Апрель 1881 г.

God! I thank You with all my heart for the miracle of Your mercy, revealed in me through the prayer of repentance through my faith in You, in deliverance from my sinful tendencies, especially last night, when sin took hold and penetrated vaguely and disastrously throughout my entire being, shaking and binding it, and even during the day. Thy right hand has the power of salvation 45 [Ps.19:7]! But how joyful, life-giving and peaceful is Your deliverance. A holiday, a true holiday for the delivered soul, Thy mercy, our Savior, Lord! But grant me and all Your people to be unstumbling in walking the path of Your commandments and not to allow ourselves to be deceived by all-destructive sin. Having experienced its bitterness and lethality countless times, let us all run from it as from a snake’s poison. Just always force yourself to sincerity in prayer with firm faith that [sees] God - and now you will receive confirmation in your soul that He hears and has mercy on you, fulfilling your petitions, accepting your thanksgivings and praises, for He is gracious, gracious, quick to help and save us unworthy. Glory to our all-good and humane God! After Matins. I thank the Lord for the new and great and glorious deliverance of my unworthiness and lasciviousness after the grave torment of the devil and my struggles in the altar of the Church of the Intercession from my grave sins: hard-heartedness, stinginess, love of money, carnality, unmercifulness towards the poor (I sadly gave fifteen kopecks to one beggar for supports, for there were many beggars), what are the sins They tormented me grievously, but the Lord delivered me, solely by His mercy, giving me remission, righteousness, peace, freedom, boldness, light, strength to my soul. Glory to the Lord! I thank the Lord for the all-merciful deliverance from the fierce sorrow and tightness of heart that befell me for repeatedly refusing a beggar’s request (for money) and for the contemptuous word “butt”. It was hard for me in Titkov’s apartment (it happened during a walk at twelve o’clock), but when I left him, in the teacher’s room, through a prayer of repentance and looking at the icon of the Savior, the Lord suddenly delivered me, and I entered the fourth grade calm and cheerful. Glory to the Lord! I despise in everything and for everything vicious my multi-passionate flesh in all its passionate movements: in pride, deceit, pride, ambition, secret and obvious hostility, hostility, malice, envy, love of money, greed, stinginess, fornication, laziness, negligence, hard-heartedness, willfulness, disobedience, stubbornness, vanity, ill will, malevolence, gloating, cowardice, despondency, false shame, false fear, despair, impatience, irritability, suspiciousness and suspicion. O devil, evil fisherman! How he constantly and maliciously catches me with the deadly bait of carnal sweetness! Oh, stay awake, my soul, be sober and pray! In our soul, sin alternately reigns (and most often), then the spirit of grace, the spirit of holiness, truth and peace; By sincere repentance of sins, we are again rewarded with life-giving grace and the breath of the peaceful, joy-giving Spirit of God in us. Although sin is extremely painful, due to sinful habits and sinful depravity, through self-love, addiction to the flesh and the world, and through deception from the devil, we often fall into all types of sin, as many-branched as the roots of a hundred-year-old tree in the ground. But glory to the Lord, who showed us the path of life, who redeemed us with His blood and His death from sin, curse and death! Twice wonderfully, mercifully, generously, sovereignly, the Lord delivered me for repentance during Matins (Thursday of the Sixth Week of Lent) from the mortal distress that righteously befell me for being hard-hearted towards two beggars (non-handouts) once and another time because of a biased thought about my large silver-gilded cross (superfluous). The earth is the abode of corruption and sin; The saints had no attachment to her, but, living on earth in body, lived in heaven with soul. I thank the Lord last night while I was at the housewarming party of Olga Afanasyevna Karpova, my kind spiritual daughter, who delivered me through the secret prayer of repentance and faith from an unclean, murderous movement of the flesh during inappropriate bows to Evlampia Petrovna Shlyapnikova, who felt strongly the mercies of God over herself. Glory to Your all-holy and all-redeeming, all-life-giving name, Lord Jesus! God has prepared an indescribable reward for those who love Him and fulfill His commandments, both in this short life, but especially in the future. The Lord gives Himself as an asset to those who love Him. Glory and honor and peace to everyone who does good, says the Apostle St. Paul by the Holy Spirit [Rom. 2:10], and in the future the Lord has prepared good things for those who love Him, for whom eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and the heart has not sighed [1 Cor. 2:9]. With all this, how can one not please the Lord, not resist every sin even to the point of bleeding, not practice every virtue - meekness, humility, kindness, sincere goodwill, sympathy and alms to everyone, friendliness, obedience, simplicity of heart and disposition, sincere prayer for everyone, constant abstinence, purity and chastity, patience, hard work, constant repentance and Contrition for sins, communication with neighbors who are worthy of it, and all virtue? Yesterday's enjoyment of the fish table plunged me into pernicious delusion and confusion during the celebration of the Sacrament of Baptism at the merchant Sampson Denisov (Great art thou, Lord... he said only once instead of three, at the beginning he confused and missed the words of the Gospel and in prayers he missed several words from sinful violence and confusion and darkness). Why did you eat fish? O foolish slave of the womb! O ungrateful one for the blessings of the Lord! Friday. I thank the Lord, even today, who has revealed in me His great salvation from the creeping of voluptuous feelings when leaving home for Matins in the church of God. In the church in the Pokrovsky chapel, I fell repeatedly in heartfelt repentance to the holy throne with faith and trust in Christ the Savior - and was awarded mercy and remission of sins; I became especially animated when I began to read sedals on poetry. God bless! He read the canon and sang the stichera with great boldness and sweetness. When presenting the science of divine services, it is necessary to give an understanding of the holy Angels, prophets, apostles, hierarchs, martyrs, saints and all saints, so that Orthodox Christians attending divine services know which faces of the saints constantly pray for them to God, led by the Mother of God, and with what love we, earthly members of the Church, should honor them and imitate them. In the second hour of Pavel P. Schauman, just before the time of my season in photography, vile demons doused me, my soul with their disgusting uncleanness, disgraced me, killed me, and I rushed about for a long time, cowering and writhing and praying together to the Lord to deliver me from this deadly, absurd abomination. Finally, the Lord heard my prayer, my strong cry, and had mercy on me. And all the trouble comes from my gluttony and satiety and the hardening of my heart in sensuality. It's my own fault. Oh, what abomination still nestles in my heart! We need to cry, fast and pray! The Church is another world: on earth - heavenly, in the abode of sin - holy residence, in the kingdom of corruption - the kingdom of incorruption, in time - the eternal kingdom. The human soul is more precious and more beautiful (beautiful) than the entire visible world, all visible creatures and the sun and stars itself, for it is in the image of the immortal, all-holy God and has been redeemed from sin, curse and death and the devil by the blood of the Son of God, His suffering and death. Therefore, all earthly blessings, pleasures, coarse, sensual, sinful pleasures must be despised, so as not to get carried away by them and not be deprived of eternal blessings. Our flesh, as its whims and passions are satisfied, becomes more demanding, whimsical and greedy, and drags after it its mistress - the immortal soul created in the image of God, confuses, defiles, darkens it, separates it from God, weakens it, and kills it. But is not all decay and dust with which the multi-passionate flesh satisfies itself? The food and drink she takes soon decays upon acceptance and corrupts the body itself if consumed immoderately; all other sinful carnal pleasures corrupt the soul, cooling it towards God and neighbor, and expose the body itself to disease. (Today, during mass, with what jealousy I noticed the faces of who confessed to me and who did not confess to me, although it’s hard for me to confess to many. Isn’t this greed? Isn’t it madness? Isn’t God the fullness of all good things? His acquisitions!) Today and then I must cry because I have sinned through fornication. I sinned grievously before the Lord, and all because of gluttony and satiety, my flesh was extremely enraged. Forgive, Lord, my great sin and save me for the future from any private conversation with the girl, except for conversation about the affairs of God. May I see only Your holy beauty and beauty in all creatures and in the crown of Your creatures - man, and may I not be in the least seduced by the beauty and sweetness of creatures, but may I be completely and completely delighted with Your incorruptible, original, holy beauty. Forgive my deception, Lord, and give me a sign of Your mercy, so that the sweets and fears of demons will cease in me. Morning. I sinned with prodigal defilement after having endlessly experienced the sweetness of incorruptible and pure, life-giving Divine grace, bestowed for sincere repentance and faith and contemplation of God; For this reason, my sin is especially grave and great. But extinguish in me, Lord, I pray Thee, all carnal and worldly sweetness, and may I feel in myself only Thy incorruptible sweetness, the sweetness of Thy communion, Thy shrine and Thy truth, Thy love. Amen. My guilt is further increased by the fact that this happened during Great Lent, at the very end of it, on Lazarus Sunday, after the Divine Liturgy and after prenatural communion with God in the Holy, heavenly, Divine, life-giving Mysteries. Cleanse, cleanse my sin, Lord, and extinguish all carnal sweetness in me for the sake of my repentance, for the sake of Your mercy, for the sake of Your holiness. Amen. Mother of the All-Immaculate and Most Pure, Mother of the One who searches our hearts and bellies, intercede with Thy all-powerful prayers before Thy Son and God for the forgiveness of all our sins and for the granting of grace to live a stumbling-free, unblemished life in holiness all the days of our lives. You are a person who has long been sanctified in order to preserve something sacred within yourself or to restore it lost by sins, to be sanctified again through repentance and prayer and to sanctify others through the Sacraments, for the sacred is an element of rational beings and must be an integral part of them. The priest must be alien and hostile to sin, must abhor it in all its forms and degrees. His fellowship must always be with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Carnal love is unclean, narrow, selfish, voluptuous, devilish; one subject to it cannot love God and his neighbors sincerely until he weeps with tears of repentance for his carnal love and removes it from his heart. An unclean person cannot pray sincerely for the entirety of the Church, but a priest must constantly pray fervently for everyone; in his heart, as on a sacred altar, the holy, heavenly fire, the fire of love for everyone, must constantly burn, and the fragrance of prayers of thanksgiving and praise for everyone must rise. How must a priest guard his heart from all worldly, sinful love, worldly addictions, so that it will always be a blazing altar of burnt offering! How many spiritual children of every age, gender and rank and condition demanded confession from me during Lent, and how many ignorances, infirmities, sins, sorrows, torments, misfortunes, the most regrettable and complicated circumstances of everyday life, due to which they involuntarily and, so to speak, systematically sin! Is there someone for a priest, if he is a good shepherd, to grieve for, to pray fervently, from a loving, compassionate heart during the liturgy and other church and home prayers! There is no time for yourself, no time for the pleasures of life, no time for your own flesh and blood and its pleasures, passions and lusts! Here the whole life should be devoted to caring for the flock, about its enlightenment, salvation, helping it with advice and deeds. O priest! Live not for yourself, but for Christ, His members. The Lord will not remain in your debt. The Mother of God is the entire Holy Spirit; pray to Her always in sanctuary, with the Holy Spirit, and you will see Her mercy and power in yourself. The spirit of malice and darkness constantly tries to quench my spirit, to darken it, to defile it with thoughts and lusts, to force me into all kinds of sin: malice, envy, pride, disobedience, intemperance and greed, carnal voluptuousness, laziness, negligence, despondency, demonic fear, false shame, and so on. Sin brings me trouble every hour. We must continually watch and pray so as not to fall into misfortune. And I am so weak, sinful, passionate! God! Have mercy and protect, save, have mercy with Your grace. Oh, how much we honor the female sex, through which the human race becomes fruitful and multiplies and the members of the Kingdom of God multiply, children of God’s love, holy, blameless! It is worthy and righteous to honor the female sex, sacredly to guard it from unclean, crafty, vicious, passionate glances and to look at it unblemished, holy, with respect and Christian love, for a woman is the worker of humanity, the crucible of humanity, an instrument of the highest wisdom and goodness of God, a holy instrument, just as our Creator and Artist God Himself is holy. The governor had as deputies: me, Burachek, [B...], Barshov (captain of the first rank). He received it well, took my sermon, and agreed to petition for the name of the House of Diligence to be the House of Emperor Alexander II. Yesterday I served the all-night vigil under extreme violence from invisible enemies, under confusion, cramped conditions, and fears; at the litia [instead of] We have heard, O God, our Savior - only the end said: For he is merciful; he crushed and killed Belial's heart. I didn’t read the entire prayer of the lithium; at the blessing of the loaves, I didn’t read all of it out of fear, embarrassment, and darkness. I repent: this is for my sins. I served the late mass with moral difficulty, in cramped conditions, being killed by invisible enemies, but after communion I came to life; I felt the fire of the Divine both in my lips and in my insides, burning my sins, cleansing and strengthening my soul. He gave a good speech at the end of mass. The trusteeship report was read. He served Vespers with God's zeal, without stumbling, with great boldness. Great Monday. God! I thank You that You did not betray me into the hands of enemies, ethereal villains, during Matins, when I said about Father Peter Klepachevsky that he does not record income, and as a result of this I was terribly wounded, embarrassed and mortally shocked by the demons. I sinned in that in such great days I took care of pieces of silver, like Judas the traitor, and fell away from the love of God and neighbor, died in heart for God and for neighbor. After fervent repentance and prayer, the Lord had mercy on me and gave me the grace to serve Matins with boldness. Then, after the dismissal at Matins, which was not said entirely because of confusion from evil spirits, I again received an ulcer, but was healed by the grace of Christ. Glory to the Lord, merciful, gracious, quick to obey, gracious and kind to His servants. After mass. I thank the Lord, who has granted me the greatest victory in His sovereign name over the invisible serpents after communion of the life-giving Mysteries, especially during the reading of the Lenten prayer behind the pulpit and when pronouncing the dismissal. The serpent tried to steal me and kill me before communion with sweets, but through repentance and tenderness I defeated him in the name of the Lord. Send Sverlova five rubles. After Vespers. I thank the Lord, who surprised me with His great salvation and His almighty power, who delivered me from the worst machinations of invisible enemies, from