Июнь 1882 г.

Four and a half o'clock in the morning. The accursed adversary systematically conducts his business with me: this night he tempted me thanks to gluttony and my satiety and the warm bedspread of the night in the most brazen manner under the guise of a familiar woman: what he cannot do thanks to the blessed protection in reality, he does in a sleepy dream. But may the Lord bring down all the machinations of the adversary on his head, may I arise and overcome him in the Lord my Savior, may I run sweets in food and drink and in every form. (Yesterday I ate a lot of salted sprat in the evening, and at lunch fish with skoromny sauce.) The dirty trickster insidiously and violently, brazenly teaches me to rebel against my nature and human birth - against this great, holy act of Divine mercy, omnipotence and wisdom, against God Himself and His saints, not allowing me to openly and purely, directly, calmly look during prayer into the faces of people and at the faces of the Lord and His saints. But may the Lord destroy his machinations through me and may his dreams dissipate like smoke! My Lord, Lord, help me overcome the adversary and all his ghosts and insurances. After mass. I thank the Lord, who through the prayer of faith and repentance revealed in me His immeasurable goodness and power and who defeated the increased malice of the devil in me, who exhausted his entire [rod] when shooting at me, especially after the great litany and during the reading of the canon, and most of all during the liturgy when bringing out the Holy Gifts for communion, when I saw that the old pious maiden Paraskeva was bringing her goddaughter Paraskeva for communion (for which one should be grateful and love more than 7, as well as for her whole life and all useful deeds). Only Your goodness and immeasurable power could extinguish his fiery, strong anger, and I myself could not overcome it, but would get carried away and die from it, completely absorbed by it. This is where you learn most of all the power and goodness of the Redeemer Jesus Christ and the need for a Savior. What would happen to us poor people if we did not have a Redeemer? Terrible trouble! The evil of the devil supported me until the end of mass, although I did not succumb to it, but prayed and repented and got rid of it, not going to the funeral service at the beginning and standing at the Holy Chalice; Finally, she left it at the funeral service and especially before and during the consumption of the Holy Mysteries. I thank the Lord. And when I came home, when I saw an uprooted young tree in the garden, I was angry with my sister Anna Konstantinovna for this - and I was all embarrassed, hurt, and killed; but through long, sincere, deep repentance (half an hour) the Lord forgave everything and revived me. God bless! Yes, in my kindergarten alone, when I deeply and intelligently repented, an act of God’s greatest mercy took place in me. I will not forget this mercy of God. Soon after mass and communion of the Holy Mysteries, having the Lord within me, I upset Him because of the Christmas tree that had been planted without my knowledge, which had just been planted and grown, and I grieved the Holy Spirit living in me with my anger towards my sister. And the Lord accepted my repentance and forgave me, and gave me peace. He sent Vespers kindly - unfailingly, loudly, solemnly. I thank the Lord for my boldness. During Matins, the struggle with opposing forces is persistent. I didn’t pronounce the entire litany at the Midnight Office due to the devil’s fears and embarrassment; I missed many exclamations; not all the minor ones either; he uttered a great one in confusion, quickly, when fighting with those who were fighting; verses God the Lord... Confess the Lord... Having bypassed me... - also during the struggle and opposition of the demonic regiments. The canons were sung and read solemnly, victoriously, and then Matins to the end. I thank the Lord who saves me and helps me. The enemy fights now with obscene thoughts and gores, now with bitterness, now with greed, now with vanity or love-lovingness. Grant me, Lord, holy, simple, unblemished 8, with reverence, to look mentally at the existential members of both sexes of humanity and all animals and plants - members through which You create and nourish earthly creatures. For Thou hast created all things with wisdom [Ps. 104:24], and there is nothing that is base, or unclean, or evil in Thy creation. The enemy constantly curses God's creations, especially man, man and woman, producing delusion 9 that is destructive in thought, in feeling and in our views regarding the genitals and non-genitals, but those common to both sexes; Having completely distorted themselves, demons strive to distort the nature of people, their thoughts, feelings, beliefs, mutual physical and moral relationships, to defile, corrupt, destroy, and turn everything upside down. Oh, how disgusting, absurd sin is, how destructive, painful, restless! O sons of men! Do not sympathize with any sin for a single moment, but hate it with all your hatred, this all-destructive, all-corrupting fiend of hell. I thank the Lord, who gave me the boldness to serve prayers at the guardianship clerk and in the house of Gerasim Murashov at Nikifor the birthday boy in front of many gathered. After Matins. Soon and easily, the bodiless enemies broke my peace and boldness even at the Midnight Office through one biased view of the shine of gold (the evil eye), which the holy servants of God revered for clay 10 and hay (the eye is simple) and because of which I was embarrassed and did not say goodbye, numb from the internal defeat of the devil; then, during the speaking of the great litany, the enemy struck my soul with another passion - anger at the servant of God Paraskeva for turning his head towards my exit and to the place of my standing (the gaze of the eyes 11), although by the grace of God I soon got rid of this evil dream of my heart). But when I saw the same servant of God turning her head another time, I was again struck by embitterment and for a long time could not overcome the embarrassment, the fire, the oppression and the shame of the devil; I missed the special litany, unable to calm down and speak in a peaceful and sincere language of love; then, already in the third hour, he barely defeated his enemies with a prayer of repentance and falling to the holy throne. I expressed my temptation and my discontent to Paraskeva Ivanovna Kovrigina; she expressed only her unchanging love for God and for me, a sinner. Righteous woman... Why are such temptations with me, such power of the enemy? Because of gluttony and wine drinking. In the evening I drank wine in three places, and also ate fast food (without meat): milk, salad with fast seasoning. It is my own fault that I gave the enemy power over me. After mass. I thank the Lord, who gave me tears of gratitude and tenderness during the performance of the most important part of the liturgy and, in general, repeatedly revived me, dead in my sins, and raised up in me victory over stubborn invisible enemies who mercilessly fought me to the death. Although they defeated me for a short time, they were again defeated by the grace of Christ. The Lord showed great mercy to me on the way to customs after I met on Gospodskaya Street with Alexei Platonovich Morozov, who answered his greeting extremely coldly and carelessly due to his alienation from the Church. I was upset and secretly offended by him (oh, my pride, malice and pride!), but I also died in my soul because of this, and when I deeply repented of this, asking the Lord to change my heart 12 from evil to good, He delivered me and gave me life 13 and peace. Glory to God, who raises up the fallen! In the church after mass, during the distribution of the antidoron, there is crowdedness due to concealment for fear of the demonic dismissal of the funeral service. After secret repentance and heartfelt faith in the atoning Blood, I received mercy and peace. After mass on June 3, I visited my brother-in-law Peter Konstantinovich Nesvitsky and father Peter Preobrazhensky, with whom he had a friendly dinner. He invited Sergius [...] to his dacha. Ivan Filippovich Turalin diligently invited him to his place. But who best treats me with His meal and, moreover, without any comparison? - The Lord at His Divine Table, giving me for food and drink not the fruits of the earth, not the flesh of animals, fish and birds, but His Flesh, not whole and precious wines, but His most pure Blood, His whole Blood that heals the ulcers of my soul. Glory to the Lord! The eye is evil [Matthew 6:23; Luke 11:34]. For example, who looks at a woman with lust [Matthew 5:28]. Judas looked slyly at Mary's waste of precious peace [Matthew 26:7–9; John 12:4–6]. The Pharisees and scribes slyly looked at Jesus Christ, His teaching and miracles, slyly interpreted His actions, slandered Him and condemned Him to death. The eye craftily inspires evil, nasty and blasphemous thoughts regarding innocent objects or sacred persons and things; He looks at all creation deceitfully, everything tempts him, every person, every thing, every action, every occasion; The evil eye, the evil conscience, poisons a person’s whole life. To the pure all things are pure; But for those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but their mind and conscience are defiled [Titus 1:15]. Or is your eye envious because I am kind? [Matthew 20:15]. Where the evil eye is, there the evil one acts, either by the will of man or by force. The evil eye looks suspiciously, sees evil, self-love, wickedness, pride, malice, uncleanness in everyone, 15 even attacks everything that is good and holy and then defiles and blasphemes secretly, presents everything inside out. He who has an evil eye needs constant deep repentance and mourning for his sins, voluntary and involuntary, from his youth to this day, fervent prayer, the deepest humility, abstinence, and constant work. What is the evil eye? The Gospel says: Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness [Matthew 6:33], but the evil eye, or the evil mind and the evil heart, say: seek first the pleasures of the flesh, gather wealth by all means, adore earthly beauty, acquire wisdom or experience only earthly, worldly, and leave the soul and the Kingdom of Heaven, pleasing God, in the last place. The Gospel says: everything earthly is perishable, will pass, end, disappear, like a dream, like a ghost, like steam or smoke, and the soul is immortal and eternal, like God is eternal - but the evil eye looks at things completely opposite: everything earthly seems to it eternal, contrary to the clear evidence of experience, and the soul is a mortal being, flowing like air. That is why the whole life of carnal people is vicious, gloomy, hopeless, they indulge in earthly pleasures with insatiability, indulge in greed for money with fury, enrich themselves by illegal means, oppression, robbery, theft of public money, but then they themselves often commit suicide - an end worthy of people who have become worse than beasts and dumb animals! The Gospel says: give, and it will be given to you [Luke 6:38], but a person with an evil eye or heart, an unbeliever, a covetous person, trusting in money and not in God, says: no, let it be given to me, but I will not give it, let wealth flow like a river to me and let a sea of it accumulate in me, but just let me draw from this sea, and don’t let anyone else approach it and don’t let anyone else get a drop from it. take it. The Gospel says: everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart [Matthew 5:28], and a man with an evil [eye] says: but I am a lover of beauty; The Gospel says: love your enemies [Matthew 5:44, etc.] and so on, but a person with an evil eye or heart says: this is impossible, I must take revenge on my enemies, repay evil for evil, dishonor for dishonor, insult for insult, blood for blood; or he says: this man is disgusting to me, I don’t love him, although he has not done me any harm. The eye is evil when it sees only bad sides or qualities in a person and does not want to see qualities or sides that are good, honorable and worthy of love; the eye is evil when it suspects everything unkind, crafty, unclean, and evil in a person; the evil eye, when it looks at people or things biasedly, gives them the wrong price, not the one they have in themselves, but what our pride, our passion, our vanity gives them - for example, earthly beauty, gold, silver, precious stones, beautiful clothes, brilliant home furnishings, etc.; the evil eye, when a person is evaluated and respected by his wealth and his position in the world, and not by his true spiritual qualities and merits; the eye is evil when they slavishly bow before the tinsel splendor and humiliate, persecute, revile humble, modest, not brilliant in appearance virtue, or even revile for virtue itself, which is not performed according to their thoughts and tastes. Among such people or in such a society, where they look at, value, judge in this way, and the whole life, public or private, is unsightly, dark, vicious, fruitless, having, perhaps, only the appearance of godliness, but rejecting its power [2 Timothy 3:5]. Who does not have the evil eye? It is noticeable even in two- and three-year-old infants: and it often seems to them that the piece in the hands of a peer is larger and better than his piece; and in babies one notices envy, selfishness, guile, and anger. Or the evil eye: I see in you a splinter, that is, a small sin, but in myself I do not see even a log, that is, grave, inveterate sins [Matthew 7:3]. Conclusion. Let us all try to be sincere, without arrogance, like Divine simplicity, 16 for our God, the Trinity [in Persons], is a simple Being, the purest shrine, the purest light, in Whom there is not a single darkness, for Whom sin is impossible, for Whom the slightest unrighteous thought is vile. Amen. Every day we are tempted by various sins, but most of all we are caught by malice, lust, greed, arrogance and conceit and impurity, lies and deception, self-love, envy, hard-heartedness and stinginess, ill will towards our neighbors, grumbling, cowardice, impatience, double-mindedness, hypocrisy, partiality, false shame, man-pleasing and servility, fear of man and lack of fear of God, coldness, wickedness, gloating, vanity in all life - in thoughts, words, deeds, clothing, home furnishings, pleasures, reading books and flying daily sheets, singing, games, food and drink, walking, looking and in all movements. I served Matins with God's help at first easily and victoriously, but during the reading and singing of the canon, the enemies, seeing my great jealousy, hastened to curb and suppress it, first putting the sting of grief on the sexton for the smell of tobacco in his mouth, then instant grief at the Metropolitan and some contempt for him 17 for the severity and coldness and arrogance in the reception, for which I tried to excuse him with his old age and painful decrepitude, a great habit of the white clergy, over whom I ruled for so many years in different dioceses (as I am accustomed to my poor petitioners and treat them harshly to the point of cruelty), servility to the higher ones; I condemned myself for self-love, pride, rancor, arrogance, impatience, curiosity, lasciviousness, cowardice; then grief and contempt were revived against the abbot; further - to the carelessness of the watchman Ivan, who spilled wooden oil on the marble platform. All this embarrassed me, irritated me, killed me. But the Lord finally delivered me from all troubles for repentance and pacified and healed me, especially after the prayer service with an akathist in a wooden house [...]. Glory to the Lord! How impatient, irritable, embittered I am over trifles and suddenly break the entire law of the Gospel - the law of love, meekness, humility, kindness, patience, forbearance and long-suffering. Have mercy on me, Lord! The Savior says: from within, from the heart of man, come evil thoughts, adultery, fornication, murder, theft, covetousness, malice, deceit, lewdness, an envious eye, blasphemy, pride, madness - all this evil comes from within and defiles a person. [Mark 7:21–23]. All kinds of wickedness are sown in people (like tares in a field) by the chief of wickedness, the devil, and the work of our whole life should consist, most of all, in driving out wickedness from our souls; take away, says the Lord, wickedness from your souls... Learn to do good [Isa.1:16–17]. Blessed are the pure in heart, says the Lord, for they will see God [Matt. 5:8]. Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, exhorts the Apostle, practicing holiness in the fear of God [2 Cor. 7:1]. Twelve o'clock at night. The Lord performed a miracle of salvation in me in His name when I was walking along Catherine Boulevard and was opposite the Marine Club. I repented of my grief at the poor, and, being in cramped conditions and sorrow and spiritual death, by calling on the name of the Lord and bringing Him inside myself by faith, I destroyed the stronghold of the enemy, the machinations of the enemies, and suddenly received justification, peace, space, boldness, joy. Upon arriving home, I again called on the name of the Lord in repentance, may the Lord forgive me for my new anger towards drunken beggars who asked for alms, and He, the All-Merciful, again performed in me a miracle and mercy of deliverance, for with Him is mercy and much deliverance [Ps. 129:6]. I place three fingers as a sign of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and as a sign that in prayer and at all times and everywhere I must devote the three powers of my soul to the Holy Trinity and in prayer love Her with all my heart, fulfilling the commandments wisely, heartily, with firmness. Yesterday, because of strong drinks, I could not say the litanies at vespers and then serve a thanksgiving prayer service at vespers for the young high school students who graduated from the course. I didn’t read the Gospel, petitions of thanks, or prayers of thanks (I drank bitter vodka, it’s very strong!). I have received and am receiving countless blessings and mercies from the Spirit of the Life-giving Comforter through my Lord Jesus Christ, through my faith in Him and calling on His sweetest name. Glory! I thank the Lord, who from early morning showed me His great and rich mercy during the Midnight Office and throughout Matins and Early Mass, victoriously and with great triumph and joy of the perfect spirit. During mass he gave communion to more than twenty communicants. I thank the Lord, who, after mass and upon arriving home, gave me the grace to overcome, through the prayer of repentance, the voluptuousness in my heart, which occurred through looking at the girl. I thank the Lord, who showed me His mercy in Titkov’s apartment in the gymnasium, especially after being wounded by Belial 19 at a prayer service, when I begged the Lord to heal my soul, saddened by the poisonous remorse of the evil one. I thank the Lord for healing me from anger towards the poor: the Lord accepted sincere repentance and healed my soul. I thank the Lord for his help at the prayer service of the maternity officer in Timofeev’s house in Nizhnyaya Shirokaya Street. I thank the Lord for the life-giving, cleansing tears of tenderness during the all-night vigil in the cathedral, where I stood and prayed in the Peter’s chapel. Sunday. The Lord surprised me with immeasurably great mercy today during early mass, giving me a living feeling of my wretchedness, my spiritual poverty, blindness and nakedness, and hot, abundant tears of tenderness. Oh, my spiritual infirmities! Oh, dryness, deadness of heart! Oh, the enemy’s violence against me, oh, my powerlessness in the fight against him! Received life-giving communion; I did not read all of the pulpit due to embarrassment and fear from the devil and the incomprehensible fear of the mighty in the city; dismissal in silence, although not perfect, for he spoke of other saints. He spoke his sermon well and well. Four prayer services were served in apartments with strong temptation (in Stepanov’s house) from a wounded heart by an addiction to the beautiful face of a young woman. Alas for me! The temptations of the evil one are everywhere. When will I be indifferent to everything visible and [perishable]? When will I love You completely, uncreated goodness and beauty, incomparable and excellent, incorruptible, most holy? God! Vulture my soul to heavenly love 20. When I was wounded by carnal beauty, then I immediately relaxed and seemed to die in soul, fell into cramped conditions and darkness and could not speak, having fallen away from God in heart. For it is impossible for two masters to work: God and mammon [Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:13 ], that is, wealth and in general earthly treasures, passions, all kinds of earthly love. Either higher or lower. And how many objects and attachments there are that distract from God! Therefore it is said: if anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me [Matthew 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23]. After Vespers he was very indignant and angry, he was furious with the beggars, he pulled their hair, he shouted at them with anger; however, he gave it to everyone, although not everything they asked for. Have mercy on me, my God, Lord Jesus Christ! Monday. The Lord did a wonderful kindness to me during Matins, at the very beginning, destroying, through my fervent prayer of repentance, when I fell before the holy throne at the Intercession, the heavy, deadening oppression inflicted on me by the ancient rebel and murderer of a man as a result of my thoughts and fears, lest my family go under lock and key and plunder my property, as had already happened once or twice. The Lord drove away the enemy and all worries and sorrows, crampedness and languor at that moment when I said with complete hope in my heart: “The Lord is my carefree life,” - all crampedness and sadness passed, disappeared, and wondrous peace and heavenly sweetness, lightness and spaciousness reigned in my heart. Then I quietly prayed in secret, sang and read the canons and stichera - I served early mass in Father Alexander’s place, and during it I was honored with miraculous help in the face of temptations from invisible enemies; I read it life-givingly, and the Lord did not impute to me that I had not read the entire rule for communion, because I did not have time: only during Matins they said that Father Alexander was asking me to serve. I read the pulpit freely, peacefully, easily, solemnly. Exam in sixth and fourth grades. [...] Fine. Tuesday. Yesterday evening I was a guest in two houses, and in both houses I received treats with bread, fish, fruits, wine, gingerbread, tea, and although I ate and drank moderately, the next day in the morning my heart relaxed; During Matins I resorted to God’s help with repentance, and the Lord had mercy on me and strengthened my heart, weakened by voluptuousness; but at about nine o'clock in the morning, going to the sexton and seeing the sexton's wife mopping the floor, I was wounded in my heart by looking at lust and immediately ran away from temptation; For about twenty minutes my heart was in sinful relaxation and constriction; twice and thrice I begged the Lord in repentance, and the Lord cleansed and healed me. He performed the litia for the deceased child Demetrius with dignity, without stumbling, by the grace of God. God bless! At two o'clock in the evening Kovrigina Paraskeva Ivanovna came to me, to whom I gave five rubles, and soon the Revel merchant Thomas Alex came with her. Gorbachev, with whom they prayed to the Lord to heal him from drunkenness. He gave ten rubles for the poor. Wonderful are the works of Your providence for the poor! I gave five - they gave me ten. Why was the commandment not to commit adultery given [Ex. 20:14, etc.]? In order to preserve in man the purity and incorruption of the image of God and to promote the speedy multiplication of the human race and the children of God and heirs of the Heavenly Kingdom. Because of prodigal corruption, human reproduction is extremely reduced or people are born imperfect, sickly, and short-lived. Glory to Thee, Lord! Glory to Your commandments, so beneficial and saving for those who keep them! Observance of the seventh commandment contributes to the health and vigor of a person and the longevity of his life, and attracts the blessing of God to a person. I thank the Lord, who enabled me yesterday to escape the snares of sin during the prayer service in the apartments of Ekaterina M. Lebedeva and Yakov K. Markov and on other occasions. Thousands of thousands of spiritual deaths were destroyed in me by my Lord Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit, co-natural and eternally co-essential with Him, the Word and God, as with God the Father. This happened every time I, a many-sinner, many-passionate, called upon Him sincerely in repentance and contrition of heart for the evil and cruel sins I had committed. I thank the Lord tenfold for His wonderful salvation in me. On Tuesday at eleven o'clock at Petrovskaya pier there will be a prayer service for the divers on June 15. Sunday. I thank the Lord, who has given me the grace to glorify Him in my word for the weekly Gospel (about the healing of the centurion’s servant [Matthew 8:5–13]) and tears of tenderness during the liturgy. At the end of the liturgy, when bringing out the Holy Gifts for communion, I was moved with anger at Deacon John Ivanovich (of the Vladimir Church) for his awkwardness in holding a silk cloth at the mouth of a baby, and the devil entered my heart, which had just been renewed by the grace of the Holy Mysteries, confused, killed, and I could not read the prayer behind the pulpit out of embarrassment; the enemy was terribly raging in me, devouring me; however, the word spoke with jealousy, loudly, separately. I stole my leave. There are obstacles at prayer services, especially for Markov after eating yogurt and sleeping (from ten and a half to twelve and a half hours); in Zaitsev's house there is a prayer service without stumbling. About the Jewish woman and send it to the consistory. When reading a prayer to the mother in labor, Kalinin’s sensuality took over: embarrassment, fear of the devil, cowardly fear of the sacred words, that he would not be able to pronounce them, and he did not pronounce many. Here's some milk for Lent! Here's a variety of gluttony for you! Oh, if fasting is urgently needed! Oh, how we frivolously reject his need with deeds and how we slip on the field of life, on the spiritual field! How willing they are to sin! How weak in the fight against him! Tuesday. I thank the Lord, who made me worthy to celebrate the early liturgy for the servant of God Jacob Andreev with tenderness and the obvious mercy and help of God, and to partake of the Holy Mysteries without condemnation, and to read the pulpit with boldness; both at the liturgy and at the memorial service, I was tempted by the slow singing of the sexton where there was no need to stretch out, and was embarrassed by this. I was embarrassed by the order of the prayer service - I didn’t want to serve; While reading the Gospel, I stumbled; during the dismissal, the devil wounded me painfully, confused me, and only when I consumed the Holy Gifts was I healed. God bless! At eleven o'clock in the afternoon I went to serve a prayer service for the divers (officers and sailors); at the church house, beggars came asking for alms, and I gave with chagrin and annoyance - and the devil offended me; then another guy, who had never been there before, caught up with me, asking for money to get to Kolpino, and I, in order to get rid of it as quickly as possible, gave him twenty kopecks with abuse - and again I was even more wounded by the evil one and felt hellish tightness, shame, despondency; he began to repent strongly, repented all the way, asking for forgiveness; in Petrovsky Park I walked and repented, shifted, raked myself from the evil demons who mercilessly attacked me, and finally the Lord had mercy - and the demonic storm subsided, the cramped conditions, the death of the soul passed, and I calmed down and strengthened in spirit, so that the prayer service on the ship [...] served calmly and with dignity, which would not have happened if my soul had not been strengthened by temptation. Thank God for the struggle and sorrow and for the help in the ministry. Dined with the officers. I arrived home - went to St. Petersburg, there was temptation (or, more precisely, in front of the ship on the shore of Vasilievsky Island) through sight. Repentance is deliverance. Upon arrival home - falling away from love and meekness because of cottage cheese and dumplings, wounding of the soul, death, repentance, again deliverance and forgiveness. God bless! What do I expect when I eat fast food during Lent? From eating fat, pleasant food and drinking wine, all passions intensify, the flesh is enraged by passions and lusts, spiritual love dries up more and more, the goodness of God is angered through my repentance every day and hour. How long will I not use the medicine of fasting, which is so saving for soul and body? Convert me, O Lord, and I will be converted [Jer.31:18]. Giving alms irritates: stinginess, selfishness, greed intensify; households become disgusting due to overeating; carnal passion brazenly rebels through sight, laziness and negligence; impatience, anger, and grief towards a brother for empty reasons have no limits, while Christian love must endure, cover, be forgiving, and be merciful; vanity, pride, ambition grow and take root in the heart; instead of true love for one's neighbor, which does not look at persons, but embraces everyone equally, either hatred of man or carnal lust reigns, instead of truth - lies and deception, instead of reverence for the powers that be - condemnation, hostility, coldness, lack of prayer or insincere prayer, with the exception of a few cases when by the grace of God you overcome the bitter enemies of the ethereal, incessantly fighting, incessantly inciting to sin. My God, what will happen?! Frequently recurring cases of sudden death should admonish us to live carefully, in repentance and virtue, so that the death ax does not find us unprepared. Children and adults, old and young, are cut down like grain by the death's scythe. Our nature, infected with sin, is inert and lazy towards everything good and useful for the soul; she must be persistently forced to do anything good. And prayer - this sweet food of the soul - at first is unpleasant and disgusting to a person, until he gets used to it and gets a taste for it, and he must force himself to pray at home and in public, otherwise the soul will starve miserably without prayer, weaken spiritually more and more, become darkened more and more, and finally may completely die a sinful death, carnal and spiritual passions will completely take over. Terrible condition! I care about the health of the body to the utmost detail and avoid the slightest incidents that could harm it, even excessive smoke from incense (not to mention simple smoke), dust, stench and minor colds, but I care little about the health of the soul, I make little effort, I do not carefully avoid all reasons for passions and sins, I do not look for opportunities for virtue and do not rejoice at them, but often grieve and I get annoyed when they present themselves often (alms). O me, accursed and pitiful! And the Bridegroom of souls is near, judgment is at the door. Respect the great dignity of your soul and despise your many-passionate flesh, which despises your soul and kills it with your passions; remember the immortality of the soul and mortality, the insignificance of the body; mortify the passions of the flesh without laziness and mercilessly, so that otherwise it does not kill the soul. Almost hastily, 22 in the image of God, that is, the soul, observe the laws of the Prototype and its Creator, so that He, too, will honor you for your fidelity and prudence. How our soul, during the very service of God, often suffers from addiction to insignificant earthly goods, treasures, pleasures, falling into confusion, sorrow, oppression, fire, shame, darkness, powerlessness, death! Often, the soul of a priest, during the celebration of the highest Sacraments of faith - Baptism and Communion or Penance, Confirmation and Blessing of Anointing - was bound and darkened by predilections for gold and silver, for a beautiful insignia, for beautiful fabric and clothing, for a beautiful woman’s face, for the face of a strong or rich person, an acquaintance! A Christian must be a man on high, impartial, peaceful, holy. Be holy, for holy am I the Lord your God [Lev.19:2, etc.]. He must live worthy of the high, most precious title of the son of God, for Christians are children of God, to despise everything more and more; This should especially be observed by the priest, the builder of the Mysteries of God, the servant of Christ. How long will I scratch the scabs of my soul with voluptuousness? I ask the Lord for purity and chastity, but I myself pave the way for impurity of the heart and soul and the whole being through intemperance, non-observance of fasts, and drinking wine in excess! It’s as if I’m creating, then again I’m destroying the work of saving the soul, and it doesn’t move forward! Oh, senselessness and damnation! How long does carnal and fading beauty seduce? How long will ugliness and shortcomings turn away from what is created in the image of God? How long does it not fill my heart with pure, spiritual, all-encompassing, firm and unchanging, never-falling love? How long do I revolve in the interests of my own pride, coarse, carnal, worldly, false, devilish? Lord, transform my heart with Your grace. At fellow priest Peter Al. Klepachevsky was visiting (to congratulate him on the table) and treated himself to sherry while drunk, cursed, greedy, gluttonous, drunk; I also broke my fast by drinking cream with my tea. After sleep, my head ached, there was nausea, my steps were unsteady, my writing hand was unsteady and did not write straight, unevenly, trembling; the appetite is unreal and unhealthy. Oh, if you drink wine, then strictly adhere to moderation! Have mercy, Lord, on those who have sinned greatly against You! I myself constantly treat myself to others, and when others, even if they are their own, often eat and drink mine, sometimes I regret it and feel indignant, senseless and ungrateful, greedy, envious, angry. I thank the Lord, who at the very beginning of the day twice delivered me from the devil’s vile sting through the prayer of repentance and self-reproach, through the prayer of understanding. Oh, how impudent and persistent the adversary is, seeking my destruction! Next Sunday the Gospel about the Lord’s healing of two demoniacs [Matthew 8:28–34]. About the disbelief of many in modern times in the existence of evil spirits, the unfoundedness of this disbelief; they don’t believe because they don’t see, but you never know what we don’t see, but we believe (and we don’t see our soul); The Gospel speaks directly about the existence of evil spirits and their harmful actions, as in the [current] Gospel. Jesus Christ came to destroy the works of the devil [1 John 3:8], and he destroyed and is constantly destroying in me, in you, in many through faith and repentance, through prayer, through invoking the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Most Pure Mother of God and the saints, through holy relics, miraculous icons and so on. About the malice and cruelty of demons, about their fruitless faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and in future eternal torment, about their mad passion to destroy people and animals, about their uncleanness and staying in people subject to animal passions, about struggle or war with them, about spiritual weapons against them throughout life, every day and every night (fasting, prayer, vigilance, blessed work, humility, kindness, patience, trust in the Lord, who does not allow temptation beyond one’s strength). Our many-passionate flesh is truly demon-possessed, and demons nest in it: as many passions as there are, so many demons: anger, irritability, hatred are demoniacal; gluttony and drunkenness are madness; carnal passion and fornication is rage, envy is rage, theft is rage, love of money and stinginess, ambition, passion for smart clothes, miserliness is rage, hard-heartedness towards the poor is rage, encroachment on the lives of others or one’s own is rage, disbelief in God, in the immortality of the soul, in judgment and retribution, in the Church, in the Sacraments, non-recognition of need, necessity and salvation their or public and home prayer for oneself, for the living and the dead, disrespect for holy relics and holy icons - rage, passion for theaters, entertainment, harmful games, for example card - rage, disobedience to elders or parents, to superiors - rage. And all these passions lead to eternal destruction if we do not abandon them. Twelve o'clock on June 17th. I give praise and thanks to the all-good, all-merciful, all-redeeming, all-powerful power of Christ my God, which quickly delivered me, through my clairvoyant, undoubted faith for my repentance, from cramped conditions, heartbreak and spiritual death when climbing the last staircase leading to the photographer Schauman. And distress and sorrow righteously befell me because of my grief at the poor boys and girls, who have long come to me every day for alms and do not study any work, although they help their parents to eat and live from my alms. I repented of my hardness of heart, lack of faith, ingratitude before God, greed and love of money, stinginess, carnality. Ah, it is truly impossible for two masters to work: God and mammon [Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:13 ]! Until now, I apparently work more for mammon than for God; loving mammon, I often hate my neighbor who asks me for help; Being zealous for the flesh and the world, I do not care about God, about pleasing Him, about the salvation of the soul, about the salvation of human souls. But how good and beautiful it is to be with God! What peace, space, spiritual bliss! How easy is the yoke of the Lord and how light is His burden [Matthew 11:30]! But how evil is the yoke of the devil, the yoke of passions, and how heavy is his burden! My brothers and sisters in the Lord! Take the yoke of the Lord upon you and learn from Him, for He is meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls [Matthew 11:29], and I address this admonition to myself first. Grant me, Lord, to always wear Your yoke, the yoke of Your law, the yoke of love for You and for others. Wake up! Angel of Christ, my holy Guardian, help me in pleasing our Lord all the days of my life, until my last breath. Rise upon me a sinless day, O Christ God, and save me 24. This is the sincere desire and prayer of a Christian to rise from sleep. To spend the whole day sinlessly and holy, according to what is written: Be holy, for holy am I the Lord your God [Lev.19:2]. Holiness of soul and body is the element of a Christian, like clean air for living beings, like water for fish, there is light, strength, life of rationally free beings; sin is a deadly poison, a disease of the soul, infection, poison, rust, the stench of the devil, torment, death. Love is a spiritual element and force that unites the living and the dead into one union, into one body, a constructive, life-giving, merciful force, covering everything, long-suffering, not thinking evil, enduring everything, all-hoping, fervently desiring eternal salvation for everyone, praying for everyone. Who has such life-giving element and power? We are possessed by another, mostly opposite, all-destroying force - pride, carnality, impatience, irritation, anger, malice, envy, carnal passion, love of money, the love of this world. God! Heal and save our souls, who are in dire need and perishing. How proud and impatient I am! Yesterday, having come to the apartment [of the Postnikovs] and noticing that an old German noblewoman was treating me indifferently and coldly or not paying attention at all, I was offended by her, hated her (oh, damnation!) and only because of the tightness and pain of my heart I immediately repented before the Lord, turned to a feeling of meekness, kindness, humility, patience, condescension, covering love - and calmed down and began to speak with her. Her name is Caroline... With reverence and gratitude to God, with zeal do you depict the sign of the cross on yourself, this invincible weapon against enemies visible and invisible, given to us as an inalienable gift, as a shield and protection by our Lord Jesus Christ? I thank the Lord, who twice delivered me at ten o’clock in the morning from grief and hostility towards my family - my sister Anna and my wife for their murmur when I said: “It’s nine o’clock, it’s time to get up,” and for the fact that at home they keep me in my rooms as if in disgrace. I prayed to the Lord in repentance with all my heart, and He had mercy on me, the accursed one who had destroyed His entire law, which consists of long-suffering, merciful, covering love, enduring everything, never ceasing. Remember the sick Mary, may the Lord heal. She served a prayer service with [great] temptation, which she overcame with a prayer to the Lord for help. Glory to the Lord! At Khitrov’s, he read a prayer to his wife in labor and named the baby - everything was fine in the beginning and in the continuation, he read it calmly, reverently. But in the end, due to the enemy’s slander, he looked with partiality and, as it were, lust and envy, at the holy icons, covered in gold and shining, and was wounded, embarrassed, fell into crampedness, dumbness, death, and barely finished the prayer in a silent manner. Oh, how fiercely the tempter tempted me, how he put me to shame, the many-passionate one, and how he laughed! Oh, how fussed I am! Then, walking along the road, he begged the Lord with repentance, having recognized his vanity, his negligence about the contempt of the flesh and the world with its corruptible goods, to which addiction is so disastrous for the soul and so pitifully removes one from God and love for one’s neighbor. The Lord is the all-sufficient good for our souls and bodies; we must cleave to Him alone with all our hearts. We, many-passionate, self-loving, unskilled in love, alien to the holiness and truth of God, do not comprehend how ardent, pure and invariably intercessory the love of the Mother of God, the most pure and immaculate Virgin Mary, is for us, the love of the holy Angels of God, from the highest to the lowest, the love of the holy saints of God - the forefathers, fathers, prophets, apostles, hierarchs, martyrs, the venerable and righteous and all the saints - and very often we call or glorify them not with heartfelt love and hope, not with a burning spirit, but with coldness, spiritual drowsiness and laziness, which is very absurd and ungrateful on our part and ungrateful towards all the Angels and saints, in whom I believe 26 the Holy Spirit unceasingly, eternally rests, as in His churches. But how can we understand, even if somewhat in accordance with the truth, God’s truly infinite love for us, who sacrificed His Only Begotten Son for our salvation? I captured a clear and great salvation from the Lord through repentance and prayer of faith and hope while walking along the path on the western boulevard near the English church at nine o’clock in the evening and was granted great deliverance from cramped conditions and sorrow and weakness of soul and body. Glory to the salvation of the Lord! Saturday. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from the great distress and sorrow that righteously befell me for anger and bitterness towards the poor and for reproachful and blasphemous words against them. Sincere, deep repentance with living faith and hope bowed the Lord to me for mercy, and how comforting it was for me to feel His mercy, spiritual dew in my heart, peace, space and freedom, lightness, joy! During Matins in church, many times I fell at the holy altar at the holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called and at Peter and Paul in the altars. I sinned gravely before the Lord, before the Mother of God, before all the holy Angels, before all the saints, before the living and the dead, through pride, insensibility, pride, severity, obstinacy, voluptuousness, carnal lust, love of money, stinginess, greed, envy, wickedness, impatience and irritability, gluttony and drunkenness, ingratitude, laziness, negligence, cowardice, despair, fear, grumbling, disobedience, waywardness and stubbornness, frivolity, grumbling, fear, ill will, malice, contempt, reproach, condemnation, falling away from love, resentment, ambition, vanity and vanity and other countless sins. After mass, served at my request and with the consent of the next priest, Father Alexander. I thank the Lord, who solemnly delivered me through my prayer from mortal oppression, embarrassment, cowardice during the liturgy, weakness and spiritual powerlessness due to gluttony. I thank the Lord for the stumbling-free service of the Liturgy with constant compulsion and the non-judgmental communion of the Holy Mysteries, the stumbling-free, enthusiastic reading of the prayer behind the pulpit. I felt a new, wonderful life of God in myself after communion of the Holy Mysteries. May I keep it inside me forever. Be, O Lord, according to Your mighty word. Amen. After the all-night vigil. I glorify the ineffable mercy of my Master and God, the Lord Jesus Christ, revealed in me through the prayer of faith and repentance in the Peter’s chapel of the church at the beginning of the Sunday all-night vigil. When I saw the serving abbot, then, because of my passion and the action of the devil, I felt a strong hostility towards him and with it great oppression and spiritual death, but immediately, recognizing and feeling my grave sin, I sincerely repented, condemned myself and the absurd sin, for I ruined with my enmity the entire law of God, which consists of love; I asked the Lord with all my heart for forgiveness and permission for my sins, so that His infinite goodness would overcome my malice, and the Lord immediately delivered me from malice, changed, transformed my heart, making it good and peaceful, and I went to greet Father Paul with all my heart, and he, the elder, very meekly, lovingly, kindly spoke to me, and I rejoiced at such God’s mercy towards me and then tenderly, with tears, read the canon and akathist To the Sweetest Jesus, Akathist to the Mother of God and canon to the Holy Guardian Angel. Glory to the grace of God, merciful and saving! At four o'clock in the morning they called to give communion to the sick Elena Fedorova in the building of the girls' gymnasium in the basement, and already at the beginning of the sequence and even earlier, I felt in my heart the violence of the devil, embarrassment, fear, bonds, tightness, and when reading prayers I found myself powerless, could not read them, for the enemy tied my heart, my mind, and my tongue (oh, the extreme dirty trick of the devil!), splitting my heart and killing it carnal desires; I barely read something and gave her communion. This is because of my gluttony, satiety and drinking wine since the evening at the Markovs. Oh, how through carnality and the belly the enemy possesses me. On the way back from the sick woman, I repented and prayed to the Lord to deliver me from the claws of the enemy, and the Lord was merciful and delivered me. Gluttony resonates heavily, heavily in my soul and in my heart! It deprives me of freedom, peace, lightness, strength and energy, spiritual light, boldness. I myself, having everything necessary for life in abundance, look, however, often into the hands of others and drink sweetly from someone else’s table - how can the poor not look into my hands out of need and how can I not willingly give alms in the name of Christ God Himself, who gives us everything richly for our enjoyment [1 Timothy 6:17]? Stinginess and hardness of heart would be unforgivable sins for me. So let me give willingly to those who ask. And besides, I receive expensive and elegant clothes from the zeal of my spiritual children. How can I not give money to the beggars even though the rags are cheap, since there are a lot of beggars and one cannot give much, and for fear of their abuse? Yes, I willingly give for rags and cheap shoes. After early mass and prayers at home. I thank the Lord, who revived me, killed by my sins, and gave me the grace to perform the liturgy with tenderness and say the sermon, and dismiss the entire liturgy. During the service of prayer services there were many temptations, and the Lord delivered me from all of them through the prayer of repentance, especially in Prokofiev’s house on our Posadskaya street because of the internal hostility towards Ekaterina Pavlovna [...]. Two o'clock in the evening. I thank the Lord for the help and deliverance shown to me during the service of a prayer service on Galkina Street in Ivanov’s house on the tower for a naval official setting off with his family to Vladivostok with military cargo on a military ship. The sexton did not take the book of prayer songs, and I was upset and embarrassed, but with God’s help I recovered and finished the prayer service peacefully, although not without a strong internal struggle. I myself was to blame for not telling the sexton about the book. If, when you begin to pray, you feel laziness and coldness in your heart, or evil, nasty and blasphemous thoughts creep into your soul, and your prayer goes crookedly and at random - in a word, insincerely, sluggishly, craftily, then cry, and if you have no tears, ask God for tears about such a bad state of your soul. You have apparently become overeated, lazy, addicted to sins, and fallen away from God. Praying with the Holy Spirit, says the Apostle [Jude 1:20], that is, one must pray fervently, earnestly, holyly, with all the heart, with humility and ardent love. Be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord [Rom.12:11]. I thank the Lord for the miraculous healing from a single prayer, on which I placed my hope alone when I saw the completely hopeless situation of the merchant Yegor Pavlovich Repnikov (in Gromov’s house). We offered together to the Almighty God and the Physician of souls and bodies a short prayer, Holy Father, Physician of souls and bodies... Generous and merciful Lord... Lord, do not reprove us with Thy wrath... Lord our God, remember us, Thy sinners and indecent servants, always call upon us Thy holy name... also to the Lady Theotokos, our strong Intercessor and To the Intercessor: O zealous Intercessor... and stretch out Thy hands, in the image of all Thou hast received the Lord like a Child... - and soon the Lord performed a miracle: almost dead, He resurrected a man [who] had eaten almost nothing for many days and abhorred all food, was extremely weak and could not walk, could barely sit. Glory to the Lord and the only all-powerful Intercessor. For me, a sinner, uncorrected, I am ashamed of my face for the sake of my sins, that I still remain the same and a terrible sinner. But heal me too and correct me from my sins and iniquities, O Physician of souls and bodies, and One Most Merciful and Lover of Mankind! Wake up. Amen. June 21, 1882. I thank the Lord, who raised me up for morning worship and repeatedly performed the miracle of His salvation with me in the church and in the apartment of the fisherman Verzin, during and after prayer for his wife, the sick servant of God Alexandra, for the Lord, through my secret prayer, resolved the disastrous, vile charm of the enemy in me, saving me from the sting, crampedness and torment, giving me peace, space and spiritual coolness, righteousness, boldness, light, strength and strength. From heaven we are completely open and visible, that is, our souls, all their innermost thoughts, feelings and intentions, not only to the Lord God, Who fills everyone and everything with Himself and before Whom everything is naked and obvious, but also to the Mother of God, and the Angels, and the saints, who are witnesses of our inner life. Therefore, how piously and cautiously, with what fear should we live here, carrying out our wanderings until the Lord calls us to another world. You willingly bow to the kind requests, combined with humility and love, of a son and daughter, even a stranger, and give them what they ask for - won’t He who is the abyss of mercy and love for mankind, the Lord, mercifully bow to our prayers? Will not the Mother of the Lover of Mankind, completely imbued with Divine love for mankind, bow down to the sons of men? - Yes. Therefore, let us pray to the Lord, the Mother of God, with perfect faith and perfect hope. Ask, and it will be given to you... etc., or: Is there such a person among you... etc. So if you... much more... He will give good things to those who ask Him [Matthew 7:7,9,11]. We also need to ask with faith and hope the friends of God - the holy Angels and holy men, who, by His grace, can give us all that is good. He served early mass. From intemperance in drinking wine (three glasses of champagne), drunk with the officers, I became extremely weakened morally and physically, simply deadened, and therefore I served mass with difficulty, under grave temptations from evil demons; Thank God also that the Lord remembered me for my humility and contrition and gave me tears. I read the pulpit in a strong voice, but lost heart from the unclean memory, became embarrassed, faint at heart and did not finish reading; I stole the release at mass, and at the memorial service, and at the prayer service. Then he served prayer services in two places without stumbling. While going to take out, I remembered that I had left both the money and the key to the table at home, suspected my family of kidnapping, regretted it - and again died in my soul because of greed. But, having repented earnestly, he was again pardoned, calmed down, and revived; when he began to perform the litia, he again became afraid of the disembodied enemies and stole the litany with the dismissal and did not pronounce it; on the way he repented again, being in distress, and again he was pacified and saved by the name and authority and power of the Lord; outside the gates, the enemy’s dirty tricks are again on the litiya - and again God’s mercy for repentance during the entire journey home and at home in the apartment. The all-evil and all-evil devil has perverted and continues to pervert in every possible way the order established by the Creator in rational creatures - in people, trying to turn means into ends: for example, food and drink, appointed by the Creator as a means to maintain physical life and to strengthen [and maintain] a person, the demon in many people turned into the goal of life: people eat and drink in order to enjoy food and drink, to feast on, to be satiated, to become drunk, and not to allow moderate pleasure in order to maintain life. Eleven and a half o'clock in the evening. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from the delusion of adultery as a result of sincere repentance and long prayer. The devil curses the Creator in rational creatures, instilling in them evil and blasphemous thoughts about God and the Mother of God and the saints, or slandering people about other people, or arousing lust, suspicion, blasphemy, etc. towards them. Keep your heart's ears open. Let your heart always cleave to God, and not to creatures, for creatures can easily become idols of the heart, as soon as it cleaves to them. My son! give your heart to me, says the Lord [Proverbs 23:26]. I thank the Lord, who delivered me for the prayer of repentance while diligently kissing the holy throne, as if the robe of the Lord Himself, from the tightness of my sins (cruelty, unmercifulness, stinginess, grief, anger at the poor) and who gave me space of soul, peace, lightness, righteousness and great zeal and an ardent feeling of God’s mercies while reading and singing the canon of the Cross, the Mother of God, the Forerunner and Holy Martyr Fevronia. I thank the Lord, who delivered me in my apartment from the voluptuous tendencies that tormented me, for the prayer of repentance. I thank the Lord for my life-giving sleep from nine to eleven o’clock. Morning. During the service of early mass, I felt extremely difficult: moral and physical weakness together, spiritual tightness, the violence of evil demons. My secret anger towards one nun, who confessed to me before early mass, because she had been living in Kronstadt for a long time due to the collection, my powerlessness to overcome this anger, my shame, especially after not saying the prayers to the communicants just before communion, made my condition unbearable, and even the end of the pulpit could not be read and I could not completely say goodbye due to the violence and mortification of my heart from demons. And this all happened from yesterday’s gluttony and satiety at Kalinin’s after the christening, from bitter vodka (a glass), champagne, beer (one glass), marsala (half a glass), so I was significantly drunk, damned. From gluttony and satiety, faith, hope, love for God and neighbor are torn out, and lack of faith, impatience, anger, carnal lust, laziness, and idleness take root. After Sunday Vespers (from Saturday to Sunday). I thank the Lord, who has vouchsafed me with sweet singing to glorify His resurrection and His glorified Most Pure Mother in stichera and without stumbling to recite the litany at Compline and Dismissal. An old maid, although pious, Kovrigina extremely confuses me. No less than she sneaks into the palace and wants, against all my will, to glorify me before the king, me, unclean, cowardly, fearful, with many infirmities! Pure punishment! I thank the Lord, who renewed and strengthened my soul through the communion of the Holy Mysteries during the early liturgy and [at] the final consumption of the Holy Gifts after the liturgy, I thank you for the unfailing prayers at Denisov, [Sampsonov], [...] and in other places (at Nabatov, Tomasov) who showed me great help. When lighting a lamp, lamp or candle to the image of the Savior, the Mother of God or some saint, say in your soul: “Lord! I offer You or the Lady, I offer You this small sacrifice from my small labors for all Your mercies to me and for Your constant help to me in my life and I pray to You: grant me to always walk before You with a burning spirit, to love and thank You always with a burning heart. Amen". And to the saint: “Servant of God! Always help me with your prayers to love the Lord and the Most Holy Virgin Mary and the holy friends of God as passionately as you have loved. Amen". Or: “Lord! Having sent the Holy Spirit to Your apostles in the fire, my soul also ate the fire of the grace of the Holy Spirit, scorching and burning all the thorns of my passions and igniting my frozen heart to Your love. Amen". I thank the Lord for the tears of tenderness given by His mercy yesterday during the all-night vigil with the consciousness of the great, sincere, undying, all-encompassing love of the Holy Mother of the Church in her prayers, litanies, psalms and singing and spiritual songs - and my lack of love, spiritual poverty, damnation, poverty, blindness, nakedness, from the consciousness of my pride, my coldness towards God and neighbors, my unmercifulness and hard-heartedness. Tears of tenderness break through both with the living consciousness and feeling of the greatness of God’s love and God’s blessings to us, and with the presentation of the great universal, holy, living, interacting articulation of the Church of Christ, of which I, unworthy, have the happiness of being and being called, and from the wonderful and most holy Head of which I am always revived, renewed and saved and receive every good through the prayers of the Mother of God and all saints Walk always in a living consciousness and in the feeling of the presence of God and the Mother of God and, as it were, in view of the whole sky, all the holy Angels and holy men who look at us from heaven, at all our entrances and exits, at all our thoughts, intentions, [undertakings] and deeds and are incorruptible witnesses of our life. We constantly imprint the cross on the forehead - the seat of the mind, the heart - as an instrument of feeling and muscles - as an instrument of free power for sanctification and dedication to God and neighbors, and to protect them from sins and passions. And so, every Christian, protecting himself with the sign of the cross, may he completely devote his mind, his heart and his will to God, and may he love Him with all his heart, with all his thoughts and with all his strength, and may he always reflect every sin from his heart, from his mind and from his free will, from his desire by the power of Him Crucified on the cross, and may he always encourage himself to every virtue in the hope of reward from the righteous Judge in the infinite future century. Sunday. I thank the Lord, who made me worthy to celebrate the late liturgy in the cathedral, strengthening my weakness with His grace, and to preach a sermon of my own composition. I didn’t read the entire pulpit because of the violence of evil demons; not all release, in confusion and cramped conditions and humiliation of the spirit from the action of demons. Received life-giving communion. Sin in all its forms orphans the soul, separating it from God, the source of life, peace, joy, boldness, light, truth, love, strength and strength; malice, envy, addiction to the flesh, addiction to wealth, to precious, beautiful things, to beautiful faces orphan. Flee all worldly and carnal addictions like poison, Christian. Remember that you are called to eternal life, despise temporal life and its blessings, remember that you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the Living God, Heavenly Jerusalem, and to ten thousand angels [Heb.12:22], and set your mind on things above and not on earthly things [Col.3:2]... (At the prayer service I regretted the cross, and my heart [...] grew cold and died: at Compline, hostility towards Tretyakova appeared, and I became numb - rightly so.) We must have love for everyone and pray fervently for everyone. Monday. I thank the Lord, who strengthened me with His grace to perform Matins without stumbling, victoriously, when the struggle with opposing forces began at the very beginning of the Midnight Office. After Matins, one acquaintance asked me to serve a prayer service to the Mother of God with an akathist, and during this akathist I was weakened, numb from the machinations of the enemy, who occupied my heart because of its impurity; I was extremely ashamed to pronounce words that meant genital organs and childbirth, but then I repeated it with force and defeated my enemies, although not suddenly, for during almost the entire continuation of the akathist they interfered and made me lazy, burdensome, and disinclined to read the akathist out loud. With God's help, I performed the Liturgy safely and victoriously despite bodily weakness, but the enemy displeased the sexton for procrastinating, and during the communion of the children, there was some grief because Anna Gerasimovna was pushing forward with my goddaughter Parasha to communion - only with the prayer of repentance did I overcome my embitterment, but I should be glad that with zeal Anna Gerasimovna is bringing the child to communion. What an unkind soul I have! He served Vespers well. We depict the sign of the cross on the forehead - the instrument of the mind, on the heart - the instrument of feeling, and on the shoulders - the instrument of strength as a sign of the complete dedication to God of our mind, heart, or feelings, and will - our entire being, soul and body, just as the Lord gave Himself up for us on the cross, soul and body, as an atoning sacrifice for us. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me [Gal.2:20]. At a prayer service in the wing of the Kudryavtsevs, after the prayer service I was subjected to a strong temptation by the servant of God, burning with love for God and for me, the unworthy, Paraskev Kovrigin, for at the prayer service the enemy incited me to dislike her. And after the prayer service, I turned to her with bitter reproaches 27 and reproaches, and she turned out to be a true servant of God, loving with a long-suffering love, enduring everything, covering everything, not proud, not irritated, not thinking evil, never falling away. She is a thousand times higher than me morally. God bless her! You seduce me with sweetness, enemy, but sweetness is also from God, although we abuse it, and without sweetness I would not be in the world. Glory to infinite sweetness to God, for He is true sweetness and through the impulse of sweetness He creates all living creatures hitherto. You have created all things with wisdom, O Lord [Ps.103:24]! Glory to You, who created everything and works wisely, purely, unblemished, sovereignly, omnipotently, all-mercifully, all-zealously! Our all-wise Creator created us with organs of self-creation, or procreation, self-feeding, breathing, blood circulation, self-propulsion, self-activity, male and female - a good deed - magnificent and worthy of all surprise and reverence, for in addition to a beautiful and purposeful body, He gave us the most excellent and simplest creation - a rational and free soul in His image and likeness, gifted beyond other gifts (mind, well-being, freedom) with the gift of immortality and the ability to intelligently and freely love our Creator and each other, become like Him, glorify Him and be eternally blissful. How not to be surprised, not to revere the Creator, how not to thank and glorify Him for such creation of us, for such gifts to us, how not to honor such a beautiful church of His wisdom and goodness and all perfections - our soul and body and use them in accordance with the intention of the Creator, for His glory and our own well-being and bliss, that is, holy! Be holy because I am holy. ...Following the example of the Holy One who called you, be holy in all your actions [1 Peter 1:16,15]. We, the accursed, ungrateful and unreasonable, have perverted these very bodily members, and the mind, and our free will, and the ability to love our Creator and each other, turning 28 their use, and made the bodily members the object and instrument of unclean, dishonest passions that corrupt the soul and body, and have defiled and removed ourselves from God, the source of life and all good, all joy and bliss, and therefore without number we are in misery in this much-weeping life, and if we do not turn and repent, we will be in eternal misery in the future life, which will follow the resurrection of life; Instead of clinging with all our hearts to God, who created us, to our belly, we cling to various creatures, finite and disappearing, who cannot at all give us life and bliss. On Peter and Paul Day I served an early [mass] under extreme cramped conditions and loss of spirit due to the terrible pressure of opposing forces, for which I gave rise to with my gluttony and delicacy after the prayer service in the Kudryavtsev outbuilding (Pesochnaya Street). The death of the spirit began with the fact that I was indignant at the prosphora for the very loose, airy prosphora, like fluff, and thus again expressed my greed for earthly food in the form of heavenly food - the most pure Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, true food and true drink. For a long time I struggled with this disposition of heart, with grief and greed, convincing myself that I was always satiated and that I just needed airy prosphoras so as not to burden myself any more, and just before the Gospel the hellish villain left me to oppress and torment. I received Holy Communion in a life-giving manner and served decently; during the carrying out of the Holy Gifts, when it was necessary to give communion to the children, I saw a woman [...] whose husband and whose children, I don’t know why, cooled towards me, but I baptized all their children, and they were affectionate before, and so I felt hostility towards her, which I barely overcame by the grace of God. Wednesday. Glory to the greatness of God and the boundless goodness of God! Today the church held a large prayer service for the blessing of water before mass with chiming, and then a liturgy and prayer service for the twelve apostles. Feeling mortified by sins and unprepared for the worthy service of the liturgy, and even the prayer service, I fell repeatedly before the holy throne for pardon of my unworthiness and the granting of help - and I felt this help in my heart and with my whole being, and after that in reality, when with a sincere feeling I served the prayer service without stumbling, or, rather, having stumbled, I rebelled and won the enemy who stumbled me, again repeating those words by which he stumbled and was wounded (at the holy water prayer). But just before mass, when I began to put on my vestments and saw the sleeves of the sacrament without garters (without laces), torn off by the altar watchman on the orders of the rector, who arbitrarily disposed of our sacraments (of other priests), not only his own, I began to seethe with indignation at his arbitrariness, became angry with him, scolded him and the watchman and seethed with anger for ten minutes, but also died in my soul: a hellish pierced me fire, hellish crampedness cramped me, shame took me, so that I was afraid to show my face; I began to bitterly repent, to beg the Lord for mercy, may His infinite goodness overcome my malice, may the Lord not shut me up in the abyss of hell, may he not leave me in the claws of Satan, who seeks to devour me at every moment - and after a long fall and after a strong prayer of repentance, faith and hope, my death, like the fortress of the devil, collapsed, life reigned in me, peace, righteousness, boldness, strength, light, I became alive from a dead man, from a wolf - a lamb, from one overwhelmed and shaken - quiet and calm; I was like that before reading the prayer for seditionists; while reading it, at the end I doubted it, began to read it insincerely, became embarrassed, confused, rushed, was offended and embarrassed by not finishing it properly. Again he began to fervently repent of his weakness, insincerity, and deceit of his heart - and again he was pardoned, healed, revived, and then during the rest of the liturgy he had tears of tenderness, especially when reading the prayers before the Cherubim; I read the pulpit solemnly, with an abundance of hope; Vast said quite boldly, looking directly at the people; The prayer service was served decently, the Gospel was read firmly, the release was stolen. I thank the Lord for all help. Today the officer's uniform was sent to Evdokim 29. Thank God that Evdokim became an officer after a long tedious wait! All is Your mercy, Lord Lord! Your mercy, Lady Theotokos! By your intercession with the Lord, by your omnipotent sovereignty, O Mother of God, my nephew was promoted to officer. May he be a general, may Your name, O Lord, be glorified on him, Yours, O Mother of God, on him! Wake up! Amen. I thank the Lord, who strengthened me to celebrate Vespers with Compline without stumbling. He served loudly, with feeling, separately. The words of prayers, praises, thanksgivings, and petitions must pass through the heart, that is, they must be felt, deeply understood, and pronounced with deep inner conviction, from a warm heart. Be on fire with the Holy Spirit; Serve the Lord [Rom.:12:11]. Ethereal enemies, knowing the power of prayer that comes from sincere feeling, always try to captivate the feelings with some kind of passion, such as anger, voluptuousness, love of money and others, so that a Christian cannot pray with all his heart, with love, peace, boldness and in order to turn his prayer into sin. Therefore, a Christian must achieve complete dispassion, especially during prayer. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from cramped conditions and sorrow upon my entry (at vespers) into Catherine’s front garden and then after the funeral service, at which my enemies wounded me, embarrassed me, and deprived me of my words. The Lord again accepted my repentance and delivered me from confusion and distress, giving me peace. Pache (Church Glav.) – more. Unblameable (Church Glorious) - without temptation, without stumbling. Prelest (church glory) – delusion, seduction, deception. Debris (Church Glav.) – dirt, dust, ashes. Prizor oches (Church Slavic) – an unfriendly or envious look. Blessing (church glory) – change for the better. Belly (church glory) – life. Blazniti (Church Glav.) – to seduce. To strike (Church Glav.) – to hit; approach. Simple (Church Glav.) – open, direct, pure. Contempt (church glory) – contempt, disdain. Ouds (Church Slavic) – members of the body. Belial (Heb.) – lit.: insignificant, worthless. In the Bible, this word is applied to all depraved, wicked and evil people, but especially to Satan, as the main culprit of all wickedness and evil. Canon to the Guardian Angel. Troparion, tone 6. Darkly (Church Glav.) - a thousand times, many times (from darkness - ten thousand). Hedgehog (church glory) - what; which. Krasno (Church Glav.) – wonderful. Prayer 2, of St. Macarius the Great, from the sequence of morning prayers. All-sufficient (church glory) - all-sufficient. Vynu (Church Glav.) - always. Reprimand (Church Slavic) – a sharp expression of dissatisfaction, threat, punishment. Convert (Church Glav.) – turn over, overturn, destroy. Evdokim Vasilyevich Fidelin, son of Father John’s sister Anna Ilyinichna Sergieva (married Fidelin). Initially, Evdokim entered the seminary, then left his studies there and entered a military school.