Both today and in ancient times the topic of family life was constantly discussed. How to find the right path to marriage? How to save the family? How to avoid mistakes and learn to come to a common opinion on time? This was often spoken about back in the time of Patriarch Nikon, and is still said today.
Marriage of convenience has always been rejected by the Orthodox Church as initially doomed to disintegration, because in such relations, falsehood was already laid in the very beginning. As a rule, bargaining in marital relations is impossible! Imagine that using your beauty or your material and high position, you simply cannot keep your partner throughout your life, because sooner or later another woman may appear who is ready to offer her youth and beauty in return for marriage. Can your spouse resist in this case?
In general, all love, oddly enough, can be divided into two categories: from God and demonic. Divine love is revealed by Jesus Christ, our God, who bequeathed to love one another until death.
Demonic love is characterized by its emotionality, harshness, impatience to each other's shortcomings. At the beginning of such love lies egoism.
The wife of Patriarch Nikon went to the monastery after tonsuring her husband’s monks. This is the real true feeling of the two people married by Christ.
Of course, at the initial stage of mutual relations, both family and general relations, man and woman are not yet bound by deep feelings, but by love and attraction. Whatever it was, but such feelings can not be called love yet. True, perfect love develops with time, and this happens quite difficult and painful. It’s not without reason that they say that family is a big job. Over time, the husband and wife begin to feel the unity of the soul, a common vocation and a single whole of each other.
The Apostle Paul also said that a man should always be at the head of a family, and Christ is always above a man. Thus, the central link of the family is Jesus. That is why the family must change in terms of the Christian way of life.
Of course, not many can do the same as the wife of Patriarch Nikon. But it is not self-denial that underlies the family. Underlying marriage is always mutual understanding and patience for each other’s shortcomings. Only observing these rules, you can achieve a lot and really productively live your family life, which will take place next to your beloved and valued person.
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