To understand why in modern Russia the celebration of the New Year has been elevated to a cult, why for non-church people this holiday has become almost the most important holiday of the year, it is necessary to make a short historical excursion.

Before Peter I, both the church and civil calendars in Russia began on September 1. The Church even now begins the annual church cycle in September. Peter decided to celebrate the New Year from January 1 - in the Western style. The New Year was a secular holiday and fell on Christmastide - the days after the Nativity of Christ. And therefore, there was no sin in celebrating the New Year in a series of holy days, eating fast food and wine. After the revolution of 1917, another calendar reform was carried out: instead of the Julian calendar, the Gregorian calendar (new style) was adopted, so that the celebration of the New Year began to fall at the end of the Nativity Fast. Therefore, a problem arose for people who observe spiritual traditions: how to celebrate the New Year and whether to celebrate it at all?

New Year celebrations are now taking place with much more O on a larger scale and is accompanied by b O more drunkenness and revelry than in Soviet times. This is understandable. First, the Soviet government took away church holidays from people and implanted their own, proletarian-revolutionary ones, which the people, in the absence of others, celebrated. But with the fall of the Soviet system, revolutionary dates became a thing of the past, and from the previous holidays, almost only New Year remained. “And the soul,” as the hero V.M. said. Shukshina in the film “Kalina Krasnaya,” wants a holiday.”

But the soul, unfamiliar with the spiritual Russian traditions, unhappy, deprived of real holidays, thinks that the celebration can only be celebrated by drunkenness and unbridled fun.

I’ll digress a little and tell you a little story, also related to the loss of spiritual traditions. One priest told it.

Once, while walking through the cemetery, he saw a postcard on one grave. There was a fresh bouquet of flowers in a vase nearby. It was the grave of a woman who lived a little over 30 years. He bent down and read the card. It was written on it: “Dear Mom! Happy Birthday to You! We remember you and love you very much." And this priest thought: “Poor Soviet children! Their faith was taken away, the Church was taken away. They don’t know what our deceased expect from us, or how to treat death correctly.” This is the tragedy of our people - the break with traditions and spiritual experience. All this was almost completely bulldozed by more than 70 years of atheism.

But let's return to the New Year holiday. Of course, celebrating the New Year with drinking and partying is a Soviet custom, and not a Russian Orthodox one. And we need to get rid of this harmful tradition and return to real, Christian holidays. Moreover, Christmas is now, thank God, always a day off, which means no one bothers us to celebrate it. There is no need to attach such paramount, sometimes simply mystical, significance to the New Year celebration. The New Year in pre-revolutionary Russia was always inextricably linked with Christmas, it was just that this holiday stood in a series of Christmas days, and, of course, no one celebrated it so widely and solemnly.

By the way, an interesting fact: in the 1920s, the Bolsheviks fought against the tradition of erecting and decorating Christmas trees for the New Year. One woman I knew, born before the revolution (now deceased), recalled how the Soviet government fought against Christmas trees as an indispensable attribute of the Christmas holiday. After all, before the revolution, the tree was decorated before Christmas, and for the New Year, naturally, it was already in the house. So, there was a period when the Christmas tree was banned in order to fight religion. And again they allowed to put up Christmas trees in 1935.

How should Orthodox people relate to the general unbridled joy and drunkenness on New Year's days? You shouldn’t judge anyone, but you shouldn’t participate in it either. We are preparing for Christmas, looking forward to this second most important and solemn Orthodox holiday, and we will remember that the days of the Nativity Fast are coming, which we bring as our humble gift to the manger of the born Savior of the world. Although, of course, the all-Russian New Year's extravaganza distracts us from fasting and creates certain difficulties for us. For example, in the last days of December, people begin to sweep meat, other fast foods, and booze off the shelves. It is better not to appear in shops and markets at this time: you will lose a lot of time and energy. Also, on New Year's Eve it is almost impossible to fall asleep due to the explosions and pops of firecrackers and the screams of celebrating neighbors. And some people in the family like to celebrate the arrival of the New Year with noise. But we know that it has always been difficult for Orthodox Christians and they have always been prevented from celebrating holidays and observing fasts. Let us remember the recent times, when on Christmas Day itself not everyone could go to church, unless the holiday fell on Saturday or Sunday. And so January 7, according to the new style, was an ordinary working day. So it’s a sin to complain, because now we can fast, and pray, and go to the Christmas service at night.

