Spiritual birth does not take place after death. According to St. Symeon the New Theologian, it should happen here, on earth, or we might be late. All in all, the moment of death is the moment of truth. The way you meet it is the way you enter eternity, good or the opposite one.

But this is so cruel! We didn't ask to create us so that those who do not pass the exam of life go to hell. Being imperfect, we might have misunderstood or were not able to do something. Why is it so cruel, if He is Love?

Often, I do not understand anything, except that when I contradict Him, I lose my precious time and power. I should better switch off reasoning and switch on diligence before I lose everything. It is stupid to take offence and dangerous to despair.

Some people insist, "If He existed, children wouldn't have died, innocent people wouldn't have suffered, etc." I am not going to answer all these complicated questions for Him. However, at least, if we can't change some circumstances of life, and we can change many of them, we can tell Him, "We do not understand, we do not agree. Please, tell us, why?"

But if He does not exist, we cannot even ask this question, voice the demand, cry in despair, "WHY?"

If He does not exist, then there is nothing, except our pain and misunderstanding. We are left face to face with imperfection of this world that ends by the death of everyone of us.

Omission points lasting forever, if He does not exist.
#archpriestSergiyBaranov

International competition 🫶
Dear friends, you were so actively involved in the previous competition that we decided to announce a new one 😉

Conditions: you take any of Fr. Sergiy's books and take a video of your favorite extract, just like in the example (by @psiholog_rimma). The video should be no more than 1 minute long. It may be without subtitles. Leave your videos in the comments 👇

Download the books in English here:
https://disk.yandex.ru/d/2lGoClKKRn2JyA

We will publish the best extracts and send our giftbook-album "Christ is the Sweetest Word" to our three winners. Two weeks to go. Let's get started! 🩶

How should I, a middle-aged person, prepare myself for my 1st confession?
#archpriestSergiyBaranov
#questions

In order to deal with so-called “minor sins”, it is extremely important for a person to have spiritual strength and patience. So, how do we gain strength and patience? Physical toughness grows when we do physical exercises. To make the spirit stronger, one needs spiritual ones.
I will always remember an event from my childhood. A boy from another city came to ours for summer holidays. At that time, the guys from our yard were crazy about the pull-up bar exercises, while this boy was so physically feeble that he could not do a single pull-up, not to mention any other special exercises. About 40 years have passed since that time until today. I remember the strength of his will. He started to come up to the bar every day – in the morning, midday, and evening – and by the end of the second month he started to perform unbelievable tricks on that bar! All of us were deeply impressed, watching him, with our mouths open, wondering if it was possible to have made such progress within two months? The key to this is very simple: the result was born out of diligence and commitment.
From the book "Fly High"
#archpriestSergiyBaranov
#TabynHermitage

Is it necessary for a woman to pray covered?
#archpriestSergiyBaranov
#questions

I wrote a play, about an asylum. A doctor says to his patients there, "Well, at least your motivation is good." Sometimes a person has good motivation but is not aimed for the result and behaves like a bull in a china shop. It is about more harm than good. You should always consider the result and act for the sake of it, not for the sake of your wise words. One may talk a lot but have no result at all or have a negative result. As sometimes, you say something, and it turns out that the moment is wrong, the person is wrong, the way you do it is wrong or unwise, or it is wise but not appropriate. Be careful and delucate with your relatives, do not overfeed them with Orthodoxy.
Take good care of yourselves and let them see that Orthodoxy makes you better, not worse.
#archpriestSergiyBaranov
#orthodoxy