Глава XIX. Чудесные действия благодати Божией по молитвам старца Макария, во избавление обращавшихся к нему с верою за помощию от недугов душевных и телесных, и Божий наказания за непочитание старца, прославлявшегося Самим Господом

The following stories are told by the late head of the Optina Monastery, Hieroschemamonk Anatoly (Zertsalov), who initially lived in the monastery during the eldership of Fr. Macarius, will be a replenishment of the miracles of God described above, performed at one time by a humble elder, an ascetic, a true servant of God. Having from the Lord the gift of healing mental and physical illnesses, the elder himself took every possible care not to give people any reason to consider him a holy man and attribute healing from this or that illness to his prayers. When they brought to him various kinds of sick and demoniacs, he, without attaching any importance to himself, sent them to church to serve a prayer service to some saint, thus remaining himself, as it were, on the sidelines. Meanwhile, those who asked for his prayerful help received it, became healthy and left him with great gratitude. At other times, as was said above, the elder gave consecrated oil to those suffering from various, not always understandable, diseases from the unquenchable lamp that burned in his cell in front of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God, the One Witness to the hidden deeds of Her faithful servant, which he especially revered, or holy water. And stories about healings from this apparently simple action were numerous. Passed from one to another, they multiplied the number of visitors to the elder. In all cases, the elder tried in every possible way to conceal the grace of healing inherent in him. Let's present a few examples of this. At the Bryansk convent, nun Makaria (formerly Apollinaria) began to strive according to her own understanding, on her own, and fell into demonic delusion. However, by the grace of God, she could still, at least partially, see her mental damage. And therefore, when she heard about the holiness and wisdom of Elder Macarius, she decided to seek his help and for this she arrived in Optina Pustyn. Having stopped at a hotel, she went to the monastery. But halfway through the forest, a demon suddenly appeared before her in the most terrible and disgusting form, which she could not even imagine in her imagination. Spewing blasphemy at the elder and at the walking nun, he furiously told her: “Where are you going? To a mad old man? Turn back. Or I’ll strangle you right now on this tree.” The nun was numb with horror. However, calling on the Name of God for help, she overcame her fear and quickly ran to the monastery. But when the elder came out to her, she fell unconscious before him. Wanting to hide from strangers the true cause of the attack of the visiting nun, the elder turned to his cell attendant: “Hilarion, Hilarion! Water, water! Cold water! And he began to spray her, pretending that the usual faintness had happened to her. When she came to her senses, the elder began to ask her about her life and exploits. But when he heard that she had given up reading the books of the fathers and even the Holy Scriptures, and was practicing the Jesus Prayer, he immediately ordered her to read one kathisma from the Psalter with her. It was in vain that the well-educated nun tried to do what was easily done by half-educated people. Confusion and fear completely confused her, and she left the Psalter, finding it absolutely impossible to read. Here M. Macaria was finally convinced of her damage and asked the elder not to leave her to guide her in spiritual life. Upon arrival at her monastery, she considered it her duty to thank the elder in writing for his mercies and care for her and, among other things, wrote the following: “When I saw you for the first time, some brilliant and burning ray struck my eyes, and I fell to the ground unconscious.” So this was the true cause of M. Macaria’s attack mentioned above. But when Hieromonk Gabriel, who helped the elder in writing, read her letter for him, read these lines, the elder, turning it into a joke, repeated several times quickly: “Look, you fool woman! Believe it, believe it! Look, what nonsense he is talking about!” By the way, M. Macaria did not immediately get rid of the charm; and for this reason she corresponded with the elder for a long time. In the end, she completely recovered and sincerely thanked her spiritual doctor for her healing. Another Mother Makaria, Domogatskaya, a nun of the Sevsky Monastery, said the following: “Once a lot of us came to Optina for a pilgrimage from different directions. Some stranger happened between us, whom I saw several times, but all away from the priest. Noticing that she was avoiding the elder, I once said to her: “Why don’t you come up with us to the priest for a blessing?” She admitted that something did not allow her to see the elder, and she was afraid of him, although inwardly she would not have wanted this. Having received such an answer, I told him about it on my first meeting with the elder. He immediately called her to him, caressed her and then said: “You and I will see each other again later and talk.” The next day, after early mass, we again came to the elder, and the wanderer was with us. It was Easter. Father took us all to the skete church. There were several nuns and secular ladies who were brought by Hierodeacon Isaiah 125. The elder showed us the sacristy and some sights, and at that time the pilgrim was sitting in the Church of the Baptist on a bench near the stove, at the entrance to the church on the left side. After that, the priest led us out of the church. But as soon as he came level with the stranger sitting near the stove, she at the same instant hit the floor and began to thrash about in the most terrible way and shout: “Here you attacked your own! Here you are attacked! No one has seen me for eighteen years. For eighteen years I lived quietly - no one knew me. And now he attacked his own! Attacked!.. You are causing us trouble, Macarius! You are persecuting us, Macarius!” Avoiding the raging woman, the priest hastily turns to us: “Now to the meal! To the meal! Everything has been examined here.” And with these words he left the church. We all followed him to the meal. The wanderer also reached out to us. When, while inspecting the meal, the priest happened to pass by the demoniac again, she again hit the floor with the same strange seizures, saying: “Woe to us from you, Macarius! You are driving us away, Macarius! There is no place for us from you, Macarius! The elder, turning again, invites us: “Would you like to now see the basement under the refectory?” And he immediately went downstairs with us, leaving the wanderer in a violent fit. When, while inspecting the reserves, we approached the kvass barrels, the priest invited those who wanted to try the monastery kvass. Then the idea came to some of us to ask the elder to bless a glass of kvass in order to give the demoniac a drink. We were firmly convinced that the elder could heal her, but he avoided this solely out of humility. Now we have decided to take advantage of such a blessing, believing that this will be enough to heal the suffering person. They whispered about this common desire of ours. Isaiah. He poured a glass of kvass and brought it to the priest, asking for his blessing. Having understood why Fr. Isaiah asked to bless the kvass, the elder simply said: “Okay; give her a drink.” But oh. Isaiah again asked: “No, father, you bless the kvass.” The elder replied: “It doesn’t matter; because I blessed; take it to her." O. Isaiah continued to insist on his own. Here we also included a general request. Then the priest, as if against his will, crossed the kvass, and they immediately carried it to the sufferer. Seeing this, she began to rush around with even greater anxiety and bitterness and clenched her teeth. With difficulty they separated them and forcibly poured kvass into her mouth. The sufferer immediately came to her senses, calmed down and, having recovered, became completely healthy. Three days after that I saw her. She was no longer afraid of the elder, but, on the contrary, sought an opportunity to see him and receive blessings and guidance from him. Afterwards she confessed to me: “In my entire life I have never felt such cruel torment from a seizure as when I met the elder in the skete church and had a meal; I barely survived; but now I no longer feel the slightest sign of the former painful state of spirit, either in the presence of the elder or without him; and I’ve never felt so good.” Indeed, none of us saw in her anything similar to her previous illness. She was calm in spirit and healthy. Alexey Vasilyevich Govorov, the son of the landowner of the Livensky district of the Oryol province, when he was in Optina Pustyn on September 16, 1863, in the cells of the elder Hieroschemamonk Ambrose, said the following about himself: “For a long time I have been subject to drunkenness to a very strong degree. It happened that when the time came to drink, no force could keep me from this weakness. By this I completely upset both my condition and my family. People advised my wife to turn to certain people in the hope of receiving healing from them for my illness; but for some reason things didn’t go well. They finally advised me to visit Fr. Macaria. So my wife and I went. Upon arrival, when we explained to the elder about my weakness, he only jokingly hit my head lightly three times with his hand; and then ordered to prepare for communion of the Holy Mysteries. But when I began to approach the Holy Mysteries, everything began to break down in me so much that I myself was unable to approach. He breaks and shakes himself; and the evil thought repeats: “Why are you going? What, will communion help you? All this is nonsense. Leave it! Go away! And some invisible force seemed to push me away. However, my wife, with persuasion and force, helped me approach the Holy Gifts. Immediately after communion I felt a relief, which grew more and more intense in me over time. When, finally, I completely calmed down, such a disgust was born in me for all alcoholic drinks that I could not even stand the smell of them. And for six years now I haven’t even been able to taste honey, beer, or champagne. I can’t eat bread if it was made with wine or brewer’s yeast.” To this Govorov added: “After the death of Fr. Macarius, at the news of this, we were greatly grieved, and especially my wife. At night he appears to her in a dream, exactly as she saw him alive, in the same clothes, only with a much lighter appearance, and says: “Don’t mourn! Continue driving to Optina. You will receive from my ashes the same thing that you received from me alive. I'm still the same! When we were perplexed whether to go and how to go, the elder again appeared in a dream and said: “Why aren’t you going to Optina? I said I'm the same; and you will receive the same benefit from my ashes as from me living.” And we no longer dared to doubt.” The daughter of the Oryol landowner, Matveev, Natalya, 11 years old, distinguished by a particularly pious mood, received healing during sleep through the prayers of Elder Macarius from an incurable disease called “Witt’s dance.” The girl’s parents knew the elder and sometimes came to see him, although they did not understand him as well as they did later. This is how they talked about the healing of their daughter: “Natasha suffered for about two years. We tried all the district doctors, took her to Moscow and lived there for a long time, using a lot of drugs; but nothing helped. Having finally received a final decision from the best Moscow doctors about the impossibility of a cure, we went back. And the mother and the sick Natasha went straight home, and I (the father) went to Optina to ask the elder Fr. Macaria's advice - what to do with your sick daughter. He advised me to go with her on a pilgrimage to Voronezh to the relics of St. Mitrofan, and from there to visit St. Tikhon in Zadonsk. With this decision, I returned home, where my wife had already been told about some magnetizer who had been in Orel. My wife wanted to try this remedy; and I insisted on following the elder’s advice. With such mutual disagreement, we decided to ask him about this again, but he again gave us the same advice. Then we finally decided to fulfill it exactly. And that same night a miracle happened to our sick daughter. Anyone who knows “Witt’s Dance” knows how difficult it is to be ill and how pitiful it is to look at someone suffering from this troublesome disease. The patient constantly jerked her limbs day and night, then raised and lowered them, then threw them over. There was no sleep, no wakefulness. And therefore there was a separate room for her and two female nurses who were always with her. When we decided to go to Voronezh, Natasha felt calmer. Night came, and the patient, to the surprise of the girls who were with her, fell asleep peacefully. Noticing this, one of the nurses said to her friend: “The young lady is fast asleep; Now we can both sleep.” But still, wanting to make sure that the patient was really asleep, they brought a burning candle to her face. At this very time, Natasha gets up, hangs her legs off the bed and holds out her right hand, as if wanting to accept something. The girls, thinking that she required their help, took her by the hand and asked: “What do you want, young lady?” And she asks them in return: “Where is Father Fr. Macarius? They answer that there was no one here except them. Natasha says affirmatively: “How was it not? Now Father Fr. was here. Macarius said to me: get up, Natasha, and come to me in Optina. And I extended my hand to him so that he would bless me.” The amazed girls did not know what to think about this circumstance. Meanwhile, the patient got out of bed and began to walk around the room without any outside help. Delighted by this phenomenon, the nurse girls already forgot about sleep in anticipation of our awakening. Waking up at five o'clock in the morning, my wife and I saw such a miracle that we did not dare to expect. After such a joyful event, we were forced to again bother the elder with the question: “Where should we go now?” He answered again: “To Saints Mitrofan and Tikhon.” And he ordered his daughter to go to Optina. And we did both with the greatest joy. But Natasha received a complete recovery and remained as pious as before. Retired Major General Andrei Andreevich Petrovsky, the spiritual son of the late Elder Macarius, who lived in the last years of his life in Optina Pustyn, was in the cell of Elder Ambrose in May 1862, and told the following about himself: “When I transferred,” he said, “for permanent residence from your hotels to the monastery (this was around 1859), such a spiritual burden fell upon me that I lost his appetite, spent nights without sleep, could not read anything; and there is nothing to say about prayer. Day by day, my thoughts more and more inspired my confused soul that I had lost hope of salvation, that I was living in a monastery, without knowing why, that in my advanced years, illness, infirmity and sorrow would eat me up. I didn’t know what to do or who to turn to when I couldn’t even pray. Exhausted in spirit and body, I finally cried out from the depths of my heart: “Lord! For the prayers of my spiritual father, Elder Macarius, help me.” So what? Before I had time to utter these words, something happened to me: as if an invisible hand in an instant lifted all the burden from me. I was renewed in spirit and at that very moment I decided on my first meeting with the elder Father Fr. Macarius explain this circumstance to him. It should be noted that if the elder ever came to see me, it always happened after early mass, when I had cleaned up and occupied myself with some business for an hour. But this time, that is, the very next day after the circumstance I told him, he came to me, finding me still in bed. I barely had time to somehow accept him when, beyond all my expectations and previous custom, he asked about my health, turned and immediately left, leaving me bewildered and not allowing me to explain the reason for my speedy recovery; in which he always took an active part. However, I was not satisfied with this, I went to him for confession and explained the reason for my recovery. The elder somehow avoided positively understanding the meaning of my words. But when I told him clearly and definitively that I received healing precisely through the calling of his name, he only remarked: “You can do this too; the holy fathers do not prohibit, but only as rarely as possible.” The same General Petrovsky also said: “For a long time I could not find books to read that suited my heart. Although I read St. fathers, but all this did not quite correspond to my desire. Assigning this or that book for me to read, the elder always said: “I have a book; You’ll probably like her, but wait.” Indeed, one day he brings me a handwritten book entitled “Staurophilia” 126 and says: “Well, here is the promised book. This one will be right up your alley. God bless you to read and copy it until your death.” When I started reading it, I couldn’t put it down. In all my life, out of all possible edifying books, I have not liked a single book as much as Staurophilia. So completely she satisfied all the subtleties of my desire. For the fourth year now, despite the infirmities of my 80-year-old age and weakness of my eyes, I have been constantly copying it, copying the eighth copy. And I can’t imagine that this matter would ever seem difficult to me. And I hope, through the prayers of the elder, to continue this activity until death without fear of boring them.” The general sent the copied copies to his various lay relatives. The following stories are conveyed by the above-mentioned hieromonk (later archimandrite) Fr. Leonid: “Many of us,” he wrote in his time, “remember one demon-possessed woman who, sitting on the path leading from the monastery to the monastery, reviled the elder, saying among other things: “Will this Macarius die soon? He shocked the whole world. Oh! Woe is me,” etc. Drawn to the elder by the faith of her husband, this woman, who had suffered from demon possession for several years, after drinking the consecrated oil given to her by the elder, recovered completely. Subsequently, she was delivered of a child who screamed incessantly and incessantly. When they brought him to the elder, who blessed him in the name of God, the baby calmed down, and the day-long cries that terrified his parents from then on, by the grace of God, ceased. There was another wonderful incident. One of the people of the educated circle had the misfortune of being subjected to fits of demonic possession. His relatives turned to the most skilled doctors for help. They treated the sick man at home for a long time; finally they sent him abroad to the waters; but there was no relief. The signs of possession were obvious; for attacks of illness coincided with days of deliberate church holidays; and the convulsions intensified from the touch of sacred objects: the Holy Cross, the Gospel, the Epiphany water. In conclusion, the patient was not able to voluntarily begin the sacraments of repentance and communion of the Holy Mysteries. Despite the fact that his relatives were afraid or did not want to name the sufferer’s illness by his name. Seeing the helpless state of the patient, one of the people close to him, out of compassion, took the trouble to take him to Optina Pustyn with the intention of asking for advice from Elder Macarius, whom he knew personally, on what to do with his friend’s incomprehensible illness. Whether he managed to persuade the patient or brought him to the monastery using some kind of trick is unknown. Only upon arrival, having stopped at a hotel, he immediately sent an old man to his room to ask, without mentioning the friend who had come with him and without saying anything to the friend about this. Despite this, the patient at the same time began to show strong anxiety - a sign of an approaching seizure, and said: “Makarius is coming, Macarius is coming!” The elder, indeed, came, but as soon as he entered the chambers occupied by the guests, the sick man rushed at him with fury, uttering various frantic words, and before they could restrain him, he strangled the elder to death. Knowing who controlled the hand of the unfortunate man in this matter, the humble elder used the strongest weapon against him. According to the commandment of Christ, he immediately offered him the other cheek, uttering the words of the Lord: If anyone strikes your cheek on your right hand, turn the other one to him [Matthew 5:39]. Scorched by the elder’s humility, the demon immediately left the sufferer, who fell unconscious at the feet of the blessed visitor and lay for a long time in complete stupor; but then, waking up, he stood up healthy, without retaining the slightest memory of his act, in which, by God’s permission, he was only an instrument. In addition to the cases of grace-filled healings described here and similar to them through the prayers of the elder Father Fr. Macarius, there were other, so to speak, punitive and intelligible cases when some were subjected to God’s punishment for disrespecting the elder, and as a result of repentance received pardon from the most merciful Lord. Thus, one merchant, who more than once came to the elder for advice on his trading affairs, did not fulfill the elder’s instructions, which tended to reconcile his conscience with God, and seeing the increasing disorder of his estate, came again to ask the elder for advice on what to do. The merchant timed his arrival to coincide with one of the twelfth holidays, when the number of visitors to the monastery always increases significantly, and during the life of Elder Macarius it increased especially. The elder barely had time to satisfy the spiritual needs of those who approached him with various questions, giving short answers to them. Three days passed, and the old man had no opportunity to deal with the said merchant. Bored with impatience, this latter began to grumble, giving way to disdainful thoughts: “I’ll leave,” he thought. – And really, what am I waiting for? He is the same person as all of us, sinners. There are people all day long. It would be nice, what a recluse he was...”, etc. Having formed such thoughts, with which the enemy obviously wanted to distract him from accepting the soulful advice of the elders, he came to the monastery church for early mass. The struggle of thoughts continued here too. Suddenly he felt, as he later said, dizzy. Attributing this to the fact that he was warmly dressed, the merchant took off his fur coat. But then he imagined that the church was shaking, its vaults were collapsing and threatened to crush him with their fall. Having forgotten about his fur coat and without a hat, despite the former severe frost, the merchant quickly runs out of the church and runs without looking back to the monastery. Along the road, it seems to him that the centuries-old trees growing on both sides are falling on him. And so he ran with a loud cry, as if pursued by a ferocious beast. It was early. The above-mentioned wanderer Fr. Leonid (Kavelin) was reading the Psalter at this time for benefactors and brothers, living and deceased. Hearing unusual and frequent exclamations, he settled on the thought that this was probably one of the demoniacs, who were sometimes forcibly brought to the elder by compassionate relatives. Later he learned about what had happened from the cell attendants of Elder Macarius. Running onto the porch of the elder’s cell, the merchant fell to his knees in front of the door, which was locked from the inside. At this time, the cell attendants read for the elder his hours prescribed by the Holy Church. One of the cell attendants, Fr., came out in response to the cry coming from the porch. Hilarion. Seeing a pale man trembling with all his limbs and calming him down as much as possible, he asked: “What do you want?” “Father, father, Father Macarius, for God’s sake!” - he said, gasping for breath from fatigue and fear. Wondering what happened to him, Fr. Hilarion reported to the elder, who went out to meet the newcomer. Seeing the elder, the merchant fell at his feet and, shedding tears, said: “Forgive me, father, forgive me! For God's sake, forgive me! I thought that you were a sinful person like us.” “Yes, your opinion is correct,” the humble elder said, reassuring him, “I am not only the same sinful person, but also worse than all sinners, according to the word: from them I am the first. Calmed by the elder’s love and having received his blessing and resolution of his perplexities, the merchant left his cell comforted and in a completely healthy state. After this, he remained in the monastery for some more time, fasted, and received Holy Communion. Christ's Mysteries and left, glorifying God and the humble servant of God, learning not to humiliate the humble with obvious punishment, for the Lord is pleased with them, saying: The Lord is near to the brokenhearted, and will save the humble in spirit. And: His ears are open to their prayer [Ps.33:19,16]. Another punitive and intelligible case recorded by Hieroschemamonk Anatoly (Zertsalov): In the Beloberezh communal hermitage, a certain novice Adrian, upon entering this monastery, began to follow the path of ascetic life, although diligently, but on his own. The crafty enemy, seeking the destruction of Christian souls, instilled in him the idea, for the sake of saving his soul, to accept strangers and reassure them. Adrian labored like this in his monastery for about seven years. At this time, Elder Macarius, who is described here as having a high spiritual life, lived in Optina Pustyn. As a true shepherd, who had experienced the benefits of the elder path, he in every possible way protected the flock of Christ entrusted to him, excommunicating those newly arrived novices who did not want to follow this path. Others of them themselves left Optina Pustyn and moved to other monasteries or turned into idle wanderers. The novice Adrian, together with other wanderers, received these Optina natives, who inflicted a lot of slander on Elder Macarius. Thus, Adrian, although he had never seen the old man, formed the most unfavorable idea about him. The elder seemed to him to be a man of a cruel disposition, who arbitrarily and biasedly disposed of the brethren. A year before the death of Elder Macarius, Adrian, along with other five novices, was presented by his abbot for tonsure as a ryasophore. But while he was signing up for tonsure, he saw in a dream at night that their abbot was entering his cell, followed by an unknown elder in a mantle, a kamilavka and with two crosses on his neck. When they approached Adrian, the unknown elder, turning to Fr. to the abbot, says: “You presented Adrian, among others, to the Rasophore; and I tell you that Adrian is not worthy of this. Let others be tonsured; but he must be left - he is unworthy.” The abbot seemed to begin to justify him, explaining to the elder that Adrian had been living in the monastery for a long time, that he was correct in his obediences and generally behaved well. But the elder, with anger, again began to tell the abbot: “I tell you that he lives badly; he is not worthy to live in the monastery, he must be expelled; he will do this and that, and another... and... and if you don’t kick him out, the walls will kick him out.” The abbot seemed to have bowed to the elder and left. At the same time, Adrian woke up and saw that the old man he had seen in his dream was actually standing next to him. At the sight of this unexpected visitor, the novice flushed with anger, jumped out of bed and, clenching his right hand into a fist, asked: “Who are you that you have come to indignate the abbot against me?” The stranger replied: “I am an elder, the abbot of the Optina monastery Macarius.” At the last word, remembering everything bad the strangers had heard about him before, Adrian began to seethe with even greater anger. “What do you need? - he screamed. “You drove everyone away from your monastery; and came again to disturb someone else’s monastery? Blessed are the peacemakers. Have you dispersed everyone and want to kick them out of here?” “I drove out from my monastery,” the elder answered, “those as worthless and unworthy as you. You are not worthy of tonsure. You will do this, and this and that... and... You must certainly be expelled from the monastery. If the abbot does not kick you out, the stones will drive you out. For three years you will be persecuted by everyone and will not find peace anywhere.” These words brought Adrian to the extreme of anger. He cursed the elder and with the words: “Here is God, and here is your threshold,” he rushed at him with rage. But the old man who appeared became invisible. The next day after this, Adrian felt uneasy in his soul. Some of the older brothers rebelled against him. And no matter how much the abbot defended Adrian, they forced the latter to leave the monastery. Having left the Beloberezh desert, Adrian, indeed, for three years could not find peace or shelter anywhere. In some monasteries he wanted to stay and even received permission to do so from the abbots; but suddenly he encountered an obstacle from some other side, and his desire remained unsuccessful. Sometimes the matter of assigning Adrian to the monastery came to the approval of the bishop; but the bishop, who had never seen and knew nothing about him, beyond all hope, refused the abbot’s request for his determination. During this three-year wandering, Adrian, according to the prediction of Elder Macarius, who appeared to him, actually did something, apparently reproachful, and also... and... By the way, he was so bitter against the elder that after a year and a half of his wandering, passing through the city of Kozelsk, he deliberately passed Optina Pustyn, even turning his face away from the monastery. But when the fateful third anniversary began to come to an end, Adrian's heart began to soften. And in May 1862, contrary to his intended path, he made a 200-mile detour just to visit Optina Pustyn. When he arrived at this monastery, almost two years had already passed since Elder Macarius died. Then he turned to the deceased’s successor, Elder Ambrose, for advice on what to do and how to be and live. Elder Ambrose advised him to first go to the grave of Elder Macarius and ask for his forgiveness. Having fulfilled this advice, Adrian returned to Elder Ambrose and announced to him that after worshiping the grave of the deceased, his heart calmed down and seemed to tell him that he was forgiven. Another month remained before the end of the three-year penance appointed by Elder Macarius for the guilty person to expel him from his monastery; but on the advice of Elder Ambrose, he had already gone straight to live in his former place - the Beloberezh Hermitage. Here are examples of God's emergency help to those in need through the prayers of Elder Macarius, which at one time were generally known. And how many more were there who remained known only to the One Lord and to those people who turned to the elder for help! How many spiritually healed people could be counted every day! Some left him comforted in their sorrows, others were aroused by him from sinful stupor, others were released from the bonds of despair and the like. I glorify those who glorify Me [1 Samuel 2:30], said the Lord. These words can well be attributed to the elder Macarius of blessed memory described here. The Lord was pleased to reveal to some what glory He bestowed upon the humble elder during his lifetime. Two remarkable cases recorded by Hieroschemamonk Anatoly are given here on this occasion. One pious visitor to Optina Hermitage said the following: “Even before I met Optina, I once imagined in a dream vision the internal structure of its church, built in honor of the holy Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, exactly as it was in reality 127. It was as if I was standing in the middle of the church during some kind of solemn service. The royal doors were open, and in the altar on both sides of St. Hieromonks in full priestly vestments stood in two rows of the throne. I really liked their decorous standing and reverence, and I took comfort in looking at them. Only one of the hieromonks standing in the altar seemed to me an exception from this host of humble monks; and I must admit, I was a little seduced by him. But then I hear a voice telling me: “Don’t be tempted by this monk. He behaves this way out of simplicity, and you are in vain tempted by him. But if you want, look over there (at the same time, as if someone was pointing me to the side altar on the south side), there is a sophisticated simplicity there. There’s something to see over there.” With these words, it was as if someone took me by the hand and led me to the southern altar in the name of the Exaltation of the Cross of the Lord. Entering there, I saw St. standing on the south side. throne in the appearance of a humble, but very holy old man. “This is sophisticated simplicity!” – the same voice told me. Subsequently, when God led me to visit Optina Pustyn and the Kazan Church itself, I was extremely surprised that, having never been to this monastery before, I saw everything here completely familiar to me. What struck me in particular was the appearance of Elder Macarius, whom I had never seen before, completely similar to the one that appeared to me in a dream vision two years ago.” Elder Macarius, when he came to the monastery for mass, indeed, in the Kazan Church always stood in the place where the pilgrim mentioned here saw him in a dream vision. And here is another case of the Lord God glorifying the humble elder Macarius when he was still alive. The aforementioned nun of the Sevsky Monastery, Mother Makaria Domogatskaya, on May 27, 1862, in the presence of many people in the hut of Elder Ambrose, said the following: “It happened,” she said, “during the life of Father Makary. In June or July 1860 of our (Sevsky) monastery, novice Elisaveta, together with two other nuns, came to Optina to visit Father Fr. Macarius. All of them, according to custom, stayed in the monastery hotel, designated specifically for visiting nuns. It is worth noting here that the novice Elizabeth was especially remarkable for her simplicity of character and the many sorrows she suffered due to poverty after a worldly life of contentment. From the windows of the cells of the nuns staying in them there was a view of the guest courtyard and the path that ran through the forest from the monastery to the hotel. One day, at about eight o’clock in the morning, Elizabeth was sitting in one of these cells and looking out the window at the skete path and suddenly heard the sounds of surprisingly pleasant singing coming from there. He looks: Elder Macarius is walking and on his sides are twelve men, who were dressed in white robes and had schemas on top. On their heads they had schematic cuculi, also white and shiny. Some strange inner feeling told her that they were St. apostles. Two of them led the elder by the arms, and some walked ahead and carried candlesticks with lighted candles. Meanwhile, the simple-minded novice did not attach much importance to this vision. She imagined that, probably, in Optina Pustyn a custom had been established to carry the Holy Gifts with such solemnity for the communion of the sick; and there was a sick woman in the hotel at that time. Elizabeth must have been in self-forgetfulness and did not think about what she had seen. apostles The elder actually came from the monastery to the hotel at the end of early mass; but except for Elizabeth, no one saw the husbands accompanying him. When this novice went to church for late mass, she accidentally met an elder returning to the monastery in the guest courtyard. Having received his blessing as usual, she walked with him along the same path; and others accompanying the elder walked behind them. Having walked a few steps, the elder turned to her and asked: “Who did you see, Lisa, just now?” The novice could not even imagine that the elder knew about what she saw; but, having come to her senses and still not well understanding the meaning of the elder’s question, she answered: “I saw, father, the apostles.” “Who did they lead?” – the elder continued to ask with a smile. Struck by such an accident and the discovery of her secret - since until now no one knew about it - Elizabeth cried out: “Oh, father, they led you!” At the same time, the elder strictly forbade her to reveal this to anyone until his death.” We believe this vision undoubtedly, as a real event. For if the Lord Himself, the Heavenly King, was at one time among His disciples, serving as He did when He washed their feet at the Last Supper, giving them through this an image of His deepest humility and at the same time putting His Divine power into their feet, so that they could without stumbling go into the whole world preaching the Gospel: then there is nothing marvelous in that if the closest disciples of the Lord, St. The apostles, following the example of their Teacher God, with their powerful prayers, as if with their hands, supported and strengthened the faithful servant of God, Elder Macarius, leading him to a goal determined by God’s Providence, that is, to continue the work of the apostles, in order to thus heal various ailments in people and enlighten souls darkened by sins with the light of Christ’s teaching. A monastery collector who had many acquaintances; subsequently a hieromonk who died in 1883, having been tonsured into the schema before his death. This was the title of the previous handwritten copies of this book. When Optina Pustyn, after carefully processing it, set out to publish it, the censor replaced the word “Stavrophilia” with the word “Stavrophila”. This must be, he said, due to the nature of the Russian language. Afterwards, the inside walls of the Kazan Church were painted again, and a new iconostasis was installed.