen to myself, I want to fully listen to another person, fully listen to God ... This is a state of obedience in relation to the elder, this is a state of obedience in relation to another person; without it, the other person will never feel like they have objective, real value to you.

And finally, one word about chastity. We always think of chastity in bodily terms.... Chastity cannot be achieved by bodily restraint or discipline alone; nor can it be achieved by mere discipline of the imagination alone. It can only be achieved by a peculiar approach, one of the aspects of love, when we look at another and by faith and love see in him a person beloved by God, created for eternal life, redeemed by the whole life, passion and death of Christ, the person whom God entrusted to us, that we may open the way of eternal life to him. At the moment when we can look at a person in this way, we become chaste both in thoughts and in the flesh; and this the only way who can make us chaste to the end. But this relationship is not physical; this attitude is spiritual, not even spiritual; and it takes place not only in monasticism, but also in marriage, because in marriage the husband and wife must realize that they are given to each other by God, who entrusted them mutually to each other, so that they protect each other, preserve, sanctify, open each other friend the way of eternal life; and not such an eternal life that would be in conflict with earthly life, but a life where everything earthly, through grace, through the sacraments, through communion with Divinity, receives the dimension of eternity.

Thus, in marriage and in monasticism - monastic stability and marital fidelity, a vow of non-possessiveness or poverty and bliss for the poor in spirit (because only they enter the Kingdom of love), a vow of obedience, which is the utmost attention in a person to what is God, and through man - to the voice of God; the vow of chastity, which is to see in a person everything that he is in his imperishable holiness and beauty, and to serve this, - all this coincides.

OSIPOV ALEXEY ILYICH

Professor of the Moscow Spiritual, Doctor of Theology.

Family life provides an even greater opportunity to see what passions live in us. Two egos collide, two laziness, two desires to be looked after. Family life is a marvelous vehicle for discovering one's passions. A real Christian will forever thank God for what He gave him (her), to see what lives in the soul, because in the family there is the closest contact. If a person is sincere in his faith, then he will see what passions possess him, that he cannot cope with them, that this sometimes threatens to split family life, a tragedy for children. The reason is only passion and nothing else.

It doesn't matter if you are a monk or a family, the main thing is to choose: Christ or the Antichrist. None of those who did not know their passions and did not see that he himself could not cope with them, no one can become a Christian.

—Do not think that monasticism is spiritually higher than family life, or that family life is higher than monasticism. Each has its own path. Macarius of Egypt, who was called the "earth god", was sent to learn from two married women, and left really taught. Anthony the Great had to learn asceticism from a poor shoemaker in Alexandria. Therefore, we do not know which path is spiritually higher. Just monasticism enables a person to reveal his spiritual abilities. no fuss.

Read the Philokalia, where the Holy Fathers write that many ascetics achieved great spiritual gifts: they healed the sick, raised the dead, had the gift of prophecy, and ... ended very badly - by suicide.

The worst thing that can happen in our human life is to break the law of love. Fulfilling it is what is required of a Christian. The family is an excellent condition for this, a great blessing. Here, the passions chisel each other, just hold on, there are sparks, and thunders with lightning. In the family there is a deep knowledge of each other and of oneself. Oh, here you can become a real Christian, eating to your health, getting enough sleep. The law is this: eat, but do not overeat; sleep, but do not oversleep; drink, but don't get drunk. Christianity is not self-torture, it is marriage in Canna of Galilee: Christ came there, and ate, and drank, and sang songs - there is no doubt, although it is not written about this, but He did not sit in the corner.

So don't worry, family life is just as great a vehicle for realizing Christianity in yourself as monasticism is. And which of them is higher, only God knows.