Май 1879 г.

Ten o'clock in the evening. Glory to God for everything, thanksgiving for all my suffering in illness and for the gift of life and health. Confirm, O God, my heart in Your faith and love! Resurrection. God! Be merciful to our corrupted nature, for we are all corrupt and sinners, and I above all; take away our uncleanness, lasciviousness, corruption and wickedness and direct our purified souls and hearts and thoughts entirely to You alone! Recently depressed by a serious, fatal illness and now pardoned and recovering, I am ready to laugh and I am laughing blissfully. Oh, the flexibility of our heart! Oh, the ever-present sinful inclination of the heart! Oh, heart alien to the saving fear of God! How quickly I see salvation from my Lord Jesus Christ, when I sincerely ask in His name for help, deliverance, cleansing, sanctification and blessing in my heart! And now, during morning prayer, I was worthy of His salvation, when hostility arose in my sinful heart towards the Father Superior for some of his sins, of which I myself am not alien. I immediately prayed to the Lord for forgiveness and to give love to my heart, and I was immediately given forgiveness, healing, peace and love. I praise the Lord, who is so close and attentive and merciful to me, a sinner! My greatest shortcoming is the lack of firmness in my heart in faith, in hope, in love, in holiness, in truth, in chastity. God! Confirm me. The incense in the church, emanating from the censer, starting from the throne and the altar and carried throughout the church, means the grace of the Holy Spirit, with which the Lord Jesus Christ filled and fragrant His entire Church, heavenly and earthly, and which abides in the Church and will remain in it until the end of the age! All the holy saints of God were filled with this goodness of the Holy Spirit, sanctified and saved; by it all believers are saved today, by it all the Sacraments are performed, it breathes in all divine services, in all the holy scriptures, in all sacred hymns, it permeates all the rites of the Church; it acts in the clergy and clothes them in spiritual beauty and strength and attracts the minds and hearts of the believing people to them; through them it teaches, performs sacred acts, governs, and edifies. The heart of the Most Holy Theotokos in itself in relation to us sinners is an ocean, an abyss of goodness and mercy, and we, of little faith, crafty, unclean, often turn sluggishly and coldly to her in prayers. Oh, ingratitude! Oh, disbelief! Oh, insensibility! The sign of the cross with three and two fingers of the right hand should always remind a Christian of the fundamental truths of the Christian faith: of one God in Three Persons, of two natures in the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior and Redeemer, one of the Trinity, and of the ever-present closeness of the Holy Trinity to us (how close our hand, our foot, our heart is always to us), if we ourselves draw closer to God with our minds and heart. Holy icons also remind us of the closeness to us of the Lord God, the Most Pure Mother of God, the holy Angels and the holy saints of God. Therefore, let us always believe in this closeness and diligently call on them and live holy, fearing all sin. The word is close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, that is, the word of faith that we preach. For if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved [Rom. 10:8–9]. I recovered from my illness by God’s ineffable mercy: respite was given to me. I must use the rest of my time for repentance and correction. When I please the flesh in any way, then it becomes between me and God a dark cloud, separating me from God, weakening and darkening my soul. It is absurd to create pleasures of the flesh in lust [Rom. 13:14], therefore let no creature separate me from God or stand blissfully between me and God. If anyone does not love the Lord... let him be cursed [1 Corinthians 16:22]. Christian worship is a verbal service inspired by God and devoted to the Holy Church, consisting of petitions, praise and thanksgiving, and of various sacred rites, service to God and to His saints according to God, in which He was gloriously glorified. Every Christian must, in the depths of his soul, acquire, develop and strengthen, through the grace of God, true goodwill towards everyone, compassion, joy, goodness, humility, reject every kind of ill will and malice, cruelty and heartlessness, lack of compassion - then we can be called Christians when we acquire the indicated virtues and reject the qualities opposite to them. Otherwise, we are not Christians, but pagans, not a new, but an old creation. Lord Jesus Christ, by Your grace help us to become truly Christians; without You we cannot do anything [John 15:5]. Pray to God and His saints in such a way that you yourself can see that your prayer is the dearest and most pleasant activity for you in life, your most precious treasure, and not like a mercenary who, out of necessity, performs someone else’s work, which, if the opportunity arises, he is ready to abandon. How often do we pray at home? God! Take away the greedy and envious eye from Me and grant me the hunger and thirst for You alone! May carnal passions die in me! May there be living, firm, constant devotion in constant repentance in me to my Lord Jesus Christ, to His Most Pure Mother, to the holy Angels and to all the saints. Wake up. A living part of the church body, my heart, my soul - all Orthodox Christians, all the clergy, the entire royal house, the entire synclite 39, the entire army; I must love all classes, feel sorry for them all as for myself, pray as for myself, with ardor, with constant, sincere goodwill to each and every one. May this, O Lord, be in me by Thy grace. From May 16 to 17, in the night in a dream, an unclean dream occurred, which arose from my intemperance: I drank more than proper wine (white port) at six o’clock in the evening, eating ruff fish soup and perch in quick butter (Wednesday), and before night, at ten o’clock, I drank a glass of milk. This was especially unnecessary. I have sinned against the Lord. Having awakened, I mourned my sin in repentance. Have mercy, Lord! I made a big mistake, a big sin. A priest should not kiss laypeople, especially those who smoke tobacco and are known to be impious. I deny you, Satan, and all your abominations, your corruptions, your perversions and absurdities; I unite with You, Christ, Your truth and holiness, Your incorruptibility. Amen. Do not eat meat or have anything for dinner in the evening. This is extremely hard on the stomach. You can only eat meat at lunch. Friday. Since yesterday evening, when at about seven o'clock I had a hearty dinner of green cabbage soup with two soft-boiled eggs and a meat cutlet, I felt very heavy from satiety: I walked around the room for a long time, until late in the evening, and everything was heavy in my insides, at night too; In the morning I got up early and went to my kindergarten, walked from six o’clock to nine - everything was hard; I came home, ate an orange, drank a glass of milk and two glasses of tea - it became easier... The hardship is also explained by the strong humidity in the atmosphere: even when I was in the kindergarten in the morning at about nine o'clock, it began to rain, and when I came home, it became heavier, and at about two o'clock there was a heavy torrential rain. Premonition. With God's help, I decided to start church services today or tomorrow (early mass on Trinity Parents' Saturday). God bless the beginning of ministry after a serious illness that lasted three and a half weeks until final recovery. After the words of Baron Ott Ottovich Buckeglden, that he was now convinced how much everyone loved me, asking during my illness how my health was. God! Grant me to love You alone more and more with all my heart and with all my thoughts and Your people, Your heritage, as I do for myself, with a warm soul. For it is worth and worth loving, not to say You, endless love and infinite perfection, but also all Your people, created in Your image: how many sweet, good properties of Your image they have, besides the sins to which we are all not alien! How they, for my small warm prayer for them, for my small love, reward me with Thy grace with great love! They do not pay attention to my shortcomings, do not neglect me, do not despise me, but see something good in me and value me, pray for me, sigh for me. This was especially true when I was seriously ill, and then when I began to recover. I thank You, Lord, the author of this love, for You pour spiritual love into the hearts of people. I praise You, I extol You. Correct Thy people, O Lord, and exalt them forever, for the hedgehog to love their shepherds, even unworthy ones, and also grant me the strength to sincerely glorify, thank and implore Thy goodness, to perform with the heavenly spirit Thy most heavenly Mysteries of Thy Most Pure Body and Blood and other Sacraments, to shepherd Thy flock with goodness and to be the image of all virtue. Thy property, which Thou hast redeemed with Thy honest Blood. Amen. Wake up! Wake up! But grant me, Lord, to sincerely love my enemies, as natural and created in Your image, and to do good for them, overcoming my sinful inclination to be angry with them and take revenge on them. The short repentant prayer, Lord, have mercy, presupposes in those who pronounce it a deep, clear, separate consciousness of their sins, heartfelt contrition and tenderness, hope in the Lord’s mercy and pardon and preservation of oneself from sin for the future. The prayer is short, but important, but it contains a vast meaning. God! Grant me to love You so ardently and wholeheartedly that no barrier comes between me and You when I pray to You, thank and glorify You or perform Your heavenly, life-giving and terrible Mysteries and other Sacraments. These visible things, like idols of my heart, often come between me and You and separate me from You, the Source of life, leaving me with darkness, sorrow, cramped conditions, and scorching fire. Worldly addictions and passions, like worms and aphids, often corrupt my heart, leaving me in great shame. But what the greatest blessing is to possess You alone! What bliss! What freedom, what boldness, what hope! Oh, grant You Yourself wealth to those who fear You, Lord! O old charm of food and drink, voluptuousness, worldly honor and glory, wealth, fine clothing, fine dwellings! When will you leave me or when will I leave you, as turning my heart and my mind away from the only thing I need, from my Lord and His eternal righteousness?.. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the First and the Last [Rev.22:13]. The Alpha and Omega of Christian worship is the Lord and His wonderful deeds in creation and in the Kingdom of grace, His wonderful providence for the salvation of the perishing human race. All services and Sacraments have this beginning and end. Other sweets, other beauties, another light await you, man, in the next century; Do not count the perishable goods here, perishable sweetness, perishable beauty, perishable wealth, perishable light, as anything. The praise of God has never killed anyone. Therefore loudly praise the name of God, the Mother of God, the holy Angels and all the saints. Do not give room for the devil to take pity on your larynx. Trinity Saturday. I thank the Lord, who made me worthy to celebrate the first liturgy after my long (four weeks) illness; Only at the great entrance I could not pronounce the names of the royal family, having encountered the greatest difficulty on the part of the adversary, but everything else was completed successfully. Through the Holy Mysteries the Lord miraculously revived me. Glory to the Lord! What stupid greed and stinginess appeared in me today during the funeral service at the end of it! He was crafty! It was necessary to give the prosphyra to one merchant (from Neustroev’s house in Nemetskaya Street), and I put mine, bought with my money, on a dish, and so I regretted my prosphyra, assigned for my benefactors, and I was embarrassed, and out of embarrassment I did not pronounce the release of the requiem, but crushed it, missing many words at the end! Oh, worldly addiction! Oh, madness! Oh, weakness! And how can there be generosity in a selfish person like me! For yourself, don’t be sorry for rubles for your pleasures, but for your neighbor, five kopecks! I thought that the prosphyra should be at the expense of the brethren, and not at my expense! Well, there was also a proskomedia prosphora right there - it could be given. But let me no longer consider anything my own! Everything I have is God’s gift! And at the great entrance, whom was I afraid and ashamed of? Frustration and decay - the man of the merchant Nikolai Grigorievich Sidorov, who lives today, and tomorrow (God grant him many years) will rot! Oh, cowardice! Oh, humanity! Oh, demonic fear! Trinity Day. I thank the Lord, who made me worthy to celebrate the early liturgy in the Duma Assumption Church, although with great weakness of heart and a weak voice, with stumbling blocks, and to partake of the most pure and life-giving Mysteries for revival, purification, sanctification, confirmation and renewal. I felt that the weakness of my heart came from gluttony the day before at lunch and dinner (I dined on meat broth, roast meat, tea and wine and porter due to illness). I am possessed from the womb, as from some kind of god, my god is my womb, I am an idolater, the Spirit of God cannot dwell in me. At the Great Entrance, I again failed at the commemoration of the Holy Synod and the Metropolitan, also through violence from the evil one, who during the entire Mass was playing havoc in my heart, resisting me, cooling my heart and tearing it away from the Lord. Sermon of Archbishop Gregory 40 spoke at mass about the Spirit of God and the spirit of this world; spoke loudly. I thank the Lord, who strengthened my lungs so that I could speak easily. God! Strengthen me against the devil. Give me the strength to tread on the serpent and the scorpion and all the power of the enemy [Luke 10:19] in the name of You, God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. The Lord is the treasure of 41 treasures, in which all the treasures of wisdom and reason are hidden, from whom all earthly treasures come. Just cleave, man, with all your heart to the Lord, and all treasures will be added to you from Him, even perishable ones, to which, however, you should not attach even the slightest bit of your heart. But we do the opposite: we chase after treasures, sweets and pleasures and the glory of this world, but we withdraw from the Lord in heart, which is why even with treasures we suffer a lot. After a walk in the kindergarten. I thank You, Lord, for through the prayer of my repentance you wear me with the absurd, shameful, stinking, soul-stifling garment of my sins and clothe me in Thy truth and holiness, in Thy peace, in Thy space and boldness. Glory to Thee, Holy Trinity, consubstantial, life-giving, merciful, cleansing, sanctifying, restraining! (My repentance for my suspicion of Father Paul the rector for his dislike and dislike of me and his opposition to my good intentions.) Oh, how good all nature is, and human nature in particular, as the creation of an