Август 1880 г.

Lord, I thank You for the miracles of salvation You performed in me during Matins, when You, the Compassionate One, delivered me through the prayer of my repentance from a painful hostility towards Deacon Vladimir Poletaev, who made a rude answer to me yesterday in the Assumption Church (in the Duma) at the end of the funeral service for its elder Alexei Neustroyev. Providence sent him to serve with me at Matins of the Cross in order to bring about a quick mutual reconciliation between us. I served with complete self-control, a triumphant, calm spirit throughout Matins and then and Mass. God! There is no number for Your blessings: according to the abyss of my weaknesses, You show in me the abyss of Your power every day; according to the abyss of my sins, You grant me an abyss of forgiveness, purification, depth of repentance, tenderness, a source of tears, the gift of sanctification, peace, boldness, affirmation. On July 31 we buried Neustroev: he decomposed terribly; the smell was strong even when the coffin was closed. I thank You, Lord, for the unfailing service of Matins and Liturgy in the cathedral and for the communion of both my own and my spiritual daughters, who often receive communion. How great is their zeal, their love for You, Lord! As a deer thirsts for a spring of water, so they thirst for You, O God! Everything about You is divine, Mother of God: your divine hand, nose, eyes, pupil 128, your entire pure body, completely imbued with Divinity; Your whole soul is divine, your mind is divine, your heart is divine, your will is divine, all your thoughts, desires, intentions, and judgments are divine - everything is divine. I thank the Lord for the miracle of His salvation that happened over me and the father of Deacon Vladimir Poletaev after his proud look at me and after my prayer for myself, the indignant one, and for him. The enemy burned me hard, but the Lord extinguished his hellish flames on me and gave me peace. Against the rector who condemns the frequent communion of the laity with the Holy Mysteries (this is a heresy), for the purpose is separation from God and is completely contrary to the teaching of the Savior, who commanded: take, eat... drink all of it... [Matthew 26:26-27]. The entire ancient practice of the Church and the entire composition of the liturgies encourage frequent, daily communion of the Holy Mysteries (as was the case before); if today the laity rarely partake of the Holy Mysteries, then this testifies to the decline of faith and piety, the prevalence of the vanity of everyday life over Christians, but this is by no means a law, that is, to partake only once a year or four times, even every month - one can and should partake every Saturday or Sunday... My Flesh is truly food, says the Lord, and My Blood is truly beer 129... [John 6:55]. But everyone needs food and drink. On what basis does a priest deprive the laity of frequent communion? This is an error that borders closely on heresy, since it is contrary to the divine commandment of Jesus Christ. Or are priests alone worthy of frequent communion? Even those priests who, after an evening drinking session and a game of cards, go without a twinge of conscience to serve Matins and Mass and sometimes rave about cards during the service itself? But if you want to argue that the laity should not frequently partake of the Holy Mysteries, then throw out the commanded words of the Savior from the liturgy: take, eat... drink from it all... and change the entire composition of the liturgy, for the content of the liturgy clearly suggests and presupposes frequent communion of all, not just the consecrated (that is, firstly, priests and deacons) of the Holy Mysteries. Instead of rejoicing as a father and thanking God for the fact that in [the present] age, poor in faith and piety, there are people who are hungry and thirsty for the righteousness of Christ and burning with love for Christ, you mock both me, the spiritual judge of their consciences, and these simple-minded hearts, in the simplicity of faith approaching the Holy Mysteries with fear and joy and heartfelt love. You are trampling on my sacred rights and my spiritual authority, given to me by the Greatest Bishop of Our Lord Jesus Christ. You undermine my spiritual authority in the younger members of the clergy and in those laity, before whom you condemn my actions, you would like to undermine it in this small flock that uses my spiritual guidance, but I am sure that they stand firmly in the teaching of the Gospel, for I teach them in faith. In this case, you yourself discover disbelief or weak faith, close to religious indifference or skepticism. Many times I heard from my spiritual children your mockery of their and my faith and prayerful zeal and your suggestions to live in all worldly pleasures. Be careful that this does not soon turn into bitter condemnation for you. Or don’t you think that I often admit them to confession and communion for the sake of self-interest? God is my witness that if any of them wants to give me their pennies for my work, they will soon go into the hands of the poor and will not go to my needs. So I have said everything that I needed to say about your misunderstandings or misconceptions about me. After that, think what you want about me and my actions. (I give alms, but you condemn me, everything is not okay, but what are you doing okay?) Thank God: my servant’s brother Ivan, who was seriously ill, through our prayer – his and mine – recovered. I thank the Lord for yesterday’s Sunday liturgy with a sermon and today’s early one, at eight o’clock in the morning. Yesterday at mass the new kamilavka seduced me - I felt sorry for her, and my heart grew cold towards God; sincerely condemned himself for madness, and the Lord gave peace and mercy. I thank the Master and God of my Lord Jesus Christ, who wonderfully saved me at the very beginning of the early liturgy in the Assumption Church, when grief and melancholy over the insidious offense of Dean Trachevsky sucked at my heart, pressed, confused me, and I prayed to the Lord with all my heart to heal the illness of my soul, and He heard my prayer from a contrite heart and healed it, and I served the liturgy in peace. How ignorant of the faith is Abbot Trachevsky: he considers it completely in vain to partake more often of the Holy Mysteries for souls who are hungry for the Lord - once, he says, is enough, three or four times is enough, and he laughs at me and reproaches me for allowing sincere believers, repentants, always preparing for communion - to receive the Holy Mysteries! It is extremely offensive to hear this from an elder who should encourage faith and piety, and not destroy. Judge him, O God, impudent and unbelieving, proud and crafty. Evening. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from severe melancholy and cramped conditions and the pressure of hostility due to indignation at the Father Superior for his insinuations regarding me regarding the frequent communion of women with some pious Holy Mysteries (this was at eleven o’clock in the afternoon in the garden). Look at the girl purely, like the Mother of God - with such purity! Highly honest, hardworking, as innocent as a baby! Imperishable, ineffable, pure beauty and sweetness is God. I am filled with the flow of Your sweetness!.. Those who behold Your face have ineffable kindness 130 - he who sincerely loves God does not know any earthly beauty and sweetness, he knows only the heavenly sweetness and beauty that is God. In a dream on August 6th, I saw that I had made friends with the Catholics, the king and the pastor, (that’s how the first one was called) and debited with them - I bought some explosive killer cigarettes, smoked: the priest did not smoke, but he ate some kind of prosphyra instead of them. (What nonsense!) This king is who, if not Satan, the demonic king? And how there are many inflammatory principles in me towards sin! It is unforgivable for me to eat fish during the Assumption Fast. Oh, my field, my thorny field! When will I finish it? Perhaps it will drown out all the wheat [Matthew 13:7, etc.]. Alas! Alas! Morning. Two hours. By eating pickled salmon and vegetable oil pie, I spoiled my already bad scrofulous blood and juices and spent the whole night itching in bed, tossing and turning from side to side. It may be that drinking grape wine every day, warming the blood, spoils it: you do not need to drink or very little, but drink milk and milk as a blood-purifying decoction 131 . I thank the Lord, who had mercy on me today after early mass with great, ineffable mercy. I accuse myself of being ungrateful, self-loving, selfish, voluptuous, malicious. For when, on my way to a funeral service, I saw a crooked old beggar chasing me, I stopped with annoyance and gave him five kopecks with displeasure, telling him why he was pursuing me and not giving me peace anywhere? And he needed money for a bath. For my ill-will, selfishness and malice, I was now punished by cramped conditions and sorrow, from which the Lord saved me for my zealous repentance and gave me peace. Only through living faith in the redemptive and reconciling blood of the Lord was I, a damned sinner, delivered. Will Archpriest Pavel write down the money for Neustroyev's unction in the mug? To Zakhar Ivanovich and Olga Mikhailovna in the shop for a prayer service on Friday, August 8. Mass of health for Sampson Ilyich on Saturday, August 9. I am also a slave to new kamilavkas and order ribbons and, like a guilty schoolboy, I tremble before them when they are threatened by soot from smoke or from the earth or fading from the rays of the sun - and when? even during the liturgy! Oh, baseness of spirit! Oh, low, shameful passion! Friday. I thank the Lord for the great deeds of mercy and salvation in me, a sinner, during Matins and early mass according to Neustroev in the Assumption Church, for, weak and dead by my sins, the Lord revived me when I fell with faith and hope in repentance to the throne of grace, and granted me with great boldness to celebrate the liturgy and requiem and renewed me entirely, He revived and confirmed me through the communion of the Divine Mysteries, and even before communion sent me His life-giving, helping grace; new mercy, new salvation and a new life, the Lord gave me again, killed by sin, during the release at the litany for the late Nicholas Adrianov outside the Kronstadt gates, when I cried out in repentance with great faith and a strong spiritual cry. However, during mass, when there was not enough time to remember after the consecration of the Gifts First... the Holy Synod and Mr. Metropolitan Isidore, the disembodied enemy mortally breathed into my heart, confused, weakened, and out of fear I did not utter these words, for the enemy instilled in me hostility both to the consecrated cathedral and to the bishop for his harsh reception fifteen years ago. And this is because of my pride, pride, people’s praise and respect for me, because of the depravity of my heart, because of the lack of humility, patience, self-knowledge, for otherwise I would consider myself worthy of such a harsh reception and would pray with love for my archpastor, depressed by old age, illnesses, affairs, grief from people, for the higher a person’s position, the more he has clashes with different people and the more cases of chagrin. God! Heal passion, the illness of my soul - rancor, hostility, pride, resentment, grief, anger. God! Deliver me from carnal love, which is the scourge, death and grave of true, righteous, natural love (a son or daughter to father and mother, to brothers and sisters) and grace-filled love (a Christian’s love for God and neighbor). Behold, You have had mercy on me, who sinned in my heart through voluptuous sight and repented. Thank you, quick to obey! Over the Holy Synod and Metropolitan Isidore, an all-evil and all-evil adversary is clearly treacherous in my heart during the liturgy, especially on holidays, and I must resist him with the help of God’s grace without fail and victoriously. Through the beauty of visible, although perishable creatures, know the beauty of the Creator of the ages, invisible and incorruptible, and through the sweetness of earthly blessings, given for the nourishment and enjoyment of living creatures, know the infinite sweetness of God. Sunday. I thank the Lord, who, by His ineffable mercy, has granted me to unfalteringly perform the entire all-night vigil in the Assumption Church with tearful tenderness. Thank you for your courage and faith! I thank the Lord for the unfailing celebration of the Liturgy yesterday, for the non-judgmental communion of the Holy Mysteries with the preachers and women of the gospel. For the cheerfully spoken prayer for the Holy Synod and the Metropolitan for the consecration of the Holy Gifts and for the dismissal. Last night I did not sleep for a long time: there was a terrible itching all over my body - either from the fact that I ate and drank more than I needed, or from composing a sermon, or from the state of the atmosphere (perfect silence under a clear sky) and extreme warmth. I got up, read an akathist to the Mother of God and a canon to the holy Guardian Angel, then lay down and fell asleep, but they soon woke me up to give a farewell message to sick Catherine, the daughter of the late Nikolai Ivanovich. (It turned out that there was an itch before the rain.) Our hearts are so sinful and unclean that we do not want and cannot love with sincere love all that is holy and pure, but in our own way we love what pleases our corrupted taste and heart (theater, laughter, feasts, dresses, luxury, entertainment, etc.) Sunday. After mass. I thank the Lord, who gave me His help during the service of the Divine, most heavenly Liturgy and a feeling of tenderness at the thought of how great, most heavenly, cleansing, life-giving, holy, reconciling and propitiatory Sacrament the Lord entrusted to my unworthiness - the Mystery of immortality and the deification of men! Oh, how precious is the human soul! How beautiful, godlike and godlike she was created in the beginning! How beautiful and divine she becomes now, by the grace of Christ, through the grace of rebirth, sealing from the Holy Spirit, through the grace of communion of the Holy Mysteries! Oh, may a Christian hate with all his soul all untruth and may he love all truth for the rest of his life! I thank the Lord for the word of preaching, given to me by His grace the day before and spoken this day, I thank you for your unfailing service (except for the Holy Synod and the Metropolitan). At the beginning of the liturgy it was difficult for me! I was, as it were, bound by internal ties! They were resolved only after communion of the Holy Mysteries. Both my body (weakness) and the rainy weather, by the way, were the cause of the cramped conditions! I thank the Lord for boldness before the merchant Pavel Petrovich Sinebryukhov when asking him for money to build a House of Diligence and for softening his heart and bowing him and his son Vladimir in my favor! I expect great and rich mercy from the Lord. I thank the Lord for delivering me in the evening when I was a peasant Yakov Filippovich from the rush to my heart of devilish contempt and evil (towards this good-natured man who brought me a gift of canvas), as a result of my inner repentance, and for delivering me from the deadly sting of carnal love for a girl. The same for my repentance. I thank You, Lord, for I have You as such a righteous, all-good and benevolent Lord. Blessed is he who has cognized the God-like beauty of the human soul and unceasingly strives with all his thoughts, with all his heart and with all his strength towards God, his Prototype, incorruptible, invisible, ineffably beautiful and the source of all beauty, visible and intelligible in all creatures created by Him, and who with all his heart, all his mind, all his willpower has hated the all-absurd, all-corrupt, all-seductive, all-deceiving, all-ugly, ungodly sin and one’s own flesh, the nest of sin, the home of stinking passions: self-love, drunkenness, satiety, greed, carnal knowledge, adultery, stinginess, love of money, forgetfulness of God, hard-heartedness, ingratitude, lies, pride, ambition, vanity and vanity, laziness, idleness, etc. Blessed is the one who is not deceived by anything earthly, as corruptible and transitory, and has loved the heavenly and enduring fatherland - the Kingdom, unshakable for endless ages, who has loved the Lord with all his heart and walks a difficult and sorrowful path, for the wide gate and the long way lead to destruction [Matthew 7:13]. I thank the many-merciful and long-suffering Lord of my life, for he has vouchsafed me, a sinner and all-passionate, to perform the early Divine Liturgy and to partake of the Divine Mysteries, in whose image he has revived me. In the evening I drank two tea cups of broth and a glass and a half of tea, but ate little all day; At night I had a severe headache, from which I could not sleep, I was forced to get up and walk; Then, with faith and hope, I took out the icon of the Iveron Mother of God, placed it on my head and went to bed: the pain soon went away - an obvious fact. I thank the Mother of the Belly and Healer of all ailments. With all my being, give thanks to the Lady and the Eternal Child, the Creator and God and Her Son. (The day before, that is, on the evening of August 13, I read the newspapers for a very long time: “Voice”, “New Time”, “Son of the Fatherland”, and read [fluently], intensely, thereby drawing blood to my head, and she fell ill - imprudent and stupid.) You do not commit sin not out of aversion to it or hatred, but because there is no occasion, no reason for it; but an opportunity, an opportunity, a convenience, a temptation - and you fall. Your piety is not deep, external, often hypocritical. Take up your cross, crucify your flesh with passions and lusts, put off all the old man with his deeds: anger, pride, malice, fornication, intemperance, laziness, disobedience, gluttony and carnality and other passions, love sincere humility, patience, kindness, purity, self-control, unceasing obedience, perfect, unfeigned, constant prayer with deep repentance, tearful tenderness. I thank the Lord for repeatedly delivering me from grave temptations and sorrows throughout the day that were with me from the slander of evil spirits and from my own evil habits and passions; I thank the Lord for serving the liturgy in the Assumption Church and for the communion of the life-giving Mysteries, which renewed my mortal being, for also the communion of my spiritual children. We have inside us, as it were, a fiery cave, in which the hellish fire of unclean passions scorching the soul and body bubbles up. We are in constant danger of sin and must constantly be in the fight against internal evil and constantly defeat it, otherwise it will defeat us, and then woe to us from our passions. Where can I get the wisdom and strength to overcome passions, to extinguish this furnace? – In our holy, immaculate faith, in the sweetest, almighty and all-saving name of Jesus Christ. Oh, glory to our wonderful faith, saving, renewing, enlightening, pacifying. With words I bless, but with heart and deeds I blaspheme the accursed You, my Creator and Savior. Because of love for the flesh, for the world, I often despise Your poor and, in their person, You Yourself, Lord! Damned me. I judge myself. Glory to the abundance of God’s grace, merciful, saving, cleansing, enlightening, strengthening, sanctifying, adoring. And how do sinners perish when there is such a vast, abundant sea of ​​grace? Oh, negligence!! Oh, disbelief! How is our transformation accomplished? – By killing the old man, or sinful passions. A Christian must have everything different: a different mind, a different heart, or other desires, a different will, other thoughts, feelings, pleasures or delights, that is, spiritual, not carnal; another beauty, another sweetness, another light, another robe, another glory and honor; other concepts, spiritual, different from the concept of worldly people (for example, according to worldly reasoning, to give to someone freely means to lose, but according to God, to give to another, for example to the poor, means to gain; what in the world is an object of desire and search, according to God, is an object of disgust and contempt). Do deeds worthy of honor, but do not seek honor yourself, especially from your fellow servants, and honor will come to you; and if you look for her, she will run away from you, and you yourself will be subject to dishonor and confusion. Through unfeigned love for everyone, enduring everything, covering everything, you will gain honor for yourself, and not through zeal and ambition. Despise the flesh 132, that is, carnal desires, lusts, passions, for example, the lust of fornication, the lust of gluttony, greed, avarice, stinginess, the lust of vanity, ambition, the vanity of elegance, splendor, luxury. The eye is evil [Mark 7:22]. If you mentally enjoy yourself, considering yourself better than others, and condemn your neighbors, considering them lost, then your eye is evil. If you, having collected a lot of money and all sorts of self-interest and having established well-being, say: I have a lot of goods for many years, I will live in contentment and prosperity [Luke 12:19], and you consider this goods only yours, and not the property of God, given to you to do good to the poor, then your eye is evil. If you dislike another neighbor because of a truthful word spoken to you, or because of the ugliness of his appearance, since you look with pleasure only at a beautiful face, then your eye is deceitful and dark and you are on a disastrous path: you are destroying the entire law of God, which consists in love for neighbors. Sin is impetuous and inflammatory, like a whirlwind finds and like fire burns the sinner. Have mercy on those who sin. Do not respond to evil with evil, but with meekness and quietness. If you are a sheep of the verbal flock of Christ, then you will certainly acquire the properties of a lamb: gentleness, meekness, patience - otherwise you will not be a sheep, but a wolf, in the image of the mental wolf - the devil. The priest is great during the performance of daily services and especially during the performance of the Sacraments; he is invested with the greatest powers from God. He is omnipotent during the liturgy by the grace of God and can pray to God for the whole world. What is the secret and strength of our public worship, always solemn in its main parts, although in the highest degree varied and beautiful during weeks and years and various holidays? It is that those who pray—pastors, clergy, and laity—always rise to the ideal of Christian prayer: burning prayer, embracing everyone with love and goodwill; so that those praying would burn with love for the Trinitarian God, for the Mother of God, for all the powers of the Angels, for all the saints who reign in heaven with Christ, so that they would be in sincere, prayerful communion with them, so that man would know and love the original and primitive beauty of God, the beauty of the image of God, the Mother of God, in the heavenly angels, in the saints and in general in man, created according to the image of God, and tried to free himself through sincere repentance from the ugliness of passions, their absurdity, and adorned himself with every virtue. What kind of tormenting labors and sufferings did it cost your Savior and God to deliver you from your all-passionate corruption, from your fornications and pleasures, from your lewdness, and yet you still think passionately, feed your multi-passionate flesh abundantly with all sorts of sweets, are proud, angry, envious, lustful of money, and do not submit? The disease of the human soul is to pay exclusive attention to the visible, temporary, with an addiction to this visible, and forget the eternal, invisible. God! Eradicate 133 my heart from earthly, sensual, unclean, corrupting soul and body love, and plant perfect love, spiritual, heavenly, holy. Amen. I thank You, Lord, for Your countless, great mercies towards me on this day, which You surprised in me before the Liturgy, during the Liturgy, and especially at the Liturgy, during the prayer service, when I, from an evil view of the actions of Abbot Paul (who put on glasses in a special way and supported them with his hand), fell into anger and was greatly tormented by the evil one. He sincerely repented with faith, and the Lord suddenly had mercy, granting peace, space and boldness. A terrible, deadly, absurd lie - a sin! Instantly, as soon as it touches the soul, it hurts, darkens, confuses, shames, weakens it, binds it, deprives it of freedom. But how terribly infectious and sticky he is! Once planted in the soul, especially if it is repeated many times, it torments the whole life through the memory and imagination of it, through a new attraction to it, through delusion. (The pure souls of children especially must be carefully protected from sin.) To get rid of the evil of sin, no other sacrifice was required than the greatest, endless one - the suffering and death of the Beginning Son of God Himself, for evil has caused and is causing an endless insult to the infinite, pure truth of God; evil endlessly infected with its breath pure human nature, created in the image of God. And now for our deliverance from our sins, no other means exists in the Church of God than the Most Pure Body and the Most Pure Blood of the Son of God! And how do we value, how do people value this means of purification and salvation of their souls? Hardly once a year do they approach the Chalice of Christ, despite the commandment of the Savior, which we hear every day: take, eat, drink everything... What a frightening sin this was! How diversely he appears in me, nests in me, confuses, kills my soul! Now like malice and anger, now like fornication, now like worldly self-interest, now like vanity and vanity, now like vain fear, now like uncontrollable laughter, now like a thousand other sins! Oh, the tares of my soul! Murderous weeds that have grown throughout the mental field of my soul! I thank the Lord for granting tears of tenderness during the Sunday all-night vigil (from the 16th to the 17th) and for cleansing my soul with them. I thank the Lord, who raised me up at night to write (the final part) of the Sunday sermon and gave me the word. I thank the Lord for delivering me from the tightness, stabbing and pressure in my left side that occurred just now after composing and re-reading the sermon (a cold from a slightly open window and from a light (after a warm) cassock). Thank you for getting rid of suspicion and condemnation and anger towards the abbot and for bestowing kind and humble feelings of respect and devotion towards him. After early mass. I thank the Lord for the extraordinary mercies that were revealed to me during the early liturgy, for taking away deadness and giving life to my heart, strength, and peace. When I give communion to infants from a simple, poor class and I, the accursed one, despised some for the indecency and lack of maintenance of children, for this there is crampedness, sorrow, humiliation, shame in me! When I repented, forgiveness began to shine. Glory to the Lord! And now forgiveness has shone twice when I insulted the girl. Oh, what indescribably great and life-giving mercies from the Lord I was granted yesterday and today in the service and after the service of the Divine Liturgy, what remission of sins, what deliverance from the devil’s machinations, especially in the morning after the memorial service at Isakov’s on the way to the Oraniembaum pier to meet the body of the merchant Gerasim Murashov and especially on the pier itself, when the devil caught me in evil suspicion regarding the sexton Kamenogradsky and deacon Poletaev, he tormented me terribly with the cramped conditions of hell and the disgrace of his face. At an early mass, or rather at a memorial service, he also caught me in the vain fear of his machinations and snatched from my heart the last words of dismissal: in the villages of the righteous - to the end. He hurt me, tormented me, and only with the Holy Mysteries did the Lord heal me. And today the Lord vouchsafed me the greatest bliss after receiving communion and consuming the Holy Mysteries: I was as if in paradise. I thank the Lord for deliverance in these moments (past) from the greatest sorrow and distress that befell me for my reproachful and reproachful treatment of the beggars (thirteen people), whom I called the Tatar horde in anger and indignation for their very frequent begging. Three times I deeply began to repent: I asked, I sought, I knocked - and the Lord opened the doors of repentance for me and had mercy on me, healing my sores and giving me peace. What does it mean often: Lord, have mercy... Grant, Lord? The short prayer, Lord, have mercy and grant, Lord, reminds us of our constant guilt before the Lord due to constant sins, voluntary and involuntary, the need for constant repentance, reminds us of our spiritual poverty, damnation, poverty, nakedness and the constant need for God’s mercy and help. These most necessary prayers are as necessary for us as breathing is for the body, which is why they are often used. (I owe my talent - Gospel in the 11th week [Matthew 18:21–35].) Five o'clock in the evening. I have now sinned before the Lord, before the Lady Theotokos, before the holy Angels, before all the saints and all people by the fact that in a rage he struck a beggar with his right hand on the cheek and ear for begging, and reproached and scolded other beggars in rage; He called the woman Matrona a fool, and even got angry with small beggars. Oh, pride, voluptuousness, self-interest, hard-heartedness, stinginess, hatred, malice, envy, negligence, ingratitude, hypocrisy, partiality, blindness, unbelief, damnation! I repent with all my heart to the Lord, Whom I angered, saddened, and before Whom I appeared ungrateful. I thank the Lord for the miracle of mercy and my salvation during Matins, or rather, after Matins, upon my arrival at the Assumption Church and after repeatedly touching the holy three altars there in repentance for the forgiveness of my sins, that I refused in my heart before the rector from serving the early liturgies in the cathedral, arguing that they should be performed in the Assumption Church, close to to the old merchant woman Paraskeva Murashova. I served the Liturgy after my pardon without stumbling, with tearful tenderness; received communion in a life-giving, wonderful, saving way! I thank the Lord, who saved me from uncleanness of view and lust at the sight of a young girl near the Kudryavtsev wings. The Lord accepted my repentance with righteous wisdom and had mercy on me, giving me peace. Six o'clock in the evening. I thank the Lord for his gracious deliverance from the righteous punishment of cramped conditions, sorrow and heartache that befell me for my hard-heartedness towards the poor. I sincerely repented, falling earnestly to the Lord three times, and the Lord gave me peace, freedom, space, and boldness. The first time I was at the Council in the gymnasium, and when the director started talking about prayers, the evil spirit confused me, brought vain fear into my soul, striking, darkening and squeezing my soul, just as it confuses me with other sins or passions. O Lord, deliver me from various wiles of the devil and grant me self-control, peace and spiritual silence. I thank the Lord, who has mercifully saved me at this moment from the grave sorrow and distress that befell me for the movement of pride, love of money, stinginess and anger towards the poor. I sincerely repented and by faith in the wonderful merits of my Savior and in His Blood and Most Pure Body, which I have now received, I received mercy and remission of sins with peace and space in my soul. I thank the Lord for the gift of the good service of the liturgy by the grace of God and for the enlivening of the Divine Mysteries. He saved me many times from cramped conditions and embarrassment during Matins and Liturgy. O most wonderful name, all-saving, all-life-giving, all-powerful, the name of mercy, generosity and love for mankind, the name of our Lord Jesus Christ! You are my deliverance, salvation, peace, life, space. Thursday. I thank the Lord, who quickly accepted my repentance during Matins and Mass and delivered me from sorrow and oppression and granted me the unfaltering performance of the early liturgy and the uncondemned acceptance of the Holy Mysteries in the world. Thank you to the Lord for delivering me at the gymnasium from the heavy, obscene pressure of the devil that defiled me, and for giving peace to my soul. I thank the Lord now (eleven o’clock in the evening) who has delivered me for my zealous repentance from the unclean carnal movement that confused and oppressed me. I thank the Lord for peace and spiritual freedom, for pacification of conscience. I thank the Lord for deliverance from sorrow and oppression during Matins and the Liturgy, and for the unfaltering service of the Liturgy and for the communion of the most pure, life-giving Mysteries. The waves of sweets are heavy. Inspiring lustful thoughts and unclean lusts when looking at female persons, the devil curses at the same time over the one who looks uncleanly and over the person whom someone looks at uncleanly. So today the devil cursed at me and the deceased maiden Catherine. And he who swears secretly or openly to a creature swears at the Creator. This is how the devil denigrates and tries to corrupt every creation of God! We must stand vigilantly on guard over the thoughts and movements of the heart! Evening. Eleven o'clock. I thank the Lord, who, after fervent prayer of repentance, delivered me from fornication, destructive, soul-dead lust through an evil view of a girl. God! Satisfy the pasture of sin and give me chastity. I thank the Lord, who allowed me to recognize at the memorial service for the maiden Catherine my wretchedness, poverty, misery, blindness and nakedness, and thereby touched my heart to tears and to deep sincerity in prayer, which removed all the dreams of the devil from my heart. He performed the memorial service without stumbling. If there is sensual love in the soul, then there is no place in it for spiritual, holy and immaculate love, the love of God: the soul becomes cold towards God and hot towards corruptible persons and things, which are its dead idols, which cannot give it life. So, away is sensual, sinful, meaningless, dead and mortifying love of our inner man. And what scope for spiritual, holy love! There is someone and something to love! How vast and boundless is the spiritual world! What a beauty it is, what a shrine, truly! What love! And the Lord God Himself is beginningless, all-perfect, the Almighty who created everything! How indescribable and worthy of all love is His original goodness and beauty, His splendor! There is something to love Him for, something to cleave to Him with all your heart! Saturday. I thank the Lord for the great miracles of grace performed by His mercy and power during the all-night vigil - in delivering me from the intrigues and dirty tricks of the enemy, from his killing, pressure, constraint, embarrassment, when I stood [in the middle] at the Gospel, when I read the first hour. I thank the Lord for the memorial service for the maiden Kosheleva, which was carried out without stumbling by His grace, and for the solemn christening in Tsepov’s house at the craftsman’s in the presence of the ship’s customs inspectors. The Akathist to the Mother of God shows how many, what countless ineffable spiritual benefits God has given through Her to the human race and what unspeakable greatness and holiness the Supreme One has made for Her and in Her, incarnate from Her and making Her His Matter. Read the Akathist to the Mother of God more often. Otherwise, the devil, who hates everything holy, will place in your heart blasphemy against the Most Pure and Most Blessed One. I thank the Lord, who many times today, through my prayer, delivered me from the tormenting devilish incitements of the unclean before mass (I think from beer, by the way) and during the liturgy from the overwhelming crowding. He received life-giving communion after a firm service touched by the grace of God. During the communion of the babies, I felt dizzy, my heart sank with weakness throughout my whole body. I almost fell with the cup and went to the altar three times to place the Holy Cup on the throne and again went out with it to give communion to the babies. Thank God it's gone! He spoke loudly (and, they say, hastily) preaching his composition. He finished the mass well: he said all the leave. He celebrated a memorial service without a deacon in the evening for Petra. In the redemption of the human race through the incarnation, life on earth, preaching, miracles, suffering, death and resurrection and ascension to heaven, immeasurable love, truth, wisdom and omnipotence of God appeared, terrible truth over the devil and demons, the struggle, so to speak, of God Himself with fallen spirits; heavenly punishment is upon them; God's faithfulness to His words, promises, prophecies and types appeared in the Old Testament, serving as a sure guarantee for the fulfillment of all the other vows and predictions that have not yet been fulfilled and will be fulfilled in the last days. God is faithful in everything. But are we faithful to God in faith, hope and love? Are you faithful in the fight against sin, so destructive, although charming? Are we faithful to God in the battle with the principalities, powers and rulers of the darkness of this age [Eph.6:12], who through us fight against the Kingdom of God's righteousness and the saints, against God Himself? Are we not still friends with sin through the indulgence of our many-passionate flesh and carnal thoughts, blasphemy, defilement, and lawlessness? Do we hold on to the hope of future events and eternal blessings unswervingly? Don’t we live only this life, not caring about the future, about the upcoming answer at the Last Judgment of Christ before all Angels and people? In order to distract my heart from heavenly love, the enemy of my salvation constantly instills earthly and carnal love into my heart, stings with the sting of love the beauty of the body, money, clothing, greed for food and drink, thirst for earthly distinctions, rich utensils in the home, etc., etc., or stings with the sting of hostility towards people, [impatience], envy, pride, cools off one's neighbor, gravitates towards an unfriendly life, non-communication and discord. But what is good, or what is good, should the brethren live together!! [ Ps.133:1 ]. True martyrdom is to endure daily the blasphemies of the invisible enemy within us against the Lord, against His holy truth, against His creations, pure and beautiful and wisely constructed, against the Most Pure Mother of God, against the holy saints of God; endure opposition to the truth of God and fight against all sin, for the evildoer, in addition to all sins, strongly and persistently flogs us every day, forcing us to sin and go against God and His truth. But he who endures to the end will be saved [Matthew 10:22]. Be patient, Christian. Monday. I, cursed and deceitful, swore not to eat meat many times, and yesterday late in the evening I ate again, but because of this I did not sleep for a long time, and by the morning there was a strong lust, barely restrained. Sweets - the seeds are bursting from the incessant sweets consumed through the mouth by the belly. Have mercy on me, Master, the deceitful, unrepentant, and give me the grace not to eat meat; grant me to ask You for this sincerely, with all my heart. Yesterday evening I was angry with the servant Evdokia and my wife because the former did not really say what answer the sexton Mikhail brought from the priest of Preobrazhensky. During prayer, the soul must be in a contemplative state: it must contemplate the infinite perfection of God, the perfections and unparalleled holiness, lordship, love, everywhere after the Lord, the presence in spirit, the wisdom, the power of the Mother of God and the perfections of the saints, depending on who you pray to, whom you ask, glorify, thank: the Lord, or the Mother of God, or the holy saints of God; then we must see our insignificance, our sinfulness, our extreme weakness and, by the grace of God, our nobility, the height to which our redemption by the Son of God has raised us, our deification, our high gifts: creation in the image of God, our abilities - the understanding of God's affairs, the ability to feel the love of God, the benefits of God, the ability to freely choose or direct our activities, thoughts, feelings, to contemplate past, present and future affairs God's wonderful things, especially concerning our kind. Evening. I thank, extol and love the Lord for His great mercy towards me and for helping me through my prayer in anointing with oil the sick Paraskeva (the widow of General Semyonov), when at first my heart was dressed in guile, cold insensibility, and the Lord gave me sincerity and tearful tenderness; 2) for help during the service of the funeral liturgy, when, at the sight and hearing of the deceitful act of the rector, my heart was torn to an evil dream and thus depressed me, and the Lord, through my prayer, delivered me from this dream and gave me the grace to sincerely and without stumbling perform the entire liturgy and funeral service for the servant of God Peter (Cheparin); 3) for deliverance from the grief and distress that befell me upon carrying and seeing off the said dead man through the gates, when at the final litany I stole a cry and dismissal from the devilish fear. I cried out to the Lord in my heart as I went home, and was delivered - oh, sweet salvation and speedy deliverance; 4) now, at four o’clock in the evening, the Lord delivered me through the prayer of deep and repeated repentance from harmful lust. The only, imperishable, true and righteous sweetness is the Lord, the Bridegroom of my soul, imperishable, beautiful, luminous, eternal. May my soul cling to Him at all times! Oh, may the godlike tabernacle of my soul always be preserved in shrine. [...] During the all-night vigil on August 25, there were many temptations from ethereal enemies, sharp, difficult temptations, and from all of them, through the prayer of faith and repentance, the Lord delivered me, taking away cramped conditions, powerlessness, shame and giving me space, peace and boldness. I thank the Lord, who does not leave me to languish and suffer from the machinations of ethereal enemies, who seek at every hour to devour me, poor, accursed, naked of every good deed. Oh, how venerable we are to the female sex, the matter and worker of the human race of both sexes! How venerable is everything in it for me, all the members intended for the reception of human seed, for the formation and position of the small body, its growth, nourishment within, strengthening, its progress through education or maturity, for its nourishment in infancy! How honorable for me is especially the female soul - tender, soft, sensitive, loving, selfless when it comes to preserving the life of a child, reasonable, prudent when it comes to the benefit of the child. But how much a woman is now humiliated by insane narcissism and voluptuous men, inclined to momentary sexual pleasures, given by the Creator for a high and holy beneficial purpose, and not for the infatuation and voluptuousness of corruptible flesh, teeming with various passions after the pitiful fall of humanity. A woman is considered nothing, as a toy, as a sweet fruit and less, and not as a rationally free moral being, created in the image and likeness of God. Lord and Creator of the human race! I thank and glorify You, for You created me through a man inside a woman, as the instrument and material of my body, and through her you rewarded me, gave me peace, preserved, grew, carried me in her arms and taught me to know and love You, my Creator. Coronation. Tuesday. The heir of hell gave me a hellish bath just before mass upon my arrival at the church and during mass itself, as if in a whirlwind, my soul was enveloped in a secret anger at the abbot, who, apparently, acted very strangely with me, for when he saw me, he did not want to wait for me so that I could greet him, and hastily went to do the entrance, so that I had to be in an extreme hurry after him; while reading the entrance prayers, my soul was completely paralyzed by hostility towards the abbot; I felt the spirit of malice fanning enmity, but I resisted, although powerlessly; however, I did not despair of the Lord’s acceptance of my repentance and throughout the liturgy I repented fervently, with all my thoughts, with all my heart, with all my strength, sincerely reading all the prayers laid down in the Service Book - and had the consolation of soon seeing with the eyes of my heart God’s mercy on me and the cessation of the devil’s malice in me. The Lord saw what repentance was in me, what vows, how I cursed malice, how I promised to live in love, simplicity, humility, kindness, without suspicion. Communion revived, renewed, cleansed, sanctified me, defiled by many sins. But even after communion, the enemy soon tempted me with strong anger towards the abbot, although I stood strong and did not give in, did not bow to evil, and during the prayer service I again fell into secret anger, when the abbot solemnly waved away his hand, in which he held his glasses and held them back; I thought angrily: look how important he is! And for this, again, I had a hellish bath for my crafty and evil suspicion, my soul was again paralyzed, and I could not pray for what the prayer service was for, but I prayed only for my pardon and deliverance, which I received at the very end of the prayer service. After desecration in a dream, especially severe temptations befall me, and the devil is especially raging in me. God forbid you don’t eat meat: it makes your heart terribly rough. I thank the Lord, who again healed my weakness, cleansed my iniquity and took away my corruption that was in a sleepy dream. My alms are not pure, not humble, not loving, not zealous, not always, not always willing, bitter, rude, often arrogant, not from faith, not from hope, not from Christian love. The blessing I teach is not a blessing, but slander - reluctant, careless, unfaithful, not humble, proud, often disdainful, hasty. Lord, have mercy! A vain and luxurious person cannot do good, because he [needs] money for luxury and vanity items: for a rich apartment, for elegant clothes, for fashionable furniture, for exquisite food and drinks; a money-lover cannot do good, because he supposedly needs to save money, although he does not know to whom and for what; a person of little faith, a free-thinker, cannot do good, for he says: what is mine belongs to me and no one else; the proud cannot do good, for he does not even deign to look at the lesser brethren; a prodigal cannot do good, because he needs money for harlots; a glutton cannot do good, because a greedy belly constantly demands great sacrifices from him, he has a god in his belly and he does not know the God of mercy and bounty. So our self-loving, multi-passionate, God-repulsive flesh attracts everything to itself, all the blessings of the earth, and mercilessly pushes away from itself people like itself, who have the same needs and wants, acquires and accumulates far beyond its needs, sometimes an untold wealth of earthly blessings, but does not want to give to the poor. Such judgment will be without mercy at the World Judgment [James 2:13]. But have mercy, Lord, merciless and hard-hearted, stingy, money-loving, voluptuous, vain, luxurious, partial, careless, lazy, envious, evil, suspicious, ambitious, proud, crafty, unkind, malicious, malicious, cowardly, servile, fearful, prodigal, greedy and subject to the darkness of other passions, and deliver me from all of them for the sake of unspeakable mercy, and adorn my soul with all virtues, so that I may be Your true servant and the church of Your glory, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Has the hand of the Lord become impoverished when you are afraid and stingy, press to give to the poor and are always angry at them, and blaspheme and upset them? After all, their Angels in heaven always see the face of the Heavenly Father [Matthew 18:10] and they will bring your reproaches and insults to Him for judgment, present them before His Face and cry out to you for them, for they are good and love those entrusted to their leadership. I have sinned before You, Lord, and before Your Most Pure Matter, and before the Angels of glory, and before Your poor, and before all people: have mercy on me, I cry out to You with all my repentant heart and I pray: teach me to give in simplicity, to have mercy in good will, in trust in Your mercy and generosity. Ten o'clock in the evening. I thank the Lord for delivering me from the heavy and deadly waves of sweets into which I fall through evil skill, especially through gluttony! I strongly repented to the Lord three times - and only on the third time did He save me from hellish tightness. Glory, Lord! After mass. Today I was in a strong purifying fire, just before mass and at the beginning of it. The fact is that I, going to the post office with a letter very hastily and hearing behind me the quick steps of a beggar boy of about ten years old, did not order him to follow me with the other beggars, but he walked, and I, looking back and stopping, in annoyance and anger tore his ear. But the adversary the devil caught me in this annoyance, entered my heart and began to sting and scorch me hard. I began to repent as I approached the post office; Having left the post office, going to church for mass, in the church itself he often fell to the holy throne, putting on [priestly] robes, performing proskomedia. Finally, the Lord, for my great repentance, for my strong faith and hope, delivered me from hellfire. He served Mass without stumbling, received communion wonderfully and life-giving. The divine service of the Orthodox Church is daily, unceasing communication of members of the earthly Church with the Head of the Church and together with the Most Holy Trinity, and the Most Holy Lady Theotokos, and with the holy Angels, and the holy saints of God, the communication of prayer, repentance, glorification, thanksgiving, or the performance of the most pure, heavenly Sacraments that serve for purification, sanctification, reconciliation, renewal is the ministry of reconciling people with God through the Blood of the Son of God. This communication nourishes and elevates our spirit, strengthens our spiritual union with the inhabitants of heaven, brings down to us their intercession before God, confirms our faith, hope and love, our hope for the resurrection common to all people, the future Judgment and the future life. The prayers of the liturgy express the greatness of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of the Lord and our unworthiness, that is, of us, the performers of the Sacraments; the servant is constantly aware of his unworthiness, and his weaknesses, and God's unapproachable greatness, and God's holiness and truth. In the prayers of the liturgy, grace is asked for the worthy celebration of the Sacrament and the non-judgmental communion of clergy and laity, love is expressed for the whole world, for all Christians, living and dead, love for the saints who are in heaven. The priest must be an impassive angel, all sorrow, all fire, the flame of love for God and for people. At night and especially on a fast day, do not drink milk unless absolutely necessary, that is, only when it is needed as medicine. Milk greatly arouses lust, as it did last night. The devil's sleepy dreaming almost drew me into sin; I soon woke up and killed the passion with the sign of the cross. God bless! Glory to the power of His Cross! After Matins... During Matins, with God's help, I endured the murderous fiery cannonade of the devil; it began with the arrival of the rector in the church, when I said the final litany at the midnight office: I was confused and frightened at the sight of him and knew that this was the devil’s intrigue over me: the enemy caught me in hostility towards the rector, who often expressed his enmity to the pious, simple people who listened to me, and to myself in their person; I learned that the enemy plays with my heart, just as he plays with his vision with lust for female beauty, and that it is necessary, by the grace of God, to defeat him and his evil dream in me, his fear, his intrigues, his violence, to extinguish his fiery, hellish inflamation. By the grace of Christ God, to whom I resorted at that time in repentance, I partially achieved victory, although only after the abbot left the cathedral. It is difficult to pray with the ungodly and free-thinking, with the rich who rely on their wealth (like the abbot) and despise poverty and the poor. It is difficult to overcome hostility towards them, although they have some commendable qualities, for evil is more likely to catch the eye and seize the soul with a feeling of hostility. I was exhausted in the struggle today, especially during the great litany after the Six Psalms, I was exhausted because of yesterday’s gluttony at Matrona Feodorovna’s Sturgeon (sweet tea with a quick cake on a fast day - Wednesday) and at home (I drank a cup of milk). Yes, breaking the fast is not in vain for me: it entails bitter consequences - the dominance of passions and the devil’s machinations over me. Lord, have mercy on me, who sin many times against You every hour. At the funeral service at Archipius Kozmin (98 years old), I was extremely depressed by the sinful, devilish thorns that did not allow me to pronounce the words of the litany; Only on the last (third) did I overcome the enemy’s anger [...] and uttered with feeling the litany and prayer, exclamation and dismissal. Before mass and during mass, the same demonic thorns bothered me with murderous gore and torment; I repented and prayed (by the way, out of stinginess and hardness of heart that I ran away from the poor), and the Lord accepted my prayer and little by little pacified me, and I served mass without stumbling. After mass, the beggars rushed after me, I gave to some, and refused to others with some annoyance, and again there was cramped conditions, again sorrow, again heartfelt death. Finally I gave it to a beggar at the [dock] bridge (thirty-five kopecks for supports), and he felt better. Oh, what dispassion is required from a priest! What sublimity of thoughts, purity of heart movements! Serving as a connecting link connecting the earthly with the heavenly, he must be a heavenly man himself, only touching the earth with his body, but with his whole heart and soul extending into heaven and staying in heaven. He stands so often at the throne of God’s glory, brings to it the needs and sins of all people, intercedes for the whole world; performs the most heavenly, wonderful, Divine and adoring terrible Mysteries of Christ, he gives birth by water and the Spirit, lays the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit, resolves and binds the sins of people and the sovereign himself, he blesses the union of husband and wife for the creation of children, he must be a doctor of people spiritually and physically, a comforter of the sad and sorrowful, a protector of the innocently persecuted, especially widows and orphans, a helper for everyone. Oh, how a priest must be high in spirit and passionately loving in heart! He must be an angel on earth, worthy in terms of the title of Christ, the title of shepherd, priest, father, judge, intercessor, peacemaker, doctor, nourisher. After the all-night vigil. I thank the Lord, who delivered me during the all-night vigil four times from severe cramps and sorrows through fervent prayer and my faith and repentance; I was like in the pincers of a hellish serpent and all because of worldly addiction, dissatisfaction with my condition and dissatisfaction with the selfish actions of the rector and the alienation of my interests from the interests of the brethren, who work for God and people more than anyone else in his favor. But in the more painful pincers of the enemy, I was before the memorial service and during the memorial service itself in the house of Golubev for Arkhipius Kuzmich, an old man of 98 years old, and also because of hostility and envy of the abbot, who at that time was making a solemn removal with torches of some Arbury, I went to the memorial services alone and did not invite any of the brethren to the last memorial service in the cathedral; and the memorial service was fully illuminated (everyone was chanted). I repented with all my heart and with all my strength of my envy, of my zeal and hostility towards the abbot, of my madness, of my dissatisfaction, and I relied in everything on the Lord, who cares for us, as He has always cared wonderfully and graciously. I learned from experience how grave the sin of discontent, envy, despondency is, which comes from the poverty of faith and hope in the heart, from our greed and insatiability. Oh, how sin melts away 134, exhausts, weakens, darkens, and destroys soul and body! He spares no one; if he does not spare me, then of course he does not spare any sinner, no matter who he is - and our abbot, and he is corrupted 135 and corrupted, tormented, weakened, darkened, dishonored, killed - and therefore, God forbid, from the madness of envying a sinning brother, whether an offender and a covetous man, or a drunkard, or an adulterer, or a rich man, or a nobleman or a leader who sins. They have had enough of their misfortune from sin, aphids, torment of conscience, anxiety, dissatisfaction with themselves. We must feel sorry for people who are constantly intoxicated with their sins and who do not feel their poverty, their wretchedness. But let me put my trust in the Lord in everything, for He cares for us all [1 Peter 5:7]. Do not be jealous of those who are crafty; do not be jealous of those who create iniquity. Like the grass, they will soon dry up, and like the herb, the herbs will soon disappear. Trust in the Lord and do good deeds: and populate the earth, and enjoy its riches [Ps. 37:1–3]. You shall not commit adultery [Exodus 20:14]. What are you encroaching on, charming one? To this kind, gentle, sensitive maternal nature, to this sacred church of love, to this future mother? How do you desecrate a shrine, what heart do you infect with the devil’s poison? What treasure, the treasure of purity and innocence, are you depriving this weak creature? Woe to the world because of temptations... whoever causes one of these little ones to stumble... [Matthew 8:7-6]. Definitely send a letter to Mikhail Fidelin. I always confess secretly to God and promise to depart from the evil, and every hour I sin 136... So, confessing to gluttony, to this daily idolatry, I continue, damned, to please the gluttonous demon. Be content with what exists [Heb.13:5], according to the Apostle, that is, with what God has given and is giving, without greedying for more, for the Lord Himself says: I will never leave you nor forsake you [Heb.13:5]. Contentment with the present is a quiet haven in which our spiritual boat rests, and dissatisfaction produces great confusion and anxiety. The eye of the Lord looks at you - the eye of the Lady looks at you. Always remember this and fear all sin, remember this and always pray sincerely, fervently. Remember this and diligently do good deeds while there is time: the night will come when no one can do it [John 9:4]. I thank the Lord for the glorious miracles of His mercy and power in me, a sinner; in the morning today, in the most destructive way, a diabolical evil dream, evil suspicion and malice towards the abbot, Father Paul, when carrying out the body of Arkhip Kuzmich Ekimov, overcame me, and I looked at him with hostility, and when he told me to serve a general memorial service in the cathedral for the soldiers killed in battle, I forcedly, insincerely, contemptuously and evilly said: good, sir. After which anger overcame me even more. But immediately I began to lament and repent of my sin, of violating the law of love, of following the evil of the devil, praying to the Lord for mercy, for the restoration of love in me, for the consumption of evil, for the restoration and cleansing of my spiritual tabernacle, destroyed, desecrated; he walked along the road and repented, but did not feel pardon and revival; when I came to St. Andrew's Cathedral and began to make the entrance rule in front of the royal doors, sincerely repenting, suddenly the Lord showed mercy in me, destroyed death and gave life, peace, silence. Alas! I am a dead sinner who stinks of all sorts of passions! How weak I am! How poor, damned, poor, blind and naked! I must be more humble, meek, lower than everyone and serve everyone for the atonement of my sins! During mass, I stood and prayed, like a resurrected dead man, like a miracle of God’s mercy; I prayed calmly, with a spacious heart, with boldness and fear, lest I again slip and fall into the sin of evil. He took part in my revival, healing and boldness. The cry at Vladimir Arbury's funeral said everything loudly. At the prayer service with Alexandra Petrovna Murashova in Gostiny Dvor, the temptations were overwhelming, the demonic resistance was enormous, I could not utter many words. In the house of Gregory T. Sidorov felt free at the prayer service, but even there there was a small stumbling block: the prodigal demon was extremely furious with me, became furious, and fought with all his might. At the prayer service in the mine workshop, the enemy’s resistance was enormous, but finally, by the grace of God, I overcame, lifting my eyes to the mountains, my help came from nowhere [Ps. 121:1], loudly shouting prayers of water-blessing and thanksgiving. The enemy fled. During the all-night vigil several times miracles of mercy and the power of God appeared in me (before parimia). Secular people, or most of them, and many, many sacred ones, that is, from the clergy, working for the world and the flesh and the vanity of life, are not baked in the fire of temptation, not purified, not enlightened, not confirmed and therefore unworthy of God, from them I come first. For sin weighs down their souls like scales, penetrates them like a dark cloud, like stinking air. But when frequent and strong temptations, like fire, tempt them, cleanse, enlighten, separate the impurity of sin from the soul, from all its powers and from all bodily organs, then it becomes pleasing to God and the Lord dwells in it as in His home. For it is said: We will come to him and make our abode with him [John 14:23]. Or: I will dwell in them and walk in them; and I will be their God... and you will be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty [2 Cor. 6:16–18]. Evening. At the evening funeral service of Paraskeva Al. Semyonova, by the grace of God, I dared and uttered the entire exclamation at the final singing of the litany: For You are the resurrection... And how joyful and joyful it was for me that I had overcome the deception of the enemy! Glory to the Lord, who restored me, cowardly and fearful! God bless! I saw the rector during the all-night vigil in communication with us, that is, standing in the church. Before the will of God, holy, all-good, wise, perfect, life-giving, we humans must always revere and try with all our might to fulfill it and force and convince others to fulfill it. The will of God is your sanctification... [1 Thessalonians 4:3]. Be holy, for holy am I the Lord your God [Lev.19:2]. What is not the will of God is misfortune and destruction. Oh, the height, the height to which the Lord Jesus Christ has raised and is raising us, believers, by His incarnation! Oh, inexpressible bliss, which He will honor to those who love Him and keep His commandments! Oh, blessed immortality, oh, eternal rejoicing with the saints in the clouds of heaven, which many have already received, although not quite before the general resurrection, and others still expect it and echo daily: Tea of ​​the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the next century 137. O holy, Orthodox faith, how comforting you are, how precious you are for a person living here on earth in a bloody struggle with sin and the devil, in constant suffering, in sorrows and sorrows, often in exhausting and thankless labor. Oh, may we hold on to you with all our hearts, with all our thoughts, with all the strength of our soul, and may we constantly resort to your consolations, to your all-powerful help. Eleven and a half o'clock in the morning. I thank the Lord, who at this very moment delivered me from the greatest, mortal oppression and sorrow, at a time when I was praying for the humility of pride and the overthrow of the wickedness and malice of the sexton Dmitry of Kamenograd, may he not cast impudent glances at me, may he know the rank of priest and his small rank, may we serve the Lord in peace with mutual respect and veneration and mutual love. Out of pride, he does not want to greet the priest; he does not take off his cap, expecting them to bow to him first. Send him teachers, Lord, who Himself weighs, and teach him how it is proper for him to live in God’s house and to honor the priest. I thank the Lord for the great deliverance from the same oppression before early mass regarding the same sexton: I repented of my hostility, praying to the Lord to grant me love, humility and gentleness, and the Lord had mercy on me, giving me peace, boldness and space and the good service of early mass and life-giving communion of the Holy Mysteries. Three o'clock in the afternoon. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from the greatest charm of the enemy’s charm with Boyle’s female beauty and from embarrassment and powerlessness in pronouncing the funeral litany for the servant of God Barbara, mother of Boyle (74 years old), and who gave me peace, strength and boldness to unfalteringly perform the rest of the requiem with the prayer God of spirits and all flesh! I thank the Lord, who has repelled the delusion of fornication from my heart. And I also thank the Lord, who with great mercy had mercy on me in the government apartment of the sailor’s wife Maria Evgrafyevna, who delivered me from the sorrow and cramped conditions with which the enemy oppressed me even at the funeral service at Semyonova’s (the general’s wife) due to the lack of a deacon at the cathedral funeral service (Saltykov and Korolkov are priests) and my failure to speak due to demonic fear of the litany. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from great lustful delusion, infatuation and strong lustful excitement, when one woman told me about the violence done to her by one watchman in the laundry; this happened together with wine and various sweet pies, which I ate in sufficient quantities at Maria Evgrafyevna’s. The prayer of repentance and disgust freed me from bad anxiety. I thank the Lord, who delivered me under the guardianship (while serving with the clerk of the prayer service Pyotr Yakovlevich) from confusion and confusion of words at the prayer litanies and prayer due to my intoxication and who gave me the strength and boldness and peace to perform the prayer service without stumbling. What arrows, what poison does the devil not shoot into my heart?! Sometimes it stings with the beauty of women’s faces, sometimes with the apparent importance of the faces of those in power or the rich, sanctified, learned, elegantly dressed, etc., sometimes with the tinsel and splendor of human differences, sometimes with the ghost of money, sometimes with one’s own attire. And everything, everything, with its dreams confuses me, sometimes bringing to my memory, in order to confuse me, the cowardly one, my former guilts, which I repented of long ago and with which I sinned only to God. Only when I pray with ordinary people am I calm from the devil’s wiles and pray without fear or temptation. Eleven o'clock in the evening. I thank the Lord, who has now delivered me from fornication, heavy, deadly lust when thinking about a girl. With sincere, whole-hearted repentance and the prayer of faith, the Lord delivered me from secret sin. Glory to the Lord, most merciful, merciful, gracious and beneficial. The ethereal enemies direct all their efforts towards trampling, distorting, desecrating the image of God in us, instilling in us for this purpose all the passions of the flesh: carnality, voluptuousness, gluttony, drunkenness, love of money, ambition, envy, etc. Therefore, the word of God inspires us, in order to restore sanctification in us and strengthen the image of God, to trample all carnal passions and lead a spiritual life, virtuous, in prayer, abstinence, purity and chastity, humility, kindness, obedience, patience and other virtues. Christians! Woe of the heart! Resist the devil, and he will flee from you [James 4:7]. Guard yourself from carnal lusts, which war upon the soul, according to the advice of the Apostle Peter [1 Pet. 2:11]. I have no self-respect during divine services performed in front of a large crowd of people, especially educated or rich and noble people, but instead there is timidity, self-abasement, self-shame, fear of people; [this] has a harmful effect on me and those around me in everything, because it confuses me and them; and yet what a priest needs is self-respect and self-control and a constant rise of spirit, and not decline, an elevation of spirit above all people. After all, it is not in vain that a priest is called a ruler - his spirit should be sovereign, and not servile and fearful; God judges his sins, not the people. The Holy Synod and my Archpastor are my judges, and I am not their judge. Always reverence the Holy Synod and your archpastor and pray fervently for them when you perform the liturgy or any other service, and God will bless you. Zrak (Church Slavic) – appearance, image. Beer (Church Slavic) – drink, beverage. Prayer “I thank you, Lord my God, for you have not rejected me as a sinner” from prayers of gratitude for Holy Communion. Decoction is a decoction of medicinal plants. General Troparion to the Saints, tone 8. Eliminate (Church Glorious) – destroy, refute, devastate. Istniti (Church Glav.) – trample, crush into dust. Tniti (Church Glav.) – to destroy. Prayer of St. Basil the Great against desecration in a dream. 11th and 12th members of the Creed.