Апрель 1883 г.

Friday. Morning. From what fierce, evil stings of the serpent today during Matins the Lord delivered me for repentance and resistance to bodiless enemies, from what torment I cannot even express. Oh, how glorious and most sweet, most peaceful, how wonderful was the salvation of God bestowed on my many-passionate soul, especially when I read and sang the sedalny (read), the canons of Mary of Egypt and the Cross (from the Triodion) and the stichera on the verse! Thank the Lord! My enemies encouraged me to become embittered and despise him, the elder, for his apparent negligence, soullessness in service, apathy, and coldness. Enemies fight me with their gums and necks. They seem to be jealous of pious, reasonable service to God, but in fact they terribly blaspheme God, arouse hatred towards the very servant of God, who has been surrounded by infirmity for a long time, and they torment me and deprive me of the grace of the Holy Spirit, moving away from a heart imbued with demonic malice. The devil has many means to keep us in his power, and he borrows these means from us: these are our various passions - pride, carnality, gluttony, voluptuousness, drunkenness, hatred, malice, anger, envy, pride, ambition, vanity, covetousness, laziness, negligence, disobedience, willfulness and stubbornness, despondency, timidity, false shame, deceit, impatience, flattery, caressing, partiality, contemplation, indulgence and people-pleasing. If one passion cannot captivate us, for example gluttony, then it captivates us with another, for example the love of money; if not by them, then by prodigal passion; if not by her, then by anger, or pride, or ambition; if not through them, then through partiality or through laziness and so on - in a word, he fights in every way. Oh, who will escape the snares of the enemy, of which there is truly no number? – A faithful and humble servant of God, for God gives grace to the humble [Proverbs 3:34]. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith [1 John 5:4]. And indeed, by faith and repentance I am saved, I overcome passions every day. For this glory and thanksgiving be to the Lord. Three o'clock in the evening. I thank my quick-to-obey Lord Jesus Christ, who delivered me from the melancholy and cramped conditions that the restless behavior (absent-mindedness and laughter) of the students in this class and my lack of preparation for reading in the remaining free minutes caused me in the fourth grade of the gymnasium. Saturday. I thank the Lord for serving the Liturgy, and for the non-judgmental communion of mine and the lay people of the life-giving Mysteries, and for the defeat of the slander and intrigues of invisible enemies, especially after the prayer behind the pulpit and after the kissing of the cross by the lay communicants, when the enemy continued to sting mortally and oppress me with his deadly, poisonous presence. For my repentance and faith and firm hope, the Lord defeated him, drove him away, and made him unknown. Glory to the greatness of Your goodness, O Lord, the greatness of Your mercy! I returned home overjoyed, blessed, peaceful, revitalized. Glory to the Lord and His life-giving, terrible Sacrament, blessed by all the Angels. At the very beginning of the Liturgy, the Lord, through my secret prayer, upon falling to the Holy Altar in the chapel of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, mercifully and quickly delivered me from the spirit of despondency and oppression, confusion and fear that suppressed me, and I came to life, was inspired by the spirit of grace and with a free spirit performed the Liturgy with tenderness and many tears. It was only during the prayer behind the pulpit that the enemy, the villain, ambushed me and killed me. After Vespers. Saturday. The beginning of another week. The Lord performed with me at the beginning of Vespers a great miracle of His mercy and power, delivering me from my all-outrageous anger towards Anna Geras, from whom I walked to the other side of the street, and she followed me with a kind coo; I was entirely to blame myself, having hated her because of her habit of getting angry over empty things and incidents; when I sincerely accused myself, asking the Lord for forgiveness, He forgave me and trampled death in me and gave me His life. Then, during Vespers, the widow Alexandra Mikhailovna, nee Semenova, made an evil impression on me through the devil’s influence, and I again condemned myself, and the Lord delivered me from death; after Vespers, I was upset that they were asking to give a prayer to the mother in labor and to serve a moleben; he repented - and was pardoned, and read the prayer calmly, and performed a prayer service, and glorified the Most Holy, Most Pure, Most Blessed Mother of God in small litanies, and read the Gospel, and then he confessed the goodness of the peasants with the reading of the entire prayer of permission. Then a prayer service for the Oreshins was served in the apartment of Ekaterina Mikhailovna Lebedeva at the Semyonovs’ house with grace. God bless. But my head hurts from excessive consumption of the Holy Gifts, the Body and Blood of Christ and pouring cleansing cups with wine and water. Heal, Lord! After the all-night vigil. I was extremely seriously tempted while reading the Gospel after the great tenderness of heart that the Lord gave me at the beginning and during the all-night vigil, even before the incense of polyeleos; then I saw the wife of the police secretary, whom I looked at with hostility for her apparent hostility towards us (she did not accept her with a cross on Christmas); and before I looked at her (that is, before the all-night vigil) with hostility and suspicion, but now the enemy caught me and tempted me with malice, and I was cruelly disgraced and died in soul now during the service. I could not read the Gospels because an evil spirit occupied my heart. Hence the lesson: to love everyone without partiality, whether someone is a friend or an enemy, loves or hates and despises me or us; we must love everyone, for love is from God, and turn away from hostility, for it is from the devil. Never harbor hostility or hatred towards anyone, for we are all brothers, members of one body of Christ, one Church, heirs of one future inheritance, one Father for all - God! But thank God: the Lord delivered me several times from the torment of the devil, both during and after the all-night vigil. The Gospel and the Apostle mutually explain each other in the Fifth Week of Lent. Compose a conversation and explain this and that. In the future, do not dissolve the Holy Gifts for the communicants in great excess, for to be satiated with the Holy Mysteries is a grave sin and hard on the body: the head hurts and the whole body relaxes, the spirit itself is sick, irritated, embarrassed, and subject to passions. So today, during the all-night vigil, I irritably looked at the action of the devil at the wife of the police secretary, Ivchenko, completely unkindly, fulfilling the lust of the devil’s malice. I must love everyone, without exception and without partiality, as members of the one body of Christ. And I am proud, my spiritual daughters have spoiled me with their extreme great respect and love, so if someone I know is indifferent and cold towards me, I often attack him, although I myself, due to my heart’s disposition and condition, do not deserve any love, as a proud, lazy, careless person about the spiritual benefits of parishioners. For His mercy endures forever [Ps. 136:1], that is, always, unceasingly, every day, hour, minute, all life. Sunday. I thank the Lord for his great mercy and help to me at the prayer service on the tower in the house of [Gorbko], a tailor, through secret prayer. I thank the lady. I thank the Lord for the tears of tenderness with which I drowned the mental Pharaoh in my heart, who was extremely confusing and oppressive to me, and for the uncondemned communion of the Holy Mysteries. I thank the Lord for my repeated deliverance from the deadly wiles of the enemy during Vespers and after Vespers in church, also at home before reading in the House of Diligence, and for the kind, animated reading here. I really didn’t want to serve a prayer service in the middle of the church after Vespers, and I could hardly overcome only the grace of Christ the stubborn and evil demon who opposed the work of God. Well, isn’t it my constant duty, isn’t it my life, isn’t it my breath, isn’t it happiness, isn’t it light, isn’t peace, isn’t joy, isn’t it strength, isn’t it my glory to always serve the Lord and the Most Holy Mother of the Lord, always call upon and glorify the name of God and the Most Pure Virgin - the Mother of God and our Mother and Queen by grace? Oh ignorance, oh stubbornness, oh laziness, oh our vanity, oh our malice! I thank the Lord, who twice and thrice delivered me in the Grechukhins’ apartment from the secret movements of lust that were killing my soul, and who gave me peace and freedom. What is more venerable than the words of the Gospel, this eternal, life-giving truth, these sweet verbs of eternal life - but Satan manages to cool our hearts towards them and make it difficult to pronounce them, just as he cools our hearts towards the holy words of prayers and praises inspired by the Holy Spirit, and also makes it extremely difficult to pronounce them in the church and in the homes of believers during prayers […]. Help, Lord, to always overcome the demons that fight us and hinder piety and prayer. Monday of the Sixth Week. Glory, O Lord, to the greatness of Your works and the depth of Your compassions. During Matins, You delivered me from the furious, repeated attacks of evil demons, who mentally attacked the modest, innocent Alexandra Mikhailovna [Kovinova] (née Semyonova), especially during the reading of Save, O God, Thy people... and the canon, and after the canon, and during the litanies of little and petitionary, and during the reading of the prayer to Christ, the Light... and after Matins. But for my prayer and repentance, You destroyed the devil’s anger in me and pacified me. During the hours, vespers and mass of the Presanctified One, You continually helped me, especially during the reading of the Gospel, and granted the uncondemned Communion of the Holy Mysteries and the prayer behind the pulpit to read the whole thing and to say the whole dismissal. You healed the illness of partiality in me (an officer with his family), and the fierce demonic wounding for stealing release at the funeral service with the following words: Possess the living and the dead... Christ, our true God, through the prayers of His Most Pure Mother, and so on. Then, in the gymnasium, You wonderfully and quickly delivered me from the captivity of sin and the devil, saving me from the movement of voluptuousness in my heart and in my flesh from looking at a black woman with a bare breast in the picture (I repented and called on Your holy name and received salvation in the second grade). Then at home at three and a half o'clock in the evening, after dinner, You saved me from feeling angry at my wife for not preparing a Lenten dinner. I repented, called on Your wonderful name and was saved. Six o'clock in the evening. Let there be complete disgust for all kinds of fornication from now on until the end of life. Satan tormented me like hell before this because of one lustful thought. But the Lord mercifully saved after a long desperate struggle. God save me from attracting the hearts of pious people to myself, as if to some idolized idol, and not to God, to Whom alone our whole heart belongs without a trace, and I must direct the hearts of all to God, the only one worthy of the complete love of our souls as the all-perfect and loving us ineffably. And I must completely devote my heart to Him and not give place in it to any passionate idol - not a person, not a thing, not a pleasure, not anything earthly; the heart must be alien to any earthly predilection, it must be heavenly, like a holy place, like a church, like the throne of the Heavenly God, the all-holy, all-righteous, as a simple Being and alien to all complexity. Regarding the Markovs’ zeal for me: the old lady [...] and the young Catherine. We should not look with partiality or servility, servility and self-abasement on anyone's face, whether it is noble and noble or ignorant, beautiful or ugly, rich or poor, strong or weak, educated or uneducated: before God everyone is equal and the law is the same for everyone: love your neighbor as yourself, and God most of all, with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your strength, and Love your neighbor for God as His image. At the unction in Gulyaev’s cellar, the struggle was intense: the demons extremely stubbornly interfered, depriving me of freedom of thought and speech. Behind Compline there is a terrible struggle over the ruble. During Matins, the Lord created His power in me, delivering me through the prayer