492. Слово в день Успения Пресвятой Богородицы

(Spoken at the Moscow Great Assumption Cathedral on August 15) 972 The Mother of Light descends into darkness. She who gave birth to the Chief of life and the Conqueror of death, even after a decisive victory over death, that is, after the Resurrection of Christ, is given over to the realm of death. If in the days when “sin reigned unto death, and even unto the king’s death... and upon those who had not sinned in the likeness of the crime of Adam” (Rom. 5:14, 21), it was surprising that Enoch and Elijah did not die like the others: then in the days when “grace reigned in righteousness unto eternal life, Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 5:21), it is no less surprising that Mary dies like the rest. It is not only my ignorance that this surprise belongs to: the church itself, the custodian of the manifold wisdom of God, in one of its hymns for the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos, exclaims: “Oh, a wondrous miracle! the source of life is placed in the grave" 973. What should we think about this, Christians? – If the Most Holy One must pay some tribute to the dominion of sin: for death is a tribute to sin, according to the word of scripture: “tribes... the death of sin” (Rom. 6:23): then how much of this kind of tribute can we, many sinners, be subjected to? If the sentence of curse is partly carried out over the Most Blessed One: for this sentence belongs to the ancient curse of Adam: “You are earth, and you will go back to earth” (Gen. 3:19), then what should we expect, who, although we have been accepted as heirs of the new blessing of Christ, are almost still living with the inheritance of the old Adam - with earthly thoughts, sensual lusts, carnal deeds, in which the earth is cursed? If the most honorable of the Cherubim, and the most glorious of the Seraphim, if the Mother of the Lord, in the same way as the despised of the earth, goes to the tomb, next to the worm is placed in the dust: then we, who have been made less than the Angels, and may not only be “a little thing” (Heb. 2:7), as the Creator wanted, but many, by the deceit of the devil, and very much, by our own arbitrariness, we unworthy slaves, can we be reduced to less than hell? Truly, as St. Ap. Peter: “Even if the righteous are saved, where will the wicked and sinful appear” (1 Pet. 4:18)? So, the Assumption of the Most Holy and Most Blessed Mother of God and the Ever-Virgin Mary brings us into careful reflection about this barely acquired and only achieved by the grace of God salvation. When I mentioned the miraculous death of Patriarch Enoch, the glorious ascension of the Prophet Elijah; Then the attentive might have a questioning thought: why shouldn’t the repose of the Mother of God be invested with a similar, or according to her dignity, even greater miraculousness and glory, instead of the fact that we are shown only her dormition - a quiet departure from this earthly life, similar to how one goes to sleep, and not a majestic awakening to heavenly, divine life? I would not like to answer this question to please curiosity; I would not consider myself capable of satisfying wisdom, but I dare to answer it for the instruction that I see in its feasible solution. That the Most Holy Virgin Mary was more worthy than any other person to receive glory in her passage from earthly life, no one should doubt this. Is it possible to be closer to the Lord, how to be the Mother of the Lord! But approaching God, according to His impartial truth, cannot be otherwise than according to the measure of dignity, therefore, the Mother of the Lord must be the most worthy not only of the entire human race, but even of all creatures, which is why the Church calls Her the most honorable Cherub and the most glorious without comparison Seraphim. So, if Enoch, who pleased God, was found worthy “not to see death” (Heb. 11:5): how much more is Mary, who found unparalleled grace from God? If Elijah was worthy to ascend to heaven in a chariot of fire: how much more is she who is herself inwardly heaven and the dwelling place of God? How did the opposite happen? Enoch was “predicated not to see death”, Elijah was taken in a chariot of fire, and Mary just succeeded? “Food is not right with God”? asks somewhere St. The Apostle Paul answers: “Let it not be” (Rom.9:14). Although his question was made on a case other than the present, nevertheless his answer is true for all possible cases, and therefore for the present. There is no untruth with God in the fact that the Mother of the Lord is not quite glorified on this side of the tomb: because the tomb is the border beyond which the open kingdom of truth and the kingdom of glory begins; on this side of the tomb lies the kingdom of grace, the kingdom of mercy, the kingdom of wisdom in the hidden mystery. But why is the bliss of Enoch so close, why is the glory of Elijah so accelerated? This was done precisely according to the law of the kingdom of grace, mercy and hidden wisdom. When “the royal death from Adam even to Moses, and over those who had not sinned in the likeness of Adam’s crime,” when from the day of primeval immortality and the evening dawn there was almost no memory left, and for the Resurrection of Christ the early dawn was barely dawning in the minds of rare contemplators: then, so that poor mortal life would not be completely mired in the darkness of ignorance and despair, it was necessary, like a lamp, although alone, in a dark church, like a star in the night sky, to illuminate the obvious immortality of God-pleasing Enoch. And again, when from the time of Moses, “the law... came, let sin increase” (Rom. 5:20), because “by the law... the knowledge of sin” (Rom. 3:20) increases, and not its conquering power; and thus again “you will find... the commandment which is unto life, this is unto death” (Rom. 7:10); when the very blessings and promises of the law, sensual for sensual people, temporary for those not far-sighted, in some way blocked the light of the future life: it was sometimes necessary, at least with an instant lightning, to cut through this Old Testament mortal night; and such lightning of eternal life was once the fiery ascension of the zealot of the truth of God, Elijah. But when a new sun rose in Christ for the world; and especially when, by His victorious and glorious resurrection, the darkness of death was sufficiently reduced, its fear was weakened, and the dawn of the future blessed life became bright, almost like a full day; then the grace of God, always merciful and saving, and the wisdom of God, according to the various needs of those being saved, manifold, had to take on new forms, use new modes of action; It was no longer necessary to take care that ignorance of the future did not lead to disastrous hopelessness; more precaution was needed so that the light itself would not blind unaccustomed eyes; lest overabundant hope pave the way to carelessness, which is little better than despair. Thus, after a decisive victory over death, it was necessary, in order to excite to the feat and caution in the matter of saving souls, to show some remaining power of death and show it in a person who should be closer to participating in the victory over death. This should be one of the reasons why the Queen of Heaven was raised from the earth by the ordinary slavish way of bodily death; although, however, as pious tradition says, traces of Her heavenly glory were soon noticed in the fact that Her life-receiving tomb turned out to be empty of Her glorified body. Think, Christian, that the Mother of your Lord whom you please, Who, however, throughout Her entire earthly life loved to clothe Her glory with a cloud of humility, so that truly she was in Her, according to the prophetic word “all the glory of the king’s daughter, within” (Ps. 44:14), that finally, although for a short time, She is clothed in darkness mortals, in order to arouse in you, not a blind and cowardly, but a perspicacious and saving fear of death, which dares to touch the purest being of the Ever-Virgin; to admonish you to beware of death, which is not yet completely powerless, and especially to strive against sin, which is always convenient and usually leads to death; - think about this, and accept this last instruction from the Mother of your Lord, given to you in Her departure to the Lord. Amen 974. To make a correct judgment about this word, it must be borne in mind that it was submitted for inclusion in the edition of the Words of 1844, but it was not included in the collection (Chronological Index. Words and Speeches of Metropolitan Philaret p. 42): from this we can conclude that the opinion expressed in this word was later recognized by the Saint himself as not entirely consistent. There is no doubt that later He more than once expressed the thought of death striking the Most Pure Body of the Mother of God, in a much more relaxed form, as He especially did in the word on the day of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos in 1846. Note Census. Dormition, stichera on the Lord I cried. To Moscow Gazette for 1829, No. 69, mentions a word spoken on August 22 of this year, but we do not have this word. You might be interested in: