How to Be Saved in the World. Life in the Family. #

Bishop Mikhail (Semyonov)

I began to speak about how one may attain salvation while living in the world.

According to the teaching of the Church, the family is itself a little Church… a school of Christian life and Christian love.

From this alone it follows that life within the family is in itself a broad “arena” (a field of endeavor) for the Christian struggle. It offers a wide opportunity to earn the crown of righteousness by following here “in the footsteps of Christ.”

The family is a church! How much is contained in these two words. What a great responsibility is laid upon those who are called to preserve the holiness and purity of this domestic church.

Husband, father, wife, mother, mother-in-law, sister-in-law…

Each of them bears a particular circle of duties, a specific “path” by which they may come to salvation.

The father and husband — the head of the family.

I cannot say that one could not direct a bitter, reproachful word at the father and husband in an Old Believer family.

“Husbands, love your wives.”

“Fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath…”

Among those “outside” — outside our Church — the family is poorly built. It has long been said that it is falling apart, disintegrating, decaying. Marital fidelity has become a rarity… The family has often become something like a shared apartment, where strangers, alien to one another, live under the name of husband and wife. Sometimes, even enemies.

It has been observed that in 90 out of 100 cases, and at most within eight years, the very foundations of marriage are destroyed; both husband and wife seek happiness outside the hearth consecrated by God. And this is among the “intellectual,” the “educated” class.

And in a simple household, perhaps there is less of that filth. But another horror remains in full force: from here, across all of Russia, echo the agonizing “cries of women.” Drunken, beastlike husbands, forgetting that they are to love their wives as Christ loves the Church, mock the helplessness and weakness of women. It is frightening even to speak of what sometimes happens here. Women are shoed like horses, nailed into hot iron horseshoes at the forge. They are beaten in such a way that a true Christian — not a blasphemer — would not even strike a horse.

In one village known to me, a man led his wife through the entire settlement with a rope, striking her with a whip. Then he brought her to the church square; there, near the church, it seemed to him that the thick rope of the small church bell would serve him better than the whip. He tied his wife with the rope and beat her with its end. The bell tolled in anguish, and the man kept beating her, repeating the same words: “See, it rings. Let it ring—let them see how I teach, to the sound of the bell…”

What could be more horrific than this blasphemy—against the sacrament of marriage, against the Church, and against the church bell itself?

I know: in the Old Believer family there is neither that dreadful disintegration found in the educated class nor the disgraceful torment so often seen in the “Orthodox” family. That is, because there is not the same mad, inhuman drunkenness as is found “there.” But to what extent, with what confidence, can one truly say “there is none of it”? Perhaps the matter is only one of degree?

Not long ago in Tsaritsyn, an Old Believer woman complained to me that her husband showed her no pity, and beat her even when she was “with child.” I will not repeat what I said to her. It is better to say what I wished to shout at that man, who mocked the holy sacrament of marriage…

An old acquaintance of mine, a “mainstream Orthodox” priest, once addressed a crowd that had gathered around a drunkard who wanted to beat his wife to the sound of church bells… The people had come running, thinking the alarm bell was tolling for a fire. And the priest said to them (I wrote down his words and included them in my story The Little Church):

**“Do you hear the bell ringing? You thought it was the alarm. That you must save your homes. And what was it, in fact? A trifle. A husband teaching his wife. Yes… Yes… It is indeed an alarm—worse than the one that calls you to fight a fire. The bell speaks not of this drunkard’s shame—for he feels no shame, having left his soul back in that corner of the village, at the tavern—and now it is no longer in him… No, the bell speaks of your shame…

An alarm should be struck! For what this man has done—he who defiles the temple of God, who profanes our village bell—is it not what each of you does? What is your wife to you? A person? Or something like a servant—a mere animal, nearly the same as your horse, which you beat as well, forgetting that God commands even beasts be treated with mercy. Who gave you the right to consider yourselves greater and more powerful than your wives? Are they not your companions, given to you by the Lord, with equal dignity? In the name of the Church, Christ joined you together in the same union He Himself shares with the Church. And yet, to the tolling of the bell, you mock and desecrate His sacrament. And today, in the voice of this bell, the wrath of God is speaking…

Cease turning the holy sacrament of marriage into a scandal and a disgrace—or the wrath of the Lord will come upon you.”**

These words I would repeat to that thug in Tsaritsyn—and to all his fellow sinners who live as he does. I would only add this: until now, Old Believers have been less poisoned by alcohol than the “Orthodox.” Until now, they have better known that holy Scripture which says: “Love your wives as your own bodies, as Christ loved the Church”—and they have better kept it. But how great will be the shame and disgrace if now, when even our bells ring out across the whole world, they should one day speak also of the same shameful and wicked deeds told of by the bell of the village of Deyanovo (as recounted in the previous story).