all-wise, all-good, all-holy, all-righteous and all-powerful Creator! How wisely, purely, unblemished, gracefully, and needily all the members of the human body are arranged - both the head, and the members of childbirth, and the whole organism; There is not a single part, not the slightest part in the body that is unclean or unnecessary, or ugly, or blighted! Glory to Thee, Creator, all-holy, all-wise, all-good, having indescribable kindness 42 and having arranged everything for good! And God saw everything... and all this goodness [Genesis 1:31]! But sin, which distorts and distorts the nature of man and other earthly creatures, may he be cursed a thousand times. Amen. I repent of my greed (especially meat-eating) before God, because for its sake I suffer from various ailments. Why else do I accept gifts from many? What are our prayers that do not reach the depth of our hearts and are offered with coldness and haste to the Lord God and His saints? They are often spoken to the air as if they do not penetrate into the depths of the heart and do not correct it and do not bring any benefit. These people draw near to Me with their lips, and with their lips they honor Me; but their heart is far from Me: but they honor Me in vain [Matthew 15:8–9]. Lord, have mercy on us and correct our hearts and prayers, like incense before You. I thank the Lord, who yesterday enabled me alone, without a deacon, to perform the Divine Liturgy without stumbling, in a clear, sonorous voice, and to partake of the life-giving Divine Mysteries. I walked in my garden and, seeing the beauty of flowers and trees and the beauty of the sunlight and feeling the pleasant, life-giving air, I marveled at the Lord, who created all the beauty of the world, and thought: how much more beautiful and sweeter than all His creatures is the most pure and wise Creator Himself, and how worthy He is of the love of His rational creatures - people for whom He created such a beautiful world filled with all kinds of sweets? But if I want to sincerely love and glorify the Creator, let me not be a glutton, for it is impossible to work for God and mammon [Matthew 6:24]. Write a letter to Ivan Afanasyevich. I thank the quick-to-obey Lord, who heard my prayer of repentance in the Engineering Garden at six and a half o’clock in the evening and who delivered my soul from bad thoughts and the cold, inappropriate, frantic lust that instantly gripped my heart. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from the embarrassment, crampedness and relaxation of spirit that followed my haste and insincerity when reading the ikos (according to the 6th canto) of the morning Trinity service (The quick and well-known rain is the consolation of Thy servant, Jesus)! I cried out in repentance from the depths of my soul for mercy, and immediately the Lord had mercy on me. I thank the Lord for serving the liturgy and for partaking of His most pure Mysteries. He served in extreme weakness of spirit with stumbling blocks and omissions in his speech (especially at the great entrance) for turning in his favor one ruble out of five per cab driver. If it’s for a cab driver, then give it back to the cab driver, and if not, put it all in a mug. The enemy greatly weakened my heart with fear and killed it, stealing my word and leaving me in shame. Ten o'clock in the evening. I thank the Lord for two greatest deliverances from my fierce sins: first, at home at about five o’clock in the evening, when I fell into gloating over the newspaper news about the difficult war between the British and the Zulus, 43 rejoicing that the British were being punished for their treachery over Russia, and when I heartily repented of that, condemning myself for malice; secondly, in the Engineering Garden, when I saw a pious peasant woman approaching me and sincerely loving me with a love that never faded, I became embittered with her because she entered the garden and bothered me with her spies on me, became embittered with her and therefore died heartily, receiving sorrow and tightness in my soul. After my heartfelt, deep repentance while walking with Mikhail Stanislavovich Yankovsky, I received forgiveness from God and sweet peace of mind. Glory to God, my Savior. On the night of May 25th I couldn’t sleep at all, why? Either because he slept during the day from ten to eleven o'clock, or because he was full, having eaten fish soup at twelve o'clock, a lot of ruffs and a meat cutlet, and at four and a half o'clock he had drunk tea with cream and eaten two eggs; then at seven and a half o'clock a cake with apples, a hot pancake or two and scrambled eggs (from three or four eggs) and drinking very strong tea (from my spiritual daughter, merchant Olga Afanasyevna Karpova). Getting up in the morning, I felt a slight tingling sensation in my right side due to the fullness of my stomach, and at the same time the urge to defecate (two apples eaten at night helped me); When I defecated, the stitching went away. Glory to the Lord! You must be extremely abstinent, drink and eat no more than twice a day, and not eat too much: this can cause pneumonia. Through