How do we treat other people? Very often it depends on the attitude of people towards us. At the same time, we love to judge people. We rarely pay attention to the positive qualities of a person, but we always notice the shortcomings. Even when someone does something nice for us, we may just not notice it. But we are ready to remember all the negativity and bad attitude until the end of our lives.

Have you noticed how dependent on people's opinions? Very often we choose one side or another, only relying on the opinions of people. If someone treats us well, we endow him with positive qualities, and vice versa. We criticize people who hurt or hurt us, but we forget that this is contrary to all the tenets of humanism :)

For example, you can take grandmothers who sit on benches all day and criticize people passing by. One person for them will be a drug addict, another is a girl of easy virtue, and the third may turn out to be akin to the devil. When we start judging people, we become like old ladies who like to attribute only negative qualities to a person.

Why do we love to judge people? Maybe we are bored and don't know what to do? No. This is usually due to envy of someone and a refusal to accept other people's shortcomings. We cannot accept people for who they are, and we begin to criticize them.

By doing this, we get a certain degree of moral satisfaction, our self-esteem rises, we say to ourselves: “I am such a good person, unlike …” This is a destructive path, the effect of which a person rarely thinks about. This mode of self-affirmation can only bring a large portion of negativity and additional problems into your life. Negative thoughts and emotions never brought a person happiness. Remember: "Judge not, lest you be judged"

We know that it is wrong to condemn people, but we continue to do so. Why? Do we think that criticism will help a person change? But very often our criticism is unfounded and we discuss people behind their backs. We think of people's actions as a consequence, but we never think of the motives that impel us to do this or that.

We ourselves are not always able to monitor our actions, but we are happy to do it for others. In most cases, a person is not interested in his own behavior, but in the actions of everyone else. Pay attention to your behavior and the shortcomings that everyone definitely has. If you begin to analyze your shortcomings, the problems of others will no longer interest you. Everyone has problems, and you are no exception. Of course, it is more pleasant to disassemble other people's vices, but this path is distinguished by aggressiveness. And such aggression never leads to good consequences. You may be able to look better against the background of some friend, but soon you yourself can turn into a background.

Remember - no one is perfect. Even if you do not have enough time to help a person, you should not condemn him. This will never help you in solving difficult situations. You can talk about the shortcomings of a person, possible ways to solve them, but do not condemn people.

When dealing with people, we must abandon the habit of looking for faults, judging and insulting. We are all imperfect and far from perfect. Only when we understand this can we get rid of the bad habit of judging people. Remember the main thing: "Judge not, lest you be judged." As soon as a person learns this simple truth, his life will become easier, richer and more exciting. Suddenly, there will be time to resolve old problems, to communicate with loved ones and other pleasant activities that are simply inaccessible to you because of condemning other people's shortcomings.

Good day, friends! Question from Elena: was in the Church, spoke with the Father, he told me that I should stop judging other people, told me to pray for this. After that, I myself began to notice that I constantly condemn others, even when I am alone, and this bothers me very much. Help, tell me how to stop judging others?

I must say right away that almost all people suffer from the bad habit of judging others, or themselves. Only the degree is different for everyone. Some people only live by washing the bones of other people and draw malevolent pleasure from it. As a rule, this is the only thing that gives them their impure joy.

The roots of condemning others grow from, from his wounded Ego and unfinished. And the higher the degree of a person, the more he is prone to arrogant judgment of others. Let's deal with the definitions and root causes of this vile sin.

What is judging other people? Esoteric reasons

Condemnation of others - a negative habit and an undeserved right to arrogantly judge others for their shortcomings, while not seeing the virtues of people and the Good in their souls.

The main motive why a person condemns others is self-affirmation, the desire to rise oneself at the expense of humiliation (humiliation) of others (that is, to raise one's self-esteem by lowering the value of other people). To make this easier, the judging person chooses to ignore other people's virtues and exaggerate their faults as much as possible.

But such an approach to raising one's self-esteem (due to the humiliation of others) always leads to deep inner dissatisfaction, justification of one's own shortcomings, to an increase in internal anger. This inevitably leads a person to a dead-end life situation, when a person who condemns others cannot change anything in his own destiny for the better.

To get rid of the habit of judging, judging others, it is necessary to understand and remove the internal root causes of condemnation.

Esoteric root causes of condemnation of people:

1. Ego and pride. When one person considers himself smarter and better than others, he gives himself the right to judge everyone. It is arrogant to criticize and judge their deeds as if he were a god. But such criticism is never constructive, fair and fruitful, it does not create anything good, does not eliminate shortcomings, but only strengthens and nourishes mutual negativity (generates evil).
2. (wrong side of pride). When a person has low self-esteem, instead of strengthening it, he tries to belittle the dignity of other people, sorting out and inflating their shortcomings and weaknesses. But this reinforces in him a negative attitude towards people and an inability to see the good in them. Judgment of others always destroys positive connections with people and bright feelings towards them (love, respect, gratitude, devotion, friendship), and, accordingly, destroys relationships.
3. Dislike of people (lack of kindness in the heart) and others. There are inherently negative people (dark souls), and the only source of joy for such people is gloating, dark joy from the humiliation, condemnation and suffering of other people. such people are dead, dry and hardened, therefore they are not able to be kind, to experience pure joy and love. What made their heart like this? There are many reasons. One of the main ones is the accumulated unresolved ones on others, on oneself, on fate.

Condemnation of others. Additional definitions and explanations

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said: “And why are you looking at the speck in your brother's eye, but you don't feel the beam in your eye?… Hypocrite! First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see how to take the speck out of your brother's eye." Other words of Christ: "Judge not, lest you be judged."

Everyone and everyone has shortcomings, and it is much easier to condemn others for their weaknesses than by working on yourself to get rid of your own. We need to understand the following: if we judge other people for their sins, it will never make us and our lives better!

And the one who knows from his own experience how difficult it is to get rid of his shortcomings and weaknesses will not judge others for their sins, but wish them Good in working on them.

Good quotes to think about:

People, having neither the power nor the competence to do so, condemn sinners both verbally and mentally. While only can condemn, pronounce sentence and carry it out. When we condemn a person, we usurp the rights of God. “And who are you, who judges another?” says the apostle Paul. The Lord alone can justify or condemn someone. We humans must learn to "see our sins and not judge our brother."

Judgment is a demonic state. The first to fall into this was the devil himself. The devil condemned and slandered God before the forefathers, and then began to teach the condemnation of people.

Of course, there are quite neglected cases when a person is literally like an automaton, like a zombie, for whom the condemnation of others, gloating have become the way and meaning of life, and he, as a drug addict, can no longer do without it. In such cases, as a rule, there is a sharing of entities and the person no longer owns himself. Good help is indispensable here.

And in other cases, the habit of judging can be dealt with by working on yourself on your own or with.

People judge others because they don't have self-esteem and little Kindness in their hearts.

1. Start with yourself , with kindness towards oneself, with the ability to see, accept and appreciate one's own merits. Then you need to learn to see and accept the good (merits) in other people. If a person truly respects himself, loves and appreciates his Soul, he does not need to belittle the dignity of others in order to exalt himself against their background. Study and work on the articles of the section.
2. Ask yourself a question: why, why, why do I condemn this man? Write down all the answers that come to your mind. Analyze the reasons for condemnation: envy, resentment and revenge, low self-esteem or pride, hatred of people (wishing evil), etc. If you understand individual internal reasons, it will be clearer to you what you need to work with. You will find a fairly large set of practices for working on yourself on the page.
3. How to deal with the very habit of judging others and what to replace it with.

• When you are drawn to judge others and wash their bones, immediately take a sheet of paper, a pencil, and begin to write down, separated by commas, your shortcomings, weaknesses, sins, failures that prevent you from living and that you would like to overcome in yourself. This will direct your attention, mind, potential and will into a creative direction, into work on yourself! :)
• The next step is to write down all the positive qualities and achievements that you want to replace your shortcomings and failures with!
• The third step is to write down those people from whom you can learn the virtues and achievements recorded in the previous paragraph.

This exercise will make you better and kinder, you will learn to respect other people more, appreciate them for their virtues, wean you from the habit of judging others, directing your attention to your own development!

If you have any questions -!

Also read related articles

True, the mystery of the Universe: why are people important to us so often ready to besiege, and not help? And only that would be fine, but sometimes it comes to crazy conflicts. For a clue, I had to turn to a psychologist, Gestalt therapist Anna Nazarova.

Human factor

Probably our biggest problem is that we are all people, there are no other forms of intelligence on Earth. Expecting a standing ovation in response to a fresh idea to run the top ten in a week, you, admit it, often forget that the dude opposite has a personal life, and there are usually problems in it. Headache, fatigue, and just a bad mood are quite good reasons for a sour “Well, I don’t know. Are you in shape?" And before you write down your loved one as a villain, take a moment to find out how he is doing. It does not matter? Let's move on to the next point.

Reasons for condemnation

Of course, situations are different, and it's not just you. And, for example, in a parent who has been saying for thirty years that “they don’t wear minis with your legs.” It is worth rebelling, as a mother or grandmother is offended: “I love you! Who else will tell you the truth?" Since (see the previous paragraph) even parents are quite earthly beings, it makes sense to stop and put them on the shelves - why are they?

1. We are talking about different degrees of aggression. It's time to accept: yes, you can annoy others, and even those closest to you. For example, because in their coordinate system it is important to live “as it should be”, and here you are again going to Italy. I could have given birth to three already and not deal with nonsense. Clear?
2. Your family is afraid of your failure. If a person next to you is a narcissistic person who reacts sharply to her own failures, most likely, she also tends to experience your losses deeply. And the more a person is afraid of failure, the more strange it will be to perceive your successes. It's like, "Have you raised it? Why would? Remember, you will fly high, you will fall painfully!
3. Girlfriends, teachers, husbands and even parents may see you as a competitor, they have a right. And then hold on: with all the power of their authority, they will try to deprive you of the advantage, that is, self-confidence.

It becomes easier for someone from the mere thought that “it’s my mother’s mood that’s bad, and not my legs are thick.” By the way, in this place it would be good to remember if you screwed up. Maybe she didn’t call for six months and now she appeared in a daring skirt? Then the mini is not something that seriously worries parents. If nothing like that, and you seem to have figured out the reasons for discontent, it's time to learn to live with it.

How not to criticize yourself

When a child is blamed (first of all by parents and teachers), somewhere in the bowels of him a critic is formed. This is such an inner voice that is always happy to explain to its owner that dancing in public on the headmaster's table is a dubious idea. That is, as you can see, a critic is a useful thing, and you should not get rid of him, especially since this is just impossible. Sometimes, however, he gets carried away, and then it becomes simply unbearable to live "with such a terrible nose", and all the nasty words of those around him fall into fertile ground. To prevent this from happening will have to negotiate.

1. You need to acknowledge the very existence of the inner critic.
2. Realize that we are talking about an ambiguous figure, but initially having a positive purpose (are you glad that you didn’t dare to dye your hair purple?).
3. Learn to listen to yourself and hear. Often we encounter a critic while already in the midst of a conflict, when we are about to shed a tear.
4. Try to establish a dialogue. Your goal is to make sure that during conflicts he does not stick out, plunging you into the abyss of self-criticism.
5. The hardest part: you have to admit that sometimes this inner voice will still drive you to despair.

How not to quarrel with family

It's easy to say: "Learn to negotiate and hear," right? The good news is that the approach of the critic can be felt. If during an unpleasant conversation you feel your fingers go numb or your cheeks begin to tingle, you are thrown into a sweat or goosebumps run down your back, it's time to translate the dialogue into a peaceful direction, or even turn off.

How to deal with the problem

It is clear that it will not work forever to avoid conflicts. So, having found your critic, proceed to the negotiations.

1. Find support. Even if you think that there is nowhere to take it from, it is not true. It is impossible to live and grow in a state of absolute criticism, and therefore a quite strong part of you sits inside you, which turns on when you are satisfied with yourself and feel comfortable. Remember this feeling, call it more often. Your "And I'm still hoo!" or “I can, if I don’t get nervous!” - hooks, for which, on occasion, it will be possible to catch on, avoiding falling into despair. If everything is sad today, look for a resource on the side. Agree with your friends about a week of unconditional support; share successes with those who will definitely appreciate it in order to balance critical words addressed to you with praise.
2. Write down 3-5 things that explain why something doesn't work for you.. Now make a list of reasons why you should try it anyway. Let it have one point more.
3. Visualize the Inner Critic: he is this or she, what is it like? Find out what he is protecting you from. Promise that you will listen to his warnings, but in return, ask him to sometimes let you go in all serious ways. Keep track of achievements, show them to your strict warden. In the end, he will definitely have mercy and begin to believe in your strength. So, it will become easier for you to resist someone else's criticism, you will feel more confident.

And finally. If, after reading this text, you recognize yourself, but still do not see the opportunity to get things off the ground, consider seeking help from a specialist. We are serious.

We all know the commandment: Judge not lest ye be judged". But for many, this command of the Savior causes bewilderment: “Is it possible? How then to distinguish who is doing well and who is doing badly? What about the judges, whose profession is to judge and condemn? Change occupation? Let's try to figure it out.
It seems to me that this commandment is revealed in the best and most detailed way in the Gospel of Luke. " Don't judge and you won'tjudged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; let's give it to you"(Luke 6, 37-38)."Judge not, and you will not be judged." It is best not to judge another person at all, especially one who has nothing to do with us. We often do not even notice how much we succumb to this vice - to evaluate everything and everyone.

