A word about death

Addition to the “Word on Death” → “Let you remember the day of your departure from the land of Egypt all the days of your life” (Deut. 16:3). Death is a great mystery. She is the birth of a person from earthly temporary life into eternity. When performing the mortal sacrament, we lay aside our gross shell - the body, and as a spiritual being, subtle, ethereal, we pass into another world, into the abode of creatures similar to the soul. This world is inaccessible to the gross organs of the body, through which, during our stay on earth, feelings operate, which, however, belong to the soul itself. The soul that leaves the body is invisible and inaccessible to us, like other objects of the invisible world. We see only when performing mortal mysteries the breathlessness, the sudden lifelessness of the body; then it begins to decompose, and we hasten to hide it in the ground; there it becomes a victim of corruption, worms, oblivion. So countless generations of people died out and were forgotten. What happened and is happening to the soul that has left the body? This remains unknown to us, given our own means of knowledge. Death is incomprehensible to man and is revealed to him by God The hidden mystery is death! Before people were illuminated by the light of Christianity, for the most part they had the most crude and false concepts about the immortality of the soul; the greatest sages of paganism only inferred and guessed about it. However, the heart of fallen man, no matter how dark and dull it was, constantly felt, so to speak, its eternity. All idolatrous beliefs are proof of this; they all promise a person an afterlife - a life either happy or unhappy, according to earthly merits. It is necessary for us, short-term wanderers on earth, to know our destiny in eternity. If, during a short wandering here, our concerns are focused on eliminating everything sad from ourselves and surrounding ourselves with everything pleasant, all the more should we be concerned about our fate in eternity. What does death do to us? What awaits the soul beyond the limits of materiality? Is there really no retribution for the good and evil committed by people on earth arbitrarily and involuntarily? Is there really no such reward, while evil on earth for the most part prospers and triumphs, and good is persecuted and suffers? It is necessary, it is necessary for us to reveal the mystery of death, and to see the afterlife of a person invisible with bodily eyes. The mystery of death is explained to us by the word of God, and through the action of the Holy Spirit it is even made accessible and open to feelings purified and refined by grace: “The Holy Spirit,” said the Apostle Paul, “tests the depths of God,” not only human ones (1 Cor. 2:10). Death is the separation of the soul from the body, united by the will of God and again separated by the will of God. Death is the separation of the soul from the body as a result of our fall, from which the body ceased to be incorruptible, as it was originally created by the Creator. Death is the execution of an immortal man, with which he is struck for disobedience to God. By death, a person is painfully cut and torn into two parts, his components, and after death there is no longer a person: his soul exists separately, and his body exists separately. And the body continues to exist, although we see that it is destroyed and turns into the earth from which it was taken: it continues to exist in its very corruption; it continues to exist in decay, like a seed in the ground, awaiting a secondary union with the soul, after which it will no longer be untouchable by this visible death. The bodies of God’s special chosen ones resist corruption, being abundantly imbued with the grace of God, and in the very shadow of death they reveal the beginnings of their glorious resurrection. Instead of a stench, they emit a fragrance; instead of spreading deadly infection around, they spread healing for all ailments, they spread life. Such bodies are both dead and alive - dead by human nature, alive by the presence of the Holy Spirit in them. They testify in what greatness and holiness man was created by God and that this greatness, this holiness was returned through redemption. While the body has fallen asleep in the sleep of death, what happens to the soul? The Word of God reveals to us that our souls, after being separated from their bodies, join - according to the good or evil qualities they acquired in earthly life - to the Angels of light or to the fallen angels. With the angels, by their nature, they constitute one category of beings, dividing according to quality, like them, good or evil, assimilated by free will to nature, in the primitive state of immaculate and holy. We find indisputable evidence of this in the Holy Scriptures and in the writings of the Holy Fathers. The Lord promised the repentant thief an immediate transfer of his soul from the cross to heaven. “Amen, I say to you,” He said to him, “today you will be with Me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). The sufferer, the beggar Lazarus, after his death, was carried by the Angels to a section of heaven called Abraham’s bosom, and the deceased merciless rich man, who had fun during his earthly life “all the days of light,” was cast into hell (Luke 16:19–31). The souls of the righteous, separated from their bodies, enjoy bliss in heaven awaiting the resurrection of their bodies, as the occultist John the Theologian narrates (Apoc. 6:10, 11); in hell, in terrible torment, sinners await him (Apoc. 20:13). When the trumpet of resurrection sounds, then paradise will present the inhabitants of heaven for a glorious union with their bodies, which will come to life from the voice of the Son of God (John 5:25), as the four-day-old and already stinking Lazarus heard this voice and came to life; hell will present its dead for the Last Judgment and final sentence. After the pronouncement of the sentence and its fulfillment, the bliss of the righteous will increase; sinners will return to their hell for greater torment (Ps. 9:18). The Lord announced the state of the righteous after the resurrection that they “are like the angels of God in heaven; Announcing His second coming and the Last Judgment, the Lord said that then He would say to the righteous standing at His right hand: “Come, blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world”; and to the standing sinners he says: “Depart from Me, the curse, into eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angel” (Matthew 25:34, 41). And it is certain that the reward of both the righteous and sinners is very different. God's justice will reward each person “according to his deeds” (Apoc. 22:12). Not only are there countless heavenly abodes, according to the testimony of the Savior, but hell also has many different dungeons and various types of torment: he who sins in knowledge “will suffer many punishments”, who sins in ignorance “the punishments will be few” (Luke 12:47, 48). Christians, only Orthodox Christians, and moreover, those who have spent their earthly life piously or who have cleansed themselves of sins through sincere repentance, confession to their spiritual father and self-correction, inherit eternal bliss along with the bright Angels. On the contrary, the wicked, i.e. non-believers in Christ, wicked, i.e. heretics, and those Orthodox Christians who spent their lives in sins or fell into some mortal sin and did not heal themselves through repentance, will inherit eternal torment along with the fallen angels. The Patriarchs of the Eastern Catholic Church in their message say: “The souls of people who fell into mortal sins, and did not despair at death, but even before separation from real life repented, but did not have time to bear any fruits of repentance, such as: prayers, tears, kneeling during prayer vigils, heartfelt contrition, consolation of the poor and expression of deeds of love for God and neighbors, which all the Catholic Church with from the very beginning recognizes it as pleasing to God and beneficial - the souls of such people descend to hell and suffer punishment for the sins they have committed, without, however, losing the hope of relief from them. They receive relief through infinite goodness, through the prayers of priests and charity performed for the dead, and especially through the power of the Bloodless Sacrifice, which in particular the priest brings for each Christian for his relatives, and in general the Catholic Apostolic Church offers for everyone every day” 1 . “The death of sinners is cruel” (Ps. 33:22), says the scripture, and for the pious and saints it is a transition from the rumors and turmoil of everyday life to unshakable peace, from continuous suffering to continuous and never-ending bliss, a transition from earth to heaven and union with a countless host of holy Angels and a countless host of holy men. In the insatiable contemplation of God and in the unceasing burning of love for Him lies the highest and essential pleasure of the inhabitants of heaven. The Monk Macarius the Great discusses this subject as follows: “When the human soul leaves the body, then some great sacrament is performed. If she is guilty of sin, then hordes of demons and opposing angels and dark forces will approach her and kidnap the soul into their region. And we shouldn’t be surprised by this, as it were, extraordinary thing. If a person, while still living in this age, submitted to them, obeyed them, and became their slave, much more so when he comes from the world, he is captured and enslaved by them. Also, on the contrary, in relation to a better state, it should be understood: the holy servants of God are still preceded by Angels, and the holy spirits preserve and surround them. And when they are taken from the body, the angelic faces, having received their soul, take them to their country, to the world of shrines, and bring them to the Lord” 2. The very fact that human souls are destined for the same place of residence, the same pleasure and the same execution with the angels serves as an indication that souls are creatures in every way similar to angels. This is obvious from the above words of the Lord, who said that righteous people after the resurrection are similar and equal to Angels. Angels appeared to the ancient righteous Abraham, Lot, Jacob and others in the form of men, and the righteous did not suddenly realize that those who appeared to them were not human, but incorporeal. After the Resurrection of Christ, the Angels appeared to the Myrrh-Bearing Women in the form of men clothed in shining white robes (Luke 24:4; John 20:12); At the ascension of Christ, they also appeared to the Apostles in the form of men dressed in white clothes (Acts 1:10). The Holy Fathers often saw Angels as bright Belorians, and demons as black, ugly Ethiopians. The Lord, after His resurrection, suddenly stood in the midst of the Apostles, who were together in the upper room. The apostles were afraid, believing that they saw a spirit; but the Lord reassured them by explaining the difference between the manifestation of the spirit and His appearance in the glorified body. “Why are you troubled,” He said to them, “and why are thoughts entering your hearts? See My hands and My nose, for I myself am: touch Me and see: for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see Me having” (Luke 24:38, 39). It does not say that the spirit has no form. It is not enough: it is left to recognize that spirits, i.e. angels and souls have a form; it is only said that they do not have flesh and bones, which the body of Christ preserved in its glorified state. The Christians of Jerusalem expressed their concept, the concept that spirits have a form, recognizing as the spirit the Apostle Peter, seen by the young woman Rhoda, who was miraculously delivered from prison. “His angel is” (Acts 12:13–15), they said. Saint Macarius the Great says that angels have an image and appearance, just as the soul has its own image and appearance, and that this image, the outer appearance of both the angel and the soul, is the image and appearance of the outer man in his body 3 . The same saint of God teaches that angels and souls, although very subtle in their essence, nevertheless, for all their subtlety, are bodies. They are subtle, ethereal bodies, since, on the contrary, our earthly bodies are very material and gross. The gross human body serves as clothing for the subtle body - the soul. On the eyes, ears, hands, feet, which belong to the soul, similar members of the body are put on 4. When the soul is separated from the body through death, it takes off it, as if it were clothing. Saint Macarius says that the most perfect of Christians, purified and enlightened by the Holy Spirit, see the image of the soul, but it is very rare among Saints to achieve such perfection and vision 5 . This great Father claims that for those who pray the prayer of the Spirit, the soul sometimes leaves the body during prayer by a special incomprehensible action of the Holy Spirit 6 . And in that age in which the Great Macarius flourished in the desert of the Egyptian Skete, in the age of high monastic asceticism, very rare among the holy monks were vouchsafed to see the image of the soul; the rarer they are now. But even now they meet, by the great mercy of God and by the false promise of the Lord Jesus to remain with His faithful disciples until the end of the age. According to the personal testimony of such a chosen one of God, who suddenly saw his soul through the abundant grace-filled action of prayer, emanating from the body and standing in the air, it is an ethereal, very subtle flying body, having the whole appearance of our gross body, all its members, even hair, its facial character - in a word, complete resemblance to it. Not only were the powers of the mind and heart with the soul, but all life was with it, and the body remained on the chair, as if dead, like cast-off clothes, until, by the will of God, the soul returned to it as incomprehensibly as it had incomprehensibly left it 7 . Angels are similar to the soul: they have members, a head, eyes, mouth, breasts, arms, legs, hair - in a word, a complete likeness of a visible person in his body. The beauty of virtue and God's grace shine on the faces of the holy Angels; this character is imprinted on the faces of the most virtuous Christians. Desperate malice constitutes the character of the fallen angels; their faces are like the ugly faces of villains and criminals among people. This is what those who have seen the angels of light and the angels of darkness will tell. The angel and the soul are called incorporeal, just as those who do not have our flesh are called spirit, as subtle beings, completely different from the objects that make up the material world. This is what they are called in ordinary human language, and in the Holy Scriptures, and in the writings of the Holy Fathers 8 (Joshua 10:12): their substance is incomparably finer than the substance of earthly objects that we see. In our ordinary state of fall, we do not see spirits, but we feel their influence on us if we lead an attentive, pious life. The gracious, living, mental sensation of spirits is their spiritual vision 9 (1 John 5:18). Wind, air, various gases and vapors are usually called, and even in the Holy Scriptures and Fatherly Scriptures, spirit. Thus, the Lord likened the action of the Holy Spirit to the action of the wind; the wind in this place of the Gospel is called spirit 10 (says the Lord), taking example from the breath of the sensual wind.” Chapter 3 of the 15 chapters above. But in its own, precise sense, there is only one God – Spirit. He, as an all-perfect Being, is completely different in His nature from the nature of creatures, no matter how subtle and perfect they may be, compared to other creatures. There is no being one-natural to God! And therefore, besides God, there is no other spiritual being by nature, 11 and again: “a spiritual body is sown, a spiritual body is raised” (1 Cor. 15:40, 44), which clearly indicates that only God is incorporeal.” Interview 7, chapter 13. The Monk Cassian is honored by the Holy Orthodox Church in the ranks of the holy saints of God (his memory is February 29), he is blasphemed and ranked among the semi-Pelagian heretics by the papists because at the beginning of the 5th century he denounced the Romans for apostasies, for which they were later convicted by the Sixth Ecumenical Council, and in fact proved that Christianity is incomparable more fully developed in the East than in the West. The works of the Monk Cassian were published, with lengthy commentaries, by the Jesuit Allard Gazey. The publisher shares the dislike of his sect towards the Reverend, criticizing his holy work in many places. He also criticizes the opinion of the Rev. that spirits are subtle bodies (Sobes. 7, chapter 13, note b, and Sobes. 8, chapter 12, note a). Allard calls this opinion a paradox (a new, strange teaching) and extravagance, and contrasts this opinion with the generally accepted opinion, as he calls it, that angels are completely incorporeal, completely spiritual, immaterial. Criticism that in itself does not deserve any attention! Unfortunately, some of us also participate in the dark and vague opinion of the Jesuits and Western speculators regarding the incorporeality of created spirits. The Holy Scriptures and the Holy Fathers constantly call them disembodied and immaterial, but they are called this way only in relation to the rough human bodies and the rough material world, and not at all in relation to God - the one Spirit. One God is completely Spirit. Angels, both holy and fallen, are subject to time and space. The concept of subordination to space is inseparable from the concept of subordination to form. Having rejected the concept of the subordination of angels to space, one must either completely reject their existence, or recognize them as limitless, i.e. attribute to them the omnipresent Divine. Only two indefinite quantities - nothing and infinity - do not obey any form; On the contrary, every definite quantity, no matter how great or small, certainly has a form, by its very definiteness. Having agreed that angels are limited, it is necessary to accept that they, in relation to space, have a form, and in relation to the subtlety of nature they have a certain degree of this subtlety, i.e. inevitably they are bodies, no matter how subtle these bodies may be. The form of a limited being is certainly outlined, so to speak, by its very limits, its extremities; the creature thus depicted has its own appearance. The Infinite is not subject to any form as it has no ending in any direction; for the same reason it cannot have any form. “God is nowhere to be seen” (John 1:18). An infinite being cannot be a body, because it is subtler than any most excellent subtlety, it is completely spirit. Such a Spirit - a Being incomparable with any created being, a single being in the exact sense - is God. Not only the Monk Cassian was of the opinion that angels have subtle bodies, but also all those saints of God who were honored to see the Angels of light face to face and saw the angels of darkness. Many of them suffered severe beatings from demons (for example, Anthony the Great); others, having received power from God, beat the fallen angels (see Life of St. Andrew, October 2, Life of St. Martyr Juliana, December 21). How could this happen if the fallen angels were completely incorporeal, as the Western writer says about them? On the contrary, their obvious struggle with the Saints can only be explained by accepting that they have subtle bodies. Allard says that the reverend fathers of the Egyptian Scete borrowed the idea of ​​​​the subtle corporeality of spirits from the Greek philosopher Plato (Collatio 7, cap. 13), but the great Macarius, the founder of this Scete, as above, argues that knowledge of the subtlety of the being of the soul, and therefore of spirits, is hidden from the wise of the earth, and is delivered only by the Holy Spirit. The doctrine of created spirits, accepted by the Russian Church and the entire Eastern Orthodox Church, is set out, although briefly, very clearly and definitely in the Dogmatic Theology of the Orthodox, Catholic Eastern Church, which, according to the definition of the Holy Synod, serves as a teaching guide in Russian seminaries. “They (spirits), it is said in Theology, are incorporeal. However, the Holy Fathers understand the incorporeality of angels in a limited sense, namely, that they are incorporeal only in comparison with us, clothed in coarse and heavy flesh. Saint John of Damascus says: an angel is called incorporeal and immaterial in comparison with us. For everything, in comparison with God, the only incomparable one, turns out to be crude and material. The Deity alone is immaterial in the strict sense. They are invisible. However, this property is also accepted by the Fathers in a limited way: an angel, a soul, a demon, says Saint Damascus, although they do not have physical coarseness, they also have the appearance and limitations inherent in their nature. One Divine being is indescribable, completely formless, unimaginable and unlimited." Ch. 97, p. 95 and 96, ed. 7, 1857. “The Spirit is God” (John 4:24), “make His angels spirits and His servants scorching fire” (Heb. 1:7), - God became man, in order to “infuse” fire (Luke 12:49) into our hearts, mortified by sin and frozen from sin, to make us through union with Him with flame and spirit, inaccessible to corruption and the devil. Fallen angels and the souls of rejected sinners are alien to true life and true spirituality 12. The future homes of souls correspond to their nature, i.e. their ethereal nature. Eden, or heaven, corresponds to this nature, and hell corresponds to it. In addition to spiritual pleasure and the inner kingdom of the holy soul, which is revealed in it from here as it is purified, it is placed in a country and monastery, which befits the abode of a soul awarded by the grace of God with eternal bliss. A sinful soul, rejected by God, is not only tormented by its conscience and its state of rejection, but is also imprisoned in a terrible underground prison called “hell, tartarus, hell,” where it is subjected to fierce torment that can torment its ethereal nature. All this is said in the Holy Scriptures, and is revealed by the Holy Spirit, according to His election and discretion, to people worthy of such a revelation, a revelation that is most beneficial to the soul. Often, when we want to carefully examine any object of the visible world, we choose a convenient place for ourselves, from which the object could be more satisfactorily seen and examined: we do this not because the object itself needs it, but because we need to help our limitations. It would not be superfluous to choose a decent mental place for yourself in our current consideration. We will unmistakably find this place and stand on it when we see and realize our insignificance among the vast universe, the insignificance of our means for acquiring knowledge, the insignificance of knowledge itself, the need, the urgent need, even for self-knowledge, in Divine Revelation. We see neither heaven nor hell with our sensual eyes; but what do we see with them? What do we see with them - I don’t say in the world of spirits - what do we see in this very sensory world, which we call with such confidence the visible world? We see in it only the smallest part of objects, nothing in comparison with the whole. Both the telescope and the microscope convict us of this, our sense of smell and touch convict us, which sense gases invisible to the eye, and thereby reveal their existence, hidden from sight; space incriminates us, limiting and obstructing our gaze with a narrow, constantly changing horizon; exposes the impenetrability of the earth and many other objects on its surface; What exposes us is the limitation, the extreme limitation of our vision, which is unable to see a single object in its true form, 13 unable to see gases by their thinness, unable to penetrate coarse objects by their density, even unable to see one side of an object without the other side or many sides being hidden. What do we see from visible nature? - its most insignificant particle!... And we consider our habit of the limitations of our vision to be complete and satisfactory vision. From the knowledge of our limitations, the knowledge of humble and faithful, let us reverently direct the gaze of our minds to those objects that are hidden from our coarse feelings, but are revealed to us by the mercy and grace of God. God-seer Moses, describing the creation of the world in the Book of Genesis, says that at the same time the Lord planted a “paradise of sweetness” in the East (Genesis 2:8), where he placed the first two people, the ancestors of the human tribe. “And the Lord God took man whom he had created, and brought him into the sweet paradise to make and keep him” (Gen. 2:15). According to this story, the Lord testified, as was said above, that the kingdom of heaven was prepared for people from the foundation of the world. The forefathers transgressed the commandment of God in paradise; after the crime, they suddenly changed in soul and body, and became incapable of staying in holy paradise. Then God, says the inspired Writer of Genesis, “expelled” man “from paradise, and cast him out” onto the earth, “and infused” them with “the sweetness of paradise” (Gen. 3:23–24). The words “straight from the sweetness of paradise” lead to the idea that earthly nature is similar to paradise in its beauty and reminds it of fallen man. When we see the splendor of our exile - the earth, we involuntarily exclaim: this is Paradise! This expression was also used by the Holy Scriptures for the most fertile country of Sodom before its transformation: it was likened to the paradise of God (Gen. 13:10). Moses, the seer of God, depicts paradise as a most graceful and extensive garden (Gen. 2:9). This is exactly how many saints of God in the New Testament Church saw heaven. This is how it really is: but its substance and nature are subtle, correspond to the nature of its inhabitants - spirits, and therefore are inaccessible to our feelings, coarsened and dulled from the fall. When a person who was originally its guardian was expelled from paradise, then the duty of the guardian of paradise was assigned to the Cherubim (Gen. 3:24); the soul of the thief who confessed the Lord on the cross was placed in paradise (Luke 23:43); the souls of many Christians who were worthy of salvation are placed there: this explains the property of the heavenly nature. Saint Macarius the Great speaks of people who have acquired heavenly wealth: “They are known by their fellow citizens, i.e. the spirits of Saints and Angels, and they say with surprise: our brothers who are on earth have acquired great wealth. They (these earthly brethren of the celestials), upon departing from this world, having the Lord with them, go with great joy to the heavenly inhabitants; those who dwell with the Lord receive and take them to the abodes prepared for them in advance (houses and hills, in Greek parádeiso_s, gardens, paradise in the plural) and place precious and famous garments on them” 14 . St. Gregory of Sinaite, referring to those who saw paradise and spoke about it, says that it is the lower heaven, that it is filled with fragrant gardens planted by God; that the trees of these gardens are constantly covered with flowers and fruits; that in the middle of paradise a river flows, watering it and dividing into four branches 15. The Holy Scriptures also mention this river; “The river,” it says, “comes out of Eden and leads to paradise; from there it is divided into four beginnings” (Gen. 2:10). The Holy Prophet David also remembers the water “above the heavens” (Ps. 149:4). The place of heaven is determined by the Holy Scriptures “in the east”. In this direction is heaven in relation to earth. The Monk Theodora said that after she left her body, she and the Angels accompanying her set off to reach the heavenly abodes to the east 16; the great saint of God Simeon Divnogorets saw paradise in the east 17; in the east the Monk Euphrosyne of Suzdal saw him in her wondrous vision 18. Orthodox churches are being built to the east; Orthodox Christians turn to the east during their prayers: the bodies of the dead are placed towards the east - “straight to the sweetness of heaven.” To those for whom the definition of the area of ​​paradise by the saying of Scripture “in the east” remains unsatisfactory, we answer with the words of St. Gregory of Sinaite: “It is the custom of Scripture to tell stories about those who have hitherto been perplexed simply and without much effort” 19 . The Apostle Paul was caught up to paradise, and then to the third heaven - “whether in the body or apart from the body we do not know,” he says, “and heard there inexpressible verbs, which a man should not speak” (2 Cor. 12:3-4). The nature of paradise, the splendor of heaven, the abundance of gracious bliss there so exceed everything graceful and pleasant on earth that the holy Apostle, to depict what he saw in a sacred frenzy, used the following expressions: “Eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and the heart of man has not sighed, what God has prepared for those who love Him. But God has revealed it to us by His Spirit” (1 Cor. 2:9–10). These words of the Apostle contain a sad truth: the fall of man is so deep that in a state of fall he can no longer receive by himself any concept of his lost bliss; his sin-loving heart lost all sympathy for spiritual pleasure. But these words, denouncing the disastrous state of the fallen and remaining in his fall, at the same time proclaim the joyful truth: the renewal by the Holy Spirit of those people who, by faith and repentance, entered the spiritual tribe of the New Adam, our Lord Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit, having entered into a person, destroys the kingdom of sin in him, destroys the invisible internal struggle and disorder, establishes the peace of Christ, producing such spiritual pleasure that the heart, intoxicated with it, dies to sympathize with sin, and begins to constantly abide with God and in God. Having established the kingdom of God in man, the Holy Spirit often elevates his worthy servants to worldly lands, to abodes prepared for the righteous for their eternal holiday. Many of God's saints were raptured into paradise, from it they penetrated into heaven, into the heavens of heavens, to the very Throne of the Lord, surrounded by fiery Seraphim and Cherubim. These eyewitness accounts of heaven agree. So the Monk Simeon of Divnogorsk saw wonderful gardens in paradise, saw there the soul of the forefather Adam and the soul of the robber, the first of men brought by the God-man, after redemption, into paradise 20. Of the visions of the Holy Fathers known to us, who were spectators of paradise, the vision of Saint Andrew, Christ for the sake of the holy fool, who remained supernaturally for two whole weeks in contemplation of the invisible world, is set forth with particular clarity and detail. He told his companion, Priest Nicephorus, the following about this vision: “I saw myself in a beautiful and amazing paradise, and, admiring the spirit, I thought: what is this?.. I know that I live in Constantinople; I can’t understand how I ended up here. I saw myself dressed in the brightest robe, as if woven from lightning; a crown was on my head, woven from great flowers, and I was girded with a royal belt. Rejoicing at this beauty, marveling with my mind and heart at the indescribable beauty of God's paradise, I walked around it and had fun. There were many gardens with tall trees; they shook their tops and delighted the sight; a great fragrance emanated from their branches. Some of the trees bloomed constantly, others were decorated with golden leaves, others bore various fruits of indescribable beauty and pleasantness. It is impossible to compare those trees to any tree on earth: God’s hand, and not man’s, planted them. There were countless birds in these gardens: some of them had golden wings, others were white as snow, and others were variously spotted; they sat on the branches of the trees of paradise and sang beautifully; from their sweet singing I did not remember myself - my heart was so delighted; and it seemed to me that the voice of their singing reached even to the heights of heaven. Those beautiful gardens stood in rows, like regiment against regiment. While I walked among them with gladness of heart, I saw a great river flowing among them and giving them water. On the other bank of the river there was a vineyard, whose vines, decorated with golden leaves and golden clusters, spread widely. Quiet and fragrant winds breathed there from four countries; from their breath the gardens shook and made a wondrous noise with their leaves” 21. Similarly, the Monk Theodora told about the paradise monastery of the great saint of God Basil the New, that she was filled with glory and saw many golden-leaved and prolific gardens. Saint Theodora was shown heaven in detail by the Angels who guided her. “And I saw,” she said, “beautiful villages and numerous abodes prepared for those who love God, filled with glory and grace. Those who led me showed me separate apostolic monasteries, separate prophetic monasteries, separate martyrdoms, separate monasteries of each order of saints. Each monastery was of indescribable beauty, in breadth and length, one might say, similar to Constantinople, but incomparably beautiful, with many bright chambers not made by hands. Everywhere in those monasteries the voice of joy and spiritual joy was heard, and the faces of those celebrating were visible. Everyone, seeing me, rejoiced at my salvation, came out to meet me, kissed me, praising the Lord, who delivered me from the snares of the enemy." 22 We repeat: earthly nature serves only as a weak image of paradise, the beauties of which are imperishable, indescribably graceful, and filled with sacred peace and grace. The earth, after the sin of our forefathers, was cursed by the Creator, and constantly expresses this curse in its turmoil and its disorder. Then it fluctuates and swallows up whole cities and towns; then its fierce waters come to the surface and destroy entire countries; then storms pass through it with a whirlwind, lightning, thunder, hail, leaving destruction in their wake. Humanity living on it is in a constant struggle, both private and public, representing a vast spectacle of varied suffering, incessant labor, countless sins, terrible crimes, Babylonian pandemonium. Virtue barely finds a cramped and sorrowful shelter on it. An inexorable and insatiable death walks through it and constantly destroys human generations, which the law of reproduction, established for the human race by the Creator, replaces with new generations. And she will walk and reap people until she herself perishes along with the collapsing world. The animals inhabiting the earth have rebelled one against the other, mercilessly destroying each other. The elements themselves are in irreconcilable hostility and continuous struggle among themselves. On earth everything fights, everything suffers, everything strives for mutual destruction. What terrible and continuous confusion! What a widespread and violent clash! It is inconspicuous or unnoticeable to those who always participate in it; but from the solitude and silence of the monastery it is obvious to the wanderer, whom God has infused with “straight paradise sweetness,” for incessant sighing and lamentation about him 23 . If the land cursed by God, the land that is our exile, a land of disasters, deceptions, atrocities, death, doomed by God to be burned (2 Pet. 3:7, 10), has its beauties that delight us, then what should be the paradise prepared by God for His beloved for eternal home and enjoyment? The carnal “eye” does not see, the carnal ear does not hear, and the heart, occupied only with sensuality, “does not go away from what God has prepared for those who love Him. God has revealed to us food by His Spirit.” Saint Andrew was caught up not only to heaven, but, like Saint Apostle Paul, to the third heaven. Following the above story about paradise, he continued his story as follows: “After this, horror attacked me, and I felt that I was standing above the firmament. A young man with a face like the sun preceded me. I followed him, and behold, I saw a beautiful and great Cross, looking like a rainbow. Around him stood singers as fiery as flames and sang a sweet song, glorifying the Lord crucified on the Cross. The young man who preceded me, approaching the Cross, kissed it and gave me a sign to do the same: I fell to the Holy Cross with fear and great joy, and kissed it diligently. While I kissed him, I was filled with indescribable spiritual sweetness and smelled a greater fragrance than in heaven. Having passed the Cross, I looked down and, seeing an abyss under me - because it seemed to me that I was walking on air - I began to get scared and cried out to the one who was guiding me: I’m afraid that I might fall into the depths! He turned to me and said: “Don’t be afraid, we must ascend higher,” and gave me his hand. When I grabbed his hand, we found ourselves above the second firmament; I saw wonderful men there, and their peace, and the joy of their holiday, unutterable by the tongue of man. After that, we entered a wonderful flame that did not scorch us, but only enlightened us. I began to be horrified, and again the one who led me turned to me and gave me his hand, saying: “We must ascend even higher.” With this word we found ourselves above the third heaven, where I saw and heard many Heavenly Powers singing and praising God. We came before a curtain that shone like lightning, in front of which stood terrible, great young men, like a fiery flame; their faces shone brighter than the sun, and in their hands there were fiery weapons; Countless numbers of the heavenly army stood around with fear. The young man who led me said to me: “When the veil is removed and you see the Lord Christ, then bow to the throne of His glory.” Hearing this, I trembled and rejoiced; I was seized by horror and inexplicable joy; I stood and watched until the curtain was lifted. A certain fiery hand took it away, and I saw my Lord, like Isaiah the Prophet once, sitting on a high and exalted throne, surrounded by Seraphim. He was clothed in a scarlet robe, His face shone with an indescribable light, and He turned His eyes towards me with love. Seeing Him, I fell on my face before Him, worshiping the bright and terrible throne of His glory. What joy then overwhelmed me from seeing His face is impossible to express, so even now, remembering this vision, I am filled with indescribable sweetness. I lay in awe before the Lord, marveling at His great mercy, which allowed me, a sinful and unclean man, to come before Him and see His Divine grace. I was filled with tenderness, reflecting on my unworthiness and considering the greatness of my Master, repeating within myself the words of the prophet Isaiah: “Oh, accursed one! For I have been deemed worthy, this man of unclean speech, to see my Lord before my eyes!” (Isa. 6:5). And I heard that my most merciful Creator spoke to me with His most pure and sweetest lips three Divine words, which so sweetened my heart and kindled me so much with love for Him that I completely melted like wax from the action of spiritual warmth, and the words of David were fulfilled over me: “My heart was like wax melting in the middle of my belly” (Ps. 21:15). Then all the armies sang a wondrous and ineffable song. After that, I don’t know how, I found myself walking in heaven again. The thought came to me that I had not seen the Lady Most Holy Theotokos: and now I see a certain man, as bright as a cloud, wearing a cross and saying to me: “Did you want to see the Most Holy Queen of Heavenly Powers here? Now She is not here. She went into a poor world to help people and console the grieving. I would show you Her holy abode, but now is not the time: you must return to where you came from, as the Lord commands.” “When he said this, it seemed to me that I fell asleep sweetly; waking up, I saw that I was in the same place where I was before.” From this vision of Saint Andrew it is clear that paradise is the heavenly abode closest to earth, or the first heaven, above which there are other heavens, sung by the spirit-bearing David, who calls them “the heavens of heavens” (Ps. 149:4) 24. In these heavenly abodes now dwell the souls of the righteous, in accordance with their dignity; the righteous will be caught up to these heavenly abodes, after the union of their souls with their bodies by resurrection “to the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:17). The rapture from earth and the taking of Adam to paradise, redeemed and returned to the human race by the Savior, will be repeated over them. Their holy bodies, not only their souls, renewed and recreated by the God-Man, will be made capable of such rapture and ascension to heaven as the body of the primordial man was capable of it 25. The vision of Saint Andrew, as well as all similar visions of other saints of God, serves as proof and explanation of the above opinion of Saint Macarius the Great, that angels and souls have their own appearance and image, and that this image is the image of the external man. The image of both the body and the image of the soul are so similar that Saint Andrew did not clearly understand whether he was raptured in the body or outside the body. Let us cite his own words, as they are conveyed by Priest Nicephorus in his lengthy biography. “I saw myself,” says Saint Andrew, “as if without flesh, because I did not feel the flesh.” Next, the Saint will tell about the clothes that he was wearing, and he will count his bodily members. Returning to the explanation of his condition, the Saint said: “Apparently I was in the body, but did not feel any bodily burden; I did not feel any bodily need during the entire two weeks during which the admiration continued. This leads me to believe that I was without a body. I don’t know how to say with certainty: God, the knower of the heart, knows this with certainty.” The saint saw Angels in the form of bright men and youths. He talked with them. The Angel who led him shook hands with him several times; The angels standing before the curtain had the image of tall, menacing-looking young men, with flaming weapons in their hands. Talking about the Angels, counting their members: face, eyes, hands, feet, as if trying to explain their very nature, the Saint said that they are incorporeal bodies, or, according to the understanding of our time, gaseous. Saint Andrew saw the structure and nature of the heavenly abodes, corresponding to their disembodied inhabitants, incomparably superior to everything that a carnal man knows and can imagine, nailed to the earth, not renewed and not educated by the Holy Spirit, and therefore unable to penetrate the mysteries of the future age. Hell 26 is located in the interior of the earth. God, pronouncing a decree on Adam during his expulsion from paradise, first calculated earthly executions for the transgressor of the paradise commandment, then announced that Adam would be subjected to these executions until he returned to the land from which he was taken. “You are earth,” the Lord said to him, “and you will return to earth” (Gen. 3:19). It is not said here that he will go to the ground with one body: the pronounced sentence for those who dare to rebel against God is more terrible than what it seems to an easy, superficial glance. 27 The righteous of the Old Testament, as is obvious from the Holy Scriptures, constantly recognized the bowels of the earth as the place of hell. “I will go down to my son, lamenting, into hell” (Gen. 37:35), says the holy patriarch Jacob, when they brought him false news about the death of his beloved son, Joseph. “Leave me a little,” the righteous, long-suffering Job begs God from the midst of the temptations that surrounded him everywhere, “before I even leave, I will never return, to a dark and gloomy land, to a land of eternal darkness, where there is no light, lower than the belly of man can be seen” (Job 10:20–22). The God-inspired legislator of the Israelites, Moses, announcing to the people the wrath of God against Korah and his accomplices, said: “If these die the death of all people, and if after the presence of all people they are visited, then the Lord will not send me an ambassador. But the Lord will clearly show, and the earth will open its mouth, and I will devour their houses, and their booths, and all their trees, and they will go down alive into hell... And when all these words ceased, - the Scripture continues to narrate, - the earth became gray under their feet... and they went down alive into hell" (Num. 16:29-35). The prophet David sang to the Lord: “Your mercy is great upon me, and You have delivered my soul from the lowest hell” (Ps. 85:13). When the soul of the holy prophet Samuel was summoned by a sorceress, at the request of King Saul of Israel, for a meeting about the upcoming battle with enemies, the sorceress, seeing this soul, said: “I saw an old man rising from the earth, and he was clothed with a long robe: and Saul knew that this was Samuel” (1 Sam. 28:14). The prophet Isaiah tells Satan: “You will go down to hell and to the foundations of the earth” (Is. 14:15). In a similar way, the Prophet Ezekiel expresses himself about the fallen angel on behalf of God: “he will lead him into hell with those who descend into the pit, and for his comfort in the next earth all the trees of sweetness... descend with the trees of sweetness into the depths of the earth” (Ezek. 31:16, 18). The Prophet called the fallen angel Pharaoh and likened him to a tree of sweets; other angels, carried away by the main fallen angel into destruction, are also likened to sweet trees, according to their state before the fall. The same place for hell is determined by the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament. Announcing the descent into hell with His soul and the Divinity inseparable from it, the God-Man said: “The Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights” (Matthew 12:40). Explaining the words of the Savior, Blessed Theophylact of Bulgaria says that the Lord fulfilled this prediction of His, “descending into the underworld to hell.” The Lord, in the words of the holy Apostle Paul, “descended into the lowest parts of the earth” - according to the Russian translation: “into the depths of the earth” (Eph. 4:9), and in the words of the Apostle Peter: “to those in spiritual prison he came down to preach” (1 Pet. 3:19). “The deified Soul of Christ,” says Saint John of Damascus, “descends into hell so that just as the sun of righteousness may shine for those living on earth, so for those sitting under the earth in darkness and the shadow of death, the light may shine.”28 In the 14th catechism of St. Cyril of Jerusalem we read: “Our Lord Jesus in the Gospel said: “As Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights: so shall the Son of man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights” (Matthew 12:40). Looking at the story of Jonah, we find in it an action very similar to the action of Jesus. Jesus was sent to preach repentance: and Jonah was “sent” (Jonah 1:2–5). But he fled, not knowing the future: Jesus voluntarily came to saving repentance... Jonah was thrown into the belly of the whale: Jesus descended willingly to where the mental whale was, so that death would spew out those devoured by it, according to what is said in Scripture: “I will deliver you from the hand of hell, and I will redeem you from death” (Hos. 13:14). Jonah prayed from the belly of the whale, saying: “I cried out in my affliction, and my cry came from the belly of hell” (Jonah 2:3). He said this while still in the whale. But while in the whale, he said about himself that he was in hell: because he was a pre-image of Christ, who was about to descend into hell. A little further, prophesying very clearly, he spoke on behalf of Christ. “My head is in the clefts of the mountains” (John 2:6). If he was in the belly of a whale, then what mountains are there? I know this, he replies; but I serve as the image of the One who will be laid in a hewn stone tomb. While at sea, Jonah says: “He went down into the earth, even its faith was sealed for eternity” (Jonah 2:7), because he bore the image of Christ, “who descended into the earth” 29. In a similar way, Saint Epiphanius of Cyprus indicates with all clarity and certainty the location of hell in the interior of the earth, describing in his word on Holy Saturday the salvation of men by the God-man. We place this word here with a few exceptions. “Why is there so much silence on earth? What does this silence and great silence mean? Great silence: the king fell into sleep. The earth was afraid and fell silent: because God in the flesh fell asleep. God in the flesh fell asleep, and hell was horrified. God fell asleep for a short time, and raised up those who slept from ancient times, from Adam. Now is salvation for those who are on earth, and from time immemorial for those who are under the earth, now is salvation for the whole world, both visible and invisible. Now is the special coming of Christ, a special providence, a special visitation to people: God comes from heaven to earth, from earth to earth. The gates of hell are opening, and you who have slept from eternity, rejoice. Those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, receive the great light: the Lord is with the slaves, God is with the dead, Life is with the dead, the light of the evening is with those who are in darkness, the Liberator is with the captives, He is above the heavens with the underworld. Christ is among the dead: let us go there with Him, that we may know the secrets of this country, that we may know the mystery of God under the earth, and understand the miracles of the Lord; Let us learn what kind of preaching the Lord preaches to those in hell, and what authority he commands to those who are bound. Come out, he says, you who are in darkness, and be enlightened: come out, and arise, you who lie down. And I command you, Adam: wake up and sleep. I did not create you so that you would remain bound in hell: rise from the dead. I am the belly of men and the resurrection. For you, your God was your son. For you, I, your Lord, took on the form of a servant. For you I am above the heavens, I came to the earth and under the earth. Get up and get out of here. Arise, go from here: from darkness to eternal light, from suffering to joy. Arise, go from here: from slavery to freedom, from prison to the heavenly Jerusalem, from bonds to God, from underground to heaven” 30. During the solemn services of Great Saturday and Holy Easter, the Church, celebrating and chanting the salvation of people by the God-man who suffered for us, who trampled death through death, who crushed the gates and rivets of hell, who resurrected humanity in Himself and with Himself, expresses with particular clarity its opinion about the location of both hell and heaven. The Church does not actually engage in research about where hell is and where heaven is, but when praising the Lord and speaking about hell and heaven, it necessarily, albeit in passing, expresses its opinion about their place, speaks about it as a generally known subject. The majestic hymn at Matins of Great Saturday, after the reading of the Six Psalms and the Great Litany, begins with two deeply touching and at the same time elegantly poetic troparions, of which in the first the burial of the Lord is sung, in the second His descent into hell. “The noble Joseph took down your most pure body from the tree, wrapped it in a clean shroud and put it in a new tomb.” - “When you descended to death, Immortal Life, then you killed hell with the brilliance of the Divine, and when you raised those who died from the underworld, all the powers of heaven cried out: Life-Giver Christ, our God, glory to Thee.” - After this, all the clergy, and in monasteries the entire brotherhood, go out with lighted candles into the middle of the church, stand in front of the shroud and begin to proclaim the so-called Church Charter praises to the Lord, connecting them with the verses of Psalm 118. From these praises we write down those in which it is most clearly mentioned that hell is inside the earth. “Thou hast gone under the earth, the Light-bearer of righteousness, and raised up the dead as if from sleep, driving away all the darkness that is in hell” 31. - “Contain the earth with your hand, mortified by the flesh, now contained under the earth, delivering the dead from hellish contents” 32. - “You came down to earth to save Adam, and you didn’t find him on earth, Master, you even descended to hell, look for him” 33. - “Oh, this joy! O many sweets, you filled them in hell, shining a light in the depths of darkness” 34. - “You have come down by your will, O Savior, under the earth, you have revived slain people, and you have raised them up in the glory of the Father” 35. - “Having listened to the Word of Your Father, You descended even to hell, and You resurrected the human race” 36. - “Thou didst go underground, having created man by Thy hand, and raised up the cathedrals of man from the fall with an omnipotent power” 37. - “Adam feared God when he went to heaven: he rejoices that I went down to hell, having fallen before, and now we rise up” 38. - “You abided in the bosom of the Fathers, you were generous, and you were pleased to be with man, and you descended into hell, O Christ” 39. “Arise, Generous One, raise us from the abysses of hell” 40. - “Under the earth, by desire, you descended