Some Orthodox people take a very extreme, strict position: New Year is a demonic, godless holiday. This position is quite understandable, because the New Year is always accompanied by TV binging and drunkenness - we have already talked about this. However, it is impossible to completely deny the New Year and see its celebration as one sin. There’s just no need to replace Christmas with it and riot with fasting. After all, we, Orthodox people, are citizens of our country. And whether we want it or not, we live according to the new Gregorian calendar, we build our lives and work activities according to the civil calendar. For example, we go on vacation and submit work reports at the end of the year using the new style, not the old one. Therefore, it is not a sin to spend the old year, take stock, thank God and, of course, pray as you enter the new year. “Bless the crown of summer of Thy goodness!” (Ps. 64:12). Prayer services are held in all churches of the Russian Orthodox Church so that we all have the opportunity to ask the Lord for a blessing for the coming year. You know, a very hackneyed phrase - a New Year's wish: “How you celebrate the New Year is how you will spend it” - contains a considerable amount of truth. Someone goes to church on New Year’s Eve with his entire family and prays at the New Year’s prayer service to invoke blessings and help for all his affairs, and then, over a modest meal, remember with gratitude the passing summer (this year the night of the New Year falls on Saturday, when even fish is allowed by the Charter). And someone will spend New Year's Eve (and the entire next week) in a TV-alcoholic binge. And it will turn out like in one joke about the millennium: a man wakes up with a terrible hangover after New Year’s Eve, barely opens his eyelids, goes to the mirror and, looking for a long time at his swollen, swollen, wrinkled face, says: “So that’s what you are, man.” third millennium! I really don’t want the face of a Russian person of the third millennium to look exactly like this. Badly, having unsuccessfully started some business, we cannot get into the right rhythm or rut for a long time. And many, having started the year with drinking and idleness, adopt this style for all subsequent months. And vice versa, as the proverb says: “A good start is half the battle gone”: having started the year with prayer, with a request for God’s help, let’s hope that the Lord will not abandon us in the coming year and will bless our labors and deeds.

Let me tell you a little about how our family usually celebrates the New Year. On the evening of December 31st I serve a New Year's prayer service in church. The wife and children also, of course, go to church. And then we have a tradition: every year my friends and I... no, we don’t go to the bathhouse, but we gather at their dacha in the Moscow region and celebrate the New Year there. My godfather and seminary classmate, Protodeacon Alexy, lives outside the city and invites the children and me to his place. He has a large family - four boys, and the children have a lot of fun together. It is especially good to celebrate the New Year outside the city also because in Moscow it is almost impossible to fall asleep on New Year's Eve, but in a holiday village, although it is also noisy, it is much calmer. So here it is. Usually we all prepare a Lenten meal together and before praying “Our Father” we also sing “The King of Heaven” and “Many Years.” After this, we sit down and share a modest friendly meal, communicate, and remember the passing year. And on this night, the children and I go to the forest, where the children make caves out of snow, put candles inside and see whose candle will burn longer.

Unfortunately, we are placed in such conditions that on New Year’s Eve, whether you like it or not, you have to stay awake: you can only fall asleep with sleeping pills in the morning. Therefore, Orthodox people can easily sit together at the table and talk, but at the same time, of course, remembering that Lent is not over yet.

There is nothing bad in a friendly feast or communication, and the New Year is also a reason to get together, take stock, and remember the past. After all, we celebrate church holidays with fasting. For example, the Transfiguration of the Lord and the Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem are always celebrated during Lent. But they are celebrated modestly, in a Lenten manner and, of course, with prayer. They give us the opportunity to refresh ourselves before the next part of Lent. Of course, the New Year is not a church holiday at all, but it can be filled with spiritual meaning and celebrated in a completely Orthodox way. Although you can, of course, not celebrate the New Year at all, limit yourself to a New Year's prayer service. This is also acceptable.

Another problem: New Year's school holidays are traditionally a time for all kinds of children's Christmas trees, matinees and theatrical celebrations. What about children, can they attend these events?

Usually, most New Year trees in kindergartens and schools take place before the New Year, before the start of the holidays. As a rule, children are involved in staging these holidays and therefore, willy-nilly, participate in them. I don’t see anything harmful to the soul in a children’s party with Father Frost, the Snow Maiden and the distribution of gifts; besides, if all the children take part in the holiday, and we forbid our children from attending it, then they will feel deprived. Although I fully admit that modern children's holidays may contain some aspects that are unacceptable for Orthodox children. This needs to be known in advance, and if this is the case, it is better to avoid participating in the matinee. It is advisable to attend all children's events and holidays before January 2 (when the Nativity Fast intensifies).

Some “zealots of Orthodoxy”, as a matter of principle, do not celebrate the New Year on January 1, but celebrate the so-called “old New Year” on January 14, that is, the New Year according to the old style. Honestly, I don't see any point in this. After all, our social life, as well as the life of the country and the whole world, is built according to a new, civil calendar. And on Christmastide there are already many holidays: the Synaxis of the Most Holy Theotokos (December 26/January 8), the memory of St. Seraphim of Sarov (January 2/15) and, of course, the Circumcision of the Lord and the memory of St. Basil the Great - on the day itself, January 1/14.

It is interesting that in Greece, the role of the Christmas and New Year elder who distributes gifts to children is traditionally assigned not to St. Nicholas (Santa Claus), as in Western countries, and not to Santa Claus, as in Russia, but to St. Basil. Since his memory falls just on the New Year. There he is called Agios Vasilis. Like Santa Claus, he is depicted with a white beard and a red and white robe.

Let me remind you that the Greek Church lives according to the new style. The church calendar in Greece coincides with the civil calendar, and they celebrate the New Year after Christmas.

Our cities and towns become numb during the New Year holidays; it is very difficult to do anything outside the home at this time, since many organizations stop working. For many, this general inaction is very tiring and annoying. But this time can also be spent usefully. A modern family man has very little time left to communicate with his family. Dads, and many mothers, work all day, and in the evening the only time left is to feed the children, check their homework, and put them to bed. And it is very good to devote the rather long winter holidays to communicating with children and loved ones. You can also take care of fairly neglected household chores and clean up the house before Christmas.

I think that when the New Year in Rus' began on September 1, the people did not spend this time in idleness and idleness. After all, Russia was a country completely dependent on agriculture, and September is the time of harvesting and preparation for wintering. And the holiday to which the end of field work was timed was the day of the celebration of the Intercession of the Virgin Mary (October 1/14). It is not for nothing that traditionally there have been many weddings on this holiday. There was a time of calm in rural work until spring, and one could think about starting a family.

Once I was thinking about New Year's issues and came to the conclusion that for our country, of course, the September New Year was the most correct. By September, the annual natural cycle ends. The fruits ripen, they are harvested, and nature begins to prepare for winter rest in order to come to life again in the spring for new fruitfulness.

Parishioners often ask me what to do if there are unchurched relatives in the family (sometimes almost the entire family is unchurched) who love to celebrate the New Year with a magnificent feast and cannot imagine New Year’s Eve without TV? How not to offend them, but also not to harm the soul, not to disturb the calm flow of fasting?

This requires considerable wisdom and prudence. You need to find a middle ground so as not to offend your relatives, not to quarrel with them, but also not to harm yourself.

Let’s imagine that some person, an Orthodox Christian, lives with his closest relatives in the same apartment (and it very often happens that in married couples, one half is a believer and the other is not), and his non-church relatives want to celebrate the New Year, “so that everything was like people’s.” With Olivier salad, jellied meat, fried chicken and, of course, plenty of booze. And, of course, the main decoration of the New Year’s table, as postman Pechkin once noted, for them is the TV. Should a believer huddle in the farthest corner, demonstratively turn away from the blue screen and, like the Pharisee from the Gospel parable, repeat to himself: “I am not like other people, robbers, offenders, adulterers...”? No, that wouldn't be Christian. The Apostle Paul has these words: “We who are strong must bear the weaknesses of the powerless and not please ourselves. Each of us should please our neighbor for his good and his edification” (Rom. 15:1-2). Of course, all this is very difficult. A Christian who has non-church relatives is, as it were, at the forefront of spiritual struggle. We need to understand that we can bring them to God only through love and prayer for them. They are weak people, as the apostle says, “powerless,” which means we need to bear their weaknesses too. We have already been given the opportunity to know the joy of Orthodox holidays, but others have not. All that remains is to sympathize with them. So what should we do? I think that if we sit at the table for a while, observing fasting if possible (we can help relatives in advance in preparations for the holiday and make a couple of Lenten salads), there will be no sin in this. Also, raising a glass of champagne, you can make a toast of gratitude to God for everything that happened in the past year. After all, a Christian, sharing a feast with people far from spiritual issues, may well somehow spiritualize this celebration. Tell people about the real meaning of celebrating the New Year, talk about the coming Nativity of Christ. After all, people now have simply forgotten how to celebrate, they don’t even know how to say normal wishes and toasts. Secular holidays are often pure idle talk and “washing the bones” of your neighbors.

Of course, some Orthodox Christians will consider drinking a glass of champagne on New Year’s Eve a sin, but, for example, when I studied at the seminary, after the New Year’s prayer service, the seminarians went to the dining room for dinner (naturally, Lenten), where the brethren were also offered “consolation” - a glass of champagne.

When celebrating the New Year with non-church loved ones, of course, you need to observe moderation. It is absolutely not necessary to sit at the table all night and participate in noisy fun until the end. Having paid tribute to your loved ones, you can, under the pretext of fatigue, retire to rest (if possible) or pray or read.

By the way, we find a similar prescription in the canonical rules for priests. When the fun at a wedding has already exceeded a certain limit and all sorts of dances begin, in which it is unacceptable for the clergy to take part, the canons instruct the priest to take his leave and leave the celebration. But it does not say that the priest must denounce the guests and call everyone to order.

If your relatives do not really object to your absence on New Year’s Eve, this option is possible: go to visit Orthodox friends and celebrate the New Year with them.

There is another way out, but it is acceptable mainly for Moscow residents. In our capital city, several parishes have had this custom for many years: on the night of December 31 to January 1, a night service is held. Liturgy is usually accompanied by litanies, prayers, the Apostle and the Gospel from the New Year's prayer service. I know at least three such places. This, of course, is the Sretensky Monastery, also the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Khokhly and the Nikolo-Perervinsky Monastery. In general, many Orthodox Christians strive to celebrate the New Year with prayer.

Some priests specifically put themselves on the service schedule on January 1st. It is very symbolic that January 1, according to the new style, is the memory of the holy martyr Boniface. And January 2 is the day of remembrance of the holy righteous John of Kronstadt. Both of these saints are prayed to for those suffering from the disease of drunkenness. Let us also pray for those unfortunate people who, without knowing the limits, get drunk on New Year’s Day. And for many, such a “celebration” ends in a hospital or morgue. On New Year's Eve in Russia, thousands of drunken people freeze to death, and even more remain crippled, lose their health for the rest of their lives, lose arms and legs due to frostbite.

I wish all visitors to the site to always be with God in the new year, and the Lord will not leave us! The worst thing happens when a person moves away from the Source of Life, from the Heavenly Father. And I would also like to wish everyone not some earthly blessings, but the most important thing: peace and love in hearts and families. After all, only when people have peace and love are they happy.

And it would not be amiss to remind you: the fast is not over yet and after the New Year it will continue for another six days, and in the last five days, even on Sunday, it will become stricter - eating fish is not blessed.

Orthodox Christians know that the end of fasting is often accompanied by considerable temptations. This happens because fallen spirits want to laugh at us and spoil the feat of fasting for us, involving us in a quarrel or tempting us to indulge in sadness and despondency. In addition, the conditions for this are very favorable. By the end of Lent, a Christian may weaken or, conversely, having successfully completed almost the entire Lent, fall into a kind of euphoria. It is this self-confidence that demons take advantage of. As the saying goes, “don’t say “whoops!” until you’ve jumped over.” So let's be on the alert, and God give us all the strength to go the rest of the way without stumbling and joyfully celebrate the Nativity of Christ!

The New Year celebration is approaching, and for many Orthodox Christians the question arises: how to celebrate this secular holiday?

Is Christmas celebrated all over the world before the New Year? Lent ends and people celebrate the New Year with joy. Why don't we do the same?

The reason is that we have two styles. New (Gregorian) and old (Julian). The Russian Orthodox Church adheres to the old style. It is also adhered to by the Jerusalem, Georgian, Serbian Orthodox Churches and on the monastic Holy Mount Athos. And not by chance. The Julian calendar retains both astronomical and ecclesiastical advantages over the Gregorian calendar. It is the Julian calendar that satisfies the requirements of the Ecumenical Councils to celebrate Christian Easter after Jewish Easter. Only according to the old style, on Holy Saturday, before Easter, a great miracle takes place: on this day, through the prayers of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, the Holy Fire descends to earth. This is an indicator that the Lord favors the old style, and the calendar is a reflection of the Heavenly in the earthly, the Eternal in the transitory.

Now the New Year falls during the Nativity Fast. But there was a time when we celebrated New Year after Christmas. There was no longer a post. Everything was fine. Until 1918, chronology in our country was based on the Julian calendar, which the Russian Orthodox Church now continues to adhere to. The New Year was a secular holiday and fell on Christmastide - the days after the Nativity of Christ. And therefore, there was no sin in celebrating the New Year in a series of holy days, eating fast food and wine.

Of course, when we celebrated according to the old style, everything was in its place. However, after the revolution of 1917, a calendar reform was carried out: instead of the Julian calendar, the Gregorian calendar (new style) was adopted, so that, due to the mixing of styles, the New Year celebration began to fall at the end of the Nativity Fast. Therefore, a problem arose for people observing spiritual traditions: How to celebrate the New Year and whether to celebrate it at all?

For many Orthodox Christians, celebrating the New Year is a certain temptation or compromise. This is especially true for those families in which not all members are believers or in which there are children along with adults.

In modern Russia, the celebration of the New Year has been elevated to a cult; for non-church people this holiday has become almost the most important holiday of the year. People are driven by the desire to have fun. Make a triumph of the flesh. Celebrating the New Year with drinking and partying is a Soviet custom, and not a Russian Orthodox one. The Church thinks more about the spiritual than about the carnal.

The New Year is not a church holiday at all, but it can be filled with spiritual meaning and celebrated in a completely Orthodox way (although you can, of course, not celebrate the New Year at all, limiting yourself to a New Year’s prayer service - this is also acceptable).

The New Year is a new blessing from God, new trials, new joys and sorrows. For Orthodox people who, over the decades of Soviet power, are accustomed to celebrating this holiday from December 31 to January 1, we advise you to celebrate it with your family at a ceremonially served, but still Lenten table. Thank God for everything that happened in the past year and ask for blessings for the coming year. " Food does not bring us closer to God: for whether we eat, we gain nothing; if we don't eat, we don't lose anything"(1 Cor 8:8). " Whoever eats eats for the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and whoever does not eat does not eat for the Lord, and thanks God"(Rom 14:6).

The sin is not in the holiday, but in how to celebrate. And if on New Year’s Eve you initially pray, try to forgive everyone and not hold a grudge against anyone, then you can safely say Happy New Year, sip a glass of champagne, and eat a slice of tangerine. Seeing our joyful faces, the Lord will rejoice.

New Year is a family holiday, and peace and harmony must be maintained. When celebrating the New Year with non-church loved ones, you can make two tables - Lenten and regular. Let preparing two tables be one of your “lenten” acts, a sign of humility before your family. No one should be judged. The fact is that fasting is a deeply personal state of a person. Everyone has their own measure of fasting. If you want to fast strictly, please do so. But treat with respect those who do not fast, whether for health reasons or for some other reason. You may well raise a glass of champagne or wine with your parents.

By the way, we find a similar prescription in the canonical rules for priests. When the fun at a wedding has already exceeded a certain limit and all sorts of dances begin, in which it is unacceptable for the clergy to take part, the canons instruct the priest to take his leave and leave the celebration. But it does not say that the priest must denounce the guests and call everyone to order.

Some Orthodox people take a very extreme, strict position: New Year is a demonic, godless holiday. This position is quite understandable, because the New Year is always accompanied by TV binging and drunkenness. However, it is impossible to completely deny the New Year and see its celebration as one sin. There’s just no need to replace Christmas with it and riot with fasting. After all, we, Orthodox people, are citizens of our country. And whether we want it or not, we live according to the new Gregorian calendar, we build our lives and work activities according to the civil calendar. For example, we go on vacation and submit work reports at the end of the year using the new style, not the old one. Therefore, it is not a sin to spend the old year, take stock, thank God and, of course, pray as you enter the new year. Having started the year with prayer, with a request for God's help, let us hope that the Lord will not abandon us in the coming year and will bless our labors and deeds.

We, Orthodox Christians, must not forget that we have another holiday ahead, which has more meaning for us than the New Year. This festival - The Nativity of Our Lord, Jesus Christ. If we want to celebrate the New Year, then we must celebrate it through the prism of the significance of the Nativity of Christ. And Christmas is the greatest holiday for us, for on this day our Savior came into the world and the vow that was given to our first ancestors was fulfilled. The Lord, after their fall, promised them the coming of a Redeemer into the world, who would save them from sin, curse and death. If we remember this, then we will celebrate the New Year accordingly.

The current week is not the strictest part of the Nativity Fast (a more strict fast begins on January 2 - five days before the holiday), but still the state of fasting is difficult to combine with the celebration of something, especially if this celebration is “worldly”. Therefore, the Church calls on the Orthodox, who will “celebrate” the New Year from December 31 to January 1, to do it in a Christian way, because the celebration is different. And there is no need to attach such paramount, sometimes simply mystical, significance to the New Year celebration. After all, this is just a conventional date for the New Year, accepted in a secular society (for example, previously such a date was both March 1 and September 1). Moreover, Orthodox Christians should not celebrate the New Year according to pagan traditions, calling it the year of some animal, focusing on the Eastern calendar.

Thank God it's coming New Year among those who profess themselves to be Orthodox believers, although it always raises a lot of questions, they do without asking: “What should I wear in the year of the red mouse?” or “Who should I meet in the coming year of the rooster?” Here the position of the Orthodox is clear and precise: one cannot humiliate the image of God, that is, man, to the level of an unconscious creature, albeit beautiful, necessary and loved, but still created to serve man.

The question that will begin (or rather, has already begun) to be asked to priests in parishes, which will be filled with Internet forums, newspaper articles, radio and television conversations, will be of a different kind: “How to celebrate the Nativity Fast?” Moreover, in resolving this stumbling block of the winter period, very often they require almost a conciliar decision of the Church, so as not to destroy the peace in the family and not hear claims that “ he who is unfaithful in small things and in great things will be unfaithful».

Is it possible to combine both?

After all, on the one hand, in the “Rules” of the Orthodox Church: “If anyone comes to a pagan or heretical holiday, and eats only what is permitted, and only celebrates, let him be excommunicated...”, and on the other, the apostolic: “ Everyone act according to the evidence of his own mind. He who distinguishes the days distinguishes for the Lord; and he who does not discern the days does not discern for the Lord. Whoever eats eats for the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and whoever does not eat does not eat for the Lord, and thanks God"(Rom. 14:5-7).

So how can we combine, for example, the obligatory visit and congratulations of non-believing relatives, which have been established for years, with a far from modest meal, and the need to fulfill fasting regulations? How to answer a child’s request to call Santa Claus, since he will definitely come to Tanya, Oksana, and Petya, who live on this landing, with gifts?

I beg to differ with the highly respected pastor and excellent preacher Father Dmitry Smirnov, who offers the following solution: “If you do not want to offend non-believers at home, start fasting a week earlier. You need to maintain a sober outlook. The most essential thing is love.” Love is indeed “the most essential thing,” but fasting is also an expression of love, and love for God. Changing the centuries-old “framework” of fasting means following the lead of Protestants, where pious traditions are not in honor.

New Year and Christmas

Talking today about postponing the date of the beginning of the Nativity Fast or Christmas, no matter how well-reasoned these proposals are, initially makes no sense. January 7, that is, December 25 according to the old style, was and will remain Orthodox Merry Christmas. At the same time, to ignore a national holiday, and one that is universally beloved, means putting oneself in a marginal position and, even worse, falling into the sin of judgment and superiority. You don’t have to look far for the negative consequences of such an attitude. Here is one of the opinions that was expressed on my Internet blog when this topic was discussed:

« New Year- This is a parody of Christmas. It is known that the Greek word “antichrist” means not only “anti-Christ”, but also “before-Christ”. This means that a non-Orthodox secular holiday that parodies the Nativity of Christ and precedes it, forcing ordinary people to violate both the fasting regime and the repentant mood of fasting - with firecrackers, lights, Olivier salads and foamy champagne - is “antichrist” in its purest form.”

