Dear brothers and sisters. Sunday School: About Heaven and Hell, Sin and Virtue in a Language Understandable for Children About Necessary and Timely Knowledge

great post- this is the time when we are trying to tell our children about the Resurrection of Christ, about the fall of man, about the Last Judgment, about what will happen to us after death, about hell and heaven. At what age and what exactly should we tell children about this, so as not to scare them with terrible images, on the one hand, and so that ideas about paradise are not reduced to descriptions of carnal pleasures (as his parents told one boy: “Paradise is such beautiful garden, where there are many flowers, and sweets and buns grow on trees”)? We asked two priests to talk about what and how to tell the children.

The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Codex Aureus Epternacensis, 1035-1040)

Archpriest Elijah Zubriy, rector of the Church of St. John the Theologian in the village. Bogoslovskoye-Mogiltsy, Deputy Director for Spiritual and Moral Education at the Pleskovo Gymnasium, father of eight children:
“It is difficult to give general recommendations on when and what to tell a child about hell and heaven. Because the parent of his child knows best of all and he himself must determine when and what his child will understand, and the parent is responsible for this.

Do not be afraid of such a topic. It seems to me that the most convenient and reasonable way to start this conversation would be to read the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Everything is calmly and clearly described.

Before such a responsible conversation, you must definitely pray and find those few, but necessary words. To say that paradise is a place of eternal joy with God, angels and saints. And hell is a place without God, from which there is darkness and longing. This place is not for people, but for fallen angels, demons. And people throughout their lives always make a choice with whom they should be, with God, or with his opponent. So hell has no power over us if we ourselves do not choose it with our evil deeds.

In these conversations, constancy and consistency are important so that children catch the connection of biblical events, you can read small passages from the Law of God for children before going to bed.

Archpriest Theodore Borodin, rector of the Church of the Holy Unmercenaries and Wonderworkers Cosmas and Damian on Maroseyka, father of seven children:
“It seems to me that the child needs to be explained what hell and heaven are, first of all, based on the words of Christ “The Kingdom of God is within you” and say that hell and heaven are the inner state of a person that will remain with him after his death. . And how it will happen, how it will look, for us by and large Unbeknownst to us, the Lord has not revealed this to us.

You can try to explain that this is a state that happens when you quarreled with mom or dad or brother, when you lied, when you are terribly ashamed, because some kind of nasty act of yours was revealed at school, and the state in which you at this time you are - anger, despondency, alienation from loved ones, isolation in yourself - this is a weak echo of the one in which a person who has lost the Kingdom of God will remain.

And since man is both a spiritual and bodily being, and in the resurrection man will be restored in the body, then, apparently, these violations will also be reflected in the human body, in some way unknown to us. When a person has darkness in his soul, his body cannot experience joy.

One can also say that a person, in his state, can simply not withstand the proximity of God and the Kingdom of Heaven. If we imagine a criminal, a criminal who spent most of his life in prison, and imagine that we could place him with Sergius of Radonezh in his first monastic community, he would hardly have survived even three days among these people. All this would have become boring, insipid and uninteresting for him, although he would have been fed and helped there, but he would have run away from there, because it was unbearable for him, and found some tavern where he would feel at home.

You can explain to children that hell is a state when you are in a quarrel, separation, irritation with someone, because in hell everyone is constantly angry and irritated with each other, and we can’t even imagine the level of that anger. When a person is in such a state, he can feel what hell is. It is no coincidence that the practice of preparing for holy communion requires a person to first reconcile, and only then - not even take communion and not go to the liturgy - but only begin to read prayers for holy communion. You can’t even read these prayers while you are not in the world, because the state of a person taking communion is a state of paradise, and the state of a quarrel is a state of hell, separation from other people.

It is impossible to name a certain age from which one should start talking about hell and heaven. Probably, it very much depends on how the Christian understanding of life is formed in a child. For example, we see that there is a child who begins to confess very sincerely at the age of 6-7 or at 8 years old, and there is a child from a church family who comes to real confession at 15 years old or never comes to it at all, does not survive it. . This suggests that a person does not experience sin as a wound, as pain. And it is difficult to talk about hell with him, because hell is still the result of human sins. You can’t call a moment when you can sit a child in front of you and start saying “hell is this and heaven is this”, but answering questions if he starts asking them, probably, can be conditionally from the age of 7, and more precisely, from the age when a person begins to understand sin as separation from God and as pain, even remotely.

In order not to be frightened by the image of hell, parents must understand that it is important for a child to feel from childhood, to know that he is very much loved. Relations with the Heavenly Father, a growing person very much focuses on relationships with earthly parents. It is no coincidence that the Lord singles out among other commandments the commandment to honor parents in such a way that he promises prosperity and longevity for her. Because it is impossible to build a relationship with the Heavenly Father without building it with an earthly father. Therefore, when a child grows up and is punished, but he knows and sees that this is done with love, if the parents do not live for themselves, but show by their example what sacrificial true love is, then he grows in joy, peace and tranquility. And if you tell him that God is love, it will be clear to him. It is necessary to emphasize that the Lord is the one who is looking for an opportunity to have mercy on a person, and not looking for a reason to punish him.

On a quiet Saturday evening, Kolka went to heaven. We met him warmly. They were led to the very gates, they gave a young, novice angel in white clothes and with golden hair as guides.
First, the angel took him to the cloakroom attendant. Kolka, now Nikolai, was given clothes blue color.
“Then you can get something else if you want.”
She and the angel descended the marble steps down. Nikolai found himself in a small town immersed in greenery - nightingales were flooding in the bushes, roses, jasmine, violets were blooming, tiled roofs were peeking out of the apple-colored haze. Barely touching the ground with their feet, girls in pink robes ran, followed by two, animatedly talking about something.
The angel touched Nikolai by the sleeve:
- I have to show you the house where you will live.
They walked along cozy clean streets, more like village ones. It was easy to go - apparently, the laws of physics did not apply to paradise. So five minutes later, according to Earth time, they were already approaching the one-story little house with dovecote and cherry orchard.
- This is my house?!
- Yes. You should like it. We have taken into account all your tastes. Even the neighbors were selected according to your psychological make-up: one of them, for example, is an avid chess player, the other is a fan of the Rammstein group in the past, however, now his tastes have changed somewhat, but we thought that you would find a common language. You will get to know the rest yourself.
The angel looked into his notebook: - Oh, sorry, they call me.
He was about to vanish into thin air...
- Wait, I wanted to ask.
- Listen, - the angel politely stopped disappearing.
How do you know what can and cannot be done? - asked Nikolai.
The angel smiled condescendingly at the newcomer's question:
- You can do whatever you want.
- What about apples? There must be a forbidden apple tree here.
- No, they moved her to a safe place. Eat apples as much as you like, no one will say a word to you. True, as far as I know, you prefer cherries.
Nikolay nodded his head, smiling.
“Don't worry, you,” the angel reassured him, “I'll come back in the evening. According to the charter, I must visit you every day for a week to help at first.

* * *
Gradually, Nikolai settled down in paradise. He was given a non-dusty job: he became a cloud driver. In the morning he received an appointment - over what place the globe you need to hover to provide a light warm rain. The only difficulty was to keep the cloud from melting. At first, it didn’t work out very smoothly, and Nikolai often had to make a request for a new cloud. But soon Nikolai learned to save the cloud and even defended his thesis on new methods of working with rain clouds in the field.
In the evenings he rested with friends. The neighbors were really very interesting people, especially a former lover of the Rammstein group. He worked as a driver of a thundercloud and now preferred the music of Beethoven, because he found in it a lot in common with his work.
When he wanted intellectual pursuits, Nikolai went to a neighbor who was a chess player.
I climbed the dovecote with my neighbor Masha - a ten-year-old girl with red ponytails.
He even started dating a sweet girl Natasha, who worked as a meadow angel - she scattered seeds that sprouted on the ground like daisies and cornflowers. Relations were the most tender. They were not spoiled even by purely scientific disputes. For example, what is more important: plant a chamomile or water it with a light warm rain so that it does not wither. Nikolai believed that it was more important to plant a flower, otherwise there would be no flower anyway, but for some reason Natasha believed that watering a flower was more important, as if she herself worked on a cloud.
One day, Nikolai and Natasha were walking in a paradise park.
“You know,” Nikolai suddenly stopped, “but I feel sorry for those who ended up in hell.
- Why? Natasha also stopped and looked at him in surprise.
- Well, you see, we now live in the Gardens of Eden, we have everything; we are good. But how do they live! They experience pain and deprivation. They are probably starving, but they cannot die of hunger. The devils fry them on a slow fire. But they are still people. That's a pity for them.
- It's a pity, of course. But what can you do - they deserve it, - Natasha sighed, - they were warned on earth what would happen if they did not improve.
- Yes you are right. They were warned, - Nikolai smiled. - Let's go to the cinema?
They spent the rest of the evening having fun, but at night, left alone, Nikolai thought again.
"Maybe they were warned badly, they didn't tell everything. For example, I also don't know how people live in hell. But I can imagine."
With these thoughts he fell asleep. All night he was tormented by nightmares and did not leave the question: how can people be warned?
In the morning, as if by order, an angel appeared. Nikolai was in a hurry to work, but an angel stopped him:
- Do not rush. Come with me.
Nikolai was surprised, but did not show it. Together with the angel, he went out into the street. The sun was shining brightly, the cherries in his garden were already turning red with juicy barrels. People went about their business, smiled and greeted Nicholas and his escort with smiles. Singing a song, Mashenka rushed past with a pail full of seeds.
They went outside the town and along the path through the field with manna from heaven came to a large white building with twelve columns. On the building was written in gold letters: "School of Angels."
Here they stopped, and his guide said:
- You wanted to help people, warn them about Gehenna Fiery, about the torments of hell.
- Maybe it's forbidden? Nikolai looked at the angel guiltily.
- No no. Of course, it is not forbidden, but even encouraged, - the angel soothingly patted his shoulder with a wing. - But the whole point is that warnings, revelations, signs are a responsible matter, and special training is needed for this. That's why I brought you here. If you still want it, you will study, pass the exam and get new job- become an angel. This is a very difficult and honorable job. Well, do you want this?
Nicholas thought for a while and said firmly: - Yes.

* * *
“Today is your last lesson,” the archangel said slowly. “For a year now, you have been listening to my boring lectures and cramming the laws and rules of philanthropy. But today's lesson will be the most important. At the exam, I will ask what each of you learned from it for yourself. By the way, I repeat once again, the exam is tomorrow. I take throughout the day. Those who do not pass the exam - I hope there will not be such - will be able to pass it in a year, after listening to the entire course of lectures again.
Well, now each of you will be entrusted to the guardianship of the guardian angels who were your mentors at first. It is they who will give you the final lesson.
The audience made a noise as they folded their notebooks. Everyone went out into the yard. His angel appeared in front of Nicholas and asked with a good-natured smile:
- Well, are you ready for the exam?
- Actually, I'm a little worried, but I'm ready.
- Perfectly. I know that I was not wrong about you. Okay, now about the main thing. Today we have a visit to hell. You must smear yourself with this ointment in order to remain unnoticed by its inhabitants, - the angel handed Nikolai a small jar with a golden substance.
Soon they left paradise and began to descend down the mountain path. It took a long time to descend, then they climbed a steep slope and descended again. At last the travelers reached the gates of hell.
- When we enter there - no sound. All questions - then - warned the angel.
Nikolai nodded in agreement, and together they entered the gate, went down the marble steps.
In front of them lay a small town, immersed in greenery - nightingales were flooding in the bushes, roses, jasmine, violets were blooming, tiled roofs were peeking out of the apple-colored haze ...
Nikolai looked at the angel in surprise, but he only made a sign: "Be quiet" - and pointed to the side. A group of people approached them: they walked in silence and angrily looked at each other.
The whole day, Nikolai looked around the town, but did not see a single satisfied face. Gloomy, gloomy crowds only spoiled the beauty that surrounded them with their appearance. The clouds driven by them poured boring, fruitless rains onto the earth. Chamomile seeds, reaching the ground, turned into thorns. The apple and cherry trees entrusted to their care did not bear fruit.
Only outside the gates, Nikolai was able to breathe freely. For several minutes he stood silently, and then asked the angel:
- These people are very unhappy, but what is their punishment, because they live in the same conditions as we do - in paradise?!
The angel looked at him thoughtfully and answered:
- They are tormented by the consciousness that in paradise - better.

90 percent of all believers imagine hell and heaven exactly as Dante described them: completely material. Similar ideas can often be found in Orthodox literature intended "for the general reader." To what extent are such representations acceptable?

First of all, it must be said that the crude ideas of the medieval Catholic West do not in any way correspond to the patristic Orthodox Tradition. The Holy Fathers of the Church, reflecting on heaven and hell, always based their reasoning on the immeasurable goodness of God and never savored in detail (as we find in Dante) either the torment of hell or the bliss of paradise. Heaven and hell never seemed to them grossly material. Not by chance Rev. Simeon the New Theologian He speaks: “Hell and the torments there, everyone imagines as he wishes, but what they are, no one knows for sure”. In the same way, according to Rev. Ephrem the Syrian , "the innermost bosom of paradise is inaccessible to contemplation". Discussing the mysteries of the future age, the Fathers of the Church teach, in accordance with the Gospel, that Gehenna is prepared not for people, but for spirits that have fallen and rooted in evil, but Saint John Chrysostom notes the educational value that hell has for a person: “We are in such a distressed situation that, if it were not for the fear of Gehenna, we probably would not have thought to do something good”. Modern Greek theologian Metropolitan Hierofey Vlachos in general, he speaks of the absence in the teaching of the Fathers of the concept of created hell - thus, he resolutely denies those rough ideas with which the Franco-Latin tradition is full. The Orthodox Fathers also mention subtle, spiritual, “external” heaven and hell, but they propose to pay the main attention to the “internal” origin of the state that awaits a person in the next century. Spiritual heaven and hell are not a reward and punishment from God, but, respectively, health and illness human soul, especially clearly manifested in a different being. Healthy souls, that is, those who have labored to purify themselves from passions, experience the enlightening effect of Divine grace, while sick souls, that is, those who have not deigned to take up the labor of purification, experience a scorching effect. On the other hand, we must understand that, apart from God, no one and nothing can claim perfect insubstantiality: angels and souls, of course, have a nature that is qualitatively different from the visible world, but still they are quite crude compared to the absolute Spirit of God. Therefore, their bliss or suffering cannot be presented as purely ideal: they are linked to their natural order or disorganization.

Still, is there any difference between the paradise where the righteous go after death, the Kingdom of God and the future, eternal life after the general resurrection?

Obviously, there is a difference, since, according to the thought of the Holy Fathers, both blessedness and torment will increase after general resurrection when the souls of the righteous and sinners are reunited with their bodies restored from the ashes. According to Scripture, a full-fledged person is a God-created unity of soul and body, therefore their separation is unnatural: it is one of the “thrown-offs of sin” and must be overcome. The Holy Fathers reasoned that the union itself, the entry of the soul into the body resurrected by God, would already be the beginning of aggravated joy or suffering. The soul, uniting with its bodily members, with which it once did good or evil, will immediately experience special joy or sorrow and even disgust.

About hell. It is clear why it is called "eternal torment", but there is also such an expression as "eternal death" ... What is it? Non-existence? In general, if all life is from God, then how can there be (even in eternal torment) those who are rejected by God?

In fact, there is no expression “eternal death” in Holy Scripture, there is a combination "second death"(Acts 20 and 21). But there is always talk of a secret « eternal life» , "eternal glory" saved. The concept of "second" or "eternal" death is explained by the Holy Fathers. So, explaining her secret, St. Ignaty Brianchaninov noted that "the hellish dungeons represent a strange and terrible destruction of life, while saving life". This eternal cessation of personal communion with God will be the main suffering of the condemned. St. Gregory Palamas thus explains the combination of external and internal torments: “when all good hope is taken away and when there is despair in salvation, involuntary denunciation and gnawing of conscience with weeping will immeasurably increase the proper torment”.

Even in hell, one cannot speak of the complete absence of God, Who fills the whole created world with Himself, at the same time not mixing with it. “If I go down to hell, you are there”, - proclaims the inspired David. However Rev. Maxim the Confessor speaks of the difference between the grace of being and well-being. It is obvious that existence is preserved in hell, but there can be no well-being. There is a mysterious depletion of every good, which can be called spiritual death. The very gift of being cannot be renounced by the creation created by God, and the presence of the Creator becomes painful for those who have renounced being with Him, in Him and according to His laws.

Why does the Church speak of two judgments: a particular one that happens to a person immediately after death, and a general, Terrible one? Isn't one enough?

The soul, getting into the afterlife, understands with all distinctness that there can be no agreement between good and evil, between God and Satan. In the face of the Divine Light, the human soul sees itself and is clearly aware of the ratio of light and darkness in itself. This is the beginning of the so-called private court, in which, one might say, a person judges and evaluates himself. And the final, last, Last Judgment is already connected with the Second Coming of the Savior and the final fate of the world and man. This judgment is more mysterious, it takes into account both the intercession of the Church for her children, especially through the bloodless liturgical sacrifice offered in the course of history, and the deep omniscience of God about each of His creations and the final determination of any free person in his relationship to God when He appears. in front of everyone and everyone.

In our life, people who deny someone's love - whether divine or human - live very well: they, as they say, do not burden themselves with unnecessary problems. Why, after death, denying God's love, will they suffer? In other words: if a person himself, of his own free will, according to his own taste, has chosen the path of resisting God, why will he suffer from this?

The suffering of a man who rejected God and Divine love who rejected Christian self-sacrifice, will consist in the fact that all the infinite beauty of God, who is Love, will be revealed to him. The ugliness of his own egoistic existence will also be revealed to him. Having fully realized the true state of things, a selfish person will inevitably feel suffering - this is how a freak and a traitor suffers when he finds himself in the company of noble and beautiful heroes. “Those who are tormented in Gehenna are smitten with the scourge of love! And how bitter and harsh is the torment of love!”- this is how the hellish torment of fruitless remorse sees Rev. Isaac Sirin. At the same time, it must be emphasized that selfish pride, in which the inhabitants of hell will become stagnant, will not allow them to admit that they are wrong and the ugliness of the path they have chosen, despite its absurdity. The purpose and meaning of any path is most obvious at its end, just as the quality of the fruit is clear when it ripens, and since hell is the end and the result of a godless choice, both the foundations of life and the bitter consequences of proud and unrepentant opposition to the Creator will become clear in it. .

Speaking humanly, not all people are remarkably good and not all are hopelessly evil. There are few saints and villains, the bulk is gray: both good and evil (or, perhaps, rather, neither good nor evil). It seems that we do not reach heaven, but hellish torment is too cruel in our case. Why does the Church not speak of any intermediate state?

It is dangerous to dream of receiving in the future life such an easy, average place, for the sake of which one does not need to strain one's will. Man is already too relaxed spiritually. The Holy Fathers speak of different abodes in heaven and hell, but nevertheless they clearly testify to a clear division at the Judgment of God, which no one can escape. Probably, many sins of human earthly life can be conditionally called “small”, justified by human weakness. Nevertheless, the mystery of God's judgment is that this judgment will still take place, although God's only desire is common salvation. Lord “desires all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth”(1 Tim. 2:4). Strictly speaking, we must fear not so much external punishment as internal punishment, not hell as the final condemnation, but even a small insult to the goodness of God. At the old man's Paisius of Athos there is a thought that not many will go to hell, but even if we escape it, what will it be like for us to stand before the Face of God with an unclean conscience? This is where the main concern of a Christian should be.

In addition, it is important to understand that when entering the spiritual world, a lightning struggle takes place in the soul of a person between the darkness and light living in it. And it is not clear what will be the result of this battle of incompatible forces that have revealed their essence, hidden until death under the "veil of flesh." This internal confrontation itself is already painful for their bearer, and it is generally difficult to say how suffocating the victory of internal darkness over light is.

And more about the "minor sin." Is it really possible to go to hell for eating a cutlet in fasting? For smoking? For the fact that occasionally he allowed himself some not quite decent thoughts (not deeds)? In a word, for not being dragged into the string every second of your life, and sometimes allowing yourself to “relax a little” - by human standards is it quite forgivable?

The point is not in the apparent cruelty of God, who is supposedly ready to send to hell for a small human weakness, but in the mysterious accumulation of the power of sin in the soul. After all, a “small” sin, although “small”, is committed, as a rule, many times. Just as sand, consisting of small grains of sand, can weigh no less than a large stone, so a small sin gains strength and weight over time and can burden the soul of an equally “big” sin committed once. In addition, very often in our life, relaxation "in the small" imperceptibly leads to large and very serious sins. It is no coincidence that the Lord said: “... faithful in little and faithful in much."(Luke 16:10). Excessive tension and pettiness often even harm our spiritual life and do not bring us closer to God, but exactingness in relation to ourselves, to our spiritual life, in our attitude to our neighbors and to the Lord Himself is natural and obligatory for a Christian.

LIVING WORD

HEAVEN AND HELL

Archpriest Sergiy Gomayunov (Vyatka (Kirov)):

- To be honest, not a single child has ever asked me about this, and this worries me. What is the answer to him, if the question is raised? In the senior classes of our Vyatka Orthodox gymnasium, the guys and I discuss what heaven and hell are, we read the second book of Genesis, which tells about how our forefathers lived before the fall. And through this we learn not only about that paradise on earth that was and is not, but also that paradise is a state of the human soul, a source of happiness, and it is determined by obedience to God.

We not only have the beginnings of hell and paradise in our souls, but already in our earthly life we ​​experience by experience what they are. He who is in obedience experiences a bliss that cannot be compared with anything; not a single sweetness, not a single entertainment can give us that happiness, that peace in the soul that we experience during communion with God. And the beginning of hell is life according to passions, according to sins, which fills with emptiness, disappointment, torment, suffering, loss of the meaning of life, terrible loneliness. It is so unbearable that a person, being in such a state, wants to commit suicide.

Speaking of heaven and hell, we are discussing not so much the posthumous state of the soul of a person, about which we know little, - we choose not between ideas, but between the experienced joy of heaven and the experienced bitterness of hell. The smaller the child, the more figuratively he needs to talk about it. It is best to retell the testimonies of heaven and hell left by our saints. The answer should by no means be theoretical. Children don't understand theory. For example, if you read something from the Gospel to a child, you must definitely accompany it with a story from the life of a person. When teachers ask the children what they learned from the preaching of Father Sergius, that is, me, it turns out that the children firmly remember the Holy Scriptures when the gospel meaning was refracted in the actions of specific people, in a specific situation.

I would tell about paradise, relying on the life of St. Andrew, Christ for the sake of the holy fool, how he was in the Garden of Eden, saw and felt what is the essence of heavenly life. As for hell, it is best to talk about it, based on the parable of Lazarus and the rich man. At the same time, the emphasis should not be on why some go there after death, while others go here, but you need to try together with the children to understand why some people choose the path that leads them to the Kingdom of Heaven, while others go to death. Those who have abandoned God do not need paradise, it is unbearable for them. This question of choice is really important, to give an idea about it is the goal of education.

