At the Transfiguration of the Savior

Contents Some memories of Metropolitan Philaret Letter to M. M. Evreinov in addition to his memories of Metropolitan Philaret Some memories of Metropolitan Philaret Many of the admirers of the late Metropolitan asked me: didn’t you really write down all his interesting conversations when you visited him so often? To which I always answered: that’s the trouble, that I didn’t do this, which I myself very much regret, because I heard a lot of interesting things, and now, after so many years, a lot has gone out of my memory. To this they objected to me: at least what you can remember now should be written down; that's why I decide to start doing this 1. The first time I saw Filaret was in 1814 in St. Petersburg in the Kazan Cathedral there; he was then 32 years old, and he was already an archimandrite and rector of the St. Petersburg Academy, decorated with a panagia and the Order of St. Prince Vladimir 2nd degree with a star. The rank of archimandrite was a rare award at that time (later, when I got to know him well, he told me that when he was awarded this order, he was called a precocious one). On the day that I saw him for the first time in 1814, there was a prayer service in the Kazan Cathedral on the occasion of the news received about the capture of Paris: all the noble clergy gathered in the cathedral, starting with the then Metropolitan Ambrose. Empress Maria Feodorovna with Grand Duchess Anna Pavlovna arrived at the cathedral in a ceremonial carriage, accompanied by the Grand Dukes Nikolai Pavlovich and Mikhail Pavlovich. All the courtiers and all the generals were waiting for them in the cathedral. I was invited to go there with me by Ekaterina Vladimirovna Novosiltsova, nee Countess Orlova, for whom a place was reserved in the small choirs of the cathedral to see this whole ceremony. Then they pointed out to me the famous Archimandrite Philaret. From that time I did not see him until 1821, when he was already appointed archbishop to Moscow. On July 3, 1817, he was consecrated Bishop of Revel, remaining rector and vicar of St. Petersburg, then he was renamed Archbishop of Tver, and was appointed synodal member; in 1820 he was transferred to Yaroslavl, which, however, he did not have time to visit, because in 1821, on August 5, he was appointed Archbishop of Moscow, in place of Metropolitan Seraphim, who was appointed to be Metropolitan of St. Petersburg. The new archpastor arrived in Moscow on August 14; the next day, i.e. On August 15, in the Assumption Cathedral, after the liturgy he performed, he gave an introductory speech about Grace and peace as objects of desire. After that I happened to see him several times in the ministry, but I was not yet acquainted with him until 1822. I met him completely unexpectedly. It happened this way: having visited the Trinity Lavra, and getting ready to return to Moscow, I went to say goodbye to the then governor, the late Afanasy, whom I loved and respected very much. He asked me if I would undertake to deliver a very necessary letter to the Bishop? Otherwise, you will have to wait for the postal day, or send a messenger (because at that time there were no railways or telegraphs). I answered him that I accept his commission with pleasure, through which I will have the opportunity to receive the blessing of the Bishop. So, upon my arrival in Moscow, I went to the Bishop; he received it very kindly and thanked him for delivering the letter, asking about the Lavra and the father governor. I was just about to say goodbye to him when they reported to him that Ekaterina Vladimirovna Novosiltseva and Varvara Mikhailovna Naryshkina had come to see him. Both ladies knew me for a long time and briefly, which is why I still stayed for a while to sit with him. The conversation became general; After a while, I approached the bishop to accept his blessing and say goodbye to him, and asked him for permission to visit him in the future; he answered me that he would always be pleased to see me at his place. Taking this only as a polite answer, I did not think of being with him soon; but the next day Naryshkina told me that Vladyka, seeing that I was very familiar with them, asked them a lot about me and among other things asked where I served, and when they told him that I was retired, he said: “It’s a great pity, it seems to me that this man can be trusted with millions.” I don’t know how he could draw such a conclusion, because I didn’t have any conversation with him on this subject. Maybe I shouldn’t mention this in these notes, so as not to boast about his flattering opinion, but since unselfishness is not my acquisition and is an innate inclination in me, I don’t consider myself worthy of any praise. After his gracious review of me, I began to visit him more often, and was always received by him with love, and then so often that when I could not be with him for several days in a row, he asked our mutual friends: - Do you know if Mikhail Mikhailovich is angry with me for something? I haven’t seen him for a long time. In the same year, 1822, in the Trinity Lavra, the merchant daughter Ekaterina Nikolaevna Grezenkova was healed by St. Sergius, which was reported to the bishop from the Lavra. In response to this report, on November 7, he secretly wrote the following order to the local father, governor Athanasius: "Reverend Father Viceroy! From the Lavra it was reported to me about what has happened, by the grace of God, and through the prayers of our Rev. Father Sergius, the healing of the maiden Catherine, the daughter of the Moscow merchant Nikolai Ivanovich Grezenkov. On this occasion, I instruct you, having joined yourself with the confessor of this family, to visit it, and, if they desire God's blessing from us, to express our consolation to them about the mercy of the Lord revealed in them. It would not be superfluous to remind you of what the Physician of souls and bodies once said to those being healed: your faith will save you, behold, let him not sin. Remembering this, let the healed woman and her closest participants in her joy be strengthened in faith and hope in God, and in this let their souls find gratitude for the special gift of God. will be preserved as a special encouragement to always live and act according to the holy will of God. For this, you will ask them to give answers to some questions that I found necessary to do in addition to the information I received. I hope there is no need to assure them that in my demand there is no other intention than that the truth of the incident be presented in greater clarity, for the edification of those who honor the works of God. You will return the enclosed questions to me, along with any additional information you receive from them. Filaret A. Moskovsky.” Upon receipt of the required information, the bishop made a description of the healing in the following form: "The information about this healing was borrowed partly from the legend of the father of the Moscow merchant Nikolai Ivanov Grezenkov, who received healing, and partly from the obvious testimony of many in the Trinity St. Sergius Lavra. Simeon Church, which is beyond the Yauza, priest Nikolai Fedorov, confessor of the Grezenkov family, also testified in writing both about the extraordinary illness and about its miraculous healing. A detailed description of the entire incident with detailed indicating the time when what happened was done by the girl’s relative, the titular councilor Vasily Dobrovolsky, an obvious witness and companion of her in the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius. I considered it my duty, he says in his note, to write down for myself what I saw and what I heard from the sick woman herself. We think that it is no less a duty to communicate this to other believers in the gracious Providence for consolation and edification.” "On March 3, 1821, the girl Ekaterina Nikolaevna Grezenkova went to say goodbye to the midwife who had taken her in at birth, who had died. Returning home, the girl Grezenkova felt a toothache, shooting in her ears, then pain in her right side; and finally she was subject to convulsions and pain, which forced her to scream day and night. Treatment by a called doctor instead help brought her into great relaxation. In time, another was invited: but this one was not successful. On the eve of the Holy Resurrection, he advised the patient to put her legs in a horseradish, which caused her right leg to cramp up, right down to her back. Then a third doctor was hired, who promised a quick recovery, but seeing no relief, Ekaterina Nikolaevna finally refused to use it. She repeatedly saw St. Sergius in a dream, who ordered her to tell her father to go with her to the Trinity (to the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius). He told her: You will be healthy, but not soon, otherwise you will soon forget. But these parents, considering dreams to be an ordinary act of imagining a painful state, although they were planning to go to the Lavra to console the suffering one, only slowly. "One night, when she was sleeping, the girls who were with her saw that she suddenly turned around, screamed, pulled her cramped leg, and rested it on the chest of one of them; but after a while the leg began to cramp again; and when they wanted to hold her, the sick woman did not order them to touch her. In the morning, when those around her told her parents about this, they asked her if she had seen anything in her dream? Then she said the following: I saw that the Monk Sergius came with the Mother of God and both, laying their hands on their legs, said: “Now they will believe.” The Mother of God also said: “I feel sorry for you, girl, you have been suffering for a long time,” and pointing to the monk, she said: “Go, he will heal you.” But she didn’t feel how her leg straightened, and she doesn’t even remember that she didn’t order to hold it when it began to cramp. After this, of course, it was necessary to believe and be more determined to travel to the Lavra. "Meanwhile, the monk still saw her, and among other things ordered her to go on the road to confess and partake of the Holy Mysteries of Christ. In the night before the day on which she was supposed to confess and partake, she again saw in a dream the Mother of God and the monk who came with the holy gifts to commune her. She told him that tomorrow they would confess and partake of her; but he answered: there is no need, it will be tomorrow, and I Now I will introduce you. When the monk introduced her, the Mother of God wiped her lips with a veil, and then again commanded her to go, saying: go, and if things get worse for you along the way, do not despair: We will be with you all the way. “Finally, on the 12th of May, we set off, and it took four days to move a little over 60 versts, due to the extreme weakness of the patient.” "On May 16, in the evening, we arrived in Trinity Sergius Posad, and when we stopped under the walls of the monastery to find a comfortable apartment, the sick woman woke up and, hearing that we had arrived at the desired place, crossed herself, and tears of joy flowed from her eyes. On May 18, they carried her into the cathedral church on a plank and on a feather bed, and placed her on the right side of the right clergy opposite the venerable shrine itself. Before the start Liturgy, at her request, she confessed to Hieromonk Gabriel at the saint’s tomb. At a certain time, she was brought to the royal doors to receive the body and blood of Christ; and then she was again placed in the same place, after the end of the liturgy and the cathedral prayer service, when the people venerated the relics of the saint, the sick woman was brought closer to the shrine, and a prayer service to the saint began. convulsive movements. She grabbed my hand, says Mr. Dobrovolsky, and put it to my heart, which was beating unusually, as if it wanted to break out of her. My leg began to straighten, and when the prayer service ended, it was already completely straight. The sick woman was baptized several times, and those present, seeing such God's favor, prayed with tears, and many stood on their knees. At the end of the prayer service they applied it to the relics. Thus they brought her to the apartment with her leg straight; but after two hours, she began to feel cramped again, and by the next morning she was still cramped as before. “On May 21st, on the day of the celebration of the Mother of God in honor of Her Icon of Vladimir, the sick woman was brought again to the cathedral and placed in the same place, and again after the liturgy during the prayer service, the leg began to straighten, and straightened completely, with the only difference being that the convulsive movements were not so strong, and the beating of the heart, although also unusual, was lighter than before. After the prayer service, as the first time, they applied her to the saint’s relics and brought her to the house with her leg straight, but after a while, on May 22, during the prayer service at the saint’s grave, she straightened up again and without any convulsive movements, but then in the house, on May 29, the fingers of her left hand cramped during the prayer service; the relics of the monk, and her hand touched the clothes that covered him, then the fingers on her hand suddenly straightened; later in the house she said that at that time she felt as if someone had hit her in the hand - after this, her hands were no longer cramped on the day of the descent of St. Spirit, May 31, June 4, 5, 6 and 8 (each time) at the tomb of the saint during a prayer service for him, the saint of God, each time his leg straightened. It should be noted that from the second time she was reduced from time to time, and finally, after June 8, she remained completely straight. During all this time I did not use any medicine, except for the oil from the saint’s lamp.” “After her leg and fingers were healed, she let her parents know that she should go to Moscow and be happy for now, as if making it clear that the time had not yet come to receive final healing.” On July 24, she was brought to Moscow with her leg straight, but with her eyes closed and without using her tongue, and in this state she remained until November 24, that is, until the day of her angel. On this day, when the priest came to give her communion Holy Mystery, she suddenly opened her eyes. Finally, on the day of the Holy Resurrection of Christ, the Savior of the world, through the prayers of His saint, deigned to complete His mercy on the sick woman. When her father, returning from church to the family, greeted her among others: Christ is Risen! from bed, and since then began to strengthen. "Let them praise the Lord for His mercy and for His wonders for the sons of men! He sent His word, and healed them, and delivered them from their grave." (Ps.92:20–21.) "Having glorified God the healer with David, we cannot help but draw the attention of both the sick and the healthy to the memorable words spoken to the sick woman in the adventure described here: You will be healthy, but not soon, otherwise you will soon forget. Without a doubt, the Father of generosity and the God of all consolation always desires and is always ready to give joy and help to the weak and grieving; but when he sees that early help will not produce spiritual fruit, for whom He cultivates the soil of our heart with sorrows, then, out of mercy, he lingers in the work of mercy, so that the bitterness of suffering does not happen to those who have been pardoned untimely; The family of the healed woman was familiar to me and I witnessed how she was brought on a board to the relics of the wonderworker Sergius, and how her fingers straightened when they touched the veil of the saint. After they left the Lavra, they often sent her through me oil from the miracle worker’s lamp, with which she was treated. In 1823, the bishop was summoned to St. Petersburg to attend the Synod, where he went. Saying goodbye to me, he noticed that I was not indifferent to parting with him, and wanting to console me, upon his departure he ordered the treasurer of the Lavra, Fr. Archimandrite Arseny immediately after his departure to bring me the image of the Savior blessing. On the back of this image there is an inscription made by his hand. Upon his arrival in St. Petersburg, he was awarded the Order of St. Alexander Nevsky, for the lengthy catechism he wrote, reviewed and approved by the Holy Synod. The next year he was fired to Moscow, it seems for a whole year. Emperor Alexander I came to Moscow for the last time in August, whom I saw for the last time on August 30, the day of his angel walking into the Assumption Cathedral in the ribbon of Alexander Nevsky. It seems that the bishop arrived in Moscow shortly before the arrival of the sovereign. On the way, a funny incident happened to him. One of my St. Petersburg acquaintances, A.I.M., came to him before leaving for Moscow to say goodbye to him. Vladyka, knowing his friendship with me, asked him: – What would you like to tell Mikhail Mikhailovich about yourself? And if he wants to send him a parcel with me, then I will find a place for this in my carriage. He was delighted at the good occasion and deigned to send a parcel to me with cloudberry jam, which I loved and which is not always available in Moscow. The Bishop’s servants, wanting to deliver the parcel to me more carefully, decided to wrap it in the Bishop’s silk blanket. The Reverend, while traveling through Tver, wished to stop for the night in order to get some rest. Having become chilled at night, he ordered a blanket to be brought, which was given to him. Having covered himself with it, he did not know how to explain why his hands were stuck together; calls his servant, and then the riddle is clarified. Upon arrival in Moscow, he told me with a smile about this incident. I was ashamed to hear that I was in some way the cause of this incident, and the next day, instead of thanking my friend for the gift he sent me, I wrote him a reprimand. Having received my letter, he became alarmed and wrote an apologetic letter to the Eminence, for which I received a reprimand from the Bishop. He saw me and said to me: “Did I tell you for this reason that you should write to St. Petersburg?” Many of the bishop’s acquaintances asked him for permission to remove his portrait, to which he did not agree for a long time. Finally, at the convincing request of everyone who wanted it, he agreed and allowed me to bring to him the artist I recommended, Andrei Petrovich Sobolevsky, who successfully took portraits in watercolors. The Lord appointed me a day and hour when I could bring him, which I did. Then the bishop asked me: - How do you tell me to stand or sit? I answered him that I wished for what could be calmer for him. He said that he didn’t care at all and that he wouldn’t get tired of standing. Then I asked him to sit down, and so that he would not be bored sitting idle, I asked his permission to read aloud to him the book that we caught him reading, to which he agreed and thanked me. The next day, according to his appointment, the artist was supposed to come again. But the bishop notified me with the following note: "I am forced to preface you, M.G., Mikhail Mikhailovich, that I am so weak today that the work I have begun cannot be continued. Is it possible tomorrow at the suggested time, I will try to preface it early. Apr. 9, Friday." A day later I received the following note from him: "Whether you, Mikhail Mikhailovich, and the artist will be free, I agree to expect you today, or at three, or half, or four o'clock, as is more convenient for you. I am sending a sermon and a speech for Princess Ekaterina Alekseevna Volkonskaya. I ask that this be from me. I did not have time earlier, not knowing where she is." A day later I received a note: "It wouldn't be a bad idea to finish the job somehow today; whether you want to be with me at first or second in the afternoon, you will find me and, I hope, ready. April 10, Saturday." The portrait was almost ready, all that remained was to paint the stars on the cassock. I wrote to Vladyka: instead of disturbing him again, bringing the artist to him again, would he like to send me his clothes - this would be enough to complete the portrait. To this end I received the following note from him: "The required clothes are being sent. She should return home to spend the night. If she needs them again, they can be sent again from early morning to late evening. May 3." Repeatedly it happened to me to see him in difficult and unpleasant situations for him, namely: in 1824, upon his return to Moscow, he was saddened by the fact that by decree of the Holy. The Synod ordered the printing office to stop printing the catechism written by him (the Bishop), reviewed and approved by the Holy Synod and published by the Highest command. There was a lot of talk about this case; the sale of its catechism was not only prohibited, but also the copies already in the shops were taken away. Those curious to find out the reason for this offered 20 rubles per copy and could not get it. Some of those who visited the bishop were so careless that they allowed themselves to ask him: “Is it true, Your Eminence, that your catechism was banned?” - No, not mine, but published by the Highest command, and approved by the Holy Synod. The author of the catechism, in a letter to the first presence in the Synod, Metropolitan Seraphim, asked him to "pay attention to the matter that has arisen regarding the synodally approved catechism and give this matter a direction consistent with the truth, with the order and dignity of the hierarchy, with the peace and freedom of the Orthodox Church. If they want to hurt a person through the matter, so be it. But should they be allowed to undermine the firmness and credibility of the church government, so as to disturb the peace of the church”? On this same occasion, on the day of St. Alexis, a word was spoken to them in the Pudovo Monastery on the text: Do not be too many teachers, for we sin a lot. (James 3:1) The ban on the catechism was done at the insistence of the then Minister of Education Shishkov, his jealousy was not in accordance with his reason. What seemed unorthodox to him was that the Creed (which he called the minister prayer), also the Lord’s Prayer and the Decalogue were presented in the catechism in Russian, and not in Slavic, and this very reason was spelled out in the decree of the Holy Synod to the Moscow printing house. Although the reason for such a prohibition was not important, nevertheless, the bishop felt an insult that was not at all deserved. It ended with the fact that his catechism was allowed to be sold and it was ordered to teach it everywhere, but until this permission it was difficult for the bishop to endure this sorrow. In 1825, often visiting Alexander Pavlovich Protasov, I met his cousin Countess Ekaterina Petrovna Rostopchina, the wife of the former commander-in-chief in Moscow, Count Rostopchina. She betrayed the Orthodox faith and joined the Roman Church. I once heard her talk about a book written by our archpastor on the occasion of the accession of his own nephew, Prince Alexander Nikolaevich Golitsyn, to the Roman confession, entitled: Conversations between the Testing and the Confident. The Countess said: – In Paris, an essay in several books was published against this book, in which a strong and clear refutation was made against Philaret’s book: I would like to know what your Philaret could say now. Protasov, knowing that I often visit Vladyka, suggested that I convey this conversation to him. For a long time I did not dare to talk to him about this, not always finding it convenient to start talking about this in front of many of his visitors. One day, when I was alone with him, a conversation turned up about the Roman Church. Then I told him what I had heard from Countess Rostopchina. He answered me that due to his current studies, he does not have much free time to write a huge essay directed against his book, but if he wants to ask any question, then he is ready to give an answer to any. This was what I conveyed to the Countess. The next day I received from her an extract from the books in French and hastened to send it to the Bishop. Less than an hour passed before I received an answer from him, which I sent to the countess. Thus, a correspondence with her began through me, which continued for quite a long time and in which the Bishop always remained the winner. The countess, for whom the abbots always wrote objections, not having anything to respond to the bishop’s judgments and not saying that his evidence was unfair or unfounded, avoided them and began new disputes, which lasted quite a long time. The Lord got bored with this; he told me that he did not want to continue arguments that were leading nowhere. His last answer to the countess was as follows: "Logic teaches, or if you prefer otherwise, reason says that when the proof is fair and the conclusion from the proof is deduced correctly, then one cannot argue against the conclusion; for what is deduced from the truth and deduced correctly: then, of necessity, there is truth, and not a lie. - I was offered a subject and assigned a type of proof. Having used this type of evidence, I drew a conclusion. They do not say that the proof is false; they do not say that the conclusion is deduced incorrectly: consequently, the conclusion is indisputable." “But, bypassing the proof, they again begin to argue against the conclusion: thus, whoever has the leisure can continue any argument endlessly, looking for various ghosts of opposing evidence.” "By the way, they require numerous proofs. Proofs are not money, of which the more someone has, the more he can buy. If there is one solid proof: then the truth stands safe, even if clouds of arrows, i.e., objections, were fired at it. The Lord had to prove against the Sadducees an important truth - the resurrection of the dead: He used one proof: About the resurrection of the dead, is it not said to you by God who says: I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not God, the God of the dead, but the God of the living (Matthew 22:31-32). Is it really possible to say that this proof is not valid, because one is needed, but many are needed? And the enemies of the Lord did not say this: but the people heard it and were amazed (33), and the Pharisees themselves confessed that the Sadducees were disgraced (34). the requirement of many proofs does not weaken one thing: although, however, it is useful to present many when circumstances require it. "A thousand examples and many texts, which are not actually given, constitute a proof to which something must be answered, because it seems solemn, but to which it is difficult to give an answer that would not seem unpleasant. May they forgive me and listen calmly to what I say calmly, of necessity, having been called upon. This thousand and this multitude are words in which there is a lot of sound, but little light; and the truth requires light, just as there is light itself. This is a kind of learned threat: but a threat does not always mean strength, and does not always guarantee victory. Three extracts are presented: I count three, not a thousand. "I won’t say anything now about two extracts in favor of the Roman Church from Jerome and Cyril of Alexandria, because I don’t have the books of these writers at hand. I don’t know the extract from Cyril and whether I will find it, because the indication does not promise this. The third extract is from Ambrose of Milan, whose book is close. So let’s rewrite the French extract in Russian and compare it with the original book of St. Ambrose. "The Church, writes St. Ambrose of Milan, is where Peter is. The ship of St. Peter is Noah's ark, outside of which everything perishes. Communion with Rome is that which is sufficient to unite with all the Catholic bishops; this important judgment (autorite) must be maintained in the difficulties that arise." To a psalm. 40. words. 11, letter 74, to Theophilus. "I open the interpretation of Psalm 40 and find the following: Where Peter is, there is the Church, where the Church is, there is no death, but eternal life. Not a word is said about the Roman Church. Peter was not only in Rome, where the current Roman bishops would like to imprison him, but also in Antioch, and above all in Jerusalem, which is called in the liturgy of St. James and in the verses of St. John of Damascus, which to this day they are sung at Sunday Vespers, the fabric of churches. I open the word, according to the Paris edition of 1661, 62, according to previous editions 11, and I find an explanation of the Gospel story about the Savior from the ship of Peter teaching the people. despises the treacherous synagogue, accepts the faithful church. Further: go into the depths, that is, into the depths of reasoning about the divine birth: for is there anything as profound as what Peter said to the Lord: You are Christ the Son of the living God? Even further: “just as Noah’s Ark, during the drowning of the world, kept all those it had infused safe: so the Church of Peter, when the world burns, will present all those it embraces unharmed.” Again, not a word about the Roman Church. Peter's Church of Christ is obviously named in reference to Peter's ship, and to his confession of faith, on which the Church is established, according to which Peter, the first confessor of Christ the Son of God, was laid as the first stone in the foundation of the Church of Christ, however, next to the ancient stones of the ancient church, and with other new churches of the renewed one, on the same cornerstone for all and at the head of the existing stone, but said: once built on the foundation of the apostle and prophet, which is the cornerstone of Jesus Christ himself (Eph. 2:20). For no one can lay a foundation other than the one who lies down, who is Jesus Christ. (1 Cor. 3:11).“ This correspondence between the Bishop and Countess Rostopchina was not conducted directly, but through me and was preserved in my copy. Once, the venerable father Archimandrite Jacob of Danilovsky, now Bishop of Murom, visited me, and seeing this correspondence, asked me to give it to him to read. Then he showed it to the Metropolitan, asking his permission to publish it in the publication of the Society of Lovers of Spiritual Enlightenment. The Metropolitan, seeing this correspondence, which he had probably forgotten about, asked in surprise where he could get it, and when Father Archimandrite told him that he received it from me, he told him: leave it with me for consideration, and after a while he allowed it to be published in the Readings of the Society of Lovers of Spiritual Enlightenment, but not completely. It is included in the book of Readings of 1865. In the same year, 1825, Emperor Alexander Pavlovich of blessed memory reposed on the 19th of November in Taganrog. The news of this could not soon reach Moscow, because at that time neither railways nor telegraphs existed. On the morning of the 27th, I learned about this misfortune, and that same day in the evening before the all-night vigil, which I always attended in the Bishop’s home church, I went to see him. I could not imagine that this sad news had not reached him. To my surprise, I found him in a cheerful mood. Not wanting to be the first messenger of this sad incident, I did not begin to talk about it; but when he smilingly told me that they had brought him a curious book, which he would now show me, then I made sure that he had not heard anything about the grief that had befallen us. I stopped him and told him: “Probably, Eminence, you don’t know anything about what happened to us.” He stops and asks me: I had to announce to him that the Emperor died on the 19th. -What are you saying? This cannot be,” he objected. I answered him that due to misfortune, I can assure him of that, and he could only say: - My God! What a misfortune! What will happen to us now? Following this, visitors began to come to him, who confirmed what I had said. The next day I was at mass in the house church of Prince Sergius Mikhailovich Golitsyn. He usually had a lot of visitors, but on this day there were especially many guests, perhaps because they hoped to learn something more about the death of the sovereign. The prince, seeing me, came up to me and said to me: – I just received a letter from the Reverend Philaret; he asks me for permission to come to me. He probably wants to talk to me about something about the death of the emperor. You see how many guests I have, it will be awkward for him to talk in front of everyone. We need to give everyone time to leave, then you and I will go to him. “Very good,” and he added, “imagine that the Reverend did not know anything about this until yesterday evening, that I was the first to announce this to him before the all-night vigil, and it was noticeable that this greatly alarmed him.” So, when all the prince’s guests had left, he and I went to see the bishop. – Imagine what Prince Dmitry Vladimirovich is doing to me. He still hasn’t notified me of anything. I learned about this misfortune from Mikhail Mikhailovich, and I may need to know about this more than anyone else. By saying this, he was referring to the will of the late emperor, signed by him on August 16, 1823. It was compiled by the bishop himself on behalf of the sovereign and, by his order, it was placed by him, the Eminence, for storage in a reliquary on the throne in the Moscow Assumption Cathedral, so that after the death of the emperor, before any action, it would be opened. Prince Sergius Mikhailovich tried in every possible way to justify Prince Dmitry Vladimirovich and persuaded the bishop to go with him to him to explain everything. Prince Dmitry Vladimirovich did not know about the will laid down by the late emperor and was very surprised when he heard about it. Only the ruler knew the inscription on the package, handwritten by the late emperor, as follows: “In the event of my death, open to the Moscow diocesan bishop and the Moscow governor-general in the Assumption Cathedral, before any other action.” At the same time, an order was received from Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich that the oath should immediately be taken to the reigning Emperor Constantine I, who was then in Warsaw, and that no other action should be taken before that. As a result of this command, on November 30th the oath was taken to Emperor Konstantin Pavlovich. After this, a magnanimous argument took place between the two brothers. The elder Constantine, who had long ago renounced inheriting the throne, insisted that he would not change his previous intention. Junior, i.e. Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich also did not agree to accept the throne. This dispute continued between the two brothers for quite a long time. Finally, on December 12, Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich was forced to give in to this dispute and, with a manifesto published on December 12, announced his accession to the throne. Following then, i.e. On December 14, the well-known indignation followed in St. Petersburg. On December 18, the oath was taken to Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich in Moscow. Before the oath, at a large congress of all noble persons, the archbishop took out from the altar the ark in which the last will of Emperor Alexander was kept, and was placed on the lectern that stood on the pulpit. Then the archbishop brought the ark to those present with these words: – Do you deign to see the emperor’s seal? After everyone considered it, it was removed. A package was taken out of the ark, also sealed, with an inscription in the emperor’s own hand, which the bishop also showed to everyone and said: – Do you deign to see the late emperor’s handwritten inscription? Then he opened a large package, which contained the abdication of the throne of Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich, as well as his letters to the late emperor and to Empress Maria Feodorovna, and the will of Emperor Alexander about appointing after himself the heir to the throne of Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich. Following this, the archpastor delivered a speech about the last will of the emperor, and the speech was followed by an oath. On the eve of this day, i.e. On December 17th, I visited Vladyka and he told me how worried and difficult he was again. At two o'clock in the morning he was awakened and informed that a priest had come to him from the Church of the Trinity, which is on the Sheets, who had to inform him about a matter that was impatient for time. The Lord calls him to himself and asks him: what does he need? He announces that he has received an order from his superiors to immediately swear in the oath to Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich of the naval department team assigned to the above-mentioned church. There was a new difficulty for the ruler, who had not received official notification of the oath from anyone; it was necessary to act at random: both allowing and prohibiting the priest from taking the oath seemed dangerous. To gain some time before receiving something correct, the bishop said to the priest: - Go home and bring me the original paper you received. Meanwhile, I quickly wrote a note with a pencil to Prince Dmitry Vladimirovich, asking him if he had received anything from St. Petersburg. The prince answered him that he had received nothing. One can imagine the difficult situation in which the Bishop was. Meanwhile, the priest brought the paper to him; Having examined it and making sure that it must be real, the ruler ordered the priest to swear in the team. Already at 8 o'clock in the morning, Prince Dmitry Vladimirovich notified the bishop that he had received a manifesto on the accession of Emperor Nicholas and that on that day the oath should be taken to him. The confusion arose because each minister, in his own department, sent couriers to his department; the one sent by the Minister of the Navy forestalled others, and therefore the authorities of the Sukharev Tower made an order about the oath earlier, which caused the ruler quite a bit of concern. After several days, Prince Sergius Mikhailovich was supposed to go to St. Petersburg, where he invited me to accompany him, and it seems that on the 20th we left Moscow. On the eve of that day, Bishop, when saying goodbye to me, asked me to deliver his letters: one to the St. Petersburg Metropolitan Seraphim, and the other to the Reverend Gregory, who was then the rector of the St. Petersburg Academy and the St. Petersburg vicar (later the Metropolitan of Novgorod and St. Petersburg). On December 24, on the eve of the Nativity of Christ, we arrived in Novgorod, where we stopped to spend the night. The prince asks me: -Where should we listen to Matins? “The best thing would be in the St. Sophia Cathedral, where we will venerate all the relics.” My proposal was accepted. And I recommended listening to mass in the Yuriev Monastery, the decoration of which everyone was talking so much about at that time that it would be interesting to see it all. The prince said that he would like this too; but, as he knows that Countess Anna Alekseevna Orlova is now there and will probably want to introduce him to Father Photius, which he does not want, he finds it inconvenient to go there. And as I certainly wanted to see this monastery, I imagined to the prince that on the day of such a great holiday there would probably be a lot of people there, and we could stand in a place where no one would see us, and when the mass was over and everyone left the church, we could then freely look at everything. The prince agreed to my proposal. So we went to Yuryev and settled in a church near the western wall. Archimandrite Photius served mass in rich vestments with a panagia made of large emeralds, studded with diamonds. Countess Orlova communed with St. Christ's Mysteries. When the mass was over and everyone left the church, we were left alone and began to look at the images, richly decorated with precious stones. I told the prince: “You see how well you did for listening to me, now we’ll look at everything in the open.” Following this word of mine, a messenger from Countess Anna Alekseevna comes to us and says that the Countess earnestly asks us to go to Father Photius. I don’t know how she could have known that we were here; Probably our driver spilled the beans. The prince answered the messenger that he apologized to the countess and could not fulfill her will, because he was dressed in a traveling dress and warm boots. Then turning to me, he said: “Let’s leave quickly,” and we hurried to our carriage. Not knowing where Father Photius’s cells were, we walked exactly opposite his porch, and the Countess was already standing on the porch, waiting for us, saying: - Why do you want to upset Fr. for such a great holiday? Archimandrite, that you do not want to accept his blessing? No matter how much we tried to make excuses by saying that we were dressed like a traveler, that it would be discourteous to introduce ourselves for the first time in such costumes, the Countess insisted on her own, and we, in warm frock coats and traveling boots, had to obey her. Father Photius received us very kindly, which was not always expected from him, because he interpreted many in his own way. We were served coffee. The Countess poured the cream herself and said: – Isn’t it true that this is a great consolation after such a long fast? Father Photius spoke a lot about the events of that time, and we stayed with him for more than an hour: when parting with us, he gave the prince a prosphora, and me blessed bread, and kissed us on the head. The next day we arrived in St. Petersburg and stayed in the prince’s own house, located near the Blue Bridge. Things were not quite calm in St. Petersburg yet; constantly met wagons covered with matting, in which they brought from various distant places criminals who participated in the conspiracy that ended in a riot on December 14 and transported them to the fortress where they were kept. Upon our arrival in St. Petersburg, I hastened to fulfill the order of our bishop and the next day I went to the Nevsky Lavra to see Metropolitan Seraphim; he received him kindly, and upon learning that I had arrived yesterday with Prince Sergius Mikhailovich, he said to me with a cheerful face: - What joy you told me! I have so much love and respect for this man. He kept me with him for a long time, asking what and how things were going on with us at that time; told me in detail about the recent incidents in St. Petersburg, and with a sigh he added: “This, sir, is what we have come to, and I had to fight.” At this time, I was in the palace to be sworn in, waiting for the Emperor, who was still in the square where the riot took place - and we waited for him for a long time. Finally, he deigned to send his adjutant general to me, inviting me to come to the scene of the riot. I hurried to get into the carriage, and the adjutant general deigned to stand behind him, and when we reached the place where these riots were taking place, I got out of the carriage in a robe and holding a cross in my hands, began to say to the rioters: “In the name of the Crucified One, I assure you of the truth; I already have one foot in the grave and will not wash you.” Some of them began to cross themselves and approach the cross, which I was quite happy about, when suddenly one jumped out of the crowd, having a sword in his hand, and waving it, shouted: what do you believe in this old rogue? He is deceiving you. Then several bullets flew over my head; then the Emperor ordered me to leave; I was led along some planks, put in a sleigh, behind which a deacon stood, and I was brought back to the palace, to the palace church, where I remained for a long time until the arrival of the Emperor, and then the oath was already taken. Metropolitan Eugene of Kiev also went to the square, but he also returned without success. – The Metropolitan’s house in the Lavra is very good; the room in which I sat with him was well decorated, the sofas and armchairs were upholstered in crimson velvet and gold. Fasting with him, I went to the Most Reverend Gregory, who lived in the academic house, being the rector of the academy. This one also received me very kindly due to his friendship with our ruler, asked me a lot about him, and despite the fact that I was in a hurry to leave him, valuing his time due to his great responsibilities, he kept everything to himself and with his friendliness greatly endeared me to him. When, upon my return to Moscow, I conveyed this to our bishop, he told me: “Yes, I had the honor of being the teacher of the Most Reverend Gregory, and now I would like to learn a lot from him.” That’s how much he valued him. In St. Petersburg (in 1825) I lived with Prince S. M. Golitsyn for more than a month; During this time I visited both eminences. Metropolitan Seraphim came to the prince. In the evenings, most often I spent time with Natalia Kirillovna Zagryazhskaya, née Countess Razumovskaya. Every day the best St. Petersburg society gathered with her. She lived in the same house with Prince Kochubey, whose niece he was married to. Prince Sergius Mikhailovich was received especially graciously by the sovereign, who often invited him to his place. One day the sovereign told him that he was dissatisfied with the Archbishop of Moscow because he supposedly allowed Konstantin Pavlovich in the oath that was then taken, which he should not have done; also because some image that appeared in Moscow was carried around the streets. The prince assured the sovereign that this was reported to him incorrectly and unfairly. Soon after this, the sovereign granted the archbishop a diamond cross to wear on his black hood. At the end of January 1826, we prepared to return to Moscow and on the eve of our departure we went to Metropolitan Seraphim to say goodbye to him; we met him on Nevsky Prospekt on his way to the Synod. He asked us to get into his carriage, which we did; After talking with him for quite some time, they said goodbye to him in the hope of seeing him again soon in Moscow, where he was supposed to arrive for the coronation of the emperor. We returned to Moscow on February 1st; Here they were then awaiting the arrival of the body of the late emperor from Taganrog. There were very unfavorable rumors in Moscow - they said that with the arrival of his body, there would be a riot in Moscow; These rumors frightened the residents so much that many families were planning to leave Moscow. On this occasion, the Bishop on January 28, 1826 sent out an order to all the Moscow clergy with the following content: "Brothers and co-servants rejoice in the Lord. The time is approaching to bring the body of the deceased Emperor Alexander Pavlovich to God through this city. Foreign peoples accompany his memory with prayer and mourning, especially the fatherland Pasha, if more than this first-throne city, arrange your hearts to spend this time in reverence, in humility before the destinies of God, which visit us with great hardships and sorrows due to our sins, and in diligent prayers, may the All-Good God calm the soul of the reposed king and may he not cease to preserve the kingdom and the city from the sons of apostasy, sealed with the seal of despair, and from everyone. evil. Inspire other Orthodox people not to make the honors prepared for royal greatness an object of mere idle curiosity, but to look at them with tenderness and reverent thought, how earthly greatness passes away, and how from the great king to the least of his subjects, for all there is one eternal hope - the kingdom of God.” Despite the spread of rumors that there would be outrage in Moscow when the body of the late emperor was brought from Taganrog, it was greeted, as it should be, very calmly; The procession stretched from the Serpukhov outpost to the Kremlin itself. I watched the magnificent and sad ceremony from the house of some merchant, which he ceded to this day to Count Vladimir Grigorievich Orlov, who asked me to accompany his grandson E.P.D., who later became Princess Dolgorukova. The body of the late emperor was placed in the Archangel Cathedral, under a richly arranged canopy on a raised floor; and in this case, our ruler had an unpleasant collision with the commander-in-chief of the Kremlin expedition, Prince Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov, to whom the organization of this ceremony was entrusted. It was supposed to raise the floor so that it would cover the tombs of St. relics that would then be trampled under foot. The Bishop did not agree to this and managed to prevent this from happening. The next day after the body of the emperor was brought, i.e. On February 4th, the archbishop celebrated the funeral liturgy in the Archangel Cathedral and said a very eloquent word on the text: Like him there was no king before him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul, and with all his strength. Otherwise, the Lord does not turn away from the fury of His great anger. (2 Kings 23:25–26). I don’t remember how many days the emperor’s body remained in Moscow, but I remember that not only whole days, but also whole nights, many people of all ranks flocked to him. Everyone wanted to say goodbye to their king, whom they loved so sincerely, as evidenced by the tears they shed. The body of the sovereign was escorted with the same ceremony from Moscow to St. Petersburg. Before reaching St. Petersburg, it was transferred to another coffin in Chesma and brought to St. Petersburg on March 6, and on March 13, 1826 it was interred in the Peter and Paul Fortress Cathedral. On April 30, Empress Maria Feodorovna arrived in Moscow, where she was met at the Assumption Cathedral by the archbishop and received a speech from him. She deigned to go through Moscow to meet the Dowager Empress Elizaveta Alekseevna, who was returning from Taganrog; but the latter, having reached only the city of Belev, Tula province, moved into eternity, without waiting for a meeting with her mother. Her body was transported from Belev to St. Petersburg through Mozhaisk, where Empress Maria Feodorovna went; The Archbishop of Moscow also arrived here and served a funeral mass in the presence of Her Majesty, after which he said the funeral oration. Empress Maria Feodorovna returned from Mozhaisk to Moscow and until the arrival of the emperor remained in the vicinity of Moscow in the village of Vlahernskoe, owned by Prince Sergius Mikhailovich Golitsyn. The time of the coronation was approaching; many bishops began to gather; It was necessary for our ruler to place everyone comfortably and make various orders regarding the coronation ceremony in the Assumption Cathedral. The 22nd day of August, appointed for the coronation, arrived. In order not to be late for the Kremlin, which was no longer allowed in after five o’clock in the morning, I went there the day before that day. I listened to the all-night vigil in the Archangel Cathedral, and spent the night in the royal chambers, listened to early mass in the Chudov Monastery, and then went to the places arranged next to the Archangel Cathedral for spectators. From here you could see the exit from the Red Porch of the Royal Family. First, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna passed under the glazed canopy, and after a while, Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich with the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and the entire royal family walked. The coronation was performed by Metropolitan Seraphim of Novgorod and St. Petersburg; our bishop was granted metropolitan that day and not before he put the white hood on himself, but he took it to the Chudov Monastery, put it in the shrine of St. Alexis, and as if he accepted it from him and put it on himself. On the same day, I congratulated Prince Sergius Mikhailovich, who received the Alexander Ribbon. Upon returning from the Assumption Cathedral, the Emperor and Empress, wearing crowns and purple, walked past us to the Archangel Cathedral to venerate the images and relics. From here we entered the Annunciation Cathedral, and through the Red Porch we went to the Faceted Chamber for lunch. For the spectators, including me, there was a balcony at the window of the Faceted Chamber, from which it was very clearly visible how the sovereign with both empresses in crowns and purple on the throne deigned to eat. At the same time, all the invitees were sitting at the laid tables; Only the Grand Dukes Tsarevich Konstantin Pavlovich and Mikhail Pavlovich did not sit at the table, but walked around during lunch; I saw how the emperor stood up and, holding a glass in his hands, looked at the hiding place and drank the health of the Grand Duchesses, who were in it to watch the ceremonial dinner. The Emperor was very tired and was in a hurry to finish dinner, so that they barely had time to serve one dish before they immediately took it away and began serving others. At dinner I saw Count Speransky for the first time. In the evening the whole city and Ivan the Great were magnificently illuminated. The Emperor, the Empress and the entire royal family rode through the city, the streets were crowded with people. The celebration continued for several days; for the common people there was a treat at the Maiden Field; at court and many had balls. Metropolitan Seraphim had a stay in the Novospassky Monastery; Once I met Metropolitan Eugene of Kyiv at his place, whom I met here. Finally, the time came for the sovereign with the entire royal family to go to the Sergius Lavra, where a few days before the Metropolitan of Moscow also went to meet them there. I went there too. This was before the feast of the day of St. Sergius. Upon arrival in the Lavra, I visited the Metropolitan. He received me not in his house, which he had prepared to accommodate the Dowager Empress, but in the cells of the sacristan’s father, while accommodation was prepared for the emperor and his wife in the academy. By the way, I told the Bishop that on the day of St. Sergius I was constantly in the Trinity Cathedral, and now I will be deprived of this consolation, because I do not have a uniform with me, without which they will not let me into the cathedral in the presence of the sovereign. He answered me: - If you want to be there, then I can send my man to you, who will lead you to the altar, through which you will not lose the pleasure of celebrating the day of St. Sergius near his relics. The next day, indeed, the Bishop sent his servant, who took me to the altar, from where I could conveniently see how both empresses and the emperor were seated on the right choir, upholstered in brocade. A choir of singers stood next to him, and the sovereign sang along with them. Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich and Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna stood on the left choir. Upon returning to Moscow and at the end of all the festivities, the sovereign deigned to go to St. Petersburg with the entire royal family and the entire court. I don’t remember exactly when, but I know that one Saturday I happened to be with the Bishop, as always happened, at the all-night vigil in his home church. At the end of the all-night vigil, I went to see him, and after sitting with him for quite a long time, I asked him: -Where do you want to serve tomorrow? He answered me that he would serve in the village of Cherkizovo, where he would consecrate the throne, and moreover asked me: “If you say a word there, then I will come, but if not, then I won’t.” To this he told me that he had not prepared for this, and therefore would not speak. After this I remained for quite a long time and not before 10 o’clock said goodbye to him. The next day in the evening I came to him, and he greeted me smiling with these words: “What, dear sir, did you order me to give a sermon, but you didn’t come?” “How could I expect this,” I answered him, “after you deigned to tell me that you will not speak?” “Yes, I definitely didn’t intend to talk,” he told me, “and I was already getting ready for bed, but I couldn’t fall asleep.” The thought of your question: will I speak, did not leave me and I decided to get up and write a word, after which I could fall asleep. I expressed surprise at his ability. Then he told me that when he was Archbishop of Tver, when he came there from St. Petersburg for a short time, he served there for thirteen days in a row, and at each service he spoke without preparation, that then his sermons were longer than those that were written by him, because while speaking without preparation, new thoughts and new reasonings were born. Once, a few days before his angel, I was with him, and knowing that on this day he always left for Pererva, I asked his secretary Alexander Petrovich Svyatoslavsky to bring him congratulations from me on this day, adding to the fact that I would like to come to Pererva myself for this purpose, but I don’t know whether he will like it, because when leaving Moscow, he probably does not want to accept congratulations, consequently and you shouldn’t think about pursuing him, to which the secretary replied: - Of course so, sir, but he will be glad to see you. That’s why on December 1st I went to see Vladyka on Pererva. He received me kindly. He did not meet any of the secular guests; there were only bishops and a few archimandrites; After sitting with him for some time, I approached him to receive his blessing and say goodbye to him; then he stood up; took my hand and said to me: “Yes, they won’t weaken in any way on the way,” and although he didn’t finish: we won’t let them go without eating, but it was clear that he didn’t want to let them go without dinner, and thus I spent the day with him very pleasantly. Somehow I happened to be with him along with the Naryshkin family. He announced to us that one of these days he was going to the Lavra; Then the Naryshkins began to beg him to visit them in a village located near the Trinity Road, to which he agreed. And as he knew that my village was located close to them, he said: – And Mikhail Mikhailovich doesn’t invite me to his place? I told him that the only reason I didn’t invite him was because I didn’t dare to disturb him, but I would consider it lucky if he visited me too. To which he replied that he would gladly come to me, but he would not be able to find me; then I asked him not to worry about this and said that I would send a horseman to the village of Mytishchi, who would guide him along a beautiful road no further than 5 miles. On the appointed day, the man I sent to Mytishchi escorted him to the village of Bolshevo, where I met him at the church with many people gathered. Having examined the church, he arrived at my house, and upon entering the first room he said: – Peace be to this house and to all who live in it. Here I introduced him to my mother and sister. He went out onto the balcony and admired the beautiful views for a long time and said: After the tea was served, I asked him to stay for breakfast, but he did not agree, telling me that in this way he would not have time to come to the Lavra that day, because he also needed to stop by the Naryshkins, where he left me. A few days later I came to him at the Lavra to thank him for visiting me, I found him walking along his terrace, he told me: – Although your location is very beautiful, I would not change with you, because I remain and am very pleased with mine. In 1830, the priest of the Trinity Church in Kapelki, with the clergy and parishioners began to ask me to agree to be an elder at this church, because there was no one in their parish who could take this position. Since the church had fallen into such disrepair that it was necessary to begin construction, I refused to take on this responsibility, and my house was in another parish; despite this, they managed to persuade me, but before the final expression of consent, I said that I considered it necessary to talk about this with the bishop. The Bishop told me that a church elder can be someone belonging to another parish; but when I explained to him that there was another circumstance that scared me to accept the position of headman, namely, that I would have to immediately begin construction, because the bell tower located on the church wall had given a large crack, which is why there is a crack in the vault of the church itself, why it would be necessary to break down the bell tower, build it separately, in order to prevent the crack from growing. Then the bishop told me that the next day before Vespers he would come to inspect all this. It was the 29th of July on the eve of the parish festival in honor of John the Warrior. Vespers had long since begun in all the churches, and our priest wanted to begin vespers, believing that due to the rain the bishop would not come, although I assured him otherwise; Vespers had just begun when he called, so I was forced to meet him alone. He went straight to the altar and, at the end of the service, began to inspect everything that I had indicated. He agreed that fears regarding the fragility of the church were fair, and that it was necessary to begin construction immediately. At that very time it began to rain so heavily that I will never remember, and the bishop left. The next day, when I came to him to thank him for the concern he had received, he greeted me smiling with these words: - Hello, Mr. Headman from Kapelki. Only, when I returned home from you, the rain fell on me not drop by drop, but as if from a tub. After that he began to ask: - How much church money do you have for the building? And when I told him that there were only four thousand banknotes, he objected to me: – How do you want to start with such an insignificant amount? I answered that you just need to start, and then they will help, of which there were many examples: I hope for the mercy of God. - Well, if you hope for God’s mercy, then get down to business. Then I asked him to give me a collection of books, and although he was not willing to give them out, especially for Moscow churches, seeing that