Neither more nor less - all those for whom the holiday is celebrated are sent to the army of the enemy of the human race. Followers of such an odious position are by no means marginal or rare. Some Orthodox publications condemn New Year and Christmas greetings sent by the hierarchy to government agencies and leaders; charitable events of the Church are perceived negatively if they coincide with New Year's days. A lot of arguments are given about the “non-Orthodox” origin of the New Year, about the “pagan cult” of Father Frost and the Snow Maiden, etc.

It is not surprising that some overly zealous keepers of “legends of deep antiquity” add New Year’s fireworks, Christmas tree decorations and masquerade costumes to the list of undoubted sins, and it is children who suffer the most from this.

Tell me, how will a child or teenager react to Orthodoxy and the Church in the future, who, seeing the happy eyes and joyful faces of his peers, will hear only prohibitions, reproaches and condemnation from his “churched” parents?

Undoubtedly, every holiday should be pious and not carry a sinful element. The principle is necessary: ​​“whatever occurs in excess is from the evil one.” It’s no secret that nowadays any celebration is necessarily accompanied by increased consumption of drinks that are not at all conducive to moral principles.

“Are you already celebrating in the morning?” - has become a ubiquitous phrase, as, indeed, is the ultra-brisk trade in alcohol on the eve of any general celebrations. The combination of the concept of “holiday” with uncontrollable revelry is an old problem, but fighting it only with prohibited measures is to your own detriment. The principle “forbidden fruit is sweet” always works.

There is no need to look elsewhere, in other confessions or religious beliefs, for the principle of a symphony of a national or state holiday with the Orthodox tradition. It is present among us ourselves.

We all know very well that, for example, the feast of the Nativity of John the Baptist was established by the church on the day of the ancient celebration of Ivan Kupala. It was established providentially and with a very clear goal: to deprive this day of pagan content. And it was a success. Despite the jumping of the presidents of some post-Soviet countries over the fire, Ivan Kupala became only an ethnographic event, and a costumed masquerade.

Walking the path of Pharisaic literalism, we discourage those close and distant from any desire and desire to cross the church threshold. Moreover, the instruction of the Apostle Paul is completely ignored and discarded that “ Food does not bring us closer to God: for whether we eat, we gain nothing; if we don't eat, we don't lose anything"(1 Cor. 8:8).

The point of fasting is not to avoid eating something quick. It is different, this meaning is in the memory that we walk before God. I am afraid that we do not please God’s love with our sullenness, forbidden measures and the desire to create ourselves as righteous observers who look down on the holiday of most of our loved ones with disdain. “Love is higher than fasting,” said Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk. Not understanding this means following the path of those who today dug themselves into a hole in the Penza region and proudly shout through an earthen hole about their righteousness and “true Orthodoxy.”

We must serve others, and not take care of ourselves. If a child cries because of your fast, then in the future, no matter how hard you try, he will not be a parishioner of the Orthodox Church, and your relatives among themselves, no matter what you hear (they love you, after all), will definitely conclude: “Here what the priests have brought to this.”

Christmas post- a patristic establishment and it is, of course, necessary and necessary in the matter of our personal salvation, but there will be “no sense” in the matter of our own spiritual improvement when our fasting brings grief and bitterness.

It is possible and necessary to combine New Year's celebrations and our humble expectation Nativity of Christ.

Yes, very simple.

Remember: “Here comes Grandfather Frost, he brought us gifts”? Didn’t Saint Nicholas give you the gifts you needed? We drove the current Santa Claus to Lapland, but he was written off from St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. Or Christmas tree garlands: now at the end of December they will flash with different colors, just when the little star of Bethlehem is on the eve of Christmas lit up. Children's round dances (and adults too) in front of the Christmas tree - why are they worse than the angelic singing “Glory to God in the highest”? Or in the words of the government leadership in pre-New Year's addresses one does not hear the request: “There is peace on earth and good will among men”?

Reasonable celebration is acceptable if it brings joy to people. The main thing is to do everything in moderation, according to the definition that the Monk Ambrose of Optina proposed: “Look, Melitona, stick to the middle tone; if you take it high, it won’t be easy; if you take it low, it will be slimy; and you, Melitona, stick to the middle tone.”

The sin is not in the holiday, but in how to celebrate. And if on New Year’s Eve you initially pray, and in our city prayers are sung in churches even this night, you try to forgive everyone and not hold a grudge against anyone, then you can safely New Year congratulate, and sip a glass of champagne, and eat a slice of tangerine. Seeing our joyful faces, the Lord will rejoice.

a possibility lies before us again like an untouched possibility. Let's bring inspiration into this year, let's enter this year in order to creatively walk the straight path throughout the year. Let's walk together, let's walk together, let's walk boldly and firmly. We will meet difficult things, and we will also meet joyful things: the Lord gives us both. Difficult - because it is the dark, bitter, painful that the Lord sends to us in order to bring light, joy, silence into it; and light - so that we too can join the light, be children of light.

Let us walk together, carefully, without forgetting each other, and then by the end of the year, when we look back, it will turn out that one straight path has been laid, that no one has fallen on the edge of the road, no one is forgotten, no one is bypassed, and that many have to our small community and through us - throughout the world - love, light, joy."

And it will be Orthodox!

Have you read the article

Express your opinion about the New Year - the verycontroversial, but still dearly loved holiday by the people - we asked several famous Orthodox pastors and laity.

Nikolay Burlyaev, President of the International Forum “Golden Knight”, People’s Artist of Russia:

– It is generally accepted that celebrating the New Year with joy is our Russian tradition. But if we talk about national customs, they definitely do not include drinking during Lent. Russian tradition is to prepare your soul for Christmas during this period.

I myself and my family usually celebrate the New Year in silence, with tea - because if you watch the programs that are shown to us on TV during the two-week weekend, then you definitely won’t find peace in your soul, and you won’t feel the holiday as such. Every year the New Year's broadcast becomes more and more vulgar and primitive in its content, and this year it will be the same - so I do not recommend anyone to spend the holidays watching TV. Many people remember the Soviet “Blue Lights” with nostalgia, but believe me, they were not examples of good taste.

And what’s even more dangerous is that all the jokes are accompanied by the clinking of glasses - they constantly show people drinking on TV. This romanticizes drunkenness - a kind of propaganda for the beautiful degeneration of the nation. And all this is done in a country where 90 percent of drinkers, and 80 percent of them are in the stage of alcohol dependence!

By the way, it is believed that a huge pre-New Year commercial campaign, including large volumes of alcohol sales, is very beneficial to the economy. However, this wealth causes more harm than good. According to statistics, we have about 2 trillion rubles a year in economic losses from alcoholism. And as a result, children no longer drink from the age of 16, as just a few years ago, but from the age of 12; at the age of 9, 80 percent try alcohol... So in ten years there will be no one to develop this economy. A two-week binge occurs during fasting days - this is a very significant fact from the life of our society. Then, when you need to fast, pray, think about your own sins, people are in alcoholic suspended animation.

And this has been happening for a quarter of a century—ever since perestroika was announced. I remember a phrase that I heard on the radio in those years: “The goal of perestroika is to cause a mutation of the Russian spirit to occur, to knock Russians out of tradition.” This is how we are deprived of traditions.

Archpriest Dimitry Smirnov, rector of the Church of St. Mitrophan of Voronezh, chairman of the Synodal Department for Cooperation with the Armed Forces:“It seems to me that people are lying when they say that they don’t know how to spend the two weeks of the New Year’s weekend. In my opinion, it is stupid to teach an adult how to manage his free time. The parishioners of my church, for example, already know that you can’t smoke, get drunk and use foul language - and you can’t do this not only in the first days of January, but also on all other days of the year. For people with addictions, of course, the New Year holidays will be a test. But these are sick people - and they need to be treated, not taught. From the experience of our parish: we often hold meetings and prayer services with such people on weekends in January. Many churches now have
There are similar societies, there are also large rehabilitation centers - they will have to work harder during the holidays. It is customary to scold the state, which gives us such long weekends and shows vulgar shows on TV. I have another question: why should the state, like little children, lead us by the hand and tell us: do this - don’t do this, watch this - don’t look at this. Is it really necessary for a healthy man to get drunk on a holiday? If you know that your norm is half a box of vodka, drink half a box and stop, you don’t need to drink a whole box. On the contrary, the state gives us a gift: it leaves us alone for two whole weeks! Read a book, go to church, do something for which you didn’t have enough time before. And for those who still want a joyful mood for the holidays, I want to remind you that the main joy that happens during fasting is the joy that is given us in prayer.

Archpriest Alexy Uminsky, rector of the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Khokhly:

– Since childhood, I really love the New Year. For me, this holiday is associated with family comfort, with the joy of gifts - as for every Soviet child. Then, when I grew up, the holiday was celebrated with student gatherings - and this is also normal for a young man; True, I wasn’t a church member then. Then, of course, everything changed, but still the New Year left a positive mark on my life. But everything has its time: tipsy adults running through the streets at night and shouting: “Hurray! New Year!”, apparently they didn’t receive something in childhood.

There is an opinion that Orthodox Christians do not need to celebrate the New Year at all. Of course, some things are unacceptable, such as revelry and alcoholism, but you can point out another way.

Now for me the holiday is associated with a new understanding of the past year of my life, the transition to a new step in my life. For many years now I have been serving the Divine Liturgy this night. Usually not many people gather, about 50 people, but somehow we serve this liturgy very joyfully, we start the new year with prayer and communion. And after the service, everyone will have a meal together. Mostly our regular parishioners are with us. But often random people from the street also come in: they went out for a walk, firecrackers are exploding all around, and then suddenly there is an open church, the bells are ringing... They come in, admire the icons, some stay until the end of the liturgy. And they will remember such an unexpected impression on New Year’s Eve for a long time.