Hegumen Raphael (Belovolov) (Vorkuta, Komi Republic):

- The child needs to be explained with understandable examples. Say, for example: “Remember, your kind grandmother died, who loved you so much? You were sad when she was gone. But there, with God, everyone is alive, and you will meet again if you are worthy of it!”

We know very little about the posthumous fate of man. The Apostle Paul said: “Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, and it has not entered into the heart of man, which God has prepared for those who love Him. But God revealed it to us by His Spirit” (1 Cor. 2:9). And he also testified: “I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago (whether in the body I don’t know, whether out of the body I don’t know: God knows) was caught up to the third heaven. And I know about such a person (I just don’t know - in the body or out of the body: God knows) that he was caught up into paradise and heard unspeakable words that a person cannot retell. I can boast of such a person; but I will not boast of myself, except in my infirmities” (2 Cor. 12:2-5).

In the same way, most of us cannot boast that we have a clear idea of ​​what awaits us beyond the grave. But it’s not worth inventing anything on this score, you need to be very delicate in this matter. Here are some who talk about frying pans on which sinners are fried, and children hear and begin to think that Christian teaching consists of such fairy tales. There is also another error. One mother all the time frightened her son with hell, saying that if he did not obey her, it would be bad to study, then he would go to hell; if he rarely goes to the temple, then he will burn in hell, and so on. In the end, the son replied, “Mom, what’s the point of going to the temple if I’m going to hell anyway?”

What did the Lord say to the thief? Encouraged, comforted, delighted. It is not necessary to intimidate the child, but to direct him in such a way that he himself strives for joy, for paradise. The kingdom of heaven begins on earth. And hell too. Often a child even from an Orthodox family sees disputes, scandals of parents, and this mortifies faith in him. And it is a completely different matter when love reigns in the family, when children see with their own eyes a particle of paradise and begin to strive to find it in its entirety. No wonder the family is sometimes called the sacrament of paradise.

Archpriest Vasily Volsky (Polarnye Zori, Murmansk region):

- When explaining, one should avoid fantasies, for example, medieval Latin ideas about hell, when torment was depicted in a crudely material way. Someone said that everyone imagines hell and torment as they wish, but no one knows what they are. The Holy Scripture says that weeping and gnashing of teeth reign there. This alone is enough to understand that hell is not a place where we would like to spend eternity.

In a conversation with a child, you can say a little more figuratively that this is a place where it is probably very cold and dark, but the worst thing is that no one will love you there, there is no love, and it will last forever. Paradise is the place where joy reigns. And here you can ask the child what the most pleasant, wonderful places he knew in his life. Say, for example: “Here we went to nature in the forest, remember how beautiful it was there, how good it was for us? So all this beauty, these happy moments are just a reminder of paradise, just a glimpse of the beauty that awaits us in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Recently I have been reading the works of St. John Chrysostom. He also speaks of our afterlife. That if there were no Gehenna, we would be worse and would hardly have done anything good. Alas, this is how a person works - often it is the fear of hell in the soul and hell beyond the grave that makes him do good deeds, prevents him from doing evil. Some, however, are so accustomed to living in spiritual darkness that they cannot imagine any other existence. Sometimes people come to me and ask me to bury a man who has been hostile to the Church all his life. But why arrange this theater? After all, this is hypocrisy - in the rank of funeral we pray to God that if someone has not done good deeds, Lord, impute to him what he believed to the last, we call the departed Christ-lovers. But if the deceased did not believe in anything, how can you help him? Yes, you need to pray for such people, but to bury them as Christ-lovers is just a hoax.

And to the question why the Lord does not let everyone into the Kingdom of Heaven, the answer is very simple. The Lord does not forbid anyone to come to Him, but for a God-fighter, paradise will be hell. Here he did not even find five minutes in his whole life to give praise to the Lord, how will he begin to glorify God in paradise, along with the angels? No one will force you to. Whoever was the living dead in this world will remain so in the afterlife. Saint Ignatius (Bryanchaninov) called this state the absence of life while preserving life.

And Professor Alexei Ilyich Osipov describes a situation where a simple village teacher saved a rich man. He was freezing somewhere in the desert, and the teacher found him, helped him. And when the saved one called him to a feast in honor of what happened, the teacher was terribly confused at the table. He did not know how to use cutlery, and then he completely drank water from a vessel intended for washing hands. And of course, I felt terrible at the table. But who knows - perhaps this rich man will feel just as terrible in the Kingdom of Heaven, if he is used to commanding, and not being in obedience, if the kingdom of the world completely satisfied him and he does not need anything else. It will be good in paradise only for those who love God, because they will find the One Whom they have been looking for all their lives. Others, like St. Seraphim of Sarov, already in this life become citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Sometimes even adults will not immediately say what heaven is and what hell is, how sin differs from an accidental offense, what true love is from the point of view of Orthodoxy.

But the students from the Sunday school of our church will not only give a definition, but also explain why everything is this way and not otherwise.

For example, at the last lesson, which took place last Sunday, the guys from the senior class, with the help of teacher Maria Abramova, reasoned about what sin is, when people first sinned, how did God punish them for this? It would seem like talking to children from 10 to 16 years old in such difficult topics? Just! The main thing is to construct a lesson in an unusual way.

- We started this lesson with riddles, answering which the guys themselves guessed what we would talk about today. The reasoning of the children was accompanied by understandable slides and comics. With junior group(from 6 to 9 years old) we work on the same principle, but I speak with them in an even simpler language, says Maria Abramova.

By the way, the guys figured out the question of what sin is quite quickly, remembering the Old Testament story about the fall of man together with the teacher.

Children also learned what sinful passions are and how they differ from ordinary sins, easily listing the main ones with the help of interesting clues - illustrations of sinful cats by artist Maria Tyurina.

It was not difficult for them to define the word hell. The abyss, the darkness - it's all right. But, when one of the students said that hell is a place where there is no God, the other children nodded their heads in unison, and the teacher confirmed that it was impossible to say more precisely.

But the guys had to think about what true love and freedom are. It seems that these words in our life are much more common than others, but it was with them that a hitch arose. To be honest, I, a third-party listener, also thought. After all, very often we casually call bad habits love, for example, when we say: “I like to drink a glass of wine after a hard day.” Here the teacher came to the rescue.

— True love which God has bestowed on humanity can only manifest itself in freedom. In freedom of choice. A person is free to choose between being with God or not, - Maria Abramova tried to explain important concepts in our life from the point of view of Orthodoxy.

In continuation of the discussion of the topic, so that the guys would better learn the lesson, they were offered to watch a short film by Alexander Kushnir based on the story of Leo Tolstoy “What makes people alive?”.

This is a parable about how God sent an angel to earth to take away the soul of a woman whose husband died and two children were born. The angel disobeyed and was cast out of heaven. He was warmed by a poor shoemaker who lives in the village with his wife. To return to heaven, the angel will have to find out the answer to three questions, then God will forgive him. What is in people? What is not given to people? How are people alive?

And now the angel lives in the shoemaker's house, helping as an apprentice, and reflects on life. What is the movie about? Of course, about love. A person, no matter what troubles he has to go through, loves another person. Utopia? Undoubtedly. But there is something in it. There must be something. Otherwise, how to live in the world, what to believe and whom to believe.

The film, perhaps, was difficult for children, but after watching it, to the question: “Guys, how do you think people are alive?”, The students unanimously answered: “Love”.

A master class on making a magnet in the form of a butterfly helped the children of the Sunday school to switch from the thought process to the Sunday mood.

By the way, if you think that your child will also benefit from lessons about good and evil, bring him to Sunday school. There are no recording time limits here. You just need to call the teacher Maria Abramova at 8-963-809-45-40.