25. Слово при освящении храма Живоначальныя Троицы, созданного тщанием княгини Евдокии Николаевны Мещерской, и при открытии основанного ею, Высочайше утвержденного Борисоглебского женского общежития

(Said May 4 days; printed in collections 1822, 1835, 1844 and 1848) If anyone corrupts God's church, God will corrupt him: for the church of God is holy, just as you are. 1 Corinthians 3:17. Glory to God “wonderful in His sanctuary”! Another place became Holy and God's; The heavens had yet opened on earth; refuge has still been given to prayers; the throne of Grace has yet appeared. Once upon a time there was only one church of the true God in the entire universe; and there was someone who was delighted at the mere thought that he could go to the house of the Lord: “We rejoiced at those who said to me: Let us go to the house of the Lord” (Psalm 122:1). How can we not rejoice now when, so to speak, the house of God comes to us from the invisible omnipresence of God, so that we can approach God closer? David, desiring to create a church for God, vowed not to have peace until he found a place pleasing to God: “I will swear to the Lord, having promised Jacob to God: if I give sleep to my eyes, and slumber to my every side, and rest to my soul, until I have found the place of the Lord” (Ps. 132:2, 4-5); and he was not destined to live until the very creation of the church. How pleasant it is for the heart, to which not only the desire to create a church for God, but also the fulfillment of this desire has been granted - how pleasant it is before God for the heart to calm down in love and gratitude! There is still joy here now. Along with the renewal of this house of God, the house of God-pleasing residence nearby is renewed; so that the joy of piety receives new space, uniting with the joy of love for mankind, and the joy of love for mankind receives sanctification from the joy of piety. God created a sign for good, arranging it in this way: it is good for the poor when they see themselves with God. Let us each unite our joy into a common praise. Blessed is He who gives good desires, strengthens intentions, and arranges fulfillment! Blessed is “God who draws near” to us by His grace, when we could not draw near to Him due to our weakness and unworthiness! Blessed is the “Father of the orphans and the Judge of widows, God in His holy habitation,” Who “dwells the lonely into a home” (Psalm 67:6–7), Who, giving an abode to strangers, seeks in them an abode for Himself! However, no matter how pure the source of our joy is before God, we are commanded to “rejoice” in the Lord “with trembling” (Psalm 2:11). And natural caution prompts us to combine with the joy of the desired acquisition a concern for how to take care of and how to use what we have acquired. And from the Apostle we hear a threatening word against anyone who does not preserve such a precious acquisition as the church of God: “If anyone corrupts God’s church, God will corrupt him.” And so great attention is required to use the church of God and not damage it. We usually take care of a thing because we know its value. Therefore, the Apostle, urging not to destroy the church of God, points to its dignity, which he calls holiness: “for the church of God is holy.” He finds the idea of ​​the holiness of the church of God so obvious that he does not add anything to verify it, but puts this very thought as the basis for identification. In fact, it is just as natural to think that the church of God should be holy as that the day should be bright. A day without light would not be a day: a church without holiness would not be a church, but either a simple house, or even a church. But what is the light of day? What is the sanctity of a church? – Here, under the evidence, there is hidden a secret that others do not penetrate, and either remain in ignorance, or deviate into sinful opinions, and even sometimes, as the Apostle says, “they do not know, they blaspheme” (Jude 1:10). Some, for example, believe that the special holiness of the temple lies in the antiquity of it, or the sacred things located in it. Antiquity is venerable, and the thought of it is majestic; in it we contemplate the image of eternity, which in itself exceeds our contemplation: why God Himself in the Prophetic vision appears in the image, and is called by the name “Ancient of days” (Dan. 7:9). However, the thought of the holiness of the temple should not be confused with the thought of antiquity. The Temple of Solomon was new when God appeared to Solomon 153 and said: “Sanctify this temple which thou hast created” (1 Kings 9:3): this temple was ancient when this same God gave it over to the pagans to be desecrated and destroyed. The Upper Room of Jerusalem became the first new Christian church after the Ascension of the Lord: but when the Apostles received the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in it, then, without a doubt, it had incomparably more holiness than the ancient temple of Jerusalem at that time. In order to ascend to the true and general beginning of the holiness that belongs to the church of God, we must remember that the first creator of the holy church (which was then called a tabernacle, since it was built in the likeness of a tent, since the people of God at that time lived in tents, wandering in the desert) - that the creator of this church was God Himself; that the drawing of this first church was brought from heaven, as Moses was commanded: “See, and create in the image shown to you on the mountain” (Ex. 27:8); that in this same image, only with new splendor, the temple of Solomon was created; that finally, after Christianity revealed, previously presented in sensual forms, the worship of God in spirit and truth, the Christian church contains the same shrine in spirit and power that in the church of Moses or Solomon was represented in image and appearance. What was the source of the shrine in the church of Moses and Solomon? - Washing and anointing, used in ancient times, as now constituted 154 only preparatory consecration; the Holy Place itself was commemorated when a miraculous cloud overshadowed the tabernacle or church; when heavenly fire descended on the victims, in a word, when the presence of Almighty God appeared. This is how God Himself explains the shrine of the temple to Solomon: “You have sanctified this church, which you created.” - But how, Lord? - “And set my name there forever, and my eyes and my heart will be there forever” (1 Kings 9:3). Therefore, even now, in the perfect act of sanctification, the presence of God is proclaimed when the gates are proclaimed, so that they “lift up their heads, that the King of glory may come in” (Psalm 23:7). And so the deep foundation of the holiness of the church of God is the presence of God in the church, mysterious and incomprehensible, but nevertheless true and real. “The Lord Himself is in His holy church” (Psalm 10:4). In vain do people who think of higher wisdom than the wisdom of God teaches, say that they do not need to seek the presence of God in the church, because they have come to know the omnipresence of God. What are you saying? Doesn't God know His omnipresence? Did He not say through the Prophet: “Heaven is My throne, and earth is My footstool; What house will you build for Me, and what place of My resting place” (Isaiah 66:1)? Did He really forget about this omnipresence of His when He Himself said to Solomon about the church: “My eyes and My heart will be there all the days!” Of course, no special place is needed for the omnipresence of God: but for human limitations it is necessary, at least to a certain degree of perfection, to have a certain limit where touching the infinite would take place. We also know that there will once be a “holy city” in which “no church will be visible; The Lord God Almighty is his church” (Rev. 21:22). But this city must “come down from God from heaven” (Rev. 21:10): it will not be built by arrogant human wisdom, which with the imaginary knowledge of the omnipresence of God wants to destroy the church of God; it will not build anything except Babylon. Perhaps there will be those who will say: how can we find the presence of God in the church when it no longer appears either in the overshadowing cloud or in the fire descending from heaven? We respond to this with the word of Christ: “If you do not see signs and wonders, you do not believe” (John 4:48)! How would He say this: poor people of little faith! You all demand that your faith be nourished by continuous visible miracles, just as weak plants are preserved by artificial warmth instead of the natural warmth of the sun. – Now it’s no longer winter, or the cold ancient night; now is the summer of the Lord pleasant, and a clear day of salvation. It is no longer the time when it was necessary for the weak plant of faith to be preserved and lived by the power of external miracles; it is now time for your faith, living in Jesus Christ, to be strengthened without external support and to produce miraculous fruits itself. Believe without demanding visible miracles, and you will see invisible miracles of an incomparably higher degree. What do you need the thunders of Sinai when you hear here in the Gospel the living word of the living God? What do you need the overshadowing cloud, in which the ancients, as the Apostle says, “were baptized into Moses” (1 Cor. 10:2), when here you have baptism, clothing you with Christ, and the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit? Why do you need fire falling from heaven and consuming bloody sacrifices, when there is Divine fire here, descending on a bloodless victim, and, without destroying it, transforming it into Divine flesh and blood, the food of eternal life? Find only here at least one common prayer of the faithful; and then you found here the true 155 presence of the Divine Savior, according to His immutable promise: “Where there are two or three congregations in My name, I am also in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20). Believe in His presence: and then, if necessary, He will show you His presence by vision, as He has shown in many different ways to many, starting from a visit to the Apostolic Church with the doors closed. But do not seek the vision without need: “He who has seen no blessings has believed” (John 20:29). Christians! In any secrecy, only if we have in the church such a treasure, which is more precious and heaven does not have, that is, the holy and gracious presence of God: then with what attention, with what reverent fear should we approach here, so that it is not taken away from us, so that it is not said to us, as it was once said to the worshipers of the house of God in Jerusalem: “Behold, your house is left to you empty” (Luke 13:35)! You stand here before God: do you really stand unshakably in His presence, does your thought not run away beyond the walls of the church, does your heart not turn from God to the creatures, although in the house of man you consider it indecent to leave the master, and it is preferable to treat slaves before him? Beware lest the Great Lord of this lofty house in his turn turn away from you, as you do from Him, and lest this house remain empty for you. You are participating in prayers here: does your spirit inwardly express what your lips outwardly say? Does the heart feel what the ear hears? Or do you think that God will listen to a prayer that you yourself do not listen to? Beware that the house of prayer does not remain empty for you. What shall we do, those present in the church, what shall we do, so as not to violate the sanctity of the church? – Each of us must care about the creation, about sanctification, about the holy use of our own church to God in the common church. For, says the Apostle, “the church of God is holy, just as you are” (1 Cor. 3:17). That is, you acknowledge that the church of God is holy, and that God is irritated by those who violate its sanctity; but this church is you. If his shrine has no other beginning than God, then 156 has no other goal than you 157 ; the spirit contained in his images is revealed in you; in you the meaning of his signs is comprehended. “You are the living church of God” (2 Cor. 6:16). The mystery is deep, “hidden,” as the same Apostle says, “from ages and generations” in God and “now revealed only to His saints, who is Christ in you” ( Col. 1:26–27 )! It would be in vain for us to strive through the inability of the carnal language to explain the spiritual and Divine miracles contained in this mystery. The discovery of a secret is acquired not by inquisitiveness, but by fidelity. Let us be faithful in what has already been revealed to us: thus let us prepare ourselves for the highest revelation of the hidden. You have already been told that you are the church of God: take note of everything that is and what is happening in the church of God, and arrange yourself in accordance with this, and especially your insides. You see here images of the deeds of God and His Saints: fill your mind and memory, as if with spiritual images, with edifying thoughts about the great deeds of God, and about the God-pleasing deeds of His Saints. You see a lamp in front of a holy image: try so that in you, too, holy thoughts about God give birth to the light of faith and kindle the fire of love for God. You see the burning of incense: “let your prayer be corrected, “like incense before God” (Psalm 140:2). You hear the word of God: pay attention so that it “dwells in you” (Col. 3:16), through teaching and admonishing yourself. You hear singing to the glory of God: “sing” and “sing to the Lord in your heart.” You see the Priests presenting the Mysteries to the Throne, and proclaiming that we “represent” ourselves as “Cherubim” standing before the Life-Giving Trinity: “put aside” “worldly cares” 158; “Let all that is carnal in you remain silent” 159, and let your spirit become accustomed to David “to see the Lord before you” (Psalm 15:8). Thus, brethren, “coming,” here “to Christ, living stones,” and “be ye yourselves built into a spiritual church, a holy sanctuary, offering up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5). With the Apostle, “I pray you, brothers and sisters, “by the bounty of God, present your flesh as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, your verbal service” (Rom. 12:1). Amen. In collection 1822 and 1835: he... In collection 1835 and 1844: amounted to... In collection 1822 and 1835: true, essential. In collection 1822 and 1835: then its consecration... 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