Alexandr Korol

I see that even an ordinary person who doesn’t go to church, like someone working at a market, believes in God more than those who hypocritically go to church every weekend. That’s what I mean. Why am I saying this? I’m emphasizing that you should think about how people deceive you, building themselves up as good. They always take photos, post them in stories, on all these social media platforms, they make sure to show it all. But the most important part is that they’re there with puffed-up lips, in Louis Vuitton scarves, but supposedly at the service, right? “Christ is risen, and truly risen.” I’m just horrified by this, I find it unpleasant. For me, it’s blasphemy. If you’re already so heartless, soulless, shameless, how can you then take that fake facade you put on in social media and extend it to religion? For me, that feels like blasphemy. That’s how I perceive it. So, it’s as if they are desecrating it, like this society of lost people, they seem to want to “desecrate” the church, in quotation marks, to turn it into a social entertainment, you know, for trends, for their own hype, as they say. That’s what I’m outraged about. You see, when a truly sinful person comes to church, someone who wants to repent because yesterday they raised their hand against someone or stole something – I have no complaints about them. I approach that with compassion. But when I see someone who is completely in a fog, who doesn’t think about people, the church, or God, but only about how to look good, to have the light fall on them, and take a picture – that’s when it really bothers me. And when I see such people, especially girls in churches, of course, it upsets me because it’s no longer funny. I’m not trying to fulfill a function to protect the church. I’m a writer. My place is to write books. But still, as a believer, it used to hurt me. That’s what I used to write about in my books. Well, the church, if we’re talking about the Orthodox Church, it observes all the old canons it must follow. All the rituals, traditions, and major holidays are respected. The church is not being plundered, everything is being restored, even the relics of saints or icons are being returned, those that were looted in earlier times are being returned to their rightful places. And that’s what should be most important — it should be fulfilled as it should be. But taking, you know, and discussing who goes there, why they go, and who works there — that’s not good. Why? All the icons with the images of the saints are real. All the little churches, cathedrals stand in the right places and are built correctly. All the services, the rituals, are conducted as they should be.