The Thorny Path to God

An interview with Elena Skorokhodova — actress, film director, and playwright. Read the whole interview here. Very interesting, especially for those who are interested in the media and the impact it has on one's life in Christ.

An accomplished actress on stage (sixteen years in the Pushkin Theatre, Moscow) and screen, Elena Skorokhodova is also a director, writer, and author of plays, including Don't Throw Ashes on the Floor. Her creative talent has led her to an acute perception of the unfolding drama of individuals along her life's path, and the fate of her country.

– Elena, tell us about how you came to faith in God.

– I would have to tell you my entire life story in order for it to make sense. I was born in an atheistic soviet family. By the way, that atheism was superficial. We believed in goodness and justice, as something that goes without saying. No one ever looked deeper into the source of this belief in our souls. A true atheist is a terrible being, deprived of morality, and obsessed with no more than his own material gain by any means. After all, he has nothing other than this earthly life; there will be no other life for him, and therefore he has to grab the maximum of goods and pleasures here. As Dostoevsky wrote, ”If there is no God, then everything is allowed.” But we, of course, were never that kind of atheist.

When I was four years old, my father once pointed to the sky and said that it was infinite. I remember that it took my breath away. I began to think about it. Later, when I became interested in mathematics, I tried to apply the principles of that science to my search for truth. If you logically seek the first cause of anything at all, you will inevitably run into that emptiness from which everything originated. But emptiness itself cannot produce something outside of a certain mysterious power. In general I thought a lot about this, drew graphics with the beginning point of existence (racking my brains over the question, ”But what came before that point?”), read various philosophers, and even created my own philosophical concepts. Then the Gospels somehow came into my hands. This book created an amazing impression upon me. I suddenly had a sharp perception that the truth was precisely here. It was as if I saw with my own eyes how Christ preached, worked miracles, was crucified, and resurrected. Truly resurrected! No such perception of reality has ever occurred to me with any other reading. Well, my eyes having been opened, I ran to the church, bought a stack of books, immersed myself in Church life, and began to ”terrorize” my family and friends. I am a very emotional person and easily carried away; and of course, my missionary attempts at converting my parents took on a somewhat aggressive character at first. But with God's help, everything eventually normalized.

It seems to me that any person who purposefully seeks the truth will come sooner or later to an Orthodox church, regardless of his nationality, ancestral religion, or other factors. The truth is simply here, and nothing else has meaning.

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