Of course, most often our assessment is simply wrong: we do not know either the inner life of this or that person, or the circumstances of his life, and our own passions distort reality in our eyes. And most importantly, judging someone, we very quickly slide into condemnation, as Job the Long-suffering said about that: "Judgment and condemnation are close."

However, there are situations when it is impossible not to judge - you need to understand this or that circumstance, this or that person: your subordinate, spiritual son or daughter, some temptations and people who tempt us. Therefore, we are forced to reason, but we must beware of condemning: "Judge not, and you will not be condemned."

If you do judge, then at least don't judge. This commandment limits man's extreme propensity to condemn. We, not seeing our passions, often condemn others even for those sins and passions from which we ourselves suffer. And for those vices that are not in us, we condemn with particular cruelty.

The passion of condemnation, when we do not fight it, can completely distort reality in our eyes - to such an extent that we will see something that does not even exist.

An excellent example of this is given by the Monk Abba Dorotheos. One monk saw that a certain brother was about to receive Holy Communion after eating fruit in the garden beforehand. The monk told the abbot about this, and he called his brother aside when he approached the Chalice. The hegumen questioned the brother, and it turned out that before the liturgy, not only was he not in the garden, but even in the monastery, since the steward sent him to the village on some business. Therefore, we must constantly listen to ourselves so as not to succumb to the pernicious habit of judging.

But it may happen that we will be forced to condemn. For example, the righteous John of Kronstadt condemned Leo Tolstoy - so frankly he declared: "I strongly condemn him." I was even surprised by his directness and audacity.

But the saint said this because he loved the Church of God, which this man blasphemed. Yes, Tolstoy was a great writer, but at the same time he was a terrible enemy of the Church, who corrupted a whole generation, especially the intelligentsia.

However, if Father John condemned Leo Tolstoy, this does not mean that he hated him. If he could do anything to save this man, he certainly would. And such an attempt, however, ended in failure, was made by other people - the Optina ascetics. One must think that Father John, if he had been still alive by that time (he had died two years earlier), would have acted in a similar way.

Tolstoy's condemnation was just because he could not be separated from the teaching he created; in fact, it even got its name from his name - Tolstoyism. For the same reason, the holy fathers cursed the heretics at the cathedrals.

When I read The Acts of the Ecumenical Councils, I was struck by this fact. It is known that Theodoret of Cyrus during the Third Ecumenical Council behaved, to put it mildly, not sufficiently Orthodox, defended the heresiarch Nestorius and sharply criticized St. Cyril of Alexandria. Subsequently, Blessed Theodoret reconciled with Orthodoxy, and when the Monophysite ferment began, he became one of the active fighters against this heresy, one might say the hero of the IV Ecumenical Council. But the holy fathers remembered that, through a misunderstanding, he had previously defended Nestorius, and began to demand from Theodoret that he curse this heretic.

The Fathers of the Council tell him: “Say: “Anathema to Nestorius!”, And he tries to justify himself: “I have never been a heretic!” But as soon as he begins to explain his position, they interrupt him: “We don’t want to listen to you, say: “Anathema to Nestorius!””; and he tries to justify himself again. Finally, exclamations began to be heard in the Cathedral hall: “Theodoret the Nestorian! He's a heretic!" Then he realized that it was impossible otherwise, as soon as to say: "Anathema to Nestorius!"

From here we draw a conclusion. Either what happened at the IV Ecumenical Council was bad, and Theodoret was vainly forced to condemn Nestorius, instead of giving him the opportunity to express his views and prove his Orthodoxy, or this episode has a special meaning and acted through the fathers of the Council and expressed the truth through their lips The Holy Spirit Himself.

It turns out that when I say: "This man is a heretic", or: "Anathema to Nestorius!" There is no sin in this. Blessed Theodoret did not sin when he condemned Nestorius. And the righteous John of Kronstadt did not sin when he condemned Leo Tolstoy.

So, by the words "Do not condemn" is meant: do not condemn in such a way that it is a sin.

There are cases when it is impossible not to condemn, and if we do not condemn in such situations, then we will sin. If the blessed Theodoret had not condemned Nestorius, then he, despite his services to Orthodoxy, would have been anathematized along with Nestorius. And this can be said about each of us: if we do not condemn heretics, if we do not condemn blasphemers, if we do not condemn the enemies of the Church, if we do not condemn lechers (namely, as carriers and distributors of debauchery), then it will turn out that we justify them.

Therefore, the gospel further suggests: “Judge not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven." If, after all, it is impossible not to condemn, then at least forgive these people, internally do not hold malice on them.

Probably, it will seem strange to someone: how is it to condemn, if the Gospel directly commands "Do not condemn." It often seems to us that the gospel consists only of the commandment to love, which, moreover, we understand very narrowly.

But why, for example, does the Church have a collection of rules, that is, laws for the trial of delinquent clerics and laity? In order to condemn certain people for their violations. But this is not a sinful condemnation, but the same Divine love that extends to every person and which we interpret in relation to certain circumstances.

The gospel does not consist of just a few words - "you need to love everyone", it says about many other things. Therefore, it is not necessary to see the contradiction of the Gospel in the fact that in some cases a judgment is necessary. How, for example, can a confessor avoid judging those who confess and repent with him? How should a judge or leader carry out his duties?

I would like to make an important final remark. Yes, we need to know about the degrees of permissible judgment and condemnation, but let's not look for justification for our passions in this. In the overwhelming majority of cases, we should try not to judge or condemn, and then the Lord will not condemn us either.

Everyone, probably, knows the case from the father of the monk, who did not condemn anyone. He lived rather negligently, but when he died and the demons presented him with a scroll with many of his sins, he exclaimed: “Lord! You said, "Judge not, lest you be judged." See, I haven't judged anyone in my entire life." And immediately all his sins disappeared from the scroll. This monk was brought to heaven only by the virtue of non-judgment. And if we adhere to her, then she will lead us into the heavenly abodes.

How can one not fall into condemnation from reasoning about this or that person?

It is very difficult, and without assistance, one might say, impossible. Only grace makes it possible to judge a person soberly and at the same time not to condemn him. Therefore, we must pray, ask God for help, and, to the best of our ability, force ourselves to fulfill this commandment. But at the same time, if it is our duty to judge something, then we must do it, even if we are not impassive. Let us, talking about the misdeeds of our children, condemn them and punish them, but let them understand what is good and what is bad. And it is better for us, if necessary, to condemn and punish the guilty subordinates than to destroy the work that we have been entrusted with.

In each case, you will have to think: is there a need to talk about this or that circumstance and person? Because if we begin to reason, we will hardly escape condemnation. But at least let's not condemn unnecessarily - and this is already very high.

My aunt, when she comes to visit us, often complains about her daughter-in-law and her alcoholic son. Her complaints seem justified, and we are outraged with her. But, it turns out, she condemns? And are we part of it?

Yes, I think that these conversations are useless. They won't bring anything, they won't help this aunt, or her family, or this poor alcoholic. Therefore, in such cases, one must either be completely silent, as if not touching this, or, if you want to help, pray.

But in order to pray for fallen people, one must have grace, otherwise we can take upon ourselves temptations and sorrows that are beyond our strength.

In a word, it is necessary either to help somehow, or at least not to harm. And by participating in slander, we only increase sin even more.

How not to condemn a person who came to the temple drunk? Is condescension appropriate here, would it not be the indulgence of passion?

I will tell such a case. One of my acquaintances worked in the temple, was something like a day watchman. Once a guy came to the temple, drunk to smithereens, stood in front of the icon of the Mother of God, began to cry, shout something ... It seems that his mother was sick with cancer.

And all this happened during the service, and my friend was told to throw this guy out of the church. But he treated him condescendingly and philanthropicly, quietly led him out, began to talk with him, although he, I repeat, was quite drunk. Subsequently, they began to meet, as a result, my friend converted this man to faith, he became an Orthodox Christian, and a few years later a priest.

Therefore, there is no need to cut everyone under the same brush and indiscriminately condemn. Maybe a person has some kind of misfortune, or he just drank an extra glass on his name day. But if he behaves impudently, hooligans, blasphemes - this, of course, is another matter.

There must be some indulgence, but also prudence. However, it is better to keep from internal condemnation even in this case.

It sometimes seems to me that people who are subject to the same passion are similar to each other, passion, as it were, leaves an imprint on their faces. Is there any condemnation in this?

It is better not to get carried away with such observations, otherwise you will go around and say to people: “Here you are, proud. And you are proud, and you are proud: you have the same prints on your faces.

We must try in every person, even in the most degraded, to see the image of God. True Christianity consists in not noticing anything bad in your neighbor.

Saint Ignatius Brianchaninov said that he was honored to see the faces of his enemies as the faces of God's angels. He looked at his enemy, the slanderer, and saw his face shining like an angel's. Why? Was it because he was actually angelic? No, but because the grace of God blinds a Christian in the sense that it deprives him of the sight of other people's sins.

Confessors may be an exception in this sense. They, so to speak, involuntarily have to deal with human sins, but not for the sake of condemnation, but for the sake of helping others. The confessor is like a surgeon. The surgeon who is forced to cut open the human body and sort through its insides does not do it for his own pleasure, but in order to help the person get rid of the disease.

In general, all Christians, on the contrary, should strive not to see anything in a person, not to consider what kind of passion is depicted on his face: pride or anger. You need to think: all the good, the meek, all the angels of God, all around me are saints, I alone am a sinner.

Of course, it is impossible to acquire such an attitude towards all people by one's own efforts, only the act of grace can make a person capable of this. But our general disposition must be precisely this.

Schema-Archimandrite Abraham (Reidman)

Condemnation - what happens to the soul when you condemn?

Why does Christianity so categorically forbid condemning one's neighbor? After all, condemnation does not take place for outstanding merits and virtues, but for immoral behavior. Or, in the language of Christian asceticism, for sins. But isn't sin, from the point of view of the Church, worthy of blame?

Emmanuel Kant said that what amazed him most in the world was the sight of the starry sky above us and the moral law within us. This law of conscience is universal for all mankind and does not depend on cultural, national or religious differences between people. The desire for good is as natural to each of us as, for example, the ability to think, talk, or walk on its hind limbs. Therefore, the commandments “Thou shalt not kill,” “Thou shalt not steal,” “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife,” even for a person who is just getting acquainted with the life of the Church, do not become the discovery of something fundamentally new and unexpected. But the gospel commandment about non-judgment very often causes bewilderment and a number of questions.

After all, if a municipal official buys himself a foreign car at a cost equal to his salary for twenty years of impeccable service, then it is not his love for high-quality and convenient technology that causes condemnation at all. A married man who has an affair on the side is not condemned by acquaintances because he is an exemplary father, but a drunken saxophonist is by no means for his virtuoso mastery of a musical instrument. Not a single, even the most biased, meticulous and caustic critic will blame anyone for good and useful deeds. Only immoral behavior, an unseemly act or a crime can become a reason for condemnation.
But why, then, does the Church so insistently urge Christians not to condemn anyone in deed, word, or even thought? After all, it often happens that a person clearly sins in front of everyone, and even the most naive altruist and romantic cannot have any doubts about his sinfulness.

In most traditional religions, condemnation and even punishment of such people is the norm. In ancient Israel, for example, pious Jews had to stone to death sinners convicted of adultery. And in those Muslim countries where criminal law is based on Sharia, a sinner caught red-handed today faces severe physical punishment, up to and including the death penalty. From the point of view of ordinary human logic, this is quite normal: a crime requires punishment, and a sin requires retribution.

However, the gospel principle of attitude towards sinners decisively contradicts such reasoning. By His earthly life, Jesus Christ showed people the norm of humanity to which we are all called, and therefore any act of Christ described in the Gospel is a standard of behavior for every person who sincerely strives to fulfill the will of God.

What does the Gospel say about Christ's attitude towards sinners? Only one thing: He did not condemn them, but treated them with love and pity. Christ did not condemn the woman taken in adultery (John 8:11); did not condemn the inhabitants of the Samaritan village who refused to give Him food and shelter (Luke 9:51-56); and even Judas, who came to betray Him to a painful death, the Lord did not exclude from the number of His friends (Matthew 26:50). Moreover, the first person whom Christ brought into Paradise was a repentant bandit and murderer, crucified for his sins (Luke 23:32-43). The gospel mentions only one category of people who were subjected to a sharp condemnation of Christ. The Lord called the high priests, scribes, and Pharisees “serpents” and “spawn of vipers.” It was the religious elite of the Jewish people - that is, precisely those people who just considered themselves entitled to condemn sinners.

What is the reason for such a paradoxical attitude towards sinners in Christianity, and why in Orthodoxy any form of negative assessment of even an obviously sinned person is considered the gravest sin? In order to answer these questions, one must first find out: how is sin generally understood in Orthodoxy?

In Greek, sin is often called the word "amartia", which literally translates into Russian as "missing the target", "missing". Before the fall, every action of man had as its goal the fulfillment of God's good will for him and for the world around him. But when man fell away from his Creator, this clear and lofty goal was obscured from him by many others, petty and contradictory. All his properties and abilities remained the same, but now a person began to use them in an inappropriate way. So the shooter with blurred vision is still able to pull the tight string of his bow and shoot the arrow, but where it will hit is a big question. Most likely, such a blind shot will turn out to be exactly “amartia”, that is, past the target.

Here is how St. Simeon the New Theologian writes about this: “From the time of Adam’s crime, all the natural forces of human nature, that is, the mind, memory, imagination, will, feeling, which are all combined in parts of the soul, have been corrupted… They have been corrupted, but not destroyed. Why a person can think, but cannot think correctly; can act, but act unwisely. For this reason, everything that he thinks and invents, what he thinks and undertakes, what he sympathizes with and what he turns away from, all this is crooked, askew, erroneous. In other words, sin in Orthodoxy is understood as an incorrect, out of time and out of place realized impulse of human nature, which in itself is quite healthy, but, being used for other purposes, has become harmful and dangerous for a person.

