Praying for the Suicide

Since ancient times, the holy fathers forbade praying for those who independently rejected the sacred gift of God - the gift of life. Until now, this prohibition exists and the Church does not remember them.

One day, Elder Cyril Borodin decided to beg for suicide.

The young man, the spiritual child of Archimandrite Cyril (Borodin), committed suicide due to personal drama. It happened in Riga on the eve of the New Year. The elder, seeing the spiritual state of his flock, did not want to let him go, but he disobeyed and hastened to the feast, where he saw his girlfriend in the arms of another, after which, yielding to his feelings, hanged himself on the fence. Father Cyril, in a conversation with his father Vitaly Kondratov, spoke about this case as follows:

“I see a noose, and the clock shows eleven.” I knew there was going to be trouble. No matter how much I begged this young man to stay with me until eleven o’clock, he did not agree. Arriving at the restaurant, he saw his beloved with another, after which a terrible thing happened ...

Father Cyril said that if the young man had not gone on holiday and stayed at least for one hour, everything could have been different.

Grieving over the unfortunate, the elder recalled the words once said by Metropolitan Joseph about prayer for the suicide. Strong in spirit and experienced in spiritual warfare, Vladyka did not even advise to dare to such a prayer: “You can try, but revenge will be terrible - all hell will rise. For example, I myself somehow dared to do it, and even then barely lasted twenty days. I will never do it again. ”

But Father Cyril still dared to pray for his spiritual child. So that demons would not hit him in the face, he laid a cross on himself, and to mitigate the blows, he also put on a quilted jacket in which he spent the whole night praying for a suicide and with great difficulty restraining the demonic onslaught. Revenge was really scary: the enemy had never attacked a priest like that before. But father Cyril held on and on the twentieth day in a dream he saw his child with a white speck on his forehead. It was a spiritual sign from above to continue the prayer for the unfortunate young man. On the fortieth day, the young man appeared to the elder all bright, thanks to Him and his father.

Father Cyril was neither dead nor alive at that time. “I will never pray for a suicide again,” the elder said, “and I do not advise anyone from the priesthood to do this!”