Words spoken to the Voronezh congregation

Contents A Word about God's saving view of the human race, briefly compiled on the basis of the Holy Gospel, for the benefit of everyone who wants to know the Reason and image of our salvation A Word for the Nativity of Christ A Word for the New Year A Word about Cheese Week A Word for the Exaltation of the Holy Cross A Word for the Day of the Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Church A Word for the Name Day of Her Imperial Majesty, Empress Catherine the Second A Word for the Consecration of the Church in the name of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, which is on Akatov, in Voronezh. A word on the day of the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary. A word on the same day (Day of the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary). A word about theft. A word about love for God and about love for neighbor. An admonition to the residents of the city of Voronezh about the destruction of the annual festival called "Yarilo" An admonition to the residents of the city of Voronezh about going to catechetical teaching A brief admonition on how it is proper to enter holy churches for the doxology A brief admonition on what every Christian from infancy to death should always keep in mind A word about God's saving vision for the human race, briefly compiled on the basis of the Holy Gospel, for the benefit of everyone who wants to know the Reason and image of our salvation 1 “Lord! I heard Your rumor and was afraid” (Hab 3:2). When Almighty God created heaven and earth, and other visible and invisible things, after all he created man from the earth, and breathed into him a living soul, gave him the name Adam, and brought him into paradise - a beautiful place, decorated with all sorts of fair and fruitful trees (Genesis 2:15). God created a helper for Adam, Eve, and God gave both of them, Adam and Eve, a commandment such that they should eat fruit from all the trees, but they should not dare to eat fruit from the tree that was in the middle of paradise (Genesis 3:3). Moreover, God declared to them: if you eat the fruit of that commanded tree, “you will surely die” (Gen. 2:17). Adam and Eve did not keep the commandments of God; they ate from the commanded tree. Because of this transgression and eating from that commanded tree, the serpent, or Satan himself, the evil spirit working in the serpent, deceived them (Gen. 3:4–5, 13). With this crime, the forefathers Adam and Eve angered God greatly, and they took God’s oath upon themselves, because of which they were expelled from paradise and condemned to death, and fell into eternal torment (Genesis 3:23). And with them, we all, like their sons, became subject to the same oath and execution by God’s justice. However, God, being very Good and Merciful, then still promised them, and all the people who were to come after them, to send deliverance. This deliverance, which was to be for the whole world, was foreshadowed by the Merciful and Humane God in various ways: he presented it through the patriarchs and holy men with all sorts of signs, he predicted through the prophets by His Holy Spirit, which is written about in the books of the Old Law. And as the time approached at which God determined to send deliverance to the human race, a prophet named John was born from barren and old parents, Zechariah the priest and Elizabeth the righteous, whose birth is celebrated on June 24. This prophet was, as it were, a mediator between the Old and New Law, since from his birth the Old Law retreated and the New Law came. God gave this son to Zechariah and Elizabeth through the appearance of the Archangel Gabriel. He was called the Forerunner because he was sent from God to prepare the way for the Deliverer and to announce to people the coming of the Savior into the world. And he announced it as the morning star announces the approaching rise of the sun. That is why the Church calls him the morning star, that is, the morning star of the Sun of the Righteous Christ, who shone in the world. About this prophet the Forerunner, God also predicted: “Behold, I am sending My angel before Your face, who will prepare Your way before You” (Mal 3:1; Mark 1:2). This word was spoken by the Heavenly Father to the Deliverer, who was about to come into the world, and called the Forerunner an Angel, both for the sake of an angelic, pure life, and for the sake of the fact that he announced the coming of the Deliverer to the world. For Angel is a Greek word and means “messenger.” And how and through Whom our deliverance and salvation was achieved, I offer you briefly from the Holy Gospel, which is preached to everyone every day in church, so that you can understand it and always remember it, so that, knowing the Cause and manner of deliverance, you will be able to receive salvation more quickly. Our God is the Holy Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, not three Gods, but One God. There is one God by nature, but He is Triple: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. These Three Divine Persons have one Being, one will, one power, kingdom, strength, glory. No one is less, no one is greater, but the equal-powerful, equal-powerful, equal-honorable Trinitarian God. The Father is not begotten, the Son is begotten of the Father, and the Holy Spirit comes from the same Father. This mystery is incomprehensible to us. And that we believe and confess this, God Himself revealed to us in the Holy Scriptures, and taught us through God-inspired men. The Second Person of This Holy Trinity, the Son of God, came to deliver the human race into the world. And since God is Spirit, He deigned to become incarnate, and thus save man in the following way. In the sixth month after the conception of John the Baptist in the womb of Elizabeth, the Archangel Gabriel, by God’s command, came to the Most Pure Virgin Mary, in the city of Nazareth, and first of all greeted Her like this: “Rejoice, full of grace, the Lord is with you, blessed are you among women” (Luke 1:28)! Then he announced to Her that She would give birth to a Son, the Savior to the whole world. The Most Holy Virgin, hearing about the Son who was to be born of Her, answered the Angel like this: “How can this be when I don’t know a husband?” (Luke 1:34) The angel answered Her: “The Holy Spirit will come upon You, and the power of the Highest will overshadow You,” and added other words of assurance (Luke 1:35, 37) With great humility and will, the Most Holy Virgin answered this: “Behold, the Servant of the Lord; Let it be done to me according to your word" (Luke 1:38). And so the Son of God, by the favor of the Heavenly Father, and by the action of the Holy Spirit, without a male seed, was conceived by flesh in the Virgin’s womb, in a way unknown to us. In remembrance of this good deed of God to us, the Church established the celebration of the Day of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos, which is celebrated on March 25, since from here our salvation began to be arranged. And when the time came for the Most Pure Virgin to give birth to the Son of God conceived in Her womb, she gave birth not as other wives give birth, with illness, but without illness, and without violating Her virginity. And therefore, the Most Pure Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, both before and after the Nativity, retained Her virginity, since both she conceived without a seed and gave birth to the miraculously incarnate Son of God, who, just as before the age was born from the Father without a mother, so in time was incarnated from the Mother without a father, and therefore, just as from the Father without a mother, so is this from the Virgin Mother without a father His miraculous birth. He was born in the Judean city of Bethlehem, and as soon as he was born, many Angels appeared in heaven praising God and singing: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men” (Luke 2:14)! They were seen and their song was heard at that time and in that country by the shepherds who were guarding their flock that night. The shepherds, at the direction of the Angels, came to the born Baby and, seeing Him, bowed down with joy (Luke 2:15–16). We celebrate the Nativity according to the flesh of the Son of God, our Savior, on December 25th. This wonderful Child, born for our deliverance, was circumcised on the eighth day after Christmas according to the law of Moses, and given the name “Jesus” (Luke 2:21), that is, “Savior.” Before the Nativity, this name was given to the Son of God by an Angel; He is also called “Immanuel, that is, God with us” (Matthew 1:23). When forty days had passed after birth, the Mother brought the born Child to the church of God, before the Face of the Lord, in obedience to the law. At that time, according to God’s vision, the righteous Simeon, an elderly man, was in the church, who was promised by God not to die until he saw the Messiah, that is, Christ, who had come into the world. As soon as Simeon saw the Child brought by the Mother of God Mary, he learned by the Holy Spirit that He was the Messiah, promised by God to save the world and preached by the prophets. And so, taking Him in his arms with splendid reverence, he sang with great joy: “Now, O Master, you are releasing Your servant, according to Your word, in peace, because my eyes have seen Your salvation, which You have prepared before the face of all people” (Luke 2:29-31). And this means that on February 2 we celebrate the Presentation of the Lord. When He was twelve years old, on the feast of Easter, in Jerusalem, sitting in the church among the teachers, he listened to them and asked questions, and “all who heard were greatly amazed at His understanding and answers,” because, although the Youth was small in age, the Hypostatic Wisdom of God acted in Him and the mind, not human, but Divine, was shown in Him (Luke 2:47). And when he came to age, and was thirty years old, he came to the Jordan River, to John the Baptist, whom we mentioned before, and who then, coming out of the desert, baptized on that river the people who came to him. The Son of God, among others, came to him to be baptized. John the Baptist, having learned by the Holy Spirit that He was the Messiah about whom the prophets had predicted, refused to baptize Him, saying: “I must be baptized by You, but You are coming to me” (Matthew 3:14). But the Son of God told him not to refuse to baptize Him. Having listened to the Son of God, as a servant of the Lord, he baptized Him, and heard a voice from heaven from the Heavenly Father saying to the Son of God: “You are My Beloved Son; I am well pleased with You!” - and I saw the Holy Spirit descending in the form of a dove on His most holy head (Luke 3:22). And Christ was baptized, not washing himself from the filth of sin - for He is Sinless - but cleansing us from sins, and sanctified the watery nature with His most pure Flesh. We celebrate the Baptism of Christ on January 6th. After Baptism, he was driven by the spirit into the desert and fasted for forty days. Imitating Christ, the Holy Church annually maintains the fast of Pentecost, which always occurs before the feast of Holy Easter. Christ, after completing a forty-day fast, was tempted three times by the devil (Matthew 4:1), revealing that everyone who comes to serve the Lord must be tempted. And he defeated the tempter, showing us an image, and we, looking at Him as the Hero and Leader, strive, and defeat Satan, defeated by Him, by His Divine power and grace. According to the threefold temptation, Christ, the Son of God, when he heard that John the Baptist, who preached repentance and baptized the people who came, was betrayed, he went out to preach and began to preach the Gospel of the kingdom of God, saying: “Repent and believe in the Gospel” (Matthew 4:17; Mark 1:14–15). Preaching the Gospel, He gathered twelve disciples, whom He called apostles and who were always with Him. Walking with them from place to place, from city to city, he taught about salvation and the kingdom of heaven, showing the way to it. He accepted the sinners who came, and with His power, like God, absolved them of their sins, healed all sorts of illnesses and ailments, performed all sorts of miracles: gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, walking to the lame, speech to the dumb, raised the dead, cleansed lepers and other supernatural miracles, not like the saints - through prayer, but by the power of His Divinity, with one word He did. And so the people who saw His great miracles and heard the heavenly and soul-saving teachings followed Him in great multitudes, and wherever He came, people who heard about Him immediately came to Him, some to heal the sick, others to listen to His Divine teaching. Wherever they heard about His coming, they brought the paralytic and those possessed by all sorts of ailments, and He healed everyone with a word. All this is written at length in the Holy Gospel. And in the deserts, when there was no bread left, he miraculously fed many thousands, like this: five thousand, not counting their wives and children, with five loaves (Matthew 14:20–21), four thousand he fed with seven loaves (Mark 8:9). The Jewish bishops, scribes and Pharisees, seeing that many ordinary people were following Him, became envious of Him, and were angry with Him, and blasphemed Him many times with all sorts of dishonorable words (John 7:12, 20, 31-32). Enduring all their blasphemies, the Son of God showed them that they were sinning, scolding Him without His guilt, and frightened them with the judgment of God so that they would come to their senses. But they were motionless in their malice, they even tried to kill Him repeatedly, inspired by the same malice. So, while living, or wandering, on earth, the Son of God told His disciples that “He must go to Jerusalem, and there he will suffer much..., die and on the third day rise again” (Matthew 16:21; Mark 8:31). And when the time of His suffering, about which He had predicted to the apostles, was approaching, He took the three most chosen disciples, namely Peter, James and John, and led them to the top of Mount Tabor, where He began to pray, and His Face, like the sun, illuminated, and His vestments became white as light. Two prophets, Moses and Elijah, appeared there and talked to Him. Then the apostles heard a voice from the cloud that then covered them, saying to them about Christ: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; Listen to him." Frightened by this voice, the apostles fell prostrate to the ground (Matthew 17:5–6; Luke 9:35). With such a manifestation of His glory, Christ showed the disciples that He accepted the suffering about which He predicted by His will, and so that, seeing Him suffering, they would not doubt or be afraid. He also showed that such glory after death in eternal life will be for those who believe in Him and follow Him in patience. We celebrate this Transfiguration of Christ on August 6th. When the time came for Christ to suffer and die, He mounted a donkey and rode to Jerusalem (Luke 19:35). The people, hearing about His coming, came out of the city to meet Him. Of these, some spread branches along the path along which He rode, others laid down their clothes, and others held the branches of date trees and exclaimed: “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” (Matthew 21:9)! And when the Son of God entered the city of Jerusalem with such glory, the scribes, Pharisees and bishops of the Jews, who, as it is said, were jealous and angry with Him, were then moved to even greater envy and anger. Therefore, as before, so especially then they were looking for how to destroy Him, but for the sake of the common people they could not do this obviously, since everyone was striving for Him, they revered Him, glorified Him, listening to His saving teaching. Then one of the twelve disciples, Judas, named Iscariot, instigated by Satan, secretly betrayed Him to them for thirty pieces of silver, and, taking with him several bishop’s servants, on the night from Thursday to Friday with candles he came into the garden to the Son of God when He was praying, and Christ gave Himself into their hands (Matthew 26:50; Mark 14:46), because the time had come for Him to die, from Heavenly Father certain. The bishop's servants took Christ and, tying him up, led him into the bishop's courtyard, where the scribes and Pharisees had gathered. The apostles then all fled. The Holy Apostle Peter followed Him from afar, and when he came into the courtyard, his bishop's servants recognized that he was with Christ. Then Peter denied Christ three times, and then, leaving the courtyard, he cried greatly because he had rejected Christ, and for the sake of these tears, he was again accepted into the apostolic person by Christ, the Son of God. Jesus, our Savior, was tortured in various ways that night in the bishop's courtyard, and all sorts of dishonor, ridicule and blasphemy were shown (John 18:12, 22, 30, 19:2-6, 16). And when the day came, that is, Friday, Pilate, who was then the governor of Jerusalem, was asked with great persistence to be crucified on the Cross (Matthew 27:26; Mark 15:15; Luke 23:25). And so, after accepting many dishonors, ridicule, blasphemy, wounds, He was hanged on the Cross naked between two thieves (John 19:18). At the sixth hour of the day, and from this sixth hour until the ninth there was darkness over all the land. At the ninth hour, hanging on the Cross, the Son of God died. And then “the curtain of the church was torn in two, from the top to the bottom, the earth shook, the stones fell apart, and the tombs were opened, and the bodies of many fallen saints arose” (Matthew 27:50–52; Mark 15:37–38), and great fear fell upon everyone. Therefore, by evening the deceased was removed from the Cross and buried in a new coffin. On the third day, He rose from the dead by the power of His Divinity, and repeatedly appeared to His disciples, teaching them about the kingdom of God (Matthew 28:16–20; Luke 24:13, 34–36, 44; Mark 16:12, 14; John 20:19–25; Acts 1:3). And before ascending to heaven, he sent them to preach throughout the whole universe, but first ordered them to wait in Jerusalem for the descent of the Holy Spirit, and before that not to leave Jerusalem anywhere. And having thus instructed them, before them he ascended into heaven from Mount Elyon with glory. And he “sat at the right hand of God” the Father (Luke 24:49–51; Mark 16:19; Acts 1:4, 9). On the fiftieth day after His Resurrection, the Holy Spirit descended in the form of tongues of fire on all the apostles, then gathered in one house (Acts 2:1-4). Strengthened by Him, they dispersed throughout the whole world, and abolished idolatry, demonic delusion, preached the coming of the Son of God into the world, suffering, death and Resurrection and taught everyone as Christ taught them themselves, and the Holy Spirit living in them then instructed. The Holy Church maintains this teaching to this day, and is saved by this instruction. You see, beloved, who our Deliverer is, and how He delivered us. He is our Lord, the Only Begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages, Light from Light, True God from True God, begotten, uncreated, consubstantial with the Father, to Whom all things were. And how He delivered us, you heard. For our sake and for our salvation, He came down from heaven, and was incarnated by the Virgin Mary, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried, and on the third day rose from the dead. So He suffered and died for us, and with that suffering and death He propitiated the Heavenly Father and reconciled us. So He took upon Himself the execution that we were guilty of, and so He stood up for us, so He earned us remission of sins, and through the sin of the subsequent eternal execution He delivered us, and instead of the paradise from which we were expelled, He opened heaven to us and gave us the kingdom of heaven. Through His merit and His grace, His Blood shed for us, we hope to receive mercy from the Heavenly Father; In His sweet name we hope to be saved. He is the Messiah, promised by God, preached by the prophets, for whom the whole world was waiting. He is Christ, from whom we are called Christians. This is our nobility, which surpasses all honors, titles and high ranks of this world. We boast in this name, for without this name all nobility is baseness, wealth is poverty, honor is dishonor, glory is nothing. With this name, the beggar is rich, the inglorious is famous, the one without honor has it, the low is high, the unfortunate is happy. What should we render to such a merciful Savior, such a wonderful Lover of ours? Listen, I'll tell you. He does not demand great things from us. He loved us so wonderfully, and He demands love from us alone. So, for His love for us we will repay with love, for His good deeds we will show gratitude in this way. If you - I’m telling everyone here - for what crime did you get into such trouble that, according to the laws and by definition of the monarch, you were subject to the death penalty, and there was such a good person who saved you from the great trouble, and using his intercession, and himself accepting all kinds of suffering and dishonor for you, and thus returned to you the royal mercy and first dignity - what would you do to such a benefactor? You would certainly love him so much that you would never let his name out of your memory, you would always boast about him with joyful and grateful tears to everyone and glorify his name until death, and, moreover, whatever he ordered you to do, you would willingly and lovingly try to fulfill, and would try in every possible way to please him. Do this also to Christ, the Son of God, your Great Benefactor. Love Him with all your heart. Never let His good deeds out of your memory, always remember His most holy name with grateful tears, boast in His ineffable mercy and love, glorify His sweetest name before everyone. For His name's sake, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you. For His name's sake give to the one who asks you, for His name's sake give drink to the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, bring the wandering into the house, serve the sick, visit the one sitting in prison, comfort the sad, have compassion on the suffering. For the sake of His name, endure all kinds of troubles with alacrity and a grateful heart, and, moreover, beware of angering Him, but try to please Him in everything. You will please when you fulfill His commandments with love, and from here your love for Him will appear. So He Himself says: “Whoever has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me” (John 14:21). His commandments are not burdensome. For what is easier than loving each other? This is what He demands from us: “This is My commandment, that you love one another” (John 15:12). So, you will love Him and please Him when you love your brother, that is, every person, as you love yourself, otherwise you will appear ungrateful to Him, since He, as you have already heard, was sentenced to eternal death by the judgment of God, and delivered you. How? Not with silver, not with gold, not through any intercessor. But how? He himself came down from heaven for you and was incarnated by the Blessed Virgin Mary. For you, as a Man on earth, he lived among people, he took upon himself all your infirmities, in a word, he became like you in everything, except for sin. I did not renounce for you reproach, blasphemy, dishonor, spitting, strangulation, wounds, terrible suffering, crucifixion, such a dishonorable death to endure, and thereby freed you from eternal punishment; and having so miraculously delivered you from that bitter misfortune, he opened the kingdom of heaven to you; On top of that, he never ceases to enrich you with other good deeds. He feeds you, clothes you, commands the sun to shine above you, gives rain, He has assigned His Angel to you, your Guardian of soul and body, He sees you sinning and endures, waiting for your repentance, He invisibly preserves you from all harmful and deadly misfortunes. Although sometimes he sends you weakness or some other misfortune, he does this only so that you feel it through it, come to repentance, and be able to receive eternal salvation. This is what He is, your Benefactor, who loved you! So, try to repay Him with love for love, please Him in everything for the sake of this only one of His immeasurable love for you. For He loved you freely, without any benefit from you. Try to please Him for the sake of love for Him alone. For even though He did not show you such love (but it is explained above how great His love is for you), yet you are obliged to Him, as a servant of your Lord, to please and fulfill His will. After all, the slaves of their masters, the subjects of their monarchs, carry out orders without any reward, and when they do not carry them out, they accept punishment, like disobedient slaves. We are twice obliged to our Lord Christ, the Son of God, as our Lord and King, and as our Benefactor. As the Lord one should show slavish obedience and obedience, as one should show love and gratitude to the Benefactor. And if we don’t do this, then we will appear to Him as the Lord as indecent and disobedient slaves, and as the Benefactor – ungrateful. And so for disobedience and ingratitude we will again be guilty of that execution from which He miraculously delivered us, even more guilty as those who despised such grace. So, test and consider yourself: do you show obedience to Him as the Lord, gratitude and love as the Benefactor; and if you do not fulfill this, feel yourself, turn, run to Him with tender tears and repent to Him. Regret your disobedience and ingratitude and ask Him for forgiveness. He, as the Merciful, the Long-tempered and the Humane, will accept you again and, like the father of the prodigal son, he will embrace you and will not remember your sins. And henceforth, remembering His good deeds, beware of irritating Him, so that He does not completely reject you from Himself. Amen. Word for Christmas 2 “We have found the Messiah, which means Christ” (John 1:41). O voice, filled with all sorts of joy and joy: “We have found the Messiah!” 'Brother to brother, apostle to apostle, the first-called Andrew proclaims to the warmest Peter: “We have found the Messiah.” We have found the Messiah, promised by God Himself. We have found the Messiah preached by the prophets. We found the Messiah, the law and the patriarchs who were represented. We found the Messiah for many years with great desire and longing for what was expected. We have found the Messiah - the aspiration of the peoples. We have found the Messiah, whom everyone, like the earth thirsting for water, like the one sitting in the darkness of the light, like the prisoner of the deliverer in prison, like the weak doctor, like the shepherd of the lost sheep, desired. They found the Messiah, whom many prophets and kings “wanted to see... and did not see, to hear... and did not hear” (Matthew 13:17). We have found the Messiah and we see and enjoy His conversation, which is sweeter than honey. We already see God in Man, the Creator in creation, the Master in the form of a slave. We see the King of Heaven on earth, we see him raising the dead, cleansing lepers, giving sight to the blind and giving hearing to the deaf. We hear pleasant news from Him - repentance, remission of sins, the kingdom of heaven approaching. Oh, how blessed are you, Saint Peter and Andrew, with others, your brethren, that you have found such an invaluable treasure! “Blessed are your eyes which have seen, and your ears which have heard, and your hands which have handled the word of life” (Matthew 13:16; 1 John 1:1). But tell us, holy apostles, our dear teachers: where can we find such a treasure? We also want to find it. For even if we found it through Holy Baptism, but again - oh our extreme poverty! – through our negligence we lost that invaluable treasure. “Seek,” they say, “and you will find” (Matthew 7:7). So, listeners, let us look for him, let us look for him diligently, for without him our life is extremely poor and wretched. Let us look for the One with whom misfortune is happiness, and even crying is joyful, tears are joyful. Let us seek the One with whom we will find all prosperity, all temporal and eternal blessings. But where should we look for Him? We know that He does not live there, where the glory-loving and crafty Herods spread their kingdom, who are not afraid to destroy so many souls, shed so much blood, lest they lose their temporary honor, but He hastily flees from there, flees, I say, from where they want to kill Himself and for His sake those who are kind to Him. The humble and meek Jesus, our Savior, does not live there, where pride and arrogance have their home. Isn’t there a common proverb that like makes friends with like? Beggar with beggar, rich with rich, noble with noble, society finds. Nowhere will you see a sober person with a drunkard, an abstinent person with a sensualist, a righteous person with an unrighteous person, a generous and generous giver with a kidnapper, but one runs away from the other, since black does not stick to white, sweet does not get along with bitter, light has no participation in darkness. Likewise, Christ, “meek and lowly in heart” (Matthew 11:29), has no place where arrogant hearts rise high with pride and arrogance and dream a lot about themselves. There is no place for Him where evil foxes have holes. The Eternal Truth cannot fit with flattery, deceit, deceit, cunning and double-mindedness, which has honey on the tongue and carries gall in the heart, which promises peace in words, but prepares the sword in deeds, which “comes close with its lips, but is far away in heart” (Isa. 29:13; Matt. 15:8), which with its lips greets, kisses, congratulates, saying: “Rejoice!” - but in reality he negotiates about the price, plots to betray into the hands of the enemy, to dishonor, reproach, spitting, desecration, paving the way to the Cross and death. He leaves such, so flattering Judas. He does not want to be together like a lamb and a fox, and he separates him from among His chosen sheep. He departs from that place and commands His disciples to avoid it, where His preachers are persecuted: “When,” He says, “they persecute you in one city, flee to another” (Matthew 10:23). He departs, I say, from there, where His Gospel, His holy preaching is a fiction, the eternal kingdom He preached is considered a fable, where sin is treated like a toy, where with one’s soul so ranting: “Soul, eat, drink, be merry, you have much wealth” (Luke 12:19). We will not find Him even where unclean spirits have a cleaned and adorned place for themselves, spirits of hatred, malice, envy, spirits of fornication, adultery, enmity. “What do light have in common with darkness, and Christ with beliar” (2 Cor 6:14–15)? We won’t find it, I say, and there’s no need to look, and we won’t hear what was said to the myrrh-bearing women looking for Him among the dead: “Why are you looking for the Living One among the dead” (Luke 24:5)? For the dead are all of the above, unburied dead, with one foot on the earth and the other walking in the gates of hell. What should we do? Where to go? Where should we look for our Light, our Treasure? And He is certainly somewhere among His servants. For even if he ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father, he nevertheless promised not to be separated from those on earth: “I am with you,” he says, “until the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). So, let us seek more diligently, lighting a candle, in the likeness of the widow of the Gospel (Luke 15:8), and then we will find it. Lord, show us the image of Your face! “Rabbi , our sweetest Teacher, where do you live” (John 1:38)? Come, he says, and see. Ah, we hear, we hear the voice of our sweetest Teacher, we hear: “Where two or three are gathered in My name, there I am in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20). This is where He responds to us, this is where the dwelling is, where our sweetest Light has His peace. “Where,” He said, “two or three are gathered in My name, there I am in the midst of them.” There, He says, is the place of My resting place, where sincere love, unfeigned love unites two or three: “Where two or three are gathered in My name, there I am in the midst of them.” But here too, listeners, we must note that those gathered not only have Christ as cohabitants, but those gathered in His holy name. For many gather together, but not in His name. Annas and Caiaphas once gathered with the spirits of the Pharisees, but not in the name of Christ, but against Christ. Herod and Pontic Pilate gathered, but against Christ, one - for dishonor, for reproach, for reproach, and the other - agreeing to murder. Even now the fornicator with the harlot, the thief with the thief, the robber with the robber, the drunkard with the drunkard, the kidnapper with the kidnapper, gather together, however, not in the name of Christ, but against Christ. For all of them and those like them, since they destroy His holy commandments, gather against Christ. “Whoever,” He said, “is not with Me is against Me; and whoever does not gather with Me scatters” (Matthew 12:30). So, far from these lawless gatherings and from the Jewish hosts, the Sweetest Jesus departs. Where is He? “Where they are gathered in His holy name,” there He rests, there is His resting place, where Christian love is. What is Christian love? This is the one who, as the holy apostle teaches, “is long-suffering, merciful, does not envy, does not become conceited, is not proud, does not act rudely, does not seek her own, is not irritated, does not think evil, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; covers all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things; never ceases" (1 Cor 13:4-8). This is Christian love, here Christ dwells, as in a beautiful chamber. This is where we, listeners, found Christ, we found him in the midst of Christian love. Now only one task remains for us - how to call Him to our house. But we know that He does not disdain a poor house. He also turns away from the publicans when they call Him with due desire, even standing at the door and knocking: “Behold, I stand,” He says in the Apocalypse, “at the door and knock: if anyone hears My voice, I will come in to him and will sup with him” (Rev 3:20). For our sake, He entered the Virgin’s womb and drained the flesh of Her pure blood for Himself and was miraculously born. For our sake, He did not disdain the bestial manger, in which, like a Baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, He deigned to be laid. He does not disdain our vile little house when we humbly ask Him, because He is Merciful and Humane, and bows down to a humble request. He will also bow to our humility. Let us fall only to Him, imitating the prudent wise men (Matthew 2:1-12). Let us fall to Him, no longer wrapped in swaddling clothes, but sitting on the Throne of Glory with the Father and the Spirit. Instead of gold, frankincense, myrrh, we will bring a contrite and humble petition. And since, as it is said, He rests in Christian love, let us first protect and prepare ourselves with it. Seeing our brother hungry, let us feed him; When we see someone who is thirsty, we will give him something to drink; seeing him naked, we will clothe him; seeing someone wandering and homeless, we will bring him into the house and treat him; seeing a sick person, we will visit, comfort, and serve him; Let us show love to the one sitting in prison and do what we can to serve him. In a word, let us love our brethren as we love ourselves. Having thus arranged ourselves, let us fall to Him and humbly ask Him like this: O Heavenly King, the Son of God, who deigned to incarnate us for the sake of sinners, have mercy on us, do not disdain us, your sinful and humble servants. We know that for the sake of us, Your servants, You clothed yourself in the image of a slave, became like us in everything except sin, and so with us, the poor, the beggars were, with us, the weak, to be weak, with us, captives and strangers, to wander in this deplorable vale, with us, the poor, to be in poverty, with us, the crying, to cry, and then for us, one for all, deigned to suffer and die, so that It is so wonderful to lead us to Your Immortal and Beginningless Parent. You Yourself, our Lord, came to us, Your servants, in the form of a slave, because we could not come to You. You Yourself, God, our Creator, began to create Your creation, since we did not have the boldness to approach You, and so you gave us the boldness to approach You. Do not be disgusted by our wretchedness even now. We know and acknowledge Your goodness from our hearts that we cannot bring You anything for this. The angels bring you singing, the heavens bring you a star, the wise men bring you gifts, the desert brings you a manger. What about us? There is nothing, for everything we have is Yours. Yours and we, Your church we are, created by Your hands, renewed by Your most pure Blood, but ah - alas for us - again corrupted by our accursed will and created indecent for You, our Lord and God. What about ours? Our sins are our own fruit, they are our offspring, we are rich in them, we are burdened with them like a burden, we bear this heavy burden without shame. However, we come to You with fear and humility. We come to You as “the lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the whole world” (John 1:29), and with this burden we cast this bodily church, all defiled, before Your feet and, in the likeness of the gospel harlot, with our intelligent lips we touch Your most pure feet with tenderness (Luke 7:46), and, not daring, like the publican, to You our eyes proclaim (Luke 18:13), from the depths we call: Lamb of God, take away our heavy sinful burden and, as you are merciful, show mercy to us. And so we, the poor and damned, instead of a gift, present to You the Pure Virgin Mother, You, God, who gave birth to us, Who are more worthy than all creatures of heaven and earth, Whom You yourself, as the most favorable Gift, deigned to choose from the entire human race. By her representation have mercy on us; Renew again by Your all-effective grace our corrupted church, cleanse it with Your immaterial fire. “Create in us a pure heart, O God, and renew a right spirit in our womb” (Ps. 50:12), and so “come and dwell in us,” and You alone reign in us and over us with the Father and Your Most Holy Spirit, not allowing anyone to rule over us. Then we too will cry out with joy and gladness: “We have found the Messiah, which means: Christ.” Amen. Everyone, I hope, hearing this sentence: “repent,” is surprised and thinks in his mind: “This is what this preacher is now offering us. The holiday is now cheerful and bright for everyone, everyone is now congratulating each other on the New Year, but he offers us sadness: “repent.” On this day we celebrate, firstly, the circumcision according to the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, which He Himself once legitimized through His faithful servant Abraham for the benefit of His people. Secondly, we commemorate the great luminary of the universe, St. Basil the Great. Thirdly, we are starting a new year, the 1765th from the Nativity of Christ. All these circumstances require cheerfulness, require congratulations, but he offers us sad matter: “repent.” The circumstances of the day suggest a holiday, and he imposes a fast on us: “repent.” The day tells us to have fun, but it advises us to cry: “repent.” Thus, I hope, everyone, looking at me and thinking within himself, speaks indignantly at me. Neither do I, beloved listener, know that the three above-mentioned circumstances constitute a bright holiday for us, I will not fail to rejoice at your happiness, and congratulate you on the new year and new happiness. But if we consider the power of this word: “repent,” then it will seem very similar to this day. Let us only take it into consideration with God’s help, and think about how someone starts a new year, and then we will truly see the truth. For a Christian person there is only one misfortune, one misfortune, in the words of St. Chrysostom - to anger God. For for a Christian there is only evil - spiritual evil, only misfortune - which will follow from the wrath of God. The wrath of God is caused by the transgression of His holy commandments. Those who are angry with the King of the earth suffer only bodily misfortune, that is, either the death penalty, or exile, or confiscation of property, or deprivation of honor, or corporal punishment, or some other kind. Misfortune is harmless to the soul, and more often it is useful, for a person can feel it, and thus receive eternal salvation. Those who are angry with God, the King of Heaven, both mentally and physically, fall into misfortune. For those who anger God will face eternal torment in the next century, in which both soul and body will suffer endlessly: “their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:44, 46), - according to the word of Christ. And here, in this world, their conscience, irritated by sins, torments them; this torment for a poor person is worse than exile, prison, poverty, dishonor, illness. The people are simple and everyone who does not know their own benefit considers it their misfortune when they are in illness, exile and other similar punishments sent by God, and, on the contrary, they think that they are happy who prospers in health, in wealth, in honor, in glory and other blessings of this world. True, this applies to our body, and I do not argue about that, which applies to the external person, and I recognize the same well-being. And since a person consists of two parts, soul and body, then there is twofold well-being, mental and physical. Mental well-being is a calm, peaceful conscience, rejoicing in God, its Savior, feeling heavenly joy on earth, in prison, in bonds, in poverty, in dishonor, in wounds, in exile, in illness, having fun in tears. Bodily well-being is the health of the body, honor, wealth, fame, saturation, amusement, and so on. But it often happens that the body is happy, but the soul is unhappy; the body is healthy, but the soul is unhealthy; the body is in wealth, but the soul is in poverty; the body is in honor, but the soul is in dishonor; the body rejoices, but the soul laments; the body rejoices, but the soul is sad; the body prospers, but the soul decays; the body is feasting, but the soul is starving; the body smells fragrant, but the soul emits a foul stench. Also, on the contrary, it happens that the body is in ill-fortune, but the soul is in prosperity; the body is sad, but the soul is joyful; the body is in poverty, but the soul is in wealth; the body hungers, but the soul is satisfied; the body stinks, but the soul emits a fragrance pleasing to God, as the Apostle Paul once wrote about this: “Even if our outer man decays, yet our inner man is renewed day by day” (2 Cor 4:16). Paul here calls the external man the body, and the internal man the soul. And it rarely happens that a person is happy both in soul and body. For the world, just as it favors, reassures, and glorifies its lovers, so those who do not conform to it, abhor its malice and its charms, hate, disturb, and persecute. “All,” says the Apostle Paul, “who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” (2 Timothy 3:12). So, if someone has spent the past year in spiritual and physical happiness, and begins a new one in the same happiness, oh, how prosperous he is! How prosperously he spent the year! How prosperously the new one begins! I also rejoice in such his well-being, although I myself do not have it. I congratulate you on the end of the past year and on the beginning of the new year, and I wish him to prosper in that God’s blessing, and even more, day by day, year by year for the glory of God, who begins the new year so safely and joyfully, my word at the beginning of my speech: “repent” does not apply. And if someone has lived the past year in physical misfortune and spiritual well-being, and so begins the new year, I rejoice in his well-being, congratulate him on that happiness, and declare to him my desire that he be well-off in body and well-being, if the well-being of both, body and soul, can be accommodated. And if he cannot, as is truly rarely the case, then I only wish him the same well-being in the future that he had hitherto, and even to increase this talent of patience given to him, so that it would be better for the poor to enter into eternal life than for someone happy in body to be cast both soul and body into fiery hell, according to the word of Christ (Mark 9:43, 45). For it is better to die with the beggar Lazarus and the stinking wounds in a dungeon, and be carried by the Angels to Abraham’s bosom into eternal joy, than with the rich man, dressed in purple and fine linen, among singers and music, to end his life, and be cast into hell and suffer in eternal flames (Luke 16:19-25). But the above word: “repent” does not extend to him. For they, as the righteous, according to the word of Christ, “do not require repentance” (Luke 15:7), since “those who are healthy, as the same Heavenly Teacher teaches, have need of a doctor, but those who are sick” (Matthew 9:12). If someone lived happily in body but in misery in soul the last year, and so begins a new one: oh, how miserably it begins! What is the use of bodily happiness, which, like a color, quickly fades, like steam appears for a short time and then disappears - what, I say, is the use of showing off such short-term, or better yet, imaginary happiness, but never having spiritual, true, permanent, inalienable happiness? But whoever spent the year unhappily anyway, I congratulate him on the end of last year. I rejoice with him too, but not in the fact that he spent his time so unfavorably, but in the fact that God, who awaits the conversion of all, repentance and correction, allowed him to live to this day, not by His justice, but by His long-suffering. And I give him advice so that with all his zeal he should thank God’s mercy, that the Lord did not judge him according to his deeds, that he did not deal with him according to his iniquities, nor rewarded him according to his sins. For many, after sinning, were immediately punished by God. “Lot’s wife looked back...she became a pillar of salt” (Gen. 19:26). Dathan and Abiron complained against God and against Moses His servant, and were swallowed up alive by the earth (Num. 16:31–32). Ananias and Sapphira lied to the Holy Spirit, and were struck with sudden death (Acts 5:3, 5). Bringing these examples to mind, let him thank the Lord that he did not receive punishment then. Here, listeners, I offer to those who are so unhappy a means of happiness, as to the weak the medicine of repentance: “Repent!” To those who spent the year so unhappily and who are starting the new year, I present the word of Christ: “repent.” I hope, and you yourself admit, that this word: “repent,” is offered decently and in good time at the beginning of the new year, if you judge that there is repentance. For repentance is the aversion of the former sin-loving life, and the correction of the new, governed by the law of God. So, for example, someone who has previously been a drunkard and lover of other sweets must be abstinent. Anyone who has wallowed in carnal impurities like a pig in a swamp, having rejected the fury of these passions, must love bodily and spiritual purity, that is, not only not defile the body, but also keep the mind from evil thoughts. Whoever has lived his life in quarrels and enmity with his neighbor until now, must be reconciled, and “have peace with everyone as far as he is concerned,” according to the apostle (Heb. 12:14), “be peaceful with those who hate peace,” as the Psalmist says (Ps. 119:6). Whoever was a bribe-taker and a thief must keep his hands from both the accursed robbery and the ill-gathered treasure, as the publican Zacchaeus did, distribute half to the poor, and return four times whoever he offended. Then he too will hear the voice of Christ: “Now salvation has come to this house” (Luke 19:8–9). Whoever touched his neighbor’s name with a slanderous tongue and thus tormented his glory, he must tie his tongue and not allow him to speak any more, except for the sake of glorifying God, for the benefit and building of his neighbor. If he is so accustomed to slander that he cannot get away from it, then I give him this sound advice: let him turn his tongue towards himself, find in himself what to judge, what to discredit and what to slander; let him imagine to himself his sins, which he has committed since infancy, and for them he reproaches himself as he wishes; let him turn his slander towards the eyes that looked at the vices of others, and thereby led to condemnation, and were guilty of other sins; let him turn his attention to the fact that they listened to nasty songs and slander against their neighbor. Let your tongue slander, that it has babbled an idle and vile word, that it has condemned, defamed, slandered, tormented its honor. Let him slander his hands because they robbed someone else's property. And firstly, let him reproach his accursed and unbridled will for being guilty of all evils. For only this slander will be useful to him, but let him not dare to condemn his neighbor. “Who are you, judging another man’s slave? Before his Lord he stands, or he falls,” according to the apostolic words (Rom. 14:4). Likewise, other sinners must leave their sin-loving disposition and begin a new life, opposite to the previous one. We must “turn away from evil,” according to the advice of the Psalmist, “and do good” (Ps. 33:15), and, moreover, to appease the previously committed evil deeds of the Merciful God with tears and fasting, to regret that we loved our passion, like some idol, more than God, the creature more than the Creator, we put more effort into the creation of our hearts than the Creator. This is what repentance is, listeners! For sinners starting the New Year, the appropriate word is: “repent.” So, as I celebrate, I say to sinners, the circumcision of the Lord according to the flesh, circumcise your hearts from the lusts of the evil one, cut off the passions of dishonor. And commemorating the great teacher, who led everyone to repentance both in word and deed, listen to his teaching: “repent.” And starting the new year, start a new life: “repent.” Until now, the Most Gracious God has endured you, waiting for your conversion, tolerated that you did not listen to Him, that you destroyed His law, but whether He will endure it in the future, I don’t know, and I don’t say anything about it, but only offer unrepentant sinners the words of God Himself. Christ God, when some came and told Him about the misfortune of the Galileans, whose blood Pilate mixed with their sacrifices, said to them: “Do you think that these Galileans were more sinful than all the Galileans, that they suffered so much? No, I tell you, but if you do not repent, you will all perish in the same way. Or do you think that those eighteen people on whom the tower of Siloam fell and killed them were more guilty than all those living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all perish in the same way” (Luke 13:2–5). Through the Psalmist he threatens: “If you do not turn, He will sharpen His weapon; He has drawn His bow and prepared it, and in it He has prepared instruments of death” (Ps. 7:13–14). Through Isaiah, even more terrible, it thunders to the children of Israel: “I have become full of those who I will not endure your sins” (Isaiah 1:14), that is, “I bore you until I was full, but I have no more patience; I will no longer tolerate your sins, but I will repay you according to your deeds.” So, fear, sinners, the wrath of God, “repent” and do not perish. Turn before He shoots arrows from His stretched bow; run to Him with tears while He still endures. “Repent”, be renewed, starting a new year. “Behold, now is the time acceptable, behold, now is the day of salvation,” says the apostle (2 Cor. 6:2). “Wash yourself and you will be clean,” exclaims the prophet Isaiah. - Take away wickedness from your souls before My eyes, stop your wickedness, learn to do good. Seek righteousness, deliver the wronged, protect the orphan and justify the widow” (Isa. 1:16–18): “Repent. Draw close to God, the Apostle James exhorts you, and he will draw close to you; Cleanse your hands, you sinners; straighten your hearts, you double-minded. Lament, weep and howl; Let your laughter turn into crying, and your joy into sadness. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you” (James 4:8–10). “We pray for Christ,” so prays us, O poor sinners, the vessel chosen to carry the name of Christ, the teacher of the universe, the holy Apostle Paul, “we pray for Christ, and as if God Himself prays through us; So, in Christ we pray: be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:20–21). So, after listening to these inspired and great teachers, start the new year with a new life. In this matter, be wise, like a snake, which, when it grows old, passes through a tight place and so removes its old skin, as the descriptors of nature tell. So you too, having abandoned the sin-loving, extensive life that leads to destruction, and having chosen the narrow path, which alone leads to eternal life, “put off the old man with his works and put on the new man, who is being renewed in knowledge after the image of Him who created him” (Col. 3:9-10). And if you start the new year this way, oh, how well you will begin, and even better when, having started this way, you finish! For not everyone who begins well finishes well. I wish for you and myself, like this one, and, if God wills, for the rest of the following years, to begin and spend the rest of our lives in this soul-beneficial renewal, and so to receive a Christian death, which we repeatedly ask every day from the Most Good and Merciful God in the Church. Amen. About Cheese Week, which ordinary people call Maslenitsa, I intended to offer a short word to your love, although it seemed that there was no need to offer this. For the Holy Church in her songs, sung all that week, clearly shows everyone what she exists and how she should be carried out. But since many, either not listening to those songs, or drawn by blindness and old habit, do not carry it out in the way that Christian duty requires, therefore with this word I intended to talk about it more clearly. My position compels me to do this, which in such cases does not command me to remain silent, but to “persist in time and out of season” (2 Tim. 4:2). I also know that many will not like my word, because I want to refute and eradicate the disorderly celebration of Maslenitsa, since celebrating Maslenitsa is a custom, although vicious, but long-standing and lovingly preserved. But at the same time I declare that although the proposal is unpleasant, I hope that it is useful. Doctors say that bitter food is unpleasant, but good for the stomach. Salt is bitter, but it drives out worms and prevents rottenness. Let us take the medicine, although it is bitter, to preserve our health. Likewise, the accusatory word of our passionate flesh is not pleasant, but it is useful for the soul. Listen, and listen with attention. This word does not apply to those who, remembering that they are Christians, act according to their duty. For they, being healthy by the grace of Christ, do not require healing. But I pray to them with the bounty of God, that they may help the weakest brethren with advice and prayers, following the example of what people do when they want to put out a common fire. For what greater fire could there be than the one in which the souls of men are consumed by lawlessness, as if by flame? You know well, listeners, you yourself, and undoubtedly admit that almost everyone looks forward to Maslenitsa as if it were some noble holiday, why they prepare for its celebration in advance, and when it gets closer, they brew beer, honey, and buy wine. On its very celebration, people of both sexes dress in their best clothes, wives, in addition, decorate, or, better said, spoil their faces with various colors to seduce young hearts, and out of natural beauty they make a feigned mask. They also prepare whatever rich food they can, pies, sweets and all sorts of snacks with which they decorate the tables. Having thus prepared, they invite each other to visit and visit each other. What is there to notice? The company has gathered, bottles are emptied, glasses and goblets never dry out. There is a congratulation here: “Hello, brother or sister, Happy Maslenitsa!” Such congratulations result in insensibility. And then what else do you do to make this holiday fun? Evil does not stay between walls, does not hide in houses, goes out into public, appears in the streets, squares, on the roads, and there is the worst evil, evil as temptations. Then there is incessant horse racing. Then one after another, as if tied, follows, a long convoy stretches out, like a rope of temptations. These amusements are joined by others, no less. Here cries and songs rise up, and in another place fist fights take place, somewhere fights, cursing, and foul language are heard. And so it seems that the air itself is filled with human temptations and makes noise. And what happens in the night, what happens in secret and hidden places, I don’t even talk about. “For what they do in secret is shameful even to speak of” (Eph. 5:12). This is how Maslenitsa is celebrated, listeners! My face is filled with shame when I talk about such a celebration. And besides, I think that this is how those Christians, reborn by water and the Spirit, celebrate the resurrection of the dead and the life of the next century. Illness and pity crushes the heart that with such a celebration the holy and pious faith is denigrated. Fear and trembling tremble my limbs when I imagine God’s righteous and terrible judgment before my intelligent eyes. I hope that you, the listeners, feel the same way. But when you see that there is Maslenitsa, or Cheese Week, then I hope that such a holiday will disgust you. Oh, if the Most Good God would grant it! What is she? Our mother the Holy Church sings about this to us, as to her babies, in her songs sung during that week. For in one place she sings to us like a mother: “Opening to the divine repentance of the threshold; let us begin, diligently cleansing our bodies, wastes and passions, doing the deposition, like obedients of Christ,” and so on. And in another place it’s like this: “The bright pre-celebration of abstinence, the bright pre-celebration of fasting today.” In another place: “This is the time of repentance, the pre-festive entrance to this fast.” And again: “Let us not defile all the entrances and vestibules of the fast here with intemperance and drunkenness.” So we hear from the songs of the Holy Church, and we know what Maslenitsa is, namely, the beginning, or the threshold of the holy Great Lent. For she forbade the consumption of certain foods, such as meat, and forbade marriages. On Wednesday and Friday, Liturgy was not allowed to take place for the sake of fasting, and she ordered that she should touch food and drink with abstinence in order to gradually get used to the fasting feat. And therefore, Christians, as true sons of the Church, should act much more abstinently in everything during that week than in the previous days, although such abstinence is always commendable. Well, is that how it's done? You have heard, and you yourself know, there is no need to repeat it. Do Christians listen to the sweet and sweet songs of the mother of their Church? Oh, what a pity! Oh, shame on us! “I gave birth to sons,” she extends God’s mournful voice, “she gave birth to sons and raised them up, but they rejected Me.” She gave birth to sons with the font of rebirth, gave them the milk of God’s words to drink, raised them with the Sacraments of faith, clothed them with the robe of incorruptibility, and confirmed them with the hope of eternal life. “Hear, O heaven, and take heed, O earth: She has given birth to sons and raised them up, but they have rejected Me” (Isaiah 1:2). And how these sons rejected their mother, do you hear? She orders these days to be more reverent, and they are more outrageous. She orders them to abstain, and they indulge in more passions. It determines fasting, and they overeat and drink more. She orders the purification of bodies and souls, but they defile more. She orders the passions to be put aside, but they add more. She offers repentance, and they become more ferocious. She orders to complain about the sins committed, and they add more. She commands them to cry, and they are more comforted. She commands to propitiate God, but they make him even more angry. Ah, a fair complaint! Regret and crying are a worthy voice! “I gave birth to sons and raised them up, but they rejected me. Listen, heaven, and listen, earth! The sons, who rejected their mother, Christians, do not listen to the Church of Christ; Christians, who rejected Satan and all his works, turn again to his works. It’s a pitiful thing, listeners, and a terrible one! Because anyone who does not listen to the Church is, according to the word of Christ, like a “pagan and a tax collector” (Matthew 18:17). And I repeat again: whoever does not listen to the Church is not a son of the Church. Whoever is not a son of the Church, Christ is not his Shepherd. To whom Christ is not a Shepherd, he is not Christ's sheep. He who is not Christ's sheep expects eternal life in vain. Because Christ the Shepherd promises eternal life only to His sheep: “My sheep,” He says, “listen to My voice, and I know them; and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life” (John 10:27–28). This, listeners, is what the disorderly celebration of Maslenitsa leads to! And the celebration of Maslenitsa itself in the manner described above is a pagan affair. The pagans had a false god, the inventor of all drunken drinks, called Bacchus in Greek, or Dionysius, in Roman Liver, in Egyptian Osiris. The pagans instituted special annual holidays for this nasty god, which to this day are called bacchanals by their name. They spent these holidays in all sorts of riots, games, drunkenness and bad behavior. Look, isn’t that how Christians spend Maslenitsa, and how others celebrate holidays? There is no reason to show the light at noon, you see for yourself. And I also confirm that the one who spends Maslenitsa in the atrocities described above is an obvious criminal of the Church, and, as it were, stubbornly stands against it, and shows himself unworthy of the Christian name. Do you, listeners, know how Maslenitsa or Cheese Week is surrounded by days? What is its beginning and what is its end? It begins on the first day after the meat-free week, during which the Holy Church commemorates the Last Judgment of Christ in order to bring us into fear and feeling. Then the Holy Gospel preaches that “the Son of Man will come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him” (Matthew 25:31). That Terrible Judge will come, Who “tests hearts and bellies,” from whose anger and rage all creation will tremble, the sky will shake, the sun will go into darkness, and the moon will not give its light, the stars of heaven will fall, the mountains will melt, and hell itself will shake. Then they will say to the mountains: “Fall on us, and to the hills: cover us from the presence of Him who sits on the Throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb” (Luke 23:30; Rev 6:16). It is announced that then, before this Terrible Judge, all nations will gather and “will be separated from each other, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats” (Matthew 25:32). It seems that then the sheep, that is, the righteous, will be placed on the right side of that Terrible Judge, and the goats, that is, sinners, will be placed on the left side. Then the longed-for voice of the Righteous Judge is heard by those on the right side: “Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25:34). Then the thunder will roar and everyone will be trembled by the terrible saying of the angry Judge to those on His left: “Depart from Me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41). Then everyone imagines that the mansions of the Heavenly Father are opening in heaven, the adorned palaces of the King of glory appear, a great supper appears, endlessly entertaining, the glorious marriage of the Lamb is revealed, and a river of fire flows below, hell opens its mouth, eternal prisons are opened, places of weeping are shown, and it is seen that “these, that is, sinners, are going into eternal torment, the righteous unto eternal life” (Matthew 25:46). They walk, but not equally: some with inconsolable crying and sobbing, others with unspeakable joy. Then it is shown that “one is taken, and the other is left” (Matthew 24:40). The son is taken, but the father is left; the wife is taken, and the husband is left; the daughter is taken, but the mother is left; the slave is taken, but the master is left behind. Son and father, wife and husband, daughter and mother, brother and brother, are separated from each other, separated forever, but to different places: one is heaven, and the other is hell, one is the abode of the Heavenly Father, and the other is hell fire, one is the palace of the King of glory, and the other is the prison of the underworld. One enters into eternal life, and the other is given over to eternal death. One “goes to the joy of his Lord” (Matthew 25:21, 23), and the other to inconsolable weeping. One is in the sweet cohabitation of patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs and all saints, and the other inhabits with dark demons and similar sinners. One is kindly met and accepted by Angels, while the other is mercilessly attracted by evil spirits. “Then the righteous,” according to Christ’s word, “will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matthew 13:43). “Then they will receive a kingdom of splendor, and a crown of beauty from the hand of the Lord,” as Wisdom declares (Wis. 5:16). “They shall neither hunger nor thirst any more, neither shall the sun beat down on them nor any heat: for the Lamb who is in the midst of the Throne will feed them and lead them to living springs of water; and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes,” according to the revelation of Saint John the Theologian (Rev 7:16–17). Then the people of the Lord will “live in a dwelling of rest, and in safe churches, in excellent chambers,” according to the prophecy of Isaiah (Isaiah 32:18). Then God Himself promises to comfort them: “As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you” (Isaiah 66:13). And further: “My servants will eat and drink and shout for joy of heart” (Isaiah 65:13–14). Then “the redeemed of the Lord will return and come to Zion with a shout. Eternal joy will be on their heads, joy and gladness will come upon them, sickness, sorrow and sighing will flee away” (Isaiah 35:10). Then “the righteous will stand with much confidence and cry out for joy: Let my soul rejoice in the Lord, for He has clothed me with the robe of salvation and has clothed me with the robe of gladness, as He has laid a crown on me as a bridegroom, and has adorned me with beauty as a bride” (Isaiah 61:10). Then the sweet music of the righteous in the heavenly palace will finally begin, and God’s goodness will be praised forever and ever. O joy unspeakable! O endless joy! Then desperate sinners will begin their deplorable eternity, they will begin, and they will always, endlessly begin: “They will seek death... and flee from them” (Rev. 9:6). They will be overcome, firstly, with sadness and sighing that they have lost heavenly blessings, that they have lost sight of God, and that all these blessings have been lost for the sake of short-lived sweetness. To that sadness will be added an indescribable torment of the senses: fire surrounding and unbearably scorching outside and inside, demonic faces terrible for the eyes, screams, groans and gnashing of the tormented teeth terrible for the ears, smoke and stench unbearable for the nostrils, for the lips and tongue - an indescribable thirst. Thus, tormented sinners will feel the torment even more strongly because they will not have any consolation or easing of their illnesses, and forever and ever they will suffer incessantly in such misfortune: “their fire does not go out, and the worm does not go to sleep,” says Christ (Mark 9:44). Alas, trouble, alas, fear! This is what the day that precedes Cheese Week represents to us! Oh, what a terrible day is coming! It seems that anyone can feel this and act more cautiously in the coming days for those who have at least a little care for their souls and believe that that terrible day will come. How will Cheese Week end? You yourself know that the week of the raw waste concludes, in which the holy Church remembers to us the fall and expulsion from paradise of our forefather Adam, and with him ourselves. Therefore, on this day we mourn our extreme misfortune. We then mourn that hour and day in which our race became a transgressor of God’s commandment, and began to anger the Most Good God. We mourn the day on which we were cursed by God’s justice, condemned to death, given over to corruption, expelled from paradise, deprived of that most beautiful beauty, removed from the God-created village, sent to this deplorable vale, “in the sweat of our brow” (Gen. 3:19) to look for bread for ourselves. With our utmost regret we remember the time during which we were subject to all sorts of misfortunes, troubles, illnesses, infirmities, sadness, and sighing. We are still crying, remembering that hour in which we lost the image of God, that indescribable beauty, and became equal to senseless beasts, and became like them (Ps. 48:13), in which, finally, death began to reign over us. Ah, what a sad memory! What a pathetic memory! What a sad day Maslenitsa ends! We remember the beginning of all troubles and evils on that day. You see, listeners, what days are Maslenitsa celebrated? One day we are offered weeping, and another day fear; one is the beginning of the Fall, and the other represents eternal torment for sin; one recalls that we angered God with sin, and the other predicts that the angry God will judge for that sin and “reward everyone according to his deeds” (Matthew 16:27). You see, listeners, what Cheese Week is and what its circumstances are, and how indecent to Christianity those who spend it in drunkenness and other outrages do. Therefore, in order to conduct it according to the Christian position, one must act in it as the above-mentioned circumstances require, and the Holy Church orders, namely: to put aside all the indecent amusements that have crept in, about which a little has been said above, and to abolish the evil custom, remembering the Last Judgment of Christ and remembering the forefathers' fall, and for this all the troubles that followed. We need to get behind, I repeat again, we need to get behind in advance from the fact that when the soul leaves the body, our conscience will torment and torment. If we now abandon evil customs, then we will leave them of our own free will. And if we don’t leave them now, then at death they will already be us, and when we no longer want them, they will leave us when we can no longer fulfill them. But then the conscience will be armed, which will denounce, torment, torment that they did not listen to the useful admonition. Then there will be the torture of the Last Judgment of God. Then there will be sorrow, sadness, illness, melancholy, sighing, despair of eternal life. Then there will be the trembling and horror of Gehenna. Then there will be true repentance, but it will be too late. Pay attention to this, sinner, and I say again: pay attention, so that this does not befall you. Have pity on yourself, for God cares about you when these and similar cases are sent to you. However, if anyone, according to the long-standing custom, does not want to correct himself, then let him know, and before you, listeners, I will testify that according to my position, as best I could, I declared and declare: it is bad and sinful in the above-mentioned disorders, although all days, but especially Cheese Week, as the eve of a holy fast, and celebrate other holidays in such atrocities. And besides, I conclude with the words of the great teacher of the universe, the Apostle of Christ Paul, that “we must all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ, so that each one may receive according to what he did while living in the body, good or bad. Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we warn people” (2 Cor 5:10-11). Amen. Word on the Exaltation of the Honest Cross “Those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal 5:24). Christ, the Son of God, taught us in His holy Gospel what we must do in order to be saved. And what he taught in word, he showed in action. He taught humility, and humbled himself: “He humbled himself, becoming obedient even to the point of death, even death on the cross,” says the apostle (Phil 2:8). He then showed us an image of deepest humility when he was not ashamed to wash the feet of His holy disciples and apostles (John 13:5-7). He taught poverty: and He Himself, “being rich, for our sakes He became poor, that we through His poverty might become rich,” says the same apostle (2 Cor 8:9); and He testifies of Himself that “the Son of Man has no place to lay His head” (Matthew 8:20). He taught patience and endured it himself. For His entire holy life from birth to death was nothing but patience, as one who reads the Holy Gospel can see. He taught us to love our enemies and He Himself loved us, His enemies, so much that He did not even refuse to die for us. He taught everyone to wear their own cross: “If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me” (Matthew 16:24), and He Himself carried the cross throughout His entire life. So in everything else that he taught, he showed the image in himself. So, if anyone wants to be Christ’s and be a participant with Christ in His endless kingdom, he must certainly follow His footsteps, must humble himself, must endure, must “love his enemies, do good to those who hate, bless those who curse” (Matthew 5:44), must bear his cross, must finally “crucify the flesh with its passions and lusts” (Gal 5:24), must “put off the old,” according to the apostle, or the carnal man, and “put on the new,” or the spiritual (Col. 3:9–10). But in order for us to better understand this teaching, I will tell you in this short word what the old or carnal man is, and what the new or spiritual man is, with such an intention that everyone can judge for himself what kind of man he is, carnal or spiritual, to whom he will follow and conform, whether to the old Adam or the New, that is, to Christ. I ask you to listen with diligence: this is matter that is useful to the soul and pleasant to those who want to be saved. In a Christian, two laws are found: the law of the mind and the law of the members, as the holy Apostle Paul depicted: “But I see in my members,” he says, “another law, warring against the law of my mind” (Rom. 7:23); or, as the same apostle says: “flesh and spirit.” “The flesh,” he said, “desires what is contrary to the spirit, and the spirit what is contrary to the flesh” (Gal. 5:17). These two laws, the law of the flesh and the law of the mind, or flesh and spirit, always fight with each other. What one wants, the other turns away. What one commands, the other forbids. What one creates, the other destroys. What the flesh chooses, the spirit turns away from, and what the spirit wants, that the flesh does not want. The flesh wants to be proud and boastful, but the spirit wants to be humble. The flesh wants to be in glory and honor, but the spirit considers all this to be rubbish. The flesh wants to be rich, but the spirit wants to be poor. The flesh wants to calm down, but the spirit wants to stay awake and work. The flesh wants to celebrate, get drunk, and have fun, but the spirit wants to abstain, fast, and lament about sins. The flesh wants to take revenge on its enemy, and the spirit wants to love enemies, do good to those who hate, and bless those who curse. The flesh wants to please itself, but the spirit wants to please its neighbor for the good. The flesh wants to steal the things of others, and the spirit wants to give away its own. The flesh wants to follow its will in everything, and the spirit wants to follow the will of God. So, there is constant warfare between the flesh and the spirit. And from these opposite desires arises a twofold wisdom, or action, carnal and spiritual. Carnal wisdom is when one thinks or does what the flesh wants. And spiritual wisdom is when one thinks about what the spirit wants. And whoever philosophizes something is called such a person. He who philosophizes in a carnal way is called a carnal man and is such, and he who philosophizes in a spiritual way is called spiritual. Or, to put it simply, whoever listens to the flesh and obeys it is a carnal man, and whoever follows the spirit and subdues the flesh to the spirit is a spiritual man. But just as the flesh and the spirit are opposite to each other, so the actions of the carnal and spiritual man are not at all similar, even opposite. The whole mind and plans of a carnal man are directed only towards acquiring the temporary, but a spiritual man always strives for the eternal. A carnal man passes his title for his own temporary profit, but a spiritual man works to expand the glory of God and the benefit of his neighbor. A carnal man, if he does something worthy of praise, seeks reward in this century, but a spiritual man in the next century expects reward from God for virtue. Although a carnal man does something praiseworthy, he does it for the sake of vanity and the acquisition of vain glory, but a spiritual man extends all his intentions to the glory of God and the hope of eternal life. The carnal man is proud of everyone, he is proud, no one is equal to him, he puts himself above everyone, he despises everyone, but the spiritual man humbles himself before God and people. A carnal man does not tolerate contempt, but a spiritual man readily accepts it. The natural man blasphemes the one who blasphemes, the one who reproaches he reproaches, the one who slanderes, he hates the one who hates, but the spiritual man, being blasphemed, is comforted, being persecuted, he endures, he blesses the one who curses, he does good to the one who hates (1 Cor 4:12-13; Matt 5:44). A carnal man does not love his neighbor, but a spiritual man does not withdraw his love from his enemies. A carnal man remembers malice and seeks revenge for a small offense, but a spiritual man prays for those who take their lives: “Lord, do not put this sin on them.” A carnal man acts insidiously, flatteringly, cunningly with everyone, but a spiritual man is simple-hearted towards everyone. A carnal man robs, abducts, steals, but a spiritual man gives what is his to those who demand it. The carnal man is irreconcilable, but the spiritual man “is at peace with those who hate the world” (Ps 119:6). A carnal man follows unclean inclinations and lusts, but a spiritual man is devoted to purity and chastity. A carnal man always uses his mind for his own gain or for the ruin of his neighbor, but a spiritual man puts all his efforts into the building of his brethren. And therefore, a carnal person is harmful to society, but a spiritual person is useful. A carnal man regards every sin as nothing, but a spiritual man flees from every sin, even the slightest, as from the face of a serpent. A carnal man places his hope in honor, wealth, in his strength, in his patrons, but a spiritual man places his hope in the help of the Most High and the merciful Providence of his Creator. A carnal person is very afraid of losing honor, wealth and being expelled, but a spiritual person willingly or generously shows himself ready for all this. The carnal man does not want to part with this light, but the spiritual man joyfully desires to be freed from bodily bonds. So, the wisdom of a carnal man is pride and arrogance, but that of a spiritual man is humility. Carnal - voluptuousness, intemperance, but spiritual - sobriety, abstinence. Carnal - love of money, spiritual - love of poverty. Carnal - fornication, uncleanness, spiritual - chastity, purity. The carnal is grumbling and slander, the spiritual is patience and silence. Carnal - enmity and quarrel, spiritual - peace and silence. Carnal - malice and vengeance, spiritual - meekness and unforgettable malice. Carnal - laziness, spiritual - hard work. Carnal - flattery, deceit, deception, spiritual - simplicity and sincerity. Carnal - robbery, theft, theft; spiritual - generosity, alms. Carnal - care about the vain, spiritual - about the eternal. The carnal has sin in deed, word and thought: he sins in deed, in word he sins and in thought he sins; in the spiritual there is virtue in deed, in word there is virtue and in thought there is virtue. In a word, the carnal man is superior to all cattle and beasts in natural malice. He is more cunning than a fox, more merciless than a wolf, more proud than a peacock, more voracious than a pig, more poisonous than a viper, more fierce than a bear. Whatever vices and wickedness there are in all beasts or cattle, they are almost all found in every carnal person. So the carnal man is evil, so corrupt outside and inside. For all its members are weapons of unrighteousness: the mind is used for deception, the body for pride and uncleanness, the tongue for blasphemy and slander, the eyes for seeing what is not like, the ears for listening to slander, condemnation, foul songs and fables, the hands for theft. The word of God fearfully describes our corrupted nature and shows us to ourselves, as in a mirror. “There is none righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; no one seeks God; all have turned aside from the path, one and all are worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. Their larynx is an open tomb; they deceive with their tongue; the poison of asps is on their lips. Their lips are full of slander and bitterness. Their feet are quick to shed blood; destruction and destruction are in their ways; they do not know the way of the world. There is no fear of God before their eyes” (Rom 3:10–18). This is a picture of the carnal, natural, old man. With the spiritual, the new, enlightened by the spirit of God, everything is the other way around. Finally, the apostle declares the works of the flesh: “adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, quarrels, envy, wrath, dissensions, divisions, temptations, heresies, hatred, murders, drunkenness, disorderly conduct, and the like” (Gal 5:19-21). The same apostle counts the fruits of the spiritual: “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control” (Gal. 5:22-23). Вот, слушатель, видишь, какое мудрование или действие плотского, и какое духовного человека. From these actions you can see that in the carnal man sin lives and reigns over him, but in the spiritual man the grace of God reigns. And from here it follows that carnal man is in the wrath of God, for “carnal wisdom,” according to the word of the apostle, “is enmity against God; for he is not subject to the law of God” (Rom. 8:7), but the spiritual is in His mercy: “There is now no condemnation for those,” says the same apostle, “who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit” (Rom. 8:1). But just as the actions of a carnal and spiritual person are different and their lives are not the same, so the death is not similar, and after death there is a future state. For a carnal man, death is cruel, but for a spiritual man it is peaceful. For a carnal person, death is sad, but for a spiritual person it is joyful. For a carnal person, death is sad, but for a spiritual person it is sweet. A carnal man, dying temporarily, dies eternally: “carnal wisdom is death,” says the holy apostle, but a spiritual man through his death passes to eternal life, for spiritual wisdom is life and peace” (Rom. 8:6). The carnal man moves from labors, troubles, sorrows, sorrows to great labors, troubles and sorrows, but the spiritual man moves from sorrow to joy, from sorrow to consolation, from troubles to bliss, from labors to eternal peace. For the carnal - hell, Gehenna, but for the spiritual, heaven will be a dwelling. The carnal is with the devil and his angels into eternal fire, but the spiritual is infused with Christ, Whom he diligently served, into eternal joy. Both will receive “according to their deeds which they did while they lived in the body” (2 Cor 5:10). So you see, listener, what it is, a carnal and a spiritual man. You see the deeds of both of them, and according to their deeds you see the reward. Well, based on these above-mentioned and other similar actions, you can judge about yourself: who you are and what kind of person you are, carnal or spiritual. If you act according to the law of the spirit and think spiritually, then you are a spiritual person. If you live according to the flesh and think according to the flesh, then you are a carnal man. And if you are carnal, but want to be saved forever, then you must certainly reject this yoke and leave behind carnal wisdom, because, as the apostle teaches: “Carnal wisdom is death, because carnal wisdom is enmity against God, - and you must take up spiritual wisdom, which is life and peace” (Rom. 8:6-7), as the same apostle teaches. Thus you will be changed by the grace of God from the old to the new, from the carnal to the spiritual man. But at the same time, know that the flesh will always rebel against you with passions and lusts and subdue you under its yoke, but you resist it with the weapon of the spirit. So, if she rises up against you with pride and arrogance, arm yourself with the spirit of humility, remember that you “will go from earth to earth” (Genesis 3:19). If she struggles with the lust of adultery and impurity, arm yourself with the spirit of purity and chastity; if by the lust of love of money and avarice, resist with the spirit of non-covetousness and poverty; if by the lust of sensuality, intemperance and drunkenness, resist with the spirit of abstinence and sobriety; if the lust of theft and theft, resist with the spirit of generosity and mercy; If it is the lust of vengeance, resist with a spirit of meekness and gentleness. So in other things, subdue the flesh to the spirit, calling for help on the One whose name you bear on yourself—Jesus Christ. This feat against the passionate flesh is not, as people of the present century believe, only for monks and desert dwellers, but for all Christians. Appears to Tsars and princes, nobles and boyars, famous and non-famous people, military leaders and mayors, commanders and warriors, masters and slaves, rich and poor, married and unmarried, husbands and wives, old and young, healthy and weak, happy and unhappy - in a word, everyone who wants to be saved, one must enter into this feat and struggle as much as one has the strength, with the help of God. For “flesh and blood,” according to the apostle, “cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor 15:50). And those sitting in a high place need this feat all the more in order to be an example to their subordinate brethren, and to strengthen and strengthen the weak-hearted and weak as an example of their patience. Difficult, I admit, difficult, this feat, listener! For to overcome one’s nature, to overcome one’s natural anger, requires a great feat. In addition, the passionate world of the flesh with charms and temptations, the enemy of our souls, the devil, helps with his intrigues. So, I repeat, it is difficult to struggle against the flesh, but glorious victory. Many defeated great states, numerous peoples, the strong destroyed cities, but they submitted to their passionate flesh, and remained its poor captives. But although this feat is difficult, it is nevertheless very necessary. This path is narrow and regrettable, but it is the only one that leads to eternal life. There is no one in heaven who does not walk this way. Through them the prophets, apostles, saints and priests, the brightest martyrs, reverend fathers and hermits reached the heavenly Fatherland and eternal rest. If they could struggle, so can you. They won, so can you. For just as the Master and Leader Jesus Christ Himself, our Most Merciful Intercessor, helped them in this feat, so He helps you too. He helps you when He enlightens your inner eyes with His holy word. He helps you when He threatens you with “unquenchable fire and never-dying worm” for disobedience (Mark 9:48). He helps you when, for your obedience, He promises you eternal blessings, which “no eye has seen, nor ear has heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, the things that God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Cor 2:9). It helps you when, through preachers and teachers, it exhorts you to conversion. Helps you when he sends troubles, misfortunes, sorrows, hunger, poverty, illnesses upon you. Чувствуешь Его помощь, когда ощущаешь в себе память смертную, когда на ум тебе приходит, что ты «земля и в землю пойдешь» ( Быт.3:19 ). You feel His help when you feel the fear of Gehenna and eternal torment. You feel His help whenever the desire for heavenly blessings comes. You feel His help when for sin you feel sorrow and sorrow, for virtue you feel peace and joy within yourself. You feel His help when your conscience is in troubles, misfortunes, unjustly inflicted, comforts. You finally feel His help when inside you you hear His sweet voice, awakening you: “Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead” (Eph. 5:14), and calling to Himself: “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). So, you too, having such a Great Helper, can strive whenever you want. But if you want eternal life, acquired by the death of Christ, you absolutely must receive it. Amen. Homily on the Day of the Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Church “Jesus came to a certain village; here a wife named Martha received Him into her home; she had a sister named Mary, who sat at the feet of Jesus and listened to His word” (Luke 10:38–39). The Son of God, our Savior, wandering through the earth for the sake of our salvation, and moving from city to city, from village to village, and scattering the seed of His saving teaching in the fields of human hearts, came to a certain village, in which a certain pious wife, named Martha, received Him into her home with great joy. Wanting to treat the kind and desired Guest, she tried in every possible way to please Him better. The Son of God, since he came into the world for this purpose, to reveal the will of the Heavenly Father and to preach the Gospel of the kingdom, did not fail to preach the word of God in that house. The reverent Martha had a most reverent sister named Mary, who, abandoning all household care, with which wives are busy in such cases, and sitting down at the red feet of the Savior, eagerly began to listen to the word of God. What do you, listeners, think about these two Christ-loving sisters: which of them served Christ more, Martha or Mary? Martha tried to treat the Savior, Mary joined in listening to Christ’s sermon with all her heart. I think that many will praise Martha’s work more than Mary’s. It seems so to me too, since Martha tried, worked, and worried in order to please the pleasant Guest, but Mary did not work, she only enjoyed listening to the word of God. Therefore, Martha, indignant at her sister Mary, complained to Christ: “Lord! Or do you not need that my sister left me alone to serve? Tell her to help me." But do you hear that Christ says to Martha, who is so anxious: Martha! Marfa! You worry and fuss about many things, but only one thing is needed,” and further added: “Mary chose the good, that is, the best, part” (Luke 10:40–42). So we see that Christ did not determine in our opinion, he praised the efforts of Mary more than Martha: “Mary chose the good part, which will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:42). Martha’s efforts were commendable in that she tried to entertain Christ, but Mary’s efforts were more commendable because she diligently listened to the word of God. Martha cared about bodily things, and Mary cared about spiritual treats, so Christ was more pleased with Mary’s efforts than with Martha. For it is as pleasing to Him as sweet food, if someone listens to His holy word with reverence and zeal. And when Christ so praises Mary’s zeal in listening to the word of God, he teaches us to imitate the same spiritual zeal. So, imitating the efforts of the God-loving Mary, we, the listeners, will also learn from the word of God, about which we will now compose our conversation. This is what the current celebration demands, which is being organized by the Holy Church of the Most Holy Mother of the Son of God who appeared on earth. Now She has entered the church of God into the Holy of Holies, so that She may become a holy church and dwelling place for the incarnate Hypostatic Word of God. This matter, since it is proposed about the word of God, itself requires diligent attention. So listen. Our conversation will continue in three points: 1) That from ignorance of the word of God there are all sorts of errors and vices that it exposes. 2) Consequently, it is necessary for everyone who wants to live according to the will of God. 3) How you should listen to him. First point. A person who has lost his eyes or walks in the deepest darkness does not know where he is going, does not foresee where he will be harmed, often falls into a pit, often stumbles, and is exposed to all sorts of dangerous situations, because he does not have the light that shows the right path, does not see filth and vice on himself, even if he is all dirty. So a person who does not have a mind enlightened by the word of God suffers similar or even greater evil. For he, darkened by the darkness of ignorance, does not see the true and saving path, he constantly stumbles, often falls, and the poorer he is because he does not feel his fall. He is all stained with vices, but he is all the more damned because he does not see them, he always sins, and does not recognize his sins. Do you want, listeners, to know this truth reliably, that such a poor state occurs from ignorance of the word of God? I will give you some examples of this, which you can definitely verify if you listen diligently. A stingy and most harmful vice is drunkenness, the cause of many physical and mental evils. Physical, because it deprives the body of its natural strength and exposes it to all sorts of diseases. Nothing destroys the soul like drunkenness. For from drunkenness come quarrels, fights, foul language, disorderly shouts, godless songs, carnal incitement and shameful carnality and other countless temptations that bring obvious destruction to the soul. That’s why Saint John Chrysostom teaches that no one is loved by the devil more than someone who is drunk. And truly this is true: no one fulfills his evil will like a drunkard. For what a sober man does not do, a drunk man dares to do. A person possessed by this passion is already almost in the grave, but does not feel it. He dies, but does not know death. He drowns in sinful connections, but does not try to free himself. He rolls around in the mud like a pig, but doesn’t want to wash himself, and is indignant at those who want to lead him out of this abyss. But the word of God against this vice thunders terribly: “Do not be deceived: neither fornicators, nor drunkards, etc., will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor 6:9-10). Many people have a bad custom: they treat their guests so much that when they go home, they no longer recognize the road they took to visit. For such a treat, both an intense request and low bows became a custom. And the evil and carnivorous human cunning has also invented a kind guise, with which malice, like poison with honey, is covered up: “We’ll drink to the health of both of them!”, as if the one who is being remembered received increased health from this frequent congratulation. Many people consider this custom harmful to the soul not only as a sin, but also as a courtesy, as if the treat was not a treat when you don’t get the guest drunk. Ah, blinding! Ah, fury! Ah, the beauty of the murderer-devil! Listen, listeners, in what a dangerous state these polite people find themselves, and they bring those who are treated so inhumanely into the same state. First. A drunk man dares to do all kinds of evil, introduces all sorts of temptations, as said above. A participant in all these iniquities is the one who treated him so politely, since a sober person would not show such temptations. For even that small spark of reason that shines in the sober is completely extinguished in the drunk. Although the sober person is drawn by lust towards lawlessness, his conscience is armed, resists, and leads him away from lawlessness. But when drunk, lust already overcomes, and conscience weakens. Second. From these polite and poisonous treats a person comes into a drunken passion, in which he becomes so hardened that he cannot free himself from it. And it often happens that he is in this most miserable insensibility and ends his life without hope of salvation. How the culprit of this death and his imaginary benefactor, or rather the villain, is being judged. Since whoever opens the way to destruction is guilty of that destruction. Third. This polite man can also cause a shortening of life. For from drunkenness, to which he leads with his politeness, illness follows, and from illness - death. Fourth. A person who is corrupted by this courtesy, both to his family: father, mother, wife, children and friends, is extremely intolerable, and for the Fatherland he becomes useless for nothing. Behold, listeners, this courtesy is the culprit of so many evils! But the word of God warns us against this vice, saying: “Do not get drunk with wine, which causes fornication” (Eph 5:18). Many are accustomed to condemning and slandering their neighbors, and do not see their own vice in this; but how gravely they sin, I show in the following paragraphs. Firstly, these judges, judging their neighbor, thereby show themselves to be righteous before people, as the Pharisee of the Gospel did. This shows their pride, godless and pharisaical hypocrisy. Secondly, it often happens that the one who condemns is guilty of greater and many sins than the one he condemns. This is what Christ denounces, speaking about him like this: “And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not feel the beam in your own eye? Hypocrite! First take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:3, 5). Christ calls a lesser sin a bitch, but a greater sin a log. And truly, a righteous person is extremely careful from this sin. For, seeing a brother sinning, he not only does not condemn, but also regrets his spiritual misfortune. And at the same time he prays to God, the lover of mankind, to deliver him from this devil’s network, knowing that everyone is equally susceptible to falling. Thirdly, we often see the sin of our neighbor, but do not see repentance. He sinned against us, but after leaving us, or perhaps at that very hour, he repented. For it is convenient for a person to fall, especially from weakness, by the grace of God he rises. This rebellion, since it happens inside, in contrition of the heart, is therefore invisible to us. Fourthly, many people who consider the honor and glory of this world as nothing and seek glory from the one God are sinners before us, but the whole world is unworthy of them. And therefore it often happens that whomever we condemn, God will justify. Whomever we count as a sinner is righteous before God. Whomever we consider God's enemy is God's beloved friend. Whom we dishonor and revile with our slander, God Himself honors. Whomever we curse, God blesses: “They will curse, but You will bless,” says the Psalmist (Ps 109:28). Oh, woe to us, the accursed, when these, in our crazy opinion, sinners, whom we are now unjustly judging, will appear in the kingdom of the Heavenly Father in the face of the righteous, and we, the lawless judges, will already be righteously judged before the whole world: “Then the righteous will become bold in many ways in the face of those who insulted him and sweep away his labors,” says the Wisdom of God (Wisdom 5:1). Then those who have seen such a glorious change will certainly tremble. “When they see it, they will be dismayed with great fear and horrified by his glorious salvation, and they will say within themselves, repenting and sighing in distress of spirit: “This is the one who was once among us as a mockery and a parable of reproach; crazy, we considered his life to be fury and his death dishonorable. How is he numbered among the sons of God and his lot with the saints? So, we have strayed from the path of truth, and the light of righteousness has not shined upon us, and the sun has not shined for us,” the same Wisdom says (Wis. 5:2-6). Fifthly, even if the one you condemn was truly a sinner, and you are righteous, what does it matter to you if he does this and that? “Who are you, judging another man’s slave? Before his Lord he stands, or he falls. And he will be raised up, for God is able to raise him up,” - this is how the apostle denounces you in his letter to the Romans (Rom. 14:4). Where does your truth come from? “You were conceived in iniquity, and in sins your mother gave birth to you” (Ps. 50:7). And if you have anything good, it is God’s, not yours. If God takes His own from you, then you will only have your sins, and so you will remain the same sinner. For man, as the apostle teaches, cannot only do, but even think of himself anything good. Sixth, finally, these saints and unrighteous judges, by their judgment, steal for themselves the dignity of Christ, the Son of God, Who alone will judge the whole world and will reward everyone according to his deeds: “We must all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ,” says the Apostle (2 Cor. 5:10). What terrible boldness and shamelessness this is, anyone can see. But the word of God denounces these unrighteous judges, saying: “Judge not, lest ye be judged” (Matthew 7:1). And again: “Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned” (Luke 6:37). For many, it has become an evil custom to add the great and terrible name of God to every word: “God knows, God knows!” Others, according to that terrible custom, say something, swear by the same terrible name, even if the deed itself does not require it somehow: “By God.” "God is the Witness." "God sees." "That's why God." “That’s why Christ,” and so on, and they don’t feel their vice in that. And when they open their inner eyes, they will see that they are showing great disrespect for the name of God. But Scripture rebukes such people, saying: “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; For the Lord will not leave unpunished those who take His name in vain” (Exodus 20:7). Many do not consider it a vice to talk idlely and laugh unruly, but Christ says: “I tell you that for every idle word that people speak, they will give an answer on the day of judgment” (Matthew 12:36). And to those who laugh, even more, it thunders: “Woe to you who laugh now! For you will mourn and lament” (Luke 6:25). For many, their minds are occupied only with how to seek praise from people, and they do not admit their vice in this, but Christ says to them: “How can you believe when you receive glory from one another, but do not seek the glory that comes from the One God” (John 5:44), placing them among the unbelievers. Some people don’t consider being satisfied or overeating as anything, Christ says: “Woe to you, you who are now full! For you will hunger” (Luke 6:25). All these and similar sinful customs entered into us from ignorance and misunderstanding of the word of God. This is what I told you about the first point. From the above, you can also understand what is contained in the second paragraph, that is, that the word of God needs to be known to those who want to live according to the will of God, discern their vices and cleanse themselves from them. For in the word of God “the will of God, good and perfect,” is revealed (Rom. 12:2). And anyone who wants to do the will of God needs to know what it is. It is impossible to know unless one diligently studies in the word of God, in which it is revealed. How can one carry out the will of the monarch if one does not know the decrees in which it is expressed? How can one live according to the will of God, without knowledge of the word of God, in which it is revealed? This is why the holy word of God has been given to us, so that we can learn from it and thus direct our lives according to the will of God, for the apostle says: “All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim 3:16-17). Why does Christ Himself order to test it: “Search the Scriptures, for through them you think that you have eternal life; and they testify of Me” (John 5:39). The Lord commands us to continually study His law, as it is written in the book of Joshua: “Let not the book of this law depart from your mouth, and let you study in it day and night, so that you may understand how to do everything that is written; then you will prosper, and you will straighten your ways, and then you will understand” (Joshua 1:8). Holy Scripture is like a candle shining in a dark place, which gives light to those who walk in the darkness of this world, so that they do not stumble: “Your law is a lamp to my feet and a light to my paths” (Ps 119:105). Holy Scripture is a firm spiritual rule by which we must conduct our lives, and what is not in accordance with it must be changed and corrected. It is like a guidebook, showing us the right path leading to God, our Creator, the Source of all good things. It is like a spiritual mirror that shows vices to our soul, so that, having recognized them, we can cleanse them through repentance. Finally, it is like an incense pharmacy, which contains various treatments for mental illnesses. If anyone suffers from the illness of pride and arrogance, he will find there an appropriate cure for his weakness. There he, seeing that “everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 14:11), will stand on the same side with the humble publican and, not daring to lift his eyes to heaven, will groan about his sins. Is anyone suffering from the disease of love of money, there, having heard this voice of God: “You fool! This night your soul will be taken from you; who will get what you have prepared? (Luke 12:20), he will be terrified and healed. If anyone is faint-hearted, he will receive healing from there. If anyone doubts anything, he will go away confirmed. Whether someone suffers from an illness of unbelief, there he will acquire faith. Whether anyone is overcome by despair, there he will find the hope of God’s mercy, known to all repentant sinners. There he will see that the Merciful Heavenly Father, with open arms, receives to Himself fornicators, adulterers, publicans, robbers and other great sinners who come to Him with a broken heart, and orders all the heavenly Powers to rejoice at their conversion. “There is joy in heaven among the angels of God over one sinner who repents,” says Christ (Luke 15:10), encouraging us, the faint-hearted, with this mercy. In a word, anyone who has any mental weakness will find undoubted healing there, if only he approaches with the right heart. For Scripture enlightens the mind in faith, prepares the will to do good deeds, resurrects and roots hope, and so the three theological virtues: faith, hope and love, without which it is impossible for a person to be saved, implants them in our hearts with the help of Him who, in His goodness, deigned to impart them for our spiritual benefit. So, listeners, we see how we need the word of God. Now let’s see how one should listen to it, or read it for oneself. If we want to either listen to or read God’s word with spiritual benefit, we need to cleanse our hearts of all obstacles that do not allow God’s word to be contained within it. A sponge that has been watered cannot take in anything until what it has been given is squeezed out. Likewise, the human heart, occupied with various lusts and concerns, cannot admit and accommodate God’s words. So, if we want to learn profitably from the word of God, we must observe the following. Firstly, so that our heart is not the path of various lusts and vain thoughts, on which the birds of the air eat the sown word of God (Matthew 13:4), that is, the spirits of wickedness in high places steal away. Secondly, so that our heart is not made of stone, and therefore insensitive, so that the seed sown by the word of God does not dry up due to the sadness of worldly cares (Matthew 13:5-6). Thirdly, so that it is not surrounded by thorns of the love of money, covetousness, lust and other whims, with which the all-spoken word of God is suppressed and becomes useless (Matthew 13:7). Fourthly, therefore, the land must be good for him, so that it can bear fruit a hundredfold, or sixtyfold, or at least thirtyfold (Matthew 13:8). So, having cleansed and prepared the heart, we must begin to listen to the word of God with fear and joy. With fear - thinking about the majesty of Him by whom it was given, for He is God, the Heavenly King. With joy - thinking about the goodness of Him, who through His holy word deigned to talk with us, the poor, the needy and the outcast, and did not disdain to send His Scripture to us, as a friend sends a letter to his friend. And what kind of joy there should be, which I am talking about here, note from the following. When the earthly Monarch writes a letter from himself to someone, do you know with what joy, joy and delight the person who receives it reads the letter? How many times he reads it, kisses it, almost never lets it out of his hands, he consoles himself with it day and night, he boasts about it to his neighbors and friends: “The Emperor has honored me with his writing.” And truly, there is something to boast about, since this is a sign of the monarch’s considerable respect and love for his slave. This shows that the monarch favors him more than others, as his faithful one. The Heavenly Monarch, our God and Creator, sent His writings to man through the prophets and apostles, like a letter to His friend, in which He revealed His will, in which He declared Himself, Who He is, and how He loves, preserves, and leads to man; in it He calls him to Himself and into communion with Himself, promising with Him an eternal heavenly kingdom and inexpressible joy in heaven. So, read and listen, man, to this Scripture, written for your person. Read it as a letter from the King of Heaven, sent to you by God and your Creator, as a sign of His love and mercy towards you - and so you will certainly read or listen to the word of God with joy and great consolation. And moreover, pray diligently with the holy David to his Creator, saying: “Lord, open my eyes, that I may understand the wonders of Your law” (Ps 119:18). So your prayer will be a conversation with God, and your reading or listening to God’s word will be God’s conversation with you. Through prayer you will talk to God and offer your petition, and God, through His holy word, will answer you, teach, exhort, instruct, admonish, and console you. Sweet and desirable conversation! Wonderful conversation! God is with man, the Creator is with his creation, the Lord is talking with his servant. So, when you begin to listen to the word of God, take as an example the pious Mary, whom I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, who abandoned all household care, and “sitting down at the feet of Jesus, listened to His word” (Luke 10:39). Amen. Word on the name day of Her Imperial Majesty, Empress Catherine the Second 4 “Give everyone their due” (Rom 13:7). This is a short commandment, listeners, of the holy and wise teacher, the Apostle of Christ Paul. A short commandment, but it contains everything to which we are obliged: “give everyone their due.” This is what the whole law, written by the finger of God, teaches. All prophets preach about this. He is taught by the Gospel and the preachers of the Gospel, the holy apostles. Church teachers and God-bearing Fathers exhort this. For this purpose, preachers of the word of God always work. The shepherds of Christ’s verbal sheep are sick and asking for this. All royal rights and laws incline towards this. This confirms and tells everyone inside, on the tablets of their hearts, the written law: “give everyone their due.” This due, which a person is obliged to give, is threefold: duty to God, duty to oneself, duty to one’s neighbor. We are brought to these duties, written both by natural law and by God, by the pious decrees of the Monarchs. Our solemnly honored birthday girl, Her Imperial Majesty, Empress Ekaterina Alekseevna, is also now involved in these duties. I will offer your pious congregation a brief conversation about two duties, that is, about the duty to God and about the duty to one’s neighbor, which consists of the following points: 1) What we must render to God, our Creator, and who sins against this duty. 2) What should we render to our neighbor, that is, to every person, and who resists this duty. 3) How badly the one who does not fulfill these duties does. This matter itself requires attention. Listen with attention and reasoning, and cement it in your memory, and do not fail to announce it to your children and family. May the Lord give you reason about everything, and the will that follows reason. The duty to God is described in the first four commandments, according to which the following must be fulfilled. Firstly, this duty requires that we recognize with our hearts and confess with our lips that there is only one God, Beginningless, Infinite, Immortal, Almighty, Omniscient, Most Good, having all perfections and providing for everyone. People who sin against this duty are: 1) Atheists who do not recognize any God. 2) Those who, although they recognize God, are driven away from Him by their actions. They confess God with their lips, but deny it with their hearts, about which the psalmist says: “The fool said in his heart: “There is no God”” (Ps 13:1). 3) Polytheists who worship many gods, such as pagans. 4) Those who do not recognize God’s Providence for creation. 5) Magi, sorcerers, spellcasters, whisperers, conspirators and those who call them to themselves and seek help from them. 6) Superstitions, who look for idle signs based on certain things or persons, or attribute some kind of power to them, and others like them. Secondly, this duty requires that we believe everything that God has revealed to us in His Holy Scripture, for “the Lord is faithful in all His words” (Ps 145:13). Those who sin against this duty are those who either do not believe the Holy Scripture, or experience the incomprehensible mysteries of God, and repeat this word with the Jews: “How can this be” (John 3:9, 7:15), for the clearest sign of unbelief is to ask about God: “How?” – this is what one of the Holy Fathers said. Thirdly, this duty requires that we fear God and honor Him with the highest respect, that is, we should walk everywhere before Him, as Omnipresent and co-present with us everywhere, with fear and all reverence, following the example of how, standing before the earthly Monarch, we show ourselves. This requires us not to do anything contrary to His will, not to say anything, not only bad, but also idle, and not to think anything ungodly in our minds, for God penetrates into our minds, “and tests our hearts and bowels” (Ps. 7:10), and His name should be remembered with all reverence, and then only in the most necessary cases. They sin against this duty, and therefore do not pay fear and respect to God: 1) who are not afraid to violate His commandments either secretly or openly, and do all sorts of outrages; 2) who blaspheme wantonly, laugh and scream, sing inappropriate songs, gather for fist fights and fight each other madly and lawlessly; 3) who use foul language and idle talk; 4) they think bad, nasty, and vain things; 5) the name of God, according to an unworthy custom, is mentioned in all sorts of obscene conversations, such as: “God knows, God is the Witness, God sees, by God, according to the commandment of the Gospel,” and sometimes in jokes the terrible name of God - oh, a terrible and terrible thing! - the terrible name of God is used in jokes. 6) Those who openly spew blasphemies against God and His holy name, and others like them, especially sin against this duty. Fourthly, this duty requires that He alone, as the Good and the highest Benefactor, be loved more than all things, and stronger than ourselves. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind” (Matthew 22:37). So, those who sin against this duty are those who immensely love themselves or some other created thing, and are attached to it with all their hearts, so that they cannot leave it. These are those who have set their hearts on wealth, on vain glory, pleasing the flesh’s lusts, serving the belly, and so on. Fifthly, this duty requires that we place all our trust in Him alone and seek help from Him alone. So, those who, in other cases, resort to superiors, expect help from wealth, or rely on their own strength and rank, sin against this duty. This vain hope is clearly prohibited in Holy Scripture. “Do not trust,” it is said, “in princes, in the sons of men, in whom there is no salvation” (Ps 145:3). And again: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man,” says the prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 17:5). Because the one who relies either on honor, or on wealth, or on strength, or on his own reason, or on his benefactors, turns out to doubt the Providence of God, and therefore does not believe God. Sixthly, this duty requires that we glorify His holy name, imitating the heavenly Powers, and diligently give thanks for all His good deeds, and for this purpose we should gather in church for glorification, especially on holidays. So, those who sin against this duty are those who, having abandoned this pious work, either go hunting, or play cards at home, or are noisy and disorderly in taverns, or amuse themselves with other worldly things, or work without caring about the praise of God. Those landowners and others who force their peasants to work on holidays, or on other days so burden them with their work that they cannot even complete their own work on ordinary days, and therefore are forced, poor people, to work on holidays, and to look for what they need for themselves and their families, are very guilty of this duty. All these and those listed above, since they do not pay their due to their Creator, sin against His Majesty. And I told you this about what concerns the first point, that is, about duties to God. As for the duty that we must fulfill towards each other, Christ explained it in His Holy Gospel in the following words: “And whatever you want people to do to you, do so to them” (Luke 6:31). That is, what we want from our neighbors, we must do to them, and what we do not want from them, we must not do to them. We want them to love us, and we must love them. We don’t want them to offend us, and we shouldn’t offend them ourselves. This contains all six commandments of God about love for one’s neighbor. So, for example, if you want your children to honor you, by virtue of the fifth commandment, you yourself should honor your parents. And if you do not honor your father and mother, you are no longer fulfilling your duty, and you are sinning against the fifth commandment. And so you are subject to the terrible judgment of God, by which He sentenced such to death, saying: “Whoever curses his father or mother, let him die” (Exodus 21:16). And under the name of father, not only father by nature, but also all spiritual and secular power, such as: monarchs, shepherds, preachers, mayors, judges and others who care about public affairs. And if you do not honor them, you sin against your duty and break the fifth commandment. If you do not want anyone to harm you in any way, or kill you, or cause death, which happens either through advice, or through command, or through deprivation of health in some way, you should not do the same to your neighbor. And if you dare to do so, you are sinning against your duty. If you don’t want your neighbor to unlawfully touch your bed, beware of desecrating someone else’s bed and touching any uncleanness, otherwise you will become a transgressor of the law and fall under God’s judgment. You don’t want anyone to steal something from you, or take something away by force, or lure you out in some charming way, or find your lost thing and hide it, or deceive you in the goods or in the purchase, that is, a bad thing for a good one, or sell a cheap one for an expensive one, or commit some other kind of deception, and thereby offend you, so beware of showing such fury to your neighbor. If you don’t want anyone to falsely denounce you, or slander you, or condemn you, or slander your name, or damage your glory, or ridicule you in any way, then don’t do the same to your neighbor. For just as it is painful for you to endure false slander, condemnation, slander, ridicule, and reproach, so it is unbearable for your neighbor. If you do not want your neighbor to not only not cause offense by deed itself, but also not to want to do so, do not have an evil will or lust for the unrighteous, since not only an evil deed, but also evil lust is prohibited by the tenth commandment, which reads: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his village, nor his ox, nor anything that belongs to your neighbor” (Exodus 20:17), for lusts of evil and evil deeds happen. I told you about duty to your neighbor! Now we will proceed to the third part, and we will see how a person does bad things and sins gravely when he does not fulfill these duties. Firstly, it concerns the crime of duty to God. God is the Lord of all and the King of heaven and earth, possessing everyone, Who holds the whole world in His hand, and is extremely terrible, so that all creatures serve Him with fear and trembling. The angels and all the heavenly Powers of His glory tremble, and fulfill His will with all fear. A person, when he does not want to do His will, resists His command, then he shows himself to be disobedient and disobedient to such a terrible Lord and King, which is why all creation and all the holy Angels are indignant at him, jealous of the glory of their Creator and Lord. God is Righteous and rewards everyone according to his deeds. He did not spare even the Angels who sinned. For breaking the commandment, he banished the forefather Adam from paradise with his entire family. He brought a flood on the whole world for sins. He sent burning tar and brimstone as rain to Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities for their lawlessness. Even now He sends all sorts of punishments for sins, such as: pestilences, invasions of foreigners, shaking of the earth, bad weather, droughts, crop failures, and so on. And a person, when he is not afraid of His command to transgress and thereby anger Him, knowing His righteous judgment and vengeful hand, shows his extreme fearlessness and terrible fury. God loves man very much, so that for his sake he sent his Son into the world, as the Only Begotten Son of God Himself testifies, saying: “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). And when a person ruins the commandment of God, and, by ruining, angers Him, then he does not have love for God, and does not repay love for love, which shows extreme human untruth and shamelessness, since when we do not love those who love us, we do not give them what they deserve, that is, love for love, and thereby we commit untruth. Truth requires that we give everyone their due. “Give everyone their due.” God is our highest Benefactor. Whatever good a person has, he has from God. Whatever lives in the world comes from God. What he feels, he has from God. Whatever he is gifted with a verbal soul and a noble mind comes from God. The whole world, all God's creatures serve man by command. All the decorations of heaven, the sun, the moon, the stars, serve as God’s command to man. The air and everything floating in it serve God’s command to man. Seas, lakes, rivers and the fish living in them serve God’s command to man. The earth and everything on it, various livestock, animals, numerous trees, various types of herbs, serve God’s command to man. Moreover, God is long-suffering to a sinning person, and, being bowed down with extreme mercy, expects repentance from him. He miraculously raised the fallen man above all, saved the lost, what is God’s ineffable goodness and the Angels themselves praise: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men” (Luke 2:14)! They praise, I say, thereby prompting the person himself to give thanks. And when a person, like an insensitive tree or like a hard stone, does not thank his Great Benefactor and does not glorify His holy name, his extreme ingratitude is manifested, which is very annoying to God, as a Benefactor. For nothing vexes us more than to endure ingratitude. Behold, listeners, you see how vile a person becomes when he does not fulfill his duty to his Creator. What do you think? What kind of person would he be then if his inner, heartfelt eyes were clearly opened to him and he saw what state he is in when he appears as such before God, as I have partially described? That is, he would know that he is not afraid of the One Whom all the heavenly Powers are terrified of; does not listen to the One who “said and it was, commanded and it was created” (Ps 32:9), whose commands all creation obeys; does not honor Him whom the Seraphim do not dare to look upon; does not love Him who is “all desire and all sweetness” to those who love Him (Song 5:16); ungrateful to Him, whose blessings I am all filled with. I tell you for sure that then he would have trembled with horror, would have been covered with shame, and would have shed tears of regret. Then, out of shame, he would not have dared to look at the sun, which, by God’s command, illuminates him, the ungrateful one; he would walk with fear on the earth, which, the ungrateful one, holds him as God’s limit, and groans, aggravated by his ingratitude; He would not have touched the edge of the bread without the fear that feeds him as an ungrateful person; in a word, then he would have recognized himself as unworthy of both heaven and earth. Then it would be imprinted in his mind that all creation, serving the commandments of God, rebels against him, cries out to God, asks for vengeance. But if anyone is now deficient in regard to this duty, and does not feel and does not see his damnation, then I definitely declare to him that all this will be clearly revealed to him when these eyes are covered with mortal darkness. Then he will have to, and reluctantly, say goodbye to this beloved light. Then everyone has a righteous opinion about everything: then everyone will know what benefits honor, wealth, worldly pride, and voluptuousness bring, which are taken away from the Most Good God. Now, everyone, think about this and pray to Him who created the holy David: “Open my eyes, and I will understand the wonders of Your law.” And further: “I am a stranger on earth: do not hide Your commandments from me” (Ps 119:18–19)! And I will also add about how seriously those who sin against their duty to their neighbor, causing him all sorts of offenses, sin. First. Whoever offends his neighbor, that is, every person, destroys the commandment of God, which commands us not only not to offend, but also to love him as ourselves: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 19:19) - therefore such a person is a disobedient person to God. Second. God does every good and benefit to man, as stated above, but he who offends his neighbor does him evil and causes every harm. That is, what God creates, he destroys, therefore he is God’s opponent. Third. When a person shows bitterness to his neighbor, he becomes an accomplice of the devil, who does all sorts of nasty things to man. And so communicating with Satan, he arms himself against man. Fourth. He who offends his neighbor also offends God Himself, since every master considers as his own the offense inflicted on his slave. Every person is a servant of God, and his offense, as His servant, is imputed to Himself by God, as His Lord. Therefore, he threatens those who offend with vengeance: “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord” (Rom. 12:19). Fifth. Man bears the image of God on himself, as if created in the image of God. Such a precious, such a highly venerable, such an amazing, such an elegant creation of God is man. Such a beloved and excellent creation of the Most High is man, about whom the Trinitarian God, when creating, said: “Let us make man in our image and likeness” (Gen. 1:26). The Creator gave him all His creatures to serve, and placed him over the work of His hands. Is it not a lawless thing to dishonor someone whom God Himself has honored with such honor? Sixth. Christ, the Son of God, shed His most precious Blood for man. Do you, O accursed one (I say to the one who offends), do you hate the one whom God Himself loved so much? Are you destroying and cheaply placing someone for whom a great price was paid? The Son of God shed His Blood for him! Are you persecuting someone whom God Himself accepts? Do you abhor those with whom God Himself takes comfort? Are you destroying the one whom God Himself is building? Do you curse the one whom God Himself blesses? Do you condemn someone whom God Himself justifies? Do you insult and force to shed tears the one whom God Himself consoles? Are you taking the life of someone for whom God not only did not spare His Only Begotten Son, but also gave him up to death? Are you depriving the one to whom Christ gives His Body as food? Do you take off the clothes of the one whom God Himself dresses with immortal clothing, crowns with glory and honor? O boldness! Oh, fury! Oh, shamelessness! Oh, extreme blindness! To this I will also add a seventh thing: that a Christian man is a son of God by grace, adopted by the Blood of the Only Begotten Son of God. How annoying it is for God when His son is persecuted, scolded, deprived of something, dishonored, exposed! Now, listeners, I have shown you, by my strength, what our duties to God and neighbor are, and how gravely we sin when we do not fulfill these duties. However, I give sound advice to every brother in Christ: if you want to fulfill these duties, do so: always think about the omnipresent majesty of God, who is present with you; think about His all-seeing Eye, penetrating all your deeds, words and thoughts; reason with fear and trembling about His righteous and inevitable Judgment; remember His highest love and His innumerable benefits. And so in fulfilling your duties to Him you will be successful. And regarding your duty to your neighbor, establish and always remember this rule: what you don’t want for yourself, don’t do to another, and what you want for yourself, do to another. The whole law teaches about this. And if rooted malice distracts you from this duty and you do not want to love your neighbor as a person and as your brother, then love him at least because he is a servant of the Most Good God and your Benefactor, Who loves and favors you so much. Therefore, love that he is honored in the image of God, that Christ shed His Blood for him. If he himself is unworthy of your love, in your opinion, then God, Whom he is a servant and Whose image he bears, is worthy, Christ is worthy, Who shed His Blood for him. So, if you do not love him as a person, then at least love him as a servant of God, as created in the image of God, as redeemed by the Blood of the Son of God, as a Christian, as enlightened by the same faith with you, as washed by the same Baptism, as a son of the same Church. Amen. Word on the consecration of the church in the name of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, which is on Akatov, in Voronezh 5 “I have sanctified this church which you have built, to place my name there forever.” The voice of God to King Solomon of Israel (1 Kings 9:3). Whatever a person begins with a good intention and what comes from the good treasure of his heart, what he does that is pleasing to God and saving for His people, the Lord from heaven, the Good Provider, blesses, helps and brings him to perfection. Christ-loving listeners! As soon as the wise King of Israel Solomon created the church, the house of the Most High God of Jacob, immediately the Lord, who examines hearts and wombs, blesses his work and sanctifies it as a dwelling place for Himself. “And it came to pass,” says the Scripture, “when Solomon had finished building the church of the Lord, the Lord appeared to Solomon and said to him: “I have sanctified this church which you have built, to place My name there forever”” (1 Kings 9:1-3). What better work, listeners, can there be than to build the house of God? For this is a sign of special love and zeal for God, if the intention of the creator is only for the glory of God. Just as those who build cities and pillars, tall, amazing buildings, valuable chambers, seek the vain glory of this world, want to call the earth by their names, be glorified in subsequent generations, see those living in the universe, so those who build the house of the Lord, the village of the God of Jacob, seek His glory. They seek that He may be praised by one mouth and one heart of the faithful. For where else, listeners, if not in the holy church is the magnificent name of our God praised? It is here in the evening, in the morning and at noon that the name of the God of Jacob is confessed and proclaimed. Here, the faithful, imitating the Cherubim, glorify the Creator. Here His glory is proclaimed. Here they confess His holy name. Why, I say, have you come together in such a multitude, if not to glorify His all-holy name with one mouth and one heart? But it’s good, let the lovers of God build, let them create, and decorate the churches of God. Their praise comes not from men, but from God. Reward for them from the Most High. Their reward is many in heaven: He will “glorify those who glorify Him” (1 Samuel 2:30). And we, the listeners, at least try to go to the churches of God, created by the labor of God-loving people, more often. And how to enter the house of God, let’s look for a model. God of Israel, Jesus Christ, who provides for everyone! Give us the heart and desire to enter Your house, and protect our hearts with Your fear! Holy two! Our sweetest teachers, Peter and Paul with the other apostles! Help us, so that we can learn and understand how to enter the house of God. Our God, listeners, is both incomprehensible and inconceivable. And therefore, not only some small place, some small church, but the whole world, whatever it is, heaven and earth, east and west, north and south, cannot contain the Majesty of our God. For, as sacred theologians teach, God is everywhere and in every place. Will you go to heaven? God is there. Will you go to the ends of the universe? God is there. In one minute, in heaven, on earth and in the underworld, one and the same God is inseparable. His holy prophet and King of Israel David depicted this, saying: “Where will I go from Your Spirit, and where will I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; if I go to hell, You are there; If I lift up my wings in the morning and dwell on the edge of the sea, and there Your hand will lead me, and Your right hand will hold me” (Ps 139:7-10). And so everywhere and in every place is our Lord. However, there are certain places in which in some way our inconceivable God especially dwells, such as: He dwells in heaven, revealing there the special light of His ineffable glory, delighting the blessed spirits with the insatiable vision of His Face, giving joy to the souls of the righteous. He also dwells in the souls of His faithful, giving them His grace, rousing them to do good deeds, protecting them from the snares of the devil, from the slander of the enemy. This is what our Savior teaches: “If anyone,” He said, “loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make our abode with him” (John 14:23). And the holy disciple of Christ calls faithful people the church of God, saying: “Do you not know that you are the church of God, and the Spirit of God lives in you” (1 Cor 3:16)? So, listeners, every place about which it is said that God dwells in it can be called the house of God, for a house is a dwelling place. However, prayer churches, built through the efforts of God-loving people, are especially called the house of God. For only in them are services appropriate to God alone performed; This is why they are built and illuminated. In them, sacred rites are performed, the Holy Mysteries are performed, singing is performed, and doxology is performed. In them is the incomprehensible one into which “Angels desire to penetrate” (1 Pet. 1:12), the Bloodless Sacrifice is offered to the Heavenly Father all the days. In them our Savior Himself, Christ the Lord, is present in the sacred Eucharist, under the guise of bread and wine. In them, the Holy Spirit descends upon the offered Holy Gifts, performs sacred rites, and illuminates those praying. In them the voice of the Gospel is heard, the apostolic broadcasts are heard, the word of God is preached. In them, the Lord hears the prayers of His faithful servants. So, listeners, if holy churches are called the house of God and they are first of all the house of God, then judge with what fear, with what respect we should enter the house of God. The house of God is holy and terrible, for as the owner is, so is his house. The Master of this house is terrible and holy, for He is God, and His house is terrible and holy. And therefore all respect is due to this house. If we give all honor to the house of the King of the earth, as we should, and all respect and enter into it with all fear, so as not to anger the Monarch in any way, all the more must this be given to the house of the Heavenly King, the house in which the Heavenly Powers serve invisibly with people, in which the incorporeal Ranks, Angels, Archangels, Thrones, Cherubim, Seraphim, the King of Glory, the King, Who is more terrible than the kings of the earth, the Lord of life and death is surrounded with fear and trembling, whom they serve servilely. It was a terrible place for Saint Jacob and Israel, the servant of God, in which he saw a certain glorious vision in a dream, “he saw a ladder stretching from earth to heaven, and the Angels of God ascended and descended along it.” It was scary, for, “having awakened from sleep,” he was horrified, “feared,” says Scripture. “Jacob said: “This place is terrible!” Why? He answers himself, saying: “For the Lord is in this place” (Gen. 28:12, 16–17). If, listeners, the place where Jacob saw the Divine vision was scary, shouldn’t God’s house, in which He Himself is present with incorporeal Powers, be much more scary for us? And if it is scary, then you should enter it with fear and stand in it with fear. And so everyone, going to the church of God, consider where you are going, what place, what are you starting to do? You go to God’s house, to a place of sacredness, to a place similar to heaven, you go to where heavenly things are happening. And if you have come to such a place where there is nothing earthly, then leave everything earthly, put aside worldly worries, so that you will be able to stand worthily in a holy place. Moses the God-seer, the leader of the people of Israel, even when he was tending the sheep of Jethro, his father-in-law, in the mountain of God Horeb and saw from afar a bush, scorched by fire and unburnable, he was surprised at the great vision, began to approach, wanting to know what this glorious vision was. But immediately the Lord, who appeared to him in the bush, said: “Moses! Don’t come close, take off your shoes first.” And the Lord called to him from the bush, saying: “Moses, Moses!...Do not come near here: take off your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you stand is holy ground” (Ex. 3:4–5). Taking off your shoes, as teachers teach, means putting aside earthly cares. So, you, Christian, take off the shoes from your feet, that is, worldly sadness, throw away vain thoughts, if you have come to the house of God, “for the place on which you stand is holy ground.” Little plowman! Stop thinking about farming, throw haymaking out of your head, don’t wander through the fields, steppes, forests, and farmsteads. You have come to the wrong place: “for the place on which you stand is holy ground.” Merchant! Don’t haggle here, don’t negotiate the price, don’t worry about selling, throw the shops, the bargaining, the goods out of your head. This is not the place to buy, they don’t buy or sell here, “for the place on which you stand is holy ground.” Warrior! Do not think here about a gun, about battle, about victory, do not prepare yourself for battle, do not prepare for a ship. Do not abuse the place here, “for the place on which you stand is holy ground.” Clerk and secretary! Don’t worry about your business, don’t write definitions, don’t prepare memos, don’t write interrogations. This is not the right place, “for the place on which you stand is holy ground.” But the judge here do not judge, for there is nothing to judge here, there are no quarrels here, no one here is a petitioner. This is not a judicial place, “for the place on which you stand is holy ground.” And the priest must be an example of all this, in all this he must show an example to the people of God. For he is a shepherd of the sheep, a leader for the blind, a mentor for the lost, a prayer book for sinners, the closest intercessor for all, God’s servant, “the light of the world..., the salt of the earth, a city standing on the top of a mountain, a candle... placed on a candlestick” (Matthew 5:14-15), and therefore he should know all this. And if you, Christian, have already put aside the cares of life by entering the church of the Lord, then perhaps look around, who are you and to whom have you come? You have come as a servant to the Lord, a creature to the Creator, and a sinner to the Righteous Judge. And also reason: why did you come to the church of God? For we, listeners, enter into the church of God, either to praise God, or to thank God, or to ask something from God, or to propitiate God for our sins. So, if you came to the house of God to ask for forgiveness for your sins, then remember all your sins, with which you angered your Creator from a very young age. Look into the book of your conscience, look and judge how much you have upset your Lord. And so, reflecting within ourselves, we lost our hearts, soar with our minds to heaven, with humility cast ourselves down before the Throne of Glory, fall at the feet of your Savior, who sits at the right hand of the Father, kiss His feet, wet Him with tears, in the likeness of the gospel harlot, wipe His tears-soaked feet with your hair, call to Him with the voice of a publican: “God! Be merciful to me, a sinner” (Luke 18:13)! He's not judging anyone yet. “He wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). He accepts the repentant, and will also accept your tears. He will forgive your sins, forgive your iniquities, and says to you: “Your sins are forgiven; Go in peace, and sin no more" (Luke 7:38, 48, 50; John 8:11). Do you want to thank God? Confess in your mind, begin from your very beginning, from your very beginning remember His benefits. For the fact that you live in the world is His blessing. The fact that you are honored in the image of God is His blessing. The fact that you, fallen, have been restored, that you have “the power to be the son of God” (John 1:12), is His good deed. The fact that His grace does not depart from you, knocks on the door of your heart, the fact that you are guarded day and night by “His angels, encamped around you” (Ps 33:8) in all your ways is His goodness. The fact that you have the daily food necessary for life is His goodness. Thinking like this, also consider whether you are worthy of everything that the Lord bestows on you? But who can? to be worthy? For that He favors us so freely, for His sole goodness. Thus, recognizing your unworthiness, “fall on your face before the Lord, giving thanks to Him,” as the grateful Samaritan once did (Luke 17:16). And He, seeing your gratitude, will bestow upon you numerous benefits. For gratitude is the reason for other benefits. And if you want to praise His name, you want to glorify your Lord, then consider what kind of lips do you have? “Praise is not comely in the mouth of a sinner,” says Scripture (Sir 15:9). So, if you want to praise the Creator without condemnation, Whom the heavenly Powers incessantly praise, to Whom the Cherubim and Seraphim incessantly cry: “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts” (Isa. 6:3), then bring clean lips, cleanse your heart. Having sung with your lips, sing in your spirit, so that your song will be pleasing to God. “For first,” says Saint John Chrysostom, “one must correct one’s life and thus sing praises to the Lord.” And if you praise your Lord in this way, then your praise will be red, it will be “a pleasing aroma to your Lord” (Num. 15:3). If you have come to ask God for something, then ask without doubt, for “he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, lifted and tossed by the wind,” according to the words of the Apostle James (James 1:6). But ask in hope, and you will receive, for He who says is faithful: “Ask, and it will be given to you” (Matthew 7:7). Ask for what is necessary for the glory of God and for your salvation; this is pleasing to God and will save you. In this way, listeners, we must enter the house of God. If we enter the church of God like this and stand in it like this, then the Lord will bless our entry and exit, fulfill our desire, and hear our petition. And if otherwise you enter the house of God and, having entered, think about what is forbidden in another place, talk about vain things; talk about earthly things while standing before the King of Heaven; look at those coming and going; look at the ceremony alone; If you notice how someone stands, what they are wearing, then it is better not to enter the holy place with such intentions. Because it is not useful, even harmful. “My house,” says the Lord, “will be called a house of prayer” (Mark 11:17, Luke 19:46). Christ the Lord had compassion in his heart when he entered the Old Testament Temple of Jerusalem and saw buying and selling in it. He saw that the house of His Heavenly Father had become a house of trade. Therefore, not tolerating the dishonor of this house, he said with pity: “Take this from here and at home.” Do not make My Father a house of trading. And having made a scourge of ropes, he drove out all those who were selling and buying, and scattered the money from the money changers, and overturned their tables. And he said, “Do not make My Father’s house a house of trading” (John 2:15-16). What do you think, listeners? What would Christ the Lord do if he found such outrage in the church of new grace, where His terrible Sacraments are performed; if I saw people laughing and mocking, making a house of prayer a house of trade? But He sees, He sees it even now. And although now he does not drive him out of His church with a scourge, he will drive him out of the church of eternal glory, and he will put some of them with the infidels, if they do not stop doing this, and they do not appease Him with repentance. So, listeners, having partially seen how it is proper to enter the house of God and how to stand in a holy place, let us try to fulfill this in action. Yes, entering the church of God in the fear of the Lord and in spiritual joy, and into the holy place not made by hands, into heaven itself, into the church of eternal glory, we will enter, where our Forerunner and Intercessor for us, Christ the Lord, entered. Amen. Homily on the Day of the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary 6 I, listeners, now see a bright and all-pleasant sight. I see a great crowd of people of various ranks and both sexes gathered in this magnificent church. I see the sacred rank of servants of the Most High God, I see city governors and military leaders, I see warriors, the Holy Church and the intercessors of the Fatherland. I see those sitting in court, administering God’s judgment, and their co-workers, working tirelessly for the benefit of the Fatherland, for the good condition, day and night. I see a fair amount of merchants who are useful to the Fatherland. Finally, I see a multitude of people of every rank and rank, I see old and young. I hope all of you have been brought to this holy place by the sacred and glorious memory of the Mother of God. For everyone, the Holy Church begins to sing, like the second Mariam with faces and spiritual songs. On this day, the animate church of the Deity, and the Mother of ageless life moved from the earthly to the heavenly. On this day “the Queen appeared at the right hand of the King of Heaven, in a robe embroidered with gold, adorned” (Ps 45:10). You came to this spiritual feast in great numbers. Your intention is good and praiseworthy; your labors are not in vain. This is how you recognize your love and zeal for the Mother of God, that you venerate Her holy memory. This is how your faith is known in the fact that although She moved from earth to heaven, “she did not leave the world in Her dormition,” and she continually intercedes for everyone to Her Son and God. Therefore, be steadfast in your faith. I, wanting to add more fun to this spiritual celebration, will talk with you about the power and action of faith, so that you, having learned what faith is, can more easily produce its fruits. Our conversation consists of two points. The first is what faith is and what its fruits are. The second is how faith is acquired and increased. A spiritually minded person is like a tree, listeners. Everything a tree depends on its root. As is the root, so is the tree. And as the root is in the tree, so is the faith in a spiritually minded person: as is the faith within, so is the person. In a tree, the more the root spreads and deepens, the more the tree grows and rises, the more its branches spread and its fruits multiply. Thus, the more faith in a person deepens and multiplies, the more the person grows spiritually, ascends, and the more numerous spiritual fruits grow. We all call such a spiritual person a great man, even if he were small by his natural age, or of the lowest rank, or if he were humiliated and spat upon by everyone. The inspired psalmist described such a person: “And he will be like a tree planted by springs of water, which will yield its fruit in its season, and its leaf will not fall off, and whatever he does will prosper” (Ps 1:3). And again: “The righteous will flourish like a date and multiply like the cedar of Lebanon” (Ps 91:13). Such a person is adorned with the fruits of the Holy Spirit: “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control” (Gal 5:22–23). If the roots in the tree begin to deteriorate, then the tree itself will gradually begin to dry out. So, when faith in a person begins to become scarce, then the person himself will begin to deplete in spiritual fruits. When the root in the tree is completely deteriorated, the whole tree will dry up; so, and when a person’s faith becomes completely impoverished, the person will completely deteriorate. Such a living person is dead, his body lives, but his soul has died, he walks on the earth with one foot, and with the other he is already stuck in the gates of hell. Its fruits are what it is inside. His mind is filled with inappropriate, vain, nasty thoughts. From the heart come all sorts of lusts and desires that are pleasing to the corrupted nature. The language is sophisticated with verbosity, slander, condemnation, slander and all kinds of blasphemy. The eyes are filled with fornication and unceasing sin. Ears are open to only nasty and carnal fables and songs. Hands are filled with theft, bribery, murder. And so all its members are instruments of lawlessness. He will become all sin: he thinks iniquity, he speaks iniquity, he does iniquity. Wisdom says about such people: “They will not sleep unless they do evil” (Proverbs 4:16). Ah, a terrible word: “They will not sleep unless they do evil.” The poor man becomes so accustomed to evil that he cannot even sleep unless he does evil. The bribe-taking judge does not even count the day in which he was unable to take advantage of the unjust profit, and even the next night is not without melancholy. There is no sleep for the thief, boredom and sadness have seized his heart. Why? It was not possible to profit from other people's goods. The fornicator complains that he did not manage to commit bad lust with so-and-so. The dream leaves the memory-evil head, inside he is tormented in his heart, he is distressed, he is tormented, he is hurt that he did not take revenge on his opponent. All these and others like them “will not sleep unless they do evil.” To a person in such a state, admonition and words are as useful as music to the deaf, as speech to the dead. He listens to the Holy Gospel, the Word of God, like a fable, considers eternal torment and the kingdom of heaven to be a fiction. Someone says: “How can it be that I should not believe the Gospel, which I hear read in church almost every day?” Well, brother, and I say to you with the Apostle James: “Show me faith by your works” (James 2:18). You believe the Gospel, then why, by your faith, do you not fulfill what is written in the Gospel? You believe the Gospel, then why don't you obey the Gospel? You believe that God is everywhere, and therefore is inseparably with you, wherever you are and whatever you do, he knows everything exactly, why are you doing something that in the presence of God should not be done? When you stand before the Monarch, you stand before him with all respect and fear, as you should, for the monarch herself demands this. God is the Great and Terrible King, Who holds both your soul and body in His hand, then why, if you believe that He is present with you, why don’t you give Him such respect and fear, what kind of respect and fear do you show to the earthly King when you stand before him? Is this the reason that you see the earthly King, but do not see God? The truth is that you don’t see God and you can’t see him. You do not see God with your physical eyes, but you see with your spiritual eyes if you believe in Him. Such is your faith! You believe that God is a Righteous Judge, why don’t you tremble when you irritate Him with your sins? Such is your faith! You believe that God is the highest good and that you need to love Him with all your heart, why don’t you love Him as the greatest good? Why do you prefer small sweetness to this highest good? Why are you doing something that is contrary to His holy will? He who loves his beloved in everything certainly listens with all eagerness and fulfills his will in everything, so that he does not become upset. How can you love God but resist His will? Such is your faith and love! You believe that the Son of God came into the world for you, and endured terrible suffering, and thereby delivered you from eternal death, why, by your faith, do you not please Him? If someone saved you from bodily death in some way, you would do everything no matter what he wanted. Why, for the sake of Christ, do you not do what He wants, if you believe that He delivered you from eternal death in such a miraculous way? Such is your faith! You believe that He will come with glory to judge the living and the dead, why don’t you appease Him with tears and repentance before that time? Why aren’t you preparing for that Judgment? Those who must face human judgment think in advance how to justify themselves at that trial. You believe that you will appear before the Judgment of God, where not only a bad deed, but also an idle word will be put to the test, where you will be judged for your deed, word, and thought; Why don’t you not only not appease the terrible and incorruptible Judge in advance, but also don’t stop doing what you will be condemned for in that worldwide disgrace? Such is your faith! You believe the Gospel, which teaches that Christ imputes to Himself all that is given to the poor and needy for the sake of His holy name: “Truly I say to you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did it to Me” (Matthew 25:40). Why don’t you want to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, bring the stranger into the house, clothe the naked, visit the sick and the one sitting in prison? The buffoon and jester who amuses you, the flatterer who shamelessly praises you, leaves you satisfied, but Christ, who promises you the kingdom of heaven, leaves with nothing?! You shower a very generous hand on banquets and music, but to the peasants, who sell even their last cattle in order to pay the quitrent, and don’t you want to spend a little?! Dogs, your dear hunt, are satisfied from your meal, and your poor servant will eat bread and water in his hunt! You can lose up to a hundred rubles or more at cards in one night, and that’s nothing, but for the release of prisoners and for the debts of those in prison, it’s a pity not even a ruble. Such and such is your faith, such are its fruits?! You believe in the Gospel, which promises those who follow only the narrow and sorrowful path eternal life and endless joy, why do you follow the long path of pleasures and passions, which leads to destruction, according to the word of Christ (Matthew 7:13). Such is your faith! A brave warrior who wants to receive a high rank from the Monarch is not afraid of the crackling sound and the deadly sound, he goes straight, exposes himself to all danger. A hardworking merchant who wants to collect temporary and perishable wealth is not afraid of any trouble that may come from the sea, nor trouble from robbers, nor trouble from foreigners, nor separation from his wife and children, nor wandering away from the sweet Fatherland. The farmer sheds so much sweat, burned by the heat of the sun all summer, just to collect the desired fruit! Do you see how much labor is required for only perishable and almost imaginary good? And you, if you believe and desire eternal good, why don’t you put up equal labor for the sake of such good? Such is your faith! No, my friend, these are not the fruits of the Christian faith. Just as fire has the ability to warm, water to irrigate, and light to enlighten, so living faith has the ability to show good deeds. Do you want to know what it is and what its fruits are? Look in the book of Genesis, chapters 15 and 22, how Abraham, the father of all the faithful, in his old age, at the command of God, lifts up Isaac, his son, as a sacrifice. Do you see how faith operates in the holy elder? The only son, the heir, according to the promise of God, the one about whom God said: “Your seed will be called Isaac” (Gen. 21:12), he slaughters. “For Abraham believed God, that He was able to raise him from the dead” (Heb. 11:19), therefore he did not hesitate to slaughter his heir. And therefore the Scripture testifies about him: “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness” (Rom. 4:3). Read also the book of Exodus, and you will see how “the great Moses refused to be called the son of the daughter of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and rather wanted to suffer with the people of God than to have temporary sinful pleasure, and considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth for himself than the Egyptian treasures. Why? For he looked to the reward” (Heb 11:24–26). Faith was the reason that Moses deigned to suffer with the people of God in the desert rather than to be in Egyptian glory. He is firmly confident, strengthened by faith, that upon acceptance of these labors and sufferings there follows an eternal and great reward from Christ. And if you take the trouble and read the book in which the lives of the saints and many different sufferings of the martyrs are described, you will learn even better how strong and effective faith is. There you will see that “neither tribulation, nor distress, nor famine, nor nakedness, nor trouble, nor sword, nor death, could separate the soldiers of Christ from the love of God” in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. 8:35). They were counted as “sheep of the slaughter” (Ps. 43:23). They, for the sake of Christ, accepted bonds instead of decoration, prisons - instead of royal palaces, all reproach and blasphemy - instead of honor. They hurried to diarrhea death, to be devoured by wild beasts, to be burned in fire, to be drowned in the sea, as if to a sweet marriage. Beatings, wounds, tearing and crushing of members were accepted as in other people's bodies. And what forced them to accept so many different sufferings with joy, if not faith and faith’s sister - love for Christ Jesus, and for that eternal and ineffable blessings in the palace of heaven? You see how they sealed their faith with their blood and death. From these passion-bearers, turn your mind to the spontaneous and spiritual martyrs, the reverend fathers, and look at their feat, which they fought against flesh and blood, against the world and the devil. What prompted them to leave the beauty of this world and settle in the impassable desert, to live with animals rather than with people? What prompted them to die every day to sin and the flesh, to subdue the flesh to the spirit by fasting, labor, hunger and thirst, to wash themselves with the hottest tears, to sigh from the depths of their hearts, to moan incessantly like a desert turtledove, to be burned by the heat of the sun, to shake from cold and frost, to wander naked through the mountains, through dens, over the abysses of the earth? What, I say, prompted them to spontaneously suffer, if not living and real faith, and the love associated with faith? All these above-mentioned martyrs, having received by faith the notification that nothing worthy can be rewarded for the love of God, with which He loved the world so much that He gave His only begotten Son for it, and that “the sufferings of this present time are not worth anything in comparison with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Rom. 8:18), gave themselves over to such varied and painful passions. You see, beloved, what are the fruits of living faith. You can also know that just as a tree is known by its fruit, so faith is known by its works. Faith lives in him and intercedes for eternal life for the one in whom its fruits appear. There is no living faith in whom the works that come from faith are not visible, as the Apostle James wrote: “As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead” (James 2:26). And if faith without works is dead, then it no longer exists. For as the soul is in the body, so is faith in the soul. The body lives as long as the soul is in it. And as soon as the soul leaves, the body is already dead, insensitive, does not hear, does not see, does not smell, does not move. The soul lives as long as faith lives in it. As soon as faith ceases, the soul has already died, for it also has no spiritual movement. A person who has such a soul is like an idol: “he has eyes and does not see; has ears, but does not hear; has nostrils and does not smell” (Ps. 113:13-14), that is, he does not want to see or hear spiritual and saving things. For he is all flesh and soul: “A natural man,” says the apostle, “does not receive the things of the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 2:14). And this is what the same apostle says: “But without faith it is impossible to please God” (Heb. 11:6). For many do good, but not out of faith, and therefore cannot please God. Many refrain from murder, from theft, from kidnapping, extortion, slander, but they do this out of human fear, they are afraid of civil punishment, and not from the fear of God, and this is not from faith. Many flee from uncleanness, but for the sake of human shame, and not from the fear of God, that is, not from faith, for such people secretly dare to do things that are “a shame to even speak of” (Eph. 5:12). Others seem meek and kind, but for the sake of a peaceful and calm life with people. This is human wisdom, and therefore not from faith. Others do every good thing to their neighbors, but in order to be loved by them, and this is not from faith. Others give a lot of alms, build churches of God, almshouses, but in order to appear before people, and this is not from faith. Some prayers are made more frequent, lengthened, “so that people can see them” (Matthew 23:5), and this is not from faith. Many fast a lot, but in order to “appear before men who fast” (Matthew 6:16), and this is not from faith. All of them and others like them, because they do not do good for the sake of God, do not do it out of faith, and therefore cannot please God. They do it either for the sake of vain glory, or for the sake of something else, and not for the glory of God. For how can something please God that is not done for His sake? Until now I told you that there is living faith and what is dead. Now I will offer you what makes living faith and how it multiplies. Living faith is a gift of God and is like a kind of divine seed, which is infused into everyone who is baptized at Baptism. The seed is that from which a person is said to be born of God. The Apostle Saint John the Theologian says about this: “Everyone born of God commits no sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God” (1 John 3:9). Just as a seed sown on the earth grows and is multiplied by moisture, so the seed of divine faith sown on the earth of the human heart grows and is multiplied by the moisture of the word of God, says the Apostle Paul: “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 10:17). “The Word of God is living,” says the same inspired teacher, “and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword: it pierces to the dividing of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). And again the same apostle: “All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16-17). The Word of God presents to us God as Consubstantial, but Trinitarian, and therefore incomprehensible, and therefore there is no need to test Him. The Word of God represents Him as Almighty, and therefore we must seek help from Him alone. The Word of God represents Him as providing for everyone, and therefore we must rely on Him. The Word of God presents Him as not false, and therefore we must undoubtedly believe Him. The Word of God presents Him as Righteous and rewarding to everyone according to his deeds, and therefore it is necessary to fear Him. The Word of God represents Him as Great, and therefore we must humble ourselves before Him. The Word of God represents Him as Omnipresent, and all our deeds, words and thoughts are seen, and therefore before Him, as before a terrible King, one must walk with all fear and apprehension, and do, and say, and think what is pleasing to His will. The Word of God represents Him as Most Good, and therefore it is necessary to love Him. The Word of God presents Him as merciful to repentant sinners, and therefore sinners need to resort to Him with repentance and regret. The Word of God represents Him as coming to judge the living and the dead, and therefore it is necessary to prepare for His Judgment. So about everything else that concerns faith and its fruits, represents, teaches, shows and assures the word of God. In this way, the Word of God grows and increases faith in the human heart. The Word of God must be listened to or read not simply, but with all diligence, care and reflection. We must not only open our ears to listen, but also our hearts to receive the word of God. It is necessary to hear the word of God with those ears, which Christ demands in many places in the Gospel, saying: “Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear” (Matthew 13:43)! From this it follows that whoever does not read the words of God or does not listen diligently cannot maintain faith and show its fruits. Such people have all sorts of delusions and disorder; they cannot do anything good or soul-saving, even if they seem good. And in order for God’s word to produce its power and effect in the heart, it is necessary for its Creator to pray diligently with David: “Open my eyes, that I may understand the wonders of Your law” (Ps 119:18). In addition, the lives of the saints of God, who have succeeded in faith and its fruits, need to be read and considered more often, so that it is more convenient for them to imitate their faith. For it is truly written about this: “Everything that was written before was written for our instruction,” says the holy Apostle Paul (Rom. 15:4). Thus, when we learn from the law of the Lord and pray earnestly to the Creator of the law, we will certainly “come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the full stature of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). Amen. Word on the same day (Day of the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary) 7 “Take heed and tread carefully” (Eph 5:15). Imagine a man who, sitting on a decorated throne, having all the pleasures in his hands, saw a flaming fire beneath him, a very sharp sword above his head, hanging on the thinnest thread, and those armed against him from all sides. Judge, listeners, in such danger, in such horror, will all these pleasures and amusements give peace to this man? There is death everywhere: death from above, death from below, death from all sides. Will such danger and fear not overcome all his pleasures? When I depict such a state of a person, I thereby describe the state of our life. All of us who live on earth are in the same danger as this man. I will offer this word for the glory of God, in honor of the current celebration, so that we all, surrounded by such dangers, may live more carefully in this world, according to the admonition of the God-wise teacher, Saint Paul: “Take heed and act carefully.” When we open our intelligent eyes, listeners, and look at the circumstances of our life, we will certainly see that it is similar to the state of that person, and no beauty of this world can amuse us. Let us see God above us, threatening us with the sword of righteousness. We will see beneath us the pit of hell prepared for sinners. We will see our sins from behind, constantly tormenting us with our conscience. We will see death before us, constantly approaching us. We will see on the right and on the left the enemies of our souls, plotting intrigues for us and seeking destruction. God, who is above, is Almighty, so no one can resist Him. He is our Creator and Lord, who, like clay vessels made by His hands, can crush us in one minute, and therefore is terrible. That is why Christ commands us to fear Him: “Fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna” (Matthew 10:28). And Jeremiah also cries out to Him: “Who will not fear You, O King of nations” (Jer 10:7)? He is the All-Seeing One, and He watches over all our deeds, over all our plans, over all our heartfelt thoughts. He also sees our undone: “and your eyes have seen my undone,” says the Psalmist (Ps. 139:16). And since He is infinite Good, He hates even the slightest evil, and punishes for it, for He is just. He was not more pleasant and kind among the children of Israel who came out of Egypt than Saint Moses, with whom He talked as with a friend, for the sake of whose prayer He turned away the sword of His wrath from the rebellious and stiff-necked people, to whom He finally declared, saying: “I know you more than all” (Ex. 33:12). However, he also punished him for a certain crime: he was not allowed to reach the promised land, although he desired it with great zeal. And if God punishes His friends for their crimes, you, who fearlessly and openly defy God’s law, what do you think? You who touch another's bed unlawfully; you who shed your brother's blood; you who secretly and openly offend your neighbor; you who drink the bloody tears of widows, orphans, and the poor; you, who devour your labors and hirelings for nothing; you, who with blasphemous lips touch Him who sits on the heavenly throne; you who break your oaths and oaths; you, who seek to destroy you from the land of the living with some small sad word that has saddened you, and other similar sinners - what do you think about yourselves? Do you think that you will escape the righteous judgment of God? Will a great crime go unpunished in you, when in the saints a small crime is punished? God punishes the small, but will He leave the great? “Is it really not true with God? Let it not be” (Rom 9:14). Let it not even be thought: for “the Lord is righteous, and there is no unrighteousness in Him” (Ps 91:16). How many iniquities do you add to iniquity, how much do you collect for yourself the anger and wrath of God, if you do not soon resort to God’s mercy with repentance and contrite tears. Behold, listeners, what a sword hangs over us! The sword of God's justice, sharpened by our sins. But look down with your smart eye, and you will see under you a deep ditch, a gaping hell, wanting to devour sinners - and would immediately devour them, if God’s mercy, God’s goodness, awaiting the sinner’s repentance, did not hold him back. This abyss is terrible even for holy men. Saint Cyril of Alexandria says: “I am afraid of Gehenna, for it is endless. I'm afraid of tartar, because it has no warmth. I’m afraid of the darkness, because it doesn’t belong to the light.” And other saints had the same fear. For the saints of God, who spent their entire lives in such repentance, served God so much that they were afraid to transgress His slightest commandment, trembling, they feared that abyss. Should we, sinners, be fearless? Saint John Chrysostom compares them to small children who are afraid of disguises or masquerades, but are not afraid of fire, which they grab with their hands and get burned. Likewise, people who have an infant mind are afraid of temporary misfortune, temporary troubles, bonds, prison, poverty, which are all sent from God, for the most part, for correction, and do not tremble at Gehenna, which even the demons themselves are terrified of, as the Holy Gospel teaches: “And they prayed to Him, that is, Christ, that He would not command them to go into the abyss” (Luke 8:31), although it was prepared for them. In this we see the second the danger that is below us. And when we look ahead, we will see no less danger, we will see death, which leaves no one. And the more we live, the more it approaches us. This limit of God is both unknown to us and very terrible. It is unknown because it indiscriminately kidnaps old and young, babies and young men, ready and unready, righteous and sinners. Terrible because from here begins an endless, constant, ever-present eternity. From here we either go to eternal bliss, or to eternal torment, or to a place of joy, or to a place of crying. Now we either live forever, or die forever, or reign forever in heaven with Christ and His saints, or we begin to suffer forever in hell with Satan and his angels. Ah, death, death! How terrible is your memory! But a wonderful thing! This necessary fate awaits us all, and we live as if it had never happened. Damn our blindness! When someone is shackled in iron and put in prison and sentenced to death, everyone knows what state he is in then. Then he does not need a house, a wife, children, friends, relatives, or wealth. Then food and drink do not come to mind. He only has one thought: that he is sentenced to death, that he is awaiting death. He is obsessed with this fear alone, he is sick, he complains, he laments, he waits for the day, when the hour will come, in which he will die. The righteous judgment of God, back in paradise, sentenced all of us and our forefather to death: “you are earth, and to earth you will go” (Genesis 3:19). And no matter how many centuries have passed, there has never been anyone who has passed this limit, and everyday examples show this. Why don’t we live like someone sentenced to death? Why are we not afraid of that hour? Why aren't we preparing for it? Why do we always practice at banquets, drunkenness, luxury, games, amusements, and cards? Why do we offend, rob, and deceive each other? Why do we admire bows, fictitious devilish deceit? Why do we collect wealth through unjust incomes, as if we would never part with it? Why don't we feel, listeners? After all, we are sentenced to death by the judgment of God, just like one sitting in prison, and the judgment of God will certainly bring us out of the prison of this body when the appointed time comes, and the dust is given over to dust: you are “earth, and to earth you will go!” Would anyone say that this is not an equal death, that is, for those who sit in prison, it is forced and dishonorable, but for others it is ordinary, occurring through an unbearable illness? But God alone knows what kind of demise will be for you, you who think so. Do you have a revelation from God about how He has determined for you to end your life? Maybe they will execute you too? Perhaps you will either sink into the depths of the sea, or be killed by robbers, or treacherous people, or die in some other similar way? After all, there are almost as many deaths as there are people in the world. We are all born in one way, but die differently. Another falls while standing and becomes lifeless. Some people stumble while walking and lie without a soul. Some people bend down while sitting and are raised up dead. Some will go to sleep on their bed in the evening, and in the morning they will rest on their deathbed. Someone sits at the table and celebrates, having fun, and at that hour, instead of joy, crying will follow, and he will wear himself to the grave with sobs. And what happens to others can happen to you and to me. We are all people of the same nature and are subject to the same events. And we don’t know when this will be. So, we must expect this every hour. But no matter when and how it happens to end your life, and then not without fear. Because here the books of conscience will be opened to everyone. Here will appear the deeds of each one, which he “did while living in the body, whether good or bad” (2 Cor 5:10). Here we will encounter a feat that we never thought possible. Here two roads will appear, of which one leads to life, and the other leads to eternal death. One thing we must admit is that the prince of darkness has blinded our eyes, so that we would not see that limit of God and not think about it, and not thinking about it, we would fulfill his evil and destructive will, and thus lose salvation. This is what is addressed to us, listeners! And when we look back, look with our smart eyes, what will we see there? Oh, it’s scary for us to even look there! There stand our fierce rivals, holding on tightly to us, unmercifully drawing us to the Judge, trying to betray us into eternal prison. There, I say, our sins, committed throughout our entire lives, are like monsters that want to attack us and cast us into the bottom of hell. Our sins, I say, are attacking us, hurting our conscience, stabbing us like a sword. These tormenting enemies cast angels from heaven to the bottom of hell and bound them with chains of darkness. These enemies drove the forefather Adam and all his family out of paradise. They brought a terrible flood to the whole world. These enemies burned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. These enemies knocked down so many of God’s people in the desert and did not allow them to reach the promised land. These, finally, tormenting enemies, are now destroying cities and great states, shedding so much blood and causing all sorts of other troubles and misfortunes. Such, I say, our fierce enemies stand behind us and rise up against us. But if we look around even more diligently, and look at the right and left sides with spiritual eyes, we will see no less danger. We will see, on the one hand, the world with its charms, on the other, the prince of darkness with its principles, with the power of the wickedness of heaven arming itself against us. And so, when you deviate on one side, trouble comes on the other side. Hear what Isaiah cries about this: “Fear, and destruction, and a snare are upon you who dwell on the earth. And it will come to pass: he who runs from fear will fall into the abyss, and he who climbs out of the abyss will be caught in a net” (Isaiah 24:17–18). For, listeners, like beasts in the forests as hunters, so people in this world are persecuted and caught by the spirits of wickedness in high places. The animals, when freed from the snares, end up in pits. And if they free themselves from there, they end up on the dogs. The same thing happens to a poor person. When he freed himself from one intrigue, he falls into another. When he seeks solitude, he falls into greater temptation, since in solitude Satan attacks more. Leaving solitude, he communicates with neighbors, with corrupt friends, and is blackened by their anger, like tar. Living with them, like Lot in Sodom, preserved by the grace of Christ, he immediately feels a strong attack of pride and arrogance. And so, wherever he turns, a net of destruction lies before him. Saint Anthony the Great, as we read in church history, saw that the whole world from earth even to heaven was filled with nets, so he cried out to the Lord with sighs: “Lord! Who can get rid of these networks?” And truly, no one would have gotten rid of them if God’s grace had not saved everyone. Now you listeners, looking at all these circumstances with intelligent eyes, judge whether our life is not in the same danger as that of the king’s brother, whom we mentioned at the beginning of the word? We see the sword of God’s truth hanging over our head. We see below the open abyss of fiery Gehenna, prepared for sinners. We see death in front of us, approaching us from hour to hour and trying to catch us. We see our sins behind us, oppressing our conscience and piercing our memory like a sword. We see on both sides the world and the devil, our enemies, throwing their arrows at us and hurting us. On top of all this, we also have a wavering throne, that is, an unstable nature, prone to any fall. Come, brethren, and I tell you, sitting on this shaking throne, surrounded by these troubles, let us put on purple and fine linen every day, like the rich man of the Gospel; Let's gather friends, fill the tables, decorate with rich food, warm ourselves with sweet and expensive wines, eat, celebrate, have fun; Let us also order to amuse ourselves with music, to organize dances and masquerades; Let's also add operas when money allows: but will fun come to mind? Do we want to celebrate when we are surrounded by fear from above and below, behind and in front on both sides?! What should we do in such circumstances? How can we get rid of all these evils? Let us also look for a model by which we can avoid these dangers. But this method comes to our minds: let us rid ourselves of sins through true and tearful repentance, which the Merciful God granted to us sinners for the sake of our weakness. And so we will free our conscience from their torment, and by humble repentance we will turn away the righteous wrath of God, and we will bow to God’s mercy, and we will extinguish Gehenna under us, kindled by our sins. For the Human-loving God is not worshiped by anything so much as by human tears, from a heart broken by what is happening. The Ninevites, who escaped the wrath of God by repentance, encourage and encourage us to do this. Encourages Manasseh, king of Judah, who was freed from the bonds of sin by contrition of heart. The harlot who washed Christ’s feet with her tears, and was thus washed from the defilements of sin, encourages. The example is set by Saint Peter, the Supreme Apostle, who denied Christ three times and with bitter weeping was again returned to the apostolic ranks. Imitating them, let us also resort with tenderness to our Lord. He, like the Most Merciful Father, bowing down to mercy, will cleanse us from our sins, and turn away His righteous anger, and deliver us from the abyss of hell with His love for mankind. And if God makes peace with us, then we will no longer be afraid of death. But we will also get rid of other circumstances, that is, from the slander of the devil and the world, if we pray with tears to the same merciful Provider of ours, so that he would open our eyes of reason, with which we could see the enemy’s networks spread out for us. And when we see them, then by the grace of the same Lord we can evade them, for the obvious slander of the enemy is not as dangerous as the secret ones, and therefore can be easily avoided. And for help, protection and protection we will always resort, firstly, to our Lady Theotokos, the common Representative of all Christians, whose honorable Dormition we now celebrated. Then, with zeal, we will call on all the saints of God to help us. Because they, “just as they themselves were tempted, can help us who are tempted” (Heb. 2:18). Let us try to imitate them in careful living. They avoided the slander of the enemy, remembering the last four: death, judgment, hell, and the kingdom of heaven. And we will take this into our minds and will always remember death. This will not allow us to boast of nobility, and to despise others, our brethren. Since, remembering death, we will remember that we are earth, and we will go to earth. Remembering death, let us turn our hands away from covetousness and theft, but we will also fill the hands of those who demand from our property, knowing that everything worldly will remain for the world, and just as we entered the world naked, so we will depart naked. Remembering death, let us not burden our flesh with overeating and drunkenness, but let us take in so much food and drink so as not to weaken, and to be able to work, expecting that we ourselves will become food for worms. Remembering death, let us not wish for various and rich clothes, knowing that during burial only a shirt is needed to cover nakedness. Remembering death, let us not pester evil with the insidious machinations of many villages, hamlets, lands, knowing that after death no more than three arshins of land will be needed. So, remembering death, we will have great caution to avoid the machinations of the hostile. And when we remember death, then the Last Judgment will come to mind, which follows after death, where we will be tortured for our word, deed and thought. So, remembering death, we will prepare for the Last Judgment and appease the Righteous Judge by all means. For if, when we are called to human judgment, we prepare for how to act at it, what to say, how to justify ourselves, much more so for God’s Judgment, at which all our thoughts will be revealed. From the Last Judgment, two roads lie in the mind: along one, poor sinners with weeping, screaming and useless sobbing go into eternal torment, and along the other, the blessed righteous go into eternal life with inexpressible joy. The everlasting memory of these four will not allow us to be seduced by sinful sweetness, according to Scripture, as a precaution saying to us: “Remember your last four, and you will never sin” (Sir 7:39). Amen. "Thou shalt not steal." The eighth commandment of God (Exodus 20:15). Ascend, listeners, mentally with me, as it were, to a high mountain, and from there, now to the vast heavens, now to the vast earth, raising your eyes, look at this entire visible world, united in a single union by the Creator. Do you see any disorder in its connection? Will you see one light attacking another? Can you not quickly notice that the sun enlightens the moon, the moon turns its light to the earth, a star helps a star to shine, “day imparts word to day, and night proclaims to night the knowledge” (Ps. 18:3) of the existence and Providence of the Divine? And this connection and union between created creatures, approved by God Himself, does not clearly prove and testify that one thing of this world was created for the benefit of another thing, and this other for the third, and the third for the fourth? For example, the sun is placed at a height so that it illuminates and warms the entire sky. And not a single creature crosses the limit that God, “who created all things with wisdom” (Ps. 103:24), unshakably set for them. One person, gifted with reason and enlightened by law, does not obey God’s law, boldly transgresses the commandment of his Creator. God created man in His image and likeness so that he, as a rational creature, would fulfill His will and be the supreme adornment of the Creator’s works. Man, on the contrary, through his sins and iniquities, arbitrarily makes himself ugly, and becomes a violator of the Divine law. God commands people not only not to harm each other, but also to do good, to “bear one another’s burdens” (Gal. 6:2), to love their neighbor as themselves. Man, on the contrary, uses all the powers of his mind to invent deceit, in whatever way he can deceive, damage, or offend his neighbor. Oh, woe! As much as this sin is a great evil before God, so much has it multiplied among people on the face of the earth. As much as theft and theft are harmful, so depraved human hearts are possessed by them. O fierce times! O corruption of people! Some rob their neighbor of his own property by robbery, others by theft, others by deception, others by flattery, others by deceit, others by other lawless means. In order to turn such corrupt people away from this lawless path and direct them to the path of true repentance, I intend, according to my position, in the next word to suggest to you how great a sin is before God - theft and what are the different types of this sin. Listen. There are three main types of theft, namely: open, secret and flattering. Explicit theft is when someone forcibly takes away someone else's property. This is what they do: 1) Robbers who forcibly rob others. 2) Rulers who blatantly take away from their subordinates, and the strong from the weak, their estate, house, slaves, land, etc., or force them to sell themselves what they do not want to sell, or to sell for a low price, or force workers to do great work beyond the contract and remuneration, or forcibly enslave and enslave free people, or arbitrarily take other people’s things, for example, clothes and other tools, or they plow someone else's land, or withhold wages and rewards for work and service. 3) Such theft is subject to those unscrupulous sellers who, in extreme need of another, for example, during a famine, do not sell bread, or sell, but only for an unbearable price, or demand some thing for it, for example, a house, or land, or a horse. 4) Those who, in the event of extreme distress, promise to give help, but under a heavy contract, even if it was not difficult to help, for example, drive a ship to a person drowning in water, etc., bind themselves to the guilt of obvious theft. 5) This also includes those who, seeing the need of another, do not lend money, or bread, or anything else, unless demanding unjust interest and growth. 6) Similar to them are those who withhold things pledged to them, and in other similar ways offend their neighbor. Another kind of theft is secret. This is theft when someone steals someone else's thing without the will and without the knowledge of the owner of that thing. Such thieves are those who steal houses, shops, granaries, farmyards, fisheries, gardens, forests, hayfields, etc. Great and obnoxious thieves are those who steal the state treasury, because they offend the whole society, as well as those who steal church or monastery treasure, and this theft is called sacrilege. Those who, having found some lost thing, do not announce it, and keep it, or stray cattle, or a runaway foreign slave, hide it and appropriate it, secretly steal it. The most inhuman are those thieves who steal something from a fire, and thereby ruin the poor and ruined. The third type of theft is flattering, when someone appropriates some other person's property by deception. Such theft is committed in many different ways, namely: 1) When someone sells something for a higher price than it is worth, or deceives in measure and weight, or sells a bad product for a good one, for example, mixes chaff into bread, water into wine, or gives a false coin for a good one, crystal for a diamond, marten for a sable, or takes more taxes than necessary. 2) Among such predators are judges who judge for bribes, and therefore, whether they judge righteously or unjustly, they steal, and clerks who give slow progress to the petitioners’ case, as if they are busy with other important matters, and thus solicit bows. 3) Those who are infected with this vice are those who, being treasurers or some kind of bailiff, conceal income, or attribute large expenses, or through their negligence cause losses to the master’s income. 4) These also include those who make false wills and appropriate property that was not theirs, or present themselves as a close relative of the deceased and become his heirs. 5) Those who, being hired for good remuneration, work incorrectly and carelessly, and spend their time in idleness, should be considered predators. 6) This number includes false beggars who, either being healthy, pretend to be infirm, or, having enough, pretend to be beggars, or some invent needs, as if they were ruined by a fire, or robbed by robbers, or ask for alms in the name of others falsely, for example, for an almshouse, for the ransom of captives, or for taxes, etc., and thereby take away alms from the poor, truly beggars: since what should have been given to the real poor, they steal from the givers by their deceit. 7) These thieves should also include hypocrites who, under the guise of feigned holiness or unlawfully presenting relics as if they were saints, or icons as if they were miraculous, deceive the common people into giving alms. 8) These are the same kind of flatterers and sneakers who, through various tricks, get paid for lying: they steal everything. 9) Finally, among such predators are gamblers who, with cunning art, take away goods from their neighbors. Because anyone who unfairly appropriates someone else’s property, in any way, steals it and sins against the commandment of God - “Thou shalt not steal.” Ask any gambler: why does he start playing? Is it not in order to seize someone else’s goods, to appropriate the goods of one’s neighbor? And if so, then his heart is occupied by the passion of theft, and, therefore, although he will not win, he nevertheless sins against the tenth commandment of God, which does not command him to covet anything for his neighbor - “thou shalt not covet.” And when he wins, he steals the thing itself. So, whether the gambler wins or loses, he still sins. If he wins, he steals other people's property. If he loses, he sins by desiring the good of others. In addition, it is almost impossible to list how many losses gamblers cause to others. They are intolerable to anyone, and can do no good but evil to society. A losing gambler offends, firstly, his family, his wife and children, robbing them of their proper wealth and their proper inheritance. If a gambler is a judge and clerk, then he strives for bribery, violates his oath, becomes a traitor to God and his Monarch, and from this lamentable cries are raised to the One who judges righteously, and all sorts of disorder in society will follow. Those who commit violence triumph, those who are violated become sad and cry. If he is a merchant, then such a one strives for deception and injustice. So, the gambler is hated by God, because he destroys His commandments. We are hated by our family because it robs them of their proper income. He is also hated by the entire society, which he touches with his offense. Now, how destructive this cunning and tormenting passion is to the human race, you, the listeners, judge for yourself. Meanwhile, I will suggest to you how great a sin is all theft before God, no matter how it is. Any theft is an offense to our neighbor. And therefore, when you in any way steal the goods of your neighbor, think about whom you are offending? You offend the one who is one body with you and whom God commanded you to love as yourself. You offend the one who was created in the image and likeness of God, and the slave and servant of the King of Heaven. You offend the one whom God Himself loved, washed, cleansed, sanctified, redeemed with the honest and most precious “Blood like the Immaculate and Most Pure Blood of Christ.” And such a thing - to offend your brother, for whom the Son of God shed His Blood, you consider it a small sin! Judge for yourself: isn’t it disgusting for the earthly Monarch if someone tramples his portrait or image underfoot and dishonors him? Will the Tsar not intercede if someone offends his dear servant? Will not a compassionate father take revenge when someone exposes and robs his son? But every neighbor of yours, O Christian, bears the image of the invisible God in his soul; he is the servant and slave of the Eternal King, the dear son of the Heavenly Father. So will you escape the wrath of God when you offend His image, His servant and servant, and His son? The Hypostatic Wisdom, the Son of God, declares to us that at the Judgment, at that Last Judgment, those standing on His left side will be condemned and sent to Gehenna for eternal torment for the fact that they did not show mercy to the poor, the strange, the poor, in the person of Christ, for Christ’s sake, in their lives, they did not visit the sick and the prisoner, they did not clothe the naked, they did not bring a stranger into the house, they did not give drink to the thirsty, the hungry were not fed. This is how the Holy Gospel testifies to this: “Then He will also say to those on His left: Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry, and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty, and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger, and they did not accept Me; I was naked, and they did not clothe Me; sick and in prison, and they did not visit Me.” And when the condemned begin to apologize, saying: “Lord! When did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not serve You? - then he answers them, saying: “Truly I say to you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me. And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into everlasting life” (Matthew 25:41–46). Well, if by the righteous judgment of God all those who do not give their property to their neighbors will be condemned into utter darkness, into unquenchable fire, then think for yourself, listeners, what terrible judgment on that day will befall those lawless people who steal, rob, take away and ruin their neighbor’s own goods. The rich man of the gospel suffers inconsolably in the flames of Gehenna, and will suffer forever because he did not feed the poor Lazarus, who lay hungry before his gates and wanted to be satisfied with the grains falling from his meal, did not show mercy, did not take pity on him. What kind of crying and outcry awaits in the next century those who, through theft, theft, sneaking, deceit, deceit and untruths, bring a considerable number of their neighbors to such a pitiful state in which the Gospel presents to us the holy Lazarus of the beggar! I can’t just describe the grief of that torment in words, but I can’t even understand it with my mind. I know one thing, how a person can avoid it in this life, namely, through true and unfalse repentance, i.e. when a sinful person truly turns to God, is touched in soul and contrite in heart, regrets and cries for his past sins, and, moreover, everything that he has stolen in some way from his neighbor is returned to him and rewarded. So, I offer sound advice to anyone who steals in any way - to get rid of this evil. For the more wealth he accumulates through untruth and theft, the more he accumulates for himself the wrath of God and subsequent eternal punishment. And take Zacchaeus, the publican of the Gospel, as an example: he squandered the evil he had collected in good, “those whom he had offended, he returned fourfold; therefore he heard from Christ: Now salvation has come to this house” (Luke 19:8-9). Here is the only means and method for you, kidnapper, by which you can be delivered from the threatening eternal misfortune. But if this charming world, or the servile flesh does not allow you to do this, then take the sword of unshakable intention and cut through true repentance this insoluble knot of your sins; give back to everyone everything from whom you have unjustly appropriated. It is better for the poor and needy to enter the kingdom of heaven than for the rich to suffer in the flames of hell. Yes, and no one comes from this world rich, but everything is the same, “as we enter this world naked, so naked do we depart” (Eccl. 5:14). Then everyone will have to reluctantly say goodbye to the estates that they have appropriated for themselves in some unjust way; you must leave those burdened chests that you filled with the tears of your brethren; it is necessary to be taken out of those palaces that he built from the blood of the wretched; it is necessary to take off those precious clothes that you have sewn from untruth; it is necessary to lose those wines that he enjoyed with tears crying to heaven; it is necessary to move away from that music that was pleasant to hear with the cries of the sobbing poor. Only one shirt, to cover the nakedness, one coffin and only three arshins of earth will be needed. Always think about this, think, worry and try. And if you don’t take care of this now and don’t hurry, then the time will come when you will regret, and lament, and cry, but to no avail, that is, when the time for repentance has passed. And besides, have a firm and inviolable rule so that you do not appropriate someone else’s property unjustly, either openly, or secretly, or flatteringly, or in any way. Both the natural and written Gospel law obliges you to do this: “what you do not want for yourself, do not do to your neighbor,” and what you want for yourself, do also for your neighbor (Acts 15:20, 29). Amen. A Word about Love of God and Love of Neighbor “The goal of exhortation is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and unfeigned faith” (1 Timothy 1:5). The lover of mankind, the Lord our God, when He created man in His image and likeness, implanted a law in his soul, through which he could know everything that concerns his duties and act according to that law. According to that law, he could know what his duty was to God, his Creator, to himself and his neighbor. But after the fall of man, this law was so deteriorated that barely traces of it remained. From this it followed that people chose evil instead of good, and, darkened by the darkness of ignorance, they revered vices instead of virtues. Therefore, our Merciful Creator, in His natural goodness, depicted that law on two tablets, which through Moses, His faithful servant, transmitted to His chosen people - Israel, and then to all people and nations. But the purpose of both natural and written law is nothing other than love alone. For the Most Merciful and Humane God, knowing that without love there can be no well-being in the human race, for the reason that the Father, providing for His children, gave us a law for our benefit and for the sake of our well-being, which is that we, firstly, God, and then our neighbor like this: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind..., and your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments, - according to Christ Himself, - all the law and the prophets are established" (Matthew 22:37-40). But what fruits love for God produces and why we should love God, what are the fruits of love for our neighbor and why we should love him, is presented in the next short word to those who want to know about it and do it to the best of their ability. I ask you to listen to everyone who wants to drive out enmity as their enemy from their hearts. The human heart cannot be idle, but it is certainly occupied either with enmity or with love for some thing. If you are busy with enmity, then these are the fruits it brings: it brings quarrels, fights, murders, insults, slander, oaths, flattery, deceptions, slander, condemnation, contempt, destruction, ridicule and the like. And if love lives in the heart, then the fruits are dear, and most pleasant both to the purest eyes of God and to prudent people. I’m talking here about pure love, and not about unclean, worldly, carnal, nasty, which, with offense to the Creator and neighbor, destroys the lover himself. I’m talking about that love, which, according to the apostle, is “from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and unfeigned faith” (1 Tim. 1:5). So, from such a heart in which pure God’s love dwells, the following fruits appear. The first fruit is contempt for the world and everything in the world. For what is the glory, honor, and wealth of this world for a true lover of God? Nothing. He finds everything in his beloved in an excellent way. To Him glory is God, and honor is God, and wealth is God. He considers himself glorious, honest, rich, because he loves Him whose glory is terrible, and all riches are in His hand. And since he places his consolation in the one and only beloved God, therefore he considers all the blessings of this world to be rubbish. Even if “wealth flows to him with the blessing of God, he does not put his heart to it” (Ps. 61:11), but squanders it on those who demand it. Although honor is given to him, it is for him like a yoke imposed, which he must wear for the common benefit of his brethren. Consequently, whoever attaches his heart to worldly and vain things does not have the love of God in him. “Friendship with the world is enmity against God; “Whoever wants to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God,” teaches the holy Apostle James (James 4:4). For God and the world are two opposite things, and therefore the love of one displaces the love of the other. Whoever loves God has no love for the world. But whoever has love for the world does not have the love of God. So, God's and worldly love cannot fit in one heart, just like fire and water. For God is a Zealot, He wants man to love Him with all his heart, and not with half: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart” (Matthew 22:37). The second fruit of God’s love is diligent and frequent meditation on God and His goodness: for “where our treasure is, there is our heart” (Matthew 6:21; Luke 12:34), according to the word of Christ. For this is what happens between people: someone who loves from the bottom of their hearts, they never let go of, they always think about them. Thus, whoever loves God with all his heart always studies in the thought of God, and from this it follows that he converses with Him in frequent prayer, remembers and preaches His good deeds and miracles. Consequently, whoever turns away from Him with his mind and does not ascend to Him in prayer, his heart is occupied with another love. The third fruit of God's love is careful compliance with His holy will. Whatever the will of God wants, the lover of God strives for. And whatever the will of God does not want, the lover of God turns away from it, and therefore he tries to submit his will to the will of God. Therefore, a true lover of God in the word of God, in which the will of God is revealed, often studies in order to find out what the will of God is and what it consists of, and, having learned it, to fulfill it by deed itself. And from this it follows that when a true lover of God does something against the will of his beloved out of weakness, he is very sad about it, laments, sighs, and often sheds tears. The Apostle calls this “sorrow for God, which produces unchangeable repentance leading to salvation” (2 Cor 7:10). Consequently, those who do not try to please the will of God and are more saddened by the damage to wealth, the loss of honor and other temporary things than by the transgression of God’s law, do not have love for God. “Where their treasure is, there their heart will be also.” The fourth fruit of God’s love is diligent care for the increase of God’s glory. A true lover of God everywhere and in all cases and deeds seeks the glory and honor of his Creator, his title is carefully carried out for the glory and honor of the name of God. For example, if a boss tries in every possible way to eradicate in his subordinates the vices and iniquities by which the name of God is blasphemed, from here zeal for God arises, which with great sadness and indignation hears that the name of his beloved is blasphemed, and would rather be in dishonor, reproach, reproach, bitterness and death than for the honor of God to be diminished. Hence it happens that “neither tribulation, nor distress, nor persecution, nor famine, nor nakedness, nor trouble, nor sword can separate a true lover of God from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord,” as the great Apostle Paul teaches (Rom. 8:35,39). Consequently, whoever does not seek the glory and honor of God, but does everything for the sake of his own benefit and honor, even if it in itself is a good deed, there is no love of God in him, but there is self-love, which is the cause of all evil. The fifth fruit of love is love for one's neighbor. For if we love someone, then we love the one whom we love. God, without a doubt, loves man: therefore, he who loves God also loves his neighbor. From the love of one's neighbor and God's love is known, according to the words of the holy Apostle John the Theologian: “Whoever says: “I love God,” but hates his brother, is a liar” (1 John 4:20). But what are the fruits of love for one’s neighbor, we will see below. Now let’s look briefly at why we need to love God, or better to say, what is that by which God’s love can be more aroused in us. It seems that it is unnecessary to show why one should love God. For conscience itself tells everyone that everyone should love, honor and fear God, as their Creator and Father. However, there are three main reasons (as St. John Chrysostom teaches) that should kindle in us a zealous love for God. The first is His ineffable goodness and beauty, surpassing all reason and concept. The second is His indescribable love for us. The third is the majesty and multitude of His benefits to us, which come from one love. As for the beauty of the blessed and immortal Nature, do not think, listener, that this is something bodily, but this is a certain glory and ineffable splendor, a certain unapproachable light. Showing this beauty, Isaiah the prophet says: “And the Seraphim stood around Him, with two wings they covered their faces, with two wings they covered their feet, with two they flew and cried: “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts!” (Isaiah 6:2–3). And as the same Saint John Chrysostom explains, the holy angels do this out of surprise, out of horror, out of its splendor, and out of its magnificent glory. Saint David wanted to see this beauty: “When will I come and appear to the Face of God? As a deer longs for springs of water, so does my soul long for You, O God” (Ps 42:2-3). Philip also wished: “Lord! Show us the Father, and it is enough for us” (John 14:8). The blessed spirits have insatiably enjoyed this beauty from the beginning, and will continue to enjoy it forever. The souls of the righteous are satisfied with the sight of this beauty, and will be satisfied forever. But why talk so much about something that not only the human mind, but also the Angelic mind cannot understand? Grant us, O Merciful Lord, by Your ineffable goodness, to be saturated with this beauty in due time. But the love that God has for the human race, what word will He speak? “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son” (John 3:16). What could be more than this love? A mother has great love for her child, but God has great love for man: “Even if a woman forgets her child, I will not forget you,” says the Lord (Isaiah 49:15). And again Christ, showing great love, says: “As a bird gathers its young under its wings, so I wanted to gather your children” (Matthew 23:37). All creation preaches God's benefits to us. The sun preaches, warming and illuminating us. The moon and stars preach, illuminating the night. Preaches the air, preserving our life. The clouds preach, pouring rain on us. The earth preaches, giving us fruits for food. They preach herbs, healing our illnesses and nourishing our livestock. Beasts preach, some clothing us, others feeding us, others serving us. Birds preach, some amusing us with singing, others feeding us. They preach the waters, giving us water to drink and giving us fish to eat. In a word, all creation, created to serve us, preaches God’s goodness to us. But if we look at the beginning of our existence, we will see that we are a wondrous, intelligent creature, venerable in the image of God, exalted above all creation, “little lower than the angels” (Ps. 8:6), and fallen, again miraculously restored. Just take the book of the Holy Gospel in your hands, and you will see that God became a Man for man, lived with people on earth, and endured human passions, except for sin: he endured reproach, blasphemy, the most severe suffering, and finally accepted a dishonorable death for the sake of man from sinners. O the depth of the wealth, and wisdom, and mind of God! Who will speak forth the powers of the Lord? “What shall we repay for all that He has given” to us (Ps. 115:3)? But these are benefits common to the human race. And how many of us, especially, every day, every hour and every minute, receives God’s blessings, and we ourselves cannot know, not only list them. How many deadly cases happen to everyone at any time, how many intrigues the devil plots! But the Humane God protects us from all of them, just as a compassionate mother warns her small and senseless child against all harmful incidents. But the fact that we sin every day and are subject to God’s punishment, but are not punished, do not immediately perceive according to our deeds—isn’t this a great blessing of God and Fatherly love? For if God punished us according to His justice for every crime, we would not be able to live for the slightest time, according to the words of the prophet: “If you look upon iniquity, O Lord, Lord, who can stand” (Ps 129:3)? And if he punishes us, but, like the Father of his children, he executes and has mercy, strikes and heals, insults and amuses, wounds and heals; yet he does this out of one love, so that we can correct ourselves and thus be saved forever. All this, that is, the inexpressible goodness of God, and His incomprehensible love for us, and the blessings that come from love, if we think about it, love will certainly kindle in our hearts. David and I will be able to say: “As the deer longs for the springs of water, so does my soul long for You, O God” (Ps 41:2). O love, purest, most sincere and most perfect! O kindness incomprehensible! O insatiable desire and blessed spirits! O Light Everlasting! Give me light, so that “in Your light I will see Your light” (Ps 36:10). Give me light, so that I may see Your love. Give me light, so that I may see Your Fatherly compassion. Give my heart to love You. Let my ears hear Your sweet voice. Give my lips to speak about You. Give me a taste and give you a taste. Give me the scent of Thy fragrance. Let my hand touch You. Give me permission to follow You. Before this I spoke about the love of God. Now I will offer a word about the fruits of love for one’s neighbor. For love for one’s neighbor, as stated above, follows from the love of God: he who does not love his neighbor does not love God. The fruits of love for one's neighbor are enumerated by the holy Apostle Paul in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, saying: “Love is patient, kind, love does not envy, love does not boast, is not proud, does not act rudely, does not seek its own, is not irritated, does not think evil, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth; loves everyone, believes everything, hopes everything, endures everything. Love never fails” (1 Cor 13:4–8). Let's briefly consider all these fruits. First. "Love is patient." He who loves his neighbor does not take revenge for an insult, but endures everything with meekness and kindness, and even prays for those who commit misfortune. So, revenge and rewarding evil for evil is the fruit not of love, but of hatred. Second. "Love is kind." A truly loving person, seeing the poverty of his neighbor, no matter who he is, cannot help but move his soul, cannot help but sympathize with the suffering person in his heart, and therefore he cries with those who cry. He sees the naked and clothes, sees the hungry and feeds, sees the wandering and brings into his home, visits the sick and those sitting in prison, comforts the sad, instructs the doubting, corrects the lost. He doesn’t think or say, as sometimes happens: “What do I care about him?!” After all, he is not ours, there will be someone other than me to serve him,” but he himself is in poverty with the poor, shares happiness and misfortune in half, does not spare himself to help his neighbor’s misfortune, and so considers his poverty to be his poverty. So, the contempt of the poor is the fruit of a hard-hearted and hateful heart. Third. "Love does not envy". True Christian love rejoices in the welfare of a brother as much as in its own. Seeing his brother cheerful, she herself has fun. Seeing him revered, he seems to consider himself revered. He grieves about his misfortune as if it were his own. So, sadness about the well-being of one’s neighbor and joy about misfortune are the fruit not of a loving, but of an envious and malicious heart. For envy is sadness for the good of one’s neighbor. Joy over evil is the most devilish thing, since the devil grieves over human salvation, but rejoices over destruction. Fourth. “Love is not exalted, it is not proud.” Love obeys superiors, honors equals, does not despise those who are lesser, yields to everyone, does not ridicule anyone, does not reproach, does not swear, does not dishonor, does not condemn, but sees itself and its own vices, all evil is to itself, and what is good is not attributed to itself, but to God; accepts all reproof and punishment with joy. So, pride, arrogance, condemnation and contempt are not the fruit of a loving heart, but from the spirit of malice of the devil. Fifth. “Love does not act outrageously,” for it knows where and what to say or do, it reasons about place and time, it takes care to give and accept temptation, and therefore everything it says and does with reasoning, it behaves decorously and reverently everywhere. So, any disorder is not the fruit of love. Sixth. “Love does not seek its own.” The joy and joy of true love is to do good to your neighbor for free, without any expected profit. In this she imitates her Creator, who does good deeds for everyone freely, “commands his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unjust” (Matthew 5:45). She does not spare herself for the benefit of her neighbor, she works, sweats, and watches so that her neighbor can be created. There is nothing inconvenient for her; she makes the impossible possible with the help of God. In everything, she seeks not her own, but the benefit of her neighbor, according to the instructions of the Apostle. So, whoever does good to his neighbor for the sake of his own profit, there is no love for his neighbor, but self-love. Seventh. "Love is not irritated." She does not allow great anger to flare up, she does not open her mouth to swearing, slandering, or reproaching her neighbor. So, swearing and all slander is not the fruit of love. Eighth. "Love thinks no evil." Not only does she not do any harm to her neighbor, but she also does not think. A heart burning with love always learns to do good to the beloved. So, resentment is not the fruit of love, but the fruit of malice. Ninth. “Love does not rejoice in untruth, but rejoices in the truth.” True love, seeing that his neighbor, by doing injustice, inflicts offense on another, and thereby offends the majesty of God and falls under the wrath of His righteous one, is sad for three reasons. Firstly, because by untruth the commandment of God is broken. Secondly, because his neighbor, being offended, is in trouble. Thirdly, because he who does injustice is subject to the wrath of God. And on the contrary, he rejoices when he sees someone abiding in the truth. So, joy over untruth is not the fruit of love. Tenth. “Love loves everyone,” that is, the evil and the good, so that the union of peace is indestructible and the general well-being prospers. Eleventh. "Love believes everything." Since she herself treats everyone with sincerity, and does not want to deceive or seduce anyone, she does not even think about the deceit of others. Because of this, he suffers intrigues from cunning and crafty people. Twelfth. “Love hopes for everything, endures everything,” trusting and waiting for some benefit and benefit to come to one’s neighbor. Thirteenth. "Love Never Fails". For “love is strong as death... many waters cannot quench it,” God’s word teaches (Song 8:6–7). Faith and hope abides here only in the faithful, and love will abide forever in God’s chosen ones. It begins here, and in this century it will be completed. These, listeners, are the fruits of Christian love for one’s neighbor, described by the holy Apostle. The reasons why we must love our neighbor, that is, every person, are as follows. First. There is a commandment of our God, which commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 19:19). And Christ also says: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another” (John 13:34). So, he who does not love his neighbor resists God’s command. Second. Love for one's neighbor makes the lover a disciple of Christ. For Christ Himself says: “By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). For just as a tree is known by its fruit, so is a true Christian by faith, which is helped by love, for “faith without works is dead” (James 2:20, 26). What is the use of being called a Christian, confessing Christ with your lips, but not fulfilling His will, not following Him? Third. Since God’s love cannot exist without the love of one’s neighbor, St. John the Theologian says: “Whoever says: “I love God,” but hates his brother, is a liar: for he who does not love his brother whom he sees, how can he love God whom he does not see? And we have this commandment from Him, that whoever loves God should also love his brother” (1 John 4:20–21). So, if someone does not love his neighbor, he does not love God. And whoever does not love his neighbor is hostile to him, for either enmity or love possesses a person’s heart. And whoever is hostile to man is also hostile to God, because God loves man, as stated above. Fourth. The Apostle Paul says that all gifts without love are nothing. To perform miracles, to know many sacraments, to speak in many languages ​​- there is no benefit without love (1 Cor 13:1-8). For “many,” says Christ, “will say to Me on that day: “Lord! Lord! Did we not prophesy in Your name? And didn’t we cast out demons in Your name? And didn’t we do many miracles in Your name?” And then I will declare to them: “I never knew you; Depart from me, you workers of iniquity" (Matthew 7:23). But the sign of a true Christian is faith supported by love, as the same apostle says (1 Cor 13:2) Fifth. The common well-being of all comes from mutual love. Oh, how prosperously everyone would live if they loved each other mutually! Then there would be no theft, robberies, thefts, murders, deceptions. The storerooms would not be strengthened to preserve the estates. There would be no need for guards, no need for locks. There wouldn't be so many people crying and shedding bloody tears. The plaintive voices of widows, orphans, poor and defenseless people crying to heaven would not be heard. The courts would not be burdened with plaintive petitions. The hungry brethren would not wander through the streets and squares, the half-naked members of Christ would not shake from the cold and frost. The dungeons would not be filled with prisoners imprisoned for debts, bills and arrears. Finally, there would be no beggars and wretches, but everyone would live safely, calmly and peacefully, and everyone would be equal. For this reason, the Lord God, paternally pitying the human race, gave the following commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 19:19). O love, love, “the union of perfection” (Col 3:14)! Love, how many blessings we are deprived of when we don’t have you! With you everything is good and prosperous, but without you everything is bad and dysfunctional! Sixth. True Christian love is a foretaste of eternal life. It begins here, and will be completed in eternal life. For in eternal life, God’s chosen ones will love each other mutually, rejoice in each other, and enjoy each other spiritually. Wouldn't there be great prosperity in that house in which husband and wife, their children and slaves lived in proper Christian love? Truly, the one who would call this house an earthly paradise would not sin. So, if anyone wants to have some foretaste of eternal life, he must acquire Christian love. Seventh. With true love we draw closer to God, because “God is Love,” as the Apostle says (1 John 4:8). And the purer, warmer and more zealous the love, the closer it is to God. The more and more zealously a person loves God and his neighbor, the more he becomes like God, or even unites with God Himself. For “he who abides in love,” says St. John the Theologian, “abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 John 4:16). Oh, what a great bliss it is for man to unite with the Eternal and Most Blessed Divinity! What could be more desirable and joyful than this union? He who abides in Christian love is rewarded with such great bliss. Previously, I gave reasons that prompt us to love our neighbor. From all this it follows that we must love our enemies, according to the commandment of Christ: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who use you and persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:44–45). For even the pagans, who do not know the True God and do not believe in Christ, love those who love; but those who do not love to love - this is the work of Christians alone. This, I confess, is contrary to our corrupt nature, but this is the glory of the Christian, to overcome nature, to subdue the flesh to the spirit, to “conquer evil with good” (Rom. 12:21). This is Christian nobility - to dominate oneself. To be the son of the Heavenly Father - what greater nobility could there be? But love for enemies intercedes for this. “How,” someone will say, “should I love my enemy?” And I say that this is disgusting to our corrupted nature, but it is convenient for the new man, reborn in Christ. The old man does not tolerate this, but the new man, “having been baptized into Christ” and having clothed himself (Rom. 6:3), accepts it with joy. For the commandment of Christ and the example of Christ command this. And Christ Himself loved his enemies and prayed for them: “Father, let them go” (Luke 23:34). Likewise, do not love enmity and malice in your neighbor, as the work of the devil, but love him himself, since he is God’s creation and God’s servant. This is what Christ’s commandment requires of you: “love your enemies.” This is encouraged by a lofty promise: “That you may, he says, be sons of your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:44–45). The punishment of death is terrifying: “He who does not love his brother remains in death,” says St. John the Theologian (1 John 3:14). Encourages high Christian nobility, which is learned from love for enemies. This highest virtue encourages, with which a person conquers himself. So, do not persecute a person, but try to destroy anger and enmity in a person, as a devil’s invention. And for man, as your neighbor, as your brother, as a mental member of a single body, of the same faith with you, enlightened by a single Baptism, having one God and Father, have pity and condolences. Because when he is at enmity with you, he is more at enmity with himself. When he offends you, he offends himself more. When he curses you, God himself falls under an oath. When he judges you, he subjects himself to God’s judgment: “Judge not, lest ye be judged” (Matthew 7:1). When he abhors you, he himself becomes disgusted before God. He deprives you of temporary benefits, and deprives himself of eternal ones. It takes away temporary honor from you, and eternal honor from yourself. He kills your body, and his soul. For this angers God, who commanded to love your neighbor: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 19:19). Amen. Advice to residents of the city of Voronezh about the destruction of the annual festival called “Yarilo” 8 Last Monday, that is, on the first day of this fast, I learned, already in the evening, from one kind person, that in the field, near the Moscow gate, some kind of holiday was being celebrated with all sorts of outrage, which the local residents call “Yarilo”. I, wanting to better make sure that what was reported to me was true, went to that place myself and saw that it was exactly as I had heard. I saw that many husbands and wives, old and young, as well as small children from the whole city had gathered at that place. Among this multitude of people I saw some almost senselessly drunk. There were quarrels among others, fights among others, I saw some wounded, some bloodied. I also noticed the dancing of drunken wives with bad songs. And in the midst of all this lawless triumph of insane people there is a tavern in a tent, from which they constantly bring out wine and treat and get drunk with each other, and not far from it all sorts of edible things are sold. This is the holiday, listeners, that I saw in Christians, in those people who, by threefold rejection, renounced Satan and all his works, and threefold swore an oath to serve Christ, and enlisted in His army. I saw this holiday in those people who confess God, who created heaven and earth, glorify the name of the Holy Trinity with their lips, adorn themselves with the Christian name, profess the faith, receive the Holy Mysteries, look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the next century, and perhaps even enter the churches of God to praise God, listen to Vespers, Matins and the Holy Liturgy; and not without sometimes partaking of the terrible Holy Mysteries, the most precious Body and Blood of Christ! And when? At a time in which, according to the law of the Church of Christ, our common mother, true Christians began fasting. At a time in which the Holy Church did not have time to celebrate the feast of Holy Pentecost, a holiday established in thanksgiving to the Lord our God Jesus Christ, with His Originless Father and the Most Holy Spirit, Who, having completed the work of our salvation on earth, ascended to heaven and, having begged His Heavenly Father, as He promised, sent the Comforter of the Most Holy Spirit to the holy disciples and apostles and to all who believe in His most holy name. At such a time, I say, this significant holiday is celebrated, in which every Christian soul should revere! And who celebrates like that? Christians, such a glorious race of people, the race of Christ, “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, people of renewal” (1 Peter 2:9), celebrate this holiday with such zeal and ardor as you, the listeners, heard at the beginning of my words! But, alas, trouble! Alas, blindness! Christians have forgotten that they are Christians. With their lips they confess Christ, but with their deeds they deny Him. They glorify God with words, but with disorderly deeds they blaspheme His holy name. I invite you to judge for yourself, listeners! Judge for yourself what kind of holiday this is?! To gather in an empty place in a great multitude, to get drunk insensibly, to dance and play disorderly games, to raise godless screams and cries, to curse each other, to curse, to quarrel, to fight with each other, to wound each other, to bleed each other, and other similar things to do, which the ear of a chaste soul cannot tolerate!.. Is this not the invention of the devil, who “prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8)? Isn’t this the prince of this age, with which he darkens the spiritual eyes of poor people, “so that they do not see the light of the truth of Christ” (2 Cor 4:4)? I tell you for sure and will testify that this holiday is a demonic holiday, and definitely stinks of idolatry. Isn’t this what these people, the new Israel, are doing as the Apostle Paul says about the people who came out of Egypt, the old Israel: “The people sat down to eat and drink, and stood up to play” (1 Cor 10:7). For these people also sat down to eat and drink and get drunk, and stood up to play. In addition, they rebelled against each other; They rose up to quarrel with each other, to fight with each other, to wound each other, to bleed each other. From all the circumstances of this holiday it is clear that there was a certain ancient idol, called the name Yarilo, which was revered in these countries while there was no Christian piety. And some, as I hear from old people here, call this holiday a game. “How long ago did this holiday begin?” – I asked the same old people. They definitely told me that for a long time. And then they added that it intensifies from year to year, and so people expect it as an annual celebration. And when he approaches, the celebrants dress in their best clothes, and little by little they begin to go wild in it; Small children also ask their fathers and mothers there with great effort. It begins, as the same people explain to me, on Wednesday or Thursday after the descent of the Holy Spirit, and intensifies in the following days. And on Monday, the first day of this fast, it ends only with great disorder and an increase in wickedness, as I myself noticed with regret. But no matter what that holiday is called, or when it begins, or how many days it lasts, nevertheless, I definitely declare to you that this holiday is demonic, stinking, and emits the smell of idolatry. Because the Christian holiday consists of entering the Church of God and glorifying the name of God, reflecting on God’s good deeds and thanking God the Benefactor for them with the heart and lips. So the apostle teaches, saying: “Be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord, giving thanks always for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph 5:18-20). What is this holiday? Disorderly cries, drunkenness, fights, bloodshed, nasty and inciting fornication dances of nasty women, whom the apostle commands in every possible way to beware of, saying: “Let us cast away the works of darkness and put on the weapons of light. As in the day, let us behave decently, not indulging in feasting and drunkenness, nor in sensuality and debauchery, nor in quarrels and envy” (Rom. 13:12-13). So, this holiday is a demonic holiday. And where there is a demonic holiday, there a sacrifice is made to the demon, there the demon is venerated; and where the demon is revered, there the honor of Christ is damaged, there “the name of God is blasphemed” (Rom. 2:24). This is how Christians give thanks to Christ!? This is the reward for His ineffable good deeds!? Christ did not disdain to take on the image of a slave for us, to wander with us on earth, to hunger, to thirst, to work and to accept other sinless passions. He did not renounce blasphemy, reproach, reproach, spitting, strangulation, wounds, abuse, crucifixion, shameful death, and endure a three-day burial. And then he rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, sending us from the Heavenly Father the Comforter, the Holy Spirit. For these good deeds of His to us, such thanksgiving is given to Him from us! Disobedience is rewarded instead of obedience. Instead of honor - dishonor. Instead of love - hatred. Instead of glorification - blasphemy. Oh, human blindness! Oh, insensibility! Oh, bitterness! The prophet Saint Jeremiah, seeing the destruction of the city of Jerusalem and the children of Israel taken into captivity, began to weep inconsolably, wept and sought tears, saying: “Who will give water to my head and a source of tears to my eyes, and I will weep day and night for the slain daughters of my people” (Jer 9:1)? And again: “As the gold darkened, the good silver changed, the stones of the sanctuary crumbled at all the crossroads. How are the precious sons of Zion, clothed in fine gold, like earthen vessels, the work of a potter’s hands” ( Lamentations 4:1–2 )? Christians, the new Israel, who celebrate such ungodly holidays, are worthy of similar lamentation, since they too are suffering the same, and even greater, captivity. For those with their bodies, and those with their souls, fall into captivity. And the more worthy and dearer the soul is to the body, the more bitter is its captivity than that of the body. For the one who captured them is not Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, but the prince of darkness and the power of the air, who is constantly becoming bitter and attacking the holy city of Jerusalem, that is, the Holy Church. The bonds with which these captives are bound are sinful bonds, stronger than any adamant; only the almighty power of God can break them. The rivers of Babylon are various outpourings of passion, in which these poor captives sit and cry. They also hung up their organs, that is, they shut their mouths to the praise of God. Those who captivated them, seeing them in such trouble, mocked them, saying: “Sing us some of the songs of Zion” (Ps 137:3). But how is it possible for them to sing the song of the Lord and the song of the devil? How can one sing both bad songs and the praises of God with one mouth? For “praise is not fair,” says Scripture, “in the mouth of a sinner” (Sir 15:9). The accursed daughter of Babylon is their corrupt will, which conceives disease, and gives birth to children of iniquity (Ps. 7:15). Oh, how bitter and deplorable this captivity is! “The precious sons of Zion, clothed in pure gold, how are they compared to earthen vessels, the work of a potter’s hand? How did the gold darken, and the good silver change, and the stones of the sanctuary crumble at all the crossroads? Who will give my head water and my eyes a fountain of tears, so that I may weep day and night?” ( Lamentations 4:1–2 , Jeremiah 9:1 ). “Remember, O Lord, to the children of Edom, on the day of Jerusalem, who said: “Devastate, devastate it to its foundations!” Accursed daughter of Babylon, captivating our souls, leading us away from heavenly Jerusalem and beautiful Zion above, how blessed is he who takes and dashes your babies against the stone” (Ps 137:7-9)! Merciful Lord, our Creator and Savior, compassionate to our troubles, “bring back our captives, our souls, as you bring back the streams of the south wind” (Ps 126:4)! “Remember, Lord, what happened to us, look and see our reproach! Our property has passed to strangers; Thy adversaries have possessed us; and there is no one to deliver from their hands; the joy of our hearts has crumbled, our faces have turned to weeping, the crown of our head has fallen off. Woe to us, for we have sinned! This is why our hearts were troubled! Because of this our eyes are darkened” (Lamentations 5:1, 22, 8, 15–17)! “Look, O Lord, from heaven, and behold, and visit this vineyard, which Thy right hand has planted! The forest has damaged it, and a lonely wild beast has eaten it” (Ps. 79:14–16). “Turn us, O Lord, to Thee, and let us return, and renew our days as before” (Lamentations 5:21). In this sorrow and illness of my heart, I turn my word to all those living in this city, and with tears I pray: destroy this evil from among you. Priests! Shepherds of Christ's verbal sheep! Guardians of the house of the Lord! Angels proclaiming the will of the Heavenly Father! According to your duty, “insist..., entreat, rebuke” (2 Tim 4:2), spare the souls entrusted to you by the Chief Shepherd Jesus Christ, redeemed by His Blood, for which you must give an answer to the terrible Judge on the Day of Judgment. Turn them away from this wickedness right and left. Gentlemen, commanders, who have been entrusted with a sword by the most pious Monarch to intimidate the villains and the wicked! Frighten with this sword and stop the outrages and temptations of people who resist the word of truth. Honest fathers and mothers! Keep your children from doing this in every possible way, but first raise them in the fear of God and in all punishment, so that you will not be tortured for them on the Day of Judgment. Gentlemen! Stop the insolence of your slaves. Citizens flaunting their honest gray hair and immaculate life! Give good advice. I beg everyone: unanimously try to prevent these hosts of wickedness and other similar unchristian games from happening in the future. If those stubborn in anger and rebellious sons justify themselves to you that this is an ancient custom, and in other places they do the same and the like, you stop their mouths with such an answer: that it is a bestial thing to follow the customs of either ancestors, or some other people, and what this custom is, whether it is useful or harmful, salutary or soul-destroying, is not to be discussed. For cattle usually go where they are leading, and not where they need to go. Where one sheep or wolf goes, others follow, but whether it will be useful for them or not, they do not know and do not reason. A person, especially a Christian, gifted with natural reason and enlightened by the word of God, must reason and listen, not what they are doing, but what needs to be done. And what to do and what to turn away from, natural and God’s law shows everyone, the Holy Gospel and, following it, teachers teach. If we adhere to all customs without reasoning, then we will not even be worthy of the Christian name. After all, it was the custom of our ancestors, while the light of Christian piety did not yet shine, to offer sacrifice to demons, to worship idols, to honor the creature instead of the Creator. This custom is still preserved by many who do not know the True God, such as the Chinese, Japanese, Americans, Persians and others. So should we imitate our forefathers in this? A bad excuse in such cases: “Others do this and that, why shouldn’t I do it?” What do you care about others? So answer such a madman: pay attention to yourself and your salvation, and do not look at others. The others you refer to sin and thereby anger God, which is scary, so should you sin too? Others are perishing, and you must perish?.. This is certain, for whatever sin follows for others, so does it for you. For sin there is Gehenna, never-quenching fire, never-ending worm, never-ending torment. And you and others must go to destruction for sin. This is how bad and soul-destroying it is to refer to others in disorder, and how reckless it is to imitate them in them! So, repelling foolish apologies to foolish people, advise and pray that they should lag behind evil customs and not do what is being done, but do what needs to be done, listen to the pastors and teachers of the church, who are primarily tasked with this. This is what the Holy Spirit, through the Apostle, commands to obey: “Obey,” he says, “your teachers and be submissive, for they are vigilantly watching over your souls, as those who are obliged to give an account; so that they may do this with joy and not with groaning” (Heb. 13:17). Finally, I, your unworthy shepherd, exhort and beg you to move away from these evil and soul-harming customs, and to consign this demonic holiday to oblivion, as the culprit of many evils. For what more, if not by this lawless and frantic triumph, is the name of Christ blasphemed? This discredits our pious Christian faith. For our opponents, Lutherans, Calvinists, Papists, seeing such fury, rightly revile us and say: “Look, what holidays they have! Such is their faith, such is their piety!” This city is also dishonored by such a holiday. For residents of other Russian cities, looking at such holidays, righteously say: “This is what they do! In Voronezh they celebrate a certain holiday that does not exist anywhere, which is called by its name Yarilo. Oh, what kind of holiday is this for them - Yarilo? They celebrate in honor of one of the ancient idols.” Ah, it’s a shame, moreover, it’s terrible for Christians to worship an idol! From such a lawless triumph, your shepherd also suffers reproach. “What is he looking at there? After all, he was appointed to cut off such growing wickedness. You know, he either doesn’t know his rank, or has forgotten, or doesn’t care about it.” Yes, they say it righteously! Ah, a lawless holiday! Ah, the wicked host! Ah, a shameful name - Yarilo! The name of a chaste person is unworthy of hearing - Yarilo! Devil's invention - Yarilo! The cause of so many evils is Yarilo! Oh, I would never have heard that name - Yarilo! Oh, if only that wicked name, Yarilo, would soon be erased from memory! But let us, listeners, avoid all sin and general shame! Destroy, I pray and ask, destroy this host. Do not allow this lawless meeting to continue. Blot out in your memory this barbaric and vile name - Yarilo. Consign these holidays to oblivion. Celebrate the One Trihypostatic God, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, into whom you were baptized, and glorify His majesty in every place. And because His goodness has hitherto been angered by such lawless holidays, repent, have pity, and run to His goodness with contrition of heart and tears. He, as the Many-Merciful Father, will accept you who repent, and will forgive you your sins and have mercy according to His great mercy. Amen. Advice to residents of the city of Voronezh about going to catechetical teaching 9 With considerable regret, I have repeatedly noticed that few citizens gather for the soul-beneficial teaching that has been taught every Sunday before the Holy Liturgy for almost a year now. It was determined for this purpose, so that everyone, listening, would know what the Christian title and the power of God’s law consist of, and thus would prosper in piety. But, as I see it, the opposite is happening to my intention. The preacher works the whole week, sweats, collects like a bee what he could offer for instruction, speaks for an entire hour, but his labors are almost in vain, the seed of the word of God falls almost in vain, since there are few who listen. You know, some people think that it is better to spend a short time condemning or slandering their neighbor, others in depraved conversations, others in reading seductive and soul-harming books, others in idleness and laziness, which is the mother and source of all evil, or in something else that is unhelpful and harmful, rather than going to listen to the preached word of God. When a jester jokes in front of you, or a flatterer lies, you listen to them with eagerness and pleasure. And when a preacher in the middle of the church preaches the truth, speaks words of eternal life, you turn away your ears. But, oh poor man, you are the unluckiest of all! How much more beneficial it would be for you if you listened to the true word of God and learned from His law, and not to flatterers, filled with a lying spirit, and turned your ears to jesters! “The Queen of the South...,” according to Scripture, “came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon” (Matthew 12:42; 1 Kings 10:1–8). Here, in the church of the Lord, it is not Solomon’s wisdom that is preached, but the wisdom of God. “Christ,” I say with the Apostle Paul, “is the Power of God and the Wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1:24). So, at the time of the Second Coming of Christ, will not those who are lazy to come to the church not from distant countries, but from nearby houses, avoid the terrible judgment of God, the righteous wrath of God and execution? Saint John Chrysostom denounces them for such negligence and negligence, and cries out loudly: “When someone comes from the king with a decree, everyone listens, but when a prophet comes from God, the King of kings, and a prophet speaks from heaven, no one listens. Some are arrogant with pride, others are blinded by self-interest, others are overcome by luxury, others are drowning in laziness, others are obsessed with other passions; and how many people gather in the house of God to pray and preach the word of God!” God assigned man six days to work to fulfill his own needs, and during these six days God sent, like manna, profit and happiness in our labors. And the seventh day, that is, Sunday, is sanctified for the sake of serving God Himself and glorifying His holy name. But many have such a cold love for God, who created and loved them, they come to such fearlessness before their Creator that not only one day, but also one hour a day to serve God, their Creator, to learn from His law, to listen to His saving word, they are lazy and neglect this. I think that if the teaching was taught here on how to collect perishable wealth and obtain temporary honor and dignity, not only the parents themselves would come to study at such a school, but they would also bring their children. But not only do they not bring their children, but even the fathers and mothers themselves do not go to listen to that preacher who teaches to lay up incorruptible treasure in heaven, who shows the way to eternal bliss. They consider it necessary and great to listen to how to make a profit for their merchants, how to provide a service to some gentleman. And how to please God, how to receive the salvation of the soul, how not to lose eternal life, how to avoid eternal torment in Gehenna - that’s the last thing they think about! Isn't this a misconception? Isn't it extreme blindness? They seek the perishable, but despise the imperishable! They seek the mortal, but despise the immortal!.. They seek the earthly, but despise the heavenly!.. Probably, such people either have a deep sinful sleep, or are extremely devoted to worldly things, from which they do not want to free themselves for a single hour. But know, friend, that the wealth of this world, like the flow of a river, will flow away; vain glory will disappear like smoke; honor and dignity, like a wildflower, will soon fade. Only hearing the word of God is that “good part” which, according to the word of the Eternal Truth Himself, our Savior, will never “be taken away” (Luke 10:42). Few people seek Him, but almost all of them spontaneously make themselves unworthy of this unvalued bead, this integral treasure. Oh, teachers! O preachers of the word of God! How unhappy you are in our century! How few listeners you have! In order to learn German, French and other foreign languages, many spare no fortune, no money, no labor. And preachers teach the law of God for free, without price or money, declare the will of the Heavenly Father, preach the word of God, which instructs so that they know completely what to believe in, and lead a life similar to what they believe. But no one listens to them! The streets are filled with people everywhere, there are countless people gathering in the market place, there are a lot of people between the shops, everywhere there are quite a lot of people gathering in groups. Only few people attend the sermon in the church of God! Therefore, for such Christians who withdraw from listening to preaching, both faith and life are the same. “Faith comes by hearing,” according to the apostle, “and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 10:17). Where can I find it? Where are its corresponding fruits? Where is Christian simplicity? Where is the brotherly love that Christ requires of us? Where is meekness, where is mercy, where is goodness, where is self-control, etc.? And no traces are visible! On the contrary, why robbery, why theft, why bribes, why thefts, why perjury, why adultery and fornication, why slander, condemnation, why drunkenness and intemperance, why flattery, deceit and other similar iniquities, if not because the law of God is in the utmost ignorance and contempt? Everyone tries to know the Royal decrees and carry them out, since everyone faces visible execution for a crime, but few people try to know and act on God’s decrees, for the crime of which eternal punishment awaits. How pitiful and terrible this matter is, judge for yourself! I don’t say anything about this, but I am only amazed at God’s indescribable mercy and long-suffering. And at the same time, I confess and confirm that His goodness awaits us all for repentance, if the worthy one does not send execution for that crime. But maybe someone doesn’t like a preacher who doesn’t speak well? To this I say that God’s command to preachers is not that they amuse and amuse their listeners with their preaching, but that they bring benefit and heal their sinful wounds. So what is the reason that keeps many from listening to the word of God? This, listeners, I find is that their souls are in a bad state. For just as when the stomach does not accept food, we undoubtedly conclude that it is unhealthy and requires treatment and healing, so when someone does not want to listen to the word of God, which is the food of the soul, this is a known sign that his soul is weakened, sick and requires treatment and a healing plaster. Do you, listeners, know how precious a thing is our soul? For her, the Only Begotten Son of God shed His priceless Blood. That's how expensive she is! I would show you, listeners, the very way how the word of God feeds our souls; would declare how it preserves people of every rank in their positions, how it instills justice in those in authority, loyalty in subordinates, how it encourages the rich to be generous and give alms, the poor to patience and generosity, how it teaches parents to provide for their children, how children to honor and obey their parents, how it strengthens the young in faith, cheers the old in hope, and instills in all the love of God and love of neighbor, grows, multiplies. But whoever wants to know this, do not be lazy to come at the appointed time, and you will hear and know the very essence. The devil’s snares are spread out everywhere, tunnels are laid everywhere for spiritual destruction, temptations are encountered everywhere: temptations in homes, temptations on the streets, temptations at crossroads, temptations on the paths. And the eyes and ears are like certain doors with which all evil strikes the church of the heart. The world with its charms is arming itself; adversary “the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8); the flesh with passions and lusts constantly rebels against the soul. Now pride, then love of money, then anger, then rage, then drunkenness, then fornication and adultery, then laziness and despondency, then anger and revenge and other spiritual enemies are rising. A Christian must constantly fight against these enemies even until the end of his life. How to fight without weapons? But just as these enemies are spiritual, that is, fighting against the spirit, so the weapon with which they are defeated must be spiritual. And the word of God shows this spiritual weapon. It instructs us how to stand against the spirits of wickedness in high places, how to struggle against the passionate flesh, how to evade the charms of the world and temptations. I marvel greatly if anyone, in the midst of so many temptations, so many wiles of the devil, leads a Christian life, but does not study the law of God. Yes, and this can hardly happen. For how can one do the will of God if one does not know it? And how can you know if you don’t listen to the words of God in which it is revealed? Therefore, I confirm: if you want to act carefully in the midst of so many temptations, if you need eternal life, if you want to receive the kingdom of heaven, a beautiful paradise, eternal bliss, then do not neglect listening to the word of God. A week contains one hundred and sixty-eight hours. Set aside one hour from this number for this godly and saving work, and, leaving all worldly cares, both old and young, rich and poor, fathers and sons, flock to the church of the Lord for the sake of hearing the word of God. There you will hear about God and His Divine properties. Hear about the wonderful creation of the whole world by Him. Hear about the beginning of the human race. You will hear about the blissful state of Adam, you will hear about his disastrous fall and expulsion from the beautiful paradise. Hear about the Divine Providence that saves our family. Hear how the Son of God, by the favor of the Heavenly Father and the action of the Most Holy Spirit, became incarnate from the Holy Virgin for our sake. Hear how He lived on earth with people. Hear how he endured reproach, blasphemy, mockery, terrible suffering and shameful death. Hear how he rose from the dead and ascended into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God the Father. You will hear that he will come again to judge the living and the dead. Hear that there will be reward for the righteous and the sinful. And what is the use of this! Unspeakable! When you hear about God, you will know yourself, who you are. When you hear about the goodness of God, you will begin to love Him. When you hear about His righteousness, you will begin to fear Him. When you hear about His omnipresence, you will walk honestly before Him everywhere. When you hear about His omnipotence, learn to trust in Him alone. When you hear about His wisdom, you will be amazed at Him. When you hear about the creation of the world, you will recognize the goodness, wisdom and omnipotence of God. Goodness - that He did not create all this for His own sake; wisdom - what He created so wonderfully; omnipotence - what he created out of nothing. When you hear about the creation of the first man, you will know the beginning of your existence. When you hear about his fall and the disaster that followed, you will know into what state sin has plunged us, and this way you will be more comfortable guarding yourself against it. When you hear about the renewal of our race, you will clearly see how great God’s mercy is. When you hear about the suffering and shameful death of the Son of God, accepted for our sake, be touched by love for Him. When you hear about His Second Coming and rewarding each person according to his deeds, you will have the fear of God, which will lead you away from every ungodly deed. When you hear about eternal torment, the unquenchable fire prepared for the devil and his angel, you will think in every possible way how to avoid it. When you hear about eternal bliss, your heart will be inflamed to desire and acquire it. So, what is more necessary and what is more pleasant? Do not abandon, I pray you, do not abandon this much-needed task! You yourself will recognize a great change in yourself. Anyone will know what state he is in. He will see the defilement of his soul, and so he will wash it. He will see nakedness, and will try to clothe her. He will see poverty and wretchedness, and so will seek bliss. Finally, I will add: just as if we want to heal a physical illness, we must first know it, so whoever wants to heal a mental illness must first know it, and it is known from the word of God. However, even if two or three gather, the teaching will still be taught, and it will be even more exposed as careless and disdainful. And the preacher, do not be discouraged by the fact that there are few people listening, but work diligently for the glory of God and for the benefit of your neighbor. Your reward will not perish, but “it will be great in heaven” (Matthew 5:12). Amen. A brief exhortation on how it is appropriate to enter holy churches for doxology “Enter its gates with praise” (Ps 99:4). 1) When going to church, think that you are going to the house of the Heavenly King, where you should stand with fear and joy, as in heaven before the Heavenly King. “We stand in the church, we stand in heaven,” sings the Holy Church. 2) If you want to pray profitably, forgive your neighbor’s sins, so that you can call upon the Heavenly Father without condemnation, saying: “Our Father, who art in heaven!” – and so on. “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” And if you do not forgive your neighbor’s sins, know that God will not forgive you your sins either. “If you do not forgive people their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6:15). 3) When standing in church, don’t look around and, like someone standing or praying, don’t look, so that you don’t judge the Pharisee, because you didn’t come to judge, but to ask God the Judge and Knower of the Heart for mercy. But look with tenderness at the single altar, where the Holy Sacrifice is offered, and, imitating the tax collector, pray to the merciful God about your sins, saying: “God! Be merciful to me, a sinner” (Luke 18:13). 4) Be extremely careful of laughter and conversations, because the one who, standing in church, laughs or talks, not only does not appease God, but is also very annoying, for he does not honor the holy place and tempts others and prevents others from praying. Listen diligently to reading and singing and be moved by it. If your thoughts distract your mind either to your home or to other worldly things, try in every possible way to turn your mind and call to listen to singing, the praise of God, psalms and prayers read, then you will leave the church with benefit. 5) When you come to church, you see the graves of your brothers, and therefore remember, and you will dwell in the same bowels of the earth, and the earth that you are now trampling with your feet will cover your face. And therefore sigh to God for those who have passed away, that He may have mercy on them. This will be useful not only for them, but also for you. For you show love to your neighbors and, seeing that they have died, think about your own death, so that you will pray to God more earnestly. 6) Discuss in your home what you heard read or preached in church and try to do so, so that the word of God you have heard and not done will not be a greater condemnation for you. For “blessed,” it is said, “are those who hear the word of God and keep it” (Luke 11:28). And besides, instruct and teach your household and children, so that you will not be tortured by God because of them. So, when you enter the church and pray, you will come out usefully, and you will arrange your life well, and you will be granted the desired eternal bliss, by the grace of the Lord our God Jesus Christ. Amen. A brief admonition that every Christian from infancy to death should always keep in mind 1. Everyone at Holy Baptism, through his father and mother on the godmother, renounced Satan and all his works, and all his ministry, and all his pride, and he sealed this with a threefold negation. Satan is an evil spirit, always and in every possible way seeking human destruction. His angels are also evil spirits, hostile to our race. His deeds are evil deeds, and very hateful to God, that is, idolatry, sorcery, sorcery, pride, arrogance, memory of malice, envy, enmity, gluttony, drunkenness, fornication, adultery and all kinds of uncleanness, love of money, robbery, theft, theft, foul language, bad language, bad songs and everything that defies common sense. The one who serves Satan is the one who fulfills his evil will in these and similar matters. So, pay attention, beloved, that at Baptism you renounced all this three times, and did not give a damn about all this; beware of returning to this! 2. Having renounced Satan, you promised three times to serve Christ, the Son of God, with the Father and His Holy Spirit. And so, at Baptism, you signed up for the service of Christ and swore allegiance, just as soldiers and others sign up for the service of the earthly King and swear allegiance. One must serve Him faithfully, even to death. How to serve Christ? Listen: have faith in Him, and with faith live your life in the fear of God piously, and be like Him, as the Chief and King of all, if possible. 3. To fulfill a Christian office, it is useful to keep the following in mind: a) the omnipresence of God, since God is everywhere, and all of our not only deeds and words, but also our thoughts are known meticulously; b) talk about the life and free suffering of Christ, about the fact that He wandered on earth for man, and deigned to endure very terrible suffering; c) remember the last four: the first is death, which is inevitable for everyone and steals away in various ways; the second is the Last Judgment, where we will give an answer for word, deed and evil thought; third - hell, or eternal torment, which has no end, awaiting sinners; the fourth is the kingdom of heaven, prepared for the faithful who lead a holy life. According to my position, I offer this to every one of the brethren about Christ, and I exhort everyone to always keep in their memory, and to reinforce their household with this admonition more often, and especially to instill in small children, so that they know and remember their promise, and from an early age are accustomed to piety. For all life depends on education, and parents who do not raise their children in the fear of the Lord will not escape God’s punishment. I conclude all of the above with the words of the holy Apostle of Christ Peter: “Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, walks around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Resist him with firm faith” (1 Peter 5:8–9). Brief Instruction on How to Observe the Christian Office 10 1. Know that to those who want and begin to seek God, Satan, our enemy, tries in every possible way to create an obstacle: now it is an evil thought, now it brings despondency and laziness, now it frightens us with inconvenience, now it inclines us to the delusions of the vain world, now it disturbs us through evil people and brings other troubles, in order to stop the good desire and thus divert us from the path of salvation. All this, with God's help, must be taken care of. 2. When an evil thought comes, either to impurity, or to anger, or to the love of vain things, that is, honor, wealth, glory, reverence, or to pride, or to envy and hatred, or to any other evil deed that encourages, immediately drive it out of your heart and do not allow it to linger in you. Because if you hesitate, it will intensify and plunge you into sin. And therefore, as soon as a bad thought comes, you resist and at the same time pray to Christ like this: “Lord, have mercy on me,” or: “Lord, help me,” or: “Lord, do not forsake me,” or otherwise. 3. Honor your parents, father and mother, according to God, and be careful not to offend them in any way. Listen to what they tell you with love and submission. If they just command against the law of God (which, God, do not allow!), then they should not be listened to, but to God alone. 4. If people do bad things, no matter who they are, do not look at them and do not judge them, but pay attention to yourself. Neither they will answer for you, nor you will answer for them, but everyone is responsible for themselves. 5. Do not despise servants and slaves and do not disdain them, but have them within yourself as brothers in Christ, love them, and have mercy, if you yourself want to receive mercy from God (Matthew 5:7). For in Christianity everyone is equal before God: masters and slaves, mistresses and slaves. And perhaps the best are those who serve you (Gal 3:28). 6. Have humility before God and before people. Try to have it not only in words, deeds, and meek actions, but also in your heart. Then you will have true humility when you recognize yourself as unworthy of everything, that is, neither sweet food, nor a rich dress, nor a beautiful house, nor a soft bed, nor bows, nor human veneration, nor a higher place, but you recognize yourself as worthy of any adversity. 7. True Christians show contempt from the world for their own well-being, for when they are despised by the world, then they are in God’s favor. And you, when people despise you, don’t think about it, and try only to find mercy from God, and to please Him alone. It is better to have mercy from God alone than from being respected by the whole world and being angry with God, for God’s mercy and wrath are incomparably greater than the mercy and wrath of the whole world. What good does it benefit us if people honor us but God despises us? The whole world is like nothing before God, and therefore the mercy and wrath of people are like nothing before God’s wrath and mercy (Matthew 5:11). 8. Whoever offends you either in word or in deed, do not be angry with him, but forgive him from your heart, as Christ’s word says: “Let go, and they will let you go” (Luke 6:37), that is, forgive, and you will be forgiven, and, going away, pray for him, saying: Lord, forgive him or her. And although your heart doesn’t want it, you force yourself to do it, and then it will be convenient. 9. Whoever hates you or is angry with you, conquer him with love and try to reconcile with him. Even if he did not want peace, you seek peace and be ready for peace. And here, although the heart does not want to, the heart must be convinced and persuaded. 10. Beware of idle talk, laughter, condemnation and slander. All this is sinful, and inclines God to anger. With God, being angry is scary and difficult. Therefore, do not speak unnecessarily, but love silence. 11. Believe and hold and think that God is with you invisibly everywhere, and that whatever you do and think, He sees everything, and whatever you say, He hears everything. And always try to see Him before you by faith. And from here will follow the fear of God, reverence and respect for Him, fear in words, deeds and thoughts - since you do not dare to say anything or do anything empty before your father. Woe to those who act outrageously before the face of God and do not pay respect to His Majesty! 12. Remember often about Christ, the Savior and Redeemer of our sinful souls. He is God, being invisible, immortal, incomprehensible, for the sake of us, the damned, he came into this deplorable world, to be born in the flesh from the Holy Virgin, and to live on earth, and to suffer, and to be crucifixion, and to accept death, because otherwise we could not have been saved, but we should have suffered in hell without end. For this reason He died for us, so that we who believe in Him might be saved. From this will follow love for the suffering Christ. 13. Remember His Second Coming, where we will all gather before Him, all, I say, righteous and sinners, and everyone will receive from Him according to their deeds: the righteous will go into eternal life, the sinners into eternal torment. Remember this and reason. 14. Remember often about eternal torment, how desperate sinners will suffer forever, endlessly in the fire of Gehenna, and pray to Christ that you may be freed from that calamity. And remember about the kingdom of heaven, how the saints of God will reign with Christ forever, rejoice, rejoice, and delight in the sight of God. From this contemplation there will be unspeakable joy and joy. And try to achieve this bliss through the grace of Christ. All the glory, wealth, honor and every consolation of this world will disgust you, just as stinking pus is disgusting to everyone. Pray for me, a sinner, so that we can be together there and glorify God. 15. Think about the vanity of this world, about the fact that everything will pass. Both the rich and the famous die, and everyone here in the world leaves wealth and glory, and leaves here naked, poor and beggars, so that it is impossible to know where the master lies in the earth, where his servant is. Death makes everyone equal. Note this and reason, especially at night. 16. Whatever good deed you do, do it for the glory of God, for God’s sake, since God commands you to do good. Also, when you turn away from evil, turn away for God’s sake, because God hates evil, and commands us to run away from it, saying: “Turn away from evil and do good” (Ps 33:15). Otherwise, a good deed is discredited when it is done either for the sake of vain glory or for the sake of some other similar reason. For example, loving your neighbor, showing mercy, being patient, forgiving your neighbor’s offense, and so on for the sake of God should be done, because God ordered it so. Also, avoiding evil, for example, not being angry, not being angry with your neighbor, not slandering, not condemning, not slandering, not stealing, not committing fornication and other things for the sake of God is necessary, since God has forbidden all this and is irritated by evil. 17. When we shy away from evil and do good, we must attribute this to God, because we ourselves, without God’s help, cannot avoid sin and do good. 18. Avoid evil deeds and do good, but place all hope of salvation in Christ and in God’s mercy, since we are saved by the grace of Christ and God’s mercy, and not by our good deeds. Our consolation, joy and hope is that Christ, the Son of God, is our Savior. Hope in this Savior will not put you to shame. However, He saves those who believe in Him and follow Him with love, humility, patience, meekness and other virtues. 19. If evil people live prosperously here in this world, and good people suffer evil and troubles, do not be embarrassed, but look at the end of both. Prosperity and misfortune in the end are manifested and noted. The evil ones live happily here, but the evil ones die, and to great disaster - eternal destruction they migrate. The good and pious live in misfortune and suffer evil, but they die blissfully and are transported to eternal bliss. Wonderful change! Some go from small and imaginary prosperity to great and true disaster, others go from small sorrow to great joy. Look at the whole 36th Psalm about this, and Psalms 72, and from 22 to 27. 20. Try and pray to God to give you true, living and heartfelt faith in Christ. True faith in Christ is this heartfelt trust in Him as our Redeemer, Savior, Intercessor and Helper. Eternal salvation should not be sought or expected from anyone or anything other than Him. This faith brings joy and consolation to the heart, creates true fear of God, turns one away from worldly vanity, honor, wealth, glory, and teaches one to despise all this. She teaches us to esteem the suffering of Christ highly and dearly, exhorts us to love God and our neighbor, teaches us humility, commands us to often pray and sigh to God, and changes the whole person. Take note of this, beloved Christian, and do not be seduced by the vain faith of false Christians, who have faith in their tongues, but atheism in their hearts. Know for sure that there is no living, Christian faith there, where there is passion or love for wealth, honor, glory and the sweetness of this world. True, living faith takes a Christian away from all this and moves him to the desire and search for heavenly and eternal blessings. For true, living faith is a spiritual gift from God, and therefore teaches us to seek spiritual blessings within a person. It enters the human heart from heaven, moves and delights the human heart towards heaven and the heavenly, and leads it away from earthly things. Moreover, true faith strives against all sin, and therefore, where there is sinful and fearless living, there is no true faith, but only oral and hypocritical. Look at the passages in Holy Scripture about this (1 Cor 6:9-10; Gal 5:19-21; Rev 21:8; James 2 and to the end of the chapter, etc.) and beware of sinning against your conscience, lest you fall under God’s wrath and destroy your faith. And where there is no true faith, there is no Christ, there is no salvation, as long as a person remains in such a state. We must cherish our faith more than our life, for we must lay down our lives for our faith. 21. If, through the action of the devil and weakness, you happen to sin, immediately repent and ask for forgiveness from God with all humility, sighing and hope. 22. Use food and drink to strengthen the body, and not for the sake of sweetness, and also use clothing to cover nakedness, and not for the sake of decoration and ostentation. For Christian adornment is not expensive clothing, not expensive stones, etc., but true faith and the fruits of Christian virtue, that is, humility, patience, meekness, love, mercy, and so on. 23. Use food, drink, clothing, etc. with God’s blessing, saying: “Lord, bless!” Because everything is God’s good, which He gives to us, the poor. Although your father feeds and clothes you, your father himself receives from God. 24. Wash your face in due time, and do not decorate it with whitewash and paints, since the devil teaches these decorations, and therefore decorating the face is a sin. Notice this good thing. 25. Always read holy books and from them learn Christian pious living. And don’t let a single day pass without reading, and pray to God to let you understand what you read. 26. Every morning make a good start, that is, think every morning about yourself that now you are starting and want to be a Christian, and the past time has passed in vain. 27. Do not promise that you will not get married, but live without a promise, and take care of yourself with the grace of God, for many promise, but do not fulfill. No one can force you into marriage, God gave it to us at will. 28. Note what takes you away from sin: 1) God is constantly with you, and what you do and think, he sees everything clearly, and what you say, he hears, and is angry with every sin. Beware of sinning in front of God, just as you are afraid of committing outrages and laughing in front of your father. It's scary to anger God. In sin itself, God can strike the sinner and send him to Gehenna. 2) Prayer, if you want it to be heard, must lead you away from sin. For whoever sins and does not give up on sin, his prayer is not accepted. 3) Communion of the Mysteries of Christ, if you want it to be beneficial, it must lead you away from sin. When we approach the Body of Christ and His holy Blood and partake of these terrible and life-giving Mysteries, we must be wary that Communion will not lead to judgment and condemnation. Therefore, both before and after Communion we must beware of sin, as from a serpent that eats the soul. 4) The suffering of Christ should lead you away from sin. He suffered for our sins; how can we dare to commit those sins for which Christ, the Son of God, drank such a bitter cup of suffering? Woe to Christians who sin and do not honor the suffering of Christ and the suffering Christ Himself! 5) May the Judgment of Christ frighten us from sin. For the same Christ will judge for our sins, Who suffered and was tormented for our sins. Word, deed and evil thoughts will be judged if a person does not repent of this. Beware of sin, like a serpent, which gnaws and kills the soul, and delivers the sinner to the judgment of God and eternal torment. 6) An unknown death should keep us from sin. It is known that we will all die, but when and how we will die is unknown. Woe to those who are caught in sin by death! For whatever death finds us in, God will judge us in. 7) May eternal torment and the kingdom of heaven encourage us to avoid sin, for because of sin a person is deprived of eternal joy and bliss and finds himself in eternal, severe torment, with the devil and his angels. 8) Let sin itself turn us away from ourselves, for sin is the invention and work of the devil. He invented sin, and seduced our forefather Adam into it, and so he destroyed our race. So, run away from sin as from the work of the devil. 9) With every sin, the Trinitarian God, the Great, Holy, Good, Righteous, Infinite and Terrible God, the Merciful and Most Good Father, is offended and angry. It is a pity and hard thing to offend a father according to the flesh, much less God, the Heavenly Father, Who created both your father and you, feeds, clothes, preserves, and supplies with other blessings, and calls everyone to eternal bliss! It is better to die a hundred times than to offend God, our Most Good Father and Creator. Keep yourself from sin, as from great evil. 10) The sin committed torments the conscience until it is cleansed by repentance. Beware of sin, like the venom of a snake, at least to avoid remorse. 29. Sin is everything that is done in word, or deed, or thought against the holy and eternal law of God and His holy will. About sin, see below the passages of Holy Scripture (Mk 7etc.; Rom 1etc.; 1Cor 6tc.; Gal 5tc.; Eph 5tc.; Col. 4tc.; 1Ti 1tc.; 2Ti 4tc.; Rev. 21:8; Ps 49etc.). Read them yourself. 30. The sweet fruits of the Holy Spirit “are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control” (Gal 5:22–23). We must try and pray to God to give us these fruits by the grace of His Holy Spirit. 31. To the godly, Christ will proclaim at the Second Coming: “Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25:34). And unspeakable blessings are in store for them: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man what God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Cor 2:9). The Lord will say to unrepentant sinners: “Depart from Me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into everlasting life” (Matthew 25:41, 46). Read this more often, think about it, and try to act on it. And when the Gospel, or the Apostle, or a sermon is read in church, then listen diligently and take note of what is being preached. Everywhere disaster is announced to unrepentant sinners, and bliss to the pious. The Word of God is not false, but true. Whatever it announces, it certainly is. God cannot lie. It is better for a person to suffer here all his life than to lose eternal bliss and fall into eternal torment, which will never end. “The Sermon on the Salvation of the Human Race” in this edition is printed from a manuscript kept in the Usman Sophia Monastery. This manuscript is on 13 sheets, written in semi-character. On the back of the last sheet is the scribe's signature. “The Word for the Nativity of Christ” was printed from the original kept in the Usman monastery. The original was written by the hand of St. Tikhon’s cell attendant, Ivan Efimov. In places there are corrections and entries in the saint’s own hand. The four initial lines were also written by his hand. "A Word about Cheese Week." “This word was such a success that while this shepherd (St. Tikhon) ruled the Voronezh flock, no outrage was visible during Cheese Week. And even after it, all of them were not soon resumed, out of imitation of other cities” (Metropolitan Eugene). “A Homily on the Name Day of Empress Catherine II” was printed from the original stored in the Moscow diocesan library, donated by the late Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow. The original manuscript was written by the hand of St. Tikhon’s cell minister, Ivan Efimov, on 14 pages. The text underlying the Word: render to all what is due and under it: Rom. ch. 13, as well as at the end the word Amen, and under it a note: it was said on November 24, 1765 in the Cathedral, written by the saint’s own hand. In the text itself there are corrections and additions by his own hand. Published for the first time in the book “Remaining Works” (pp. 110–128). “Word on the consecration of the church in the name of St. the apostles Peter and Paul" was first published in the book "Remaining Works". In the first edition of the complete works of St. Tikhon, and then in subsequent editions, this word, like the previous one, was erroneously classified as “Brief Moral Words.” Both words were spoken by the saint in Voronezh in 1765, therefore during the administration of the Voronezh flock, while “Short Moral Words,” as is known, were written by him already in Zadonsk, “for the monastery brethren and the people who were going to church.” “The Sermon on the Day of the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary” was originally printed from the original kept in the Sofia Usman Monastery. The original was written by the hand of St. Tikhon’s cell minister, Ivan Efimov. In places, in the text and in the margins, there are corrections and additions made by the saint’s own hand. The title is written in his own hand: A Word on the Day of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary and a note at the end: it says 1765. “The Sermon on the Day of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos” is the same Word that in previous editions of the saint’s “eparchal” words was entitled with the words of the main text of the sermon: watch how dangerously you walk. It was said in honor of “the Representative common to all Christians, whose honorable Dormition,” says the Word itself, “we now celebrated.” Therefore, in this edition it is entitled with the words of the inscription made in the saint’s own hand. The “Eparsh” Words of St. Tikhon were published for the first time in 1784 in St. Petersburg, under the title: “Various Sermons.” A rare copy of this publication is in the Moscow Diocesan Library. The words of St. Tikhon, as Ivan Efimov explains, are few because, “as I heard from him, he often spoke sermons without putting them on paper.” “An admonition to the residents of the city of Voronezh about the destruction of the Yarilo holiday.” How this holiday was celebrated can be seen partly from the saint’s very words, partly from the description left by Metropolitan Eugene. According to his description, “a man was elected to this gathering, who was tied with all sorts of flowers, various ribbons and bells. A tall cap made of paper, painted and also tied with ribbons was put on the head. They smeared rouge on his face. The vertebrae were given into the hands. In this outfit he walked around the square dancing, accompanied by crowds of people of both sexes, and was called Yaril. Games, dancing, drunkenness and terrible fist fights were visible everywhere, from which this holiday was often marked by the killing and mutilation of people.” (Description of the life of the Right Reverend Tikhon. 1820). In this edition, the “Admonition” is printed from the original kept in the Usman Monastery. At the end of the manuscript is the saint’s own signature: “said on the first week of Peter’s Lent in the Voronezh Cathedral, 1765, June 5th day.” The first lines of the “exhortation” were also written by his hand. Metropolitan Eugene, in the publication “Other Works,” notes that “this exhortation was then read many times in all the city’s parish churches.” Read in detail about “this amazing success, not by floridity, but by the simplicity of the heart and the pastoral zeal of the animated Word” in “Description of the Life of Saints.” Tikhon. 1796). On the origin and significance of the Yarila holiday: Kostomarov. Slavic mythology. 1847, pp. 86–87. “Admonition for entering catechetical teaching.” We are talking about catechetical conversations that the saint opened for the people at the local Annunciation Cathedral in 1765. This “accusatory admonition” was caused by the fact that “few citizens gathered for this soul-helping teaching, which was taught on all Sundays before the holy liturgy for almost a year” (the first lines of the admonition). In the publication “Other Works,” where this exhortation was published for the first time, it is noted that it “was spoken by the saint at the Voronezh Annunciation Cathedral in 1766 and then repeated by reading in all the city parish churches.” This edition is printed from a manuscript written in places (23 lines in total), in the saint’s own hand, and stored in the Moscow diocesan library, which, at its founding, was given as a gift by the late Metropolitan of Moscow Philaret. Manuscript on 10 sheets. On the 1st sheet there is an inscription on the side: “This appeal and word from the text: give everyone their due, were composed by Saint Tikhon, and the amendments and additions were written by his holy hand. Archimandrite Simeon." “A brief instruction on how one should support oneself in a Christian position” was first published in the publication “Other Works.” The spiritual magazine “The Wanderer” (August 1861) published a list “written, according to legend, for one spiritual daughter of St. Tikhon.” The manuscript is very wonderful. In addition to discrepancies and other changes against the 1st edition, we find here, among other things, postscripts that lead to assumptions regarding the original edition of the “Brief Instruction”. So in § 31 the saint ascribes: “And your father ordered me to write this to you, which he did according to my strength.” In §5, instead of: “Do not despise servants and slaves,” as printed in “Other Works,” here we read: “Do not despise maidservants and slaves.” In §30: “about this you have prayers sent to you,” etc. At the same time, the manuscript contains abbreviations that would be incomprehensible if one were to see in it a list from a later edition. For example, at the end, compared to the 1st edition, as many as 12 lines are missing, which, it would seem, there was no need to shorten. Also in other places. All this taken together leads one to wonder: does the manuscript of “The Wanderer” not represent the text of the “Brief Instruction” in its original edition, and was this instruction, in view of its broader purpose, supplemented by the saint later? We see quite a few examples of this in the more extensive writings of St. Tikhon. Due to the loss of the original, from which the “Brief Instruction” was printed in the 1st edition, for this edition the manuscript of “The Wanderer” turned out to be especially important in the sense that it made it possible to restore in places the original text, which suffered a lot during its repeated reprints. You might be interested in: