St. Demetrius, Metropolitan of Rostov, as a shepherd and pastoralist

Speech read on October 28, 1909 at a solemn meeting of the Academy dedicated to the bicentennial memory (from the day of the blessed death) of St. Demetrius, Metropolitan of Rostov. “The order of the priesthood from the Lord was instituted on earth not for the sake of peace and coolness, but so that the Holy Hierarch would endure great labors, worrying about the salvation of all.” St. Demetrius of Rostov, op. Vol. III. M. 1835, p. 340. Against the gray, everyday background of human life, with its petty base interests, among the usual bustle and vulgarity, individual high personalities shine like bright stars. With their lives - their way of life, character and results - they clearly testify to the height of human calling, the richness and beauty of human nature, its powerful powers and inexhaustible gifts. That is why it seems to me that the moment we are experiencing now should be called nothing less than a great bright holiday. This is a great holiday of triumph of the best sides of the human soul, a bright holiday of their victory over the dark kingdom of vulgarity and evil. Exactly two hundred years ago, on this day (October 28), early in the morning, three separate strikes of the cathedral bell in Rostov sounded over the city with the sad news of the death of its great saint, Metropolitan Demetrius. They found him kneeling, “giving up his spirit to God in prayer” 1 . This is how the great holy ascetic died. He wished that “the hour of death would not find him in idleness,” 2 and this did not happen: he rested in labor, in the midst of the feat of prayer, in his last earthly conversation with the Heavenly Father. And how could it be otherwise, if all his life his soul was drawn there, to the heavenly world, and this life was one tireless work, one continuous feat! I do not take upon myself the task of following all the facts of this wonderful life, from beginning to end. I will only say that we involuntarily stop before many things here, in amazement at the height of the labors endured and in reverent, tenderness at their holy purity. This early, still youthful desire for a spiritual, contemplative life - these independent, in the silence of the monastery cell, zealous pursuit of self-education, this never-weary rapture of lofty literary work and especially work on the lives of saints, when the soul of the one who wrote them, completely captured by the images that were presented, experienced them with such strength that she contemplated them even in the short hours of sleep - and together Moreover, alternating with this self-absorption and loneliness, frequent speaking before people with a preaching word, the busy management of monasteries, in the position of their abbot, in various places and, finally, archpastoral service in Rostov, full of high zeal and tireless work - what does such a life mean? Before us is the clear image of a great, richly gifted soul. We see an inquisitive, self-absorbed mind, not satisfied with a superficial explanation of the facts and phenomena of the surrounding life, but striving for a higher synthesis of them, for a final and firm solution to the problem of the world and man; before us is a man of strong will, overcoming all the obstacles often erected by life on the path to his high goal; At the same time, we see a loving soul, alien to the shadows of pride and self-exaltation, not confining itself to its favorite element - in high religious deeds and literary work, but with meek readiness sacrificing them where it turns out to be necessary for the good of others... Yes, such a life deserves to take a closer look at it, to delve into the experiences of this soul not only with the mind, but also with a reverent heart. But we will not follow all the works and exploits of St. Dimitri. I will limit myself only to the last seven years of his life - in the rank of Metropolitan of Rostov and, even more particularly, I would like to recall in its most important features and characterize his actual pastoral activity here. Saint Demetrius entered his high ministry as archpastor of the Rostov diocese in the 51st year of his life, a man not only already fully formed, but also wise with the rich experience of previous church activities. Therefore, all the complexity and difficulty of the task ahead of him was completely clear to him. At the same time, his personal spiritual qualities - this constant religious trembling of his soul, together with his meekness and love for people - should, on the one hand, invest the work of shepherding that awaited him with special holy greatness, on the other - pour into his soul a living stream of purely paternal concern for those entrusted to his care. And indeed, precisely these features of the pastoral appearance of the saint appear immediately, at his first appearance before the Rostov flock. On March 1, 1702, on the Sunday of the third week of Lent, the new Metropolitan Dimitri, who had just arrived in Rostov, after the liturgy in the Assumption Cathedral, addresses his flock with his first welcoming speech and in it sets out his view of the work ahead of him, his pastoral duties and the duties of his flock in relation to him. “I have come,” he says, “not that you may serve me, but that I may serve you... I have come to you with love: I have come as a father to my children, but more than this: I have come as a brother to my brethren, as a friend to a dear friend... If you call me as a father, then I answer you in an apostolic way: children mine, I am sick with them, until Christ will be imagined in you (Gal. 4:19)... He “rejoices in spirit”, having come to this city and seeing his new flock, this vineyard, planted by the right hand of the Most High and grown “by the labors of former bishops.” He prays to the Lord Christ: “let not a single sheep from the seed of Christ and the Mother of God fence go astray and perish.” At the same time, he clearly sees all the complexity and difficulty of the task ahead of him. “I must,” he says, “... bear the infirmities of the weak, and not please myself, but for the good of each of you to build up, for Christ does not please himself. I must admonish the disorderly, comfort the faint-hearted, intercede for the weak, be patient with everyone. I must love the good, punish the evil with mercy, care about everyone’s benefit, carefully seek salvation for everyone, pray for everyone.” The height and responsibility of such a service compel the saint to accept it with fear, “for the answer will be given... to those who have it.” But, on the other hand, this same awe-inspiring height of the task ahead makes his word imperious and decisive: the saint firmly establishes his archpastoral demand from his flock, as their direct duty towards him, - love, respect, obedience and zealous execution of his instructions. They must show him, “their shepherd, the nobility, unfeigned love, unslothful reverence and proper obedience and work with zeal.” If he is their father, then they too should be like children in relation to him. “If Christ wills, let me be preeminent in you: therefore you will be meek and humble under the rule of the preeminent.” If he is their shepherd, then they must be “true sheep, sheep that listen, and not those that disobey the voice of their shepherd” 3. So, we can say that both the content and the nature of the pastoral activity of St. Demetrius are outlined before us already in this first introductory word of his to the Rostov flock. He sets the task of his ministry broadly and vitally: his pastoral cares will extend to all the verbal sheep entrusted to him by God, according to their various needs. The methods and means of his pastoral influences will be imbued with the spirit of love and mercy, but at the same time with the severity and determination required by the height and responsibility of his ministry. And those seven and a half years that the Lord judged Metropolitan Demetrius to “serve” the land of Rostov, show us this meek and at the same time strict, but always invariably filled with the most ardent love for people, the pastoral appearance of the saint in all his greatness. It is possible, even without consulting historical data, to say in advance with confidence in what condition the saint found the vineyard that God had entrusted to him. His Rostov flock could not constitute a bright exception among the general darkness of poverty, ignorance, moral unbridledness and savagery, religious superstitions and schisms in which the entire mass of the Russian people was then living. But in Saint Demetrius’s own sermons we find a vivid picture of this sad state of his flock in all respects. Christ and His kingdom, according to the word of the saint, are nowhere: he does not find them in any class. So, of course, they are not in the forests of Bryn, among the schismatic false Christian teaching, which has spread so widely and so “oppresses and belittles” the holy church 4. But they are not found in Orthodox Christian churches either, because “the Lord does not deign to dwell, when people who lack reverence and have no fear of God turn His holy house into a den of thieves.” And this is exactly what usually happens, according to the saint: both the “people” who have gathered in the church “as if to pray,” and the “clerical officials” themselves behave here not only in a reverent manner, but also in the most obscene manner 5 . There is no Christ in the souls of people who call themselves Christians: here it is as difficult to find Him as “precious beads in the depths of the seas, gold and silver in the depths of the earth” 6... There is no Christ in the “spiritual rank”, with its ambition and lust for power at the highest levels, with poverty, ignorance and inactivity at the lowest. He is also not present in the monasteries, where “now everything has deteriorated: there is nothing, and there is no rank... Just fuss and murmur, sadness and sighing” 7 . Perhaps Christ and the kingdom of God were preserved among the common people? “Among the people,” says the saint, “lawlessness, theft, theft, robberies, murders, and many other nasty things are done, and it is not only shameful to mention them, but even to think about them.” 8 Among the boyars, princes and judges, “those who were planted in truth by force when Christ was... And the truth in them is meager and there is no mercy at all”... For that is, “many unrighteous riches, collected from robbery, theft, from insults and human tears” 9. “Trading people” are no better than them, with their constant lies and deception 10 . The saint did not find Christ and the kingdom of God in any class of Rostov society and considers them to dwell only in those people, the poor and wretched, innocently suffering from oppression by those in power, of whom there were so many in Rus' at that time. This kingdom of injustice and violence on the one hand, downtroddenness and complete helpless poverty on the other, was obviously well known to him, because he paints it with vivid features: “they are in the last poverty of the poor, they are melting with hunger, they are on the right, beaten, they are crying, sighing, and in another the soul is barely holding on in the body” 11 ... Elsewhere to To the perpetrators of these “offenses, untruths, thefts,” the saint addresses the following words of the prophet Micah: “But you so embitter the poor and wretched, innocent people, as you grow back their skin and their bones with the weariness, and the grinding of their flesh” 12... Such a gloomy picture of Rostov life, obviously still too little touched by the principles of Christianity, in itself clearly speaks of the weakness or inactivity of the people here called to be the planters of these principles - the shepherds of the church. And indeed, the features with which Saint Demetrius himself portrays the people of the “clerical rank” of his diocese show their complete inability to in any way meet their high purpose. Apparently, they were not much different from the mass of the rude, ignorant common people. Thus, the saint points to such of them, (and probably very many), “those who are very unskilled in the book mind, barely able to read anything, understand less than anything and are not at all able to teach, with great care they seek and purchase for themselves the rank of priesthood and shepherd, not so that the souls of men may be shepherded and saved, but so that they themselves are grazed and honored by being glorified” 13 . Ignorant people go to this high and holy cause, of course, motivated only by base material calculations. “Why will you bring you to the sacred rank? - asks Saint Demetrius, “either in order to save yourself and others?” “No way, but to feed my wife and children and household...” “Consider everything for yourself, oh sacred man! What did you think when you entered the spiritual rank? Did you go for the sake of salvation, or for the sake of feeding, how to nourish your body? I looked for Jesus, not for Jesus, but for a bite of bread.” What kind of shepherds could be expected from such priesthood candidates? They turned out to be “not only for the creation of Christ’s sheep, but also for their own benefit, a temptation for people, and their own destruction; “One, having taken the key of understanding, does not enter himself and forbids those who enter: but another is below the key of understanding, he remains very unimportant in his rank, not only does he not lead the sheep entrusted to himself to salvation, but even the blind man himself, who understands the path of salvation, leads the blind and together they fall into a pit” 14. The sad results of such a low qualification of candidates for the priesthood were manifested in the form of their amazing ignorance in the matter of priesthood, to the cynicism of their rude attitude towards the sacred thing being performed and complete moral savagery. Here are some striking illustrations. Saint Demetrius is horrified when he learns from his Rostov protopresbyter and protodeacon what “they themselves saw with their own eyes.” In one church, “the priest served the holy liturgy without a book, the Missal, which is called, and without prayers, which are appropriate for the service, only exclamations of the verb.”... When they asked him why he was doing this, the priest answered: “I have already read the service prayers in the house.” It is difficult to decide what is more here - ignorance or sacrilegious insolence; the second, of course, depended on the first, but the important thing is that this was not the only case, not an exceptional one. When they began to tell this priest, “that he is not doing well,” he referred to the example of other old priests, which was authoritative for him: “I learned this from the old priests, and told the story by name, from whom I learned it” 15 . So, we are dealing here with a very characteristic feature of liturgical practice, perhaps quite widespread at that time. And here is another example, again taken directly from life and therefore also very characteristic. In 1702, on his way to Yaroslavl, Saint Demetrius happened to enter a rural church. Wanting to venerate the Most Pure Mysteries of Christ, he asked the local priest about the place where they were kept. “But that priest,” says the saint, “did not understand my words, and as if he did not think standing, silently. Paki reh: where is the Body of Christ? But you can’t even know this word.” When one of the “skilled” priests who was with the Metropolitan asked him: “Where is the supply? Then he took out a very vile vessel from the corner, showing in it a great shrine kept in negligence, and the Angels looked at it with fear.” The feelings of sadness and indignation on the part of the archpastor who learned about this are understandable. “They keep this great Shrine,” he writes on this occasion in his district message to the priests of his diocese, “not in its proper place, but nowhere in a corner, and sometimes in a house without any veneration, and in unclean blackened vessels: and it’s worse, because they are being treated below honest reproach” 16 . And in this case, what is important for us, of course, is the very basis of this undoubtedly very widespread phenomenon. What does it speak of if not the extreme religious ignorance of the priests of the diocese of Metropolitan Demetrius, from where came their grossly irreverent attitude towards the greatest Christian shrine 17 . The same ignorance, further, was combined in the priests of the Rostov diocese with the general rudeness of their morals. Vices such as drunkenness and gross foul language seem to have taken very deep root among the clergy, with priests appearing to officiate drunkenly and behaving in the most obscene manner at the altar. “It’s not about this that I am sick at heart,” the saint writes in his district message, “as I hear about certain priests (according to a reliable report) that because of yesterday’s drunkenness they have not sobered up, and with a hangover, and have not prepared for the service, they dare to perform the liturgy, which is a temptation for people, and for such a priest, for eternal destruction. Friends of malicious behavior in the church and the holy altar use foul language, swearing 18, and sometimes they even fight” 19. Allowing the priesthood in his diocese to one priest, dedicated by Metropolitan Joasaph Lazarevich, Saint Demetrius finds it necessary to give him, among other things, the following, obviously not superfluous, warnings: “at feasts, he should not get drunk to the point of drunkenness, and should not enter taverns, do not engage in blasphemy and ridicule, below the singing of blasphemous songs or listening to games like look" 20... This rudeness of morals and indecent behavior of people of the clergy, by the way, is brought to the attention of Saint Demetrius and the secular authorities. In his decree of April 7, 1705, Tsar Peter, among other things, orders him not to give priests and deacons “vacation leave” to other dioceses and “not to accept them from anywhere,” because such wandering priests secretly perform liturgies and all sorts of services in houses, and most importantly, “living in houses (“with people of all ranks”), they idly commit outrages, get drunk, and they use foul language, and many who do not fear God curse at them and beat them, and from this there is a lot of condemnation and contempt among the people, especially from foreigners, green ridicule, and they bring great reproach to those bishops by whom they are dedicated” 21... Let us finally add here negligence, laziness, which manifested itself in relation to even such pastoral duties as admonishing the seriously ill, when “many negligence of priests without confession and without communion of the Divine Mysteries” died 22. On the other hand, it seems to have been common among priests to abuse their pastoral power in relation to the sacrament of penance. “The unskillful and malicious” among them, according to Saint Demetrius, declare the sins revealed to them in confession and denounce them, and on occasion, “when they are drunk, they boast vainly of their spiritual children, telling them who comes to them for confession; if they are angry with them for something, they reproach them with reproach,” threatening to expose their sins before everyone 23 . In such a sad state, the Rostov flock, entrusted by God to the protective wisdom and love of St. Demetrius, and its shepherds, headed by him, appear to us in order to go ahead of them and guide them in the common cause. What did they do? We can safely say that the saint devoted all his time and all the strength of his soul, with the exception of hours of religious self-absorption, to ardent care for his flock: he worked for it incessantly, both personally and tried by all measures and means to influence the pitiful shepherds of his diocese, to raise, educate them and awaken in them pastoral zeal. His official administrative activities in the diocese required a lot of time, labor and effort from the Metropolitan, which became especially complicated since the renewal of the Monastic Order and often caused him a lot of trouble and grief 24 . But this side of the saint’s activity