as if dead, raise up from the earth to the heavenly, from there the fallen, Jesus” 41. - “Even though you were seen dead, you raised up the living, like God, from the earth to the heavenly ones, from where you fell, O Jesus” 42. In the last two praises, the Church announces to the public hearing not only the location of hell, but also the location of heaven. Men, like their forefathers, were cast down to earth from “paradise.” The Church defines the place of “paradise” by saying that men fell from heaven. In the canon of Matins on Great Saturday it is sung: “You have filled all the glory, you have descended into the lower earth” 43. It further says that “The Lord revealed Himself to those who exist in hell, that He communed with those who exist in hell, that hell, the Word, shits You, grieving, that Your soul was not left in hell, that hell groans below, that hell is wounded, in the heart of receiving the Wounded One with a spear in the ribs, that the Lord descended even to the treasures of hell.” In the Synaxarion of Great Saturday it is read that on this day we celebrate the burial of the Lord and His descent into hell, that He descended into hell with His incorruptible and Divine soul, separated from the body by death. Expressions are used about hell as a deep abyss, which, obviously from the entire service, is recognized as underground and located inside the earth 44. We see the same opinion about the location of hell and heaven in the service for Holy Easter. The opinion about the place of hell is most clearly expressed in Irmos 6 of the song of the canon: “Thou didst descend into the nether regions of the earth, and shattered the eternal faiths that contain those bound, Christ.” In the Synaxarion, verse 6 says: “The Lord has now snatched human nature from the treasures of hell, raised it to heaven, and brought incorruption to the ancient heritage. However, having descended into hell, He did not resurrect everyone, but only those who chose to believe Him. The souls of the saints from time immemorial, held by need, will be freed from hell, and given to all to ascend to heaven.” Here again the “ancient property,” that is, paradise, is indicated “in heaven”: “By Your Resurrection, O Lord, paradise has again been opened” 45 , and you have renewed the sunrise for us in heaven” 46 . The opinion about the location of hell inside the earth is seen throughout the entire area of ​​worship of the Orthodox Church. She speaks everywhere about this subject as generally accepted and well known: for this reason, the definite expression is rarely found. But it does occur, and precisely because it occurs as generally accepted and well-known, it serves as the clearest evidence and proof. “The veil was torn,” the Church sings, “I am crucified to Thee, our Savior, and having given up the dead that I had devoured, death, and hell was revealed, It was in vain for Thee to be in the underworld of the earth” 47. - “With my soul I will come to You into the womb of the earth, the soul, even the acquisitive, who published Hell with diligence, crying out to Your power a song of gratitude” 48. - “With your soul you descended into the countries of the underworld of hell, you raised up all bound by courage, even death has been accepted from the ages, the bitter tormentor” 49. - “We magnify You, who descended to the last of the earth, and saved man, and exalted this by Your ascension” 50. - “No one is afraid of returning to the earth, O Lord: for you brought me up from the earth, forgotten” 51. “Adam was quickly brought down, through flattery, into the abyss of hell: but by nature God is merciful, you came down to seek, and you carried it to the frame, and you resurrected” 52. “Having lifted up the fallen me from the depths of hell, bless all the works of the Lord, and exalt Him forever” 53. - “I will come to the gates of hell, O Lord, and I will destroy this, the captive crying out: whoever this is, as if he is not condemned in the depths of the earth, but as if he were destroying the prison of death” 54. - “Today the underworld, hell and death, trembled, the One of the Trinity: the earth shook, and the gates of hell, seeing You, were horrified” 55. - “Having reached the depths of the sea, and having lived in the whales of the sea beasts of ancient times, Jonah imitated the call of Ti: My Savior, bring me up from the underworld” 56. - “Let me not come to the land of weeping, let me not see the place of darkness, my Christ, the Word” 57. - “There is no repentance in hell, there is nothing else that is weak: there is an incessant worm, there is a dark earth, and everything is darkened” 58. Also in passing, as a well-known subject, Saint John Climacus mentions the location of hell in the interior of the earth. He advises the ascetic of piety to constantly remember the endless abyss of the underworld flames, the “underground” terrible places and abysses, the close gatherings, so that by such reflection and recollection he can tear the soul away from the voluptuousness it has acquired 59 . The teaching that hell is within the earth is the teaching of the Orthodox Church; This teaching is found in very many writings of the Holy Fathers 60; not one of them rejects him 61 have the meaning that the rich man was sent down to hell with his soul. - This is how these words are explained by blessed Theophylact. Chrysostom, not approving of mere curiosity in determining the place of hell, not only does not prohibit those thoughts and research about hell that lead to the fear of God and evasion from evil, but also commands us to constantly immerse ourselves in them, to constantly have before our eyes the fiery hell that awaits the lawless. Word 1 about repentance to Demetrius. In the times following Chrysostom, the Church expressed its opinion about the location of hell with all certainty, announced and announces it with Divine hymns and readings for the hearing and teaching of the people. The Divine Revelations that were to the Pleasants of God confirm it. In the first times of Christianity, when the fierce and blind zeal of idolaters to preserve idolatry in the land shed rivers of innocent Christian blood, in Brussa, the main city of Bithynia, the bishop of the city, Patricius, suffered torture and execution. The torturer-hegemon took baths in warm healing springs located near the city 62, there he interrogated and killed the bishop. Regarding these hot waters, the temperature and healing properties of which the hegemon attributed to the action of the idols he idolized, Saint Patrick spoke to him like this: “Brilliant hegemon! If you want to know the truth about the beginning, flow and warmth of these waters, then I can reveal it to you if you listen to me with meekness. Everyone who professes holy Christianity and worships the one true God acquires a mind filled with understanding of the Divine mysteries: and I, being a servant of Christ, although a sinner, can explain the truth about these waters. God, foreseeing that the people He created would anger Him - God, their Creator, and, having rejected the true worship of God, would build soulless idols for themselves and worship them, prepared two places for people to move into them after their earthly life. He enlightened the first place with eternal light and filled it with abundant and ineffable blessings; the other place He filled with impenetrable darkness, unquenchable fire and eternal executions. He destined that those who would try to please Him by fulfilling His commandments should be resettled in the first place, and those who would anger the Creator with their evil life and deserve execution would be thrown into the second, dark place. Those who have been granted a place of light will live an immortal life in unceasing and endless joy, and those cast into a dark place will be tormented unceasingly, endlessly. The Creator, dividing fire from water and light from darkness, both created each of them separately and placed them in separate places. There is fire and water both above the firmament of heaven and below the earth. The water that is on the surface of the earth, collected in its collections, is called the sea, and the underground water is called the abyss. From this abyss, to meet the needs of people and animals inhabiting the earth, waters rise through the bowels of the earth, as if through water pipes, and, emerging on the surface of the earth, form springs, wells and rivers. From these waters those that approach the underground fire are warmed by it and flow out hot; those that flow away from the fire retain their natural coolness. In some places of the abyss there are the coldest waters, turned into ice, as if they were very far from the fire. The underground fire is designed to torment wicked souls. The underworld water, turned into ice, is called tartar 63. In Tartarus, your gods and their worshipers are subjected to endless torment, as one of your poets sang: “The ends of the earth and the sea are nothing other than their last limits, where Iapetus and Saturn - that is the name of your gods - are not consoled either by the brilliance of the sun or the coolness of the winds.” This means: your gods, imprisoned in Tartarus, are not illuminated or warmed by the sun, and those cast into the fire are not cooled by the wind. Tartarus is deeper than all other abysses located underground. That there is fire under the earth, prepared for the wicked, let at least the fire that erupts from the bowels of the earth in Sicily prove to you.” – This is how the holy bishop of the Church of Christ of the first centuries talked about the underground hell 64. The aforementioned Saint Theodora, having visited the heavenly monasteries, was relegated to the “underworld of the earth” and saw the terrible, unbearable torment prepared for sinners in hell. The resurrected warrior Taxiot said that he was abducted by the devils from the fornication ordeal: they brought him from the air down to the ground. The earth parted, and he was descended along narrow and stinking descents to the underworld dungeons of hell, where the souls of sinners are locked in eternal darkness and eternal torment 65. The very image of the soul’s departure from the body and the circumstances accompanying it were set forth by the Holy Fathers for our edification and salvation. The Monk Theodore the Studite in the 3rd catechumen says: “Brothers! Will we stay here forever? No! No! Oh woe, brothers! What a terrible mystery of death! How we must always be attentive, filled with repentance, prudent, thinking that now death awaits us, thinking how the separation of the soul from the body will take place, how the Angels will come - not to mention how the demons will appear. And demons come to those who are carried away by passions. Think about what labor and illness will be like when you see them in a terrible way and when you hear the command: “Soul, come out!” Then, for people separated from the body, good deeds and purity of conscience serve as great help, consolation, and joy. Then obedience has great boldness; then humility brings great consolation, tears will help, good deeds drive away demons, patience will help, and opponents return without any success - souls in great joy will go along with the Angels to the Savior. But a soul that has acquired skill in the passions and is overcome by sin will be overcome by great fear: then the demons win, and bring this accursed soul with them into the underworld, into darkness and tartar, for torment.” One day two Angels appeared to the Monk Macarius of Alexandria, a contemporary and associate of Macarius the Great, who was abundant in the gifts of the Spirit, and talked with him. In this conversation, one of the Angels said: “Hear, Macarius, how souls, both faithful and unfaithful, leave their bodies and are led away, and know that, following the example of what happens in this world, one should infer about heavenly things. Like soldiers sent by an earthly king to take someone, they seize him and detain him, even though he did not want it and resisted it; the detained person, struck by fear, trembles and is horrified by the presence of those who, without mercy, drag him on his way: thus, when Angels are sent to remove someone’s soul from the body, whether a pious person or a wicked one, it becomes frightened and is afraid of the presence of terrible and formidable Angels. Then, finally, she sees how useless, insignificant, and unhelpful a lot of wealth, acquaintances and friends are for her; she hears and understands the tears and sobs of the people around her, but cannot utter a single word or raise a voice, because she has never experienced such a demand for an outcome. She is frightened by the incredible space of the journey and the change in lifestyle; She is also horrified by the sight of those who are already in power and who do not show her any sympathy or mercy. Moreover, she suffers from grief due to attachment to the body; she is sick and yearns for separation and separation from him, as from her cohabitant by nature. It is not accompanied or helped by any consolation provided by conscience, unless the soul is aware of its good deeds. Thus, the soul, even before the utterance of the Supreme Judge, is judged by its conscience.” Saint Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria, speaks at length about the circumstances surrounding death in his word on the outcome of the soul. From this word we place here a short extract: “What fear and trembling awaits you, soul, on the day of death! You will see terrible, wild, cruel, unmerciful and shameless demons, similar to the gloomy murins, coming to you. One vision of them is worse than any torment. The soul, seeing them, becomes confused, worries, is restless, seeks to hide, and resorts to God’s Angels. Holy Angels hold the soul; passing through the air with them and rising, she encounters ordeals that guard the path from earth to heaven, holding souls and preventing them from ascending further. Each ordeal experiences the sins that belong to it; every sin, every passion has its publicans and torturers. What fear, trembling and anxiety the soul must feel, seeing all this, until the final verdict is pronounced, freeing it! The hour of indecision is painful, miserable, full of lamentations, inconsolable. The Divine Powers stand against the face of unclean spirits and represent good thoughts, words and deeds that belong to the soul, and it, in fear and trembling, in the midst of Angels and demons bickering about it, awaits either its justification and liberation, or condemnation and destruction. If she led her life piously and pleasing to God and became worthy of salvation, then the Angels accept her, and she already calmly moves towards God, having the Holy Powers as her companions. Then what has been said will be fulfilled: sadness, illness and sighing will flee. Then, freed from evil, rotten and terrible spirits, she goes into unspeakable joy. If it turns out that the soul has lived in negligence and fornication, then it will hear the fiercest voice: “Let the wicked be taken, and not see the glory of the Lord!” Days of anger, sorrow, need and oppression, days of darkness and darkness befall her!.. God's holy Angels leave her, the Murins - demons - kidnap her. They begin to beat her without mercy, and bring her down to the ground; having dissolved the earth, they plunge the soul, bound by indestructible bonds, into a dark and gloomy country, into the underworld of the prisons and dungeons of hell, where the souls of sinners who have fallen from eternity are imprisoned, as Job says, in a dark and gloomy land, in a land of eternal darkness, where there is neither light nor life for people, but eternal illness and endless sadness, and incessant weeping, and gnashing of teeth non-silent, and never-ending sighs. There one hears the incessant “Alas! Alas!”, there is a call - and there is no one to help; they cry out there, and no one delivers. There is no way to tell the story of the disaster there; there is no way to express the disease there, to which the souls cast there and imprisoned there are exposed. All human lips are exhausted to explain the fear and trembling that surrounds the prisoners of hell; there are no human lips that can express their longing and crying; they groan incessantly and eternally, but no one has mercy on them; they let out deep sighs, but no one hears; they weep, but no one delivers; they cry and fight, but no one shows mercy. Then where is the praise of this world? Where is the vanity? Where is the pleasure? Where is the satiety? Where is the nobility? Where is the courage of the flesh? Where is female beauty, deceptive and destructive? Where is the shameless audacity? Where is the decoration with magnificent clothes? Where is the unclean and vile sweetness of sin? Where are those who anoint and fumigate themselves with myrrh and incense? Where are the feasters with timbrels and harps? Where is the addiction to money and property and the unmercifulness that results from it? Where is the inhuman pride that disdains everyone and teaches one to respect only oneself? Where is the empty and vain human glory, where are the spectacles and other games? Where are the blasphemers, those who live idly and carelessly? Where are the soft robes and soft beds? Where are the tall buildings and wide gates? Where is the wisdom of the wise, the good tongue of rhetoricians and vain learning? Alas! Everyone will be confused, waver, as if amazed; all their wisdom will be swallowed up. Oh, brothers! Think about what we should be like, having to give an account of our every action, both great and small! Even for every idle word we will give an answer to the Righteous Judge 66. According to this, the warrior Taxiot told about his death: “When I was dying, I saw the Murins appearing to me. Their appearance was very terrible; my soul, looking at them, was indignant. Then I saw two beautiful young men, and my soul jumped out into their arms. We immediately began to ascend through the air to a height, as if flying, and reached the ordeals that guard the sunrise and hold the soul of every person. Each ordeal tormented a special type of sin: one about lies, another about envy, another about pride; every sin has its testers in the air. And I saw that the Angels were holding all my good deeds in a small reliquary; taking them out, they compared them with my evil deeds. So we passed the ordeal. When, approaching the gates of heaven, we came to the ordeal of fornication, those guarding there kept me and presented me with all my carnal fornication, committed from my childhood until now. The Angels who guided me said: “All the bodily sins that you committed in the city, God forgave you, because you repented of them.” To this my opponents said to me: “But when you left the city, you committed adultery with your farmer’s wife in the countryside.” The angels, hearing this and not finding a good deed with which to repay my sin, left me and went away. Then the crafty spirits grabbed me and, depressing me with beatings, brought me to the ground. The earth opened up; I was descended through narrow and stinking passages into the underworld prison of hell.” The Venerable Theodora, a disciple of the great saint of God, Basil the New, spoke in particular detail about her death. Her story is summarized here. To the disciple of St. Basil, Gregory, who asked her in a vision about the circumstances that accompanied her death and followed it, Theodora said the following: “Child Gregory! You asked me about a terrible thing, which is terrible to remember. When the hour of my death came, I saw faces that I had never seen, I heard verbs that I had never heard. What will I say? Fierce and grave disasters, of which I had no idea, met me because of my deeds: but through the prayers and help of our common father Vasily, I got rid of them. How can I tell you the bodily pain, burden and cramped conditions that the dying are subjected to? As if someone naked, falling on a great fire, burned, melted, turned to ashes: this is how a person is destroyed by mortal illness in the bitter hour of separation of the soul from the body. When I was approaching the end of my life and the time of my death had come, I saw many Ethiopians surrounding my bed. Their faces were dark as soot and tar; their eyes are like hot coals; the vision is as fierce as fiery Gehenna itself. They began to be indignant and make noise. Some roared like animals and cattle, others barked like dogs, others howled like wolves. Looking at me, they were furious, threatened, rushed at me, gnashing their teeth, and immediately wanted to devour me; Meanwhile, they prepared charters and developed scrolls on which all my evil deeds were written, as if waiting for some judge to come. My poor soul was enveloped in great fear and trembling. Not only did mortal grief torment me, but the menacing appearance and fury of the terrible Ethiopians was like another cruel death for me. I turned my eyes in all directions so as not to see their terrible faces and not hear their voices, but I could not get rid of them - they staggered everywhere; there was no help for me. When I was completely exhausted, I saw two luminous Angels of God in the form of young men of inexpressible beauty coming towards me. Their faces shone, their gaze was filled with love; their hair was like snow, white with a golden-like sheen; their clothes sparkled like lightning; they were girded with golden belts across their breasts. Approaching my bed, they stood on the right side of it, quietly talking to each other. Seeing them, I rejoiced and looked at them with pleasure; the black Ethiopians shuddered and retreated a little further. One of the luminous youths, turning angrily to the dark ones, said: “O shameless, damned, gloomy and evil enemies of the human race! Why do you always precede by coming to the dying and with your rumors you frighten and confuse every soul that is separated from the body? But don't get too excited, because you won't find anything here. There is God’s mercy for this soul, and you have neither a part nor a lot in it.” When the Angel stopped speaking, the Ethiopians reeled, raised a cry and a rumor, began to show my evil deeds committed in my youth, and cried out: have we nothing in it? Whose sins are these? Didn't she do this and that? So crying out, they stood and awaited death. And then death came, roaring like a lion, very terrible in appearance, human likeness, but without a body, made up of only naked human bones 67 . She brought various instruments for torment: swords, arrows, spears, sickles, saws, axes, fishing rods and other unknown ones. Seeing this, my humble soul trembled with fear. The Holy Angels said to death: “Do not delay; release this soul from carnal unions; resolve it quickly and quietly: it does not have much sinful burden.” Death approached me, took a small ax and cut off first my legs, then my arms; Then, using other tools, she relaxed all my limbs, separating them at the joints from one another. I lost my arms and legs; my whole body became numb and I could no longer move. Then she cut off my head - I could not move my head, which had become alien to me. After that, she dissolved some kind of mixture in a bowl and, putting it to my lips, forcibly gave me a drink. This drink was so bitter that my soul could not bear it: it shuddered and jumped out of my body, being forcibly torn away from it. The Light-Bearing Angels immediately took her into their arms. Looking back, I saw my body lying soulless, insensitive and motionless. As if someone had taken off his clothes and thrown them away, stood and looked at her: so I looked at my body and was surprised. While the holy Angels were holding me, the demons, who were in the form of Ethiopians, surrounded us, crying: “This soul has many sins: let him answer us!” - and showed my sins. The Holy Angels began to look for my good deeds and, by the grace of the Lord, found them; They collected everything good that I had ever done with God’s help, and were preparing to put it on the scales against my evil deeds. The Ethiopians, seeing this, gnashed their teeth at me, because they wanted to immediately kidnap me from the hands of the angels and bring me down to the bottom of hell. At that time, our Rev. Father Vasily unexpectedly appeared there and said to the holy Angels: “Angels of God! This soul served me a lot in my old age; I prayed to God for her, and God gave her to me.” With these words, he took out from the depths a full scarlet bag - it seemed to me that there was pure gold in this bag - and, giving it to the Angels, he said: “When you go through the airy ordeals, and crafty spirits begin to torture your soul, redeem it from its debts with this. By the grace of God, I am rich, I have collected much treasure through my sweat and labors, and I give this bag to the soul that served me.” Having said this, he left. The crafty spirits were perplexed, then raised lamentable cries and left. And again the Monk Basil came, carrying with him many vessels of pure oil and precious myrrh. He opened them, one after another, and poured them on me: I was filled with a spiritual fragrance, and felt that I had changed and been enlightened. The monk said to the holy angels: “When you have done everything that is due for this soul, then bring it to live in the monastery prepared for me by the Lord.” Having said this, he became invisible. The angels took me and we headed east." In the Holy Gospel itself we see an indication that the circumstances accompanying the death of a person are the same as they are presented in the above legends of the Holy Fathers. The Lord testified that the Angels carried the soul of the beggar Lazarus to Abraham's bosom (Luke 16:22). To the stingy rich man, who, on the occasion of the bountiful harvest of his fields, dreamed of a long earthly life, of building more spacious granaries, of carnal pleasures, God said: “You are foolish!” This night they will take your soul from you, and what you have prepared, to whom will they be?” (Luke 12:20). “They will extort,” says the Lord, as Blessed Theophylact explained these words of the Gospel, “because the unmerciful publican-angels terribly and forcibly exterminate the soul of a sinner. The soul of the righteous is not torn out of him; he, rejoicing and having fun, betrays his spirit to God and the Father.” Although the death of the righteous and fully repentant sinners is completely, or at least in many ways, different from the death of rejected sinners and sinners who have not repented enough; but fear and anguish are characteristic of every person at his death. This is how it should be: death is execution. Although the execution is mitigated for the righteous, the execution remains an execution. The God-Man himself, preparing to accept free death for the salvation of the human race, was in labor, grieved and grieved; drops of His sweat fell to the ground like drops of blood: “My soul is sorrowful unto death” (Matthew 26:38), He said to the Apostles, who had fallen asleep from sadness and did not feel the approaching misfortune. “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass by from Me: not as I will, but as You will” (Matthew 26:39), - so He prayed to the Father. The Most Holy Virgin Mother of God felt her dying fear before Her blessed Dormition, although She was foretold by the Archangel Gabriel of Her relocation to the heavenly abodes and the glory awaiting Her there, although the Holy Spirit, who richly dwelt in Her, carried all her thoughts and all her desires to heaven 68 . With fear and crying, all the Saints prepared themselves for the fatal hour of death: they understood the significance of this hour for man. When the time came for the death of the Monk Agathon, he remained for three days in deep attention to himself, without talking with anyone. The brothers asked him: “Abba Agathon, where are you?” “I stand before the court of Christ,” he answered. The brothers said: “Are you, father, really afraid?” “He answered: “I tried according to my strength to keep the commandments of God, but I am a man and how do I know whether my deeds were pleasing to God?” - The brothers asked: “Do you really not trust in your life, which was in accordance with the will of God?” “I cannot trust,” he answered, “because the judgment of man is different and the judgment of God is different.” They wanted to ask him more, but he told them: “Show me love, now don’t talk to me, because I’m not free.” And he died with joy. “We saw him having fun,” his disciples reported, “as if he were meeting and greeting dear friends.” This saint of God strictly, constantly observed himself in everything and used to say that without the most careful observation of himself it is impossible for a person to achieve success 69 . This is the path to salvation. The saints of God, constantly examining themselves, constantly found new shortcomings in themselves, and, finding them, they plunged more and more into repentance, which purified and perfected them for heaven. On the contrary, severe absent-mindedness and over-protectiveness are certainly associated with deep ignorance of oneself; and such ignorance is always very content, proud of itself. “Many deceive themselves,” says Blessed Theophylact, “with vain hope, thinking that they will receive the Kingdom of Heaven, and joining themselves to the ranks of virtues reclining on high, dreaming highly of themselves in their hearts... Many are called, because God calls many, above all, but few are chosen, few are saved, few are worthy of God’s election. Calling is the work of God, and election and non-election depend on us: the Jews were called, but did not turn out to be chosen, turning out to be disobedient to the One who called” 70. The great among the holy monks, Arseny, throughout his life, when he was engaged in needlework, put a handkerchief on his knees, because of the tears that flowed from his eyes. He passed away. Abba Pimen, the Father, especially abundant in the gift of spiritual reasoning, heard about his death and said: “Blessed Arseny: have you mourned yourself during your earthly life? He who does not mourn himself here will cry forever. It is impossible to avoid crying: either here – voluntary, or there, in agony, involuntary.” Theophilos, Patriarch of Alexandria, heard about this death and said: “Blessed, Abba Arsenios! You constantly remembered the hour of death” 71. Death of the Righteous and Sinners The story of the death of the righteous is comforting, and the story with which contrition and humility of heart they prepared for it, and with what holy fear they met it, is instructive and soul-saving. To a certain Father, for the purity of his life, God did not refuse any of his requests. The elder once wished to see the separation of the soul of a sinner and the soul of a righteous person from the body. Brought by the hand of God to a certain city, he stopped at its gates, in a monastery in which a reclusive recluse who had a great name lived. The recluse was sick at that time and was awaiting death. The elder saw that a great preparation was being made of wax candles and lamps for the recluse, as if for his sake the Lord was giving bread and water to the city and saving him. The citizens said among themselves: “If the recluse dies, then we will all die at once.” Meanwhile, the hour of his death had come; The elder saw the hellish guard with a fiery trident in his hand, descending on the recluse, and heard a voice: “Just as this soul did not calm Me within itself for a single hour, so you, without mercy, pluck it out.” The hellish bailiff thrust a fiery trident into the heart of the recluse and, after torturing him for several hours, extracted his soul. After this, the elder entered the city, where he found some sick wanderer lying on the street. There was no one to serve this wanderer: the elder saw that the Archangels Michael and Gabriel had descended for his soul. One sat down on the right side, the other on the left side of the wanderer, and they began to beg his soul to come out. She did not want to leave the bodies and did not go out. Then Gabriel said to Michael: “Let’s take the soul and go.” Mikhail answered: “We were commanded by the Lord to take her without illness; we cannot use violence.” Following these words, Michael exclaimed in a loud voice: “Lord! What do you command about this soul? She doesn’t obey us and doesn’t want to come out.” And a voice came to him: “Behold! I send David with the Psalter and the singers of God from Heavenly Jerusalem, so that the soul, hearing the psalmody and their voices, may come out.” They descended and surrounded the soul, singing hymns: then she came out into the arms of Michael, and was received with joy 72. Who wouldn’t marvel at God’s love and mercy for the human race? Unfortunately, to the greatest misfortune, we with bitterness push away all the mercies of God and with insane blindness we join the ranks of the servants and worshipers of the enemy of God and our enemy. The death of God's chosen ones is full of glory. When the time came for the great Sisoya to die, his face lit up, and he said to the fathers who were sitting with him: “Here comes Abba Anthony.” After being silent for a while, he said: “The prophetic face has come.” Then he became more enlightened and said: “Here the apostolic face has come.” And again his face became completely illuminated; he started talking to someone. The elders begged him to say who he was talking to? He answered: “The angels have come to take me; but I beg them to leave me for a short time to repent.” The elders told him: “Father, you do not need repentance.” He answered them: “I truly do not know about myself whether I have begun to repent.” And everyone knew that he was perfect. This is how a true Christian spoke and felt, despite the fact that during his life he raised the dead with a single word and was filled with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And his face shone even more, shone like the sun. Everyone was afraid. He said to them: “Look, the Lord has come and said: bring me a chosen vessel from the desert.” With these words he breathed his last. Lightning was seen, and the church was filled with a fragrance 73 . This is how one of the greatest Pleasers of God ended his earthly course. But sinners who have brought sincere repentance for their sins have also been honored with God’s mercy. Under the Greek emperor Mauritius, there was a ferocious and cruel robber in Thrace. There was no way they could catch him. The blessed emperor, having heard about this, sent his pectoral cross to the robber and ordered him to tell him not to be afraid: this meant forgiveness of all his atrocities with the condition of correction. The robber was moved, came to the king and fell at his feet, repenting of his crimes. After a few days he fell ill and was placed in a hospice, where he saw the Last Judgment in a dream. Having awakened and noticing the intensification of the illness and the approach of death, he turned to prayer with tears and said in it like this: “Master, man-loving King, who saved a robber like me before me, surprise me with Your mercy: accept my tears on my deathbed. Just as You accepted those who came at the eleventh hour, having done nothing worthy, so accept my bitter tears, cleanse and baptize me with them. Do not ask anything more from me: I no longer have time, and the lenders are approaching. Do not seek or test: you will not find any good in me; My iniquities have preceded me, I have reached the evening; my crimes are countless. Just as You accepted the cry of the Apostle Peter, so accept this little cry of mine and wash away the manuscripts of my sins. By the power of Your mercy, destroy my sins." Thus, after confessing for several hours and wiping away his tears with a handkerchief, the robber betrayed his spirit. At the hour of death, his senior doctor at the hospice home had a dream: the Murins came to the robber’s bedside with charters on which were written the robber’s numerous sins; then two beautiful young courtiers brought scales. The Murins placed what was written about the robber on one bowl: this bowl pulled down, and the one opposite to it rose up. The Holy Angels said: “Don’t we have anything here? And what can we have, objected one of them, when he abstains from killing for no more than ten days? However,” they added, “let’s look for something good.” One of them found the robber’s handkerchief, soaked with his tears, and said to the other: “Exactly, this handkerchief is filled with his tears. Let’s put it in another cup, and with it God’s love for mankind, and see what happens?” As soon as they placed the handkerchief in the bowl, it immediately pulled and destroyed the weight of the manuscripts that were in the other. The angels exclaimed in one voice: “Truly God’s love for mankind has triumphed!” Taking the soul of the robber, they took it with them; the murins began to weep and ran away in shame. Having seen this dream, the doctor went to the hospice house: when he came to the robber’s bed, he found the body still warm, already abandoned by the soul; a handkerchief filled with tears lay over his eyes. Having learned from those who were with him about his repentance brought to God, the doctor took the handkerchief, presented it to the emperor and said: “Sire! Let us glorify God: even under your power the robber was saved.” However, as the one who transmitted it to us concludes this story very prudently, it is much better to prepare oneself for death in good time and to precede its terrible hour with repentance 74 . Saint John Climacus rightly notes that evil, which has turned into a quality from a long-term habit, becomes incorrigible 75. “The evil habit, like an autocratic tyrant, often wields over those who weep,” exclaims sadly the same mentor of monastics 76 . To this we must add that repentance is possible only with an accurate, even simple, knowledge of the Orthodox Christian faith, alien to all heresy and evil wisdom. Those who borrow their way of thinking about virtues and rules of life from novels and other spiritually harmful heretical books cannot have true repentance: many mortal sins leading to hell are recognized by them as insignificant, excusable errors, and fierce sinful passions are recognized as easy and pleasant weaknesses; they are not afraid to indulge in them before the very gates of death. Ignorance of Christianity is the greatest disaster! The Lord calls a person to repentance and salvation until the last minute of his life. At this last minute, the doors of God’s mercy are still open to everyone who pushes through them. Let no one despair! As long as the field is not closed, the feat is valid. A person's last minutes can redeem his entire life. In Egypt, a certain girl named Taisiya, left an orphan by her parents, intended to turn her house into a hospice for the monks of the monastery. A lot of time passed in which she received and reassured the fathers. Finally her estate was exhausted. She began to suffer from lack. Unkind people became acquainted with her and turned her away from virtue; she began to lead a bad life, even a depraved one. The fathers, hearing this, were very sad. They called Abba John Kolov and told him: “We heard about Sister Taisia ​​that she was upset. When she was able, she showed us her love: and now we will show our love for her and help her. Take the trouble to visit it and, according to the wisdom given to you by God, arrange it.” Abba John came to her and told the old woman standing guard at the gate that she should report him to her mistress. She answered: “You, monks, ate all her property.” Abba John said: “Tell her, I will bring her great benefit.” The old lady reported. The young lady told her: “These monks, constantly wandering by the Red Sea, find pearls and precious stones; go and bring him to me.” Abba John came and sat down next to her. Looking at her face, he bowed his head and began to cry bitterly. She said to him: “Abba, why are you crying?” He answered: “I see that Satan is playing on your face, and how can I not cry? Why didn’t you like Jesus, so that you turned to things that were contrary to Him?” She, hearing this, trembled and said to him: “Father! Is there any repentance for me? He answered: “Yes.” “Take me wherever you want,” she told him and, getting up, followed him. John, noticing that she did not give orders, did not even say a single word about her house, was surprised. When they reached the desert, it was already getting dark. He made a head of sand for her, and another one, at some distance, for himself. Having protected its head with the sign of the cross, he said: “Sleep here.” And he, having fulfilled his prayers, went to bed. At midnight, John woke up and saw: a certain path had formed from the place where Taisiya slept to heaven; The angels of God lift up her soul. He got up and started to wake her, but she had already died. John prostrated himself in prayer and heard a voice: “One hour of her repentance was accepted more than the long-term repentance of many who do not show such selflessness during repentance.” 77 "God! For Your servants,” says Saint Basil the Great, “who are separated from the body and come to You, our God, there is no death, but rebirth from sorrow to the most useful and sweetest, and to peace and joy” 78. Exactly, in the proper sense, the separation of the soul from the body is not death; it is only a consequence of death. There is death, incomparably more terrible! There is death - the beginning and source of all human illnesses, both mental and physical, and the severe illness that we exclusively call death. “True death,” says St. Macarius the Great, “is hidden within the heart, and through it the outer man died alive. If someone has passed from death to life in the secret of the heart, he truly lives forever and never dies. Although such bodies are separated from their souls for a certain time, they are nevertheless sanctified and will rise with glory. For this reason we call the death of the saints a sleep” 79. The word and concept of death struck the ears and thoughts of man for the first time upon his entry into heaven. Among the trees of paradise, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil were especially remarkable. The Lord, having led man into paradise, commanded him: “Take food from every tree that is in paradise; but from the tree that is good and evil, you will not take it from it; but on the day you take it from it, you will die” (Gen. 2:16–17). Despite the terrible threat of death, the man transgressed the commandment and, as a result of the crime, died immediately; death instantly appeared in all movements of the soul and in the sensations of the body. The Holy Spirit, who dwelt in man, imparted immortality to the soul and body, and was their life, retreated from them as from those who violated communion with God by arbitrarily rejecting the commandment of God and just as arbitrarily entering into like-mindedness and alliance with Satan. Saint Gregory, Archbishop of Thessaloniki, says: “Just as the separation of the soul from the body is the death of the body, so the separation of God from the soul is the death of the soul. This, in fact, is spiritual death. God also pointed to this death with the commandment given in paradise, when he said: “On that day you cut down from the forbidden tree, you will die.” Then Adam's soul died, having been separated from God by disobedience; in his body he lived from that time to nine hundred and thirty years. This death, which befalls the soul for disobedience, not only makes the soul obscene, but also extends the curse to the whole person; The body itself is subjected to much labor, much suffering and decay. Then, after the death of the inner man by disobedience, the earthy Adam heard: “Cursed is the earth in your deeds; bear it in sorrow all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles will grow for you, and take down the grass. By the sweat of your brow you shall bear your bread until you return to the earth: as you are earth, you will go to earth” (Gen. 3:17–19) 80. Signifying the death of the soul, Saint John the Theologian said: “there is sin leading to death, and there is sin not leading to death” (1 John 5:16, 17). He called mortal sin the sin that kills the soul, that sin that completely separates a person from Divine grace and makes him a victim of hell, unless it is healed by real and strong repentance, capable of restoring the broken connection of a person with God. With such repentance, the holy Apostle Peter healed his mortal sin - renunciation of Christ, and the holy prophet David - his two mortal sins: adultery and murder. Repentance for mortal sin is then recognized as valid when a person, having repented of sin and confessed it, forsakes his sin 81 (John 5:14). To the wife caught in fornication, the Lord said: “I do not condemn you: go, and from here do not sin to anyone” (John 8:11). With such repentance, fornicators, adulterers, publicans, and robbers captured the kingdom of heaven; The Apostle Paul calls for such repentance - for resurrection from spiritual death: “Arise, sleep,” he cries, “and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light” (Eph. 5:14). But who listens to this voice, this spiritual trumpet, calling for the resurrection of the soul, for a resurrection that is more necessary for salvation than that which will revive bodies, will no longer revive souls killed by sin? We all remain in mortification, fulfilling our sinful desires, which not only war on the soul, but, when satisfied, also kill it. Pointing to the death of the soul, to essential death, the Savior of the world called dead all the people contemporary with His stay on earth, who did not pay attention to His All-Holy teaching, necessary for salvation, the only requirement for the true life of man: “leave the dead to bury their dead” (Luke 9:60), - He said to His follower, who asked permission to separate for a while from the Lord and from the attention of His saint teaching, for the burial of his deceased parent. The Lord called dead those living in the flesh who were truly dead, as if they had been slain in soul 82 . Those of these dead who remain alien to Christ throughout their entire earthly life, and in this state go into eternity, will not know the resurrection throughout the entire space of time given for this resurrection, and which lies between the two comings of Christ, the first - accomplished and the second, destined to be accomplished. “But the rest of the dead did not live,” says the viewer of the mysteries, St. John the Theologian, about them, “until a thousand years pass away” (Apoc. 20:5). “Blessed and holy,” proclaims the son of spiritual thunder 83, “those who have a part in the first resurrection: on whom the second death will have no part, but will be priests to God and Christ, and will reign with Him for a thousand years” (Apoc. 20:6). A thousand years, according to the explanation generally accepted by the Holy Church, does not mark a specific number of years here, but marks a very significant space of time, given by the mercy and long-suffering of God, so that all the fruit of the earth worthy of heaven would ripen, and so that not a single grain fit for the barn above would be lost. When the most saints of God had already considered the sins of the world to be fulfilled, and the final judgment of God was so necessary, then they heard from God: “Let them rest for a little while, until their detractors and their brethren will die” (Apoc. 6:11). So long-suffering is the great mercy of God! “A thousand years,” says Saint Andrew, Archbishop of Caesarea, “the time from the incarnation of Christ until His second glorious coming... A thousand years is the time during which the Gospel will be preached.” There is no need to mean literally a thousand years. So the number does not have a literal meaning in the words of the Song of Songs: “a man will bear in fruit a thousand pieces of silver. My grapes are before me: a thousand to Solomon, and two hundred to those who harvest the fruit thereof” (Song. 8:11, 12); not in the words of the Lord Jesus: “I give the fruit, one hundred, the other sixty, the other thirty” (Matthew 3:8). The full number depicts abundance and perfection in fruit bearing. So here, after a thousand years, the full fruitfulness of faith is depicted 84, for which all the necessary time is given: the fullness of time is depicted by the word “a thousand years.” Since the beginning of this millennium, the first, mysterious, essential resurrection of the dead has been revealed, and continues to be revealed; it will continue until the end of time. “Amen, amen, I say to you,” said the Lord, “that if you hear my word and believe, he who sent me will have eternal life, and will not come into judgment, but will pass from death to life.”85 Russian translation of the Gospel. (John 5:24). Explaining these words of the Savior, blessed Theophylact says: “He who believes in Christ will not go to judgment, i.e. into torment, but lives an ever-present life, without being subjected to spiritual and eternal death, even though he would have tasted this temporary death by nature.” The words of the Lord, spoken by Him to Martha, before the resurrection of her brother Lazarus, have the same meaning: “I am the resurrection and the life; and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die” 86. The sons and daughters of the old Adam, born fallen in his image and likeness, born for eternal death, pass through faith in the new Adam to eternal life. This transition, this resurrection is invisible to sensual eyes, incomprehensible to the carnal mind, but clear and perceptible to the soul over which it takes place. “When you hear,” says Saint Macarius the Great, “that Christ, having descended into hell, freed the souls that were contained there, do not think that this is far from what is happening now. Know: the coffin is the heart: your mind and your thoughts are buried there and kept in impenetrable darkness. The Lord comes to souls crying out to Him in hell, i.e. into the depths of the heart, and there he commands death to release the imprisoned souls who pray to Him, the One who can liberate, for liberation. Then, having rolled away the heavy stone lying on the soul, he opens the coffin, resurrects as if a dead soul, and brings it, imprisoned in prison, into the light.”87 The first resurrection is accomplished through two sacraments: baptism and repentance. Through holy baptism the soul is resurrected from the grave of unbelief and wickedness, or from original sin and one’s own sins committed in wickedness; and through repentance, the already believing soul is resurrected from the death inflicted on it by mortal sins, or by a careless, lustful life, after baptism. The performer of the resurrection is the Holy Spirit. Saint John the Theologian saw those resurrected from spiritual death and said about them: “I saw thrones and those who sat on them, and judgment was given to them: and the souls of those who were cut to pieces for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast, nor his icon, and had not received the mark on their foreheads, and on their hands, and lived, and reigned with Christ for a thousand years... This is the first resurrection” (Apoc. 20:4, 5), consisting in the revival of the soul from its death by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, in the washing away of sins by holy baptism, in life according to the will of Christ and in the cleansing through repentance of sins committed after baptism. The thrones of the saints are their dominance over the passions, over the demons themselves, over human ailments, over the elements, over animals, the abundance of their spiritual gifts. Judgment was given to them, i.e. spiritual reasoning, with which they denounce sin, no matter how it is covered with appearances, and reject it; they have been given a court by which they judge the angels of darkness who take on the appearance of angels, and do not allow them to deceive themselves. They did not worship either the beast or its icon: neither the Antichrist, nor the persecutors of Christianity who represented him, who demanded that Christians renounce Christ and reject His All-Holy Commandments. They did not accept the marks of the enemy of God either on their foreheads or on their right hands, but having assimilated the mind of Christ, they constantly expressed it in their way of thinking and in their way of acting, not sparing their blood to seal fidelity to Christ, and therefore they reigned with Christ. There is no death for them! For them, the separation of the soul from the body - let us repeat the above thought of Basil the Great - is not death, but a transition from a sorrowful earthly journey to eternal joy and peace. “Second Death”, i.e. final condemnation to eternal hellish torment and betrayal to them, “having no domain” over those resurrected by the first resurrection; those resurrected by him “will be priests of God and Christ, and will reign with Him for a thousand years” (Apoc. 20:6). This reign of the priests of God in the Holy Spirit cannot be interrupted by the separation of the soul from the body: it develops and is strengthened by it. “When a thousand years are finished” (Apoc. 20:7), the times will be fulfilled, and all the verbal fruit of the earth will ripen, and the second resurrection will follow, the resurrection of bodies. After it, the bliss of the righteous, who were resurrected in good time by the first resurrection, will increase; after him the death of rejected sinners who have lost the first resurrection will worsen. “Although in the future rebirth,” says Saint Gregory Palamas, “when the bodies of the righteous are resurrected, the bodies of lawless and sinners will be resurrected along with them, but they will be resurrected only to be subjected to a second death: eternal torment, a never-ending worm, the gnashing