An introduction to the sacred history of the Old and New Testaments. Creation of the sky - the invisible world

Lesson 10. Teaching about angels. Angel Guardian of a person, family, country

Tasks:

· the child learns that by Orthodox faith, angels - spiritual beings, created by God before the creation of the visible world, who fulfill God's commands and proclaim His will to people;

· will be interested in the image of the Guardian Angel, which, according to the Orthodox faith, is given to a person, to a city, and to the state to help in good deeds;

· think about the fact that a person who does evil according to the Orthodox doctrine, it remains unprotected before the forces of evil.

No. m-f	Media names
	Guardian angel
	"Angel"
03 / video	Angelic World Creation: 1 min 06 sec
04 video	Messenger Angel: 1 min 22 sec
	Annunciation
	Nativity
07 / video	Cherubim and Seraphim: 1 min 36 sec
	Guardian angel
09 / video	Fall of Dennitsa: 1 min 45 s
10 / video	Guardian Angel: 1 min
	Saint Basil the Great
	Guardian angel
	Starry sky
	Wedding
	Macarius the Great of Egypt
	The Angel Appearing to the Shepherds
	Reflection

Guys , I keep looking at the drawing of Holy Russia, which we get, and I can't take my eyes off! It's so good that Holy Russia has so many people who protect it. This is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and the Mother of God, and miraculous icons, both saints and people who keep the Orthodox faith, and even the bell ringing protects and protects Holy Russia!

· Guys, what do you think, can the state have an Angel?

The keeper? (Children's assumptions)

According to the Orthodox doctrine, the Guardian Angel is given not only to a person, but also to the state. So at baptism, Russia received its Guardian Angel.

In the lessons, we have already talked about angels more than once. But what are these creatures? Are there many of them? What are they doing? How do they live?

· Guys, how would you portray an angel? (A handsome young man, in snow-white clothes, with a bright, clear face, with white wings ...)

· And what feelings does your name - Angel - evoke in you? (Joyful, light, gentle ...)

· What do you know Guardian Angel? (Answers children)

Now you, having got acquainted with the statements of people about the angelic world, fill in the first part of the table"Point of view":

· Put a plus (+) if you agree with the statement or a minus (-) if you do not agree

No. pp	Expressions of people	At the beginning of the lesson	At the end of the lesson
	Angels were created at the same time as the creation of the Earth
	Live in the sky
	All angels are equal
	Angels have no names
	Angels were created with free will (that is, they can choose between obedience and opposition to God, between good and evil).
	Angels, have the gift of speech, the ability to think
	We have a common ground with the angels
	Angels appear to people with the message from God.
	Accompany a person from the moment of birth
10. What do you think of the angelic world? At the beginning of the lesson: _________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ At the end of the lesson: __________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________

For the overwhelming majority of people, this name evokes the idea of ​​something extraordinarily bright, pure, perfect, holy, beautiful, unearthly, something that the soul involuntarily gravitates towards. (m-f 01. Guardian Angel. Icon).

It is not without reason that we designate everything pure, light, beautiful, perfect by the name of an angel (m-f 02. Angel). About cute children, with trusting eyes and a kind smile, they say: "like angels", "angel eyes", "angel smile". Seeing extraordinary beauty, a person exclaims: "Angelic beauty!" Hearing an extraordinary, sonorous, gentle singing - "Angelic singing!"

· And how will they say about a family whose members live in mutual harmony, mutual love, where everything is imbued with quietness, meekness, and an extraordinary peace? (Live like angels).

In addition to our inner feelings, talk about the angelic world Holy Bible.

The Bible does not say exactly about the time of the creation of the angels, but it says that when the stars were created, what day of creation is this?(4th), the angels praised the Lord with a great voice ... These words show that angels were created before the world and man we see. (m-f 03 / video. Creation of the angelic world: 1 min 06 sec).

According to the teaching of the Holy Church, angels are created out of nothing, suddenly seeing themselves created in wonderful grace and bliss. They immediately felt gratitude, reverence, and love for their Creator. .

· Where is the angelic world?

As we remember, in the beginning God created heaven, that is, the angelic world and the earth, that is, the primary matter from which our visible world was subsequently created. On the second day of creation, the Lord created a firmament, that is, a kind of partition that separates the sky, that is, the angelic invisible world from the earth, that is, from our visible world. We have a common firmament with the angels - the sky: the above-heaven angels are above the sky, and we heavenly ones are under the sky. The sky of the second day (firmament) is a spiritual horizon, beyond which there is another world.

The word Angel means "messenger", "messenger" (m-f 04 / video. Messenger Angel: 1 min 22 sec).

· Who do you think sends the angels, where and why? (Answers of children).

Angels are God's servants whom the Lord sends with His commands to different parts of the Universe.

Scripture tells about many events when Angels appeared to people with the message from God.

· You are already familiar with the two most important events that the Angels announced to the people. Do you remember? (Annunciation: m-f 05, Nativity of Christ: m-f 06).

Order and wondrous harmony reign in the angelic world. Angels differ in rank.

· How do you understand the word "rank"? (Dignity, rank, dignity)

The highest ranks are cherubim and seraphim, the angels closest to God (m-f 07 / video. Cherubim. Seraphim: 1 min 36 s) and lower ranks: our guardian angels (m-f 08. Guardian Angel), the angels closest to man. The lower ranks of angels do not envy the higher ranks.

Angels were created in the image and likeness of God, just as man was later created .

· What do we have in common with angels? (Children's assumptions)

People, like angels, have the gift of words, the ability to think, love, and do good. Man, like angels, has the freedom of choice, the freedom of the last decision: to be with God or outside of God.

Angels are hidden from our eyes, firstly, because the state of man after the Fall made us unable to see Angels, and secondly, so as not to frighten, not to confuse us with their appearance.

But sometimes angels nevertheless appeared to people with their own eyes, more often to saints.Angels, as the reverend teaches Macarius the Great of Egypt (m-f 15), are subtle bodies and have the appearance of an external person, that is, all its members ... These are described by all the saints who were vouchsafed to see the Angels and converse with them. Holy Scripture depicts the Angels appearing everywhere in the form of a human ( Mf 16. The appearance of an angel to the shepherds).

Reflection (see lesson 1)

"Every soul that remains (for stagnation in evil) without the protection of the Guardian Angel is given over to be plundered by enemies and trampled upon." Creation of others like the saints of our Father Basil the Great, Archbishop of Caesarea of ​​Cappadocia. 4th ed. Sergiev Posad 1900 With. sixteen

The Bible begins with the creation of the world. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, and darkness was over the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the water ”(Gen. 1: 1-2).

Creation of Heaven - invisible world

In the beginning, above all of the visible world and man, God created Heaven out of nothing, that is, the spiritual, invisible world or the world of Angels. Angels are disembodied and immortal spirits gifted with intelligence, will and power. God created countless numbers of them. They differ among themselves in the degree of perfection and in the nature of their service, and are divided into nine faces or ranks, which make up three levels of the hierarchy, three ranks in each. The first hierarchy consists of the Thrones, Cherubim and Seraphim, which are closer to God. In the second, middle hierarchy of Power, Dominance and Power. In the third, closer to us, there are Angels, Archangels and Beginnings.

All Angels were created good, so that they love God and each other, and from this life of love have constant great joy. But God did not want to forcefully force love, so He gave the Angels the freedom to choose: to live in God, to love Him and each other, or not.

One, the highest and most powerful Angel, named Dennitsa (Lucifer), became proud of his power and strength and rejected the will of God - love and life in God. He himself wanted to become God. He began to slander the Lord, resist everything and deny everything, and became a dark, evil spirit - the devil, Satan. The word "devil" means "slanderer", and the word "Satan" means the "enemy" of God and all that is good. This evil spirit seduced and carried away many other Angels who also became evil spirits and are called demons or demons.

Then one of the highest Angels of God, Archangel Michael, spoke out against Satan and said: “Who is equal to God? Nobody is like God! " And there was a war in Heaven: Michael and his angels fought against Satan, and Satan and his demons fought against them.

But the evil power could not withstand the Angels of God, and Satan fell, together with the demons, like lightning, down from the spiritual Heaven. Their place of residence is in the lower regions the spiritual world began to be called the underworld or hell. There, the fallen spirits are tormented in their malice, seeing their powerlessness before God. All of them, out of their impenitence, have become so entrenched in evil that they can no longer become good. They try to seduce every person with cunning and cunning, instilling in him false thoughts and evil desires in order to turn him away from God.

This is how evil arose in God's creation. However, the Holy Fathers point out that evil is not any entity that has an independent existence, similar to God or the forces of the world, but it is the deviation of living beings from harmonizing their will with the will of God. The essence of evil consists in violating the will of God, His commandments and the natural moral law inscribed in the heart of every person (conscience). This violation is also called sin.

The angels, who remained faithful to God, since then live with God in unceasing love and joy, always fulfilling the will of God. And now they are so firmly established in the good and love of God that they can never do evil — they cannot sin, and that is why they are called holy angels. "Angel" - Greek. "Messenger". God sends them to proclaim His will to people, for this the Angels take on a visible, human image.

Creation of the earth - the visible world

After the creation of the Heaven - invisible, the Angelic world, God created out of nothing, with His one Word, the earth, that is, substance (matter), from which he gradually created the entire visible, material (material) world: the visible sky, the earth and everything that is on them ...

God did not create the world at once, but during several periods of time, which are called "days" in the Bible. In all likelihood, these "days" of creation were not ordinary days, at twenty-four hours, since an ordinary day depends on the sun, and in the first three "days" of creation there was not even the sun itself. The Bible was written by the prophet Moses in the Hebrew language, and in this language both the day and the period of time are expressed in one word "yom." Therefore, it is impossible to know exactly what these “days” were, especially since it is known: “The Lord has one day, like a thousand years, and a thousand years, like one day” (2 Peter 3, 8; Psalm 89, 5). “What kind of days are these - it is either extremely difficult or impossible for us to imagine; let alone talk about that ... But we must believe that without hesitation "- wrote St. Augustine of Ippons.

So, at first, the earth (matter) created by God had nothing definite, no form, was unsettled (like fog or water) and covered with darkness, and the Spirit of God hovered over it, giving it life-giving strength.

The Bible begins with the words: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen. 1: 1). All three Persons equally participated in the creation of the world. Holy Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as the Triune God, Consubstantial and Inseparable. In the Hebrew original, the word "God" in this scripture is put in the plural - "Elohim", that is, Gods (singular number Eloah or El - God), and the word "created" - "bara" is put in the singular. Thus, the original Hebrew text of the Bible, from its very first lines, points to the consubstantial Persons of the Holy Trinity, saying as it were: “in the beginning the Gods (Three Persons of the Holy Trinity) created Heaven and Earth”.

The first day of creation

“And God said: Let there be light. And there was light. And God saw the light that it was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. "

The object of creation of the first "day" is light. “And God said: Let there be light” (Genesis 1, 3). Modern science can help us get closer to understanding the nature of this light. In the 20th century, the scientific view of the origin of the Universe began to be identified with the so-called "Big Bang" theory. It can be briefly described as follows.

The entire universe was in a compressed state about 20 billion years ago. All its substance was contained in one point, in an atom that had neither time nor space. The universe as such did not exist. There was only foremother, about the initial state of which science knows nothing, and it is unlikely that it will ever know anything. All matter was probably in a plasma, super-compressed state, in which even atoms were absent, and only elementary particles existed in indescribable chaos. And now, for some reason, still unknown to science, the original core exploded, and a dazzling flash of light appeared - a ball of fire, which began to expand at an incredible speed. Expanding rapidly, the primary matter of the Universe also rapidly lost its density and temperature. By interacting with each other, elementary particles began to create first atoms, then molecules, stars and planets. But not all elementary particles passed into solid matter, a large number of them remained in the Universe in the form of ray energy. Exploded about 20 billion years ago, the universe is still expanding, thus creating more and more space. This is, in brief outline, the prevailing theory of the "Big Bang" in science.

If this theory turns out to be true, then, like no other theory in the past, it stands close to the mystery of that light, which by the will of God appeared on the first creative day.

In the meantime, we can assume that the light that appeared according to the word of the Creator was that primordial substance, which, according to scientists, appeared as a result of the "Big Bang" and from which the Universe then originated. “And God separated the light from the darkness” (Genesis 1, 4). When matter in the form in which we know it began to form from forematter, then, as we mentioned above, not all elementary particles passed into this state of matter, most of them remained in the Universe in the form of ray energy. Scientists suggest that for each nuclear particle of matter there are a billion photons and a billion neutrinos - the elementary particles of radiation energy. Thus, by darkness in this verse we can understand substance, and by light - ray energy, which at a certain moment of the formation of the Universe separated from solid matter and exists to the present time, although in most of its mass it remains invisible to the human eye.

“And God called light day and darkness night. And there was evening and there was morning: one day ”(Genesis 1, 5). This was the first day of the world.

Second day of creation

“And God said: Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water, and let it separate the water from the water. [And it was so.] And God created the firmament, and separated the water that was under the firmament from the water that was above the firmament. And it became so. And God called the firmament Heaven. [And God saw that it was good.] And there was evening and there was morning: the second day ”(Genesis 1, 6-8). The second creative command forms the firmament. The "firmament" (visible sky) can mean both air space (atmosphere) and interplanetary space. From the point of view of a hypothetical observer on Earth, the origin of the firmament, or the visible sky, can be represented as follows.

The immeasurably huge mass of the primordial water-like substance disintegrated at the behest of God, into millions of individual balls, which whirled on their axes and each rushed along its own separate orbit. The space formed between these balls became the "firmament"; for in this space the movement of the newly created worlds was approved by the Lord on certain and unchanging laws of gravitation so that they do not collide with each other and do not interfere with each other in their movements. The water above the firmament is the newly created water-like balls, which then grew stronger and from the fourth day of creation shone and sparkled in the firmament (stars); and the water under the firmament is planet Earth. All this was still called water because on the second day of creation it had not yet received a solid structure and strong forms.

The beginning of the formation of the atmosphere of our planet probably belongs to the same creative period. It can also well be called "firmament", since protects the Earth from the effects of harsh cosmic radiation.

The third day of creation

Further, the earth receives such a structure that life already appears on it, although it is still only lower, namely plant life. The creative action of the third day can presumably be imagined as follows.

The land was still a solid sea. Then God said: “Let the water that is under the sky be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear; and it was so ”(Genesis 1, 9). The thickened and gradually cooled substance rose in some places and fell in others; elevated places were exposed from water, became dry land, and depressions and depressions were filled with water merging into them and formed seas. “And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of waters called the sea: and God saw that it was good” (Gen. 1:10). But the earth did not yet possess what constituted the purpose of its creation: there was still no life on it, only bare rocks looked gloomily at the reservoir of waters. But now, when the distribution of water and land was completed and the necessary conditions for life were formed, then, according to the word of God, the first rudiments of it did not hesitate to appear - in the form of vegetation: “And God said: let the earth grow greenery, grass sowing seed [according to to its kind and after its likeness, and] a fruitful tree, bearing fruit after its kind, in which is its seed on the earth. And it became so. And the earth brought forth grass, herb yielding seed after its kind [and after its likeness], and the tree [fruitful] bearing fruit, in which is its seed after its kind [on the earth]. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning: the third day ”(Genesis 1: 11-13).

The fourth day of creation

“And God said: Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven [to illuminate the earth and] to separate day from night, and for signs, and seasons, and days, and years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of heaven to give light on the earth. And it became so. And God created two great luminaries: a greater luminary, to rule the day, and a lesser one, to govern the night, and the stars; and God placed them in the firmament of heaven to shine on the earth, and to rule day and night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning: the fourth day ”(Genesis 1: 14-19).

The formation of the earth is followed by the arrangement of the heavenly bodies. The creative command “let there be lights” is obviously equivalent to the previous commands of the Creator: “let there be light ... let water be gathered,” that is, not as an initial creation, but as a creative formation of objects. So here, too, one must understand not as a new creation, but only the complete formation of the heavenly bodies.

During this period, according to the Word of the Creator, the solar and stellar systems were finally established, which had already begun to emerge on the second day. They did not stop developing and improving on the third day, but only on the fourth day they received their completion.

Perhaps, we are also talking about the fact that on this "day" the earth's atmosphere acquired transparency, so that through it the sun, moon, stars and other cosmic objects became visible. And for a hypothetical observer on Earth, everything looked exactly like this: there appeared "luminaries in the firmament of heaven."

The fifth day of creation

On the fifth day of the world, according to the word of God, animals were created that live in water and fly in the air, that is, fish, insects, reptiles appeared in the water, and birds flew over the earth, in the firmament. The creative command of God forms these kinds of creatures from the elements of the earth. In their appearance, a special educational power of the Creator is visible - a new, higher beginning of life is introduced into nature, animate, voluntarily moving and feeling beings appear. Giving the newly created creatures the blessing to multiply, God, as it were, turns into their property the power through which they received their being, that is, gives them the ability to produce new, similar creatures from themselves, each according to his own kind.

The sixth day of creation

On the sixth day of the world, according to the word of God, the earth produced a living soul, and animals appeared on the earth, that is, cattle, reptiles and beasts; and, finally, God created man - man and woman in his own image and likeness, that is, in spirit similar to himself.

As for the production of fish and aquatic reptiles, the Lord turned to water, so also for the production of tetrapods He now turns to the earth, just as He turned to it for the production of plants. This must be understood in such a way that the Lord gave life to the earth.

On the sixth day of creation, the earth was already inhabited in all its parts by living beings. The world of living beings was a slender tree, the root of which consisted of the simplest, and the upper branches of the higher animals. But this tree was not complete, there was not yet a flower that would complete and decorate its top, there was not yet a man - the king of nature.

“And God said: Let us make man in our image [and] in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, [and over the beasts,] and over cattle, and over all the earth, and over all creeping things, reptiles on the ground. And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female he created them ”(Gen. 1: 26-27). Here, for the third time, a creative act (bara) took place in the full sense, since man in his being again has something that was not in the nature created before him, namely the spirit, which distinguishes him from all other creatures.

Thus ended the history of the creation and formation of the world. “And God saw all that He had made, and, behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day ”(Genesis 1:31). “And on the seventh day God completed His works that He had done, and rested on the seventh day from all His works that He had done” (Genesis 2, 2).

In the next period, that is, on the seventh day of the world, which, as the Holy Fathers teach, continues to this day, God stopped creating. He blessed and sanctified this day, and called it Saturday (Hebrew “Sabbath”), that is, rest; And he commanded that people also rest on their usual seventh day from their deeds and devote it to the service of God and their neighbors, that is, make this day free from everyday affairs - a holiday.

At the end of creation, God left the world to live and develop according to the plan and laws established by Him (or, as they say, according to the laws of nature), but at the same time He constantly takes care of everything created, giving each creation what it needs for life ... This concern of God for the world is called the Providence of God.

NOTE: see Gen. 1, 1-31; 2, 1-3.

Briefly, the days of creation can be presented in the form of a table:

1. Light, separating it from darkness

2. Visible sky, air

3. Separation of land from water and the creation of land, seas and rivers; flora: grass and trees

4. Sun, moon and stars in the sky

5. Fish and birds

6. Beasts and man

Even before the creation of the entire visible world and man, God created the invisible, spiritual world. In the beginning God created the sky(Genesis 1, 1). By heaven here the holy fathers understand the heavenly world, the heavenly world, close to God and inhabited by disembodied spirits - Angels. The spiritual world is closed to our bodily eyes. We live in a limited three-dimensional space, and the immaterial world, one might say, is in some other dimension, this world is partially revealed to the holy ascetics, who in their lives have come close to God.

Holy Scripture speaks of the destiny of the holy angels: Are not all ministerial spirits sent into ministry for those who have inherited salvation?(Heb 1:14) The purpose of Angels is to serve God and help people in matters of salvation. The Hieromartyr Seraphim (Zvezdinsky) writes about the abilities and properties of Angels: “As incorporeal spirits, the Angels know neither our space nor time; our modes of movement, fraught with many efforts and difficulties, are unknown to them. Angels are fast-flying, fast-moving: the Angel is now in one place, in the blink of an eye - in another; there are no walls, no doors, no locks for the Angels. “They,” teaches Gregory the Theologian, “freely walk around the Great See, because they are fast-moving minds, flames and Divine spirits that travel quickly through the air.” And they pass through the shuttered doors, and see through the walls, and no fortress, the most solid, high and impregnable, can hold back their flight. Angels are irresistibly, freely flying on the wings of their fast-flying ones: before the noise of their spirit (see: Dan 14, 36), like smoke, all space disappears. "

In spiritual literature, the words Archangel and Angel are used in two meanings - private and general.

First, in the biblical texts Angels are ministering spirits, God's messengers to people. Word angel and it is translated from Greek - messenger... This word refers to all Heavenly disembodied Forces. Hence the expression - the whole angelic world... In Greek, the word archi means Start... Thus, the Archangels are the supreme Angels, rulers over all the Angels (see: Jude, ch. 9; 1 Thess 4:16). According to the teachings of the Church, there are eight Archangels: Michael the Archangel (this name means who is like god), Gabriel ( the power of god), Raphael ( God's help), Uriel ( God is my light), Selafiel ( prayer to god), Jeremiel ( the height of god). Jehudiel is also ranked among the Archangels ( praise of God) and Barachiel ( blessing of god).

Secondly, the words Angel and Archangel are used in his creation "Heavenly Hierarchy" by the Hieromartyr Dionysius the Areopagite, but in a different meaning - when he speaks of the nine ranks. According to Saint Dionysius, the heavenly hierarchy has three degrees, and in each degree there are three orders:

- Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones;

- Dominance, Strength and Power;

- Beginnings, Archangels and Angels.

The Archangels, who make up the eighth order, are senior in relation to the ninth order - the Angels.

Some spiritual experiences convince that a person is accompanied by two Angels during his lifetime, one of them is a Guardian Angel. Both Angels appear at the time of death. A disciple of the Monk Macarius of Alexandria (died in 395) says: "When we walked through the wilderness, I saw two Angels who accompanied St. Macarius, one on the right side, the other on the left." The life of the Monk Basil the New, a saint of the 10th century, describes the experience of Saint Theodora undergoing aerial ordeals. She said: “When I was completely exhausted, I saw two Angels of God approaching me in the form of beautiful youths; their faces were bright, their eyes looked with love, their hairs on their heads were white as snow and shone like gold; the clothes looked like the light of lightning, and on the chest they were girdled crosswise with golden belts. " At the end of the 19th century in Russia there was an experience of the soul's staying outside the body for many hours. K. Ikskul, author of the book “Incredible for many, but a true incident” (Trinity leaflet No. 58. Sergiev Posad, 1910), also speaks about the two Angels: “So, what happened to me next? The doctors left the ward, both paramedics stood and talked about the twists and turns of my illness and death, and the old nanny (nurse), turning to the icon, crossed herself and loudly expressed her usual wish to me in such cases:

- Well, the Heavenly Kingdom to him, eternal rest ...

And as soon as she uttered these words, two Angels appeared beside me; for some reason I recognized in one of them my Guardian Angel, and the other was unknown to me. "

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, and darkness was over the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the water.

(Genesis 1, 1-2).

The biblical teaching on the creation of the world is briefly called Six days... Day means day. In 1823, the Anglican priest George Stanley Faber (1773-1854) advanced the day-era theory. This opinion has absolutely no basis. In Hebrew, to express words indefinite period of time or epoch there is a concept olam... Word yom in Hebrew always means day, day but never time period... The rejection of the literal understanding of the day greatly distorts the biblical teaching about the creation of the world. If we take a day as an era, then how to define evening and morning? How can the blessing and rest of the seventh day be applied to the age? After all, the Lord commanded rest on the seventh day of the week - Saturday, because He rested: and God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it, for on that day He rested from all His deeds(Genesis 2, 3). The Lord created plants on the third day, and the sun, moon and other luminaries on the fourth. If we accept the idea of ​​"day - era", it turns out that the whole era plants grew without sunlight.