is not so valuable for us when clarifying his pastoral appearance, although it already shows his tireless concern for the church improvement of his diocese and for its various needs 25. What is more interesting for us is the purely pastoral, Christian educational activity of the saint. And so it was expressed, first of all, in his preaching. The meaning of the teaching word of the shepherds was so clear to him, but at the same time he saw the complete inability in this regard of the priests of his diocese and all the sad results from this. “That spiritual hunger, the hunger of hearing the word of God,” he complains, “is extremely overwhelming in our diocese, since there are no sowers of spiritual seed, and there are no good lands. There are, I say, no teachers, no hearts suitable for acceptance... And we don’t know who you should dig first, the sowers or the land? Is it the priests or the hearts of men? The sowers do not sow, but the earth does not accept; the priests are negligent, and the people err; The priests do not teach, and the people are ignorant... Both countries are bad: the priests are stupid, and the people are unreasonable" 26... This state of affairs prompted the saint to treat his personal duty of pastoral teaching with greater zeal. Having long been accustomed to this, having already gained fame as a wonderful preacher in Little Russia 27, Saint Demetrius now preaches constantly during divine services both in Rostov and during his trips around the diocese 28. This is the period of perhaps his most intense preaching activity 29 . Already almost on the threshold of death, on October 26, completely weakened, he himself was unable to pronounce his teaching during the liturgy, which, meanwhile, he nevertheless prepared for this day: “I read that teaching, previously prepared from him, from a notebook by one of the singers,” says his ancient life. The saint listened while sitting “at the royal doors” 30. He treated the work of preaching with such zeal and love, obviously considering it one of the first duties of his ministry. As a result, we have the greatest number of sermons by the saint from this Rostov period. In all of them, more or less clearly, one feature appears to us, very important for characterizing his pastoral appearance, this is the saint’s love for people and the constant desire to help them be better, to help their lives become better and happier. For this, she needs that Christian foundation, which the saint did not find in her anywhere, in any class of society; in particular, you need love for a person and especially for your younger brother, for people of the lower class. This is the favorite theme of St. Demetrius, who grieved at the sight of those untruths, insults and oppressions of all kinds that were inflicted by higher people on the common people in his time at every step 31 . Indignant and sick at heart, he tries to encourage and console these unfortunate people with the hope of blessings in the future life. “O people, suffering in the last troubles!.. You are the new martyrs of the last times... Heavenly crowns are woven for you, only do not faint in patience, but look at the suffering of your Lord, who suffered greatly for us... O new sufferers, passion-bearers, martyrs! I pray and exhort you, do not become weak in patience” 32... The kind, loving soul of the shepherd, full of Christian sympathy for man, was expressed here so clearly. But he could not imagine, as we will see below, a true shepherd of the church in any other way: in such sorrow for the poor and wretched, intercession of the offended, and help to those in need, he saw the direct duty of pastoral service. We note this feature in the sermons of St. Demetrius only as very characteristic in his pastoral appearance: but we do not delve into the analysis of the entire content of his preached word: either complete reverent tenderness in the depiction of God’s love for man, especially where the preacher had to describe the suffering for the sins of man Christ the Savior, or imbued with a stern tone of denunciation when the saint touched upon the phenomena of the modern life around him (that he did very often, fearlessly and unhypocritically exposing the life of all classes of society, up to and including the king, to the judgment of the law of Christ), then penetrating deeply into the sinful soul of a person and, depicting all the abomination of vice, offering that path to the highest spiritual perfection, which was so well known to his own holy soul. This is too big a question in itself to be dealt with in detail here in a short speech. I will only say that the preached word of St. Demetrius was always the word of a true good shepherd, in whose soul, even after menacing denunciations, the soft, gentle string of mercy and forgiveness could not but resound, as always prevailing in it, and his love for people and his ardent desire to help them in goodness forced him to adapt his learned word to the general understanding: in the Rostov period, the preaching of St. Demetrius was very noticeable freed from the methods of scholasticism. But, without a doubt, such zealous preaching activity of one archpastor was too insufficient for the purposes of Christian influence over his entire huge flock. And the saint himself was well aware of this. Therefore, he tried to find other ways to reach the minds and hearts of his flock. Thus, among the common people of his vast diocese there was no solid knowledge of the very elements of the Christian faith, its most basic truths. And so, in order to teach him 33, simplifying the work of the immediate mentors of his parish pastors, Saint Demetrius composes a kind of catechism under the title: “Questions and short answers about faith and about other things that are most necessary for a Christian to know.” The Creed and a brief explanation of its members, a brief “story of the holy ecumenical councils”, the teaching of Fr. God, one in essence and threefold in persons, about Jesus Christ, about the angels, about the church, about the commandments, the law of God, about the seven sacraments, and, finally, a short section “on the virtues” - this is the content of this catechism of St. Demetrius 34. But at the same time, it is interesting to note that in his strictly dogmatic theses, presented in question-and-answer form, details of a purely local modern nature are interspersed here and there, for example, directed against the Old Believers 35 . From this we can already conclude about the pastoral nature of the motives that prompted the compilation of this catechism by St. Demetrius. Next. The Old Believers, which were spreading widely throughout the Rostov diocese and attracting more and more new followers from the Orthodox flock of Metropolitan Demetrius, 36 of course, could not help but worry him. With all his pastoral zeal the saint tried to cure this grave illness of his church. To this end, in his sermons during services both in Rostov 37 and when visiting other cities of his diocese, 38 he sometimes made the errors of the schismatics the direct topic of his conversation, subjecting them to detailed examination and refutation; sometimes he touched on this issue in passing, in teachings on other topics 39. At the same time, in his denunciations of those whom he considered a terrible evil for the church, the saint sometimes took a formidable and decisive tone, as he generally acted with pastoral firmness in all cases when there was a great danger to the purity of the Orthodox faith in his flock 40. Finally, with the same pastoral goals of the widest dissemination of correct Christian views on the schism, its errors and harm to the church, the saint wrote his famous “Search for the schismatic Bryn faith” That this is so is clearly evident from the preface to this major work. “I wrote this short book,” the saint says here, “according to my position: for those who come as wolves to the flock, it is not fitting for a shepherd to be possessed by sleep. The episcopal office commands not to remain silent, but to defend the honor of the sacrament... It is not enough for our humility towards you, O beloved, to extend a conversation only with oral words, but it is also appropriate to have a useful conversation with writing... Even if I speak with my lips and you teach them, then betray the judges to the scriptures and send them to the diocese" 41 . And he managed to do this: completed in the first half of 1709, 42 the “Search” was sent out in lists throughout the diocese 43. But long before the start of this work, prompted by the same pastoral concerns about the possible expansion of Christian educational means among his diocese, Saint Demetrius decided to compose in brief and understandable terms for the common people a statement of the most important facts of history - biblical and universal. What prompted him to do this was the extreme ignorance of not only the Russian people, but also people of the clergy, among whom “rarely does anyone... know the order of the biblical stories, what happened when” 44. This was facilitated, among other things, by the high cost and low prevalence of the Bible. With all this in mind, Saint Demetrius, with his characteristic passion, which inspired his thoughts and conquered even the most physical weaknesses, began in 1707, working on his “Chronicle.” The work, conceived as a “not too great and moderate book, so that everyone could buy it inexpensively,” 45 soon grew to vast dimensions and could not be completed by the author, who was already weakening in strength at the beginning. Its vastness was facilitated by the very nature of this work - not so much historical as moral and educational, which is quite understandable given the purely pastoral motives that guided the author. “Our intention,” he wrote about this to Father Theodore Polikarpov (November 8, 1708), “is not only to delve into stories, but also to learn from moral teachings and interpretations of Holy Scripture. And if I had written in the rank of historiography, I would have already completed what I started... My rank (I am not worthy of it) is to preach the word of God, not just with the tongue, but also with the writing hand. It’s my business, it’s my title, it’s my position. I write for the benefit of the Lord, moral teachings, and in places interpretations of the Holy Scriptures, as weak as I can: and I only put the stories in the Bibles in brief, instead of the theme, and from those, like from the sources, I produce a stream of moral teachings." Stefan Jaworski, to whom he sent individual parts of The Chronicler for viewing. “I bet, few people will like this work of mine,” he writes, “it’s just like a Russian bastard: history, and some kind of interpretation... occasionally in places, and sometimes a moral teaching” 47... However, the fears of the modest author were in vain: it was precisely this character of the work, suggested to the saint by his ardent love for the people, knowledge of their spiritual needs and pastoral concern for their satisfaction, and was the reason for the special popularity of this work by St. Dimitri. The Chronicler is imbued with the same spirit as the saint’s sermons. In it, the great archpastor also suffers with his loving soul about the moral ailments of his flock, and also, with the same features, depicts all these “robberies, thefts, anger of the innocent, crooked justice, unmercifulness,” pride, debauchery, etc. The tone of their reproof is the same. But there are also many other topics of a very diverse nature, useful in the everyday life of the Russian people of that time; There are also places filled with deep lyricism. It is not surprising that this work, reminiscent in its spirit and external methods of presentation of both the ancient Russian “bees” and the old Russian chronicle, was especially to the liking of the Russian people: in such a large number of lists as the “Chronicle”, not a single one of the works of St. Demetrius 48. Thus, Saint Demetrius himself worked on his great task of planting the bright kingdom of Christ in the kingdom of spiritual darkness that surrounded him. From him, like from a bright lamp placed high on the candlestick of the vast Rostov flock, abundant rays of spiritual Christian light emanated. Concentrating in Rostov, they diverged from there in streams throughout its diocese and could illuminate even the most remote corners of it if there were the necessary favorable conditions for this. However, this was precisely not the case. For this, sufficient reliable conductors of the light of Christ’s teaching to the masses of the people were needed, but Saint Demetrius did not find them in the Rostov diocese. We have already seen what the people of the clergy who were subordinate to him, called to be his collaborators, represented. What could these wretched, ignorant shepherds do? Meanwhile, without them, what could their archpastor do alone, acting only personally? So, in the same pastoral work, the inevitable task of enormous importance and at the same time difficulty presented itself to the saint - to educate the shepherds of his diocese themselves: not only to give them the means and aids convenient for their work, but, if possible, to bring them themselves to that degree of development when they would be able to use these means and would want to do this. Could such an archpastor as Saint Demetrius, with his intelligence, education and ardent pastoral zeal, fail to see this task before him? He immediately understood it and began to implement it in every possible way. The root of all this pastoral disorder in his diocese is the unpreparedness and “unlearnedness” of the pastors. So, it is necessary to treat the disease at its very root. For this, of course, we need schools that would provide at least a basic education to future shepherds. This is exactly how Saint Demetrius looks at the matter. On March 1, 1702, he arrived in Rostov, and on September 1, classes opened at the school he founded for candidates for the priesthood 49. He was so deeply aware of the need for “book learning” for future shepherds and with such ardent energy, immediately, as soon as he took over the management of the Rostov diocese, he began to satisfy it as best he could with his personal efforts 50. Opened near the bishop's house in the Rostov Kremlin, this school was intended mainly for the children of priests of the diocese. The latter had to send their children here for “monetary” 51 education, about which special decrees were made to the priestly elders. But there were students from other classes, and the school was by no means narrow-class 52. That interesting picture of teaching and some school customs and orders here, which is depicted in his study by Prof. I.–A. Shlyapkin, gives reason to assume that Saint Demetrius transplanted to Rostov much of the school that he himself went through in his adolescence - from our ancient Kyiv college. However, the very spirit of the school - those simple family relationships that reigned here, with “the complete absence of official formality and Jesuitism”, this characteristic feature of the internal life of the school of St. Demetrius, which so pleasantly amazes us, bears the undoubted imprint of the personality of its founder himself. After all, he put his beautiful soul here too - his love, his mind and his ebullient energy. The Rostov school was his creation, his own brainchild, the fulfillment of his dear dream. It is natural, therefore, that its development and success were the subject of the most ardent concern for St. Demetrius. He seemed to delve into every aspect of her life. So, he closely followed the educational part at school: “frequently visiting these schools, he himself listened to the students, and tried them with success.” Moreover, he himself took a close part in the work of teaching: “after the teachers left, he took over this position”; formed a group of more capable students and studied with them “in free hours from church affairs” the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, and in the summer these classes were transferred to the village of Demyany, where the saint usually lived at that time 53. He is also busy purchasing books for his school 54; inspires mentors to teach more carefully; he orders the more diligent students to be reported to him; rewards them with money and other gifts, and takes them to his village for summer vacations 55. He also treats teachers with purely paternal concern 56 . The educational part of the school, especially due to its fundamental goal - to serve as a nursery for future shepherds of the church, of course, could not but interest its founder. The religious and moral education of her disciples is the subject of special concern of St. Demetrius. During personal visits to the seminary, he himself instructs students in good behavior 57. He also establishes that on Sundays and holidays the pupils of his school must attend divine services in the cathedral church - the all-night vigil and liturgy, and, apparently, he himself strictly monitored the accuracy of the students’ attendance at divine services and that they “stand with fear in the church, listening to what is being sung and what is being said.” During fasts, he himself confessed and partook of the Holy Mysteries. Himself, imbued to the depths of his soul with faith in God and love for Him, he brought this blessed religious current into his school. So, being sick, he sends to the seminary and tells the students to read the Lord’s Prayer “five times” - “in remembrance of the five plagues of Christ.” “And then it was more joyful for him,” says his life 58. The bad behavior of his students gives him deep grief. “I am very sad and angry with you,” he writes to them about the rumors that have reached him about this and threatens to appoint them such a strict “senior” who will begin to apply the last measure of punishment to them - the whip” 59 . The severity of that time was quite common, but the very tone of the saint’s letter best testifies to his sincere fatherly attitude towards his pets, alien to the shadow of dry, callous formalism. In general, mild discipline was used at school; the students were given a lot of freedom; Leisure hours were filled with reasonable pleasures, not least of which were theatrical performances. And here the bright, richly gifted personality of St. Demetrius was reflected. And he took great interest in the theater of his school: he himself wrote religious dramatic plays for it and, probably, corrected those written by school teachers. From literary works of this kind, belonging to Saint Demetrius, we see that his soul was also characterized by a poetic stream; their general tone is the same with all his works: it is still the same love for man, especially for the lower brother and mercy for the sinner 60. But the nursery, planted and nurtured by such a caring hand, did not exist for long. The monastery order cared little about maintaining the school business and, in addition, attacked church property with such exorbitant collections for the military needs of that time that it led many bishops' sees to extreme impoverishment. This is what St. Demetrius wrote to Job of Novgorod on December 10, 1706: “by God’s permission, the poverty that has been created in the bishop’s house and the teachings that have been left behind, feeding us even though we were indignant, as if a lot of expenses were going to the teachers and students, and already everything that the bishop’s house had to feed on has been taken away from us... Having become impoverished, in everything, in poverty and in teaching" 61. So, this wonderful work of St. Demetrius had to stop: in the fall of 1706, the Rostov school no longer opened its classes. The source of education for candidates for the priesthood has dried up, but the pastoral energy of St. Demetrius has not dried up. On his hands was a huge Rostov flock, and at its head were ignorant and inactive shepherds. And so, the saint strives by all means to influence these latter. For this purpose, in addition to personal oral instructions - when the opportunity presented itself 62 - he writes deliberate district messages to the clergy of his diocese regarding certain shortcomings of him. With the contents of two such messages of his, preserved to us, 1) regarding the abuse of the sacrament of penance by priests and 2) their irreverent attitude towards the Mysteries of Christ - we are already partly familiar. Pointing out these grave sins of the shepherds of his diocese, the saint reveals their full responsibility before God and tries to influence them with all measures - reproof, admonition, admonition. He either threatens them with the wrath and judgment of God, as well as his punishment 63, then bitterly grieves for them with his heart 64, then meekly begs them 65. The soul of a loving shepherd, but also strictly observing his duty, was fully reflected here. At the same time, the sad phenomena that gave rise to the pastoral messages of St. Demetrius are subject to detailed consideration and clarification, with instructions that broadly touch upon not only these, but also some other issues of pastoral ministry. Thus, regarding the sacrament of repentance, the saint explains in detail and with all conviction “what the secret of confession is,” why the pastor does not have the right to reveal it, how he should treat it, and what consequences does non-observance of this secret lead to for the confessor himself and for those confessing to him 66 . Here, further, regarding the negligence of shepherds about admonishing the sick and especially “poor and wretched people,” the saint “commands the priest to take care of the salvation of human souls in every possible way, day and night, not despising the poor and needy, but equally caring for the rich as for the rich” 67. In another letter, he gives detailed instructions to pastors regarding not only a reverent attitude towards St. The mysteries of Christ and their preservation, but also all aspects of preparation for the sacrament of communion, also about bread and wine for it, about the mood during its celebration and after it, about a reverent attitude towards the church, keeping it clean, etc. Here again, the shepherds are instilled in, as the main duty of their service, the need for their constant care for the salvation of those entrusted to them: “about the salvation of human souls, the saint writes, in every way in the days and in The priest must take care of the night, just as he does for his soul; so that through his negligence the verbal sheep of Christ do not perish, but for him to give an answer to Christ God on the day of judgment” 68. Therefore, he must “on all Sundays and holidays” teach the people “in church from the holy books, adding useful words from his own mind, as far as possible.” And so that this latter - teaching the people “not just by reading books, but also by hearing the words of God by heart” - really becomes possible, the saint here convinces the priests of his diocese to take care of the proper education of their children: teach them “to read and write much” and send them “to grammar schools in Rostov.” But those “simple, bookless” people, who made up the vast majority of St. Demetrius’s Rostov flock, needed the most basic religious training: they did not even know the most important simple prayers. And so, the saint charges the priests with the duty to teach the people, “that they may know the prayer of Jesus, the Heavenly King, the Trisagion, the Lord’s Prayer, I believe in one God, the Virgin Mary, Worthy” (at least three prayers are ineffective: “Jesus, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Virgin Mary”), and they are recommended a simple way for this: “the priest on all Sundays and holidays, After the holy liturgy has been performed and after reading the book teaching, let him command all the common people who are found in the church, husband and wife and children, that according to him all may speak with one mouth, and let him begin, speaking in one point, began with the Jesus Prayer.”... 69 But besides these deliberate archpastoral messages of his, Saint Demetrius more than once dwells on the question of pastoral service in his sermons. Here we find a clearly defined ideal of the “good shepherd” and, above all, of the archpastor, as the one called upon to realize this ideal most of all, to go ahead of all his shepherds. These are the main features of this ideal, as it was imprinted in the soul of Saint Demetrius himself. “No one can be a good shepherd,” he says, “before he even becomes a good sheep of Christ,” because Christ “from lambishness went forth to shepherd.” So, true pastoral service must be preceded by work on one’s own soul, aimed at first making oneself “a good sheep of Christ,” and this work, according to the teachings of St. Demetrius, must begin from youth: “great and glorious is this work, if in youth one cleaves to God, then all virtuous living is a solid foundation” 70 . Needless to say, how strictly convincing this demand must have sounded in the mouth of Saint Demetrius, who from a young age devoted all the strength of his soul to serving God! Therefore, following the Gospel parable of Christ, the “good shepherd” is characterized by three features. The first is “even if you crawled through the doors into the sheepfold, and not anywhere else.” What does it mean? “Hierarchical rank” must be received “by the good pleasure of Christ himself.” Whoever, not “by the will of Christ, but by reward and with the help of worldly authorities with gifts enriched and through some cunning of the priesthood, receives the rank, that thief is also a robber, and not a shepherd: a thief, for he steals the rank of hierarch by secrecy; a robber, for he robs his own sheep, that he may be rich; not a shepherd, for he does not tend sheep, but feeds himself, so that he grows tired and fat” 71 . And such examples - “people who are overcome by the love of power and love of glory, seek power for themselves... not by lot, acceptable from the hands of God, but by the grace sought, and even more so by the grace purchased from people” 72 - such examples, one must think, at that time there were enough among the archpastors, because the saint returns to this sad phenomenon with great reproach more than once in his teachings 73. Another evangelical feature of the good shepherd is “to walk before the sheep, and not behind the sheep,” i.e., “let him be foremost in all virtues... so that he may be an image to the sheep, and not the sheep to him.”... It is a shame for the shepherd if “the sheep precede him in labors and pleasing to God.” And the saint paints a vivid picture of such a reverse order of the moral life of the shepherd and his flock, again obviously taken from life 74 . Saint Demetrius placed this requirement from the archpastor of an exemplary virtuous life and moral perfection especially highly. “It is not good for a bishop,” he says, “to not have in his mouth the words: reproach the teacher, and not teach... It is worse for a bishop not to have a good life, so that people would look at him and take advantage of him. A teaching word emanating from the lips of a bishop can be of great use, but a multiplying good life can be of great use to all: the loudest is the voice of deeds, not the voice of words” 75 . “The third sign of a good shepherd is to lay down his soul for the sheep entrusted to himself.” To this Gospel requirement, St. Demetrius makes the following, apparently simple, but in fact very characteristic addition: “if a shepherd is commanded to not spare his soul for the sake of the sheep, how much more befits him not to spare his property, but to give the sheep to the poor in alms.” and the poor, the orphaned and widows, the sick and strange" 76 . A characteristic feature, as it fully corresponded - just like all the others - to the pastoral appearance of St. Demetrius himself, and to his convictions and his activities. Therefore, he develops it with particular persistence and persuasiveness in other places in his teachings. “The order of holiness was instituted by the Lord on earth,” he says, “not for the sake of peace and coolness, but so that the saint endures great labors, worrying about the salvation of all; not to gather together for the sake of riches, but to feed the hungry and clothe the hungry; the estates of the church are the estates of the poor” 77. In his depiction of the ideal archpastor, Saint Demetrius draws on the beautiful, taken from St. Scriptures, comparing it with the heavenly bodies. “The heavenly luminaries,” he says, “set at an immeasurable height by God’s dispensation, are far from the earth: and the bishops in the church sky do not contain a low place, but a most exalted one, existing as the image of the Son of God.”... “The luminaries of the heavens” are like eyes in the sky, “looking at everyone, shining equally on the good and the evil; and the bishops are like the guards of the church, cheerfully and vigilantly looking at the flock entrusted to them, and seeing all the needs and weaknesses, and caring for everyone’s salvation equally, as for the good, for the good and for the evil. his rank, constantly working below the seduction of his mother-in-law in the path of God’s law proposed to him.” Finally, just as “the heavenly lights illuminate and warm the inhabitants of the earth,” so “it is the office of the bishops to shine upon everyone with their good deeds, and to warm with love” 78 . With such lofty features Saint Demetrius depicts the pastoral ministry, to which the archpastor, this vicar in the Church of Christ himself and the head of the shepherds, is called first of all. Therefore, he made such high evangelical demands, first of all, on himself and, praising St. Tikhon, Bishop of Amathun, and St. Guria, Archbishop of Kazan, he depicted what was deeply imprinted in his own soul. But the high evangelical ideal of the shepherd outlined here, according to Saint Demetrius, should be a guiding star not only for those who occupy the “highest” place in the church: it is the same - both in the nature of the service and in its essential responsibilities - both for the head of the shepherds himself, and for each of them. That this is so is especially clear from the special word of the saint “On the shepherding of spiritual shepherds”, where in his analysis of pastoral service he means shepherds in general, he addresses everyone, “to whom is entrusted the flock of verbal sheep from God - bishops and priests, and other leaders of the spiritual rank, shepherds and rulers of human souls” 79 . This word of St. Demetrius is classic in Russian pastoral literature of that time. As it was written with the special purpose of finding out “what kind of verbal sheep a shepherd should be” 80, therefore, containing the pastoral views of St. Demetrius in the most complete form, this word deserves our special attention, and therefore I cannot help but dwell on it in more detail. The work of shepherding “requires not only labor, but also great skill.” If it is said about the shepherd of dumb animals, Jacob, that he “was in the burning heat in the days, freezing in the cold nights, giving sleep to his eyes,” then what kind of work does the work of the shepherd of human souls, redeemed by the blood of the Son of God require! Here the shepherd expects incomparably greater work and immeasurably great art. This is the main position from which Saint Demetrius proceeds when deciding the question: what should a “shepherd of verbal sheep” be like? And the first requirement that he makes of the shepherd relates to the latter’s mind. To take on such a task, first of all, you need to have a mind sufficiently developed through education, more particularly through religious education. “At first it is fitting to be a wise shepherd, a teacher,” says Saint Demetrius. “How can he bring understanding to someone who does not understand, if he himself is unreasonable? How can he teach an ignorant person if he himself is uneducated? and how can one be a teacher when he himself is uneducated and does not know the power of Holy Scripture? 81 "Among the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which, according to the prophecy of Isaiah (Is. 11: 2-3), will rest on the promised great shepherd of Israel, the Messiah, the first place is occupied by the Spirit of wisdom and understanding: "Let it be known to us that everyone who shepherds the people of God... first of all, must acquire spiritual wisdom, meaning, teaching understanding... Let him be wise in teaching, in instruction, in admonishment to rebuke the disobedient. But one who does not have the Spirit of wisdom and meaning, who does not treasure up wisdom in his mouth, is not worthy of the pastoral office.” In the Old Testament, God commanded the first bishop Aaron to attach “golden bells” to the hem of his high priestly robe so that their ringing could be heard when he entered and left the sanctuary - “let him not die.” But the Old Testament was a prototype of the New, and its priesthood is our priesthood. Therefore, Aaron's calls, according to the explanation of St. Gregory the Dvoeslov, “I signify the voice of the saint’s teaching, as befits a bishop, so he should no longer be a priest and no longer bell ringers, but speak with his mouth and tongue, often and admonishing the people of God.” And just as the Old Testament high priest, if he dared to enter the sanctuary without bells, was threatened with death, so the New Testament shepherd, “who does not have the bells of reason and spiritual wisdom, nor the power to teach the flock of Christ,” awaits “a special kind of death, even if not physical, but at least spiritual... Dead is before God the one who only bears the name and dignity of shepherding, and the position of does not fulfill the pastoral function: the first pastoral position is that which is useful to teach, destroys human sins, and instructs on the path of salvation” 82. So, a mind enlightened by “book learning” and, in particular, “knowing the holy Scriptures” - this is the first, according to the teachings of St. Demetrius, a requirement from a pastor, arising both from the complexity and difficulty of his work in general, and in particular from the first duty of his ministry - pastoral teaching. But mental development and “teacher intelligence” alone are far from sufficient here, and Saint Demetrius dwells in detail on another, already familiar to us, requirement from a pastor: the latter needs to be “not only... intelligent, skilled in the Divine Scripture and a teacher, but also virtuous and holy in life; It is not enough for the verbal sheep to teach only by word, but also by a good life according to God” 83. The shepherd himself must do what he teaches to others, otherwise he will not be able to teach them. “Will he teach others to do good deeds while he himself does evil? Will someone good lead to the kingdom of heaven, even if he himself is going to hell? The word of such a shepherd cannot be effective. “Speak and do not create, it is like thunder that falls on the clouds during the dry season without rain. What good is the thundering of the clouds if rain does not fall on the thirsty earth? What kind of tenderness to souls from the teacher’s voice, even if it does not benefit one’s life, but even more so pleases? a word without an image of virtuous living cannot be effective.” He who wants to raise the fallen must himself stand firmly; whoever wants to return a lost person to the right path must himself “become” such. So, “a shepherd must have a teaching word in his mouth and keep an angelic, holy, immaculate life,” because one bad deed of his, “when it comes, will seduce tens of people.” Already in the Old Testament, shepherds were required to live a good life according to God. “I will give you shepherds after My heart,” Jehovah said to Israel, “and if you are after God’s heart, you will do all His desires. This is all the more necessary for a New Testament shepherd” 84. But instructing by word and leading by example in one’s own life is not the whole work of a shepherd. These, one might say, are only methods, ways of shepherding: the essence, the very soul of it, is not in them. The driving force that motivates the shepherd both to teach and to strict attentiveness to personal life is “great care for the flock.” Saint Demetrius further points to him. The shepherd is obliged to this vigilant care, tireless care for his flock, by the terrible responsibility of his ministry. “The word of the Lord in Ezekiel’s prophecy is heard against careless shepherds,” and this word also applies to the New Testament shepherds, who must heed, “since God threatens to torture the shepherds about their flocking” 85 . This care for the flock will require great labor from the shepherd, because he will have to “bear all the burdens.” Following Christ’s parable about the good shepherd, he will have to “put his shoulder on the sheep entrusted to himself, bear its burden.” And not only like a shepherd of a wordless flock, but like a mother who carries her child and feeds him herself, “so let the spiritual shepherd bear the verbal sheep, feeding spiritual food like babies with milk,” and at the same time not neglecting their external needs. All this will require innumerable labors from him: to find the lost, to raise the fallen, to heal the wounded, to bear the infirmities and burdens of the burdened... and at the same time, “and in external needs, give a helping hand to the offended, intercede for the innocent, care for the poor and needy, and build other spiritual church administrations for good.” And woe to the shepherd who “does not undertake proper work, who only seeks his own self-interest, only shepherds himself, and does not care about the sheep.” Such shepherds will be rewarded “on the last day of our terrible trial,” “for sweet food wormwood, for sweet drink bile” 86. But no work and no hardship should deprive the shepherd of vigor, that special strength of spiritual strength that is so necessary for him in his arduous ministry. A shepherd is a guard appointed to protect the flock entrusted to him, similar to the guard of a city or regiment. “The strict guardian does not sleep at night; It is not proper for a shepherd of the spiritual flock to be sleepy.” The image of such a cheerful shepherd should be seen in the cherubim - six-winged, four-faced, many-eyed, which St. John the Theologian. The shepherd must be “strong as a lion” against wolves attacking the flock; hardworking in his work, “like an ox”: “merciful and compassionate, like a man; with his God-thought mind he is soaring, like an eagle.” Like the many-eyed cherubim, “the shepherd must also be many-eyed”; - to vigilantly observe the present and foresee the future, at the same time look carefully inside one’s own soul, so that, while showing the way to others, oneself does not fall into the pit 87. In view of such difficulties and such a terrible responsibility of pastoral service, St. Demetrius warns against accepting it unworthily and frivolously, and points out examples from the times of the ancient church, when “many of the saints are running to the pastoral rank” - out of reverent fear of it; on the other hand, in contemporary Russian life, he observes the opposite phenomenon, when unworthy people, for base motives, “seek a lot of care and sacrilege to gain rank” 88 . This is the content of this word of St. Demetrius “On the shepherding of spiritual shepherds.” As you can see, this is a solid pastoral treatise, written directly on the topic of the difficulties and responsibilities of pastoral ministry. Moreover, the latter is considered essentially as a pastoral and educational matter. The essence of this ministry lies in the Christian education of human souls entrusted to the shepherd. Towards his high goal, the shepherd must go through verbal teaching of his flock and guiding them by the example of his own life, devoting himself entirely to unceasing, comprehensive care for them. Pastoral “soulful care” (ancient patristic “pastoralis cura animarum”) is the central point, the very core, the soul of pastoral service. This is its main difficulty, and not in its liturgical side, which Saint Demetrius does not even touch upon here. As a characteristic feature of this word, it should be noted, further, its abstract, predominantly theoretical character. The element of modernity, in the sense of clear examples and illustrations from the surrounding modern life, is very insignificant here. The treatise was written in the spirit and style of classical works of this kind, ancient and specifically eastern: the same ideal rise of highly Christian thought and reverent feeling, the same method of analyzing the issue and the same method of substantiating the developed positions on the Holy Scriptures. Scripture, with extensive use of Old Testament and mostly prophetic passages. There are frequent references to St. John Chrysostom, but not on his classical Περὶ ἱερωσύνης. For us, this word is of particular value, as it reveals with complete clarity the pastoral views of its author. In these terms we see the pastoral activity of Saint Demetrius, his teaching on shepherding and his entire appearance as a great, truly good shepherd of the land of Rostov. Thin, short, stooped, with a small wedge-shaped beard, glasses, and a woolen duckweed of his favorite dark green color - these are his external features 89 . A great ascetic, who in the hours of holy religious self-deepening ascended with all his soul to God, a tireless learned worker who knew the full depth of the pleasures of literary creativity, he did not withdraw into himself, did not fence himself off from the world with the impenetrable armor of archpastoral grandeur and learned inaccessibility; no, he loved man and especially the poor common man; he suffered deeply about his unhappy life, mired in the darkness of ignorance, poverty, untruth and evil, and it was this love that made him a true shepherd. “You please, Your Eminence, solitude,” he writes to his friend, Stefan Yavorsky (in early January 1708), “I please you too.” But Saint Macarius of Egypt’s reasoning is not bad either, who writes about the desert dwellers and those who work in cities and for human benefit: the Ovyi (desert dwellers), who have grace, only care about themselves: others (teachers and preachers of God’s words) strive to take advantage of other souls: these exceed them greatly. Strive for Jesus, who strengthens you, ascetic of Christ! This burden was not imposed on your Holiness by any chance, but by God’s will... It is good to bear the yoke of Christ: make His burden light for you” 90. This is how Saint Demetrius, of course, looked at himself. And this great heavy burden of shepherding was easy for him. For himself personally, he was not looking for anything in life - no earthly blessings. From my youth, “from her I received the holy monastic image... even before my approach to the tomb, I did not covet property or take money, except for the books of the saints,” we read in his remarkable spiritual testament, where he begs to “remember his sinful soul” in prayers “without money” - “for God’s sake” 91. He was a conscious, convinced unmercenary, who distributed all his meager means to the poor, “for the needs of the needy” 92 - a metropolitan beggar, who upon his death left 39 rubles in the bishop's treasury. 20 altyn 93 . But what spiritual values ​​remained from him in Russia! This apparently weak, powerless, ailing man did not know rest from constant continuous labor - and of the most varied variety. We partially saw what he did in Rostov, already in the remainder of his days. But I haven’t indicated everything. I did not touch at all on that literary work of his, which alone would have immortalized his name - the Four Menaions; Meanwhile, the last quarter of them was written here, in Rostov. And how many small, random literary works he wrote during the same period! His spirit did not know fatigue; More and more new plans were born in my mind. “I can’t write quickly,” he complains in a letter to Feodor Polikarpov on November 8, 1708, “not only because of the difficulty of the matter, but also because of my weakness: I am often exhausted... And besides, my seeing eyes see little and my glasses don’t help much, and my writing hand trembles, and the whole church of my body is near ruin.” And yet, despite all these weaknesses and ailments, the tireless worker’s thoughts fly forward and forward: he dreams, having finished the “Chronicle,” to take up the psalter again, “to briefly explain it with an interpretation,” and all with the same pastoral goals 94. So, despite the weakness of his body, which was already close to destruction, his spirit burned and burned. And he still burns before us - in his great, immortal literary works, in his holy prayers for us and in the reverent memory that we pay to this beauty and pride of our Almae Matris. The Life of Our Father Dimitri, Metropolitan of Rostov, Wonderworker, Like the Saints. See the works of St. Demetrius, part I, Kiev, 1824, p. 24. See "Diary Notes" of St. Demetrius (Diariush): on November 8, 1708, his letter to the “honorable father Feodor Polikarpov.” Works of St. Demetrius, part 1, page 349. Works, part I, pp. 36–38. Italics are mine. “The true Catholic Apostolic Church has already diminished because of the schisms, as if the true son of the Church can hardly be found anywhere; Almost in every city, some kind of special faith is invented, and already about faith, simple men and women, who are very ignorant of the true path, dogmatize and teach as about the folding of three fingers, saying that there is a wrong and new cross to be, and in their stubbornness of damnation they stand, despising and rejecting the true teachers of the Church. And others are somehow found inside the Church, but insidiously, the image is only possessed of piety, but His power is removed.” Op. vol. II, M. 1833, p. 180. “People gather in church as if for prayer, and among themselves they talk and idle about outsiders, or about purchases, or about abuse, or they condemn someone, or swear at someone, and with blasphemous words they destroy the good glory of their neighbor... and in one place he sleeps, and in another he dreams of foul and evil thoughts, in theft, in murder, in adultery, in anger and revenge. he thinks to his neighbor while standing in the church... And sometimes it happens that persons of the clergy, being drunk, swear, use foul language, fight in the church and the holy altar "... Op. vol. II, pp. 176–177. Wed. vol. III, Μ. 1835, pp. 228, 230, 288, 432. This topic is often treated in the sermons of St. Demetrius. Obviously, there was an urgent need for this. The riots in churches even caused a special decree of Peter in 1712. Probably, the heavy weight that he ordered to be hung on the necks of those speaking during worship was also preserved. See F.A. Ternovsky: “Russian preaching under Peter I.” Rukov. for s. item 1870, vol. III, p. 212. Works, vol. II, pp. 177–179. Ibid., vol. II, p. 185. These troublesome and sad times came for the monasteries, especially after the renewal of the Monastic Order on January 24, 1701. See the study by Prof. I.A. Shlyapkina: “St. Dimitri Rostovsky and his time." St. Petersburg 1891, pp. 298–317. Op. St. Demetrius, vol. III, p. 288. Cf. vol. II, p. 185. Ibid., vol. II, pp. 185–186: vol. III, p. 286 Ibid., vol. III, p. 288. Ibid., vol. III, p. 289. Cf. vol. II, p. 191. Ibid., vol. III, p. 531. “What are we talking about those,” the saint says in another place, “who are neither skilled, nor contented in shepherding, nor have teachings, nor a virtuous life, but strive through much care and sacrilege to receive that dignity?” Ibid., p. 543. Ibid., part I, page 131. This prompts him to make the appropriate orders to the priests in such a vivid form, which perfectly paints the modern everyday picture: “Let the priest not keep the Most Pure Mysteries of Christ in the church between bedbugs and cockroaches and crickets, where he and his household live and rest, but in the holy church, and in no other place let him keep it, only in throne"... If, "for the sake of the sake of the sick" the priest has to have them at home, "then in a special cage I will keep them in an honest place, in a clean vessel and in all God-like veneration."... Likewise, regarding the name, he commands: "let the simple naming be set aside, but the Body of Christ may be called the Body of Christ or by some other honest name." Ibid., page 132. This is how the saint himself understands this sad phenomenon. “The most pure Mysteries of Christ,” he commands, “let the priests not call the stock with that simple word, more than simple for the sake of that name, in this country, which has long been common, the priests of the simple do not know the existence in the most pure Mysteries of the true Christ God, below they call the Body of Christ the body of Christ, below they honor that, like the body of Christ, but like simple bread, without any fear, there is no concern for the great shrine, which is more honest and higher than all the shrines of the church.” Ibid., page 132. Italics mine. Ibid., vol. III, p. 288. Cf. Vol. II. page 177. See I.A. Shlyapkina, cit. cit., pp. 290–297. Ibid., p. 316. One involuntarily recalls here a similar, but even more vivid picture of the morals of the Russian clergy of that time. Proceedings Kievsk. Spirit. Academician T. I. 1919 from the Spiritual Regulations, taken by its compiler, of course, from life. “It is necessary to observe, it is prescribed here: whether the priests and deacons, and other churchmen are not disorderly, whether drunks, or worse, are not making noise in the streets, whether drunks are making noise in churches, whether they are doing church prayers in two voices, whether they are quarreling among men at dinners, whether they are not torturing guests with compilation (and this is an unbearable lack of effort) happens), whether they are not brave in fist fights, and for such faults they are severely punished. But the Bishop must also diligently command this to them, so that they preserve their good looks, and specifically: so that their outer attire, although wretched, is clean and of the same black color and not any other color, so that they do not walk around with simple hair, do not go to bed in the streets, do not drink in taverns, do not show strength and courage to drink when visiting, and other similar things: such indiscretions show them to be arrogant; and they were appointed shepherds and fathers among the people.” Cm. Spiritual Regulations: Addendum – “On elders, deacons and other clergymen”, paragraph 28. Moreover, such a terrible fate fell mainly to the “poor and poor” people: it is to them, according to St. Demetrius, that the priests “don’t want to go; They only go to the rich, but they despise the poor and the poor.” Works of St. Demetrius, part I, page 109. See I.A. Shlyapkina, cit. cit., pp. 298–324. See, for example, the order to his monk Varlaam dated April 6. 1705 in the study of I.A. Shlyapkina, app. III. It is impossible not to note the high non-covetousness of Saint Demetrius, who did not increase church taxes in his diocese, despite the glaring, astonishing poverty of his bishop’s house. See ibid., pp. 356–358. Works, vol. II, pp. 592–593. This glory began already in the Chernigov diocese, where Saint Demetrius spent about two years (from May 23, 1675 to June 11, 1677) as a preacher under Archbishop Lazar Baranovich, immediately after his ordination as hieromonk. See prof. F.I. Titova: “St. Dimitri, Metropolitan of Rostov, former student of the Kyiv Theological Academy (1651–1709).” K. 1909, pp. 8–9. I.A. Shlyapkin, cit. cit., p. 385. We have already seen with what vivid features he paints this picture. Here are a few more of the same touches. The saint compares what is happening in the relations between the upper class and the poor peasants with Herod's feast. “Look how the feast is being celebrated for the merciless rulers; but even now many gentlemen, almost the same way, eat and drink the bloody labors of men, and mercilessly torture their poor peasants; the people of God eat instead of bread; The gentlemen have enough to eat to the point of satiety, but the poor peasants do not have enough bread to eat. These are full, and these are hungry; these get drunk, but these only quench their thirst with water; These are having fun, and these are crying in the righteous. This is the master’s feast, people eat instead of bread.” Works, vol. II, pp. 488–489. Wed. more about the lack of love and mercy: ibid., p. 364. But at the Last Judgment the picture will change: ibid., p. 22. Works, vol. II, pp. 190–191. Prof. F.I. Titov, cit. op. page 27. See cit., part I, pp. 34–77. See, for example, ibid., pp. 44, 59, 63. Interpreting the parable of the sower as applied to the schismatics, he says among other things: “the good seed of the word of God, which teaches not to depart from the holy Church, but to adhere to it, like the mother who gave birth to us through holy baptism; but the birds of demons, schismatics, having flown away from their nest in Bryn, destroyed that seed, teaching many to run away from the Holy Church and to disdain the holy things of God, lying and deceiving simple men and women, and saying: “now the church is no longer a church, priests are not priests.” And this “seduction” of the simpletons into the faith was apparently very successful. “Demon birds”, having hatched and bred in the nest of the Bryn forests, from there fly away “to all cities and villages to harvest the seeds of the word of God and destroy the teachings of the Orthodox Eastern Church, and not all the seeds from all the fields of the heart have been destroyed and destroyed: in few in whom is true piety and Orthodoxy seen faith." Works, vol. II, p. 595. Italics mine. See also there, page 180. See “Instruction I on the erection of the honorable and life-giving Cross of the Lord” (Works, vol. III) and already cited. teaching “To the simple people” (Oc., vol. II). For example, in Yaroslavl on November 19 and 23, 1708. See cit., part I, p. 351. For the teaching on the four-pointed cross, given on November 23, see cit., vol. II, pp. 491–505. See, for example, op., vol. II, pp. 173–174, 180. See the example given in the anonymous study “St. Demetrius, Metropolitan of Rostov.” M. 1849, p. 70. See I.A. Shlyapkina, cit. cit., p. 447. Italics mine. According to research by I.A. Shlyapkina - in March. Quote cit., p. 445. Cf. near F.I. Ave. Titova, cit. cit., p. 33. See St. Demetrius, Metropolitan of Rostov, M. 1849, p. 76. This ignorance reached an astonishing degree. See op. St. Demetrius, part I, p. 340. Ibid., page 348. Italics mine. Ibid., p. 341. Letter dated December 11, 1707. I.A. Shlyapkin, cit. cit., pp. 425–430. See I.A. Shlyapkina, cit. cit., p. 329. “About the direct goal that Saint Demetrius had in mind in this regard, in his ancient life it is said this way: “Saint Demetrius, so that the children of priests and church ministers would not be as ignorant as their fathers, and when, instead of their fathers, they are awarded the priestly or deaconate rank, they would understand the power of what they have learned from the Divine Scripture and would be able to do it in the church.” to teach the people, not only by reading books, but also by speaking the words of God by heart, he started a seminary in Rostov.”... Works, part I, p. 14. The same thing is said in almost the same expressions in the district message of St. Demetrius. Works, part I, p. 141. I.A. Shlyapkin, cit. cit., pp. 329–330. Works, part I, page 14. Maybe in Shestakovo and Kaptsy. See Yarosl. Ep. Ved. 1863 No. 35, p. 347. I. A. Shlyapkin, cit. cit., p. 337. Yarosl. Ep. Ved. 1863 No. 25, pp. 243–244 and No. 35, p. 347. The saint’s concern for the students of his school accompanied them after they left it. See ibid. No. 26, pp. 252–253. I.A. Shlyapkin, cit. cit., pp. 350–351. Works, part I, p. 20. Yarosl. Ep. Ved. 1863, No. 25, p. 244. I. A. Shlyapkin, cit. cit., p. 350. See the study by Prof. N.I. Petrova: “Kiev artificial literature of the 17th and 18th centuries, mainly dramatic.” Proceedings of K.D.A. 1909 October. Such a small detail in this apparently very close participation of Saint Demetrius in the theater of his school seems very characteristic. For the costumes of the characters (probably in the “Christmas Drama”, presented on December 24, 1702), he allowed the use of old vestments of former bishops, which served as a reason for a complaint against him to Tsar Peter by the steward Voeikov, who was not disposed towards him, and a response from the royal decree. See I.A. Shlyapkina, cit. cit., pp. 359–360. I.D. Shlyapkin, pp. 338–339. Ave. F.I. Titov, cit. cit., p. 28. Thus, Saint Demetrius calls a priest who reveals the sins told to him in confession “an adversary of God, a destroyer of the secret of God, a violator of the seal of the Holy Spirit” and says that “such... is subject to the terrible judgment of God and eternal execution, and eternal torment awaits him with Judas, the traitor of Christ... Such a confessor is not a confessor, but Judas, a traitor of Christ, and even more so decide, Satan himself, the slanderer of our brethren”... “Such one should take judgment and terrible punishment from us, as if he is disobedient to God and our bishop’s admonition is disgusting.” Works, part I, pp. 106–107, 109. “Oh, fearlessness and negligence,” he says about the priests who served the Liturgy without a Missal, “oh, their eternal destruction! How great is God’s long-suffering, that fire will not fall from on high on such priests and burn me alive in the same place where they celebrate the liturgy”... Ibid., p. 139. “And my heart ached about that”... “It’s not for me and about this that my heart aches”... Ibid., pp. 131 and 140. See also pp. 104, 130, etc. “Offering this to you, O priests, I beseech you admonishing and admonishing you, praying that you cease such insane malice and destructive insolence”... “Receive this with love”... Ibid., pp. 108 and 141. Works of the Kyiv Spirit. Academy. T.I. 1910 Ibid., page 140. Italics mine. Ibid., pp. 140–141. Prompted by the same duty of constant concern for the salvation of the souls entrusted to him, the priest, according to the instructions of St. Demetrius, is obliged to teach and dispose the people to frequent repentance and communion of St. Mystery, which the saint considers especially obligatory for the family of the priest himself - for his wife, children and everyone at home. Ibid., page 135. Works, vol. III, pp. 68–70. Works, vol. III, pp. 338–339. “Look... at the highest spiritual rank,” he says, “I would ask someone (if I had told the truth): by what intention and desire did you come to the heights of this most honorable spiritual rank?.. Truly, you would not be found alone, not only for the sake of the glory and honor of God, but for the sake of glorification for the sake of your own and honor for the sake of coming to that rank, not only for the benefit of people, but for yourself looking for gain. I did not come to serve the salvation of human souls, but let all those under his authority serve his power: I did not come to be a father and a shepherd, but a lord and a master.”... Works, vol. II, p. 183. “If someone is alert to the sheep, but the shepherd is lazy: the sheep fasts, but the shepherd is established with permission for everything: the sheep pleases God, but the shepherd pleases man or his own belly with vain things: the sheep goes through a narrow and sorrowful path, but the shepherd walks along a long path: such a shepherd does not walk before the sheep, but the sheep go before him and precede him in kingdom of heaven "... Works, vol. III, p. 75. Works, vol. III, p. 342. Of the particular features of the high moral character of the good shepherd, the saint notes humility and impartial defense of the truth of Christ. “It’s not for the sake of being a bishop,” he says, “to be proud, to be pompous, because I am revered by everyone; but yes, the image of Christ reveals all types of humility unfeignedly; may he be a champion of the truth, without hesitation or in vain, always ready to lay down his soul for Christ and for Christ’s Church.”, remembering that in apostolic times, “the follower of episcopacy is martyrdom”: episcopacy was often combined with martyrdom for the faith. Ibid., p. 340. Ibid., page 340. Italics mine. See literally the same thing in his other teaching: ibid., p. 544. Ibid., page 532. Italics mine. I.A. Shlyapkin, cit. cit., p. 355. I.A. Shlyapkin, cit. cit., p. 320. Works, part I, pp. 348–349.