Love your neighbor as yourself

News has appeared on social networks, as they have recently been writing in such cases, “blowing up the Internet”. The chairman of the missionary department of one Siberian diocese, whom I personally do not want to call by name, expressed himself as follows: all single mothers and those who live in a civil marriage, it is impossible to name anything other than a swear word denoting a public woman. Children brought up without a father are moral, spiritual freaks and (for some reason) will certainly grow up unconventional.

The swear word was written without any asterisks. Some particularly zealous commentators who defend this “missionary” statement refer to the fact that this word is used in the Slavonic text of the Bible and is present in the Complete Church Slavonic Dictionary compiled by Archpriest G. Dyachenko at the end of the XNUMXth century *. This is hardly reason enough for a missionary to use obscene language in public. In parallel with this story, actor, director and former priest Ivan Okhlobystin said that he would burn homosexuals alive in the stove, because they are a “living threat” to his children. Also very Christian, nothing else.

But let’s leave these specific strange Christians, God will judge them, as well as all of us, however. Following Father Alexei Uminsky, I will say that these people, it seems, have not read the Gospel and know nothing about mercy or compassion. During the time of the Inquisition, they would have lived quite comfortably with such views, and they certainly would not have been left without work. Unfortunately, such statements often meet with joyful approval and support in society, this is not news and did not begin yesterday.

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• Immunity from rudeness: how to respond to rudeness

I write my texts for the Psychologies website based on my own experience and the experience of many people with whom fate has confronted me in a variety of situations and places. I want to tell the story of one woman, my former neighbor, and when I finish a brief description of her short life, I would like to ask the question: is she worthy of the dirty abuse that the aforementioned “missionary” pours on such women.

Not far from our house is the Church of the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God in the Simonov Monastery. This is a temple where the service is held with sign language translation, there are many deaf and dumb parishioners. My neighbor with a rare name Neonila also went to this temple, she was deaf from birth, she spoke loudly and very incomprehensibly. Her mother, our postwoman, died, Nila was left alone at the age of 17, she worked as a cleaner. When Neela turned 20, she was raped by some bastards in the basement, she barely survived, she lay in the hospital for a long time. After some time, it became clear that she was pregnant after the perfect abuse. Nila gave birth to a small weak child, who, unfortunately, turned out to be sick with cerebral palsy. How the girl survived is hard to say, compassionate neighbors tried to help her. Nila raised her son, who most of all resembled a small crab, waving his crooked arms, drove him in a stroller, which I gave her. A few years later, she began to live with a much older man, he was deaf and dumb and spoke with gestures, taught them to Nila. When I saw them in the yard (they tried to go out in the late afternoon, in the dark, in order to avoid glances and pointing fingers), my heart was breaking with compassion and with what careful love they treated the boy and each other. No, they were not married; Nila once wrote on a piece of paper for one very curious neighbor that her roommate was married, that his wife heard him and kicked him out of the house. They were together for two years, and then we met Neela, blackened in face, standing near the coffin: he had a stroke. Nila was at that moment on demolitions …

She gave birth to another boy, he was healthy and developed well, the mother found comfort and help in this temple, we often met her there. Among “their own”, hearing-impaired and deaf-mute, she enjoyed great respect, someone always helped her with the boys.

Nila was killed five years ago. She was stabbed to death by teen drug addicts as she was returning from a pharmacy. They were caught right away. Where her children had disappeared, no one knew at first. But after a while they again appeared in their apartment, and a married couple with deaf-mute twins settled there with them. It turns out that Neela, just in case, made sure that her sons did not stay on the street, bequeathing the apartment to the parishioners of the temple, who issued custody of her children. These people turned out to be good and decent, they raised boys.

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• Choosing for good

Returning to the topic. The late Nila was never in an official or church marriage – this is how her sad circumstances developed. She could have had an abortion twice, but she did not, although the gossips in the yard showed in her faces that she had no right to complicate her already difficult life. But every time Nila began to wave her hands and mumbled: “It’s impossible, it’s impossible” … There was so much love in her that she gave to her children and unfortunate common-law husband, so much joy in timid eyes when one of us, healthy and wealthy people, they kindly looked at her son, embarrassed, gave her food and clothes … And these are the people I, a Christian, are invited to call the most disgusting word that only exists in our language? .. Rather, I will swallow my own tongue. By the way, I myself also deserve this dishonorable title, according to that gentleman in a cassock: although I gave birth to three of my children in two marriages, now I am divorced, my eldest daughter grew up without a father at all, their father rarely visits the younger ones – in general, I quite get under the same category, thanks.

Of course, the official church disowned the “private statement” of one of its members. St. John of Kronstadt said: “Do not confuse a person – this image of God – with the evil that is in him. Because evil is only his accidental misfortune, illness, a demonic dream, but his essence – the image of God – still remains in him. I would like these lines to be read by those who are ready to burn in stoves, put them in the pillory, stigmatize children born out of wedlock, and correlate not only with single mothers and their children, but also with their own personality, family and life.

*http://www.slavdict.narod.ru/_0049.htm