Январь 1883 г.

New Year 1883. First day of January. Bless, O Lord, the crown of the summer of Thy goodness! I thank the Lord, who delivered me from a severe cold that tormented me for two days in bed (however, more at night than during the day) and gave me health again. Burning pain in the lower back, heaviness in the head without much pain; a severe runny nose, like water, dried up in the nose at night and turned into dry sulfur; scrofulous phenomena during illness. The temperature outside is twenty-five degrees or more, and soon it will drop to five. Rapid changes in temperature greatly influenced my illness, or my scrofulous body. Today I woke up completely cheerful, healthy, cheerful by the grace of God and the Mother of God, to whom I read the akathist with tenderness the night before. God bless! Yesterday I sinned before God, before the Most Holy Virgin, before the holy Angels and holy saints of God and all people by shouting with anger at the beggars so that they would not bother me with their requests, but would let me walk calmly in the air, as if I had gone out into the air for the first time after an illness. I sinned through anger, bitterness, stinginess and hardness of heart. Forgive, Lord, and have mercy! After Matins and early mass. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from confusion due to the unpreparedness of the altar guard Procopius and my late arrival at church, and who gave me tenderness and heartfelt service. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from the shame of complete defeat and ridicule from the devil when reading the Sunday Gospel of John at Matins, in which the Lord three times asks the Apostle Peter: do you love me? [ John 21:15–17 ], for I began again after being deposed from the adversary at the beginning and read it all, leaving out a few words at the end. The original inventor of evil and the enemy of God and men managed to cool my heart to the words of the Lord and made it painful to repeat them (so dear and life-giving, [...] and all-wise and beloved words of the Lord), burdening and disgracing me beyond measure - this is what he intensifies to do in many other cases: in prayers, canons, doxologies, dismissals. I thank the Lord for the fervent reading of the canon, intelligible, loud, and the singing of the stichera, for deliverance from cramped conditions, shame and sorrow after dismissal and the prayer to Christ, the true Light, in which the enemy always catches me and now has caught me, bringing me into confusion, and my very words. I thank the Lord for the tears of tenderness during the celebration of the Liturgy: before the Cherubic Song and during the Cherubic Song and after that before and during the celebration of the Holy Gifts. But I was subjected to a great, grave temptation before the prayer behind the pulpit because of the money I collected for the poor from parishioners with the cross on the Feast of the Nativity of Christ, in excess of my own plot. I was deeply embarrassed because of them, not sure whether I was holding them fairly or unfairly for the poor, whether I was stealing the fraternal income? Unable to give a decisive justificatory answer to the demons torturing me, I began to read the prayer behind the pulpit in embarrassment, was eaten up by enemies and could not calm down and finish it; came out to speak a lesson, which he said well. I stole the dismissal of the liturgy, only said the last words, and my heart sank, conquered by the demons, from which and from my sins I got rid of after the final use of the Holy Gifts with faith and repentance. But it is true: the extra money does not belong to the brethren, but to the laity from whom it is collected, and to the poor. We just need to distribute them quickly. At a prayer service in the evening at five o’clock, in Brusov’s house in Viktorskaya Street, near the Foundry, at the home of a family craftsman, while reading the Gospel to people (turning my face to them), the devil, with various violent nonsense, did not allow me to read it; It was extremely difficult for me to fight him, and I did not finish it completely, I was ashamed, but then I turned to the Lord with a secret prayer for help, and I then defeated the enemy by the grace of Christ; he ran away, and I served easily and sincerely. I thank the Lord, who heard my prayer before leaving for the prayer service to Mr. Pyotr Pavlovich Palkin at six o’clock in the evening and who gave me the grace to complete it for the salvation, purification, sanctification and strengthening of the souls and bodies of both mine and theirs, the Palkins. Quite cheerfully and naturally, I sincerely prayed, sang, read, said the Gospel, litanies and prayers. When, after the prayer service, a certain thorn of the devil remained in my soul, tormenting me, I immediately freed myself from it through internal prayer to the Lord. Through temptations the Lord my God cleanses me, and teaches my hands to fight, my fingers to fight [Ps. 143:1]. Eleven o'clock in the evening. Remember, Lord, Your servant Michael and his wife Anna with their children and his mother Paraskeva, soften and touch, correct his heart, enlighten his heart's eyes, reflect from his heart the charm of the serpent's malice that has contained him since ancient times. You are a beneficiary God! Glory to You, glory to You, glory to You! Remember Your servants Peter and Alexandra and their children Alexander and Vladimir and those who are with them. Wednesday. I thank the Lord for my gracious deliverance through my secret prayer in church (matins) from the fierce torment that befell me for my hard-heartedness towards the poor, for my grief and hostility towards them for my frequent begging; I thank the Lord, who revived me when sin killed me, and renewed me. At home, the Lord twice delivered me from severe torment through my secret prayer. Glory to Christ God the Savior. Before the old man dies in us, the Lord cannot unite with our soul and live in it: for what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? What does light have in common with darkness? What agreement is there between Christ and Belial? Or what is the complicity of the faithful with the infidel? [ 2 Cor. 6:14–15 ] – None. Therefore, the Lord always leads the one who seeks union with the Lord into the feat of temptation or test, sometimes very bitter, so that he may lead the tempted one to the knowledge of sin and to deep repentance, and after that, having boiled away his sin with repentance and tears, he unites with him and pacifies him. If you begin to serve the Lord God, then prepare your soul for temptation [Sir.2:1]. O all-blessed Mary Theotokos! You have trampled upon all sin by the grace of God and been filled with all the truth of God, pray that we too should get rid of all sin, on the contrary, to hate all sin and love all truth, so that we may be pure receptacles, pure temples of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Sin darkens, defiles, outrages, mortifies the soul, separates it from God, becomes an impassable barrier between Him and us, if we do not sincerely mourn it; This alone is enough to hate him and not sin. I often have a perverted, false, self-loving, hard-hearted view of the poor, thinking that out of whim and laziness they do not want to work, they ask me for alms every day, while they deserve sincere sympathy and compassion due to the poverty that gnaws at them, the impossibility of finding work and food due to powerlessness, due to lack of clothes, shoes and other things. I thank the Lord for the foreseeable miracles of salvation during the Early Liturgy and Matins. I was depressed, killed by the hellish sorrows of Satan and with extreme difficulty I could say the lithium prayer to the Master Lord Jesus Christ, our God, with extreme fear, and I stole the exclamation before it, the prayer at the blessing of the loaves as well. I also read the Gospel with fear and incompletely. Only at the canon did he triumph: he read loudly and separately. Vacation could not speak, Christ, Sveta... either. He served Mass with difficulty, stole the prayer behind the pulpit - and did not read half of it out of displeasure that Kovrigina brought her goddaughter Paraskeva, a baby, to communion. I thank the Lord for the greatest deliverance from the consequences of hard-heartedness, sorrow and cramped conditions: in church during Matins the Lord saved me, during the funeral service at the sausage maker Balabanov for Evdokia and at the school of guardianship, through the secret fervent prayer of repentance. Glory and thanksgiving to the Lord our God! After Vespers, many beggars came to me when I was going to the widow Shlyapnikova, and in anger I tore some of them by the hair, one very strongly, so much so that I threw him to the ground, and I was in great excitement and in a godless state, but even here the Lord did not reject my repentance, but, having given me great hope, gave me tears and had mercy on me. And at Vespers, which Father Paul began early, I slyly suspected him of intending to send it off without me, and I hated and despised him, but I repented and received mercy from the Lord. I condemn myself in guile and malice. After mass outside the city to the cemetery. I thank the Lord, who gave me the grace to perform the funeral liturgy for Evdokia, a relative of the Balabanovs, and to partake of the Holy Mysteries without condemnation, and to say leave with boldness, and to read the Gospel and the prayer of permission. Glory to conquering grace! Not to us... not to us, but to Your name give glory [Ps.113:9]! Confusion and fear, cowardice are sins; You don’t have to give in to them, like any other sin, but you have to take courage and strengthen yourself, trusting in the mercy of God. Sunday. I was subjected to a terrible misfortune today because of demonic malice and the sexton’s order about prayers, which I extremely did not want to serve and which I served poorly, with grief, with omissions, in confusion, in cramped conditions, in hellish fire. The enemy has overcome me; will I receive mercy from the Lord as usual? After mass. Satan poured out all the evil of hell on me today (was it not for the money given to me by Evdokia, thirteen rubles, or was it not for the communicants of St. Petersburg and especially the communicant [...]). And before the beginning of mass, I suffered for a long time from the stings of the serpent, falling with illness and groaning to the holy throne many times. And finally, the grace of God defeated the malice of the devil in me, I got rid of torment and calmed down and served mass with feeling; I didn’t finish the prayer behind the pulpit halfway. Sermon, memorial service for Metropolitan Philaret 84. Glory to God the Deliverer! Serves me right! After Vespers and all the requirements. I thank the Lord for his all-powerful help before mass and during the later one: my sorrow was fierce, Satan’s stings were fierce for my sins, but the Lord accepted my repentance and delivered me from them, comforting me, an indecent one. I served Mass with feeling, but the ethereal enemies were extremely trying to catch and hurt me. He performed the sacrament reverently, took communion peacefully, and did not even read half of the prayer behind the pulpit due to demonic fear and violence. The sermon was spoken well, with feeling. He served the memorial service for Metropolitan Philaret with extreme embarrassment, as well as the prayer service. Vespers was served with the help of God with feeling, victoriously, without stumbling, thanks to the grace-filled communion of the Holy Mysteries. He baptized three babies with feeling, victoriously, loudly with the grace of Christ. I gave a lecture at the House of Diligence very well, calmly, with feeling; Anna Gerasimovna served a prayer service completely freely. God bless. Monday. Matins was for me a time of difficult struggle with opposing all-evil forces, especially when I remembered the birthday boy, Father Pavel Lamanov, for whom for a long time I have felt hostility due to some roughness and dissimilarity of characters (for which I repent with all my heart and have the desire to sincerely love and honor him as an older brother, as a clergyman, as a fellow member in Christ, as a man, like me, weak and subject to sins). I could not control myself when the memory of him came to me, despite repentance and the desire to love him. I know that this is a devilish spirit, that I hate him tune, for he did not do me any obvious harm (and the secret is unproven and unknown), and therefore I resolutely repent before the Lord, who tests hearts and wombs, and I want to love him as a brother and co-servant, but I do not have the strength to sincerely love and I ask for this strength, may the Lord move my heart to true love and him, brother Paul Archpriest, may the Lord also move him to love, as and his wife and son (for real or imaginary arrogance, I hated him when he casually shook his hand at me in a meeting of priests - because of such a trifle!). But even if he were my enemy, then I must love him sincerely according to the commandment of Christ: love your enemies... [Matthew 5:44; Luke 6:27]. Oh, holy love, come and dwell in my heart. At Pavel Alex's Zaboev, a prayer service... and there the enemy greatly shook me, confused me, and left me speechless. The soul is the Divine principle, the Divine breath, as created in His image and likeness, as by the blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, redeemed and a sharer of the Divine nature through the communion of His Flesh and Blood. She is sick and enraged by sin and deserves the liveliest compassion, and not hatred and enmity; as a Divine principle, worthy of all respect and love. So be it. Lord, help and bless you to love every person, especially a Christian and especially a priest. The late liturgy was marked by a strong, stubborn struggle against the stubborn malice of the devil, which had nested in me against Father Pavel Lamanov, for which the power of the disembodied enemy weakened in me much, and I read with great boldness, peacefully and freely the prayer behind the pulpit and said dismissal in full, without stumbling. At the funeral service, I stole the release from fear of the enemy and therefore suffered from confusion, sorrow and cramped conditions, from which faith in the atoning Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, which I was going to use, delivered me. Glory to the Conqueror of Hell! The service of the Orthodox Church is a solemn, varied hymn to God the Savior, the Conqueror of sin and death and the Giver of shrines, resurrection, life and immortality. Every divine service is the triumph of grace in the saints of God over sin, death and the culprit of sin and death, the devil, the triumph of holiness, life and immortality over death and corruption, the triumph of the deification of men through the incarnate Son of God, through the Sacraments given by Him to His Church. The worship of the Orthodox Church is a priceless treasure of pious Christian souls, a source of purification, sanctification, enlightenment, consolation, health, renewal, strength and strength, deification, immortality; there is a heavenly life on earth, a community with God, the Mother of God, with all the heavenly Angels, with all the saints who have pleased God from eternity. How dear should the church be to a Christian after this! How desirable should be worship, this coexistence with God, the source of life and immortality, and with all the friends of God! What a sacred fragrance it contains (symbol - censer and holy ointment), what light (lamps, candles)! What angelic voices (singing)! During Vespers, the Lord repeatedly surprised me with His mercy in delivering me from invisible enemies, and after Vespers in church. And upon leaving the church, I angered the Lord with irritation at a large beggar who arrived at the port and asked for a Dutch shirt. I only gave thirty kopecks, but he said: not enough; I did not want to give and was angry at the request, referring to the many beggars, and wanted to take back thirty kopecks, and [...] drove him away; for this I was deprived of peace, subjected to confusion, oppression, sorrow, abandonment from grace; then he regretted that he had not given what he asked for, and wanted to give it. Thank God, he came, this petitioner, and gave him another fifteen kopecks, but the grief remained. I prayed strongly to God in repentance and hope, said in my heart: “Lord, let sin not boast of its abiding in me, but You, O Lord, remain in me always,” and the Most Merciful forgave my sins and immediately gave me peace, and I rejoiced and praised God, who saves and has mercy. Forgive me, Lord: I lied to my wife that I did not receive a council salary and pension. I repent. Again the Lord had mercy on me through the intercession of His Most Pure Mother, to whom I, unclean, begged, and I, disturbed by a small disagreement with my wife about [...] giving my wife to her sister, calmed down and was healed. During Vespers, the Lord showed His mercy in me, giving me great boldness in singing and saying the dismissal of Great Vespers; At the dismissal of Compline, he stole the words and the final litany, became embarrassed, having lost grace, but in repentance he fell several times to the holy throne, and the Lord gave peace. I thank the Lord, who cleansed me from bad thoughts and voluptuous feelings that began to overcome me at the Markovs’ while reading the article by St. Ephraim the Syrian. He looked to the Lord with the eyes of his heart in repentance, and the Lord cleansed the impurity and gave peace and boldness. Glory to Thee, Lord, Guardian of incorruption! Tuesday. Through the prayers of our venerable and God-bearing fathers Theodosius and Michael of Klopsky, have mercy on us, Lord! I thank the Lord for the victory of His grace in me over the forces of resistance and for the successful and gracious service of Matins and the Holy Moleben from Mikhail G. Verzin. Thanks be to the Lord for the victory of His grace over the attraction of fornication and for the taking away of this destructive attraction. After mass. The Lord Jesus Christ granted me an infinitely great deliverance just before the communion of the Holy Mysteries and after communion, destroying in me the most arrogant, fierce, violent, destructive of my soul and body, the devil’s anger against the reader Michael for one word Amen after the words Accept, eat, sung not in sequence, but with some delay; The adversary almost destroyed me, almost plunged me into the greatest powerlessness and shame, despondency and despair, almost made me voiceless. The Lord accomplished power in me - the power of redemption and deliverance from the mouth of this dragon in His name through the action of His life-giving Mysteries. Glory to the life-giving, redemptive, all-powerful Mysteries! After this wonderful deliverance, I read the prayers behind the pulpit with boldness and said the same way about dismissal. At the beginning of mass, the Lord also delivered me from the violence of the murderous enemy and gave me peace and silence. Glory to the Lord! Thanks be to Him for His unspeakable mercy! I think that because of yesterday’s gluttony and delicacy, the devil attacked me so brazenly and forcefully! Extreme moderation is needed! Six and a half o'clock in the evening. This very minute the Lord revealed in me the miracle of His mercy and salvation through a secret prayer of repentance in my prayer room. I went to bring the sick soldier’s daughter Akilina. When I was reading prayers before communion, my mother fell at my feet; I thought it wasn’t her, and I was angry for worshiping me, and at the wrong time, and I hurt myself. Then again, for the excessive services of providing clothes and shoes, he became angry and took all the ulcers for himself; at home he repented of impatience and grief, asking for mercy from the Lord; The Lord poured streams of life into my heart. Before that, at five o’clock in the evening, looking at a half-naked woman in the Niva, I was tempted, glaring at the charms of women, but now I woke up, resorted to repentance, glorified the Most Pure Artist and got rid of secret voluptuousness. After Vespers in a row and after intentional shortening of the service and silences, I received an ulcer in my soul from a fighter of the enemy, but I fell with a prayer of repentance to the throne of grace and was healed in soul and body. After the christening in the house [Latta] (near the theater) at three and a half o'clock in the evening, he was stung by demons for not pronouncing the final litany, exclamation, dismissal; He knelt to the Lord with a prayer for mercy and was healed. A necessary note. After mass there is no need to dine at home or at a party, as it was today that I had lunch at home: I ate two eggs, a plate of curdled milk with sour cream and a cup of broth and thus became satiated. It was difficult for me to baptize a child after high school in the [Latta] house; the heart is rough, powerless for prayer, subject to extreme temptations, like a leaf of a tree to the winds. Ten o'clock in the evening. I thank the Lord for the merciful deliverance shown to me in the apartment of Alexei D. Machigin through my secret prayer of repentance, may the Lord forgive me for my hard-heartedness towards the poor and anger towards them. The Lord had mercy, delivering my soul from all evil and confusion. I thank the Lord, who has now delivered me from the soul-dead movements of voluptuousness that arose from looking at a young female body. In the morning. I suffered a terrible storm, which outraged me to the depths of my soul, today during Matins, first because of grief at the beggars (fifteen people were waiting for food, men); gave two and a half kopecks to one and more to others (twenty kopecks for seven people); The Lord [quenched] this storm for my repentance and gave me peace and life; and another time the enemy worried me terribly because the strings of my long johns (pants) had come undone at the back: I was simply confused by this incident, as if by some real misfortune, I was embarrassed, but I decided to immediately correct the trouble, unbuttoned what I should have to the side and tied it, pulling off my long johns. Then he again began to seek and ask the Lord for peace - and he received it, although not suddenly, but by pushing and knocking on the doors of God's mercy. The Litany at the Midnight Office and at the beginning of Matins spoke vaguely, stealthily, without uttering many words. He spoke the Great Litany fairly, but not perfectly and with few omissions. He read the canon with the greatest animation, he spoke the small litanies quite well, the petitionary and the exhortation too, only the proclamation about the brethren and the upcoming people was hidden from the pressure of the enemy; Christ, the true Light... in the end he hid from the onslaught of enemies; vacation crumpled up from the same thing. Confusion, sorrow and crampedness; He saved himself from them by secret repentance and falling before the holy throne. On the way with the beggars I got upset; At home, through sincere repentance, I was delivered from cramped conditions and confusion by the grace of God. How quickly I sometimes become indignant at trifles! How weak and passionate I am! And how much power the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished in me - there is no number of miracles of His mercy and power in me, a sinner. The power of God is truly made perfect in weakness [2 Cor. 12:9]. After mass. I performed the current liturgy in an extremely unworthy and God-infuriating manner. At first I felt sluggish and insincere, in sorrow and crampedness, but then I prayed to the Lord, and He gave me peace. But before the great entrance, when removing particles from the prosphoras, I noticed that there were an extremely large number of them, so many that the Cherubic Song was sung not once, but several times, and I kept taking out the pieces, and the altar watchman was just putting them in, while I was in a hurry to get to the gymnasium for an early lesson; and so I began to be extremely annoyed and irritated by the multitude of prosphoras, and by the watchman, and by the work itself, by the liturgy itself, and, as it were, by the Bloodless Sacrifice itself and by the sacrifices being made. The devil is doing his job successfully in me and took such power over me that I could not overcome him during the rest of the liturgy, although I repented secretly and fell to the Holy Altar, I was in great confusion; took communion calmly; inside there was soreness, tightness, burning, embarrassment; barely read the prayers for communion; I read the prayer behind the pulpit in confusion, fear and cramped conditions and could not finish reading it; I stole my release, afraid to look at the people. I didn’t finish reading the Gospel at the prayer service. Shame, disgrace, fire inside. Trouble, and that's all. I barely calmed down while consuming the Holy Gifts. This is a consequence of yesterday's gluttony at the Machigins: grapes, tea, cream (drank a glass), a piece of bread with red fish - delicacy and satiety! And I was miserable all day. I lost the keys to my desk (to the drawers), although I haven’t lost them for eighteen years; anxiety in the evening. After Vespers, a beggar boy mechanic helped. Science: never rush forward while serving the liturgy, for there is nothing higher and more precious than it in the world, not only on earth, but also in heaven; send it willingly, humbly, patiently, reverently, with love for God and people; at the end of the service, do not indulge in gluttony, that is, do not worship idols, but maintain [dangerous 85] abstinence. In great anger at the drunken beggar (later I found out that he was very drunk), I tore his hair hard twice, throwing him to the ground. And I repented with all my heart of this great sin and I still repent to the Lord, asking for mercy, may this insolence, anger, impatience, zeal, love of money, hard-heartedness be forgiven, may the Lord God give me a new heart. Regarding the loss of the key to the writing desk and its drawers, I was very faint-hearted and lamented, so that at Vespers I could not say the litanies and serve the prayer service for Natalya L. Neustroyeva with her daughter-in-law (I could not read the Gospel of the Mother of God and did not finish [...]). This means that the heart has a strong attachment to earthly things and easily falls away due to the loss of them from God. However, I said in my heart: You are my treasure of life, an incorruptible, eternal, inexhaustible treasure. In order not to fall into despondency and cowardice from the incessant machinations of invisible enemies, or to maintain cheerfulness, or to get rid of sins and passions that overwhelm and stupefy the soul - how much grace, strength, mercy and help of God was always needed daily for this, without which it was impossible, as always impossible, to get rid of even one thought or feeling of unrighteousness and sinfulness! Glory to Thee, all-good, all-generous, all-righteous, cheerful, saving, all-powerful Lord! There is no number of Thy salvations, Thy life-giving blessings, just as there is no number of the destructive machinations of the enemy over me. Oh, how am I still alive even after so many years! I exalt You, exalted above all creation and surpassing all the iniquities of mine and the whole world and all the intrigues and dirty tricks of the evil enemy of man and Yours! Amen. January 13. Thursday. I thank the Lord for His many extraordinary powers of grace, revealed today during Matins in delivering me from the snares of ethereal enemies, and for the gift of peace, boldness, sincerity and zeal, for the triumph of the spirit in the service of God’s service. I thank the Lord for serving the liturgy without stumbling during the struggle against opposing forces and for the non-judgmental communion of the Holy Mysteries, for reading the prayer behind the pulpit, at which the adversary was previously deposed - the accuser and persecutor, the tormentor, the monster, and for the dismissal that was said without stumbling, with boldness. I thank the Lord for the powers of grace shown to me during the service of Vespers, during the speaking of the litanies, especially the petitionary and intense ones. Due to greed and satiety at dinner (meat cabbage soup, fried chicken, millet porridge), my heart became coarse and weakened, and it took a lot of effort of prayer and repentance to soften and strengthen it. The Lord is my being. He gives me life, breath and everything [Acts 17:25]: He gives me and all creatures to exist as one who exists forever and ever. This common wine of being 86 is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the Holy Trinity, Life-Giving, consubstantial and indivisible. The communicants of the Divine Mysteries, who receive communion every four weeks, and sometimes more often, are simple, poor people, living in labor, in daily church prayers and partly at home; they passionately love God and are devoted to the Holy Church, they respect and love their confessor beyond measure 87, extremely, and they are worthy of all respect and love as sincere members of Christ, as close 88 of God. I thank the Lord for his gracious and quick help in the service of Matins. In many ways, by the grace of God I defeated invisible enemies, but in many ways they also overpowered me because my heart had become numb and deadened by yesterday’s gluttony and drinking wine. My heart became so weak, dead that it was unable to contain peace and love for my neighbor, and I turned to sexton Mikhail Al. Bystryakov was secretly upset because of a trifle, because of the slightest discrepancy in the tone of his voice, because of the slightest touch of his hand or body on me; the sting of the devil’s malice, with its burning intensity and pressure, overthrew me, and I could not speak the litanies in which the spirit of God’s love breathes for all people, for the king and for everyone who is in power; I pronounced only the ends of the litanies very hastily, concealing the other words. Yesterday I was victorious by the grace of God over my enemies, because I behaved abstinently in the evening, but today they defeated me in many ways. But glory to the mercy of God, invincible by our sins: when I fell in repentance to the throne of grace, the Lord had mercy on me and granted both healing and peace. Grant me, Lord, love that endures everything, covers everything, and never falls away. (The altar watchman Procopius did not light the candles on the throne for the great doxology, and this upset me - and my job is to light the candles on the throne, not the watchman.) After mass. I thank the Lord for delivering me at the beginning of the liturgy from melancholy, lethargy and some kind of deadness and for reviving my soul, for abundant tears of tenderness, for communion of the Holy Mysteries, which revived me. But woe came to me from the ethereal villains before the reading and during the reading of the prayer behind the pulpit and until the end of the mass (I stole my leave in confusion of spirit). And after it there was a terrible, deadly struggle: I fought with hell, with death, I was in shame, disgrace. Every trifle upset me. In the end, the grace of God delivered me from the machinations of my enemies and revived me ([...] captain, headman). During the evening meal, from satiety at dinner, I experienced a grave temptation, relaxation and powerlessness of the heart in the fight against opposing forces; I could not speak the litanies, especially from the suffocating heat in the church. I was extremely nervous and embarrassed. The Litany at the Midnight Office, in opposition to the enemies, I shouted out loudly, so as not to give in to the silent enemies, who forced me to remain silent, to remain silent, when I should have spoken. Confessors and confessors. In the evening I visited Zakharia Iv., a tanner, and Olga Mikhailovna for tea. Saturday. A difficult struggle with opposing forces at the beginning of Matins at the Midnight Office: I could not pronounce the short dismissal due to the stumbling of the enemies, I did not say a word; During the Great Litany there was strong opposition from enemies, because of which I could not utter certain exclamations (... the honorable presbytery, the deaconry in Christ, about all the clergy...). The small litanies did not speak, except for the last one on the canon; he spoke the petitionary and urgent ones with difficulty. Christ, the true Light... sang, the release was said in full. God bless! I read the Rule for Communion to the confessors and confessors with tenderness, warmth, and sometimes fervently, with tears! God bless! I thank the Lord for help in serving the Liturgy and for abundant tears of tenderness, for the victory over sinful thoughts and hostile feelings, inflicted by the devil and exciting, bowing and captivating the soul, for the non-judgmental communion of the Holy Mysteries and for the spiritual children who fasted this week and arrived (some) from St. Petersburg. I thank the Lord for leading with dignity in grades (fifth and third) of the gymnasium. I thank the Lord, who surprised me, a living dead man at heart, with His mercy in Elena Al’s apartment. Nektarevskaya 89, a dangerously sick person, to whom I was accidentally called on business (signatures of metrics) and to whom I went reluctantly, with annoyance and murmur, without love and compassion (I am a damned man!) and came to the sick bed myself morally sick, powerless, killed by hell, a hypocrite, for I spoke insincerely with the sick person, restlessly, unloving, unsympathetic, formal. But then, at the sick bed, I realized my damnation, poverty, poverty, blindness and nakedness, my unwillingness to Christianly serve the sick woman, and it was fortunate that she decided to wait for the abbot and receive parting words from him, since he was called before me and only out of fear of an imminent death they hastened to call me to her. She decided to wait for the end of the all-night vigil, which Father Pavel served. And at that time, having left the sick woman’s bed, at her invitation to pray for her, I stood before the holy icons, began to secretly read prayers for the healing of her and myself, morally sick, and the revival of her and me, and let us weep bitterly for our countless sins, and when I cried with a sincere consciousness and feeling of my sins, I came to life, it became easy, easy for me, for the Lord took the burden of sins from me self-indulgence, laziness, lack of love, lack of sympathy and petrified insensibility, murmuring, annoyance, and I, having finished the prayer standing, then sat and prayed and cried, and these tears were sweet to me. I thank the Lord for everything His goodness has done in me! Sunday. After Matins and early mass. The Lord performed two greatest miracles of His power and mercy in me through the prayer of repentance during or before the beginning of Matins and before the beginning of Mass at the end of Matins, delivering me from the devil’s malice: firstly, against Paraskeva Ivanovna Kovrigina for offering to confess and give communion to her niece Yulia, ten years old (oh, insane malice! where can I rejoice that I will have communion with the Lord child, and I was saddened, afraid of the small labor of confession and separate communion of the Holy Mysteries). This malice deprived me of peace and tranquility, plunged me into hellish sorrow and oppression, I became the workman and playground of the devil, fear and horror attacked me, dishonor and shame. I became agitated and could not rest for a long (comparatively) time, until through deep repentance I bowed the Lord to mercy, and He delivered me from the violence and torment of Satan and gave me peace in the Holy Spirit. The second time the Lord delivered me from such anger towards the sexton Bystryakov because instead of the emperor’s many years, he sang “Lord, have mercy three times.” And then I again fell and got stuck in the snares and clutches of the devil, and again I became terribly agitated and fell into cramped conditions and torment. Only with sincere, persistent repentance did he beg the Lord, and he calmed down, and served mass peacefully, with feeling and with tears. I read almost the entire prayer behind the pulpit, thank God; stole my leave. I thank the Lord for deliverance and help at prayer services in the house of Leontyeva [...], Fomina [Malaya Ekaterininskaya] (fiancé’s Swedish), in Pavlovsky’s house during the funeral service for university student Evgeniy Dvoeglazov (reading the Gospel, he lost his way, did not read everything due to gluttony), at a prayer service with Fyodor Fedorovich Vasiliev in Tretyakova’s house, in the House of Diligence, at Marya Konstantinovna’s [letter guide], during the unction of Elena Al. Nektarevskaya, who died shortly after the unction. Oh, how weak and sinful I am to the point of despair. The enemy stumbles me at every step, hurts me, puts me to shame, kills my soul, makes me a byword among the people. Oh, if only I could defeat him with fasting and prayer and always triumph over him by the grace of God, always fervently glorify the Lord and the Most Pure Mother of God, the ranks of angels and the ranks of all saints! Wake up! I thank the Lord, who gave me the grace and strength to carry out the marriage in the cathedral (of Andrew and Anna) without stumbling, although with an almost constant struggle with evil demons. It took a lot of effort, and most importantly, the grace of God, to overcome the enemies. During worship in front of a large crowd of people, I suffer from a lack of self-respect and lose heart, I am afraid and trembling of the demons attacking me, and this is absurd in a priest. He must certainly have self-respect and a peaceful, even mood at all times, so as not to derail God’s work and not to confuse those ahead. Cowardice and timidity, cowardice in a priest is a grave sin; he must be an example of cheerfulness, boldness, hope, calm dignity for all those present in the church or in the homes of the laity of any religion and always hold high the banner of the Orthodox Church; to cover up his unworthiness with the highest dignity of Christ God, Whose image he bears, with His grace and mercy, for who is sinless among men? Nobody. He alone is holy, He alone is the Lord Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father. Therefore, have self-respect and dignity for the sake of the highest dignity of the priesthood, with the grace of which you are endowed, for the sake of the eternal High Priest of Christ, the Son of God. I thank the Lord, who revived me, killed by sin, during Matins and who gave me the grace with much power to read and sing the canon of St. Anthony the Great and before him the Mother of God. I thank the Lord, who showed me strong in my weakness during the early liturgy and strengthened me to complete the entire liturgy without stumbling and to receive life-giving communion of the Holy Mysteries. But the enemy terribly wounded me, catching me at the funeral service, which I stole and did not reprimand for fear of the demons. I jumped from the sting of Satan before the altar from extreme wounding. But the Lord heeded my repentance, my faith, my hope and delivered me from hellish torment. What an infinite difference there is between God's and Satan's dominion! What is peaceful, life-giving is terribly painful, painful, painful, deadening, numbing. I thank the Lord, who for the evening had mercy on me, killed by sin, and revived by His grace when I fell before the holy life-giving throne. Evening. Eleven o'clock. I thank the Lord, who saved me from secret anger towards the servant Anna for the fact that she locked the door with a hook when I left for physical needs and did not open it soon when I rang on my return. This was before the memorial service for Elena Al. Nektarevskaya, before whom the Lord delivered me for my heartfelt repentance of my sin, so that I had the greatest boldness in serving her. But when at the end I stole the wonderful words: The living and the dead were possessed, risen from the dead, by Christ, our true God, through the prayers of His Most Pure Mother, the saints and all-praised Apostle... the soul of His departed servant Helen from us... - I was seized by oppression and sorrow, and I repented secretly at the end of the requiem before the image [...], and the Lord took away my guilt from me and gave me peace. The greatness, holiness, life-giving, immeasurable vastness of the terrible Sacrifice of Christ is revealed already from the content of the first part of the liturgy - the proskomedia, in which the substance of the Sacrament of the Eucharist is prepared - bread and wine, or the Lamb of God, ever slain for the sins of the whole world and as a thanksgiving sacrifice for all the saints. Here the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of heaven and earth, appears at the right hand of the Lamb in the form of a triangular particle taken from the prosphora, in vestments gilded by the Holy Spirit and adorned [Ps. 44:10]; Behind Her they stand in rank in the form of the same particles: first, the holy Forerunner of God; behind him, secondly, the ancient prophets Moses and Aaron, Elijah and Elisha, David and Jesse, Daniel the prophet and other holy prophets; behind them, thirdly, the holy apostles Peter and Paul and the other holy apostles; fourthly, the saints of Christ Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom, Nicholas of Myra, Michael of Kiev, Alexei, Jonah of Moscow, Nikita of Novgorod, Leonty of Rostov and other saints; behind them, fifthly, the holy martyrs and martyrs; sixth, reverend men and wives; seventhly, holy unmercenaries; eighth, the holy righteous fathers Joachim and Anna and the saints of the day and, ninth, the saint whose liturgy is celebrated. This means that the terrible, universal atoning Sacrifice will be performed for them, that is, in gratitude to God for them, as having already been redeemed from the earth and made by the sacrifice of the cross and rejoicing in the heavenly, triumphant Church. Then her shepherds appear from the lower, militant Church: the saints, the honorable presbytery, the deaconry in Christ and all the brethren in Christ, called into the communion of the Lord by the grace of God; behind them is the purple-bearing son of the Church - the sovereign with his wife and children, and the entire reigning house, and all Orthodox Christians under the image of small particles of bread; the living are followed by the dead in faith and hope of resurrection into eternal life: this means that a universal, all-redeeming terrible Sacrifice is offered for all of them, that is, as intercession and propitiation for all of them, for all - for the living and the dead (male and female). What a great Sacrifice of God! How immensely vast it is! How many she redeemed, how many sins she covered, cleansed, and delivered! How many souls she has revived, renewed, sanctified, strengthened in the fight against sins, temptations, against fleshly and incorporeal enemies, how many souls she has deified, enchanted, ennobled, despoiled, immortalized, glorified! For how many countless souls of people living on earth and those who have already died, it is offered to propitiate the Lord God, to petition for their mercy and forgiveness or for their prosperity, health and salvation! What immeasurable vastness! What immeasurable love for countless people, living and dead, redemptively spreading, embracing everyone, redeeming, healing, enlightening, saving, renewing, saving, adoring! Oh, wonderful Sacrifice! Truly Divine Sacrifice! With what broad, all-encompassing love every priest should perform it! And we, the priests, are generally so self-loving, sinful, unclean, unzealous 90, earth-loving (passionate about earthly, perishable things)! O Heavenly King, Comforter, Soul of truth, Who art everywhere... Treasure of good things and Giver of life, come Yourself and dwell in us and cleanse us from all filth, so that we may worthily, with a pure heart, a heavenly mind and spirit, perform such a great Sacrament! Proskomedia is like a table of contents of the liturgy, a synopsis (review). Tuesday. After early mass. And today the Lord did wonderful mercy with me during Matins and especially early mass in the Assumption Church, delivering me from the destructive snares of the enemy and granting me with a spacious, peaceful heart to perform the Liturgy with tender tears and to partake of the Holy Mysteries without condemnation; I read the prayer behind the pulpit freely and with a warm feeling, solemnly, and said the entire dismissal, but at the funeral service I stole the dismissal for fear of the demonic, and for this I suffered grievously. But the Lord delivered by the power of His mercy during the consumption of the Holy Gifts. I thank the Lord, who twice brought me to understanding through His servant Elena Al, with great and life-giving benefit for me. Nektarevskuto: once during her illness, when I was called to give her communion and I was not morally ready, I went, cut off from the work, and came reluctantly, with annoyance, embarrassed, insincere, double-minded, hypocritical, for one thing was on the lips, and the other on the heart, in which there was no sympathy; she seemed to know and feel this and said that she would like to wait for Father Paul (the abbot), who had been invited earlier; I joyfully accepted this intention of hers and, at her request to pray, I went to the holy icons and began to pray for myself, for my sins, for my unpreparedness and sinful vanity, and for her healing. Tears of tenderness flowed like hail, and my heart was cleansed with them. I recovered mentally, calmed down, became a sharer of God’s grace, and for a long time afterwards I secretly prayed and cried, sitting on a chair, waiting for the end of the all-night vigil and the arrival of the rector, for whom both she and I were looking forward to. Finally, the elder came and calmly and warmly prayed for the sick woman; it was time for parting words, and I left. Another time, at her tomb during a cathedral requiem service in the church in the evening, I stood cold and listless, but I thought about the deceased, how she lived in poverty and toil, how all her spiritual ones, including me, abandoned her, did not visit her, how she was patient and enduring in poverty and illness - and I shed tears, felt sorry for her, and condemned myself bitterly, but this attracted the grace of God to me, this heartfelt contrition and pity, and I, having shed tears, calmed down. I thank the Lord, who made me worthy to celebrate the liturgy in the Assumption Church without condemnation. At the very beginning of it, at the Proskomedia, sin tripped my spiritual feet with a strong thought of gluttony, as in the cathedral at the beginning of Matins, it made me an orphan, alienated from God, cold and dead, but the Lord gave me the light of repentance and tenderness, and I was pardoned and received blessed peace. So sin or its culprit the devil intensifies every day, hour, minute to orphan, remove, alienate us from God through worldly passions and make us his food and prey. You need constant attention to yourself, sobriety, constant repentance, and unceasing prayer. Before and during the celebration of the liturgy, one must always have a complete, clear and separate understanding of it, especially a pure heart, filled with unfeigned, all-encompassing love for everyone, especially love for God the All-Creator, Provider and Redeemer of the world. It is extremely necessary to be wary of and avoid earthly addictions, hostility, bitterness, greed, love of love and covetousness, lust and love of fame. I thank the Lord, who showed me His quick help against the deceit of demons when reading prayers to the mother Volkova in labor at six and a half o’clock in the evening. He knelt before the image of the Savior in secret prayer - and immediately received deliverance, peace, freedom, and boldness. I thank the Lord, who showed me His wonderful mercy many times today during the liturgy in the Assumption Church, when my ethereal enemies mortally wounded me: first, at the end of the proskomedia (deliverance was given at the beginning of the liturgy of the catechumens before the small entrance), then at the great entrance (deliverance was given through secret prayer and application to the holy altar before the end of the litanies, [beginning] Let us fulfill our prayer to the Lord...), then after the dismissal of the liturgy (the enemy was overcome by some unpleasant smell from the watchman Nicholas or from the deacon Nicholas, which suddenly overwhelmed me), then after the funeral service, which I did not speak for fear of the devil’s dismissal - the first half. Here I shivered and jumped away from the sting of Satan, but the Lord delivered me from the jaws of the hellish dragon through the prayer of faith and repentance. Ten o'clock in the evening. Christ God was gloriously glorified in me by His immeasurable mercy after a prayer service at the tanner Zakhar Ivanovich Sidorov, saving me after a secret fervent prayer of repentance from bitter anger towards the most pious old maid Paraskeva Ivanovna Kovrigina for her frequent blessing and kissing my hand and for her, therefore, great zeal and love for me and faith in God. I have sinned, evil and senseless, and I often respond to love with hostility and malice towards those who love me with excessive love and reverence for me (Paraskeva Ivanovna Kovrigina, before the prayer service, came up to be blessed and kiss my hand, having already been at the blessing several times earlier today). The devil is extremely caustic, embarrassing and oppressive to me with his anger towards her; during the service of the prayer service he stopped the flow of thoughts and feelings of faith and prayerful speech, I could not say much. I turned to the Lord with a fervent prayer of repentance, and He bowed down to mercy and delivered me from my evil disposition and granted peace and righteousness; another time the Lord delivered me from bitterness [...] and the reproach of beggars (sluts) in the apartment of Gregory Al. Machigina before the prayer of the mother in labor according to my secret kneeling prayer. The third time the Lord delivered me from new cramped conditions and sorrow, when I was returning from Machigin to the church yard, he gave it to the poor (seventeen people two kopecks, one five), again he treated them proudly and harshly - and lost his peace, but with tears he repented of it and soon received forgiveness with the longed-for peace. I begged the Lord extremely convincingly, asking to add mercy to mercy, longsuffering to longsuffering, kindness to kindness, redemption to redemption, and I, I say, will add thanksgiving to thanksgiving, praise to praise, compunction to compunction, feeling to feeling, knowledge to knowledge. The cruciform raising of hands by the priest during the Cherubic Song signifies both the Trinity and the passion of the Cross of the One Christ from the Trinity according to His humanity, for at this time His suffering, death and burial are remembered. Upon leaving the altar, with an imperious, fatherly gaze, quietly look at those present and say a heartfelt, quiet prayer or litany. I thank the Lord for the wonderful help during the celebration of the liturgy in the Assumption Church, for deliverance from the enemy’s painful, deadly snares, especially after the memorial service for the deceased relatives of Father Deacon Nicholas (Olga, and Ioanna, and Evgeniy), whom he remembered all of them and gave me to commemorate, it seemed at the wrong time. I was upset with him and for that I was punished by the teeth of the all-evil devil. Only through repentance was I delivered through the Cup of the Blood of God. Woe to me that on a Lenten day I ate a quick broth - passions overcame me, especially anger at Paraskeva Ivanovna Kovrigina with the most acute torment, and at the beggars who were chasing me (“You’re a log,” I said to one) at the fourth officer’s wing. Rescue then at home in the yard, after another insolence with beggars, then in the apartment of Paraskeva Ivanovna Oleinikova. I am amazed at the greatness of the Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ, at its holiness, wisdom, comprehensiveness, at the immeasurable love hidden in it, at its redemptive power, which can cleanse every sin of those who sincerely repent and partake with faith, at the eternal life hidden in it, at the power of God that idolizes us mortals, at its miraculousness. O Lord Jesus Christ! You are all here, we see you, we touch you, we feel you, we feel you here. Every day the church is fragrant with the spiritual aromas of the various virtues of the holy saints of God, every day it teaches immortality and eternal life and every virtue to us, the children of the Church of God, redeemed at the price of the blood of God from eternal damnation and eternal death. Woe to me, that I have not yet been crucified to the flesh and the world and [have not begun to live] not for myself, but for the Lord, who died for me and rose again, who lives forever and ever and protects His faithful for ever and ever. How many fierce passions rise up in me and separate me from the Lord, from His wonderful, Divine, righteous, carefree life! How many ulcers on the soul, torment, and demonic deceits because of friendship for the flesh and the world! How pitiful I am that I have not yet acquired simplicity, non-covetousness, gentleness, and at the same time I have not acquired the only life treasure - God in my heart, but have acquired a countless dead treasure of 92 sins, from which may Christ my God deliver me. Saturday. I thank the Lord, who has given me the grace to enthusiastically read the canons of the Octoechos and Menaion and to sing the stichera on the Mervenna verse, filled with the greatest sweetness. Thank you for the gift of tearful tenderness during the liturgy and for my non-judgmental communion of the Holy Mysteries and for the same communion of some lay people, women and men, after mass. I thank the Lord for the gift of tearful tenderness during the all-night vigil in the Assumption Church and for the victory over the wiles of the devil, especially after the end of the all-night vigil, when the bodiless enemies fiercely wounded me, confused me, and put me to shame while saying the prayer to Christ, the True Light. I fell to the holy throne in repentance and hope, and the Lord healed my sores. Thank you for the victory over the movement of passions. Sunday. I thank the Lord for the victory of the sign of the cross and the name of Christ over the unclean movement in the body, aroused by the unclean when one girl was thrown at my feet with a request to come to her for a spiritual conversation; I thank the Lord for the abundant tears of tenderness during the reading of the canons and the akathist to the Sweetest Jesus, the akathist to the Most Holy Theotokos and the canon to the holy Guardian Angel. After late mass in the Assumption Church and prayer services. This day was extremely difficult for me after a long sleep in the morning! He served Mass with difficulty, although with tears of tenderness; During the Cherubic Song, invisible enemies persecuted, crushed, pursued me with fierceness, suppressed, brought despondency, cowardice, shame, although I did not commit any special sin, and bitterly repented of those I had done before. Received life-giving communion. I didn’t read all of the pulpit from the devil’s crampedness; He preached the sermon well, but under pressure from the enemy. Vacation was stolen from the decline and narrowness of the spirit. The prayer service in the church was served with difficulty due to [persecution] of the devil. I didn’t finish reading the Gospel. He served prayers with Pyotr Andreevich Zabegaev (with betrothal), Kromido and Krasovsky with terrible difficulty; The precious cross was extremely unpleasant: because of it, my enemies do not give me peace. During the service, he became confused due to embarrassment and cramped conditions, unable to pronounce the Gospels, litanies, prayers, and exclamations. At the end of the prayer service at the Krasovskys, I knelt in secret prayer for the victory of God’s mercy over the malice of my enemies and my passions, and the Lord won and gave me peace. God bless! I didn’t go for a walk before mass. At Volkov’s (Mikhail Vasilyevich) christening it was extremely difficult to say prayers, especially praises to the Holy Trinity: the enemy was extremely opposed; I shouted prayers and litanies with all my might in order to overcome the annoying demons. And they were impudent towards me because of my gluttony and satiety. The reading in the House of Diligence about the alms of the holy righteous martyr Cyprian went well with his life: I read with calm animation. May God grant you to put all the words of the great father and teacher of the Church on your heart. On the night of January 24, a dream: he was summoned to the metropolitan and received a reward - a precious cross made of multi-colored stones; the bishop spoke kindly; I didn’t want to take the cross, I said: I have it, but he said: take this one, it’s assigned to you. Then I look - my cross has turned into a large one, like an altar cross, erected against the wall and occupying the entire wall, and I think: it will be the decoration of my home, an object of reverence. Soon he woke up. What relation does it have to reality? Monday. Having breakfast today with black grouse with black bread and one thick egg, I spoiled myself terribly for the whole day: cramped conditions, weakness all day long; At Molchanov’s christening, he spoke prayers, exclamations and litanies with incredible difficulty and barely performed the Sacrament. I, a fifty-three-year-old man, should never eat in the morning. I thank the Lord, who is merciful and long-suffering to me, for delivering me from the sorrow, distress and shame that befell me righteously for the rude expression of my anger at one youth, who strongly pestered me with a request to help him with money, while I was not sure of him. With anger, he pushed him hard at the sixth officer's wing on the very corner, in sight of the people crowding in both directions. [...] I soon went and repented to the Lord in secret, and He had mercy on me in the apartment of the old widow Catherine, who was constantly in the church. Tuesday. I thank the Lord for the clear, loud, strong voice (from the good wine of the Markovs and grapes, apples) and for the spiritual pleasure from singing and reading church, for the humble and submissive spirit of the eighth grade students, who were previously somewhat proud, free and reasoning. I thank the Lord for the peaceful, free service of prayer at Stepanov (Paul) with an akathist to St. Nicholas, for help at the christening at Gregory Machigin. Today is early mass in my cathedral for Father Paul. Help, Lord! In the evening, the wedding of officer Shebarin with […]. Last night I was extremely worried about the temptation of fornication. I think from sweet tea and soft-boiled eggs with black bread and butter (with black bread). Tea was also the cause of poor sleep and nervousness. Avoid sweets and very nutritious foods - eggs, meat. An unclean demon in the evening, in my first sleep (eleven o’clock), approached me with temptation (nee Evgenia Nektarevskaya) and almost drew me into sleepy adultery: I managed to wake up and now got up, got dressed and began to pray for repentance and from the defilement of the devil. After an early mass from Vladimir D. Nikitin, the cathedral elder and the mayor of the city. Due to my satiation the night before at home (black bread with butter, a soft-boiled egg, sweet tea), mass was a terrible test for me today: I could not get rid of the tightness inside, the excess of vital juices and the subsequent tightness of my heart. I was outraged by every trifle: the guard of incense put a lot of incense in the censer, the sexton absurdly sang the canopy of the law from the notes... and soon sang it (instead of the sacrament), the funeral troparia of the Holy Face of the Saints, you have found the source of life... he sang at first very slowly, and then soon, generally nervously, the second requiem did not want to serve - all this upset me. I was in extreme confusion, cramped, tormented, made various convulsive movements, almost cried and gnashed my teeth from the devil’s torment - alas! - even after communion of the Holy Mysteries, for he was upset with the sexton and received communion unworthily; I read the prayer behind the pulpit in confusion, violence and crowding from the devil loudly, rarely, [barely] read it, standing at the holy throne; he stole the leave and crumpled it up; The requiem service was served in embarrassment and cramped conditions, with the words of exclamations and dismissal subdued. After consuming the Holy Gifts, I calmed down with the grace of the redemptive Mysteries of the Body and Blood of the Lord. This is what it means to be satiated with homemade black bread and butter! My meal was a snare for me and a temptation and a reward for me. It would be better for me to go and read edifying articles by the Markovs for the benefit of them and me: I wanted to go and got ready, but changed my mind - and it turned out badly. But I thank the Lord for deliverance from terrible misfortune and misfortune through the use of the Holy Gifts. How much and what kind of repentance, faith, hope, prayers, tenderness, tears, cries were needed! My God! Saturation leads to such terrible, disastrous consequences! And before, in ancient years, I experienced this from black bread, eaten at night! Thursday. I thank and glorify, I extol and praise the all-good, all-powerful, benevolent Lord Jesus Christ, who showed me His quick help before the wedding (Shebashov) and during the wedding in delivering me from the wiles of the devil - from timidity, embarrassment and fear, from dumbness and shame, with which Satan was so apparently trying to overthrow me. The Lord sent down to me streams of the grace of the Holy Spirit, encouraging, strengthening, pacifying my unclean heart, and although not quite all the prayers and well-wishes laid out in the Trebnik, I spoke out from the violence of the invisible enemies, who every second were strengthening to overthrow me, but still I loudly and strongly glorified the Lord in prayers and sincerely read, with sincere wishes for the newlyweds to receive the blessings of the Lord. After mass in the Assumption Church on January 27. I thank the Lord for the mercy of deliverance during Matins in the cathedral (Father Alexander served) after my long, repeated secret prayer and touching the Holy Altar (only for the magnification of St. John Chrysostom was I freed from the stings of the serpent). Sorrow and distress befell me after writing down the wedding money, fifteen rubles from Shebashov. I thought: the brothers have been dealt a hand, and they took the money for themselves, and I write everything down in a mug; the priest brethren work less, but receive either more (rector), or on an equal basis with me (Father Klepachevsky, my junior) - and some annoyance took over me; Through this I lost peace and freedom, but I repented sincerely and begged the Lord to grant me forgiveness and peace. During mass in the Duma Church (nine o'clock), the Lord had mercy on me many times, freeing me from crowded conditions at the beginning of the Liturgy of the Catechumens (after an unsuccessful start), after the Great Entrance and after the dismissal before the consumption of the Holy Gifts. It’s all because of cowardice and fear of demonic torment: I seem to be afraid of Deacon Poletaev, I don’t know why. The Holy Mysteries miraculously revived me. Thursday. I thank and extol the Lord Jesus Christ for the almighty and quick help He showed me during the service of Vespers with Compline during the saying of litanies and dismissals. Evil demons before Vespers and during the reading of evening prayers greatly intimidated and weakened my heart with various sinful dreams, but by the grace of God, with intense secret prayer and invigorated spirit, I overcame them, strenuously and loudly, slowly pronouncing offerings or petitions. And how easy and joyful it was for me after the victory of God’s grace over the wiles of the demons in me! Oh, grant me, Lord, perfect boldness, perfect victory over ethereal and fleshly enemies! I thank the Lord for his help in Varvara Semyonovna’s [Shishmareva] apartment and at his janitor’s (I was upset [...] that they called me at the wrong time, because I was going to see the sick, but I sincerely repented, and God changed my heart). When I look into the depths of my many-passionate heart, oh, how many mental idols I find there, how many passions, how many other gods except (besides) the true God! How much selfishness, how much hope for earthly blessings, and not for God! How much self-love, self-adoration and pride, voluptuousness, love of money, stinginess, love of things, how much envy, ill will, lack of sympathy, lack of compassion, gloating, malevolence, coldness and indifference towards the poor towards one’s own and others, how much rancor, malice, irritability, blasphemy, murmuring, despair, impatience, laziness and negligence, disobedience, uncleanness and abomination of heart, lack of faith, cowardice, fear, fear of demons and humans, evil, unrighteous joy, false shame, insincerity, hypocrisy, partiality, lies, deception, wickedness, absurd suspicion, madness, pettiness, tyranny, frivolity, nasty, crafty, absurd, blasphemous thoughts, condemnation, reproach, intemperance, greed, waywardness, stubbornness, arrogance, guttural rage and drunkenness, hard-heartedness, unpeacefulness, grumpiness, quarrels, concealment, infidelity! He did something crazy - he drank sweet tea and a bun and spoiled himself, burdened himself. O slave of the womb, idolater! When will you stop overeating?! How long will you not [dangerously] maintain abstinence and fasting? Lord, have mercy on me and help me! After Vespers. I thank the Lord for the miracle of His mercy and Divine power in me, which delivered me, a pathetic and unfortunate prisoner of the passions of this world (I was embarrassed during a prayer service because of a new fur coat, fearing that it would be stolen), after I, in terrible cramped conditions and shame from the defeat of the devil, bowed my knees before the Lord in repentance (after a prayer service badly performed in confusion and mortification hearts) and soon received from Him forgiveness, protection, protection, deliverance, peace, freedom and boldness (from Vasiliev, [commissar] of the seventh crew) at the Summer Garden. After the terrible, destructive demonic storm, I calmed down completely and sat at Vasiliev’s table with a sound soul. I was in first grade at the gymnasium. I thank the Lord for the new greatest mercy in the church during Vespers, when I brought to the Lord sincere repentance for hardness of heart and stinginess towards the poor, of whom there were very many and to whom I gave very meager alms reluctantly, carelessly, 93 hostilely, arrogantly. The Lord accepted my heartfelt repentance and revived me, deadened by sins, and I solemnly sang the vespers stichera. God bless. I was in extreme anxiety and languor yesterday before the wedding in the Duma Church; There were a lot of people, the bride and groom did not come to church for a long time, and my invisible enemies kept nagging me all the time - an hour before the wedding, an hour during the wedding. But it was then that the mercy of the Lord and His power came to my aid in response to the invocative and repentant cry of my heart; I felt every now and then streams of grace descending into my poor soul, which cooled me, calmed me, consoled me, enlightened me. But impudence, demonic malice, cunning appeared to me here in terrifying proportions: every careless word of mine or someone else, every extraneous thought not about God - everything irritated me to the extreme according to the action of the devil: I was as if in an oven, or I was, as it were, in demonic disgrace, before their formidable tribunal. When I read the betrothal and wedding prayers, I was in extreme confusion and mental shock; I began to read the first prayers - and immediately [commas came] from the demons: they do not allow me to pronounce praises to the Holy Life-Giving Trinity, glorified forever and ever. Apart from three or four (there are up to sixteen) doxologies, I did not pronounce a single one as it should: the all-evil and vile demons will tear you out of your mind, from your heart, from your lips, and you are left with extreme shame and a feeling of your terrible powerlessness, shameful powerlessness; every trifle leads to embarrassment: the end of the sleeves of a rather dirty shirt sticks out from under the sleeve of the cassock - and trouble, and embarrassment, and shame for me! What pettiness, what vanity, what vanity! As if it were shameful, dishonorable, that the shirt was somewhat dirty, what would people, especially the female sex, think or say; and every now and then, in embarrassment, I hid the ends of my shirt sleeves, and, as if on purpose, they came out! It serves me rightly to feel shame and torment! Let me pay attention to the essential, and not to the empty - to mental shortcomings and their correction, and not to material, material ones. Due to extreme demonic impudence, I did not finish the marriage prayers and well-wishes, starting with the well-wishes “Be magnified to the bridegroom... And you, bride, be magnified... then the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit... bless you... and then other prayers to the end, and stole the dismissal. Not only strangers, but also my own people - and the deacon - instilled in me some kind of fear, as if I were fighting a horde of demons. We ended the wedding in embarrassment, broken by demonic slander, irritated, embittered, but in grief and spiritual hope, I fell diligently to the holy throne of grace, praying that the goodness of God would overcome all my sins and infirmities and heal me, and that the demons would not boast about their malice and wickedness - and the Lord had mercy on me and healed me, pacified me, consoled me, and led me into a quiet haven. Glory to His invincible mercy! But with what greed and malice, with what cunning, with what constancy, the enemies seek my shame, my loss of spirit, my destruction! With what vanities, nonsense, passions, sins they beset me! Away with material living! Away with loveliness and vanity! Because of you, all my troubles come from demons. Yesterday was a fast day, and I greedily ate the fast meat soup, and it relaxed my soul, I can feel it. In the war against demonic hordes, one must constantly diligently observe and prepare for the performance of the Sacraments by fasting and vigil with prayer. The storms of demons have that advantageous side, by the grace of God, that they sober the soul from the intoxication of various passions, cleanse and clarify the spiritual atmosphere and strengthen the soul in faith and trust in God and in the fight against passions, in hatred of all sin and in love for all the truth of God. Morning. After giving communion to a sick inspector at customs. They called me to give communion to this patient; I went extremely reluctantly to correct the need, and my heart sank. I turned to repentance for violating the main law of God - love, for violating the whole law, condemned myself sincerely, asking the Lord for forgiveness and deliverance, change or healing for the sick, ailing dislike, laziness, self-indulgence, disobedience to my damned heart, and the Lord forgave, healed, reconciled on the way to the sick one. But the patient’s apartment turned out to be unprepared and malfunctioning; I again became upset, and again immediately repented fervently to the Lord, and again received forgiveness, healing, and calmly completed a series of prayers of confession and communion of the Holy Mysteries, having changed my heart towards everyone. Glory to the benevolent and merciful Lord, who has not shut me up in the hands of the enemy. In the evening, having come at eight o’clock in the evening to the birthday boy Vasily Frolovich (in the house of Gorbunov) and Lyubov Nazarovna, I was at first upset at the multitude of people who came, but now I humbled myself, repented of malice and contempt, asking the Lord to change my heart, and He did and fulfilled the request. I thank the Lord, who in the end made me the conqueror of the arrogant villains, adversaries, evil spirits, who confused me, weakened my heart and tore out the last words of the Sunday Gospel when reading it at Matins, then did the same with me when saying the Sunday dismissal, which I had crumpled up from embarrassment and relaxation, paralyzed by the enemies of the heart, and when saying the prayer to Christ, the true Light. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from the oppression of the enemy after the great entrance to the liturgy and who gave me tenderness and tears during the celebration of the Sacrament, deliverance after the words First remember, Lord... and after the dismissal of the liturgy, especially after the requiem. I thank the Lord for his help during the service of prayer services, during which demons violently attacked me and did not allow me to pronounce exclamations, praises, Gospels and dismissals; I thank the Lord, who showed help during the wedding, especially during the prayer service and betrothal at Al. D. Machigin, before whom I secretly prayed to the Lord and received strength, grace and peace from above. Monday. The Mother of my God received all the good things from God, and the darkness is all good things that are impossible to utter. How can I and every person (for everyone has received everything good from God through Her) not honor and love Her and not bring Her silent songs of praise and thanksgiving? Who is there with such a stony heart who would not feel Her mercies over him? But, O Mother of God, enlighten our heart’s eyes and feelings, so that we can see rationally and feel Your mercies and blessings on us, and so, glorifying You, the Most Pure One, we may live purely in all the days of our lives. Wake up! Ten o'clock in the morning. Put things, especially those you need, in their place every day, and not just anywhere, so that otherwise you don’t have to look for them and waste time that could be used profitably. On the morning of February 3, I anxiously searched for a textbook on the history of the Old and New Testaments and barely found it: it was put in the wrong place. Var (Church Slavic) – heat, fire, boiling water; boil - dry, burn, boil. Like (church-glav.) – like, like. Metropolitan of Moscow Philaret (Drozdov; 1782–1867), saint. Memory November 19 (December 2). The centenary of his birth was celebrated. Dangerous (Church Glav.) – carefully, carefully, carefully. Wine (Church Slavic) – cause, source. Preizlikha (Church Glorious) – strongly, very. Prisny (Church Slavic) – close. Elena Alekseevna Nektarevskaya is the widow of Archpriest Vasily Kuzmich Nektarevsky, who was rector of the cathedral in 1850–1857 before Father Pavel Trachevsky. Pre-zealous (Church Slavic) – striving for the bottom, creeping, low. Not to anyone (church glory) – no more, no longer. Treasure (Church Glav.) – here in the meaning of “reserves, collection.” Negligently (church glory) - disdainfully.