“You can't build a church with prayer alone” - this is how Archbishop Marcinkus, who survived the three popes and all his friends, usually responded to reporters on charges of money laundering and links between the Catholic Church and the mafia. Esquire sorted out the tangled history of the most mysterious
Modern Christianity, which recognized the Jewish Old Testament as "sacred scripture" first in the person of the Vatican, and later the Orthodox Church, in its essence has become a real "branch of Judaism"
A recently discovered fragment of the Coptic Gospel posed an unexpected question for scholars: Did Jesus have a wife? Experts have been arguing about the authenticity of the found fragment for 8 years. The article tells about who and why would benefit from a text that changes our understanding of the history of Christianity
Before the eyes of the whole country, the ROC, groaning with delight, puts on its old gendarme overcoat, helpfully provided by United Russia. The priests did not play at enlightenment and complacency for long. Having received many challenges of our time and being unable to answer them, they chose the simplest path, deciding to silence opponents with police fists and barbed wire zones
The celebration of any event is always accompanied by an increased return of energy. And a lot depends on where and to whom this energy is directed. That is why all sunny Slavic holidays were distorted by religion
Reykjavik, Iceland - Iceland's parliament has voted to classify all religions as weapons of mass destruction. Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism are now in the same category as nuclear weapons, mustard gas and chemical warfare agents
They believe in past lives, control time, prepare for Armageddon and dream of becoming shahids. In Russia there are from five hundred to 2-3 thousand sects and tens of thousands of sectarians. The definition of a sect is not spelled out in the legislation in any way, and the deputies have been thinking about the corresponding bill for several years. Former sectarians and their relatives told "Snob" if there is life after the sect
Why are gluttony, narcissism and irritability dangerous? What is the reason for the constant dissatisfaction with life? And how are passions different from sins? We begin a series of articles about the advice of the holy fathers on spiritual improvement and tell you how the passions are dangerous. Spoiler: the main recipe - at the end of the text
People live peacefully among themselves and act in agreement only when they are united by the same worldview: they equally understand the goal and purpose of their activities
Mobile churches on wheels, inflatable temples and khaki-colored candles for the military are just a small result of cooperation between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian Ministry of Defense. We will tell you how the Russian Orthodox Church got its own military department and how it works
Modern people, even if they call themselves Orthodox, Catholics, or adherents of any other faith, often do not go to church. For this reason, many ancient temple buildings cease to exist, and in order to somehow preserve the magnificent buildings, they are leased or sold
The official point of view on the opposition of paganism and Christianity in the 10th century is set forth in the book by B.A. Rybakov "Paganism of Ancient Rus". An example of dating events according to the Scaliger chronology
In fact, hundreds and thousands of years before the birth of Jesus Christ, over a long period, at different times, on different continents, there were numerous saviors who were characterized by common characteristics
What relation to Russia can biblical stories have, written about completely different characters, on completely different lands? Of course, the biblical texts have nothing to do with Russia
Even if we assume that there is no God, the Bible will still remain the most important book in the history of mankind. The culture, philosophy and laws of entire civilizations relied on it. For believers, this is a holy book, for non-believers - a fascinating and large-scale epic, a collection of ancient myths with battles, dramas and miracles
This box, dated 64 AD, that is, several decades after the crucifixion, was confiscated by the Israel Antiquities Authority, and its owner was arrested in 2003 for counterfeiting. And although later, in 2012, he was acquitted, doubts about the authenticity of the above inscription still remain
Casting out demons - myth or reality? In search of an answer to this question, RIA Novosti journalists witnessed a ceremony about which the Russian Orthodox Church does not have an unambiguous opinion, and talked with church and secular experts
Your commitment to spiritual development is commendable. However, joining a state religion such as Christianity, Islam or Hinduism is one of the worst ways to do this. In this article, I will describe 10 reasons why you should give up religion if you truly strive for a conscious life
How society will assess the mental health of a person who, after the death of a close relative, keeps a part of it
Russia is a secular state in which the church is separated into an independent institution. Patriarch Gundyaev has only to pay for yachts, airplanes and other joys of life. Here are 5 egregious examples when the church is chic at the expense of the budget, while we are talking about one single functionary - the head of the Russian Orthodox Church
Now many are beginning to understand the obscurantist essence of religions, and in order to maintain their influence, the church lads began an active attack on the fragile souls of children. From elementary grades, children begin to distort their worldview
The rituals of these religions alone can both scare away and attract thousands of followers. Others - become a pretext for prosecutorial inspections. We tell what little-known religions some Russians follow and how much it costs them
The memoirs and historiographic works published today contain contradictory information regarding the number of these victims, and the numbers mentioned in them differ from each other sometimes by tens, hundreds, or even thousands of times
The coronavirus pandemic could help revive the Islamic State. How exactly, to what extent and where - says Ogonyok expert Andrei Serenko, head of the Center for the Study of Afghan Politics
I have always felt sorry for thinkers who were unlucky after death to turn into collections of quotes for social networks of clinical idiots. It must be that Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Confucius and others are rather disgusted with hiccups when their words are taken out of context so that Ivan from Orekhovo-Zuevo feels smarter than he should be. But it should be much worse for them from the fact that in these same quotes, professional breeders of idiots, like Jacques Fresco and Osho, are adjacent to real philosophers
February 17, 1950 marked the three hundred and fifty years since the burning of Giordano Bruno. This memorable date for all progressive mankind gives grounds in a short article to recall the main features of the cosmological views of the great man and martyr of materialistic science, and also to fluently talk about some modern confirmations of his brilliant scientific predictions
Social media users have stumbled upon a children's Orthodox comic strip and cannot look at it without horror. The adventures of children, Vlasyanichka and Flesh look so surreal that many suspect a catch. And the title of the magazine that published the story only added to the doubts of the skeptics
In the II century BC, a movement arose in Judaism that directed its efforts to oppose Hellenic influence. Representatives of this movement were called "Hasidim"
Source section of the Criminal Code of Tsarist Russia "Code of Criminal and Correctional Punishments" 1845. A facsimile copy of this text, as well as texts of later editions, can be downloaded from the website of the Russian State Library rsl.ru, where they are freely available in the universal repository
These are excerpts from the article "Christianity and Patriotism", which Tolstoy wrote in 1893-94, but was unable to publish due to censorship. For the first time in Russia, this article, along with other prohibited articles by Tolstoy, appeared only in 1906 in the publication of N.E. Felten, for which he was prosecuted
It is striking, of course, how easy it is to mislead a person. and a whole nation or even a continent seems to be even easier. You just need to cut off the ties of generations in time and maintain false attitudes among a part of the population. since childhood
Upon closer examination, it turns out that the project called "Old Testament" in Russia is not "old" at all. Back in 1825 under Nicholas I, the edition of the Old Testament, translated and printed by the Bible Society, was burned - at the beginning of the 19th century it was not considered a holy book in Russia
Reorganization of civilization is impossible without revision of its fundamental defect and basic lie - artificial religions. Environmental friendliness, life in harmony with nature was never included in their tasks, because in religions there is no such concept - "Nature", what our ancestors called "Mother of cheese earth"
On Sunday, July 8, the Orthodox Church celebrates the memory of the saints Peter and Fevronia, the wonderworkers of Murom - the Day of Family, Love and Fidelity. Upon closer examination, the figures of David and Euphrosyne completely lose their faithful brilliance
2017 without exaggeration can be called the year of expansion of the Russian Orthodox Church: the scale of the territories that became the property of the church amazes the imagination. The beginning of the next wave of expansion of the church's possessions was laid in January 2017, when the authorities of St. Petersburg agreed to transfer St. Isaac's Cathedral into the free use of the Russian Orthodox Church for 49 years. In the first half of 2017, in different regions of Russia, the Orthodox Church announced its claims not only to public territories, but also to private property
Only a few people know that the first Bible in Russian appeared only in 1876. Unfortunately, official historiography tends to conceal many inconvenient facts, including the fact that the Church itself opposed the translation of the Bible into Russian
Let's take a look at the Bible - this cycle was initially a great success in the format of audio podcasts, then a video was created, all episodes from 1 to 16 were converted into a video format, which can now be downloaded or simply watched from YouTube
The celebrations of the 1025th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus, which took place last weekend, continue to acquire more details. As it turned out, the head of Moscow and All Russia, Patriarch Kirill, came to Kiev on an "armored train" equipped with all kinds of amenities, including a bar and a golden altar
Today the Russian Orthodox Church celebrates the day of remembrance of Saints Equal to the Apostles Cyril and Methodius, who, according to Mr. Gundyaev, came to educate the wild Slavs. By this date, they even released a film with a loud and slightly ambiguous title "Cyril's Code"
"We drank potion in turtles, ate buns, danced on coffins, blasphemers!" When I hear these lines from the famous song of Vladimir Vysotsky "Song-tale of evil spirits", I immediately associate them with Christianity and that's why