Январь 1880 г.

The mercies of God are pouring, pouring incessantly on me like rain, I cannot keep up with them, in order to remember everything, to glorify everything, to thank my all-merciful God and the Lord Jesus Christ for everything. Now the Lord poured out His great mercy on me, tearing apart the bonds of sin by which I was bound and suppressed, my soul was killed for being hard-hearted towards a beggar, although drunk, who had been asking me for alms for a long time. I gave it to the soldiers. And earlier the Lord delivered me from grief and cramped conditions when I went to a funeral service at Kikin’s house. Crowding and spiritual distress befell me in the apartment of the Rodionov house at the end of the baptism of the baby at one of the craftsmen on the tower because of grief at the sexton Adrian for his sloppiness and for my impatience, for my dislike, for my irritability. In unfeigned repentance, I plunged myself into the abyss of the redemptive merits of the Lord Jesus Christ and was soon delivered from evil by faith in these endless merits. Praise the Lord. I thank the Lord, who has vouchsafed me, unworthy, to partake of the Holy Mysteries at the Liturgy of St. Basil the Great; I performed the liturgy with extreme heartfelt impotence, because my heart was drowned, so to speak, from yesterday’s gluttony and drunkenness (although I was not drunk, but I drank quite a lot on New Year’s) at the gymnasium teacher Titkov and at the police chief Golovachev, with whom I sat after midnight and ate and drank even after midnight - for the first time in my life, for the sake of man-pleasing and gluttony. I thought it was nothing, but what came out of it was terrible mental harm, great misfortune, deprivation of grace and gracious help, although I cried a little about my wretchedness, about my poverty, thinness, weakness, and lewdness. Forward abstinence and abstinence, especially before the service of the liturgy. I thank the Lord, who through my prayer gave me the boldness to perform a memorial service for the deceased Mikhail Vasilyevich Semenov. I proclaim during the liturgy: Woe to our hearts - and I myself am the first to not fulfill this and grovel on the earth, damned: I am occupied by the ribbon of the order, I feel sorry for it, lest I smoke it with incense, and through this I fall away from God, I die, I grow cold. I thank the Lord, who saved me from internal and external corruption, from delusion. I thank the Lord for the great and immediate help before the cathedral memorial service for the late Mikhail Vasilyevich Semenov after a secret prayer about it. Then again the Lord had great help and mercy for me on the way to the cemetery, when the Lord delivered me from cramped conditions and sorrow for my harsh treatment of the beggars who caught up with me and asked me for alms. I praise the quick help of the Lord! Morning. I sinned gravely before the Lord and before my neighbors after Matins, being angry with the beggars (although I gave alms to them all, and pushing some away with anger and threatening with an even greater push (oh, impudence!) if they forcibly beg me for alms more than what was given to them). Where is my faith?! Where is the hope?! Where is the love, the fulfillment of the law? Where is the faith in the Church, in this wondrous, great, holy, divine union, in its Most Holy Head, the Lord Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit, who sanctifies all, who lives in all? Where is my meekness, forbearance, love, where is my patience and long-suffering towards these members? Where is the joy with those who rejoice and the mourning with those who weep [Rom.12:15]? Everything has been ruined by me, the whole law, the whole Divine institution, the whole of me - the old man with his deeds, with passions and lusts, unbridled, eager for all passions, proud, proud, ambitious, impatient, crafty, envious, carnal, voluptuous, self-seeking and not God-loving, not soul-loving, but body-loving, lazy, careless, cowardly, fearful, fearful. Greet Christian souls with the Holy Spirit through teaching, edification, through the Sacraments, through a good example, souls who are in the image of God, whom the Son of God redeemed with His Blood from sin, curse and death, which, together with their bodies, he cleansed with water and sanctified with the Holy Spirit, to whom he has given eternal life. Do not lust after golden ornaments on your chest and precious robes, but pay all your attention to the beauty of the incorruptible image of God, which is more precious and more beautiful than the whole world and all the things in the world, the sun itself. Oh, how many times, or better yet, countless times, and from what sorrows, anguish, and spiritual deaths that befell me for my countless sins, the Lord Jesus Christ saved me for my repentance and faith! It is impossible to describe how much great, wonderful salvation my Lord has done for me during my twenty-four-plus year priesthood! What will I repay Him for this? He does not demand my good things [Ps.15:2]. But He deigns to accept my gifts from the poor, which He has given me, and I must give them alms with faith, humility, reverence, zeal and willingness, no matter how many the Lord sends to me, for He is able to multiply, as He always multiplied, my wealth, and His hand did not become scarce, only because of my stinginess it was often reduced. Oh, how hard and mortally my soul is shaken by anger and bitterness, for example, against the beggars today. What a burning fire inside, the forerunner of Gehenna. I thank the Lord for the space of heart and for the spiritual pleasure with which I read and sang today for the morning canon and stichera and other chants. The cause of all my evils and all my spiritual troubles is my pride and carnal knowledge and covetousness. May I crucify my flesh with its passions and lusts and may I cut off the reason for anger. Help, Lord! I thank the Lord, who has now delivered me from the cruel evils that befell me for unrighteous anger, and who has given me peace and the graceful dew that revived me. Great, O Lord, and wonderful are Your works, and not a single word will be sufficient for the singing of Your wonders 94 . Thursday. I glorify the ineffable mercies of God that were on this day (for the morning mercies I had already given praise to the Lord) during the liturgy after the proskomedia, when I was upset with the altar watchman and had the poison of sin in my heart, which the Lord took away for the prayer of repentance and faith in the atoning sacrifice of Christ (I deliberately took out particles from the prosphora sixth (trial) about the remission of my sins. Immediately after that, it became easy for me. Then, at the great entrance, at which I stole, out of fear of the demons, and did not pronounce the name of the heir of the crown prince, which is why the mortal sting again killed me, and in repentance I prayed to God to condescend to my weakness and forgive me my sin, the sin of cowardice and fear of the devil, promising in the future. to dare and not be afraid of dreamy fear, and the Lord revived me with His peace, having removed the poison of sin. At the funeral service, I said a full cry, strengthened by the grace of God against the fear of demons. The Lord also showed me great mercy at the table at the funeral of the servant of God Michael (Semyonov), at which I sat down with the rest of those invited, without reading the prayer Our Father... and without reciting the blessing to the meal with firmness and separateness: ecu Himself, Christ God..., but with fear, double-mindedness and haste... After this I was filled with shame, as if overcome by a demon, and was like a burning fire burning in my bones. But in cramped conditions, I looked with firmness and constancy to the Lord in repentance and prayer to deliver me from cramped conditions, shame and sorrow, and the Lord had mercy on me, forgiving me my great sin and granting me peace. I praise the Lord. Finally, the Lord showed me the greatest salvation when I cried out to the Lord with great faith and tears of repentance after cruelty towards the poor, whom I (three or four) in a rage severely tore out by the hair (one fell to the ground), and for this I myself was mortally wounded in soul. Alec arrived at the apartment. Matsigin, a merchant, to baptize a child, I prayed fervently before the Sacrament for mercy on me, a sinner, and the Lord gave me peace, reconciling with me. He performed the sacrament with tenderness and without stumbling. I did a bad thing when I ate too much bird meat yesterday: my heart became hardened, and I became hard-hearted and irritable towards the poor, being myself poor mentally. It’s also bad that I drank strong tea made from boiling water at Matsigin’s - it deprived me of a good sleep. Pushing away a helpless beggar, naked in the cold, is inhumane, even if this beggar drank away his clothes or lost them, but you did this inhumanity and are guilty before God and people. I thank You, Lord, for Your mercies, which You have surprised on Your poor and with which You righteously expose my stinginess and hard-heartedness towards them, for I am often hard-hearted towards them, reproaching and scolding them, and sometimes even tyrannically pulling them by the hair. And You, an inexhaustible abyss of goodness and various gifts, today again sent them ten rubles through Your servant S-da, and through Your servant Eulampia returned the five rubles given to her, because she did not want to take them, remaining in trade, although she was all in debt. Twelve o'clock in the afternoon. I thank the Lord, who with His great mercy delivered me for my repentance from the grave consequences of anger towards the poor. Fury and zeal are away from me from now on and for the rest of my life. Wake up! At two o'clock in the afternoon Father Superior Pavel Vasilyevich Trachevsky visited me. He spoke, among other things, about the choice of a candidate for the Moscow Metropolis: Plato, Demetrius and Macarius. Five and a half o'clock in the evening. I thank the Lord, who also delivered me from the consequences of my anger towards the poor for their multitude and persistence of requests, and who gave me space and peace for my repentance and faith. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from the rage of my prodigal flesh when talking with a virginem (maiden): I knelt in repentance, crossed my Isaac several times and slain him with the knife of faith, and the Lord from above blessed me with peace. I thank the Lord, who has again and again delivered me from spiritual death, from the melancholy and tightness of heart that burdened me for not giving alms to two beggars (for the fact that they come up to take it several times). Tomorrow I will consecrate the water with great consecration. May I not humiliate the Lord with any doubt, cowardice or any other sin. May I be mindful of Moses at the waters of discord, and may I be afraid of the tongue of doubt; may I accept the tongue of boldness, which may my Lord give me. Glorifying the greatness of the Lord in all His deeds and His infinitely greater greatness in Himself, I truly glorify His greatness in myself, in His deeds in me, wonderful, great, countless. First Great ecu, Lord... speak quietly, not soon; the second is louder; the third is even louder... Remember that before God, Whom you serve, nothing is great, but everything is insignificant: heaven and earth and the royal earthly majesty itself, much less all the princes and other earthly powers. The Holy Prophet says: He reduces princes to nothing... [Is.40:23]. Therefore, priest of God, reverence the Lord alone during divine services and do not be afraid of anyone from people. If the enemy confuses you with any sins, do not be discouraged, but say: I place all my hope in God, in His mercy, in His cleansing. Do not be faint-hearted before them, God spoke to the prophet Jeremiah about the lawless Jews, lest I strike you in their sight [Jer. 1:17]. Sever every earthly addiction from the heart and do not give it room; if any of them has already taken root, for example, the desire for an earthly reward, an earthly advantage, for example, a precious decoration on the chest, which the people of your flock want to offer you with zeal and awareness of the benefits of your labors, then look at it without partiality, as if it were temporary, transitory, of little value, and ascribe glory to God who glorified you, and be inflamed with an even greater desire for the salvation of souls redeemed by the honest blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and zeal for salvation, so that not only one will perish from them. Say: precious is the cross, offered to me to encourage my pastoral labors and to express the greatness towards me, unworthy of spiritual attention, affection, and zeal. But infinitely more precious is the most pure blood shed on the cross for the salvation of our souls, infinitely great is the love of our common Master and Lord, for which He deigned to ascend to the cross, suffer, shed all His Blood for us and die on it, so that we may be delivered from the coming wrath and righteous condemnation into eternal fire. Therefore, may this precious gift always be a reminder to me of the precious blood of our Master, shed for us, and of our precious souls, created in the image of God, then fallen and broken, and restored and newly created by His cross. I pray to the Lord, may He draw us all to Himself, may He deliver us from all sin, may He make us righteous, zealots of good deeds, and may He grant us all eternal life with all the blessings that surpass all description, all earthly beauty and splendor, all lightness, all sweetness, all greatness, all bliss; I pray to God at the same time that we may not be seduced by any earthly reward, beauty, treasure, power, glory, sweetness, no vain, temporary shine, which receives its existence and strength from the sun or fire and without the sun means nothing and disappears, just as our good deeds only have value and strength, to the extent that their source and foundation is faith and love for God and mutual, evangelical, holy, firm love, unhypocritical, non-falling away, and since they do not have this foundation, they have no real value and, as having only earthly motives, therefore they remain on earth and receive the fate of everything earthly - disappearance, and do not ascend to heaven. May this precious offering of yours to me, I repeat, be a kind and constant guarantee of unfeigned love for God, who shed His blood savingly for us, and a guarantee of mutual love, firm, unfeigned, never falling away. Grant me, Lord, with a pure heart to glorify the greatness of Your deeds in the church and from home and when going out of town to consecrate the waters. I thank the Lord, who revived me by communion of the Holy Mysteries, when I was killed by my sins, and who gave me boldness and victory during the service of the liturgy at the great entrance when pronouncing the names of the royal family. I thank the Lord for performing the great blessing of water in the Assumption Church in grace. I thank the Lord, who has given me grace and mercy in partaking of the most pure and life-giving Mysteries with peace and forgiveness of my sins. Thank you for the word (sermon) on the Epiphany of our Metropolitan Isidore. Doxologies are proclaimed three times in honor of each Person of the Holy Trinity as a sign of their equality and independence. For example, Great is ecu, Lord, and wonderful are Your works, and not a single word will be sufficient for the singing of Your wonders 95. And how sweet and life-giving are the Faces of the Most Holy Trinity! Rightly, the Church often repeats them! Repeat it three times where necessary three times, and don’t say it once. Once to say where three are needed means to disparage the Holy Trinity with the blasphemous devil. I sinned when I was indignant at the servant Anna and hated her for the malfunction in the furnace in my bedroom. I thank the Lord, who has now accepted my repentance for my anger at the faulty servant Anna, who has granted forgiveness of sins with peace and spaciousness of heart. During Matins and early mass, which I served, I felt extremely difficult from the devil’s slander and intrigues; my heart and tongue were, as it were, connected, rivers of temptation almost drowned my soul. However, he received communion in a life-giving way. Before the descent onto the water there is again a storm of temptations and evils. A storm over money collected from the cross, by the way, from the Kronstadt beggars. I thank the Lord, who gave me the grace to safely perform the blessing of water on January 6 in the Kronstadt harbor. Five o'clock in the evening. I thank the Lord for the abyss of His mercy towards me, revealed in His pardon for me, who was stubborn in malice, covetousness, pride, carnality, and voluptuousness. Four times I fell into strong anger and irritation with the beggars in one hour. And as a result, into spiritual death, into oppression, sorrow, torment; four times I tearfully begged the Lord in sincere repentance, falling down at the throne of grace in church and at home before the Holy Mysteries and holy icons, and each time the Merciful One had mercy on me, granting me the salvation of renewed existence and renewal of the Holy Spirit and forgiveness of sins, peace, freedom, boldness. I praise the Lord, the most merciful and life-giver. Oh, great are the torments of the wicked! I thank the Lord for the gift of tenderness during the early liturgy and for deliverance from fierce demonic violence at the beginning of the liturgy and especially after the great entrance (from my cowardice and my difficult struggles with demons and the powerlessness of the heart inflicted on me by them). Deacon Vladimir is very arrogant and allows himself arbitrariness. May I not let go of the power and superiority of the priestly rank over the deacon, but may I maintain calm importance, sedateness, and imperturbable calm. May I cast my sins into the abyss of God’s mercy, may I not become discouraged and faint-hearted from the machinations of ethereal enemies, who plunge my soul, which sins a lot, into fear, despondency and crampedness. What an omnipotent means of salvation is in our hands - the Holy Mysteries, the most pure Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and the power to cleanse sins or bind and solve, the grace to pray for the people, to propitiate God about human ignorance and sins, to open and close heaven! (We need to instill this in the laity so that they don’t neglect us, respect us, value us despite the fact that there are many priests. We also need to be able to maintain our prerogatives.) Ten and a half o'clock in the evening. I thank the Lord, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, for He took upon Himself my sins again and again, so that I may sometimes pray to Him in the habitation of man, for mercy on me, who sinned by being angry with the poor who persecuted me. I fell to Him with clairvoyant faith in repentance and humility, and He had mercy on me, giving me peace. From Him who is God by nature, and from all who are gods by deification, that is, from the saints who are in heaven and who are on earth, away from all devilish blasphemy - may all my reverence, all my love cling to them. The beggars of Kronstadt are our children, oh shepherds and fellow shepherds! They are our brothers, our sisters, and the old ones are fathers and mothers. So let us have them, and not be angry with them, despise them, revile, push or dare them with our hands - and let this not be in our thoughts, for they, like us, are Christ's and, perhaps, they are more Christ's than we, living in contentment, luxury, satiety, in all grace and excess. I thank the Lord, the all-merciful Lord, who made me prosperous in the service of Matins (privately) and the Liturgy (publicly and completely), who delivered me at the beginning of the Liturgy from the oppression of the enemy and deadness and who gave me life and peace. Throughout the liturgy I served God’s grace without stumbling; with the same grace and with his diligence and effort, he broke the insolence of the enemy, the kicker-devil, at the great entrance and pronounced out all the names and titles of the royal persons; served with a clear, sonorous, grace-filled voice. He received Holy Communion in a life-giving, renewing way, and perceived a perfect, worldly, holy life, for which there is nothing more precious in the world. May I hold her by the grace of God forever. I have eternal life within me - what more do I need? What do we have in heaven? and what did You want on earth? My heart and my flesh are gone, O God of my heart, and my portion, O God, forever [Ps. 73:25–26]. I thank the Lord for delivering me from the great sorrow and distress that befell me for evading giving alms to a beggar (epileptic) and lasting two hours. Going to the gymnasium, I received this cramped condition; when I came home, I was relieved through the fervent prayer that I did in the gymnasium. I thank the Lord for delivering me from cramped conditions and spiritual death in the Golubev house, in the apartment of Prokopiy Evdokimovich Oleinikov, through the prayer of my repentance before the image of the Savior, and the cramped conditions and misfortune followed from my obstinate treatment of the poor and insufficient alms to the poor who asked me for money for their needs. How merciful and beneficial the Lord is to me, unworthy! 25 years of my service in the priesthood - what an abyss of God’s mercy towards me and God’s unceasing assistance to me, God’s unceasing power! What an abyss of my weaknesses, my sins! But the power of God was always made perfect in my weaknesses, but where sin abounded, there grace abounded [Rom. 5:20], and indeed abounded in me for all twenty-five years at every day and hour! So, thank God, and not me! For mine are only my weaknesses [and mine] only are my sins! The field in which I am called by God to act is high and difficult, and the work that I did with God’s help is infinitely great, and the benefit that I tried to bring to the people of God with the same grace of God is not some unimportant, earthly, fleeting thing, but of extreme importance, for this is the salvation of your souls, their enlightenment, healing, correction, renewal, consolation, affirmation! And it is worth not an earthly, perishable reward, but a heavenly, imperishable reward, about which the Apostle speaks: when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive an unfading crown of glory [1 Peter 5:4]. The rest is eternal justice for me, with which He, the Righteous Judge, will reward me for my deeds [2 Timothy 4:8]. I don’t need your gold and precious stones, which blind the eyes of people tied to the earth, but I need your golden souls and one precious, imperishable stone - Christ, on whom God will give us all to be established! May God grant that you love Him with all your soul and cleave to Him with all your heart, rely on Him. How can you believe when you receive glory from each other, but do not seek the glory that is from the One God? [John 5:44] (like the holy apostles, martyrs, saints). They are already receiving their reward [Matthew 6:2,16]. Wednesday. I thank the Lord, who three times during early mass delivered me from the machinations of the enemy - after reading the Gospel (and the enemy killed me at the end of the proskomedia, when I didn’t finish the prayer of offer and dismissal, and at the beginning of the liturgy of the catechumens, when I didn’t say enough Lord, opened my lips and gave good wishes to the deacon); after the great entrance, at which I did not speak out of the devil’s relaxation through the fear of my heart and especially the consumption of the Holy Gifts, the Lord delivered me from the devil’s anger towards a poor mother with an unkempt child brought to the Holy Mysteries. At the liturgy, I received communion in a wonderful, life-giving, renewing, wonderfully peaceful way! And when I came out with the Holy Gifts and began to give communion (or even before communion) to the baby Solomonia Anna Gerasimovna Obedkova, I succumbed to the violence and instigation of the disembodied enemy, I despised these poor, I, satiated, and then died in soul and lost the grace of the world, which I immediately tried to return with sincere repentance. When, through great effort, repentance and faith and the communion of the Holy Mysteries, I conquered sin, then oh, how easy and peaceful and spacious it became for me! I have received a new life, heavenly, holy, worldly! Father Deacon Poletaev serves extremely carelessly and, being extremely disrespectful of the divine service, treats the priest, for example, me in the same way, and with his own hand he performs various dirty tricks on the sexton, encouraging him to be rude to the priest; He himself, however, tries to be on the sidelines, unnoticed. At Kalashnikov's tea shop, in front of me, he sat down on a chair with his hat on and started smoking a cigarette, to which the shopkeeper was also displeased. Extreme ignoramus from Novgorod! He became extremely proud and pompous. I often reproach beggars for idleness and drunkenness, but I myself often drink wine and a lot of it. Oh, do not judge me, Lord, with my judgment, with which I judge others, me, a great sinner: with the judgment you judge, you will be judged, you declared in the Gospel, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you [Matthew 7:2]. I thank the Lord, who heard my humble prayer for the healing of the young Sophia (in the apartment of teacher Titkov in the gymnasium) and who soon through prayer created a wonderful change in her through profuse sweat, due to which four shirts were changed one after another on January 8th. I thank the Lord for the grace of the stumbling-free wedding of Timothy and Constance in the cathedral, for which I prayed before the celebration of this Sacrament. The Kingdom of Heaven has come near [Matthew 4:17], the Kingdom of God is within you [Luke 17:21]; We will come to him and make our abode with him [John 14:23]; I am with you always, even to the end of the age [Matthew 28:20]; In my name they will cast out demons... they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover [Mark 16:17–18]. A visible sign of the closeness of the Kingdom of God to us is the proximity to us of the churches of God, in which the Lord visibly and tangibly reveals the power and power of His Kingdom over everyone, with faith and reverence and the fear of God in them coming and praying and receiving prayers and the Sacraments. Previously in the Old Testament there was one temple in Jerusalem, to which every Jew was obliged to come at least once a year, but now we have churches everywhere, even in public and often private houses; The Kingdom of God, so to speak, follows us everywhere, seeks us. The Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist is celebrated in cities every day. At the request of the sick, the Holy Sacraments of the Most Pure Body and Blood of the Lord are brought to the homes of the sick, and they are rewarded with the communion of the Holy Mysteries at any time. Believers seeking the Kingdom of God are invited every day to communion with Christ, Christ Himself: receive... drink... And what does the daily mercy from the Lord a hundredfold for repentance show?.. About the removal of many Christians from the Kingdom of God, from worship, from the Church, from confession, communion of the Holy Mysteries, from spiritual reading, about the loss of the grace of God, about a completely secular life, about immersion in the vanity of the world with all the senses. What punishment is determined by the Church for not being in church on two Sundays in a row? 96 I thank the Lord for His infinite goodness and mercy towards me during Matins and Liturgy in delivering me from the great, murderous (all-evil) wiles of the devil. The villain sank his lion's teeth into me several times, terribly embarrassing, tormenting, killing and tormenting me, and only after the greatest efforts, thanks to the mercy of the Lord, I got rid of his teeth and terrible claws. And with what trifle and absurdity did he kill me? A passion for the robe and stole in which I was dressed (my personal robe), a vain fear that they would not smoke from the censer, the embarrassment and fear that arose from there, and the failure to pronounce the entire funeral dismissal. For a long time I fussed and suffered with the enemy before using the Holy Gifts, finally heavenly mercy overcame the malice of the enemy, bringing me to reason. And such a difficult struggle as a result of yesterday’s feast in the gymnasium during the farewell of teacher Varaksin. What harm comes from drinking! Terrible! How the soul becomes exhausted, weakens, and dies! Neither feasting 97 ... (in the Apostle) [Rom.13:13]. In the gymnasium, in the fourth and fifth lessons (in the second and third grades), my heart was extremely heavy: melancholy and pressure were extraordinary at the thought of the lies of the German pastor on the Poor Committee regarding the tsar’s money. How much I prayed internally, languishing and raking myself from the enemy’s machinations! Finally the Lord had mercy. I thank the Lord, who granted me the gift of a bold and unfaltering marriage (yesterday) and a memorial service at Nikolai Korshunov yesterday and today. I thank the Lord, who helped me decorate the sanctuary of the church with a good carpet. And the old rough, blue, worn cloth is a disgrace. I thank the Lord, who made it possible for me to perform the liturgy without stumbling, except for the commemoration at the great entrance and the remembrance, firstly, of the Holy Synod and the archpastor... The Lord delivered me from cramped conditions and sorrow and the confusion of the enemy and made me worthy to partake of the life-giving Mysteries without condemnation. In the gymnasium, the Lord mercifully delivered me from the closeness and sorrow of my heart and spiritual death, which righteously befell me for my stinginess, severity and obstinacy towards the poor who followed me. In the evening, during the wedding ceremony (of the daughter of Cook Master Peter Alekseev), the Lord gave me boldness and sincerity when reading prayers, only when reading the Gospel I was ashamed of Deacon Vladimir, who was holding my kamilavka, and at the end of the Gospel I was embarrassed and confused, and then began to get confused, for the devil made a hole in me and entered me, confusing and crowding me. After marriage, the Lord accepted my repentance and delivered me, giving me peace and space with boldness. I praise the Lord. Now I was afraid of the shaking below. After Matins and Mass. I thank the Lord, who repeatedly delivered me through the prayer of repentance from the kindled, painful arrows of the enemy during Matins before the reading of the canon and during mass, especially after mass before the consumption of the Holy Gifts; The Lord gave me life instead of death in the Holy Mysteries. Oh, what a painful, killing thorn there was in me! How the enemy pressed me! How great is the goodness of my Lord and how powerful is the life-giving power of the Holy Mysteries! This is for my gluttony and delicacy yesterday! Evening, four o'clock. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from great distress and sorrow on the way to the gymnasium through fervent, persistent, persistent prayer. Evening. Ten o'clock. During the all-night vigil, I was at first in extreme weakness: my head was spinning, my legs became weak, and I, walking around the church, almost fell, probably from the rush of blood to my head as a result of engaging in mental work (writing a sermon) and from untimely drinking tea with cream and from eating meat at dinner, which with constant chastity is extremely harmful, multiplying blood, juices and seeds unnecessarily. The heart was dead at first, then it warmed up, and tears of tenderness flowed from the consciousness of damnation, poverty, misery, spiritual blindness. The cunning of the enemy strongly pursued me throughout the all-night vigil, even while reading the Gospel: I did not utter some words because of the demonic fear that gripped my poor soul; when saying the release, out of fear of demons, I did not say the entire release, being afraid of people and ashamed of myself due to cowardice and lack of respect for myself as a person, as a shepherd and priest of God; after this there is demonic agony, sorrow, oppression, shame - and prayer and falling to the throne of grace. Christ, the true Light did not quite say. When I stood at the Gospel, until the third ode of the canon I stood in cramped conditions, sorrow, shame, being killed by the enemy, but through repentance and prayer I soon rose again, calmed down and began to pray for the property of God - for people who come to the Holy Gospel, may they be saved, may they be adorned with virtue, may they escape the darkness of sin. You are seduced by the beauty of the clothes, the insignia with which you have been awarded by the Supreme Power, but remember the sinful ugliness and absurdity of your soul, which stinks before God with countless sins, and eternal execution in unquenchable fire prepared for sinners - you will not be seduced, but you will sigh and groan and you will rather want to dress in rags and be virtuous than in silk and velvet and do deeds of injustice. The same must be understood about carnal pleasures, or voluptuousness! Remember more often Gehenna and the eternal punishments prepared for insane sensualists, then you will become disgusted with all earthly sweets and you will wish better to eat bread and water, just to be away from sin, especially from prodigal sin, than to indulge in voluptuousness, to be in some kind of self-forgetfulness and intoxication, to anger God, who created us in His image and likeness, and to prepare for yourself fiery torment. And despise the beauty of your face as perishable, consider it a heap of pus. Appreciate highly the imperishable beauty of the soul. Having been rewarded by the Lord, by His ineffable mercy, with such a height of the Kingdom that He made and called us His sons and brothers, we, foolish, insensitive and ungrateful, crawl with our hearts on the earth, clinging to corruption, instead of directing our hearts entirely to grief, to God, to incorruptible blessings. This is especially inexcusable for us, priests, leaders of people towards heaven. We must certainly stand at the height of our calling and be an example of impartiality and truth to everyone and imitate the life of the impartial Angels! The Lord especially cares about us and gives us everything we need. Look at your clothes and jewelry as if they belong to the state and do not feel sorry - have pity on your soul and the souls of the people entrusted to you, and save them. They were bought at an infinite price - the blood of the Son of God. Everything red on the ground is ash and smoke. By the grace of Christ my God, I [stand] for my special labors of encouragement and earthly reward - the precious cross, and henceforth I will not be ashamed of myself for it, as if unworthy. Great honor should be given to elders who rule worthy, especially to those who labor in the word and in doctrine [1 Timothy 5:17]. May the glory of Christ be in me and may my faith prosper and my piety be strengthened. In me let all the pious rejoice and let the ungodly be put to shame. Amen. Let us remind you who to go to for recharge, to what well-wishers. Let us remember the poor [Gal.2:10]: they are deprived of all the benefits of community, spiritual and physical, family and civil. They cannot even fulfill the duty of confession and communion of the Holy Mysteries because of their nakedness. Draw the attention of the government through the press, or even personally ask the governor. The disembodied enemy maliciously attacks me from within, finding pasture for himself there in me, since my heart is not cleansed of passions. Therefore, I need to cleanse my insides with the grace of God. May the Lord help you. Resurrection. I thank the Lord, who looked upon my humility and tears of tenderness during the liturgy and mercifully released me from the captivity of my sins. At first it was very difficult for me to serve, and then, after reading the Gospel, the Lord gave me space and revived my inner self. At the great entrance and during the commemoration of the Holy Synod after the consecration of the Gifts, I was confused and confused by invisible enemies. Received life-giving communion. He said his lesson. The enemy bothered me after mass during the prayer service. At Vespers there is a lot of stumbling from enemies. Monday. He served Matins with great difficulty from his enemies. At the canon he defeated them with grace. The sexton read sluggishly and slowly - this irritated me. During mass there were many wiles of the devil over me, I shifted a lot, I was in extreme cramped conditions. Kamenogradsky and Deacon Poletaev singing together made an unpleasant impression on me. At the great entrance, out of fear of the devil, he did not pronounce the names of the royal family: the heiress and her son. First of all, remember, the Lord did not speak out of confusion. Poletaev left at that very time. He received life-giving communion, was at peace, and strengthened internally. Vacation said everything. The prayer service was served kindly, with feeling, the release was not completely said due to the opposition of the enemy. At the funeral service I did not utter the words: in the depths of Abraham he will rest, and will be numbered with the righteous... and from this a devilish agony arose in me, from which I barely got rid of through intense and long prayer. So the enemy is treacherous over me, viciously, powerfully, tirelessly! You must resist him until you bleed. Having consumed the Holy Mysteries, I calmed down. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from the hostility of the most painful and destructive enemy against my wife for her rudeness and malice, before the mass inflicted on me. By grace and repentance I conquered myself and her in her absence. But we still need to teach her, so that she learns compliance and silence in time. Every day, throughout your life, you must learn to serve the Liturgy with dignity, putting aside all worldly cares, having a heart of your own, not one that crawls on the ground, not torn and not weakened by various everyday addictions, as often happens to us, passionate lovers of everything sweet, beautiful, pleasant in the world. The priest should be especially high when he proclaims: Woe is our hearts and when he says: We also offer You this verbal service for those who died in the faith, the forefathers, fathers, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, preachers, evangelists, martyrs, confessors, abstainers... Much about the Most Holy, Most Pure... Our Lady Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Maria. Oh, how the priest must feel then! How exalted he should be, how filled with heavenly, all-encompassing love! What purity of heart he must have! During Vespers, the Lord delivered me from the greatest evils through the prayer of repentance and through unshameful faith: spiritual death befell me, demonic agony for anger against [...] and the kvass brewer Theoktista. Then he became angry with the sexton for being drunk and not reading proverbs. If it were not for the mercy of the Lord, I would have died long ago from the wiles of the devil alone! Self-love, impatience, bitterness, vanity, and love of money are still deeply implanted in me, and I perish from many sins during the temptations that befall me. So today the demon of malice terribly killed me after my wife, just before mass, was rude to me and said insolent things! With great difficulty, after prolonged prayer and falling before the throne, after severe torment, I got rid of painful grief and cramped conditions. He who sincerely loves God cannot help but love his neighbor, no matter who he is, a well-wisher or an enemy and a scolder, an annoyancer, hates him all the less because he knows firmly that we all have the same damaged nature, are equally created in the image of God, we have one common Creator and Provider, Redeemer and Savior, as well as one culprit of all evil, the tempter and murderer of the primordial, who is still attempting plunge every person into evil and destruction. He who loves God takes pity on every falling and sinning neighbor and prays for his deliverance from evil, as well as himself, for he knows from experience how contagious and violent evil is, in what terrible captivity, in what powerful clutches of Satan an evil person is! During Matins and early mass, which he served for the groom Nikitin, the son of Ksenia Lvovna, there was terrible devilish agony due to the failure of sexton Adrian to appear at Matins on time (he came after the sixth psalm) and indignation at him with extreme grief at his frequent failure. Inside me there were like hot coals or rattlesnakes: I writhed, shrank, shifted, lost peace, could not pronounce familiar words, was embarrassed, shame covered my face, internal bonds terribly pressed me. I resorted to repentance - and the doors of repentance were closed for me: the enemy grabbed me with his claws and ate me all cruelly. It was scary, hard. So throughout the mass. How much I suffered - God knows and I do. This is because of Father Pyotr Klepachevsky’s satiety the day before with cold fish, wine, beer, tea with cream, oranges, and earlier, on the same day, because of Stefanida Avvakumovna’s gluttony after the prayer service. Grant me, Lord, constant abstinence, self-sacrifice, contempt for the flesh and zeal for the salvation of the soul and souls of men and complete impartiality, condescension to human sins (but not indulgence), patience, generosity and meekness, kindness, sincere love, not irritated, enduring everything, covering everything, not falling away. I extol and glorify the mercy of God, which bowed down to me, a sinner, and gave me the grace of peace and the greatest boldness during the celebration of the Liturgy, so that at the great entrance I sincerely, with power, expressed all the names of the royal persons, and performed the Sacrament peacefully, and the exclamation of the first remembrance, the Lord said loudly, sincerely, all the way to the end, and the prayer behind the pulpit and dismissal was pronounced firmly, and on At both funeral services (the last Rykacheva), I pronounced exclamations and dismissals firmly, and after the service I was also filled with the greatest peace that reigns in me to this day (three hours and forty minutes in the evening). Glory to my Lord Jesus Christ! He served Vespers with grace, with a triumphant spirit, without stumbling. I thank the Lord. Beautiful, precious is the cross that you offer me with love and attention to my small, although due, merits, but how precious, how beautiful, most pure, most loving, life-giving is the most pure blood shed for us on the Cross! O blood, for us, and especially for me, the priest who celebrated it so often, dear, saving, cleansing of defilements, so many times reconciling me with God and with myself and establishing heavenly peace in me! O most pure blood, which was and is my true life, my joy, my bliss, the space of my soul, my strength! How many miracles you have performed in me during the twenty-fifth anniversary of my priesthood in me and in many, many people, healthy and sick physically, and in all those who are spiritually sick, for we all suffer from sin! I have witnessed these life-giving miracles over many! O life-giving Cross! You are our deliverance, our strength, our glory, our weapon, our shield, our defense in spiritual warfare with the enemies of salvation, with our pernicious, all-destructive passions. By you I am alive until now, by you I am noble, honored, respected, by you I am strong and strong in spirit, without you I am low, shameful, damned, poor, poor, blind and naked, like a corrupt sinner! Morning. Today, at the end of Matins, the ethereal enemy and my evil disposition plunged me into the greatest rebellion and mental torment, shame, and death: while reading the Six Psalms, I allowed grief for the sexton Adrian Nikitin to settle in my heart for his extremely excessive thriftiness when reading, the sluggishness of reading, under his breath, negligence; Having finished the litany rather vaguely and hastily from the devil’s indignation, I went to the altar, wrote something down as a souvenir on a piece of paper, and, not cleansed by repentance of hostility towards the sexton, went to the choir to read the canon; the evil thorn was in me and stung me, but did not yet completely conquer; however, when pronouncing the small litanies, I was embarrassed and pressed. I read the canon with great zeal, but when, at the end of the canon, I began to say a petitionary litany, the enemy fanned the spark of malice into a flame and crushed me completely; I could not speak petitions and exclamations; equally, when I spoke the special litany, I was completely confused and lost, and I could barely speak the final words; I could not say the prayer of release and the prayer to Christ, the True Light. This is the consequence of my impatience, dislike, anger, suspicion, disrespect for a person’s personality! I completely condemned myself later and asked with great faith for mercy and deliverance from the Lord, and the Lord delivered me from the greatest inner rebellion and torment after Matins. A lesson for me to henceforth treat the sinner condescendingly, meekly, generously, with love, with patience, and complacently. Otherwise, I still don’t know what kind of spirit I am, although I call myself a Christian, a shepherd, a teacher, or a teacher of the law. Read the word of the Apostle Paul about Christian love: love is patient, merciful, etc. [1 Cor. 13:4]. Let us honor the highest of the heavens and the purest of the lordships of the sun, the Lady of the world with songs 98. Oh, glory, oh, indescribable shrine! Oh, the height is unimaginable! Evening. I thank the Lord, who has vouchsafed me His help to carry out Vespers with Compline without stumbling. The property of the priest is the Lord, and not food and drink, not money, not external decorations or robes of beauty, the beauty and preciousness of material distinctions, not the lightness and beauty of his palaces. And how often do we, priests, actually consider our property not the Lord, but these external advantages, and therefore how [we are dishonored] internally and externally, how we are divided in mind and heart, how we are tormented! The ministry of a priest is the service of incorruptibility, immortality, truth and truth, the spirit, not the flesh, not dust and corruption. How exalted a priest should always be in his thoughts, desires, aspirations, in his entire life, especially when he serves the liturgy. And we crawl, to our shame, on the earth. I thank You, Lord, who, through inner prayer, delivered me from the vile overflow of sin from the thoughts and movements of the heart, excited by the devil at the meeting of the guardianship at the entrance of the headman of the cathedral, Vladimir Dmitrievich Nikitin. I looked with faith at Your image, O Lord, which was behind me in the shrine, and I was saved. I thank the Lord, who delivered me with His honest all-redeeming Blood from the captivity of the devil, captivity to hostility without guilt towards my spiritual daughter, widow soldier Anna Gerasimovna Obedkova at the moment of her communion of the Holy Mysteries. The pretext was that she, closing her eyes, approached the Holy Chalice and coyly (allegedly) opened her lips to receive the Holy Mysteries. My captivity was fierce and painful: the enemy entered me and bound me as if with iron bonds, I was confused, greatly agitated, ashamed, not myself (the enemy), I shifted my sides and legs, and only after consuming the Holy Gifts did I get rid of this devilish captivity. This is my punishment for yesterday’s gluttony and breaking the fast (Friday). How the enemy conveniently captivates an intemperate person with all kinds of sin - both hostility and internal fornication! How necessary is abstinence! How long will we serve corruption, death, and the devil, who has power over death? And I am called to immortality and serve the mystery of immortality and guide others to immortal life! I thank the Lord, who gave me the grace to overcome the feeling of embarrassment and hostility towards the sexton Kamenogradsky, who did not give me the usual respect when he first met me (who did not take off his cap out of hostility towards me). How proud, ungrateful and malicious I am: yesterday, during mass, in the great moments of communion of the Holy Mysteries with my spiritual children Evgeniy, Anna, Paraskeva, Olga and others, I felt coldness towards them, disrespect, contempt, hostility, and in me there was a breath of the spirit of malice, which I could not immediately rebuff, drive it away and feel the ardent love of Christ to those whom Christ Himself loved so much that He gave Himself up for them. Then I suffered for a long time, especially because of Anna Gerasimovna, who seemed to approach the Holy Chalice poorly, as if this were an important crime, while she was completely filled with reverence. O treacherous evil serpent! May my Lord Jesus Christ strike you! Resurrection. After early mass in the Assumption Church. I thank the Lord, who showed me His great help and mercy during Matins and especially during the early liturgy in delivering me from the fierce wiles of the devil, with which he, the adversary, put me to death at the end of the all-night vigil, especially at the beginning of the liturgy after the removal of particles from the prosphora taken at the expense of the brethren in favor of lay benefactors, and the enemy extremely hurt me through doubt and especially after the great entrance, at by which the enemy confused and weakened my heart. For great faith, for repentance and boldness, the Lord delivered me from the breath of hell and the deadly captivity of the enemy, from hellish confinement and gave me peace and space, strength, boldness. Glory to the Lord! At the end of the mass (regarding the rude answer of the sexton of Kamenogradsky), I was again indignant in spirit, and again the enemy began to torment me, but again through repentance, faith, hope and especially the use of the Holy Mysteries, I was granted peace and space of heart with boldness. He baptized Lieutenant Nevinsky good with Kamenogradsky. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from the fierce wiles of the devil and embarrassment during the wedding of my second marriage, and at the wedding of the first, at the beginning I was embarrassed by the hellish breath of the serpent in my heart and could not utter some words and expressions and had to skip them, even the last two prayers and dismissal. At Burachka's christening, Pavel Stepanovich, while performing the Sacrament or reading prayers, was embarrassed and extremely oppressed in his heart by Belial because of the temptation from the silk scarf, or because of my addiction to this decay; I was bound in thought, in heart, in word. Oh, what a shame! During the performance of such a heavenly Sacrament, leading into true, heavenly life, I was bound by my addiction to corruption, I had an idol in my heart, which killed all love for God and neighbor, this idol is a silk scarf, which I don’t even need, for I have enough of them, and I gave it to my wife. Oh, how absurd are our worldly passions, how stupid and how they kill the life of our soul, removing it from its natural element, from God, from grace, from His life; what I said yesterday in my teaching about covetousness happened to me myself, namely, that the passion of covetousness, like cancer, spreads in our soul with its deadly roots. I felt this when performing the Sacrament of Baptism at Burachok, and after performing it I was as if killed in my soul, I had no peace, freedom, boldness, my soul was struck, killed, as if by paralysis, by an absurd addiction. Oh, how necessary it is to be above everything earthly, corruptible, to despise everything, to place in nothing the joy and only true property of ours - God, Who is our eternal life, every good. May the holy apostles, martyrs, hierarchs, for example, Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom, Nicholas of Myra, Spyridon the Wonderworker and others, all the saints, all the martyrs and all the saints, be my teachers and examples in the contempt of corruptible goods. In Kokonov’s house and in the Kudryavtsevsky outbuilding on Pesochnaya Street he baptized without stumbling. I thank the Lord. The Creator of heaven and earth, the Creator and King of Angels and men, gives Himself as our heritage for faith and love, and we cleave to creatures, often soulless and dead, who cannot, of course, give us life, but, on the contrary, destroy the soul. Deliver us, Lord, from such and such gross madness! I thank the Lord, who showed me His greatest mercy during Matins by delivering me from the kindled arrows of the enemy and giving me the graceful dew of peace and life. The canon was read with a triumphant spirit. I thank the Lord, who through my prayer gave me the grace to consummate my second marriage completely without stumbling. The first was committed with stumbling due to devilish violence due to satiety and drinking wine at the christening at Burachok (January 20). Every sin is deceitful, charming, absurd, arrogant, impudent, violent, painful, blind, insane, dreamy, pernicious, destructive, deadly, outrageous, shameful, vile, stinking, blasphemous and God-fighting, ugly, poisonous, gloomy, disgusting, monstrous. In every form, he is like that, although sometimes he appears under the guise of our well-wisher, under the guise of legality, justice, for Satan can also be transformed into an Angel of light [2 Cor. 11:14]. I thank my Lady, the Most Holy Theotokos, for the speedy healing of my severe, acute headache, which began in the evening to a small extent and developed strongly at night, in the second hour; Until this time, sleep was painful, nervous, and intermittent. From the intensification of the pain, I stood up, walked around the rooms, and when the pain reached its highest degree, I took out an icon of the Most Pure, All-Good and All-Beneficent Mother of God, our Quick to Hear, and applied it to my head, to the top of my forehead, held it for about three minutes, and when I took the image away from my head, the pain went away, and then I slept without feeling it. I gratefully confess the great mercy of this Lady. Evening. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from the cramped conditions, confusion and spiritual death that befell me for my anger and shouting at the beggars who followed me when I went to church in Medvezhya Street, in Kikina’s house. The Lord mercifully accepted my repentance and my faith, my self-condemnation, my heartfelt cry to Him for my deliverance and had mercy on me and instead of death gave me life, instead of confusion peace, instead of oppression - breadth of heart, lightness, joy, spiritual triumph. What I did wrong was that last night I ate a steak in butter with black bread and drank milk, although in small quantities, and had almost no exercise in the fresh air. This caused me to have significant lower back pain from one o'clock in the morning until I got out of bed at four o'clock. I thank the Lord, who delivered me at this hour (at seven o’clock in the morning in the church) from the fierce cramped conditions and sorrow that befell me for my rudeness and cruelty towards the poor and towards the pious wife Paraskeva Kovrigina. I deeply, strongly repented, and the Lord had mercy on me, giving me peace, freedom, and boldness. I understood in my heart that immediately I was healed. But I do not want to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world [Gal.6:14]. He served early mass in the Duma with extreme relaxation of the spirit, which depended, among other things, on the internal weakness of the bodily organs; especially after the arrival of the abbot, I became confused, I don’t know why, being afraid of him while performing such a great and sublime service. After consuming the Holy Mysteries, this weakness of spirit passed, thank God. I completely misrepresented the dismissal at the memorial service: I made the funeral one into a healthy one (he will have mercy and save us, as he is Good and Lover of Humanity). O Creator and Lord of the human race, grant me the indecent grace and strength to unfailingly perform the upcoming Sacrament of Marriage, the sacrament of procreation, the sacrament of creativity of the human race; Let me not stumble in a single word. Amen. After the wedding of Vasily Fedorovich Nikitin. It was extremely cramped and difficult for me during the wedding due to an involuntary feeling of hostility towards the sexton of Kamenograd Dmitry for his rudeness and opposition to me when inviting him to attend a sick baby for baptism. The enemy, like a wedge, entered my heart and mortally pressed it during the entire wedding, while reading all the prayers, which is why at the end of some I did not read at all due to the extreme tightness and pressure of the enemy. It is impossible not to notice that the enemy had power over me because of the satiation of fast food at lunch on a fast day (soup and chicken, buckwheat porridge with quick butter). My heart hardened and became powerless in the fight against the spirits of evil in heaven. But when, before reading the Marriage Gospel, I made an effort and forgave the sexton’s offense with all my heart, and when he himself showed a sign of reconciliation, coming out to take my kamilavka, which he had taken off during the reading of the Apostle, I felt better. I condemned myself completely for the madness of anger at the guilty one, I considered it fair to love my enemies and pray for them, so that they would depart from unrighteousness, may the Lord forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing [Luke 23:34]. Give me, Lord, a heart that tenderly loves everyone, even my enemies, that never falls away from love, so that malice and an obstinate heart may never, ever cling to me! I thank the Lord, who, through the prayer of my repentance and self-denunciation of self-love, greed, lust, impatience, ingratitude, hard-heartedness towards the poor, stinginess, bitterness, severity, obstinacy - from all my sorrows and oppression and who has given me heavenly peace and the salvation of rebirth and renewal of the Holy Spirit. During the [liturgy], not just once, but many times, the Lord delivered me again from cramps and sorrows: after the Great Entry, after First Remember, O Lord, the Holy Synod and... then after the requiem service, at which he concluded his release with stumbling from fear of the enemy. Demonic storms happen to me because of gluttony and wine drinking. That's true. We must avoid feasts, as the holy Apostle Paul instructs, and read more the word of God and the scriptures of the Fathers and pray more earnestly. It is good to strengthen hearts with grace, and not with foods from which those who engage in them did not benefit [Heb. 13:9]. Very impressive and quite fair. External decoration is also good, imbued with a religious principle and borrowing its beauty from it, but I want incomparably more internal decoration, incorruptible, life-giving. Only when decorating the interior is external decoration important, and even if this latter is missing, a person does not lose anything. My glory is your glory, just as my glory is the glory of God! I thank the Lord, who made me worthy to celebrate the early liturgy in the Assumption Church under the greatest cramped heart and violence from the enemy adversary, and through communion and especially [after] the final use of the Holy Mysteries, who delivered me from crampedness and gave me a wondrous, sweet peace, when I left the church with this peace, I lost it through harsh treatment of the poor, avoiding giving alms at their request, and fell into great distress and sorrow, and began to strongly repent of that - who again delivered me from distress and gave me sweet peace. Feasting in the home of my spiritual children is very hard for me, extremely hard, as if their sins and burdens were weighing down on me! The act of baptism was completed, although due to the fault of sexton Shakhmatov, it was not entered into the book. Then show your Christian soul, your Christian humility, kindness, patience, complacency, when your enemies, your loved ones, your subordinates breathe malice against you and pour out the poison of their malice, as the Jewish high priests and scribes once did against Christ. Have pity on them and pray: Father! let them go: for they do not know what they are doing [Luke 23:34], and because everything human: glory and blasphemy, malice and envy, curses and ridicule, slander and so on is disappearing smoke. Remember the words of the Lord: Blessed are you when they revile you and persecute you and slander you in every way unjustly because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for great is your reward in heaven [Matthew 5:11–12]. Remember what kind of Helper and Intercessor and Rewarder you have - the Lord of glory Himself, who oversees all your thoughts, feelings, struggles, patience, who listens to all your prayers, who delivers you from all evils, and never lose heart from the multitude of enemies. Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you [Matthew 5:44–45]. Morning. I thank the Lord, who saved me three times with a wonderful salvation during Matins, when I internally struggled with the hostility of the sexton Dmitry of Kamenogradsky and with mine towards him and in repentance I prayed to the Lord to grant me a brotherly disposition towards him, to enlighten his heart’s eyes, blinded by malice, and to instill due respect for the priestly rank, for he neglects the priestly blessing and shuns the priest, that is me. The Lord took away melancholy, sorrow and tightness from my heart and gave peace, joy, freedom, lightness, space. But then soon the enemy again instilled some hostility in my heart, and I repented again - and again peace was given to me. After Matins, having come [home] with grief over the sexton’s enmity, I prayed earnestly to the Lord and for him, and the Lord now heard, taking away the sorrow, melancholy, and oppression from my heart and giving peace. If you have enemies who hate you for your truth or for righteous punishment and punishment, do not respond to evil with evil or to dislike and hostility towards you with dislike and hostility, do not increase the joy and triumph of the adversary the devil (who teaches us all evil) and his victims of malice with yourself, with your victim of his malice, but try to justify the enemy, to preserve towards him love, as for a victim of sin and the machinations of the devil, conquer him with humility, meekness, kindness, and charity. Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you [Matthew 5:44–45]. I thank the Lord, who visited me with His salvation from cramped conditions and despondency (at the thought of Pastor Bosse’s offense to me regarding the committee matter). The enemy pressed me tightly, wounding me, killing my soul; but I cried out with faith and hope, and the enemy bounced off me like an arrow, and I enjoyed the peace, the peace of God. I thank the Lord, who gave me, during the all-night vigil in the Assumption Church, tears of tenderness and the grace of help against the invisible enemies who fought me and depressed me. Today the Lord gave me the grace to write a sermon for Sunday. I thank the Lord, who delivered me many times through the prayer of faith and repentance from great sorrow, cramped conditions, deadness during the late liturgy in the Assumption Church and revived me with His grace; I thank the Lord, who has vouchsafed me to partake of the life-giving, most pure, wonderful, life-giving Mysteries, to boldly say the entire prayer behind the pulpit and say the word to the people. I thank you for your help in fulfilling the requirements - prayers and baptism, for I did it with great boldness, peace, space and joy of the soul. I thank the Lord, who delivered me during Matins from the greatest temptation and slander of the enemy regarding my flight from the poor and regarding the disrespect and hostility towards me of the sexton Dmitry of Kamenograd. I conquered myself and him by the grace of God through prayer, kindness, humility, and then read the canon with great boldness and strength. And before this, how embarrassed he was, oppressed by hellish bonds! The Lord tore them to pieces! I thank the Lord, who punished me worthily last night for my stinginess and obstinate treatment of the beggars who were chasing me when I went to visit the merchant Ivan Filippovich Turygin, and who soon accepted my repentance and had mercy on me. I soon felt in my soul the condescension and mercy of God towards me, the destruction of death and the reign of life, renewal, peace, freedom, space, lightness. While talking with Turygin and reading the word of one priest from the newspaper “Church Bulletin” about delivering the sovereign from danger, the enemy again flatteringly crept into my heart with an evil thought and killed me, but after reading the word I immediately cried out to the Lord in repentance, and He again heard and had mercy on me. When I was blessing the meal, the enemy interrupted and confused me, but I again inwardly cried out to the Lord for salvation, and again the Lord delivered my weakness from the torment of the enemy. Glory to the Lord for everything! Evening. Five o'clock. Forgive me the great, grave sin, the crazy, evil, proud, impatient, selfish, contemptuous word I said in annoyance to the beggars: what do I care about you, even if you all fall into the ground! I repent with all my heart, with all my thoughts, with all the strength of my will for these impudent, stupid, rude words. Forgive me, O Most Merciful Lord, and I also pray: forgive, forgive, forgive! Are they not my benefactors? Are they not my masters, through whom the Lord Himself accepts my giving? Are they not the ones who sell oil, which I must immediately buy from them, so that I may not lack it and may not the lamp of my soul go out [Matthew 25:9-10]? But I forgot this in my vanity, my lust, in my pride, in my malice, in my love of money! Oh, damned me! Wasn't I once poor myself? Isn’t it true that the Lord gives me everything abundantly, to me, lazy, careless, careless, multi-passionate, stingy, partial, obsequious, envious, greedy, ill-willed, malevolent, malevolent, malevolent, suspicious, dissimilar, absurd, reckless, carnal, corruptible? May I fulfill every commandment of the Lord, may I hate all sin, especially all abuse of the poor, may I respect and love them as the brethren of Christ, as heirs of His Kingdom, as co-redeemers, as the deified. When I was a guest of Ivan Filippovich Turygin, he secretly told me what huge bribes the governor and his assistants receive from contractors: [Zonk] and others, and from merchants: Gerasimov, Gulyaev and others (80 thousand in silver a year). And the governor’s horses are Gerasimov’s, and who’s are Gulyev’s? I thank the Lord for the gift of serving the early liturgy in the Assumption Church and receiving communion for the revival and renewal of His most pure Mysteries. I thank the Lord for deliverance from sorrow and oppression before Vespers in church, when I, mortified by the sins of hard-heartedness, stinginess and severity towards the poor, sincerely condemned myself in these sins, earnestly asking the Lord for forgiveness and forgiveness of sins, peace and space of the heart, and received from the Lord great and rich mercy, feeling in myself the destruction of death and the restoration of salvation, peace, space, boldness. I thank the Lord for the second deliverance from pride, hard-heartedness and stinginess in the apartment of Ekaterina Mikhailovna Lebedeva ([...]) before the prayer service, when I fell on my knees in repentance before the Lord, humbly asking him to have mercy on me, and I was merciful, and the prayer service was served in a peaceful spirit, with boldness, with warmth of heart, with much strength. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from the cramped conditions and sorrow that befell me for my sins in the apartment of Alexander Ivanovich Lebedev and collapsed from repentance before the Lord on the way to the Assumption Church. I thank the Lord, who now (nine o’clock in the evening) has again destroyed in me the condemnation of death and sorrow that befell me for my new hardness of heart towards the poor, to whom I gave little (three kopecks each) and did not give what they asked of me. O I, ungrateful and malicious and nasty, voluptuous! How generous the Lord daily is, honoring me with the cups of life and immortality, almost every day cleansing my sins, giving me sanctification, renewal, the firstfruits of eternal life, rewarding me with many material gifts, and I seem to blaspheme His goodness and generosity with my stinginess and hard-heartedness, dislike and unfriendliness towards them, rage, my lack of faith, lack of trust in God’s Providence, it’s amazing caring for us! The struggle for the true existence of the soul, for its heavenly nobility, for its heavenly purpose, for its dispassion, holiness, truth, immortality. The service of a Christian in this life to God is the service of truth, mercy and truth, a constant, persistent struggle against sin in all its forms. We must constantly contemplate grief, especially we, the priests. For me, a servant of Christ God, ever protected by His grace, sanctified, redeemed and strengthened by grace, whom should I fear? No one but the Lord: every other fear is vain, false, sinful, cowardly, earthly, demonic. I thank the Lord for delivering me, through the prayer of repentance, from the greatest sorrow, oppression and spiritual death that befell me righteously for being cruel to the poor, who asked me for money for shoes when I was going to Matins. During Matins in the cathedral, I zealously fell to the throne in repentance, and the Lord had mercy on me, an ungrateful sinner, and with great boldness I read the canon and sang the irmos and stichera and performed mass well by the grace of God. Only at the great entrance did he hurry up and mix up. Received life-giving communion. At the prayer service for the health and salvation of Alexander Ivanovich Lebedev, while reading the Gospel, I thought an absurd thing when she was standing next to me [...], and thereby lost peace and was wounded, deadened in heart. Only through honest and pure Blood did I get rid of this misfortune, from this hellish charm and choking sweetness. God bless! You envy the rector and are indignant at the fact that he has to work very little in his parish, while you have to work harder than anyone else for the common good, that he receives one and a half times more than you with little work and for many years, so that with his well-known stinginess he has accumulated tens of thousands of money, and you have almost nothing. Don't be jealous. If he had gained not only tens of thousands, but the whole world, then there would be nothing to envy. For how much does a person need? Very little, and the excess should belong to the poor. Not giving to them is theft. And how long will a greedy man possess his treasures? Tomorrow, perhaps, he will not need them and will no longer bring him any benefit. And how many painful worries are there with money? Who will get them? And is it good? Won't they corrupt the heirs and heiresses? Will they forget God? It is difficult for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven... it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle [Matthew 19:23–24] (I mean our abbot, Father Paul, with his children, one of whom went missing due to his father’s greed). Pride weighs on the rich man like a necklace; he looks down on everyone extremely, and does not want to have any communication with poor people. But whoever serves God and his neighbors a lot is given the predominant abundance of God’s grace, and this is what is most precious. For grace is life, riches, power, our glory, our incorruptible ornament, and the favor of the Heavenly Father in Christ Jesus. I made an extreme mistake today, with a great appetite and a lot of fresh fried herring at twelve o'clock in the afternoon; for the whole day I ruined myself mentally and physically, I simply crippled myself morally, weakened myself, killed myself; During the all-night vigil I could barely speak, and I could not utter other words and expressions due to the devil’s opposition. The herring fish seemed to be sucked into my heart and squeezed me extremely, as if with iron rings, especially since I did not eat anything liquid after it, and after three hours I drank only tea without content, that is, without cream, lemon and the like. Oh, how destructive is intemperance or inability to combine food and drink! From the follow-up to the Great Blessing of Water. The 80th rule of the Trulle Council reads: “If anyone, a bishop, or a presbyter, or a deacon, or any of those numbered among the clergy, or a layman, not having any urgent need or obstacle that would remove him from his church for a long time, but staying in the city, on three Sundays for three weeks, does not come to a church meeting, then the clergyman will be expelled from the clergy, and the layman yes will be excommunicated." As during the day, let us behave decently, not indulging in feasting and drunkenness, nor in sensuality and debauchery, nor in quarrels and envy (Rom. 13:13). Stichera of the canon to the Most Holy Theotokos. Ever (Church Glorious) – always, constantly.