The holy fathers understood day the first chapter of Genesis literally. Saint Irenaeus of Lyons: "Restoring this day in Himself, the Lord came to suffering on the day before Saturday - that is, on the sixth day of creation, on which man was created, through His suffering giving him a new creation, that is (liberation) from death." Saint Ephraim the Syrian: "No one should think that the six-day creation is an allegory." Saint Basil the Great: « And it was evening, and it was morning, the day is one ... determines this measure of day and night and copulates in one daily time, because twenty-four hours fill the continuation of one day, if by day we mean also night. " Saint John Damascene: “From the beginning of a day to the beginning of another day - one day, for the Scripture says: and there was evening and there was morning: one day».

How, then, did the alternation of day and night take place before the creation of the luminaries that appear on the fourth day? Saint Basil the Great writes: “Then not by the solar movement, but by the fact that this primitive light, to a certain extent by God, either flooded or compressed again, day occurred and night followed” (Six days. Conversation 2).

Genesis begins with a description of the magnificent works of God - the creation of the world in six days. The Lord created the Universe with innumerable luminaries, the earth with its seas and mountains, man and the entire animal and plant world. The biblical revelation about the creation of the world rises above all existing cosmogonies of other religions, as truth rises above any myth. Not a single religion, not a single philosophical teaching could rise to the idea of ​​creation out of nothing, superior to reason: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

God is self-sufficient and absolutely complete. For His existence, He does not require anything and does not need anything. The only reason for the creation of the world was the perfect Love of God. St. John of Damascus writes: "The good and good God was not content with contemplation of Himself, but out of an abundance of goodness he wanted something to happen that would benefit from His good deeds in the future and take part in His goodness."

Ethereal spirits were created first - Angels... Although Scripture does not contain a story about the creation of the angelic world, there is no doubt that Angels by their nature belong to the created world. This view is based primarily on a clear biblical understanding of God as the omnipotent Creator, who laid the foundation for all that exists. Everything has a beginning, only God is without beginning. Some holy fathers see an indication of the creation of the invisible world of Angels in words God created the sky (Genesis 1, 1). In support of this thought, Saint Filaret (Drozdov) notes that, according to the biblical account, the physical heaven was created on the second and fourth days.

Pristine the land was unsettled and empty... Matter created from nothing at first appeared disordered and covered with darkness. Darkness was an inevitable consequence of the absence of light, which was not created as an independent element. Further, the writer Moses writes that The Spirit of God Was Hovering Over the Water(Genesis 1, 2). Here we see an indication of the creative and revitalizing participation in the creation of the third Person of the Holy Trinity - the Holy Spirit. An extremely short and precise definition - everything from the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. The water mentioned in the above verse is the most important element, without which life is impossible. In the holy Gospel, water is a symbol of the life-giving and saving teaching of Jesus Christ. In the life of the Church, water has a special meaning, being the substance of the Sacrament of Baptism.

The first day of creation

And God said: Let there be light. And there was light ... And God separated the light from the darkness. And God called light day and darkness night. And there was evening and there was morning: one day(Genesis 1, 3-5).

By divine command arose light... From further words: and God separated the light from the darkness we see that the Lord did not destroy the darkness, but only established its periodic change with light to restore and preserve the strength of man and every creature. This wisdom of God is sung by the Psalmist: You stretch out the darkness and there is night: during it all the forest animals roam; lions roar for prey and ask God for food for themselves. The sun rises, [and] they gather and lie down in their lairs; a man goes out to his work and to his work until evening. How many are Thy works, O Lord!(Ps 103: 20-24). Poetic expression and there was evening and there was morning the description of the creative activities of each of the six days ends. The word itself day the saints took it literally.

Light was created by the Divine word possessing an omnipotent creative power: for He said, and it was done; He commanded - and it appeared(Ps 32: 9). The Holy Fathers see here a mysterious indication of the second Person of the Holy Trinity - the Son of God Jesus Christ, whom the Apostle calls In a word and at the same time says: Everything through Him began to be, and without Him nothing began to be that began to be(Jn 1, 3).

When describing the first day, the first evening, and then morning... For this reason, Jews in Bible times began their day in the evening. This order was preserved in the divine services of the New Testament Church.

Second day of creation

And God created the firmament ...<...>and called ... the firmament sky(Genesis 1, 7, 8) and placed the sky between the water that was on the earth and the water above the earth.

On the second day God created physical sky... In a word firmament the word of the Hebrew original is transmitted, meaning spreading, for the ancient Jews metaphorically compared the firmament with a tent: stretch out the heavens like a tent(Ps 103: 2).

When describing the second day, it is also said about water, which is found not only on the ground, but also in the atmosphere.

The third day of creation

And God gathered the waters under the sky into one place and opened the dry land. And he called the dry land the earth, and the gathering of the waters he called the seas. And God commanded the earth to grow greenery, grass and trees bearing fruit. And the earth was covered with vegetation. The Lord separated the water from the land(see: Genesis 1, 9-13).

On the third day were created oceans, seas, lakes and rivers, as well as continents and islands... This later delighted the Psalmist: He collected, like heaps, sea waters, put the abyss in the storehouses. May all the earth fear the Lord; let all that dwell in the universe tremble before Him, for He said, and it was done; He commanded - and it appeared(Ps 32: 7-9).

On the same day, God created all vegetable world... This was fundamentally new: God initiated organic life on the ground.

Produce the plant kingdom Creator commanded the earth... Saint Basil the Great says: “The then verb and this first command became, as it were, a natural law and remained in the earth for subsequent times, giving it the power to give birth and bear fruit” (Saint Basil the Great. Six days. Conversation 5).

Genesis says that the earth has grown greenery, grass and trees sowing seed by their kind... The Holy Fathers attached a fundamental importance to this, for it indicates the constancy of everything created by God: "What at the first creation left the earth is observed to this day, through the preservation of the clan by the succession of succession" (St. Basil the Great. Six days. Conversation 5). As you can see, the third day was dedicated to the dispensation of our planet.

And God saw that it was good (Genesis 1, 12). The writer of everyday life expresses the idea in poetic language that God creates wisely and perfectly.

The fourth day of creation

And God said that there should be lights in the firmament of heaven, for the sanctification of the earth and for the separation of day from night. According to the created luminaries, the calendar and time will now be counted. And the luminaries appeared: the sun, the moon and the stars(see: Genesis 1, 14-18).

In the description of the fourth day, we see the creation of the luminaries, their purpose and their differences. From the text of the Bible, we learn that the light was created on the second day before the lights, so that, according to the explanation of St. Basil the Great, unbelievers would not regard the sun as the only source of light. God alone is the Father of lights (see: James 1:17).

The creation of the luminaries had three purposes: first, to illuminate land and everything that is on it; a distinction is established between the luminaries of the day (the sun) and the night (the moon and stars). Secondly, to separate day from night; distinguish four seasons, arrange time with calendar and keep chronology. Third, serve for the signs of the end times; this is stated in the New Testament: the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken; then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven; and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn and see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory(Mt 24: 29-30).

The fifth day of creation

On the fifth day, the Lord created the first living creatures that live in water and fly in the air. And God said: Let the water bring forth reptiles, the living soul; and let the birds fly over the earth. So the inhabitants of the waters appeared, aquatic animals, insects, reptiles and fish appeared, and birds flew through the air.(see: Genesis 1, 20-21).

At the beginning of the fifth day God turns His creative word to water ( yes water will produce), while on the third day - to the ground. Word water taken in a given place in a broader sense, denoting not only ordinary water, but also the atmosphere, which is also called water by the sacred writer.

On the fifth day, God creates a form of life that is higher than that of plants. By God's command, representatives of the water element appeared (fish, whales, reptiles, amphibians and other inhabitants of the waters), as well as birds, insects and everyone living in the air.

The Creator creates the first beings of each kind ("by kind"). He blesses them to be fruitful and multiply.

The sixth day of creation

On the sixth day of creation, God created animals that live on earth and man in His own image and likeness(see: Genesis 1, 24-31).

Description sixth creative day the prophet Moses begins with the same words as the previous days (third and fifth): yes it will... God commands the earth to create all animals of the earth (living soul by its kind). God created everything in sequence increasing excellence.

And the Lord God created man from the dust of the earth, and breathed into his face breath of life, and man became a living soul (see: Gen. 1, 26-28).

The last, as the crown of creation, was created man... It was created in a special way. The Holy Fathers first of all note that his creation was preceded by Divine counsel between all Persons of the Most Holy Trinity: make man... Man is distinguished from the entire created world and by the way the Lord creates him. Although his bodily composition was taken from the earth, the Lord does not command the earth to produce man (as was the case with other creatures), but Himself creates him directly. The psalmist says, addressing the Creator: Your hands have made me and made me(Ps 119, 73).

God said that it's not good for a person to be alone.

And the Lord God brought a deep sleep to man; and when he fell asleep, he took one of his ribs, and covered that place with flesh. And the Lord God created a woman from a rib taken from a man, and brought her to a man(Genesis 2, 21-22).

The Lord, of course, could have created not only one married couple, but several and produced from them the entire human race, but He wanted all the people of the earth to be one in Adam. Even Eve was taken from her husband. The apostle Paul says: From one blood He made the whole human race to inhabit the whole face of the earth(Acts 17:26) And so we are all related.

At the dawn of human history, God established marriage as a permanent life union between a man and a woman. He blessed him and sealed him with the closest bonds: will be one flesh(Genesis 2:24).

By creating a human body, God blew into his face breath of life and man became a living soul... The most important distinctive feature person is that his soul is godlike... God said: let us make man in our image [and] in our likeness(Genesis 1:26). About what is the image of God in man, we said earlier. When God created man, He brought all animals and birds to him, man gave them all names. The naming of names was a sign of man's domination over all creation.

With the creation of man, the six-day creation of the world ends. God made the world perfect... The hand of the Creator did not introduce any evil into him. This doctrine of the original goodness of all creation is a sublime theological truth.

At the end of time will the perfection of the world has been restored. According to the testimony of the secret viewer, the holy Apostle John the Theologian, there will be a new heaven and a new land(see: Rev 21, 1).

Seventh day

And on the seventh day God completed His works that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His works that He had done.(Genesis 2, 2).

Having finished the creation of the world, God rested from His works. The everyday writer uses a metaphor here, for God does not need rest. This indicates the secret of true peace that awaits people in eternal life. Before the onset of this blessed time, already in earthly life we ​​see a prototype of this state - the rest of the blessed seventh day, which was in the Old Testament saturday, and for Christians it is a day Sunday.

God is love (1 John 4, 8).

Life in love is great joy, supreme bliss. And God wanted other beings to receive this joy.

For this, He created the world.

First, God created Angels and placed them in the abodes of heaven. The sky is a spiritual, invisible world. Then He created our earthly world.

The word "angel" itself means "messenger" in Russian. God sends holy Angels into the world to proclaim His will to people.

For this, the Angels take on a visible, human image. Many times Angels appeared to people in the form of beautiful youths in snow-white, shiny robes, girded with golden belts.

Angels are depicted as beautiful young men - as a sign of their spiritual beauty and winged - as a sign of their stay in the Kingdom of Heaven.

God gives every Christian at baptism a Guardian Angel. Our heavenly Father commanded His angels to keep us in all our ways and to protect us from all evil (Psalm 90: 10-11).

God gave me an angel when I was baptized.
Even though I have never seen him,
I know and believe that day after day
He protects me from enemies!

Guardian angel with me day and night,
Wherever I am - he is in a hurry to help me!
I don't know the best doctor in the world,
Only now I often grieve him ...

Am I lying, lazy or quarreling with whom -
The angel walks away and cries then.
The demons come to me then.
Angel, forgive me, without you it is trouble for me!

When you were just learning to walk, mom or dad took your hand, guarding you from danger. But they cannot always be with us, and dangers lie in wait for us everywhere. We are so often alone. Who will help us when they are not around? Our Guardian Angel. He is always and everywhere with us, although we do not see him.

Angel
God, my guardian, pray to God for me.

Angel is my good guardian,
Quiet light patron
I always pray to an angel
I'm not afraid of anything with him.

Guardian Angel protects you,
He knows your secret thoughts,
Good luck is having fun with you
And if you sin, he suffers and cries.

Poems by the monk Barnabas, and Yevgeny Sanin.

And here is the coloring book.

I read two stories to them about the Guardian Angel, listened with bated breath, here is one of them:

In 1885, F.I.Sokolov, an assistant to the head of the Moscow Oktyabrsky railway station, reported such a case. He had a familiar railway
an employee - a switchman who served at one of the stations of the October railway closest to Moscow. One day in the performance of their
on the line, he had to endure terrible minutes. A courier train went from Petrograd to Moscow. The switchman came out to him
towards to move the arrow and direct it to a clear path. He looks, far ahead, smoke can already be seen and the whistle of a steam locomotive is heard.
Looking back, he sees: his three-year-old son is running along the canvas towards the train and is holding something in his hands. It was too late to throw the arrow and run towards his son to get him off the canvas. What to do?
Meanwhile, the train was approaching, and in two minutes, if he had not turned the switch, the train would have to rush along the other track, occupied, and crash, which would have led to hundreds of human casualties. Then with all his heart he cried out to God: “Thy holy will be done,” - crossed himself, closed his eyes and turned the arrow. A moment - and the train rushed along the track on which his little son had just been running. When the train was out of sight and the dust had settled a little, the switchman ran to the place where his son was, thinking to find at least
the remains of a corpse, and what he sees: the boy, with folded arms on his chest, lies on the ground. The father shouted to him: "My son, are you alive?" - "I am alive, alive", - he answered cheerfully, got up on his legs, continuing to press to his chest
Voronenka. There was no trace of fear in his eyes. The father asked him: "How did you guess to lie on the ground?" And the boy replied: "Some bright, handsome, kind young man with wings bent over me and bent me to the ground." The switchman realized that when he cried out to the Lord, God's Angel miraculously saved his child. (Trinity leaves from the spiritual meadow. P. 84).