NEW VILLAGE (Realist English). If a person has a feeling that he has lost God, then this is a tragedy, Father Vladimir (Arkhipov), a cleric of the Church of the Presentation of the Lord in the New Village near Moscow, said in an interview with Pravmir.
“Those episodes that you named are just needed in order to feel: God is there, He is present. When people swear, scuffle, go to war, kill each other, I feel how bitter God is. He says: “I gave you brains not to rush to power without understanding its cunning, but so that even in the expressive dance of a parrot, in the harsh truth of the animal world, you would feel the presence of the wisdom of God. And your brains are busy searching for other people’s sins and judgment,” the priest stressed.
Protopope Vladimir, answering a question about the Russian special operation, noted that “every person understands and knows inside oneself where the truth is, only all this is covered by stereotypes, complexes, inability to hear and love the world and oneself”:
“Therefore, in my opinion, it is necessary to try to reach that depth of the human soul where a person will be glad to hear the truth. So a person who loves one’s own father and mother understands perfectly well what they would say in this or that situation. In his heart, everyone knows what his father’s plan is for him. He will hear his father’s voice and will not prove his wrong as right.”
In his opinion, the events in Ukraine are “a call for integrity, for concentration, for understanding that all your relationships with people should become more mature and more truthful.”
The cleric of the Church of the Presentation of the Lord added that if people “use” God only to arrange their lives and careers, if they believe “that I am baptized, go to church, put candles, confess and take communion — it means that everything is OK with me — then I will not be a witness about Him, but against Him. And I must understand the consequences: everything will get mixed up in my head”:
“Christ says that love is service and giving, but it will seem to me that love is appropriation and receiving. He says that in humility there is courage, and I will think that in humility there is cowardice. He will say that the meaning and the way to Him is the cross. And I will say: “No, the cross, please, without me.”
And in the end, I will assume that bad is good. That black is white. And that’s what’s happening now. We’re just reaping the benefits. Long-term, historical, modern.”
