446. Речь к преосвященному Игнатию, новорукоположенному Епископу Можайскому

(Said at the Lavra Dormition Cathedral on August 6; published in Soulful Reading and in the Wanderer, 1866) Your Eminence Bishop Ignatius! A great deed has been accomplished for You, although not with mighty instruments. The Holy Apostle Paul saw the Lord Jesus Christ in a miraculous revelation, and from Him he directly accepted the call to the faith of Christ and to the Apostolic service; but when the time came for him to actually begin to organize the Churches and the priesthood in them, then he and Barnabas accepted ordination for this from Simeon, Lucius and Manael. “Then (says the book of the Acts of the Apostles) having fasted and prayed and laid hands on them, she sent them away” (Acts 13:3). So necessary and so important is sacramental ordination! Then, when he taught those ordained by him the duties of their ministry, then he said to them: “The Holy Spirit has made you bishops” (Acts 20:28). So high is the beginning of the sacramental ordination! And so, keep the undoubted belief that the Holy Spirit has appointed you Bishop. There should be strength and protection for you in this belief. If your thought becomes weak before the strong demands of your service, then think that the “Spirit ... of strength” (Is. 11:2) has established you, and that he will not deprive you of strength, unless you arbitrarily fall away from His power through lack of faith or cowardice. If you are hampered by the lack of knowledge you need, call in faith to Him who placed you “The Spirit is with the truth” (John 14:17). He will not despise His work, He will send down light to you, and He will not allow you to fall into error through ignorance. If you encounter the temptation of man-pleasing, or the fear of man, or any other passionate impulse that deviates from the path of truth and righteousness, then say to yourself: a hundred times better for me to leave passionate people unsatisfied, and to endure sorrows from them myself, than to sadden and grieve the Spirit of truth and righteousness who set me up. So be strong and protect yourself in the feat of your priestly service, and let the rod of your leadership, like Aaron’s rod, not hesitate to be adorned with the color of a soul-helping word and the fruit of an action useful to the church. You might be interested in: