The inevitable tragedy of life. Marina Zhurinskaya about courage before death. Alpha and Omega

Alpha and Omega by Marina Zhurinskaya. Essays, articles, interviews
Marina Andreevna Zhurinskaya

Anna Aleksandrovna Danilova

The book by M. A. Zhurinskaya (1941–2013), permanent editor of the Orthodox magazine “Alpha and Omega,” was prepared for the anniversary of the author’s death. This collection includes articles, essays, interviews from different years. Marina Andreevna, a sincere and open person, talks in them about everything in the world: about the Orthodox faith, about social and family life, about art and nature. The author's views are often original. The book will be of interest to all thinking people.

Marina Zhurinskaya

Alpha and Omega by Marina Zhurinskaya. Essays, articles, interviews

Approved for distribution by the Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church

IS R14-416-1466

Letters from Diotima

As you know, Herzen was awakened by the Decembrists. The untimely awakened one looked around inquisitively and began to wake up the commoners, of whom there were many, and no one undertook to predict how many sleeping people the frantically conscious youth would awaken. We, the Orthodox youth of the nineties, had our own alarm clocks and inspirers, the Herzens and Decembrists. In the Church we were savages, but our eyes had not yet lost their fire, and our hearts knew how to beat ardently and excitedly from unexpected meetings and mysterious news. Russia was then before the Second Coming, and prayer in church ruins inspired more than cathedral splendor.

Then Kuraev appeared, Osipov’s lectures, and from the thunderous cup of Moscow came vague rumors, either about the opening of a theological institute, or about an unusually informative journal, or the posthumous broadcasts of the elders. From the capital, dusty couriers, or, as they were called then, “scribes”, messengers of church publishing houses, hurried to us in the provinces, and we greedily pounced on scraps of the capital’s splendor, on scattered issues of magazines, on individual volumes of books. I felt Moscow with my hands - they were simply torn off by countless bags filled with books, and so on after every trip. Both I and my new church comrades, most of them, from those who now teach, write books, head bishops' departments and monasteries, have followed the same path, the starting point of which was subdeaconry - the obedience to serve the bishop during divine services.

Among us were schoolchildren, students, and sometimes young scientists. Just young people who have joined the Church. Nothing serious or gratifying. I met only one person who looked at these youth with inspiring hope, a look that encouraged life and creativity. Marina Andreevna Zhurinskaya. A man who knew how to wake up properly. You ask, and quite rightly: how did she “wake up”, many did not even know her name then? They didn’t know the name, that’s true. But her legendary magazine “Alpha and Omega” was read by all my friends, sometimes they were read cruelly and mercilessly, they read it, copied it, and forgot to return it. Marina Andreevna once admitted that she was publishing this magazine for subdeacons, who would later become bishops, priests and theologians, and what they read in her magazine would grow, whether they wanted it or not. She looked so far, seeing in us, in the boys, the future face and voice of the Church. Then I did not pay attention to these words (how many words I did not pay attention to then!), and only now I understand how few people are capable of looking and seeing like that.

One day I asked Marina Andreevna:

- May I call you Diotima? You won't be offended?

“Oh, father, you’re not the first to call me that.”

Socrates had Diotima. Plato’s “Symposium” tells about this amazing woman. Socrates was lucky - he met a man who taught him not just to look, but to see. It happens that the one gifted to be Socrates never meets his Diotima. But sometimes, on the contrary, Diotima has no luck with Socrates. Marina Andreevna had some Socrates, but I am not afraid that I am not one of them. But I saw the real Diotima. She taught to see and had the amazing gift of sobering thought.

It was a miracle that we met at all. What were the chances of this meeting? Marina Andreevna is a brilliant scientist, author of scientific works, editor of a serious journal, and, in addition, lives in Moscow and is significantly older than me. And in the Belarusian city of Gomel, an indecently young monk in a newly opened monastery accidentally obtained several issues of Alpha and Omega, left by regular visiting “scribes” at the bottom of empty boxes. I opened the magazine and was in awe! Averintsev, Florovsky, Meyendor, Lossky - and nothing superfluous or empty. It was an event!

I had never encountered such literature before, and I decided to find out more about this amazing publication. Found a phone number. I got through. And they started talking to me! At the other end of the line in distant Moscow, the wisest woman in the world spoke to me cheerfully and kindly, for a long time and thoughtfully. This was in 1995. And we began to talk regularly, and I learned that we are not such strangers: the legendary magazine is the same age as our monastery, and Marina Andreevna’s mother comes from Gomel. It was very exciting for me to meet in person. Our rector, Archimandrite Anthony (Kuznetsov), kept letters from Bishop Bartholomew (Remov), and we offered to publish them in our native journal. I had the honor of taking them to Moscow. As usual, I got the wrong apartment, but eventually got to the address. Two elderly, but very attentive and kind women, some kind of old computer, cabinets with books. I would like to describe this first meeting in detail, but I was too young then and was terribly worried. It was Marina Andreevna’s old apartment, and I was there again, and the wonderful, now legendary cat Mishka allowed himself to be stroked.

And then somehow unexpectedly we began a correspondence that lasted almost ten years. What did we correspond about there, whisper in the letter? Now this is important only to me. She had some kind of innate sanity and the gift of sobriety, which she shared generously, with one phrase, look, gesture, bringing clarity to a seemingly hopelessly confused issue. Through letters, Marina Andreevna knew well our life and the good (and even bad) half of the brethren, having never seen any of them. And she also had the gift of persuasion. For quite a long time she tried to persuade me to write something for the magazine, and I succumbed to the persuasion. Since then I haven't been able to stop.

Just don’t think that we sent each other philosophical treatises. Everything was simple, humane, cordial. Marina Andreevna had a unique sense of humor, and she knew how to turn even her health problems into an elegant joke. Here she writes:

“I’m not much of a prayer book, but shouldn’t I know what legs are! When reading fiction (it’s a sin!) I pay attention to the fact that the characters walk, go somewhere on foot, stroll - and what bliss this is. One consolation: even if I wanted to, I cannot go to the advice of the wicked.” People who knew Marina Andreevna closely and her health problems know the value of that smile, how hard it was for her to have this wonderful humor, this charming mischief.

For many years, Marina Andreevna wanted to write a text about the Christian reading of Levkonoe. This is the famous poem by Horace, which few people have read in its entirety, but many remember the famous carpe diem - “seize the moment”, “seize the moment”. She had the gift of enjoying life, its simple gifts, its childhood secrets and consolations. She loved people, cats, flowers, music, just living - she really liked it, and you really hope that at Easter you will again receive a “bouquet of delights” from her:

“And how my cacti grow! And how many there are and how unexpected there are! And what unprecedented violets are blooming! And how magnificently my cat collection on the piano grows! Your little dragon has been joined by the same glass crocodile, and how happy they are! And what an Easter I made!” And at the end there will certainly be some holy and stupid signature:

“I remain, kindest and most soulful father...

Loving Your Reverence from the bottom of my heart...

Now giving free rein to her unquenchable desire for unceasing joy and daring to consider herself close to you in mentality and spiritual structure, the servant of God Anna.”

One day she wrote: “The holiday has arrived. Congratulations, congratulations, congratulations, and rejoice endlessly, because God and His Most Pure Mother are with us. And this cannot be taken away from us.” My dear Diotima is now in the arms of God. She loved to live, and now she is more alive than we are, and no one can take that away from her. Why is it so sad? From separation, of course. But this will all pass. As Marina Andreevna used to say, “we’ll already talk there.”

