How Orthodox Dating
The Russian Orthodox Church is not the first to Express a desire to participate more actively in the life of a Russian family. Among the latest initiatives is the offer of the Russian Orthodox Church to teach students the basics of family life in accordance with Christian standards.
According to representatives of the clergy, will be able to fix the demographic crisis, and the situation with divorce. On the relationship between the sexes in the context of “traditional values” today say very much, but of how these relationships look like in reality, few people think. At the request of samizdat journalist and writer Anna Popova went to look for a pair in the Orthodox Dating and tried to understand how the true believers are now trying to find my second half to establish the same healthy Christian family.
I was always considered an outcast among churched members of their family because of stubbornness and a cautious attitude towards the Church. It all started with reading the existentialists in their Teens, and ended up with atheism for twenty years. Today I do not wear a cross, don’t celebrate Easter and Christmas and live a civil marriage with a French Catholic.
When friends the monks learned of this, they were horrified. One of the priests said that Orthodox girls two ways: either in the monastery or in a legal marriage with children. Otherwise, in his opinion, I run the risk of becoming “barren Fig tree” and live in fornication until the end of life.
I was interested in the question: what is “love Orthodox” and where can it be found? The answer was simple: in a special Orthodox Dating. They exist in two versions: in social networks and in reality. I have studied both, for cleanliness of experiment hiding that you are a journalist, trying to meet an Orthodox man under the guise of churchian girls.
I joined all the major groups of “Vkontakte” and went to a meeting of the Moscow club of Peter and Fevronia, the tea parties who allegedly often sacrament of love at first sight.
The experiment was a success: I made Orthodox friends, got a few offers to get to know each other better, the invitation to pray together (whatever that means) and almost became a victim of loving defender of the people.
Orthodox love: a survival guide
Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord, because a husband is head of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church. (The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to Ephesians 5:22-33)
Before plunging into the world of Orthodox Dating, you should understand what coordinate system are faithful, seeking the second half. If you are far from the Church, when you learn the basics of the Orthodox society you will create the impression that you were in Narnia. Everything is so unusual for a secular person, not accustomed to be ashamed of their sexuality and their own body.
The world of Russian Orthodoxy does not need meddling from the outside. There is popular magazines (“Thomas”, “Up”), Internet portals (Pravmir), YouTube channels (Batushka otvetit the priest-blogger Alexander), fashion shows and, most importantly, developed services for those who want to get married: Orthodox toastmaster will help to arrange the feast in the Church’s best traditions, practising musicians will play for you and your guests, and seamstresses will sew the maximum modest dress for the bride.
Orthodoxy recognizes one form of love — the legal marriage at least in the registry office, and high — backed wedding. The Foundation of this Orthodox family — children, they are considered a blessing of God. “The Church’s marriage law States: “the Family complete when it has children. Children are equal members”,” writes the priest Dionysius Svechnikov in one of his sermons. According to him, marriage is “a means of continuing and multiplying the human race. Because childbirth salvation, for bogolanfini”.
The Church father, St. Augustine who lived at the dawn of Christianity, explained that children are primarily the responsibility of women. Even then, they were given plant, which is still relevant for Christians: man is an independent unit, whereas the woman is merely his “assistant in Zagorodnii”.
To emphasize the difference between the sons of Adam and daughters of eve in the Orthodox churches, there are a number of rules.
A woman, even a nun has no right to go to the altar — there can be only men. During the service the Church is divided into male and female space. When I went to the monastery, it was very afraid of inadvertently to go to the “male” part of the temple. The fact that at the entrance sat a nun, whom everyone called grandmother Salome. She seemed immortal spirit of the age, moved only in a wheelchair and was doing what vigilantly visitors of the temple. Cost to the man or woman to go to the wrong part of the room that prepared for gender identity, as here, the poor received back a painful blow with a stick.
It is also forbidden to enter the temple during menstruation. The meaning of the prohibition is simple: in the Holy place must not be blood, because in the New Testament God exclusively brought bloodless sacrifice, unlike the old.
In addition, you cannot visit the temple for forty days after childbirth. My friend could not participate in the christening of his daughter, till the priest said over her special cleansing prayer. And only then she was allowed to cross the threshold of the Church.
It turns out an interesting paradox: the main purpose of women in Orthodoxy and Christianity in General — the birth of children. However, at the same time it is punished for the performance of their sacred functions.
Partly for that reason, any attempt to make love for pleasure is considered debauchery. Sex in the Orthodox pair is for procreation, not for relaxation and pleasant sensations. It in Ancient India physical love was a way to merge into a Single existence, and in the Orthodox Church everything is different.
