Март 1882 г.

Bless, Lord, the coming life-giving spring. I thank the Lord, who showed me the greatest mercy three times or, better yet, many times during Matins, which the rector served, firstly, through my prayer, saving me from deadly hardness of heart, and secondly, from strong grief and indignation at the director of the gymnasium, Janisch, who attacked me with anger for not being in the class for the parish service; I blamed only him, and when I felt arrows and deadly wounds in myself, I resigned myself and partly blamed myself. For a long time he fell to the throne of grace, and finally, by force, he captured the Kingdom of God - by the power of faith, hope, and repentance. God bless! The canon was read with the greatest zeal. How sweet it is to have a right spirit, justified by grace, and to be one spirit with God [1 Cor. 6:17]! (After the heavy burden of sin and after repentance and mercy from God.) Yesterday, after early mass, I sinned before God, before the Lady, before the holy Angels and all the saints of God, and before the Berzins, who asked to serve a prayer service, and before everyone who was in the church at that time and prayed during the prayer service to the Mother of God, before which and during which I was greatly tempted by the stubbornness and willfulness of the devil, laziness, reluctance, subservience and grief unrighteous. I served the prayer service poorly, carelessly, not cordially, forcedly, falsely, unable to overcome my grief and anger towards those asking for the prayer service. Oh, I must always be ready to pray and serve the parishioners. Whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant; and whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave [Matthew 20:26–27]. The day of March 1 (the martyrdom of the sovereign Emperor Alexander II) was extremely painful for me due to my nervous, painful state and the unusually difficult, persistent temptations of evil spirits after the mass and memorial service for the sovereign; at the prayer service with officer Myachin, I did not know how I would finish the prayer service, I did not read the Gospel, I could not speak the Great Litany at the Blessing of Water, I could not read the prayer: my heart was pinched, suppressed by the evil ruler of the world; At the funeral service in the mine workshop, it was only thanks to Father Deacon Poletaev that the matter got away safely: I was under his cover, and I almost silently said the dismissal. Before the funeral service, I went to the Manege church; however, before entering, the Lord accepted a secret prayer of repentance and freed me from the devil’s bonds, tightness and shame, to which I was subjected at Myachin’s prayer service. Oh, how terribly my enemies kick me! The parishioners do not know or understand this! Such a nervous state, painfully irritable, occurred both from yesterday's satiety and drinking wine at Kovina's funeral, and from lack of sleep (I slept little at night), and, finally, before the onset of extremely rainy weather in the evening, and then a sharp frost. God! What extreme, drastic changes are my soul and body subject to! From four o'clock in the evening until six I fell asleep at home and got up cheerful and fresh and served a prayer service at Gulyaeva's freely and cheerfully, with feeling, without stumbling, and almost the same in the apartment of Paraskeva Ivanovna Oleinikova for the sake of the birthday girls Evdokiya. Glory to God, who turned sorrow into joy, weakness into strength, cowardice into cheerfulness. Tuesday. Morning. I thank the Lord, who, after a long, fervent prayer of repentance, delivered me from hellish cramping and sorrow, once during the sixth psalm: until now, there was always fierce cramping over the displeasure of the Father Superior’s idea of celebrating the twenty-five years of his abbot in Kronstadt, because he considered him not worthy of this celebration, as he had not done anything special - no improvement in the church, nor in service, nor in relationships mutual brethren; he did not even invite the brethren for a cup of tea either on church holidays or on his name days, he did not preach sermons and did not like them and turned others away from preaching (Klepachevsky), he always opposed the establishment of guardianship, he was always uncompassionate and hard-hearted, unyielding towards the poor. But then I humbled myself through grief and hardship, recognized his merits, for despite his shortcomings there are also good qualities in a person, which I and many others do not have, and I considered it my duty to give him his due according to his merits, taking a peaceful, loving, evangelical point of view on man and his service, and I calmed down, having mercy on the Lord. Another time, the Lord delivered me from the hellish cramped conditions that befell me for withholding a ruble for the benefit of the poor from the income for prayer services and for insincerely reading, vaguely, with cramped and broken hearts, prayers to the mother in labor, Alexandra Ivanovna Fedorova. [Walking] back and forth, I was extremely tormented by cramped conditions and sorrow, and only upon arriving at the cathedral and falling with faith and hope in repentance at the throne of grace, I received peace, and mercy, and grace in timely help. God bless! After mass and prayer service with lithium at Mr. Simansky. I thank the Lord for the salvation accomplished in my soul during the hours of Lenten and Chrysostom mass; The Lord delivered me from the evil melancholy, and during mass before communion from indignation and some kind of bitterness and contempt towards the rector, who spoke exclamations and prayers in an extremely soulless and inexpressive manner. This is also an evil blues. It is not the abbot’s fault that he has a weak chest and a weak voice. This attack on me was the spirit of malice, the spirit of delusion; I fell away from love and meekness, of which there is nothing more precious, I was combined with the spirit of malice, and only through diligent repentance, prayer and unashamed faith did I get rid of the spirits of malice after communion of the Holy Mysteries, before going to the cathedral prayer service. Here I triumphed in victory over the spirits of malice in the name of the Lord, and the entire prayer service was at peace. At the prayer service at the Simanskys (I wasn’t there myself) I was in a strong struggle with prelest (the Simanskaya maiden) and only by grace overcame the power of prelest and demonic confusion. I thank the Lord. Help Ivan Kovrigin with his family: they are in poverty, starving. Anniversary of Abbot Trachevsky. To whom is honor, honor [Rom.13:7]. The position of abbot is venerable and fruitful [...]. Twenty-five years of abbotship and deanery is a venerable time, and if we are entirely 125 and well-behaved, then each of us can partly [attribute] the good qualities of the nearest superior person as the reason for this integrity and good obedience. These qualities of the Father Superior, which are truly inherent in him, are: the always measured character, quiet, reverend, gentle, self-control, meekness and quietness in the whole way of life, as well as in service, leadership with dignity, without pompousness and pride, condescension to the weaknesses of the brethren, especially those of lower ranks - such qualities that are urgently needed by any boss. Without these qualities in the abbot, clashes in work or due to domestic circumstances could have been very unpleasant. There is sometimes a lot of combustible material in each of us, and one spark thrown into him, one word from a boss, imbued with contempt and ill will towards a subordinate, especially one who feels right in his demands, can arouse a flame, and if the boss is benevolent and meek and reasonable, he will now extinguish the smoldering spark, his words are like fertile dew for a sad and indignant soul. This was our venerable hero of the day for us. We have not had a bad time in the past twenty-five years under his leadership. We do not feel the iron ring of harsh power on us. We were free in life, in word, in deed; On my own behalf, I will say that I enjoyed freedom of speech in the church pulpit; the rector did not make any pressure on me. Of course, I always speak in a strictly Orthodox spirit and on the basis of the Holy Scriptures, but he could still demand the written word for censorship, but for the most part I could not do this, since sometimes only an hour or two before the service you draw up a teaching to pronounce. But, speaking about freedom of speech for me personally, I dare to express the desire before the Father Superior that the living word be spoken more often in our cathedral and by other members of the cathedral brethren; One formal service is not enough in our rank, the people thirst for the living word of the church, and not only the common people, but also educated people: many want to drink from the source of living water, whether in the church or outside it, in a public place. On occasion, I express a legitimate desire and request, which God grant will come true; however, this desire is not only mine, but also that of the great Apostle Paul, whom [...] you remember: only that we remember the poor, which I tried to fulfill exactly [Gal.2:10]. There have long been many beggars in our city; it is impossible for anyone to deal with them alone, and they require both our pastoral and public care; to give up on them and call them all parasites and drunkards is wrong, unfair and sinful; not all of them are like that, and if many are like that, then we need to take care of their organization and use, that is, pay attention not only to their physical, but also to their spiritual needs: they have the right to this as members of the Church. You, as the rector of both the church and the parish, deign to attract both the brethren and the parish to this. Remember the first exemplary Church: then the deacons were entrusted with the responsibility of sharing the needs of life, and at the feet of the apostles, like dust trampled upon, good Christians brought money for the benefit of the brethren. The apostles themselves did not have silver and gold, which can be the cause of hard-heartedness and betrayal; the example of Judas was fresh in his mind. It is difficult for one person to manage any complex matter, but easy for many. [...] but with all the greater confidence the Christians entrusted them with their surpluses for the poor, and they distributed them to everyone who needed what. It would not be a bad idea to share the concern of caring for the poor both among the members of the clergy and among the parishioners. Then there would be some equality in the holy work of caring for the poor, and Christ God, who Himself accepts in the person of the poor what is given from the heart, is ready to help benefactors in every way. Here is my best wishes and respectful request in the name of the Lord. Pre-emption on your part of this matter would be a worthy commemoration of your anniversary celebration. As a sign of our deep respect for you and gratitude for your kind treatment of us, accept this holy icon, created by our common zeal, and may the Lord protect you for the good of the parish for many more years to come. On the anniversary of the rector. However, your co-servants at this church throughout the entire time of your rectorship were your kind, zealous associates and co-workers, and they gave neither you nor the parishioners any reason for displeasure or grief, trying, as far as possible, to please all the numerous demands of the spiritual flock; It was not for nothing that they clothed themselves with the wool of 126 sheep and were fed from the milk of the flock, but they often worked in the sweat of their brow, in difficult struggles with the infirmities of the flesh and spirit; With your co-workers, it was not difficult for you to manage the service and affairs, so we are mutually obliged to each other for the timely fulfillment of our duties and the satisfaction of the needs of our many parishioners. Each one was given his own tasks, greater or lesser. The head, that is, you, Father Superior, often only had to watch how your colleagues worked like ants in an anthill: by anthill I mean the parish; in this anthill you were [the head, just as in the hive the head is the queen bee]. And our parish generously supplied us with milk and honey, just as the promised land once did to Israel. And you held your title of clergyman and rector of this church with dignity. Always measured character, meekness, quietness and goodness, self-control in all different circumstances of service and life, prudence and lawfulness, a sound and impartial assessment of the service, the nature of life and the actions of each of the members, condescension to their weaknesses and shortcomings made you respected by your co-workers and superiors. On March 4, I had an extremely unpleasant and painful dream: I was executed on the evil orders of the director (isn’t His Excellency very angry with me? And I am displeased with him), the removal of all clothes for the execution, the delay, the unpreparedness of the execution ministers, the disgrace, many people looking out of the windows. Venerable Gerasim. I thank the Lord for the all-merciful and speedy deliverance from the sorrow and hardship that befell me for my hardness of heart and unfriendliness towards my neighbors - the two beggars who asked me for money before the morning at the English church. I fell in repentance at the throne of grace in the Intercession chapel (cathedral) with faith and in the hope of my soul that not only my sins, but also the sins of the whole world would not overcome God’s mercy as boundless, immeasurable, and the Lord had mercy on me, removed the guilt from me, changed my accursed heart, self-loving, voluptuous, self-seeking, evil, envious, well, proud, obsequious, vain, ambitious, fearful, impatient, cruel, unsuffering, partial, greedy, incontinent, lazy, careless, impudent, disobedient, crafty, capricious, nasty, blasphemous, deceitful, treacherous, unkind, malicious, malicious, sad, desperate. I thank the Lord, who has given me the grace to read the canons of the Holy Cross and the Holy Martyr Konon with delight, loudly, impressively to everyone. The bosom of Abraham will not accept those who are not strange and unmerciful, as we see from the parable of the rich man and Lazarus [Luke 16:20–31]. Dealing with the poor is troublesome and flawed, but we cannot do without them even in the matter of salvation, because in the person of the poor, Christ Himself immutably accepts alms with faith from those who give and will not leave them without reward. Alms delivers from death and can cleanse all sin. Those who do alms and deeds of righteousness will live long lives, according to the unfaithful word of God [Tov.12:9]. To wash yourself you need water; when the lamp of the lamp goes out, you need to pour oil into it, and we constantly need this water, washing away spiritual impurities: this water is alms and tears of repentance; our spiritual lamps often go out, and we are both dark and cold: if we pour in the oil of alms and good deeds, they will light and enlighten and ignite our souls with love for God and neighbor. Evening. Ten o'clock. Friday of the Week of the Cross. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from the sorrow, melancholy and tightness of heart that befell me after I heard from Andrei Al. Petrov about an expensive gift presented to the rector for twenty-five years of service, unmarked by anything, the most ordinary, apathetic to everything good, even going against good enterprises - the establishment of guardianship, the organization of public readings, delivering sermons in the cathedral, giving alms to the poor (especially when I heard confirmation of this rumor from the headman and the head of Nikitin). It was hard for me in the school of guardianship after that, because I violated my love for the abbot, I allowed envy of this perishable gift, love of money and greed, while our heritage is and should be one Lord and His Kingdom in us and the incorruptible and immortal life to which we are called, for which we serve, and work, and fight. At the end of the class and after a new visit to Nikitin ([...] duty), I went quickly to the church to bring repentance before the throne of the Lord (Pokrovsky chapel) and ask for mercy, I did it, and - oh, wonderful mercy, and rich, and quick! - I got rid of both sins and sinful rent - from death of the heart and left the church in peace. I, the accursed one, often hide under the guise of alms a gross hard-heartedness, forced or forced by necessity, the persistence of the poor; Until now I have not learned to contemplate with faith Christ in the poor who ask for alms and accept it, which is why I often give with displeasure and bitterness, stingily, with rage. The abbot, apparently, did not envy my precious cross, and then did not envy, and to this day continues to [show] indifference to my gift. Good quality! May the Lord bless him. May I please him according to his wealth. When I praise him, let me praise the Lord. I am never so calm, light, and healthy as when I work hard in confessing my spiritual children during Great Lent, especially during the First, Fourth, and Holy Weeks, when there are many confessors. The work turns out to be extremely useful, and the Lord strengthens us. Why am I so weak in spirit? - From gluttony and daily satiety. Oh, damned man I am! O idolater, whose womb is God [Phil.3:19]! Food is for the belly, and the belly is for food; but God will destroy both [1 Cor. 6:13]. Saturday. Before the communion of the laity, saying a confession, or well-known prayers: I believe, Lord, and I confess Thy Supper, I was confused by the evil and unclean view of the dressed maidens, an unclean movement appeared in my heart, and I did not finish the prayer and was defeated and killed in my heart by ethereal enemies, and during communion I was in a state of crampedness and mortification, despite secret repentance; I couldn’t read the prayer behind the pulpit, I crumpled up the release. Oh, how painful and vexed I was with myself and with the ethereal villains! I myself am to blame for allowing myself to be overcome by my enemies yesterday during confession and speaking not in full, but only at the end of the prayer of permission, our Lord and God Jesus Christ... and other things and carelessly performing confession. He is also guilty of indulging in gluttony on Thursday and excessive consumption of wine (at the Markovs). He himself was to blame, but meanwhile he grumbled at God for not helping to overcome his enemies. During Little Vespers, the Lord helped to overcome them, because he abstained from food. I thank the Lord, who soon heard my sincere secret prayer in the apartment of Maria Filippovna Kovina for deliverance from sorrow and cramped conditions (which befell me for the harsh treatment of the beggars who were chasing me, and shouting at them), and for the gift of peace and space of heart, for the same deliverance at home in my office, I thank the Lord. Glory to Thee, quick-to-obey and merciful Master Lord! In the gymnasium, before the fifth lesson (third grade), I expressed to teacher Nikolaev my extreme grief at the director and I myself became embarrassed and paralyzed my heart with this grief (this is a sign of pride and malice, and I should be humble and kind). In the third grade, I secretly repented and prayed to the Lord about my sin and was delivered only before the end of the lesson while reading about the suffering and boldness of the martyrs. A man cannot work for two masters [Matthew 6:24]: God and mammon cannot work. Beginning with their ancestor, people, through the deceit of the devil, fell away from God and clung to the world; the devil has divided the hearts of people and doubles in a destructive, unnatural way to this day; in order to distract a person from serving God, he constantly arouses in his heart love, addiction to the world, to corruption, to treasures, wealth, the glory of the world, to pleasures, to corruptible beauty, and thereby kills the soul, its spiritual, holy aspirations for God and heaven, makes the soul insensitive to sins, ungrateful to God the benefactor, distrustful of His promises, likens it to itself, makes it evil, envious, unclean, self-willed, proud, blasphemous, desperate. Look straight into people's eyes and do not close your eyes, fearing the devil's temptation. Yesterday I did not look straight, I was afraid of the demonic ghost, and the devil caught me and laughed at me, killing my soul. Look boldly, with authority, for you are the shepherd and builder of the mysteries of God [1 Cor. 4:1]. Your position as a clergyman and as a boss was greatly facilitated by the constant good behavior and correctness in the service of your colleagues and a very limited circle of deanery, in which there were no members who bothered their boss with the unkind extremes of their behavior - and where were there no forgivable errors and stumbling blocks? People are not Angels. Each of your co-workers was aware of the importance and responsibility of their position before their conscience, before God, before their superiors and before other people, and did their job according to the utmost understanding and a clear conscience, with all possible zeal; You should have seen, especially on holidays and other days, how your co-workers, like ants in an anthill or like bees in a field and in a hive, worked carefully and carried the fruits of their labors to an ant heap or to a hive. God knows that the brethren took care of you, as you took care of them, and did not exhaust your strength, did not force you to work instead of themselves and for them. Yours has always been yours. Resurrection. I thank the Lord, who has given me the grace to perform Matins and Mass in a loud, clear voice, without stumbling, to receive pleasure in reading and singing the stichera on the Lord, calling out, and on the stichera, and on the praises, and the canons of the Sunday and the Lenten Triodion and the Venerable John Climacus and to say my teaching, especially to partake without condemnation of the Holy Mysteries; after communion, during the carrying out of the Holy Gifts and before the reading of the prayer behind the pulpit, there was a heavy storm of evil from the devil against Paraskeva Ivanovna Kovrigina, the pilgrim for bringing her child to communion: why is she showing off as an upstart, although helpfulness is a wonderful thing. As soon as I, through the prayer of repentance and the grace of Christ God, defeated the hostility of the devil. The vacation was crumpled up because of the headman, who was in mind. The engineer Konstantin Vasiliev served a prayer service with stumbling at first, and then recovered by the grace of God; All the impurity of the heart slows down. He served under Terentyev without stumbling by the grace of God. At home at dinner, the movement of the flesh from a conversation with a girl who caressed me, respectfully falling at my feet; performing a prayer of repentance during a walk when approaching the wall to the sea. Glory to the Lord! All my hope, after the Lord, is in the prayers of the Mother of God and God’s saints; The Church has done a wonderful job from the very beginning, teaching her children both in home and public worship to prayerfully call on the Lady and the saints with the promise of mercy from the Lord for us sinners, for the sake of their prayers. I thank the Lord, who gave me His great help during the service of Vespers and the boldness to say the entire dismissal with an open and bold face and gaze, as I fervently asked the Lord. But at Compline he lost heart and was afraid of the demonic fear that attacked him and stole his release, as well as the final litany. Oppression after this, oppression and torment, repentance, falling with secret prayer to the holy throne, forgiveness and permission, boldness, space and joy of the heart about God’s salvation. Christenings - new help from God; other christenings at the Chukhon kirk: crowded conditions, confusion, prayers of repentance and invocations - pardon. A prayer service in the house of Shilingovsky, victory by the grace of the demonic, expulsion of the demon by a breath. Upon returning home, while walking with Ivan Vasilyevich Fidelin, anger at the beggars and shouting at them (“no retinue is needed”), crowded conditions, sorrow, repentance and secret prayer along the way, quick pardon, living and effective, peace, resurrection from the dead. At the baptism of the girl Anna, he thought something unworthy and therefore became completely confused, falling into oppression and sorrow, and intensely repented secretly to the Lord, and then calmed down and continued to read prayers. Who doesn’t the damned demon [spew out] blasphemy against! What creation of God does not desecrate with his blasphemies and dreams! Why am I, damned one, embarrassed by his blasphemies and filth, by his excuses? Lord, help me, give me a pure heart. Having acquired it, I will not be afraid of any blasphemies and dreams of an old hector. But I cannot acquire a pure heart without abstinence, but I am intemperate. Oh, teach me perfect abstinence, Lord, simplicity, humility, gentleness. I do not believe my sin-loving, all-passionate heart, all its vague, unloving, judgmental, suspicious, suspicious, hateful, crafty, nasty and blasphemous movements. It is never satisfied with others, without asking whether others are satisfied with me. Hostility, dislike are always ready in him, condemnation, malice, gloating, ill will, envy. There is no humility, kindness, simplicity, meekness, contentment with little things, uncomplaining submission in him. Knowing from experience how unclean, proud, deceitful, insidious, malicious, dissatisfied, greedy, envious, suspicious, seductive, lustful, nasty, disobedient, proud, arrogant, lazy, careless my heart is, I will constantly condemn myself, cry about myself and not condemn others, for example the abbot, that there is no such and such good in him qualities, and there are such and such bad qualities, passions, habits, inclinations. Everyone will answer God for themselves. An exchange of thoughts, spiritual feelings, observations and experiences is desirable; more loving, close communication in the form of common high responsibilities and spiritual interests. Most of all, ethereal enemies are trying to prevent us from achieving mutual, brotherly love and, where it exists, they are trying by all means to destroy it through suspicion, clashes of worldly benefits, envy and other means. Monday of the Fifth Week of Lent. Due to yesterday's satiety (after Stepanida Avvakumovna's hospitable meal at home, I ate more sardines with black bread and black beer), today while I was serving Matins, I experienced extremely severe temptations from ethereal enemies: at the Midnight Office I could not, out of embarrassment and lack of confidence in myself, for fear of saying dismissal and the final litany, at Matins a short and intense litany, he began the great litany in confusion, then recovered at the Synod (and so on), speaking extremely slowly; The Most Holy, the Most Pure... could not finish finishing all the litanies; when reading the canon on reader Mikhail Al. I was upset (I’m a fool!) for rarely reading for fear that the service would take a long time - everyone needed to sleep, and this was the deceit of the devil, rebelling against the glorification of God and the Mother of God; sorrow, cramped conditions, fear, shame, dumbness!!! Through sincere repentance I got rid of it with difficulty. I read the canon well, with feeling. After hours (eleven and three quarters of an hour). Until the evening entrance (it was necessary with a censer, but after the altar watchman slept without a censer), everything went well, without stumbling, and he said the great litany with the grace of God, but at the entrance he was upset because of an empty thing: because the watchman slept through the censer, he was extremely upset, and the devil inflated the trouble to gigantic proportions; I crumpled up the petitionary litany and stole my leave out of embarrassment and loss of self. After hours, falling a lot before the holy throne in repentance and hope, I was finally healed by the Lord. I'm in trouble because of impatience and embarrassment! I thank the Lord for the given salvation and wholeness! I sinned by being embarrassed and angry with Procopius, the altar guard, for his sleep during the entrance with the censer at Vespers on March 8th. I sinned before God, and before all the saints, and before the parishioners, and before myself, by eating fish at Burachok’s in the evening at ten o’clock on March 8th. Blessed is the clergyman who can say about himself what the Apostle Paul says about himself: It means very little to me how you judge me or how other people judge me; I don’t judge myself. ...The Lord is my judge [1 Cor. 4:3–4]. This praise of ours is a testimony to our conscience [2 Cor. 1:12]. I coveted neither silver, nor gold, nor clothing from anyone [Acts 20:33]. Father Paul is an example of meekness and self-control, a teacher. Moderation of character: you did not exalt yourself with your title and position, did not humiliate yourself and your rank, did not get irritated, but were stoically indifferent to everything, or cold and insensitive as a stone. A distinctive feature of your character is reasonable caution, quietness and calmness in all words, movements and actions. This is the royal path, this is the golden mean. In the second grade, on March 8, I gave “Lives of the Saints” to read, September quarter, in the second grade, to which student?.. Ask in the next class. Wednesday of the Fifth Week. I thank the Lord, who made me worthy yesterday to perform, without stumbling, with a triumphant spirit, Matins, hours with Vespers and Liturgy, and Compline. The deacon helped at matins, at hours and vespers too; I read almost the entire section of the pulpit slowly, did not say the doxology, at Compline I said the entire prayer before the icon of the Savior slowly, with the recitative and litany Let us pray... Glory and thanksgiving to the Lord who strengthens me! You arrived in Kronstadt during Lent after my next week, and now twenty-five revolutions of time have taken place since that time. It is worth looking back at the journey you have covered and remembering the mercies of God poured out on you and on us during this considerable period of time, and imagining them, and glorifying the most gifted God with your heart and lips. Twenty-five years of serving God, twenty-five years of spiritual shepherding, twenty-five years of building the Mysteries of God - oh, what an abyss of God’s mercy! Twenty-five years of labor in God’s vineyard and bearing spiritual fruit! How many babies have you given birth to through water and the Spirit! How many souls have he turned to God with the word of pastoral edification! How many souls have he escorted to the afterlife, guided by church prayers! How many couples have you united in sacred marriage! How many instructions he gave with holy repentance and communion into the next world! How many material gifts of God you have given from the all-generous right hand of God, for in this regard the Lord has always consoled you and us! How can we give thanks for all this and much more! For peace, serenity in the clergy and parish, for the prosperity of the service, for physical strength and health, for the light of grace, for the love of the parishioners, their meekness, piety, obedience, zeal for the church, for their kind attitude towards their pastors, for their concern for the splendor of the church of God, and so on. Church life flowed at its own pace. Our ministry is the highest ministry on earth, the ministry of reconciliation of people with God, the ministry of mediation and intercession for people and the offering of gifts and sacrifices for our sins and for human ignorance [ Heb. 9:7 ], the ministry of renewal of human nature corrupted by sins, restoration of the fallen image of God, renewal, sanctification and deification, cultivating the field of the Lord, the vineyard of Christ, from which the Chief Shepherd and Heavenly Worker will demand a report from us; we are called to plant and establish in our hearts the Kingdom of Heaven, holiness, truth, and every virtue. How did we make it in time? This is known to the Lord, who searches hearts and wombs, and who in due time will reward everyone according to their deeds. It means very little to me, says the Apostle, how you judge me or how other people judge me; I don’t judge myself. ...The Lord is my judge [1 Cor. 4:3–4]. I thank the Lord for the blessed sweetness that I received from reading and singing the canon and stichera, sedalny and other songs, and first of all I thank you for the speedy hearing of my repentant prayer and for having mercy on me, the accursed one, who sinned by being angry with the beggars who asked for alms before morning. Evening. Eleven o'clock. I thank the Lord, who performed a miracle of His mercy in me at seven o’clock in the evening after the christening of baby Alexy in the church; During the celebration of the Sacrament and the reading of prayers, I was internally offended by sexton Bystryakov because he had gone to an unknown place and left the vestments at home (although there were vestments in the church); I was embarrassed, lost control of myself and had difficulty reading my prayers. Somehow, I barely read it; after the Sacrament, I went to the altar in repentance, venerated the holy altar with unashamed faith in the mercy of God - and miraculously healed, I felt the great mercy of God in myself. Thursday. The Great Canon. A terrible, stubborn struggle with evil and unclean forces at the beginning, before Matins - a struggle that ended after repentance and prayer with the victory of the grace of Christ, the living currents of which I felt cheerfully and in a triumphant spirit; at the short, intense litany, which he stole and spoke vaguely, again confusion, oppression, sorrow, shame, death of the soul; again repentance and prayer - and again mercy, again living streams of grace in the heart. Before going out to read the canon, there was a temptation through the watchman Procopius, who went to retrieve the candles, while it was necessary to bring out a large candle; the enemy confused and fired with anger; Only by the grace of God I was saved from his further intrigues and poisonous remorse, reading the canon with all my heart. Just before the end of Matins, at the first hour, there is again a stumbling block in the prayer of Christ, the True Light (non-agreement) and in the release from cowardice and fear of the devil, from insincerity, from paralysis of the heart; again repentance, zealous falling to the throne and new pardon from the Lord. God bless. The sexton sang the irmos of the Great Canon incorrectly - this worried me, confused me, and made me angry. What should be the intercessors of God and men? What kind of hands should be, through which the most divine, most heavenly Mysteries are performed? What should be the heart that prays for everyone, intercedes for the whole world? What kind of mouth should there be that constantly glorifies the Holy Trinity and the Angels, the Most Pure Mother of God, the most exalted and most spacious of the heavens and the brightest of the sun? What kind of reconciliator should be who reconciles sinful people with the all-righteous God? The prophet Isaiah once cried out: O accursed man... as a man of unclean lips, in the midst of men of unclean lips I live: and I have seen the King of the Lord of Hosts before my eyes [Isa.6:5]. What I did was bad and stupid: last night I ate a lot of black bread from a Prussian merchant, which made my heart white and was the cause of the terrible war the adversary fought with me during Matins at the Station of Mary of Egypt. I thank the Lord for his help during the Liturgy of the Presanctified; I was extremely weak and rough in heart, either from yesterday’s satiety, or from sleep before mass, but the Lord did not leave me, gave me tenderness and non-judgmental communion of the Holy Mysteries; I didn’t read the prayer behind the pulpit in full due to the strong cold and embarrassment of the devil; the release dared to speak at the tip of the salt, although not all of it. At the prayer service, the evil one did not allow us to finish reading the Gospel of the Mother of God due to extreme excitement in the loins, lustful movements, or, better yet, fear of lust. Having consumed the Holy Gifts in peace, I calmed down. We are bearers and exponents of the spirit of Christ and the Church, bearers of Christians' prayers to God and bring down gifts of grace upon them, keymasters of the Kingdom of Heaven, sowers of incorruptible, spiritual seed, builders and distributors of wonderful, life-giving Mysteries, uniting the faithful with God, and mediators of their deification, deciders by the grace of God in their measure of the eternal destiny of man, introducing the Living God into the city. How we fulfill these high duties is known first of all to God, who constantly watches over us, testing our hearts and bellies, then to our conscience and partly to our spiritual children, who with their heartfelt sense, to one degree or another, feel the power and beneficence of our great, angelic service. I thank the Lord for delivering me from the distress that befell me due to heartfelt fear, confusion and concealment of offerings at the liberation litany of Compline. I venerated the Holy Altar several times in repentance and received pardon and peace. In a dream I saw my mother rising from the grave, weak, sickly, trembling, stretching out her hands to me and as if wanting to grab or hug me; I was scared. We must pray for her more diligently and do alms in her memory. (Of course, this is the enemy with his dreams and scares me in my sleep.) After Matins. What I expected for my satiety in the evening and at dinner (yesterday), that is what happened to me: during Matins I was deprived of grace-filled help in pronouncing the final litany at the Midnight Office, at the Sublime, Small and Great Litany at Matins and at the Petitionary and Small Litany; my heart completely weakened, darkened, and was struck by demonic fear, and I hastily, as if amazed, 127 spoke almost only the ends of the litanies; He sang and read rarely, loudly, with feeling, remembering and vividly imagining his damnation and wordless passions. Why don’t I go back to the beginning of the intemperance of the first people, who brought terrible misfortune upon themselves and their descendants? Why in the new grace do I live like a pagan, working in the womb? Why don’t I still despise him? Why do I constantly break the commandment of fasting? Oh, the all-wicked old man who reigns in me! O nest of death and decay! How many times and how much with strong faith and asking for mercy have I fallen to the thrones of grace - and for my intemperance I did not feel in my heart the life-giving grace, for I had angered my Lord with my pagan life. Have mercy on me again, Lord Jesus Christ, and may not Your ineffable love for mankind overcome the multitude of my sins! Wake up! I thank the Lord for his help during the service of the Presanctified Liturgy and the reading of the prayer behind the pulpit and prayers before confession. Oh, and my mercy often turns into hardness and inhumanity, or there is more stinginess than generosity. Have mercy on me, Lord! Saturday. The Lord showed me the strength of His mercy at the beginning of the liturgy, delivering me from mortal distress through the strong prayer of faith and repentance for gluttony and my satiety and the whitening of my heart in the evening (I ate whitefish with black bread and a sardine), as a result of which invisible enemies easily captivated and occupied my accursed heart through various crafty, nasty and blasphemous thoughts, unclean, nasty, and they did not allow me to read the Akathist to the Mother of God at the Council. I was dead inside, and the Lord revived me, giving me peace, space and freedom, warmth and tears of tenderness, especially after the great entrance during the celebration of the Sacrament. By the grace of God, I received Holy Communion in a nonjudgmental, life-giving way. I believe, Lord, and others said the prayers before communion with feeling, without hiding, completely. During the communion of the laity, among others, the beautiful girl Lyubov Estafieva approached, and I was captivated in my heart for a moment by beauty, looking at her with an evil eye, unclean, and suddenly my heart died - sorrow, oppression, shame, violence, darkness, death befell me. With barely a strong heartfelt cry, I asked the Lord for forgiveness and freedom from the abomination of demons. If you are overcome by carnal passions, apologizing for the weakness of nature and the strength and violence of passions, I will point you to a whole face of virgins, to countless people who, like you, had passions that rebelled no less against them, and who, through faith and love for God, through hard struggle, prayer and fasting, defeated them and achieved angelic dispassion. Look at their example and imitate them. Imagine an incorruptible, immortal, angelic life in heaven, and let its aspiration encourage and strengthen you in the fight against passions. To the winner is the crown of eternal life [Rev.2:10]. And what a grace it is to live in purity and chastity! What peace, what peace of conscience, what a sense of health and contentment with oneself, what pleasure in God and ardent love for Him alone, insatiable, all-blessed, knowing no limit, for God is an inexhaustible source of bliss, there is endless beauty, endless sweetness, unapproachable light and most joyful, inexhaustible and sweet food, incorruptible, incorruptible clothing, the most beautiful, most radiant, joyful, eternal and endless power! O Christian man! Transfer more often from the visible to the invisible, from the corruptible to the imperishable, and conquer earthly love with heavenly love, contrast corruptible beauty and sweetness with imperishable, momentary with eternal, rough with spiritual. Those who seduce into sin will face a severe punishment, according to the word of the Lord: whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble (meaning all the humble servants and maidservants of Christ), it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and drowned in the depths of the sea [Matthew 18:6]. Do seducers think about this? Are they afraid of this threat from God that is not false? They don’t think, they don’t fear, that’s why there are countless temptations and many who perish. Resurrection. Anniversary - twenty-five years of rector Pavel Trachevsky. In the morning, just before mass (conciliar), I fell into the terrible destruction of the devil because of grief and anger at the sexton Mikhail Bystryakov, who was not at home when it was necessary to go to church (he went to Gostiny Dvor). What a scorching, poisonous, deadly grip the enemy has taken me into! What cramped conditions, sorrow, torment! Many times I fell to the holy throne with deep repentance in my impatience and in my anger, in communication with the devil through my passions, in evil habits, and not soon the Lord gave me deliverance from my misfortune, allowing the adversary to torment, scorch and torment me; I often shrank and shifted during mass! Finally at the great entrance upon pronouncing the name the Tsarevich and prayers for him, may the Lord remember him... I suddenly felt the mercy of God, I felt that invisible enemies had stopped burning me, oppressing me and tormenting me; I felt healing and freedom in my soul and rejoiced, and then throughout the mass I felt quite calm and free, I received life-giving communion, but then I felt that the enemies were terribly catching me, but the Lord, only the Lord, saved me from their entrapment. He delivered the speech to the archpriest well. At dinner he said a few words about the combustible material in us and what a meek word from a person in charge or anyone else means: it acts on the soul like dew, like rain on a spark, extinguishes it and does not allow the combustible material to ignite. Live not as you want, but as God commands. Today I didn’t go out into the street from six to eleven and a half o’clock in the evening, by the way, so as not to meet beggars waiting for me to go out and my handout, but when I went out, I just met five people (before there was a handout for beggars, but not this one), and I gave them two kopecks each, and the annoying boy began to persistently ask for another increase, and in annoyance at him, I tore his hair and went for a walk along Posadskaya Street (head was sick); the beggars are after me again, especially the crooked and deaf ones; I became angry with him for his insistence and persecution of me and pulled his hair tightly with both hands; others were frightened and quickly went forward; I walked forward; the crooked beggar at the end of the street came up to me again, and I took pity on him, gave him another twenty kopecks, called two more and gave him ten kopecks each; they let's ask for more, I got angry again and wanted to hit the big young guy hard, but he ran away; then the boy began to pester me again, and I ordered the policeman to take him to the police station for begging, he began to cry, and I ordered him to be released. I sinned before the Lord, and before the Mother of God, and before the Angels and all the saints, and before all people. I repent and blame myself and ask for forgiveness from the Lord and from everyone. What bliss is it for me when the Lord, for repentance, delivers me from any passion and rewards me with dispassion, peace and freedom! This is how it happened to me during the liturgy, starting with the great entrance and especially after communion of the Holy Mysteries! Oh, if only I would never sin and be dispassionate! Oh, to always be with Christ, to have Christ in you, to put on Christ! You, Christ the King, grant me this, I pray to You with all my heart. Monday of the Sixth Week of Lent. I thank the Lord, who showed great mercy to me both during Matins in church and after Matins at home, when I sincerely repented of my anger, hard-heartedness, and inflexibility regarding a young beggar, about twenty-two years old, who asked for money for supports. Since there are a lot of beggars, hundreds of them give me cold every day, I gave him only five kopecks and said that I would not give a penny more, and kept my word, thinking: let need turn him to work, and not to begging. I saw two bishops now in a daytime dream (at twelve o'clock), Metropolitan Macarius and some vicar, I escorted them from the church. On the Week of Vai. Nowadays peace lovers are concerned about the people's theater; what will happen if there are folk theaters? Many will leave the church completely. The theater is the personification of worldly vanity, the school of this world. Rather, we need to take care of intelligible reading in our churches, of the correct conduct of worship according to the rules, and then the worship of our Church, majestic, nourishing, life-giving and joyful, will distract both from the theater and from vicious life. Now almost ordinary people go to church - what will happen if there are public theaters? Who can the theater teach anything good? It is an extreme mistake to think that theater is a school of morality and civilization. This is a school of debauchery. Every day we forget this immutable dilemma: [...] corruption and incorruptibility, time and eternity, spirit and flesh, holiness and sin, virtue and vice, light and darkness - and, losing sight of incorruptibility, eternity, virtue, holiness and truth, the spirit and its eternal needs, the unstoppable light of the face of God, we choose temporal blessings, forgetting about the eternal, we follow the sin-loving, corruptible flesh; we prefer to walk in the darkness of passions, rather than in the light of virtue and holiness. I thank the Lord, who delivered me both in church during Matins, and before the prayer service, and after the prayer service from the devil’s anger towards Paraskova Ivanovna Kovrigina, which arose from my impatience, guile, satiety, pride, and pride. At home, on my knees, I prayed to the Lord in repentance for mercy, and the Lord, with almighty power, destroyed the power of the devil’s malice in me; I felt peace, space, freedom, boldness. Ethereal enemies tirelessly thrust their nasty, evil, deadly stings into our soul and body, infusing sin in its various types and degrees and setting it on fire, inciting us to sin; We must constantly see their intrigues and efforts and not give in, but zealously resist them in the name of the Lord, so that they do not overcome us with their constancy and violence. All temptations of the enemy are surrounded by great charm, they promise a person pleasantness, pleasure, contentment, but in essence and consequences they always end up with misfortune, torment, and death. We must constantly look to the Lord. Love is patient [1 Cor. 13:4], but I am extremely impatient and irritable, which means that I do not have the only love my soul needs. Love... is merciful [1 Cor. 13:4], but I am unmerciful and hard-hearted - alas for me, the accursed! I have become a scolder, a slanderer of many beggars pestering me with persistent requests! I continually fall away from love, breaking the whole law, which is love: love is the fulfillment of the law [Rom.13:10]. I even became obstinate for a long time, stern, cruel and I pull the hair and ears of others violently, with malice! I am envious, for I envy my brethren, seeing the honors given to them and the increased external well-being, that is, wealth increased and preserved through saving and not giving to the poor; I am annoyed that I alone have to squander the small wealth I have collected everywhere with my great labors; that the brethren, for whom I work a lot and whose wealth I increase with my labors, do not participate with me in almsgiving, do not make it easier for me to give 128 and alms to the poor, especially the younger priest, who receives on an equal basis with me with extremely little and lazy labor, and therefore I am often indignant at the blatant disproportion in reward for work and in giving to the poor, of whom there is no number; I am irritated, embittered, furious, indignant at the abbot, who has accumulated many tens of thousands of rubles and does not give to anyone, lives and serves calmly, as if innocent of anything, as if he has a clear conscience, while I am under constant punishment, in severe temptations and in sorrows, troubles, cramped conditions at every hour, shaking like an aspen leaf, afraid of both demons and people, extremely frightened by the former and partly by the latter. And how violently the beggars attack me, how relentlessly! They consider themselves entitled to receive everything they need from me! Maybe they are right! For the Lord is able to give me everything for their sake and for them, but I have little faith and despair, lacking in hope and faith! Is the hand of God shortened and exhausted? Manna and quails in the desert, five loaves and two fish multiplied, or seven loaves and several fish, do not they assure me of the omnipotence, goodness and bounty of my Lord? I thank the Lord, who delivered me from the greatest sorrow and oppression through touching with faith and repentance the holy altar in the Assumption Church, which I deliberately went to at seven o’clock in the evening from a memorial service for the girl Antonina at Lev Alexandrov’s, at which I vaguely, paralyzed in soul and tongue, served a memorial service for a seven-year-old girl, and was paralyzed by anger and rage at the beggars who walked follows me relentlessly, despite my prohibition. What a war over the charms of a woman Satan concocted in a sleepy dream from March 16 to 17! What a multitude of people of all kinds he gathered, both adults and children! But why did Jews figure here? I drove out the Jews - these are people dear to Satan, like those who crucified Jesus Christ, which is why Satan takes on their image. Now it is clear why and why Satan attacks so much through the vision of women and deceives us! And in church, and at home, and on the street - it seduces everywhere! But, this truth, Christ, destroy the deception of the enemy. The law of God is short and easy to fulfill: it consists in loving your neighbor as yourself [Matthew 22:39]. But there are so many obstacles to its fulfillment from our pride and carnality, our pride, malice, impatience, envy, from the adulterous and sinful world, and from the devil, who acts against me through the flesh and the world and directly, personally, through himself. How many temptations are there at every step! So many dreams! How many agitations and incitements he daily produces in us against our neighbor: sometimes through female charm, sometimes through anger, envy, impatience, sometimes through money and various everyday things and incidents, and everything! What kind of charm has the disembodied enemy brought and placed on everything, does not allow us to see anything in the real world, in naked truth, has clothed everything, entangled everything with its charm, presents everything in a perverted, false form: women’s faces and often men’s, worldly differences, especially money, clothes, everyday customs, morals, habits, games, amusements (theaters, clubs), home furnishings, various things - everything has been directed and directs the immortal soul, created in the image of God, to be removed from God, from His commandments and from eternal life, from the eternal bliss prepared for it. Stay awake, Christian, stand in the truth, run away from delusion in all its forms! Many praise the theater as a moralizing, instructive institution that civilizes people (teaching the whole range of civic virtues), even saving. Are these praises fair? No and no. Tell me, what is the spirit of the theater, that is, what spirit moves in its dramas, vaudevilles, operas? Is it the spirit of repentance, or the spirit of salvation from sin? Is it the spirit of the truth of God and the holiness of man, created in the image and likeness of God, or a heavenly spirit? Is it the Spirit of God's peace? On the contrary, the spirit of sin, the spirit of passions and temptations, the spirit of a completely earthly spirit, the spirit of corrupt human morals, soul-crushing passions, but what is most bitter and worse is Christian faith and virtue; representatives of the faith in the theater are often ridiculed. But what can we say about the benefits of theater? It was established and is being established not for benefit, but for pleasure and entertainment and for the amusement of human passions, for satiating and satisfying them. Theater is a mirror of social mores, all their humor, comedy and tragedy, their funny and sad character; here you will see the most uncontrollable hysterical laughter, and the most desperate grief, or the entire abyss of despair, left to oneself, not seeing help from anywhere and suppressed by its own weight. Is it in church? It is a pity that church bodies often treat church services carelessly and turn them into empty formalism or bring them to extreme monotony and monotony, so that sometimes all we hear is: Lord, have mercy; Grant it, Lord; Amen and Alleluia or Our Father and the Virgin Mary, rejoice... Meanwhile, our divine service abounds in the richness of content, the richness of the wisdom of God, the richness of true spiritual poetry, the richness of true eloquence, the consolation of sinful souls, salvation and every spiritual gift. I thank the Lord, who gave me the grace to perform, although with extreme difficulty, the Sacrament of Baptism with Alexander Moiseevich Fedorov (Burachek’s successor) and prayers: with Alexey Sergeevich Kuznetsov, and without difficulty and with feeling - with the watchman in the Duma Yakov (wife Paraskeva Vasilievna, son Alexy the birthday boy). I thank the Lord, who delivered me from deadly passions during Matins, when I touched the Holy Altar in repentance (in the Pokrovsky and Peter and Paul chapels), and who [granted] a heartfelt, lively reading and singing of the canon and stichera in verse. I thank the Lord, who, during Compline, delivered me from the oppression and sorrow that befell me for evading giving alms and for condemning the alternate priest, who spoke the exclamation while lying on the throne, from whom I signed an oath. I thank the Lord for his help during the service of the prayer service at the Grechukhins on the occasion of the name day of the servant Daria. With great difficulty I uttered litanies, exclamations, and prayers according to the action of the crafty demons, swearing at male and female nature. God! Deliver me from their seduction, dirty tricks, barking, their deadly, embarrassing, overwhelming, shaming, fearful stings. Evening, eleven o'clock. I thank the Lord for God’s salvation, which took place in me in the apartment of Alexei Dmitrievich Machigin after secret repentance and the second complete reading of the prayer, Generous and Merciful Lord 129 (the first time, due to cramped conditions and [demonic] fear, I did not read the whole thing). Mortal grief was in me because of my anger at the beggar boy who came to my apartment - this was in my apartment, which I repented of at home, and the Lord forgave; then sorrow and hellish cramped conditions because of the beggars standing on the street... Friday of the Sixth Week. Prayers, glorifications, supplications, petitions, thanksgivings, promises of mercy and salvation, the names of God, the Mother of God, holy angels, holy saints, the powers that be and other authorities are repeated so that the prayers, petitions, thanksgivings, doxologies are firmer, sincere, stronger and more effective and bring great benefit to those who pray and those who do not pray for the sake of those who pray, and with us, according to the action of the devil, this often happens on the contrary: prayers, praises, thanksgivings weaken and are not pronounced several times (repeatedly) because of the vain fear of demons, the heart and lips shrink and become numb. Destroy, Lord, this charm of the enemy in us and grant us freely, with a pure heart, to always pray, thank and glorify You and the Lady and all Your saints for the strengthening and salvation of ours and for the glory of Your name and Your saints. Hundreds of thousands of times I have experienced that drinking tea in the morning and especially snacking, not caused by a need at this time, does not lead to anything good, but on the contrary, relaxes the soul and body. Therefore, in the morning I shouldn’t drink tea or have even a small snack, and may God help me with this. I thank the Lord, who has granted me the gift of singing today in stichera at Vespers the miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus loudly, harmoniously, heartily, in the hearing of a large church meeting. I thank the Lord, who many times saved me from being crowded by the enemy during the confession of one hundred and fifty people. In the evening at ten o'clock the Lord performed with me [a miracle] of His greatest mercy and His power. I fell into a soul-killing anger towards my wife and children because of trifles - because of the loss of issues of the newspaper “Novoye Vremya” and “Voice” (“The Voice” was found); grief pinched my soul while reading the newspaper; then I went out into the street to relieve my soul, to pray for mercy and met the beggars who were waiting for me and after asking for help; I again became embittered and died terribly mentally, but I perked up with faith, hope and repentance. I said to myself: “Lord! Your mercy is greater, deeper and wider than the oceans and seas, greater than the grains of sea sand, greater, more numerous than the stars of heaven, and the sins of the whole world will not overcome Your mercy, and may it surpass my evils, may Your endless grace prevail.” And - oh, miracle! I now felt the healing of my soul, pardon, peace, freedom, space, and I thanked the Lord with a song. We praise You, God. In Anna's apartment [...] I was honored with the mercy of the Lord in sorrow and cramped conditions when I prayed: Generous and merciful Lord 130 ... Glory to the Lord! Saturday. Twelve and a half hours. I thank the Lord for the life-giving sleep from which I just got up. I will sing to You today of mercy and judgement, O Lord [Ps.100:1]. During Matins, through my prayer of repentance, the Lord delivered me from grief at the sexton Adrian for distorting the praise of God - for resisting the singing of the troparion of the General Resurrection, which had to be sung at least twice; I began to sing another time, and he began to sing, Lord, have mercy three times before the kathisma, and I barely made him sing another troparion, and then he began to sing a third time, in contradiction. However, this is so according to the charter, but he did it in spite of me! I had early mass in the Duma Church. In the evening, the archpriest asked me to start as soon as possible, and I had different confessors and confessors, I was excited and dressed restlessly, and performed the proskomedia restlessly, hastily, and served the Liturgy of the Catechumens vaguely, tied up, praying to the Lord to resurrect me, like Lazarus from the tomb, and after the Gospel, the Lord resurrected me, like Lazarus: I came to life, mortal bonds were broken, I felt in living currents spread to me, my heart spread, and I performed the liturgy well, but while saying the prayers of confession, I Believe, Lord, and I confess, I was confused by the thought: why is Paraskeva Ivanovna Kovrigina standing in front, it would be better for her to be behind, and I secretly humiliated my [frequent] confessors and communicants in front of the brilliant lieutenant Ippolit Petrovich Andreev and his wife Varvara, and I was completely embarrassed, and said I could not Thy secret Supper because of the confusion and humiliation of the inner and the shame of the righteous. I couldn’t read the prayers behind the pulpit; I crumpled up my release. Only after mass and prayer service, at which I could not read the Gospels, with the consumption of the Holy Gifts and deep self-condemnation and repentance for partiality and false shame and unrighteous hostility, I was awarded forgiveness and peace from the Lord and life-giving communion. Oh, what a storm! How cramped! What deadly bonds! Write a letter to General Nadezhda Nikolaevna in St. Petersburg in response to her kind letter. The reason for the weakness and cowardice during today's early mass was the whitening of the heart by gluttony and voluptuousness (preceding), which happened yesterday and before. There is no doubt that the theater cannot teach anyone good morals and virtues - not just Christian, but even civil. Look at the content of the dramatic repertoire and at the writers of dramatic works: who are they, what do they write, what are their goals and intentions? Look who the characters are? What can they give to the public? Only what they themselves have, with which they themselves are imbued, and what they do not have, they cannot give and do not give. But look at the content of the Holy Scriptures and the writings of the holy fathers, at the content of our worship, its sacred songs, readings, at the meaning of the Sacraments, rituals, at the high purpose of worship, at its educational significance. My God! What light! What sweetness for the soul, what consolation! What spiritual food! Drink sober! What the power of God, strengthening soul and body! What a spirit of salvation, a spirit of holiness, truth, what greatness! What a heavenly world! What a weapon against the enemies of salvation! What a heavenly school and teaching! What reinforcement for the weary! What a consolation for the mourning and disadvantaged, for the poor and unfortunate, for repentant sinners of every rank and condition! What a cure for sin-sick souls! What a cure for those who are ill with corruption in the promise of incorruption, for those addicted to fleeting earthly blessings in the indication of heavenly, eternal blessings! For the orphans and widows, it points to the common Heavenly Father who especially cares for them, as for everyone in general; for the sick, to the Almighty Doctor; for sinners, to the most merciful Savior, whose mercies are immeasurable and whose love for mankind is an unsearchable abyss. If you don't respect yourself, who will respect you? If you have lost respect and love for people, even those close to you, then you will not truly respect yourself, you will lose self-respect and disgrace yourself when you most need to have self-respect, for example, during service. Alas for me! There is no true Christian love in me, but there is only false, partial love, for I am often ashamed before people noble by birth and education, or rich and learned, noble people, simple, unlearned and poor, although pious and sincerely devoted to me and, what is most dear and most important, to God, as was the case during mass early on March 20 (Kovrigina and Lieutenant Andreev with his wife). Alas for me! There is no true love of Christ in me! But grant me, Lord, to sincerely love everyone. Christ God sat on the lot, showing that through faith He would sit on the pagans and lead them to His Father. And He sits on us sinners after sincere, perfect repentance and communion of His Holy Mysteries - He, seated on the Cherubim and sung by the Seraphim. Palm Sunday. This day, from early morning, again and again countless times, has allowed me to understand and experience that the grace of God overcomes all my sins for faith and repentance, all the fierce machinations of the enemy, oppressing and killing the soul. For my faith, the Lord revived me at the beginning of Matins, and before the Gospel I felt good, blessed, I sang with delight the stichera on the Lord, and cried out on the stichera; when reading the Gospel, I missed the prophetic words and was indignant at the action of the enemy, but then the Lord accepted repentance and gave peace when reading the canon until the sixth ode; At this song, the regent of the singers outraged me with disobedience, soon starting to sing the seventh song, but even after this, the Lord again accepted repentance and had mercy, and during mass many times the Lord saved me, especially at the end of mass when using the Holy Gifts, at prayer services, and a memorial service at Palyanov. God! I thank You with all my heart for Your great mercy shown to me just before my nap. (at the [third] hour) according to my prayer of repentance for deliverance from the choking sweetness of a woman and then at the end of Vespers and Compline, at which I crushed the dismissal and the last litany, without uttering many petitions out of embarrassment and fear of the devil. Wednesday of the Week about the Myrrh-Bearers. Woe to me with my sister Anna Konstantinovna and her children today: they were acting out at the table to the extreme, mother and children during dinner got as wild as a child: noise, din, fuss - everything was shaking. I drank tea, didn’t finish it, and walked away from extreme outrage. And she’s supposedly sick! Oh, satiated and pampered! The form and external differences among people are different, but in essence they are all the same: equally gifted in the image of God with reason and free will, although not to the same extent rational and free, all are sinners and prone to sin, everyone has the ability to repentance and correction, to the truth and holiness of life, to achieve the blessed resurrection and immortality and eternal bliss. Therefore, we must love everyone as similar and obsequious and co-natural and partakers of grace and immortality and the future eternal inheritance, we must all desire salvation, correction, a virtuous and perfect life in Christ, we must pray for this and take care in the same way as about ourselves, for such our spiritual direction is a sacrifice most acceptable to God, who wants all people to be saved and achieve the knowledge of the truth [1 Timothy 2:4]. We are many in one body [1 Cor. 10:17]. Let each one not only be concerned about himself, but each one also about others [Phil.2:4]. Great Monday. I thank the Lord, who listened to my prayers when I was in cramped conditions and sorrow and grief at the choir director of the Duma Church: through the prayer of repentance, the Lord delivered me from all confusion, from all sorrow and cramped conditions and grief and gave me peace. And more than once the most merciful and benevolent Lord delivered me from the villainy of ethereal enemies seeking to devour me; They especially attacked me with great ferocity after the prayer at the first hour of Izhe for every time and for every hour: I was dumbfounded, embarrassed and could not say God, gracious us and bless us and the prayer, Lord and Master of my life and Christ, the true Light, because I ordered the regent to sing to the Chosen Voivode now after God, gracious us, I don’t know why, I forgot myself. Oh, how hard it was for me after that! Demons, like snakes, bit into me, stung and scorched me, and killed me. It serves me right for yesterday’s gluttony at the birthday boy Markov Yakov. After Matins at home, the Lord delivered me through prayer of repentance from the evil demons that had swallowed me. The lesson from all this for me is that, firstly, we must strengthen the soul by fasting, prayer, reading the Holy Scriptures and the writings of the holy fathers, and secondly, by the grace of God, reject all demonic fear and trust in the Lord with all prayers, exclamations and dismissals. Through gluttony I have weakened my soul extremely and made it very accessible to disembodied enemies. Alas for me! After Compline on Holy Monday. I thank the Lord for taming my spiritual storm and confusion regarding the intervention of the elder of the Assumption Church Leonty Neustroev in the matter of the clergy, that is, mine, the deacon and the sexton, that is, the order to move the choir to the left side of the sole. I was so indignant that I could not utter the prophetic words of Isaiah: God is with us and the rest [Isa.8:8]. And when I fervently prayed to the Lord and repented of my grief and indignation, I sang freely, Lord of hosts, be with us, etc., etc. But I did not say a prayer of absolution, like the Lord and Master of my belly, fearing embarrassment and demonic numbness. Why am I embarrassed when tempted? - From the lack of love and from the passions nesting in me. Confusion is a sin and the work of the devil. Keep peace. Yesterday, March 22, I was extremely susceptible to mortal embarrassment due to a delicious dinner at home (fish pie) and a particularly long sleep during the day (two hours), and sleep came from a hearty dinner. Don't have lunch or snacks at night today. I sinned before the Lord, the Mother of God, before the holy Angels, all the saints and all people by being hard-hearted towards the poor: I did not give a shirt to a naked (in one caftan) beggar boy, to whom I gave seven kopecks, but he did not want to receive it; I didn’t submit again for a long time (an hour or an hour and a half); he kept following me, and I tore his ears out of frustration; He became angry with the other two boys for being dissatisfied with their five kopecks and angrily gave them ten. And how the adversary stings me with his love of money and inhumanity and bitterness! Meanwhile, the Lord always sends me the lot of the poor generously, unexpectedly; Am I not depriving myself of God’s bounty with my stinginess? After all, God is generous to the generous. True. Oh, forgive me, Lord, that I daily violate philanthropy, I destroy all Your law every hour, the law of love! I repent with all my heart, have mercy on me. During the hours, the adversary twice disgraced me with muteness, and did not allow me to speak. But during the Presanctified Mass, by the grace of Christ, I also overcame him - I read the entire prayer behind the pulpit loudly, calmly, unhurriedly and said the whole dismissal: The Lord is coming for free passion... At the prayer service, I did not finish reading the Gospel about the virgins due to violence from enemies. At Compline, while reading the prayer, Vladyka mercifully lost his words: holy, glorious and victorious martyrs... - and did not finish reading the prayer, only the end was the same: save our souls, for you are good and a lover of mankind. I repent of everything, but the adversary is eating me up terribly. Eight and a half o'clock in the evening. Oh, how great mercy You have shown me, O Lord, in my spiritual distress, when I came to Your church to seek my salvation from You, who sits on the throne of glory. When I, depressed by the unbearable stings of demons for my sins, ran to You in repentance with the hope of Your immeasurable mercy and touched Your throne several times - oh, a wondrous miracle! my bonds were broken, my wounds were healed, oppression was changed into space, death into life, oath 131 into blessing, untruth was taken away and righteousness reigned, darkness was driven away and light shone, despondency turned into joy, confusion into peace, shame into boldness. How good, great and strong You are, Lord! What wonderful things You do in the inner world of our souls! You performed a wonderful work of salvation, Lord, in the apartment of the tanner Zakharia Ivanovich Sidorov during the prayer service and memorial service, granting me a great and glorious victory over the invisible, all-evil enemies who scorched me with unrighteous hatred towards Paraskeva Ivanovna Kovrigina, who was standing here. Through the prayer of repentance, You destroyed this inner battle of mine with evil demons! The end of the word is love for everyone, impartial, sincere, firm, constant, forgiving, long-suffering, merciful, undying, especially love for God, the source of love. Victoriously, by the grace of Christ, I performed a prayer service and a memorial service at Zakharia Ivanovich Sidorov, uttering all the exclamations, litanies and prayers and dismissals. Grant so always and everywhere, Lord, victoriously and peacefully, sincerely to serve You about yourself and about Your people. Amen. Eleven and a half o'clock at night. If I had eaten more moderately at dinner (if I had not dipped sardines in Provençal butter) and had not drunk tea and coffee against my desire from officer Vyacheslav Nikolaevich, I would not have become weak in heart and would not have stumbled at the prayer of Compline. Master is merciful. The womb, the womb spoils everything. It is extremely necessary to hold the womb. Great Wednesday. I thank the Lord, who made me a winner during and after the liturgy before and during the reading of prayers for confession after difficult struggles and diligent invocation of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and the feeling in me of His divine being. I read the prayer behind the pulpit very loudly to the end, the prayers for confession too, and let go completely in a firm position of soul and body. I thank the Lord, who granted me the gift of confessing on time about thirty high school students and two hundred and sixty parishioners (altogether, they say, up to a thousand parishioners were confessed). I thank the Lord, who helped me a lot during confession, who crushed the strength and oppression of the enemy. In the morning at Bartashevich’s, my enemies deprived me of sincerity. It was hard for me [...]; At Berzin’s funeral service in the evening, the enemy washed away and drowned my heart with his cunning, and I stole many, many words. Annunciation Day. Grant me the good news of deliverance from fears and all the snares of demons, Most Holy Virgin Mary, I pray to You with all my heart. Amen. Humanity has been magnified by you. After mass and lunch. I thank the Lord, who has given me the grace to perform Matins and early mass in the Assumption Church and to defeat the immeasurably difficult machinations of the invisible adversaries who mercilessly attacked my weakness before the litany and during the litany and blessing of the loaves, before and during the reading of the Gospel, while saying the prayer to Christ, True Light and Dismissal, during the liturgy after the Great Entrance, during the reading prayers I believe, Lord, and I confess, during the communion of the laity and after communion, they did not allow me to read the prayer behind the pulpit and make the proper absolution. The grace of God overcame all these machinations, prevailed as if omnipotent, and granted me forgiveness and peace. After mass, Mikhail Osipovich Britnev served a prayer service at the factory, there the enemy, with his machinations, brought me to tears, which were for my benefit and affirmation; At the funeral service, due to haste, I did not calmly and meaningfully pronounce exclamations (at Berzin’s) and dismissal. Upon arriving home, the enemy wounded me with carnal love and killed my soul, but the Lord, through my intense prayer, delivered me both from carnal, deadly love and from weakening of the heart, and pacified and strengthened my soul. Alex at Lev's prayer service. Alexandrov’s enemy confused and killed me and did not allow me to pronounce the words of the litany and prayers through addiction to my precious cross and fear of dusting it, smoking it with incense, although it is certain that incense will do nothing to the cross and it will outlive or can outlive me for a thousand years without change. For what can smoke do to stones and gold? Nothing. I wiped it off and nothing happened, but meanwhile the devil fools me with absurdity and nonsense. Then I went into the Naval Library and saw there an acquaintance of Ekaterina Pavlovna Trachevskaya, the daughter of our rector, and himself, and I felt extreme antipathy towards him, which killed my spirit (this is the fruit of my pride and pride: this officer never gets along with me, although he often meets, he is a closed, motionless soul; I don’t know if he believes in whom), and I left the library, killed in soul, came to the cathedral to repent before God and cry about your sins; The abbot just came and interrupted me, I said hello and went home and finished my repentance there. Yes, I ruined the whole law, fell into partiality, fell away from love, hated an unknown person who did me no harm, I sinned and blame myself. Grant me, Lord, impartial, constant, sublime, never-falling love; grant me, Lord, to contemplate all people in You, our Head, and to have affection for everyone, not to hate a single person, to love our abbot who does not love us, who is hostile to me with extreme coldness and to all Your poor and to all the lesser brethren of the cathedral. You, Lord, warm his heart with love for us and for the poor, and warm our hearts with love for him, grant us not to look at his shortcomings: stinginess, love of money, dislike and unsociability, but to look at his dignity, his gray hair, his moderation, sedateness, quietness. If he does not favor us, do not condemn him for that, for we deserve it, not having mutual love for him for his stinginess and unsociability of character and neglect of us. But You, Lord, the benefactor, bless and please both our hearts and his heart and unite us all in a union of love, for everything is possible for You. About this is my prayer to You, Lord, on this day, on the Annunciation from the Archangel to the Virgin and on Holy Thursday, on the day of the establishment of Your Last Supper. Amen. March 25, three and a half o'clock in the evening. In my heart, as in a broken vessel, the oil of love cannot hold, except through a special gift of God’s grace, asked for in repentance and fervent, tearful prayer. I constantly fall away from love, especially for the abbot, who seems too proud and uncommunicative. God! Teach me not to be involved in evil in any way, but to always be in Thy goodness and to overcome evil with good [Rom. 12:21] and not to imagine evil where there is none, and thus not to torment myself, for those often seem evil to me, about whom at this moment I certainly don’t know anything, whether they are good or evil, or who are not evil at all (Leonty Neustroyev, my deacon, or abbot, or someone else) and whom the villain, the world-wide devil, represents to me as evil. Evening. After the all-night vigil with the twelve Gospels of the Passion. At the end of the first passionate Gospel, the most merciful and invincible Lord delivered me from the very threshold of hell from the terrible torment that befell me for my secret anger towards the abbot Father Paul, previously expressed in two hours in a few words: “If you want, we will come, if not, we will not come,” that is, to read the Gospels. During the continuation of this first long Gospel, read by Father Paul, I stood with extreme anxiety, crampedness, languor, shame, repented and cried out strongly to the Lord inwardly for deliverance from bitterness, praying to the invincible goodness of God to deliver me, a penitent, from secret malice and to change my heart into goodness, meekness and humility, and the Lord raised me, as it were, from hell to paradise I felt forgiveness, peace, freedom, boldness and read the Gospel perfectly. Glory to the most merciful Lord! What an unpleasant, disgusting stool you get in your mouth after you eat something fishy and oily the night before! And what a tension of lust and the instruments of lust! Oh, what a great benefit is abstinence! The all-wise and all-good Providence often allows the fall of pious people in order to make the uprising more glorious, the repentance deeper, the virtue stronger, and in order to erase and wash away with strong and deep repentance all and all kinds of sins that have accumulated over time and become ingrained by habit. Glory to the wisdom and all-goodness of God! (Yesterday my displeasure was with the abbot.) We, people, see and read a lot, a lot on faces and things in this visible world, but often, often we don’t see, we don’t notice with our smart eyes, we don’t read the words clearly written on them: perishable, disappearing, ephemeral (one-day), and from this comes our absurd and soul-destroying addiction to visible objects and alienation from spiritual, eternal, saving objects and goals. Good Friday. You continue from time to time, together with the murderous devil, to harbor resentment against Metropolitan Isidore for his proud, as it seems to you, reception of your reverence three times in almost twenty years (good reverence!) - but this rancor already testifies to your pride, his extreme sensitivity, your pride, conceit, malice, impatience, unreasonableness and imprudence, ambition - in a word, about the extreme depravity of your heart. The Bishop, not without God’s inspiration, received you sternly and coldly. You are worthy of it because of your sins, such a reception was a cure for your pride and conceit, for your lewdness. And besides, remember how many different petitioners he has - priests, archpriests, deacons, clerics, prosphora servers, people of different classes and ranks, but he, like you, is a man with weaknesses and is not impartial. Judge for yourself. How do you often treat a sexton, how angrily, evilly, rudely, contemptuously, and how do you treat beggars every day in a cold, angry, contemptuous, slanderous way? - when the bishop treats you dryly, coldly, and disdainfully, you become embittered, but for him priests are the same as sextons or beggars to you. He treats you as you treat other sextons or other beggars. But you, in the Lord, thank him that with such a measure he humbles your pride - this mortal, greatest sin, and pray for him with love, so that you will attract his archpastoral prayer and God’s blessing; love him sincerely, as a father, as the foremost archpastor of the Russian Church, who has served the Lord much with his archpastoral leadership of the sons of the Russian Church, ordaining many shepherds and archpastors. Remember how he received your wife and sister-in-law and children, how kindly he treated them and gave them tea. Remember how he rewarded you with various awards at the suggestion of the parishioners (and you are ungrateful to your benefactor). If, as a weak person, he sinned against you in any way, then he has long since made amends for the sin against you, and of course he has no evil against you, as you have against him according to the teaching and inspiration of the devil. So, be away the will of the devil, may the will of God be fulfilled, may I holyly love my archpastor, may I sincerely honor him, may I revere him. You, O God, be my witness to this confession and this desire and fulfill my desire. (Just before the dismissal, the all-malicious enemies struck me with anger at the Bishop, when the deacon in a special litany prayed for His Eminence Metropolitan Isidore, and while saying the dismissal, he became paralyzed, killing my thought and feeling and word.) I prayed to the Lord that he would drive away the enemy of the devil from me and change my heart, but the Lord did not listen and did not deliver me: the enemy overpowered, embittered, [put to shame], crushed, probably for my gluttony and extreme pride and to take revenge on me for my heartfelt reading of the passion of Christ (the twelve Gospels) and for the tears while reading it. O villain, destructive fisherman! Run away from me, servant of Christ, and do not touch me. I thank the Lord, who destroyed the devilish malice and mortal oppression in me, who tore away the painful thorns from my inner sides. Great art thou, O Lord, and wonderful are thy works in me, and not a single word will be sufficient for the singing of thy wonders 132. Great Heel. I thank the Lord for the speedy deliverance through my prayer during Great Vespers from the enemy’s machinations, which killed my soul in extremely great moments through addiction to money (I’ll miss confession in the cathedral, if I speak the whole exclamation in full - oh, absurdity!), and for the gift of peace, freedom, tenderness during the carrying out and censing of the shroud and the speaking of the words of Philaret of Kiev 133. Holy Saturday. How crafty and evil we are! It often happens that if we just wish goodness on someone, especially a person whom we do not favor for some reason, let alone if we do good, we will immediately repent and regret that we did good or wished it! What wickedness! What deceit! If you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him [Luke 11:13]. I thank the Lord, who helped me yesterday during confession. After Mass of St. Basil the Great with Vespers. I thank the Lord for the gift of overcoming all the machinations of the enemy, from which I suffered, languished during the hours, vespers, especially during the reading of proverbs (extreme sleep - dozed off every now and then) and mass (crowdedness, internal pressure). Through the communion of the Holy Mysteries, the Lord delivered me from all troubles, cramped conditions, infirmities, revived me, renewed me, strengthened me, expanded me, and made me bold. Glory to the Lord for this. First of all and most of all, O priest, take care of the immortal souls entrusted to your care, teach them to know God and themselves and their duties, their purpose, or the final goal of their existence, precede the flock entrusted to you with your example, take care most of all about the only thing you need: about your soul and success in every virtue; be quiet, meek, humble, loving, sincere, impartial, self-controlled, chaste, uncovetous, merciful, pious, [...] and obedient, respectful to everyone, benevolent, friendly, non-envious, diligent, hardworking in every work, patient, constantly studying the word of God, avoiding temptations, idle people and idle conversations. When serving God and the spiritual needs of people, the devil most of all intensifies to pierce our soul either with his malice, arousing in the heart vain anger towards someone, or with covetousness, self-interest, or gluttonous pleasure, or carnal voluptuousness, or the desire for worldly honor and glory, or the sensitivity of pride, evil suspicion, suspiciousness, cowardice and fear, the fearfulness of people. strangers or nobles, rich, learned, prominent, dignified, beautiful and others. We must consider everything earthly as smoke, as dust, as a dream of the imagination, to despise all flesh, which passes away, but to be diligent about the soul, the most immortal thing, 134 created in the image of God and accepted into the unity of the Divine Hypostasis by the Son of God, the bride of God, to whom Christ God became engaged and betrothed you to one husband, in order to present you to Christ as a pure virgin [2 Cor. 11:2 ]; neglect the material, take every possible care of the soul, that is, neglect the material when it begins to become your passion, your idol, when it separates and removes you from God and from love for your neighbor. Nine and a half o'clock in the evening on Easter. I thank You, Lord, wonderful Benefactor and Savior of mine, for You transformed the evil of the devil in me into lamb meekness through the prayer of my repentance. I was secretly angry with my wife, sister-in-law Anna K. Tsvetkova and her children, Rufina and Elisaveta, because in my absence they sneak into all my locked and unlocked tables, cabinets and chests of drawers and take from them various things of mine (paintings, scarves, leftovers from sewing clothes, red velvet, etc.). I was overcome by distress and sorrow when I became angry, but when I humbled myself, repented, prayed fervently with faith and trust in the mercy of God, I now became revived, calmed down, and made peace in my soul with everyone. God bless! There was no pus in the right ear for four or five months, and today a purulent (scrofulous) leak appeared from it. Easter. I thank the Lord, who has given me this day and this year. I thank the Lord, who repeatedly delivered me before, during and after Easter Matins from various wiles of the evil one (before Matins, a deadening thought about the pieces of silver I had (about thirteen rubles), during Matins - some displeasure against Father Paul, after Matins - some movement of carnal love). Through faith in Christ and diligent invocation of His name, all the snares and snares of the enemy were crushed. Glory to the Lord! Our only, eternal treasure is one God, and no one and nothing but Him, everything and everything is only in Him and with Him and for Him is dear and precious. Easter morning is magnificent, bright. God bless! How brightly we celebrated Easter! How many lamps! (The English parson was with young Fishwick.) Do you deeply honor in God the quality of holiness and infinite, most perfect truth, as well as in creatures created in the image and likeness of God? If you honor it, then almost in yourself: constantly shun all sin, deeply love holiness and truth, try to live holy, righteously, and teach others to live a holy life. Then you will rightly say to the Lord: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be your name... The language with which we usually speak to people cannot be spoken to God, for with people we often speak hypocritically, insincerely, enviously, evilly, uncleanly, vaguely, but with God we must speak unfeignedly, truly, lovingly, humbly, and sincerely. Tuesday of Holy Week. I thank the Lord, who accepted my repentance in the evening for the offense inflicted on the beggar in my anger for frequently asking for alms (I pulled his hair out), and who delivered me from cramped conditions and sorrow and death of sin. Kislitsyn, a naval officer, read the prayer to the mother in labor poorly from drinking too much wine, although I spoke firmly and sensibly and was not drunk. Excess greatly weakens the heart. Vyatkin also timidly performed the engagement and did not read anything, but everyone sang. I thank the Lord, who gave me help in reading the prayer to the mother in labor - Burachok’s wife. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from my sins - shouting at the poor and not giving to some of them and the temptation of the flesh at the sight of the girls coming to the christening; I thank the Lord for deliverance from temptation, embarrassment and dumbness (voicelessness) and for the heartfelt pronunciation of all prayers and reading the Gospel, I thank you for the tears of tenderness at home when reading the canons to the Holy Forerunner and Mother of God, for deliverance from embarrassment and crowdedness in church during Matins and Vespers. In the homily for the Sunday, give an account to Thomas: why did we fast, fast and receive communion, then celebrate Easter? What is the significance and meaning of all this? What benefit should come from this for us? Do not be embittered at your brother, who in absentia humiliates you out of pride, out of envy and malice or his love of money, but have pity on him sincerely and pray for him, for he is humiliating himself, not you, and is causing the greatest harm to himself and angering God. Why do you have a different language and a different heart for simple and learned people, rich and noble: for the first, the language is simple, firm, heartfelt, sincere, and for others it is crafty, feigned, unfaithful or of little faith, doubtful, crafty when reading church prayers? Have faith in Jesus Christ our Lord of glory, regardless of personalities [James 2:1]. To Ekaterina Stepanovna, to Marya Evgrafovna, to Marya Titkova for a prayer service. Whole (church-glory) – healthy, simple, artless, kind, innocent. Wave (Church Slavic) – wool, fleece. Amazed (Church Glav.) – frenzied, distraught (amaze – lead into frenzy, take away reason). Protori - costs, expenses. At Vespers, the first prayer of the lamp. Oath (church glory) – curse. From the follow-up to the Great Blessing of Water. Philaret (Amphitheaters; 1779–1857), saint, Metropolitan of Kiev since 1837. General Troparion to the Saint, tone 8.