14. Слово при вступлении в управление Московскою паствою.

(Said by Archbishop Philaret of Moscow at the Moscow Assumption Cathedral, August 14th; published separately and in collections of 1821, 1822, 1835, 1844 and 1848) Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Rom.1:7. Thus, the holy Apostle Paul once greeted the Church of sovereign Rome, entering into communion with it through the Epistle. So, at this first face-to-face communication, I dare to greet the Church of this Throne City. But who am I, who dared to proclaim such a great word among such a great Church? among the Church, which, in addition to the glory borrowed from the ancient Royal Throne, even before had the glory of somehow preparing a place for this throne and to this day has retained the grace to teach the Crown Bearers the sacred Crown and anointing for the Kingdom; - among the Church, which was accustomed to hear the living and strong voices of the Divine Word, in which so many Lamps of the Orthodox Faith shone, not extinguished even in the tombs, but even then still shining with the light of the future century, in which the heavenly companions of our earthly prayers stood in prayer, recognized later; - here, where the ancient shrine recently again marked itself with a cleansing visit, and miraculous deliverance, and righteous vengeance; - How did I dare to stand before the great host of God in the sacred rite of the sacrament of faith, and how do I again dare to begin the sacred rite of the word of truth? With the weak voice of unworthy lips, how do I dare to shake this very air, filled with the fragrance of the Holy? Oh, Sovereign Lord! You see the depth of hearts; You hear the movement of thoughts; You saw this troubled heart when the lots for this service were still being given; You heard the tremulous memory of that ancient voice: “Choose another mighty man, whom you have followed” (Ex. 4:13). But when, according to Your unsearchable destinies, through the Sacred and Sovereign Power, this lot came and did not return, “who am I, able to rebuke God” (Acts 11:17)? And now, Lord, Thy will be done, for Thy will has already been done. “Strengthen, O God, this which you have done in us” (Ps. 67:29). For the sake of Your many people, grant grace to this ministry; For the sake of Your glory, especially wondrous in insignificant instruments, “make Your power perfect in this weakness. Give to Thy voice a voice of power" (2 Cor. 12:9; Ps. 68:34) and in unworthy lips, so that "those who receive the word of Thy hearing from us receive not as the word of men, but as it truly is, the Word of God, and let it work in these who believe" (1 Thess. 2:13). So, God-given Fathers, brothers and children of this Church, “grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!” Oh, if only this first wish of ours would be completely fulfilled over you! Then we could trust that God will fulfill all your good desires. But spiritual desires are completely valid when the will of the recipient is united with the will of the one giving the blessing. Therefore, in order to incline our hearts to unite in a single desire worthy of this spiritual communication, we will say something to explain why, first of all and most of all, we wish you “grace and peace.” All of us, whenever we meet one another, usually greet each other with some kind of desire. What does this custom mean? - A significant indication of our condition, if only we were careful! Let us imagine for a moment that we would meet not on this poor and condemned earth, but in heaven, or even in an earthly paradise: with what desire would we greet each other there? A wish for health? “But there are no diseases there anyway.” The desire for longevity? - How can there be concern about longevity, where there is immortality? The desire for well-being? – There is already bliss there. Is it, finally, a desire for grace and peace? - And everyone there has this, or even more - they have grace and glory. From this it goes without saying that there, instead of expressing desires, the most common thing should be the expression of joy in grateful praises to the One who has fulfilled all desires - God. What does it mean now that here on earth we greet each other with different desires? - That we all lack many things, that we are not in the state in which we should be, and to which we are destined, that we are here not in the fatherland, but in a foreign land, not in a refuge, but on the sea, not in our true home, but in a short-term hotel or on the way, not in the realm of the world, but in the midst of battle, between enemies, between dangers, in exhaustion, in deprivation. The more directly and accurately our desires relate to the fulfillment of our shortcomings, the more worthy they are, the more correct they are. Let us apply this measure to our ordinary desires. – The desire for health, if one thinks about the physical, relates only to the lower perfection of animal nature, common to us with the dumb, - here it is not at all in view of a strictly human need. – The desire for long life, if it does not receive the highest meaning in combination with other noblest desires, can bring us nothing more than the continuation of our earthly exile and wandering, and, if we are not on the path of deliverance and return to the heavenly fatherland, then an even greater distance from it; for - “hear and understand!” (Matthew 15:10) - in this world in which everything moves and passes, there is no stationary state for us, and if a person does not constantly try to approach heaven, then he inconspicuously approaches hell. - The desire for well-being, if they want to receive only the good of the earth, and not the blessing of Heaven, is a seduction, since it is not fulfilled, - and an even greater seduction, since it is fulfilled: a careless wanderer of the earth, collecting shiny dust, becomes exhausted under a pleasant burden, or, chasing a flickering shadow, languishes in useless haste. So in ordinary human desires one can see, with the ever-present feeling of shortcomings, a regrettable inattention to essential shortcomings and true needs! And therefore, God-loving ones, it will not be alien and strange to you who does not consult with the flesh and the world in order to meet you with a desire after the heart of your outer man, but, in the hope of finding your heart according to the “heart of God,” first of all and most of all, seeks the Divine source, in order from there to draw for you a spiritual blessing: “grace and peace.” Let us recognize the essential shortcoming of the world for us! Let us feel the high need for grace! Who better knows what we lack, and who better can show the way to our desires, if not He Whom the desire for our good brought down into this world lying “in evil” (1 John 5:19), in order to fill with Himself what we lacked? But the ordinary and solemn blessing of our Savior was the desire and blessing of peace. Does He come to His disciples when “all authority in heaven and on earth has already been given to Him” (Matthew 28:18), and when they could expect from Him a gift worthy of this authority? “He brings them peace.” “Jesus came, and the hundred were in the midst, and said unto them, Peace be unto you” (John 20:19). Does He go on the path of the cross, when the troubled hearts of His friends demanded the strongest healing, the most real consolation? – He leaves them the medicine and consolation of peace: “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you” (John 14:27). Does He want to send the Apostles to preach the gospel about Him to the whole world, and give them guidance sufficient for this path? “He adds to the blessings of the world for them.” “Jesus again said to them: Peace be with you, as the father sent Me, and I sent you” (John 20:21). Does it dictate how they should enter cities and villages, performing the embassy entrusted to them? – He commands them to bring peace with them. “Whenever you come into a house, whether there is a hail or a whole house, when you enter a house, kiss it, saying, “Peace to this house” (Matthew 10:11–12). After this example and command, the Christian will not be at a loss whether it is right, more than other blessings, to greet him with peace. If anyone has not yet understood why “the thought of peace, which is thought upon him” (Jer. 29:11) by the Spirit of Christ is so necessary, he does not need to go far to the battlefield, or to a besieged city, or to the disgrace of 124 strife in order to understand this. Human! the battlefield closest to you and the most dangerous for you is your own life and activity in the world, if on this field you have not yet acquired “the victory that overcomes the world, faith” (1 John 5:4); your heart is like a city, besieged from without and melting sedition within, if “the peace of God has not yet settled in it” (Col. 3:15); in your thoughts the disgrace of strife continually renews, if “every opulence charged against the mind of God has not yet been cast down in you by the weapons of God, and your mind has not been taken captive to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:4-5). If you are unfamiliar with this war, then, of course, you have never awakened from the slumber of sensual life to the wakefulness of the highest human life, you have never lifted your head from captivity and spiritual slavery. Whoever more or less strived to emerge from this slavery into the freedom of the children of God, he, without a doubt, experienced and understood how the evil of the world attacks us with the weapon of sorrows and suffering in order to overthrow us with despondency and despair; how the blessings of the world surround us in order to take us captive by the cunning of lust; how the unrestrained desires of the flesh extend, apparently, in order to conquer the whole world for us, but in fact they conquer us with everything to which they cleave; just as the flesh fights with the spirit and with itself, passions rebel for the most part against reason and often against one another; as under the feet of the one who tries more to notice and avoid stumbling blocks, more temptations are revealed, so that the entire feat of natural virtue consists almost exclusively in the knowledge of the prevailing vice, just as the whole feat of natural wisdom lies in the knowledge of the prevailing ignorance. If, with the help of reason and good passions, we are sometimes winners in the field of external activity, this does not yet gain us true peace; the shame of warfare is only transferred further into the inner man, and the feat becomes all the more difficult the more hidden the hostile forces and weapons are. Sometimes, for example, it seems to us that we have conquered self-interest or voluptuousness by performing a feat of charity or abstinence; but, at the same time, entering the depths of the heart, we see that we are defeated there by vanity or pride; and where we thought to stand under the protection of conscience, beyond fear, we are wounded by its scorching arrows. Ascending into the realm of the mind, we find a new battle of thoughts that justify our actions, and again condemning, encouraging us to exploits, and yet again punishing, now with doubts, now with fear, now with dispersion, soaring to heaven and falling into the dust, luminous and darkening, pure and desecrating. Those who are attentive will recognize here the warfare that one of the experienced ascetics speaks of, “for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers and powers and rulers of the darkness of this world, the spirits of wickedness in high places” (Eph. 6:12). Tired of this battle, David cries out: “There is no peace in my bones!” (Ps. 37:4) Why is there no peace for him who defeated all the enemies of God’s people and created the “city of peace,” Jerusalem? “There is no peace,” he says, “for my sins are from my presence” (Psalm 37:4). Who among us dares to boast that there is no sin in him? Therefore, who should not admit that we have no inner peace of our own, no peace with God, no peace with ourselves? “Thou, O Lord our God, give us peace” (Is. 26:12)! God is our Father, and is ready to give us the desired peace, Christian brothers! For this reason He Himself was called “the God of peace” (1 Thess. 5:23); for this purpose He gave us His only begotten Son Jesus Christ, who “is our peace” (Eph. 2:14); For this purpose He sent in the power of His Spirit “those who bring good news of peace” (Rom. 10:15), from whom, according to the continuous tradition of the sacred ordination, “the word of reconciliation was placed in us unworthy” (2 Cor. 5:19). But what does “Our Peace” say to the evangelists of peace, whom He sent to every “city and house” - to every Church and to every soul? – “If the house is worthy, your peace will come; If you are not worthy, your peace will return to you” (Matthew 10:13). Thus, no matter how ready the world from God is for us, it is brought to us in vain if we are unworthy to receive it. What can make us worthy to accept the world given to us? Peace is acquired between people either by the battle itself, or by truth, or by mercy: - by battle, when the winner prescribes peace to the vanquished; - truth, when the seeker of peace either confirms his justice, or makes up for the injustice done with satisfaction; - by mercy, when one who has neither the strength to conquer the world, nor the truth to deserve it, indulges in the generosity of one offended by enmity and his own unfeigned humility, or, moreover, through the assurance of a faithful and powerful mediator, acquires the mercy of the world. But “the peace of God,” who can either seize it with power from the Almighty, or earn it with righteousness from Him, “before whom no one living will be justified” (Psalm 142:2)? Whoever is once overcome by sin is already a “slave of sin” (John 8:34) and “guilty against the whole law of God” (James 2:10), which requires complete holiness and “perfection in the image of the heavenly Father” (Matthew 5:48); and therefore he no longer has either power or truth; he cannot by himself drive out the evil that has reigned in him, and if he does some imperfect good, it always relates to a real duty and therefore will never satisfy the justice of God for the evil previously done. So, our only hope of peace with God is the mercy of the God of peace, according to which He not only does not want to take revenge on us for our sinful enmity against Him, but also wants to free us from those who enslave us to this enmity, His enemies and ours; not only does he not demand from us satisfaction of His justice, which is impossible on our part, but also accepts upon Himself to satisfy it for us through the intercession and feat of the Cross of His Only Begotten Son; recognizes us as worthy to enjoy “His peace, which surpasses all understanding” (Phil. 4:7), as soon as we recognize our own unworthiness and establish our hope in His mercy. “The grace of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” is the only source of true and perfect spiritual peace for us. On our part, faith, prayer and humility open in us a current to the mountainous source of grace, and then the Lord “turns down upon us like a river of peace” (Is. 66:12), which drowns everything hostile in us and waters our entire being, cools us, enlivens us, fills us with the fruits of life, “rejoices” with pure spiritual “aspirations, sanctifies in us the dwelling of the Most High” ( Psalm 45:5), and just as it flowed from the eternal life of God, so it “flows into us into eternal life” (John 4:14). O peace, desired above all! O grace, desired above all! - for the world is a consubstantial child of grace. Having now been called to bring to the Lord the firstfruits of communion with this Church, according to His will, I pray to all who are now standing in this communion in a God-pleasing manner, to unite all their hearts in a strong desire for “grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” May the unanimous prayer of the co-pastors and all the faithful attract grace and peace from above to the new shepherd, so that he can proclaim grace and peace to the flock with power and action. “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers” (Gal.6:18); “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, may guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:7). “May the Lord of peace Himself always give you peace in every way” (2 Thessalonians 3:16), both internally and according to the action of the internal and external. Peace to those who shepherd the flock of God - in the Christian obedience of the flock; peace to the flock - in the paternal and brotherly care of those who shepherd. Peace to those in charge, in the loyalty of the subordinates; peace to the subordinates, in the wisdom and meekness of those in authority. Peace to those who judge, in the unfeigned sincerity of those judged; peace to those who are judged - in the insight and impartiality of those who judge. Peace to those who sell and those who buy, in mutual aversion from wickedness and deceit. Peace to those who do and work - in the blessed success of useful work and in the abundant fruit of righteous labor. Peace to everyone! Amen. In the department ed. and in collection 1821, 1822 and 1835: to replenish... In the department edition: field... You might be interested in: