As you know, it was psychiatry that took on the role of the most objective evaluator of human actions. She also claims to be the final authority in assessing his thoughts.
At first glance, psychiatry seems to be a good arbiter of religion and religiosity, but this impression is deceptive. The fact is that she, without hesitation, labels a lot of things in human life and culture as “pathology.”
Of course, analyzing religiosity using the parameters of psychiatry, we will obtain rough and very general estimates. Nevertheless, these will be at least some primary guidelines necessary for understanding such a delicate subject as religious faith. However, we will have to be cunning and maneuver, avoiding a head-on meeting with the dogmas of fundamental classical psychiatry. The fact is that she does not condescend to discuss the intricacies of the phenomenon that interests us, but immediately pronounces a verdict.
W. Hellpach strictly states that “the religious element has almost always appeared in history in a painful shell. It spread and underwent its decisive transformations always on the wings of mass mental illness” (W. Hellpah. Die geistien epidemien Frankfurt am Main: Rutten & Loening, 1907).
Another classic of psychiatry, E. Kraepelin, notes: “In patients with a religious direction of thought under the influence of “revelations,” things can reach the point of delirium of prophecy, the idea that they are the chosen ones of God and the Messiah, and a desire is revealed to perform public worship and gain supporters” (cited based on the book by Pashkovsky V. E. Mental disorders with religious and mystical experiences, 2006).
R. Krafft-Ebing (needing no introduction or recommendations) considered all the main religious manifestations as “delirium about a mysterious union with God”, “sensual delirium of a religious-mystical nature” and did not allow any other origin of religious faith other than pathological.
The pillars of the Russian school (V.P. Serbsky, S.S. Korsakov) used only clinical terminology to characterize religious manifestations.
V.P. Serbsky generally “grabbed” all questions of faith under the term paranoia religiosa (religious insanity), noting that “hallucinations containing the faces of Christ and saints begin to dominate in the sphere of perception; auditory hallucinations arise, telling the patient about his high mission, the main the content of thinking becomes religious delirium about a divine calling” (Serbian V.P. Psychiatry. A Guide to the Study of Mental Illnesses, 1912).
It should be noted that none of the classics almost ever singles out “religious faith” as a special category of insanity. There is no such disease as “religious faith.” By clinical standards, this is only one of the manifestations of “delusional affective psychoses and hallucinosis, typical of phasophrenia, paraphrenia and schizophasia” (according to Kleist). In other words, it is a symptom of the disease, but not the disease itself.
Depending on the national and cultural specifics of the patient’s environment, this symptom of severe central nervous system damage can be “painted in the colors” of any religion. For example, a Chukchi, suffering from an acute form of schizophasia, will concentrate his passion on the tiny god Pivchunin, an inhabitant of the Russian world or Catholic Europe - on I. Christ, and a resident of India - on the elephant-faced Ganesha.
This concludes our brief presentation of the “classical view.” As we see, fundamental psychiatry was not inclined to deal with the nuances, but immediately and sternly “closed the issue.” In her opinion, it is not just one symptom that should be studied, but the problem of schizophasia or paraphrenia as a whole.
The categorism of the classics could have deprived us of all freedom of maneuver, but, fortunately, the situation has changed. The current status of “faith” allows us to use both the parameters and logical tools of modern psychiatry to study it. Vera is to be congratulated. In just a hundred years she has made a brilliant career. From a simple symptom to a separate phenomenon.
It is easy to notice that modern psychiatry not only curtsies before faith, but sometimes even touches it. Of course, psychiatry “keeps in mind” the formulations of Serbsky, Kleist and Kraepelin, but differentiates manifestations of religious faith into “pathological” and “completely healthy”, and sometimes even “healing”.
This tenderness is another mystery that we will try to solve in our short essay.
The concept of “pathology”, founded back in the 19th century, in relation to some manifestations of “faith”, of course, has not gone away. No internal contradiction has appeared in the assessment of religiosity by psychiatry.
Let's see what still falls under the concept of “pathology” today?
First of all, these are precisely those properties that, from the point of view of Christianity, are an example for any believer. The very ones that are inscribed in the history of religion as standards of piety that a religious person must strive for. Namely: categorical intolerance to other cults, sacrifice, severe asceticism, reaching the point of self-mutilation, unyielding and extremely emotional devotion to the religious ideal, as well as visions, “voices from above,” etc.
We have excellent material that contains all the main “symptoms” of true faith. These are the lives of the saints. They clearly, in detail, consistently demonstrate what the behavior and thinking of a believer should be according to the standards of the church. And by the standards of both classical and modern psychiatry, 75% of the saints of the Christian Church are subject to immediate hospitalization and compulsory treatment with chlorpromazine and haloperidol, increasing the dose to 30 mg per day.
It is not difficult to predict the diagnoses that would have been made (for example) by St. Simeon the Stylite, St. Blessed Laurus, St. Nikita Pereyaslavsky or St. Angela da Foligno. In all likelihood, these would be the same “delusional affective psychoses and hallucinoses.”
Let us remind you what exactly the mentioned characters are famous for. (These names are taken at random from many hundreds and thousands of Catholic and Orthodox saints who became famous for approximately similar acts.)
St. Simeon deliberately bred worms in the “ulcers of his body,” which stemmed from the saint’s habit of rubbing himself with his own feces.
St. Laurus was covered with such a thick layer of lice that the features of his face could barely be discerned under it, and he could not brush off the lice, because he constantly held his hands in a cross shape.
St. Nikita “wore a large stone hat for 40 years.”
St. Angela became famous for regularly burning her vagina with a burning log to “get rid of the fire of voluptuousness.”
It is clear that all the saints mentioned (if they fell into the hands of psychiatry) would be forever placed in high-security hospitals.
It is more difficult to predict what daily doses of clopsixol would have been prescribed to St. Arseny, whose “eyelashes fell out from constant crying for the Lord.” Apparently, to stabilize his condition, they would have to (within reasonable limits) exceed the “threshold” 200 mg.
The "Church Father" Origen, who publicly cut off his penis in the name of the "kingdom of heaven", would probably have been immobilized by means of a straitjacket with metal rings (for tying him to the bed), and the Venerable St. Macarius, who, in order to get rid of sinful thoughts, “immersed his butt and genitals in an anthill for a long time,” would spend the rest of his days fixed in a geriatric chair.
The pious ecstasies of ordinary believers (favorably received by the church) would also probably be assessed by psychiatry as severe mental disorders.
Let us remember one of the examples of such piety, left to us by Margarita-Maria Alakok: “He, God, took possession of me so much that one day, wanting to cleanse the vomit of a sick woman, I could not resist licking it with my tongue and swallowing” ( quoted from “The History of the Body” by A. Corbin).
In other words, in the actions of saints and pious people we clearly see the ability to very easily step over the barriers of complex reflexes established to protect both the most important functions of the body and its integrity.
A natural question arises. Why does the present and the reliably observable past offer no precedents of this type? Where are they, the real manifestations of what the church itself considers to be examples of real faith?
There is none of them. But why?
Has dogma or the very essence of Christian teaching changed? No. Are saints disavowed and decanonized? Have they lost their status as role models? Also no.
Perhaps “faith” in the true sense of the word has remained far in the past, and today we are dealing only with its imitation, with a complex pretense generated not by the “flaming abyss of ancient Hebrew revelations”, but by conformism, ignorance and fashion?
In all likelihood, this is exactly the case.
Here we finally understand why modern psychiatry classifies religious faith so friendly and condescendingly. Today's faith does not contain any extreme emotional manifestations, “unearthly voices” and visions. Its adherents do not have the slightest desire to become like Christian saints in unsanitary conditions and self-mutilation. It (almost) does not arouse the desire to sacrifice oneself or others to a religious idea.
She outlined her circle: a Easter cake, a candle, an icon, a tear of tenderness, as well as abstract conversations “about God and spirituality.” But everything that goes beyond the boundaries of this circle is still interpreted as pathology.
In other words, psychiatry’s tolerance extends only to the state of formal imitation of “faith.” To a state that, in fact, has nothing in common with the standards of life or canons.
It is precisely this kind of formalism, or, in the language of the Gospels, “lukewarmness,” that God strictly warns Christians in “The Revelation of John the Theologian” (Rev. 3-15,16), promising to “vomit” such a character “out of his mouth.” Naturally, the rich pathos of God is echoed by saints and theologians.
A simple analysis of patristic texts leaves no doubt that such a very conditional “faith” is interpreted by the church fathers as something that is “worse than unbelief.”
The imitation we are talking about can be quite conscientious, lengthy and thorough.
It may consist in the punctual performance of religious rituals, in declarations, dressing up, in the careful selection of accessories and vocabulary. It is still capable of generating anger towards dissent and some intolerance.
She will never be inspired to rub herself with feces, wear a stone cap for forty years, or burn her vagina with a flaming log.
This probably happens for one simple reason: there is almost no pathological component in the actions of modern believers. Basically we are dealing only with the reconstruction of the state of “faith.”
And the reconstructor of the “faith” is not capable of significant self-torture or voluntary martyrdom. For one simple reason: he is healthy. He is only an imitator, never crossing the boundaries of reality. The very borders beyond which St. Simeon, St. Macarius, Origen and many others were once called “delusional affective psychoses and hallucinoses.”
Of course, all of the above does not rehabilitate religion. Even devoid of meaning and content, it remains a force capable of significantly and successfully resisting human development. If only because it still offers examples of undoubted pathology as the main ideological and behavioral guidelines.
Alexander Nevzorov
Alexander Nevzorov
Can you imagine a situation in which this not commendable prank of the girls in the HHS would bring pleasure to the believers? At least satisfaction? Such a situation is not difficult to imagine. Everything is the same: the same dance, the same turns to the altar with their butts, the same lifting of legs and incomprehensible texts, but at the end of this whole procedure, respectively, lightning, incineration of the blasphemers to the state: either handfuls of ashes, or just bloody pieces meat with scraps of knitted hats mixed in. But that did not happen. This once again did not happen. And judging by the reaction of the believers themselves, they understand that this will never happen.
Alexander Nevzorov
What is fasting? Why does fasting exist? Where did fasting come from and the reasons for the origin of fasting? It is clear that physiologically this is a completely absurd action, not only not useful, but also extremely harmful, since after the era of deprivation there comes a time of monstrous unbridled gluttony, which has a corresponding name in various religious practices. Where did the posts come from? Where did the need to fast come from?
Alexander Nevzorov
Living with believing, church-going parents is torment and a huge problem. Boys and girls sincerely and confusedly ask what to do, what to do. How can they coexist with such parents? Alexander Nevzorov answers one of the most difficult questions of the younger generation.
The legend of Russian journalism, Alexander Nevzorov, is known as a consistent and uncompromising critic of the church. Episodes of his program “Lessons of Atheism” were watched by millions of people on the Internet. And finally, all the texts are collected under one cover. How to talk with believers, what Christian values are, how the relationship between science and the church has evolved from century to century, why it was necessary to protect the feelings of believers - Alexander Nevzorov discusses this and much more in his signature sarcastic manner on the pages of the book. The book “Lessons of Atheism” was published by Eksmo Publishing House along with an audio version of the lessons in October 2015.
Alexander Nevzorov
Today I will try to answer extremely interesting questions that were proposed to me, as paradoxical as it may sound, by an underground (underground!!) atheistic circle of one of the St. Petersburg universities. There, things really get to the point of insanity, and to such insanity that libraries are prohibited from lending out Yaroslav Golovanov, Taxel, La Mettrie and various works by Rousseau on this subject. And now the students, who are already the most intellectual, the most independent and reasonable, unite in some kind of atheistic circles, and questions come from them. It must be said that the questions are, indeed, distinguished by some knowledge of the subject and a certain kind of sharpness.
Alexander Nevzorov
Today we can observe worsening hysteria around this simple reality of life, which is, was and will probably be a very important sign of human freedom in matters of deciding both one’s own fate and in matters of deciding the fate of the derivatives of one’s body. The right to this decision, to this freedom is probably one of the fundamental human freedoms. This is very important to know and understand. In the same way, it is important to know and understand that science has had its say in this matter a long time ago, having determined, with a large safety margin, the timing of termination of pregnancy that is safe for a woman’s body, as well as the location and status of the embryo.
Alexander Nevzorov
There is also such a delicate and wonderful topic as insulting the feelings of believers. Of course, the feelings of believers must be protected from any insult, and we must monitor this very carefully and understand that believers are special people, they scurry around and look for opportunities to be offended. They scour the afterwords and prefaces of books, websites, magazines, exhibitions, and everywhere they eagerly look for opportunities to be offended by something and throw another hysteria. But they have the right to these hysterics, and of course we must take care of these feelings. This reverent attitude towards their feelings absolutely, however, does not prevent us from delving deeper into the history of what has offended believers and offended Christians throughout world history. What factors were most offensive to them, and what caused them the most massive, prolonged and noisy hysterics?
Alexander Nevzorov
Well? As, in fact, I warned, another skeleton has fallen out of the closet of the Russian Orthodox Church. But I must say, the skeleton is quite weighty. I mean the homosexual scandal, the details of which were announced by Deacon Kuraev. To be honest, I don't really understand the hype about this. But not only did everyone seem to have been warned about this and had to be prepared for it, but I don’t really understand the hysteria about this. Because everything that happens is so normative that it was initially, in principle, not even discussed in church circles.
Alexander Nevzorov
All cults and religions have one small problem. It lies in the absence of God as such, as well as any indirect signs of his existence. This annoying little thing, of course, unnerves believers. True, not always. They themselves have already learned to come to terms with this fact, but they are very worried when others find out about it. It seems to believers that when the true state of affairs is revealed, they look rather stupid with their candles, cult of the dried dead and turbans.
Work on the draft law “On the transfer of religious property to religious organizations” began back in 2007. And everything proceeded relatively quietly and peacefully, until on September 21, Nika Strizhak’s program “Shall we give everything to the churches?” was broadcast on Channel Five. We decided to clarify the position of one of the participants in the program - publicist Alexander Nevzorov.
Work on the draft law “On the transfer of property for religious purposes to religious organizations” (we are essentially talking about the return of property nationalized during the USSR) began back in 2007. And everything proceeded relatively quietly and peacefully, until on September 21, Nika Strizhak’s program “Shall we give everything to the churches?” was broadcast on Channel Five.
Representatives of interested parties were invited to the Open Studio broadcast: Orthodox director and actor Nikolai Burlyaev, chief curator of the Hermitage Svetlana Adaksina, rector of the church Archpriest Georgy Polyakov, publicist Alexander Nevzorov.
Nevzorov came together on one side, and Burlyaev and the archpriest on the other. Alexander Glebovich categorically spoke out against the transfer of not only museum property to the church, but also any other property. “Don’t give the priests a damn thing!” - he said, leaving the studio. It is not surprising that the program caused a noisy response. Nikolai Burlyaev even called it a provocation, into which he was unwittingly drawn. Today, when passions have subsided, we decided to clarify the position of one of the participants in the program.
- On the Internet forum of the Fifth Channel, almost 90 percent of the responses support your position. What is this connected with, Alexander Glebovich? Has the Russian Orthodox Church really lost people's sympathy so much?
- Christianity, let's be honest, has one huge advantage: it is an excellent management system. But it only works when the governed are completely ignorant. The problem is not with the parishioners of the Russian Orthodox Church - the problem is with ignorance. It is not a question of who is the opponent and who is the supporter of the church. This is largely a question of who adheres to medieval principles of worldview and behavior, and who still lives in the 21st century. Nowadays there are many more people who have received, albeit superficial, education, who think, if not independently, then at least try.
- Or maybe society sees few real works of the church aimed at supporting the disadvantaged?
Support for the “orphan, humiliated and insulted” - according to world practice - is always hypocrisy, this is the most sophisticated form of theft. If you look at any charity, for some reason you can see Makarov pistols, soldering irons and gold rings underneath it. So that's not the point. It’s just that religion can only exist in strictly designated institutional and intellectual conditions, and these conditions do not exist now. That is why the number of those who support me is so large.
When the development of the bill began, the state did not hide the fact that it wanted to save money on the maintenance of the former property of religious organizations. After all, the budget spends a lot of money on current and major repairs, on paying for electricity, gas, water supply, etc.
At one time, for example, I visited all our monasteries, starting with Konevetsky, and I assure you that it is very difficult to find even one state penny there. Therefore, I suspect that this position of the state is deceit and hypocrisy. In addition, many former church properties are in very good condition and even generate income.
- Representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church say that the return of former property to it will lead to a reform of the church economy. If new churches are given to the Church, local parishes will not be able to maintain them. Thus, rich parishes (mainly in large cities) will share money with them.
I don't believe in such a reform. First of all, because economically it is ephemeral and illiterate. Yes, there are a huge number of poor parishes, but their problem can be solved simply: the priests must go to work. If they have a favorite activity, they can do it in their free time.
You said that the Church receiving a “bonus from the state” is dangerous, since with these funds it can again “buy matches.” What did you mean?
When I say that it is very dangerous to provide serious financial assistance to the Church, I mean that there is no need to provoke them to use the methods that they, in principle, use. We see aggression. We see a priest in the studio yelling “Bite your tongue!” We see Orthodox Nikolai Burlyaev, who calls me Sashenka, reads poetry to me, and, having lost the debate, runs to write a denunciation to the prosecutor’s office. You know, I have no reason to believe that the clergy have seriously changed since the 14th century, when they burned and gouged out eyes. Let us remember how quite recently they staged a show trial of Moscow artists who, successfully or unsuccessfully, I don’t know, painted what they wanted to draw. We see how the opera “The Tale of the Priest and His Worker Balda” is prohibited from being staged. We are watching how the anniversary of Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy, who was once anathematized, is being hushed up. We see how the Baba Yaga museum in the Vologda region is closing due to accusations of demonism. And when such an aggressive structure as the Church has financial opportunities, it also has a serious opportunity to influence social life. In fact, they need to increase the production capacity for the production of grace and its accompanying accessories (let's call them "magic"). This is normal business.
Why, in your opinion, when returning property nationalized during the USSR, priority is given to the Church, and not, say, to former owners of factories, homeowners and dispossessed peasants? Many call this a violation of the Constitution, which declares the secular nature of our state.
