Foundations of Christian Aesthetics #
By Kiril Mikhailov
“One must try everything in life!” This slogan is repeated, as if by the hypnotized, by nearly everyone. Television has ingrained this in us, and we no longer even think—we simply try, as long as the opportunity is there and no punishment follows. Moral and internal restraints are gone. After all, television teaches “lack of inhibitions.”
But if one is to try everything, why not try, for example, going to church, praying, fasting, doing good for one’s neighbor, helping the poor, the elderly, or the sick? Why do people instead try debauchery, drunkenness, and drugs? Why do good children become lustful cynics, callous brutes, and unrestrained narcissists?
Two Directions of Sensuality #
Young people often live not by reason, but by feelings and impulses. This in itself is neither good nor bad—after all, wisdom is gained through experience. But in ancient times, the young would heed their elders, gaining wisdom from them, and this helped smooth out the folly of youth. Today, obedience and family hierarchy are hardly even spoken of, and what wisdom can modern parents teach?
Sensuality has two directions: elevating and corrupting. Higher emotions include the joy of virtue, sincerity, mercy, and compassion. Even greater is the pleasure found in fulfilling one’s duty, in defending honor, in noble service to others, to one’s homeland, to the Church; in heroism, dispassion, and the overcoming of one’s weaknesses and vices. The highest of all is the bliss of God’s presence in the soul, the awareness of His will and love.
Corrupting sensuality, on the other hand, consists of bodily pleasures (drunkenness, smoking, debauchery), pleasures of the lower soul (self-satisfaction, a thirst for originality, self-exaltation, reckless thrills). Sensuality that kills the soul begins with “I want.” Naturally, descending is far easier than ascending. Thus, if one does nothing with oneself, a descent into beastliness is inevitable. For some, this manifests at the level of the heart (rudeness, obscenity, cruelty, malice); for others, at the level of the mind (shallowness, vanity, egotism); for yet others, at the level of the body (drunkenness, smoking, drugs, debauchery, gluttony). And for some—on all these levels at once.
And so, when people speak of “trying everything,” they generally mean complete lack of restraint in thoughts and feelings. Wherever the current takes them, they go. And naturally, the current carries them downward.
Beastliness disfigures a person. First, it happens imperceptibly and gradually; second, it originates from within (and we trust ourselves, not suspecting our own innate corruption); third, it provokes no external criticism, for modern culture ceaselessly insists: “Don’t hold back!” “Live for the moment!” “Enjoy!”
Only Christians speak of the inadmissibility of such an approach to life. Christ teaches that for true Enjoyment (of which, according to St. Augustine, even the brightest earthly pleasures are but pale shadows), one must deny oneself. One must cast aside the corrupt animal nature and in its place receive from the Lord a New Life. This is called Repentance, and it is the starting point of one’s entrance into the Church of Christ.
Try instead what is best—what elevates and ennobles. That which is Christian morality: purity, goodness, love, faith, sincerity, responsibility, diligence, courage, self-control, care, compassion, mercy, and piety. How this manifests in daily life, each person knows for himself. These bring true, sacred joy. For in serving your neighbor, you serve the Savior Himself. For there is nothing more important than the salvation of the soul. And the soul rejoices at every step you take toward the Lord.
But what is evil? Lust, intoxication of any kind, madness, malice, envy, cowardice, hatred, cruelty, selfishness, cynicism, greed. And the worst thing is that the lower one falls, the harder it becomes to wake up and be renewed. The more one sinks, the more one comes to enjoy the life he has embraced.
Yet the Lord gives strength to everyone who finds even a shred of sincere repentance for his sins and a genuine desire for the Kingdom of Heaven. Even if one has no strength left for correction, a heartfelt plea to the Savior already places him on the path out of the abyss of sin and despair.
Modern Mass Aesthetic Priorities #
Something has happened to mass aesthetic consciousness—especially among the youth. Some kind of rupture has occurred. A fascination with filth and chaos has come to dominate among those young people who consider themselves more developed than those around them.
