Our relationship to churches: from Words to the Tambov and Vladimir flocks, 1859-1862, 1867 and 1869.

Contents 1. For the consecration of the chapel of the Holy Great Martyr Catherine (On the construction of a spiritual church within each one, following the example of the visible one) 2. For the consecration of the church in honor of the martyr Maximilian (On the benefits for children of often visiting churches and praying) 3. For the consecration of the church (On the significance of the church for the life of Christians) 4. For the consecration of the church (The church is an educator of spiritual life) 5. For the consecration church (Church - school, nursery, medical clinic, hospice) 6. For the consecration of the warm Forerunner Church (How to learn true prayer in the church) 7. For the construction of the church (How and with what to draw spiritual benefits in the church and then have fruit from them) 8. For the consecration of the warm chapel in the name of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (How to love going to the church and desire arrange themselves in a spiritual church) 9. On the 2nd week of Lent, on the occasion of the noise in the church on the week of the triumph of Orthodoxy (On reverence in the church) 10. On the consecration of the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross (On the creation of spiritual life in the church, with corresponding lessons) 11. For the consecration of the church (On approaching the children of the Lord and the Mother of God through the church, and how they should therefore relate to the church) 12. Prayer at the end of the prayer service on the opening day of the school (Lord, bless this kindergarten!) 13. For the consecration of the Nativity of the Cross Church (On building an internal church within oneself with a reminder that this does not, however, make external churches unnecessary) 14. For the consecration of the chapel in honor of the Iveron Icon of the Mother of God (Reflection in the soul of the structure of the tabernacle, in the hope of being worthy of the promise given to the tabernacle) 1. For the consecration of the chapel of the Holy Great Martyr Catherine (On the construction of a spiritual church within each one according to the visible model) Finally, the Lord was pleased that in our days the long-begun and much-desired work of building this sacred church would be brought to completion. Thank the Lord! The church is a great thing, no matter who and where it is built. In it the word of God is preached, the Sacraments are performed and the spirit of prayer is kindled. He is the repository of all Divine gifts for salvation - rebirth, purification, grace, spiritual nourishment - with their attendants and distributors. Come everyone and draw from this treasury of faith! But let us not forget, brothers, that by dedicating churches to the Lord, we impose on ourselves or renew our obligations in relation to the Church of God. The Holy Protomartyr Stephen, in his teaching to the people, said: “Solomon created a Church for God, but the Most High does not live in churches made with hands - not because a church made with hands is not needed and does not mean anything, but because one should not rest on the creation of it alone, but it is necessary to add to it another building - a spiritual one, made up of minds and hearts. And this is so necessary that if the latter is not there, then the former loses its value.” And this is what, after dedicating this church to the Lord, He expects from us, namely, that everyone present themselves as the Holy Church, which the Lord loves and about the members of which He said: “I will dwell in them, and walk around, and I will be their God, and they will be my people” (2 Cor. 6:16). As much as this closeness of God is desired, it is so desirable that it should be so in us. And who would refuse the readiness to assist in every possible way? If so, then the matter itself must be added to this desire. Each of us is the same in the Church as each individual stone in the church building. Just as here each stone is dressed in relation to the entire building and the place for which it is intended, so we need to be educated in the spirit of the Church in order to present ourselves as “living stone”, useful for the construction of the church of the Church (1 Pet. 2:5), - with the remarkable difference that the stone is only adapted to the building, but it itself does not represent it in itself; we need to form ourselves in such a way that we can imagine the entire Holy Church within ourselves. Therefore, the Apostles command: “You yourselves, like stone, are built alive into a spiritual church... offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 2:5); be built “into a habitation of God by the Spirit,” grow “into a holy church in the Lord” (Eph. 2.21–22), that is, everyone must build themselves into a small spiritual church in the image of the Great Universal Church. Let us commit ourselves to building a spiritual church within ourselves. Let us clear the place for the building by true repentance, deepen the foundation with strong faith and a firm determination to live by faith, and then, enlivened by the influx of grace through the Holy Sacraments, let us patiently build the building, laying like stone upon stone, virtue upon virtue, binding them together with love and leveling them with the reasoning and guidance of the shepherds; let us cover everything like a roof with deep humility and lead us with devotion to the will of God, by which, as on the cross, the personal arrangement of affairs and paths of life is crucified; Let us then protect everything with unshakable fidelity to all the statutes and regulations of the Holy Church of God, behind which, as behind a strong fence, we will hide from all the storms and unrest raised by the spirit of the age, superstition and passions; finally, having entered inside with attention and sobriety, let us decorate this church of the heart with good thoughts, illuminate it with the imperturbable contemplation of the Omnipresent God and be fragrant with the incense of unceasing prayer, in a painful fall before God our Savior. Let us do this, and each of us will be a living church of the Lord and together “living stone”, useful in the building of the living church of the Church. Just as we, adding stone to stone, built this church, so all of us, joining one to another and all being filled with one spirit, will form one Holy Church, without filth or blemish, “composed and put together in order... according to the working in the measure of one part each” (Eph. 4:16). Of course, this is only perfection, which one should desire and strive for; in fact, there will always be weak and wayward people. The Savior's parables about the tares sowed by the enemy among the wheat (Matthew 13:24-30), and about the net that brought out a multitude of all kinds of fish, both good and unfit (Matthew 13:47-48), are powerful to calm the fiery jealousy that demands perfect purity in everything and everyone, pointing out some of God's intentions in the confusion of good and evil among Christians. This, however, cannot justify our indulgence and indifference to the spreading evil and superstition; It is in no way possible to tolerate or allow, as much as it depends on us, that the vain and evil multiply, form communities, have a voice, because they are tolerated only out of condescension towards weaknesses - as an exception, and not as a law. Otherwise, we will expose our negligence and coldness towards the common duty and good and allow evil to multiply, which, spreading more and more, can threaten the danger of the entire Church, and with it the entire state. What reproachful contradiction will there be in our affairs if we build material churches, and meanwhile cowardly allow the True Church to be upset? What is the use of building a church so that the word of God can be preached in it, and meanwhile allowing teachings contrary to the word of God to spread freely; here to hear an exposition of the holy rules of life, but outside willingly introduce and accept customs that are offensive to the Christian heart; decorate the building magnificently, but alienate yourself from the Church and cool off on its statutes? “Why am I the multitude of your sacrifices,” the Lord says reproachfully to the Jews (Is. 1.11). Will not the Lord also say to us: “What do I have in your magnificent buildings, when you are destroying My Church, which “I acquired with My Blood” (Acts 20:28)?” The first Church, erected by Solomon (1 Kings 6, 3 Kings 7:13–51, 2 Chronicles 2–4), and the second, rebuilt by Zerubbabel (1 Esdras 6:3–5, 1 Esdras 6:14–15) and renewed by Herod were red. And yet, the first was not spared, and from the second one stone was not left upon another according to the terrible judgment of God. Was the building at fault? No. But the fact that the people were deviated from the true path and by unbelief (especially by rebellion against the Lord and His Christ), vicious life and alienation from the sanctifying statutes upset the True Church, formed by God through Moses. The people did not have the True Church, and its external symbol became unnecessary. But, brethren, more than Moses is here... Do not think that the Lord has a different law for us, or that He can somehow be kind, or that we, acting not according to His will, offend Him less than the Jews or other people... No. “If anyone corrupts God’s church, God will corrupt him” (1 Cor. 3.17). This is a trial for everyone! Let us not omit from our memory this unfaithful word of God. Let no one make a reservation: “What can I, as a private person, do?” Nothing special is required. Just be everyone a true son of the Church, form yourself according to its spirit - and nothing contrary to this spirit will be established among us. If each individual does not agree to listen to some perverted teaching, how will it spread? If everyone rejects an evil custom, how will he find a place for himself in our society? If everyone unswervingly walks according to the rules of the Church, they will rule over everyone. If it were so, then there would be an end to all new teachings, customs and violations of the statutes of the Church; then, even if anyone of an opposing spirit appeared, he would be cast out like a dead member. Why does evil spread? Because we ourselves look at it indifferently and willingly give in to it. What is printed is untrue - we read and do not speak out; an unkind custom is introduced - and we not only do not resist it, but willingly get carried away by it ourselves. And we still irritate the desire of both to write untrue things, to introduce unkind things - and evil grows. Without sympathy and cooperation on our part, all evil will dissipate and disappear by itself. In goodness and one means a lot, I will hasten to God. Besides: who is left alone when? If evil, which God does not favor, is made strong by community, what cannot be expected from community in good, which God always blesses? Let us pray, brethren, “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give us the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him” (Eph. 1.17), “that we may not be children, tossed about and tossed about by every wind of doctrine, in the lies of men, in the deceitfulness of the wiles of flattery: but since it is true in love, let us grow up in Him all things, Whose head is Christ, from the worthless the whole body is composed and fashioned into decency, with every touch of alms, according to the action in the measure of a single part, the restoration of the body creates into the creation of itself through love” (Eph. 4:14-16). Amen. In St. Petersburg, in St. Isaac's Cathedral 2. For the consecration of the church in honor of the martyr Maximilian (For the benefit of children, visit churches often and pray) It is written in the Third Book of Kings: “And Solomon made a feast on that day, and all Israel with him” (1 Kings 8:65). This was on the day of the consecration of the Church he built! We find ourselves in similar circumstances now. And our church is finished and now perfected by consecration - the church, of course, is not so magnificent on the outside as Solomon’s, but more filled with grace inside. Therefore, it is lawful that we are now creating a spiritual holiday, offering grateful songs to the Lord, the Performer of this deed. Celebrate, firstly, you, the builders of this church, both for the sake of the successful completion of your work, and for the sake of the fact that this gift of yours is not rejected by the Generous God, but accepted into His favor, evidenced by His present gracious coming here. Let both the founders of this institution and its trustees celebrate, because now it has only received its final education and has become a perfect thing. Until now it was as if without shelter - now it is covered with a special beneficial cover. Until now there was only a shelter for the body - from now on there is already a shelter for the soul in this church. Celebrate, too, you children, or most of all, because both the institution and the church are for you. Celebrate, rejoicing that the merciful Lord, the only Patron, Trustee and Shelter of the orphans, having given you other fathers in these trustees of yours, has now deigned to approach you so tangibly and so closely. “Now bless the Lord and all the servants of the Lord who stand in this church of the Lord - in the courtyard of this house of God!” (Ps.133.1). But is that all? All this, it seems, has already been done. Is there anything still unfinished? Yes, and it is very important. Namely: it is necessary to establish such an order of life in this institution that it will most likely achieve the goal and purpose of this church. The church is intended for children. It is necessary to ensure that children visit it as often as possible. Listen, children! My word to you! You saw how the curtain was stretched here, you heard the words from outside: “Take up the gates, O princes, yours... and the King of glory will come in.” They listened to the question: “Who is this King of glory” - and the answer: “The Lord of hosts, He is the King of glory” (Ps. 23:9-10). Then we saw how the curtain opened, “and the Lord was the King of glory” (Ps. 23:9). Here He now dwells with us and will forever abide with you and with all those who come here. For He Himself said: “My eyes and my heart will be there all the days” (1 Kings 9:3). Come here often, children, to the Lord as to your Father! Children who have parents come to them morning and evening and receive from them greetings of love and blessings of good wishes. You either don’t have your fathers and mothers here at all, or you don’t have your fathers and mothers here with you... Come here to the Lord - your One True Father - here morning and evening you worship Him as a child, in love, and from Him you will receive a blessing and a Fatherly embrace. This is not a comparison, but the real thing. The Lord willingly allowed children to come to Him during His earthly life, forbade them to interfere with their coming to Him, and when His children surrounded Him, He blessed them all, laid His hands on them, and, in addition, took others into His arms. But what He did then visibly, He now does invisibly: then He touched the body, and now He touches the soul. Behold, from now on He is present with you in this church - He is “the same... forever” (Heb. 13:8). Approach Him with childlike simplicity! He will bless you and embrace you with His arms - invisibly, although nevertheless really. And notice when, being present here and praying, you feel a special silence and peace in yourself - know that it is the Lord approaching you. Then intensify your prayer and pay attention to yourself. Here a slight movement of warmth begins in the soul, here the warmth grows more and more, and finally a fire ignites in the heart. Know that it is the Lord who has embraced your soul in His arms, cherishes it and blesses it... And the soul does not know itself from joy and gladness! This is why you come here more often, for nothing on earth can compare with the bliss of the Lord’s embrace. Come on over. The Lord is ready to receive you; stretch out your spiritual hands to Him - love, prayer, reverent desire for the Lord... Do not look at the fact that you are small. The Lord is God of you, the small as well as the great. Imitate the Mother of God in this. She was only three or four years old when Her parents, Godfathers Joachim and Anna, brought Her to the Church of the Lord and dedicated Her to the Lord. And there, at the Church, She then lived endlessly until the time of Her betrothal to Joseph, staying primarily in the Church of God, in prayer and deepening in the word of God. And do you see what you have been worthy of? To be the Matter of the Lord... Do you also come running to this church more often, and remain more patient in your prayers? - and you will be vouchsafed - not, of course, what the Mother of God was vouchsafed, but much similar to that. From Her the Lord became hypostatically incarnate, and He invisibly dwelt in you by His grace and will remain in you forever, as He said: “I will dwell in them and resemble them” (2 Cor. 6:16). See how great the promise is! Then you yourself will become churches to God and will always carry Him in your heart. Desire it! The Mother of God, who spent Her entire youth in the Church, will be your Helper in that. Come to Her here. As the Mother of believers, She will meet you here every time you come here to pour out your prayers before the Lord. But why am I talking to children all the time? Children go where they are led - and so they go as they are led... Everything rests on you, educators. Take into your work what is obligatory for children and give them the opportunity to do it in their own way. Remember the word of the Lord to those who for some reason did not allow children to come to Him... “Leave the children to come to Me, and do not scold them: for such is the Kingdom of God” (Mark 10:14). Do you believe that the need for piety is alive and strong in children, although it is not comprehended and not put into forms? Do not choke this sprout of spiritual, saving life by allowing or establishing for children such a pattern of life and activities that would alienate them from the Church and alienate them from it. If you allow this, you will kill the soul before it reaches the age at which it itself can not fear for itself and not be afraid of “those who kill the body” (Matthew 10:28). Do you believe that from this day on, the Lord is here with His special gracious presence, you know how He desires that children be brought to Him freely... Bring them here - bring them at every free hour. I cannot imagine a single substantive thought that could justify denying this to children. Those who at that time wanted to prevent their children from coming to the Lord could justify their fear of disturbing the Lord or depriving others of the consolation of hearing His word... What do you say in your defense?! Isn’t it so often heard that the height of the actions of faith is higher than the concepts of a child?! But who does not know that the sacraments of faith are received with the heart? If children have a heart, then they have a container of faith. Yes, there is - and what more! One that we ourselves set as a model. “Unless...you become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of God” (Matthew 18:3). Add to this that the atmosphere of the church, in which, together with all its sacred rites, our entire faith is symbolized - this atmosphere is pure, Heavenly, Divine! Who is capable of breathing and being revived by this air? Are we, beaten by falls, wounded by passions, darkened by vanity, or these innocent souls?! “Do not scold them” to come here (Mark 10:14). They are here - in their true environment. On the other hand, just as any other life is awakened, develops and matures invisibly, secretly, elusively for observation, so spiritual life arises and sings in secret ways - deeper than our consciousness. So in a seed thrown into the bowels of mother earth, a sprout sleeps. Tell me, how is it awakened to life? Point out these hidden pathogens and the ways in which they penetrate to the heart of the seed? Both the sun with its warmth and the earth with moisture are involved here; but whether they are the main agents here, or just conductors of other agents, no one can definitely say. So we breathe and with our breath (in connection with other conditions) we maintain the fire of life in ourselves, it seems there is nothing special here except the mechanical movement of the chest - the entry and exit of air... But meanwhile, under this visible, there is a flow of higher life-giving elements from the atmosphere, invisible to us, which, passing to the sources of our life, refresh, nourish and strengthen it. By the same invisible inspirations, spiritual life is excited, developed and matures in us. “The Kingdom of God does not come with discretion” (Luke 17:20), says the Lord. It is unknown how: now the breath of the love of God embraces the soul, now the breath of the reverent fear of God refreshes it, like the breath of the morning cool, now it revives the movement of the warmth of the heart - but with only these actions we live in the spirit. In vain, therefore, in this regard, they want to limit everything to knowledge. No... For the formation and strengthening of spiritual life - one condition: to keep it constantly under the influence of actions in which the Divine powers are hidden, in order to use their flow and influx... Where is all this here - in the church... “Don’t scold” children to come here... Understanding of holy faith and its actions must come later, like the color of the formation of a trunk, in order to then bear the mature fruit of conscious piety. Clear concepts about the objects of faith are beneficial when, after their formation in the soul, they find a pious life already ready in practice, for then they illuminate it with consciousness and, all the more, make it strong and indestructible. But what in these concepts when they find a life already formed and strengthened in habits, completely opposite to them? It will be a barren flower that cannot bear fruit. When concepts are at odds with feelings, they are met with distrust, wavered by doubts and driven out by denial. Is this what you want from your labors? That is, do you want to destroy in advance what you only intend to build? They are usually afraid of wasting time. One often hears: “We have a lot of work to do, or are expected to do, and there are no free hours to go to church.” Isn't it better to say that it is not time that is lacking, but hunting and disposition? As if the order of classes is not in our hands - and as if, in fact, somewhere in the world there are people so busy that not only do they have hours, not even minutes to spare? And who takes a lot of time? No need. Set aside a few minutes in the morning and a few in the evening for clear prayer with singing - and that’s enough. But don't consider this a waste of time. On the contrary, be sure that with this sacrifice of a little time you will speed up your work and, therefore, save a lot of time. For what is most necessary for success in any kind of learning? Peaceful spirit and attention. Where can I get them? Here - at the throne of God. They come down from above from the God of peace. Let the children's feelings be consoled here, their thoughts be pacified and the souls of the children refreshed... And they will accomplish incomparably more on that day than when they are not here. Isn’t God’s blessing necessary for children? Come here with them and take it here from the Lord. It will expand their souls and hearts and make them a capacious vessel for all learning. Do not imitate those who want to do everything themselves, not trusting in anything and entrusting nothing to the Lord. For centuries of experience have already proven that they “watch in vain” and “labor in vain” (Ps. 126:1). This is what is needed for the final perfection of this institution and this is what you need to complete your work and care about it! It is necessary to establish such an order here so that children come to church every day and reverently fall here before the Lord, singing His praises and sending prayers to Him with their children’s lips. This is also necessary for the completeness of the current celebration. This church is now dedicated to the holy martyr Maximilian, one of the seven youths at Ephesus (August 4th). The youth is a martyr, without a doubt, because from childhood he cultivated and strengthened in himself the spirit of piety, instilled in the churches of the True God. Will he be pleased if he almost always sees his church empty and the neighboring houses full? And Archangel Michael, this servant of God’s glory, guardian, protector and visor of God’s honor, to whom this day is dedicated, will he be pleased when he notices in us the indifference to teaching children to give honor and glory to the One God in this church?! Let us pray, brothers, to the Lord, that having begun this good work in you - shelter, He will complete it to your praise for it on the Day of Christ! Amen. November 8, 1859. In Tambov, at the Mariinsky Shelter 3. For the consecration of the church (On the significance of the church for the life of Christians) If we were to bring together the souls of everyone who is here, and to look around everyone with one glance, then, with all the diversity of faces and states, with all the differences in thoughts and dispositions, it would be impossible not to see one common feeling to all and imprinted in everything, a feeling of joy and spiritual joy about the construction of a church, and such a church. This, on our part, is a due tribute to the pious zeal and patient work of the church creator (Her Excellency Vera Nikolaevna Voeikova) - a tribute to the free spirit, involuntarily, however, extorted. And indeed, knowing what the churches of God mean in Christian life, one cannot help but be filled with special pleasure when you see them erected with care for your own salvation and the salvation of others out of love; one cannot help but express gratitude to the Lord, who put in the thought and helped; One cannot remain unappreciative of those who heeded the suggestion and did not spare labor and wealth in execution. With such feelings may our current celebration and our participation in it be crowned! But, brothers, we should not limit ourselves to this alone. The peace of consolation is proper only to the sacrifice of love. So that we, who have not made such a sacrifice here, are worthy to enter into the same peace, let us also make a different kind of sacrifice on our part - the sacrifice of ready submission to the will of God, which is revealed in the construction of churches among Christians and for Christians, because this is associated with well-known obligations imposed on us, which we must renew in our conscience every time we participate in such a current celebration or celebrate a celebration commemorating it. I want to remind you of these obligations. I don’t think that you need a lengthy word about this when you yourself show yourself to be so zealous for the church. Therefore, I will limit myself to a brief indication of the meaning of churches for us and what this meaning obliges us to do. What does the church mean to us? The church is for us what the heart is for the body. This was prefigured by the ancient tabernacle, which was always located within the people, whether the Israelites were on the road or camped. Here and there the tribes of the Israelites were always located around the tabernacle, so that it truly constituted the center, or heart, of the people. Why is the tabernacle such as this - the canopy of future blessings? Then, in order to teach us to have such churches, in which that which the tabernacle only pointed out acts in truth. Let us fix our attention on this thought and follow it. Every movement, state and action of our body is vividly reflected in the heart. Vigor and drowsiness, strength and weakness, health and illness, benefit and burden, and so on - everything is generally reflected in the heart and causes corresponding actions on our part. Isn’t it the same thing between us and the church? Doesn’t every spiritual need of ours respond to the church and cause corresponding actions from it? Look: someone who is sad goes to church to sing the paraklisis to the Mother of God; received joy - he goes there to sing a prayer of gratitude; a house must be built - a blessing is taken from the church; dig a well - the same; rain is needed - the church walks through the fields to attract rain from the sky; illness has befallen - the Church comes to intercede for recovery; a child is born - it is reborn to a new life in the church; whoever sins is cleansed of filth in the church; a new family begins - it is united in the church; If anyone is going on a journey, he is guided by prayers in the church; someone died - his body is escorted to rest in the bowels of the earth from the church, and intercessory prayer is offered for his soul in the church, and so on and so forth. In general, there is not a single significant deed that would be performed, as it should be in a Christian way, apart from the church or without contact with it. How we are attached to the church by what threads. We are drawn to it every time we conceive something new, and from it we begin our work. It is so palpably true that the church is the true focus, or heart, of our Christian life. This is how it is, and this is how we should always recognize our churches in our hearts and behave or act in relation to them accordingly. There is no need to talk about this when everyone is outright Christians and always acts this way themselves; but not all Christians are straight Christians. Anyone who has any deviations in this regard is reminded by our current church celebration that just as the body cannot live without a heart, so a Christian cannot live as a Christian without the church and everything that happens in it. Wholeness of the heart in the body is a condition in life. Hit the heart and there is immediate death. Shouldn't the same be said about the church? Yes! Do not afflict the church with vanity and self-will, otherwise you will die in spirit. This is, of course, not the substance of the church. Its material composition often