Сентябрь 1881 г.

A Christian, not like an ordinary person, must have a character of life completely different from ordinary worldly life: he has other thoughts - holy and divine, other feelings - holy, heavenly, a different will - holy, God's, a different love - not worldly, but Divine, not material, but spiritual; His thoughts and aspirations are not the blessings of this present, temporary, passing age, but the blessings of the future endless age, spiritual blessings; being in time, he is very often transported in thoughts to eternity, which awaits everyone, and urgently, constantly prepares for the transition into it. He despises temporary, perishable pleasures and places all his pleasure in enjoying the thought of God, prayer, and virtue. His home and element are church and worship; he is bored in the dwellings of men, the dwellings of vanity and sin, in the dwellings of corruption, human passions and lusts. Eternity constantly appears before his eyes - the eternal joys of the righteous and the eternal torment of sinners, and therefore he does not indulge in earthly joy, although out of love he rejoices with those who rejoice with innocent joy; however, he weeps more with those who weep. I thank the Lord, who, through my faith and my sincere desire, delivered me from fornication and gave me freedom after oppression during the reading and singing of the canon during Matins. I thank the Lord for deliverance through the prayer of repentance and by touching with faith the holy altar of the cemetery Trinity Church from the crafty and evil suspicion of a fellow priest, priest Alexander Taratin, of stealing brotherly money from a mug and then, upon arriving home, from the painful lustful delusion of caressing one pious person towards me and mine towards her. For a long time I languished with her, this beauty, and after a tearful prayer of repentance from the depths of my heart, the Lord had mercy on me. I thank the Lord, who, through the prayer of repentance, delivered me from the lustful obsession that happened when entering the house of Y. K. Markov and meeting his wife and mother; deliverance followed on the rampart of the western wall, where I enjoyed the electric light; I thank the Lord for delivering me from grief over my wife, who was furious with me because of my intercession of the sick, faithful and zealous servant Evdokia; this deliverance followed on the way from home on the way to Markov. Glory to my good and philanthropic and beneficent God! What peace, what space, what sweetness in the soul after this! How good it is to do God’s truth and avoid unrighteousness. I thank the Lord for delivering me through my prayer from the sting of the demons with the desire and thirst for the insignia of St. Anne of the second degree. Oh, illness, oh, the beauty of decay! Moses saw the back of God [Exodus 33:23], that is, he saw the incarnation of the Son of God in a visible form. Love God with all your heart, with all your thoughts, with all your strength, because if you do not love with all your heart, but only partly, then you will leave a lot of room in your heart for sin, which will try to take possession of your whole heart, for it is crafty and cunning and does not want to take control of only a part, but your whole being, and it does not sleep, but constantly, day and night, works to win the whole heart of a person. Therefore, one must fervently love God and His law and try to fulfill it exactly, also meditate on it with zeal, pray diligently and with all your heart, always diligently study in His word, often read and listen to the word of God and church singing and reading, often confess your sins diligently and in detail, partake of His most pure and life-giving Mysteries, hate lawlessness with all your heart and love all truth, always love one another unfailingly, unfeigned, pure and holy. From our youth, our heart is crafty and always prone to double-mindedness, or double-mindedness: it would like to love both God and at the same time the sinful world, its corrupt customs and habits, and truth - and sin. But God, a being simple, all-righteous, all-holy, all-good, all-loving, all-beautiful, all-blessed, wants us, His creations in the image and likeness, to love Him in simplicity of heart, completely, completely, and cannot be content with some partial or mixed, unclean, crafty, double love. Because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spew you out of My mouth [Rev.3:16]. At the same time, we must remember the proverb: if you chase two hares, you will not catch either. Be jealous of the holy apostles, martyrs, hierarchs, reverend men and wives who loved the Lord with all their hearts undividedly and were not deceived in their hope, who inherited eternal well-being, eternal joy, eternal, inseparable treasure - God Himself and eternal life. Love for God alone can replace all worldly treasures; love for God and neighbors alone is quite sufficient for our complete happiness and bliss. But worldly love, material, selfish, hypocritical, unclean in its object, source, purpose, is unworthy of man and is very disastrous for man: having loved something earthly, transitory to satisfy his sinful whim, passion, a person now falls away from life-giving, peaceful love for God and neighbors and falls into confusion, cramped conditions, sorrow, darkness, slavery. Why love death, that is, sin? Shouldn't life be loved? Love for God is closely related to love for one’s neighbor: whoever does not sincerely love one’s neighbor cannot love God. So, in order to love God, one must first have humility, meekness, kindness towards everyone, purity and chastity, self-control, goodness, forbearance, patience, truth, courage, impartiality and truthfulness, obedience (and other virtues), mercy, and zeal for every good deed. By insulting your neighbor, you also upset God. After Matins. I thank the Lord, who gave me the tenderness of repentance and the source of peace and spiritual sweetness during Matins, when the sin of desire for worldly reward embarrassed and oppressed me and I sincerely realized that worldly love is incompatible with love for God and neighbor, drives it out of the heart, striking it with death, sorrow, and crampedness, and darkness. After this consciousness and feeling, I was touched and resurrected in soul, calmed down, revived, and renewed. Glory to God, who works miracles of His mercy in me and raises the dead through sins. After mass. Sweets, gluttony and delicacy in general weaken the heart, make it impatient, capricious, tyrant and unreasonable, evil, envious, prodigal, lazy, careless, unbelieving, cowardly, desperate, contemptuous, and so on. During early mass I felt very unwell due to yesterday's gluttony and indigestion (irritability!) and little sleep. During the mass, Anna Konstantinovna (sister-in-law) and his wife, whom he did not see, were present. The Holy Synod and the Metropolitan remembered fearfully, read the pulpit in fear and demonic crampedness, stole the release from the extreme crampedness and demonic poisonousness; according to the use of the Holy Gifts - peace and space. Glory to the Lord the Winner! After a late mass in the Duma Church. I thank and exalt the Lord, who has repeatedly delivered me from the cowardice induced by the devil, humiliation, burden, shame, powerlessness and confusion of heart, which happened at the beginning of mass, then after the great entrance, also during the slow singing of I Believe and at the end of mass. I thank the Lord, who has given me special ease in serving for not eating enough yesterday and for the tears of tenderness both at mass and at the all-night vigil. I thank the Lord for the success during the service of prayers in the log government warehouse behind the Petrovsky Gate at Captain Andreev’s. External rituals in prayer have very important meaning and meaning and are very useful for every believing and reflective pious Christian - both for the soul and for the body. For example, bowing in prayer awakens mental and physical energy, humbles the soul, excites it to thinking and feeling, for example, the multitude of our sins, our guilt before God, our condemnation for sins, drives away laziness and coldness of the soul, warms the soul, arouses the fear of God in it; Without bows, we can be completely overcome by inertia, drowsiness, absent-mindedness, laziness, to which our soul and body are so prone. The sign of the cross naturally leads us to think about many of the most important truths of our faith and about the greatest mercies and benefits to us of God and the One Lord Jesus Christ of the Trinity, who suffered for us on the cross and with His suffering and death redeemed us from sin, curse and death, who gave us blessing, rebirth to a new life, sonhood, resurrection from the dead, eternal life and in the Cross gave us a powerful weapon against the devil and passions. In addition, the sign of the cross reminds us of the most important dogmas of our faith: of the Holy Trinity and the incarnation of the Son of God (three and two fingers folded together), or the two natures in Jesus Christ, of their eternal content in our mind and heart, of the most important commandment of the law of God to love God with all our thoughts (sign on the forehead), with all our heart (on the heart) and with all our strength (on both shoulders). And this is the whole essence of the Christian faith. How important is the meaning of these and similar images and how useful are they for the reflective Christian! Of course, everyone needs to know the meaning of these rituals. I sinned last night: I spoke badly about the rector Pavel Vasilyevich in Neustroev’s shop and with gloating, with condemnation, with contempt, although he spoke the truth. Forgive me, Lord, I myself am more sinful than him. After Matins. I thank the Lord for the mercy of reviving my soul at the beginning of Matins and throughout Matins and for the triumph and joy of my soul during the reading and singing of the canon for the pre-feast of the Nativity of the Mother of God and the holy martyr Sozont. Glory to the streams of grace. He prayed to the Lord to subdue under His nose the entire governing and teaching staff of the gymnasium, who philosophize many lies about themselves and despise piety and people who live piously. Children are taught to read evening and morning prayers in first grade. Man, created in the image and likeness of the All-Holy God, especially a Christian adopted by God through Jesus Christ, first of all and most of all needs holiness and truth and complete deliverance from the infection of sin that has clinged to him from the devil, which can become fatal. There is not a single person who, being in some way and for some reason hostile and disgusting to us, would not be useful to us in many ways, although we often do not realize this, just as it is also true that often kind to us for some reason and loved by us, maybe even biased, people were not in many respects harmful to us. Therefore, love your enemies as benefactors, according to the commandment of the Lord, and do not be partial to your friends. Sometimes our enemies keep us from many grave sins, while often our friends are the cause and reason for them, the bait for them. I thank the Lord, who showed in me the power of salvation in His name when I went to the gymnasium, and who delivered me from cramped conditions and sorrow, melancholy and cowardice, and who gave me peace, freedom, boldness and courage; I was afraid for myself, lest I come to class (seventh) in a cramped soul and heartache, and so the Lord delivered me from the cramped state and gave me peace, tranquility and importance before and upon arriving in class and throughout the entire time I was in it. Glory to the Lord! Glory to His name! Man, having sold his soul to the enemy of God and his own - the devil for a single poison, for a forbidden fruit, and having fallen from God, from love, from grace, from His truth, from His light, man became darkened in his thoughts and in his heart, and soon made his whole soul as if earthly because of his insatiable, irresistible desire for earthly, earthly, corruptible things! Why did the sins of the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah increase extremely? From the satiety of bread and wine and from the intensification of fornication, debauchery, pride, and malice. Why did people become completely sensual before the flood? From an exclusive desire to enjoy earthly goods. My spirit may not abide in these men forever; they are flesh [Gen. 6:3], - this is what the Lord Himself said about them. Even until now, in a strange way, the majority of people prefer flesh to spirit in practical life, the temporary to the eternal, the perishable to the incorruptible, the visible and tangible to the invisible and intangible, they fix their gaze on visible beauty, as if they do not want to know the beauty of the invisible, incorruptible, imparting its beauty to a visible person or in general to a creation, or even to a thing made by an artist; is seduced by the sweetness of the corruptible, rough, fleeting, forgetting about the sweetness of the spiritual, incorruptible, eternal, purest; chases after vain glory, insignificant, like disappearing smoke, and neglects eternal glory, which comes from good deeds, from temporary self-sacrifice for the good of oneself and others; runs away from hardships, the unpleasant struggle with sin, however pleasant due to the victory granted by God to the skillful in the struggle, and wants to overcome sin without a struggle, which has deeply taken root in our heart and cannot be uprooted without a painful and persistent struggle. Out of some kind of madness, man prefers the worst to the best, the material to the spiritual, the temporary to the eternal, the corruptible to the incorruptible, the sinful to the righteous, darkness to the light, the dishonest to the glorious. Amazing transformation of the order of life! Enjoying food and drink, selected dishes and wines, meats and fish, pies, teas, coffee, fruits, sweets always brings terrible harm to the soul, extremely intensifying all kinds of passions rooted in the depths of my heart, and making me extremely weak and infirm in the fight against them and against invisible enemies. I become all earthly, fleshly, deprived of God's help, surrendered to the righteous judgment of God into the power of enemies, I am wounded and tormented by them. After the all-night vigil. I sinned before God: because of many bitter temptations of the devil, I grumbled against the Lord, saying that He let demons, like hungry wolves, to torment us and destroy us and does not stop them when they harm us, especially on great holidays or on great holidays. Yes, the struggle with them was difficult during the all-night vigil, after the all-night vigil at Philip Stepanov’s at home service and at Yatskevich’s memorial service; The accursed Satan crushed and strangled me. I think it was due to gluttony and satiety: I ate a lot of cabbage soup at lunch, plenty of meat, and drank plenty of tea. Until a Christian man goes out into spiritual warfare with invisible enemies, he does not feel the need for abstinence and fasting and eats and drinks as much as he wants, without suffering punishment, without encountering in his actions obstacles, stumbling blocks, temptations, bitterness, ulcers from evil spirits, but when he goes out to fight them without strengthening his soul and heart with fasting, then he is weak, powerless, easily vulnerable, pitiful, poor, cowardly, fearful, having been humiliated by them, deposed, put to shame! Therefore, the Holy Church, leading us to spiritual deeds, to fight against sin and its culprit, the devil, clothes us with all spiritual armor, strengthens our souls with fasting, prayer, contemplation of God, faith, hope, and love. Put on the whole armor of God, so that you can stand against the wiles of the devil, because our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places [Eph.6:11-12]. Various earthly aphids in the form of food and drink, in the form of various fabrics that are pleasant to look at and touch, in the form of gold and silver and precious stones, semi-precious stones, in the form of various beautiful and convenient household utensils, in the form of books of all kinds, excluding, of course, good content, in the form of newspapers and worldly magazines - these various earthly aphids daily captivate me and enslave me and often do not allow me to enter into myself as must, in order to see who I am and why I came and live in the world? What is my purpose? Am I implementing it? Am I moving away from my goal? Am I living in a world of dreams and ghosts? Am I not striving for the region of darkness and eternal death? And, unfortunately, this is true. O my soul, do not hesitate to arise from the depths of sinful aphids and take the true path, God’s, leading to incorruption and immortality. Everything on earth is deceitful and will leave you, and you will leave it; acquire what will be with you forever - pure and strong love for God and neighbor, zealous alms, meekness, kindness, patience, dispassion. Do not run away from alms, from those who ask, although there are many of them - the hand of the Lord has not failed and will not fail. She will give you everything you need without lack, just don’t be unfaithful and hopeless, cowardly and murmuring, don’t have an addiction to this corruption, don’t confine it in treasures, don’t confine your heart, your womb from the poor, as you often do. Your gold and silver are rusty, and their rust will be a witness against you and will consume your flesh like fire: you have laid up for yourselves treasure for the last days. [James 5:3]. I thank the Lord for all the material contentment that I had hitherto without poverty in my life, although I grumbled at the insults of the abbot, who stole a significant part of the brethren’s property (from income) for his own benefit. Your hand is inexhaustible in the gifts of Your goodness. I hope that you will not leave me until the end of my life, but that you will surprise me with your many bounties, Lord, even though I am unworthy. And that one is displeasing to you, not good, and the other, and the third, and the fifth, and the tenth - the boss, the colleague, the comrade, the neighbor, and would you like to remove all of them and replace their place with people you like? But what finally? Don't you want to be left alone where you are? But, the question arises, are you good, being dissatisfied with others? And don’t you need to change, correct yourself? People are not Angels. And you are not without sins, and not small ones either. If you want others to be condescending to you and tolerate you, be condescending, and you are tolerant of others, and pray for them and for yourself to God, so that he will direct everyone to the path of truth and goodness, pacify everyone, and send down His mercy to everyone, and make everyone merciful (the mayor, and the rector, and rich citizens and those with average wealth, and co-workers). Who among the laity, and how many among the clergy, knows what kind of abuse the priest receives from evil demons during the service and after it, especially on great holidays, what wounds from opponents, what arrows imbued with the burning poison of hell, what sorrows and cramped conditions and how unimaginably difficult it is to serve with a multitude of people of every rank and social and moral status! The priest is then not happy, not happy with his position, for all the anger, envy, rage of enemies, all the arrows of demons then rush towards the priest. Tall but heavy rank! Of course, God’s help consoles, but the Lord allows in His truth to endure the ferocity of the attack of the spirits of evil as punishment for sins, to teach the soul and to cleanse it. Whatever he sins, let him be tormented: sin seduces with its sweetness, but its bitterness, its mortality and the extent to which it alienates a person from God and appropriates and enslaves the devil will also appear. Tuesday. I thank the Lord, who, after my most tender prayer in grief, showed His heavenly help during the all-night vigil, when invisible enemies, like many dogs, surrounded my soul and wanted to block my lips, so that I would not pray and glorify the Lord and the Most Pure Mother of God, for the Lord helped me to read the Gospel without stumbling, although He did not help me to say Hear us, God, but allowed the enemies to do so during this time to devour me (and I really wanted to utter these words without fear of hostility), and during the reading, the Lord of the Many-Merciful also allowed them to mock me, both in the house of Philip Stepanov during the reading of the Gospel, and at the memorial service at Yatskevich after the capture of my heart by the enemies of Philip Stepanov. Righteous are the destinies 92 Yours, Lord! Thy will be done! You allowed me to experience the bitterness of demonic poison. The truth of God requires that sin serve itself as a happy punishment, so that it burns itself with the fire of torment and its charm is revealed in all its strength. The Gospel for the Day of the Mother of God (at the liturgy) is very instructive. The Lord says to the hospitable Martha: worry and speak 93 about the multitude... But Mary has chosen the good part, which will not be taken away from her [Luke 10:41–42]. These words of the Lord inspire us that we all desire and strive for many things in life in different states and relationships, we worry about a lot, worry, fuss (and only lose golden time needed for necessary things - matters of spiritual salvation), for example, we read all sorts of magazines, newspapers, books on various sciences or simply secular books of various, sometimes quite dubious, non-moral content, and yet the only book needed, a book of books - the Gospels we read the Bible too, theological books too, the works of the holy fathers too, liturgical books too; or Christians do various everyday things on holidays, but often do not go to church, or others are concerned about receiving awards and distinctions, but neglect the conscientious performance of their duties, and so on. I thank my Lord Jesus Christ with all my heart for the gift of serving the liturgy and for repeated deliverance from the devil’s wiles, especially soon after communion and especially after mass, when the elder Leonty Neustroyev and his wife asked to serve a prayer service: the enemy put in my heart disobedience, reluctance, perseverance to serve this prayer service in front of a multitude (?!) of people; For some reason, false shame (from the devil, of course) appeared, stubbornness, which was only overcome by effort, prayer, and the grace of God. But after the victory over the enemy, I was renewed, calmed down, my face brightened, I was truly deified. Then he baptized in [...], and in the evening he served with the greatest spiritual freedom, peace, zeal, triumph at Schauman’s, and then also at the post office. Glory to the Lord, who renews me through mortal combat (first such, and then life-giving) with enemies and passions that have the power of death! To give space to writing about the evil eye, which troubles us so much, and to speak a strong sermon about it for our own and general edification. I especially suffer from the evil eye when looking at anyone or anything. After Matins. Twice I died in my soul during Matins: at the beginning from the devilish suspicion of Father Alexander (the next priest) in the concealment of fraternal incomes and from hostility towards him because of this (I sincerely repented of this, falling repeatedly to the holy throne) and after the Six Psalms from the desire and secret desire in my heart for an earthly reward - the Order of St. [Anna] of the second degree, for which I also secretly repented, realizing that my entire reward is in the Lord and the Lord and that not wanting an earthly vain reward, despising it and seeking it in truth and holiness is a real reward: an external reward is an imaginary, fleeting, inherent good, but truth and holiness in the soul, unfeigned love for God and neighbor are eternal, inalienable good and bliss. Amen. After repentance in both cases, the Lord wonderfully revived me with His Holy Spirit, pacified me, healed me, truly consoled me - this is my reward! Praise the Lord. Take away from my heart love that is vain, earthly, carnal, dreamy, destructive, confused, darkening the eye of the heart, shaming, and grant true, heavenly, holy, incorruptible, life-giving, glorious love. Yesterday, when in the evening my sister-in-law bought and put at my expense a lot of expensive dishes and drinks on the table for the guests she had invited (who, by the way, are also dear to me), then the eye of my heart began to wander and my soul was troubled by the pity of so many dishes when it would have been possible to serve less, and I died in my soul for stinginess and wickedness and addiction to earthly corruption and for falling away from love for my neighbor, but after sincere repentance, the Lord miraculously revived me and gave me sincere prayer at the memorial service and prayer services (at Schauman’s and at the post office). Praise the Lord. Now the Lord has had mercy, removing the embarrassment of carnal love for repentance. May the Lord grant true, holy love. Ten and a half o'clock in the morning. I thank the Lord for the salvation granted to me before the Litiya (carrying out the deceased) and after the Litiya when I went out into the street in a robe and kamilavka; The adversary killed me with false fear and concealment of words of dismissal, but the Lord revived me, granting rebirth. Glory to the Lord! I thank the Lord for deliverance from the devil’s deadly cramped conditions in the gymnasium after I ate potatoes with quick butter at Titkov’s on Wednesday (September 9) and drank a glass of tea and my heart became hardened from that, and the devil did not hesitate to enter my heart for the sake of untimely food and strike it with cramped conditions. By calling on the name of the Lord in repentance, I was soon granted deliverance from great oppression and received peace and freedom and spent two lessons calmly. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from new cramped conditions in the church during Vespers, and also at the memorial service for the servant of God Pavel Ivanovich Smirnov, when I slyly, suspiciously, and contemptuously looked at Father Pavel the rector and through this received a fatal ulcer in my heart and cramped conditions, but through sincere secret repentance I was pardoned and granted again the grace of the Holy Spirit. Praise the Lord. Even in the church before the Marriage and during the Marriage of Gregory and Varvara, the Lord wonderfully helped to perform the entire ceremony with complete self-control and sincerity. Morning. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from the claws of hell during Matins, who took away the fatness and coarseness of my heart and hardness of heart, the deadness of sin and who gave me life, peace, righteousness, space, piety, tenderness. I read the canons at Matins to the Mother of God and the Godfathers and the martyrs Minodora, Nymphodora and Metrodora with the greatest animation, slowly. I thank the Lord, who again delivered me from the embarrassment, crampedness and death of sin that followed from partial contemplation of the house, and who gave me dispassion, healing, simplicity, peace and freedom. Fulfill, Lord, my prayer for the gift of the rich, with great surpluses of funds for the creation of a House of industriousness. If You enrich those who do not know and do not glorify You, then enrich those who know and constantly glorify You - not for their sake, but for the sake of Your poor, in such a multitude of those who stagger and do nothing and waste their strength in vain. In the church there is a place only for prayer, repentance, glorification and thanksgiving to the Creator and Lord, Savior and Judge of ours, and not for earthly thoughts or worldly, carnal passions, and let all human flesh be silent here, and let it stand with fear and trembling, and let it think of nothing earthly in itself, 94 and prefer no one or anything to the Creator, and let it not be passionate about anyone or anything. what, but with all your mind and heart let him immerse himself in the Lord, in the contemplation of His truth, holiness, goodness, wisdom, omniscience, His ever-present, omnipotence, His everlasting beauty and kindness, let him enjoy His endless sweetness, let him sincerely wish himself and all people well, let him wish and pray for both himself and them to give the only need - the salvation of the soul, and for the whole world, let him bring to the Creator who created the entire human race from one blood, a prayer for his peace, enlightenment and salvation. The church is the earthly sky, here is the throne of the King of heaven and earth, here a terrible, heavenly Sacrifice is performed - the Body and Blood of the Sovereign and the faithful are united with the Lord and adored with wonderful deification. During memorial services for the dead, remember that they are members of Christ, members of the body of His Church and our members, temples of the Holy Spirit, and with sincere love, a warm and compassionate heart, pray for them; also pray for the living during prayer services and during church services and various prayers of the Sacraments as members of Christ and our own; It is especially ardent to pray for the living and the dead during the liturgy and especially after the transubstantiation of the Holy Gifts, and for this one must always live piously and abstinently. After the cathedral funeral service at Smirnov's. What malice is demonic and mine! When meeting with Father Paul, the enemy certainly acts in me with his malice and hatred towards him and presents everything in him in a distorted, unpleasant, evil, disgusting form, incites my suspicion of him and through this extremely confuses, oppresses, torments, kills me; and so in relation to many, he, the accursed one, manipulates me and through this humiliates me, plunges me into cowardice, despondency and despair, making me myself despicable and hateful in my own eyes. O implacable enemy of the human race! May the Lord Himself reflect all your malice and slander from my heart and grant me simplicity, humility, kindness, kindness, love! The enemy, with evil intent, instills and incites us to notice only something unkind in people, their shortcomings, weaknesses, oddities, passions, gives us his all-evil and evil eye, so that with his eye we look at everyone and everything, see everywhere and in everyone only evil and wickedness, uncleanness and abomination, and not goodness and holy simplicity, holiness, friendship and love; gives us his evil heart, his evil mind and his evil will, so that we live with his mind, [...], feel with his heart, fulfill his all-destructive will, and thus the kingdom of evil spreads and disasters among people increase. Therefore, to counteract it, one must certainly try to notice the good sides and qualities in people, covering with love and condescension shortcomings, bad habits, inclinations and passions, praying earnestly to the Lord for their correction and salvation; through this, little by little, love and respect for one’s neighbor will reign in the heart, and dislike, hostility and malice will be eradicated, and the Kingdom of God will begin to be established in hearts, Christian love will multiply and general well-being will increase. Good has an infinitely great advantage over evil and is capable of defeating all evil with its meekness, attractiveness, silence and peace, and can turn enemies into friends, gives the soul peace, firmness, dignity, greatness, makes a person respected and loved. (I thank the Lord, who delivered me from demonic malice in the Smirnovs’ apartment during the funeral service.) I extol and glorify with a grateful heart my Lord Jesus Christ, who delivered me from the painful demonic anger towards the rector for his supposed isolation in himself and cold selfishness, as it seemed to me at the lity when the body of Pavel I. Smirnov was carried into the cathedral; Throughout the entire journey, a secret malice oppressed and tormented me, although I repented of it, but when, upon arriving at the cathedral and performing the entrance prayers and at the beginning of vesting, Father Superior said a kind word to me (I had a colorful cassock, and he said: “Look, what a hazel grouse!”), I laughed, so to speak, the demonic malice melted away, I rejoiced like a treasure at the word of love and communication of Father Paul and became completely different by a person; how much the word of love means, especially in bosses! I thank the Lord for this good change. He served Mass at the cathedral calmly, and received communion without condemnation by the grace of God, and performed the funeral service (exclamation, singing of irmos and chants) in a calm, clear and sonorous voice. No one lays his hand on the forehead and in vain turns back, he is ruled in the Kingdom of God [Luke 9:62]. Ralo - the commandments of God, the Gospel; backward vision - addiction to earthly things, the flattery of wealth, the sadness of this age and so on, the lusts of this world - this is what distracts us from the Kingdom of God and prevents it from establishing itself in us. So, go ahead, woe behold, [woe] the hearts of the imam! I tossed and turned all night about September 13th because I ate white bread with butter and cheese when I shouldn’t have, because I was full. I don’t need to eat all day today. O blind gluttony, O greed! When will I leave you? Resurrection. After early mass. I was granted indescribable, greatest mercies from the Lord today before early mass, when I read prayers (on the fortieth day) to mothers in labor (I went with reluctance, but when it became mortally crowded, I repented right away, and the Lord forgave, granting me space in my heart), when I was upset with the sexton, when I secretly envied Father Alexander for acquiring a new cassock from Andreeva; at the beginning of mass before the reading of the Apostle, when the Lord, through the prayer of repentance, took away my sins, transformed cramped conditions into space, confusion into peace, death into life, cowardice into joy and boldness, weakness into strength, humiliation into greatness. Then, after the great entrance, the Lord again revived me, killed by sin, for my repentance and falling to the holy throne with faith and hope. I thank the Lord, who made me worthy to partake of the Holy Mysteries without condemnation and to give communion to twelve infants and to preach a sermon with power. After Vespers. I thank the Lord for the new mercy of God, revealed in me just before Vespers and at the beginning of it when reading Psalm one hundred and three, in delivering me from a passionate state and in giving me purification, peace, freedom, a pure, grace-filled voice. When I went to baptize a baby at Moiseev’s house (on Posadskaya Street, four-story), beggars met me, and one of them began to persistently ask for money for supports; I always looked at him with distrust and suspicion and did not want to give; he approached, and I became very angry with him, so that I drew the attention of passers-by, and finally exchanged it and gave it to him with displeasure and contempt; but for all this I received such sorrow and distress, such deprivation of grace that if the Most Merciful Lord had not soon accepted my heartfelt repentance, I would have been in trouble, Satan would have tormented me - but glory to the mercy of God! When I walked into the house and climbed the stairs to the fourth floor with a slow step and heartily repenting of the sins I had committed, the Lord now showed His mercy on me upon arriving at the officer’s apartment, delivered me from cramped conditions and confusion, humiliation, when I prayed before the icon with kneeling and then performed the Sacrament calmly, with feeling, reverently. Then in the cathedral, during the all-night vigil before the erection and after the erection of the holy cross, the spirits of malice seriously tempted me with wickedness and malice, tormented me, oppressed me, but I repented and prayed, and the Lord delivered me by His power from all their slander and sedition. Glory to the Lord! O dearest and sweetest name of the Lord Jesus Christ, name of redemption and eternal life! On September 14, I slept badly at night, tossing and turning from side to side, probably because I had eaten at night (pie with apples, two cups of broth, a glass of tea). In advance, you don’t need to sleep for a long time during the day and eat at night. After early mass. I thank the Lord, who showed me His omnipotent help in my misfortune, into which my bodiless enemies brought me for my gluttony and satiety. When I cried out from the depths to the Lord during the proskomedia and at the beginning of the liturgy of the catechumens for deliverance and help, for His love for mankind is invincible, then obvious help soon came to me from Him and my enemies fled from me. He served the Liturgy loudly, without stumbling, even before dismissal, and delivered the sermon very expressively and forcefully. May the Lord help us in everything and save us into His Heavenly Kingdom. In a precious cross, the pin on which the cross is held must be completely soldered to the master so as not to lose the cross. I thank the Lord with all my heart for the wondrous and speedy deliverance of me from spiritual trouble in the apartment of Ivan Fedorovich Palyanov before and during the prayer service; I was very embarrassed by displeasure and grief at the watchmen who carelessly swept away the rubbish from the church after early mass, and I shouted loudly at them and thereby wounded my soul, which had been honored with heavenly integrity from the service of the liturgy and the communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ. I sincerely prayed to the Lord to restore His fallen tabernacle, that is, my soul, by forgiving everything I had done: my rage, my cry, the indignation of the spirit, the violation of the law of love, the whole law of God, and the Lord - oh, miracle! now he has pacified and revived, spread and emboldened my soul. After an early mass in the Duma Assumption Church. He served without a deacon, who was sick, and he served very badly, in confusion and hellish cramped conditions and in a kind of almost insanity. I was embarrassed and died mentally from the most unimportant, innocent circumstance, which I caused out of a lack of love and directly out of malice towards the old but kind maid Paraskeva Ivanovna Kovrigina, who brought me a thirteen-year-old boy Alexander (the son of Ulyania Dmitrievna, who ordered this mass) for confession and communion, without warning me about it earlier. The devil brought such embitterment and evil despondency and cowardice upon me because of her that I was not myself during the whole mass, now accusing, now justifying her, now bringing to mind her constant groveling around me, although sincere, humble, in piety, then her unchanging love, not falling away, enduring everything, not getting irritated, not thinking evil, covering everything, and I suffered cruelly the whole mass from the devilish fervor in me 95, burning, embarrassment. And this passion in me came from gluttony and satiety from the evening on the day of the Exaltation of the Cross of the Lord. What a miserable, pitiful person I am, alone without a deacon during the Liturgy! What a lack of love in me from worldly addictions, especially from gluttony! What impatience, what anger! It is good to strengthen hearts with grace, and not with foods from which those who engage in them did not benefit [Heb. 13:9]. I understand why the devil poured out his anger in me on Paraskeva Ivanovna Kovrigina. Because because of her and by her, a circle of pious women gathered and began to work for God with all their hearts: because of her they receive communion, sometimes confess every week; because she is more humble than anyone else and breathes faith and love, and for me she has done and is doing very, very much with her love, and I showed her hatred for loving her, ungrateful, satiated, self-loving, proud, angry, envious, voluptuous and selfish, wayward and stubborn, impatient, hard-hearted, lazy, sad, fearful, nasty, unclean, murmuring, blasphemous, cowardly, partial, obsequious, crafty, unfaithful, deceitful, disobedient, passionate, suspicious, suspicious, caressing, harsh, insane, hypocritical, unkind, malicious, malicious, malicious, perjured, captious, absurd (or argumentative), arrogant, ambitious, vain, idle, lazy, greedy, stingy. I thank the Lord that he was not completely angry with me, and after the reign of the adversary in me during the liturgy and requiem, after the end of them, during the use of the Holy Gifts and after use again, the Lord reigned in me and pacified and justified me with His Blood. Then the whole day I was happy, peaceful. And I began to grumble that during the Liturgy the Lord did not deliver me from the invisible enemies who surrounded me like a legion, despite my prayer to the Lord and His Most Pure Mother and the Holy Great Martyr Nikita (his memory was that day). I needed fiery temptation, cooking, admonition, punishment, torment. Glory to the Lord for the sorrows! We must pray earnestly for Paraskeva Ivanovna Kovrigina, so that her adversary does not arouse hostility against her. Wednesday. After early mass. The Lord honored me with a special blessing while serving this day of early mass, as if as a consolation and reward for the slander and torment from evil spirits that befell me during the previous service of the liturgy without a deacon. It served as special boldness, anointing, and peace. For the House of Diligence I begged the Lord the Lord. After the liturgy I felt quite good all day. In the evening, at a prayer service in Zakharov’s house, he was greatly wounded by the carnal beauty of the girl and died mentally, but after secret repentance and prayer he was cleansed, revived, resurrected and served calmly until the reading of the Gospel: here at the end he stumbled from internal temptation and did not complete the prayer service well; hence the dumbness, grief, misfortune. Having come to the apartment of the janitor of a real school to read prayers to the mother in labor, I secretly prayed on my knees for mercy, and through prayer the Lord had mercy on me. After yesterday’s [...] liturgy, which I served without a deacon (I fell ill), today (with a deacon) the Lord comforted me greatly, and performed the entire sequence of the mass and requiem service peacefully, with a triumphant soul. I thank the Lord, who, while serving with the Halakhs, granted me to overcome the charm of gold and precious stones (in the cross) and not to feel sorry for them and not to think about them that the incense smoke would harm them, and after some embarrassment at first, no longer be embarrassed - may this continue in the future. May I not prefer anyone or anything, no creature to my Creator, my God and Savior, my eternal life, may I not offend the grace of the Holy Spirit living and acting in me, by any sin, by any addiction, by any passion. Wake up! I thank the Lord for his immeasurable mercy in healing my soul and body from [sickness] and relaxation from excessive drinking of wine at Alex’s. Ivanovich Popov and for the gift of new life, peace, freedom, and boldness through service and communion of the Holy Mysteries. I saw in myself the wonderful, life-giving power of my God. I thank the Lord for his help during the service of prayers with Skrytnev and the Titkovs (at the Titkovs I was somewhat embarrassed, but then the Lord pacified my heart). [Kolokshina] gave communion vaguely, not himself, unable to say much due to the obstacle of the devil. At home, at twelve o'clock in the evening, I searched for copies of the Kronstadt Bulletin newspaper with my speech and found it under a marble chair. He cried with frustration after the discovery. Oh, you must treat all your actions with meekness and not be indignant at anything, not have attachments to anything, maintain a calm state of mind: this is required by prudence and faith. We must observe order in everything, in the important and the unimportant: this will protect you from fussiness and futile searches, and from wasting time, and from many disappointments. To consume anything contrary to the purpose of the Creator of the creature means to offend the Creator of the creature. Friday. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from sinful death, sorrow and oppression during Matins. This misfortune befell me, on the one hand, from yesterday’s delicacy and satiety, and on the other, from ill will and hostility towards one poor woman who asked me to place her son in some institution. I told her, “Get away! There is no place for me to define it.” For my repentance and falling in faith to the holy throne (at the Intercession), the Lord miraculously had mercy on me and revived me. During mass, the Lord again appeared to me as a great helper, giving me tenderness, contrition for sins, sovereignly changing my heart from evil to good, from hostile to friendly (I felt hostility towards Metropolitan Isidore for his pride and inaccessibility, but I overcame it only with the help of the Lord, by His grace). I myself am not worthy to harbor sublime love for the ruler in my heart: I am unclean and because of an empty thing I often get upset with a person. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from the deadly poison of the prodigal, which tormented me for some time and deprived me of peace, freedom, boldness, and light. I thank the Lord, who accepted my repentance from the depths of my soul. I owe my entire present social position to the Holy Synod and the Sovereign, and I must be deeply devoted to them, and must always revere them, as instruments of the all-good God, His all-good and wise, all-powerful Providence for me and for His Holy Church. I thank the Lord for the miracle of His goodness and mercy in me after mass and at the end of the memorial service for the deceased servant of God Pavel (Smirnov), when the altar watchman, after repeated suggestions about the proper removal of prosphora and antidoron, left the church and did not bring out the dish with prosphora and I became angry with him, shouting at him in my heart; after heavenly peace and heavenly life from communion of the Holy Mysteries and a wondrous victory over the worst enemies of salvation, I fell into miserable confusion and into spiritual death, into cramped conditions and sorrow. It was then that I prayed to the Lord in repentance for mercy and restoration of me, who had fallen, and to grant me deliverance, peace, freedom, righteousness, and the Lord miraculously and quickly revived me, granting righteousness, peace, freedom, boldness. Oh, how joyful I was at this manifestation of God’s mercy in me. I thank the Lord for all the sorrows, hardships, troubles allowed to happen to me. He allows all this to happen to me, so that He may tempt me in every way, and may His truth appear in me, may He cleanse me from all sin. Do you think that Me, having created you otherwise, will you appear truthful? 96 – the Lord spoke to Job after he had endured heavy and long temptations [Job.40:3]. Oh, may the true sun of Your righteousness shine in my heart, O Lord, may I be clean from all sin; Be holy, it says, for holy am I the Lord your God [Lev.19:2]. Be perfect, just as your Heavenly Father is perfect. [Matthew 5:48]. The Father chastises us in the spirit, so that we may partake of His holiness, so that we may be partakers of the Divine nature [Heb.12:9–10]. A priest who often brings to the Lord the Bloodless Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ for all and for all, for all the saints of the heavenly Church, quite a bit for the Most Holy Theotokos, for all living and dead members of the Orthodox Church, even for the whole world, needs most of all ardent love for God, who loved us so much, and for all people, especially for the sovereign and the royal house, for the government, for the spiritual authorities, especially for the local the bishop - this eye or the sun of the church, and to all the brotherhood in Christ, to the brethren of the church, to all his spiritual flock, and not at all to allow in the heart any and the slightest hostility towards anyone, which comes from the devil, not to have the slightest partiality for any earthly treasure, for the slightest partiality for it angers God, Who cannot justly tolerate preferences Oneself as a creature, animate or soulless. The service of a priest is the highest, most heavenly service, the service of incorruptibility and immortality, the service of redemption, the service of Heavenly God. Woe of the heart! I worship in the Most Pure Virgin Mother the shrine of the Holy Spirit and the entire Holy Trinity that dwells in Her, the greatness of the Divinity of Christ, who took flesh from Her and was eternally united with Her; I worship in Her the unspeakable greatness and perfection of every Divine virtue: Divine purity, humility, meekness, love, patience, long-suffering of the Divine, peace that surpasses all understanding, steadfastness, eternal truth, readiness to have mercy and save repentant and believing sinners, to help in all plausible and well-intentioned needs. Grant me, O Lady, with a pure heart to always call upon You, to thank and glorify You according to your inheritance, although the angelic mind is perplexed to praise You properly, as the Mother of the Existing One and God. After early mass with communicants and communicants. I thank the Lord, who surprised me with His mercy during Matins and especially mass in the unstumbling service and non-judgmental communion of the Holy Mysteries for myself and my spiritual brothers and sisters and in the granting of purification, sanctification, renewal, peace, joy, freedom, triumph of the spirit. Woe to me for the disorder in which my newspapers and books are: sometimes I need a newspaper for a certain day - and I can’t find it for a long time, and I get irritated, worried, fussing and exhausting myself. There must be strict order in everything. Woe to me that I am alone and have no helper; I need an assistant. After the all-night vigil. I thank the Lord, who has given me the grace to celebrate the all-night Sunday vigil without stumbling with feeling and sincerity and to overcome the false fears of the evil one in saying absolution; I thank the Lord for his help during the service of the all-night vigil and prayer service with the captain of the second rank [...] in the house [of Shtelman] and during the christening with Zakhary Sidorov in the house of Golubev, although no small temptation befell me for the sake of a silk scarf. Why is this world and all its parts, small and great, all creatures created beautiful, especially man - the crown of creation? In order for the infinite beauty of God to appear in countless beautiful images of creatures and for rational beings to learn from creatures to know the Creator and, most of all, to love Him and His original, incorruptible, incomparable, eternal beauty; and so that people do not become attached in their hearts to creatures, they are created perishable, passing from a state of beauty to ugliness, destruction and corruption, and addiction to them is a disease of the heart. Thus, many saints came to know the Creator from creatures and were completely captivated by His eternal, uncreated beauty; and on the other hand, many, many, seduced by the visible beauty of creatures and philosophizing craftily, instead of knowing and loving the Creator, clung to the creatures, despising the love of the Creator, and through this they themselves fell into soul-crushing passions and perished. Having entered the church of the Eternal and Endless Creator of creation during the divine service, you seem to step over the threshold of time and constantly hear the praise of the Eternal and those His saints who have been honored with eternal life, and you yourself learn not to become attached to the temporary and disappearing, but to strive for the constant and eternal, unshakable, unchangeable. The Lord... will illuminate the hidden things in the darkness and reveal the intentions of the heart, and then everyone will receive praise from God [1 Cor. 4:5]. A rational being - a person - must always strictly weigh and evaluate all his thoughts, desires, intentions, goals, words, actions: are they reasonable, do they agree with the law of God and with the laws of man, with the laws of society - and remove everything that does not agree with common sense, conscience and the law of God from himself immediately, so that the poison of sin does not infect the soul and spread in it and defile its entire being. Human! Do you always weigh all your thoughts, desires, plans, intentions, undertakings, words, and actions in this way? - No, no, and that’s why your life is full of ugliness, passions and all sorts of vanities and stupidities, disappointments, sorrows, sorrows, illnesses, troubles. But you have been given free will with reason, you are master over yourself and you can freely choose good and evil, wisdom and stupidity, life and death. Choose good and you will be eternally blessed. The Lord declares the way of the righteous, and the way of the wicked will perish [Ps. 1:6]. For every idle word that people speak, they will give an answer on the day of judgment [Matthew 12:36]. I thank the Lord for the victory over my persecutor the devil during yesterday’s all-night vigil and for the stumbling-free [service], with the reprimand of all the exclamations, the Gospel, prayers and dismissals: I asked the Lord for this, and it was granted to me. To say about the teacher of the parish care that she is very ineffective in attending classes and has dismissed extremely students and students, there is no order. Through various sins, planted and infused into human nature, the devil tries with all his might to defile and corrupt it, and to remove God’s beloved creation forever from God, and to reproach the Creator in His wise creation. But, O all-evil one, we know your wiles - flee from us in the name of the Lord! If we previously sinned through knowledge and ignorance through deception from you, from your darkness and from your violence, now, having known with all our hearts and minds your charms 97 and deceits, we no longer want to fulfill your lusts and we do not listen to you, we deny you and all your deeds and all your pride. Help us, Lord, to do Your perfect will, Your commandments. Amen. Yes it will be. Under the influence of a fresh feeling of God’s mercy, I want to give heartfelt thanks to God, who delivered me from the fierce temptations of the devil and from my many different passions (in the apartment of Lieutenant Mikhail Fedorovich Alekseev, his nervous wife) before and during Vespers, at the beginning and at the end (Father Alexander came - suspicion and hostility, embarrassment, crampedness, death of the heart) - first from falling to the Holy Altar in repentance, then from the God-given living feeling of the multitude of all my sins, for the reason of which the Lord Jesus Christ has nowhere to lay his head in me, for in me lives suspicion, and wickedness, and pride with vanity, and malice, and envy, and love of money, and gluttony, and fornication, and despondency, and murmuring, and negligence, and laziness, and self-will, and stubbornness, and self-conceit, and viewing with partiality. After Vespers, there was a new strong temptation, again regarding Father Alexander (suspicion of concealing income), but also a new victory of grace for repentance, especially when Father Alexander good-naturedly undertook to officiate the wedding for me. I thank the Lord for repeated deliverance from sorrow and distress during the liturgy and for help in the service, for deep contrition for sins, for life-giving tears of repentance and tenderness, for good service, for non-judgmental communion, for preaching. However, yesterday's satiation and wine drinking had a detrimental effect on my heart, as it often did before. But the Lord, millions and millions of times, delivered me from the corruption of sin and revived me with His grace. What will I bring to Him, my Benefactor and Savior? What will I give Him? He does not demand my good things [Ps.15:2]. I will bring Him a grateful heart and alms to the poor in His name. God! Everyone is good compared to me, I am the only obscene sinner. Only Your grace fertilizes and adorns me. Glory to You! May I die to myself and may I live to You. Wake up! Ten o'clock in the evening. I thank the Lord for the calmness and boldness with which, by His grace, I performed the Sacrament of Baptism with the judicial investigator of the maritime court, Captain Ippolit Petrovich Andreev, in the presence of many sailor officers. Thank God that the charming devices of the devil fall before the power of Christ God, who is called upon with faith in repentance. Do not disgrace me, Lord Christ, Your servant, ever. Grant me always to glorify You, my God, and You also glorify me, unworthy, according to Your word: I will glorify those who glorify Me [1 Samuel 2:30]. Christening with prayer at Captain Andreev's; Material gratitude from godfather is our property, according to position. Thank the Lord for this gift. Why do we desire distinctions and orders? In order to satisfy our petty pride, to become higher than others and to appear to be something other than what we are, that is, to deceive others when we deign to adorn ourselves with these differences, but in our souls remain the same indecent slaves that we were, and perhaps even worse, since pride and arrogance will increase in us. There is, of course, some good side to reward: it is self-respect and the acquisition or giving of greater or more appropriate dignity to one's rank, one's service and one's position. Let it remain that way. However, this is acquired more by honest performance of one’s work and internal virtue. All glory to the daughter of the King within [Ps.44:14]. So, turn your heart’s eyes inward, let truth reign there, let God reign. Due to yesterday's intense gluttony (foods, wine, sweet tea), today during Matins the grace of God, which strengthens the heart, left me (it is good to strengthen hearts with grace, and not with food, from which those who indulge in them did not benefit [Heb. 13:9]), and the evil power of the enemy overtook me, confusing, oppressing and tormenting me to the point that I could not say the litanies at the Midnight Office at the beginning Matins until the Six Psalms and I could barely speak the great litany - the devil strangled me so much; I fell, when there was time and when it was possible, in repentance to the holy throne, asking for help from the Lord and for the goodness of my heart, I shrank, shuffled, raked myself from the demons that were internally tormenting me (and yesterday I myself gave them a reason to attack, as if running away from the battlefield, having missed the great, supplicative and most of the litanies at Vespers, I spoke a short, serious one), but there was no help appeared or appeared for a moment and then disappeared, leaving me to fight with enemies and suffer punishment for my gluttony and idolatry. At the canon, grace strengthened me, but it was enough for the sexton to clumsily turn a piece of paper from the Menaion, and I became embittered with him (so gluttony corrupts the heart, weakens it, making it accessible to every sin, every passion!). This was after the fourth song of the canon, and for the sixth song I skipped the litany and for the ninth I said the litany vaguely, omitting many words from it, and I asked Deacon Arseny Petrovich Dobronravin to say the petitionary and intense litany; I stole the great dismissal, read the prayer to Christ, the True Light timidly, with extreme obstacles from demons, and waved the sexton to sing to the Chosen Voivode, without waiting for me to finish the prayer; stole a small vacation. How many temptations! It was as if my enemies were tearing my heart apart, like a light boat on the sea during a storm, abandoning my soul. Only after Matins, intense prayer and fervent prostration before the holy throne of grace drove away the invisible evildoers and pacified me. Also, walking through the church to the altar before Matins, I was upset with the pious old woman Paraskeva Ivanovna Kovrigina for her frequent touching of my hand, but after that grace reconciled me with her, as with one of the same minds in the Lord. Oh, how the heart weakens, becomes coarse, hardens, and dies from gluttony! Oh, how abstinence is needed, needed and urgently needed! And the generous reward we received for praying to the baby and for the christening gave the enemy the strength to fight against me, for he saw my secret joy about my selfishness! Trouble all around! But glory to the invincible goodness of the Lord, His invincible power, His omnipotence! Who is God the Great, as is our God? You are the God who works miracles [Ps. 76:14–15], miracles of mercy and long-suffering! You do not allow the sinner to perish and be devoured by the hellish whale, which has an insatiable belly. He served late mass in cramped conditions, but by the grace of God he did not stumbling and received communion without condemnation, life-giving; before reading the prayer behind the pulpit, the enemy again strongly pressed and confused me, hoping to overthrow me with his thoughts, but grace overcame him according to my faith; I read the entire pulpit, the entire release, except for the holy noble prince Alexander Nevsky. Classrooms are tight in my heart. In the seventh grade there was an incident with a new student Skvortsov. He served Vespers with Compline by God's grace without stumbling, with peace and great boldness, especially after the stichera. God bless! When, after Vespers, I went to give prayer to the mother in labor at Trofimov’s house on Narvskaya Street, two beggar boys chased me in hopes of receiving alms; I told them to go back to Andreevsky Lane, but they did not leave; after praying to the mother in labor, I went out onto Narvskaya Street and saw them standing near another house, called them over, questioned one, found out about the family’s tight circumstances and gave fifteen kopecks, gave the other boy ten kopecks - he was dissatisfied; I told him to leave - he doesn’t leave, he asks; I took back ten kopecks and gave fifteen with annoyance and embitterment; a tradesman came up and asked for support - he reluctantly gave him thirty kopecks, as he often does and doesn’t do anything, and for his whiskey, he pulled him by the hair, and killed himself with anger; I repented, going to Shauman, and before the doors of his apartment the Lord forgave me for the sake of faith and repentance and gave me ease and peace. The more sincerely you call on the saints in prayer, the more sincerely and fervently you pray for the living and the dead, without considering rank, status, age and gender, the more you will acquire prayer books, well-wishers and admirers. With the measure you use, it will be measured to you [Matthew 7:2]. The longer we live, the more we sin, the more we indulge in vanity and passions, the more we anger the Lord with our passion for corruption, and yet the Lord calls us to incorruptible and eternal life. The Lord raises us to heaven, and the devil tries with all his might to attract us to earthly things and instills in us everything earthly, only riveting our hearts to earthly love. Set your mind on things above, and not on earthly things [ Col. 3:2 ]. God's almighty help is given to me in the communion of the Holy Mysteries for victory over the most crafty and all-evil spirits who mercilessly attack my weakness, especially during worship and especially the liturgy. Only after receiving communion from the uncondemned do I defeat them and triumph over them, calmly and forcefully pronouncing prayers, exclamations and dismissals, defeating all passions. For this glory be to the Lord! Do not leave, O Lord, me, Your servant, who is fighting against Your enemies and mine, but always help me, despising my sins, voluntary and involuntary. Through priestly service in the Holy Orthodox Church, servants and faithful believers achieve the greatest mercy of God, cleansing of sins, reconciliation with God and with their conscience, sanctification, renewal of spirit and body, confirmation in faith, hope and love, boldness before God, mental and physical health, holy joy and joy, of which those who do not work for God are deprived. Let us therefore diligently serve the Lord with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in our hearts to the Lord [Eph.5:19] and doing good works, carefully avoiding all sin. September 23, 1881 To the steward of the Commercial Club. Certain members are sealed when anointed with the holy world as instruments and conductors of truth and holiness in the human heart and as instruments and conductors of sin into the soul, so that they are no longer instruments of sin. Present your members as servants of righteousness for holy works, says the Apostle [Rom.6:19]. In the morning. The disembodied enemy, the blasphemer of God's greatness, attacked me during Matins with an evil and murderous thought: to skip the Trisagion according to the Lord's Prayer at the Midnight Office in some places or to read more quickly (concession). What does the evil one want? He wants the all-powerful name of the Lord and God not to be remembered (oh, seditious bastard!), as is obvious from his strong, incessant obstacles to me pronouncing certain names of saints, words, prayer expressions, hymns, prayers, exclamations. He wants these significant prayers, Lord, have mercy, to be used less often and in fewer numbers, as well as the Trisagion hymn, Holy God, the prayer of the Most Holy Trinity, have mercy on us, etc., and the prayer Our Father, which, like air, should be inseparable from us at all times, like the breath of our lips. I thank the Lord for giving me understanding. I thank the Lord, who has granted me grace-filled victory over the invisible enemies of God and man. After mass. I thank the Lord for the unspeakable joy of receiving the Holy Mysteries and for all His mercies poured out on me during and after mass, for all the victories over my bodiless enemies and for deliverance from all the infirmities of the flesh and spirit, for the healing of my heart wounds. Before the celebration of the Sacrament, the enemy, through a glance at one young wife before the Cherubic song, wounded me and cooled my heart to God and to the Sacrament, but I tearfully repented of this, and the Lord had mercy on me, gave me grace, lightness, and peace, and holy love for Him, and I performed the Sacrament well and received life-giving communion, to joy and great ease, but killed my soul, when, while visiting director Janisch, he reminded him of the performance for which he himself had volunteered. Then I spent two lessons uneasily, especially the first in the first grade, the second - well. What honor is higher than the honor of deification through Christ God in communion? And I have this highest honor, about which the Angels of the Lord are jealous. Earthly rewards do not give life to the heart, but Christ is the Son of God, give life to me and to all who sincerely believe in Him. Why did I stoop to desire honor from vain people and vain honor? However, if it pleases the Lord not to deprive me of this honor common among people, let this also be to the glory of His name. May my good glory not be effaced in this part, and may all who love God and His Church rejoice with me. Brief prayers: Lord, have mercy, Holy God, Holy Trinity, Our Father and others - should remind us that we, people, are fallen, sinful, condemned creatures, worthy of all punishment and torment, and only by faith in the Son of God, who suffered and died for us, we are delivered from condemnation to Gehenna and from righteous condemnation, only through Him do we find reconciliation with God and access to the Heavenly Father, adoption and the right to the inheritance of eternal life and everlasting joy; must instill in us that we, as constantly sinning, must always live in repentance, in humility, and not [in] arrogance, in all correction and virtue, in order to become worthy children of our Lord Jesus Christ, our Redeemer and Savior. The sign of the cross, which we depict on ourselves, constantly reminds us of what we are redeemed and saved from eternal damnation and condemnation into torment - namely, the terrible torment on the cross and the death of the Son of God for us, and therefore we must always depict the sign of the cross on ourselves with attention, with faith and love for the Savior and in general for the Holy Trinity, who saved us in such a [wise] way, and in gratitude to God the Savior, try to accurately fulfill It the holy will, through disobedience to which the first people and all their descendants fell so terribly, to cut off their will, their whims, lusts, passions or sinful thoughts, feelings, words and actions. It is enough for you to seek rewards from the adulterous and sinful world (from the director) and to commit adultery with its differences, often given untruthfully, and seek the single honor of the heavenly calling from Christ, our true God, the honor that all the saints have achieved and received, the honor of true, righteous, eternal, and the honor here is vain, fleeting and not useful and harmful, for it often puffs up and binds to vain things, leads the sinful world away from God and truth, for a person seeking earthly rewards seeks to please the world, and not God; Christian humility, which humbles itself before God and people, does not allow the search for distinctions and rewards; it also says when we have fulfilled everything commanded: I am an unprofitable slave, for I did only what I had to do [Luke 17:10]. So, leave your earthly rewards to the Lord; if it pleases Him to honor you, accept it with humility and gratitude; if not, do not complain and give thanks too! Conception of Saint John the Baptist. A hundred thousand times I have experienced extreme harm to the soul from gluttony and satiety, and the body suffers from it, although movement in the fresh air greatly reduces the harm; however, yesterday I unintentionally got fed up with the servant of God Euphrosyne Petrovna in the club and, leaving there, I felt belching and hiccups (hiccups). And this morning during Matins I felt extreme weakness and powerlessness in my soul to fight the invisible enemies who were attacking me mercilessly. They confused me at the Midnight Office during the saying of dismissal and the litany, at the beginning of Matins at the short, special litany; During the sixth psalm, he calmed down with the Lord, by His mercy, but during the great litany he almost wavered, however, he pronounced it separately, very loudly; the canon read very loudly, animatedly, and at the end of the canon and the small litany and the stichera on the praises, when the deacon prompted: Glory to You, Who showed us the light, I was offended by him, embarrassed, hurt, died in my heart, and although during the singing of the great doxology I calmed down with repentance and prayer, I did not dare to say the intense and petitionary litany, with which cowardice I gave enemies have a reason to torment me again, to torment me, to confuse me, so I said the prayer to Christ, the True Light with extreme difficulty and waved the sexton to sing to the Elected Voivode, without waiting for the end of the prayer. Terrible misfortunes! And it’s all from gluttony! Oh, womb, womb! A womb of many misfortunes! But thanks be to the Lord! Only His infinite goodness defeated the malice of my enemies in me and drove them out and gave me peace and freedom. Glory to the Lord! The lesson is instructive! Do not give illustrations to Kromido. Evening. I thank the Lord, who many times delivered me by His mercy and for my faith and prayer of repentance from the frequent cramps that befell me due to my sins during mass, and who many times revived me, killed by my sins and passions. I thank the Lord, who has inspired in me great zeal for the glory of His name to serve the Liturgy with tenderness, sincerely, loudly, unfailingly from beginning to end. Great was my bliss. After communion of the Holy Mysteries, solemnly, loudly, with great boldness, I said the prayers before the communion of the merchant Paraskeva Andreeva: I believe, Lord, and I confess... and another: Thy Supper... and May it not be for judgment or condemnation... loudly, solemnly, cheerfully I read the prayer behind the pulpit and said dismissal. After mass, before the consumption of the Holy Gifts, the former Belial tightness was broken by invoking the sweetest name of Christ. I happily went to the gymnasium... After the third lesson, I went for a walk and met at the narrow gate of the training carriage a girl named Michaelis (by my mother’s surname), an acquaintance who answered my greetings very coldly, and I was upset, embarrassed, hurt... But the Lord accepted my repentance, warm, strong, deep, and delivered me from demonic malice and death: sinful sadness was transformed into joy and triumph of the spirit. He ruled Vespers with grace and zeal. The Lord healed and consumed the enemy's cramped conditions. In the evening, going to the christening of the official Ivanov in the sixth officer's wing, I listened to the words of sexton Bystryakov regarding Father Alexander, which were somewhat reproachful for us, and I was offended, embittered with him - again I was offended, killed by sin and the enemy. At Ivanov’s I heartily prayed to the Lord secretly for mercy, and finally the Lord delivered. God bless! In the morning. I thank the Lord for the greatest deliverance from the machinations of the enemy and for his extraordinary, all-powerful help in serving the heartfelt Matins, in saying the litanies at the Midnight Office, Matins before the Six Psalms and according to the Six Psalms and according to the canon, in reading the canon, in saying the prayer to Christ, the True Light and dismissal. (At the beginning of the Midnight Office and before it, confusion, crampedness, ulcer, death of heart over Father Alexander’s grief about replacing me with him at the christening in the church and my explanation with him about this, and I was upset with him for grumbling and embittered, through which I died in soul, but I begged the Lord, and He gave me peace instead of confusion, spaciousness of heart instead of crampedness, light instead of darkness, despondency and cowardice - boldness, instead of weakness - strength, instead of timidity - courage, instead of death - life; and with grief at Kromido the enemies tempted them for crumpling newspapers, especially with pictures, but grace defeated this temptation too.) Just before mass, the greatest misfortune befell me - the enemy’s anger against the pious, gentle, simple old maiden Paraskeva Ivanovna Kovrigina through one instant glance at her when she came up to kiss the local icons (for she intended to partake of the Holy Mysteries); The enemy put such a terrible flame of malice into my heart that I was like in hell: the poison of the devil’s malice burned, scorched me, terribly oppressed, tormented, outraged me; repeatedly and for quite a long time I fell with sincere repentance and self-condemnation to the holy throne in the Pokrovsky chapel and finally begged the Lord - He delivered me, forgave me and gave me the dew of heaven, peace, space, boldness, and I - glory to God! he served the liturgy calmly, victoriously, loudly, clearly. He received life-giving communion and gave communion to the communicants. A deacon is a herald, a herald (herald) of the Church, indicating to everyone with his hand and orar what the faithful should pray to God for. About worship. You hear only fragments, so to speak, of the liturgy and do not hear it in its entirety, because the priest or bishop says many prayers and praises to the Holy Trinity in secret. It is much more complete and extremely interesting for the mind and heart of a Christian to know the full composition of the liturgy, all the prayers and praises to God Almighty and Savior. So we will try to convey the mass in its entirety. Without the Lord, without calling on His name with faith in repentance, I absolutely cannot get rid of a single sin, not a single evil thought, not a single lust of the heart, not a single passion, for many passions fight me 100 . Only through His name do I get rid of sins and evil demons, from passions and lusts and spiritual death. Through Him I am always saved, I receive purification, peace, space, lightness of heart and mind, spiritual light, strength, boldness, every good success. Glory to my Lord Jesus Christ, my wonderful, life treasure, wealth, glory, truth, shrine. He is a rich treasure and eternal truth and shrine in His Most Pure Mother, in all the faces of the Angels, in all the ranks of saints; He is the Creator, the power, the life and strength of all nature, heaven and earth, all the luminaries, all animals and plants, all fossils, jewels and non-jesses - He is with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Glory to His almighty and all-good and all-beautiful power! Just before Matins, I was tempted again through anger at Paraskeva Kovrigina for shaking my hand while blessing her, but during the Midnight Office I begged the Lord to have mercy on me, the accursed, and to give me forgiveness, deliverance, purification, peace, boldness, strength, light, for for my sin sorrow, oppression, shame, darkness, powerlessness of heart befell me. He said the dismissal and litany at the Midnight Office loudly, without stumbling. But then my worst enemy, the demon, terribly stopped me because of the small amount of money for the prayer service (he kept me for a cab driver) and burned me throughout the all-night vigil; the release stole from the devil's obstacles and the tightness and powerlessness of the heart and the prayer to Christ, the true Light. Never eat broth at night; poison for me. And the wife, as luck would have it, imposes it. O fleshy man! Oh, unreliable companion in spiritual life! Your images, light-painted or painted portraits are pleasant, sweet, and kind to you, and you carefully and honestly store them in albums, or in frames, or in covers, so that they do not get dirty, do not gather dust, do not fade, do not tear, do not break; Even more pleasant and dear to you are your dear children - these living images and likenesses of you, and you use all your strength to carefully raise them, educate them, develop them and prepare them to serve society or yourself. Now apply the same to God and to yourself. The Lord God is the Prototype, the Creator and the Father, and you are His images, His dear children, and shouldn’t He, the loving Father, take care of us, and won’t He take care of us? How many mentors, uncles and nannies He assigned to us! The first mentors are, firstly, His own Only Begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior, who promised to be with us always until the end of the age [Matthew 28:20], and at the same time with Him, the Holy Spirit, co-natural and equivalent to Him, whom He gave to all who believe in Him; secondly, the Guardian Angel, given to every believer upon baptism; thirdly, the Holy Church is our loving mother and nurse from the cradle to the grave and beyond the grave; fourthly, our parents and followers, our shepherds, educators and teachers; fifthly, our own mind, heart and conscience, especially not spoiled by false wisdom and not drowned out by passions; sixthly, the law of the Gospel, precise, clear, strong, with strong incentives to fulfill it, with righteous threats and rewards: with threats to evil and rewards to good here and in eternity! This is how the Lord protects and preserves His living images, His portraits, dear children, that is, us - but do we protect ourselves? Do we protect others like us? After all, we have received the strength and ability to protect ourselves and others from sin - this all-poisonous and destructive dust, from this destructive moral dirt that disfigures us, from this terrible moral darkness that darkens us, defiles us and removes us from God. After all, we ourselves have been given reason, free will, the strength to take care of ourselves, avoid evil, do good, strive with all our might, with the help of God, to holiness and perfection. Do we do this, we, animated, dear to the Lord God, His own images, portraits, His dear children? Ah, brothers and sisters! We are ready to take care of everything in the world and we take care of everything, we take care of every trifle, but we do not take care of ourselves, our priceless souls, created in the image and likeness of God. What free, [feigned] stupidity! What madness! What unpardonable negligence about ourselves! Let us be reasonable, let us be careful, let us take care of ourselves, protect ourselves from all sin, and diligently instill goodness in ourselves, enlighten, strengthen, and adorn our souls with every virtue. On September 25, during mass, the Lord showed me the abyss of His mercy, the abyss of His power against the forces of evil, hostile, mercilessly attacking me and fighting me, plunging me into despondency, oppression, sorrow, anger, and death of the heart. At the beginning of the service, at the great entrance, before communion, there was a particularly strong attack - an attack of anger on the sexton, who was flaunting the extremely quiet singing of the Lord's Prayer, but even here the Lord delivered me from the underworld for faith and repentance. And I took communion life-giving, calmly. Then, after communion, the Lord delivered me from all the horrors of hell, and I am extremely weak in the struggle from my intemperance. During the all-night vigil on the day of St. John the Theologian, at the beginning there was a severe temptation: because of forty kopecks of my own money, given to the cab driver and not deducted when putting the money into the mug (I served for the brethren), I completely grew cold and died at heart, became confused, darkened, lost freedom of action and, with barely sound thinking, repentance and faith, I begged the Lord for deliverance from such a senseless passion, who killed me. Then the Lord gave me tears of tenderness at the healthy contemplation of my mind and heart about how our Creator honored and loved us, how He exalted us, sanctified us, deified us, immortalized us, and how little, little we love Him, how unfaithful to Him, changeable, treacherous, fickle, ungrateful! Here my heart warmed again! Glory to the Lord, who does not forsake me with His mercy. If you are a warrior of Christ, then you cannot be without weapons in the ranks of the Church of Christ, which is at war on earth with the devil, the flesh and the adulterous and sinful world. The weapons are faith, hope, love, humility, fasting, prayer and alms. And if you are not a warrior, then you are not His disciple; Then, perhaps, remain without weapons if you like it: for the free - freedom, for the saved - heaven, for the lost - hell, but I don’t think that you, being in your right mind, would exchange heaven for hell and would not want, in this short period of time given to us, to fight with all your might against sin and destructive and insane passions and drive them out of your soul with the help of Christ the Ascetic. So, take up arms and fight and conquer with the power of Christ. And to fall away from the Lord for a moment is the greatest and terrible loss! And how God loved man, and how ungrateful is man, who has not trusted his heart with God, how fickle and fickle! Keep our life principle - love for God and neighbor - carefully in your heart; do not become attached to anything earthly and do not grieve over the loss of earthly treasures due to addiction to earthly goods: when they are lost, there is involuntary crying, grief, despondency, despair, irritation, anger, drunkenness from grief and other troubles, and the main trouble is man’s falling away from God; Through addiction to perishable treasure, we are deprived of the incorruptible, non-stealable, inexhaustible, vital treasure - Christ God, the Source of our life. After late mass. I thank the Lord for the miracles of mercy that were revealed in me before the liturgy (before the entrance sequence), at the beginning of the liturgy, when there was some melancholy in my heart, eradicated by grace, especially after the great entrance, when the devil’s coldness took hold of my heart, melted like wax from grace and was replaced by warmth of heart and tears of tenderness; then before communion (the instant shine in the glass cooled the heart, killed it) and during and after communion of the Holy Mysteries and during the reading of the prayer behind the pulpit, read loudly, with feeling, freely, calmly, intelligently, and finally at dismissal, pronounced with dignity, calmly, without stumbling. After the mass there were three memorial services: two in a row after the mass and one at one hour and fifteen minutes for captain of the first rank Andrei Pavlovich of the Novosilsky Cathedral. I thank the Lord with all my heart for the speedy hearing of my repentant prayer for the forgiveness of the sin of the carnal sense of love, vague, astringent, deadly, and for the granting of love for everyone in the Holy Spirit, incorruptible, immaculate, peaceful, eternal love. Fire in the church is a symbol of light, life, purification, a symbol of the Divine Himself, living forever, for our God is a consuming fire [Deut. 4:24; Hebrews 12:29]. During God’s services and outside of them, when various temptations from evil spirits come upon me, I see my complete and complete inability to get rid of these poisonous, deadly temptations on my own, I see my complete powerlessness, complete infatuation with the evil power of sin, and only with faith, in sincere repentance, the called upon name of God, the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, saves me mercifully, sovereignly every time, for which I thank my many-merciful Lord every time, my all-powerful King and Savior. Glory to Thee, King of forces! Resurrection. After Matins and early mass. I thank the Lord for the miracles of His mercy performed in me during Matins and especially during Mass at the beginning and after the Great Entry, when the devilish fear and insincerity in remembering the highest persons, which always resonated deadly in me, I had to cleanse and eradicate through zealous repentance. The Lord healed me, wounded by the sting of having the power of death, and gave me life, peace, and freedom, with which I celebrated the Liturgy. Received life-giving communion; in the pulpit the enemy embarrassed, wounded and confused me, and stole my release. Sinful! I thank the Lord, who gave me the grace at the wedding to rise up after falling in the first prayers and to read other prayers with boldness and strength, although when reading the last prayers, invisible enemies overpowered me, and I ended the wedding without finishing reading some of them. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from the oppression of the enemy that happened to me while singing the requiem service at Neelov’s from missing the words and expressions of the litanies. I went out to Catherine Park and begged the Lord to grant me forgiveness and peace. God bless! Today (Monday) morning I was subjected to extreme embarrassment and bitter distress, both because of my sins and because of the negligence and extreme reduction in the service of God by priest Peter Klepachevsky with deacon Poletaev and sexton Adrian Nikitin. These people deprive me and the people of spiritual food, not by them, but by the Church, and tear it out of my mouth, not allowing me to read what is prescribed by the church charter, and do not give the Lord and His Most Pure Mother and the saints due praise and honor, mercilessly skipping the stichera and canons and other sacred songs composed in their honor. They are in a hurry, I don’t know where or why! It must be a place of bustle and bliss - to sleep, eat and drink, and play. Extremely indignant and tempted by this circumstance, I walked around the church for a long time and repented of my sins, then I entered the church, into the Peter and Paul chapel, and here I repented and prayed for a long time, often falling to the holy altar before the end of early mass. Finally, the Lord had mercy and had mercy (I indignantly pushed away two beggars, often begging girls, giving them only five (not ten) kopecks each). Temptations occurred: a) due to yesterday's satiety: 1) on the ship "Groza", 2) part of the house and 3) in the house of Gerasim Murashov at Paraskeva Ivanovna; b) due to oversleeping at the appointed time of Matins and failure to fulfill the morning prayers and c) due to the careless performance of the service of God by the cathedrals (and the dean condones). I thank the Lord, who gave me the grace to perform a prayer service with officer Vyacheslav Nikolaevich in the house of Moiseev with sincere feeling, without stumbling. I hasten to offer heartfelt thanks to my Lord Jesus Christ, the all-good and all-powerful Savior, for the deliverance of my repentance on the way to the gymnasium, when I became angry with one beggar, who often begged, and did not give him money for support (that is, for shoes) and thereby wounded my soul, after which I walked and earnestly repented, asking myself peace and mercy from the Lord, which I received, having passed both bridge - that's it; secondly, for deliverance just before Vespers, when I did not heed the poor boy’s request for an increase in his alms and went to church, leaving him in the porch; I sincerely repented of hard-heartedness, stinginess, gluttony, secret bitterness, and the Lord had mercy, granting peace, freedom, life, to name two; thirdly, for deliverance from new tightness, sorrow, death of the heart, which befell me for the new refusal of the hard-hearted beggars to give them money for supports and clothing (as I thought: they often ask, but they themselves do not want to do anything, being young). I repented again of my hardness of heart, and the Lord again had mercy, saving me from death of the heart. Glory to the Lord, but I am ashamed of my face. Six o'clock in the evening. Ten and a half o'clock in the evening. I thank the Lord for His deliverance of my unworthiness from the deadly consequences of anger towards poor young people who often beg from me. This deliverance took place through the prayer of faith and hope with repentance of sins in the apartment of the housekeeper of the Commercial Club at seven o'clock in the evening. I thank the Lord for saving me from being angry with my sister-in-law and my children and my wife for traveling around and wasting money because they were traveling around the city. How sticky and contagious is every sin and how easily it takes possession of a person who is naturally inclined to sin! How we must feel sorry for humanity, especially Christians who have come to know God and His law and sin by will, do not shun sin and humiliate their divine dignity and again submit to the devil. How we must cry for ourselves and for all people who sin so much, live without caution and fall under his power! How can we cry over the fact that sin is so clingy to people, so easily it carries them away, darkens them, seduces them, blinds them, and separates them from God and from eternal life! How, therefore, must we be lenient towards sinners, patient and long-suffering, meek, and not irritable! How to cover with love their weaknesses, which are so common to them! I thank my all-merciful and all-powerful deliverer, the Lord Jesus Christ, who delivered me during Matins, after a fervent prayer of repentance and falling before the holy life-giving throne and kissing it, from the deadly oppression that befell me for the deceit of my heart and the suspicion of Father Alexander of hiding brotherly money and incorrectly entering the mug. I did not rely on the Providence of God, but on money; stood in the altar of the church as if in heaven, but thought about earthly things, about the weak and bad elements and had an addiction to them. Oh, may I place all my hope in the Lord and may I strive to please Him in every possible way; everything else will be added to me. I thank the Lord for a new two-fold deliverance from the deadly attack of voluptuousness in my heart through the prayer of my repentance. God! You are my incorruptible, holy sweetness, true, unblemished, life-giving (nine o’clock in the morning). Four o'clock in the evening. I thank the Lord for the now (just) completed deliverance of me through the prayer of repentance from the impurity of the heart fornication as a result of an evil view of the virgin breast, from tightness and shame and destructive spiritual captivity and [for] the gift of peace, freedom and boldness. Glory to the goodness of the Lord! Glory to His righteousness, His holiness! Glory to His zeal for me, protecting me from sinful corruption and sinful death! Oh, how lustful and fornicating I am! How carnal, voluptuous and unclean! How careless about crucifying the flesh with its passions and murderous lusts! After Vespers. I will sing to You of mercy and judgment, O Lord [Ps.100:1]! Just before Vespers, I seriously sinned, becoming embittered and swearing at one pitiful beggar for his frequent begging, although it was out of need, and then, after imitating the evil one, giving him thirty kopecks; then, walking towards the cathedral, he met another beggar, a young twenty-year-old guy, asking for money for boots; since he often asks and lives all the time out of laziness with nothing to do, I turned away from him indignantly; near the church itself I met a woman who had arrived from Moscow in stages, asking for help for herself and her thirteen-year-old daughter, so that I could place her somewhere; this increase in new and new requests, which I was unable to satisfy, irritated me extremely; I began to get angry, I was overcome by confusion, anger, cramped conditions, and spiritual distress; I gave her a ruble of money and said: “Go and do your own work wherever you want, at least go to the governor’s wife, the chairman of the Charitable Society, give her a petition for benefits”; then another boy of about ten came, he again asked for help, and gave it to him after Vespers. Because of these requests, I entered the altar embarrassed, irritated and cramped, and immediately began to repent to the Lord, falling to the Holy Throne (at the Intercession), convicting myself with all my heart of lack of faith, lack of hope in Providence, pride, voluptuousness, gluttony, satiety, pride, malice, envy, stinginess and love of money, hard-heartedness, impatience, cowardice and murmuring, lack of love, ingratitude, in laziness and carelessness about pleasing the God of my life, in the destruction of the entire law of God, which consists of love, and - oh, the endless mercy of God, conquering all and all sins! “The Lord, despite the abyss of my evils, despised all my sins, forgave me for being indecent, took away my sins, giving me peace instead of confusion, spiritual space instead of tightness, life instead of death, strength instead of powerlessness, light instead of darkness, joy instead of sadness, His truth instead of untruth, blessing instead of an oath. I felt with all my soul the gift of God, the living streams of grace of the Holy Spirit in me. Then he soon sinned again with the poor (grabbing his ear), again sincerely repented and was pardoned. September 30. Now I have returned home from early mass in the Assumption Church (Nikolai Grigorievich Sidorov and Philip Stepanov), filled with the inexpressible mercies of God that took place in me during Matins and early mass and after it before Matins: while walking in the cathedral park, I, proud, voluptuous and impatient, became angry, first with the beggar who persistently asked for money for a caftan, then especially strongly against the old maid Paraskeva Ivanovna Kovrigina, mentioning the devil in his annoyance at her. By this I was extremely upset myself, causing fatal ulcers to my heart, confusion, cramped conditions and misfortune; Having entered the church, I fervently, with faith and spiritual hope, repented to the Lord, touching the holy throne with my heart and lips, and the Lord soon surprised me with His great and rich mercy, granting me forgiveness, peace, freedom, and boldness. With what animation and triumph, how loudly I then read the canons for the day (Wednesday) and the saint (the Hieromartyr Gregory, the enlightener of Great Armenia)! On my way to mass, I was worried that I was somewhat late, and that the customers, Philip Stepanov and Nikolai Sidorov, were capricious people and that it would be awkward for me to serve, but when I came to church, I prayed to the Lord to give me fearlessness, peace, freedom, dignity, and the Lord managed everything for the good, giving me peace, silence, freedom from the devil’s sting, and space. He served the entire mass with tenderness and tears. After the mass on the occasion of the disappearance of the liturgy and after the requiem service on the occasion of the suppression of the dismissal of the memorial service, there were strong, mortal wounds and embarrassment and oppression from the devil, but by faith in the Lord and in His Holy Mysteries, in their redemptive power, in the infinite goodness and power of the Lord, he defeated all the misfortunes and treacheries of the enemy and was reconciled, revived, rejoiced and glorified Gentlemen, I suffered and shivered, I broke down greatly from the torment of the devil. I received two greatest mercies from the Lord for faith and repentance in the Manege church during the solemn service there on the occasion of the anniversary of Father Porfiry: the Lord sovereignly freed me from the tightness of the enemy and granted me freedom, peace and boldness, and I made a speech to the hero of the day in the solemn assembly. The Lord sent me another great deliverance at the end of the prayer service with Roman Fedorovich, at which (the prayer service) the enemy stopped me while reading the Gospel, litanies and prayers and, having entered my heart like a thief, oppressed me, confused me, tormented me. On the way to the sick girl Olga (in the house of Moses), I walked and prayed, asking for permission, and the Lord allowed me, giving me peace and freedom. Celebrating the anniversary of Father Strokin. Lord, knower of hearts! You saw the state of my soul upon my entrance into the Manege church, when the liturgy was going on and they sang a concert instead of sacrament, when I read the text of the concert, which painfully resonated in my heart as exposing my innermost thoughts; You saw my thoughts and feelings for the elder hero of the day - not feelings of sincere love and respect, but thoughts and feelings of dislike, ill will and envy, which are deceit according to the work of the devil. Our fathers only think of grabbing more rewards, but do not like to shepherd the flock of Christ well. It was hard for me from the mentioned feelings, the state of my soul was suffering, painful, ungodly. In my heart I violated the entire law of the Gospel, which consists of love, and love must cover the weaknesses of others and see in them more the good sides of the heart and life than the bad, and give praise to goodness! The Lord accepted the sincere repentance of my heart and had mercy on me, giving me peace, but then one immodest glance at the outfit of a beautiful woman standing in the church, at her breast, plunged my heart into corruption, confusion and tightness - and again torment, and again inner repentance, and again the mercy of the Lord after the diseases of sin. You alone, Lord, are the treasure of life, besides You all is vanity, all is nothing, with You and in You there is only something. During the all-night vigil on the Intercession (in the Assumption Church) I experienced true spiritual trouble. The devil’s sting stung me throughout the service; unbearable satanic temptations, loss of spirit, sorrow, cramped conditions, and demonic fear gave me almost no peace; I sighed and cried, shrank, hesitated - in a word, I suffered from various temptations of the devil. I think this is also because, by the way, I didn’t eat anything liquid at home, but when visiting I treated myself to marinated salmon (in a jar) with white bread and plenty of apple jam; these sweets were raging in me, and even before the rain, my nervous state was painfully pressing on me. Paraskeva Yakimovna Murashova and the Britnevs also have temptations. But the Lord delivered me from all of them. Glory to God, who does not abandon me completely, but has mercy beyond words. Do not leave me, Master Lord, in my weaknesses, in my temptations. The money given to me from the women of St. Petersburg, fifteen rubles, may have been the cause of hardship and temptation. Nikolai [Akindinovich] Alekseevsky gave five rubles from himself, and the Lord sent me five rubles for free from the Ilyichevs (he gave three to his wife, took two for himself). God bless! Fate (Church Slavic) – law, establishment, definition. Rumor (Church Slavic) – vanity, care (“rumor” – get carried away, fuss, care). Hymns at the Liturgy of St. Basil the Great on Holy Saturday. Rhea (Church Glav.) - I push, I shove. Translated by P. Yungerov: Or do you think that I did the wrong thing to you, or will you turn out to be right? ( Job 40:3 ). Prelest (church glory) – deception, seduction; wandering, evasion. I abolish (church glory) - I stop, I destroy, I abolish. Flame (obsolete) – torch. The hymn of Great Compline.