The sin of judgment is no exception to this rule. It is based on the same moral law of man's striving for the good that amazed Kant. Having created man sinless, God put conscience in his nature as the ability to distinguish good from evil, and hatred of sin as a defensive reaction to a collision with evil. Therefore, when the first people agreed in the Garden of Eden to the persuasions of Satan and ate the fruits from the forbidden tree, they did not become victims of deception or their own ignorance. The Fall was a conscious act of violating the will of God and the voice of their own conscience.

Having fallen away from God, man lost Paradise, but he retains this natural ability to recognize evil and hate sin to this day. True, with one sad proviso: after the fall, a person clearly sees evil, but only in other people, and now he hates exclusively other people's sins. Such a spiritual arrangement gives rise to an attitude towards others, which is usually called in the Orthodox tradition - the sin of condemnation.

An incorrectly used ability, like a monstrous binocular, incredibly magnifies before our spiritual gaze all the shortcomings of those around us and their evil deeds. But when we try to look at ourselves through the same binoculars, it begins to equally incredibly reduce all our sins, making them small, insignificant and not worthy of attention in our eyes.

Strange as it may seem, but such a desire not to see oneself as sinful and bad also has a basis in the pure God-given nature of man and is nothing more than a distorted sense of holiness, which was characteristic of our nature before the fall.

The paradox of the sin of judging lies in the fact that, having taken to judging the shortcomings and sins of another person, we actually judge ourselves, although, as a rule, we are not even aware of it. By condemning someone, we establish a certain level of moral assessment of human behavior, below which we ourselves have no right to fall. For example, having condemned in the soul a rude boss who yells at his subordinates with or without reason, we thereby determine for ourselves the categorical inadmissibility of such behavior. However, after returning home from work, we can immediately vent the irritation and fatigue accumulated during the day on innocent relatives. And therefore the condemnation, which during the day was addressed to the unrestrained boss, now with full right should be used already in relation to ourselves. This is how the amazing law of spiritual life manifests itself, which the Monk John of the Ladder formulated as follows: “If it is really true that ... with what judgment you judge, you will be judged (Matthew 7:2), then, of course, for what sins will we condemn our neighbor, bodily or spiritual ones, let us fall into those ourselves; and there is no other way."

The reason for such a rigid dependence is that in another person we can recognize and condemn only those sinful inclinations that are in ourselves, even if they are not characteristic of this person at all. We do not see the soul of a person, we do not know his inner world, and therefore we very often attribute to other people's actions the meaning that our own sinful experience tells us. So, for example, seeing a person entering a convenience store in the middle of the night, a bandit may mistake him for his colleague who was about to rob this shop. The drunkard, looking at the same late buyer, will decide that he has come running for another portion of the drink. And a lover of amorous adventures will think that this person is going to his mistress and wants to buy a cake, flowers and champagne on the way. Everyone judges him according to their own ideas, conditioned by their own habit of this or that kind of sin. And the man just came to buy milk for a sick daughter ...

So what is it worth, such is our judgment? After all, everything that we can know about each other, by and large, fits into this sad scheme: we see only the appearance of other people's affairs, but we have absolutely no idea of ​​their meaning and internal motivation. Observing other people's actions, we naively try to give a fair assessment to the people who committed them. But this is not how God judges, who does not look at the deeds, but at the heart of a person, knows all the circumstances of his life, the movements of his soul, and in a completely different way evaluates even what, without a doubt, is a sin in our eyes.

A very good example, explaining how this can be, is given in his teachings by the Monk Abba Dorotheos, a Christian ascetic who lived in the 7th century. He tells how two very small girls were put up for sale at a slave trade, and one of them was bought by a pious Christian woman who dreams of raising her in the purity and fragrance of the holy commandments of Christ. Another baby was bought by a completely depraved harlot in order to teach her her vile trade. And, of course, the first girl grew up with a pure soul and body, God-loving and full of all kinds of virtues. And the second... The second one was made by her evil mentor into an instrument of the devil, teaching the most refined and dirty types of debauchery. And so, Abba Dorotheos exclaims: “Both were small, both were sold, not knowing themselves where they were going, and one ended up in the hands of God, and the other fell into the hands of the devil. Is it possible to say that God will exact equally from both one and the other? How is that possible! If both fall into fornication or some other sin, can it be said that both of them will be subjected to the same judgment, although both have fallen into the same sin? Is it possible? One knew about the Judgment, about the Kingdom of God, day and night she studied in the words of God; the other, unfortunate, never saw or heard anything good, but always, on the contrary, everything bad, everything diabolical; how is it possible that both should be judged by the same judgment? So, no man can know the judgments of God, but He alone knows everything and can judge the sins of everyone, as He alone knows.

“Hate sin, but love the sinner” - this is the principle of Orthodox asceticism, which does not allow identifying a person with his evil deeds. But even hatred of someone else's sin can be spiritually dangerous. After all, one who carefully considers the behavior of others, himself runs the risk, through condemnation of sinful acts, imperceptibly falling into condemnation of the person who commits them. An instructive case of this kind is mentioned in the Ancient Patericon: “One elder of a holy life, learning about a certain brother that he had fallen into fornication, said:“ Oh, he did badly. After some time, the Angel brought to him the soul of the sinner and said: “Look, the one whom you condemned has died; where would you order him to be placed - in the Kingdom or in torment? “Shaken by this, the holy elder spent the rest of his life in tears, repentance and immeasurable labors, praying that God would forgive him this sin.” The elder did not condemn his brother, but only his act, but the Lord showed him the inadmissibility of even such a seemingly pious and righteous judgment.

Sin is worthy of hatred - but everyone who wants his salvation needs to learn to hate sin, first of all, in himself. About other people's sins and about the correct attitude towards them, Abba Dorotheos wrote the following: “It really happens that a brother sins out of simplicity; but he has one good deed, which pleases God more than all his life, - and you judge and condemn him, and burden your soul. But if he happened to stumble, how do you know how much he struggled and how much he shed his blood before sinning? Now his sin appears before God, as if it were a matter of truth. For God sees his work and sorrow, which, as I said, he lifted before sinning, and - has mercy on him. And you know only this sin, and while God has mercy on him, you condemn him and destroy your soul. How do you know how many tears he shed about this before God? You have seen sin, but you have not seen repentance.”

Even a very dirty person can feel clean and tidy if he meets a poor fellow even dirtier and sloppier than himself. The trouble is that our nature, damaged by sin, constantly strives for self-affirmation by recognizing another person as lower, bad, sinful. And one more loophole for this sick striving is very often seen by us in the words of the New Testament about the denunciation of sin: Try what is pleasing to God, and do not participate in the fruitless works of darkness, but also reprove. For what they do in secret is shameful to speak of (Eph 5:10-12). It would seem that this is a direct sanction to condemn the sins of others, backed up by the authority of Holy Scripture. However, do not rush to conclusions. Before embarking on the denunciation of evil deeds, all those striving for this kind of activity should first familiarize themselves with the thoughts of spiritually experienced ascetics on this subject: himself that they, the zealots, are not saints, but sinners. If the saints denounced the sinners and the wicked, then they denounced according to the command of God, according to their duty, according to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and not according to the inspiration of their passions and demons. Whoever decides to spontaneously denounce a brother or make a remark to him, he clearly reveals and proves that he considered himself more prudent and virtuous than the one denounced by him, that he acts out of passion and seduction by demonic thoughts, ”wrote St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov).

And here are the words of St. Philaret (Drozdov): “To tell the truth is a good thing when we are called to do so by duty or love for our neighbor, but this must be done, as far as possible, without condemning our neighbor and without vanity and self-exaltation, as if better than another who knows the truth. But at the same time, one must know people and deeds, so that instead of the truth, one does not say reproach and, instead of peace and good, one does not produce enmity and harm.

It is not difficult to see that the two most authoritative teachers of our Church, who lived in the second half of the 19th century, independently of each other, express almost the same thought: it is not worth reproaching sinners, unless you were specially called to this by God and cleansed your heart of passions. But if we turn to the ancient Fathers, then their opinion on the appropriateness of exposing the sins of others will be even more categorical: “Do not expose any of his shortcomings to anyone, for any reason. ... Do not reproach your brother, even if you saw him as a violator of all the commandments, otherwise you yourself will fall into the hands of your enemies. (Rev. Anthony the Great)

“Cover the sinner, if there is no harm to you from this: and you will give him courage, and the mercy of your Lord will support you” (Reverend Isaac the Syrian)

“Do not reproach anyone, for you do not know what will happen to you yourself. ... Speak a word of comfort to a negligent soul, and the Lord will strengthen your heart ”(Reverend Ephraim the Syrian)

Once the brethren asked the Monk Pimen the Great: “Abba, should you, seeing a brother’s sin, keep silent and cover his sin?” “It follows,” replied the Monk Pimen. “If you cover your brother’s sin, then God will cover your sin.” “But what answer will you give to God that, having seen a sinner, you did not rebuke him?”

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