Guard the holiness of marriage. Fear to burden your soul with another’s tears. Or perhaps with something even more terrible than another’s tears.

Who does not know of cases where a wife, unable to endure the torment inflicted by her husband, takes upon herself the grave sin of suicide? Upon whom does their sin and their blood fall?

But I am carried away. I readily admit that the Old Believer family tends to preserve the fear of God more diligently and rarely witnesses such acts of violence. Yet the matter is not limited to such brutalities. It seems to me that the sin I now wish to speak of is even more widespread among Old Believers than among the disintegrating “Orthodox” families. I speak of the lack of respect for the woman—of how often there is little tender sensitivity, little attentiveness to the human person who is a woman.

We may never so much as lift a finger against our wife. But is that enough? Is that what Christ commands when He says: “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself for it”?

Marriage is the image of the union between Christ and the Church. What great love is required by such a comparison! Such love is able to usher the soul into the bridal chambers of the Kingdom of Heaven, for it strengthens the soul and makes it capable of every good thing. But how often is such love truly found, even in our own families?

It is true, love for one’s wife is often intense—sometimes even overwhelming—at the beginning of marriage. But this kind of love is humiliating for the woman. It is a love of her body, of her outward beauty, and not of the whole person—not of the woman as a complete human being, a co-laborer in the work of salvation.

Of course, there are families in which husband and wife live with one soul and one heart, walking hand in hand, step by step, following the Lord… In such families there is paradise. There, it is quiet and joyful as in a church. There, “angels hover on wings.” But such radiant families are few.

More often, it is heavy and suffocating in a Christian home. One feels that there may be no cruelty here, no beatings… There may be no unfaithfulness. There may even be fairness and a cold attentiveness to the wife and family. But what is lacking is the most important thing—the true warmth of love—without which all righteousness and purity is but falsehood and sounding brass. “The husbands do not seem to offend,” I once wrote, “but to live with them is more oppressive than prison.” Even a stranger, near such a man, feels discomfort and dread. And the wife—near him she feels fear and coldness; she does not know how to approach him. He may never raise his voice, but neither does he know tenderness. He does not know how to support, how to warm the soul of those close to him—his wife’s soul. Such a man is worse than a murderer.

There are also husbands: when their wife has wronged them, there ought to be anger—but followed by forgiveness, even if the guilt was great. But no, he bears his grudge for years. Such a husband, too, is a murderer. His soul is without Christ, without God. And if his wife comes to hate him—it is his fault.

Then there are husbands who are not evil, just… insensitive. They don’t mean to offend, but they have never cultivated themselves, and they place no value on a kind word. If their wife weeps from offense, they don’t even understand why. “She’s being emotional…” Their coarse heart cannot grasp what pain can be caused by one careless word. Such husbands ought to reflect carefully on themselves: What sort of man is one who can wound another without meaning to? That is perhaps even worse than an intentional injury. What kind of soul is it that does not even feel when it causes harm? Clearly, not a Christian soul—not yet a “baptized soul.”

The same can be said of those husbands who are impossible to please. The soup is not salty enough, the porridge is burnt—he simply refuses to understand that his wife, too, would prefer her porridge well-cooked. What can you do if such a mishap occurs? Sometimes a wife is so overworked her head is spinning, and something gets overlooked. But if a husband and wife forgive and excuse one another in all things, then even burnt porridge tastes sweet when served with love and gentleness. For God’s sake, keep watch over yourselves.

Such an atmosphere of coldness in the family, of harsh and merciless severity, threatens the family with grave danger. Gradually, little by little, a bitter “crack” forms in such a family—and then, without either the husband or the wife noticing, a chasm appears between them, one that cannot be crossed. From small scratches grows a gulf of alienation. And instead of happiness, there will be death.

Read The Meek One by Dostoevsky. The man loves his wife. And she loves him. But he has a “system,” which—alas—I have already encountered twice in my year and a half among Old Believers. “Train her to be disciplined. Don’t be too open. Don’t be sentimental. Keep your wife at a distance. Don’t bare your soul too much, lest she begin to think too highly of herself.” And in the end, the husband of The Meek One kills her with this system—kills everything within her, freezes her soul that thirsted for affection, and with petty reproaches drives her to the point that she, clutching an icon, throws herself from a window.

Or take Semyonov’s story The Great Woman. In it, a husband torments his wife through silence, with a sullen face. But how is that any better than murder? True love is the kind with which Pyotr of Murom loved his wife Fevronia—and she her husband. The two of them were one: they had one will, one shared thought. One heart. They were true friends and companions. And when one of them died, the other could not continue alone on the path to heaven, and died at the same hour. Why? Because their souls had grown together—just as the bodies of the famous Siamese twins had grown together.

“I shall die soon. I feel that the Lord is calling me,” the prince said before his death. “I will go with you,” the princess replied. “I cannot tear my soul away from yours.” That is the kind of love that is never broken—the kind of love that holy Christian marriage creates. It is not without reason that the Bible says that the wife was created from the rib of man to be his helper. A helper—not a slave. Not something lesser, but an equal. A friend.

If a man in an intellectual circle looks upon his wife as a toy, a diversion, he mocks the holy sacrament of marriage.

And if a man “of the lower sort,” from a simple class, refuses to make his wife a companion, and does not recognize in her the dignity of a stewardess of the domestic church, he likewise denies the reality of truly Christian marriage.

They say: “But what can you do if the wife is unworthy of love? She’s no good, unkind. ‘With a woman like that, nothing can be done without strictness.’” To speak truthfully, I have often looked closely at such “unkind” wives and have often found that the “unkind wife” is not at all what her husband imagines. Often, she is wholly devoted to her husband, grieves over every misfortune he suffers, values his health more than her own. She remembers God. She raises the children according to the commandments of God. At times she may be irritable, quick with words—but I say again: forgiveness is needed. It happens that a man thinks his wife is unkind simply because she does not always keep silent, because she answers a reproach with a reproach, because she complains to others. But she, too, does not have a heart of stone. Sometimes she simply cannot endure it.

But even if the wife is unkind—who is to blame? Often it is the husband himself. She is unkind—but why does the husband not teach her to be kind? Of course, the husband wants to teach her, and does so with coarse scolding and beatings. In vain. He curses and strikes her not with the intent to correct, but with the desire to vent his anger, to satisfy his own wrath. But evil never produces good; a man will never make his wife good, well-disposed toward him, and sincerely loving by teaching her with beatings and insults. She will fear her husband, but not love him; she will become his driven servant, not his good and sincere wife.

Now let me speak of the husband as a father.

Can each of us who has children say with firm assurance: I do not fear the judgment concerning my children. On the Day of Judgment I can boldly say: “Behold, I and the children whom Thou hast given me.”

Perhaps many of our children have gone off “into a far country” and are wasting their inheritance—not their earthly wealth, but their immortal soul—“living riotously,” far from God and His righteousness. Why? Who again is to blame?

The other day (June 24), in my sermon in Kazan, I spoke about the naming of John the Forerunner.
“…A son was born to the righteous Zechariah and Elizabeth,” I said, “and the relatives gathered. They discussed what to name the child. Some said he should be named Zechariah after his father. Others said, No, he should be named after his grandfather, and so on. Finally, they asked the father, who had been mute since the angelic vision. And the father wrote on a tablet: ‘His name is John.’ The father settled the dispute. John means ‘God’s grace,’ the gift of God. The father wished to say that whenever a person is born into the world, it is the grace of God. The one born is a messenger of God, a herald of God, His servant, and is appointed from birth to serve God. What a lesson for Christians.”