But even if you honor all inhibitions and make love for the sake of having children, you still do not touch each other while fasting. Fasting in the Orthodox Church — a time of purification of soul and body from sinful thoughts and deeds. It would be better to attend Church, to observe certain rules in the diet, to abandon fatty foods, meat and fish, and in everyday life to observe penance.
Let us count together: only the Orthodox four posts a year. In 2017 lent lasted from 27 February to 15 April, Apostolic (or apostles ‘ fast) — from 12 June to 11 July, Uspensky — from August 14 to 27 August, and Christmas (or Filippov post) — from November 28 to January 6, 2018. So, the Orthodox couple may not have sex 132 days per year. For almost six months.
Some Orthodox priests believe that conception during lent can have much more serious consequences than daily repentance. Metropolitan of Omsk and Tauride Vladimir in “Blagovest” reported that the majority of infants conceived during the post — mentally ill.
There is nothing good to be expected. Of them [children conceived during lent] 70% of schizophrenics. Does anyone want to have a schizophrenic son? Doesn’t want to. Of them… 70% of suicides. Of them and psychics are born.Metropolitan of Omsk and Tauride Vladimir
And then he added that the best time of conception after Easter, these children have great chances to be born scientists.
An even greater sin than making love during lent, are abortions. If you thought we are talking about aborting an already formed embryo, then you are severely mistaken. Contraception and getting rid of the child — the same order of things in the eyes of the Orthodox priests. The consequences of preventing conception can be terrible not only for the immortal soul but also for mortal body.
Father Alexey Gomonov, rector of the Church of the Dormition of the virgin in Putinki, spoke about this in one of his sermons. He compared a woman having an abortion with the use of contraceptive methods. “Similarly monstrous in relation to his children is… to put a spiral. This is generally a trick of the devil… Here abortions are already tens-hundreds. The spiral gives to conceive a child, and when conceived, the cell begins to move higher up in the parent place — there is a spiral, and the cell can not pass where necessary. And cell (embryonic) — this is people, you know? There body and soul. And the little man falls out into the toilet.”
According to father Alexey, the fate of such people is terrible: almost all of them “instantly died.” “And here I met one woman. She said that her husband was a benefactor. Why he died? I answer: he is a murderer. A sophisticated killer. He was responsible for hundreds of dead children. “You mean me?” Yes, it’s about you. You have the same spiral.” — the priest told.
Of course, to the Orthodox it is difficult to find a mate “in the world” — I used to beat myself up for carnal pleasures and does not want to have children “as God sends”, are unlikely to agree to an Alliance with the true believing supporter of the ROC.
Therefore, Orthodox Dating clubs on the Internet and real life is a very effective way to find a couple to fulfill the main purpose of a Christian: to create a family.
“Not me mommy raised”
It is in your interests to prolong the period of abstinence. Year, or two, or three people… And in passionate hugging, kissing, unchaste touching the head may not be cold. And all of these a year or two down the drain. (Sermon of father Alexis Gomonova from may 7, 2017)
In the social network “Vkontakte” there are 203 groups of Orthodox acquaintances, in the largest — almost 32 thousand people. My attempt as a journalist to communicate with their members suffered a complete collapse. The Orthodox have treated me like a dangerous animal and was not eager to get in contact. As I understand it then, it was too “unorthodox page”: I cannot find reposts of prayers and sayings of the elders, photos shout about love to travel — and not for pilgrimage, and education (VGIK) creates the impression that every day I go to the parties and shamelessly mired in casual sexual relations.
Fortune smiled on me suddenly: one of the regulars suddenly took a friendship and wrote to me. So there was my first contact with the world of Orthodox Dating. The user with a sonorous name is Tony (in reality, it was Dima) said that for ten years looking for love. “We haven’t succeeded yet, but I do not lose heart” — cheerfully he added. Dima said he was looking for mainly Orthodox, because all his people churched. The mother built a chapel in the village with his own money, and my brother is an altar boy on the weekends.
Well, I want to find a chaste, decent, able to love and respect not only yourself, but also your man.Dima
He wants in whatever was to marry. As in the movie, Dima made a promise to my father when he was on his deathbed, to find a wife. However, in ten years, tastes Dima has changed. And now he is ready to meet girls of any religion and nationality. Except Jewish women.
I jokingly asked him what he did not please the Jew, as suddenly Dima is closed. He began to suspect that I’m a Jew (which is partly true, because I’m kind of hereditary rabbis from great-grandmother), and this caused the sudden attack of anti-Semitism.
So, Dima assumed I was a secret Jew. He suddenly said that already too much told me, and he can’t continue the dialogue. “You don’t call me confidence, frankly, you don’t have a cross on his neck, puncture… Maybe you mishandled Cossack,” wrote Dima.