Because, as I said, there is an illusion that Christianity is a good way to govern. Now, with the help of some Christian leaders, the state is looking for keys to its own people, looking for ways to control them. There are no complete fools in the Kremlin... But over the next two or three years there will be deep disappointment. The authorities will realize that they are losing more than they are winning, since it turns out that yes, there are 3-4 percent of church-going, fanatical people, but in fact they do not mean anything either in elections or in the management system.
- After the debate on Channel 5, amendments were made to the bill prohibiting the transfer to the Church of objects from the state part of museums, archives and libraries. Is there no more problem?
There is a problem. Because there is real estate. There is, say, the road management department - a kind of city institution, a structural division of the government. Can it claim the right to own at least a kilometer of city roads? But the Church was the same structure. She never had anything of her own. Because it was a structural unit of the state. And she wants to be him again. But at the same time he does not allow a single comment addressed to him. For some reason, criticism of the road management department is called criticism, and criticism of the Church is called blasphemy. But what is the fundamental difference between these organizations? One takes care of the roads, and the other provides magical services. That's all. Seeing that everyone was silent, I had to intervene. I think you understand that it was not only Nika Strizhak who invited me to the broadcast. And, of course, this broadcast was a touchstone to find out what the true mood in society was. Therefore, with that program, I think we made a lot of progress. We do not intend to offend believers. Let them live their lives, pray, perform rituals. But let them not interfere in our social life.
There is also a criminal aspect to the problem. There is such a thieves' profession as "cranberry picker", a specialist in thefts from churches and monasteries. Wouldn't it be easier for them to work if church values returned from museums back to churches?
I think that these “cranberries” will not have time to steal anything. Because once people have the original in their hands, making remakes is no longer a big problem. How did this happen under Soviet rule? Let’s say you have an icon of “St. George the Victorious” from the fifteenth century. There is an inventory number on it. You take any icon of the 19th - early 20th centuries with the same plot, rip off the inventory number from the old icon and attach it to this one. All. You have an icon of “St. George the Victorious” with the same inventory number. A mosquito won't hurt your nose.
It is well known that in your youth you were a singer in a church choir. It is less known that you, Alexander Glebovich, studied at a theological seminary.
This is said loudly, although I was quite densely installed in the seminary. I did not make any church career there. If only because I have a traditional sexual orientation. But I considered it my duty to investigate this issue comprehensively and very seriously. And you must always explore from the inside, immersing yourself deeply. And, I must say, that all the metropolitans with whom I was, if not on friendly terms, then on fairly serious terms, knew about my intentions, my doubts and that I was conducting some kind of research.
- So, your sharply critical attitude towards the Russian Orthodox Church is largely based on personal experience?
Certainly. I really know them all well. It is difficult to find hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church with whom I am not familiar. Let them have fun as they want.
- Last question. What is your relationship with religion today?
Absolutely none. For me, the ideas of God are of little interest. I believe that this is a narrow question for professional astrophysicists. Let them decide whether there was some intelligent activity in the beginning that triggered the “big bang” and the expansion of the Universe or not. Stephen Hawking, that brilliant physicist in a wheelchair, came to the conclusion that there was no such “divine push” from the outside. And he, as the heir to Einstein’s throne, can be trusted.
P.S. The word “God” in A.G. Nevzorov’s direct speech is written with a lowercase letter at his insistence.
Interviewed by Andrey Yudin,
with correspondent of the portal Credo.Ru Alexander Soldatov. Part one: about serving in the Russian Orthodox Church MP, about an unsuccessful attempt at baptism, an “interesting incident” at the altar, and why Nevzorov is not a professional atheist.
"Portal-Credo.Ru": After a number of your recent appearances on television, you have almost become the banner of new Russian atheism. Does this mean that you have become a professional atheist?
Alexander Nevzorov: No, I did not become a professional atheist. And I practice atheism, let’s say, with my left foot, for various reasons. The first reason is probably that since childhood I have really disliked blockades. All sorts of blockades, and when I see some kind of blockade, the old hunting instinct awakens in me - to break through the blockade. The priests turned out to be so stupid that they nevertheless organized this information blockade in Russia, and a situation arose in which no words other than strictly complimentary or completely colorless ones were unusable and impossible...
Which I experienced once myself. I had a friend, the editor-in-chief of one of the main Moscow magazines, who spent a long time trying to persuade me to write. I wrote to him at one time... At the same time, you need to know how I write: like a goat with mastitis, they milk me out of me for some text an hour before the issue is due. And there I suddenly experienced for myself what Orthodox censorship is, and I realized that the situation was quite bad.
- Of course, you are not ready to name this magazine?
I don't know what it's called now. Misha Leontyev's magazine always has different names.
And then I looked back. In general, the topic of religion interested me very little after 1991. At the same time, I am not an “Internet” person at all. As the guys from “Zravomyslya” popularly explain, I have nowhere to “warm up”. They are trying to dump some materials on me, and with great surprise I find out that, it turns out, passions are running high.
- And what kind!
I find out that during the same program “NTVshniki”, it turns out that someone “left the studio”.
- Didn’t you have a picture before your eyes then?
I had a picture, but I didn't notice anyone leaving. And I have a very rich studio on-air experience, I saw a lot of people who had an attack of diarrhea and who jumped out of the studio, but then they could come up with some kind of lofty explanation for this, or they could just honestly say that they urgently needed to go to the potty. That's why I don't pay attention to such things. I don’t understand why I left, I didn’t offend anyone.
Let's talk more about this program "NTVshniki". What do you think, this is not the first time that a program with some “assault” on the official Moscow Patriarchate has been broadcast on the central channel, which is actually financed by the Kremlin? Before this, the rather sensational “Paris Hilton Spotlight” was released on Channel One, where Fr. Vsevolod Chaplin was criticized, and even the patriarch, in a pseudo-satirical manner - but, nevertheless, this is Channel One! Now this issue, a big program on Channel Five, then there was a program on Radio Rossiya, an official channel, about the fact that the experiment with introducing the “Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture” in schools and with the military clergy failed. And finally, these “NTV people”. Prime time, Sunday evening... Don't you think that this is still an application for some new Russian trend of declericalization, let's say, coming from the authorities?
