День Седьмой. Alexey Uminskiy YouTube yesterday

Fr. Alexey Uminsky: Why Christians Cannot Accept Reincarnation

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In a live-streamed question-and-answer session from August 25, 2026, Fr. Alexey Uminsky responds to a viewer's question about reincarnation. He states plainly that a Christian cannot believe in reincarnation because it is completely absurd for a Christian and contradicts the faith in the general resurrection. Christians believe that each person will rise in the body in which they were born, since a person is the image and likeness of God as a whole, spirit, soul, and body together, not as separate parts.

The Son of God became incarnate, took upon Himself the fullness of human nature, rose bodily in the very body in which He was born, ascended to heaven, and abides at the right hand of the Father in that body. Every person will rise bodily in the body in which they were born; every person is a unique personality and unique in their physicality.

The body is not a worn-out work uniform that can be changed; human gender and what a human is are not things that can be changed, they are what a person is born as and who they become, part of their personhood. Therefore Christians do not believe in any kind of reincarnation, and a person who believes in reincarnation cannot call themselves a Christian in the true sense of the faith.

The session was part of a regular live broadcast; Fr. Uminsky also announced the next stream for November 17 at 19:00 Moscow time and invited questions via email or live chat.

Key moments

If a person is a Christian and believes in Christ, they simply cannot believe in reincarnation, because it is completely absurd for a Christian.
Christians believe in the general resurrection, the resurrection of each of us in the body in which we were born.
A person is the image and likeness of God, spirit, soul, and body, the whole person, not separate parts.
The Son of God became incarnate, took upon Himself the fullness of human nature, rose bodily in the very body in which He was born, ascended to heaven, and abides at the right hand of the Father in that body.
Every person will rise bodily in the body in which they were born; every person is a unique personality and unique in their physicality.
The body is not a worn-out work uniform that can be changed; human gender and what a human is are not things that can be changed, they are what a person is born as and who they become, part of their personhood.
Therefore Christians do not believe in any kind of reincarnation, and a person who believes in reincarnation cannot call themselves a Christian in the true sense of the faith.

4 opinions in the discussion 4 participants The opinion with the most support The soul part is unclear. Either God creates a new soul for each new person, or a person gets their soul along with the body from their parents. The theory that God created all souls in advance (pre-existence of souls) is rejected by the church... Either way,… Read the discussion

21 comments at the source 3.4K views Original on YouTube

Discussion · 4

Opinions are anonymous retellings of real comments from the original discussion. The same colour marks the same participant.

opinion#3629

The soul part is unclear. Either God creates a new soul for each new person, or a person gets their soul along with the body from their parents. The theory that God created all souls in advance (pre-existence of souls) is rejected by the church... Either way, it's unclear at what point and how that unique personality comes into being, the one that gets held so strictly accountable later.

opinion#3630

I don't believe in reincarnation either, at least not a full reconstruction of the dead person with their soul, because the soul is a person's knowledge and thoughts, and those die, Scripture confirms it. Ecclesiastes 12:7: "And the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it." As for the resurrection of the body, what exactly counts as a "body" is a big question, given what Paul said about bodies: 1 Cor 15:40 "There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one thing, the earthly another." Verse 44: "What is sown is a natural body, what is raised is a spiritual body." Verse 45: "The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam is a life-giving spirit." So many questions remain about what of us actually gets resurrected. The Bible is a book with allegorical meaning after all.

opinion#3631

1. John the Baptist as the return of Elijah. In Matthew 11:14 Jesus says about John the Baptist: "And if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who was to come." "Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him." The disciples understood he was talking about John the Baptist. This is one of the main arguments of reincarnation supporters, since Elijah lived about 900 years before Jesus. Traditional Christianity explains it differently though: John came not as Elijah's migrated soul but "in the spirit and power of Elijah" (Luke 1:17).

opinion#3632

So then a Christian would be resurrected in a physical body that has long since decayed into molecules over thousands of years. Is the Kingdom of Heaven also a material world where the resurrected live in those same corruptible bodies? But Christ said there is no marrying or giving in marriage there, and those who get there live like the angels.