By the way, many Moscow churches are open on New Year's Eve, for example in the Sretensky Monastery.

Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov), abbot of the Moscow Sretensky Monastery:

– At the end of December 1994, I, as the rector of the metochion of the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery (that was the name of the current Sretensky Monastery at that time), was faced with a simple and very pragmatic question: how to survive New Year’s Eve in this first year of the existence of the revived monastery? How to establish a tradition that would ensure that we observe fasting, spiritual and physical, and, at the same time, we could not cause grief to our loved ones? I will not hide that many of our friends and parishioners, not to mention
already about our parents, they wholeheartedly invited us to share this holiday with them and did not understand our explanations and excuses at all.

It must be said that at the Sretensky Monastery we have never treated this holiday harshly and intolerantly. For non-church and low-church families, New Year is perhaps the only family holiday left in Russia today, when the family gets together and can really feel like a family. There are very few such events in the life of a modern person, and they cannot be ruined. But you can gradually try to church it.

We always tell our parishioners that if their family and friends want to celebrate the New Year, then they cannot be deprived of this joy, despite the fact that an Orthodox Christian, of course, should not break fast, but his task is to bring the light of Christ, the joy of expectation Nativity of Christ on this holiday.

So, based on all these problems and concerns, it was decided to celebrate the Divine Liturgy on that New Year’s Eve.

At first we assumed that only monks and perhaps a few of our most zealous parishioners would be at the service. But, to our surprise, the temple was full. Among our
There are many Orthodox families parishioners, and this turned out to be a wonderful opportunity to solve the difficult issue of celebrating the New Year for them. The next year even more people came, and then more and more!.. Then we learned that other churches had adopted this experience.

Our monastery is located in the very center of Moscow and at exactly midnight fireworks and explosions of firecrackers drown out the first litany. We take this calmly. No one - neither the monks nor our parishioners - of course, condemns those who are not standing in the temple at this time. In the word before the liturgy, we say each time that we will especially pray for our household and friends, who at this hour are each celebrating the New Year in their own way.

Increasingly, unchurched relatives and friends of our parishioners come to this liturgy. And every time this night service makes a surprisingly deep, strong impression on them. We serve this night a little faster than usual so that people can catch the metro. We take communion from four or five cups. The liturgy lasts about one and a half hours. All the brethren, and most of the parishioners, usually partake of the Holy Mysteries of Christ.

Christianity had an ancient practice of churching pagan holidays and traditions. Perhaps we are faced with something similar today.

If we proceed from the position that the WORLD IS A MIRROR, then by the end of the year this becomes more obvious. By the end of the year, even those who do not believe in this theory at all begin to think about a series of “random” coincidences and events in their lives that suddenly fall on their heads right on the eve of the New Year.

I repeat once again - this is a mystical time, and it was given to people not as punishment, but for their own good. If a person “sleeps” in reality all year, then at this time, on the eve of the New Year, Nature itself begins to actively wake him up)

If by the end of the year you suddenly began to be haunted by troubles, pay attention to your life. Maybe you're just not going where you were going and doing something that you don't really need? Does the world have nothing to do with it at all?

So, if suddenly:

You started meeting “old” acquaintances whom you haven’t seen for “a thousand” years

Meet new people “by chance”

Get into various troubles (such as a traffic accident)

Get involved in stupid quarrels and ridiculous scandals

Pipes in your home unexpectedly leak (or a pipe has burst)

Household appliances began to break down and electronics began to fail.

They began to demand “old” debts from you

You started to suffer “ridiculous” financial losses

You suddenly (due to circumstances beyond your control) began to be late to the place you needed, or did not get there at all

Then know that these are all signs of fate (or Nature, to be more precise) They simply tell you specifically that you have been going the wrong way all year!!! And we urgently need to correct the situation.

You still have time before the New Year to fix something! Just be careful and listen to yourself. Surely within yourself you know what is wrong... And even if this is not yet clear, you just have to want and express this intention to yourself - the answer will definitely come!

And if you don’t know at all “WHY IS THIS ALL HAPPENING TO YOU,” then there is one thing with which you can begin to improve your life for the better and not drag old troubles into the New Year!

This applies directly to women first of all - this is cleaning the house!

Yes, you will say how banal and simple everything is... In fact, this procedure contains a sacred meaning and a whole mystery.

In addition, there is a special magical plot to cleanse your home before the New Year.

Spell to cleanse the house

When washing the floors, you need to add holy water to the water, and place a white wax candle on the table, saying the words:

“I cleanse my house with holy water, drive away evil spirits and evil spirits. Holy spirits, cleanse my house, settle in it in the New Year. Let it be so!".

Wash the floors, and take the water out and pour it outside the house and even the yard if a private house is being cleaned. After this, read the words over the candle five times:

“Burn, fire, there is an evil spirit in my house. Burn, fire, in my house all the rude and negative words spoken. Help, candle, to get rid of the bad. Let it be so!".

The candle on the table should burn out completely.

If you are a believer, then you can additionally go to church to light candles and even confess.

Happy and prosperous New Year to you!