And yet among us, debates arise almost at the very cradle of the child—not only about the child’s Christian name, but about the “name” he will bear later in life: the name “doctor,” or “engineer,” or “merchant,” or craftsman. And the whole upbringing is shaped to fit that “name.” Rarely does anyone remember that each child already bears a name far greater than any of these convenient or profitable titles.

The name of Christian, the name of human being.
Who among parents constantly and insistently teaches the child that above all else they must grow up to be human beings, Christians—perhaps even martyrs for the cause of Christ? That there is no profession higher than the service of Christ’s truth?

Children grow up surrounded by the “struggle for a penny” and become soulless, stillborn. And parents who bring into the world children who are dead in soul—did they ever have the right to bear the most sacred name of all: father?

In addition to this indifference to raising children in the spirit of service and spiritual struggle, I must point out another sin. In a certain secular play (called The Children of Vanyushin), a father, having come to realize that his children are not living godly lives, asks one of his sons:
“Where did you all come from, like this?”
“From above, father. From above… You lived below. We were upstairs. You sometimes came upstairs to scold and punish us. But you never noticed how we were being corrupted—by our companions, by the maids. And we used to sneak out onto the rooftops… And now that we’ve grown up, you ask: where did we come from?”

This is the sin of neglecting the spiritual life of children. Children grow up; they have their own pains, their own needs. They stumble, they slip—and no one is there beside them. Their own parents do not support them. The parents are somewhere far off, on another floor. And they are not there when it is necessary to take a son by the hand and gently and lovingly lead him across the chasm of sin.

I know, someone will say again: “No, no, there is no such corruption in our families, where children are outside of their parents’ sight. They’re not sneaking out onto rooftops. We follow God’s command and watch over their every step. We don’t leave them unattended. That’s just not true.”

Very well—I’m ready to believe it. I even know that it is true. I know that the Old Believer family is sounder and stronger than any other, precisely because the children are not left to be tossed about by “every wind.” But the point is that this supervision is often not the kind that Christ desires.

We forget the commandment: “Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath.” Just as in their treatment of their wives, here too many fathers lack the desire to approach their children’s souls with love and gentleness—like a physician toward a severely ill patient. There is oversight, yes—but not all oversight is the same.

One may watch over someone as a prison guard watches over inmates. That kind of oversight might keep a child from climbing out onto rooftops; it might restrain them from certain evils. But the prisoner always seeks to deceive the guard—and one day, he will succeed. I’ve spoken before of how a “system” destroyed a wife.

There is a story by the secular writer Timkovsky drawn from real life, titled A Man with a System… In it, a father ruins his son by his “system of lifeless control.”

But the main point is this: are children in need only of surveillance over their actions? They need a kind of “oversight” (if it may be called that) over their thoughts. A watchful, non-intrusive attentiveness to the development and needs of their soul. Not a fearsome, authoritarian presence, barking orders—but one that is perceptive, compassionate, and full of forgiveness.

Mary Magdalene became a saint out of a sinner not because she was stoned, but because she was forgiven. Because the Lord dealt with her with infinite love and gentle kindness. And even more than this kind of tenderness—this all-forgiving condescension—is what children need.

I know two Old Believer youths. One of them graduated from a top university. Both are unbelievers. Why? Because the truth of the faith was always imposed on them with shouting. They were shown only a wrathful God and were not shown the loving, all-forgiving Christ. They turned away from God—and from moral life as well. And the reason again lies in this: they were spiritually abandoned during the hardest moments of their lives. Their father raised them in strict religion. He would wake them in the middle of the night for midnight prayer… He “led them in the traditions of the fathers.”

It was good, yes… but the soul of the father was closed to them. His harshness and unapproachability drove them away. And he destroyed them. At the very moment when they were “drowning,” they wanted to turn to someone—anyone—for help. They were ready to go to their father, to beg him to help them, to save them, to hold them back from the edge of the abyss.

But they didn’t dare. And… they perished.
And how many have been pushed away by such excessive, cruel severity?

The father in the story The Man with a System destroyed his son primarily because he refused to accept one very simple truth: that every era has its own interests, every generation its own life—and that in order to lead the younger generation on the path of Christ, one must not crush their will, must not destroy everything that displeases the older generation. One must guide them—channel their new aspirations and impulses into the stream of Christ. And if what is new is truly harmful—then yes, resist it.
But… with love.

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