I often hear discussions about the so-called "angry old ladies." These stories were particularly emphasized during my period of religious exploration.

Some unfamiliar women in the church made rude remarks, others were criticized for their appearance, and someone's children were taken to the temple porch for misbehavior.

I didn't want to find myself in the shoes of these people. I decided in advance to study the rules of behavior in the church, the texts of prayers, and the meaning of the Divine Services. I went to the church content that I had read everything well and could explain to anyone in my own words what was happening.

The more I read books and compared the written word with people's behavior in the church, the more irritation and condemnation grew within me. I went to the church as if not to pray but to find some new mistake in the behavior of those around me. And I found it!

Once I attended the morning service. During the Liturgy, when the deacon said, "Catechumens, bow your heads to the Lord," and most people in the church bowed at that moment, I remembered the book I had read the day before. It clearly stated that catechumens, as they were called in ancient times, are not baptized people but those who are still preparing to receive Holy Baptism.

"Aha! Gotcha, grannies!?! I found your gaps in knowledge! Everyone is baptized, but you bow as if you are catechumens," I thought.

At the evening service, when the Psalter was being read, I listened carefully to every word, not to understand its meaning but to verify the correct stress in Church Slavonic words.

And when I found mistakes, I whispered the correct pronunciation with a dissatisfied face and, in cases where I noticed hitches in reading, could loudly "prompt" what was written there.

"How is this possible? I sit, supposedly learning how everything should be sung, read. I come, and others haven't even bothered to memorize the stress in the word," I complained to myself.

The next day, I went to a well-known Moscow temple for a service and brought a friend with me. My patience was already exhausted in the pretense of this temple. There, I saw a group of women with uncovered heads and in tracksuits. They stood through the entire service, and no one made any remarks to them.

My friend and I exchanged glances and began to condemn the appearance of the parishioners.

"Yes! We don't have people like that!" Luda, that was my friend's name, began.

"Yeah! Here, they've completely let themselves go," I exclaimed.

And suddenly, a completely different thought came to my mind:

I didn't notice how I turned into that very grandmother who, instead of rejoicing that a person came to the church, starts condemning that everything is not according to the canons and is wrong.

I shared my reflections with Luda. And we laughed sincerely! At ourselves.

"Yeah... we became like some angry old ladies. Tomorrow we're going to confession," we decided.

It would be good to notice in time such a malady within oneself as superiority over other people, condemnation, and the desire to teach and immediately go to confession with it. After all, only God knows the true life circumstances of people. And our task is to learn to love a person regardless of how they dress and where they put the stress in words.

Original article: https://radiovera.ru/te-samye-babushki-svetlana-bakulina.html