my labors, through obedience, through alms, although not always kind, there is a lot of excess investment in the fraternal circle, which, in truth, should not have been invested as a reward for my personal excess labor from my only acquaintances who invited me through acquaintances, or from the Germans. Therefore, I am clean, even if I took a ruble for the cab driver and will spend it on the cab driver. And to you, the enemy of the devil, there is nothing in me - it is the Lord, not you, that I sin. Satan instills in me nothing righteous, nothing foolish 44, and especially during worship. Why, especially at the great entrance, do you put various blasphemies and abominations on me? Confusion and fear of the devil is sin, spiritual adultery, falling in love with the enemy. Dare, dare, people of God! And do the truth! I thank my Lord, my all-merciful Savior for the greatest deliverance from the wiles and torment of the all-evil devil, whose vain fear I was afraid at the end of the memorial service (after the liturgy from the Semenovs) and did not utter the words of dismissal: in the depths of Abraham he will rest, and will be numbered with the righteous... Oh, how he tormented me and how I cowered and jumped before the altar (alone) to be freed through faith and repentance from his torment! Finally, the Lord had mercy and saved me from torment, giving me peace. I fought until I sweated. He gave his word to pronounce all words from now on, without fear of anyone. To see how harmful intemperance in food and drink is, a little experience and attention is needed: whenever a person eats heavily or drinks a lot, he now feels relaxation and heaviness in soul and body, and when he eats and drinks moderately, he feels cheerfulness and lightness in soul and body. What an animalistic, bestial life it is to eat and drink every day and drown out the highest, spiritual needs in oneself, requiring indispensable satisfaction, which it is absurd, wild, ugly, extremely sinful to deny to the soul, for the soul, in the image of God, has wondrous properties that liken it in a healthy state to God Himself, and it is immortal! But what a blessed state to live in the spirit, in abstinence, purity, contemplation of God, prayer, glorification and thanksgiving to God, in kindness, work, patience, obedience, simplicity of heart! What a wonderful heavenly life, for example, the first hermits had and what a few people have today! The desert was a paradise for them: being outside of all the cares of the world, they were constantly with God, they had Him alone as a treasure, and more than any treasure they had as a treasure their heart, cleansed from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit. The Holy Trinity dwelt in them, according to the word of the Lord: and we will come to him and make an abode with him [John 14:23] and: I will dwell in them and walk around, and I will be their God, and they will be to me... sons and daughters [2 Cor. 6:16–18; Lev.26:12]. Morning. I thank the Lord for His greatest repeated salvation of my thinness from sinful death, which I was subjected to repeatedly this morning before and during Matins. I thank the Lord for the solemn, loud reading and singing of the canon by me and sexton Zrelov and, in general, Matins on the day of the celebration of the Feast of the Holy Trinity. I thank the Lord, who yesterday at the all-night vigil calmed my anxiety about the new vestments put on by the rector, which, in my suspicion, only he himself will wear, but will not give to us, as is his custom sometimes. And if so?! Will I serve without vestments? Some will give, and that’s enough. Our robe is the Lord Himself, who clothed me with the robe of salvation and clothed me with the robe of joy: as a bridegroom put a crown on me, and as a bride adorn me with beauty [Isa.61:10]. The mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God from the Holy Spirit and Mary the Virgin Mother of God is so great, wonderful, holy, saving, comforting for man that the image of the Infant God and His Most Pure Mother should be displayed and had in every place of our dwellings, in every place of our walls in pure places, so that we can more often remember this miracle of miracles, this wondrous salvation of God’s human race. And yet in other houses there is no this icon at all. I thank the Lord, who saved me from embarrassment and tightness of spirit before the beginning of the early liturgy and who gave me the grace to fearlessly, although with great compulsion to myself, pronounce the names of the royal persons at the great entrance and all the prayers, exclamations and dismissals and perform the water blessing prayer service and requiem in the church. Wonderfully, powerfully, the Lord takes away from our souls the crampedness and darkness of sinful corruption and bestows lightness, breadth, light and sweetness of the incorruptibility of His Holy Spirit - like the scales that the Lord takes away death from the heart. How many enemy networks! Sometimes the enemy shakes, confuses and oppresses our heart with envy of our neighbor’s welfare, sometimes with