92. Слово по освящении храма на кладбище 464

(Printed in the 1844 and 1848 collections.) I hid me in the village on the day of my evil, covering me in the secret of my village. Ps.27:5. By the grace of the All-Holy and All-Sanctifying Spirit, this church is now consecrated to be the heavenly dwelling of God, the sanctuary of the sacraments, the oracle of the Word of God, a ladder reaching to heaven for the ascent of prayers of faith to the throne of the Most High. Blessed be God, who is so gracious, for promoting the salvation of our souls. Blessed are the servants of God who have contributed to this work of grace through care, labor, and the combination of voluntary donations, of which even a small contribution will have a not low, and perhaps even a very high price in the eyes of God, looking at the heart of the giver. Let the blessing of God the Father overshadow, the light of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, enlighten, let the wing of the Holy Spirit cover, now and ever, every soul of man who enters this sanctuary with faith and love for God, with prayer and trust in Him, with the recognition of his weakness and sinfulness, with the desire for His Grace, for the fulfillment of His commandments. May the true God and our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the resurrection, and life, and rest of those who have died in the Lord, through the prayers of faith offered here, fulfill to completion the measure of rest, and confirm the hope of the blessed resurrection, to the souls of those who have died in repentance and faith, whose bodies around this church rest on the hope of resurrection. Since the peculiarity of the now consecrated church is that it was created at the burial place of the dead in the Lord: this gives us the opportunity and motivation to say something about the pious custom of building churches of God at the burial places of the dead, and burying the dead at the churches of God. The church is needed not by God, whose throne is heaven, and the earth is the footstool, and whose universe cannot contain, but by man for refuge to God, through all possible removal from the vanity of creatures, in which the sense of the presence of God is lost. This is how the place of the church is determined: the special hours of the church can be determined in a similar way. Man especially needs the church of God, firstly, in the hour of reverence, to bring glory to God, as to God, the Most High, the All-Perfect, whose praise is heaven and bliss even on earth; secondly, in an hour of joy, to bring thanks to God the Creator, Provider, Savior; thirdly, in the hour of spiritual sorrow, for the outpouring of the soul before God, Who, in His revelation, deigned, among other things, to reveal Himself in the name of the “Comforter.” Saint David points out this last use of the church of God, that is, its use in times of sorrow, when, most of all, asking and seeking from the Lord to “visit His holy church” (Psalm 26:4), he gives the reason for this: “For I hid me in His village in the day of my evils, covering me in the secret of His village” (Ps. 26:5). These words, perhaps, refer to that day in the life of David, when he, in mortal danger from Saul, in flight, alone, without weapons, without bread, without help, came to the tabernacle of God in Nob, and although Doik was there at that time, who later became Saul’s informer against David, and shed the blood of many innocents for him, yet Doik did not harm David at that time, and Saul did not harm him betrayed, and the High Priest Abimelech, even with a deviation from the law, provided David with consecrated bread and the sword of Goliath for protection in case of attack. This case is one of those in which God justifies the faith and pious trust of a person who resorts to His church in the most difficult hours of life, apparently by accident, but surprisingly true in his favor by the direction, circumstances, and free dispositions of other people. However, whether this exact incident was in the thoughts of the Psalmist or not: but since he always wants to visit the church of God, and even “to live in the house of the Lord,” for the reason that the Lord hid him in his village on the evil day: from this it is clear that he ascribes to the church of God a constant advantage, to be a refuge for the needy and sad, a strong fence of safety, a treasury of gracious consolation. Death, according to the ordinary concept, and according to natural feeling, is not the height of evil? Isn’t the death of those dear to us the fullness of sorrows? - So it is useful and beneficial that at the edge of the grave, where our well-being, our joys, our hopes are buried with those dear to us, there should be a church of God, where you can bring the most bitter sorrow in order to receive how much sweet, how much true consolation. May he who is carrying 465 the newly departed, or who is still grieving for someone who has died long ago, come here, and may he hear the compassionate admonition of the Apostle: “Brethren, do not grieve for those who have died, as do others who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). Let the orphan come in and fall into the arms of the “Father of the Orphans.” Let the widow come in and, with the hope of unchanging protection, fall before the “Judge of widows” (Psalm 67:6). May he who has lost his children come in and find them in the faithful hands of the ineffably good and beneficent Lover of children, who also speaks to some parents, as he once said to the Apostles: “Leave the children, and do not forbid them to come to Me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:14). The custom of the Jewish Church in dealing with the dead, established by the Mosaic Law, differs greatly from the custom of the Christian Church. There, anyone who touched the deceased was considered unclean, and the place where the deceased lay was considered unclean. Therefore, to lay the deceased in the courtyard of the church would mean to desecrate the church. Why was this so in the Old Testament Church, and not so in the New Testament Church? – Death was unclean from Adam, like the unclean fruit of his sin. But Christ purified and sanctified death with His most pure and most holy death. From His divinely communion body, which suffered for us, from His Divine blood, shed for us, a cleansing power was extended to all humanity, especially to those who were communed with His mystical body, through the sacrament of holy Baptism and the holy Eucharist. Therefore, for us Christians, death can be as pure as life; and the dead, along with the living, can belong to the church of the Lord; because, along with the living, they belong to the Lord. “Before us,” according to the teachings of the Apostle, “no one lives for himself, and no one dies for himself. If we live, we live by the Lord; if we die, we die by the Lord. Whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s” (Rom. 14:7–8). According to this belonging of all to the One Lord, then, just as the living stand in the church of the Lord, the dead, as if continuing to remain in Church communion, rest around the church; some, who are more reliably and more perfectly accepted by the Lord than others, and whose “death” is predominantly “honorable before the Lord” (Psalm 115:6), such as the holy martyrs, according to the custom preserved by sacred tradition, rest their bodies under the very altar of the church. Some are reassured by the mystical and prayerful power of the altar: others promote the very consecration of the altar by the power of their prayers and the grace given to them. We can show in the Word of God the basis of this custom, preserved by tradition in the Church. “It was said to Moses that he would make the tabernacle: For he said, Thou shalt make all things according to the image shown unto thee on the mountain” (Heb. 8:5). But what is shown to him on the mountain? - “the image and shadow of heavenly things” (Heb. 8:5), as the Apostle says. So here is the fundamental law of the church, which there is no reason to cancel for the Christian church: the church must be created in everything, as far as possible, in the image of the heavenly things shown to a worthy contemplator. Just as Moses contemplated the image of heavenly things for the church of the Old Testament on Mount Sinai, so the image of heavenly things for the church of the New Testament was shown to John the Theologian in revelation, where he among other things says: “I saw under the altar the souls of those who were beaten for the word of God, and for the testimony they had,” that is, the souls of the holy martyrs (Rev. 6:9). It is not for us, and not now, to reveal the secret why the souls of the holy martyrs are hidden for the time being under the altar, and do not rejoice around the altar: it is enough for the present discussion to note how faithfully in the visible Orthodox Church everything was created in the image of heavenly things. There, in the glorious heavenly church, the souls of the holy martyrs are under the altar: and here, in the earthly mysterious church, the relics of the Saints are under the altar. If it is proper for the bodies of the Saints to rest under the very altar of the holy church, then it is not indecent for the bodies of the faithful to rest near the altar and the church. Note, Christian soul, the sacred and even mysterious importance of the custom of laying the bodies of the departed in the Lord at the church of the Lord. They are worthy of this honor because they themselves are churches of God, members of the body of Christ, dwellings of the Holy Spirit. Think about this often, with attention, while you wear your earthly body; and carefully cleanse your body with abstinence, sanctify it with the exercises of piety, arrange for it an incorruptible robe from works of faith and virtue, so that when you lay aside your body and it is laid near the sanctuary of the Lord, the sanctuary of the Lord will not abhor it, as unclean from the corruption of Adam and your own, and will not cast away your lot from itself to the lot of those “whose bones were scattered in hell” (Psalm 141:7), but she received you “for an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and unfading, reserved in heaven” (1 Peter 1:4). Amen. We attribute this word to 1831, following the index in the General Readings. Love. Spirit. Enlightenment. In collection 1844: escort... You might be interested in: