The Shepherd, June 2008
THE RELIGIOUS UPBRINGING OF CHILDREN
By Archpriest S. Shchukin
Or what man is there of you, whom
if his son ask bread, will give him a stone?
(The Holy Gospel; Matt. 7:9)
ONE of the most prized good things in a man’s life is to be healthy and happy in his infant years. We all know how precious memories from our early years nourish us and warm us our whole life through. Those people who did not have a joyous and happy infancy can never by any means make up for it; throughout their whole life they feel that loss and it clouds their souls. We often come across such people who were deprived of a happy childhood: orphans who never knew the caresses and love of their parents; stepsons and daughters with, as it were, fractured souls, caused by grievous situations in the home; illegitimate children given over to the care of strangers. There always lies upon such ones the imprint of the grievous and painful memories of their joyless first years.
But such an indelible mark on a person’s soul is also left by not having a religious upbringing in infancy. It may be that outwardly this is not noticeable, but in the deepest wellsprings of his being, in the congruity of the emotional characteristics of such people, there will always be felt some kind of incompleteness or lack of wholeness. It is manifest as a consequence of the fact that the parents and teachers did not impart to the child’s soul what is important - luminous, spiritual impressions, which enlighten not only the child’s soul but the world around him. The soul of a child is extraordinarily responsive to every religious impression. Involuntarily a child is drawn to everything that gives beauty and sense to a world which he does not yet understand. Deprive a child of this, and his soul is dimmed and loses its inner support. The child is left in a diminished world and to his own shallow day-to-day interests. What happens here is exactly the same as would happen to the body of the child if he were brought up in a dark and dank cellar, deprived of the light of the sun. Such a child would grow up pallid and nervous, with no strength and with no joy in his undeveloped body. In both cases the blame for such under-development and sickliness (whether spiritual or bodily) lies with the parents. Instead of bread they have given their child a stone.
Despite all the troubles of our life as emigrés, we, Orthodox, have a huge advantage in comparison with our fellow-countrymen in the Soviet Union: our children are permitted to receive a religious education. There, parents risk being brought to court and even deprived of their children if they attempt to bring them up as Orthodox. Here, in America, no one will interfere with the family that brings up their child in the faith of their fathers. Children can openly, and not surreptitiously, hear teaching about God and about Christ. They may freely visit the house of God and attend the Orthodox rites, with no fear of being derided or threatened. Millions of Orthodox in our homeland can only dream of such a possibility for their children. [Of course, since these words were first written the situation has changed remarkably. Now there is a great measure of religious freedom in the former Soviet bloc countries, but here in the West children who are being brought up as Orthodox might indeed be derided and threatened, if not by the authorities at least by their peers. But this should not cause us to dismiss Father’s words, but to be even more assiduous in trying to arm our children spiritually to deal with the deteriorating situation in which we find ourselves - ed.]
But do all the parents in the emigration [or now indeed the Orthodox diaspora as a whole - ed.] comprehend the enormous responsibility which they have for the religious upbringing of their children? And do many of us know how to bring up our children in an Orthodox spirit? One must not pander to those parents who are indifferent to the religious upbringing of their children. Even if they themselves did not receive a proper religious education, they must nonetheless understand that they cannot for that reason deprive their children in turn of a spiritual foundation.
Parents should understand that the Christian faith forms in the soul of a child the foundation for their moral character. Even if the circumstances of life change or even if their childhood faith is completely destroyed, there will still be preserved in a person’s soul an indelible inheritance, and the solid foundation of their moral character will remain in them. The luminous impressions of our infancy remain throughout our whole life, and often, notwithstanding our conscious disposition, continue to nourish us and to preserve us from evil. It is indeed not for nothing that the atheistic powers battle so much against the religious education of children!
It happens that youthful wildness, as it were, destroys all that religious belief which was laid down in childhood. A man departs from God and from the Church, as if he had not a hope at all of ever returning. God does not abandon such a man, time and again knocking at his heart. When such a man has passed through a period of believing only in himself, then life will show him his limitations, then he will begin to reflect deeply on questions of life and death. And then, the forgotten impressions of his childhood and the religious lessons he learned then will take on a new significance. His soul will grow towards God. Then the holy remembrances of his infant years will save that man’s soul.
Parents and teachers who do not appreciate the significance of religious education in the earlier years of infancy make a very great mistake. In what other way could one compensate for the power and influence that the impressions bound up with religion have on a child: the church services, pure childhood prayers, the festivity of the feasts, and the solemn days of the Great Fast? Those parents who do not concern themselves deeply with the religious upbringing of their children are grievously responsible. Sometime they will bitterly regret this, but then it will be too late.
… to be continued in the next issue
with “Education and Formation”
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