of teeth, pitch and impenetrable darkness, gloomy and unquenchable fiery hell. The Prophet says: “iniquity and sinners will be crushed together, and those who have forsaken the Lord will die” (Isaiah 1:28). This is the second death, as John teaches us in his Revelation. Hear the great Paul: “If you live according to the flesh,” he says, “you are about to die; if you put to death the deeds of the flesh by the Spirit, you will live” (Rom. 8:13). He speaks here of life and death belonging to the age to come. This life is pleasure in the everlasting kingdom; death is consignment to eternal torment. Transgression of God’s commandment is the cause of all death, mental and physical, and that which we will be subjected to in the next century, eternal torment. Death actually consists in the separation of the soul from Divine grace and in copulation with sin. For those who have understanding, this is death, which they must flee; This is true and terrible death. For the right-thinking, it is worse than fiery Gehenna. We will avoid it with all possible effort! We will subject ourselves to everything, we will abandon everything, we will renounce our acquisitions, deeds, desires, everything that devastates and separates us from God, and produces such death. He who is afraid of this death and preserved from it will not be afraid of the approach of carnal death, having within himself the living true life, which carnal death makes only inalienable. Just as the death of the soul is actually death, so the life of the soul is actually life. The life of the soul is its union with God, just as the life of the body is its union with the soul. The soul, separated from God by the transgression of the commandment, died; but by obedience to the commandment he is again united with God and revived by this union. That is why the Lord says in the Gospel: “The words that I spoke to you are the Spirit and the life” (John 6:63). This was also expressed by Peter, who understood from experience, in the words he said to the Savior: “the verbs of the life of the eternal imash” (John 6:68). But the verbs of the eternal life are the verbs of the life of the obedient; For criminals, the commandment of life becomes the cause of death. So the Apostles, this fragrance of Christ, were for some the aroma of life to life, and for others the aroma of death to death (2 Cor. 2:16). Again, this life belongs not only to the soul, but also to the body, giving it immortality through resurrection. She not only delivers from his deadness, but with it the never-ending death - future torment. She gives the body an ever-present life in Christ, painless, disease-free, carefree, truly immortal. Like mental death, i.e. crime and sin, in due time followed by bodily death - the union of the body with the earth and its turning into dust, and after bodily death followed the placement of the rejected soul in hell, so after the resurrection of the soul, which consists in the return of the soul to God, through obedience to the Divine commandments, in due time the resurrection of the body should take place by uniting it with the soul, and this resurrection should be followed by incorruption and forever stay with God worthy of this stay, made from carnal spiritual, capable, like the Angels of God, to live in heaven. And we will be “caught up to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:17). The Son of God, having become man, died in the flesh: His soul was separated from the body, but was not separated from the Divinity; then He, having resurrected His body, took it up to heaven in glory. This is what happens to those who lived here according to God. While separated from the body, they are not separated from God; after the resurrection, they will ascend in body to God, entering with unspeakable joy where Jesus ascended as our forerunner, to enjoy with Him His glory, which will then appear (Heb. 6:20; Rom. 8:18). They will become partakers not only of the resurrection of the Lord, but also of His ascension and all God-like life. Those who lived here in the flesh and did not enter into any communication with God at the hour of their exodus will not be worthy of this. Although everyone will be resurrected, each one, says Scripture, “in his own order” (1 Cor. 15:22, 23). He who has mortified the deeds of the flesh here with the spirit will there live a divine and truly everlasting life with Christ: but he who has mortified the spirit here with lusts and passions - alas! He will be condemned with the author and author of evil and given over to unbearable and incessant torment - the second and endless death! Where did true death begin - the cause and creator of temporary and eternal death for soul and body? Isn't it in the place of life? For this reason - alas! - the man was immediately condemned and expelled from the Paradise of God as having acquired a life associated with death, indecent for the Divine Paradise. So and vice versa, true life, the cause of immortal true life for soul and body, must have its beginning here, in the place of death. He who does not try here to acquire this life in his soul, let him not deceive himself with the vain hope that he will receive it there, let him not trust in God’s love for mankind there. There is a time of retribution and vengeance, and not mercy and philanthropy, a time of revelation of the rage, wrath and justice of God, a time of demonstration of a strong and high hand, moved to torment the rebellious. Woe to the one who has fallen “in the hand of the living God!” (Heb. 10:31). Woe to him who recognizes the wrath of the Lord there, who is not taught here by the fear of God through the knowledge of the power of His wrath, who has not been rewarded by the works of His love for mankind, for which the present time has been given. By giving us a place for repentance, God allowed us to live on earth." 88 The eternal torment awaiting sinners in hell is so terrible that a person living on earth cannot receive a clear understanding of them without a special revelation from God. All our severe illnesses and misadventures, all the most terrible earthly sufferings and sorrows are insignificant in comparison with the torments of hell. In vain do the voluptuous Epicureans cry out: “It cannot be that hellish torment, if it exists, could be so cruel and eternal! This is inconsistent with either God’s mercy or common sense. Man exists on earth for pleasure; he is surrounded by objects of pleasure: why should he not use them? What is bad and sinful here?” Leaving this cry to the arbitrariness of those who pronounce it and contrast it with Divine Revelation and Teaching, the son of the Holy Church, staying on earth for repentance, is guided in his concepts of the eternity and cruelty of hellish torment by the Word of God. What has not the multi-passionate human heart rejected in order to more freely indulge in debauchery! It has used reason as a blind instrument of its sinful desires, although it calls it sound. For its sinful freedom, it rejected the teaching about God and His commandments, proclaimed on earth by the Son of God Himself, rejected the most spiritually sweet pleasure delivered by the love of God: is it any wonder that it rejected the reins and the storm that stop the sinner in his ways, rejected hell and eternal torment? But they do exist. The sin of every limited creature before its Creator, who is infinitely perfect, is an infinite sin; and such a sin requires endless punishment. The punishment of a creature for sin before its Creator should completely corrupt its existence: hell, with its fierce and eternal torments, satisfies this requirement of inexorable justice 90. Mathematics answers from the earth: “Truth, All-Holy Truth! It cannot be otherwise. This is the property of the infinite: it, it alone, lives in itself and by itself. It is life itself. Its effects on numbers, no matter how enormous, do not and cannot have any influence on the way of existence of the infinite, separated from all creatures by infinite difference, existing among creatures completely independently of creatures and incompatible with them. There is no similarity between existence and being.” Again the Theologian thunders: “Everything was by Him, and without Him nothing would have happened.” And again mathematics answers: “Truth, All-Holy Truth! Phenomena, like numbers, must have their own source, an inexhaustible source - and such a source is the infinite, there is God! “No one has seen God anywhere,” the heavenly Messenger continues to proclaim to humanity, and again at his meeting mathematics confesses: “Truth, All-Holy Truth! Due to the infinite difference that distinguishes the infinite from any number, it is not possible for any limited being, no matter how exalted it may be, to see God either with sensory vision or comprehension of the mind! God is “in unapproachable light” in every way, said the Apostle. God declared Himself in the Gospel: “I am life.” This life is so omnipotent that it gave existence to all creatures, existing by an existence borrowed from self-life, which returns life to those creatures that lose their life through death. Infinite life cannot but be omnipotent. In accordance with positive science, the Holy Church confesses that human souls and Angels are immortal not by nature, but by God’s grace. What a correct judgment: it was made at a time when mathematics was silent on this subject. It is necessary to assimilate the concepts of the infinite difference between the infinite, both in nature and in properties, from numbers, and when making judgments about God, keep this difference in mind everywhere, define it, so as not to be carried away to judgments that exceed our ability to understand, and therefore to judgments that are necessarily incorrect. Without this, you will have to present your nonsense as truth to your own destruction and to the destruction of humanity. The dreamers became atheists, and those who studied mathematics deeply always recognized not only God, but also Christianity, although they did not know Christianity as they should. Such were Newton and others. It is desirable that one of the Orthodox Christians, having studied the positive Sciences, then thoroughly study the asceticism of the Orthodox Church and give humanity true philosophy based on accurate knowledge, and not on arbitrary hypotheses. The Greek sage Plato forbade the exercise of philosophy without first studying mathematics. The right view of the matter! Without a preliminary study of mathematics with other sciences based on it and without active and grace-filled knowledge of Christianity, it is impossible in our time to present a correct philosophical system. Many who recognize themselves as knowledgeable in philosophy, but are not familiar with mathematics and the natural sciences, encounter arbitrary dreams and hypotheses in the writings of Materialists, cannot in any way distinguish them from the knowledge that constitutes the property of science, cannot in any way give a satisfactory response and refutation to the most absurd nonsense of any dreamer, very often they themselves are carried away by this nonsense into error, recognizing it as a proven truth. Logic alone can do without mathematics; but logic is essentially inextricably linked with mathematics, and from the latter it can borrow special accuracy and positivity. What is a syllogism? This is an algebraic equation. What are proportions? progression? This is a logical sequence of concepts. The Holy Scriptures everywhere call the torments of hell eternal: this teaching has been and is constantly preached by the Holy Church. Our Lord Jesus Christ confirmed this terrible truth several times in the Holy Gospel. Foretolding to rejected sinners a common fate with the fallen angels, He announced that He would tell them at His Last Judgment: “Depart from Me, the curse, into eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angel” (Matthew 25:41). According to the final decree for the human race, those who perished will go “into eternal punishment” (Matthew 25:46). In the story of the hard-hearted rich man and the beggar Lazarus, the Lord testified that between the abodes of eternal bliss and the prisons of hell, “a great abyss has established itself,” and there is no transition from bliss to torment, nor from torment to bliss (Luke 16:26). The “worm” of hell “does not die, and the fire” of hell “does not go out” (Mark 9:48). The hellish dungeons represent the strange and terrible destruction of life while preserving life. There is a complete cessation of all activity; there is only suffering; there reigns the most severe of heart ailments - despair; there are cries and groans that do not attract any consolation to the soul torn by them; there are insoluble bonds and fetters; there the darkness is impenetrable, despite the abundance of flames; there is the kingdom of eternal death. The torments of hell are so terrible that the most cruel of earthly torments - violent death - is insignificant before them. The Savior of the world, foretelling the field of martyrdom to His disciples, commanded: “I say to you, my friend: do not be afraid of those who kill the body and then are unable to do anything else. I will tell you whom you will fear: fear him who has power after he has killed you, and will plunge you into the wilds of fire: I say to you, fear him” (Luke 12:4–5). Looking with the eye of faith at the indescribable bliss prepared for the faithful servants of God and the equally unspeakable torments awaiting the infidel slaves, the holy martyrs trampled under foot the cruelest executions that the frenzied malice of the tormentors invented against them, and with countless sorrows and deaths 91 they crushed eternal death under their feet. The holy monks - the mysterious martyrs - looked at the torments of hell with the unceasing memory of them, and with this memory they overthrew the thoughts and dreams of the tempter, who picturesquely and captivatingly painted before their imagination, sophisticated in the desert, disastrous voluptuousness. The weapon commanded by the Lord, the memory of death and eternal torment, was used by the Monk Anthony the Great, especially at the beginning of his feat. At night, the devil took the form of beautiful women and, appearing to Anthony in this form, tried to arouse sinful lust in him; but Anthony opposed the devil’s dreams with a living representation of the flames of Gehenna, the never-ending worm and other horrors of hell - with this weapon he extinguished the fire of voluptuousness and destroyed seductive pictures 92. We are overcome by our passions only because we forget about the executions that follow them; It is only because we consider earthly sorrows severe that we have not studied the torments of hell. A certain monk, living an ascetic life, said to the holy elder: “My soul desires death.” The elder answered: “You say this because you want to avoid sorrows, but you do not know that future sorrow is incomparably crueler than this one.” Another brother asked the Elder: “Why am I, living in my cell, in negligence?” The elder answered: “Because I did not recognize either the expected peace or the future torment. If you knew them as you should, you would endure and not weaken even when your cell was full of worms and you were standing in them up to your neck” 93 . The Lord, in His great mercy, partially revealed eternal torment to some of His chosen ones for their salvation and prosperity. Through their story our concepts of hellish torment became clearer and more detailed. “There were two friends,” it is said in some sacred story, “one of them, touched by the Word of God, entered a monastery and spent his life in tears of repentance; the other remained in the world, spent an absent-minded life, and finally became so embittered that he began to boldly mock the Gospel. In the midst of such a life, death befell a layman. Having learned about his death, the monk, out of a feeling of friendship, began to pray to God that the afterlife of the deceased would be revealed to him. After some time, his friend appears to the monk in a subtle sleep. “What, how do you feel? Is it good?” asked the monk who appeared. “Do you want to know this? - the deceased answered with a groan: woe to me, the unfortunate! The never-ending worm wears me down, does not and will not give me peace for an eternity.” - “What kind of torment is this?” – the monk continued to ask. - “This torment is unbearable! - exclaimed the deceased, - but there is no way to avoid the wrath of God. For the sake of your prayers, freedom has now been given to me, and, if you want, I will show you my torment. You wouldn’t be able to bear it if I opened it the way it is, completely; but at least partially recognize him.” At these words, the deceased raised his clothes to his knees. Oh horror! The whole leg was covered with a terrible worm, which had eaten it, and such a fetid stench came out of the wounds that the shocked monk woke up at the same time. But the hellish stench filled the entire cell and so strongly that the monk jumped out of it in fright, forgetting to close the doors behind him. The stench penetrated further and spread throughout the monastery; all the cells were overflowing with it. Just as time itself did not destroy it, the monks had to completely leave the monastery and move to another place, and the monk, who saw the hellish prisoner and his terrible torment, throughout his life could not get rid of the stench that clung to him, nor wash it off his hands, nor drown it out with any aromas 94 (Mark 9:44). According to this story, other ascetics of piety, who were shown the torments of hell, testify: without horror they could not remember their visions, and in incessant tears of repentance and humility they sought to find consolation - the notification of salvation. This happened with Hesychius of Horeb. During a serious illness, his soul left his body for an entire hour. Having come to his senses, he begged everyone who was with him to move away from him, blocking the doors of his cell, he spent twelve years in an endless seclusion, not saying a word to anyone, not eating anything except bread and water; in solitude, he thoughtfully delved into what he had seen during his frenzy and continually shed quiet tears. When he was supposed to die, he said to the brothers who came to him, after many of their requests, only the following: “Forgive me! He who has acquired the remembrance of death cannot sin” 95. Like the hermit of Horeb, the recluse of our domestic Kyiv caves, Athanasius, died and was resurrected, leading a holy, God-pleasing life. He died after a long illness. The brethren removed his body, according to monastic custom, but the deceased remained unburied for two days due to some obstacle encountered. On the third night there was a divine appearance to the abbot, and he heard a voice: “The man of God Athanasius has been lying unburied for two days, and you do not care about him.” Early in the morning, the abbot and his brethren came to the deceased with the intention of burying his body, but they found him sitting and crying. They were horrified to see him come to life; then they began to ask: how did he come to life? What did you see and hear while you were separated from your body? He answered all questions only with the word: “Save yourself!” When the brethren persistently begged him to tell them what was useful, he bequeathed to them obedience and constant repentance. Following this, Athanasius locked himself in a cave, remained in it hopelessly for twelve years, spending day and night in incessant tears, eating a little bread and water every other day and not talking to anyone during this time. When the hour of his death came, he repeated the instructions about obedience and repentance to the assembled brethren and died in peace in the Lord 96 . “A certain expectation of judgment is terrible,” says the holy Apostle Paul, “and the fire of jealousy that wants to destroy those who resist. Anyone who rejects the Law of Moses dies without mercy in the presence of two or three witnesses. How much do you think that the worst one will be worthy of torment, having trampled upon the Son of God, and having taken the blood of the cherished defilement, by it he was sanctified, and rebuked the Spirit of grace? We have said: Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. And again: as the Lord judges His people. It is a terrible thing to fall into the hand of the living God” (Heb. 10:27–31). The space between heaven and earth, the space by which the triumphant Church is separated from the militant Church, is usually called in the Holy Scriptures, in the writings of the Holy Fathers, and in common human language - air. Let us leave it to the scientists of the earth to conduct a chemical study of this air, i.e. gases and other subtle substances surrounding the earth and extending from its surface to a space unknown to scientists themselves: let us study what is essential and useful for our salvation. What is this blue vault that we see above us and call the sky? Is this really the sky? Or is it just the immense depth of the air, boundless, colored blue and closing the sky from us? The latter is more likely: it is typical for the air over a large space to take on a bluish color for our eyes and set off with it other objects located at a distance from us. Anyone can be convinced of this by their own experience. One has only to stand on a clear sunny day at a considerable height and look into the distance: green groves, plowed fields, buildings - in a word, everything appears not in its own color, but with a bluish tint produced by the color of the air located between our eyes and the objects we are looking at. The further away these objects are, the bluer they appear; finally, the general blue covers the most distant objects and merges them into one blue stripe. A sadly true depiction of our limitations, produced and maintained in us by sin! But it is better to know it than to delude yourself in ignorance with the false opinion of unlimited vision and knowledge. Perfect Christians, having purified their senses, seemed to see the sky, and saw in the sky and in the air what we do not see with our white eyes. So, suddenly, through the action of the Holy Spirit, the holy First Martyr Stephen saw the heavens open, before his suffering death, standing in a large meeting of Jews hostile to Christ and Christianity. Stephen, says the Holy Scripture, “who was filled with the Holy Spirit, looking up to heaven, saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and said: Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:55, 56). The holy disciples of Macarius the Great saw heaven and the entrance of their teacher into the gates of heaven, of course, just like Stephen, through the mediation of the Holy Spirit 97. The Monk Isidore of Skete, who was present at the death of the young ascetic Zechariah, saw the gates of heaven open for the dying man, and exclaimed: “Rejoice, my son Zechariah: the gates of heaven have opened for you!” 98 Saw, as already said above, the Monk John Kolov saw the radiant path from earth to heaven, along which the Angels lifted up the soul of the deceased Taisia ​​99. When the eyes of her soul were opened, the mother of Elder Paisius of Nyametsky saw the sky open and the lightning-fast Angel descending from there, inconsolably grieving over the departure of her son to monasticism 100 . When feelings that are no longer bound by the fall begin to act, their action becomes unusually sophisticated, the very circle of action takes on vast dimensions - the space for them shrinks. The above-mentioned visions of the saints serve as sufficient proof of this; but for greater clarity, we do not stop to imagine other spiritual experiences. Saint Anthony the Great, who lived in one of the deserts of Egypt, not far from the Red Sea, saw the soul of the Monk Ammon, who labored at the other tip of Egypt, in the Nitrian desert, being carried into heaven by Angels. The disciples of the Great noticed the day and hour of the vision, then they learned from the brethren who came from Nitria that the Monk Ammon died precisely on that day and hour on which the Monk Anthony the Great saw the ascension of his soul. The distance between the deserts required thirty days of travel for a pedestrian 101. It is obvious that the vision of a Christian, renewed by the Holy Spirit and reached a high degree of perfection, extends far beyond the limits of human vision in his ordinary state; like renewed vision, renewed hearing also acts. It was not difficult for the spirit-bearing disciples of Macarius the Great to see the procession of his soul through the air and to hear the words spoken by it in the air and at the entrance to the gates of heaven. When a woman was brought to this great Macarius, whose appearance had changed due to the obsession of an unclean spirit, and some of his disciples could not notice the action of the devil, obvious to the Great, he told them that the reason for such inability to see them was the carnal state of their senses, incapable of seeing spirits and their actions 102 . In this state we find ourselves as if in prison and chains. But the majority of people do not feel their captivity and their prison: they seem to them to be the most satisfactory freedom. Knowing and feeling this state of ours is a gift from God. The Holy Spirit revealed this state to the prophet David, and David uttered the most touching prayer to God on behalf of all mankind and every person for deliverance from the state of distress. “Bring out,” he prayerfully sings and cries, “from prison my soul to confess to Your name” (Ps. 142:7). The Apostle Peter calls the carnal and mental state of people, although pious, a dark place. The place can be not only material, but, in an abstract sense, also mental and moral, as Scripture says: “in the world” (of the heart) “His place” (God’s) (Ps. 76:3). Those imprisoned in a dark place and wishing to be saved must be guided, as if by a luminary, by the Holy and Holy Scripture, until the Holy Spirit descends on them and becomes for them a living book of divine teaching, always open and never silent. “The Imams have a well-known prophetic word; heeding it, like a shining light in a dark place, do good until the day brightens and the morning star shines in your hearts” (2 Pet. 1:19). Prisoners in the prison of earthly wisdom! Let us hear those who have acquired spiritual freedom in the Lord and have been illuminated by Spiritual intelligence! Born blind! Let us hear those who received their sight from the touch of the finger of God to their eyes, who saw the light of truth, who saw and knew, in the radiance of this light, what was invisible and unknown to the carnal and spiritual minds. The Word of God and the Spirit who promotes the word reveal to us, through their chosen vessels, that the space between heaven and earth, the entire azure abyss visible to us, the air, the heavenly regions, serves as a dwelling for the fallen angels cast out of heaven. “There was a war in heaven,” says the great viewer of the mysteries, Saint John the Theologian: “Michael and his angels made war with the serpent, and the brace of the serpent and his angels. And they were not able, and no place was found for them in heaven” (Apoc. 12:7, 8). This overthrow of the devil and the spirits carried away by him from heaven, according to the explanation of Saint Andrew of Caesarea, followed their first sin, when they were eliminated by holy forces from the angelic host and cast out from it, as the holy prophet Ezekiel tells about this (Ezekiel 28:16). In the book of Job, the fallen angel is already seen wandering in the immeasurable space of the heavenly realm; he wandered in it, quickly flew through it, tormented by insatiable malice towards the human race (Job 1:7). The Holy Apostle Paul calls the fallen angels the spirits of wickedness in high places (Eph. 6:12), and their head the prince of the power of the air (Eph. 2:2). Fallen angels are scattered in multitudes throughout the transparent abyss that we see above us. They do not cease to outrage all human societies and each individual individually; there is no atrocity, there is no crime in which they would not be the instigators and participants; they incline and teach a person to sin by all possible means 103. “Your adversary is the devil,” says the holy Apostle Peter, “like a roaring lion, he walks about, seeking someone to devour” (1 Pet. 5:8) both during our earthly life and after the separation of the soul from the body. When the soul of a Christian, leaving its earthly church, begins to strive through the air space to the mountainous fatherland, demons stop it, try to find in it an affinity with themselves, their sinfulness, their fall, and bring it down to hell, prepared for “the devil and his angel.” This is how they act according to the right acquired by them. God, having created Adam and Eve, gave them dominion over the earth. He blessed them, the Scripture says, “with the verb: grow and multiply, and fill the earth, and rule over it, and subdue the fish of the sea, and the beasts and birds of the air, and all the livestock, and all the earth, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth” (Gen. 1:28). Not only was the earth entrusted to the first people, they were entrusted with paradise itself, which they were obliged to cultivate and protect (Gen. 2:15). They had one God as their Lord. What did they do in paradise?... Alas! Unhappy blindness! Alas! Blindness and madness incomprehensible! Having heeded the insidious and murderous advice of the fallen angel, they threw off the good yoke of obedience to God and placed upon themselves the iron yoke of obedience to the devil. Alas! Our ancestors transgressed the command of God and fulfilled the advice of their all-evil enemy, a dark spirit, a blasphemous, flattering and deceitful spirit. By this act, according to a very natural order, they violated their communion with God, and not only entered into communion with the devil, but also arbitrarily subordinated themselves to him, and with them that part of creation that was created for them and over which God had given them dominion. “The enemy who deceived Adam,” says Macarius the Great, “and thus seized dominion over him, deprived him of all power, and declared him the prince of this age. First, God made man the prince of this age and the lord of everything visible” 104, and said about them: “I will give you all this power and their glory: as it was given to me, and if I want, I will give it” (Luke 4:5, 6). Our forefathers were cast out from paradise to earth, the earth was cursed for their sake, and a Cherub with a fiery, spinning weapon was appointed to guard the path of the tree of life (Gen. 3:24). But another Cherub 105 stood on man’s path to paradise, that Cherub who did not spare his wondrous greatness, the leader and parent of evil and death, who fell into the abyss of destruction, dragging there many angels and the entire human race. This Cherub, by the just permission and distribution of God, with a host of fallen angels, the prince of the air, the prince of the world and this age, the prince and head of the angels and men who voluntarily submitted to him, stood on the way from earth to paradise, and from that time until the saving suffering and life-giving death of Christ, he did not miss a single human soul along the way that was separated from the body. The gates of heaven are closed for people forever. Both the righteous and the sinners descended to hell. Eternal gates and impassable paths opened before our Lord Jesus Christ, who, having accepted a free death, descended with His Most Holy Soul and the Divinity not separated from it into hell, crushed its faiths and gates, freed its captives 106, then, having resurrected His Body, passed with it the space of the heavens, the sky, the heavens of heavens and ascended the throne Deities. The dark authorities were horrified in their bitterness and blindness, seeing the procession of the God-Man, destroying all their power: in spiritual joy, with the greatest triumph, the ranks of the holy Angels opened the heavenly gates before him 107. Then the demons were again seized with horror when they saw the thief, for confessing Christ, ascending after Christ into paradise: then they learned with amazement the power of redemption. By the unknown wisdom of God, after the redemption of the human race by our Lord Jesus Christ, people were given freedom in depicting life and death, in accepting the Redeemer and redemption, or in rejecting them. And many, unfortunately, very many, wished to remain in communion with Satan, in captivity and slavery to him, declared themselves openly enemies of the Savior and His Divine Teaching. Also, many, having enrolled themselves in His army and declaring themselves His servants, violate the vow of loyalty to Him - by their actions, open and secret, they enter into an alliance with the spirits of evil. All who have clearly rejected the Redeemer are henceforth the property of Satan: their souls, upon separation from their bodies, descend straight to hell. But even Christians who deviate towards sin are not worthy of immediate relocation from earthly life to blissful eternity. Justice itself demands that these deviations to sin, these betrayals of the Redeemer be weighed and evaluated. Trial and analysis are necessary to determine the degree of deviation towards sin of the Christian soul, in order to determine what prevails in it - eternal life or eternal death. And every Christian soul, upon its departure from the body, awaits the impartial Judgment of God, as the holy Apostle Paul said: “It lies for man alone to die, and then comes the judgment” (Heb. 9:27). The justice of God carries out judgment on Christian souls who have departed from their bodies, through Angels, both holy and evil. The former, during a person’s earthly life, notice all his good deeds, and the latter notice all his crimes. When the soul of a Christian begins to ascend to heaven, guided by the holy Angels, dark spirits expose it with its sins unerased by repentance as victims to Satan, as guarantees of communion and the same eternal fate with him. To torture souls passing through the airspace, the dark authorities have installed separate courts and guards in remarkable order. Along the layers of heaven, from the earth to the sky itself, there are guard regiments of fallen spirits. Each department is in charge of a special type of sin, and torments the soul in it when the soul reaches this department. The aerial demonic guards and judgment seats are called ordeals in the Fatherly Scriptures, and the spirits serving in them are called tax collectors. In the time of Christ and in the first centuries of the Christian Church, the collector of state duties was called a publican. Since this duty, according to the simplicity of ancient customs, was entrusted to a person without positive responsibility and accountability, the tax collectors allowed themselves all means of violence, various kinds of tricks, fault-finding, countless abuses and inhuman robbery. They usually stood at city gates, in markets and other public places, so that no one could escape their watchful observation. The behavior of the tax collectors made them a terror to the people. According to his concept, the name of the publican expressed a person without feelings, without rules, capable of any crime, of any humiliating act, breathing, living by them - a rejected person. In this sense, the Lord compared the stubborn and desperate disobedient of the Church with a pagan and a tax collector (Matthew 18:17). For the Old Testament worshipers of the true God, nothing was more disgusting than a servant of idols: the publican was just as hateful to them. The name publicans spread from people to the demons who guard the sunrise from earth to heaven, due to the similarity of the office and its performance. As sons and confidants of lies, demons convict human souls not only of the sins they have committed, but also of those they have never been subjected to. They resort to fabrications and deceptions, combining slander with shamelessness and arrogance, in order to snatch the soul from the hands of angels and multiply with it the countless number of hellish prisoners 108 (Ps. 27:12), this is what the Holy Spirit says on behalf of the human soul, describing its invisible struggle with invisible enemies. The doctrine of ordeals is the teaching of the Church 109. There is no doubt that the holy Apostle Paul speaks about them when he proclaims that Christians are faced with warfare against the spirits of wickedness in high places. We find this teaching in the most ancient church tradition and in church prayers. The Most Holy Virgin, the Mother of God, notified by the Archangel Gabriel of her approaching repose, brought tearful prayers to the Lord for the deliverance of Her soul from the evil spirits in heaven. When the very hour of Her honest dormition had come, when the Son Himself and Her God descended to her with tens of Angels and righteous spirits, She, before she betrayed her most holy soul into the All-Holy hands of Christ, uttered the following words in prayer to Him: “Receive My spirit now in peace, and protect Me from the dark region, so that no aspiration of Satan meets Me.” 110 Saint Athanasius the Great, Patriarch of Alexandria, in the biography of the Venerable Anthony the Great, narrates the following: “One day, at the approach of the ninth hour, having begun to pray before eating food, he was suddenly caught up in the Spirit and lifted up by the Angels to a height. The air demons opposed his procession: The angels, arguing with them, demanded an explanation of the reasons for their opposition, because Anthony had no sins. The demons tried to expose the sins he had committed since birth; but the Angels stopped the mouths of the slanderers, telling them that they should not count his sins from birth, already blotted out by the grace of Christ, but let them present, if they have, the sins he committed after the time he dedicated himself to God by entering monasticism. When accusing the demons, they uttered many blatant lies; but since their slander was devoid of evidence, a free path opened for Anthony. He immediately came to his senses and saw that he was standing in the very place where he stood for prayer. Forgetting about food, he spent the whole night in tears and lamentations, thinking about the multitude of human enemies, about the struggle with such an army, about the difficulty of the path to heaven through the air and about the words of the Apostle, who said: “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the beginning of the power of this air” (Eph. 6:12), who, knowing that the powers of the air are only looking for that, care about that with all their effort, straining and strive to deprive us of free passage to heaven, exhorts: “Take all the armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the day of cruelty” (Eph. 6:13), “let the adversary be put to shame, having nothing to say reproachfully about us” (Titus 2:8) 111. Saint John Chrysostom, having said that the dying man, even if he was a great ruler on earth, is overcome with confusion, fear, and bewilderment when he “sees the terrible powers of the angels” and “the opposing forces that have come” to separate the soul from the body, adds: “Then we need many prayers, many helpers, many good deeds, great intercession from the Angels during the procession through airspace. If, traveling to a foreign country or a foreign city, we need a guide: then how much more do we need guides and assistants to guide us past the invisible elders and authorities of the world rulers of this air, called persecutors, publicans, and tax collectors! On behalf of the departed Christian infants, Chrysostom speaks and theologizes in the following way: “The holy Angels peacefully separated us from the body, and we freely passed through the elders and powers of the air. We had trustworthy leaders! Evil spirits did not find in us what they were looking for; We didn’t see what we wanted to see. Seeing the undefiled body, they were ashamed; Seeing a pure soul, free from malice, they were ashamed; They did not find any vicious words in us and fell silent. We passed over and humiliated them; we passed through them and trampled them; “The net is broken, and we are delivered. Blessed is the Lord, who did not let us be caught in their teeth” (Ps. 123:6–7). When this happened, the Angels who guided us rejoiced; They began to kiss us, who were justified, and say in joy: Lambs of God! We honor your coming here; the ancestral paradise has opened to you; Abraham's bosom is given to you. The right hand of the Lord has received you; called His voice to the right side. He looked upon you with favorable eyes; He wrote you in the book of life. And we said: Lord! Righteous Judge! You have deprived us of earthly blessings: do not deprive us of heavenly ones. Thou hast separated us from our fathers and mothers: separate us not from Thy saints. The signs of baptism have been preserved intact on us: we present our body to You clean, due to our infancy” 112. The Venerable Macarius the Great says: “Hearing that under the heavens there are rivers of serpents, mouths of lions, dark powers, a burning fire that throws all members into confusion, don’t you know that if you do not receive the pledge of the Holy Spirit when leaving your body, they will understand your soul and will prevent you from ascending to heaven” 113 . The Holy Great Martyr Eustratius, after enduring terrible torture and torment, after performing wondrous miracles, before accepting the death penalty for the constant and strong confession of Christ, offered a prayer to God, in which he first thanked God, who had looked upon him and granted him, during his earthly suffering, to defeat the invisible enemy, the devil; then he moves on to the upcoming separation of his soul from his body and says: “My soul was confused and sick when it left the accursed and foul body. So that the evil adversary does not catch her in any way and cast her out into the darkness for the unknown and known sins I have committed during this life! Lord! Be merciful to me, and may my soul not see the dark gaze of wicked demons, but may Your bright and luminous Angels receive it. Glory be to Thy Holy Name, and by Thy power lead me to Thy Divine Judgment Seat. When I go to trial, may the hand of the prince of this world not seize me to cast me, a sinner, into the depths of hell: but stand before me and be my Savior and Defender. These bodily torments are “amusement for your servants.” In a similar way, the holy Great Martyr George, who by the grace of Christ corrected all the most terrible torments invented by the malice of the tormentors, who raised the dead before their eyes, who overthrew idols in the single name of the Lord, when he came to the place of execution, poured out the following dying prayer: “Blessed is the Lord my God, who did not deliver me into the jaws of my fishers, who did not make my enemies rejoice over me and who delivered my soul like a bird from the snare of fowlers! Lord! And now hear me: appear to me at this hour of my death and deliver my soul from the machinations of the prince of the air, this terrible opponent, and his unclean spirits. Do not put into sin those who sinned against me in ignorance, but grant them Your forgiveness and love, so that they, having come to know You, will receive a share with Your chosen ones in Your Kingdom” 114. The great saint of God, viewer of mysteries, Saint Niphon, Bishop of the Cyprus city of Constantius, standing one day in prayer, saw the heavens open and many Angels, some of whom descended to earth, others ascended to the mountain, lifting human souls to heavenly abodes. He began to listen to this spectacle, and behold, two Angels strived for heights, carrying their souls. When they approached the fornication ordeal, the demons came out and said with anger: “This soul is ours! How dare you carry it past us when it is ours?” The Angels answered: “On what basis do you call her yours?” The demons said: “Until her death, she sinned, being defiled not only by natural, but also by supernatural sins, besides, she condemned her neighbor, and what’s worse, she died without repentance: what do you say to this?” The angels answered: “Truly we will not believe either you or your father, Satan, until we ask the guardian angel of this soul.” The Guardian Angel asked said: “Exactly, this man has sinned a lot; but as soon as he became ill, he began to cry and confess his sins to God. Whether God has forgiven him, He knows. To Him is the power, To Him is glory to the righteous judgment.” Then the Angels, despising the accusation of demons, entered with their souls into the gates of heaven. Then the Blessed One saw another soul being lifted up by the Angels. The demons, running out to them, cried out: “Why are you carrying souls without our knowledge, like this gold-loving, prodigal, quarrelsome, practicing robbery?” The Angels answered: “We probably know that, although she fell into all this, she cried, sighed, confessing and giving alms, and therefore God granted her forgiveness.” The demons said: “If this soul is worthy of God’s mercy, then take the sinners of the whole world; We have no business working here.” The angels answered them: “All sinners who confess their sins with humility and tears will accept forgiveness by the grace of God; those who die without repentance are judged by God.” Thus, having shamed the demons, they passed. Again the Saint saw the ascended soul of a certain God-loving, pure, merciful man, loving to all. The demons stood in the distance and gnashed their teeth at this soul; The angels of God came out to meet her from the gates of heaven and, greeting her, said: “Glory to Thee, Christ God, that Thou didst not deliver her into the hands of her enemies and delivered her from the depths of hell!” Blessed Niphon also saw that demons were drawing a certain soul to hell. This was the soul of one slave, whom the master tormented with hunger and beatings and who, unable to bear the torment, hanged himself, having been taught by the devil. The Guardian Angel walked in the distance and wept bitterly; The demons rejoiced. And a command came from God to the weeping Angel to go to Rome, there to take custody of the newborn baby, who was being baptized at that time. Again the Saint saw a soul carried through the air by Angels, which was taken from them by demons at the fourth ordeal and cast into the abyss. It was the soul of a man given over to fornication, sorcery and robbery, who died suddenly without repentance 115. The Monk Simeon, the Fool for Christ's sake, who had reached the heights of Christian perfection, having told his companion, Deacon John, about his approaching death and the great reward in heaven, announced to him by revelation from above, said: “I know nothing in myself that would be worthy of heavenly reward: will the Lord be willing to have mercy on me without His grace. Know that you too will soon be taken from here, so take care, as much as you have strength, about your soul, so that you can safely pass through the region of air spirits and escape the cruel hand of the prince of darkness. My Lord knows that I, too, am overcome with great sadness and great fear, until I pass these formidable places, where all human deeds and words are tortured” 116. Blessed John the Merciful, Patriarch of Alexandria, constantly talked about death and the departure of the soul from the body, as it was revealed to him by the Venerable Simeon the Stylite: “When the soul leaves the body,” he used to say, “and begins to ascend to heaven, it is met by the faces of demons and subjected to many difficulties and tortures. They torture her with lies, slander, rage, envy, wrath, resentment, pride, slander, disobedience, usury, love of money, drunkenness, gluttony, resentment, sorcery, brotherly hatred, murder, theft, unmercifulness, fornication, adultery. During the procession of the soul from earth to heaven, the most holy Angels cannot help it: the only thing that helps it is its repentance, its good deeds, and most of all, alms. If we do not repent of some sin here due to oblivion, then through alms we can get rid of the violence of demonic ordeals. Brethren! Knowing this, let us fear the bitter hour of meeting with harsh and unmerciful tax collectors, an hour in which we will be at a loss as to what to answer to our tormentors. Now let us repent of all our sins, let us give alms according to our strength, which can take us from earth to heaven and deliver us from being detained by demons. Great is their hatred of us, great fear awaits us in the air, great disaster!” 117 Simeon the Stylite, who revealed the ordeal to Patriarch John, was Divnogorets, a contemporary of the patriarch, although his elder. A passage of teaching has come down to us, belonging to Saint Simeon himself, in which he speaks about the afterlife of a Christian. In this teaching, the monk first reveals that he was told by the Holy Spirit about the small number of those being saved, about the small number remaining in the hands of Angels at the present time, i.e. during the life of the Pleasant of God. He further says that the Angels perceive the undefiled and righteous soul with love, please them, and lift them up with song, reflecting the power of enemies and rising above the ordeals of the sunrise. On the contrary, a sinful soul is not allowed to ascend to a land higher than the air: the devil has a reason to accuse it. He argues with the Angels carrying her, presenting her sins, because of which she should belong to him, presenting her lack of that degree of virtue that is necessary for salvation and for free movement through the air. 118 The Venerable John of Raifa, in his letter to the Venerable John Climacus, mentions the princes of the air, the rulers of the world, the spirits of evil, wanting the soulful instructions of the Sinai Lamp to guide the monks to the gates of heaven and preserve them from the dark authorities guarding the sunrise to heaven. Saint John Climacus narrates that the fallen monks, who brought deep and constant repentance, among others, filled with tenderness and accompanied by their groaning words, uttered the following: “for has our soul passed through the water” of the “fickle” air spirits? (Ps. 123:5). This is what they said, because they did not yet feel confident, but from afar they contemplated what was happening in the air torture. 119 The Monk Isaiah the Hermit in his will to his disciples commanded “to have death before your eyes every day and to take care of how to accomplish the exodus from the body and how to pass by the powers of darkness who are about to meet us in the air” 120 . In the 17th Word he says: “Consider what is the joy of the soul of one who has given himself up to the service of God and who has completed this service! When he departs from this world, his works will be fought for him; The angels, seeing him delivered from the powers of darkness, will rejoice over him. When the soul leaves the body, it is accompanied by Angels; Dark forces come out to meet her, wanting to hold her, and torturing her to see if they find something of their own in her. Then it is not the Angels who confront the enemies, but the deeds accomplished by the soul protect it and preserve it from enemies, not allowing them to touch it. If her deeds triumph, then the Angels sing a song of praise to her and lead her with joy before the face of God. At that hour she forgets everything belonging to earthly life and all the labors she has endured. With all care and effort, let us try during this short age to do good and keep it inviolable by evil, so that we can be saved from the hands of the princes who are already waiting for us: they are crafty and unmerciful. Blessed is the one in whom nothing is found that belongs to them: his joy, gladness, peace and crown are beyond all measure” 121. A certain monk, who lived in the hostel of Abba Serida, where the great saint of God, Elder Barsanuphius, was silent in seclusion, approaching his death, asked this holy Elder to travel with him in the air on a path that he (the dying monk) did not know. The great Barsanuphius answered: “Brother! I commend you to Christ, who deigned to die for us, the Lord of heaven and earth and all living things, may He reduce the fear of death in your eyes and make the ascent of your soul unhindered.” 122 The Monk Abba Dorotheos, a monastic student of the same hostel of Abba Serida, writes in one of his letters: “When the soul is insensitive (cruelty), it is useful to frequently read the Divine Scriptures and the touching words of the God-bearing Fathers, remembering the Last Judgment of God, the departure of the soul from the body, the terrible forces that have to meet it, with the complicity of which it did evil in this short-lived and calamitous life.” 123 Saint John of Carpathia, consoling the monks of India, who at the same time were suffering severe persecution from visible and invisible enemies and approaching the abyss of despair, says: “Battling and reproaching, the enemy, this bitter and terrible slanderer of the sins it has committed, insolently attacks the soul that has left the body. Then the God-loving and most faithful soul, even if wounded by many sins, will not be horrified by his aspirations and threats. Strengthened by the Lord, inspired by joy, encouraged by the Holy Powers that guide her, protected by the light of faith, she with great courage resists the evil devil and answers him: What is it to us and to you, stranger to God? What is it to us and to you, fugitive from heaven and wicked servant? You have no power over us: power over us and over everyone belongs to Christ, the Son of God. We have sinned before Him, and we will give an account to Him, having His honest cross as a guarantee of His mercy towards us and our salvation. Destroyer! Run far from us: there is nothing in common between you and the servants of Christ. When the soul courageously speaks like this, the devil takes flight and cries out: I cannot resist the Name of Christ! And the soul soars above the enemy... and after that, in joy, it is brought by the Divine Angels to the places determined for it according to the degree of its spiritual success.” 124 “The soul, having flown into the air after death to the gates of heaven,” says Saint Hesychius, “having Christ with it and within itself, will be afraid of its enemies there, but courageously, as now, will answer them at the gates. Only let her not weaken until her end, crying out day and night to the Lord Jesus Christ. He will avenge her soon, according to His true and Divine promise, expressed in the parable of the Unrighteous Judge. Surely, I tell you, he will take revenge both in this life and after the soul departs from the body. The hour of death will come upon us, it will come, and it will be impossible to avoid it. Oh, if only the prince of peace and air, who should then meet us, found our iniquities insignificant and insignificant and could not reprove us correctly! Otherwise, we will cry in vain. “The servant,” says Scripture, “who knew the will of his master” and did not fulfill it, “will be beaten many times” (Luke 12:47, 48). One who was born blind does not see the light; one who is not in sobriety does not see the rich radiance of the highest grace and will not be freed from evil and God-hating deeds, words and thoughts. Such a one, at his death, will not freely pass by the Tartar princes” 125. Venerable Theognostus: “The indescribable and unspeakable sweetness of that soul that is separated from the body, having been notified of its salvation. She takes off her body like clothes. In the firm confidence of receiving what she had already received in betrothal, she lays down her body without sadness and peacefully leaves it to the bright and quiet Angel sent from Above for her. Accompanied by this Angel, she freely passes through the airspace, not at all disturbed by evil spirits; she joyfully and boldly ascends, with exclamations of thanksgiving to God, and finally comes to worship her Creator. There a decree is pronounced about her, commanding her to be placed with her equals in virtue to remain with them until the general resurrection” 126. “Although you, constantly being in pure prayer, immaterially uniting the immaterial mind with God, were vouchsafed to see in the mirror the blissful state awaiting you at the end of this life, you were vouchsafed this, as having accepted the betrothal of the Spirit and having acquired the heavenly kingdom within yourself with the clearest and most definite feeling of the soul; but do not suffer to be separated from the flesh without being preceded by the news of impending death. Pray diligently about this, and be confident that you will receive this news when your death approaches, if it is useful. Always prepare for death, rejecting all fear; Always prepare so that you will be able to traverse the air space, avoid evil spirits, enter boldly and fearlessly into the heavenly circles, be numbered among the ranks of angels, increase the countenance of all the elect and the righteous, see God, as far as this vision is achievable.” The spiritual sensation about which the Monk Theognostus speaks is very rightly called “notification” in the Fatherly writings, due to its decisive authenticity. It is produced by the influx of Divine grace, which accepts the repentant and perplexed sinner into the fatherly spiritual embrace. It appears in the soul unexpectedly, like a new life, about which a person could not form any idea before. It frees the soul from the violence of evil spirits and passions, changes the whole person, unites him with God, draws the whole person into that wonderful prayer with which the Spirit of God cries out to God from within man. “All the bones” of such a person “scream” with ineffable spiritual praise and thanksgiving: “Lord, Lord, who is like You?” You are “deliver the poor from the hand of those who strong him, and the poor and the wretched from those who plunder him.” The “soul” of such a person “will rejoice in the Lord, rejoice in His salvation” (Ps. 34:9–10). This spiritual sensation is so strong that, having filled a person with itself, it takes away from him sympathy for all other objects: in short, it is the establishment of the kingdom of God in the soul. He who has acquired this feeling “lives not for himself, but for God” (2 Cor. 5:15), by striving entirely towards Him and having Him in himself. Those who have been subjected to self-delusion and demonic delusion have the opinion of such a feeling, and it differs from the grace-filled one in the fruits opposite to it. “Come to your senses, my soul,” the hermitage monk Evagrius touchingly addresses himself, “and think about how you will endure your sudden separation from your body, when formidable angels come for you and delight you at an hour that you do not expect, and at a time that you do not know about! What deeds will you send before you into the air, when your enemies who are in the air begin to torment you about your deeds?” 127 This is how the holy saints of God felt and spoke: they understood and explored the depth of human fall; they understood and explored the power of demons over humans that arose from this fall. The recluse Georgiy of Zadonsk tells an event that is almost contemporary to us: Archimandrite Barsanuphius (of the Zadonsk Monastery) froze for three days. At this time, his soul was in aerial ordeals, being tortured for all the sins committed from his youth, but he heard the voice of God: prayers for the sake of the Most Holy Theotokos, the Hieromartyr Mokias and the Stratelate Andrew, his sins are forgiven, and time is given for repentance 128. The doctrine of ordeals, like the doctrine of the location of heaven and hell, is found as a well-known and generally accepted teaching throughout the entire area of ​​worship of the Orthodox Church. She proclaims and reminds him to her children in order to instill soul-saving fear in their hearts and prepare them for a successful transition from temporary life to eternal life. In the canon of the Prayer Service to the Lord Jesus Christ and to the Mother of God, which is laid at the death of every Orthodox Christian 129, it reads: “O Prince of the Air, rapist, tormentor, guardian of terrible paths, and vain examiner of these words, grant me permission to pass without restraint, departing from the earth” 130. “The barbarians of the fleshless regiments will escape, and the abysses of the air will arise, and we will be able to soar to heaven” 131. “Put away the bitter ordeals of the chief, the ruler of the world, far from Mena” 132. At the cell rule, in prayers after kathismas, the Church puts the following petitions into the mouth of the person praying: “My Lord, Lord, give me tears of tenderness, for with them I beg You to be cleansed before the end from all sin: for it is a scary and menacing place for the imam to pass through, their bodies separated, and a multitude of dark and inhuman demons will fall upon me” 133 . “Complete me with Your perfection, and thus bring me to the present life, so that, without restraint, I have passed through the beginnings and powers of darkness, by Your grace, I will see the unspeakable kindness of Your glory that is beyond the reach of Thy glory” 134. In the prayer before the kontakia and ikos of the akathist to the Mother of God it is read: “Oh, Mother of the King of heaven and earth! Ask for forgiveness for all my sins, grant correction to my life. And at the end of the aerial enemies comes the unruly coming" 135. “Through You (the Mother of God) the dead are revived, for You have given birth to hypostatic life: those who are silent before, are kind, lepers are cleansed, sicknesses are driven away, many aerial spirits are defeated” 136. In the Octopus, the following prayers are sent to the Mother of God: “At the hour, O Virgin, of the end of my end, the hands of demons will snatch me up, and judgment, and debate, and terrible torture, and bitter ordeals, and a cruel prince, and eternal condemnation” 137 . - “Torment of me, Most Pure One, in the hour of death, to be delivered from demons” 138. - “At the hour, Virgin, of my death, the hands of demons and condemnation, and the answer, and the terrible trial, and the bitter ordeals, and the cruel prince, and the eternal fire, snatched me away” 139. - “Mistress and Mother of the Deliverer, You appear to me at the hour of my departure, tormented by the airy spirits about what I have done with a senseless thought” 140. - “Whenever my soul wants to be separated from the carnal union, then stand before me, Lady, and destroy the advice of the ethereal enemies, and break the jaws of those who seek to devour me mercilessly: so that the princes of darkness standing in the air will pass without restraint in the air” 141. In “The order for the separation of the soul from the body, when a person suffers for a long time,” it reads: “Now the whole time of my life has passed away like smoke, and the rest of the angels appeared, a message from God, walking mercilessly on my accursed soul” 142. - “Behold, a multitude of wicked spirits appeared, holding the writing of my sins, and they called earnestly, seeking my shamelessly humble soul” 143. - “Have mercy on me, Angels of the all-holy God Almighty, and deliver from the tolls of all the evil ones” 144. In the Canon to the Guardian Angel: “May the cold, stinking and gloomy faces of the enemy cover the shame and cold, when my humble soul is unharnessed from the body” 145. “May I see you at the right hand of my damned soul, who will always disappear from me when my spirit needs it, and who seeks water for me, driving away bitter enemies” 146. - “I pray to you, my guardian, be my protector and invincible champion, whenever I go through the ordeal of the fierce world ruler” 147. In the second prayer to Saint Nicholas: “At the end of my soul, help me, the accursed: beg the Lord, the Creator of all creation, to deliver me from airy ordeals and eternal torment” 148. The petition for deliverance from air ordeals is placed in a prayer to St. Sergius of Radonezh and in prayers to other saints. The Monk Theodosius of Pechersk, feeling the final exhaustion from his illness, lay down on his bed and said: “God’s will be done: as He willed for me, so let He do it. But I pray to Thee, my Master, Jesus Christ, be merciful to my soul, may wickedness not put an end to the opposing spirits, but may Thy Angels receive me, leading me through dark ordeals and leading me to the light of Your mercy.” 149 Saint Dmitry of Rostov prayed: “When the terrible hour of separation of my soul from the body comes: then, my Redeemer, accept me in Thy hand, and save me from all calamities, and may my soul not see the dark gaze of wicked demons, but may all ordeals be saved.” 150 We borrow a detailed description of the ordeals and the order in which they follow, one after another, in the abyss of air, from the story of St. Theodora. She, having left her lifeless body on earth, led by two holy Angels, began, as we have already seen, her procession through the air to the east. When she rose to heaven, she was met by the dark spirits of the first ordeal, in which human sins are tortured with words, such as: idle talk, foul language, ridicule, blasphemy, singing songs and other passionate hymns, disorderly exclamations, laughter and the like. For the most part, a person counts these sins as nothing, does not repent of them before God and does not confess them to his spiritual father. But the Lord clearly said: “Every idle word that men speak will be given back on the day of judgment. You will be justified by your words, and you will be condemned by your words” (Matthew 12:36, 37). And the Apostle bequeaths: “Let not every corrupt word come out of your mouth, neither foul language nor blasphemies” (Eph. 4:29; 5:4). The demons with cruelty and stubbornness accused the soul, presenting all its sins in words, committed from its very youth, the holy Angels disputed them, and contrasted the good deeds done by the soul with the sins. Thus, Theodora, redeemed at this ordeal, began to rise higher and approached the (second) ordeal of lies, in which all lies, perjury, calling on the Name of God in vain, failure to fulfill vows given to God, concealment of sins before the confessor in confession are tortured. Having escaped here too, she moved on to the (third) ordeal of slander, where they are tortured by slandering one’s neighbor, condemning, humiliating, dishonoring him, cursing and ridiculing him while forgetting one’s own sins and shortcomings, while not paying attention to them. Those who have been subjected to sins of this kind are tortured by fierce torturers with particular cruelty, as antichrists who anticipate the dignity of Christ and become judges and destroyers of their neighbors. At the (fourth) ordeal of gluttony, gluttony, drunkenness, untimely and secret eating, eating without prayer, breaking fasts, voluptuousness, satiety, feasting are tortured - in a word, all types of pleasing the belly. After being delivered from this ordeal, Theodora, somewhat encouraged, entered into a conversation with the holy Angels and said to them: “It seems to me that no one living on earth knows what is happening here and what awaits the sinful soul after death?” The Holy Angels answered her: “Does not the Divine Word, read daily in churches and preached by the servants of God, explain this? But those who are addicted to earthly vanities do not pay attention to the Word of God, consider daily satiety and drunkenness a pleasure, they are satiated and drunk without the fear of God, having their belly with God, not thinking about the future life and not heeding the Scripture, which says: “Woe to you, you are filled now, for you will hunger” (Luke 6:25). They consider the Holy Scriptures to be a fable, live in negligence and space, have fun every day and feast with the sound of music and the singing of choirs, like the rich man mentioned in the Gospel. However, those of them who are merciful, do good to the poor and help the needy, conveniently receive forgiveness of sins from God, and, for the sake of their alms, go through the ordeal without harm. Scripture says: “Alms delivers from death, and it cleanses away all sin: those who do alms and righteousness will be filled with life; those who sin destroy the essence of their life” (Tov. 12:9-10). For those who do not try to cleanse their sins with alms, it is impossible to avoid disaster at the ordeal: they are kidnapped by tax collectors and brought down, with fierce torment, to the underworld of the dungeons of hell, where they are kept in bonds until the terrible Judgment of Christ.” Thus conversing, they reached the (fifth) ordeal of laziness. There, all the days and hours spent in laziness, in negligence in serving God are numbered; parasites are tortured there, devouring the labors of others and not wanting to work themselves, as well as mercenaries who receive pay but perform their duties with negligence. This ordeal was followed by the (sixth) ordeal of theft, which deals with all kinds of kidnappings and thefts, gross and specious, open and secret; then the (seventh) ordeal of love of money and avarice; Next is the (eighth) ordeal of usury, where moneylenders, covetous people and appropriators of others’ property are accused. Even further (ninth) ordeal of unrighteousness, at which unrighteous judges are exposed, carried away in trials by partiality or bribery, acquitting the guilty and condemning the innocent; False scales and measures of merchants and other falsehoods are discussed here. The (tenth) ordeal of envy, where those who indulge in this destructive passion and its consequences are tortured. Above is the (eleventh) ordeal of pride, where arrogant spirits contemptuously torture pride, vanity, conceit, contempt, grandeur, failure to give due honor to parents, spiritual and civil authorities, disobedience to them and disobedience to them. Above is the (twelfth) ordeal of anger and rage, then the (thirteenth) ordeal of remembrance. After emerging from this ordeal, Theodora asked the Angels: “I ask you, tell me, how do these terrible air powers know all the evil deeds of all people living all over the world, not only obvious, but also secret?” The holy Angels answered: “Every Christian receives from God at Holy Baptism a Guardian Angel, who, invisibly protecting a person, instructs him day and night in every good deed throughout his entire life until the hour of death. He writes down all the good deeds of that person, for which he could receive mercy and eternal reward from the Lord in the kingdom of heaven. Likewise, the prince of darkness, who wants to draw the entire human race into his destruction, assigns one of the evil spirits to a person, who follows a person everywhere, notices all his evil deeds, encourages them with his intrigues and, visiting ordeals, writes down all the person’s sins there, adding each sin to the appropriate ordeal. This is why the air authorities know the sins of all people throughout the world. When the soul, having been separated from the body, strives to ascend to heaven, to its Creator, then the evil spirits prevent it from doing so, convicting it of its sins, recorded with them. If a soul has more good deeds than sins, then they cannot hold it back. If they find more sins in her, then they hold her for a while and imprison her in the prison of not seeing God: there they torture her until the power of God allows them to torment and until that soul is redeemed by church prayers and the alms of neighbors. If the soul turns out to be so sinful and abominable before God that there is no hope of salvation left for it, but eternal destruction awaits it, then they immediately lower it into the abyss, where they have a place of eternal torment prepared for themselves; they keep it there until the second coming of Christ, after which the soul will unite with the body, and together with it will suffer in fiery hell. Know also that only those enlightened by the holy Christian faith and washed by holy Baptism ascend this path and are subjected to torture on it. Idolators, Mohammedans and all those who are alien to God do not come here: while they are still alive in body, they are already dead and buried in hell in soul. When they die, immediately, without any testing, the demons take them as a part that belongs to themselves and bring them down into the abyss of Gehenna.” After this conversation, Theodora reached the (fourteenth) ordeal of murder, in which not only robbery and murder are tortured, but also all stress, strangulation and pushing. Above was the (fifteenth) ordeal of sorcery, where sorcery, charm, poisoning, slander, whispers and the magical invocation of demons are tortured. At this ordeal, the dark spirits did not find anything with which to convict Blessed Theodora, and in rage they shouted to her: “If you come to the ordeals of the prodigal, we will see if you will escape them?” Rising even higher, she asked the holy Angels: “Do all Christians really pass through these places, and it is impossible for any of them to pass through without being subjected to torture and fear?” The Holy Angels answered: “There is no other way for Christian souls ascending to heaven; everyone passes here, but not everyone is tortured as much as those who have fallen into sin and not fully confessed to it, who were ashamed of their spiritual father and hid their shameful deeds before him, are tortured. If someone truly confesses the Fall, regrets them and repents of the evil he has done, his sins are invisibly blotted out by God’s mercy, and when the soul comes here, the aerial torturers, opening their books, find nothing in them 151 (Psalm 31:1).” Ladder, Word 4. It would not be out of place to mention here an event that is almost contemporary to us. In the vicinity of Vologda there is a large village, Kubenskoye, which has several parishes. One of the parish priests became ill and, approaching his death, he saw his bed surrounded by demons who were preparing to kidnap his soul and bring him down to hell. Then three Angels appeared. One of them stood at the bedside and began to argue about the soul with the most disgusting demon, who was holding an open book in which all the sins of the priest were written down. Meanwhile, another priest came to admonish his brother. Confession began; the sick man, directing his frightened gaze into the book, pronounced his sins with selflessness, as if spewing them out of himself - and what does he see? He clearly sees that as soon as he uttered any sin, this sin disappeared in the book, in which there was a gap instead of a record. Thus, by confession, he blotted out all his sins from the demonic book, and, having received healing, he spent the rest of his days in deep repentance, telling his neighbors, for their edification, a vision, sealed with miraculous healing, why they could neither offend her nor frighten her, and the soul ascends with joy to the Throne of Grace. While talking, they reached the (sixteenth) fornication ordeal, in which all kinds of fornication are tortured, i.e. prodigal sin of persons not bound by marriage; the dreaming of prodigal sin, the delay in this dreaming of thoughts, the permission to sin, the pleasure of sin, voluptuous views, bad touches are also tormented. When Theodora reached this ordeal, the dark spirits belonging to it were very surprised that she even reached them, and they cruelly accused her, especially because of her lack of frankness before her spiritual father. Then they came to the (seventeenth) adulterous ordeal, at which the fornication sins of persons living in marriage, who did not maintain marital fidelity and the marriage bed undefiled, are tortured; here the kidnappings and violence of prodigals are menacingly tortured, as well as the prodigal falls of persons dedicated to God, who promised their purity to Christ, but violated the vow. (Eighteenth) ordeal of Sodom, at which all supernatural prodigal sins and incest are tortured. When they had passed this ordeal, the holy Angels said to Theodora: “You have seen the terrible and disgusting ordeals of prodigy! Know that a rare soul passes them freely: the whole world is immersed in the evil of temptations and defilements, all people are voluptuous and fornicating. “A man’s mind is set on evil from his youth” (Gen. 8:21), and hardly anyone keeps himself from the uncleanness of prodigals. There are few who mortify carnal lusts, and few who would freely pass by these ordeals! Most of them, having reached here, perish: the fierce torturers of prodigal sins kidnap the souls of fornicators and drag them into hell. The authorities of the prodigal ordeals boast that they alone, more than all other ordeals, fill the fiery kinship in hell. Thank God, Theodora, that you passed these prodigal torturers through the prayers of your father, St. Basil: you will no longer see fear.” After this, they came to the (nineteenth) ordeal of heresies, where incorrect thinking about faith, doubts in faith, apostasy from the Orthodox faith, blasphemy and similar sins against the one true confession of faith are tortured. After passing this ordeal, they were already approaching the gates of heaven; but they were also met by the evil spirits of the last (twentieth) ordeal of unmercifulness, in which unmercifulness and cruelty are tortured. If anyone has performed many feats, fasts, vigils, kneeling, prayers; if someone maintained the purity of undefiled virginity and exhausted his body with abstinence, but was unmerciful and closed his heart to his neighbor, he is cast down from this ordeal and shut up in the hellish abyss forever. Finally, with inexpressible joy they approached the gates of heaven. The gates of heaven glowed like crystal; An indescribable radiance spilled out of them, and sun-shaped youths stood in them. Seeing the Venerable One, led by Angels, they were filled with joy for her, that she, covered by God’s mercy, had escaped the airy ordeals, and with great love they led her into the gates. During her procession through the ordeals, Theodora noticed that each ordeal was subordinated to a separate prince and that the spirits of each ordeal, in appearance, were consistent with the sin tortured at the ordeal. The great saints of God, who have completely passed from the nature of the old Adam into the nature of the New Adam, our Lord Jesus Christ, in this elegant and holy newness, with their honest souls, go through the airy demonic ordeals with extraordinary speed and great glory. They are carried up to heaven by the Holy Spirit, who, even during their earthly wanderings, constantly instilled in them the desire to be separated from the body and “to be with Christ” (Phil. 1:23). The Great Mark of France flowed like lightning through the heavens for one hour 152. When the time came for the death of the Monk Macarius the Great, the Cherub, who was his Guardian Angel, accompanied by a multitude of heavenly hosts, came for his soul. The faces of the apostles, prophets, martyrs, saints, reverends, and righteous descended with a host of angels. The demons set up in rows and crowds at their ordeals to contemplate the procession of the Spirit-bearing soul. She began to ascend. Standing far from her, the dark spirits shouted from their ordeals: “Oh, Macarius! What glory have you earned!” The humble husband answered them: “No! And I’m still afraid, because I don’t know if I did anything good.” Meanwhile, he quickly rose to the sky. From other higher ordeals the air authorities again shouted: “Exactly! You escaped us, Macarius." “No,” he answered: “I still need to escape.” When he had already entered the heavenly gates, they, sobbing with anger and envy, shouted: “Exactly! You escaped us, Macarius!” He answered them: “Protected by the power of my Christ, I escaped your wiles” 153. With such great freedom, the great saints of God pass through the air guards of the dark authorities because in earthly life they enter into irreconcilable warfare with them and, having won victory over them, in the depths of their hearts they acquire complete freedom from sin, becoming the church and sanctuary of the Holy Spirit, making their verbal abode impregnable for the fallen angel. Spiritual passage of ordeals during earthly life Just as the resurrection of the Christian soul from sinful death takes place during its earthly wanderings, in exactly the same way, here on earth, its torment by the aerial authorities, its captivity by them or its liberation from them is mysteriously accomplished here on earth; During the Procession through the air, this freedom and captivity are only revealed. The commandment given to man in paradise, prohibiting eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, has not been canceled 154. Even now she forbids seeing evil in one’s neighbor and condemning him, forbids taking revenge on him, commanding him to repay good for evil; prohibits looking with lust at the beauty of a wife, at a beauty that did not arouse lust before the fall; prohibits not only the utterance of a blasphemous word, heard in paradise from the mouth of the devil, but also the utterance of the Name of God in vain, and every idle word, every sinful thought. “And blessed Moses,” says Saint Macarius the Great, “depicting with a likeness that the soul should not follow two principles that disagree with each other, i.e. good and evil, but should cleave only to one good, also that it should not create two fruits, useful and harmful, but one useful, says this: “Thou shalt not yoke on thy threshing floor a foreign animal together, that is, an ox and a donkey; This means: let virtue and malice not manifest their actions on the threshing floor of your heart, but let virtue alone act. Again the same one says: “Do not comb the waved robe together with the linen below with the waved linen. You shall not sow two fruits together in the village of your land” (Deut. 22:11). “Thou shalt not allow a foreign animal into another fruit; but you conjugate like with like” (Lev. 19:19). All this mysteriously signifies that both malice and virtue should not be sown in us, but that one kind of fruit should be born, the fruit of virtue, and that the soul should not have communication with two spirits, i.e. the Spirit of God and the spirit of the world." 