of repentance from the cunning of the demons, who tormented me extremely painfully at the Midnight Office and at the beginning of Matins; At the Great Litany I was strengthened by the grace of Christ God, although due to the deceit of the demon and due to my timidity and weakness I did not say: honorable presbyterate and deaconate in Christ. I read the canons with the greatest triumph, boldness and spiritual joy. Before the clock at a lesson in guardianship, I was tempted through sight by instant lust and was terribly wounded for a whole hour and barely escaped after the greatest work of prayer and repentance in the church; The prodigal demon sat extremely stubbornly within me - finally the grace of Christ delivered me, the oppression and confusion, shame and humiliation passed and I calmed down for service. After the hours and vespers, at which I stole my leave, I again experienced sorrow and cramped conditions and misfortune, and only through prayer of repentance did I get rid of them and calm down. God bless! Evening. How many miracles of philanthropy and mercy and long-suffering the Lord has surprised me this day from morning to evening! How many transformations, good changes, salvations, deliverances from passions and from the fierce attacks of the devil! How many revivals of what was killed by sins, how many renewals, rebirths after the loss of grace and the life of God and the ferocity of hell, or the kingdom of the devil, in me! How thin, proud, angry, envious, voluptuous, money-loving, greedy and greedy for the pleasures of gluttony, covetous, partial, servile, deceitful, fearful where there is no fear, crafty, suspicious, disrespectful of elders, unkind, sometimes malicious and malicious, lazy, careless, absent-minded, idle, judgmental, proud, ambitious, irritable, disdainful, rebellious, willful and stubborn, unprepared, negligent in performing the duties of a priest and teacher of the law, unloving, changeable, careless about pleasing God and the salvation of his soul and his spiritual flock, lazy and careless in prayer for people, especially those who have died and departed from this life, not diligent about the salvation of oneself and those of others, unmerciful, hard-hearted towards the poor, tormented them often, sometimes pushed them, kicked them, tore them by the hair, beat the persistent, was vain, celebrated, laughed, was cowardly, feared ghosts, performed his duties insincerely and irreverently, blessed the name of God carelessly, did not maintain friendship and loyalty to friends, was fed up, drank wine more than the proper amount, did not care about correcting his heart and life, he sinned with evil, blasphemous, nasty thoughts, he suspected more evil than good in people, he did not fast in the proper way and thereby paved the way for all sorts of passions, he condemned his boss, he spoke unkind things about him, evil and contemptuously, he was irritated with the sexton and with many others. Accept from me, Lord, repentance and correct me and forgive all the evil I have done. They will place bullocks on Your altar [Ps.50:21]. The slaughter of dumb animals and the shedding of their blood recalled and depicted the slaughter of the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, for the sins of the world and the mortification of the dumb passions of the flesh by Christians, as the Apostle says about himself: I mortify my body and enslave [1 Cor. 9:27], or as he writes to Christians: mortify your earthly members: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil lust and covetousness, which is idolatry [ Col. 3:5 ]; those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts [Gal.5:24]. And look how the martyred regiments gave themselves voluntarily and joyfully to various torments for Christ and died as martyrdoms, how countless saints exhausted and enslaved their flesh to the spirit and became bloodless martyrs, constantly mortifying the rebellious flesh with fasting, vigil, lying on the bare ground, constant prayers, labors... Do we want to go to the future life and the Kingdom in an easy and broad way, by pleasing our flesh and passions, by laziness and negligence in prayer, in correcting ourselves and in all good deeds? Wednesday of the Week. God! I thank You for Your powers and signs in me, a sinner, which You surprised during Matins this day. From yesterday's gluttony and satiety (sardines with Provençal butter, porridge with almond milk), I was completely suppressed by invisible adversaries, deprived of all boldness, fell into confusion and fear, I could not speak the litanies and verses after the great litany: From the night our spirit will be matured to You, God and others; the larynx seemed to be clogged, it was difficult to speak; however, I sang and read the canons with great boldness, but the power of God mainly appeared in me when I said the prayer, Lord and Master of my life... and the prayer to Christ, the true Light... and dismissal. This boldness appeared in me as the great grace of God when I, dejected and outraged by the enemy’s slander and attacks, with faith and hope in repentance, venerated the holy throne, praying to the Lover of Mankind, the hope of the unreliable and the salvation of the desperate, to forgive me my sins and show His all-powerful help, which He showed abundantly. God bless! I thank the Lord for his help during the hours, Vespers and Presanctified Liturgy and for bestowing a drop of tears of tenderness before the transfer of the Holy Gifts from the altar to the Holy Altar and after that, for the non-judgmental communion of the Holy Mysteries and for the rather good reading of the prayer behind the pulpit, although with a stumbling block at the end and omission. I thank the Lord for delivering me from the punishment for missing the golden words of release and [from] the consequences of this omission. I thank the Lord for his wonderful help during Compline and especially after the dismissal. At first I despaired of God’s mercy, thinking that I would not say the prayer to the Lord, Jesus Christ, our God, but, strengthened by prayer and repentance, I broke free from the hands of the fighter and said the prayer separately to the end. The reason is abstinence from fish food. Reveal in me, O Lord, the riches of Your goodness on this day, as you have always shown it in days past, deliver me from all evil and lawlessness, grant me to fulfill all Your righteousness. When you think, or speak, or hear in church, or read in a book, or hear from people about the holiness, truth and goodness of God or the Mother of God, holy Angels and holy people, know and remember that these qualities and properties must certainly be yours, and you, as created in the image of God and likeness by the Creator, must be holy, good and righteous in all your life. Be holy in all your life, says the Apostle Peter [1 Peter 1:15]. Be holy, for holy am I the Lord your God [Lev.19:2]. Holiness should be your element, your life, your love, your most desired treasure. Yesterday, at the prayer behind the pulpit (Liturgy of the Presanctified), I stumbled in my heart and mind from the fear of demons and my impatience because of the smell of smoke and fumes from the stove and missed a few words at the end. And this circumstance killed my heart, put me to shame, and gave victory to the devil over me. Do not be afraid of the disorderly thoughts that rise up in you during prayer, against the holiness and goodness of God; or the Mother of God, or the saints, but despise them, trample them with your heart and do not pay attention to them, as well as to disorderly thoughts about people and about yourself; don't be embarrassed by them. This confusion is a sin, a sin and an admission, an acceptance of the devil’s excuse; be unperturbed and unshakable by the grace of God. God is near you and is ready to save you. Do not let your feet be in confusion... behold, he will not sleep, he who guards Israel will fall asleep. ...The Lord is a cover upon your right hand [Ps. 120:3–5]. All the life of our soul, all the joy, all the bliss, peace, strength, light, sweetness, sweetness, all our treasure is in the eternal God; without God there is no treasure, joy, peace, bliss, light, beauty, power, true life and sweetness. I sin daily and repeatedly before the Lord and the Mother of God in that I cleave to earthly, corruptible, fleeting things and pleasures, I am filled with earthly thoughts and feelings, and I do not love God and His holy law with all my heart, I do not fulfill His eternal, saving, life-giving commandments, I do not strive with all my love, jealousy, and fervor of my soul for immortality, for incorruptible, eternal, superior blessings. all understanding and bliss. The Lord Jesus Christ has placed us from corruption to incorruption, from death to life, and we, through some kind of madness, fall from incorruption into corruption, from life into death, instead of loving with all our hearts the incorruptible blessings, of which many of us have tasted in abundance (righteousness of the soul, peace, joy in the Holy Spirit, the sweetness of communion with God), we again love only the blessings of corruption, material, coarse, burdening the soul, deceiving, darkening, causing bitterness, languor and boredom, spiritual hunger, spiritual blindness and deafness and many many different temptations. Priestly service is the service of holiness and truth, infinite goodness, meekness and quietness, mercy and generosity, the service of life and immortality. What is the meaning and use of the fact that I still turn my partial gaze to things below and perishable, and not to things above and incorruptible? Isn’t this an absurd contradiction to my title of Christian and priest? Woe to the heart and mind! Seek the things that are above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God; Set your mind on things above and not on earthly things [ Col. 3:1–2 ]. Away from me the partiality and title 108 of the earth, the distinction between the faces of rich and poor, noble and ignorant, beautiful and ugly, young and old, male and female: let them all be equal before me, so that I see in them equally members of Christ, equally fallen by sin, equally sinners condemned and pardoned for faith in Christ and repentance; let there be no contemplation. Five o'clock in the evening. Thursday. I am amazed at the greatness of the miracles of God’s mercy in me, a sinner. During the hours of the liturgical service before the reading of the Gospel of Luke at the ninth hour, I became indignant and upset with the altar watchman for spreading a bitter, suffocating child through the church from a wall stove with a cast-iron stove; I went from the middle of the church to the altar and told him about it with annoyance and impatience, but this annoyance was murderous for me, for my soul: the villain was just waiting for something to catch me doing - and he caught me instantly in my grief and embitterment and, like an arrow, rushed into my heart and killed me morally, plunged me into darkness, sorrow, oppression, shame, into fire, and I could not read the Gospels at the ninth hour. Somehow he muttered something of his choice, which was not very familiar, so as not to remain silent at all, and quickly finished and went to the altar with the Gospel. There I fell to the Lord, the hope of the hopeless and the salvation of the desperate, in repentance and confession with strong faith - and the Lord had mercy on me, and tore apart in me the bonds of hell by which I was bound, and perceived peace and freedom. And then in the evening I received a new deliverance from the Lord after the dismissal, which was hastily and truncated. Then, at the funeral service in Gulyaev’s cellar (Tsepov’s house), I, serving alone, without a deacon, as usual, became embarrassed, stumbled and missed the words of the litanies due to demonic obsession and all-evil deceit (the head scarf on the deceased), and this extremely, mortally wounded me. Then I was like in hell right up to the training crew building, where I went to the gymnasium for lessons; I went into the observatory garden in repentance, it felt better, but upon leaving it was still cramped; Finally, in the Swiss gymnasium, I prayed especially urgently, and, climbing the stairs, I finally, at the very top staircase, felt liberation from the clutches of Satan, peace and spaciousness in my soul, and I rejoiced and triumphed. At Compline I also received the greatest mercy of God before and during the reading of the prayer Master Lord Jesus Christ our God, especially after the prayer service before the icon “For the Troubles of Those Suffering,” ordered by Claudia, an old woman living with Maria Filippovna Kovina; I didn’t like her because she pulled me (so to speak) out of the altar to serve a prayer service in the middle of the church, which I don’t like, and I didn’t respect her either, but somehow she was disgusting to me, which I sinned of due to partiality (she looks like a Samoyed 109). The adversary again grabbed me under the heart, put embitterment towards the customer into it, and I began to pray on my knees, that the Lord would give me all the same, without distinction, to love everyone as members of a single body, and I barely served the prayer service, especially barely read the Gospel, and that’s not all. And such a temptation befell me because of satiety: I was full of peas with crackers and Swedish soft bread, which I ate for the first time and liked it. Oh, intemperance! How easily the devil takes possession of a heart weighed down by food and drink! How stubborn and powerless is the struggle against him without fasting! After the prayer service in sorrow, I fell to the throne of grace and now received forgiveness, healing, peace, and distribution. Twelve and a half o'clock at night. Now I, unworthy, prayed to the Most Pure, All-Powerful Lady of Creatures, Mother of the Lord Jesus Christ the All-Creator, for the House of Diligence, may she provide it with abundant material resources and may she not allow us to be ashamed of poverty in maintaining all the institutions of this monument to the martyr king, since at present we are in need of material resources. I believe that the most merciful, all-wise, all-kind, all-pure, all-powerful Novice will help us for the sake of Her name and will beg Her Son and our God to grant an abundance of material resources for this house and an indestructible foundation - abundant capital for its future existence. Amen. Wake up. A priest, as a servant of the God of love and peace, mercy and patience, as a celebrant of the heavenly, life-giving Mysteries, as a shepherd and teacher of the people of God, the property of God, must have in his heart sincere, unfeigned, enduring, never-fading love; it must be, so to speak, his being, his element, in order to do everything with burning love: prayers or every divine service, and the Sacraments, and various services to people in the spirit of faith and the Orthodox Church, and preach the word of God, reprove, forbid, implore [2 Tim. 4:2]. And with what heavenly spirit of love all prayers are imbued during the celebration of all the Sacraments, especially the Divine Liturgy, Repentance, Blessing of Anointing, Marriage, and all church prayers in general! What a spirit of holiness, benevolence, salvation, incorruptibility and eternal bliss! O priest! Let there be unceasing, unfading love in your being, in your soul; ask God relentlessly for this love; cut off the passions that kill love: pride, voluptuousness, carnality, greed, ambition, waywardness, laziness, negligence, partiality. Everything that is good in me and in me is all from the Lord: faith, hope, love, although insignificant, peace, zeal for praise and thanksgiving to the Lord, for repentance and prayer, health of soul and body, youth, vigor and lightness despite the significantly longer years of my life (fifty-three years), success in ministry matters, good fame from faithful people - all this is an invaluable gift to me of the grace and mercy of God. And how can I thank the Lord for all this, who has been so beneficial to me from infancy and earlier, from my mother’s womb, until now for more than half a century? You, Lord, teach me to thank You worthily for Your benefits to me and through me to many, revealed and revealed by You, so that I always remember Your mercies and more by deeds than by words, I always thank You and I will not stop thanking You all the days of my life. As a young boy, I did not expect to live to be forty or even thirty years old, and now I have lived to be fifty or more years old. I thank You, Creator of centuries, who has set times and seasons in Your power! I thank You, Lord of my life, for you have granted me until now to taste the joy of being and all the wonders of Your mercy towards me. The Holy Spirit is the most Hypostatic Love and mercy, the most Hypostatic Wisdom, an infinite, omnipotent, all-reviving, all-pacifying, all-pleasing, all-enlightening power. I, the accursed one, have often and very often offended and offend the Spirit of God with excessive care for the flesh, or with my carnality, lust, love of money, love of dress and vanity. Because of the love for the multi-passionate flesh, I violated all the commandments of God: love for God and neighbor, violated prayer and fasting, allowed the enemy to destroy my public prayer and laugh at it, scatter it in the air, and cast down and kill my soul, shame and through me confuse people, despise my neighbors, hate, envy them, be angry with them, be proud, or, on the contrary, have partial love, partial respect, partiality, servility or fear for them, inappropriate fear. On all earthly things, on everything that is precious, beautiful, brilliant, sweet, precious under the sun, for those who are reasonable and attentive to themselves, it is written in indelible letters: dust and decay, a soap bubble, insignificance. Those who are unreasonable and inattentive to themselves, unbelievers and driven by sensuality do not see this clear truth, these words, and are seduced and cleave with all their hearts to dust and corruption, but remain cold and careless towards the eternal and forever abiding, and towards the Lord Himself, the infinite life, towards virtue, towards eternity, and are greedily devoted to acquisitions. They do not care about alms, they offend their neighbors, [...], they kill. They are in constant delusion and lust of the flesh, eyes and the pride of life. They looked at the beautiful face - and were seduced and hurt; they looked at the beautiful clothes, at the headdress, at the dress, even at the gait, listened to the conversation, laughter - and were seduced; they saw something beautiful, shiny, precious - and were seduced and desired it for themselves and were wounded by this desire, for perishable things hurt the soul, do not satiate, do not satisfy it; They saw something sweet, pleasant, satiating the body and pleasing the taste - and they were seduced and desired, but there was little concern for the soul: is she nourished, is she satisfied, is she hungry, is she thirsty, is she yearning, is she stinking, is she not disfigured, this most beautiful daughter of God, has she not faded, has she not become weak and completely weakened, has she not died? This is how with us, because of love for the flesh, because of addiction to it and because of inattention to the immortal soul, our whole life is turned upside down, perverted, disfigured. Friday. I thank the Lord for the repeated glorious deliverance from the deadly stings of the serpent during Matins and after Matins through the prayer of repentance and after falling to the Holy Altar (oil drops on the white marble lyphostraton 110 in the church, made from the negligence of the guards, secretly outraged and embittered me). I thank the Lord, who today accepted my repentance before my spiritual father Porfiry and gave me tears of tenderness and the sweet peace of God. Before the Mass of the Presanctified, I walked from the post office and met Philip Stepanov, who showed cold, careless attention to me according to custom, to which I responded coldly and carelessly and internally developed hostility towards him, but it began to torment me severely, and I immediately began to wholeheartedly repent to the Lord both on the road and in church, falling zealously to the Holy Altar; invisible enemies tried to turn the spark into a fire, but finally the immeasurable grace of God extinguished the terrible flames of hell, delivered me from cramped conditions, sorrow, shame, darkness, and I came to life. Then, at the beginning of Presanctification, Procopius became hostile because of the censer, but he repented and had mercy. Then, through the prayer behind the pulpit, the mercy of God is released. But I was honored to receive especially great mercy in the apartment of P.P. Schauman in getting rid of the hellish cramped conditions and anger towards the doorman of the House of Diligence, who apathetically and lazily opened the doors for me. For a long time I suffered like hell from Belial, and finally the Lord had mercy, and I appeared in a photograph with the second-grade students of the gymnasium. My Lord Jesus Christ was extraordinarily merciful to me, beyond my expectations, during the confession of people, when there were a lot of them 111 and I was in a hurry to finish quickly, and my enemies were wounding me; As soon as I looked up to the Lord with my heart or touched the Holy Throne, immediately all my sins were destroyed, and I felt peace and freedom. Glory to the Lord! Lazarus resurrection. I thank the Lord, who has astonished me even now with His inexpressible mercy during Matins and early mass, at which five hundred people took communion. The Lord delivered me from the claws of the adversary just before the sixth psalm and at the beginning of it, after which I calmly prayed, then during the proskomedia, before which the enemy mortally wounded and confused me due to fear and embarrassment while saying absolution and prayer to Christ, the true Light; then at the beginning of the Liturgy of the Catechumens and especially after the Gospel, before the reading of which and before the reading of the Apostle, the enemy, like lightning, quickly stung and killed my soul with a cold thought. I shivered and shrank violently in the Peter the Great altar (deserted), touching the holy altar in repentance and prayer, and the Lord forgave, delivered, pacified, my unshameful hope; Then, at the great entrance, the devil usually wounded me by stealing the name of the pious empress Maria Feodorovna, and again I resorted to God’s mercy, having been greatly wounded by demons, but again I was healed by the grace of Christ - and served peacefully, touchingly, with much strength, and received communion with faith and tenderness, and gave communion to the people calmly and reverently. He read the prayer behind the pulpit when the people kissed the cross at the end of mass and prayers of thanks (at the end of mass). Then, at the litiya for Ekaterina, the wife of the steward Gulyaev (Tsepov’s house), and at the take-out on the way, the Lord delivered me three times from the hellish cramped conditions due to concealing the words of the litiya funeral dismissal. How obvious is the Lord to me in His mercies every day and hour! How obvious are my countless weaknesses and sins! How much I need God’s help incessantly! Truly, I am a moral nothingness, and everything in me is only God - the God of miracles. I thank the Lord for the victory over the movement in the heart of carnal voluptuousness and from seeing with the eyes and for peace and joy and contentment of the spirit after the victory of will and grace (at ten o’clock in the morning when I was ready to go to sleep). What arms us secretly and openly against people? – Their real or only imaginary ill will towards us, their well-known pride and complete disregard for our benefits and advantages, especially when they are placed in a superior or generally social relationship with us, encouraging them and obliging them to take care of our benefits; their well-known pride, envy, greed, hatred, deceit, hard-heartedness, stinginess and miserliness, slander and gossip, mockery and gossip. Therefore, if you want to live in good relations with people, try in every possible way to avoid these vices, so as not to give others a reason to be ill-willed to you or not to love you or to treat you coldly and carelessly. As you want people to do to you, do so to them [Luke 6:31]. Be kind to everyone secretly and openly, sympathize sincerely, sympathize, rejoice in the joy of others, care about the benefits, benefits and advantages of others as your own, love to the point of selflessness, be simple-hearted, kind, humble, patient, kind, compassionate and merciful, do not judge and praise those worthy of praise, for all this acquires love and the complete trust and respect of others. Night. It's one o'clock in the morning. From eating an abundance of fish at Gulyaev’s funeral and drinking wine and in the evening from caviar and wine (at Markov), at night he had a voluptuous dream, from which the leakage of semen occurred. I stood up and prayed in repentance, reading prayers against desecration. Christian, do you consider yourself close, to your Christian faith and Church and faith and Church close and characteristic of you, have you become accustomed to your faith, have you been imbued with it, has it entered into your flesh and bones, into all your members, your joints? If not, then you are doing the greatest stupidity and recklessness, showing the greatest ingratitude to God, who created, preserved and redeemed you, you are in trouble and betrayal of God, you do not have the true goal of life, but are chasing only the ghosts of the devil. Eating fish, especially with horseradish, produces heat in the blood and strong stimulation of the genitals and greatly interferes with purity and chastity of heart; That is why abstinence from fish food is prescribed by the church charter and, earlier than this law, was established by the Lord through His own example! I have a lot to blame for allowing myself to eat fish during Lent (some weeks) and on Lazarus Sunday at funerals. Through this, the unclean one tempted me at night in a dream. As I have previously worked for the flattering Satan... especially let me work for You, my Lord God 112. Palm Sunday. I thank the Lord, who delivered my weakness from all temptations on this day, starting in the morning during the solemn crowded matins and early mass. At the beginning, just before matins, there was a temptation on the part of the deacon’s father: they waited for him for a long time, he overslept (about twenty-five minutes); secondly, from demons who were oppressed by embarrassment and fear when reading the Gospel, which he read loudly, slowly, omitting only the prophetic words: Behold, your king comes to you, meek, sitting on a donkey and the colt of a donkey who is under the yoke [Matthew 21:5]. The canon was read loudly, with omissions of sometimes frequently repeated doxologies. Then the usual temptations from demons when saying absolution, prayers to Christ, the true Light, from drowsiness and confusion at the beginning of mass; temptation after the Great Entrance during the reading of prayers to the communicants and communicants, the prayer behind the pulpit and the dismissal. And the Lord delivered from all temptations; I hope it will continue to be corrected. At home, the Lord delivered me from the onslaught of voluptuousness at the sight of the naked rear members of my eldest niece, who showed her ripening boil to my wife, and the pure caresses of the maidservant, who covered me with a blanket when I lay down to rest after labors. Glory to the Lord who has kept me in my struggle. May he continue to observe this in sanctity. Three o'clock in the evening. Today at twelve and a half o'clock in the afternoon I was subjected to a terrible temptation of the devil's malice at the christening of a sailor whose wife is Theodora and whose newborn daughter is Maria; the sting of anger on everyone, even on the innocent baby, who seemed bad and clumsy to me, was so strong, the fire burned me so much that I was ready to give up saying prayers, which I could not pronounce without the greatest effort, and then with large omissions; I cried out to God - there was no salvation, and I said to the Lord boldly: if you save, save, if you destroy, destroy me, and until the end of the christening and prayer service I was in terrible agony of the devil. He finished barely, irritated, exhausted, wounded, killed, dissatisfied with everything. They asked me to stay, but I didn’t stay to drink a glass of wine or eat an orange, because I was filled with bitterness and death. I quickly left the sailors' cells and came to the church, in repentance I venerated all three thrones - and, dead, I came to life, rose up, the sick - was healed, the troubled - was pacified, the oppressed - spread, the slandered 113 - got rid of all the machinations of the enemy. The right hand of the Lord create strength. The right hand of the Lord has exalted me... this is the betrayal of the right hand of the Most High [Ps.117:15–16;76:11]. I sinned gravely during the christening of a sailor in the second [servant's] wing (first vestibule, No. 4), I fell away from love and fell into murderous anger because of voluptuousness and carnality and partiality: the air in the barracks is not good, the situation is not good, the child is ugly, the mother and father of the child are not of the kind I would like, and, my God! no claims appeared in my damned soul; Of course, all this was extremely [...] exaggerated a thousand times by the devil, whose oppressive, burning, killing presence I clearly felt, his violence, impudence, anger against me and against those around me. Perhaps it was indeed the environment of sailors, drinking, swearing, quarreling, that attracted demons to this large room - only it was terribly difficult for me to say my prayers. The obstacles were terrible, in my heart there was a complete impoverishment of love and a fullness of hostility, anger, because of what and where it came from - I myself don’t know: my mother was a wonderful, pious woman who rewarded me with gifts from the bottom of her heart, my father behaved modestly, everything was fine, alone [I] was like in hell. The reason, I think, was sin and the sexton, who reluctantly and with vexation went to the christening and even after the early mass was grumbling about the untimely invitation to the service (at twelve o’clock), for he is constantly in service (two sextons are needed in the cathedral with four priests), and it was unpleasant for me to go at this time, knowing that the sexton was reluctant to go. I condemn with all my soul, with all my thoughts, with all my willpower, all the thoughts, feelings, dispositions, and spiritual passions that were in me at the christening, and I ask forgiveness from the Lord, from the Mother of God, the holy Angels, from all the saints whom I angered with my anger, impatience, murmuring, blasphemy, and insolence. Have mercy, Lord, forgive, Lord! Cleanse, Lord! Satan's machinations are known at baptisms, marriages, and during all services: while attacking, he does not spare. What a rage! Well, the sting, and the torment, and the flames of hell! I almost gnashed my teeth from the pain! The devil encourages me to become embittered even towards gentle babies - and when? When mothers or others present them to the communion of the Holy Mysteries, prepared by the boundless love of the Lord for us sinners, and especially for gentle babies. They are worthy of them, although they do not realize their importance and saving power - and often (I think) they offer them for what? And I, damned one, why do I take communion so often, so much more often, and still remain a sinner? We must rejoice that even children, if there are no adults, share the immortal spiritual meal with me, and not be indignant at them. I must remember that I said how indignant the Lord was with His disciples when they forbade bringing children to the Lord: let the children come to Me and do not hinder them, for of such is the Kingdom of God [Mark 10:14]. Oh, fill my damned heart with love, Lord! (Remember how the child Masha, the daughter of [Arkhip and] Alexandra Iv., loves you, how she gives you a hat diligently, jealously, not letting other children give it to you.) The Lord accomplished a great deliverance in me in the gymnasium in the second grade, when I repented of the movement of voluptuousness after looking at the naked breasts of a black woman in a picture (April 4). The Lord accomplished in me a glorious salvation from the greatest hellish cramped conditions (at a funeral service in Gulyaev’s cellar, Tsepov’s house) because of the white silk scarf of the deceased. During the hours and vespers, he got rid of the tightness due to his grief at the altar guard Procopius (April 7). Monday of Holy Week. Matins. Now I have received great and rich mercy from the Lord: remission of sins, cleansing, justification, rightness of heart, peace, space. Oh, what riches of goodness are in the Lord Jesus Christ! Come to Him everyone with faith, with repentance, admire from the Lord all kinds of mercy: forgiveness, enlightenment, justification, peace, boldness, joy in the Holy Spirit, strength, and strength, and eternal life. Oh, my breath, Christ! Glory to You. Upon arriving home from church, I twice again received permission and cleansing of sins - movements of voluptuousness from contemplation, and then at twelve o'clock in the afternoon also a benefit due to a similar instantaneous internal fall and repentance. Glory to the Lord, who always saves us! Under the guise of mercy, I often hid hard-heartedness, cruelty, stinginess, indignation, anger, rage, malice when giving alms to the poor, with the multitude of whom I could not reconcile (that is, with the quantity, and not with the poor themselves). I thank the Lord, who performed a miracle of mercy and salvation with me during early mass in the cathedral on February 20 (Father Paul served) from the devil’s anger towards Father Paul. I prayed for my salvation secretly, touching the holy throne (just before the Sacrament was performed). Great art thou, Lord! Grant me to love with unfailing love all, especially the sanctified, as Thy members par excellence. Let there be one spirit of love in us. We sin constantly with all our hearts, with all our thoughts, with all our will (sometimes involuntarily) [will] - and we must repent with all our thoughts, with all our hearts, with all our willpower; and just as we have become accustomed and accustomed to sin and iniquity, so we must become accustomed to all righteousness, unfeigned faith, hope and love, and to all the commandments of God, so that just as before we would offer ourselves entirely as a sacrifice to sin, so from now on we would offer ourselves entirely as a sacrifice to righteousness, doing the bits of sin with the bits of righteousness, according to the Apostle [Rom. 6:19]. Hate, man, the evil, destructive ways and love the right, saving paths. I thank the Lord for deliverance at the fourth hour of the day from the consequences of anger towards the boy Golovlev and for the change, rebirth, transformation of my heart from evil to good, from troubled to peaceful, from condemned to pardoned, from dead to living, from constrained to spacious, from darkened to enlightened. Glory to Your goodness and Your miracles, Lord! The Church, through the beauty of icons, reading and singing, intends to place us in the spiritual contemplation of faith, the dogmas of faith, the goodness of God, His greatness, eternal truth, perfect, accurate, omnipotence and wisdom. I thank the Lord, who through my secret prayer showed me help during the service of the prayer service on an empty stomach in the grain store. He served easily and without stumbling. But then I had a snack (at eleven o’clock in the morning) and drank a little wine. And after this, my heart weakened for prayer, and caustic temptations began to play with me. I thank the Lord for his help during the prayer service at Yudenicheva Paraskeva Al. after the prayer service, at which invisible enemies offended me greatly, stung me with arrows of voluptuousness and fear. The watchmaker Doberk served a prayer service with obstacles, but through the prayer of repentance the Lord defeated the enemies. I served with Vasily Gordeev with stumbling, but the Lord, listening to a secret prayer, helped and delivered me after the prayer service and communion of the girl Anna. Nine and a half o'clock in the evening. I have now sinned against the Lord by kicking, like a horse, one beggar who was returning to me the fifteen kopecks given to seven people, which I think is very little. But I didn’t give much for their drunkenness and foul language. Forgive me, Lord, my insolence and my robbery. I repent with all my heart, with all my thoughts, with all my willpower. Holy Tuesday. I committed a grave, gross sin this morning, drinking a glass of sweet tea and wine, not having the slightest thirst or need, and killing my feeling, destroying my soul, suppressing it, making it powerless for internal prayer and closed to pronouncing prayers, litanies, exclamations, reading the Gospel, depriving it of faith, hope, love, boldness, filling it with demonic despondency, cowardice, fear, mute. The same causes have the same consequences. Oh, how passionate and inattentive I am to the commandments of God, especially to the commandment of abstinence! How I enslaved the soul of immortal flesh! And they did not respect the fact that I had to give communion to the sick woman in the morning and serve a prayer service for her (in Pesochnaya Street, house [...], sick Vera Lvovna, husband Grigory Grigorievich, four children, wife’s mother). The evil demon paralyzed my well-fed, heavy drinking heart, weakened it, darkened it with fear and fear, shamed me, depriving me of the fruits of prayer and the good people who invited me with heartfelt faith to pray. God! Accept my repentance and may it not be for my sins that you forbid the grace of Your Holy Spirit to have a salutary, healing effect on Your servant Faith and on her husband Gregory and on their mother and their children. And in the days of the Lord’s Passion I do not restrain my stomach, which always causes me so much grief and temptation! O I, accursed Antichrist. (Yesterday I went to the bathhouse, and the bathhouse also relaxed my nerves and my soul.) For grace and peace for me at Matins I thank the Lord. I thank the Lord for his help in reading a wonderful, edifying article on salvation (from Christian Readings for 1880) in the House of Diligence. I thank the Lord for overcoming the dirty tricks of the ethereal enemies at Voronina’s memorial service. At her place I ate oranges and grapes, drank three small glasses of sherry and a glass of tea. Because of the wine, the enemy darkened, weakened, and killed my soul. And at the prayer service in the apartment of Prokopiy Evdokimovich and Paraskeva Ivanovna, I became confused by the machinations of the enemy and could not serve the prayer service; he soon finished, contracting extremely. The enemy triumphed over me. But then, at the end of the prayer service, I secretly cried out to the Lord for salvation - and I was delivered and reconciled. Great Wednesday. I thank the Lord for taming the carnal lust that had just begun and was strongly compelling me to consent to the momentary caress of the girl. I prayed strongly to the Lord, firmly looking to Him with the eyes of my heart and body, and by His grace I drove out from the depths of my heart the poisonous, although sweet, lust. Glory to God, the winner in us! After the victory, I felt calm, consolation and freedom of spirit. I thank the Lord for the great and rich mercy shown to me in the Assumption Church during the service of Father Pavel Trachevsky - the mercy is that He, the All-Good One, delivered me from hostility towards this rector, from destructive hostility, and gave me a feeling of love and devotion, and at the same time peace of mind, tenderness, freedom, boldness, dignity, joy in the Holy Spirit. On Easter (God bless!) go upstairs to Agafonov’s house to Maria, the German’s wife, to Anna Gerasimova, to [Agrippina] at Malinovsky’s house in Galkinskaya Street and remember the others. Maundy Thursday. I thank the Lord, my mercy, my deliverance, my joy, for deliverance from the deadly waves of Belial in the Assumption Church during and after the confession of Lev Nikandrov with his sons and in the cathedral of the church ktitor Vladimir Dmitrievich Nikitin and Yakov Apollonovich Hildebrandt and for the gift of life-giving streams of the Spirit. I thank the Lord for delivering me from the voluptuous waves of Belial, waves that are fatal to the soul, and for giving me dispassion and peace of heart. Give due honor, importance, dignity, firmness to the priesthood that you bear and act for the glory of God and the salvation of yours and people, and do not look at anyone’s faces, not at your own face and your shortcomings, sins or your own virtues, but only at the face of Christ God, Whose image you bear, Whom you represent, the Mediator of God and men [1 Timothy 2:5]; During the service, you should be all God’s, and not your own, at this time, and cast your very sins or the evil memory of them in repentance upon the Lord, as the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, and do not be embarrassed by the memory or pressure of them. Amen. Wake up! Remind Father Vladimir (who is in hospital) about giving communion to a crazy girl, the daughter of a security guard. After the late mass of Basil the Great. I thank the Lord for the abundant gift of tears that I shed during the liturgy from the consciousness and feeling of my countless infirmities and sins and from the persistent and terrible persecution of me by Satan, especially due to my failure to observe abstinence and drink grape wine even during Holy Week (which I did last night after the confession of two hundred and forty people at ten o’clock in the evening). And despite many tears, he still could not completely get rid of the violence of his enemies during the celebration of the liturgy. I could not say the prayers I Believe, Lord, and I Confess... to the end, but I said the rest during communion; he completely stole the release, only said the end. But may there be a perfect victory in me of Christ God, where the devil imagines to have his victory. Voronina’s prayer service was terribly obstructed by the enemy. With the greatest difficulty I said litanies, exclamations, prayers and read the Gospel; The enmity against me, the persecution of me by Satan is terrible. But the Lord is my deliverance. During the passionate all-night vigil, while reading the tenth Gospel, Satan stepped on me through an instantaneous stress (sting) in my heart with carnal pleasure and an involuntary memory of it, and confused and stopped me while reading. I was confused, could not utter words due to the murderous, all-outrageous, choking poison of the devil in my heart, and I barely finished, not being able to cope with the enemy, to overcome him. Shame then covered my face; I became even more indignant and began to repent to the Lord for my involuntary embarrassment and recollection of sin; At the end of the service, I venerated the Holy Altar several times in repentance and received forgiveness, healing, cleansing, peace and salvation. Grant me, O Lord, the power to tread on snakes and scorpions and all the power of the enemy [Luke 10:19] by Your mercy! How does the enemy seduce and captivate us? Malice, pride, lust of corruption. How to defeat him? Humility, love, rejection of corruption, striving for incorruption. Because of the love of corruptible sweetness, the enemy puts into our hearts disdain for the eternal, sweet words of the Holy Spirit - oh, horror! - and depresses our immortal souls with his machinations. How divine, how wise, how sweet, how sublime is the last conversation of the Lord with His disciples! Enter into the spirit of this conversation, try to be completely imbued with the spirit of the Divine love of Christ the Savior, love for God and for humanity. But how great is the malice of the devil and his blasphemy against everything Divine, holy, against all the Divine laws of creation, providence, redemption, against all the works of God! How it intensifies in us and through us, by our will and involuntarily, in our lips, hearts, movements, and actions to blaspheme the all-holy name of God and the most pure, wise, beautiful, gracious, revealing the infinite power of His works! What darkness, what false fears, what absurd dreams he puts into our souls! But You, God, crush all his intrigues and all his power, protect us, save us and deliver us from his dirty tricks. The adversary insidiously and viciously kicks me in order to seduce and bully me, to darken and torment me in the future, not only at the present time, hour or at this moment, therefore I must fight with him, with his machinations and for my future spiritual successes, for my future peace of mind, for future victories over temptations. Yesterday, at the beginning, as well as the continuation of the liturgy, ethereal villains made it extremely difficult for me to pronounce prayers and exclamations, darkening and binding my thoughts, heart and lips, and, if not for the mercy of God, I would have become numb from their intrigues and violence. Abundant tears helped me overcome them; in my tears I drowned the spiritual pharaoh, who plunged me into waves of despair. I thank the Lord, who moved me to the Passion Matins to help Father Alexander in reading the twelve Gospels about the Passion of the Lord and who gave me the grace through my prayer to read without stumbling (from the evil one and my passions) the Gospels that were given to me, six in number. The Lord gave me tears of tenderness out of His great mercy. Vladimir Pavlovich Verkhovsky invited people to come to his place for Easter with a cross. We need to come in. Twelve o'clock in the evening. I thank the Lord for the miracle of His mercy in me, a sinner, for he soon heard me, repenting and weeping from the depths of my soul, and immediately forgave and cleansed my sins, and took away mortal oppression from my heart, and gave sweet peace, space, boldness, joy to the heart, and blessed me with His mercy, giving me the property of Himself. Enter, Christian, into the spirit of holiness, truth, meekness, kindness, communication, unity, humility, patience, mercy, love, incorruptibility and immortality, which guides all the worship of the Orthodox Church. Easter of the Lord. One hour after midnight after Matins. I thank the many-merciful and benevolent Lord, who accepted my secret repentance and delivered me from secret grief and resentment towards the Father Superior, who rejected my service in straightening the shroud to its position on the holy throne (after the Midnight Office): “It’s not right when two people do the same thing.” These words did not fall kindly on my heart, and the spirit of malice caught me at these words of the Father Superior, as it seemed to me that they were not spoken out of love, and so I fell away from love and fell into involuntary embitterment, and began to kindle the spark of resentment, to fan the adversary, and that’s when they went from the altar to meet the risen Christ with the singing of Thy Resurrection, O Savior Christ... - I went with a cramped and fading, confused heart, praying to the Lord to deliver and have mercy on me, to change, to transform my heart, and already upon entering the altar and singing the resurrection irmos, I, having strengthened my repentance and prayer and faith, was sovereignly and graciously saved by the Lord, the conqueror of hell; I praise the Lord for His mercy, that He did not allow the evil of the devil to drown me, confuse, oppress, shame me, darken my face. Yes, I secretly violated Your law, Lord, I took part, although involuntarily, in the malice of the devil, who forcibly dragged me into it, darkened me, burned me, oppressed me, and bound me in hellish bonds. But You conquered hell in me, and rose again in me, and raised me from the dead, giving me life after spiritual death. The Risen One has given us the greatest boldness before God by His resurrection and His all-forgiveness, His all-redemption. And we must always dare, and not be afraid, not be discouraged, not be faint-hearted, not be timid, not be ashamed of others, but look cheerfully and cheerfully at everyone. Glory to You, Lord, all-purifying power, all-redeeming power, all-cheerful and all-encouraging power, all-powerful, all-conquering, all-preserving, all-covering, all-enlightening power. Nine and a half o'clock in the morning. I enter into my diary the greatest mercy of God, revealed to me today during the service of the first Easter liturgy in deliverance from the deadly stings of the malice of the ancient murderer, numerous stings that at different times of the liturgy (and even after the liturgy) were stabbed into my heart and wounded me. The Lord delivered me several times before the Great Entrance, at the Great Entrance, before and after the prayer behind the pulpit, after mass and after numerous kisses with spiritual sisters, children, at home, at the sight of the negligee and jewelry of Rufina, my niece. God's grace conquered carnal, charming, corruptible, rough, deadly love. Glory to the Lord for this! Evening. I sinned before the Lord and before the brethren of the cathedral, especially before the father rector, that I did not come to the parish with the cross with them, and after Vespers I remained at home in my heart and indignation at the father rector for leaving us twice, leaving who knows where and why, and for the fact that the first time, without a real reason, he did not come to serve vespers on the first day of Easter, thereby changing my intention to be replaced by Father Alexander in Dumskaya church, where I was the next one and had to serve Vespers, which I served, but without reading the prescribed Gospel, I remain late [John 20:19], fearing that my tongue will change me, which stops the adversary in his malice. I was offended by the Father Superior that he acted treacherously (although I do not know for sure whether he had the intention of doing this to me in order to show my shortcoming and the mistake of drinking too much wine - may God’s will be with me) and did not warn me regarding his intention not to serve Vespers in the cathedral and the recall of Father Alexander. Forgive me, Master Lord, my sin against You and against the rector and the brethren, whom I left to travel around the parish without me, and forgive me my hostility towards the Father Superior. Grant me sincere humility, kindness, self-condemnation, generosity, humility, drive away from me willfulness, suspiciousness, malice, malice, disobedience, disorderly conduct, intemperance. Grant me the grace and strength to always overcome evil with good and not have in myself a shadow of evil against anyone, but to pray for all who slander me, so that evil will not be imputed to them against me, for I am worthy of all disgust, all hatred for my sins, righteous hatred from God and Angels and men. Grant me the only sin to hate, the only one worthy of hatred, and the one who is one with sin and is always its culprit and boss. So I sincerely condemned myself and my sin against everyone and I repent and ask You for mercy, Lord: forgive me according to Your ineffable mercy, and raise me up, and have mercy, and do not rebel my brothers and the abbot against me, and grant me to live peacefully with them and in all righteous love for the rest of my life. Amen. After mass on the second day of Easter (nine hours). I thank the Lord, who has strengthened me to perform Matins and Liturgy together without stumbling and to partake without condemnation of the Divine, glorious, most pure, life-giving and terrible Mysteries for the healing of soul and body and for the joy and space of the heart. Great is the name of the Holy Trinity. Glory to the Holy, Consubstantial, Life-Giving and Indivisible Trinity, miraculously reviving me every day. In the evening of the third day, from untimely eating and drinking, especially from drinking a variety of drinks, although in small quantities, and especially from cream, I became burdened and had severe diarrhea at night. He hardly slept all night or fell asleep restlessly, ran to the toilet many times, got up sick in the morning, but, having gone to Matins and glorified the Risen One, he became healthy, although the weakness remained. Then he lay down to rest and slept for a long time, until half past one. In the morning on this day, Matins and early mass were served safely in the Assumption Church. I walked with the cross for three days, and my total income included eighty-three rubles (northern part). I had to receive seventy-eight rubles, a total of four hundred rubles were collected. On the fourth day we took the cross to the House of Diligence and two more local schools. All these days, God's mercy accompanied me, defeating carnal lust through the inner prayer of repentance and keeping me unharmed from its charms. The apostles are preachers and workers [...] of incorruptibility and immortality, sonship to God, renewal, sanctification and enlightenment, deification, who laid down their souls for the faith of Christ and piety, shining with incorruptibility and miracles. Worthy and righteously loved and revered and glorified in sacred songs. How great it is to be in the image of God and to receive an appointment from the Creator to eternal life in communion with Him, with all the Heavenly Powers and all the chosen and holy people! This is beyond words! This blessing of God to man is indescribable! All singing is overcome, striving to meet the multitude of Thy bounties: equal to the sand of the songs that we bring to Thee, the Holy King, we do nothing worthy of what Thou hast given to us, crying out to Thee: Alleluia! 114 And if we add to this the way in which self-exhaustion for humanity, wise and all-good, terrible and terrible, the Lord gave us immortality and deification, or before that deliverance from sin and death, from the power of hell and eternal imprisonment in hell, then to the immeasurable surprise a new immeasurable surprise is added to the infinite mercy of God - the new infinite mercy of God! And with all this and after all this, how can we not be filled with feelings of grateful love every day and not please our Creator and Savior and Trustee with all our being for our eternal well-being, for He does not require our good things [Ps. 15:2]! How not to love each other, how not to turn away from sin and not to excel in every virtue, especially in goodness, meekness, kindness, mercy, forbearance, compassion for each other, in purity and chastity, in patience and long-suffering - and how long can we endure! Soon it will be the end of everything, and there will be eternity! I thank the Lord for the love of my parishioners and especially my parishioners for me, sincere love, God’s, ardent, all-devoted, all-selfless, sacrificing everything for me, all earthly blessings: money, clothing, food, and drink for my strength and pleasure, for their ardent sympathy for me, for their love for God, for the holy church and worship, for listening to church and household teachings, for their good behavior, ardent repentance towards God, for their mutual love. This gift comes from You, my Lord, Lord, the source and giver of all good, all spiritual progress in faith and life! Look down from heaven, O God, and see, and visit these grapes, and cultivate what Thy right hand has planted [Ps. 79:15-16]. Oh, how he has always cursed and curses, how terribly the enemy of God and men still curses human nature - the devil with all his minions-demons through a diverse network of sins or all kinds of iniquities in thoughts, in feelings, in memory, imagination, in intentions, in words and deeds, infused into our mind and heart, and acceptable by us, and done by us! It is impossible to imagine, depict and describe all the harm caused and being caused by the adversary to human nature, created in the image of God, all the ugliness, all the abomination into which he plunged her through his envy and malice. Only God alone could and does deliver people who believe in Him from all the terrible consequences of sin in them and grants them the first shrine and great beauty and bliss; only the Lord not only delivers from the filth of sin, from the curse, and death, and corruption, but also adores humanity, introducing it again to paradise and investing it with eternal glory. Who is able and able to depict this compassion of God, this wisdom of God, this omnipotence of God, this miracle of the miracles of God?! And the angelic minds are amazed 115. Fifth day of Easter. I fell cruelly, fiercely and was wounded by the devil at a prayer service with the Berzins because of gluttony and intemperance the day before (in the evening, cutlets, a teaspoon of meat broth, a raw egg) and especially because of my addiction to my precious cross on my pectoral, which I regretted (so as not to be smoked by the smoke of incense) and through this I fell from grace and from the love of God, he was embarrassed and could not serve in order, he could not say the litany of the Blessing of Water at all, and only the next time he began to speak the prayer of the Blessing of Water, he said almost all of it slowly. Oh, blind passion that does not reason sensibly! Well, what will incense do to semi-precious stones, which always retain their brilliance and dignity, as to semi-precious gold, which is always the same? If they become dusty or smoky, they become sooty - just wipe away the dust and soot, and they will shine again, and even more so than before! But we must regret that through an addiction to corruptible, beautiful things, I offend the grace of God, sadden and neglect the Life-giving Spirit of God, I fall away from love for the Heavenly Father and His Only Begotten Son, my Savior and my infinite Life, the source of life and immortality and the rich giver of every good, and for this I am worthily punished with spiritual death, sorrow and crampedness, relaxation, powerlessness, darkness, fear of the heart, dumbness of the lips. Through secret, sincere repentance of my sins in my garden, where I walked and prayed, I received great and rich mercy from the Lord: forgiveness of sins, revitalization, repose and peace of my soul and all my members. Glory to the Lord! Yesterday at Alex's prayer service. Ivanovna’s birthday girl (in the council gatehouse) was extremely difficult for me from pain in my left leg, and I was extremely upset, I could not serve the prayer service, I had barely finished, and I was angry at her invitation, and with impatience and annoyance at the illness and at the inviter, I quickly left and got into a cab and drove off; went to bed and after sleep woke up healthy. However, he was very irritable and angry with his wife for not having the food ready for the table. He soon came to his senses and spoke peacefully. Today I was honored with the greatest wonderful mercies from the Lord: once at Matins, during which I felt sinful relaxation and the devil’s kindling and mortification in the insides and resentment and anger at the abbot - unrighteous anger, for which I repented to the Lord in humility of heart, blaming myself and not him, and the Lord had mercy and revived me, especially while singing and reading the canon of Easter and the Life-Giving Source The Mother of God, especially when singing, the luminary of the Flesh fell asleep as if dead, King and Lord. Then the Lord showed me the greatest mercy when I was walking from the post office (where I received a letter and a parcel - the image of the Bogolyubskaya Mother of God) and repented of my malice and again, through urgent prayer and repentance, I soon received tangible, life-giving mercy, forcing the adversary of the enemy, both with an internal movement of faith and repentance, and with an external movement of his hand to the sides, where the presence of the adversary was felt, to come out and move away from me. But in the cathedral, when meeting with the abbot, the enemy again confused me with hostility towards him, and again I began to secretly pray, repent, condemn myself, ask for mercy from the Lord, justifying the abbot in his life and actions, and, seeing the sincerity and depth of repentance, the Lord again performed a miracle of salvation in me, reviving me, killed by sins, and again granting me the restoration of salvation. Wonderful are Thy works, O Lord, and not a single word will be sufficient to sing of Thy wonders 116 - the wonders of Thy mercy and Thy righteousness. Oh, how intensely the hellish malice works in us from our pride and addiction to earthly things and from our inattention to the commandments of God and to our eternal good, eternal salvation! Before giving or not giving material alms to the poor, show and always show them spiritual mercy - respect and affection, heartfelt sympathy for their fate, for their poor situation, which is sometimes more expensive than material alms, for how much grief and humiliation from people because of their poverty the beggars endure! Naturally, as much as they need material help, on the other hand they need even more moral help, to lift their spirits, to encouragement and consolation! What do we do often and very often? Before giving or not giving them alms, we scold them a lot, get angry, get angry, talk like crazy, as the proverb goes, or give them a penny, and shout for tens and hundreds of rubles! Oh, cruelty! Oh, stinginess and love of money! Oh madness! I am a foolish beast: in the evening I ate fried veal with black bread, spread with butter, and drank tea beyond my measure and appetite. What does it look like? How long is slavery to the womb idol? How long will the image of God be desecrated in me - my immortal soul? How long will I offend within myself the Life-Giving Spirit of God, Who is holiness, quietness, love, flame, strength, jealousy, wisdom, light, bliss? I thank the Lord, who has made me worthy to perform a prayer service without stumbling, peacefully, with a feeling of heart, at the seamstresses in the wing of Lyubov Petrovna Estafieva; they are very pious. Thanks for overcoming the adversaries who viciously tempted me during a prayer service at the Duma watchman upstairs in the presence of those gathered because of the person of Anna Gerasim, to whom Satan invested hostility and hatred because of her extreme jealousy towards me - pious jealousy, but unreasonable and carried away. Sin raises its vile head in my heart as a predominant principle in me, as something reigning in me, but may this charm of the enemy, a dream, a ghost, this malice and malice, this charm of voluptuousness, this envy, pride, blasphemy, this despondency, cowardice, this fear of demons, this partiality, this covetousness and greed, this laziness towards piety, perish in me. prayer, praise and thanksgiving, this is tongue-tiedness and dumbness, caused by demons and killing my soul, and may the Lord God, the All-King of every creation, reign in me. Hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done... forgive us our debts, as we do... and do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit... forever. Amen. April 23. Saturday of Holy Week. Morning. Five o'clock. God is with us! Two o'clock in the afternoon. I endured fierce temptations from the spirits of evil today before mass, and during mass and after mass at three prayer services (Vladimirskaya street at the [cowshed] in the house [...], in Nizhnyaya Shirokaya at the master and in the house of Yegor Vasilyevich at the cabman and in the house of Sinebryukhov at the cabbies). The enemies did not allow me to serve and terribly sucked my heart, weakening me, stinging me to death. Upon arrival at the Assumption Church, I fell with faith and hope, alive in repentance, to the throne of the Lord, to the most pure pierced feet of the Lord, depicted on the shroud, praying to get rid of the arrows of the enemy by the wounds of the Lord, and those suffered for me, and the Lord delivered me from a thousand deadly stings of the serpent, I felt at ease. Then, during mass, my enemies again wounded me and killed me, but I again fell to the Lord, shed tears of tenderness, and again the Lord delivered me and allowed me to serve with feeling. He received communion calmly, with feeling, read the prayer behind the pulpit with the greatest endurance to the end, despite extreme struggle from disembodied enemies, only by the grace of Christ was he able to defeat his enemies. A bad and completely bad adviser is anger, envy, pride, laziness, self-will and disobedience, and therefore do not at all follow your heart, its passionate suggestions, but follow your conscience and reason and the word of God - and you will overcome sin and you will be at peace. I thank the Lord, who showed me the greatest salvation and help during the service of the prayer service at Gvozdeva and in the first ministerial wing. The deception of clerk Bystryakov embarrassed me and made me angry with him, but by the grace of God and spiritual wisdom (see above) I overcame the invisible enemies. Ten o'clock in the evening. Saturday. I thank the God of miracles, the God of mercy and generosity, who surprised me with His mercy and wondrous invincible power in the forgiveness and cleansing of my sins during the all-night vigil and after the all-night vigil in the altar of the Intercession chapel, when I sincerely repented of the accepted pretext of anger against the rector, to whom I suspiciously often attribute pride, unsociability, extreme greed, cruelty towards the poor, inattention to the merits of fellow colleagues. I sincerely blamed myself and considered myself unworthy of the abbot’s favor towards me. In [both times] the Lord exchanged death for life, confusion for peace, cramped space for space, despondency for joy, cowardice for boldness. The Lord is performing wonderful transformations in me! [Wild], deadly transformations are made in me every day by the devil! Upon arriving home, having learned that the sexton was at home and had gone to bed, I, however, entered his apartment and reproachfully denounced him for leaving me during the service (prayer services), sternly, demandingly, and I myself was embarrassed, cruelly wounded and embarrassed him, although he did not argue. He came to his home and sincerely repented to the Lord, asking for forgiveness, which he immediately received from the benevolent and merciful and benevolent Lord, and he calmed down, was comforted, and came to life from the dead. Glory to the Lord, who gives life to the dead every day, among whom, most of all, I belong, the accursed, many-passionate one. For the pious old lady and very devoted to me (to God most of all) Paraskeva Ivanovna Kovrigina, I, hypocritical and deceitful, voluptuous, seeking external, not internal beauty, do not feel heartfelt respect and affection, among other things, because she tired me with her extreme, inappropriate respect, sugary caresses, frequent approaches to blessings and falling at my feet. Oh, that she would behave with more dignity and tact! May the Lord enlighten her and me! Away with the fascination with all appearances, let me look at the inner dignity of a person, bypassing the unsightly, unattractive appearance, for all glory to the princess’s daughter is said about the Christian soul, especially about the Most Holy Virgin Mother of God, inside [Ps. 44:14]. And I myself care most about the internal, despising the external, the transitory. At night in a dream from Saturday to Sunday of St. Thomas' week, the devil tormented me by forgetting the name of one student at the St. Petersburg Academy, about whom it was necessary to make inquiries... How annoying it was! I couldn’t get it from anyone: the enemy mixed everything up, clouded my thoughts! It was in a dream in the office of the academic board. How long will you, my adversary and God’s, remain to me, and to the Lord, and to His Most Pure Mother, and to all the saints, and to all mankind, until you curse absurdly at the very source of our existence, created by the Lord purely, wisely, unblemished, graciously, in perfection, like all His creations, perfect and alien to any defect, for from the All-Perfect could anything be imperfect? Everything is completely more than thought, more than comprehension, more than words and reason. Be gone, Satan, who once himself was perfect, but who, by his own free will, lost all the gifts of God through his pride and became the source of all evil and imperfection in people. Fomino Sunday. After early mass (first, without Matins). I thank the Lord for the miracles of His mercy performed in me during the liturgy during the reading of the Gospel for the sake of united faith in Him and the movement of the hand on the right side for the sign of the cross (presses Belial) after the great entrance (after which I served the grace of God with a particularly triumphant heart and voice) and especially after the communion of the children, when, entering the altar, I saw the sexton Bystryakov, whom I had previously indignation (no need to have it in any way); but especially the miracle of the Lord’s deliverance of my weakness and repentance at the end of mass, when I gave the cross to be kissed by the people and secretly prayed for the victory of God’s goodness over my malice and the devil (regarding Bystryakov, who, as it turned out, was innocent of not showing up for a prayer service outside the city to [...]). Finally, the Lord delivered me from the repeated malice of the devil when reading prayers for confession and giving communion to a sick person in church, and the demon did not allow me to pronounce the endings of the [doxifying] prayers. Deliverance took place through secret prayer to the Lord before the use of the Holy Gifts. The Lord miraculously revived me - me, killed in my sins. I sinned against the Lord - I did not listen to the abbot, who invited [me] through the guard to baptize a baby during mass in the guardhouse. It seemed untimely and inappropriate to me: there is another time and place; The place in the lodge is not suitable: they constantly smoke tobacco there. I thank the Lord, who constantly works miracles in me with His mercy and who delivered me from the confusion and oppression of the devil on the stairs to Vladimir Pavlovich Verkhovsky, when I walked to him at twelve o’clock in the afternoon; I thank the Lord, who saved me in the apartment of Paraskeva Ivanovna in the meeting, when I raised my heart’s eye in repentance to the All-Seeing Eye and received forgiveness and healing; at my home (on my return) through secret prayer before the image of the Savior in the hall, who saved me from sorrow and distress and gave peace and space with boldness. Oh, how good the Lord is to all who call on Him in truth [Ps. 144:18]. I thank the Lord, who showed me help during the service of the memorial service in Polyakov’s house on Knyazheskaya Street. Monday of St. Thomas Week. After early mass. Satan burned me hellishly today during Matins and Mass (which I served), with his anger either against the Father Superior under the pretext of shortening his service and an indistinct or careless reading of the Gospel, or against the sexton Kamenogradsky for absences during Matins and during Mass just before the communion of the Holy Mysteries, about why he, and not my sexton Bystryakov, was serving (I did not know that the latter served in the Duma churches); This means that I hated one (Kamenogradsky), and loved the other as more agreeable. And what a poisonous, deadly sting the adversary repeatedly stabbed into my heart! At least howl howl! Only heartfelt repentance of dislike and hostility and the supplication of the Lord, only His name saved me from the terrible sting. I felt like strong rods, which strike with all their might, in my entrails; they burned me painfully. And rightly so for gluttony and satiety! If you suffer punishment, then God treats you as sons. For is there any son whom his father does not punish? [Heb.12:7]. And at the end of the mass, for missing the words of the Gospel at the prayer service, and another [time] at the memorial service [for missing] the words of dismissal, the adversary strongly burned me; but let it burn away the wild growths of passions in my heart, only let me be healthy and dispassionate. The memorial service for the deceased John the old man was served slowly, without stumbling. God bless! He received life-giving communion, but instead of communion, Kamenogradsky sang only the luminaries of Easter, Flesh falling asleep... not enough: he did not have time to read everyone with the songs for communion. Ten o'clock in the evening. The Lord allowed me to enjoy a rare, wonderful, delightful, majestic spectacle from nine and a half o’clock to ten (it lasted longer, but I did not observe any more): wonderful, spreading lightning, wonderful, swift, with all kinds of figures, snakes on the eastern side of the sky. I saw this spectacle as a spectacle of God’s beauty and splendor, God’s light and God’s speed, God’s majesty and omnipotence for the first time, like everyone else who was worthy of contemplating it. It greatly delighted my spirit and evoked in my heart sincere praise and thanksgiving to the Lord, who so wonderfully, gloriously, graciously and wisely rules heaven and earth, all the elements, all people, everything that has breath and that has no breath. Oh, how welcome and beautiful the Lord must be, how wondrous He is, if the elemental, perishable light, appearing and disappearing, is so beautiful. Oh, in Your light, Lord, may we see the true light, enlightening all the angelic ranks and every person coming into the world! Grant me, Lord, to acquire a pure heart, enlightened eyes of the heart, so that through them I will see You, the Unstoppable Light! Wake up! This majestic spectacle of nature was completely unexpected. It was still cold, the ice was thick throughout the bay, and only on the eastern roadstead between St. Petersburg and Kronstadt was it cleared of ice and there was steamship traffic. Pray, be sure to pray internally for everyone towards whom you feel dislike, hostility, malice, and do not have the slightest participation in the devil’s malice, absurd, insane, painful, destructive. Pray that the Lord will have mercy on them, enlighten them, change them for good or confirm them in goodness and in all virtues, and pray for yourself, that the Lord will grant you to recognize your sins and have meekness, humility, kindness, goodwill and sympathy for everyone, compassion, condescension, love that covers everything, endures everything, is not irritated, does not think evil, does not rejoice over unrighteousness and rejoicing with the truth [1 Corinthians 13:4–7]. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from the spirit of hostility in the Duma, in the apartment of the widow Ulyany, through my open prayer with all my former ones. There was Paraskeva Kovrigina, an old, blind, pious maiden. Tuesday. Radunitsa. After early mass and the removal of retired soldier John. During early mass, I was subjected to a strong temptation from anger at the enemy towards Paraskeva Ivanovna Kovrigina, who had to begin the Holy Mysteries after mass. But thanks to my faith and repentance, and more than the goodness of God, I overcame the enemy by the power of Christ and read the prayer behind the pulpit in full, overthrowing the enemy, who usually interrupted me while reading it, confused and offended me. But for this the enemy took revenge on me before confession and communion of the old maid Paraskeva Ivanovna Kovrigina and after communion; I confessed it with a spirit of hostility and contempt, although I fought off these evil feelings that embarrassed me, and I read the prayers before communion extremely reluctantly, unlovingly, unpeacefully, embarrassed, bound, and therefore did not finish reading it and took communion with hellish hostility in my heart, contrary to my desire, for there was a rapist and dirty tricker in me, an evil demon; At home I was then unpeaceful, bound, depressed, convulsed, shivered, until finally, through repentance, faith and hope and zealous invocation, I overcame the enemy and consumed the Holy Gifts for salvation. But then, through [thought], the enemy again overpowered me with anger at the innocent servant of God Paraskeva and again began to put pressure on my heart, and this happened the entire time I was riding in a droshky, escorting [...] the deceased from Prince Street to the Kronstadt gates and returning home. Already at home, after intense prayer, my enemies left me. Why do you rise above me, I told them, as if you had overcome the goodness and mercy of God? No, I hope that the goodness of God will overcome your malice, no matter how great it is in you - and immediately the goodness of God truly overcame the demonic malice: I sensed the exit of the enemy’s strength and the entrance of the grace of God, peace, freedom, boldness after confusion, sorrow, crampedness, loss of spirit, suppressed by malice. And I praise the Lord, who has done wondrous deeds in me, who has shown me the reality of salvation. I was honored with great and speedy mercy secretly at Mr. Brown’s after the greeting of my mother and the girls, but I was especially honored with God’s great and speedy mercy in the apartment of Alexei Sergeevich Kuznetsov after a secret prayer before the image of the Savior (after refusing a beggar youth who often asked for alms). How great is the power of just calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ! How wonderful, saving, life-giving, redemptive, sovereign, holy is this name! The rector of the cathedral, Father Paul, is an example of moderation, meekness and abstinence, and for this he deserves special respect; if he has weaknesses: stinginess in everything, love of money, covetousness and multiple names, negligence about the word or preaching the word of God and tending the verbal flock and the correct administration of worship, greatly reducing it on weekdays, and turns many away from visiting the church on weekdays, then may the Lord enlighten and instruct him, and may he grant him and me the memory of death and the memory of terrible and terrible and impartial Court. Amen. April 27. Wednesday of St. Thomas Week. I thank the Lord for the salvation of my soul, revealed during Matins, in deliverance from cramped conditions and sorrow and for the gift of sincerity in the reading and singing of the canon and stichera in praise and in verse. I thank the Lord for repeatedly delivering my soul from severe cramped conditions, sorrow and despondency, cowardice and fear of demons before the litany for the deceased Philip, and especially when carrying him out and going to the Kronstadt Gate; the latter took place against the Britnev baths after a strong prayerful repentant movement of the soul, the Lord suddenly consoled me: I felt the removal of the nasty, soul-dead forces. Strive, Christian, for the restoration and renewal in yourself of the image of God, or the new man, and for putting aside the old; fight vigorously every day and hour with your passions that depress you, remembering what rewards await you in eternity. Try especially to excel in love, meekness and kindness, humility, obedience, abstinence, mercy, patience, purity, truth, generosity, and simplicity. The devil intensifies to plant in our soul his satanic image, whose features are malice, gloating, pride, anger, envy, gluttony, covetousness, love and desire for corruptible and earthly things, aversion from the heavenly, holy, incorruptible, waywardness, disobedience, theft, lies, slander, murder, suicide, uncleanness, voluptuousness. The struggle with passions strengthens the soul in faith, hope, love, patience, courage and in every virtue. Through intemperance our spirit becomes more and more weak for virtue and becomes powerless in temptations. Therefore, abstinence is always necessary as a companion in a Christian’s life and a faithful guardian of his faith, love, prayer, and purity. It is not my business to condemn a sinning brother or sister, but my business is to pray for them with love, that the Lord will correct them. Everyone sins a lot [James 3:2], but love conquers everything. The Lord's Prayer must be read with deep and clear understanding and with a zealous desire for what we are asking or what we must fulfill. It is an excellent short guide to life. You have a lot of struggles with passions and demons, a lot of sorrows. Don’t be discouraged, but win: God has prepared many crowns for you if you win. The hero of heroism looks down from heaven on your struggle. Ten and a half o'clock in the evening on April 27. Wednesday. I thank the Lord, who has now delivered me, through repeated prayers of repentance, from the serpentine malice that struck my soul like lightning and wounded me mortally through one glance at a beggar standing opposite the window, waiting for a handout from me, while I had just given alms to many of the beggars. I sincerely condemned myself for stinginess, hard-heartedness, malice, ingratitude to God, gluttony, envy, ill will, self-love, and the Lord miraculously and life-givingly had mercy on me, taking away all my sorrow. I thank the Lord for his help during the prayer service at the stock exchange with the German merchant No. 20. In gratitude, they served, sincerely, without stumbling, victoriously over their adversaries. Having eaten cheesecakes (with cottage cheese) made from unleavened butter puff pastry and greens with cream at lunch today, I broke the fast of Wednesday without any need and did harm to myself by giving the work to my stomach by not fasting, I weakened my soul and burdened my body, I angered the Lord with this idolatry, making my stomach an idol. Have mercy on me, the indecent one, Lord! I thank the Lord, who showed me unspeakable mercy during Matins, reviving me, who was mortified by sins: naming beggars without mercy on my part and irritation with the widow Anna Geras. I sincerely condemned myself, asking with all my heart for mercy, and the Lord performed in me the miracle of the resurrection of a dead man - my soul. I came to life and rejoiced and read and sang the canons and stichera in a joyful voice, pure and strong. I thank the Lord, who drove away despondency and bad thoughts from me during the early liturgy, which I performed, and who gave me abundant tears of tenderness during the liturgy, beginning with the prayer for the catechumens before the great entrance. In tears I drowned both sins and invisible enemies, served with ardent feeling, received communion without condemnation; I read the prayer behind the pulpit with boldness, loudly, all the way to the end, and said the whole dismissal. But for concealing the first utterances at the funeral service, Christ... and all the saints... I was cruelly punished by God through the devil, as one who withheld essentially necessary words in dismissal: the sweetest name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious name of His Most Pure Mother, the holy glorious apostles, the glorious and victorious martyrs, the venerable and God-bearing fathers and all the saints. At home I suffered mortally after this release, finally sincere repentance, faith and hope saved me - I again rose from the dead. At home I got rid of the movements of voluptuousness by calling on the Lord. In the evening he administered unction to Alexandra Gavrilovna Verzina. Enemies extremely hindered, irritated, stung, embarrassed, oppressed. After the all-night vigil on April 30 on Myrrh-Bearing Sunday. Queue. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from the great temptation that came to me regarding my precious cross, in which I served. When I went to burn incense on the polyeleos, my heart was carried away by the thought and passion for this jewel and died, numb and chilled by the cold of hell; I felt this deathly coldness the entire time I was censing around the church, I felt the satanic breath in me, killing me. Oh, how insignificant at that time all earthly and perishable treasures seemed to me, unable to give life to the heart, peace, freedom, contentment, bliss and killing the soul through its alienation from God, the source of life! How shallow, insignificant, [...], low, blind, vile I am at the time when I cleave my soul to earthly treasure, how I humiliate the dignity of my rational and immortal soul, created in the image of God, in the truth and likeness of truth, in the image of God's life-giving principle, God's simplicity, beauty, lightness, wisdom, quietness, lightness, strength. I become all dust, I make all my mind dust 117. What a perversion of the order of things! And so, when I entered the altar at the outskirts of the church with my soul dead and I had to read the Gospel, I [thought] with fear what I should do now. The enemy has tied my heart, my thoughts, my tongue. I was afraid that I would not read the Gospel, and immediately went to the altar of the Intercession of the Mother of God and there earnestly asked myself for the mercy and help of God, which, by the grace and love of Christ, was given to me. I read the Gospel slowly and performed the all-night vigil aloud quite safely. I just stole the release, then the prayer to Christ, the true Light... This hurt me, killed me after the all-night vigil, but with a prayer of repentance I venerated the Holy Altar at the Intercession, and all the oppression and captivity of the enemy passed, I calmed down. Glory to the Lord for all His salvation! I thank the Lady Most Holy Theotokos, Who would have delivered me during this all-night vigil from the wiles of the evil one during the reading of the Sunday Gospel. But I did a bad thing when I told the regent to start singing quickly when I started praying to Christ, the True Light: the invisible enemies laughed at my fear and cowardice and did not allow me to speak out, even God forbid us, and I was put to shame, although through the prayer of repentance I got rid of shame, embarrassment and oppression. You, the only Blessed One, always help me against my adversaries, for from the beginning You trampled with Your most pure feet all the unclean power of the enemy, as the only pure one, surpassing the Angels in purity. Our hearts hurt and ache with all sorts of sins; Our soul is enchanted by all the senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell. Through all the windows, all-destructive, all-beautiful sin bursts into the soul. Remember us, Lord, humiliated and desecrated by sin, and teach us to do righteousness and holiness in Thy fear, to fulfill Thy perfect, holy, life-giving, blessed will. Amen. Teach us, help us to overcome sin, which constantly wars within us and threatens to lead us to eternal destruction. In church services, as well as at home, the idea of ​​the Church as a great, living and holy union of holy people under the sanctifying Divine Head of Jesus Christ is certainly and incessantly expressed. This idea is especially expressed in the litanies of great, small, petitionary and extreme, in litias, in prayers addressed to the Lord, in which the Church begs Him to have mercy on us through the prayers and intercession or intercession of the Mother of God, the intercession of the honest Heavenly Powers of the disembodied, the glorious and all-praised apostles, the glorious holy and good-victorious martyrs, our venerable and God-bearing fathers and all saints. And how broad, life-giving, saving, and comforting this idea is for us sinners! How much hope, cheerfulness, joy, faith and hope for salvation she inspires in us sinners! Not for my sake and not for the sake of my good deeds, which I do not have, save me, Lord, but for the sake of Your name, for the sake of the day-night prayers of Your Most Pure Mother, the holy Angels and Archangels, the holy glorious apostles, prophets, martyrs, the venerable and righteous and all the saints who, out of their love, pray for us to You, the Lord of our life and the Father of the next century. In the divine service (in all services) the idea of unity and harmony of the Old Testament and New Testament Church is also carried out - in reading and singing from the books of the Old and New Testaments, Proverbs, the Apostle and the Gospel, the idea of a single economy of our salvation in both Testaments: in one there was the promise of the Savior and preparation for accepting Him, salvation by faith in the Coming One, and in the other the fulfillment of the promise and salvation by faith in the Savior who came through the shepherding, divine services and Sacraments of the New Testament Church or, better, through the self-action of Jesus Christ in the shepherds, teaching, praying, performing the Sacraments and leading the flock of Christ entrusted to them to holiness and eternal life. Extinguish the sinful inflammation in me, which constantly chills me every day, with the dew of Your grace. Always, at every time of the day and night, be ready with your heart to serve God for your parishioners (for this is what you are called and appointed to do), this is the best and most beneficial, saving work for you and for them: with this you save both yourself and others. Laziness and reluctance away and further; Our multi-passionate flesh is lazy to pray and praise God; it only needs to eat, drink, walk, sleep, collect treasures, dress up, adorn itself, have fun, chat, laugh. The entire economy of our salvation in the Old and New Testaments is the wonderful wisdom of God, inconceivable by our minds and revealed as much as our mind can comprehend. That is why it is proclaimed during worship before reading the books of Holy Scripture: Wisdom... Wisdom, forgive me! Let's hear the Holy Gospel... Title (obsolete) – titles, titles. Samoyeds are an outdated name for the Nenets, a people living in the north of the Arkhangelsk province. Lyphostraton (Greek) – platform, elevation. Nalezhati (Church Slavic) – try to achieve; crowd Prayer 8, to our Lord Jesus Christ, from the sequence of morning prayers. Navetovati (Church Glav.) – to attempt. Akathist to the Most Holy Theotokos, 11th. Izumevati (Church Glav.) – to be perplexed. Prayer following the great consecration of water. The Great Penitential Canon of St. Andrew of Crete, sung on Thursday of the Fifth Week of Great Lent, hymn 2.