anger, suspicion, pride, sometimes with greed for money, food and drink, sometimes with an addiction to clothing, sometimes with female beauty, sometimes with false fear and shame, when out of fear, [for example], we do not pronounce the sacred words of prayers or exclamations, sometimes with laziness and negligence. By saying this, I mean that it is not the enemy who does this only in a person, but that the person himself participates in these sins, preparing a convenient soil for them. (About the new robe on the archpriest.) The happiness of a Christian man lies not in shiny clothes or external decorations, but in virtue, in peace of mind, in love for God and for each other, in love that never falls away, in meekness, humility, patience, kindness, purity and simplicity, not in food and drink and sweet eating, but in the grace of God, acting in the heart - in general, in imperishable goods, for the soul is eternal, incorruptible. When you begin to work for the Lord, remember His boundless greatness, His infinite truth, holiness, omnipotence, goodness, simplicity 45 of His being, and know that talking with God, glorifying and thanking Him is God’s great gift to man, the bliss of man, as, of course, every subject would consider it happiness to always talk with the king. Treasure this gift of God extremely. Rarely does anyone pray with pure, deep, God-pleasing prayer. Among vain people, prayer is mostly vain and superficial. They honor Me in vain [Matthew 15:9], says the Lord about some of His worshipers. Why in vain? Because only their lips come close and with their lips they honor Him, but their heart is far away from Him. Prayer needs to be studied and studied. Yes! You need to talk with God intelligently, 46 heartily, purely, simply, with all your strength, with a burning spirit. If Christians all and always prayed sincerely, they would not be what they always are, that is, so sinful. They would be holy, like saints who always prayed fervently, like the Lord God is holy, for whoever sincerely talks with someone and always turns to him, naturally becomes like him. The Liturgy is the highest service on earth, the greatest miracle of God’s love and truth, the service of the immortality of the human race, the greatest victory of God’s mercy over human sins, the greatest victory over the devil, accomplished every day and for all eternity, bringing bliss to those who overcome him through faith and repentance, intercession and the gift of immortal food and drink, cleansing of sins, sanctification and eternal life. If we sang holy songs to the Lord for His benefits, equal to the sand of the earth, then we would not thank Him according to His benefits or, better yet, would not do anything special. So great is God's mercy towards us! Oh, frivolous, unclean, vain, evil, envious, greedy heart, breathing the stench of passions and death! So you feel that your adversary is binding your soul through various passions and addictions of life, and only through a deep consciousness of sins and diligent repentance does the Lord free the poor soul from the snares of the enemy. Ten o'clock in the evening. I thank the Lord for His great benefit to me, a great sinner, during Vespers. Feeling the heaviness and tightness in my heart and the deprivation of God’s grace from gluttony and overeating, as well as from idleness for several hours of the day and from reading a ridiculous story in the newspaper, I fell to the throne of grace with tears of repentance, and soon the tightness and heaviness passed, my heart became calm and light: the Lord revived and resurrected my soul, killed by sins. Glory to His mercy and goodness! Upon leaving the church, I encountered a temptation that embarrassed me very much: it was from the old woman Ekaterina Stepanovna Soloukhina, who, out of Christian love, was jealous that I visited other simple people in their homes and talked with them, but I didn’t come to her for a long time; it almost came to a complete rupture; the disagreement was steep, I was very excited in her apartment, I prayed to the Lord and the Mother of God with tears, and the Lord reconciled us. Thank God for this! Glory to You, King of the world! I thank the Lord, who, by His ineffable mercy, has made me worthy to celebrate the Divine, heavenly, life-giving liturgy and to be revived by the communion of the life-giving Mysteries. After communion and at the end of the liturgy, by the permission of God and the malice of the enemy, a temptation as heavy as death itself happened to me through the sexton Zrelov, who was rude to me and the deacon Father Poletaev because of his misunderstanding, but more due to zeal and insolence regarding the deacon, with whom he has personal relationships, as it turned out later. He did not want to serve a prayer service and a memorial service and threatened to complain to the archpriest about why we were serving a health mass and not a funeral mass. I was extremely excited, I was in extreme indignation at the sexton, as an instrument of the devil, through which the primordial enemy of humanity deprived me of the peace of God acquired through communion of the Divine shrine; but I sinned - I fell away from loving him as a brother, and felt hostility and vengeance towards him, when I should have felt sorry for the unfortunate man and cried for him. Then, repenting, I said within myself: no, my enemy the devil, I do not want to be a participant in your malice for even a minute and I will not stop loving my sinning brother, even if he hated me, envied me (although he did not hate me), and after a long struggle I calmed down and received communion. However, when he came home, he grieved until he explained it to him personally. Then I completely made peace with him. I thank the Lord, who sent me the greatest deliverance and salvation from the heartache, sorrow and cramped conditions that depressed me after I read in the newspaper about the execution of the state criminal Solovyov and when I remembered my sixth grade students that I had not marked their tickets for the exam and that they, perhaps, would not prepare well. I earnestly called on the Lord, especially when I came at an invitation from Schauman to his sick son Peter; on the stairs, the Lord sent me complete salvation, peace, space, freedom, and I was greatly comforted and rejoiced in the salvation of the Lord. I thank the Lord, who delivered me these days from the movement of shameful passions in my heart and who cleansed and pacified my sinful and weak soul. Toliko (Church Glav.) – so much, so much. Synclite (Greek) – the highest spiritual or secular government. Gregory (Postnikov; 1784–1860), Metropolitan of Novgorod and St. Petersburg. In 1814 he graduated from the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, where one of his mentors was St. Philaret (Drozdov), who had a great influence on him. Since 1819 - rector and ordinary professor of the St. Petersburg Academy; maintained strict order at the Academy, improved educational programs, and improved the financial situation of students; taught theological sciences, Holy Scripture, and participated in the translation of Holy Scripture into Russian. His lectures were distributed in printed and handwritten form to many religious educational institutions. The works of Metropolitan Gregory laid the foundation for official spiritual journalism in Russia: in 1821 he founded one of the first spiritual magazines in the country, Christian Reading; in 1855, the Orthodox Interlocutor magazine began publishing in Kazan; in 1857, the Spiritual Conversation magazine, intended for the laity, was founded. In 1822, Gregory was consecrated Bishop of Revel, vicar of the St. Petersburg diocese. In 1825 he was appointed to the Kaluga See, where he began to actively engage in missionary activities among the Old Believers. In 1832 he headed the celebration of the discovery of the relics of St. Mitrophan of Voronezh. In 1848 he was appointed Archbishop of Kazan and Sviyazhsk. He paid special attention to missionary activity, took care of strengthening the common faith, and headed a committee to translate liturgical books into the Tatar language. At his insistence, missionary departments were opened at Theological Academies and Seminaries in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kazan, and Kyiv. Bishop Gregory was a major specialist in the history of the Old Believers. His book “The Truly Ancient and Truly Orthodox Church of Christ” (1854) was published four times during the saint’s lifetime. In 1856, he was elevated to the rank of metropolitan and transferred to the St. Petersburg See, and from that time on he was a first-present member of the Synod. Metropolitan Gregory was a tireless preacher; he preached at every service, addressing the listeners with simple, brief, but succinct instructions. Metropolitan Gregory was a member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (since 1821), an honorary member of the department of Russian language and literature (since 1841) and the general meeting of the Academy of Sciences (since 1856). He led a strict ascetic lifestyle and was distinguished by generous charity. He was buried in the Holy Spiritual Church of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. Treasure (church glory) – storage, hiding place; treasury; organizer, keeper. Kindness (church glory) – beauty. The Zulus are an African people living primarily in the province of KwaZulu-Natal in the Republic of South Africa. Small groups of Zulus also live in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Mozambique. The Zulu Kingdom played an important role in the history of what is now South Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1879, British troops crossed the border and invaded Zululand. Despite the fact that the Zulus initially managed to defeat one of the British troops that invaded Zululand at the Battle of Isandlwana on January 22, 1879, after the defeat on July 4 at the Battle of Ulundi, the Zulu power virtually ceased to exist. Lepo (Church Glav.) – decent, appropriate, good, useful. Simple (Church Slavic) - meaning whole, indivisible into parts. Smart (Church Slavic) – spiritual, understood in a spiritual sense; wise, insightful, skillful.