professionals from the american country and intelligence services were involved and political games were not played, including by biden, and, unfortunately, some families allowed prisoners to take advantage of their relatives and children for these games, instead of saying, look, we need an exchange, we want it to happen as quickly as possible, like... what are your ideas, what are our needs, instead they tried as much as possible to say that russia did not have the right to detain these people, in general, this kind of propaganda, to me seems to be for account, first of all, of those prisoners who otherwise could have been exchanged much earlier, i don’t know what you think about this, well, you know, what you named is... in general, the style of american foreign

policy is to act from a position of strength first , try to push through your point of view and only then somehow move on to real diplomacy, on the other hand, we see that russia has repeatedly sent signals to the united states that it is ready to discuss this at the highest level, these words were spoken, in the end when it comes it came to the joint work of competent structures, we see that there is a result, in fact, in my opinion, despite the fact that everything like that...

now all the polls cause distrust, electoral struggle? well, you know, this is how you assess the dynamics today no matter who they give leadership to, because, firstly, we understand that there is still quite a long time before the elections, the elections are only in november, now a lot of attention is paid to kamela harres, because haris before her takeoff now, she actually. was strongly in biden’s shadow, she didn’t shine much, so all biden’s failures didn’t stick to her, as they say, now she’s under very close attention, and we’ll see how she shows herself, this is the first, second, biden’s baggage, the last washington servant with whom trump shared quite funny that joe biden may not be invited to the democratic party convention in chicago, which will be in 2.5 weeks, and if so, then this is of course a colossal humiliation of a person who has already been de facto pushed out of power. they won’t invite you yet, well

as such, even if the wedding general is not on his own holiday, but nevertheless, that is, the democrats are trying in every possible way to distance themselves from biden and how they will succeed from this very very much. a lot depends on the whole race, as for replacing biden with harris, for republicans this is of course a headache, because opposing biden was very simple, you had to be close to him, behave appropriately, not stammer, not give the impression of an incompetent person, and you already looked advantageous, actually trump on in his first debate, this one in this cycle, he chose this tactic, he refused attacks, he refused some kind of harsh polemic with biden, he just... looked adequate against the background of a man very much out of shape, now he is opposed by a candidate who is significantly younger, that is, the age factor disappears from this arsenal that trump operated, harris is able to read the text of the prompter, so

there are no questions for her here either, and that audience is from the swing states that , which in general and don’t like trump, but who was scared by biden’s condition. now she returns again to the fact that, in principle, harris may not be very nice, but trump is not at all, and here trump begins to compete with his own anti-rating, in the past, in the past turn of american history, he is against his own anti-rating. then he lost, we can say that there were violations, there probably were, and it is documented somewhere that they were, but nevertheless, trump really lost to his anti-rating, people who didn't want to.

have his children, sons, eric and donald jr., so maybe they will somehow be able to convince the stubborn father, but trump really gives the impression of a man who is not ready to dance to the tune of his political strategists, not even to his own detriment, because you rightly noted that this meeting was a complete failure for trump, from the very beginning he was put in a situation where he had to answer the question:

we have a good idea, but we can judge its foreign policy, but i don’t know in a phrase, i will practically quote now, ukraine is a country in europe, russia is a neighboring country in europe. and russia is bigger, ukraine is smaller, so she operates with some kind of concepts from textbooks, not even middle school, maybe there is younger than school, yes, but i wouldn’t underestimate kamela haris, because she’s unlikely to be subjective if will become president because she will inherit a team, biden's democratic team, and i wouldn't think that kavala harris would somehow start playing her game here, most likely if she will become president, foreign political course...

on our air, it was a big game, we'll meet next week,

he lost everything with his free will, and... abandoned his home, abandoned his native land, left with nothing but god and prayer to the monastery, and there he devoted himself to obedience, carefully, humbly accepted everything that god sent him, and from people, everything that they wanted to lay on his shoulders, he went into the forest so that nothing would separate him from god, but also so that nothing serves as an artificial support for him, so that only... loyalty to god served as his support and