I was asking out of necessity, he did not refuse me. After a year, I could not finish this building, since it turned out that there were still many new unforeseen buildings and there was still not enough money to finish everything. Then I asked the bishop to allow me to continue collecting the book for another year, to which he, seeing many shortcomings, again expressed his consent. But new donations were not enough. There was a new crack in the altar of the large church, and donors gave money on the condition that a new chapel be built in the name of St. Mitrofan. Moreover, I started a rather tall bell tower and nine thousand rubles in banknotes were spent on a new bell for it, costing 215 poods; It was also necessary to make a new fence, because the old one had completely collapsed. The priest persuaded me to turn to the bishop, who was then in St. Petersburg, with a new request to continue collecting the book for another year; the request was sent and a week later was returned to the Eminence Vicar, with the following resolution: “February 27. The Eminence, calling the priest, will admonish him about the following: that only rare ones from Moscow churches ask for collected books, and rarely, for extreme needs; that if it is easy to give books to those who ask arbitrarily, then there will be more collectors than givers; that the scarcity of benefits was necessary to foresee, and therefore not to undertake many unnecessary things, for example, a high bell tower, the height of which does not serve to salvation; that after the book was condescendingly given and even condescendingly repeated, it was necessary to think whether to lead oneself and the authorities into temptation with a new request for the book, with such oblivion of one’s own duties that the book does not show a trace of either the account or the revision prescribed in the very title of the book; it was necessary not to fix one's eyes on money alone, but on the correctness and purity of the matter. And therefore, to express an opinion worthy of a priest to Mr. Elder, whom, however, for his exemplary care of his position, and the extraordinary success in the improvement of this church, we highly respect and thank him and we invoke many blessings from God for him.” From such a resolution of the bishop one could see what a master he was, praising, giving reprimands that concerned me. Upon his return from St. Petersburg to Moscow, I appeared to him, and he met me with a smiling face and told me: “Are you really scolding me for not fulfilling your request?” “I ask your forgiveness for the trouble I caused you.” He said that there had never been such an example of giving collected books for three years at once - and asked to be excused for the refusal. Soon after that, the new chapel in the name of St. Mitrophan was ready, and I asked him for permission to consecrate it, then he asked me: - And who will consecrate you? - The one who will be appointed from you. “Wouldn’t you like me to consecrate?” “On the contrary,” I answered, “I would very much like this, but I did not dare to disturb you.” He said that this could not bother him at all and that he would be happy to fulfill my desire, and added that next Sunday, which was December 9, he would be ready for this. To my question: which of the archimandrites will he order me to invite to serve with him? He answered that the choice of co-workers was left to me. At the same time, I asked him after the consecration to visit me and stay with me to eat. Although, as usual, he rarely stayed anywhere to dine, he gave me his word to fulfill my wish. At the end of the consecration and liturgy, he said the word and came to me for lunch: the next day I went to thank him and he was very pleased with the structure of the church. Princess Anastasia Mikhailovna Golitsyna and her sister Elizaveta Mikhailovna Ermolova asked me to deliver the bishop a briefcase and a notebook, which I sent to him in a letter to him, to which he immediately answered me with the following letter: “Accept, dear sir Mikhail Mikhailovich, by assuring Princess Anastasia Mikhailovna and Elizaveta Mikhailovna Ermolova, that I gratefully accept their things - a briefcase and a notebook, in order to have the consolation of using things that came from good hands with a blessing. At the same time, I forward my message to the Orenburg Governor-General on the case of Mikhail. and, if I dare to use the word of a friend, my love is with your spirit. Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow, 1832, May 22.” Soon after, the Metropolitan was summoned to St. Petersburg to attend the Synod; seeing him off, I went to Rostov, and upon returning from there I wrote to him in St. Petersburg; to my letter he answered me with the following: "Your letter, my dear sir Mikhail Mikhailovich, does not deserve forgiveness, but gratitude, which you accept from me for the feelings of love and trust, not by my dignity, but by your heart, instilled in you, and especially for prayer for me. Prayer for each other is the best of communication. The imperfections of prayer should be corrected if possible, but you should not be discouraged by them. It is necessary to distinguish the work of prayer from the pleasure in it. The work is done by a person, and must be done constantly and unremittingly according to the rule and order, and God gives consolation by grace when it is necessary to attract or strengthen a person, and in the same way, the feeling of one’s own weakness should not be used to become burdened and lose heart, but to abandon hope in oneself and through prayer for help move on to hope in God. So the apostle tells the Corinthians that he did not hope to remain alive, and this happened for this reason, he continues, so that we would not hope for ourselves. but against God, who restores the dead, that is why he also says: I have pleasure in weaknesses: when I am weak, then I am strong. May Almighty God work His saving power even in our weaknesses! I’m surprised that you haven’t heard from me for a long time; The next day, upon arrival, I notified the Reverend vicar about myself, in order to notify my other colleagues and those from the flock who remembered me. I ask Prince Sergius Mikhailovich, Princess Anastasia Mikhailovna and Elizaveta Mikhailovna to show my respects. I wrote to him yesterday. The briefcase turned out to be useful both on the road and here. The notebook is intended for use. Reflections on the Gospel, since they were received from Prince Sergius Mikhailovich, are in my small traveling library. I ask you to show my respects to Anna Mikhailovna Gresser. May she and others forgive me that, due to time constraints, I left without saying goodbye to many whom I wanted to say goodbye to. I am glad that Countess Anna Alekseevna honored the coffin of Father Amphilochius. Having mentioned her, I cannot keep silent about the fact that she faced a temptation, which I think was difficult. According to the establishment of the hostel in Yuryev, it was prescribed that neither the rector nor the brethren accept anyone in spirit, without written permission from the diocesan bishop. The order is not public, but it is not a secret, because the ladies in St. Petersburg are already talking about this. May God arrange everything for good. It’s just difficult and therefore pathetic when they go from one extreme to another. In my opinion, in relations between monastics and the worldly, great prudence is always needed, which does not consist in allowing unlimited permission today and limitlessly prohibiting tomorrow. It is advisable that the Countess accept this case with Christian patience, not as if from men, but as from God; so that she does not rush to use human resistance, but with prayer and vigil waits for the sign of God, which would show the way out of difficulty to safety and salvation. God's blessing to Ekaterina Vladimirovna and Varvara Mikhailovna! I wrote to them, having a duty to answer; and that I am not always a payment debtor, please do not be angry. God's blessing to Ekaterina Sergeevna, if I can convey this to her, for I think that she is not in the city. It's time to end the conversation with you; I wish peace to your soul. 1827 July ll" “Only yesterday the end of my retinue arrived; tomorrow, if God pleases, I will bring the memory of those who were absent to the local altar.” Many found that your master’s sermons were dark and uncomprehensible. This reached his ears, and so one day he said to me: “They say that I write so darkly that they don’t understand me, but it seems to me that I write very simply; what can you tell me about this? I answered him that in his sermons I see nothing but light, and that I always listen to him with special pleasure. And indeed, finding true pleasure in his sermons, I rarely missed the opportunity to listen to them, unless I did not know what he would speak. I especially liked the comparisons he made, for example in one of his sermons he argues like this: – When a house burns, crowds of people run to fight the fire for logs and boards, often from an unknown owner. But when the soul burns with the fire of evil passion, lust, rage, anger, despair; Is it also easy to find people who would hasten to extinguish the deadly fire with the living water of words of truth and love before it embraced all the forces of the soul and spread to merge with the fire of Gehenna? – When a cauldron is boiling on a fire, then neither an insect dares to approach it in order to defile it, nor an insolent domestic animal in order to steal the food being prepared in it for a person. But when it is removed from the fire and cools down, then insects swarm around it and fall into it, and an insolent dog can approach, desecrate, and steal. Similarly, when a person’s soul boils with the fire of divine desire: this spiritual fire serves it at the same time as strength for action and armor for protection. But if negligence allows this fire to go out, and pious zeal cools down, then vain, crafty, unclean thoughts are born and swarm in the sensual area, fall into the depths of the soul and defile it, and insolent passion can come and plunder in the soul what was prepared in it to please God. Without multiplying the extracts, I will say that all those who found the bishop’s sermons dark and unclear would have done better if they had taken the trouble to get to know them better. They would be convinced that there is nothing unclear or dark about them. It could easily be that they never read what they were discussing, but repeated only the words of those who, out of envy or dislike of the preacher, condemned him. The wisdom given to him by God was balanced with his humility. Every word he said had power and weight. It is not in vain that someone expressed it this way: what is the word, so is the work. When the main altar of the Church of the Most Holy Trinity, where I was an elder, was ready, I asked to consecrate it, which he did not refuse me, apologizing only if he was unable to speak the words: adding to the fact that now this is not as easy for him as it was before; in return, he consoled me with a promise to visit me after the consecration and even stay with me to eat. It was September 17, 1839. Having heard from someone that I would like to have his own sermon, he immediately sent me the one he had spoken on May 20, 1827 in the Chudov Monastery, on the day of the feast of St. Alexis, which I keep in my memory of him. Taking advantage of the Bishop’s favor, I often asked him to explain some difficult-to-understand passages of Holy Scripture, and it was noticeable that this seemed pleasant to him. I regret one thing, that these questions were asked verbally. If I had done it in writing, I am sure that he would have immediately given the answers: what benefit could have come from it, not for me alone, but would have been preserved for many. In 1827, in a letter to the Bishop, I complained about my laziness. To this he responded to me with the following letter: "If I believed what you say about laziness, I would tell you: go to laziness. But I hope that there is no need to send you so far. Against our weakness, sinfulness, and insignificance there is the infinite goodness and omnipotent mercy of God. And against laziness, God has placed something in us: for if we know how to overcome laziness and work tirelessly and tirelessly for worldly benefits, as can often be seen in many: then why not arouse ourselves to deeds for the kingdom of heaven? And since we are excited, God shows us His work and gives us the power to do it, not sometimes, however, so that we immediately see the success of the work, but it is enough that we do not allow obstacles and despair to overcome us. However, the spiritual house, for the most part, is built in the same way as, according to the legend about the church of the Kyiv Lavra: while they were building, it was not much higher than the ground; everything appeared when everything was completed” "I obey you in abundance. Instead of one, I am sending two letters, and I ask you to deliver. If another book is sent: it belongs to my friend Alexei Kirillovich Naryshkin. To Prince Sergius Mikhailovich, his sisters, my respect and desire for God's blessing. I entrust you to the grace of our Savior, and I invoke his peace. Filaret M. Moscow, June 1827 30" In response to this letter, I wrote, among other things, to Bishop: “You wanted to compare my spiritual home with the church of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, but it would be more correct to compare it with the church being built on the Sparrow Hills, the beginning of which is not yet visible and whether it will be built is not known.” In response to my letter, the Bishop was pleased to honor me with the following letter: "May the blessing of the Heavenly Father be upon you, Mikhail Mikhailovich! I owe you an answer for more than two months. Forgive me. I don’t want to agree with you in comparing your spiritual church with the church on the Sparrow Hills. There is no foundation here, but in you the foundation, which according to the Apostle is Jesus Christ, was laid by holy baptism. I hope that you have built something: let the Great One do the rest, according to your faith God the Creator, according to what was said: God, open your path to the Lord and he will create it. Regarding the newly enlightened Mikhail, the Eminence of Orenburg answered me that he had entrusted him to the care of a reliable priest; and the Orenburg governor-general wrote unfavorably. No further help is in sight for this cause: let us pray for our brother Michael, that God will help him either to overcome by faith, or to endure with faith. If you happen to leave the city, then with God! And when you are with God, you will not be alone, and you will not be separated from those who love you in Him and for His sake. If you do not change your place of your own accord, so much the better, for it is all the more true according to God’s dispensation. And where God leads is a good path! Thank you for sharing the memories of kind people with me. May God remember them in mercy and love! I also owe Prince Sergius Mikhailovich an answer; let him bear with me. Bow to him and his venerable sisters. God bless them, and I’ll stop writing to you. Filaret m. Moscow 1827, Sept. 29'' A few days after the day of my angel, I received the following letter from the bishop from St. Petersburg: "I'll tell you, Mikhail Mikhailovich, how I celebrated the day of your angel. In the afternoon it was necessary to celebrate with Vladyka 4. For this reason, whether out of weakness or laziness, I did not want to celebrate in the morning in church. But in the evening today I received a letter from V.M., in which the desire was expressed, and even the hope that I would not refuse to bring some names to the altar, including including yours, I felt ashamed of my laziness and I thank the good people who prompted me to fulfill my duty, which did not prevent me from spending the rest of the holiday without more fatigue. - They say that Prince Sergius Mikhailovich is making his way to the local country of my arrival. Wouldn’t it be nice for you to accompany him as before? I know the blessings of God! Please deliver the attached letter to M. Moscow 4 November 8, 1827.” I informed the bishop about my mother’s illness and the anxiety I felt as a result. The Bishop answered: "Strengthen yourself, Mikhail Mikhailovich, with faith and hope in God and obedience to His field, always good; and in this may heartfelt prayer assist you. These means are useful to you and your sick parent, and not the anxiety that burdens you, but does not ease her. It is good that you began her treatment with divine healing, the effect of which is true, if not obvious. - Your petition is quite late. Before protected by you, I have received many requests, and have already given them action. Therefore, with all the power of attorney for your testimony, I still do not know what I should do. The next letter was in response to mine, with which I notified him about the illness that had befallen me. "May the blessing and mercy of God be with you, beloved in the Lord, Mikhail Mikhailovich. I thank you that you remembered me with a good desire, and informed me about yourself. I argue with you against one word - against gratitude. You and I owe each other love: you do not owe me gratitude. Thanks be to God for raising you up from illness. I have no doubt that you will also say: thanks be to God and for what you have experienced through illness. It is not useless to experience a feeling of detachment from the world in illness, so that even after illness you can maintain this feeling. It is not surprising if this feeling does not come as easily after illness as during illness; in illness God gives it to the needs of the weak, but in health he requires that he strive to obtain it. “Do not be discouraged, but strive through faith and prayer, patience and humility.” "I haven’t seen Prince Sergius Mikhailovich for a long time. In response to the question I asked him: when to find him, he forbade me to go to him. The day before yesterday I didn’t meet him in the palace, but only after that I found out that he was there. I’m going to either go or send to him: and I still can’t. Yesterday I was in the Synod with difficulty; today I was not able to go to the council of the Humane Society. Here is a sample of my living in St. Petersburg. I thanked Princess Anastasia Mikhailovna for remembering me, and I still thank you. I ask your mother and sister to express my gratitude and desire for God’s blessing, which I wish for you again and again. On December 11, 1829, I received the following letter from the Bishop: "Take the trouble, dear sir Mikhail Mikhailovich, to deliver the enclosed letter. I have been told that it must be delivered through you. And I am glad to have the opportunity to say that I remember you with love, and I sincerely wish peace to your soul." I don’t remember what matter caused the disagreement between the Bishop and Prince Sergius Mikhailovich in the committee of the Humane Society. The prince, in his ardor, could not tell him everything that was necessary to explain the matter, and agree with him on that, which is why he asked me to go to the metropolitan and tell him more clearly the essence of the matter, which I did. In order for the truth to be visible, I said that I could show him the original paper relating to the controversial case; but apparently I was not entirely indifferent in my explanation to him, which I learned from the bishop’s letter to V.M., to whom he among other things wrote: “yesterday I had Mikhail Mikhailovich, who brought me the evening dawn of the wrath of the venerable Prince Sergius Mikhailovich.” A day after that, in my letter to the Bishop, I presented the original paper I had promised, and received the following answer from him: "I humbly thank you, dear sir, Mikhail Mikhailovich, for resolving my doubt. You have already done too much: your word would be equally satisfactory for me, as would the reading of the act. I return it and ask the Lord for peace to you and to everyone who does not fully receive this benefit. Philaret M. of Moscow." In 1830, there was the first cholera in Moscow - it began in the last days of September. This is how I found out about it: I came to the committee of the Humane Society, in which I was an indispensable member; Our president, Prince Sergius Mikhailovich Golitsyn, also arrived there; having ordered the doors of the presence to be closed so that no strangers would be here, he secretly announced to us that a new disease called cholera had appeared in Moscow, and that measures must be taken to stockpile food for almshouses, especially for the almshouse for the refuge of the poor, located 20 miles from Moscow; because there is a rumor that Moscow will be cordoned off and no one will be allowed in or out. This surprise alarmed us all. After dinner I went to the Metropolitan to learn something from him; I come to the entrance of his porch and see his carriage, in which he went to Prince Dmitry Vladimirovich for some meetings; on the porch I met his doctor, Grigory Yakovlevich Vysotsky, coming out; to my question about the illness, he only managed to answer me: “If you need to leave Moscow, then hurry up and leave now, otherwise Moscow will be locked up.” Returning home, I immediately went to the Krestovskaya outpost, where I met a lot of people who were no longer allowed through the outpost; The crew was immediately stopped and the carriage of I don’t remember which bishop was setting off for his new diocese. On this day the emperor also arrived in Moscow; when the bishop was informed about this, he ordered him to be let through. I, as an indispensable member of the committee and at the same time the director of the Nabilkovsky almshouse and almshouse for the poor, made sure that the caretaker of this last almshouse, who was at that time in Moscow, redeemed everything that was needed to feed the poor; He made all the necessary purchases, but informed me that he was not allowed to leave Moscow with the food he had prepared. Knowing that if they didn’t let him in, the poor people living there might die of hunger, I hastened to inform the prince about this. Sergius Mikhailovich; The prince immediately went to the sovereign, who deigned to allow him passage. The first cholera scared many people because a lot of people actually died. Posters were filled with news about this every day; many were locked in their homes, but the churches were filled with worshipers and everyone hurried to fast and receive Holy Communion. Tain. Thanks to God, I was not afraid and lived quite calmly, ate the same food as before, and did not feel any change in my health. I sometimes visited Prince Sergius Mikhailovich and the Metropolitan, who had some kind of protective equipment installed in the entryway, and before going into their rooms, it was necessary to wash your hands with vinegar, according to the instructions of Messrs. doctors Ekaterina Vladimirovna Novosiltseva was at that time in her village near Moscow, in the village of Otrada. She was not so much afraid of death as of the fact that if she ended her life there, her body would not be allowed into the Novospassky Monastery for burial next to her late son, whom she loved so much; on this occasion, she asked her friend V.M. Naryshkina to convey this concern to her bishop and ask him to convince the city governor in the event of her death to allow her body to be transported to Moscow. The Bishop answered Naryshkina: "Write to Ekaterina Vladimirovna that I accept her assignment in order to relieve her from worrying about Novospassky, and to give her freedom to take care of what is most needed. And if God arranges it so that after me, and not me after her, it will be possible to carry out assignments, then I ask her to ask me for some peaceful place where the local mayor will neither prohibit nor cannot open the way.” During cholera times, I once visited him; although that day he felt unwell and did not receive anyone, he ordered me to be allowed in and received me in his bedroom, which was too hot. Among other things, he told me: - Guess who I had today? I answered him that since there are many people whom he allows to have this honor, it will be difficult for me to guess who exactly. Then he announced to me that Count Pyotr Aleksandrovich Tolstoy had come to see him, whom the Emperor deigned to instruct to tell the Bishop that if he wanted to give sermons, he would not say anything like the last one he said. The Bishop asked me: I answered that as far as I can understand, she seems beautiful to me. At the same time, no embarrassment was noticeable in him and he seemed calm. In some cases he seemed suspicious to me, especially in relation to health; for example, sitting one day in his living room with me on the middle sofa, he asked me the following question: - Tell me, will it still be okay for you to sit in my place and for me to give up yours? “It doesn’t matter to me at all, just let me ask you, why do you want to make such a move?” “But why,” he answered me, pointing to his cheek, “yesterday, this side of me hurt from a cold, and like the light on this side from the window, it can have an effect on the sore side.” Meanwhile, we sat very far from the window because his living room is very deep. When I first came to the Lavra by rail, and told him about this, he asked me: - Well, how did you feel after that? – Nothing but peace and pleasure from a quick trip. “And when I arrived at the Lavra by rail, the next day I had a headache. I noticed to him that this could not have happened from the railway, but that it gave me a headache. “No, not like that,” he told me, “I know this because when I returned to Moscow, also by rail, the same action was repeated. Moreover, I find it more pleasant to travel in a carriage, because you can always stop at any time, walk a little and at the same time look at the pilgrims who are striving with such zeal for the shrine of the Lavra. It happened to me often to dine with the Bishop in the Lavra after finishing academic exams, and in Moscow we were invited to dinners with him, on the days when he dedicated his vicars; Then there were large and magnificent dinners, and during them he ate little. During the feast days of St. Sergius in the Lavra, when I was also invited to a meal at the cathedral table along with many visitors, he did not allow the table to be too luxurious. One day I happened to be sitting at this table next to him, of course on his instructions, and when I began to praise the decorations of the refectory of the church, i.e. stucco work in it, in the taste of Rococo, then he asked me: – Do you know why this taste is called Rococo? And when I answered that I didn’t know, he told me: – The French king Louis XIV decorated his palace in this style, and wanted to show it to his former nurse, an old woman who had lost her mind; showing her, asked her if it was good? then she, looking around all this decoration, said: Rococo - a word that did not exist - and from that time this taste began to be called nothing less than Rococo. One day I happened to have dinner at the Bishop’s in Moscow with two archimandrites: Simon’s Melchizedek and Novospassky’s Apollos. The first did not stop talking during the entire table, and most of all extolled his bell tower, assuring that not only in all of Russia, but in all of Europe there is no such thing: the last one kept silent, looking down, and the bishop only smiled, and finally said: – Why doesn’t Novospassky Archimandrite protect his bell tower? He didn’t answer anything, but I said instead: – I think that Father Archimandrite does not protect his bell tower because it protects itself. – Your remark is very fair. Once upon a time, after mass in the Chudov Monastery, which was celebrated by the Metropolitan, many people came to his local cell for a snack. Probably the Bishop was very tired, and therefore did not start a conversation yet, the same Simonovsky Archimandrite allowed himself to start a conversation and said: – And yesterday the Prince of Oldenburg visited me. To which the Metropolitan asked him: – What did you talk about? “I asked him: is it true, Your Imperial Highness, that you are being appointed governor-general to us in Moscow?” - Well, what did he answer you? – the Metropolitan asked him. “He told me that he doesn’t know.” “Well, that’s the same,” said the bishop, “the Russian proverb is true: eat the mushroom pie, but keep your mouth shut.” Another time, at a similar snack, the conversation touched on some icon that had completely darkened, so that the image on it was difficult to make out. I.M. Snegirev, who was right there, said: “I think, sir, that she darkened from the touch of our unclean lips.” “And from bad language,” knowing that this interlocutor was not always restrained from speaking. One day after Vespers they told me that the Metropolitan was driving along Meshchanskaya Street, on which my house was, and that his carriage had turned into an alley. I guessed that he was going to the church of the Nabilkovsky almshouse to inspect it; and since I was then the director of this almshouse, I hurried there through my garden and the grove located here to meet him and see him off. After inspecting the church, which he was very pleased with, he wanted to go home. But I, knowing that he often loved to walk, invited him to go through the grove and my garden, so that his carriage would come for him to my house, to which he agreed. Passing through a grove and noticing the Jordan built there, he asked me: -What have you built? I answered him without any embarrassment: - This is the Jordan, where on certain days we go out to bless the water. This should not have been done without special permission; however, he remained silent then, and later, when I was no longer the director there, he ordered it to shine, because the water over which the Jordan was was not running. From the grove he came to my garden, sat on my terrace for quite a long time, praised my garden and said: “All this is good with you, but everything is lordly: just flowers.” And when I told him that in addition to flowers I have more than a hundred fruit trees, then he said: “Well, that’s good,” and, having examined my house, he left, refusing tea, for fear of catching a cold. One day I came to him and found him with a book in his hands. He asked me: – Do you know what I’m reading now? These are handwritten letters from the late Metropolitan Plato to His Eminence Gabriel, Metropolitan of St. Petersburg, very interesting; If you wish, I will read a few of them to you. I thanked him for his gracious challenge and said that this would give me a lot of pleasure. The reading of the letters was followed by a conversation about the late Metropolitan Plato and his time. Vladyka told how he studied at the Lavra, how meager the support of students was then. – It was often very cold in the classrooms because they wasted wood; Metropolitan Platon often came to lectures, he himself felt cold and told us: a fire will flare up in my teaching. “When they demanded that I be tonsured in St. Petersburg,” the bishop continued, “and Metropolitan Platon, not wanting to let me go, asked me: do you have a desire to go to St. Petersburg?” Then I answered him that this is not my desire. "If you don't have it, he told me, then submit a petition - write that you want to stay here. I answered him that I submitted one petition for tonsure, and after such a petition I cannot submit any, because I was the first to renounce my will. Meanwhile, they urgently demanded me from St. Petersburg, and so it was necessary to go. Upon arrival there, they assigned me to teach a subject with which I myself was little familiar, so I myself I had to study in the evening and teach in the morning; therefore, I studied and taught at the same time. And Vladyka told me a lot about his life in St. Petersburg and about Metropolitan Ambrose, whom he considered his benefactor. I very much regret that I did not write down many of his stories then, and now, after too many forty years, all this has faded from my memory. It was rarely possible to find him alone, since many often visited him, and then the conversation became general, and therefore not as interesting as he himself talked about. By the way, I sometimes met four sisters with him, who did not allow him to speak much, being themselves eager to speak, and often interrupted his words. One day they came to him and said: – How we regretted, Eminence, that we did not know that you served in the Archangel Cathedral and gave a sermon! – How can you not feel sorry, because you are the Russian Chrysostom. The Bishop, after a short silence, asked them: - Please tell me, who sent you to tempt me? And now I was reading the book of Chrysostom. Then the bishop unfolded this book and read something from it to them. It was noticeable that he did not willingly accept them, and did this so as not to upset them by refusal. Sometimes when they reported that they had arrived, he would think and say: Once A.N.M. asked the bishop: - Please tell me, Vladyka, where could you dig them up? “I inherited them from the late Metropolitan Plato, and somehow knew how to integrate themselves into the Moscow hierarchy. However, they were very kind girls. I also met with him the abbess Nazaretha Vasilievna Gladkova, who was at the Alekseevsky Monastery, and who brought with her the nun Shkurina, who had previously been the Maid of Honor of Empress Catherine. Shkurina often mentioned the courtyard, which, noticeably, the ruler did not quite like in the nun who had renounced the world. The clock struck him in the living room; On this occasion, Mrs. Shkurina remembered the clock that was in the palace, and said that every time it was supposed to be struck, a rooster appeared from it, flapped its wings and crowed as many times as the clock showed. To this the Metropolitan said: “It was so long ago that this rooster has probably become hoarse since then.” Also: one day I was sitting with him on the sofa; they report to him that the Novodevichensk abbess, whose last name is Yakushkina, a venerable old lady, has arrived; I wanted to get up to give her my place, and he quietly said to me: - Stay in your place. And she sat down on a chair away. Having blessed only her, he continued the conversation he had begun with me and, having finished it, asked her: - Well, what is going on in your monastery? And after talking with her for a while, he again continued to tell me something. Another time I came to him, and he told me that his ears hurt today. – You probably went out today and somehow caught a cold. “No,” he answered me, “that’s because V.M. sat with me for almost two hours and didn’t stop talking.” Indeed, this man loved to pour from empty to empty, so it is not surprising that the bishop’s ears suffered greatly, and there was something to get sick from. Once sitting next to the bishop on an armchair and telling him about something, I put my hat on the floor next to me. Noticing this, he stood up, took my hat, carried it to the table, so that I did not have time to hold him, and said to me: – The head should never be lower than the feet. Wanting to praise a book, he said about the author: - This is a conscientious writer. While telling him about a certain person, I told him: – He is not a scientist, but very well read. - Yes, if he is well-read, then he is also a scientist. I was once in the Lavra and, on my way home, I went to the Bishop to say goodbye. I found a lot of petitioners on his porch and in his rooms, and therefore, afraid to disturb him, I asked him to report to him if he would allow me to go up to him for one minute in order to receive his blessing on the way; he ordered to ask. After sitting with him for no more than five minutes, I stood up to say goodbye, and without getting up from his place he said: - Yes, let me look at myself. Then I sat down again and considered it indecent to rise from my seat until he himself stood up to bless me. In his Lavra chambers, nothing changed during the entire period of his reign, everything remained as it was under Metropolitan Plato - the same furniture and the same decoration, and in the Gethsemane monastery there was complete simplicity in his cells. One day, on the eve of the day of St. Sergius, during the all-night vigil, while he was reading the life of the saint in his abbot’s place, as always happened, someone spoke; he immediately stopped reading and said quite loudly: “Whoever you want to talk to can go out.” “After that there was complete silence. The priest, who came to thank him for the order he received on his behalf, bowed to him and said: “Holy Lord, I don’t deserve this.” - If you don’t deserve it, then deserve it. During one academic exam, I don’t remember on what occasion, the matter touched upon the word witch, the bishop asked: -What is the masculine name for a witch? The student to whom this question referred began to think. Then the bishop said: what is there to think about? the female gender is a witch, and the male gender is a sorcerer, i.e. leading; she is called a witch because of her knowledge, because she seems to know everything. At another exam in Moscow, in some government institution, the teacher of the law asked the students such a difficult question that no one could answer; Seeing their difficulty, the teacher of the law decided to change this question to another. Then the bishop stopped him and said: - No, if the teacher of the law has already tied this knot, then let him unravel it himself. The latter hesitated and found it very difficult how to explain to him; Then the bishop helped him in his difficulty. I remember how Agrafena Ivanovna Zhadovskaya brought her blind mother to the bishop’s home church while he was serving mass. At the end of the mass, she brought her to the bishop to receive his blessing; blessing the blind woman, he said to her: – Seek spiritual light and hope when you have no visible light. He told me how he once found it difficult to make a decision for some grandfather who was in the consistory. To find out the truth, he invited two members of the consistory, sat them in different rooms, and prepared questions for each of them to which they had to write answers. From a comparison of their answers, the truth was revealed in all clarity, and the matter was decided without any doubt, in a fair manner. The late governor of the Lavra, Father Afanasy, reported to him about the fire that happened there, during which the greenhouse burned down, and that the housekeeper was crying a lot about it. The Bishop answered the governor: – Tell the housekeeper to stop crying, because it’s not the bread that’s burned, but a whim Once Prince Sergius Mikhailovich asked the bishop: - Is it true that some priest was buried yesterday, because they called everywhere quite late? - No, prince, it was a bell for the living dead returning after the service. I witnessed the extraordinary calmness of the spirit of the Right Reverend. On the day of the celebration of the icon of the Vladimir Mother of God, he served the liturgy at the Sretensky Monastery; during the Cherubic song, at that very moment when he had just managed to reach the altar from the throne to release St. Gifts - a huge window frame located above the altar broke off and fell headlong with a great crash, almost touching the altar; Everyone present and present at the altar was horrified. One bishop was not at all embarrassed, without telling anyone, he began to release the saint. Gifts and then continued the entire service as if nothing had happened, with ordinary calmness, whereas before that he was within a hair's breadth of death. It happened to me once to ask the bishop on behalf of a deacon who had submitted a petition to him for a priestly position. He answered me that now he could not tell me anything without knowing about his merits, but he was sure that I would not be angry with him if my request could not be satisfied. - One person known to you (the bishop named him) was angry with me because I could not fulfill his stupid request. He asked me to ordain one deacon to the priesthood simply because this deacon’s house was very dilapidated. This is such a perverse concept of the priesthood,” he added. Sometimes you would ask him: – Where would you like to serve tomorrow? Sometimes he will say where, and other times he will answer: – You need to ask Leonty It was the hierodeacon with whom he usually served; he would immediately send for him, and when he appeared, he would ask him: -Where should we serve tomorrow? Leonty, without hesitation, answers: “Everything is best in Chudov, holy lord.” - Well, you hear me; Leonty orders in Chudovo, and we will serve there. He got used to Leonty, because he had been with him for a long time. Although he was a kind and simple person, he was sometimes capricious, often quarreled with everyone living in the courtyard, which sometimes came to the attention of the bishop. Once, having called together all those who were dissatisfied with him, the bishop began to ask them one by one about the reason for their dissatisfaction: going up to his subdeacon Alexander Semenovich, he asked him: – Please tell me, did Leonty offend you in any way? He, loving to speak condescendingly, answered: “Honestly, Lord, grant me to see my sins, and not to condemn my brother, for blessed art thou unto the ages of ages, amen.” “I didn’t force you to read a prayer, but I asked you: did Leonty ever offend you?” Alexander Semenovich, raising his hands to the sky, answered: “Holy Lord, what I suffered from Father Leonty, only God knows.” The Bishop turned to Leonty and said to him: – You see, everyone is complaining about you. - And gave him the proper admonition. I don’t remember whether the bishop managed to correct Fr. Leontia, only Fr. Leonty remained with him until he was no longer able to serve any longer. He later lived in retirement in the Chudov Monastery. In a conversation with the bishop, someone, for some reason, noticed that among the common people there are many witty people; On this occasion, the bishop said that when he was inspecting the churches in his former Tver diocese, he happened to have dinner on his way. Having met a walking peasant, he ordered him to stop and, calling him to his carriage, asked him what kind of village this was, which was visible from here? The peasant answered him that this was the village of Dobroe. Then the bishop asked him: - Are there any good people here? “If there weren’t good people, the village wouldn’t exist.” You see,” added the Bishop, “how cleverly he answered, instead of teaching me something, he became my teacher. At the same time, Vladyka spoke about the conversation between Metropolitan Seraphim and a peasant. Seraphim, while touring the diocese, also stopped a walking peasant and asked him: - How from a sinless city, when not a single person can be called sinless? “How can you not be sinless,” answered the peasant, “when in our city there is no sin in anything?” In 1845, I moved to the Moscow region, 20 versts from the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, and although I came to Moscow, it was always for a short time, and therefore I rarely visited the bishop. When in 1857 he moved again to live in Moscow, which he announced to him, then he told me: – I hope you will continue to get to know me. But since at that time his health became weaker and he was often unwell, I did not allow myself to visit him as often as before, although he always received me with love when he was healthy. The Vladyka's last meeting with Prince Sergius Mikhailovich was on February 3, 1859, four days before the prince's death. At this time I was sitting with him, and he was so weak that he could barely speak. They report to him that the bishop has arrived. The prince ordered him to ask and turn to me. said: “Please go and meet the bishop,” which I immediately did. He started asking me: I told him that he was so weak that he could hardly speak. The Bishop, having ascended, said a few soothing words to him, and then, while talking, turned more to me, conserving the prince’s strength. At this time, the prince became so strong that he himself began to interfere in the conversation. He began to tell how he traveled abroad, how he was in Var at the relics of St. Nicholas, how he ordered a prayer service to the saint, which was served very well. But at that time Kirill Aleksandrovich Naryshkin came there and asked: The prince told him that, at his request, a prayer service was being held at the relics. Then Naryshkin said that he also wanted to order a prayer service. Only when they began to serve at his request, they no longer served in the same way as me, and the abbots kept arguing among themselves during the prayer service. Then the Metropolitan said: - And who was to blame in this case, if not your Excellency, you probably rewarded them so generously that they had a dispute about which of them to serve. At the same time, the prince said that during his journey he was very worried about whether he would have to fall dangerously ill in a place where our priest had not happened: what would he have done then? The Metropolitan said to this: – You could take with you spare gifts that the priest can give to a trustworthy person; in the first centuries of Christianity, many lay people had holy gifts in their homes, for example the sister of Basil the Great; but later this was prohibited when they began to live dishonestly. At this I asked the bishop: - If I happened to be abroad, where our priest did not happen, then, being on the verge of death, could I receive communion from a Catholic priest? To this, the bishop told me that this should not have been done, because you should have already renounced your Church. Then I told him an anecdote, which I don’t remember, where I read or heard from whom: one Lutheran, who lived in the Voronezh province in a village, fell ill, and while dying, he wished to commune with St. the Mysteries of Christ from the Orthodox parish priest, who refused him this; neighboring priests also did not dare to give him communion; This came to the attention of Saint Tikhon; then he himself brought the Holy Gifts and gave him communion, and then, when he recovered, he joined him to our Church, naming him, at his request, Tikhon. It is difficult to vouch for the authenticity of this anecdote, and the Metropolitan said that this was the first time he had heard about it. This meeting between him and the prince took place four days before his death. When I went to see off the bishop, I told him: “Apparently the prince was very pleased with your visit—it completely revived him.” Before your arrival, he was so weak that he could hardly say a word, but when you arrived, he firmly began to speak and talk about everything like he was healthy. On the 7th, the prince ended his life, and on the 13th, Vladyka held his funeral service in the church of the Orphanage. It was noticeable that he was touched; but due to poor health he could not speak a word - Archpriest Sergius Grigorievich Terpovsky replaced him in this case. Vladyka was friendly towards the prince, and every time I visited him, it never happened that he did not talk to me about him. My last meeting with Vladyka was on January 3, 1867. I visited him at the request of my good friend I.A.M., a sick man who had his own dacha in Petrovsky Park; his dacha was assigned to the parish of the Church of Basil of Caesarea; and how far it was to send for a priest to Moscow every time to correct church services at the dacha, he wished that he would be allowed to invite the priest located at the church in the Park. On this occasion, I arrived at the Bishop and found at his place a meeting of archimandrites, archpriests and all deans who had been invited to him that day for a meeting about collecting benefits for the Candiots and were waiting for his call in another room. Seeing that I arrived at the wrong time, I wanted to turn back in order to arrive another day; but his servant had already reported about me, and he ordered me to ask. I found him sitting in the long living room at the table behind piles of cases and papers. Having blessed me, he asked: - I come to you, Vladyka, with a request, but in order not to explain it to you for a long time, allow me to read the note I composed, which will be shorter. After listening to this note, he said: - Yes, this will not be in the order of things. After which I fell silent. But speaking of something else, he began himself: “All I can do for you is that I will not exact this from the priest.” Having thanked him for this, I thought to myself that the priest, who did not know me at all, might not believe me in this; then I approached him to receive his blessing. It was noticeable that he did not want to refuse me, and told me: – In any case, leave me your note, we’ll see what we can do. Handing over the note, I asked him: “Then, Vladyka, you will allow me to inquire about this?” Only after Baptism on the 10th of January did I go up to him again. He asked me: I answered him that, based on the note I gave him, he allowed me to appear to him. And when I told him about the contents of the note, he answered: - Excuse me, I haven’t had time to do anything yet. Why did I ask him for permission to visit him again, and he allowed it. A few days later I arrived, but I couldn’t see him because he was sick and didn’t see anyone; I asked P. Vasilyevich, his secretary, whether Vladyka handed over my note to you? He answered: “No, it probably fell between some other papers,” and he advised me to draw up a new one and submit it to the bishop; but I no longer wanted to bother and burden the bishop with his poor health and many things to do; He used to say for a long time that he had more things to do than time. Afterwards he left for the Lavra, where they celebrated the anniversary of his 50th year of service as a hierarch. I was not able to attend the anniversary; in October he returned to Moscow; I kept getting ready to visit him, but to preserve his peace, I put everything off day after day. Finally the 19th of November arrived, the day of his death; the next day, in his home church, I said goodbye forever to him, already lying in a coffin. Letter to M. M. Evreinov in addition to his memories of Metropolitan Philaret Your memories of Metropolitan Philaret reminded me of much that I happened to see and hear from our late, unforgettable Bishop, although I did not have the good fortune to be as close to him as you are. Even as a child, I heard a lot from my father about Filaret as a famous preacher. His two separately printed sermons - one funeral for Prince Kutuzov, and the other upon his entry into the Moscow flock, lay constantly on my father’s desk; He read them several times and forced me to read them, so that when I was ten years old I was recite entire pages by heart, especially from the funeral oration. In 1822 I saw Rev. for the first time. Philaret, already Archbishop of Moscow. Feodor Aleksandrovich Golubinsky took me to the public exam of the Moscow Theological Academy, at the end of the 3rd academic year. Here, in addition to the local ruler, there were two more bishops: Simeon of Yaroslavl and Parthenius of Vladimir. I sat for several hours, listening attentively and understanding very little, and after the exam, in the cells of Rector Kirill, when I accepted the blessing of the Most Reverend Philaret, he asked Feodor Alexandrovich: “What kind of boy?” and then added: “I listened attentively, but did I understand anything?” At first I was confused, then I said that I understood the story about Moses and the wanderings of the Israelites in the desert. The Bishop remarked with a smile: “That’s enough for his age." I was ten years old, but I was small in stature and seemed younger. Returning to the village, I told all this to my father; he was in admiration and said to me: you are happier than me: you saw Philaret, but I have not seen and maybe will not see him. And so it really happened. Soon after the death of my father in 1825, my permanent stay in Sergievsky Posad and study with Feodor Aleksandrovich Golubinsky began. Here I often saw Vladyka and visited him with his late mother. I attended exams at the Academy constantly and was very interested in them, due to my close acquaintance with the professors and students of that time. The depth, sharpness and accuracy of the Bishop’s remarks were truly amazing; Those who were concerned feared them like fire. Subsequently, approaching old age, the Right Reverend Philaret completely reworked his character and became condescending and meek. But at the time of which I speak, this change was still far away. Too much has been forgotten at the age of forty; but even now I still remember that during the exams the tutors suffered more often and more severely than the students. Remarks were especially often directed at the rector Polycarp; To inspector Evlampius, who called polemical theology military, the bishop said: “Why not call it soldier’s theology?” Another time he remarked to him, during a treatise on the Arians: “You are fighting with shadows.” During an exam in general literature, Ruban’s famous inscription to the monument of Peter I (the Colossus of Rhodes, etc.) was once examined as an exemplary work. Vladyka analyzed both thoughts and words with his characteristic sharpness and proved to the venerable professor Platov Ivanovich Dobrokhotov that this inscription was not at all an exemplary work. Vladyka was able to assess the students’ abilities almost at first sight; about one of them he said: “This one is all flesh.” The word turned out to be completely apt. In the winter of 1826, Vladyka, having arrived from Moscow to the Lavra to receive the Prince of Orange, told my mother about the transfer of the body of Emperor Alexander I through Moscow. In Moscow, a commission was formed to organize the sad ceremony, which met in the hall of the Kremlin Expedition. "Sitting in the Commission, said the Bishop, were Prince Dmitry Vladimirovich Golitsyn, Prince Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov, Count Pyotr Alexandrovich Tolstoy and I. Prince Yusupov suggested that, due to the crampedness of the Archangel Cathedral, we should lay a platform on top of all the tombs located there and put a hearse on this platform. I answered that to Prince Nikolai Borisovich, who spent his whole life at court, should know better than me whether it is decent to trample the royal tombs underfoot, I will not argue about this, but I will not allow the floor to be trampled on top of the tombs, but holes surrounded by gratings were cut over the crayfish. Another time, Prince Yusupov presented to the commission a drawing of a canopy covered with Fleur on top: above it, almost in the dome, lights were supposed to burn, representing a crown of stars. I noticed that these lights could cause a fire and it would probably be necessary to bring a team with pipes and pumps into the cathedral. They didn’t listen to me, but after that Fleur really flared up and caused alarm. The prince was very angry at my remarks and his anger reached St. Petersburg, so the sovereign instructed Prince Dmitry Vladimirovich to reconcile the prince with the archbishop; I responded that I did not at all want to anger the prince, but was only fulfilling my duty. During the coronation of Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich, I happened to be in Moscow, and Father Polycarp, appointed to serve the liturgy as the rector of the eldest of the stauropegial monasteries - Novospassky and the rector of the Theological Academy, took me with him to the cathedral. Two metropolitans were preparing to serve the Liturgy: Seraphim of Novgorod and Evgeniy of Kiev and Archbishop of Moscow Filaret, who was granted a white hood on the same day. I will not describe the coronation rites known to everyone; I’ll tell you only about one circumstance that especially remains memorable for me. For some reason, our bishop was late and was in a hurry to put on his clothes, standing in front of the altar. At that moment, when the subdeacons were putting guards on both his hands, the archimandrite suddenly bowed to the ground in his vestments and a rich diamond miter. "Who is this"? asked the bishop. Yurievsky Archimandrite Photius, he answered, standing up. “Now is not the time and this is not the place” - With these words, the Moscow archpastor let Photius notice that he, having lived for two months at the dacha of Countess Orlova (in Neskuchny), should have long ago come for a blessing to the local ruler, and not disturb him at a time when he was in a hurry to meet the Emperor. While the coronation celebrations were taking place in Moscow, a sad incident happened in the Lavra. The 5th training course at the Academy was completed; the list of students is compiled by the academic conference and academic degrees are assigned. The students who completed the course each went to their homeland and the farewell of their comrades was sometimes accompanied by friendly refreshments. After one of these farewells, student Mikhail Lagovsky, who had already been assigned a candidate’s degree, came to the all-night vigil at the Assumption Cathedral (it was on August 29) and began to sing outrageously. The inspector of the Academy, Evlampius, ordered him to shut up, but he did not listen. At the end of the service, Lagovsky, when reprimanded by the inspector, responded with some kind of rudeness, for which he was locked in a punishment cell. That same night a report about the incident was sent to the Metropolitan. The next day, the Metropolitan called the rector Polycarp, who was in Moscow, and said to him: “Do you know what is happening at your Academy?” Read the inspector's letter." Struck by the unexpected news, Father Polycarp tried to soften the archpastor’s anger and beg for mercy for the culprit. To do this, he bowed several times at the feet of the Metropolitan, which he had never done before. And Feodor Aleksandrovich Golubinsky deliberately galloped to Moscow for the same purpose, but all requests remained in vain. The Bishop decided that at the present time it was impossible to leave such an act without punishment, especially since rumors about it could reach the Court located in Moscow. Poor Lagovsky was released from the Academy as a student with a bad certificate, returned to his homeland in Kostroma, where three years later he died of consumption. Until the end of his life he received an annual allowance from his father Polycarp. Upon arrival in Moscow, I saw Vladyka much less often. From the beginning, university studies, then worldly vanities and pleasures distracted me in a completely different direction. But later, when I turned to studying spiritual and historical literature, the merciful attention of the Bishop met me with approval in a new field. One of my first experiments: “the legend of the miraculous Iveron Icon of the Mother of God” was reviewed by the late Metropolitan before publication. He changed several expressions in it and completely excluded the description of another Iveron icon, located in the cathedral church of the Novodevichy Convent and belonging to Princess Sophia. When I brought him another book: “On the Antiquities of Rostov,” he told me that, as Archbishop of Yaroslavl, he had the intention of setting aside every year from his income for the restoration of the Rostov Kremlin, but did not have time to put this idea into practice, because after a few months he was transferred to Moscow, without even having time to visit the Yaroslavl diocese. My stories from the history of the Russian Church had the good fortune to please the Bishop; he accepted the first and second books from me with gracious approval and especially praised those chapters in the last of them (presented to him some time before his death), which speaks of St. Sergius and his disciples. The Bishop found it useful to print these chapters separately for sale in the Lavra. With deep gratitude I remember the participation that the late Bishop sometimes took in me and in my family. When I was getting ready to get married and asked for the Metropolitan’s blessing, he asked: “Is there kinship or what obstacle?” I answered that there were no obstacles, but I asked for his blessing, as a visible sign of God’s blessing. After asking about the qualities of the bride and the family I was joining, he ordered me to visit another time and set a day. On this day I found the bishop sick; he received me in the bedroom and blessed me with the icon of the Savior on the ubrus. When I introduced my newlywed wife to the Metropolitan, he told her: “I have known the Count for a long time and I ask you: calm him down. Remember the words of the apostle: Like Sarah, she reveres Abraham, who calls him the master." During a serious illness that visited me in 1857, I saw Metropolitan Philaret in a dream. I described this significant dream with its consequences in Soulful Reading 5. There is also a letter that I received from the Bishop during my illness 6. My children retain the guarantees of the merciful attention of the late ruler to them; almost all of them received icons from him for blessing. Upon entering the gymnasium, the two older boys were introduced by me to the Bishop and received brief instructions from him. That’s all, most venerable Mikhail Mikhailovich, that I could remember so far about our unforgettable archpastor. I feel that my memories are too petty and unimportant. But I believe that the spirit of the blessed saint, who departed from us in the flesh, is now close to all those who love him, and therefore I believe that every feature of his life, every word that anyone can remember, should be preserved not only for modern honorers of Philaret’s memory, but also for posterity. Here, by the way, you can remember the Bishop’s true words about memory: in my memory, like in a sieve, nothing holds Golitsyn, who was at that time the Governor-General of Moscow. Marya Vasilievna Vasilchikova Metropolitan Seraphim, on the occasion of the angel Soulful Reading 1866. No. I. b., pp. 39 and 40 Soulful Reading 1869. No. 4. b., p. 60