In the 19th century, Nietzsche created a new philosophy and way of life—nihilism (from the Latin nihil, meaning “nothing”). Nihilists waged war against the surrounding Christian system of values. Of course, in 19th-century Europe and Russia, Christianity had largely become formal, a mere “civilizational feature.” Yet even so, everyday communication, justice, mass culture, and official politics were still built upon the norms of Christian morality. And then Nietzsche (who called himself the Antichrist) proclaimed, “God is dead!"—meaning that all values founded on faith in the Christian God were declared false and empty. Nihilists rejected law, legitimacy, and norms of decency, gravitating instead toward provocation in art and literature. Artists and writers depicted the most repulsive bodies, places, and situations. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the goal of “elite” culture had become to incite people toward vile emotions—toward disgust and hatred. At the time, this made sense: the spirit of the Antichrist, working through his young and reckless disciples, was waging war against the inertia of Christian culture.
But what about now? It cannot be said that today’s youth are entirely unread and undeveloped. Yet what captures the interest of modern intellectual youth is, at the very least, concerning and perplexing. First and foremost, they have all turned away from their native Russian Orthodox culture. And yet, what could be more appealing to someone who wishes to stand apart in today’s conformist, virtualized, Americanized, and globalized world? Turn to the roots of Russian culture: read the Gospel, study Orthodox Church teaching and worship, explore medieval Russian literature and philosophy, iconography, chant and folklore, church architecture, and ancient Russian life. The icons of Rublev and Dionysius, the ancient churches of Kiev, Vladimir, and Novgorod, The Tale of Peter and Fevronia, Russian epics and laments, The Book of the Dove, spiritual verses, church hymns—what could be more anti-modern for those who despise the primitiveness and soullessness of today’s mind-numbing mass culture?
Yet—No! The intellectual youth of today are fascinated by books and films about perverts, skinheads, schizophrenics, murderers, and maniacs. Everywhere you look: they have not read Gogol, but they have read Murakami and Sorokin. They have never watched Andrei Rublev or Stalker, yet they are thrilled by Natural Born Killers and Fight Club. Very few can boast of having read War and Peace or Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka, but the most widely read author among the youth is Chuck Palahniuk, whose protagonists are almost exclusively perverts, homosexuals, cultists, Satanists, and sadists.
In music, too, young people primarily value not talent but posturing, contortions, and shock value. Rammstein performs lewd acts on stage, Marilyn Manson openly blasphemes Christ while glorifying drug addiction and perversion, black metal musicians call for burning churches and worshiping Satan, death metal bands propagate sadism, while nu-metal and darkwave cultivate hatred and psychopathy.
Music videos are filled with filth—toilets, feces, blood, entrails, spiders, snakes, knives, syringes, naked and disfigured bodies, bulging eyes, convulsing tongues, contorted figures, grotesque faces, and satanic symbols. It is as if they have broken free of their chains!
If mass culture has replaced values with debauchery, drunkenness, sensual indulgence, idleness, rudeness, and mindless contortions, then in what calls itself “elite” culture, chaos, perversion, blasphemy, madness, and filth strive for dominance.
This is what is so perplexing: in the 19th and 20th centuries, youth used shock tactics to rebel against the remnants of Christian culture. But today, against what is this rebellion directed? There is no Christian culture around! It seems as though the very traits once characteristic of the Russian people—disgust for filth, honesty, straightforwardness, a love of order and beauty—have entirely vanished. Can it be that our thoughtful and inquisitive youth are now drawn only to ugliness, depravity, crime, and madness? These are no longer considered “vile things”—now they are called “self-expression,” “originality,” and “the search for oneself”!
The prophet Jeremiah foretold the ideal world of true worshippers of the Lord:
“I will put My laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they shall be My people. And no one will teach his fellow citizen or his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least to the greatest among them.” (Jeremiah 31:33–34)
This is the defining characteristic of a Christian world: the Law of God is inscribed in hearts and minds.
Naturally, the mark of the world of the Antichrist is the opposite: nothing is inscribed in the heart. All true values—those intuitively clear even to an atheist or non-Christian—disappear. Instead of order, there is chaos; instead of beauty, ugliness; instead of the pleasant, the repulsive; instead of wisdom, madness; instead of goodness, indifference; instead of determination, weakness; instead of self-denial, self-admiration; instead of service to one’s neighbor, mockery of him; instead of respect, derision.
Is This Great “Phase Shift” a Sign of Our Spiritual Degeneration? Has our youth truly become so corrupted from childhood? Or are the values of beauty and order so universally ingrained in our society that the only form of “freedom” left is the glorification of filth and chaos? Can it really be that Yukio Mishima is more appealing to the Russian young reader than Dostoevsky, and that Tarantino is more inspiring than Andrei Tarkovsky? If this is the case, then there remains but one option—to flee from this perverse generation (Acts 2:40). To escape from a people incapable of spiritual rebirth and of returning to their Christian roots.
Or should one wait until such a people destroy themselves?
Or should one, up to his neck in filth, struggle like an epic warrior toward his Heavenly Jerusalem, preaching Truth and Resurrection by word and example?
Or should one simply sit and hope that the propaganda of filth and chaos is nothing more than another foolish and fleeting trend?
I propose an answer. Here are the words from the Gospel of Mark:
“And they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes. And when He was come out of the ship, immediately there met Him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains: because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him. And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones. But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped Him, and cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with Thee, Jesus, Thou Son of the Most High God? I adjure Thee by God, that Thou torment me not. For He said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit. And He asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many. And he besought Him much that He would not send them away out of the country. Now there was there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding. And all the devils besought Him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them. And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, (they were about two thousand;) and were choked in the sea.” (Mark 5:1–13)
Saint Maximus the Confessor teaches that the allegorical, hidden meaning of Scripture does not negate its literal, historical interpretation. In this passage, I see an allegory: the chains and fetters represent the restraints imposed by society upon the insane. That is, madness is a state of being at odds with the norms and boundaries set by society. But is this society itself pure?
Everyone knows that the Jews, to whom the Savior first preached, categorically refuse to eat pork. So where did these swine come from? Clearly, in the country of the Gadarenes lived either apostate Jews or Gentiles who were ignorant of the Law of God.
And what happened after Christ cast out the legion of demons?
And the herdsmen fled and spread the news in the city and in the villages. And the people came to see what had happened. And they came to Jesus and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind—the very one who had been possessed by the legion—and they were afraid. And those who had seen it told them how it had happened with the demoniac and about the swine. And they began to beg Him to leave their region. (Mark 5:14–17)
Apostates, for whom their earthly existence is the highest priority, are incapable of healing a soul tormented by an unclean spirit. The most such a society can do is to restrain the madman. Chains and fetters. Only Christ the Lord can remove the chains and fetters. Only He truly frees one from madness.
Now, let us connect this allegory to our modern age. Mass culture promotes the degradation of man: sex, gluttony, self-obsession, and spiritual emptiness. And against this mass culture rise madmen, preaching hatred, drug addiction, insanity, and Satanism. This is not merely an issue of, say, death metal musicians or shock-seeking writers. It is a symptom of the profound spiritual sickness of a godless society. This godlessness is not expressed in the declarations of philosophers but in how ordinary people approach their lives, their neighbors, their enemies and friends, their colleagues, and even strangers. When everything and everyone is focused solely on existence “here” and “now,” voices of the mad begin to call people away from the meaningless monotony of daily life. These self-proclaimed radicals seek to destroy the world of primitiveness—they despise it—but even the faintest remnants of the old Christian way of life are unbearable to them.
And yet… Among the swine-loving townspeople, the Lord converted no one except that one madman. The only miracle He performed before them filled them with terror. They did not want such a miracle; they wanted peace and for the enemies of their way of life to remain bound in chains. And so, the paradox arises: the blind rebellion of madmen sometimes brings one closer to the Lord. For the true, consistent madman places his hope in nothing and no one but the Lord alone. Absolute disillusionment with the world is the foundation of the Christian New Birth, of which traditional baptism by immersion is the image. That is why the Apostle Paul writes that we, Christians, are seen as madmen by the world.
However, those who preach savagery and perversion are, in reality, not enemies of the utterly godless System. They are merely its harmful clowns. And their so-called “rebellion” is purely performative, aimed not at liberation from the banalities of worldly life but at purging even the last remnants of memory about the Lord, the last traces of Christian moral inertia. That is why all these professional Satanists and drug addicts earn millions of dollars—none of them are in chains, all of them are free to prance about and make a spectacle of themselves.
That is why so many thoughtful young people are captivated by figures like Marilyn Manson. Because it is not enough to think—one must struggle with oneself and rise above oneself.
What happened after the Gadarenes asked Christ to leave?
“And when He was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed begged Him that he might be with Him. But He did not allow him, and said to him: Go home to your own people, and tell them what the Lord has done for you and how He has had mercy on you. And he went and began to proclaim in the Decapolis what Jesus had done for him. And all marveled.” (Mark 5:18–20)
Here, I do not propose my own interpretation but invite you to think for yourself. To be like everyone else or to stand alone? And if the latter, then should one be consistent or hesitate when the Lord’s calling demands renouncing all that is familiar and pleasurable?
What values should one choose? #
The Lord will judge the Christian by how much he was truly a Christian. On the Day of Judgment, we will be held to a greater account than non-Christians. If pagans, who have never known Christian doctrine, will be judged according to the moral law that the Lord has instilled in all, then for Christians, it is not enough simply to “be good people” or “have God in the heart.”
For a Christian, it is not enough to be baptized. It is not enough to accept church teaching intellectually or emotionally as correct and necessary. One must not simply believe but have faith. Faith must burn from within. This inner fire (or at least a sincere desire to acquire it) is the mark of a true Christian. For a faith that burns within compels one to live according to faith.
Observing many young Christians today, I have noticed a sorrowful tendency—they are ashamed of being Christians. Many of them, without realizing it, envy the world and try to imitate it in their behavior, habits, and preferences. The more educated among them can use Christian language to discuss the “great liberating mission” of Marx. The less sophisticated are in awe of some King Diamond, arguing that he is “not really a Satanist,” that his music “enlightens,” “awakens,” and “makes one think.”
In the end, this creates an unviable hybrid. Young Christians often fail to understand that worldly trends, styles, and genres arose precisely because of the spiritual deficiency of their creators. Simply put, because of their unbelief and godlessness. There was a need to replace the Sacred—hence the emergence of various philosophers “transforming the world,” writers-“humanists,” musicians who “changed mass consciousness,” artists who “slapped vulgar public taste in the face.”
Living in the world has always been a challenge for Christians, a source of discomfort. The Apostle John writes:
“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.” (1 John 2:15–17)
If a person is a committed Christian, then worldly values and principles naturally repel him. Some he outright rejects (godlessness, violence, debauchery, perversion, madness), while others arouse his suspicion (humanism, tolerance, religious pluralism, liberalism). And this attitude extends to the cultural forms through which these values are transmitted to the masses—such as musical genres or dance styles.
Accordingly, the world is hostile toward Christians who dare to filter the reality around them. And so discomfort arises in all aspects of life—from casual conversations with friends and debates with professors to seeking a life partner and finding true friends. Living in such discomfort is an essential feature of the Christian life in the world.
The Savior Himself prayed for help for His followers in this contradiction of life:
“I have given them Thy word, and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” (John 17:14–16)
The life of a Christian is a spiritual war. And war always leads to a victor and a vanquished. That is why there are those who leave the world (monastics), those who remain Christians within the world, and an overwhelmingly great number of those who become worldly. Worldliness is more dangerous than mere disappointment in faith, for it happens slowly, imperceptibly. Moreover, the primary cause of Christians losing faith has been precisely their immersion in the world, their captivity to worldly culture.
The great, luminous, and inspiring works of secular art, literature, and music are the product of talent given by the Lord and by no one else. However, a person may use his talent as he chooses—not according to God’s will. It is undeniable, for instance, that Nietzsche was far more gifted by the Lord than many of his contemporary Christian preachers. But how did he use his talent?
Furthermore, even if a talented unbeliever acts in accordance with God’s commandments yet does not believe in Him, his creativity will always remain limited, relative, and obscure. Fragments of the holy and pure will remain only fragments. They will not form a single, salvific whole. The only salvific whole to which we can truly attach ourselves is the culture of the Church.
And here arises the question of preference. Young Christians—both those who read and those who do not (which is already a mistake in itself)—begin to feel uncomfortable in the world: they have no music, films, or books of their own. The onslaught of the world is a terrifying force! It envelops, gradually seeps into the heart, and erodes even the fundamental Christian resistance to the spirit of the world. (And indeed, such resistance exists only in truly committed Christians, whereas many young people, even after being baptized and beginning a regular church life, are still only at the beginning of their path to deep personal transformation.)
And under the world’s pressure, young Christians begin to split. Some simply accept everything worldly without even considering its spiritual content. Soon enough, the world captures them from within, and they leave the Church—either because their views change or because they fall into sin, drawn in by the softening, sensual influence of worldly culture.
Others adopt the external forms of worldly culture and attempt to fill them with “their own” content. For example, they create “Christian” heavy metal bands or rap about “edifying” themes. These Christians are more inspired by the form itself than by what they hope to put into it. In the end, instead of preaching, they comfortably settle into a worldly niche, standing alongside unbelievers, drunkards, and the depraved.
Still others begin “searching for pearls in the muck,” extracting from the works of unbelievers those elements where they believe a “divine spark” is present. At first glance, this seems like a reasonable approach—one supported by some of the holy fathers (such as St. John Chrysostom). But the real question is this: what drove the young Christian to turn to the secular in the first place? It is one thing to desire to speak to “worldly people” in their own language, using contemporary words and symbols. It is quite another when the worldly simply appeals to them, and the young Christian defends and justifies it: “They may seem like Satanists, materialists, or atheists on the outside, but on the inside…”
And here is where personal preferences begin to take effect. If the worldly appeals more than the Church, then something is not right with the soul or the mind. A Christian should feel a natural aversion to anything that stands against the Lord, His Church, and His teachings. It is unacceptable for a Christian to be captivated by that which leads him away from the Kingdom of Heaven.
This is a deeply personal matter, an internal indicator: if a person’s heart gravitates toward the secular rather than the sacred, it means that he is not fully committed in his Christian life. If a Christian does not find within the Church enough to inspire and engage him, and instead feels drawn toward the world, then his integration into the Church is incomplete, unfinished.
It is one thing to bring the sacred into worldly forms—to create Christian culture. It is another thing entirely to drag the secular into one’s Christian consciousness. There should be no division; the Christian mind must be whole. If a Christian finds pleasure in something worldly, then what is sacred and ecclesial should bring him even greater joy. It should inspire him more deeply.
This does not mean that a Christian will never listen to Aria or read Tatyana Tolstaya. The issue lies in one’s preferences. If there is a “king in the mind,” then the best of the secular will be discerned and harmoniously integrated.
“The King in the Mind” #
Christian feeling must be the foundation of behavior. The faith of Christ is not merely a set of worldview principles. Man is, by nature, a unified being—spirit + reason + emotional sensitivity of the soul + physical sensitivity of the body. But sin results not only in the prioritization of the physical over the spiritual, but also in the very fragmentation of man into different spheres. This division happens subtly, imperceptibly. It has become the foundation of modern mass culture, and many Christians fail to notice their own deep internal dissonance, even as they turn to Christ. Such are the symptoms of our demonic era of Great Godlessness.
Even in the sixteenth century, the Russian thinker Ivan Peresvetov noted that it is not enough to live by faith alone. “The devils also believe, and tremble,” writes the holy Apostle James (James 2:19). One must live by truth—that is, to manifest faith in every aspect of life, both outward and inward.
Yet many young people, upon entering the Church, mistake their youthful zeal for a complete transformation of their nature, for a total conversion into a true Christian. And then, when the initial euphoria of joining the Church inevitably fades, they begin to struggle—precisely because of the fragmentation of modern consciousness. The Apostle Paul spoke of this struggle:
“For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Romans 7:22–24).
A Christian must always remember this inner fragmentation and strive to gather himself into a whole. To achieve this, first and foremost, one must not allow a division of life into separate spheres: “As a Christian, I am against lying, but as a student, I lie about not cheating.” Faith, conscience, and actions must be united, and anything that contradicts the principles of faith must not be tolerated—whether in daily life, at work, or in casual conversations with friends.
Secondly, a Christian must diligently work on his emotional and sensual nature. The desires of the body must be brought into submission to the desires of the soul. Through consistent effort and self-discipline, the body must be tamed. This is precisely why fasting exists, why regular prayer (both personal and liturgical) is necessary, why acts of mercy and charity are essential, and why Christian ethics must guide behavior.
The conquest of the body by the spirit will gradually lead to a personality completely imbued with Christianity, in which the hidden corners of the untransformed, sinful, passionate, and demonic nature will eventually disappear.
Of course, this is the ideal! G.K. Chesterton wrote: “There are two kinds of idealists. The first idealize the real. The second—who are far fewer—strive to embody the ideal.” A true Christian is an idealist of the second kind. For him, it is not crucial whether he fully realizes his ideal in this life. What matters is the striving toward the great goal—the completion of the formation of his self in Christ. It is by this striving that the Lord will judge each of us, and especially Christians. For what has been entrusted to us cannot be placed on the same level as even the greatest worldly achievements, nor can it be set aside into some separate domain. Christ is the Sun of the world.
Integrity, consistency, and steadfastness—these are the marks of a Christian.