День Седьмой. Alexey Uminskiy YouTube 17 hours ago

Father Alexey Uminsky on crisis of faith as encounter with God

1:21:28

Father Alexey Uminsky describes crisis of faith as the collapse of rational certainties and external religious forms. He explains that a person discovers clergy can err, church history contains injustices, and emotional comfort in worship fades. The priest distinguishes between crisis as destructive judgment and crisis as divine light revealing truth.

He argues that true faith begins not with rules or feelings but with a personal encounter with God, as in Job's experience where God's presence, not explanations, became the answer. Father Alexey criticizes the church for imposing heavy burdens, confusing patriotism with the Gospel, and covering up abuse. He says faithfulness to Christ may require leaving familiar structures.

He emphasizes that spiritual fatherhood is not obligatory for laypeople, that freedom means trust not submission, and that suffering is not identical to the cross. Psychological healing and wise spiritual accompaniment are needed together, but many priests are now silenced from public ministry. The discussion also covers how converts encounter an overwhelming system of external rules, incomprehensible language, and aesthetic beauty that leaves no energy to seek God.

The Greek word 'crisis' means judgment: light entering a dark room reveals both good and evil, and the person either flees feeling deceived or goes deeper. Prayer is described not as sending an SMS to God but as desiring to know and speak with a Person; the liturgy originated from Christians gathering to pray and commune, not from ritual performance.

Father Alexey describes his former state of certainty where faith seemed rational and the path clear, with priests as reliable answer-givers. Crisis arrives when habitual answers lose meaning, the person doubts God and faith, and stands before a wall not knowing where to go. The crisis deepens when one realizes saints, priests, and bishops can err, and that hagiographies contain untruths.

Today's crisis for many thoughtful Christians stems from the church blessing weapons, declaring killing in war not a sin, and replacing the Gospel with patriotism. The way through crisis begins with the question 'Did you meet God?', Job's friends offered rational explanations, but Job insisted on speaking to God directly, and God's presence, not answers, became the resolution.

Key moments

Father Alexey describes his former state of certainty where faith seemed rational and the path clear, with priests as reliable answer-givers.
Crisis of faith arrives when habitual answers lose meaning, the person doubts God and faith, and stands before a wall not knowing where to go.
The crisis deepens when one realizes saints, priests, and bishops can err, and that hagiographies contain untruths.
A convert comes to church to learn faith but encounters an overwhelming system of external rules, incomprehensible language, and aesthetic beauty that leaves no energy to seek God Himself.
The Greek word 'crisis' means judgment: light entering a dark room reveals both good and evil, and the person either flees feeling deceived or goes deeper.
Today's crisis for many thoughtful Christians stems from the church blessing weapons, declaring killing in war not a sin, and replacing the Gospel with patriotism.
The way through crisis begins with the question 'Did you meet God?', Job's friends offered rational explanations, but Job insisted on speaking to God directly, and God's presence, not answers, became the resolution.
Prayer is not sending an SMS to God but desiring to know and speak with a Person; the liturgy originated from Christians gathering to pray and commune, not from ritual performance.

9 opinions in the discussion 9 participants The opinion with the most support The crisis of faith is a very important topic. I came to faith in the late 80s. I joyfully took on all the traditional rules: fasting, morning and evening prayers, weekly services. I traveled to holy places, bought piles of patristic literature, read,… Read the discussion

142 comments at the source 14K views Original on YouTube

Discussion · 9

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

opinion#2047 12 likes at the source

The crisis of faith is a very important topic. I came to faith in the late 80s. I joyfully took on all the traditional rules: fasting, morning and evening prayers, weekly services. I traveled to holy places, bought piles of patristic literature, read, reflected, burned with the desire to learn as much about God as possible. When the crisis of faith began, I enrolled at St Tikhon's institute (1997). I know the Gospel almost by heart. I studied with joy and delight. My ideas about faith and the church kept changing. But nothing in the church changed. The war and the church supporting the war shook me deeply. I still attended Sunday services, mostly out of habit. Over time I learned to almost not dramatize the prayer for victory of holy Rus. I prayed for Ukraine's victory over the Putin regime. But mandatory confession before communion really strained me. I learned to skip the 3 canons before communion without guilt. Not to fast for 3 days. I don't have any 'throat demon', I eat very little. But: a year ago my only son died. And my crisis of faith started to deepen. Being in church became very hard, I don't understand why I need it. And most importantly, I began doubting the life of the age to come. What if beyond earthly life there's nothing? Nobody has ever come back from there. And this pushes me further and further away from the church. And there's not a single message from…
opinion#2046 8 likes at the source

I went through a crisis too, not of faith but of going to church. I arrive near the end of the service, and standing there feels like either laziness or just boredom. When the kids were little I took them, we stood through long services of 3-4 hours. Now they're grown and don't go to church at all. When I come, at the end I go up to the priest for the cross. Every time he asks where the children are, why don't they come, and where am I? Meanwhile his own wife doesn't go to church, nor do his grown children. And I honestly don't want to approach him anymore, because I can't understand how his own wife and kids don't attend, yet he kind of lectures me. In short, it's all complicated. Lord, help.
opinion#2050 4 likes at the source

The funniest thing is that if you stop seeing the source of grace in the sacraments, for the sake of which the earthly church exists as an institution, then the church as an organization becomes unnecessary too. The well-known pietist Gerhard Tersteegen didn't take part in the sacraments, didn't attend services, but was a real Christian. For communion with God a temple isn't needed. Isn't that exactly what Jesus Christ said in the conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well?
opinion#2049 3 likes at the source

Everyone piled on the psychologist, but honestly the conversation didn't work here, the participants each seem to talk about their own topic rather than actually dialogue. Fr Alexei does seem to try to bring it back on track. And the psychologist's outright self-promotion is really heavy…
opinion#2053 3 likes at the source

Every time the phrase 'Christian psychologist' makes me cringe. It sounds so commercial. If a person is a Christian, they don't need a psychologist. They'll talk to God. And here's someone who decided it's a good idea to 'break into the Christian audience'. A maximum red flag when a psychologist publicly attaches being Christian to themselves.
opinion#2045 2 likes at the source

Such a needed format! Father Alexei, Yana, please keep going! There are so many people lost and confused in their spiritual life, frightened by so-called 'fear of God', who were taught that humility means having no will and just submitting, and who were told they must endure everything and turn the other cheek. The wives and children of priests are a whole separate dramatic topic. Thank you for starting to raise these questions. It will help people find themselves again.
opinion#2048 1 likes at the source

I want to share my experience, maybe it will help someone. For a long time I was in a relationship with exactly this kind of religious abuse. It caused a severe crisis of faith. Of course I turned to priests, to religious figures who mattered to me, but the answer was always the same: it's your own fault, pray, repent, you alone are the sinner. I ended up in such a dead-end situation that I completely lost faith in God. But thankfully, He led me to Yana. Together with her I managed to end the relationship that was destroying me morally and physically. Hope appeared. My life changed completely. For the first time in my life I became independent, I run my own life. I haven't overcome the crisis of faith yet. First of all because there are no truly spiritual mentors nearby to whom one could turn for advice and get support, instead of another portion of judgment. That's why such meetings with priests who pull out the root of evil and aren't afraid to call things by their names are so valuable to me. Thank you for this conversation. I hope there will be a continuation!
opinion#2051

42:27 God hears Job, does he? After giving his children to death on a whim? 'I am a God of love and mercy, I killed your children, but now, I will listen to you.' Those are the actions of a tormentor. Apparently the book of Job describes the demiurge, not the Father of Christ! I cannot accept the book of Job as anything but a foreign insertion from the gnostics...
opinion#2052

A question about the quote 'for your sins…'. But what about the law of sowing and reaping? Let's take, for example, a woman who was promiscuous, had abortions, went to fortune tellers or told fortunes herself. Say such a woman gets married, without repentance. Do you really think she'll have a strong marriage and healthy children? No tragedies in the family? And then such a woman comes to the Church and has questions for God, how come… But in this case the questions should be directed at herself. For her sins! Only it's not from God, she herself gave place to satan. And only sincere repentance of such a person opens the possibility of a happy life for them.