The greatness of Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow

If, according to the Apostle, remembering our mentors who preached the word of God to us is a Christian duty (Heb. 13:7), then may I, the least of the clergy, be allowed to remember with reverent love the great one among the Hierarchs of the Orthodox Church, His Eminence Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow. For I have been taught by his sermons and other theological works since my youth and to this day I nourish and console my poor soul, hungry and thirsty for the truth of the righteousness of Christ. When I was still a child, I often heard from the priests - my relatives in Vladimir - the name of Metropolitan Philaret, pronounced not only with reverence, but also with the warmest love for his great personality. Before studying his biblical history, in literature class we began to get acquainted with Philaret’s sermons. Oh, with what enthusiasm our unforgettable teacher of literature at the Vladimir Seminary V.I. pronounced some of them. Milovidov (now Archimandrite Vladimir) in the class and then forced me to study some passages by heart. And through this study, we literary scholars studied Orthodox Christian Theology in advance. In the later and recent years of my life, I learned in Kyiv from some venerable men from the students of Moscow University that, while at the University, they studied every sermon preached by Metropolitan Philaret. Several students who heard it in the church itself wrote it down from the words of the Bishop, and then, coming to the University auditoriums, before the professor’s lectures, they pronounced it out loud in front of their comrades. And it is remarkable that those who conveyed this to me, being in the years of courage, can still recite many of Filaret’s sermons in memory, which I testify about them (for example, about Iv. Dm. Nikulin), as I myself heard from their lips more than one of Filaret’s words. And the lengthy Christian Catechism by the Reverend. Compiled by Philaret, he enlightened so many with the light of knowledge of God. And how dear he is to their heartfelt memory! I remember once I spoke a lesson from it during the days of Great Lent to explain the commandments. After the service, one respectable man from the important officials of the city came up to me, the priest, and with tears in his eyes said: “Thank you, father, for the sermon: “You reminded me of the time of my university life in Dorpat, where we studied this very Catechism.” A.P. Bokk - who told me this, came from a Lutheran father, was himself an Orthodox Christian and a deeply believer. In the fifties, Malinovsky and Bobrov served as teachers at the Vladimir gymnasium. Both were from among those zealous listeners of Metropolitan Philaret, whom I mentioned above, and both were deeply religious and Christian-moral young people. In the village of Bakino, Vladimir province, Aleksandrovsky district, overwhelmed by schism teachers in the forties, it was not so much the village priest, but one of the local peasants who strongly resisted the schism and kept his fellow villagers in Orthodoxy. And this was a pious and virtuous peasant, known to Metropolitan Philaret. He often walked or traveled to Moscow on purpose to attend Philaret’s services and listen to his sermons. Returning to Vladimir, he usually appeared for a blessing to His Eminence Parthenius, and recited verbatim the sermon, or even two or three, which he had heard from the lips of Metropolitan Philaret. Then those present recalled the high prayer of the God-Man to His Heavenly Father: “I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You hid this from the wise and prudent and revealed it to babes. To her. Father! For such was Your good pleasure.” (Luke 10:21). “Sermons of the Metropolitan. Philaret of Moscow - said the Right Reverend Platon of Kostroma (Thebean) - are deep and lofty in content, which is why not everyone can understand them. But this has always been the case in the Church. For the minds of the strong and strong, Gregory the Theologians appeared: for the simplest - John Chrysostom. Our Bishop Metropolitan Philaret will follow St. Gregory the Theologian, whose creations he studied completely. And he appointed them first to translate into Russian, so that they would be translated during the life of Filaret himself. I monitored the accuracy of the translation myself. But do you know how much work Metropolitan Philaret put into composing his first sermons? He wrote each of them for a month. Now it’s easy for him to compose each sermon.” – About their significance for the theologians of the Russian Church themselves, the same Bishop Platon told this writer: “The Reverend Innocent of Kherson, when he was approaching death, calmed his soul by reading the sermons of Philaret of Moscow.” - The Holy Scripture is truly explained. In an inimitable way, our Vitias the Theologian approaches the texts of Holy Scripture in such a way and proceeds from them that his words are in the most harmonious way with the word of God, not only in thoughts, but also in expressions. So what? Despite such merits of his priestly preaching, Metropolitan Philaret humbly subjected himself - when publishing his sermons - to censorship corrections. Father Archpriest F.A. Golubinsky, bringing his censored works to the bishop, usually said to him: “Forgive me, Your Eminence, that I have crossed out this.” “Thank you, most venerable Theodore Alexandrovich,” the bishop used to say with love. There was in him, unforgettable and instructive for our church developments, timidity when pronouncing his words in the church of God, which is why he did not dare to improvise them, but always spoke from a notebook. We heard about all this from the same Eminence Plato. But by humbling himself before God the Word, when he proclaimed His word and teaching to the church, as a hierarch, Metropolitan Philaret demonstrated apostolic power in the church. “This is the sun. Further from itself it warms and revives, but closer to it it can scorch,” said the same Archbishop Plato. But the ever-memorable hierarch, burning with his power the unworthy in the Church, did not burn the unworthy themselves: he saved them with apostolic severity, according to the testament from the apostles themselves, left by them to the successors of their ministry in the Church: “And you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, preserve yourselves in the love of God, expecting mercy from our Lord Jesus Christ, for eternal life. And be merciful to some, with consideration. But save others with fear, pulling them out of the fire, but reprove others with fear, abhorring even the clothing that is defiled by the flesh” (Jude 1:20-23). Professor of Philosophy S.S. told us about the sermons of His Eminence Metropolitan Philaret at the Kyiv Theological Academy. Gogotsky, as about the remarkable works of a theological mind and, at the same time, a great orator, which have gained European fame. Here other professors pointed us to them as guides to Christian philosophizing and together as sources and examples of Orthodox theology. Professor of Scripture and Comparative Theology Fr. I remember Hieromonk Michael, a most learned man and ascetic, asking, among other topics for essays, the question: “Is the human race moving toward perfection?” pointed out, as a guide to the correct answer, one of the sermons of Bishop M. Philaret. Professor of Church Literature Y.K. Amphitheaters read Filaretov’s sermons in the audience with delight of soul and tenderness of heart, for example. sermon “about the Christian’s sacrifice”, for St. much Tsarevich Dimitri. Professor of Moral Theology Fr. Archimandrite Daniil (Musatov) was so in awe of Philaret of Moscow that he instilled in the academy students leaving Kyiv for positions through the city of Moscow as a sacred duty to be with the Metropolitan of Moscow and accept his saintly blessing. But the students themselves from different dioceses who studied at the academy brought here in their souls feelings of respect for the great saint and pillar of the Church. During the hours of their evening friendly walks in the garden of the academy, more than once the writer of this had to hear students talking about Filaret: not only those close to Moscow, but also seminaries far from it, the students of the academy (Smolnyans, Mogilev residents, Ekaterinoslav residents, etc.) with love and reverence unanimously glorified Filaret as a man of genius and not only a father and teacher of the Russian Church, but also a great statesman. Stories were conveyed about various repeated facts that testified to the love and respect of the then Sovereign Emperor Nicholas I the Unforgettable himself. Other students brought to friendly circles our testimonies that they had heard from the professors of the Moscow Academy about the respect for Philaret by the great scientists of Europe, for example. Wilhelm Humboldt, who traveled to Siberia, was in Moscow and visited its great hierarch. And he, the most learned Humboldt, expressed, after the conversations he heard from M. Philaret, the greatest surprise at Philaret’s extraordinary intelligence and learning 1 . All this was especially vividly remembered to me under the influence of conversations in Bose by the late Rev. Michael in Kyiv, who could not even talk about the extraordinary mind of St. Philaret without admiration. But here is the testimony of a secular person about Filaret, the venerable Nikolai Sushkov: “Servant, guardian, preacher of Orthodoxy, Metropolitan. Filaret gradually achieved evangelical all-encompassing love for the universal brotherhood in Christ... Oh, peace to your virgin soul! Glory to your exploits! Eternal memory to you, light and glory of the Russian land" 2. One of Herzen’s admirers once spoke with annoyance about M. Filaret: “this is a brake.” Yes, dear sirs, M. Filaret really was a brake. But this brake delayed the desire of those rebelling against the Lord and His Christ... Philaret was gone and the wicked anti-Christianity, which had long arisen in the West, rushed in a rapid march to the Russian kingdom. I must not forget the words of one of the members of the Moscow Synodal Office (Archimandrite Father Agapit): “There are many of us in the Synodal Office. But all of us taken together are not equal in intelligence and activity to M. Philaret. Secular people who come to us from St. Petersburg say: “Pray to God that your elder M. Filaret will still be alive. He won’t be there, we will change a lot of things for you.” Yes, Rev. Metropolitan Philaret would not have allowed that sad fact to happen in the history of the Russian Church, which was allowed under his successor: do we mean the reduction of church clergy and the addition of churches of God one to another in many (although, by the grace of God, not in all) dioceses of the Russian Church? Is it not because of this closing of churches that the daring Russian schism raised its head and together a new sect was formed, borrowed from the Germans - the Stundists?.. About this most sad fact, the reduction of churches, the most venerable and respected of the Russian hierarchs has not ceased to shed bitter tears (as the venerable reclusive bishop Vyshinskaya wrote about this in Kyiv recently desert). Moved by his own feeling of reverence and love for High Hierarch Philaret and encouraged by the advice of Fr. A. Daniil, after completing a course at the Kyiv D. Academy and following a teaching post in Vyatka, the writer of this dared to come to him in 1849 in the month of December. “Is the Metropolitan of Kiev (Filaret Amphitheatrov) healthy? “asked the bishop who came from Kyiv. “Thank God, he lives,” he answered. “Are you assigned to Vyatka?” - “That’s right.” - “Your homeland?” - “Vladimir.” - “Far away!.. Do you want to be in your homeland?” - “Yes; I have a mother there, a priestly widow.” - “I also wish you to be back in your homeland as soon as possible. What subjects are they assigned to?” - “For theological ones; assistant to the class of the rector of the seminary.” The Metropolitan, smiling, said: “It is not proper to teach theology in a tailcoat; Do you want to be a priest? - “I don’t want to leave the spiritual title in which I was born and for which I was raised.” - “Good deed. God bless you to be a priest.” In 1851, in the month of February, I was transferred to the Vladimir Seminary; in February 1858 he was promoted to priest. Thus the good wish and blessing of the ever-memorable high priest came true for me. While at the service in Vyatka, I heard from the then-Reverend Bishop of Vyatka Neophytos (Sosnin) that he was translating the Chetya-Minea of ​​St. Demetrius of Rostov into Russian. But then, when I asked the Vyatka archpriest Fr. S.N. Kashmensky about the fate of these works of the Right Reverend Neophyte, Kashmensky replied: “Our Bishop handed over the manuscripts of his translations to the library of the cathedral, for the Moscow High Hierarch Philaret wrote to the Most Reverend. Neophytos: “language in the Chetia-Minea of ​​St. Demetrius of Rostov is so clear and understandable to the people that it does not require translation into Russian.” By the way, I remember the following. Helped in the translations of the Chetya-Minea, Rev. Neophytos, Archpriest, Seminary Inspector Vyatskaya I.F. F., as the Reverend himself. The neophyte complained about him and did not trust many of the miracles of the saints. Then I remembered the story of the Reverend. Plato (of Thebes): “When some of the scientists in Moscow began to express their distrust of the legends about the miracles of saints before Metropolitan Philaret, the bishop quickly and sternly answered the doubters: “the saints, the compilers of the Chetia-Minea: Metropolitan Macarius and St. Demetrius of Rostov, were smarter than you and me, critics. The Lord God Himself glorified Saint Demetrius, joining him to the host of his saints” 3. However, the wise and pious saint of Moscow, in order to further confirm those who believe in the One who spoke to his disciples and, through them, to all his followers: “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will also do, and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to my Father” (John 14:12), instructed the Moscow Theological Academy to give students a topic for writing: St. Demetrius of Rostov and his Chetii-Minea, where it would be shown what historical documents the compiler of the Cheti-Minea used and how reliable they were. Thanks to this order of the high priest, an essay on a given topic was written by one of the students, under the guidance of Archpriest Professor of Church History and Rector of the Academy A.V. Gorsky - a serious and thorough essay. 4 When I was transferred from Vyatka to the Vladimir Seminary, here in December 1855, a student who had completed a course at the Vyatka Seminary, Arseny Bystrotokov, came to me. This energetic young man followed on foot and had with him a journal of his journey, in which he entered various comments, also (using a pencil) drawings of remarkable buildings. According to him, he directed his way to Moscow solely in order to be honored here to accept the blessing to choose the image of service to society from the Reverend. Metropolitan Philaret. The Vyatka clergy,” said the young man Arseny, “are so filled with faith in the will of M. Philaret to God that they call on the name of the saint in prayers when they are in any difficult circumstances.” This story by Bystrotokov reminded me of what I heard in Kyiv from Archbishop Plato. And this one (then, in 1846) who lived in Kyiv in the rank of archimandrite, to cure himself of an illness) told us, the academy students, acquaintances of him, that he knew quite a few cases in Moscow in which the power of the prayers and blessings of Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow, really manifested itself. When another good wish of High Hierarch Philaret was fulfilled over me, a sinner—I was awarded the priestly rank—more than once the Lord led me to accept his holy blessing, and at the same time to hear the godly and saving instructions from his lips. Thus, in 1860, having appeared to him on behalf of Hieromonk Vitaly, a confessor in Ryazan, I expressed before the saint my own concerns about raising children at that time, confused by various false teachings that had penetrated society through literature. “How, O holy lord, can we protect our children from various errors?” was my question to the saint. And he answered: “And now we grieve and fear for youth and take care to protect them from errors. I answer your question with the desire that the Lord will protect your children with his holy angels.” He instructed Hieromonk Vitaly to write on his behalf so that he would endure sorrows complacently. But, undoubtedly, he did not abandon him with the help of his saintly prayers, effective for the good and salvation of his neighbors. At present, this venerable monk is the abbot of one holy monastery in the rank of archimandrite, and he is in good spirits, being under the heavenly roof of the patron saint of the monastery, in which he is in charge, taking advantage of the well-deserved attention of the local archpastor, one of the kindest bishops. In 1869, at the anniversary of the Kyiv Theological Academy, I had the consolation of talking with the late rector of the Moscow Theological Academy, Father Archpriest A.V. Gorsky. When his conversation with me touched on the memory of Metropolitan Philaret, I expressed Fr. Archpriest is deeply saddened that I was not worthy to receive the blessing from the High Hierarch in 1867, when I moved to Kyiv. The father is Archpriest A.V. Gorsky remarked to this, to my consolation: “having passed into the afterlife, Vladyka Philaret can even more help with his heavenly prayers those who love him and honor his memory. Pray for him and he will help you." In 1881 (I believe that through the prayers of Metropolitan Philaret) I, a sinner, was honored to be in the Holy Trinity-Sergius Lavra, where, after prayerful veneration of the decayed relics of its holy founder and other shrines, I fell over the tomb of Metropolitan Philaret with a prayer for the repose of the holy soul of the saint. But my heart told me then: who am I to offer prayers for the soul of the great saint of the Russian Church? And according to this inspiration of my heart, my prayer for Metropolitan Philaret to the God of spirits and all flesh ended with a sincere heartfelt appeal to the one for whom I prayed, so that, standing before the throne of God, I would remember the prayerfully unworthy priest Nicholas, whom, while in earthly life, I honored with words of consolation and edification. Archpriest Sretensky, in Kyiv, N. Florinsky Church “After lunch at Bishop Met. Philaret, at which sixty guests dined, V. Humboldt said to us, the academy professors: I am amazed at the intelligence and learning of your bishop; During the two hours of lunch, he (Filaret) said to each of those sitting at the table a word that could be the subject of our reflection for the rest of our lives.” Words of the archbishop. Platov (Fiveysky). See the book by N.V. Sushkova: “Notes on the life and times of St. Philaret Metropolitan. Moskovsky." Moscow, 1868, p. 294. By the way, I also remember the words of Rev. Innocent (Borisov) to those who forgave him: “Isn’t it surprising, Vladyka, that in the lives of St. do angels and the Lord himself constantly appear to martyrs?” “But I would have been more surprised if they had not appeared, for the selflessness of the martyrs was extraordinary. And wasn’t it worthy of extraordinary help: God’s and heavenly phenomena from the heavenly world,” Innokenty answered his co-questionnaires. St. Demetrius, Metropolitan of Rostov. Op. stud. Moscow Spirit. Academy of Vasily Nechaev (now His Grace Vissarion, Bishop of Dmitrovsky). Moscow. 1849.