Priest Nikolai Babkin is an active representative of Orthodoxy in the Internet. He maintains accounts on social networks independently, and replaces long and familiar sermons with lively and sincere communication with subscribers.
Biography
Nikolai Babkin was born on November 4, 1989 in the Komi Republic. His father, Mikhail Babkin, was a priest, and Nikolai decided to choose the same life path for himself.
He began to receive an Orthodox education at the Syktyvkar Theological College, which he graduated in 2007. Then he studied at the Nikolo-Ugreshsky seminary. In the last courses of this institution, Nikolai seriously considered becoming a monk. In his opinion, he could not cope with the work of a priest. A close friend Alina (who will later become his wife) supported Nikolai in this decision.
Nikolay in childhood with his younger brother.
However, the mentor of Nikolai Babkin advised him still not to rush, to consider the decision from all sides. As a result, in 2012 he received the rank of deacon, and soon a priest.
Nikolai Babkin and Alina.
Insta Missionary Nikolai Babkin
The young priest began in a small church in the village of Obukhovka (Belgorod Region). He had a small parish, but even then Nikolai was actively using social networks. For example, on Instagram he had about 40 thousand subscribers, on VKontakte about 9000 friends. Babkin uses modern communication methods for missionary work. He conducts live broadcasts and answers questions, does not bypass simple everyday questions and tries to intelligibly explain many superstitions.
You can see the young priest on the Spas-TV channel, many of the broadcasts are stored on YouTube.
Despite the active life on the network, Nikolai Babkin is sure that it will be incorrect to compare missionary activities on the Internet and in the parish. On the net, you can draw attention to values and show ordinary people the life of church ministers.
In the Russian Orthodox Church there is a special department that monitors the relationship between society and the church. It was here that they developed special recommendations for maintaining Orthodox blogs, which are now considered a new type of apostolate. The main thing for the priest is to remember high responsibility and strictly select content (photos, texts, etc.).
Priest Nikolai Babkin can find answers to many questions, the blog even has regular columns. For example, about family, spirituality. There are answers to questions and the almost humorous tag "Babkanadvoyazyvala", covering superstition and church issues. Bringing to the point of absurdity some misconceptions, the priest should not destroy them. And this technique works, as practice has shown, much more effective than ordinary sermons.
Readers of Nikolai Babkin note his democratic nature - he does not block those users whose views differ from traditional Orthodox norms. He does not claim that his faith is better than other religions and gives some privileges. At the same time, he does not tolerate insults, protects both the family and subscribers.
Sometimes there are curious cases in such a seemingly serious matter as the work of a priest. For example, Nikolai often recalls the service ordered by someone about the victory of Christian Russia in football over Catholic Spain. In his instagram you can find a photo of the note that Babkin briefly commented: "They got it." Fans of football remember that the Russian team won that match, it is possible that the support of believing fans helped it a little.
Now N. Babkin’s blog has 154 thousand subscribers. The wife of the priest Alina also has her own blog, her audience is only slightly smaller - almost one hundred thousand.
Work with disabled children and their families
Another area of activity of the Babkin family is assistance to disabled children and their parents. Father Nikolai took a special course where they talked about help and support for children with autism and their families. Such an education is given in St. Petersburg at the Institute of Practical Psychology.
Then they started enlightening work - they told ordinary parishioners how to communicate with such children, what frightens them and what makes them happy. Many children with this disease attended their services.
Later, a Family Support Center appeared in Obukhovka, where various specialists give consultations: teachers, psychologists, breast-feeding consultants, etc.
Now Nikolai Babkin and his wife are serving in the St. Nicholas Church in Otradnoye.
