Глава 5. Святитель Димитрий, как проповедник, педагог, агиограф

Preaching works of Saint Demetrius Saint Demetrius constantly showed concern for the enlightenment of his flock with the word of God. Having extensive experience and knowledge and being a gifted preacher, he worked zealously in this field throughout his life - first in obedience in various cities and monasteries of the Kiev Metropolis, and then fulfilling his duty as a teacher in the priesthood at the Rostov See. All the saint’s sermons can be divided into two periods. The first period is from 1675 to 1701 and the second is from 1701 to 1709 210. In the sermons of the first period there are many allegories, metaphors, symbols, many of them in the Ukrainian dialect with the addition of Polish words. In the sermons of this period, the main subject of teaching is ways to glorify God in soul and body. The scholastic influence is felt to a large extent in them, which is expressed in the abundance of rhetorical figures and the convergence of examples from various sciences. For example, from the field of natural science, the remark about the peacock attracts attention: “The peacock rules about the proud bird, but when he looks at his nose, but falls down” 211. In the sermons of the second period, the saint touches on issues of life in his contemporary society and in particular its shortcomings: the low level of mental and religious-moral development of the people. The fewer scholastic techniques in sermons, the later the sermon is delivered. The second period includes all the sermons delivered by Saint Demetrius at the Rostov See and in Moscow. During the life of the saint, his sermons were not published by his contemporaries for the benefit of soul salvation and edification. According to his will, the drafts of the sermons were placed with the body in the coffin and decayed, but the lists of sermons remained in the Rostov bishop's house. Some of the sermons were discovered in the Sophia manuscript in Petrograd, some were found in the possession of private individuals. Of all the known 122 sermons of St. Demetrius of Rostov 9 belong to the Kyiv period, the rest were pronounced in Rostov and Moscow. The first collector of the saint's preaching heritage was Bishop Ambrose of Pereslavl and Dmitrov. It is safe to say that the sermons that have reached us constitute only a small part of the saint’s labors in the field of evangelism. The scholastic methods of presentation, learned by Saint Demetrius at the college and during his preaching activities in Chernigov, gradually disappear, words, speeches and teachings become more accessible, concise, and simple in form. But the content of the sermons remained the same: love for God, for the Church and its servants, love for neighbors, compassion and mercy for every suffering soul. His speech, distinguished by its cordiality and warmth, as well as deep wit, attracted the people, and his sermons were a success. The saint did not limit himself to simply expounding the truths and norms of Christian doctrine, but sought to convey their power and spirit to all listeners, both educated and simple. In the sermon for the “Feast of the Most Holy Theotokos of Don,” the preacher makes the following addition at the end: “And it’s time for me to finish the laudatory conversation about the Most Pure Virgin, it’s time to end with an amen. But my mind is confused by a certain thing, for it seems to me that everything that I said to sinners was not understandable to unlearned people, and I am afraid that they will not go away without benefit and that I will not turn out to be a long-winded rhetorician and not a useful teacher, and therefore I will say a few more words for the benefit of the simplest ones” 212. In terms of content and richness of useful and edifying thoughts, the sermons of St. Demetrius are acceptable for any time. When expressing his thoughts and justifying them, he always used the Holy Scriptures, explaining them in literal and spiritual senses. Scholasticism left its mark only in the external design of sermons: construction and artistic techniques. The texts of the Holy Scriptures are skillfully intertwined with the saint’s own speech, so that his sermons, forming an amazingly beautiful and inspired whole, always made a strong impression on the souls of his listeners. In words and teachings there are often sayings of philosophers and sages of antiquity, examples from the history of various nations. The preacher's thought constantly moved through time and space, captivating and leading the minds and imagination of the listeners. Confessing the holy truths of Christian morality, not only with his mind, but more with the experience of a life pleasing to God, the saint always spoke with deep conviction, from the abundance of a God-enlightened heart. The sermons of St. Demetrius of Rostov are imbued with the spirit of pastoral love, spiritual goodness and peace. Therefore, his speeches and addresses to listeners are filled with pure love for God and neighbors, distinguished by sincerity, simplicity and cordiality. The action of the grace of God abounding in him gave his gospel a special power of influence on the minds, hearts and wills of his listeners. The main task and goal of all the preaching works of the archpastor was a guide to eternal life and salvation: “This is all the happiness of a Christian person, this is all spiritual joy, this is all hope and salvation itself, this is the first aspiration of the eternal life, and the eternal life itself, to know God, to the Orthodox listener! This is the eternal life, that they may know Thee the one true God (John 17:3)” 213. A person then truly knows God when he loves Him with faith, and truly loves Him, and he only reaches the eternal life 214. Saint Demetrius, as the shepherd of the Church, knows the ways of knowing God - faith and love. “Faith is a matter of knowledge. Faith,” says Saint John Chrysostom, “is therefore the knowledge of God, because by that omnipotent power the eyelids were formed... God is known through love, as the Lord Himself says in the Gospel (John 14:21)” 215. There is evidence of true love for God and perfection, “when someone, for the sake of his beloved Lord, with all his might is careful not to fall into mortal sin” 216. Disposing believers to reciprocal love for God, the saint asks: “What will we bring, what will we give, or what thanksgiving will we offer to our Creator, the Lord Jesus Christ; for He does not require our good things, but from His one compassion not only created this visible world for our sake, but also in it enriches and preserves us, gives us life and dwellings and nourishes us” 217. Unity with God is an undoubted belief that if we spend our lives with Him and in Him until the end of our days and with hope in Him we come from this sinful world, He will not reject us in His eternal Kingdom, according to His promise: “Him who comes to Me I will in no way cast out” (John 6:37). Achieving the desired unity with Christ, as the source of eternal life, is achieved through spiritual and moral ascent and perfection. Therefore, the saint’s sermons are aimed mainly at explaining the inner content of Christian doctrine; he points, first of all, to the ways and means of pleasing God. To preach only moral ideals means to present one consequence without revealing their source. Realizing this, the saint often set out dogmatic truths in his teachings, for from ignorance or misinterpretation of the dogmas of the Orthodox Church, many errors, heresies, and superstitions arise that lead people from salvation to the wrong path. From all the works of Saint Demetrius, one can collect a whole set of books expounding dogmatic truths, the purpose of which is to raise a Christian to heaven and prepare him for eternal life. In addition to oral sermons, the written work “Mirror of the Orthodox Confession” is devoted to dogmatic issues. In it, the saint outlined and gave explanations of the Creed, a system of Christian dogmatic theology, presented in a brief form. Outlining the teaching about the Holy Church and its relationship with every believer, the saint writes: “The Church is said to be the assembly of the faithful, not in one place only, but throughout the entire universe of beings, and therefore it is said to be the holy catholic Apostolic Church, which from end to end of the universe, in any generation and language, faithfully glorifies Christ - God. The foundation of this Church is Christ Himself, the walls are the law of God, the pillars are Apostles, Evangelists, Teachers, the cover is the Holy Spirit" 218. The saint speaks succinctly about the need for salvation to remain in the Orthodox Church: “There is nowhere to take holy things except the Church” 219 . All dogmas guide a person to the knowledge of God, the Provider of our salvation: “I believe that God Almighty alone is the Creator of all visible and invisible creatures, the Father and Keeper, and that He created heaven with all its creation and Angels, the earth with men and animals, and everything else in His time from nothing by His omnipotent command and will, and contains them” 220. The saint always turned the minds and feelings of his listeners to the Son of God crucified for us. This main dogma of our faith was the focus of all his teaching. In “A Word for the Nativity of Christ,” he explains the meaning and content of the festive chants of the 9th song of the canon, which heralds the greatest event in the history of mankind: “I see a strange and glorious sacrament, heaven, den...” The great mystery of the incarnation of the Lord took place for the deliverance and salvation of people according to the great mercy and love of God: “Being an unapproachable Light, He was clothed in darkness. The eternally existing Word of the Father, speaking through the prophets, became mute. The strong and strong deigned to be weak in an infant body. This is how He exhausted Himself and became poor for the sake of love for us” 221. Countless examples from the lives of God's saints and the Word of God testify that spiritual life is accomplished under the guidance and influence of the forces of the spiritual world - angels, in constant warfare with the devil. Enlightening his listeners, the preacher talks about the ministry of the angelic world, and also warns against the influence of the forces of evil. “The light of the soul, and the light of the body that we need, they care and provide for those, they keep us in our ways... they teach us in the purity of Christian life, they drive away the demonic power from us, they transform our minds, and bring our prayers to God” 222. Faith in the redemptive power of the sacrifice of Christ the Savior and love for God, for neighbors and enemies, mortification of the flesh and renewal of the inner man with the assistance of God's grace - these are the areas on which the saint focused the attention of his listeners. “His love is so great that, like delight, it does not pay attention to anything and seems to forget itself. We may be dark, filthy, vile and insignificant, but by His great Divine love we are made into holy, bright, pure and higher people than the angels. This is how strong God’s love is for us” 223. On Sundays and holidays, choosing the texts of the Gospel readings as the topic for preaching, he introduced his listeners to the times of the Savior, conveying the spirit of the gospel, and explained the content and meaning of what was read. The decline of Christian piety and righteous life in God testifies, in the opinion of the saint, that the Calvary sacrifice for many remained silent and distant, and the grace of God did not touch the hearts of people: “O heart, sinner’s heart! O bitterness of the insensible soul! The hardness of stone is nothing compared to your petrification; the hardest stone is the heart." 224 Exclamations like this are very often found in his teachings on soul-saving topics. In his sermons, the saint denounces and tries to correct the vices of his flock, revealing a sad picture of the morals of that time. “What is our piety? - exclaims the distressed archpastor. – What kind of Christianity? What kind of love for God is gained? Whenever we see the churches being idle, the teaching of the laws, that there is no one to hear, is abandoned. Malice, insults, untruths, outrages and obscene language are filled everywhere; gluttony and drunkenness did not exactly make many people miserable and become possessed and go crazy, but also gave them over to cruel deaths untimely and completely eradicated them. They call and invite people to the Holy Church to sing and praise the Lord God, it is fitting to have all the love for the Unman, no one comes... And at the feasts, drinking and mocking, sit for days, and then it’s as if it’s business, and idle, and in indecent fun you’re not bored. It is harmful and detrimental to her, and not only to her soul, but also to her body, beyond natural measures. And now people are already inventing things for other people and drinking a lot about their health in absentia, but ruining themselves excessively” 225. As a vigilant shepherd and guardian of the spiritual flock, he sees sinful habits, the diseases of his contemporary society and heals them, choosing what is needed at a time when ordinary readings contain more useful and convenient examples. Thus, in his homily on the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee, he says: “Let anyone interpret the current Gospel, which is noble and well-known to everyone, spoken by the Lord, about the Publican and the Pharisee, about the Publican and the Pharisee, as he wants, but I only want to know and offer it to our love; to whom our Lord speaks" 226. The preacher reveals in this sermon the vices of vanity and slander, especially characteristic of that time. Along with this disease, he also sees a danger for the Holy Church emanating from the same beginning: the spirit of Pharisaic leaven and slander on the part of schismatics, which has infected not only the people, but also the shepherds of the Church. The saint denounces the inveterate vices of his listeners, especially irreverence and ingratitude to God. For example, in the word on the Exaltation of the Cross of Christ, he denounces those who stand irreverently in the church of God: “Oh, Christ the Savior! Even if You had now entered Your church and seen that they were acting outrageously, You had done the same or greater things, and we do not know that You had spared anyone: now there is great fearlessness in the Church, a den of thieves and a dishonorable house are creating Your house. Where can I meet whom? In the church. Where do they greet each other, congratulate each other, ask about their health, about their wife, children and others? - In the church. As if the church was created for this reason, so that people would converge on politics and lawlessness, and not on the prayer of God” 227. Often one can hear good nature in the tone of the saint’s denunciations. Such denunciations are aimed not so much at hurting the listener, but at revealing and criticizing known weaknesses and vices. In such cases, the sermon has a tinge of irony, coming not from a mocking mind, but from a heart saddened by the foolishness of one’s neighbor, and sympathetic to the actual situation. Sometimes whole pictures are presented to the imagination of the listeners, such as: “A lazy donkey is lazy and a sinner: with many beatings you can hardly convince the donkey of the yoke, but you can convert a depraved sinner and with many inconvenient testimony to correction; The donkey, even if beaten, does not come soon, it barely drags along the way, and there is never any sign of running soon; and the sinner does not rush to salvation, even if sometimes the one who is beaten is not allowed by God” 228. In any word of the preacher one can feel the pastoral love for the flock and for God, dissolved by heartfelt sorrow over the ingratitude of people towards their Savior. This feeling is sometimes expressed either in righteous indignation at the careless, or in fiery prayer and petitions to God for His weak and infirm servants. Just as a loving mother cries, reproaching her son, threatens him with punishment, and then regrets and no longer holds a grudge, so the saint was lenient towards his spiritual children. In his homily on the day of remembrance of St. Alexis, St. Demetrius sadly exclaims: “Oh, our times, or better yet, our damned morals! How far we have fallen behind the sheep of Christ, from those sheep that were before us, which were shepherded by the All-Russian shepherds Peter, Alexy and Jonah!... Oh, Saint of Christ, our good shepherd! Let us be goats and beasts to each other, let us anger God and disobey you, however, do not abandon us... your children, until by your intercession for us to God you have turned us from goats into sheep, from children of wrath into children of God” 229. In the last years of his life, Saint Demetrius put in a lot of work in the struggle for the purity of the faith and for the spiritual flock entrusted to him. The schismatics that spread in the Yaroslavl province and the ignorance that accompanied it prompted the saint to raise his voice in defense of the Holy Church. He acted as a teacher defending the dogmas of the Church, as a shepherd protecting sheep from predatory wolves. Thus, in his teaching on the veneration of holy icons, he sharply denounces the iconoclasts: “And what does the seven-headed serpent say about this, the iconoclastic heresy, sweeping aside holy icons... First of all, I ask, poisonous asp! What is an idol? And what is an icon... An icon is an image of a true thing, and an idol is an image of delusion” 230. In simple, accessible language, the saint revealed to his listeners the misconceptions that the schism taught, proved the inconsistency of their ritual faith, and spoke about their harmful influence on the souls of believers. Explaining the true meaning of veneration of the cross, icons and other church shrines, he denounces the Old Believers’ commitment to “smoked” icons: “Christians venerate the Holy Gospel... in which many things are invented, paper and ink... sometimes overlaid with silver, gold, sometimes with precious brocade. Whenever we worship the Holy Gospel, what do we venerate, and in what is the power of worshiping the Holy Gospel: whether we venerate stones, or silver, or gold, or brocade, or paper. I think I’m not the only one among the Orthodox who says this. What the hell are we honoring? We honor the words of Christ, the teaching of Christ, and the entire history of the life of Christ. Also, when we bow to an icon, we honor not the dsku or vapas, but the images of the Prototype” 231. In the teaching of the 21st Week according to the Holy Spirit on the Gospel words: “He went out to sow his Seed: and as he sowed, he fell along the way, on the stones, on the thorns” (Luke 8:5), the Rostov archpastor pours out his sadness that he found his flock unenlightened by the Gospel preaching. “The sowers do not sow,” he laments, “but the earth does not accept, the priests are careless, and people are mistaken” 232. Self-will and disobedience of the Holy Church entail disasters, the wrath of God, which the prophet Amos announced to the Jewish people: “I will send a famine on the earth, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the Word of the Lord... They will flow around those who seek the Word of the Lord, and will not find it” (Amos. 8:11-12). Spiritual hunger was aggravated by the fact that the Word of God was drowned out by tares, which, according to the word of the saint, were schismatic errors that intensified in his diocese. Horror and grief take possession of the preacher when he sees that children do not listen to their father, spiritual sheep do not follow the shepherd, sinners avoid the church and shun repentance, become sons of perdition, heirs of hell. The spiritual seed that has fallen on a corrupted heart is trampled underfoot by evil thoughts, vanity and sinful desires: “They were joined to foolish cattle, and became like them” (Ps. 49:13). Such a heart does not bear spiritual fruit, because “the devil comes and takes away the word from their heart” (Luke 8:12). The devil is the bird that steals the word of God from human hearts. He multiplied the number of his followers in the Bryn forests and sent them to cities and villages to peck at the seeds of God's gospel and destroy the teachings of the Holy Church. Therefore, the saint instructs his listeners not to move away from her, to hold on like a mother, for the Church gave birth to us through holy baptism into eternal life. In his speech the saint addresses the disobedient with anger: “Oh, foolish Galatians! Who taught you to resist the truth? Has the Church changed? Has the priesthood ceased? Will the Church endure until the day of judgment? After all, even the gates of hell will not prevail against her (Matthew 16:18), according to the word of the Lord. Who is easier to believe? To you or to Christ the Lord? 233. The temptation of schism and sinful delusions has penetrated so deeply into Christian life that not only ordinary members of the Church, but also pastors began to neglect their duties. The shepherds, according to the saint, are not only not enlightened by the teaching themselves, but they do not like those who know, “they even condemn the teaching and blaspheme.” Невежественные иереи сами советовали пасомым не часто причащаться. “And what’s most amazing,” says the saint, grieving, “is that the priest’s wives and children never receive communion... the priest’s sons come to be placed in the places of their fathers, whom we always ask how long ago they took communion, many truly say that they don’t remember when they took communion. Oh, cursed priests who neglect their home! How can children care for the Holy Church if they do not bring their household to Holy Communion? " 234 The saint wanted the priests to walk with reverence before God and honor His Holy Mysteries with due honor. “In the ministry, let promiscuity not begin before even a candle is lit at the Holy Altar,” says the saint, giving practical advice to the priests. “In the same way, the beginning of the Holy Liturgy itself is: “Blessed is the Kingdom,” let it not begin before even a candle is lit at the Holy Throne” 235. If, out of our zeal, we light many candles in front of the holy icons, thereby signifying the “influx of the Holy Spirit into the fires,” then all the more with what zeal should we light them on the Holy Throne, where Christ Himself “rests, standing in the ranks of angels” 236 . Let the priests “teach their children to read and write, preparing them to enter the Rostov school, so that when instead of their fathers they are awarded the priesthood, they would be able to teach the people in the church.” They should not forget about the spiritual enlightenment of their flock; those who do not know the most basic prayers, namely: the “Jesus Prayer”, “Heavenly King”, “Trisagion”, “Our Father”, “I Believe in One Naked God”, “Virgin Mother of God” and “It is Worthy to Eat”, the priests should teach in church on holidays and Sundays after the Liturgy 237. Those who do not care about their salvation always find a reason to postpone Holy Communion, but the saint persistently asks such people not to refuse communion with Christ, justifying their unworthiness. The Lord came not for the sake of the righteous, but for the sake of sinners, to save them. He came not to heal the healthy, but to heal the sick. If someone is unworthy because of his sins, then let him become worthy through repentance. “You are doing well to be afraid, but you are doing badly by running away. God is not your enemy, but a doctor: He wants to heal, not destroy. God is not your adversary and destroyer, but the Father: He seeks not to kill you, but to revive you. God is not a beast for you, but a merciful benefactor who desires your salvation and not your destruction. Why are you running away from His Divine cup?.. For as long as you remain in sins without repentance, as long as you work for the devil and are his slave and captive” 238. He who partakes of the cup of the Lord is united with Christ and “changes in Christ” and is deified. The saint became aware of those iniquities that “even the pagans, neither the Turks, nor the Tatars do not have” 239, committed according to the teachings of the Bryn false teachers: “They teach to have common wives and consider fornication not a sin, but the love of Christ” 240. Addressing the leaders of the schism, he calls them “birds of demons, cursed wolves, holding to the Nicolaitan teaching, fornicators, adulterers and defilers.” “Repent,” he says, “lest the two-edged sword that proceeds from the mouth of Christ strike you.” 241 At the end of the teaching, the saint affirms the faith and piety of his listeners: “But you, true believers and Orthodox Christians, beware of those seductive demonic birds flying out of the Bryn nest and stealthily hiding here and seducing lost and insane people, for whom the end will be destruction, from which may Christ the Lord deliver us with His mercy.”242 As an educated and enlightened shepherd, he explains the meaning of the name of the Lord and how to correctly read: Jesus or Jesus: “The schismatics, who only say Jesus in two syllabi, do not confess the Savior... but a certain Jesus with equal ears. We have one, Who was before, and now is, and will be forever, Jesus, the spoken Savior... and not two, but three syllabs!” 243. With a simple and intelligible word, the saint revealed the truth to the people, showing the harm of false teachings and the ignorance of false teachers. Sometimes his denunciations, in their sublimity, resemble the voice of a prophet, consumed by zeal for the glory of God, for example, in a word denouncing the Arian heresy: “Open, Arie, the tomb of your throat, filled with dead verbs: for thou shalt not bear this life-giving word, which with thy words it was created and created. But he, who says abiye from the Scripture of the verb, creates the beginning: but you, the hearer, as a faithful one, do not be afraid, when you see - and he says from the Scriptures: for the devil, when he came to Christ, tempted him, from the Scriptures he spoke with him saying: “If you are the Son of God, look down from below”" 244. Discussing the Arian heresy, the saint warns his listeners against misunderstanding the Holy Scripture and willfully interpreting it, as the schismatics of the Bryn Forests did, and all heretics did the same in order to catch inexperienced Christians in their nets. In everything that concerned the interests of the Church and his flock, the saint was attentive and decisive, as evidenced by the incident with the schismatic priest, for whom Tsarina Praskovya Feodorovna stood up. To her petition the saint answered: “All the evil and insults that the estranged one inflicted on me personally, blaspheming me with all sorts of blasphemous words, calling me a heretic and a Roman, I forgive Christ for my sake. But I am afraid of the wrath of God on myself, even if I am a wolf in sheep’s clothing, I will let them into the flock of Christ, destroying the souls of men with schismatic teachings. I pray, your royal honor, do not put anger on me because I cannot make things impossible” 245. As an enlightened and cultured person who personally knew Peter I, the saint understood his aspirations and the importance of state reforms, supported his activities aimed at renewing the state, and encouraged the development of science and culture. “I praise the good custom of modern times, according to which people go to other states for the sake of education,” says the saint in the Word on Saturday of the 4th Sunday of Great Lent, “for from across the sea they return wise. I also heard that some sages called the thought of death philosophy, a special wisdom. If mortal memory is philosophy, then it is inconvenient to study this wisdom while sitting at home, but one should seek it in foreign countries” 246. At the same time, he believed that visible external successes should not be achieved at the expense of the spiritual life of the people, which contains the true strength of the state, the guarantee of the future. He was a supporter of the spiritual way of life that prevailed in Rus' and was the custodian of this heritage - a living and active faith. Such views of the saint were reflected in his literary and social activities. It is known that Peter I did not observe fasts and considered it unhelpful for soldiers, so later, in 1716, he asked the Patriarch of Constantinople Jeremiah III for permission for them to eat fast food during all fasts, except the week before communion. In a sermon delivered on this occasion on August 29, 1708 in the Moscow Ivanovo Monastery, the archpastor very vividly depicted a picture of a feast of pagan gods, thereby denouncing the innovations introduced and the drunkenness, adultery, misanthropy and murder that accompanied them. Describing Herod's feast, he shows the power of sin when the king, under the rule of Bacchus, falls into greater evil: being enslaved by passion for a woman, he serves her and fulfills her will - he kills the prophet John the Baptist. “When I look at Herod’s feast, I see Bacchus sitting next to Venus, who in Hellenes was the god of gluttony, the god of gluttony and drunkenness, about whom the Apostle also remembered: “Whose belly is God, and whose glory is in their cold, who philosophize on earth” (Phil. 3:19)... but as I see, our destined to be Orthodox Christians are the same. I don’t dislike God, I liked him... imitating Bacchus’s disciple Luther. Not observing fasts is not a sin: to drink day and night is humanity, to be in a party is friendship, and after death the soul is told where it should go, a fable... Speaks Bacchus, the gluttonous god, with his disciple Martin Luther: it is necessary not to fast in the regiments, to eat meat during fasting, so that the regimental people in the army are strong, strong in battle, and not weakened in battle from fasting and abstinence... You are a liar... you are alien to the feast of Christ” 247. Brought up in the spirit of church canons, as a hierarch and defender of the interests of the Church, the saint mourned the disasters caused by exorbitant taxes and extortions, and sometimes raised his voice in defense of church property: “Do you want to rob the church, ask Iliodor, the treasurer of the Syrian king Seleucus, who came to Jerusalem to rob the church and was killed by angelic hands” 248. The saint also did not agree with Peter I’s view of monasticism as parasitism, defending its purpose. “The Lord upholds this world with monastic prayers: even if little ones think of monastic prayers, they strengthen the whole world. Look, what happens, what does the grapevine contain? On a single stake, dry and barren. Take it away... the corn will fall to the ground and not bear fruit. Take away the monastic rite from the Christian world, like a dry and barren stake from a grape; judge for yourself what peace there will be.”249 The sermons of the Rostov archpastor are filled with gratitude and love for God; they call for compassion and mercy towards those in need, which is evidence of true love. He protects these smaller brothers of ours from violence, insults and oppression from the merciless rich and judges. To fully represent all reality and display the suffering and grief of the people, he sets out with his listeners to look for Christ: among the clergy, among the boyars and judges, among the people. And He finds Him among those who suffer and are in trouble! “Oh, new sufferers, passion-bearers and martyrs! “I pray to you,” the saint addresses them with such words of consolation, “and I exhort you, do not become weak in patience, but give thanks to your Christ. After His resurrection, He will come to visit you, and not only to visit you, but even to stay with you inseparably, for the Gospel says about each of you: “I and the Father will come and make our abode with him” (John 14:23)” 250. With his strong and effective words, as the shepherd of the Church, he awakens the public conscience, removes the veil of sin and opens the eyes of his contemporaries to reality, calling for active Christian love. The sermons of St. Demetrius attract attention not only because of the richness and variety of content. They are also valuable in form, in those external techniques that this skillful, educated and talented preacher used to convey his archpastoral word to his listeners as best as possible. What can we say about the external side of the sermons of St. Demetrius? 251 In the arrangement of material in St. Demetrius, a certain sophistication is noticeable, which comes from the inevitable influence of the rules and examples of Western eloquence. At that time, allegorical interview techniques were in particular use. Therefore, preachers used images from the Holy Scriptures, the works of the holy fathers, from nature or from a range of ordinary everyday objects. Saint Demetrius often followed the same custom. But at the same time, he had sermons, although written according to the same method, but simpler in composition and therefore more accessible to the common people. The images used by the saint helped the believers to assimilate the instructions taught in the sermon. In this regard, Saint Demetrius has exemplary conversations for listeners of all classes, for example: a word on the day of the Descent of the Holy Spirit 252, a lesson on Cheese Week 253, a lesson on the first Week of Great Lent 254 and others. The sermon on Pentecost was composed on the theme: “The Spirit of the Lord fill the world” (Wis. 1:7). Its main subject is an indication of the gracious actions of the Holy Spirit on the human race, redeemed by the most pure Blood of Christ the Savior. The subject is quite difficult to present from the church pulpit, but Saint Demetrius presents it in a form accessible to listeners. He draws attention to the images in which the Holy Spirit appeared in the New Testament, and, explaining these images, sets out His saving actions for man. “The Holy Spirit,” says the preacher, “appeared in the form of a dove, when Jesus was baptized in the waters of the Jordan, in a cloud, when Christ was transformed on Tabor, in the wind, when the house was filled, where the Apostles sat down (after the Ascension of the Lord)... in the Gentiles, when He descended on Apostles. What do these phenomena mean? – The Holy Spirit appeared in the form of a dove in order to show in whom He loves to dwell. The Holy Spirit appeared in the cloud to pour out the rain of grace on our hearts. The Holy Spirit appeared in the wind, may he separate the tares from the wheat in the world, may he uproot pompous, proud and arrogant people, and may he shake the hearts of men, turning them to repentance. Finally, the Holy Spirit appeared in fire, may it inflame our hearts with the fire of Divine love, in which is the beginning and perfection of salvation” 255. The listeners, memorizing the images presented, easily retained the content of the entire conversation in their memory and, when they came home, could tell their household what they had heard. The saint’s skill in this is so great that he could often compose sermons rich in content from the simplest texts. Many of Saint Demetrius’s speeches are constructed simply, according to logical laws (Western rules) of dividing objects into parts. Although these rules were not always strictly followed by the saint, he always chooses those aspects of the subject, the disclosure of which is primarily edifying. As an example of such a structure of a sermon, one can point to the word on prayer in the 4th Sunday of the Holy Spirit, according to the text: “Many will come from the east and the west” (Matthew 8:11) 256. After the introduction, the holy preacher defines the content of his word with the following questions: “Who will be driven out? Why will he be expelled? from where will Kamo be expelled? These questions are simple and understandable to everyone, and therefore every listener will eagerly await their solution. This accuracy is less observed in other sermons, for example, in the sermon on the Ascension of the Lord, 257 which, meanwhile, is especially edifying for listeners. Saint Demetrius sets out in it the reasons for the ascension of our Lord from earth to heaven. This teaching is simple in composition, edifying, accessible and close to the hearts of the listeners. From all these examples it is clear that Saint Demetrius did not miss an opportunity to instruct his flock, and above all the common people. So, he has the word “To the common people in Rostov” for the text: “Go out and sow” (Luke 8:5). It has already been mentioned above. This teaching vividly characterizes the state of the Rostov flock. Explaining the parable of the sower and the seed in relation to his time, the preacher says that in his flock there are neither good sowers of spiritual seed nor good soil. The external techniques of St. Demetrius’s sermons also include drama. Quoting the words of the Savior: “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth,” the preacher says: “Oh, merciful Lord! All Your servants are happy, everyone in heaven is blessed, only the meek ones are unhappy, those on earth have been granted bliss from You. Is food on earth comparable to heavenly bliss? Have pity, Lord, have mercy on the meek, and take them to heaven into heavenly bliss; people: Blessed are the meek, for even these are the Kingdom of Heaven. “But our Lord will not change His holy words, written in the Gospel, for the sake of obscene prayer.”258 Another feature of the saint’s sermons, as well as those of other southern Russian preachers, was the appeal from biblical events to modern mores. Saint Demetrius ends his sermon for the Week of Raw Food with the following address to the listeners: “I would like to offer an even better taste of your love, manna... but I pity those who are in a hurry to the wasteful meals of today, so that time will not continue with my wretched complacency; However, I advise you in short words: if anyone begins to fast on Holy Pentecost until the sun sets, then dry bread will be like manna to him. For fasting sweetens bad food, and turns bitter radishes and horseradish into honey and sugar.” Further, reproaching the evil fasters, he compares them with a bear: “Many of them are in the habit of being angry, and angry, and grumbling in the likeness of a bear, who during the winter lies in his bed, eating nothing, only sucking his paw, and purring incessantly” 259. Saint Demetrius left a rich homiletical heritage, which is still useful for pastors in the work of holy evangelism and enlightenment. Carrying out his archpastoral ministry, he even now appears before the Church as a skilled guide, “a teacher of golden words, who has written everything for instruction to everyone, so that he may win everyone, like Paul to Christ” 260 . Pedagogical activity of Saint Demetrius Familiarity with the saint's sermons shows the great importance he attached to education. This was especially important for priests who, according to the then established tradition, prepared their children to be their successors and therefore had to engage in their spiritual education from childhood. However, the Rostov shepherds showed amazing negligence in this matter, which greatly upset the zealous archpastor. He understood that in this state of affairs, when the priests are careless about raising their own children, they are even less interested in engaging in the spiritual education of their parishioners. Therefore, Saint Demetrius himself took care, with his characteristic zeal, to open a school in Rostov for the spiritual education of youth 261. The Rostov school fully preserved the tradition of Old Russian schools, imprinted in epics - to teach “Russian literacy and church singing.” When teaching the Law of God, prayers were probably first memorized. This should also include catechetical instructions, an excerpt from which has survived to our time 262. At first, for younger children, both examples and exercises are characterized by simplicity of thought and expression. For the most part, they contain either moral instructions, or humorous remarks, or phrases from everyday life. For example, the student who wrote the best essay is like a cedar of Lebanon, the second is like a cypress, the third is like a date, “if anyone from you does not sit on the highest place, he will be a simple willow or a bitter aspen” 263 . Topics in older ages are often taken from Scripture. For example, the parable of the rich man and Lazarus is interpreted: the teacher explains, very unsuccessfully, that the rich man’s fire is pride, and the water he asks for is the tears of poor Lazarus. A more successful interpretation (it seems, according to Chrysostom) of the parable of the traveler who was robbed on the way from Jerusalem to Jericho. Jerusalem is the thought of God, Jericho is the moon of impermanence, this world, the robbers are sins. Let us turn to the internal structure of the school. The students were divided into three classes, and in the first, like the Likhuds, there were two sections. The classroom had tables, benches, a small blackboard, a ruler, rods, ink and pens. They sat in the classrooms depending on their success: the best students were in the front, the bad students were in the back, near the stove, at the door. The first student was called the emperor and sat in front of everyone in a special place. At the same time, the emperor was also an auditor: he asked lessons, put marks, explained and repeated lessons. Entering the classroom, the emperor took his place with special ceremonies; the students sang to him: “Hello, new emperor!” He also kept order. The senior (sometimes a senior student) also kept order, and could even “train the students like gypsy horses.” The first senator sat next to the emperor. All these school customs of purely Latin-Jesuit origin, of course, brought a lot of entertainment to the students amid the monotonous monotony of school life. During non-class time, the students, although they lived in the bishop's house, enjoyed complete freedom - preparing or not preparing lessons was completely at their will. Free days from teaching were holidays and Sundays, name days of bosses and teachers, afternoons on Thursday and Saturday, two days of Christmastide and a three-week holiday in August. In the event of a visit from some important person, students were given leave. So, one day they were waiting for the head of the monastery order, I.A. Musina - Pushkin: “Palladian baby! Even in the month of April, invite your great guest, the neighboring boyar of the Tsar's Majesty Ioann Alekseevich and Musin - Pushkin, to school, and prepare all the school's resistance armor, so that in May the blossoming May will ask you for your kind answers to his questions in a three-day walk, and let you run around the Rostov Lake island and swim along the fast river, also called Uda (Mouths?)" 264. This same essay also introduces us to the pastime of students during vacations. They walked in the field, went by boat to the island of Lake Rostov, and visited the bishop in his villages of Demyanakh, Shestakovo and Kaptsy. On holidays they made speeches and acted out theatrical plays and dialogues. The play has reached us: “The crown of the gloriously victorious heroic hero of Christ, the holy great martyr Demetrius, on the day of his most glorious feast is solemn from the humble name-bearer of the Right Reverend Demetrius, Metropolitan of Rostov and Yaroslavl, pupils of the grammar of students of infants, a poem woven in Rostov in 1704.” 265 Theatrical performances, singing and music undoubtedly had a very fruitful influence on the aesthetic sense of the students. They had to draw the scenery and prepare the costumes. The performances, in the words of the Spiritual Regulations, developed in students “resolution, which is prudent courage.” That was the entertainment. The maintenance of the students was quite decent, they were fed enough; in the summer they received fruit: cherries, apples, pears. They bought cloth for clothing. The treatment of the teachers was relatively mild, and punishments were imposed not so much for failure to walk, but for bad behavior and obvious laziness. The teacher encouraged the unsuccessful and incapable student with words and advised him to pray to the saints. The teacher treated the newly admitted “beast-like” students very gently: “New students Luko and Andrei, don’t be a crazy elephant! Don’t tremble, beast-like disciple!” The preface of the textbook was addressed to them: “Bitterness is the root of your teaching; growing from this bitter teaching the root of sweet virtues, honor and glory signs; Great-power royal scepters are spreading from the root of the teaching, the staffs of the bishops are vegetating, the maces of unconquered princes and generals are growing... The search for wisdom gives the length of days, all wealth and triumph over enemies... If you desire wisdom with its fruits as temporary as they are eternal, speak these words to God with Solomon...” 266. The students, however, were not distinguished by excessive good behavior: “the younger students are staggering, only the older ones are studying,” the teacher said. The singers who studied Latin left school as if they were going to church, to mass. Others did not go to school at all. Rumors about the bad behavior of the disciples reached the saint. “Children f... children! He wrote, I hear bad things about you: instead of learning, you are learning to be irritated, and the nets from you, following the prodigal son, went to convert with pigs. I am very sad and angry with you, and because the fault of your corruption is that everyone lives according to their own will, everyone is greater; For this reason, I am appointing you as seigneur, Mr. Andrei Yurevich, so that he can train you like gypsy horses, and whoever is nasty will receive a whip.”267 The above letter indicates that the entire structure of the school was of a family nature. This sharply distinguished the Rostov school, the original favorite brainchild of St. Demetrius, from schools that arose by order, which stood in relation to students on the basis of official, strictly legal relations 268. This nepotism is even more evident in the relationship of St. Demetrius to teachers and students. How much he cares for the former is evident from the letter to governor Vorontsov: “Humble Demetrius, by the grace of God, Metropolitan of Rostov and Yaroslavl, to the steward and governor Larion Gavrilovich. The heavenly Archpastor's blessing (and) our humble prayers (may) be with you. We thank your humble nobility, that in Rostov you greeted our school teachers with your mercy, and especially showed them the mercy you showed to them without us, and on your appearances, with all sorts of parting words, let them go to the city of Yaroslavl honestly and treated and escorted them in every possible way; For this reason, I owe it to the humble to always pray to the Lord God for your health. May the mercy of God and the Most Holy Theotokos and the great miracle workers, blessings, (and) our humble prayers be with you now and forever. Yaroslavl July 19. I wish all the best to your honor, Bishop of Rostov and Yaroslavl Dimitri the sinner. With your grace's brow for the vodka, we drank to your health and give thanks" 269 . There is nothing to say about caring for students. The archpastor often visited the school, listened and tested the students' success. Having selected the most capable, he taught them: in the winter, in the bishop’s house, he interpreted some books from the Old Testament, and in the summer, in the village of Demyanakh, he explained the New Testament. During divine services, the disciples corrected the position of singers not only in Rostov, but also in other places, as can be seen from the unpublished word of the saint on the day of Boris and Gleb; the bishop himself confessed and communed them; promised to pray for them if he achieved mercy after death; He exhorted them to study and distributed money to the more diligent, a penny for each, or an altyn for two, and took them to their villages for vacations. During illness, he sent for his disciples and ordered them to read the “Our Father” prayer five times in remembrance of the five plagues of Christ. And subsequently he did not abandon his students, as evidenced by a letter from the students of Zalenia and Blagoveshchensky dated October 10, 1708 from Moscow. Magnifying the saint as “Maecenas” and “father of all,” they thank him for being generous and showing them great mercy to the poor: he sent alms in times of poverty. The latter, in a petitionary letter to Dosifei, the successor of St. Demetrius, remembers “our Eminence Metropolitan Demetrius of blessed memory” 270. So, let’s summarize the conclusions we came to while reviewing the Rostov school. This school corresponded to the ancient Russian elementary parish school of literacy, in which, under the general church-Orthodox direction, they taught reading, writing and singing. The Rostov school represented a movement forward compared to the ancient school, since Greek and Latin were introduced into the range of teaching. The latter was especially important because in Latin, which was then an international language, there was extensive literature on all branches of knowledge. Having borrowed some formalities from Western schools, Saint Demetrius did not accept their spirit. Nepotism, simplicity of relationships with a certain severity that was quite common at that time, a complete absence of official formality and jesuitism constitute the main side of the internal life of the school. The teaching itself was not imbued with the dry abstraction and stiffness of scholasticism; it was distinguished by its lively, of course, relatively, character and vitality. The main merit of Saint Demetrius is that he took the initiative in establishing a new, albeit on an old basis, elementary public school, at a time when no one thought about them. The Rostov school was accessible to everyone, and not just to the children of the clergy; it was general, not special; This distinguished it from the Petrovsky schools, which were strictly special and intended for a certain class. With all that, the Rostov school was established on the principles of Orthodoxy - the foundation of the Russian nation. Saint Demetrius as the compiler of the Lives of the Saints The characterization of the pastoral activity of St. Demetrius in our work would be obviously incomplete if we passed over in silence such an important aspect of his activity as the compilation of the “Lives of the Saints,” which required dozens of years of painstaking and intense work 271 . It is appropriate to emphasize that the saint’s intention in writing this grandiose work was purely pastoral, for, according to him, the Chetya-Mineaion is not a historical work; their purpose and purpose is not to report accurate and strictly verified facts from the life of one or another saint of God glorified by the Church, but to give the reader an edifying, soul-helping reading in order to arouse in him admiration for virtue and before those who were its bearer on earth. Борьба с нападавшим на Православие католичеством определяла содержание юго-западной литературы, она же влияла на выработку форм и приемов письма. Under the influence of the same struggle, the idea arose in Kyiv of publishing their own Fourth Menyas, compiled for the whole year. Of the Polish hagiographical publications, the famous book by Piotr Skarga “The Believes of the Saints” was especially dangerous. This zealous propagandist of the union, working on his work, undoubtedly had in mind not only Catholics of the same faith with him, but also Orthodox Christians who knew the Polish language. To do this, he, pursuing his favorite idea - to prove the inextricable connection of the Roman Church with the ancient Christian Church, combined in his book the lives of ancient Christian and new Catholic saints and, talking about the first, referred to the Greek hagiographers, well known to the Orthodox and respected by them. Lives compiled by Simeon Metaphrastus, borrowed from the editions of Aloysius Lippomanus and Lawrence Surius, are just as often quoted in Skarga’s book as in the Four Menaions of St. Demetrius. Skarga's book was widely distributed among Orthodox Christians; it was read in the original and translated. The translators were not always able to understand well the material proposed by Skarga and, along with general Christian ones, sometimes included the lives of Catholic saints in their collections. Thus, in the minds of Orthodox readers, the idea of ​​the holiness of the Catholic Church was imperceptibly strengthened, and Skarga’s goal - the joining of the Orthodox to Catholicism - was gradually realized. Saint Demetrius is not just an imitator and certainly not a translator of Skarga. However, he learned a lot from the famous Polish hagiographer, borrowed a lot from him, which made his Cheti-Minea so little similar to the ancient Slavic and Moscow collections of lives. He translated the lives he collected for the Orthodox reader, enriching them with the gifts of his natural mind and writing talent. He gave not translations, but retellings of lives, and, moreover, not from one source, but from several. We believe that the saint owes this method in some way to Skarga, who also, after a careful study of the sources, gave a free retelling of the lives in his book. We do not know how large the number of sources Skarga used was, but, apparently, he was not limited to Lippomanus and Surius, but also turned to other hagiographic collections that then existed in the West. Saint Demetrius put the same matter much more broadly: he, as we have seen, collected for his work everything more or less outstanding that existed and could be found from the field of hagiology in his time. In order not to turn out to be weaker than his opponent, the saint, brought up in the school of southwestern Orthodox writers, also used Western literature, and even put it at the forefront of his works. True, those Latin sources that Skarga and St. Demetrius used were not independent. The saint not only did not find anything dangerous in using the works of Latin hagiologists, but also treated them with due attention and respect. He, for example, included Blessed Jerome, the father of Roman Catholic science, in the lists of teachers, writers, historians and storytellers, according to which his Chetia were compiled - Menaion, despite the objections of Patriarch Joachim. As a source, he also referred to the “Roman Martyr’s Word” and quoted it several times in his Lives. Thus, in the life of the holy martyr Theodosia, the maiden of Tire (May 29), the saint cites a whole episode from the “Roman narrative” and, without hiding, notes this. In many places in the Four Menaions, he set forth Latin opinions about persons and events that disagree with the Orthodox understanding, and in some cases he calmly refuted them 272 , and in others he conveyed them as worthy of attention and credibility 273 . However, paying tribute to the Latin hagiographers and abundantly drawing from them material for the Chetyih-Menya, Saint Demetrius did not ignore Slavic hagiographic literature. Of the total number of lives of Russian saints cited by him, sixteen were written according to the Great Four - Menaions, and therefore it is hardly correct to say that these Menaions were needed by Saint Demetrius only as a guide when working on Russian hagiography. The saint used the Makaryevsky Menaion in this regard, too, but their significance for his work was far from limited to this. The saint also used materials from the books of Suria in the month, subjected them to revision and replaced many of the lives and legends given in them with those borrowed from other sources. It seems that in some cases the reason for such a replacement was not only the discovery of other sources that were more satisfactory to the saint, but also doubts about the purity and correctness of the information reported by Sury. So, September 4 and 24, December 9, 25 and 26, January 1, etc. in the monthly book there are references to Suriya, but in the Four Menaions, the lives and legends placed under these numbers were written not according to Suriya, but according to other sources. A remark made on December 26, after the life of St. Joseph the Betrothed, gives us the right to assume that in this case, and perhaps in all those mentioned above, Surii was dismissed because his legend supported Catholic views and did not agree with the Orthodox tradition. Consistency with this tradition was, therefore, the main criterion in the selection and evaluation of the hagiological material borrowed from Suriya. The saint rejected everything that deviated from it, even to an insignificant degree, strictly protecting the purity and integrity of the tradition of the Orthodox Church. In the same way as Surius, Saint Demetrius treated other foreign sources of the Fourth - the Menaion. No matter how thorough and authoritative they were, the saint never completely submitted to them and, as a strict zealot of Orthodoxy, always knew how to stand up for its truth. In this regard, Saint Demetrius is one of those best representatives of South-Western Orthodox literature who borrowed from the West only that which they found in agreement with the tradition of the Orthodox Church and that, while contributing to the development of original Russian literature, did not depersonalize it and did not make it slavishly dependent on foreign literature. Of the many examples that confirm what we have said, we will indicate at least a few: July 22, for the life of St. Mary Magdalene, the saint in the second month indicates several sources: Suria, Baronia, Acta Sanctorum, the book of Peter Skarga and the sermons of Mlodzianowski. However, in his presentation of the life of the Myrrh-Bearing Equal-to-the-Apostles, he does not follow any of these sources, but describes life according to the Gospel, the Prologue, the history of Nicephorus Callistus and his synaxarion for the Week of Myrrh-Bearing Women. After his life, the saint places a note in which he refutes Western hagiographers who consider Saint Mary to be the sister of the quadruple Lazarus. The saint also took a critical approach to the exposition of the life of Saint Joseph (December 2), about whom, in his words, “in the West they say that he was a virgin even before his death, having never known marriage, but in the East they say that he had a wife and gave birth to children.” Refuting the statements of Western hagiographers, the saint further cites the evidence of various church writers, mainly historians, and concludes that “this is undoubtedly known, as Saint Joseph was married and gave birth to sons and daughters” and, thus, decisively rejects the Latin opinion. The correlation between Latin and Slavic sources that we have examined, we believe, shows with sufficient clarity how high the trust the latter, especially the Makaryev Great Chatya - Menaion, enjoyed in the eyes of St. Demetrius. Truly, these Menaions were for him, as Varlaam Yasinsky puts it in the preface to the first book of the Chetyih Menaion, “the pinnacle of all truth and authenticity of perfection.” If the Great Chapters - Menaions - had been in the constant and free use of Saint Demetrius, then their influence on his work would have been even more profound and significant. But even without that, in terms of the degree of authority, they occupy the first place among all the sources of the Fourth - Mena. True, they were often corrected and replaced by Latin sources, but it is not difficult to notice that the corrections were most often caused by obvious errors and errors in the Slavic translation, and the replacement took place when using the Latin text seemed more convenient. We do not say how beneficial such an attitude towards the Great Menaions was for the work of St. Demetrius, but the general direction of southwestern Russian literature was quite consistent here - we have in the Four Menaions a combination of Latin and Slavic sources with a clear preference for the latter, as alien to any suspicion of non-Orthodoxy. Having determined the general, fundamental significance of Slavic and foreign sources in the work of St. Demetrius, let us now move on to characterize his literary techniques in order to find out how he used the material found in the sources, how he created his narratives about the lives of the saints that still deeply touch the pious reader. From everything we have said earlier, it is clear with what reverence, with what amazing attention the saint treated each life he compiled. First of all, he tried to collect all the material available in the sources for each saint individually. This collection required considerable searching and work. Many notes to the lives are instructive in the same regard. For example, on September 1, after the life of the Monk Simeon the Stylite, the saint tries to determine how long the saint’s standing on the pillar lasted. To do this, he cites the opinions of the Lvov Triphologist, Simeon of Polotsk (“The Soulful Dinner”), various historians, those writers according to whom the life was compiled, and then gives his account “not from the ancient chroniclers, but from the very years of recounting.” The question, as we see, is of a private nature, and the saint decides it independently, and yet how much attention is paid to it and how much work is in finding different opinions 274. Very often, pointing out the diversity of sources, the saint exhorts the reader not to torture which of them is true. “We,” he says after the legend about the belt of the Mother of God (August 31), “are not subject to the need to experience the times and summers; we must know the miracle that happened and glorify the Mother of God.” With these and similar remarks, the saint clearly shows that the purpose of his work was to edify his readers, and not just to present historical events. In the mind of Saint Demetrius, as soon as he set to work, the principle that he followed in compiling the Lives was immediately determined. According to the saint, in the biography of the holy saints of God, what is important is not eloquence and not “weaving words,” even very skillful ones, but deeds and facts. In the same manuscript and in many others we see how he looks for these facts in the verbose Lives, noting in the margins: “beginning”, “fatherland”, “the death of the beginning”, etc. Consequently, he saw his task as conveying, if possible, the entire story of the saint’s life, in its exploits and deeds, but conveying it simply, without unnecessary words and stylistic embellishments. Of considerable importance here was the practical goal that the Chetyi-Minea were supposed to achieve. We know that the idea of ​​publishing them arose in Kyiv and was caused by the needs of the Church. It was necessary to protect the Orthodox from heterodox hagiographic works and give them a book that would enter into church use. The lives of the saints collected in it were to be read in church during services. This required a certain brevity, and therefore Saint Demetrius, along with concern for factual completeness, also had to think about conveying all the events from the life of the saint in a short story, convenient for reading at one time. But the same reading in church made one more necessary requirement for the lives - strict edification, spiritual benefit, so that readers and listeners would receive from them the same lessons that church services give. Perhaps this demand forced the saint to completely abandon historical criticism and give only edifying material in his Four Menaions. First of all, we will consider the lives independently compiled by the saint. In the four books of the Chetyi - Menaion, each of which contained lives for three months, there are more than forty such lives. If we compare them with the sources from which they were written, we will see that the saint chose from the latter only that which related directly to the life of the saint, to his works and exploits, and omitted the rest of the material. In the text of the lives we will not find anywhere, for example, anything borrowed from the scientific explanations of the Bollandists. But the saint chooses facts and biographical information with amazing care. At the same time, he does not limit himself to any one legend given in the Acts, but certainly looks through all the material from different places, often even from individual words and sentences, like a bee, “laboriously” collecting and compiling its honeycomb - the life of the saint. For example, in Acta Ss there is no complete life of Saint Matrona of Thessalonica, but a historical sylloga is given, representing a number of extracts from the month book and various ancient Menaia. The saint, having selected biographical information from this collection, compiled a life from it, and omitted everything that in the same syllog belonged to the Bollandist collectors. About the saints Apostle Andronicus and Junia in Acta Ss there is a brief legend from the minology of Emperor Basil, excerpts from the letters of the Apostle Paul, hymns of Joseph the hymn-scribe and an excerpt from the synopsis of Dorotheus, Bishop of Tire. The saint, composing his life, took the beginning from Paul’s epistles, set out the middle according to Dorotheus and the minology, and brought the end from his Chetyi-Menya for February 22. But what is especially remarkable is that the saint in the lives he has just analyzed is not satisfied with the material found in Acta Ss, but supplements it with new facts that he himself found in other sources. In the life of St. Cyril of Alexandria he introduces the 46th chapter, not given in the Acta Ss, the 3rd chapter from the “Spiritual Meadow” and the letters of Isidore Pelusiot, missed by the Bollandists, and supplements the life of Patriarch Sophronius with information about the Persian king Chosroes, the capture of the Cross of the Lord and the 77th chapter from the same “Spiritual Meadow”, which is not in the Acta Ss. Why did the saint need this? Why, having omitted in the main source very important information about the useful activities of Saints Cyril and Sophronius for the Church, did he turn to other manuals and from there supplement his stories about the saints? Without a doubt, because I found new information there, and this information was useful and edifying for a simple believer. In the opinion of the saint, such information was more necessary for his Four - Menaia, for he pursued didactic tasks, and therefore he spoke about everything that did not have the nature of edification only insofar as the duration of the narrative as a daily reading allowed, or he completely omitted such material. If the life in the source corresponded in volume and content to the type of life adopted by the saint and if the day was not too rich in hagiological material, then he more or less closely adhered to the original and conveyed it in detail; if the specified conditions were absent, the original was shortened and much of it was not conveyed at all. Analysis of at least some of the lives makes it possible to get an idea of ​​these issues. Let's take, for example, the life of the Venerable Barlaam and Joasaph of India. It was written by the saint according to some manuscript, which contained the full text of this wonderful and instructive story. The saint selected from it all the factual material, everything that related to the life of the Monks Barlaam and Joasaph, and those speeches and parables with which Barlaam taught young Joasaph, he only briefly retold indirect speech, and some were completely omitted. Of the numerous teachings of Varlaam, only one has been fully conveyed - the catechumens, probably because it sets out the main tenets of the Christian faith. In the life of Saint Gregory, Archbishop of Omirite, having conveyed factual information quite close to the original, the saint, beginning to present the debates of the saint with the Jews, says that he “from many” conveys only “small” and, indeed, makes significant abbreviations. Close to the source, he sets out only the beginning of the first debate, and then indicates only the main subjects discussed, and lists the most important evidence given by St. Gregory in defense of the Christian faith. From the second and third debates, only some questions and answers are also taken, the fourth debate - on the veneration of icons - is presented in the most detail, and the conversation after it is published completely; The end of the life - the appearance of Christ the Savior to the Jews through the prayer of St. Gregory - is conveyed without abbreviations and very close to the original. In both of these lives, which were very rich in didactic material, the saint, as we see, shortened precisely this material, choosing from speeches and teachings only what he considered the most useful and necessary for his readers. More often, however, in the Lives compiled by Saint Demetrius, when retelling the source, one encounters not abbreviations, but additions. These additions are sometimes so numerous that the main source is completely lost in them, and the work of the saint takes on an independent character, as if independent from him. Without a doubt, in order to give complete biographical information about Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, the saint did not limit himself to the description of the saint’s torment given by Surius and in the Great Four - Menaions, and turned to Baronius and other sources. Based on them, he outlined the life of Dionysius before his conversion to Christianity and his apostolic activity and, thus, instead of a brief account of his torment, he gave a complete biography of the saint. The same motives forced the saint to supplement the Metaphrast Lives of Saint Clement, Pope of Rome, from the Great Menaions, the Holy Great Martyr Catherine - from the Anthologion, the Holy Martyrs Nazarius, Gervasius, Protasius and Kelsius - from other sources cited by Surius, the Holy Great Martyr Demetrius of Thessaloniki - from the Great Menaions, the Holy Martyr Vincent the Deacon - from Skarga, as well as many other lives of saints described by Metaphrastus. Adding to the life of the Venerable Onuphrius the Great, for the sake of completeness of his biography, the story of his birth and adolescence, the saint notes: “In the life of the Venerable Onuphrius in the Slavic dialect, his family is not remembered, who he was, who his parents were and from which country, because based on his life we ​​especially believe about him, even though we are found in other languages” 275. See: Nedosekin V., prot. Decree. op. P. 51. Titov A. Holy Sermons. Dimitri in Ukrainian dialect. Typescript. MDA Library. pp. 10–25. Quote From: Pitirim, hierodeak. Decree, op. pp. 149–151. Shlyapkin I.A. Quote op. P. 439. Compiled from: Nedosekin V., prot. Decree, op. pp. 57–69. See: Shlyapkin I.A. pp. 331–353. See: St. Demetrius of Rostov. Brief teaching on the seven sacraments of the Church. Ed. A. Titova. M., 1880. Quote by: Shlyapkin I.A. Decree. op. P. 335. Titov A. New data about St. Demetrius of Rostov. M., 1881. P. 14. Quote by: Shlyapkin I.A. Decree. op. P. 348. See: Znamensky I.P., prot. Theological schools in Russia. Kiev, 1881. P. 390. Quote by: Shlyapkin I.A. Decree. op. pp. 350–351. See: Derzhavin A., prot. The Chetia-Minea of ​​St. Demetrius, Metropolitan of Rostov as a church-historical and literary monument. T. 2. Zagorsk, 1954 (typescript). pp. 259–327. See, for example: the life of St. Joseph the Betrothed (December 26) and a remark after the life of St. Mary Magdalene (July 22) - approx. prot. A. Derzhavin. See: note after the life of St. mts. Charitines (October 5) or the first remark after the life of the holy martyr Favius, Pope of Rome (August 5) - approx. prot. A. Derzhavin. See: Derzhavin A., prot. Decree. op. Part 2. P. 305..