ages, burns, and collapses, but those belonging to the church, despite this, still remain alive in spirit. But ascend a little higher than these material vaults or penetrate a little deeper than this material composition of the church - and you will see that it is so. Although the one in the church, who is not aging or dying, cannot be struck to death in any way, but whoever touches him with the edge of superstition or willful deviation somewhere, he strikes himself and causes death to himself through self-inflicted actions. Look at those who shun churches and expose their inner mood! Why does it blow coldly from them, like from a grave? Because their spiritual life is either shortened or completely extinguished by cutting themselves off from the churches and their entire order. Here we mean not only Molokans and schismatics, but also - even more so - superstitious people who, under the pretext of some purity of concepts, tower above these, however, complex buildings and everything that is in them. May there be no such thing between us! True, it is comforting to be sure that strength is not in individual cases, but in the spirit and mood: but does such a reservation apply to everyone? It is also comforting that while the churches stand, there is hope of understanding their meaning and turning to them those who do not understand and do not want to understand; but still, until this comes true, the latter stand on the side of the perishing. How can you not regret this? Someone will say: “Don’t they live?” They live, but how do they live? What kind of life does one have who does not receive the life-giving elements from where life comes from? The life-giving elements in the blood come from the heart and through its action disperse throughout the body. Blood comes to the heart, unable to support life, outdated; and from the heart comes already living blood and spreads revitalization throughout the body. The church does the same to us. In everyday life, during working days, we, through inattention to ourselves, collect unkind thoughts, feelings and dispositions, which, like outdated blood, weigh down and deaden the soul. Having visited the church on Sunday or on a holiday - having visited properly - we leave from there completely new, as if refreshed. Others, after that, there are thoughts in the head, other feelings and dispositions in the heart. Everything in the soul is remade by what is done, read, sung and instilled in the church. For those who are attentive, what a wealth of holy thoughts there is in the word! How many examples of holiness are there in images! So many striking reminders in action! By accepting all this wholeheartedly, he thereby refreshes his inner being, just as one who goes out into the fresh air after a night of stuffiness is refreshed, and he becomes relieved there, as one who ascends higher and higher from the earth becomes relieved. This is why the holy prophet David blessed those living in the house of God and he himself felt a special joy and joy when they said to him: “Let us go to the house of the Lord” (Ps. 121:1). It is necessary, however, to know that this revival and renewal in the church does not come in vain. You must be especially attuned to this: you must dispose yourself to stay in the church with fear, to pay attention and composure, to accept with a heart opened by faith all the Heavenly influences that are ready here. He who does not have such dispositions will not be in the church, because he will not receive anything there that he could have received if he had stayed in it properly. Enough, I think, of these similarities between the church and the heart! Whether all of us who are present here are so disposed towards the church - let everyone’s own conscience tell us about this. For my part, I’ll just remind you that the current day of consecration of the church obliges us to delve into our relationship to the church, trust them and correct them if something wrong has crept in. Do not neglect these responsibilities and do not consider them unimportant. The church is a symbol of Christianity and a place of God’s gracious means. He who is alienated from the church has become outside the streams of grace and is in danger of drying up. Blessed, on the contrary, are those who are devoted to the church and everything in the church! They soon become like a tree planted at the source of waters, always bearing abundant fruit. This is what I decided to tell you today - to some as a lesson, to others as a reminder, to others as a confirmation of the rules, in which they themselves are already steadily abiding by the good disposition of the heart and the free choice of the spirit, protecting themselves from hesitations and arising perplexities by their experiences of the good consequences of that. In conclusion, I again invite you all to give thanks to the Lord for the completion of this church! May His all-generous goodness bless those who labored in its creation, and may this blessing remain in their generation from generation to generation! Amen. September 7, 1860. In the village Olshanka, Borisoglebsk district 4. For the consecration of the church (the church is a teacher of spiritual life) You have two celebrations: one common to all of us - the remembrance of the glorious Transfiguration of the Lord, the other - your special - this is the consecration of your church. And not knowing what to focus on - on the Transfiguration of the Lord, who transformed our nature in Himself, or on the building of the church, which erected this house to our God! And this is great, as a matter of special favor from God towards us, and the latter is not insignificant, as a matter of special human piety and beneficence. And it is true that your thought does not want to lag behind either one or the other in order to fully enjoy the spiritual beauties contemplated in them. But I will tell you that there is no need to separate them, but on the contrary, there is not only convenience, but also a special urge to contemplate them one in the other or to contemplate them together in one matter of our salvation. That for which our nature is so changed in the Transfiguration indicates the goal, and that which is contained and acts in the church represents the means to this goal. Assimilate the power of the church, and you will achieve the glory of the Transfiguration - you will thus celebrate two holidays - both the renovation of the church and the Transfiguration of the Lord. I will explain to you how and why. Our Lord and Savior, who always “dwells in the light... unapproachable” (1 Tim. 6:16), like God, deigned to hide His glory under the roof of human nature in order to, having restored and sanctified it in Himself, then communicate this restoration and sanctification to all who have faith in Him. This saving action took place in Him, invisible to the sensory eye and inaccessible to the mental eye - He alone knows how. But just as it was necessary and instructive for believers to tangibly see what kind of fruit can be expected from following His teaching, He deigned to clearly and solemnly reveal the glory of His humanity in the Transfiguration, saying through it as it were: “This is what will happen to you if you remain faithful to My commandments! The nature of each of you will be transformed, first invisible for you and for others, and then visible and tangible for everyone. See that you are not shaken by bewilderment and obscurity, and do not be afraid of labor or obstacles. Take courage and may your heart be strong!..” This meaning of the Transfiguration of the Lord, perhaps, would not have been noticed if the holy Apostles had not then interpreted that all of us believers have a duty, knowing this, “to be transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor. 3:18). But further, if the holy Apostles, having given such an interpretation of the Transfiguration, had not indicated ways to achieve what they suggested, knowledge of this would have embarrassed us more than comforted us. But now, after the Ascension of the Lord, endowed with the power from above, the Holy Spirit came upon them, they went through the entire universe preaching, and, having gathered the Church from all languages, they entrusted to it all the saving powers, including life and piety, and in it they established revitalizing rites of service and rules of life and action. Now it is known that everyone who enters the Church and with faith accepts all its contents and wholeheartedly fulfills everything, receives into himself the beginning of renewal and transformation of his fallen and darkened nature and further, remaining faithful to the entire divinely established order of our restoration, ascends from strength to strength, “according to the age of the fulfillment of Christ” (Eph. 4:13), which can be revealed in him and here, if God is pleased, but it will undoubtedly appear in the last time, whether only him or all. This divinely established order, by the power of which our nature is transformed, is preserved in the Church and operates in the churches of God. His seed is due in Holy Baptism, where a person dies for carnal life and comes to life for spiritual life. This seed, of course, would remain a seed if it did not find around itself everything necessary to nourish the sprout hidden in it and strengthen the new life that has been conceived. But in the Church of God everything is provided and prepared. Light is needed for the seed of spiritual life - it is ready in the preaching of the word of God, which is heard in churches - both itself, as it is, and in the form of teachings and chants. We need moisture - it is abundant in the Divine Sacraments, these channels of grace. We need well-dissolved air - it is present in all the splendid order of church prayers and sacred rites. During growth, further, guidance is needed to cut off what is unnecessary and give proper direction to both the trunk and the shoots - it is in God-given shepherding and experienced eldership, and teaching. We need protection from harmful influences and destructive external movements - it is found in the indispensable presence in the Church of the Lord Himself - according to His promise, in the protective Heavenly Powers sent to serve those who want to be saved, and in all the saints of God, especially in the Most Pure Lady Theotokos, always our present Helper, who embraces the entire Christian world with Her protection. Whoever is faithful to this God-established order of our restoration, receiving the life-giving spiritual elements in abundance, constantly changes in spirit for the better. What is damaged and corrupted in him falls away one after another, and what is healthy and vital grows and becomes stronger in proportion - and this is not in just one thing, but in all parts of our spiritual-sensory composition. The power of zeal and the intensity of labor soon reveal the Christian to be perfect in everything and prepared for every good deed, with a bright gaze of the mind and purified concepts about everything, with pure hearts, filled with all kindness, and the dispassion and detachment from everything possible on earth, with this fullness of inner life, which overflows onto everything around us, capable and ready to receive its influxes. There have always been and are examples of this, as all of you, of course, know from your own experience. This is how our fallen nature is transformed into the Holy Church of God. The place where Divine powers operate predominantly, and the field where our spiritual life especially reveals and matures, is the church of God. Here is the word of God, here are the Sacraments, here are all the sacred rites, here is the place into which, upon entering, a person begins to breathe, as it were, Heavenly air. The church is the combination of everything life-giving, determined by God for the transformation of our nature. When a church is built, it is the same as opening an abundant spring in a barren desert, or establishing a all-healing clinic in a place infected with all kinds of ailments, or establishing a nursery where all kinds of spiritual shoots are gathered and where everything useful for their return is combined. Why is this deed, as such a beneficial deed, always accompanied by gratitude, honor and glory? And indeed, one cannot help but be grateful to those who are concerned with the creation of churches. But you can always say on their behalf with confidence that nothing will be said that is contrary to their own feelings, you can always say that the best reward and glory for them will be when those for whom churches are created use them for the purpose of the churches, which is indicated to them from above. I take this thought from the creator of this church and, having reinforced it with my pastoral word, I turn it into a lesson - both for those who have the duty to perform Divine sacred rites here, and for those who should be sanctified by them. There is no need for many words here. The former know how to perform the rites of church sacred rites, and the latter, probably, are not ignorant of how to behave when performing them, in order to turn them into their spiritual creation. It remains to add: do just as you know, supporting each other with zeal, reverence and the fear of God - so that, having assimilated the restorative forces operating here, all of you, one after another, put aside the old ugliness and put on a new beauty, being transformed in the image of the Lord who created and saved us, and so that later, on the Day of common reward, you will appear to everyone in the glory promised to the faithful - and to the builder of the church, and to those for whom the church is, I will add, and to its sanctifiers, and to everyone taking part in this joyful and comforting event. Amen. August 6, 1861. In the village Savvatma Elatomsky district 5. For the consecration of the church (Church - school, nursery, doctor's clinic, hospice) Now the church has been built and consecrated for you, inhabitants of this village! Thanks be to the Lord, who inspired this holy work and helped it reach its completion! Thanks be to those who perceived this good intention and did not spare the labor to bring it into execution! It is impossible not to rejoice at this for outsiders, especially for you. For of all the benefits that man benefits man, the building of a church is the largest and most comprehensive. The establishment of schools is beneficial, the establishment of hospitals is beneficial, the creation of shelters and other resting places for the needy and suffering is beneficial. But the creation of the church is more beneficial than all of them, because the church alone combines everything that each of those institutions has, and, therefore, one replaces them all. The Church of God is a school—namely, a school of Divine wisdom. Everything teaches here: the truths of God are offered here in the reading of the word of God, in church songs and in teachings; the truths of God constitute the content of all sacred ceremonies performed here; the truths of God are expressed by the very structure and arrangement of all parts of the church - so it is enough to have eyes and ears to accept the wisdom taught here, the only true one. The attentive will find here a solution to all the questions that occupy the human mind, and will be enriched with the most comforting knowledge - about God, the world and man - about how God, One in Essence and Trinity in Persons, all-perfect in Himself, accomplishes everything with a word, holds everything in His right hand and arranges the good of every creature; how we were created for bliss, but by transgressing the commandment we lost paradise and were righteously condemned to poverty on earth; how the merciful God took pity on us and sent His Only Begotten Son to save us, who, having come to earth and after death on the cross, resurrected and ascended to Heaven, opened for us the entrance to the eternal abodes; Having sent down the All-Holy Spirit - the Comforter, He built the Holy Church through the Apostles, to which he entrusted all the saving powers, so that he who enters into it and remains faithful to all its laws truly becomes the heir of the Kingdom of God, being sanctified and perfected in it. What a comforting teaching! And what human school has ever reached such truths - lofty, immutable, alien to any admixture of lies and superstition. The Church of God is a nursery and at the same time a medical clinic, healing and restoring our spiritual strength. Having been born in sins, having been reborn through Holy Baptism in the church to a new life, we must further grow and strengthen in this new life. The same church receives us as a new planting, and carries out this growth and education of ours within itself, in the light of the truths preached here, under the influence of the Divine powers given here, and according to the instructions of the reliable leadership communicated here. Blessed are the souls who remain faithful to this God-established order and patiently accept growth in this God-given nursery. But then self-love awakens, passions arise and carry a person away. Here and here we see some falling into unbelief, some into sin, some into vices and bad habits. These are spiritually sick. Where should they go? The Lord foresaw their needs and in the church combined healing means, as well as educational means. Just arise from the devil’s snare, come here, submit to what is offered here, and you will receive healing. Fasting, fasting, Confession and Holy Communion - this is the course of local healing! Those who have passed through it know how healing all this is. The church is a host to strangers and even Heaven itself. We are wanderers and strangers on earth. Our Fatherland is in Heaven. Seeking this Fatherland, we should not become related to anything earthly, but, like wanderers, calmly pass through all the pleasant places we meet along the way, having one thing in mind - to see our homeland as quickly as possible. Who doesn’t know how difficult it is to maintain such a mood in oneself! Non-heavenly objects constantly crowd into our souls, occupy our attention, captivate our hearts and make us forget that we will not be on earth forever. The zealot enters into the fight, without stopping his march. The incessant struggle and non-stop march exhaust the traveler’s strength and tire him out. Where to turn and where to find rest and reinforcement? Go to the churches of God. For Heavenly wanderers, these spiritual havens are scattered throughout the earth. By entering them, the Christian rests, finding peace in the detachment from everything evoked by the structure of the church, and is strengthened by being imbued with the grace-filled means communicated here, and warms up in himself the weakened sympathy with his Heavenly homeland, of which images everywhere here appear to his eyes. For the church is a shadow of Heaven, if you look at its composition, at the actions performed in it, and at the images that fill it. We can say that he is the very Heaven on earth, into which the Lord deigns to dwell, and with Him the holy Angels, our constant Guardians. The embrace of the Heavenly Father is open to everyone who comes here and reverently stays here; and for this reason, everyone who is well disposed meets here the beneficial communion of Angels and saints. Visiting the church is the same as visiting the Heavenly homeland in a vision. How invigorating this is! Just as a wanderer, having met a kindred greeting, comes to life in his feelings, chilled by the foreignness he encounters everywhere, so a Christian comes to life, having perceived the breath of kindred Heavenly warmth in the church of God, and is inspired by the liveliest zeal to continue his course! I will no longer expound on the benefits of churches for us. You know all this more or less, perhaps from your own experience. But I’ll add something else! Did he who labored in the building of this church then undertake and complete this work in order only to arouse in you idle surprise and praise? No, he wanted the name of God to be glorified here and the salvation of all of you, as close to him, to be created. Never miss an opportunity to take advantage of the benefits offered to you in it, as in any other church. The church is a school: come and study, reverently listening to everything that is sung, read and preached here. The church is a nursery and a doctor's clinic. Come and eat here the Bread of Heaven and be healed by Heavenly medicine. The church is a refuge for strangers. Take refuge here and throw yourself into the arms of the Father in prayerful sighs, under the influence and protection of our Heavenly brothers - Angels and saints. The more diligently you come here, the more abundantly you will partake of these blessings, the more clearly you will see the truth of God in order to reflect all lies and delusions, the stronger day by day you will become in the good dispositions of your heart and the more decisively you will reject every temptation, both internal and external, the warmer you will love your Heavenly Fatherland, extinguishing any unjust predilection for earth and earthly things - in a word, the purer and more perfect you will be. and ready to enter unhindered into the eternal abodes in Heaven - the unmade and indestructible Church of our Heavenly Father. May this be so for all of you, brothers. Amen. August 26, 1861. In the village Rybnoye, Morshansky district, on the estate of Arkady Alekseevich Kolibov 6. For the consecration of the Warm Church of the Baptist (How to learn true prayer in the church) Thanks be to the Lord, who has deigned to complete the renovation of this church! Let us accept this blessing from His hand as a special mercy and as a sign of His special care for us. Glory to Thee, Lord! I also express gratitude to all the benefactors of our monastery, that, having moved your hearts to the Lord, you willingly heeded His inspiration and did not refuse to help us. You have done a good deed. Our spiritual infirmities are healed in the church; the most necessary science about the salvation of the soul is taught in the church; in the church those who feel like strangers and strangers in this world rest and refresh themselves; in the church our consciences are washed; in the church those who are capable of serving in the house of the Heavenly King are raised; the church brings inner peace to our spirit, preparing it here for eternal rest. So, you did a very good deed. I say this not to arouse in you some kind of dream about yourself, but so that your zeal does not waver when you hear crooked rumors that money was wasted in vain, it would be better to do this and that. Know that of all the ways in which temporary property is sent into eternal treasuries in order to be received there a hundredfold, church decoration and church creation are the best. May your hands and your wealth not fail. Having thus paid tribute to our benefactors, let us now turn to ourselves, brothers, and listen to the voice coming to us from this church. The church is a house of prayer. A word from the church - a lesson about prayer. By now celebrating the renovation of the church, we thereby express both that we are aware of the prayerful significance of the church and that we accept the obligation to pray in it properly. Let us place ourselves in this order and adhere to it relentlessly. I don’t think there is any need to explain to any of you the high importance of prayer. Who does not know that it is an echo of all religious feelings moving in the heart, just as it itself, having come into force, acts back on the heart and revives religious feelings in it. That is why on all paths of a pious life we ​​encounter prayer as an expression of piety and as its assistant. True prayer is the life of piety. Where there is no prayer, there is no piety. The field where the spirit of prayer primarily reveals itself and comes into strength is the church. Understand the meaning of prayer in church and take care to do it here properly. Not just going to church is the whole work of prayer, but also staying in it worthy and praying piously. I’ll tell you briefly how going to church and staying in it can be a fulfillment of our prayer duty. Here's what you need for this! First. When entering the church, remember that you are entering the house of God, therefore enter quietly, modestly, without disturbing anyone’s prayerful peace, go to your place and stand there in a reverent position, turning your eyes either only to the shrines, or to the valley and the mountain, and make bows - large and small, according to the movement of your heart, not paying attention to how and what others are doing around you. This is an external order - one, however, without observing which it is difficult to believe that anyone would establish himself in prayer as he should. But even correctness in this does not cover the whole matter of prayer. Second. We must apply spiritual work to this, namely, concentrate within ourselves. Leave all worries and all worldly thoughts behind the threshold of the church and enter it with a free soul. Then gather your attention around your heart - turn the eye of your mind to the One Lord, Who is everywhere and sees your heart, and then begin to contritely cry out to Him, with inner self-abasement falling at His invisible feet. From the first minute of entering the church, hurry to arrange yourself like this. To help yourself with this, to detached attention from everything to the Lord and to the work of prayer, add bows, large and small, teaching them and kneading your soul with them until it warms up, until the prayer candle begins to glow in your heart. Note that warmth is the foundation of prayer. Try to put it in your soul at the very beginning of your entry into the church. This is the most necessary link in the chain of prayer actions. Third. Having established yourself this way at the very beginning, externally and internally, then continue to maintain the same mood throughout the entire service. Know that the external is from the internal. Therefore, turn all your concern to this last point. The mind is reluctant to stand on one thing for a long time and constantly strives for different thoughts and entertainment. Just as a caught bird is torn from one’s hands, so is a thought torn from the embrace of attention to soar in reverie. How can this be? Everyone knows from experience that when there is warmth in the heart, even if it is slight, attention always hovers around the heart and the mind remains undisturbed. The whole point, then, is to maintain the warmth of the heart. And for this, this is what you do! Having, as it was said, warmed up your heart from coming to church, further listen to what is read, sung and acted in the church; understand the meaning of this and apply it to your heart, and this from the beginning of the service to the end. Just as the power of fire is hidden in flint, so in everything done in the church the power of spiritual fire is hidden. Strike it with the flint of the mind - and a spiritual spark will be emitted, which, falling on the heart, will impart warmth to it and keep it burning. Just as in a furnace, at the beginning, the kindled fire is supported by a lining of new wood, so, by putting into the heart one after another Divine stimulating thoughts in accordance with the course of the service, we will maintain a warmth in ourselves throughout its duration that not only does not fade, but also constantly rises. Fourth. The consequence of this will be that during our entire stay in the church we will be like in a paradise of sweetness, moving from one sweet sensation to another. For someone who stays in church like this, there are never long services... For him they pass very quickly, no matter how long they are. His concern is not how to wait for the end, but that the end does not come soon, because it is good for him to be as he is. Blessed souls! Having stocked up with such a prayerful spirit in church, they carry it with them into their homes, bring it into all their family, everyday, official relationships and into all orders of life, and illuminate everything with prayer. Judge, if we all stayed in churches like this and left churches like this, then our entire city would be filled with a prayerful, pleasing and protective spirit. And if, like us, all other cities and towns acted in the same way, then our entire fatherland would be filled with the same spirit and would be like the camps of the Israelites, overshadowed by the “pillar of cloud,” which guarded them and guided them on their journey to a safe and contented Canaan (Ex. 33:9–10). See what a blessing! But how much work is required to get it? Slowly enter the church and calmly take your place; then gather your attention and warm up the warmth of your heart; then listen to everything that is read, sung and acted in the church and thereby maintain the burning of the spirit. So simple, a little complicated and not difficult! No one would think: “It’s worth talking about this!” Exactly, it wouldn’t be worth saying if everyone remembered these simple rules. But since not everyone remembers, it is impossible not to remind. For no matter how simple they are, without them prayer is not prayer, and without prayer, like without breathing, there is death. When someone, like a whirlwind, is brought into the church, noisily passes to the place, disturbing everyone, and spins around on the spot or moves back and forth, crosses himself who knows how, and starts conversations to the temptation and embarrassment of everyone, how not to remind him: “Brother, you are in the church of prayer.” Where they pray, you can’t behave like that. Suspecting then, in those humbly praying, theft of the mind and empty dreams of what was and what will be, instead of paying attention to the place where they stand and to what is happening in it, how can one not remind them: “Return your mind to your bosom and pay attention.” These rules are the same as the basics. And the basics are simple, but without knowing them, you can’t put them together, and you can’t read without them. Prayer has many degrees. I showed you the first one. Enter it first, so that you can then move on to the second, and from the second to the third, and so on. Know that it is no other way than if someone begins prayerful work according to the indicated rules, his prayer will begin to grow and, passing from strength to strength, will reach the highest degrees. Grant you, Lord, this grace. Amen. February 11, 1862. In Tambov, in the Kazan Monastery 7. To build a church (How and with what to draw spiritual benefits from the church and then bear fruit from them) Glory to Thee, our God, glory to Thee! Glory to you, who put in the good intention to create this church! Glory to You, who supports human weakness in the labors of church building! Glory to You, who has accomplished this deed! And may Thy blessing and Thy Spirit abide forever in this place, henceforth holy. Grace and peace to you too, church builders, who made such a sacrifice pleasing to the Lord and performed such a good deed of love for your brothers in Christ! The construction of the church is a great blessing and is it possible to find an equal to it! A village without a church is like a house without an owner, like a body without a soul, like a dry area without rivers or springs! But from now on you have a church, and the Lord is among you - not only through general providential actions, but also through a special grace-filled presence, just as He once dwelt and walked among Israel through the tabernacle (Ex. 25:8-9). The Lord is among you, and with the Lord all the ranks of angels and the entire host of God’s saints enter into immediate communication with you here, ready, at the behest of God, to do every good for you and provide you with every help! From now on, the Spirit of God, who fulfills everything, forms a new mouth for Himself here in order to breathe into all who are capable of being inspired the breath of Divine grace-filled life! From now on, an ever-flowing source of spiritual gifts will be established here for all those who thirst and seek quenching of thirst! Such is the good! And may the Lord bestow upon you every blessing and fulfill every good desire of your heart. "Thirsty ones, come to the waters!" (Is.55:1) This word is to you, villagers, among whom and for whom the church was built! The church is definitely a source of blessings... But just as it is not a source that comes to you, but you go to a source to draw ordinary water, so come here to draw blessed water from the sources of salvation. Come whenever you have the opportunity - and bring good vessels, capable of both receiving and holding blessed water: bring a heart thirsting for salvation and grace-filled help - this is the container of the vessel; bring the simplicity of faith - this handle and scooping hand; bring warm prayer - this opening of the mouth of the vessel is wide, according to the degree of thirst for grace, and convenient, according to the simplicity of faith! Every time, entering reverently into this church, in the simplicity of faith, pour out your souls here before the Lord and receive in good time all the help you need from Him, as He promised that His eyes are here to see those who come, and ears to listen to their prayers (1 Kings 9:3; 2 Kings 7:15). And this is not the only thing you need to do! The church is among you not only so that you enter into it, but so that it also enters into you and into all the orders of your life with its spirit. What you receive in the church, bring it into your life, or be as well-disposed outside the church as you are well-disposed in the church. Here you hear and even touch the truth of God; keep and testify to this truth everywhere and before everyone; “Let not rotten words proceed out of your mouth” (Eph. 4:29) - neither lies, nor slander, nor squabbles. Here you will be enlivened and inspired to do good by the commandments and examples of the saints; with this inspiration, then go from here “both to your work and to your work” (Ps. 103:23), everyone in your circle. Here are all of you, gathering together, “with one mouth” you will praise the Lord (Rom. 15:6); Here you will all stand before God and pray; May the same spirit of prayer not depart from you in all your ways, and in all your labors, day and night; so that in this way, abiding in God with your mind and heart and combining love and peace with each other, you form a single body - a single spiritual church - and the God of peace and love abide with you! In these thoughts, we, who are strangers to you in place, but not in spirit, rejoice with you and fraternally greet you with the great mercy of God shown to you in this church, and, having invited you to use the church worthy of a church, we again invite you to ascend to the Lord with a grateful heart and from Him, together with this, ask for blessings and mercy for the church builders, may they successfully bring their others to the end good intentions. Amen. September 18, 1862. On the Zhdanov estate, Kozlovsky district 8. For the consecration of the warm chapel in the name of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos (How to love going to church and desire to place yourself in a spiritual church) After the labors of consecrating the church and after performing the first sacred rite in it, I will also offer you a brief instruction. Please listen. First of all, let us give thanks to the Lord, the originator and finisher of every good deed. It was He who aroused zeal in you to begin restoring the fallen house of prayer and gave you the strength to complete what you started and overcome all the difficulties and obstacles associated with it. Without Him we cannot “do anything” (John 5.30). Confess this truth and glorify the Lord. We, for our part, will praise your diligence and work; Don’t stop there, but take everything to the Lord, without Whom “all those who build labor in vain” (Ps. 126:1), so that otherwise, by appropriating something that does not belong to you, you will not deprive yourself of a worthy reward for your labors. You've worked hard and spent a lot of money. The Lord will not despise this labor of your love for Him and for your lesser brothers. But do not think that you have already finished everything in relation to the church, have laid off your worries and no longer owe it anything. No. Now is only the beginning of your Christian relationship with him. The finished work of church building is only preparation. From now on, the real work will begin, namely, the proper use of the created church. He who built a house enters it and lives in it. Whoever sews the clothes puts them on and wears them at the right time. So it is here: you have built a church - use it for the glory of God, for the salvation of yourself and others. Hurry here whenever you hear the call, not only on holidays and Sundays, but also at any time when you have the opportunity. The world is a foreign country to us; Our house is in Heaven, but the threshold of that house is the earthly church. Hurry here, as one rushes from a foreign land to the roof of one’s parents. Here you will receive the Father's embrace every time. Just as children rush to the call of their beloved mother, wanting to enjoy her caresses, so you rush to the church. Here our mother, the Church, will lovingly embrace you and abundantly nourish you with all sorts of spiritual sweets. And, having arrived here, treat yourself like good children treat their father and mother - lovingly, reverently, attentively, obediently. Having entered modestly, each one stand in his own place, without disturbing anyone, and, turning your eyes to the shrines, and directing your mind to grief, perform reverent worship of the Omnipresent God, who is present in the church with special grace, pouring out your soul before Him in warm prayer. Having begun in this way, force yourself to hold out in the same disposition until the end of the service, keeping your thoughts undistracted and your soul free from the worries of everyday life, which you will take the trouble to leave behind the threshold of the church. Undisturbed by thoughts and worries, the mind will pay deep attention to what is read, sung and acted and, illuminated with abundant light, will fill your heart with spiritual warmth and joy, at the same time planting in it the seeds of good deeds and undertakings, which will bear fruit in their time. Behold, the spiritual lips with which the soul adheres to the breasts of the Mother Church and feeds from her with sweet, heavenly food, which forms the basis for our eternal existence. Grant them, Lord, at least one service in the church! If you stay like this, the sweetness of such a stay will remain indelible in your soul and will draw you to the church of God, just as someone else is drawn into society by the expected fun and friendly conversation. The more often you visit the church like this, the more you will want to stay in it. The more relentlessly you satisfy this desire, the closer you will come to the need to almost always be here. And when you achieve this, you will have the same thing as the Apostle, who “desired to be separated and to be with Christ” (Phil. 1:23). For you then this church of prayer will truly be the threshold of the Heavenly Church. However, this is not given suddenly and is not achieved without special precautions. Precisely, the first task of those who honor the church is to “sweep” in it, as in the “house of God” (Ps. 83:11), and this sweeping is fruitful and saving. But God forbid you to stop at one external observation. No. We must strive so that we ourselves “are built into a habitation of God by the Spirit,” or “grow into the Holy Church in the Lord” (Eph. 2:21–22). When going to church, you need to reflect it in yourself. This will happen when we perceive the sign expressed externally within ourselves, in living feelings and dispositions. Then the spirit will become the sanctuary, the heart the altar, and the mind the priest. He who stays here attentively and soberly learns to continually offer spiritual sacrifices to God with his mind on the altar of the heart: the sacrifice of praise - in contemplation of the glory of God and His great deeds; burnt offering - in perfect devotion to God; the sacrifice of purification - in contrition and tenderness; the sacrifice of fat - in a feeling of love, warm and nourishing for everyone; incense - in the constant lifting of the mind and heart to God, and so on. Thus, those who are built internally attract God, who, as if he “looked upon Abel’s sacrifices” (Gen. 4.4), fulfills His promise towards them: “I will dwell in them, and will be like them, and will be their God” (2 Cor. 6:16). Here is the Church of God Alive, or the dwelling place of God, built in the Spirit! Where the dwelling place of God is, there is Heaven; and whoever spiritually contains Heaven within himself will undoubtedly enter the true Heaven, as his faithful inheritance. Our residence, according to the Apostle, is in Heaven, for which we prepare for Heaven by being worthy of Heaven in the earthly, Heaven-like dwellings of God. This is the purpose of the church! To give those who wish the opportunity, rushing to churches, to become a church to God themselves, and thus ready to appear to enter God’s dwelling in Heaven! This is what remains for you to do now after the labors of church building. May the Lord bless you to succeed in this last one, as He blessed you to succeed in the first. Amen. November 17, 1863. In Vladimir, in the Ascension Church 9. On the 2nd week of Lent, on the occasion of noise in the church on the week of the triumph of Orthodoxy (On reverence in the church) The noise that was here last Sunday gives me a reason to remind you of the reverent standing in the church of God. It is not for this reason that I want to say a word or two about this in order to expose someone, because of those who are guilty, perhaps no one is here with us now - and if there is someone, they probably condemned themselves and exposed themselves a long time ago; but for the sake of not letting this incident go unnoticed and not leading anyone to think that this is nothing. Like nothing?! Imagine that some infidel, or schismatic, or Lutheran and Catholic would have entered here then. What would he think of us?! “And so these are Orthodox,” he would say to himself. - So this is the Orthodox Church! They all gathered here - big and small, both secular and spiritual - celebrating their Orthodoxy, but what a mess there is here! What kind of faith do they have?” Having thought this way, he would have been tempted - and then don’t tell him about our holy Orthodox faith. And it turns out that on the day of the Triumph of Orthodoxy we disgraced Orthodoxy and our mother - the Holy Orthodox Church. And there is nothing to justify it. The fact that there were many of us is not an excuse. After all, when a lot of people gather at the market, it is inevitable that there will be noise and talk. And in the church - the more people there are, the more calm the silence should be and the deeper the silence! The Lord said: “Where two and three are gathered in My name, there am I in the middle” (Matthew 18:20). Isn’t He all the more in the midst, when not two and three, but hundreds and thousands gather? The Lord is the God of peace and silence. Again - each of us has a Guardian Angel, a peaceful and quiet Angel. There were a thousand such Angels here. What deep silence should there be here under their shadow, in the presence of the Lord Himself?! So the Seer sees in the Sky the darkness of the Ethereal Ones and twelve times twelve thousand saints, but hears what? “And there came,” he says, “great silence” (Matthew 8:26). So there should be great silence here, too, if we paid attention to ourselves and to why we are going here. When there was no such attention, our thoughts scattered and we forgot both ourselves and the place and began to act outrageously. The angels retreated from us, and the Lord turned away His face, and this made things even worse for us. Don’t say: “The temptation is great - how to resist?” Why would temptation come here?! This is no place for him. He wouldn’t have come in if we hadn’t brought him in ourselves. If they themselves brought it, whose temptation is it to lay the blame on, as if it were something alien to us, independent of us and hostile to us? Even if there was an outside temptation: this is where you should have shown your firmness. What kind of virtue is it if, little by little obstacle and temptation, we give in and retreat? When one person remains silent, what virtue is there? And when thousands gather, and so quietly, as if there was only one person there or as if there was no one - that is true virtue! Is it possible that our spirit of piety is so active that from a small external attack it becomes confused, becomes indignant and disturbs everything around, like air, which easily vibrates and shakes everything that is in it? If so, then our praise is small. If the praise is small, then we must take care to increase it, that is, we must so establish our spirit in reverence when we are in the churches of God, so that nothing can shake or disturb it, so that it is like a stone in the middle of the sea - on which the waves beat, but it stands, or like some solid building, around which in a windy storm the air is in turmoil, but it stands motionless. Such virtue is acquired through non-laziness; This exercise is appropriate only in the church. Reverence in churches can only be learned by standing reverently in them. Go to church more often and try to maintain reverence in it every time. By this you will acquire the skill of standing reverently and acquire the spirit of reverence, which will then remain in you outside the church and transform your whole life. This is what those who haven’t learned yet should learn from now on. Do not think that maintaining reverence is a difficult and difficult task. Not at all. Reverence, when it comes, protects itself and makes it easier, and makes standing in the church easier. When the spirit is in reverence, then in the church it is in its place and in its rank, and it is sweet for it to remain in it. Why is it that some people remain in service for the longest time and, when it ends, regret that it ended so soon? He would not like to leave the church; he found here a paradise of sweetness - from the moment he entered into a reverent state. You see what good is in our hands, how close it is to us, as if it is asking itself to come to us. In our hands - for the spirit of reverence will immediately overshadow us as soon as we force ourselves to predispose ourselves to it. We must pull ourselves together and govern ourselves kindly every time we enter the church. This self-government must begin with the ordering of thoughts. When entering the church, remove all thoughts, abolish the mind and concentrate your attention within yourself. This is the first one. Then you need to drive away all worldly worries and distract your heart from all captivity and addiction - make sure that at this time it is not bound by anything and is not attached to anything. Note that these three: distraction, care and captivity are the enemies, the destroyers of a reverent prayerful mood. While they are there, don't wait for prayer. That is why, first of all, they must be driven away or constantly driven away, because they will constantly attack like annoying insects. Even in the morning at home, begin the fight against them, which you aggravate by entering the church, and do not give yourself any relief the entire time you are standing in it. The matter itself will teach you how to be with yourself - just be diligent and work hard. Having thus renounced your mind, soul and heart and kept yourself in this renunciation, you will confirm yourself in the assurance that you stand before the face of the Lord, Who sees you and everything that is in you. This dominant action in prayer - to become attentive in the heart and contemplate the Lord - is formless, however, and formless, otherwise - to remain in the memory of God, or in the presence of God. Having established yourself in this way, then everyone falls at the feet of the Lord in your heart and pour out your soul before Him... Recognize and feel your needs and express them to the All-Seeing and All-Good Lord with childlike simplicity and faith. This is the heart of a prayerful appeal to God! They cry out weakly or dully to the Lord because they do not feel the oppression. He who feels this crampedness becomes tiresome in prayer, and the Lord loves this tiresomeness. It maintains constancy in prayer, and constancy in prayer warms the warmth of the heart - this is the fruit of prayer and at the same time its inexhaustible source. Measure everything by this warmth - both your good mood towards prayer and its success. Go for it. Joyfully celebrate its first manifestations and increase your efforts to preserve and increase it. This warmth will concentrate your thoughts more strongly, and falling towards God will make you do the uncontrollable, and all the work of prayer will delight, increase and strengthen. So, having gathered your attention, stand in your heart before the face of the Lord and fall down before Him, explaining your needs until your heart warms up; and if you get warm, fall down even more, and so on. This must happen inside – in the soul. But at the same time, the body must be kept in the appropriate position. Take your place and stand without letting go of your members. Do not turn here and there and do not wander your eyes, keep them on holy icons or at sacred ceremonies, bow down to the movements of your spirit, being careful not to somehow confuse others praying with you. These rules are simple, but without observing them you will not maintain your attention, you will not maintain your vigor and you will not warm your heart. Although this constitutes only the external, so to speak, atmosphere of prayer, one must begin with it and, along with it, direct one’s soul as it should. Having thus well-tuned your soul and placed your body in rank, listen to what is read, sung and acted. This is the food of the prayerful spirit. Apply to yourself what is suggested by word and action and arouse feelings and dispositions corresponding to it. The word itself is clear, but what one should think during this or that action must be known in advance and only remembered here. Everything has its own meaning and is a symbol or image of the spiritual. Listen to everything from beginning to end, especially at the time when our Mysterious Sacrifice is being performed. Liturgy is not only prayer, but also Sacrifice; and you are not only called here to be spectators, but also participants in the Sacrifice. This sacrifice is propitiation for our sins. Mix with it your tears of repentance and contrition. She will lift her up to the Throne of Grace and bring down forgiveness to you. Our “sacrifice to God is a broken spirit. God will not despise a contrite and humble heart” (Ps. 50:19). Don’t forget to especially warm up these feelings every time you hear: “We sing to You... and we pray to You, our God.” If we keep everything written down, then we will undoubtedly kindle in ourselves the spirit of reverence. When this spirit comes, then he himself will teach us even more clearly and in more detail how to be in the churches of God so that he does not leave us. The Lord gives us a reverent prayerful spirit, but not for nothing, but for the sake of our labor. Let us labor in searching for it, and the Lord, seeing our labor, will give us what we seek, for He Himself said: “Seek, and ye shall find” (Matthew 7:7; Luke 11:9). But you also need to work with the application of labor to the goal, or with the implementation of the necessary conditional dispositions and actions - and, moreover, all of them in the proper order. Why does someone work in prayer for a whole century and still have no prayer? Because he does not do everything that is necessary to acquire prayer. By this he shows that he has no worries about prayer; but “doing God’s work carelessly” (Jer.48:10) will not receive blessings. Without this blessing, there can be no success and nothing comes of all the work that an unreasonable worker does. Knowing this, brothers, “rush” (Ps. 83:11) to the house of God and, rushing, learn how to dwell in it. To cultivate the spirit of piety in us, the only means left are visiting churches. If this time also passes without benefit for us, how will our spiritual life be supported and what good can we then expect from us? Amen. March 15, 1864. In Vladimir, in the cathedral 10. For the consecration of the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross (On the creation of spiritual life in the church, with corresponding lessons) Having heard about you for a long time, I longed to see you, Orthodox Christians. Now I rejoice, having believed your hearing by vision and being convinced of your sincere faith and unfeigned piety. I pray to the Lord that He will preserve the same spirit in you, strengthening and increasing it more and more. The Lord blesses you with prosperity and contentment. As far as I see, you mainly use your surplus, in addition to other good deeds, for the construction and decoration of churches, to which this magnificent church, now consecrated, serves as evidence. By acting this way, you are doing good. The construction and decoration of churches is not a simple matter. It is very significant and beneficial more than all other beneficent institutions and buildings aimed at the good of man. The establishment of schools, hospitals, educational homes, places of mutual communication and other things is beneficial. The construction of a church is more beneficial than all of them, for a church is a school, a hospital, an educational home, and a place of spiritual communication. I will briefly explain this to you, taking advantage of the current celebration, and I will draw one or two lessons from here for you. The church is a school, and a school of Heavenly wisdom. This wisdom is taught here in the reading of the Divine and paternal writings, in the content and order of any service, even in the form and structure of the church itself; it is taught to everyone unenviably (equally, abundantly): both small and large, rich and poor, learned and unlearned - for everyone in an accessible form and form; it is taught so clearly and impressively that the attentive person, without other methods of learning, through the assimilation of only what is taught in the church, becomes strong in mind and fully aware of such truths, which are often beyond the knowledge of assiduous workers of knowledge. Which human school has such properties?! The church is a physician, truly healing our weak spirit. If someone's thoughts confuse him, he comes to the church, and one sight of him sobers up the relaxing soul. If someone is overcome by passion, he comes to the church and either with a word, or with a sacred act, or with images of saints who labored against all kinds of passions, he is brought to his senses, inspired by jealousy, and the passion fades away. Anyone who is burdened by sorrows comes to the church and, pouring out his soul here before the Lord, receives consolation from Him, is filled with courage and safely endures all grief. Someone who has fallen and is sick with untruth and sins comes to the church and is brought here to repentance, if he was unrepentant, and receives permission and pacification of conscience, having come to his senses and repented. So any mental weakness is indicated and healed here. The church is an educational home, or a spiritual nourishment. In the church of God all the Sacraments are performed, each of which imparts to us its own special grace. Grace is the power of God, nourishing, strengthening and increasing the spirit. Without grace we cannot do anything, and every side of our nature needs a special gift of grace in order to act according to God’s intention. These special gifts are necessary for one or another force or side and are communicated by a special corresponding Sacrament... Baptism revives, Confirmation strengthens and adorns the newborn spirit with gifts. Repentance washes, the Body and Blood of Christ nourishes, and every Sacrament performs its spiritual action in us. Since the church is a place designated for the performance of these Sacraments, it truly is a nursery of our spirit and the grace-filled life in us. The Church of God is a place of mutual communication - Heavenly and earthly. We are born on earth for Heaven. Those who have outlived their age move from here to another age and, staying there, either require our help, or they themselves become capable of helping us. Both presuppose that there must be a special place on earth for communication between us, the earthly, and the Heavenly. This place is the church. Here we remember our fathers and brothers, and here we call upon the saints, the glorified ones, our helpers. The saints here descend to us, as repeated experience has clearly proven, and the effect of our prayers performed here reaches our fathers and brethren, and we all secretly, spiritually, but nevertheless really, communicating here - in the church - form a single society, harmoniously combined, upon which our Heavenly Father with all the Heavenly Powers graciously looks and graciously rejoices. The significance of the church is so great! So beneficial is its arrangement! Be inspired, church builders! Here they will be enlightened by spiritual wisdom, healed of spiritual infirmities, nourished by grace and communicate with Heaven. These actions will be performed in others; but their fruits and rewards for them will be reflected on you and thereby increase the price of your labor. Recognize this beneficence and you who have the use of this church - and reward those who worked in its creation with gratitude and prayer for those who began, continued and brought to the end this holy work. The same and others, understand, however. First. That the church was not built for itself, but for you; not to stand and show off, but to always have you within me; not to be a witness to your past piety, but to be the instigator, nourisher and guardian of your unceasing piety. If the church is empty when it should be full, then those who built it labored in vain (Ps. 127:1; Jer. 51:58; Gal. 4.11). Do not forget to be in this church every Sunday and holidays, and whoever can, on any other free day. Second. If the church of God is intended for spiritual enlightenment, healing, nutrition and spiritual communication, then try to visit churches in such a way that you will actually be enlightened in them with spiritual wisdom, heal your spiritual infirmities, feed your thirsty spirit with Heavenly grace and ascend to tangible communion with the saints and all those who have passed away. For this purpose, listen to everything that is read, sung and acted here and zealously fulfill all the rites and orders to which you are called in the church and through the church - I mean - all kinds of church prayers, holy fasts, fasting and, especially, Confession and Communion. Do all this without fail, and not only outwardly, but with your heart and mind, with faith and reverence. By doing this, you will indeed always appear enlightened, healthy in spirit, fulfilled and heavenly. Third. The church has been created or the church has been visited - do not think that everything has already been completed. They come to the church to gain strength; forces are obtained in order to act with them; one must act according to the commandments. Thus, in connection with the building of churches and visiting churches, there should be zealous fulfillment of the commandments. Be zealous not only about fulfilling everything that is churchly, but also about appearing filled with all virtue even beyond the threshold of the church - to be meek, peace-loving, unjudgmental, sober, hardworking, mutually helpful, chaste, compliant, patient, humble - in a word, adorned with all virtue. I briefly point out this to you to explain your relationship to the church with its consequences. But start going to church more often, and by doing this you will learn how you should be in relation to it and how you should proceed from it. And many other things will be revealed to you then, perhaps something that no word can describe or embrace. Church - Earthly Heaven. Whoever accepts the power of the church becomes a partaker of all that is heavenly. Where were the saints of God brought up? Mainly in churches. How sad it is to see and know that others go to the church for a whole century and do not taste the fruits of going to the church. Heeding this, brethren, philosophize within yourself and take care to behave in relation to the church in such a way as to fully transfer all its meaning to yourself. I will add that from this there will be fruit not only for you, but also for the church builders, both departed and living. May the Lord help you to do this. Amen. July 3, 1864. In the village Ivanovo, Shuisky district 11. On the consecration of the church (On approaching the children of the Lord and the Mother of God through the church, and how they should therefore relate to the church) Behold, children, the church has also been consecrated for you, which has now become holy. You will study below, and they will bring you here to pray to God. See, every time you come here, behave here as the holiness of the place requires. Do you know what happened to this place when it was consecrated?! From now on, this is the house of God, and the Lord began to dwell here with His special favor. The Lord is everywhere; but about the consecrated churches He Himself said: “My eyes will be there” and “ears to listen to the prayers of My servants” (1 Kings 9:3; 2 Chronicles 7:15) - which He did not say about any other place. Remember this, when you come here - remember that the Lord sees you and is ready to hear what you ask Him for. Remembering that He sees you, beware of making any indecent movement with your body or keep any empty thoughts and unkind feelings in your soul. Remembering that He is ready to hear you, ask Him for what you need, as you would ask it from your own father, with warmth and trust in Him. The Lord loves everyone, and He loves children most, and He helps everyone, and He is most ready to help children. When He was still on earth, in one place mothers began to bring children to Him, so that the Lord would bless them. He laid his hands on them and took them to Himself. Others, thinking that this bothered the Lord, did not want to allow any more children to come to Him. But the Lord did not order them to do this, saying: “Do not prevent the children from coming to Me” (Matthew 19:14). See how merciful He is to children. But as then, so now He is all “the same” (Heb. 13:8). And He loves children just as much now as He did then. And he loves you. And when you come here, He will surely approach you, although invisibly, but really. And if you behave properly both mentally and physically, He will surely bless you, and He will lay His hands on you and embrace you, and will let your soul feel this approach and touch of His. That is why I tell you: come here willingly and joyfully, and turn to the Lord lovingly and trustingly, as if you were your own father. I’ll also tell you this: your patronal feast will be the Entry into the Church of the Most Holy Theotokos. We dedicate this church to the Mother of God and entrust to Her protection and intercession, together with the church, both the school and you. Remember this, and run to the Mother of God, like children, with love, and ask Her to help you in everything. Look at what is written on the icon of the Introduction: the Mother of God is ascending the steps, and little girls with candles are standing on the sides. It was they who accompanied Her to the Church. The Mother of God then entered the Church. After Her Assumption, She ascended to Heaven, and there at the Throne of God she prays for all believers, and from there she descends to earth and walks through all the churches that are dedicated to Her, and through all the people who call on Her. And here She will come. The church is dedicated to Her. For the sake of this dedication, the Lord deigned that She should enter here now and then always come. The current consecration of this church is also the introduction of the Mother of God into this church by the Lord’s wave. Remember this, children, and when you climb the stairs here, think that you are accompanying the Mother of God to this church and that She is going ahead of you and will be with you here. After all, this is how it really is. Wherever the Mother of God is, as soon as you call upon Her earnestly, She will immediately come. It is not difficult for Her to move from place to place, for She is spiritual. So, when you come here, pray to the Mother of God as you would ask your living mother for something, and She will hear you and help you. You see now that the Lord is here and sees you and is ready to hear your prayers - and the Mother of God will come here to help you and beg the Lord for you. Hurry here willingly, stand here reverently and pray with the hope that you will be heard. Openly express every need you have and ask for it. You will study and not quickly learn the lesson - your memory is weak, come here and tell your Lord and Mother of God about this need, praying like this: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, grant me memory so that I can quickly learn the lesson. Mother of God, help me learn my lesson as quickly as possible and pray for me, so that the Lord will give me a strong memory.” Also, if you do not soon learn any handicraft or skill, pray like this: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, grant me the ability to do such and such handicraft! Mother of God, help me to adopt such and such a skill!” Or one of you will not have a very good disposition: he will be lazy, or often angry, or offended, or proud of others, or envious in some way, or different from others, will not have love and sociability - all this is very bad, and if any of you have it, it must certainly be corrected - so pray when you come here: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Mother of God, deliver me from laziness, from anger, from arrogance and pride, from envy, from pertness, from excessive playfulness, and give me meekness, obedience, love for everyone, so that we can live like sisters, under a boss - like our own mother.” So pray for everything else: for health, for the preservation of your school, for your parents and relatives, your boss, your mentors and all your trustees. With such a prayer you will please the Lord and the Mother of God, and They will soon hear your prayer and fulfill your prayer. Did you understand what I told you? I will also repeat that your church has been consecrated and through this the Lord and the Mother of God have now become close to you - they have begun to live with you, as if in the same house. What a joy! Never forget this. You will live down there, and come here only from time to time. But even when you are there, do not let it out of your head that there is a church above your head, in which is the Lord and the Mother of God, and live and behave in such a way, so as not to disturb Them, but to bring joy and consolation to Them with yourself - with your good behavior, good teaching and love for all orders. If down there you do or think something wrong, the Lord sees it all and the Mother of God knows: with what eyes will you come here later to pray?! So beware, and do and think only one good thing. The boss and the guards only see what you do with your body and will not let you do anything bad. And the Lord sees what is in your soul, what you think and what feelings you have. So, while holding yourself properly in body before your boss, try with your soul, your thoughts and feelings to be right before the Lord, so that you will not be ashamed to come here and appear before the face of God. Remember this, and through such thoughts, learn to always live in the fear of God and reverence. Most of all, get used to prayer. If you learn to pray well, then prayer will attract all good things to you, not only while you are here, but throughout your entire life. Amen. February 11, 1865. In Vladimir, at the school for girls of clergy 12. Prayer at the end of the prayer service on the opening day of the school (God bless this kindergarten!) Lord Jesus Christ, our God, who Himself was pleased to prosper in age and intelligence and grace with God and people, and during Your service to our salvation on earth, Who commanded little children to come to You without restraint (Matthew 19:14), - bless this kindergarten, established for the glory of Your name, and establish it throughout generations and generations, make wise those to whom education is entrusted, open decorate the minds of those raised to accept saving teachings and their hearts with good morals. Send Your Guardian Angels to instill in their hearts all good thoughts and goodwill, from every harmful attack that can hide from the eye of those watching, protect and protect them day and night - so that, both visibly and invisibly nourished and guided, they will grow harmlessly and bring the fruit of a good life and good Christian deeds to Your most holy name. Most Pure Mother of God! You know the path of saving education that You have traversed; You know the labor of education You have endured! Help us, we pray to You! Who bore Christ the Lord in Your arms, be merciful to all of us with Your invisible arms! We dedicated this church to you. We dare to entrust our school to you. Receive him under Your merciful Mother's cover! Visit, admonish, protect, prevent - so that with Your help the holy work of Christian upbringing of children, intended as assistants to workers in the Vertograd of the Holy Church of Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, is always accomplished here successfully and pleasing to God - to Him, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, is honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. 13. For the consecration of the Nativity of the Cross Church (On building an internal church within oneself with a reminder that this does not, however, make external churches unnecessary) Thanks be to the Lord, who has placed in us the desire and given us ways to renew this church. You know how much such a church was needed, you also know how beyond our strength it was to satisfy this need. And so, however, the Lord leveled everything out: the matter was done and so quickly came to an end, to the common consolation of us all. Glory to You, Lord, who benefits us beyond our worth. When this church building just began, I remember there was a move with the Bogolyubsk Icon of the Mother of God. As I passed by, I mentally entrusted the work begun to the Lady Theotokos and prayed to Her, the quick Helper to everyone and in everything, to hasten us to complete it in a soul-saving way for the glory of the Lord born of Her and Herself. We believe that this undeserved success in building this church is the fruit of Her Mother’s care for us, and we are compelled to offer thanks to Her, the Most Pure Lady Theotokos, despite our thinness, who did not deprive us of Her help. I cannot remain silent about the chosen instruments of God’s mercy towards us - our benefactors. I thank everyone who helped us with property, labor and advice. May the Lord reward you with heavenly rewards instead of earthly ones, eternal ones instead of temporary ones, and may He bless you in all your own labors and endeavors. At every service, a fervent prayer will be offered to God for everyone, which, we believe, for the sake of your faith, will not be fruitless for you. With such feelings we accept this church as a gift from God. But the church itself is not for us alone. He is more your property than ours. Why do we thank you, seeing it as a gift for ourselves, but we cannot help but extend its use to all of you, and as a result we cannot help but invite you to use it worthy of the gift and the Giver. I believe that you are all no differently disposed, and not only towards this, but also towards every other church. However, I don’t think it’s unnecessary to restore your memory of that and warm up your zeal. The Most High does not live in churches made by hands. He Himself, however, legitimized the construction of churches made with hands for Himself and promised that His eyes would be in them to see those who pray, and ears to listen to their prayers (1 Kings 9:3; 2 Chronicles 7:15). And this, of course, is not for the sake of making it appear untrue that He does not live in churches made with hands; but for the sake of pointing out that if He reveals His special presence in them, it is not for their sake, but for the sake of those in whom He desires to build churches not made by hands for Himself through them. Churches are built in order to teach us through them and in them to be built into a habitation of God by the Spirit, “a spiritual church, a holy sanctuary, offering spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 2:5). The very image of the construction of churches, and everything that then happens in them, is directed towards this. And it is not difficult for an attentive reader and visitor to churches to fulfill their meaning on himself and in himself, transforming the visible into the invisible, the material into the spiritual, the external into the internal. Here, in the visible church, there is the body of the church, or container, and in the church invisible inside us, it is necessary to arrange it this way. There is a throne here - and there it must be erected. There are Sacrifices here - and they should be made there. There is a performer of them - and there he must be. In general, what is here must be reflected inside; and this is the primary duty of both the organizers, the worshipers, and the visitors of the churches. The body of the inner spiritual church is the totality of Christian truths or dogmas. The Lord has spread the visible sky over us like a tent, and we all and all the creatures of the earth are embraced by it, like a spacious container. Something similar is arranged in the spirit of one who, having assimilated truth after truth, will finally ascend into the full vision of everything about us from the Divine View. He will see God, worshiped in the Trinity, who created everything and provides for everything, and who saves us in the Lord Jesus Christ by the grace of the Holy Spirit for eternal bliss in His endless Kingdom, after the end of this world and the all-joyful renewal of all creation. And it will be: above him is the Trinitarian God; here and here - providential and redemptive Divine institutions; behind is the bitter state of us, the fallen; ahead is a blissful future; in the present - work in self-correction to open the entrance to heavenly abodes. Enter into all this through reflection, deep study and conviction, and in your spirit, like this immense sky, the contemplation of God and Divine things will spread and form in it a permanent container for the Incontainable. Whoever does this will have the church within himself, with all its decorations and accessories. Now enter it and perform sacred acts. But for this you need to acquire holy priesthood and set up a throne, then prepare spiritual sacrifices and begin to offer them. You will acquire holy holiness when, having sacrificed yourself to God, you receive grace-filled illumination, strengthening and sanctification in the Divine Sacraments. You will establish the Holy Throne in the very depths or middle of your heart when you arouse and strengthen the unrepentant readiness to devote yourself and all your deeds to the Lord and zealous zeal to think and do what is pleasing to Him, while avoiding everything that is displeasing to Him without sparing your stomach. You will prepare sacrifices when you have acquired such sensitivity and mobility of the heart towards the Divine that, with every consciousness of your relationship to God, holy feelings, aspirations and dispositions will freely flow out of it. After this, boldly approach and on this throne “offer these spiritual sacrifices... acceptable to God by Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 2.5). Judging by how and in what way you appear before the face of God, your heart will give a corresponding movement, which, like smoke from a censer, will ascend to Heaven as an acceptable sacrifice. It will be: then a sacrifice of praise - when the mind is immersed in reverent contemplation the infinite greatness and perfections of God; then a sacrifice of thanksgiving, when the heart is filled with a feeling of God’s countless benefits to you; then a sacrifice of truth and mercy, when your will directs your desires to the full breadth of God’s commandments; then a sacrifice of contrition and humility of heart, indestructible by God, when your conscience begins to expose your unworthiness and failures before God’s truth; self-sacrifice and self-harm, - when zeal for God requires from you all-round purity and the perfection destined for you; then a burnt offering - when, having surrendered both soul and body to God, you will be like someone else, girded and not led by your own will, “and ... want, and ... act only for the good pleasure of God” (Phil. 2:13). Here is a church not made by hands with all its accessories, and with the throne, and with the priests, and with the sacrifices. Set yourself up this way and accept God’s promise that this church of yours will never be empty again. For then the word of the Lord will apply to you: “Let us come to him and make our abode with him” (John 14:23). And such and such a church is desirable and dear to God. I believe that you know the extent to which you should extend your zeal for spirituality. I am afraid, however, that someone would not come from my words to the idea that if the essence of the matter in these churches is not made by hands, then the churches made by hands constitute a surplus, unnecessary and constraining. Out of fear of this, I will say about the case: just begin to be built into the habitation of God by the Spirit, and you yourself will immediately see that without external churches you will have no success in creating internal ones. It will be necessary to know the truth, and it is preached here; the grace of God will be needed, and here it is obtained in the Sacraments; Experienced leadership will be needed, and this is taught by ministers of visible altars. And the very thought of creating a dwelling place for God here falls on the heart - here it then matures and receives strength - to come to fulfillment. In Christianity, everything is comprehended by experience. The very thing evens out all the unevenness and pacifies seeming contradictions. In the word we speak about the spiritual out of fear that someone would stop at one material thing; and then from the spiritual we again turn to the material out of another fear, lest anyone dream of becoming spiritual without any visible aids. As those who wear flesh, God leads us carnally towards the spiritual. The Lord can visit souls invisibly; He was pleased, however, to incarnate and apparently live with people. He can communicate His secret suggestions directly to the soul; He deigned, however, to clothe His Divine truths in human words and in human writing. He can act on the heart without any mediation; He deigned, however, to establish visible Sacraments for the communication of His invisible grace. Anyone who knows at all the structure of human nature will understand how expedient and necessary for our perfection such orders of Divine Looking at us. Just as our body lives, receiving elements from the outside and processing them within itself, just as our soul receives experiences from outside - its own and those of others - and, assimilating them through reflection and activity, is knowledgeable and multi-skilled - so for the development and improvement of spiritual life, visible churches with everything that happens in them are a favorable field - where the human spirit, accepting the Divine elements, ascends “from strength to strength” (Ps. 83, 6–8) – in the image of the Creator. Thus, brothers, we invite you to be built into a habitation of God by the Spirit; but since all the Divine powers required for this are placed in the churches of God, we cannot help but invite you to participate in them, imitating the prophet David, who, no matter how spiritual he was, nevertheless said about himself: “I have asked one thing of the Lord, this I will require: that I may live in the house of the Lord, all the days of my life, that I may behold the beauty of the Lord and visit His holy church” ( Ps.26:4). But this again is for the sake of this, “may” the Lord grant you “to be strengthened with power by His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” (Eph. 3:16-17). Amen. February 2, 1866. In Vladimir, at the bishop's house 14. For the consecration of the chapel in honor of the Iveron Icon of the Mother of God (Reflection in the soul of the structure of the tabernacle, in the hope of being worthy of the promise given to the tabernacle) Now we are completing the consecration of our church. From now on, it appears perfect in all parts, to the spiritual joy of all participants in our celebration. I want to reward the labors of prayer with the apostolic goodwill: “May the God of peace sanctify you, all perfect (in everything): and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 5:23). Do not think, however, that I am clinging only to the word; no, what motivates me is the correspondence of our churches with the Old Testament tabernacle, built according to the model outlined by God (Ex. 25:9), and the correspondence of the structure of the tabernacle with the structure of our nature. The tabernacle was the house of God (Ex. 25:8). And we are determined to be a dwelling place for God. God, drawing up a plan for the tabernacle, determined to arrange it in such a way that in this structure he also reflected how we must tune ourselves in all parts of our nature in order to become the dwelling place of God. The tabernacle had three parts, and then the Church, built by Solomon, - the courtyard (Exodus 27:9-19), the holy place and the holy of holies (Exodus 26:31-35). Our nature also has three parts - body, soul and spirit. If we configure these parts of our nature so that they correspond to the meaning of those parts of the tabernacle, then we ourselves will become a tabernacle for God, in which He will dwell and in which He will live graciously. I will briefly show you what exactly should be in us as a result of this. The outer part of the tabernacle was the courtyard. Our outer part is made up of the body. The courtyard had special places for slaughtering victims, a pool for washing them, an altar for making sacrifices (Ex. 27, 1-8, 30:18-21) - in a word, it combined all the needs for sacrificing to God. And our nature is a set of needs, which themselves are directed towards maintaining life; but since this life must be entirely devoted to God, the very satisfaction of bodily needs can be arranged in such a way that a sacrifice pleasing to God will be constantly performed. Why does the Holy Apostle command: “present your body as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God” (Rom.12.1). Just as sacrifice requires death, in another place he brings this sacrifice of our body closer to our concept like this: “put to death... your odors that are on the earth” (Col. 3:5). With this one word the Apostle said the following: “Take every member and kill it, and you will offer a sacrifice to God.” Take sight and hearing - and die in solitude; take the tongue and kill it with silence; take the taste and kill it with abstinence, or else with dry eating and bitter eating; take the need for sleep and kill it with vigil; take the need for peace and rest - and kill it with work. So, work, vigil, fasting, silence, solitude, purity, etc. - these are the sacrifices offered to God in the courtyard of our flesh. Whoever does this will place his body in accordance with the courtyard of the tabernacle, built according to God’s design, and through this will preserve it blameless at the Coming of the Lord, for those who “crucify their flesh” “with passions and lusts... are Christ’s” (Gal. 5:24). The second part of the tabernacle was the holy place, in which there was a seven-branched candlestick, a table with showbread and incense (Heb. 9:2). The second part of our nature is the soul. If you want to put the soul in correspondence with that part of the tabernacle that was called holy, make sure that the soul with its abilities resembles either a seven-branched lamp, or a table with showbread, or an incense burner. Corresponding to the lamp in the soul are those abilities that are engaged in the knowledge of truth, and there are exactly seven of them: imagination, memory, understanding, judgment, research, guidance, contemplation and review. Make all these forces, in their content and manner of action, resemble lamps, which you would not be ashamed to place in the altar, and you will form within yourself a seven-candle lamp. Imagine only the holy, pure, heavenly; Fill your memory with the word of God, the deeds of the Lord and the saints; always understand how the Lord commanded, the Apostles betrayed and the holy fathers taught; in your judgments do not exceed the established limits; in research - do not seek higher yourself and do not torture what is beyond your strength; in guidance, do not allow anything contrary to Divine Revelation; in contemplation, look at everything through the eye of the Holy Church of God. Set your mind to this and you will light a seven-branched lamp in your soul. Like the table of showbread in the holy place, the active side of the soul is the will with its various desires, dispositions and deeds. In order for it to fully correspond to the showbread, it is necessary that it be filled with virtues and holy dispositions, which are in relation to God - the essence is zeal for pleasing God and the glory of God, confession, submission to the will of God and patience; in relation to neighbors - respect, charity, honesty, peacefulness; in relation to oneself - abstinence, frugality, humility, hard work. Tune yourself in this way, and you will have a table with twelve loaves of bread - twelve dispositions, corresponding to the twelve directions of the movements of the will - these creations, or tribes of its actions. The incense corresponds in the soul to the heart with its feelings. In order for it to fully resemble the incense of the tabernacle, it must be filled - all - with moral and religious feelings, of which there is no number; namely: feelings of fear of God, reverence, gratitude, joy in the Holy Spirit, contrition, compassion and rejoicing, self-abasement, renunciation from everything, and others. Tune in this way, and you will have incense in your heart, on which, morning and evening, when praying or at any time, from good thoughts or godly deeds, a holy feeling will be kindled and ascend to God like fragrant incense. When you have managed to so order your soul with your mind, will and heart, you will arrange the holy within yourself according to the plan outlined by the Lord, you will glorify God in your soul, as the Apostle commanded (1 Cor. 6:20), you will acquire it or save it, as the Lord indicated, and you will preserve it perfect for the Coming of the Lord (1 Thess. 5:23). The third part of the tabernacle is the Holy of Holies. The third part of our nature is spirit. If you want your spirit in you to be the same as the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle, form it according to the meaning of the things that were in the Holy of Holies, and you will get what you want. The Holy of Holies contained a golden censer and the ark of the covenant, in which were kept: “stamna” (golden vessel) with manna, “Aaron’s vegetated rod and the tablets of the covenant”; on top of the ark, the “Cherubim of glory” overshadowed the purification and formed the place in which God spoke His decrees (Heb. 9:3–5). What do you think should correspond to them in our spirit? First of all, faith, hope and love; faith, which brings down from Heaven and imprints on the heart soothing truths that spill peace and joy; hope, a cheerless land - a vale of tears - colored with aspirations and predictions of endless blessings in Heaven; love, which combines in itself the fulfillment of the entire law and constitutes in us the God-written tablet. Transformed in them by its consciousness and freedom, the spirit concentrates in prayer, the mountain rises like smoke from a golden censer, and from there it attracts Divine overshadowing, in which God imprints His guiding suggestions to the God-devoted spirit or pronounces His definitions to it. Arouse all this in your spirit and bring it to perfection, and your spirit will be the holy of holies of your nature. This is how we will put all the parts of our nature in correspondence with the parts of the tabernacle and reflect their spiritual meaning in ourselves! When we achieve this, then the Lord will look at us as at the tabernacle, and He will transfer what He promised to the tabernacle (Ex. 25:8) to us, having chosen us as His dwelling place. Then it will be possible to say about each of us: “Behold, the tabernacle of God is made of men” (Rev. 21:3) Remembering everything that I said now, others may think: “Here, just names.” Exactly, just names, but not empty words. I deliberately wanted to tell you all these names in order to bring under one overview the entire host of virtues that are obligatory for us. Man is a great creation and really is such, but only when he is perfect in all his parts. The body has its own perfections, the soul has its own perfections, and the spirit has its own. These perfections are virtues, and namely physical, mental and spiritual virtues, as indicated before this. If you put them all in a row, they will form a ladder, with one end resting on the earth and the other resting on the sky. It will be like Jacob's ladder, about which it is said that “the Lord... established himself on it” (Gen. 28:13). Thus the Lord is established or rests on that face which is full of all virtues, which adorns all its strength and ability with its characteristic virtue. That is why when the holy Apostle spoke about the “all-perfection” of body, soul and spirit, he also mentioned that in whom this happens, the God of the world sanctifies him with His presence, or God rests sanctifyingly in him (1 Thess. 5:23). Let us set this fullness of perfection, or, more importantly, this peace of God in us, or our repose in God, as the goal of zeal in memory of the consecration of this church, in which from now on the Lord graciously deigns to reveal His special presence and His benevolent approach to us - all in order to bring us into close communion with Him. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the Father and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with us all. Amen. February 3, 1866. In Vladimir, in the Cross Church of the Bishop's House You might be interested in: