Жизнь и учение Преосв. Феофана, Вышенского Затворника

“Do not gravitate towards the earth. Everything is perishable - only one happiness beyond the grave is eternal, unchangeable, true. And this happiness depends on how we live this life of ours.” “Do not collect other treasures except wisdom, virtue and piety. This is the only good that no change in happiness can take away.” In the life of the Christian Church, as in the life of any human society, in every known period of its historical existence, personalities emerged from the environment who were bearers and exponents of the best ideas and aspirations of their time, to whose authoritative voice everyone listened and therefore they inevitably became public leaders of spiritual life. The influence of such individuals was mostly limited to the boundaries of their fatherland and their time. But there were periods when their significance exceeded these boundaries, and then they became universal teachers. Each of the ancient Christian churches had its own spiritual head - Cyprian of Carthage, Irenaeus of Lyons, Ambrose of Milan, etc. But there were also such spiritual luminaries, the light of which shone brightly throughout the entire universe of that time and with its reflection illuminated the entire subsequent life of the Church. These are the names of the ecumenical saints - Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysostom. Our Russian Church, which accepted the Orthodox faith from the universal Church, has also never lacked true spiritual leaders. Rev. Anthony and Theodosius of Kyiv, St. Sergius of Radonezh - these great prayer books and mourners for our homeland during the period of its political birth and at the critical moment of the Tatar yoke; the blessed Moscow saints - Peter, Alexei, Jonah - these true collectors of the Russian land and the pioneers of its future power and glory; St. Philip and Hermogen are strong-willed warriors - defenders of the truth of God trampled by people on earth and martyrs for their ideas; finally, the giant reformer - Patriarch Nikon, in his ardent protest against social inertia and stagnation, the actual predecessor of the brilliant transformer of Russia Peter - all these are the pillars of ancient Russian life on which not only the Church, but often the state itself firmly rested. It has now been established beyond doubt that in the first half of the last 19th century, the ever-memorable Moscow Saint Philaret was such a great moral authority, whose voice was of decisive importance not only in the affairs of the Church, but he was listened to attentively on many state issues of paramount importance. The history of the church life of our fatherland in the second half of the last century has not yet been written; materials for it are still being collected and developed. But without any doubt we can say in advance that the future historian of this period will name the name of the Most Rev. Theophan, as the most complete and perfect bearer, as the deepest, with indisputable authority, teacher of spiritual and moral Christian life, in its original evangelical purity, in understanding and explaining its findings in the spirit of the first centuries of Christianity. Life and work of Reverend. Theophanes represents a rare, exceptional phenomenon in the history of the Christian Church in recent times. In the second half of the notorious nineteenth, materialistic and egoistic century, an ascetic and true hermit appeared in Orthodox Russia in the spirit of the first times of Christianity. There was a man who decidedly did not think about matter, completely forgot himself and devoted all his strength to serving God and his neighbor. And at the same time he was the most learned theologian of his time and the sovereign hierarch of the Church. And his feat is special, extraordinary. Having completely secluded himself from the outside world physically and secluded himself in a cramped cell of a modest monastery, he, however, did not break his spiritual connection with the world. Against. It seems that this is why he withdrew from the world, so that from the height of his feat he could more clearly see the urgent needs and ailments of our time and, if possible, more fully provide the necessary help. In the feat of the saint, what is before our eyes, first of all, is his highly pious personal life, serving as a living, highly instructive example for Christians of the present time. He selflessly devoted 28 years of his seclusion to serving God with prayer and contemplation of God and for the benefit of his neighbor through tireless labors of God-wise spiritual writings. Having resurrected with his life in the 19th century the ideal of the true ascetic of the ancient Church and showing its imperishable beauty, Rev. Feofan was rightly a bright spiritual light, showing the right path to modern society towards truth and goodness. And this alone was enough for the immortality of the name of the saint. But he did much more. In his entire library of inspired writings, he is a great Christian teacher. What exactly are these creations talking about? About many important subjects of our inner world, but the main and essential thought that runs like a red thread throughout the whole is one - the solution to the main question of Christian morality about one thing that is needed, indicating and explaining the path to piety and salvation. The solution to this question is the whole point of the personal feat and literary activity of the reclusive saint. All his life he carried and cherished this ideal in his soul, and this is how he once spoke about it. “How many times do I regret that I don’t know how to write in such a way as to touch everyone. If only I could, I would compile such a book that everyone who reads it would decide to work out his own salvation” 2 . And the Lord judged the humble hermit to fulfill his cherished thought. In numerous writings by Rev. Theophan’s spiritual life is revealed to everyone in an accessible way, with inimitable clarity and simplicity, in all its depth and breadth to the smallest manifestations and details, in a systematic order and natural sequence. The saint can rightly be called the greatest teacher of Christian morality in recent centuries. His writings are an invaluable guide for every Christian who wants to organize his life according to its highest purpose. In those who appeared after the death of Rev. Feofan's few biographies and characteristics compared him with St. Tikhon of Zadonsk in the direction of his writings and personal life, and with St. Chrysostom by the nature of his interpretations of the word of God. But there is also an ascetic in the ancient Christian Church, to whom the saint stands very close in the spirit of his creations, in the internal make-up and external flow of life, whose writings he willingly studied and translated into Russian. We're talking about St. John Climacus. The latter, in his divine “Ladder,” outlined the path of a Christian’s gradual ascent to the highest levels of spiritual perfection and imprinted his teaching with a 40-year solitary feat in the Sinai desert. Rev. Theophanes, in his remarkable and most important work “The Path to Salvation,” comprehensively revealed the greatest ideal of Christian morality, indicated the path of virtues leading to the achievement of the ideal, and in the spiritual exploits of his 28-year retreat, he clearly embodied it in his life. Most often, we appreciate a person's true dignity when we lose him. After the death of the saint, it became especially clear what a huge and irreparable loss the Orthodox Church and Russian society suffered in his person. Deep grief then affected the entire Russian Orthodox world, which knew the deceased to some extent. Under the vivid impression of the death of the Right Reverend, this is what, by the way, one of his contemporaries and admirers, from among an authoritative professorial corporation, wrote ten years ago. “In the person of this well-known ascetic bishop, who for twenty-eight years remained in the desert, preferring conversation with the Lord to all the blessings of this world, the great lamp of the Church truly died out for earthly life. And this lamp burned throughout Orthodox Russia with the purest, all-illuminating spiritual light. He was a learned man who comprehended all the wisdom of academic knowledge; was a bishop who was entrusted with broad power and presented with high honors. But it was not in this learning and not in this power and honor that he believed the meaning and purpose of life. He exchanged his learned wisdom and hierarchal honor for the humble lot of a hermit; he retired to the desert to bury there everything that was worldly in him, to bury both his learning and his hierarchical honor, and finally to bury himself - for the here worldly life. But just as the sun cannot be hidden from the world, so the deserts could not be hidden from the Holy One. Rus' is the true lamp of Orthodox life, and if he has become unknown to the majority of those who live only in the world and its vanity, then all the more close has he become to those who live a true spiritual life and strive for it. Vyshenskaya hermitage, where the Most Reverend retired. Feofan, became a source of high spiritual enlightenment - enlightenment that is immeasurably higher than that given by higher schools, because this enlightenment came not only from a learned mind, but also from a deeply feeling heart. From this desert, where Theophan’s living voice fell silent, books and letters began to spread throughout Russia, in which spiritual wisdom and love itself spoke, spoke from the depths of a spiritually enlightened mind and from the purity of a true Christian heart. His remarkable personality amazingly combined those elements that make an Orthodox person in the full sense - a person with such integrity of moral being, in which all the contradictions inseparable from earthly life give way to wondrous harmony, and a mortal, weak and sinful person becomes a being who truly embodies the image and likeness of God. One can rightfully say about him that he truly embodied the whole meaning of the Orthodox Church, and that is why every word of his found such a living echo in the hearts of Orthodox people and every letter of his shed true sweetness in the heart. It was not without reason that letters flew from all over Russia to the Vyshenskaya Hermitage - expressing physical and spiritual sorrows, with complaints about spiritual anguish and the triumph of worldly vanity, and many received a healing balm for their suffering souls when the Most Reverend. Feofan answered them in writing. Each of his letters was a deep enough source that edification and consolation could be drawn from it not only by those to whom it was addressed, but also by many others who experienced the same vexation of spirit. Truly Russian Orthodox people, with their sensitive hearts, recognized in him a truly inexhaustible source of bookish sweetness, and it flowed abundantly from him. In him, the Orthodox Church found itself a high exponent of that spirit of life, which constitutes its own essence and which serves to expose the lies and untruths spread by ignorant and malicious people, as if the Orthodox Church is lifeless and shackled by the bonds of soulless ritualism. A Church capable of producing such personalities as His Grace Theophan was, obviously has in itself enough vitality and strength to carry out its holy mission on earth” 3. "Sunday Reading", 1894, No. 35–36 "Church Bulletin", 1894, No. 3