confusion, fire, crampedness, cowardice, powerlessness, heart death and who granted cleansing, healing, sanctification, peace, spaciousness of heart, boldness, strength and life, with which I unfalteringly and with the greatest boldness performed prayers and absolution Compline. I thank the Lord for the gracious enjoyment of the Divine service. I thank the all-holy, life-giving mentor of wisdom - the Holy Spirit, who managed to compose such wondrous services for the holy fathers to the glory of God, in honor and glory of the Most Holy Theotokos, Angels, saints, services of repentance, thanksgiving, prayer, praise, and sacrament. God's service is a true heavenly residence on earth. Everyone, especially a sufficient and rich person, is tormented by a thirst for acquiring earthly goods (even if there were already a lot of them), and the loss, loss of them in any way, and this thirst, this fear and fear of losing them extinguishes in him the thirst for the grace of God, the thirst for an incorruptible, heavenly, peaceful life and nails him to the ground, makes him a slave, a slave of earthly addictions, pleasures and countless sins, entangles him the devil is constantly in the net, depriving him of true peace, tormenting and tormenting 46 his soul and body. Meanwhile, our true peace, our true pleasure, our true light, our strength, our light is in heaven, in God and everything Divine. Oh, away from us worldly excesses, worries, passions, dreams, fears, concerns! Yesterday after mass, I allowed myself to become irritated with my wife and upset with Anna K. and Minadora Pashinnikova: with the former for frying and boiling fish during Holy Week, and with those for driving around at the wrong time and disturbing us with their untimely visits. I repented to my God of falling away from love and falling into bitterness. Only after leaving home did I calm down. In the evening I myself ate the fish when it was served on the table, and at night through the fish there was a strong lustful kindling and a disposition to voluptuousness. That's what fish does! That is why she is banned from fasting! Why do you, O people, use the reproductive organs and the act of procreation, an act so wonderful in purpose, so holy, good, beneficent, because it aims to give existence and life to creatures like us, so wise, powerful?.. Often only out of a thirst for momentary pleasure, sinful, passionate, corrupting the soul and body. Stop, you unreasonable and extremely insane ones, from insulting the Creator in His creation and in His procreation; serve His most pure and most gracious intentions purely. Great Tuesday. God! I thank You, for You have granted me the grace to serve the Liturgy and Panikhida without stumbling, and with great boldness. And in the foregoing 47 do not forsake, O Master Lord, Your omnipotent help. Before the beginning of the service, You sovereignly delivered me from the oppression of the enemy when I fell at the throne of grace. Thank you for your great salvation after communion of the Holy Mysteries and for deliverance from the machinations of the enemy before reading and during the reading of the prayer behind the pulpit, which I read without stumbling; then for deliverance from the machinations of the enemy and from the deadly wounding of ethereal villains by saying absolution, at which the enemy hesitated with cowardice and fear and did not allow me to pronounce the name of the Mother of God and the saints. But the Lord delivered me from the [most] deadly oppression of the enemy when I was walking from the training crew church after the confession of the pupils and met Ostryakov’s wife with their children and felt hostility towards her through the work of the devil; For a long time I struggled with this hostility in repentance and self-condemnation, and only in the name of the Lord did I reflect it from my heart and calm down. Otherwise it was pure disaster! I thank the Lord, who showed me His sovereign, glorious help during Matins, which I performed without stumbling, excluding the prayers, Lord and Master of my life 48 for the second time and Christ, the true Light. Heart weakness due to gluttony the day before (beer, tea, fish). During the confession of the laity on Great Wednesday, several times the adversary the devil seriously pestered me, either with partiality and an impure lustful movement of the heart, extremely murderous, or with the charm of the love of money at one glance at silver money, and I had to go to the altar or immediately repent internally and ask for mercy and deliverance from the Lord, and I thank the Lord - I received. I was especially hard pressed by the enemy during the saying of dismissal and the final litany at Compline; An enemy killed me here, but for my repentance the Lord delivered my heart from death and revived me. God bless! I thank the Lord, who strengthened me with the grace of the Holy, most pure and life-giving Mysteries, with the help of which I did not get tired at all, having confessed to two hundred and forty-three people and standing and talking from three to ten and a quarter o’clock in the evening. He brought his wife sixty rubles. Maundy Thursday. I thank the many-merciful and all-generous Lord, who repeatedly delivered me for the prayer of faith and for my heartfelt repentance from the money-loving, deadly (I felt this bitter death in myself) passion that arose in me during Matins and after Matins during the confession of officers and ordinary (choristers); singers - alas! - I reluctantly, not freely, with displeasure confessed, as if they had come at the wrong time, but in fact because they came empty-handed, and some of the officers, for example Tolbukhin, or from the secular ones (Lev Alexandrov) - servilely. Alas for me! Alas for me! And our confession has become corrupt, and the priceless gift of Christ’s merits, the gift of the Holy Spirit, is redeemed with money. Let us assume that the one taught by the word, according to the Apostle, must share earthly goods with the instructor [Gal.6:6], but confession should be made without money, especially if the confessing priest does not teach the repentant, but only forgives and allows. If he teaches, then work is worthily and righteously rewarded, but not forgiveness and permission, which is the gift of God. After mass late. Well, a hellish bath with hellish torment was given to me today at mass due to the slightest displeasure with Deacon Poletaev, a small grief; Out of this momentary grief and embitterment, Satan moved into my heart and confused, humiliated and killed me, so that I barely came to life through faith in the Mysteries I had just received and through all-powerful repentance. And I galloped and shivered at the altar of the Lord in the Peter’s chapel - even if you don’t show your face to the people at all and run from the church. It was because of satiety that the enemies defeated me! What a need for a post! How easy it was for me [after] the people left the church and after the use of the Holy Mysteries! But while in charge of the assembly before the royal funeral service and during it, I again felt terribly ill from demonic fears and temptations (good young officer ladies Verkhovna and Borisova); I conquered them with deep tears, bitter tears of the most humble repentance and consciousness that I had been corrupted to the depths of my soul. At the steward of the Marine Club during a memorial service, I also got rid of demonic fears (the demons did not allow me to utter the words of prayers, instilling fear, insincerity, coldness, slander, slander against the deceased king, alienating my soul from him) only with tears of repentance for the deepest corruption of my heart. And at the prayer service, the enemies did not allow the Gospel to be read and the holy prayer. It’s always especially difficult for me under Deacon Poletaev. Holy Saturday. With all my heart I thank the Lord for delivering me from hellish cramped conditions, darkness and the shadow of death just before Matins (in the church in the Petrovsky chapel) and during Matins, especially at the first hour before going out to say the prayer to Christ, the True Light. Before this, I felt in my soul a terrible tightness and burning, deadly thorns, and after repeatedly falling to the holy throne with faith in repentance, I now got rid of the tightness and thorns, came to life, reconciled, my heart expanded, became free, cheerful, and the prayer to Christ, the Light... I said with a living feeling, firmly, with boldness. Then, during confession, the Lord repeatedly delivered me, a repentant man, from the oppression of the enemy. Oh, how sweet it is to have the Lord within you! (I ate too much rice porridge and mushroom cabbage soup, and that’s why my heart felt extremely hardened, weak, and faint.) Excesses now have a particularly hard impact on me - I’m weakening with age. After mass. The time of mass today was for me a time of grief and unimaginable sorrow and mortal distress because of my sins. I turned out to be a man of a low soul, addicted to the decay of the earth (new vestments on the rector, and old, ore ones on us - I was offended by this) and because of decay, conveniently falling away from love for God and neighbor: because of the vestments, I was upset with the rector during the very rite of the liturgy, envying him, secretly reproaching him for pride, pride and vanity and supposedly in humiliating us, his servants, although this is not visible in his behavior towards us. On this occasion, the devil terribly attacked me from the side of my vanity and vanity, pride and envy, pettiness and terribly confused, excited and killed my soul. I shifted, shivered, rushed about, jumped (alone in the chapel), clearly felt the presence of an adversary within me, and only through faith and repentance and the final communion of the Holy Mysteries I barely got rid of hellish trouble. Praise the Lord for deliverance! Oh, Lord, grant me sublime, spiritual, imperishable aspirations and take away from my heart all the addictions of temporary life; grant me to maintain sincere, firm love for everyone and for the abbot especially, as for the nearest beginning, and not look at his movements, actions, words suspiciously and maliciously! He did not offend me in any way today, but I considered myself extremely offended by him, while I was offended by my own passions, strongly rooted in my heart. My incorruptible, beautiful, righteous, eternal, all-loving robe is Christ; All of you who were baptized into Christ, it is said, have put on Christ [Gal.3:27]. Your priests will be clothed with righteousness [Ps. 132:9]. But in order to put on Christ and His truth, you need to be undressed from all unrighteousness, from all passion, from all sin and put on dispassion. Away with the passion for the pleasures of the flesh, for satiety, wine drinking, pride, selfishness, malice, envy, zeal, voluptuousness, laziness, negligence, wickedness, disobedience, disobedience, brotherly hatred, suspicion, man-pleasing, fear of man and fear of the devil. Easter. Morning, six and a half hours. Having rested after an early mass in the Duma Assumption Church. I thank the Lord with all my heart for the calm, dignified service of Easter Matins and the Liturgy in perfect order, free from any haste or confusion. I thank the Lord for granting me the communion of the most pure and life-giving Mysteries and for renewing them. There were the usual stumbling blocks at the great entrance when saying the names of the royal family, when saying dismissals (stealing names and words, prayers behind the pulpit). God! Deliver me from this sin! Seven and three quarters o'clock in the morning. Glory to Your all-redeeming, all-saving name, Lord Jesus! Behold, I cried out to You in repentance for my deliverance from the devil’s melancholy, sorrow and oppression, which depressed me as a result of dissatisfaction with the prosecutor of the Holy Synod and the Holy Synod that my award was not submitted for the highest approval and was rejected by the Synod itself, although it submitted the later ones after my award for the highest approval; I cried out, I say, to the Lord in the sadness of my heart, and the Lord now comforted me, calmed me, revived me. Glory to Your wonderful, all-saving name! Creative goodness and wisdom bestowed upon all intelligent creatures talents, or gifts and strengths for doing, nurturing and multiplying them, and the greatest measure of talents was given to the overshadowing Cherub, who did not stand in his rank, but became proud without measure and rejected the goodness and holiness of the Creator and became the devil, dragging a third of the Angels with him. The Lord will demand a strict account of the use of these talents both from the fallen angels (and will make His righteous, terrible reckoning with them for all their evil deeds), and from all people of all times and places. Let us diligently do the works of God and prepare to give an account of all our words and deeds, thoughts, intentions and desires. Let us watch at all times, praying. Putting aside... the old man, which is corrupted by its deceitful lusts [Eph.4:22]. So, all lust destroys the soul and body (of the old man), since lust follows. How pitiful, unclean, and insane is lust, which causes so much harm to the incorruptible, immortal soul and the corruptible body, created incorruptible in the beginning. Thursday of Holy Week. I thank the Lord, who gave me the grace to perform without stumbling the entire Divine Early Liturgy in the Assumption Church for the health and salvation of Irina, Daria and relatives and to partake of the life-giving Holy Mysteries of Christ. I thank the Lord for the unfaltering performance of two prayer services (the last one at Burachok’s). My unclean, many-passionate soul! And in a dream you see only the pleasure of food and drink, you move from house to house from dishes to new dishes! Alas for me, a sinner! And here in reality I still host a rich dinner in a public hall! However, this last one is a debt of gratitude and friendship! Do not judge me, Master Lord, for my sins! The holy saints of God even during their lifetime had the gift of knowing the heart, all the more so they have this gift after the release of their souls from their bodies, when they directly united with the Lord, who knows everything. Therefore, remember, when standing in prayer and calling mentally or verbally to the Most Pure Mother of God or the saints, that their gaze penetrates your heart, that your whole soul is naked before them. Always pray sincerely, purely, diligently, humbly. Nine o'clock in the morning. I thank You, Lord, for Your great salvation, wrought in me now for my repentance and diligent invocation of Your all-holy, all-saving name! I was angry and embittered at two beggars, who often came up asking for alms, but did not do anything and insistently asked me for more than what I would like to give. This anger irritated me extremely and tormented me like a fierce snake, and so the Lord delivered me from my anger, giving me His goodness, His light, His peace, space, boldness, freedom. Glory to the Lord, who did not abandon me for the sake of His mercy, for the sake of the unspeakable goodness of His being. Saturday. I thank the Lord, who raised me up through repentance out of my irritation and anger towards my wife and sister-in-law and who gave me peace and freedom with boldness. Resurrection. Alas for me! Alas for me! I sinned before the Lord from early morning by being hard-hearted towards the poor and reluctantly, with vexation and anger, giving them meager alms. Forgive me, Master Lord, my sin and change my heart, so that I will be truly merciful. God! Witness of my heart and the thoughts, feelings, and passions hidden in it! I do not want to follow the desires of my self-loving, proud, evil, impatient, envious, voluptuous, prodigal heart. I do not want to have hostility towards the High Hierarch of the Russian Church, Metropolitan Isidore, although the leader of malice is trying to fan it and root it in my heart. Away the breath of satanic malice! Away with the anger smoldering within me! If he, the Metropolitan, were also my enemy, he despised and hated me - and then I should, according to the word of the Lord, love and deeply honor him and earnestly pray for him, so that through his prayers I too would be worthy of the grace of God and all the gifts of God for the benefit of the soul. God! With the breath of the Holy Spirit and the spirit of love, extinguish the enemy’s anger in me and instill deep humility and gentleness in me! Wake up! Amen. I thank the Lord, who has granted me with tenderness to read secretly the canons to the Savior and the Guardian Angel and the akathists to the Savior and the Mother of God. Resurrection. I was unwell from a prolonged cough, my internal nerves were painful and irritable, the attacks of invisible enemies were cruel and swift, but the Lord’s deliverance, after a secret prayer of repentance, hurried to me quickly. At the great entrance there was confusion and complete concealment of the names of the highest persons; upon the consecration of the Holy Gifts, the Holy Synod and the Metropolitan spoke hastily and the first words were drowned out by singing; during the communion of the Holy Gifts, I could not defeat the invisible enemies who attacked mercilessly because of the money collected for the poor in the parish, in addition to the fraternal money, and I was confused, dejected, and killed internally; I read the prayer behind the pulpit poorly, vaguely, without self-control, in a captive manner; He didn’t speak his word freely, he stole his leave out of embarrassment. Then new tightness and sorrow until I consumed the Holy Gifts, which brought me some peace, but the soreness of the body continued. The dinner party went well. At the funeral service in the evening at Yakovleva’s house, the enemy stopped me from looking at Yanuarsky, who had long seemed proud to me. I prayed and the tightness passed! Most of all, the villain fights me because of alms, beats me because of it, is terribly jealous of the rubles that I collect for them, and equally kills me with his malice and his abominations, instantly defeating me, untrained. If a sermon is supposed to be delivered, then Belial bores me terribly, crowds me, confuses me, torments me. It confuses me with the reminder of the sins I committed in my youth or later, over time, or now, but I should not be embarrassed and lost, but trust in the mercy of God and say: there is no man without sin, and although I have sinned and have sinned, I will give an answer to the Lord for my sins, I will repent to Him, and He will forgive me with His usual love for mankind. You, Satan, evil spirit of despair and despondency, get away from me in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. To Him alone have I sinned, to Him alone will I give my answer, to Him alone will I repent. During a crowded meeting in a church during a service, when you go out before the people during the great entrance or dismissal to say prayers or words of dismissal, always try to mentally control yourself and the entire church meeting, and not fall in spirit before yourself and before the people. This is cowardice and fear of the devil. After Matins. I thank the Lord, who filled my soul with streams of grace during the reading and singing at Matins and took away my sinful deadness. I thank the Lord, who, after Matins in his own house, delivered me from the fierce, unclean, deadening leprosy of foul thoughts that were scalding my soul. I repented of this abomination many times, and finally the power of grace overcame the power of sin in me. The Lord delivered me from the poisonous, all-destructive abomination of thoughts. Oh, how the fire of sin burns - even to the depths of hell! After this, be seduced by sins, sons of men! Oh, turn away, turn away from sin with all your strength, with all your thoughts, with all your heart - the corrupting sin that separates you from God. After the funeral service at Simeon Alekseevich Sorokin. I thank You, Lord, for having overthrown my evil destroyer through spiritual wisdom, contrary to the wisdom of the flesh (during the funeral service, I thought vainly, how to remake my large pectoral cross, similar to the one issued by the Synod, into a cross similar to the one presented to me on my anniversary, with precious stones, and because of this I was confused, darkened, and died in my soul). I thought later: everything in the world is vanity and decay: our bodies are perishable, and all things are perishable, gold and precious stones - only the soul is incorruptible and immortal, its virtue, piety, love; Let us take care of it, for the salvation of our souls, redeemed by the blood of Christ, rejecting worldly, inappropriate cares, through which the villain and the envious and murderer of the human race constantly robs us. Due to satiety this evening I suffered a severe coughing fit: I ate three eggs at twelve o’clock and drank two glasses of tea, then at three and a half o’clock I ate a bowl of soup and quite a bit of meat; This made me stiff, constricted my lungs and gave me a strong cough. When it relaxes, then the cough goes away. I thank the Lord for his help at the evening funeral service. Morning. I thank the Lord, who watered my soul, scorched by passions, through the prayer of my repentance, when during Matins I venerated the throne of grace several times, being in angry indignation and suspicion of Father Paul and his daughter Catherine, who seemed to me extremely proud, unwilling to respond to my kind greetings when they met, and the sailor officer who was walking with her, who also did not answer and nodded his head to my hi. For the sake of Christ, the Lamb of God, I forgave all this and considered myself guilty of self-love, pride and suspiciousness. The canon was read with the greatest animation and solemnity. I thank the Lord, who granted me help to perform a prayer service without stumbling with Alexander Moiseevich Fedorov; I thank the Lord, who delivered me from embarrassment, cramped conditions and sorrow after the memorial service for the servant of God Simeon Alekseevich Sorokin in the evening, when there were drunken singers singing disgracefully, at whom I was angry and therefore indignant and hurt. I thank the Lord, who gave me the grace in the morning to perform a memorial service for the same Sorokin without stumbling; I thank the Lord, who delivered me from the machinations of crafty demons during the late liturgy in the Assumption Church and who [was able to] unfailingly pronounce without embarrassment and fear of the devil the names of the royal persons at the great entrance, and the Holy Synod and the metropolitan with the title upon the consecration of the Holy Gifts, and the prayer behind the pulpit and dismissal. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from extreme violence and confusion of evil demons during the memorial service for the servant of God Konstantin Antipenko (lieutenant) through a strong inner prayer of repentance and faith. And evil demons tormented me with dignity and righteousness for my hard-hearted refusal to a beggar who asked me for money for supports. This poor beggar waited for me for four hours (two hours in the rain) against the church fence; only four hours later I handed in thirty kopecks; and he kicked one beggar who had deceived me under his feet with anger and vengeance, and refused one beggar’s request for support. Oh, my great and grave sins! May I remember them and always humble myself before God. After being angry with the singers at home, I fell before the Lord many times, and the Lord had mercy on me with sweet, life-giving, spacious peace in my soul. I left home in peace for a funeral service with Antipenko, but on the way the devil caught me in his net through the begging of a beggar and through my impatience, stinginess, hard-heartedness and self-love. Only in the Orthodox Church is given due honor and glory to the Most Holy Theotokos, the Mother according to the flesh of Christ God, the holy Angels and saints of God of every rank or face, while Protestant societies have rejected this veneration of the Mother of God and the saints, their icons of saints and their relics, and the Catholic Church does not pay correct veneration to the Lady, having distorted the dogma of Her conception by righteous parents and depicting Her icons in an inappropriate, unsacred way. How many and how many advantages the Orthodox Church has over other non-Orthodox Christian societies! Thank God, brother and sister, that you belong to the Orthodox Church, and try to be worthy of its children. Sin is such an ordinary and common evil to all people that in most cases it is necessary to look at it indifferently when it is committed by others, and not to be irritated by those who sin, for irritation is also sin and a falling away from the love commanded to us by the Gospel, but we must be lenient towards those who sin and deal with them meekly, pity them, pray for them to the only sinless and only One who can correct them, heal their passions and mental illnesses; but when we ourselves commit any sin, then treat ourselves with all severity, without any indulgence or indulgence, for the more we will benefit ourselves, the more strictly we treat ourselves; every sinful child must be smashed against the stone of Christ through repentance, that is, every unrighteous thought must be killed so that it does not grow into desire and passion and a sinful habit. In my speech I very excessively praised the parishioners who presented me with a gold cross with precious stones. But make them such, O my Lord, Lord, as I have depicted them, that Thy holy name may be glorified in them. Remember and never forget that the words of the Gospel and the words of the Church (prayers, hymns, dismissals, canons, stories about the lives of saints, theological reasoning, dogmas, various articles of God) are above all earthly wisdom, all so-called intelligentsia, which worldly educated people call themselves, and therefore always firmly and high hold the banner, or the word of faith, before all secular people, imagining to be wise people, and extremely avoid false shame or fear of demons in front of them, so that you do not humiliate or offend the words of the Gospel and Church and Christ God Himself, speaking through the mouth of His clergy, and the Holy Spirit speaking in them; Even if you have sinned in some way, do not be discouraged, for you are sinning only God, and He is abundantly merciful and forbearing and long-suffering towards all who truly repent; He is the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world [ John 1:29 ] and your sins; Yes, and cowardice, despondency, shame and fear of speaking on behalf of the Church are new and serious sins, but why add sins to sins? We must humbly repent of the sin we have committed, and not lose heart because of the devil’s actions and deceit. Ratch write a letter. Send letters to St. Petersburg regarding guardianship matters. In the morning, never eat or drink without extremes (for example, in case of hunger and weakness), for in the morning the body, strengthened by sleep, and the stomach not exhausted, do not need food, and unnecessarily taken food serves only to relax the soul and body and is a convenient tool for the devil to arouse passions and disorderly movements of the flesh and spirit in us. This is how it happened to me today: I became angry at the drunken singers at the cemetery and became cruelly weakened in my soul, completely indignant at the contradiction and self-justification of one of them, who also accused me. Do not be angry with those who are faulty and sinners, so that you, because of embarrassment and death of the heart, do not inflame and cause a greater sinful wound in those who have sinned and do not cause offensive contradiction and bickering or opposition. After the all-night vigil. Glory to Thee, our all-good and beneficent God, who mercifully heard me in my sorrow and distress during the all-night vigil, when I was bound and killed by my carnality (satiety), stinginess and hard-heartedness, and who gave me boldness to sing and read in the choir. The Lord wonderfully and powerfully renewed me through my repentance and reading and singing in the choir. Upon leaving the church, having met a student from the Yanuarsky Real School, I looked at him with hostility and suspicion as if he were proud, like his brother, and again I died in soul, but with immediate repentance I came to life again by the grace of Christ God. He celebrated the memorial service for Antipenko Konstantin with extreme struggle and stole some exclamations and dismissal from cowardice and fear. But at the end of the requiem, he came to life again through repentance, already at home, out of grief at the poor and through new wounding and mortification, plunging himself into the abyss of the Lord’s mercy and goodness; I was a miracle to myself by the grace of God, and God’s mercy was wonderful to me. How can one love the flesh, the flesh - the instrument and home of sin and passions, and cherish it with coveted foods and drinks and long sleep on soft beds, or delight your ears with the pleasant sounds of musical instruments or secular songs that pamper and relax your soul, and your sense of smell with various pleasant incense, after which any unpleasant smell, even from a person? - trouble and disgust. An alien, evil spirit turns me away and forcibly alienates me from God, from the Most Pure Mother of God, from the holy Angels and holy saints of God, from my loved ones living with me in this vale of sin, crying and death, and all through sin - either through wickedness and pride, or envy, or blasphemy and disgust, or through unclean thoughts and disorderly movements in the heart and in flesh, then through gluttony and greed or greed and hard-heartedness, then through resistance and disobedience or contempt, hostility, then through fear and embarrassment or partiality and contemplation, then through false shame, vanity and vanity, then through apathy and laziness, then through prejudice and evil suspiciousness and suspicion, through false views, then through замкнутость сословную. Meanwhile, we must all be one body in Christ, animated by one Spirit of God, all our own to each other, all members, all of the same blood and body in the font of Baptism, in the seal of Confirmation, and especially in the communion of the Body and Blood of the Lord. Why do I allow an evil spirit to alienate myself from God, from the Mother of God, holy Angels, holy people, friends of my God, and from my neighbors, no matter who they are? I must appropriate myself to them in the most sincere way. God! Shedding His blood for all of us, dying and resurrecting and ascending into heaven and sending the Holy Spirit to earth, appropriating all believers to God and to each other, deign to give us this Spirit of the Creator and Savior and Appropriator and drive away from us all alien, crafty, evil spirits, so that we may all be Your property, and not the property and trash of someone else. Amen. April 23. Eight o'clock in the morning without twenty minutes. First of all and most of all, we must fervently pray for the Holy Governing Synod, that the word of the truth of Christ may rightly rule (but in no way condemn this highest (spiritual) church court), and for the local bishops, shepherds of souls, and then for the sovereign and his house, that he may be wise and instruct him to carry out this high service without stumbling, for the good of the people and for the glory of God. Meanwhile, demons confuse and alienate the hearts of high authorities, and there are few who sincerely pray for them: many, many have some kind of secret ill will and envy. But they don’t know how much care and work the authorities have, even if they are insincerely devoted to their work, just mechanical daily work. But they are weak people, just like us. My flesh, the nest of sin and unclean passions, must be crucified and put to death with them either voluntarily or violently from others according to the will of God, so that there may be an end to the triumph of sin in us and all worldly vanities and passions, sinful habits, inclinations, inclinations, so that man may be like the sweet bread of the Most Holy Trinity, alien to the bitterness of sin. Thus, the Lord received to Himself the martyrs through the torments, through the fasts and prayers of the saints, and through all sorts of deeds of various saints. After mass and after classes at the gymnasium. The salvation accomplished today many times by the Lord Jesus Christ through the prayer of faith and fervent repentance is a miracle of miracles in terms of the extreme severity, strength, narrowness and deadly nature of temptations from the spirits of evil and in those saving, desired consequences in the soul that the Lord produced in me by His grace. The Lord saved me especially majestically before the beginning of the liturgy itself, before the entrance prayer image in the altar and during the very entrance reading of the prayers, then after the great entrance, at which I broke off with my heart and lips from embarrassment, but before that I was very calm. He served Mass victoriously by the grace of God, received Holy Communion in a life-giving manner, read the pulpit solemnly, victoriously, without stumbling, and said dismissal unkindly, boldly, cheerfully. I performed the funeral service without stumbling, only at the very beginning the devil began to tempt Deacon Vladimir with pride, but I won with grace. Evening. Seven o'clock. I thank the Lord, who has now delivered me from the deadly hostility towards the teacher at the trustee school, Anna Vladimir, for the fact that she did not get up from the bench when I greeted her, a young girl. I repented from my heart to the Lord alone in the doctor’s office, repented for a long time, and the Lord accepted whole-hearted repentance and prayer for love that never falls away, endures everything, covers everything, long-suffering, not irritated, not thinking evil. The Lord Jesus Christ is our hope in the midst of our despair and our cowardice, our encouragement in our fears, our life in the midst of our yawning death, our cleansing in our defilements, our salvation from our sins, our help in our needs, strength in our powerlessness, consolation in our sorrows, our height in our humiliation, our honor, taking away the shame of our sins, our splendor, taking away the ugliness of our sin, our love, destroying our hostility, our light among our darkness, our living and powerful connection, uniting our discord, our sinful divisions and disagreements, our restoration in our falls, our true sweetness, warming the dreamy and disastrous sweetness of our passions, incorruption among our corruption, a strong shield from the countless arrows of our invisible enemies, the all-good providential power that fulfills all good desires ours, endless love that covers all our weaknesses, our wisdom in the midst of our foolishness, the cleansing shovel that consumes the threshing floor of our hearts every day - He is all that is good for us. Amen. You understand the words: love your neighbor as yourself - what you want for yourself, wish for that and for another, and what you don’t want for yourself, don’t wish for that and for another [Matthew 7:12; Luke 6:31 ]; understandable words: whoever has two coats, give to the poor, and whoever has food, do the same [Luke 3:11]? It is said: to the poor, but it is not indicated why exactly to the poor. Disassembly is strictly prohibited. Further: do you feel the unceasing mercy of God above you, merciful to you and restraining everyone? Do you feel that you are a sinner and that you are in dire need of God’s mercy, as guilty of God’s justice for countless deviations from the truth of God, from His holy law - and don’t you feel the need of your heart to be reconciled with God? This remedy is almsgiving. The merciful will show mercy [Matthew 5:7]... Does not your heart feel the need for mercy and do you not feel the high pleasure of mercy? So, have mercy on the poor, and do not despise them and do not strictly analyze why they are poor. Believe me, not all of them are parasites. Oh, how many causes there are for poverty! And first of all, society itself is to blame for their poverty: why doesn’t it accept their situation and give them permanent work? I sinned greatly and gravely before God, the Mother of God, before the holy Angels, holy saints and all people with devilish pride, devilish resistance and disobedience, bitterness and envy in my heart, having read the commanding order of Father Superior Paul regarding the reading of the message of the Holy Synod in the church. Actually, my bad feelings and passions related to the abbot, but indirectly also to the Holy Synod, and for these sins I suffered severely in my soul from Satan himself, and only deep repentance and faith in the mercy of the Lord delivered me from these fierce passions that tormented me; After that, I went out to celebrate the wedding, and although the torment of passions continued for a few more times and I continued to shudder and tremble from them, but soon, by the grace of Christ, I completely overcame my enemies and celebrated the wedding easily, peacefully, freely, with dignity, with feeling and solemnity, without ever stumbling through the action of the devil. In the Old Testament, the suffering and death of the Lamb of God Jesus Christ for the sins of the world were depicted by dumb animals because without the mortification of the old man, who is decaying in the lusts of delusion, it is impossible for the new man created according to God, in righteousness and holiness [Eph. 4:22–24], and because only the suffering and death of the Sinless and All-Righteous deliver us from righteous punishment and eternal death for sins ours. Oh, how righteous is the truth of God, how holy, how infinitely holy! What infinite satisfaction was required for her in exhaustion, in the suffering and death of the Only Begotten Son! How we should abhor sin, how afraid of it! How long will I have this dissatisfaction with the rector, this secret and sometimes obvious grief at him for his lack of sympathy with me in matters of piety, that for all my zeal he will never say a single good word, as if he were completely dead to piety and faith and only formally performs all the services? Is it not my self-love, is it not ambition and vanity and pride that operates in me, that I seek glory from a man who is my closest superior? Shouldn't I be content with the testimony of my conscience, which is the voice of God in me, and with that peace, boldness, that joy and sweetness with which I am filled with heartfelt service to God, and especially with the testimony of faithful people who love me beyond measure for piety and worship and for preaching the word of God? My good fame spread not only in Kronstadt, but also far beyond its borders. Oh, truly a sinner, a person subject to passions, cruelly punishes himself with his internal torment, generated by his passions. A humble, simple-hearted, kindly person is happy with everyone and everything and thanks God for everything: for prosperity and adversity, for joy and sorrow, for space in the heart and for cramped conditions, for glory and dishonor, for difficulties and benefits. The heart of a people-pleaser is possessed by demons. I see this from experience. God! Forgive me for the devil's dissatisfaction with my superior! Is he happy with me? Does he have any reason to be pleased? How did I relate and relate to him in my soul? Is it with love and humility, with sincerity and meekness, is it obedient with devotion? Is it not cold, is it not proud, is it not with prejudice not in his favor, is it not with hidden malice, envy, disobedience, contempt, ill will and sometimes secret ill-wishing that he should leave here as indecent, unverbal, tongue-tied, unmerciful, stingy, money-loving, unsociable? Why do I, not loving him, hating him, want to be respected by him? Why, judging him strictly, do I not judge myself more and do not consider myself guilty of his neglect of me? Doctor, heal yourself [Luke 4:23]. Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not feel the beam in your own eye?.. Hypocrite! First take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye [Matthew 7:3,5]. Human! The reason others disrespect you lies in you, not in people. Respect others sincerely, and you will be respected. Don't be upset and don't be annoyed. Truly You are an abyss of mercy, Lord, for now You have delivered me, for my heartfelt view of You with repentance, from the fierce death of the soul for gluttony and satiety, punished by the fierce temptations of evil demons. Drinking milk with seltzer water and eating cheesecake in the evening with drinking wine and sweet tea with cream had for me, for my soul, the most bitter consequences, the most acute temptations, from which I got rid of with the greatest difficulty through repentance and the prayer of faith. Breaking the fast does not go unpunished for me. So, let me observe constant fasting and constant abstinence. Resurrection. Grant me, O Lord, a sincere look, so that I may look purely upon all Thy creations, created purely, with goodness [Gen. 1:31] by Thy most pure word and by Thy hands, for I often have a corrupt, unclean, evil look on Thy creations. You are honored by many, many with great honor, but do not pamper yourself with these honors, be prepared to meet coldness from many with inattention, indifference, disrespect and sometimes even undeserved dishonor and reproach - perhaps because you yourself sometimes inflict dishonor and reproach on others, secretly or openly. Blessed are you when they revile you... slander you for My sake [Matthew 5:11]. Evening. I thank the Lord, who perfected His power in my weaknesses during the Liturgy, both at the very beginning of the Liturgy in delivering me from sorrow, melancholy and oppression, and especially after the great entrance, at which, with all my desire to pronounce sincerely and calmly, without stumbling, the names of the highest persons, I did not speak out of embarrassment, fear and the mortification of my heart from evil demons. He received Holy Communion in a life-giving, fiery way; I read the entire pulpit with boldness, and I said the dismissal in its entirety. I felt good, light, refreshed all day; baptized by Tolbukhin with boldness and solemnity. Rise upon me a sinless day, O Christ God... 52 This is the greatest happiness and bliss of a rational and moral being - a person - to spend a day without sin, holy; this is the goal of his whole life. Bring us into Your eternal Kingdom 53. It is natural for an eternal being—the human soul—and must think about eternity every minute, so as not to waste the time given to prepare for eternity in a fruitless, useless manner. Every Christian must always and unceasingly remember that God is the holiest and simplest 54 being, that is, the Holy Spirit, for whom sin is impossible, this is the generation of the fallen spirit, Satan, who was the Angel of light, the most perfect Spirit, to whom any imperfection or lack is alien, all-satisfied, all-blessed, ever-present, all-good, all-knowing, all-wise, omnipresent. In the image of His simplicity and holiness, He created man who, having fallen through the deception of Satan and having been redeemed from sin, curse and death by the Son of God, must, with the help of His grace, achieve the perfection of holiness every day and hour and not slumber, not sleep, not be lazy, but work, stay awake, pray and do good deeds, avoiding evil. After celebrating the Liturgy and communion of the Holy Mysteries, I am calm, gentle, healthy, well-behaved; my youth is renewed like an eagle [Ps. 102:5]. Glory to the Lord about this. Lord, remember everyone by name, who commanded me, unworthy, to pray for them, and visit them all with Your mercy according to each need, giving them Your goodness. Tuesday. I thank You, Lord, for the miracles of Your mercy towards me, unworthy, yesterday and today revealed in me during Matins and early Liturgy (yesterday in the cathedral, today in the Assumption Church), how I was wounded by the obsession of demons, embarrassed, oppressed, dejected, killed - and how I was healed in soul, pacified, expanded in my heart, relieved, revived, became confident. He served the Liturgy without stumbling, with great tears of tenderness given by the grace of God; received communion of the life-giving fire, which the Holy Mysteries were for me. My sin during Matins consisted in falling away from the spirit of love for the abbot who was serving and in hostility towards him, for which I sincerely repented and received mercy from the Lord. I confess the great mercy of God upon me, shown in the schoolroom in the overcoat room (Swiss) for my repentance of hardness of heart and refusal of alms to some beggars with grief and running away from them. His goodness exceeded my wickedness, His bounty exceeded my stinginess. I confess before the Lord my sin, committed at this hour (at the end of the sixth hour of the evening) with the beggars to whom I gave money; some of them came up another time, and I, angry, reviled them, and grabbed one by the hair and dragged him by it, but I myself was seriously wounded in my soul, for I had angered the All-Good, All-Bountiful among poor people, in whose person He Himself is pleased to accept both alms and reproaches and reproaches and our malice, our pride and stinginess, our hardness of heart: since you did this to one of these My brothers the least, they did for Me [Matthew 25:40]. Now I have again received the great mercy of God - forgiveness of my cruelty, stinginess, rage and malice towards the beggar, because I repented and begged the all-good Lord, Who exchanged anger for mercy, sorrow and hardship for joy and space, death for life, cowardice for boldness. I thank the Lord for His extraordinary gifts to my poverty and spiritual poverty: yesterday and today the Lord revealed in me extraordinary powers of grace during the singing and reading of Matins and during the celebration of the Liturgy; I performed peacefully, victoriously, without stumbling, sincerely the entire Divine service, especially the liturgy, solemnly proclaiming the names of the highest persons at the great entrance, and the Holy Synod, and the Metropolitan at the consecration of the Holy Gifts, which I could not do before due to the machinations of the enemy; He also said the prayer behind the pulpit and dismissals at the liturgy and memorial service fully, freely, sincerely, with self-control. The Lord showed me a multitude of salvation yesterday and today at Matins and Mass. This morning at nine and a half o'clock the devil intensified to pour his abominations on me before and during the prayer service in Medvezhya Street, in the apartment of the merchant Stepan Alekseev Loshkin; this is due to my intemperance yesterday and breaking the fast at the wedding feast of Alexei Fedorovich Ushakov in the Commercial Assembly (on Wednesday evening I ate a quick dinner and drank a lot of wine). I barely got rid of the abominations of demons through inner prayer. Oh, how deeply various passions nest within me: pride, carnality, gluttony, man-pleasing, voluptuousness, lasciviousness, pride, ambition, malice, envy, ill will, malevolence, evil suspicion, guile, fornication, drunkenness, laziness, disobedience, willfulness, stubbornness and countless other passions! It takes a lot of moral work to cleanse yourself with the grace of God from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit! If you are in great honor with those who are like-minded with you and who know you briefly, and you are accustomed to seeing from them ordinary expressions of respect and love, then watch yourself carefully so as not to be spoiled by the respect given to you and not to become embarrassed and embittered by those who, either without knowing you, or knowing you little, or for some reason not having respect and favor for you, treat you insincerely, or disrespectfully, or even unkindly, hostilely. Be deeply and unchangeably, constantly kindly by the grace of God and love sincerely and those who do not love you and do not respect you, considering yourself worthy of their dislike and disrespect for your weaknesses and shortcomings and passions, sincerely wishing and praying to God for all good to them; Extremely refrain from expressing disrespect and coldness towards them, for evil is not corrected by evil, but by good. Conquer evil with good [Rom.12:21]. Twelfth o'clock at night. God! I thank You for your sovereign deliverance of me in the building of care in the waiting room for the sick from the enemy of my captivity with hostility towards the teacher for her seeming disrespect towards me when I, entering the meeting, greeted her. Your infinite goodness, Lord, has overcome my malice and delivered me from it and from its deadly consequences. You cannot serve God and mammon [Matthew 6:24], - this is especially clearly demonstrated by the time of our prayer: if our heart is partial to the flesh and the world, then our prayer is often broken, as if a ship were hitting pitfalls, and the soul cannot come to a calm state for the time being and peacefully converse with God until we overcome our earthly addictions. Translated by P. Yungerov: Strong is Your saving right hand (Ps. 19:7). Druchiti (Church Glav.) – to oppress, depress, languish. Predniy (Church Slavic) – the first, located in front; anterior - future. Prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian. Ore (obsolete) – i.e. reddish-brown, get rich - turn brown. Tune (Church Glorious) - for free; in vain. Preizlikha (Church Glav.) – strongly, very. Prayer of St. Macarius the Great “Rising from sleep...” from the sequence of morning prayers. Prayer of St. Macarius the Great “To You, Lord, Lover of Mankind...” from the sequence of morning prayers. Simple (Church Slavic) – whole, indivisible into parts; open, direct, pure, sincere.