Archimandrite Savva (Majuko)

Instead of a preface

Without Moscow swearing

Testify

Marina Zhurinskaya: Mass media should have one property: it should be environment-forming. Like-minded people should gather around him.

Of course, the media can achieve temporary success if it looks for an audience to please, but this is doomed in the long run, especially when we are talking about Christian journalism. Christian journalism is not propaganda, it is testimony.

Nobody promised us success; they told us: you will have sorrow in the world. And then it says, but take heart, I have overcome the world. It is not said: I will give you victory over the world, no. I have conquered the world. We live in a saved world.

In the days before political correctness, in 19th-century America, when people advertised for jobs, they would insultingly say, “Don't worry about the Irish.” If we ignore political correctness, the conventional Irish are asked not to worry - there is no need to save the world, it has been saved. And we must testify that he is saved.

We must live by this ourselves, we must experience joy in the Lord and testify to the joy. This, of course, is very difficult, but the ideal Orthodox media will be guided by the thesis of the Apostle Paul: Pray without ceasing, rejoice always, give thanks in everything. Do you often see this in the Orthodox media? And “glory to God for everything” by St. John Chrysostom – often?

Anna Danilova: Testimony is an unusual concept for journalism. Religious journalism is talked about in a variety of words - preaching, PR, analytics...

M. Zh.: A normal Orthodox publishing house is run, forgive me, by laymen (with all due respect to holders of holy orders, they must be present in this matter, but laymen work). Therefore, this is a special case of the apostolate of the laity.

What is an apostle to the laity?

Surely there will be someone who will exclaim indignantly: “Well, is this a Christian point of view! We know well that death is followed by resurrection, so there’s nothing terrible, and besides, tragedy is generally from the theater and is therefore unworthy of Christians.”
However, the experience of humanity, including humanity enlightened by the light of the Gospel, including us and our neighbors living today, shows that death is very serious and scary. And the agony of death is serious; it is a pain that cannot be endured while still alive. And it is difficult for the soul to part with the body. And it’s scary to fall into the hands of the living God(Eur 10 :31), what else needs to be said. Perhaps, it is more difficult for a Christian, devoid of firm faith and hope (alas, this often happens), to die than an atheist who adheres to his views. Is it true that we know about the last minutes and even seconds of human life?

Those who happened to be present at the exodus of the soul from the body know that a certain secret hides the very moment of transition - so much so that one should not even speculate about it.
It’s not for nothing that we pray about a Christian death, painless, shameless, peaceful, and it is not without reason that we note that the righteous are awarded this. If you thought about the hour of death (after all, there are prayer words about the gift of memory to mortals) - you would pray more diligently.

And as for the fact that tragedy comes from the theater, it’s not out of nowhere. People watch tragedies, empathize, cry - for the sake of consolation, for the sake of softening the feeling of the tragedy of life. At one time, Aristotle created the concept catharsis, the purification that people experience after watching a correctly written tragedy. And the right one is the one that causes catharsis; in this sense, modern action films with seas of blood and mountains of corpses are nothing more than a profanation of the theme of death, capable only of dulling, muffling, and distorting the human experience of it. Yes, we are given the gift of consolation in prayer, but it is also undeniable that we need consolation. And even if we take into account that for the deceased death means a new, better life, for loved ones it is nevertheless a loss. And for the cause that the deceased served, his death could be disastrous.

The theme of the tragedy of existence sounds with particular force in the Gospel of Luke. Let's look at the relevant passage (chapters 12–13). After a series of parables, ending with the parable that to whom much is entrusted, from him more will be exacted(OK 12 :48), - taken together they can be defined as parables about responsibility - the Lord exclaims with power (vv. 49–50): I came to bring down fire to the earth, and how I wish it would already be kindled! I must be baptized with baptism; and how I languish until this is accomplished! The fire here is very clear
the forgiving grace of the New Testament - but the fire is terrifying, and this is echoed elsewhere in the New Testament Scripture: It's scary to fall into the hands of the living God!(Eur 10 :31). The very verb to fall carries with it the idea of danger: they fall into sin, into temptation, into destruction - and into the hands of the Lord.

But Christ, saying that he wants the fire to kindle, that He languishes until His baptism is accomplished (and it will be accomplished on the Cross), shows the fullness of courage. However, the terrible power of mortal torment is such that the Lord Himself, a perfect God - but also a perfect man - prays that this cup, if possible, be turned away from Him; and prays in mortal horror, until he sweats blood, starting this prayer three times (about this threefold prayer it is said three times - see Matt. 26 :38-44; Mk 14 :33-41; OK 22 :41-44). So I’m afraid that an “optimistic” attitude towards death is an attempt to belittle the feat undertaken by the One who took upon Himself the sins of the world - ours for the sake of salvation.

And at the beginning of the 13th chapter the Savior is told about the Galileans, whose blood Pilate mixed with their sacrifices. In response, He recalls those people who died when the tower of Siloam collapsed (there were 18 of them), and claims that they were not at all more sinful than others in Jerusalem, but such a sudden death (it is usually called a tragic death) can befall anyone who did not repent.
Let's consider: does Christ promise those who repented a guarantee of earthly immortality? It seems that He rather warns against death without repentance, since it can have the most tragic impact on the posthumous fate, from what in the lofty poetry of Orthodox prayer is called fall asleep into death.

In Christian culture, it is customary to distinguish whether a person repented before death (this was called Christian death) or did not have time; You should pray for such people especially. In The Divine Comedy, constructed extremely skillfully, so that the circles of hell have some parallels in the circles of purgatory and even heaven, two mercenary condottieres are contrasted. Both led a rather unrighteous, to put it mildly, way of life and both found death in battle, but one of them was in hell, and the other, who exclaimed at the moment of death
“Lord, have mercy” - in purgatory. What about condottieri, when an example of the beneficialness of dying repentance is shown to us by a prudent robber (see Lk 23 :40-43). And since his repentance was complete, he went to heaven. And in Russian usage, one of the most terrible oaths was: “May I die without repentance!” What now? And now sudden death (Church Slavic, impudent) is extremely valued - precisely because it makes it possible to avoid thoughts of repentance.

Yes, even if it’s not sudden... I know a terrible case when an old doctor was dying of an incurable disease, and he knew perfectly well that he was dying, and asked to call the priest. His daughter, an elderly woman and also a doctor, refused to call the priest, citing the fact that the patient would lose the incentive to fight for life and would rather die. What people come up with to avoid facing the truth! But the truth is not only that the Lord created the world and rules it, but also that every person on the path to Him must look death in the face. And do it courageously. And courage is given by God, with whom one must meet in the last
Sacrament on earth - with the hope of meeting Him in Heaven. He does not cancel the terrible transition (I dare to suggest that because he desires the final growth of the soul) - He strengthens a person in faith and hope.

Just as He Himself was strengthened by an Angel in the Garden of Gethsemane (see Luke 22 :43).

Marina Andreevna Zhurinskaya (1941-2013)(last name after her first husband - Alfred Zhurinsky, maiden name unknown) graduated from the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University, defended her diploma in Hittite studies, worked at the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, where her field of study became linguistic typology. In the mid-1970s, she was appointed coordinator of the project “Languages of the World” at the Institute of Foreign Languages of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and led the project until 1986. Candidate of Philological Sciences, has more than 100 publications on linguistic topics. Translator from German (linguistic works, theological texts, as well as Gadamer and Schweitzer). Since 1994, publisher and editor of the Alpha and Omega magazine. Member of the editorial board of the collection “Theological Works”.

In 1975, under the influence of S.S. Averintseva’s lectures, she was baptized by Father Alexander Men under the name Anna. After 1986, she left editing linguistic works and completely switched to Orthodox journalism. In 1994, under the influence of Averintsev’s circle, she founded the Orthodox educational magazine “Alpha and Omega,” of which she was editor-in-chief until her death. She died in Moscow on October 4, 2013 after a serious illness.

Marina Andreevna was an editor from God

I knew Marina Andreevna for more than twenty years, and I am grateful to God for that. She was an amazing person, a true Christian intellectual.

In the 1970-1980s, many people from her circle came to the Church. Not everyone remained in it. Many of them saw in the Church some kind of alternative to the existing system and, therefore, when the system collapsed, they did not really need the Church. They did not always leave quietly and calmly; on the contrary, many of them left quite demonstratively. Marina Andreevna, unlike others, stayed until the end. The spiritual child of Father Alexander Men and Father Gleb Kaleda, who was friends with the Lavra monks, she was a person rooted in the Orthodox tradition, which did not interfere with the breadth of her views on church life. Having once come to the Church, she saw the Body of Christ in it. Not a political force, not just an environment in which it is convenient to talk about fashionable topics, but namely Christ, to whom she was faithful until her death. And she brought so many people to God, becoming for them, so to speak, a door to the Church.

Marina Andreevna was an unusually deep person. Anyone who read her reflections on the text of Holy Scripture could be convinced of this. Her life's work was the Alpha and Omega magazine. It’s amazing how the editorial board, consisting of several weak women, but led and inspired by Marina Andreevna, could publish such a serious theological magazine for twenty years - the only one of its kind, which at some point took first place among our church periodicals. This is her great service to the Russian Church. Taking a modest part in this work, I witnessed how difficult and difficult each new issue of the magazine was, and what a joy it was when it came out and turned out no worse, and more often than not, better than the previous one.

And I must say that Marina Andreevna was an editor from God. She knew how, for example, to discern the future author of Alpha and Omega in a person whom she accidentally met while in the hospital. Even in everyday life, she knew how to find topics for serious discussion and research.

The Lord destined her to live a very interesting life, but at the end of her life he sent her a difficult test of illness. She bore it in full consciousness and with submission to the will of God.

May the Lord rest in peace the soul of the newly deceased servant of God Anna in the villages of the righteous! Let us remember her and pray for the repose of her immortal soul.

Marina Andreevna is the whole world

Director of the educational Orthodox forum “Orthodoxy and Peace” Viktor Sudarikov:

Translator, publisher, editor, Christian thinker, houseplant specialist, jewelry artist, collector and much, much more...
But the main thing is, of course, faith - which is “in the ribs”, which determines all thoughts and deeds, which makes a person free and capable of growing spiritually higher and higher.
She was a spiritual child and student of outstanding pastors of the 20th century - Rev. Alexandra Men (whom she described as a very strict and serious confessor, without accepting the attitude of some of his exalted admirers) and Archpriest. Gleb Kaleda.

We were introduced to Marina Andreevna at the Church of John the Baptist on Presnya by Fr. Andrey Kuraev. Then I sometimes visited her amazing apartment, filled with books, strange plants (some of them were in special closed flasks) and paintings by Elena Cherkasova; I even prepared some publications for Alpha and Omega. Marina Andreevna loved and valued her friends, asked questions about my children with interest...

Her legacy is enormous. An interesting theological magazine “Alpha and Omega”, published since the early 1990s, a collection of paintings, many of my own articles and translations. A talented person is talented in everything. Few people knew that Marina Andreevna had VDNKh diplomas for growing exotic plants. In her old age, she perfectly mastered the manufacture of various jewelry - her “tchotchkes and trinkets.”

Yes, Marina Andreevna also loved her cat Mishka and even wrote about him...

I remember how once Marina Andreevna quoted to me the ancient ascetic wisdom that the Lord calls a person to Himself at the moment when he is best ready for this. And she concluded: “If the Lord prolongs my life, then he gives me more time to repent.”

Now the ear is ripe.

The Kingdom of Heaven to the servant of God Anna...

I don’t remember that her actions or words were outside the Christian understanding of life

Priest Mikhail Isaev, cleric of the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Krylatskoye:

- I met Marina Andreevna in the late nineties, when I was not yet a priest or even a deacon, but was studying at a theological institute. I came to the editorial office of Alpha and Omega, where Marina Andreevna met me and accepted me into the magazine’s staff. Since then, we communicated closely and a lot, and when I was ordained, after some time the spiritual connections intensified, I became Marina Andreevna’s confessor. I was one of the last to give her Holy Communion in the hospital.

We talked with Marina Andreevna on a variety of topics, and always, even if it was about some everyday things, I was amazed at her wisdom. I don’t remember that any of her actions or words were outside the Christian understanding of life. She gave me so much wonderful advice and taught me so much! Communication with her was spiritually strengthening. Many noted that after a conversation with Marina Andreevna you feel inspired. Eternal memory to her!

Everything she did, she did with passion

Alexander Dvorkin, professor at PSTGU:

Several years ago, when we gathered in memory of Father Gleb Kaled, Marina Andreevna said a little ironically that when you share memories of a deceased person, you always say “me and him.” I think that now, when we remember dear Marina Andreevna, there is no need to be ashamed of this: this is natural, because we are all members of one Church, we communicate with each other and we always perceive others precisely through the prism of their communication with us.

Therefore, I want to remember how we met Marina Andreevna. This was 21 years ago. I tried to remember the very moment of the meeting, but could not. After returning from America, when I began working in the Department of Religious Education with Father Gleb Kaleda, Marina Andreevna often appeared there. Then she became part of the small community that developed around Father Gleb in the Vysoko-Petrovsky Monastery. She and Yakov Georgievich lived on a street with the unpronounceable name Krasnoproletarskaya, which was located within walking distance from the monastery, in a building with a very clever system of apartments - an elevator in the middle, and apartments on both sides of it. The entrance was ruined: even the steps on the stairs were going at random, it was unclear whether it would be possible to walk along them next time or whether everything would fail. However, for the early 90s, nothing surprising.

And so, after this devastation, I entered the apartment and found myself in a completely different world. The external decay was forgotten: there were books, incredible exotic indoor flowers in pots and, of course, the cat Misha, who slept in regal poses on all the chairs. I remember I immediately took Misha on my lap, and Marina Andreevna said: “Be careful, he only allows priests to scratch his belly.” But he allowed me.

Communication with Marina Andreevna was very intense, because she made me work, made me think and do. The very first projects appeared. Once Marina Andreevna called me and said: “There will be a new theological journal, it is necessary, and the idea arose for you to be its editor-in-chief.” I just sat down. Even then I had so many obediences: Butyrka, and began to study sects, and taught. But I realized that I wouldn’t be able to simply refuse Marina Andreevna, and I went to Father Gleb and talked to him. Father Gleb said: “Don’t worry, I know how to solve this issue.”

He really resolved this issue - he said that Marina Andreevna should be the editor-in-chief. Father Gleb realized that this is the very place where Marina Andreevna should be, that this is a job that will stretch her and which will allow her to open up. Indeed, thanks to this, Marina Andreevna opened up and shone even brighter than when I knew her in that narrow circle. Her personality, charm, and multifaceted talents opened up to a huge number of people; the magazine became a microcosm, transforming into a macrocosm. Authors and editors, layout designers, friends of the magazine and its readers - everyone was somehow connected with each other, the result was a very wide coverage. And it is wonderful that this self-realization of Marina Andreevna was in the Church and for the Church, for Christ and, accordingly, for each of us.

Once, after one very interesting conversation, I asked her why she did not express her thoughts in the article. Then she told me that she had long ago given up writing anything of her own - she was only an editor. I don’t know whether she imposed this restriction on herself or fulfilled someone else’s blessing, but time passed, this fast ended, and Marina Andreevna began to write and thereby also enriched a very wide circle of people - incomparably wider than those who had the good fortune to be her direct interlocutors.

The journal "Alpha and Omega" is still waiting for its researcher. It was great happiness that we knew Marina Andreevna, that she urged us, consoled us, that she edited us. Although she was the kind of editor with whom you often had to argue. I remember how seriously we argued with her when she was editing my “Essays on the History of the Universal Church.” But these debates gave me a lot. She was a serious and caring editor. Everything she did, she did with passion. And her concern stemmed from the most important thing: she was a loving person with a huge heart. Eternal memory to Marina Andreevna.

Marina Andreevna continues her work, her ministry

Hieromonk Dimitri (Pershin):

I would like to note two points, dedicating my story to the blessed memory of Marina Andreevna Zhurinskaya.

First of all, this is extreme honesty towards oneself, by the way, towards one’s business, honesty that is completely incredible for our world, vegetating in everyday half-truths. By this standard she judged herself and grieved for this world.

And second. In recent years, it happened that I confessed and gave communion to Marina Andreevna, but what I will say is not a secret confession. Almost all the time she had to overcome a very difficult internal situation, which is sometimes called depression.

This was the state that Father Sophrony (Sakharov) wrote about - a feeling of inner emptiness that drains all the strength from a person. This condition can last for years or decades. From this vacuum she emerged into Divine grace - in prayer, in the sacraments of Christ's Church, in communication with loved ones. And this was also a cross, invisible to many. In her texts we do not find all the tragedy of these experiences, because the texts are words addressed to people, and she took care of people.

And we came to Marina Andreevna and shared with her our problems, bewilderments, grief - and received answers, found support in her wisdom and sympathy, not understanding what the price of this active love was. According to the precise remark of Marina Andreevna’s husband, Yakov Georgievich Testelets, the gifts of God are usually combined with suffering imposed on us. And the higher the calling, the heavier the cross.

It seems to me that it is important to understand that it is not just a certain person who has passed on to another world. An era is passing. People in whom the connection of times is revealed to us are leaving. They were given the power to keep it from falling apart, straightening the dislocations of this world. Among them are Father Alexander Men, Sergei Sergeevich Averintsev and others - those who remained faithful to the traditions of high European culture. Dear God, they extended their love and care to everyone who needed them.

I remember when I was a student, Marina Andreevna sent me with a package of various chicken bones and cartilage to Sergei Sergeevich Averintsev - Sergei Sergeevich had many cats, and Marina Andreevna’s cat Mishka did not eat everything, something remained. So in the hungry nineties they helped each other. After all, we also had to think about this, live it and worry about it. I would like us to at least a little follow Marina Andreevna in this attention to seemingly little things, on which a lot depends on the destinies of people, and those animals, flowers and other creations that God has entrusted to us.

Praying for the repose of her soul, we understand that now the Lord is revealing Himself to her, revealing the secrets of His Kingdom.

Shortly before leaving, Marina Andreevna said that a moment comes when there are already more people there who love you and love you than here, and they call you there. Eternity turns to us, acquiring faces and already familiar features.

But when we go there, we stay here. We are invisibly present in the inner world of everyone we love, and it does not matter at all where our soul is currently located. Now she is there, probably praying for us, too, because the love in her heart has become not less, but more, because it has multiplied by Divine love and is dissolved by this love.

And now Marina Andreevna continues her work, her ministry. Her testimony continues in her books, articles, audio and video recordings, and films with her participation. It would probably be right if we, for our part, did what we should have done, but we didn’t, so that when we cross this line, we wouldn’t be ashamed of it.

Lived more than one life

Andrey Kibrik, Doctor of Philology, Head of the Department of Typology and Areal Linguistics at the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences:

Apparently, most people know Marina Andreevna as a figure in Orthodox journalism, the creator and editor-in-chief of the Alpha and Omega magazine. But she sowed many seeds in her life, lived, one might say, more than one life, and at the beginning of her career worked as a linguist at the Institute of Linguistics. It so happened that she became the coordinator of the “Languages of the World” project. At that time, the word “project” was not yet widely used, but in fact it was a voluminous project to describe many, and in the future, all languages that exist on earth.

This unexpected, ambitious project was conceived by linguists in the mid-seventies. A special format was created to describe different languages, which are very different in their structure, so that they can be represented in a similar way. And large-scale work began on the preparation of this publication. For the first 12 years, Marina Andreevna acted as a coordinator under the general leadership of Victoria Nikolaevna Yartseva.

During these, as it now seems, short years, Marina Andreevna and the team, which included Yasha Testelets, managed to accumulate a huge amount of material. As you know, then Marina Andreevna decided to take up a completely different activity and left the Institute of Linguistics, and I eventually became her successor.

All these years we have continued to work on the publication of “Languages of the World”; 17 volumes have already been published, all of them describe different languages. Three more volumes will be released in the coming months. The total volume of the publication is about eight thousand pages. We never forget that Marina Andreevna Zhurinskaya was at the origins of the project, and we note this in the preface to each volume. Only in the last few years have we been preparing books based on completely new articles, and until about 2005 we mainly published articles, albeit updated, revised, but also collected directly by Marina Andreevna. This is what she has prepared for us!

Our small team always remembers the role Marina Andreevna played. I think that she largely developed her editorial skills in the process of working on these linguistic articles in the already distant Soviet years. Marina Andreevna, as has been said more than once, did many good deeds. At one time, she helped publish a collection dedicated to the anniversary of my father, Alexander Evgenievich Kibrik.

My parents were also well acquainted with Marina Andreevna. This morning I came from the dacha, from their dacha, where there is a large apple orchard. Marina Andreevna was not only a florist, but also a gardener. I remember conversations about apple trees, different varieties of apples, how to grow them, how to collect them. And I just brought a box of our apples. Although there is more than enough food here, I will put it here and ask those who wish to take apples with them and also remember Marina Andreevna as a gardener.

Bringing a light of joy to those around

Vasily Glebovich Kaleda, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor of the Department of Practical Theology of PSTGU:

The Kaled family has special gratitude to Marina Andreevna for her enormous, selfless work on the literary heritage of Father Gleb. In the early 90s, she was his spiritual daughter and made a huge contribution to perpetuating his memory. It is to her that we largely owe the publication of his literary heritage; without her, some of his works would have remained only part of the family archive.

Back in 1991, Marina Andreevna, having read her father’s Christmas sermon “The Magi,” organized its publication in the form of a small brochure on newsprint - then this was an event for all of us. Later, in 1994, shortly before the death of Fr. She invited Gleb to write an article about the Shroud of Turin specifically for the second issue of the Alpha and Omega magazine. The pope has already written articles about the Shroud of Turin for both the ZhMP and a number of other magazines. To make his work easier, Marina Andreevna offered to make a digest of his articles, to which he agreed.

Recalling their joint work on this article, Marina Andreevna, with her characteristic irony and humor, and excellent command of the literary word, described the different types of authors with whom she met as an editor: “...There are two types of bad authors. Some give careless pieces of paper and complacently say: “well, correct it, well, add it, - in general, do what you want, it doesn’t matter”; at the same time, the quality of the finished publication is attributed entirely to their own account and completely ignores the fact that the printed text has little in common with the original monument of thought. Others usually pronounce the same pathetic text with slight variations: “Keep in mind, I suffered through all this and will fight for every comma.”

Publishers with the rudiments of sanity usually do not publish such things, while others try to take on the challenge and come close to a heart attack; finally, still others, retreating under the pressure of the author, publish everything as is, in order to listen to the reproaches of not only colleagues and readers about the sad result, but also the hero of the occasion: “well, was it really difficult to fix it?” Father Gleb belonged to the fourth type of authors, and he is the only correct one. The manuscript returned to us again and again with paragraphs crossed out and pages re-written in the marvelous professorial handwriting... Before my eyes, something happened that every professional linguist admires as a miracle: the transformation of thoughts into words, and words into text.” And when the second issue of the magazine was already ready, and dad had only a few days left to live, Marina Andreevna persuaded the director of the printing house to make separate reprints of the article, which he managed to sign to his family and friends, for which we are still grateful to her.

Soon after the death of Father Gleb, in one of the Moscow churches, I saw behind a candle box a brochure about the Shroud of Turin and the idea arose to prepare a separate edition of my father’s work on this shrine. I called Marina Andreevna, as the editor of the magazine in which my father’s article was published, expressed my idea, which she supported, and came to her home for negotiations. From that time on, our collaboration began with her in publishing the works of Father Gleb. Father Gleb’s article entitled “The Shroud of Our Lord Jesus Christ” was published as a separate brochure, and was subsequently reprinted many times and published in other periodicals. In the next issue (No. 3) of the magazine, along with an obituary, Marina Andreevna published her father’s sermon about Russian saints.

After this, the question naturally arose about publishing other of my father’s works, and first of all, “The Domestic Church,” which is a series of essays, many of which were not completely completed and had only a handwritten version with many corrections. Realizing that it was impossible to prepare a whole book for publication at once, taking into account the general busyness, several essays were edited and printed, which then formed a separate book (first edition 1997). In this she was helped by Natalia Alekseevna Erofeeva, who for many years was the permanent and indispensable processor of Father Gleb’s manuscripts.

Simultaneously with work on “Home Church,” Marina Andreevna began working on notes from a prison priest (“Stop in your ways”), which were published in 1995. Not wanting to stop there, she offered to collect from her father’s spiritual children all the audio recordings (some of them were of extremely low quality) of his sermons, together with Natalya Alekseevna Erofeeva, she transferred them to paper and prepared a collection of sermons “The Fullness of Life in Christ” (1996).

Marina Andreevna was very sensitive to the author's text and discussed every editorial change with me. I would like to note that when publishing books, she not only did purely editorial work, but also thought through its entire layout, including the book format, font size, design, and cover colors.

Later, she published in her journal her mother’s (L.V. Kaleda – nun George) memories of her father, Hieromartyr Vladimir (No. 24) and her mother’s memories of Fr. Glebe (No. 31-32), which later, somewhat expanded, were included in the large collection “Priest Gleb Kaleda - Scientist and Shepherd” (2007, 2012).

With the help of Marina Andreevna, the series “Spiritual Experience of Russian Women’s Asceticism” was created in the publishing house at the Conception Monastery. The series was designed by her, and she edited several books in the series. She also participated in organizing the publication of the monastic series of akathists.

In 2008, she offered to write me an article on the problem of the relationship between mental and spiritual illnesses, which I deal with as a psychiatrist; this was my first publication in a theological journal, for which I am very grateful to her.

Later, when we were preparing collections dedicated to Father Gleb (2007, 2012) and nun Georgia (2012) at the publishing house of the Conception Monastery, as well as the latest edition (2013) of the “Home Church” (together with my mother’s memories), we always consulted with her as conceptual issues, as well as on the design of the book and cover, while her opinion was decisive for us. I would like to note that the idea to publish “Home Church” together with my mother’s memories of Father Gleb (in this publication they were called “Our Home Church”) belonged to Marina Andreevna.

Marina Andreevna published the magazine “Alpha and Omega” for almost twenty years. Over the years, a considerable number of Orthodox magazines have appeared, many of which, having existed for several years at best, have sunk into oblivion. The magazine “Alpha and Omega” was published regularly, and it is hard to believe that this was the merit of one elderly amazing woman - Marina Andreevna Zhurinskaya, in the holy baptism of Anna.

Her house, with a large number of exotic plants and a huge cat Mishka walking importantly, gave the impression of some kind of oasis of calm and tranquility.
Father Gleb, one of her confessors, loved to repeat that “Christianity is the joyful fullness of life.” Marina Andreevna possessed this amazing joyful fullness of life, and she carried the light of this joy to those around her.

The last time I talked to her was this summer, when she was already confined to a hospital bed. She talked a little about her illnesses, talked more about her magazine, that the next double issue of Alpha and Omega magazine would be the last, and how she saw it.

Marina Andreevna passed away, but the books she created, magazines, the release of each of which was an event, collections remained with us; the flowers she gave me are still green on the windows of our apartment, and behind the glass door of the bookcase, life continues on the pages of an amazingly kind book charming cat Mishka.
Eternal memory to her.

She liked to have happy people around

Tatyana Petrovna Tselekhovich, candidate of philological sciences, one of the authors of the magazine “Alpha and Omega”:

It seems that St. John Chrysostom, in one of his funeral orations, noted that after the loss of a loved one, those living begin to grieve that they did not love him, did not say something, did not do something. After Marina Andreevna left, I don’t have this feeling of incompleteness: every visit to her monastery was an event for me, and every time - complete and with a beautiful afterword. Even pauses in the conversation did not cause awkwardness, because they were appropriate and, as they say, meaningful.

She knew how to listen. She was attentive and did not rush to conclusions - she clarified, asked again, asked to clarify those points in the interlocutor’s monologue that seemed vague to her. We drank tea, ate grapes and smiled at each other. I don’t remember who else could make me laugh as much as she did; sometimes I laughed until I cried: “This can’t be!” And she calmly repeated: “Exactly so, dear Tanya.” I loved being around her. I managed to say that I love her.

When a person leaves, the one who remains needs physical evidence of his presence; he needs to touch something, smell it, try it on - remember. Marina Andreevna gave me books and magazines, cosmetics and jewelry. We corresponded. And each of her letters is also an event, a complete story/advice from a friend/teaching from her mother. But somehow the set she made was especially dear to me: a bracelet and beads, bright, I immediately thought it was even too bright.

She liked to have happy people around, so that they were happy and did not hesitate to decorate themselves. I was shy, and then - on every new visit to Moscow “to Marina Andreevna” I tried to dress myself up in something singing and sunny, and if femininity increased in me during this time, that was her merit. I remember that once we even went shopping together, choosing jewelry - it was a triumph of taste and a master class for aspiring ladies!

She had many friends, famous, ordinary - for her - wonderful. She loved our Belarus, was a friend of the St. Nicholas Monastery in the city of Gomel and knew the inhabitants there; she had a particularly cordial friendship with Archimandrite Savva (Mazhuko), who later introduced us. I am grateful that in this way I became involved in the process of publishing the Alpha and Omega magazine and was also among its authors.

Marina Andreevna was a straightforward person, without hypocrisy and double standards. Sometimes her directness and uncompromisingness could seem impudent and even offensive, but even behind this “yes, yes, no, no,” there was sensitivity, love and the ability to understand and forgive. Whatever she talked about - about religion, about politics, about culture, about Russia - all her conversations were Christ-centric. Her life was Christ-centered. For her, the Savior was not a theoretical ideal, an absolute, but a living one, very dear to her, really existing with her - a Man, a Person Whom she loved. And this love of hers was contagious.

She often quoted the Gospel and referred to it. “Read the Gospel, child, everything is written there” - this has already become my life credo. I remembered the Apostle Paul: pray unceasingly, give thanks in everything, live in joy. And also that Christianity does not know zombified stereotyped believers, but only individuals - and each has their own story.
We talked a lot about love stories, about gender relations in the modern world, so many jokes were made about this - not offensive to anyone, just funny, like the naked truth. Marina Andreevna loved her husband very much. When I looked at the photos from her funeral, I experienced an acute sense of loss, noticing Yakov Georgievich in them, his confused face, sunken cheeks and tiredly lowered hands.

It was as if it were a reflection of Gogol’s Afanasy Ivanovich from “Old World Landowners.” Some believe that this is the best work about love in Russian literature. They believe correctly, but in reality it is even better. Such attention, care, respect, and sensitivity of Marina Andreevna and Yakov Georgievich to each other evoked tenderness and a feeling of gratitude for the opportunity to observe the example of a Family, faithful and loving people. And here it becomes obvious what it means: “the meaning of an Orthodox marriage is in the love of two,” and not in procreation.

They say that there is no continuation, that you can’t take anything with you to your grave, and here you can argue. There are people who take the whole world with them. Marina Andreevna Zhurinskaya is an era in the history of Russian Orthodoxy, and these are not loud words: just one “magazine about Christ”, to which she devoted so much effort and knowledge, gave her health - a powerful argument of her contribution to theology.

When a loved one passes away, the living also mourn themselves, because they feel sorry for who they were next to this person. I feel sorry for myself. I will never again notice a quiet magical light through the thickets of cacti in the windows of the first floor, I will not hear slow steps outside the door and feel the warmth of my cheeks, they will not grumble at me and will no longer give me a handkerchief so that I can wipe away the tears that unexpectedly burst out of the spiritual taps. , I will not listen to Tsoi with her and look at paintings and books... As if she took a part of me with her, - these days I part with that Tanya - with sadness and gratitude.

Once, in response to my complaints about the disorder of good Orthodox people in the world, Marina Andreevna remarked: “This happens on earth, but remember: the eye has not seen and the ear has not heard what the Lord has prepared for those who love Him?..”.

I just now remembered. And she already knows. And together we will live, waiting for a new meeting.

She was truly a lover of Christ

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

Lover of Christ... She was truly a lover of Christ. This is the most important thing that people began to understand when they met her, when they began to communicate with her, to recognize her. When they read her wonderful articles, when they listened to her discussions about the Church. Lover of Christ...

There are always very few such people. But it is precisely such people who primarily influence the world. We are well aware of this from the words of St. Seraphim of Sarov, but we do not think about it seriously. Well, how can a person save thousands? And so, imperceptibly, it turns out that when there is a lover of Christ or a lover of Christ, the world changes, the space of life changes. And you suddenly understand this especially when this person is separated from us.

Marina Andreevna can be called a teacher of the Church. Well, or a teacher. Because she really has taught our newborn Church of recent decades a lot. She taught and taught Christians a lot. For example, she always, constantly taught everyone human dignity. This was a very important science, which she herself mastered and tried to instill in others. Teach Christians human dignity.

She taught and taught many about real freedom. Such, not unbridled, irresponsible freedom, but deep, responsible freedom of a Christian within the Church - that is, a very great responsibility.

She taught many people to look at the world through the eyes of a child. Despite the fact that she is a person with gray hair, she never stopped admiring and wondering about this world. In any plant that she saw and loved as a living being, butterflies, flowers, beloved cats - she saw God’s love for humanity. Her love for Christ extended to this world, so she understood the words: “Go, preach to every creature.” For her, this creature, in love for her, was also a sermon, a conversation about Christ. This is an amazing teaching that she left for us, such dry and almost lifeless people of the 21st century.

Of course, she loved Christ very much, and therefore she taught, first of all, believers, those who are called Christians, who are called Orthodox, to seek encounters with Christ in their lives. There was nothing more precious than this meeting with Christ, the imitation of Christ, the thoughts of Christ, the longing for Christ, which was so alive in her, did not allow her to be calm, it worried her all the time. This she continually taught and continues to teach.

This teaching is always small, but it is very important, it is wonderful, it is teaching that makes us people standing in Christ.

We are seeing her off today. The word “funeral” does not at all fit with what we have in Christ. Because when there is a funeral, it is a victory for death. But today, Christian burial is always a victory for life. These words that we heard today during the funeral service, these amazing prayers, which all the time proclaim the victory of life, and no death. We are sad to lose such an amazing person in this life, this is truly a huge loss for us, but for us it is also a gain, because testimony in Christ, true testimony of faith, is always an acquisition, it is always new. A new voice that says that Christ has risen, that death has been defeated, and that life lives on.

Thank you to everyone who came today to this festive, solemn day, because today is truly a holiday for Marina Andreevna. She is with Christ, Whom she loved so much. Today is her real birthday - a real Christian birthday. As for us, I hope this will be the case. For every Christian there is a birthday in Christ.

We met Marina Andreevna a little over twenty years ago at the very moment when the magazine “Alpha and Omega” had just begun to appear. And our first meeting was dedicated to the magazine and the formation of its editorial staff. Marina Andreevna invited me to the editorial board.

Our initial communication took place in understanding the contents of the magazine, what was happening in the Church. We talked about the need for real spiritual enlightenment, living theology, and not “reprinted” one. In the early nineties of the last century, there was mainly a reprint of theological works of the past. Yes, it was important, necessary. But this “reprint” still continues in the minds of many Christians.

And Marina Andreevna then decided to take a different, very difficult unknown path. I would even say - impudent for a woman who has orders to remain silent in church.

Marina Andreevna was never silent, greatly respecting the Apostle Paul and the patristic tradition. Moreover, she spoke in such a way that her voice became the voice of the Church. Her feminine seemed to be lost; she already had what the Apostle Paul spoke about: “In Christ there is neither male nor female” (Gal. 3:28).

She set herself and the magazine the goal of speaking with the people of the Church in theological, modern, Christian language within the framework of the problems that face the Church today. And she did it brilliantly.

All these twenty years, the magazine has occupied and continues to occupy (I don’t want to speak only in the past tense) its unique place. During this time, he did not have a single competitor. The magazine, which talked about complex theological problems, from the very beginning was addressed to a modern, educated Christian who thinks, reads, and often just goes to church. "Alpha and Omega" became a special form of theological education for new Christians who had recently come to the Church. Moreover, I know from the life of my parish that many people who have just become Christians are very fond of this magazine, even without higher education. For readers it is always a new encounter with the Church, a new look at the patristic heritage.

And it was “Alpha and Omega” that made Marina Andreevna and I friends. We started communicating.

For all people who have at least somehow encountered her in life, Marina Andreevna evokes enormous respect and great respect. Not only with his education and activity. But the main thing is amazing spiritual wealth. Marina Andreevna turned out to be a real Christian of the 21st century.

She lived with an all-consuming love for the Church, a constant striving for Christ. It was clear to everyone who communicated with her that for Marina Andreevna, Christ is life.

Despite the fact that she had a very difficult character, this is what most often happens to a truly very lively thinking person who is constantly in contradiction with himself.

Marina Andreevna was very truthful, and hence her sharpness in judgment and responsibility for her words. Moreover, this truthfulness was a property of her Christianity.

At the same time, she was a very vulnerable person who suffered greatly from what was happening in the world, in the Church, between Christians.

Marina Andreevna was capable of some completely naive from the point of view of this world, absolutely not pragmatic and even crazy actions. She did them solely out of understanding: Christ would have done the same.

It’s probably unnecessary to talk about what a wonderful conversationalist Marina Andreevna was. Many people know this. As well as what a great publicist she was. Her brilliant articles are in the public domain.

Marina Andreevna easily got along with people, opened up, giving herself to her interlocutors, making them her friends.

Those who at least once met Marina Andreevna fell under her charm and tried to be in her orbit.

She loved young people very much. And when Marina Andreevna also fell in love with Russian rock, it became clear that she was just a very young person.

Marina Andreevna is a person of a very high standard. In everything she did in life. Even her “tchotchkes and trinkets” - the jewelry that Marina Andreevna began to make at the end of her life - turned out to be truly beautiful. She also gave them to our parish charity fairs, and for them we received large sums, which went to help those in need for whom the events were held.

The culture that Marina Andreevna possessed was a culture of the highest standard. She is from the galaxy of Sergei Sergeevich Averintsev. There are always very few carriers of such a culture, you can count them on your fingers. Now it's even smaller.

And at the same time, she was a person in love with the world around her, created by God: with nature, with flowers, with trees, with her adored cats.

Marina Andreevna could still give us a lot, with her intellect, her heart, her energy.

The last months that she spent in intensive care under an artificial respiration apparatus became for her a real feat of martyrdom. With her energy, she would be bedridden, helpless, without even the ability to speak. Lately she could only articulate some words, and in order to understand them, she had to carefully watch her lips.

It was clear that she, as a Christian, was trying to gather all her inner strength in order to maintain inner peace, not to burst into despair, and not to lose touch with God.

Two weeks ago, when I was in her intensive care unit, taking communion, Marina Andreevna asked me to read the death note over her.

Then, almost always unconscious, she came to her senses literally for a minute when they came to her with the Holy Gifts. I gave Marina Andreevna communion on Sunday, and she regained consciousness exactly when I came to her with the Holy Gifts, consciously took communion and then went into a peaceful, calm state.

Father Dimitry (Pershin) told me the same thing, who gave Marina Andreevna communion for the last time, on Monday. She regained consciousness for a minute, took communion, somehow especially wanting it, with some special greed (here this word seems appropriate to me) and again went into an unconscious state.

I hope that Marina Andreevna is with Christ, Whom she loved so much. Eternal memory to her.

Deacon Pavel Serzhantov, who worked for 15 years in the editorial office of the magazine Alpha and Omega, which she created, recalls.

For nine days we came to the grave of Marina Andreevna Zhurinskaya to serve a memorial service. Under the wooden cross there were flowers from the funeral service. So fresh, as if it all happened yesterday. Life remained in the cut flowers. I was in no hurry to leave.

I remember Marina Andreevna as an amazingly lively person. I met her about fifteen years ago. She had very little health. But how much life shone in her eyes, in her ability to immediately find the right words to characterize some dry scientific fact or tell a funny incident from life.

She was included in the treasury of the Russian language. At first glance, for a linguist, a candidate of science, this is no wonder... The editor of the Alpha and Omega magazine, Marina Andreevna, had literary talent - open her “Mishka” and see for yourself. As an author, she is interesting to read. True, I personally found it more interesting to just talk to her.

With her there was always something to talk about and something to remain silent about. She did not bore her interlocutor with a stream of professional eloquence. The conversations proceeded slowly, in this space of thought a place was prepared for all participants in the conversation. You can express your opinion and simply think silently and with concentration. It was good to think in her presence. She specifically created favorable conditions for this.

And Marina Andreevna could suddenly go beyond the limits of language capabilities. What am I talking about? You see, this happens with poets. The poet's speech in the middle of the poem suddenly becomes simple, simple, extremely simple, and at the same time does not lose any of its content. On the contrary, poetic speech acquires some kind of convincing depth. It’s amazing to feel the depth of simple words, which is not achieved through deliberate complications of speech, layers of meaning, or through special sound effects. Marina Andreevna’s simplicity of communication did not involve annoying simplifications of thought.

To maintain simplicity of speech and with it depth - this requires an extraordinary sense of the Russian language, a kind of absolute pitch. It seems to me that absolute musical pitch is much easier to find than an absolute sense of language. With such a sense of language, Marina Andreevna spoke with people and wrote magazine articles. And edited it.

She knew how to convey her experience, and not every experienced person is able to convey his experience to others. Marina Andreevna conscientiously taught the magazine’s employees the craft of editing and spared no time and effort. Who is now involved in this training of young editors? Not many people who. The matter is troublesome, long and complicated. So we often read poorly published magazines and books...

Once Pasternak expressed himself paradoxically about texts. I’ll try to remember his thought more precisely: after the author puts the last point in the text, work on the text begins. It's starting. But it doesn’t end and doesn’t even continue. Yes, authorial editing requires a lot of effort, grueling reworking of many pages, and even rewriting the entire “ready” text. And this is not the end again. Editorial work is still beginning.

Marina Andreevna, the editor, was characterized by respect for the author and at the same time respect for the reader. Here's her recipe! That's why her magazine Alpha and Omega always turned out surprisingly well.

There is a lot to remember about Marina Andreevna. I would like to say one more rare and valuable character trait that is inherent in different people - Marina Andreevna also had it. Father John (Krestyankin) also had it. He once admitted: “I love to rejoice and please.” Marina Andreevna also looked for any reason in our difficult life to rejoice, to see something good, to rejoice in the goodness of God. She loved to please and support others: with a comforting word and a kind deed. And I tried to make sure that the words were backed up with deeds.

Empty words with nothing behind them did not interest her. She was always inspired by literature and by the very real life that is on the other side of words. Such a life, which alone can sound convincingly, without falsehood, in words.

This all has to do with personal communication with her and her professional activities. Everyone understands that the editor’s task largely consists of identifying and correcting author’s errors and shortcomings in the text. This is the “negative” side of editing. But there is also a “positive” one: finding talented authors and helping them with publications, editing the text so that it becomes clean and sparkling, so that the reader gratefully admires it, and the author is also satisfied.

The trouble is if the editor does not see the “positive” and is completely focused on the “negative” side of his work. Such an editor will inevitably lose professionalism; he will not experience real joy while doing his job (schadenfreude does not count). Now let’s generalize: it’s a disaster if a person is focused on the “negative” side of his work and life in general and does not notice anything “positive” in our lives. Such a misfortune has many names, one of them is despondency.

Marina Andreevna loved to notice the good, knew how to find something worthwhile, positive, joyful in work and life. And she willingly shared her find with her neighbors. Eternal memory to her, may the Lord instill her in the abode of heavenly joy!

The editor-in-chief of the theological almanac "Alpha and Omega", publicist, writer, translator, died on October 4 after a long illness. We ask for prayers for the repose of novopr. Anna (baptismal name).

She graduated from the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University, with a diploma in Hittology. For about 20 years she worked at the Institute of Linguistics, in the general linguistics sector. Specialization: general typology, general grammar, grammatical semantics. For 10 years, she was the chief manager of the “Languages of the World” group, whose goal was to create general theoretical principles for describing any language and publish the “Languages of the World” encyclopedia. Candidate of Philological Sciences, has more than 100 publications on linguistic topics. Translator from German (linguistic works, as well as Gadamer and Schweitzer). Since 1994, publisher and editor of the Alpha and Omega magazine. Member of the editorial board of the collection “Theological Works”.

Once upon a time, a long time ago, I formulated this simple rule for myself: we understand arithmetic, sometimes very well. And God - He knows algebra.

We love to give clear definitions and categorical assessments, although our knowledge is very limited. And God sees the whole world, all of its history and modernity. I won’t say anything about the future.

Of course, clarity and certainty are useful, who would argue. But there are two things, the clear definition of which makes it difficult to understand their essence. And their categorical assessments, one might say, are in vain.

For example, we are generally against Freudianism and are always ready to criticize it. But Freud, although he created an incorrect model of consciousness, was an intelligent person and knew how to help people. And among his followers there are at least interesting people; So, once in some conference materials, among kilometers of annoying constructions, I came across the words that the best thing a psychoanalyst can do for a patient is to send him to confession. Agree, there is a reason for this.

So, Freud came up with the idea that a person has a desire for death. In general, this is not news; and Shakespeare wrote about this (“I call death”), and you never know who else. Very convincing, by the way, is the science fiction story “The Blue Bottle” about a mysterious Martian vessel that fulfills the owner’s deepest desire. Naturally, they hunt for him, but everyone who got hold of him is found dead.

Finally, a very sensible person understands that the bottle really honestly fulfills a cherished desire - and this is the wish to die - and breaks all its exciting magic in the simplest way: he firmly determines that for him there must always be some amount of whiskey in the bottle. And both he and the bottle calm down on this relatively harmless desire.

Now let’s try to suppress the cries of protest against whiskey (whisky has nothing to do with it at all) and against Freud and think: is this idea about the main aspiration of man really so false? As long as we believe that man was created by God and that the soul is Christian by nature, we can recognize the validity of the thought that this soul, suffering from its fallenness in a fallen world (groaning and tormented, according to the Apostle Paul), trusts in the mercy of God and to the opportunity to move into a new existence - in the Kingdom of Heaven. So it turns out that Freud is Freud, and the thought of a place “where there is no illness, sadness, or sighing, but endless life,” and the desire to go there are not only permissible for a Christian, but dear to him.

Then begins the disdain for earthly life, physicality, disdain for the flesh and marriage, reasoning that the body is the prison of the soul and other obscure constructs that entail disasters and deviations into heresy. I don’t even want to talk about the future; one can only hope that the Lord is merciful even to those who neglect His Providence for humanity.

Or very sad things: unauthorized termination of life. And it happens that not only your own. And with the best intentions.

...Let's have a poetic intermission. :

I was given a body - what should I do with it?
So one and so mine?
For the joy of quiet breathing and living
Who, tell me, should I thank?

I am a gardener, I am also a flower,
In the dungeon of the world I am not alone.
Eternity has already fallen on the glass
My breath, my warmth.

A pattern will be imprinted on them,
Unrecognizable recently.
Let the dregs flow down for a moment -
The cute pattern cannot be crossed out.

(By the way, I can’t help but grumble: in Samizdat Mandelstam it was “in the greenhouse,” which seems more meaningful both because of the “flower” and because of the “glasses” with which the greenhouse abounds, while the dungeon is quite the opposite .)

This short poem contains the key to understanding in what sense we can be considered co-workers with God ( see 1 Cor 3:9). The Apostle Paul says this about himself (well, and about the other Apostles) as a worker in the work of Christ, a evangelist and educator of the nations. But he said, “Imitate me as I imitate Christ” ( 1 Cor 4:16 cf. Phil 3:17). And here is the question: should we all become Apostles and enlighten the nations? Sometimes this is how it is understood - and the result is not inspiring. Because our apostle is different: we ourselves must become a witness to the grace of Christ: joyful, loving and friendly, devoid of envy, suspicion and malice.

It’s not that simple and, in general, it’s impossible for people. But not to God. Therefore, our “collaboration” is to know God’s will for ourselves and fulfill it. And this will is good.

If we return to the sad topic of unauthorized abandonment of life, now it is a very common argument that God gives life to a person, and he does not have the right to stop it on his own. To be honest, this reasoning introduces into the relationship between God and man a moment that is no longer just legal, but downright commercial: you cannot break the rules of the transaction.

It’s a different matter if you look at the problem from the point of view of a lively and kind attitude. God created man (given) for a purpose. He had a task for this man. And it’s not good to shirk this task. A person most often does not know about his task, so you need to follow Paul’s advice: always rejoice, pray without ceasing and give thanks in everything ( see 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18). And so learn the will of God about yourself. And sometimes the Lord reveals to a person a fragment of His plan for him, and this joy cannot be compared with any other, because it is the fruit of collaboration and its understanding.

And there is one more reason not to fold your paws, not to give up on everything, not to go to the bottom, and even more so, not to jump off while walking. The Lord wants everyone to be saved and He Himself takes into His Kingdom those whom He saves. The rules of a virtuous life are well known, but it is also well known that there is no person who would not sin.

I always feel very sorry for those people who are killed because they still have not parted with their sins. I would very much like to sincerely wish them to listen to the Sunday hymn according to the Gospel: “... let us worship the holy Lord Jesus, the only sinless one.” It is not for imaginary sinlessness that Christ justifies people (not in the legal sense, again, but in the sense of accepting them into the host of the righteous), but for their standing in the truth.

For an honest, sincere, ardent desire for Him. Because a person listens to the word of God and, to the best of his ability, all in the hope of His help, tries to fulfill this word. In other words, it ascends to itself, as they say, approaches the image in which it was conceived.

And this is a very long process and sometimes quite painful. And in order to follow your life path in the right direction, you need sensitivity - and will.

Here, as in the case of the desire for death, traced back to the insidious Freud (although if we think about it calmly, there is nothing of the kind), we are faced with another conceptual cliché: the will to live. It seems that it was invented by Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, who are alien to us and to a certain extent hostile, and this concept is also developed by figures, not to say Orthodox. So why give up life because of this?

I don’t want to call it the will to live - it’s not necessary, as long as we firmly adhere to the understanding of why it was given to us: for growth. Therefore, you need to live persistently and diligently, if I may say so.

And if you tune in to life in accordance with the will of God, then it - and the whole of God's world - appears so attractive that nothing decisively overshadows it. This does not mean that you need to turn a blind eye to the current outrages, far from it. But treating them correctly, “in a divine way,” without understating or exaggerating anything, is the task of man on earth.

...And something needs to be done with words so that they serve as a means of expressing thoughts and a means of communication, and not as a stumbling block. So, this nuance really upsets me. It is known that it is a divine-human organism. An organism, by definition, is alive and must be alive. So it must be such a disaster that the term “living Church” was staked out by citizens who had no reason to do so! History has put everything in its place: not a trace remains of them or their artificial constructions. But we are afraid to say that our Church is alive. What can I say, we are afraid to think. How nice it would be if this fear went away! He will go away over time, of course, but for now let us take comfort in the fact that our stay in the Church shows us the fullness of life. And so, Christ is born - and we are born of water and the Spirit. Christ rises and we receive abundant life from Him.

And there is nothing in the world that He cannot heal.