I don't know, I can't evaluate. But I can say that NTV people personally persuaded me for quite a long time. I had a very bad relationship with NTV over all these years. And any informational participation and participation in NTV programs in general was excluded. It was strictly forbidden for my deputies to even pronounce this abbreviation. When they called and asked to speak, everyone knew that we were not dealing with NTV. In some cunning way they found out my direct telephone number and began to persuade me.
- How long did this last?
Almost two weeks. I’m not very willing to go to all these demarches. I have absolutely no desire to be the “chief pope of the country.”
- "Let's beat you up"?
What kind of "assault", for mercy's sake! I didn’t even pick up a camera. When they tell me that I am waging war on some church, I timidly point out that I actually did not pick up a camera. Despite the fact that now, of course, when passions have already flared up, when it became clear that I am at the epicenter of these passions, I suddenly “popped” incredible material.
Recently a film arrived from a beauty salon. Girl, administrator of a beauty salon...
- Is this posted on the Internet?
No, I forbade this from being posted on the Internet. Nothing is posted there. No one would dare post anything without me. We are talking about a film from a beauty salon where two boys are epilating. Two 18-year-old boys who epilate their legs, stomachs, and butts, explaining that otherwise “the bosses will be angry.” But now everyone is nimble, cunning, everyone has phones with which they can film and photograph everything. The girl captured one of these hair removals - partially, with respect for decency - on video, and then got into a conversation with these guys. She was sure that the guys were working for some sexually preoccupied villain...
- Is this here in St. Petersburg?
No, it's in another big city. ...The evil one who rapes his young employees. And then it turned out that these were two subdeacons! And I contacted her, sent her directly to the service at the cathedral, and she photographed the same two boys who epilate their butts and legs in the beauty salon, explaining that otherwise the authorities would be angry, and captured them during the service, with rashes and other things. No, we don’t put anything like that on your Internet.
- Yes, it’s my fault, there was a girl on the Internet who talked about how priests came to bless a nightclub...
No, these are little things. With hair removal everything is much more picturesque and plus it is absolutely documented. Moreover, this is one of those young bishops who now seems to have not been noticed in this “blue” spectrum and who is completely unknown in this capacity. Although I have a lot of things in my memory... Well, I saw a blowjob at the altar... I can’t say that it made a strong impression on me.
- At the Smolensk cemetery?
- Well... we know a little about your biography, you didn’t hide this episode of your ministry...
But in addition to the Smolensk cemetery, I also had St. Nicholas Cathedral, the Church of St. John the Evangelist at the Leningrad Theological Academy, the church at the Volkovskoe cemetery... Let's omit the specific geographical point. But one of the bishops served there, and, as you know, there is such a wonderful moment when all the clergy goes out to the soleya and the royal doors close. At this moment the singers are running to smoke... And so, I heard that rustling in the altar, which in theory should not have happened. And I saw this scene with the subdeacon. I didn't take a closer look at her. I have a traditional orientation, and I was disgusted to look at this. I saw only the fat, freckled paw of one of the bishops and the head of this subdeacon, the movements of which he “rhythmicized,” so to speak. Moreover, I don’t understand at all how they managed to lift the sakkos, because it’s almost impossible. But somehow they managed. Extraordinarily talented guys.
At the same time, I understand where pedophilia and pederasty in the church come from, I understand that girls are a problem. This is always fraught with hysteria, mascara smeared on the face, standing under the walls of a church or academy with tears, curses, demands for a showdown, and so on, and so on. And the subdeacon is an unresponsive creature; he either climbs this ladder or doesn’t climb.
But this, again, doesn’t concern me much. It's all disgusting.
-Was this a blow for you, did it somehow affect your life?
No, it didn't affect me at all. I was not a neophyte, I was not even baptized.
- And at the same time you served, and were even a reader?
- So you perceived it only as work?
Absolutely. These were the fierce, difficult Brezhnev times, when it was exotic, when it was like running away to the Indians. Hanging around monasteries with some funny alcoholics, painting icons with Archimandrite Tavrion (Batozsky), being kicked out of some nunnery for a funny story with nuns, etc. It was all wonderful, and then it all naturally passed.
And they didn’t baptize me, as my grandfather told me, that’s why. I had a nanny who planned to take me to be baptized, but my grandfather, who was a state security general, found out about this. They raided this church, interrupted the process by dipping the priest in all his clothes into the font. And as compensation for the moral trauma that I had to endure, I was sent to the cinema to see “The Magnificent Seven” two times in a row (!). So I had a different type of baptism, one that was much more understandable to me.
You see, then it was completely impossible to believe or not believe. Because belief or disbelief is not the lot of 17-18 year olds. This is the choice of an adult who, in general, already understands the seriousness and weight of this choice. I wasn't an adult at 17.
All cults and religions have one small problem. It lies in the absence of God as such, as well as any indirect signs of his existence.
This annoying little thing, of course, unnerves believers. True, not always. They themselves have already learned to come to terms with this fact, but they are very worried when others find out about it. It seems to believers that when the true state of affairs is revealed, they look rather stupid with their candles, cult of the dried dead and turbans.
The secret of the absence of God, of course, can be masked by the vagueness of magnificent rituals, ritual dances or demagoguery about “spirituality.”
Can. But only up to a certain minute. And sooner or later it comes, and then the practical absence of a deity becomes obvious to everyone. Agree, this is not a very pleasant moment for a believer. Made to look like a fool, he, as a rule, falls into a rage, which (to the extent of his depravity) can be realized either through a simple scandal or through a queue from the AKM.
There are many different ways to expose the piquant fact of God's absence. But only good, juicy blasphemy has the universal ability to dot the i’s in this matter.
Why? Because, having directly affected the personal dignity of God, blasphemy, in theory, should provoke him to immediate retaliatory actions.
In essence, God gets a slap on the head. Of course, he can tuck his tail between his legs and remain silent, but for a creature with such a menacingly bloody image, such as, for example, a Judeo-Christian god, this is not a very decent pose. The silence and inaction of the deity in this case works to desacralize him, that is, to desecrate him. The professional reputation of God, firmly hammered into the consciousness of the public, is collapsing.
Writers of religions copied the main features of the gods from themselves. Therefore, vindictiveness, suspiciousness and hysteria have become characteristic features of supernatural characters.
Of course there are variations. There are softer and harsher cults. But Judaism, Christianity and Islam have long been caught in the trap of their own propaganda campaign. They, unlike other religions, cut off any paths of retreat for themselves, having invented for themselves not only a very evil, but also an extremely capricious god. Their god is completely devoid of a sense of humor, and 80% of his vocabulary is blackmail and bloody threats.
Of course, all deities, from the Buddhist Palden Lhamo to the Chukchi Pivchunin, quarrel, hysterically and exterminate people. But Zeus is at least periodically distracted by inseminating unwary Greek women, Palden spends part of his time sewing accessories from his son’s skin, but the biblical god has no other activities except narcissism and intimidation of poor homos. He asserts himself exclusively through mass murder and fingering. Both, judging by the Bible, had crazy success among the cattle breeders of antiquity:
“And I will pour out my indignation on you, I will breathe on you the fire of my wrath... You will be food for the fire, your blood will remain on the earth, you will not be remembered, for I, the Lord, have said this” (Ezekiel 21-31,22)
“And you shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters you shall eat” (Leviticus 26-29)
“Beat the old man, the young man, the maiden, the child and the women to death” (Ezek. 9-6.)
“He who is far away will die of pestilence; and whoever is close will fall by the sword, and those who remain and survive will die of hunger... and you will know that I am the Lord...” (Ezekiel 6-12,13)
Even if he is not offended by anything, this god throws stones from the sky, pours fire on people, or sends epidemics, wars and misfortunes upon them. (Joshua 10-11)
He can dry up a tree without finding fruit on it in the month of March, and with a snap of his fingers turns a lady looking back at her burning house into a pillar of salt. (Matt 21-19; Genesis 19-26)
For no reason, he destroys entire cities and slaughters peoples, and at one point he arranges a mass murder of all humanity as a whole. In the waters of the global flood, the biblical deity drowns everyone in cold blood, including infants, pregnant women and ancient crones, making an exception only for his confidant named Noah.
Note that the Bible gives us a very specific picture of the disaster. All attention is focused on the boat, where the animals and Noah’s family are comfortably located. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of children and adults dying painfully at this moment receive only a casual mention: “every creature that was on the surface of the earth was destroyed; from man to beast..." (Gen. 7-23)
An innocent joke by the village children towards his other confidant (the prophet Elisha) also evokes an immediate reaction from God. But since he is always inventing some new methods of killing, the kids are not burned with sulfur and drowned, but torn apart by she-bears. “And two she bears came out of the forest and tore to pieces forty-two children among them” (2 Kings 2-24).
God and the bears will probably pick their teeth melancholy after this, leaving the mothers to collect and mourn the remains of their torn children.
In general, according to the “holy scripture”, children are a special weakness of the Christian God. He loves and knows how to destroy them.
We really don’t know exactly how God killed all the firstborn in Egypt (Exodus 12-29). But the mass slaughter of babies was precisely his image campaign, for which he carefully prepared, discussing it with Moses. The “Holy Scripture” of Christians diplomatically reports only that “there was a great cry in the land of Egypt, for there was no house” where there was not a little dead man.
A. Nevzorov: The moment comes when the most powerful insult to the feelings of believers become... iconsGod loved to have fun with babies (1 Samuel 6-19, Ps. 136-9), but he did not deprive the fetuses of attention (Hosea 14-1). On this occasion, the book of the prophet Hosea uses a particularly piquant expression - “cut open the pregnant women.”
However, torn children, massacres and epidemics are a regular repertoire. Simply to maintain the proper degree of “fear of God” in the public and an enduring reminder of “his greatness.” The real hysteria of a deity begins when he receives a slap on the head in one form or another. That is, it becomes an object of ridicule or direct mockery.
Naturally, none of the characters in the “holy scripture” calls God an “idiot.” Nobody draws caricatures of him. The ancient Hebrew blasphemies are of a very delicate nature. But! Even an attempt to simply look into the “ark of the covenant” causes an immediate and very angry reaction from God: “And he struck the inhabitants of Bethshemesh because they looked into the ark and killed fifty thousand and seventy people of the people” (1 Samuel 6-19). The funny trick of the boys Nadab and Abihu, who dared to burn the wrong incense, leads to the fact that “fire came out from the Lord and burned them, and they died before the Lord” (Leviticus 10-2)
We can present many such examples, even these are enough to get an idea of the character and inclinations of Jehovah-Sabaoth-Jesus. For twenty centuries, his image as a lightning-fast and merciless punisher was carefully maintained and cultivated by the church.
Naturally, any innocent joke addressed to God should, even today, guarantee that the impudent person will turn into a handful of dust. And immediately. And in the event of a direct insult to “God’s majesty,” the heavens should crack, and the archangels should draw their fiery swords and chop the wicked man into a hundred fried pieces.
The splitting of the cult boards (icons) on the vernissage should have ended with streams of flaming sulfur from the heavens. And the song in the KhHS is an instant tearing of the blasphemers, at least in two. But... “pussy” songs sound, icon chips fly, Charlie markers creak - and nothing happens. Six-winged seraphim do not fly and sixteen-eyed cherubs do not open the heavens. The bloody show repeatedly promised by the Bible turns out to be just a Hebrew tale. As stupid and evil as the figure of its central character.
This moment for every “believer”, trained in the conviction that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and most importantly, extremely ferocious, is almost unbearable. Of course, the sign of “absence” is also obvious to him. And then with his own vanity he tries to mask the unbearable silence and everyday life that comes after blasphemy. And he fills it with the howl of a million-strong rally, machine gun fire, or the voice of Marina Syrova.
Believers can be understood. They really don’t want to look like fools who wasted their lives slamming their heads on the floor and kissing dried corpses. Having some religious experience, they know for sure that nothing will happen as a result of blasphemy, and they undertake to do his “work” for their god.
The priests are heating up the situation. When it is no longer possible to veil the fact of the absence of God using ordinary methods, then new articles of the Criminal Code are composed, fires are lit, and believers are invented with certain “special feelings” that other people do not have. These “feelings” today are a good substitute for God, themselves becoming an object of worship.
We will talk about whether these “feelings” actually exist in the second part of our article.
There is a stereotype based on canonical and dogmatic ignorance. Believers naively divide the Old and New Testaments, probably assuming that they talk about different gods. Not at all.
The special piquancy of the situation lies in the fact that Jesus and the tearing of children by bears are one and the same god, changing names, etc., depending on the situation. "essences".
In Christianity there are not three gods or two. He's alone.
When a simple question is asked: “Is it possible to offend the feelings of believers?” - even the most hardened liberals turn sour. Ideological skewers are immediately shoved into their sheaths. The time comes for reservations, dozens of different “buts” and scrapings. The result is an incomprehensible bleat that contains no answer at all.
A. Nevzorov: On the territory of the Russian Federation, unfortunately, we are deprived of the opportunity to publicly blasphemeAlthough the answer to this question is extremely simple: in those territories where there is no direct legislative prohibition of such an insult, it is undoubtedly possible to do this. Moreover, it is necessary. And even necessary.
Of course, there are territories that have chosen intellectual degradation as their lot, or have no development ambitions. Their list is well known: Bangladesh, Russia, Nigeria, Afghanistan and other powers focused on identity and spirituality. There, laws protecting the “feelings of believers” are, of course, used and applied.
In the codes of developed countries, such prohibitions are sometimes found (in the form of legal fossils), but basically the civilized world follows the decisions of the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe, which long ago recommended “excluding blasphemy from the list of offenses.”
The meaning of this recommendation is clear. The fact is that the right to blasphemy is a much more important right than it seems at first glance. Blasphemy is an essential component of freethinking, allowing one to succinctly express one’s attitude towards a set of those archaic absurdities that lie at the basis of any religion. Moreover, public blasphemy is an excellent way to remind believers that they are not the sole owners of the world, culture and information spaces. That in addition to their views, there are also diametrically opposed ones.
This reminder is also useful for believers themselves. The fact is that in favorable environments they are quickly forgotten and lose their behavioral guidelines. Which subsequently inevitably leads to drama. We have repeatedly observed how priests first stick their hands under everyone’s noses, importunately demanding kisses, and then become offended, contemplating their bloody stumps. Periodically bumping into the blade of atheism with their Adam's apple, believers sober up and “return to the shores.” This maintains balances and avoids unpleasant excesses.
A. Nevzorov: An innocent joke addressed to God should still guarantee that the impudent person will turn into a handful of dustLet's return to our topic. On the territory of the Russian Federation, we, unfortunately, are deprived of the opportunity to publicly blaspheme. Why do we say “unfortunately”? Because today we need to find out whether believers have some special “feelings”. Of course, it would be easier to do this using some live example. Having launched the mechanism of blasphemy for a moment, we could easily discern the structure of the notorious “feelings.” Believers are trained to respond to such provocations and always provide excellent research material with their reaction. But! For well-known reasons (Article 148 of the Criminal Code), we cannot do this, and therefore we will consider the “blasphemy - insult to feelings” mechanism, without in any way setting it into motion. So to speak, statically. However, even when turned off, this mechanism is also understandable, and poking around with logic’s tweezers is even more convenient.
So. Let us assume that the “feelings of believers,” that is, certain sensations unknown to science and inaccessible to other people, really exist. In this case, we are dealing with a phenomenon. With a paranormal phenomenon worthy of careful study. Almost every “believer” claims that the presence of such “feelings” radically distinguishes him from all other people. This is a serious statement. Let us note that today it is a claim to a whole set of significant privileges.
What is the nature of these “feelings”? According to the logic of things, they should be an addition to the set of dogmas with the confession of which every believer begins. But if this is so, then they must be unchangeable in the same way as Christianity itself. And have equally ancient origins. In this case, what was offensive to the believers of the fourth century must be equally offensive to the worshipers of Jesus in the seventeenth century. And what was unbearable for Christians in the 10th century must certainly “work” in the 21st century. Is it so? Let's see.
Starting from the 3rd century, Christians were mortally insulted by Homer, Euripides, Sophocles, Aeschylus, as well as all the ancient classics. Why? Yes, because these authors mentioned or glorified pagan gods in their writings. Therefore, Homer and other Sophocles were banned from teaching in schools, and their works were burned, buried in the ground or scraped off parchments. Those who dared to recite them or simply read them were killed. An endless number of books containing the names of Osiris, Zeus, Hermes, Mars and other competitors of Jehovah-Jesus were destroyed.
Athenaeus of Naucratis in his “Feast of the Philosophers” gives relatively precise figures: he writes that approximately 800 names of ancient writers and scientists and about 1,500 of their works were lost forever during the period of reprisals by the followers of Jesus against ancient literature.
In 391, Bishop Theophilus burned down the Library of Alexandria. There remained about 26,000 volumes of “offensive” literature. The most pious Valens ordered that books from the pre-Christian period be specially collected throughout Antioch and destroyed “without any trace.” Pope Gregory I in 590 issued a decretal obliging to put an end to the “abomination” of the Homers, Apuleians and Democrites. In the heaps of burned books there was often a place for scientists of that time.
Although we must give Christians their due: at that time they still loved to look at the torment of their offenders and preferred to kill them in some smokeless way. For example, cutting off meat from them with sharp shells. From the living. This is how they managed to put an end to the first female astronomer Hypatia, who was killed by order of St. Cyril of Alexandria.
A. Nevzorov: Torn children, massacres and epidemics are the standard repertoireIt must be said that not only books, but the entire ancient culture “offended the feelings of believers in Christ.” Followers of the “sweet god” demolished temples, crushed statues, washed away frescoes, crushed cameos and chipped mosaics.
Just a few centuries later we see representatives of the same faith lovingly collecting ancient Roman and Greek art. They are already making glass capsules for cameos with Apollo and blowing dust from Athena's marble eyes. For some mysterious reason, what tormented believers so much and caused them “mental anguish” becomes an object of their own admiration, study and trade.
Here the first doubt about the presence of certain special “feelings”, acutely and directly related to faith, becomes legitimate.
Then everything develops even more curiously. The moment comes when the most powerful insult to the feelings of believers becomes... icons. Let's take a moment to look into Orthodox Byzantium of the 8th century. Nobody cares about Homer anymore. But we see huge bonfires of icons. We see icon painters whose fingers were cut off or their hands boiled in boiling water as punishment for their work. 338 Orthodox bishops at a council in 754 (in the Blachernae Church) declared icons the most terrible insult to religion and demanded their complete destruction. Orthodox crowds prowl throughout Byzantium, looking for a reason to be more offended. They find it easily, since there are icons in every home. Anyone who has a picturesque image of Jesus Iosifovich or his mother in their house has this icon broken on their head. Once broken, large fragments of the once sacred boards are pounded into the backsides of their owners. Or down the throat. There is also a tendency to mock images. Pig-dog or “other demonic snouts” are painted on top of the faces on the icons.
338 Orthodox bishops are rubbing their paws and stirring up the believing crowds even more diligently, describing in vivid colors the nuances of the mental pain that iconography should cause to true believers. But after a few years, everything changes magically. 338 Orthodox bishops, having whispered, get down to business again - and throughout Byzantium a round-up begins on those who chopped icons and boiled the hands of living icon painters in boiling water. As a result, the same Orthodox Christians who were offended by the existence of icons begin to be offended by even the thought of burning or chopping them. A new search for those responsible begins. They are found without any difficulty and fed with lead melts. The Byzantine landscape is decorated with corpses with their mouths and entrails burned out. These are blasphemers and iconoclasts. Now it is they who cause the hatred of Christians. Exactly the same as what icon painters and iconostases called for a few years ago. 338 Orthodox bishops glow with happiness, and icons are again declared especially revered objects. Having played enough of iconoclasm, believers rush in search of new reasons to be offended.
Of course, comparing Christians with Banderlogs, who, having pogromed and played dirty tricks, quickly lose interest in the object of the pogrom and run to look for new, stronger sensations, is not very correct. Let's hold off on it for now. Let's see what happened next.
A. Nevzorov: For no reason, he destroys cities and slaughters peoples, and at one fine moment he organizes a mass murderAnd then it was even more interesting. Christians began to be offended by everything that came to their hands: astronomy, chemistry, printing, paleontology and botany. To open pharmacies, electricity and X-rays. Let us omit the textbook and well-known examples of De Dominis, Bruno, Buffon, Miguel Servet, Charles Estienne, Ivan Fedorov, et cetera. Let's look at lesser-known, more recent scandals.
The very beginning of the 19th century. Offended by anatomy, Russian seminarians, under the leadership of Kazan Bishop Ambrose, burst into the anatomy department of Kazan University, destroy educational collections, and throw everything that remains not broken or trampled into specially prepared coffins, perform a funeral service and bury them under the ringing of bells and singing.
Mid-19th century. Believers have been dealt a new terrible insult: huge bones, which, in their opinion, serve as proof of the existence of the giants described in the Bible (Genesis 6-4, Numbers 13-34), have been declared by science to be the remains of ancient lizards. Scientists are directly accused of blasphemy, belittling the authority of “holy scripture” and encroaching on the “foundations of piety.”
End of the 19th century. Now believers are outraged that gynecology could become a legal branch of medicine. The opportunity to look at, discuss, study and depict rima pudendi makes them incredibly furious. And just 50 years later, Christian women, sitting in gynecological chairs, cheerfully wave tickets to paleontological and anatomical museums that have become fashionable.
For many centuries, believers had the opportunity to resolve any issues with the help of bonfires. When the matches were taken away from them, they rushed into the legal abyss, demanding the protection of their special “feelings” by special laws. It is almost impossible to list everything that has caused their hysterics over the course of twenty centuries. This is the invention of railways, radio, aviation, drilling wells and the explanation of the origin of species. Today we can confidently say: everything that once offended religious feelings necessarily became the pride of humanity.
But that's not the point. We are more concerned about the fact that each time the insult of believers was caused by some new reason, and after a while it passed without a trace. Moreover, having been offended to their fullest, Christians turned out to be very active and grateful users of what had recently caused them such “mental pain.”
With all our might, we do not see any connection between their “feelings” and the tenets of their faith or other paranormal textures. We see only ordinary human anger, skillfully directed by their ideologists to one thing or another. This anger painted a pig's snout on icons of Christ in the 8th century, forced the destruction of the first printing house in Russia in the 16th century, and poisoned Darwin in the 19th century. Looking even more closely, we can notice (in addition to anger) intolerance towards dissent and innovation. Undoubtedly, anger and intolerance are strong feelings. But they are not unique and do not give rights to privileges.
Even this brief analysis allows us (with some confidence) to assert that the “special feelings” of believers are a fiction. The same far-fetched and artificial concept as faith itself.
A. Nevzorov: Essentially, God gets a slap on the head. Of course, he can tuck his tail between his legs and remain silent, but...The fact is that religiosity is not an innate and inevitable property of a person. DNA is not concerned with such trifles as the transfer of religious affiliation. Faith is always the result of suggestion, teaching or imitation. It is always determined by environmental conditions and circumstances. The situation is exactly the same with “insulting feelings.” If a believer is not taught to be offended, then he will never do it.
Let's look at this statement with a very simple example. For maximum clarity of our thought experiment, let’s take the figure of the main Christian of Russia, a zealot of Orthodoxy, Vladimir Gundyaev, known under the church pseudonym “Patriarch Kirill.” Suppose (anything can happen) that little Volodya, at the age of two or three years, was kidnapped by gypsies. And, covering their tracks, they would resell it to another, distant camp. And from there - even further. State borders are a relative concept for Roma. Therefore, the resale of the curly-haired baby could end in Assam, Bihar or another state of beautiful India. Of course, raised in the jungle, Volodya would have been a completely different person. He wouldn't know his real name. His mother tongue would be Bengali. He would not have the slightest idea about any Christs, dikiries and kathismas. His gods would be the elephant-faced Ganesh, the many-armed Kali and the monkey Hanuman. His feelings would never be offended by the prank of “Pussey.” And from the slivers of the cross cut down by Femen, our hero would build a fire and cheerfully roast a fat festive cobra on it.