he lived for 47 years in various exploits of hermitage and silence, as the famous theologian, metropolitan anthony of surazh, said about the hero of our conversation today. august 1 is the day of the discovery of the relics of st. seraphim of sarov, today we gathered with our thoughts about father seraphim, priest anthony borisov, associate professor of the moscow theological academy, valentin. aleksandrovich stepashkin, historian, leading employee of the museum of nuclear weapons, i am vladimir ligoida, we are starting our conversation. expensive friends, this is where i would like to start our conversation. once, one of my colleagues, talking with a student, said that let’s say there we call german culture faustian there, and even the culture of a certain time is european, and so on. but if we talk about russian culture, can it be named after someone else? and so he told me this, we discussed it, i suddenly said. that it seems to me, i thought, that russian culture is the culture of the venerable seraphim,

culture in the broad, of course, sense of this words, although i myself understand, i internally argue with myself, but that’s why i wanted to ask you this, perhaps a non-obvious question, but what do you think, can we call russian culture by this analogy, that this is the culture of st. seraphim , a tricky question, it seems to me that if we still think about russian culture through the prism. first of all, the orthodox faith, then of course, st. seraphim, of course, this is, in some sense, the canonical face of russian monasticism, because st. seraphim in some inexplicable way it is connected with the monk theodosius of kiev-pechersk and with the monk sergius of radnich, because that same miracle, when seraphim was still a prokhor, and before his tonsure the boy prokhor survived, having fallen from the construction workers, this... was a church in honor of the monk sergius radonishsky, and seraphim, now in such a, uh, in a full-

fledged historical, tangible era, he showed the country, the people, you and me, such a face, the canonical face of russian monasticism, so healthy, and at the same time in a good sense of cheerful religiosity, well yes, but i i put it in a tricky way, as you noted the question is that i am still broader than him in this... and you said there that our culture is the culture of orthodoxy, and indeed, the reverend, he is a prominent representative of this culture , but here is our culture, it still chose a lot of personalities who directed it in the right direction, and i think there was no

meeting, for example, between the monk and pushkin, but nevertheless, i think, the impact on this personality... undoubtedly it was the same as for the entire cultural elite, which we had, that is the glory of the venerable seraphim of sarov, it spread during his lifetime, it influenced not only the common people, but the nobility and the highest ranks of the hierarchy of the russian empire, so indeed the influence of the saint on culture could be said. by the way, i should say that there is an icon of st. seraphim, of course there are a lot of them, but perhaps this is one of the most common and always recognizable images, of course, i want to start with this slightly theoretical question, which you paid attention in their works, this is still the difference between biography and ageography, yes, that is , ageography is a hagiography, yes, it is a hagiographic

genre, a genre of hagiography, and a biography, in fact, in this case, of the venerable seraphim... by a saint, and demonstrate a personality sanctified by god, so in the case of the life, ideally exactly the same thing should happen, the compiler of the life tries to highlight exclusively what is related to the living action of god’s providence through the actions, words of an individual saint, an individual ascetic, but unfortunately,

as in the case, probably, with any manifestation of human creativity, we are dealing not exclusively with the action of the holy spirit, but with the introduction of certain inaccuracies and errors that are generally characteristic of human nature. father, and you from the outside, well, i, too, represent st. seraphim of sarov, i really like the pencil image of the artist raev. there he depicted a portrait of him during his lifetime in peasant, one might say, clothes, gray-haired, some kind of simple peasant without a bishop, a bandage, and so on, that is... and i imagine him as a man from the people and , as it were, a representative of the ancestors, probably of our entire country, who does not come from the nobility, this is the image for me, it is very , very close, and i think that it is necessary to talk about the venerable serophim of sarov , probably from

the point of view of, well, just a layman, i’m not a theologian, so my task was to talk about him... as a person, your book is so impressive, yes, i worked on this book for 30 years, then i was born in sorovye, i walked along these paths that the monk walked, therefore, it was somehow close to me, and it was easier to describe those episodes in the life of st. seraphim of sorov, about which i found some evidence there in the archives, in books, and so on. valentinovich, if so, well, as briefly as possible, what we know for sure about... reverend, this is what is historically confirmed, in addition to the fact that you specified the date of birth, yes, that it’s still not 175 where there were several options, 1764, 1761, 1759, 58 and 54 were also there, but all this was somehow unprovable, but i managed to do it

based on the mass of documents that were discovered in the archive, line up. this chain, which led specifically to this year 1754, and what else we can say with certainty is that he was from a merchant family, the third guild, that initially the family was engaged in pottery, that is, they made clay dishes and themselves they sold, the fact that the monk was a literate person, i managed to find the autograph of the venerable seraphim of sarov , the russian state archive of ancient acts helped me with this. just after, you are several autographs, 1781 and 1784, at what age does the future reverend leave? according to the documents, it was 1778, that is, at that moment he was 24 years old, when he wrote the petition, somehow everything was very

difficult there, and it was almost like leaving one class for another, well, the situation there is like this, that passports were issued to this category of citizens of the russian empire for a period of 1 year, that is, the year elapsed, you had to renew it, so you had to... return again to the city magistrate of the city of kursk and renew such documents, or write a letter of trust to someone, well , that is, a power of attorney according to ours, according to the modern one, so the document there could extend such a piece of paper for you, you said the monk as such a person, and an image of russian monasticism, and indeed, if we talk about russian at all holiness, then the two most famous russian saints are st. sergei. and st. seraphim, very different saints, and very different people, apparently, different eras, very different eras, yes, in your personal experience of christian life, here

what unites them, the gift of consolation, uh-huh, in our country, unfortunately, it is often monastic service, monastic asceticism is associated with asceticism, severity and rigor. on the contrary, to console him and remind him that he, who has made bodily mistakes or given in to the sweetness of certain vices,

still deserves god’s love, he still remains god’s son or daughter, it seems to me that this is what unites such a merciful , the comforting ministry of these two saints, the fact is that i...

we gathered today with thoughts about st. seraphim of sarov, priest anthony borisov, valentin stepashkin, i am vladimir ligoida, 270 years since the birth of the saint this year, we continue, in fact, everything that we are now discussing, some biographical details, important, interesting, but in general for lives, well , completely insignificant, but in the year 54 the venerable one was born or there in the sixtieth, fifty-nine, for us, for... for writing a life, for perceiving his path and movement, but this path, it’s not so important, but why then we should be interested, these biographical details, yes,

because it immediately becomes clear that holiness is not something like that, you know, yes, moons falling off or tearing off the ground , on the contrary, this, by the way, is the reason why some people do not like to read the old testament, because after reading about the life path of some old testament righteous people, they wonder how... how will i pray to these people to abraham, isaac, jacob after i learned about the mistakes that they made, but life, unadorned life still close to the biography of us, in fact comforts because it is living proof of the patristic words that a righteous person is not one who does not sin, a righteous person is one who repents, that is, one who, having made a mistake, admits that he was wrong and has the courage to continue his path to god . and this, accordingly, somehow consoles us in the sense that if those righteous people whom the church reveres, who pray, had the opportunity and mercy from god,

which ones to overcome? seraphim is one of the first names and there lives, with whom you introduce, the acquisition of relics, of course, relics, definitely, yes, but you see, i remember, we were sitting seriously, a group of students who came to church, we were sitting, praying on a stone for 1.00 days and nights, in general, we can somehow repeat this today, here we can and for some reason we got up at night, prayed, somehow, it was very inspiring,

that’s all that... these are the consequences of the fall, as they say, yes, here a certain harmony with nature is found , on the other hand, it was very, very inspiring, so sanovich came and whether it was all destroyed or not, no matter how many days and a thousand nights one must perceive, i write about this in my book in such a way that the monk... tried to do it secretly, even some monastics did not seem to know about it, but he carried it out in this way , that on the way to a distant desert place, next to the road , somewhere in the bushes there was a stone lying, imitating simeon the stylite, who prayed for 49 years, in my opinion, this is an absolutely unimaginable figure, but here he prayed at night on this stone, and during the day so that they don’t see him.

he had his own stone in the cell on the far side desert, and naturally, this period, a thousand days, 100 nights, probably needs to be somehow increased for an indefinite period of time, because well, he couldn’t, here he is for this time, without leaving the stone, not even from the first, not at all, to accomplish such a feat, well then, after all, this is everyday literature. anthony’s father said that she could embellish something and add something, and here it was possible, who thought that these thousands of days and thousands of nights were just feeding the bear, i was usually there in some kind of, well, apiary , not an apiary, but something it was, yes, at the reverend’s, in a garden in the distant desert there was, well, not an apiary, but there were several ulits there, this

was written down in documents, and a bear, he senses honey, especially in the forest from afar, so i think that they came to him, we had a lot of bears, even when our secret facility appeared, our bears sometimes passed through the barbed wire, they simply broke it and so they had to be driven out of the city, they went without honey, yes yes, well, apparently they were looking for some kind of food. or whatever they have, like, i don’t know what the reason is, and when i take excursions, if some guests come to us, of course we don’t have pilgrims, but we still have guests, and i say that after all, a bear is a wild animal, and the monk was feeding the bears, probably still being behind the fence, that is, he approached the fence, and from behind the fence the priest even told him as a joke

that it was probably some bread. maybe he also smeared it with honey to please the guests from the forest, and so, if here is hagiographic literature, the first the legend of the reverend, here is 1841 of father sergei to read, then there he writes that reptiles of the earth, creeping things and all sorts, came to the reverend to the distant descendants, well, well, well, that’s why they came to him, and so it was interesting reverend, that is, this is some kind of fabulousness. was brought into this description, well, maybe this is what i was trying to say, because in such stories, yes, which is present in the lives, there is, it seems to me, this desire to emphasize that holiness, and as a person’s aspiration to god, it is already a certain relationship between a person and god, it really, well, overcomes some of the consequences of what we call the fall, but this is like an image of harmony,

and some kind of it, it’s possible, of course. the icon as a symbol of this, of course, of course, yes, an attempt to show that holiness restores the state in which adam was before the fall, when he interacted with those around him... he kept the egyptian one with the help of a lion who dug the grave, yes, this so traditional, in a good sense, a detail of many lives, demonstrating exactly the same idea that holiness restores the harmony

of relations not only between man and god, but also man and the world around him. i would like to return to the topic of russian holiness, but the monk as such an image of a saint, because what do we remember? yes, this is the appeal my joy, yes to everyone who comes, yes, christ is risen, christ is risen, my joy, in independence there, regardless of who came to you, this is like the quintessence, yes, this is what you said that unites st. seraphim with others, but still makes him stand out, yes, well, you know, it also seems to me that there is some kind of very warm, very warm attention to, in a good sense , material or something to the side. to everyday life, this samovar, where there should be hot water, tea, the monk there does not refuse to treat guests, treat himself, some kind of care was felt in this, not

a distant cold holiness of some kind of alien, this is something real here now, manifested mercy, effective love, warming, comforting, again, yes, formally speaking logically, i too... can force myself when i meet everyone to say about my joy there, hello, but there will not be any inner truth in this , yes, that is, what’s important here is not just that he said these words, but that he said them really while experiencing a meeting with a person, yes, yes, yes, in this sense, for some reason i remember this gospel episode when christ 500 men, accompanied by women and children, yes, fed with five loaves. fish, where they came from, the apostles brought them, and through the apostles christ distributed these products, which were somehow miraculously multiplied, it seems to me that st. seraphim, he seems to be from this or that gospel

story, from this gospel episode, such in in a good sense, the transmitter of these gifts of god, who seems to have nothing himself, but draws amazing wealth from god. who distributes them to people, comforts them, feeds them, warms them with this care of his, and really has nothing, because this we can also say for sure that there is not just an ascetic life there, but also food, there is a famous herb, we are, yes, that is, he has an extremely aesthetic life there, so to speak, and at the place where the saint’s bread, grass, water were all piled up with bales church candles... on homespun paths, which were brought to him by his admirers, who came to him for either mental or physical healing, and he distributed it all, passed it on to the devey sisters, that is, the devey sisters, this is the

community over which he marched which one here nourished spiritually and financially, they were still pretty well, so at first it wasn’t very material. as i always felt this spiritual falsehood, spiritual wrongness, or as it is customary to express spiritual charm in the church, in this sense, saint floret is of course the absolute guarantor of such honesty and truthfulness of experience, the holiness of st. seraphim, i also want

to remember a phrase that, well, most often yes , along with this greeting, i remember in connection with the monk seraphim, with the priest seraphim, as we usually call him, the paths of the spirit are peaceful, and thousands around you will be saved, and even... no matter how we treat matavilov’s text, about which matavilov writes a lot and interestingly, we understand that this phrase really sounds in different contexts , that these are his, his words, yes, it seems to me that this is also... completely evangelical content, because it’s about a bitch , a log, yes, when the gospel says that you see a speck in your brother’s eye, a log in you don’t notice yourself, and then, because i don’t always remember the continuation, yes, hypocrite, first take the beam out of your own eye, then you will see how to take the speck out of your brother’s eye, that is, in a sense, returning to the very beginning of our conversation about the image of russian culture, but what does the reverend say, that our movement

would be changes not only from within, only

evolutionarily, but in no way revolutionary, and subsequent history showed how our ancestors rushed towards a bright future, covering this road, according to the word of father alexander schmemann, with many graves, here is the russian spirit, here is the rukiba. we are used to seeing mikhail perky on stage, at concerts or at some events, when he was in the image of what is called holding his face. he didn’t allow anyone into the family in a broad sense, it was a strictly closed territory, for the first time we have the opportunity to see him the way only those closest to him, his daughter and wife, saw him. the gatherings were always lively, and you’re sitting in dad’s place, so it happened, right? unique footage previously unavailable to outsiders. there was this difficult period when he was being treated abroad, mikhail nikolaevich’s sister, lena, and his first wife, velta, were in front of him. daughter

turns to him, realizing that he is somewhere there, and he hears her, don’t take it as a posthumous empty compliment, my father’s feelings are more important, most likely at this sad moment, for some reason god needed you more? our exclusive is the family archive of mikhail zadorny. exclusive with dmitry borisov. on saturday, on the first. today we gathered our thoughts about st. seraphim of sorov. priest anthony borisov. i'm vladimir ligoida. 270 years since the birth of the saint this year, we continue. returning to the topic that we started, and a little bit, i...

the researchers showed, well, rather doubting these, yes, i think it’s too indirect, but you know, that is, that is, we can, probably with regret or just neutrally say that there was no meeting, but dostoevsky tolstoy was there, others went to the elders, so to speak, of the optina hermitage, pushkin did not meet with st. seraphim, most likely yes, but isn’t there something so symbolic in this, maybe in is this also a certain russian tragedy? culture, that this meeting did not take place, or is it

a little far-fetched, what do you think, friends? i think that if there had been a meeting, the monk would have influenced alexander sergeevich and he would have left him a different person, probably would not have had that duel on the black river that put an end to the life of such a wonderful, great poet who was created here our literary language, well, since... there are some intertwinings there in the poems, if you look, then we can find such intertwinings in the poems of other poets, as we said, we live on the basis of the orthodox.

plans are collapsing in some way, well , of course i would like to get the help of such a holy man, but i think that after all pushkin returned to his place in boldin, and even more so it is not recorded that he was second in any, but alexander sergeevich still, in his work he reacted vividly to these or other striking events in his life, but saint philaret left his mark. still, do you think it’s worth or not worth seeing some kind of sad symbolism here, and not in the fact that it didn’t happen. so, i’m just your first question i remember the influence of st. seraphim on russian culture, can our culture, the culture of the 19th century there, be called seraphim’s, but unfortunately, it seems to me

that our literature was largely divorced, of course, from church life, and if... clergy appeared on the pages of the works of classics, then often, of course, in such a satirical form, as in the same pushkin in about the pope and the bulldozer workers, yes, well, and not only there, probably the most ecclesiastical in this sense is liskov, or something, in this galaxy, well, again there with with with some reservations, although schmemann writes that the most accurate description, oddly enough, turns out to be the czechs, the czechs, because even liskov. and well, everyone in general has some kind of factual errors, but chekhov is amazing, and despite all his skepticism, yes, he is surprisingly somehow delicate, well, and accurate from the point of view of just some factual things, he is not mistaken there , yes, well, this seems to me to be the tragedy of our derevolutionary

culture, because if you look at english literature there, well, it’s always like this or otherwise the vicar will find it. some bishop will find a place in the plot, and not necessarily comical, sometimes even very meaningful and worthy, but with us, you know, it’s as if this part of society was not noticed at all, the clergy seemed to exist on their own, a closed class, a separate class, a class that has no place at the university, there is no theology at the university, theology is somewhere in the theological academy, in a closed class educational institution, but in no way... accessible at all. it is clear that, especially people who deal with the reverend, it seems, well, everyone knows, everyone knows, well, at least about some basic things, but i think that quite a few among our viewers there are people who, maybe , they don’t know much about the monk, that’s what you would

advise a person who would like to know.