Слово в день Казанския Божия Матери, сказанное в Предтеченской церкви архиерейского дома 22 октября 1857 года.

“To the chosen victorious governor, for having been delivered from the evil ones, let us sing thanksgiving to Thy servants, the Mother of God!” Now not only in word, but in deed itself - the deliberate triumph of St. The Church and our fatherland will write thanks to the Most Holy Theotokos, as the chosen commander and winner, who delivered us from the evil ones at the beginning of the seventeenth century. It was a terrible time for Orthodox Russia. The Rurik family, the pious family that reigned for so many centuries, ceased to exist on the Russian throne; attempts to elevate any of his compatriots to this throne remained unsuccessful; the impostors who appeared shook the state to its last foundations and threatened its very Orthodoxy; within the fatherland, strife, disorder, and civil strife reigned; external enemies - the Swedes and Poles - entered Russia with their hordes and devastated its countries. Then some of the Russians decided to call the native Polish prince Vladislav to the throne on the condition that he change Latin to Orthodoxy. The name of Vladislav, under this condition, has already been commemorated in Orthodox churches... But his father, the King of Poland, thought differently: he hoped to conquer Russia with weapons and become its king himself, without betraying his faith in the least; Polish troops have already captured Moscow... Who will save you, distressed Russia, in this difficult time? There was no salvation on earth - it was given from above. Our ancestors, with the blessing of the shepherds, imposed a three-day fast on themselves and turned to God in prayer. And then one night, the Monk Sergius of Radonezh appeared to a pious Greek hierarch named Arseny, who lived in Moscow in captivity among the Poles, and said that the prayer of the Russian saints for their fatherland had been heard, and that God, through the intercession especially of the Most Holy Theotokos, would deliver Moscow from its enemies. This news quickly spread throughout the Russian army besieging the capital, and it, inspired by the hope of the help of the elected Voivode, attacked the enemies, expelled them from Moscow and saved the Church and the fatherland from the dangers that threatened them. When, after this, it was time to bring solemn thanks to the Lord, and the people, together with the army, entered the Kremlin: the venerable hierarch Arseny came out to meet them, carrying in his hands the miraculous icon of the Mother of God of Kazan - and everyone fell to their knees before her in tears and unanimously attributed to her their deliverance from their enemies. In memory of this memorable event, a real holiday was established. Thus, this holiday resembles one of those many events when the Most Holy Theotokos, through the prayers of our ancestors, delivered them from their enemies... Brothers! Let us remember that each of us, as Christians, has our own enemies - enemies of salvation, and let us learn, following the example of our ancestors, to seek help for ourselves against these enemies and deliverance from them from the Queen of Heaven. The first enemy of our salvation is our own flesh, or more precisely, our nature, perverted by sin (Gal. 5:16). The hordes that this enemy sends against us are our own passions and, in general, attractions to evil: they fight both against the “law” of our “mind” - against those remnants of good that are still preserved in our nature, and against the new law of grace, accepted and adopted by us since the time of baptism (Rom. 7: 14-23). Sometimes they try to undermine our faith, sometimes to shake our hope, sometimes to extinguish our love for God and our neighbors, and always they try to deprive us of some virtue and cause death to our soul. For every passion, as soon as we give in to it, and even more so when it becomes dominant in us, certainly mortifies our soul, dragging it to sins, and steals from us the opposite moral perfections, if we had them. The fight against these enemies is all the more dangerous because they are our domestic enemies, and often reaches such an extent that we are absolutely unable to resist them. Oh, in these difficult moments, when the abyss is ready to open up before you and swallow you up, hasten, Christians, to cry from the depths of your soul to the Most Holy Virgin: Mother of God, help us! Chosen Voevodo! Defeat our enemies, do not let us fall under the burden of passions, do not let us become their slaves and lose “the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21). The second enemy of our salvation is the world - not that beautiful world that was created by God and reflects His endless perfections, but the human world itself, corrupted by human sins (Matthew 10:22). Here at every step we encounter dangers for our salvation. The dangers come from these various worldly blessings, which excite and feed our passions; – from these wicked pleasures, lures and temptations; - from the morals and customs of society, which are sometimes difficult, and sometimes almost impossible, to combine with the requirements of Christianity. Dangers - and from the misfortunes of life, countless and varied, illnesses, failures, deprivations and all kinds of sorrows, which are often able to shake the most solid soul and lead it to vices. The dangers, finally, come from evil people who try to act against the pious both by the seductive example of their own lives, and by their conversations that are poisonous to morality and often even more poisonous writings, and sometimes use slander, contempt, and even persecution against virtue (2 Tim. 3:12). Christian souls striving for the heavenly homeland! Sailing on this worldly sea, constantly raised by a storm of misfortunes and temptations, more often - more often call for help to the Queen of Heaven, may She save you, with her omnipotent intercession before God, from wrecks and drowning, may she instruct you how to fight the angry waves, how to get past the pitfalls, and may she lead your fragile boat to the quiet haven of eternity. The third and last enemy of our salvation, or rather, the first and last, is the devil, who, as Scripture puts it, “like a roaring lion walks about, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8-9). He, like a spirit, acts on us invisibly, spiritually. It acts directly on our soul and, noticing its weaknesses, uses them to put bad thoughts, desires and feelings into it, and especially tries to excite our imagination with various sinful dreams and seductive pictures, and through the imagination excites and inflames our passions (John 13:2; Acts 5:3). At the same time, and in exactly the same way, the evil one acts on the souls of those around us, and through them he uses against us all external, visible means that can only be in the power of people, in order to tempt our faith and piety and draw us to vices (Apoc. 2:10). Oh, if in any struggle, then especially in the struggle against the “spirits of evil in high places” we need heavenly help! These enemies are stronger than us, and more cunning, and more skillful. If ever, then especially in the moments of this struggle, we must call on the chosen Voivode, may She instruct us to understand the “intentions” of Satan (2 Cor. 2:11), may she strengthen us to resist the “wiles of the devil” and may she give us the means to “quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one” (Eph. 6:11.16). In general, brothers, let us imprint deeper in our minds and hearts the joyful truth that the Most Holy Virgin, the Mother of God, who delivered our ancestors from enemies so many times, is always ready to provide each of us with the same help, if only we resort to her with warm prayer. Whoever appears at a certain time as our enemy - whether the flesh with its passions and lusts, or the world with its countless temptations, or the devil with its spiritual temptations: the important thing is that all of these are the enemies of our salvation. And the Most Holy Virgin, as the Mother of our Savior, without a doubt, most of all desires eternal salvation for each of us. If She delivered our ancestors from enemies who threatened only their external well-being, will She not move more quickly to deliver us from enemies who threaten to destroy our very souls in fiery hell? Amen. You might be interested in: