Like humility, patience, and obedience became the Orthodox dictionary of the victim

“Carry your cross, be patient and humble yourself with” is a traditional Orthodox Council suffered from the hands of the husband and wife. As really need to change the victim of domestic violence to end it – says Archpriest Andrei Kordochkin, rector of St. Olga’s Church. Mary Magdalene in Madrid.

Photo: getbg.net

I think the problem of domestic violence does not exist in isolation from relationships to violence in society as a whole. In this sense, torture in prisons and physical abuse in families – a phenomenon of the same order.

The Priest Andrey Kordochkin

The level of tolerance to violence, in spite of the lessons of the twentieth century, increases not only in the country but in the Church as part of society. If violence is subject to sacralization (a monument to Ivan the terrible in eagle) if any non-violent perspective will be labeled as “pacifism” and “tolstoyism” (prot. V. Chaplin), if the priest calls for “a woman to break about a knee, hit her horns… bending, rubbing, stuff it in the washing machine” (prot. A. Tkachev) – this is a very alarming markers that sooner or later someone will be perceived as a call to action.

Domestic violence is not necessarily limited to the physical. It can have a direct and sophisticated psychological and emotional impact. And the source of psychological and even physical violence can be the woman. Violence may be mutual.

However, there is a difference between family and prison. In jail nobody goes voluntarily. In marriage, a man enters on his own. According to his will he is married and resides. And because the family is a voluntary Union, then violence, if it occurs, the double-edged sword.

The complaint of the victim of violence does not always mean the willingness to act towards its termination, does not always mean that the victim has a desire to change something. Looking for sado Maso, Maso sado is looking for. The rapist and the victim are in need of each other. And to stop the violence, change must occur not only in the executioner, but the victim. It is very important that the victim recently, the Minister’s wife was willing to get out of abusive relationships, maintaining physical and mental health of children. But often the “victim” not ready for action and for change.

Orthodox dictionary equips the victim with many useful terms: “we must carry the cross”, “humility-patience-obedience”, etc. the Concepts of “dignity” and “respect” it does not operate.

Thus, the victim of his lack of will, condone violence in the family and is responsible for the conversion, ultimately, of the icon of marriage at a cruel caricature.

If children grow up in such a situation, then they are given a corresponding vector for the creation of their own families in the same way. As the legacy of violence passed down from generation to generation. If society perceives these relationships as the norm, then grow a generation of people who do not know how to live differently, not imagine other relations than those that used to see around.

Paradoxically, the Church and the priest there is no problem of saving the marriage. The task of the priest is always the same – salvation of the human soul. This does not mean that marriage should be preserved. This means that the marriage cannot be saved due to the completeness and integrity of one of the spouses. Such cohabitation simply will not be a Christian family.

Not only marriage, but also the whole world is not worth a human soul. “What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Matt. 16:25). And if the victim takes the course for the restoration of their dignity, if begins to feel his own life and inner world of their children as a gift and the value, only then there is hope for the healing of the man and his family.

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