155 As he stood in paradise, so now stands against man his murderer, the fallen cherub, with his spinning flaming weapon, irreconcilably fighting with man, trying to draw him into violation of the commandment of God and into a more serious death than that by which our ancestors perished. Unfortunately, success emboldens the enemy more and more. The rotating flaming weapon in the hands of the air prince, as explained by the greatest holy Fathers 156, is the power of demons to rotate the mind and heart of a person, shaking and inflaming them with various passions. The Apostle calls the enemy's weapons "fiery arrows" (Eph. 6:16), and the Prophet likens the action of these weapons in the soul to the action of "fire in brushwood" (Psalm 117:12). “From that time,” says Saint Simeon, the New Theologian, “when the devil arranged for man, through disobedience, expulsion from paradise and excommunication from God, he and his demons received the freedom to mentally shake the language of each person, one more, another less. It is impossible for the mind to be protected otherwise than by the unceasing memory of God. When, through the power of the Cross, the memory of God is imprinted in the heart, then through this literature it becomes unshakable. This is what leads to the mental feat that every Christian has committed himself to in the field of faith. Without this fruit the feat is vain.” 157 The commandment is given not only for deeds and words, but mainly for their beginnings, for thoughts, and the enemy’s attack is directed primarily against the mind. If this leader of man does not secretly agree to sin, then neither a word nor a sinful deed can be born. The enemy's weapon is the thought and dream of sin 158. Man must fight against the air authorities in the land of thought. Here he is destined to either win or suffer defeat; here he gains freedom from the publicans, or submits to them; here his eternal fate is decided; he arbitrarily chooses either eternal life, given to him by the Creator, returned by the Redeemer, or eternal death, announced in paradise by the justice of God for the creature that tramples on the good deeds of the Creator. The holy Apostle Paul calls for this great and most important warfare when he says: “Put on the full armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil: for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities and powers and against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against the spiritual wickedness in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:11-12). The Apostle shows both the country of this terrible war and the type of weapons that should be used in it. “The weapons of our army,” he says, “are not carnal, but are powerful through God to destroy the firmament: casting down the thoughts and every exaltation that is brought against the mind of God, and bringing into captivity every mind into the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:4-5). The Apostle bequeaths to captivate into the obedience of Christ not only sinful thoughts that are clearly contrary to Him, but also all reason - because our evil adversary, experienced in the destruction of people, does not instill in us, at the initial encounter with him, thoughts that are clearly sinful, 159 but tries to oppose spiritual reason, i.e. Gospel teaching, human natural, fallen, carnal and spiritual, false mind, and, calling it sound, solid, righteous, great, eliminate obedience to Christ through it. As an example of the caresses and deceit with which the devil attracts the will of a person to overthrow the good yoke of Christ, Saint Macarius the Great cites the following mental warfare: “Someone, quarreling with his brother, is confused in himself, thinking like this: should he say this or that?.. No! I won’t say... He blasphemes me like that!.. Should I speak against him?.. I’d rather remain silent... True, we have God’s commandments, but we must also take care of our honor... Thus, it is difficult to completely deny oneself.” 160 Therefore, the Apostle commands decisive and complete self-sacrifice, commands putting on the whole armor of God, and not girding on any one weapon. Fasting alone is not enough, prayer alone is not enough, almsgiving alone is not enough, chastity alone is not enough! The whole armor of God is all the gospel commandments. He who tramples one of them has trampled their entire assembly, the whole law; whoever tramples one of them, “he will be called in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:19), will be sent to fiery Gehenna 161. “I have been guided by all your commandments; I have hated every way of unrighteousness” (Ps. 119:128). “Take all the weapons of God, so that you may be able to resist in the day of cruelty and everything that has been done” (Eph. 6:13). Only one who has accepted all the “armor of God” is able to “resist on the day of cruelty”; Only one who keeps all the commandments without exception can resist the enemy. “Fierce Day” is a time of cruel devilish temptation and attack to which the courageous warriors of Christ are exposed during their earthly wanderings and in which the victors pass from eternal death to the resurrection of the soul 162; for other Christians, “the day of lyut” is the day of separation of the soul from the body, the day of the procession through the air ordeals. The Saints of God put on the whole armor of God. The rule of their life was the Gospel, and their word, the word of their mouth, mind and heart, was “the word of God” (Eph. 6:17), the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. With this spiritual sword they struck and crushed the rotating fiery weapon of the enemy: the words spoken by the devil and the dreams depicted by him could not penetrate the soul and were reflected from it empty. In the strictest vigilance and sobriety, the saints of God listened to their minds and hearts. Illuminated by Divine grace, already from afar they felt the mental thieves and murderers approaching them, and saw in their attention, as in a mirror, the black faces of the mental Ethiopians 163. Having rejected their communication here, they deprived them of all right over themselves, and, after death, they already unhindered passed by the air authorities, which they had trampled in good time. “Only one who has truly renounced the world,” says Saint Macarius, “is one who strives, who has thrown off earthly burdens, who has freed himself and sincerely removed himself from vain desires, carnal passions, authorities and human honors, who has secretly received help from the Lord in a secret struggle, who remains firmly in His service, who has completely surrendered himself soul and body to the Lord - only such, I say, finds resistance, secret passions, invisible networks, hidden war, internal warfare. Being in the midst of this battle and constantly praying to God, he receives from heaven the spiritual weapons that the blessed Apostle described: the armor of righteousness, the helmet of salvation, the shield of faith and the spiritual sword: girded with them, he can resist the secret machinations of the enemy directed at him. Having acquired these weapons through prayer, patience, petition, fasting, faith, he can courageously wage war against the principalities, authorities and rulers of the world and, having defeated the opposing authorities with the help of the Spirit and his own virtues, become worthy of eternal life” 164. It was said above that the mortal sin of an Orthodox Christian, not healed by proper repentance, subjects the sinner to eternal torment; It was also said that pagans, Mohammedans and other persons belonging to false religions now constitute the property of hell and are deprived of all hope of salvation, being deprived of Christ, the only means of salvation. Mortal sins for a Christian are the following: heresy, schism, blasphemy, apostasy, sorcery, despair, suicide, fornication, adultery, unnatural fornication, incest, drunkenness, sacrilege, murder, robbery, theft and any cruel, inhuman offense. Only one of these sins - suicide - cannot be cured by repentance, but each of them mortifies the soul and makes it incapable of eternal bliss until it cleanses itself with satisfactory repentance. If a person falls at least once into one of these sins, he dies in soul: “Whoever keeps the whole law,” said the God-brother, “will sin in one, he will be guilty of everything. The saying is, “Thou shalt not commit adultery, but thou shalt not kill: but if thou didst not commit adultery, thou didst kill, thou art a transgressor of the law” (James 2:10-11). Let him who has fallen into mortal sin not fall into despair! Let him resort to the medicine of repentance, to which he is called until the last minute of his life by the Savior, who proclaimed in the Holy Gospel: “believe in Me, even if he dies, he will live” (John 11:25). But it is disastrous to remain in mortal sin, it is disastrous when mortal sin turns into a habit! No good deeds can redeem from hell a soul that has not been cleansed from mortal sin before its separation from the body. During the reign of the Greek Emperor Leo, there lived in Constantinople a very famous and rich man who gave abundant alms to the poor. Unfortunately, he indulged in the sin of adultery, and remained in it until old age, because over time the evil custom became stronger in him. Constantly giving alms, he did not deviate from adultery - and suddenly died. Patriarch Gennady and other bishops talked a lot about his eternal fate. Some said that he was saved, according to what was said in Scripture: “the deliverance of a man’s life is wealth to him” (Prov. 13:8). Others argued against this, that the servant of God must be blameless and undefiled, because it is also said in Scripture: “Even if a man fulfills the whole law, he sins in one eye and becomes guilty of all” (James 2:10, 11), all his righteousness will not be remembered (Ezek. 33:13) and God said: whatever I find you doing, that is what I will judge (Ezek. 33:13). 33:20). The Patriarch ordered all monasteries and all hermits to ask God to reveal the fate of the deceased, and God revealed it to a certain recluse. He invited the patriarch to his place and told him in front of everyone: “Last night I was at prayer and saw a certain place with paradise on the right hand, filled with indescribable blessings, and on the left a lake of fire, the flames of which rose to the clouds. Between the blissful paradise and the terrible flame the deceased stood bound and moaned terribly; he often turned his gaze to heaven and indulged in bitter sobs. And I saw a luminous Angel approaching him and saying: “Man! Why are you moaning in vain? Behold, for the sake of your alms, you have been delivered from torment; and because you did not give up vile fornication, you are deprived of blissful paradise.” The Patriarch and those who were with him, hearing this, were overcome with fear and said: the Apostle Paul proclaimed the truth: “flee fornication: for every sin that man commits is besides the body: but whoever commits fornication sins in his own body” (1 Cor. 6:18). Where are those who say: even if we fall into fornication, we will be saved by alms? The merciful, if he is truly merciful, must first have mercy on himself and acquire purity of body, without which no one will see God. Silver, distributed with an unclean hand and an unrepentant soul, does not bring any benefit 165. Those Orthodox Christians who have acquired sinful passions and through them entered into communion with Satan, breaking off communion with God, are also deprived of the hope of salvation. Passions are sinful habits of the soul, which, from a long time and frequent exercise in sin, have turned into natural qualities, as it were. These are: gluttony, drunkenness, voluptuousness, absent-minded life coupled with forgetfulness of God, memory malice, cruelty, love of money, stinginess, despondency, laziness, hypocrisy, deceit, theft, vanity, pride and the like. Each of these passions, turning into a person’s character and, as it were, into the rule of his life, makes him incapable of spiritual pleasure on earth and in heaven, even if the person does not fall into mortal sin. “Do not flatter yourselves,” says the holy Apostle Paul, “neither the harlot, nor the idolater, nor the adulterer, nor the debaucher, nor the sexually immoral, nor the sodomite, nor the covetous, nor the thieves, nor the drunkard, nor the harasser, nor the extortioner, will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 6:9, 10). “The essence of the deeds of the flesh has been revealed, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, adultery, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, zeal, envy, rage, incitement, strife, temptations, heresies, envy, murders, unruly cries, and the like: I will tell you what I have told you; for those who create the Kingdom of God will not inherit. And those who are Christ’s are the flesh crucified with passions and lusts” (Gal. 5:19–24). Passion requires careful healing through repentance and timely eradication of the opposite virtue. Passion is not always expressed in action; she can secretly live in a person’s heart, possessing his feelings and thoughts. Passion is recognized when a person does not cease to imagine sin and enjoy its dreams, when, captivated by it, he is no longer able to resist the captivating power of sinful thoughts and images, which with their indecent sweetness absorb all his wisdom and strength. A passionate person does not stop committing sin in dreams and heartfelt feelings, through which he maintains his communication with dark spirits and his subordination to them, and therefore his eternal destruction. “I will cry mightily,” the Lord commands His Prophet, “and tell my people their sins, and the house of Jacob their iniquities. Day after day they seek me, and they desire to understand my path, because people who have done righteousness, and have not forsaken the judgment of their God, now ask Me for righteous judgment: and they desire to draw closer to the Lord, saying: Why have we been silent and have not seen? We humbled our souls, and didst thou not lead us away? In the days of your fastings you will obtain your wills” (Is. 58:1–3), i.e. “Your evil thoughts! You offer burnt offerings to them as to idols! You have recognized, as it were, your gods, your fierce thoughts, and you offer them the most honorable of sacrifices: your freedom, which you should have dedicated to Me through your good deeds and clear conscience” 166. Only then does the hope of salvation dawn on a person when he sees himself as a permanent winner in the invisible battle. This thought was expressed by the holy prophet David when he prayerfully said to God: “In this knowledge that you have willed me. For my enemy will not rejoice over me” (Ps. 40:12). He prayed to receive this blessed state when he said: “Cleanse me from my secrets, and spare Thy servant from strangers. If they don’t possess me, then I will be blameless, and I will be cleansed from great sin.” ( Ps. 19:13–14 ) “Reward me with the joy of your salvation, and strengthen me with the Lord’s Spirit.” “And the words of my mouth and the teaching of my heart will be pleasing before You, O Lord my helper and my deliverer” (Ps. 50:14, 18:15). It is obvious that the Prophet called passion a secret sin and at the same time a great sin. He called it alien sin, because it is made up of demonic thoughts accepted and internalized by the soul, alien to the soul, from which it languishes and suffers, as from an unnatural state. Purity worthy of heaven appears after passions are eliminated from the heart. The One Holy Spirit can completely cleanse a person of passions and restore to him the power over himself that was stolen by the devil. In a state of dispassion, a person achieves pure love, and his thought begins to constantly dwell with God and in God. The soul, feeling the overshadowing of the Spirit, seeing itself as the conqueror of sinful thoughts and dreams, begins to feel the inexplicable joy of salvation. This joy has no resemblance to ordinary human joy, which is born solely from vanity and is formed by self-satisfaction, when a person flatters himself, or when others flatter him, or when earthly success flatters him. Spiritual joy, which announces salvation, is full of humility, full of thanksgiving to God, accompanied by abundant and constant tears, unceasing prayers, is not satisfied with condemnation and humiliation of oneself, is poured out in confession to God, in the praise of God, and is marked by mortification to the world. She is a foretaste of eternal life! She is the living knowledge of God, which cries out mysteriously: “the voice of joy and salvation in the villages of the righteous: the right hand of the Lord create strength, the right hand of the Lord exalts me, the right hand of the Lord creates strength. I will not die, but I will live, and I will tell the works of the Lord: the Lord punished me with punishment, but He did not give me over to death. Open the gates of righteousness for me: when we enter, let us confess to the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord: the righteous shall enter into it. Let us confess to You, that You heard me, and You were my salvation” (Ps. 118:15–21). The Gate of the Lord is grace-filled humility 168. When these gates of Divine Truth open before the mind, he ceases to condemn his neighbor, to be angry with him, to blame both him and circumstances, ceases to justify himself, recognizes the incomprehensible truth of God in everything that happens, and therefore rejects his truth as an abomination. Through these gates, in confession of the countless blessings of God and his many sins, washed with tears of repentance and tenderness, a person enters with pure prayer and spiritual vision before the face of God. Let's run, run away from our killer - sin! We flee not only mortal sin, but also venial sin, so that it does not turn from our negligence into a passion that brings us down to hell on a par with mortal sin. There are forgivable sins. So, if someone happens to be carried away by gluttony, lustful views and thoughts, utter a rotten word, lie, steal something of little importance, become conceited, be proud, become angry, become sad for a short time or be angry with one’s neighbor, in all such passions, due to human weakness, when they are followed by consciousness and repentance, we conveniently receive forgiveness from merciful God. Venial sin does not separate a Christian from Divine grace and does not kill his soul, as mortal sin does; but venial sins are also harmful when we do not repent of them, but only increase their burden. In comparison, made by the Holy Fathers, both a heavy stone tied around the neck and a bag of sand tied to the neck can equally drown a person: thus both mortal sin and the accumulated multitude of small, venial sins are equally drawn into the hellish abyss. What, for example, did the evangelical rich man do that was especially bad, indulging in daily amusements, having his own means for it? The reason for his death is presented in the Gospel as his only absent-minded life, which led to complete oblivion about the eternal future and about virtue. Absent-mindedness became his passion; outside of it he did not understand life. The trouble with getting a heart ulcer is passion! This ulcer is sometimes caused by the most insignificant circumstance: one careless, apparently innocent look, one thoughtless word, one frivolous touch can infect beyond healing. What grave sin could the above-mentioned recluse, especially respected by the citizens, fall into, who never left his cell, who did not seduce anyone, on the contrary, who served as an edification for many and died for his invisible mental communication with Satan, because of which he did not rest within himself the Holy Spirit for a single hour? In a certain convent, her niece, beautiful in appearance and impeccable behavior, lived under the abbess. All the sisters admired and were edified by her angelic appearance and extraordinary modesty. She passed away. She was buried solemnly, in the firm belief that her pure soul had soared into heavenly abodes. Saddened by the separation from her, the abbess indulged in unceasing prayer, strengthening this prayer with fasting and vigil, and asked the Lord to reveal to her what heavenly glory her niece was awarded in the ranks of the blessed virgins? One day, when the abbess, in the cell silence of the late night, was standing in prayer, the ground suddenly parted under her feet and bubbling fiery lava flowed before the eyes of the praying woman. Beside herself with fear, she looked into the abyss that opened before her - and saw her niece among the hellish flames. "My God! – she exclaimed desperately. “Can I see you?” “Yes,” said the deceased with a terrible groan. - “What is this for? – the old woman asked with grief and sympathy. “I hoped to see you in heavenly glory, in the faces of angels, among the blameless lambs of Christ, and you... What is this for?” - “Woe to me, damned one! - moaned the sufferer. “I myself am to blame for my eternal death in this flame, which constantly devours but does not destroy me. You wanted to see me - and God revealed to you the secret of my position.” - “What is this for?” – the abbess asked again through tears. “Because,” answered the tormented woman, “because in your mind I seemed to be a virgin, an immaculate angel, but in reality I was not that. I did not defile myself with carnal sin, but my thoughts, my secret desires and criminal dreams brought me to hell. Despite the purity of my virgin body, I did not know how to keep my soul, my thoughts and movements of my heart in purity, and for this I am given over to torment. Due to my carelessness, I harbored a feeling of heartfelt affection for one young man, enjoyed in my thoughts and dreams the idea of ​​his beautiful appearance and union with him, and, realizing that this was a sin, I was ashamed to reveal myself to my confessor during confession. The consequence of the vicious pleasure in unclean thoughts and dreams was that after my death the holy Angels became disgusted with me and left me in the hands of demons. And now I am burning in the flames of Gehenna, I will burn forever and will never, never burn, there is no end to torment for those rejected by heaven! Having said this, the unfortunate woman groaned - moaned, gnashed her teeth and, caught up in the flaming lava, disappeared with all her vision from the gaze of the abbess 169 . “You must preserve your soul and look after it in every possible way,” says Saint Macarius, “so that it does not associate with foul and evil thoughts. Just as a body, when copulating with another body, becomes infected with uncleanness, so the soul becomes corrupted, combining with nasty and evil thoughts and agreeing at the same time with them. This must be understood not about one or two types of thoughts that lead to sin, but about all evil thoughts in general, such as thoughts of unbelief, flattery, vanity, anger, envy and zeal. The rejection of all these thoughts consists of “cleansing oneself from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit” (2 Cor. 7:1). Know that even in the secret of the soul, corruption and fornication are caused by the action of obscene thoughts, according to the word of the great Apostle: “If anyone corrupts the church of God, God will corrupt him” (1 Cor. 3:17). Under the name of the church of God, understand this visible body of ours. Likewise, the one who corrupts the soul and mind, uniting and copulating with malice, is guilty of execution. Just as the body must be preserved from visible sin, so must the soul, this bride of Christ, be preserved from obscene thoughts. “You have become engaged,” says the Apostle, “to present the bride to one husband to Christ” (2 Cor. 11:2). And another Scripture says: “Guard your heart with all care, for life comes from these” (Prov. 4:23). And again: learn from the Divine Scripture that “an obstinate mind separates you from God” (Wis. 1:3). The Monk Nil of Sorsky talks about passion this way: “passion is subject to either proportionate repentance or future torment. One must repent of passion and pray for deliverance from it: it is subject to future torment for unrepentance in it, and not for the internal struggle it produces. If the struggle itself were punished with eternal torment, then without perfect dispassion there would be no remission of sins, which, however, was received by many, as St. Peter of Damascus says. Anyone who is struggling with any passion must carefully resist it, the Fathers said. Let's take the example of prodigal passion. Struggling with a lustful passion for any person, he must in every possible way avoid talking with him and being with him, even touching his clothes and smelling him. He who is not guarded by all this commits passion and commits adultery with thoughts in his heart, the Fathers said. Such a person kindles the furnace of passions within himself, and introduces evil thoughts into himself, like animals” 170. Let us prepare for eternity and for the transition to eternity, called death, during earthly life, in this threshold to eternity. Earthly life is not life itself, but a constant struggle between life and death: alternately we deviate first to one or the other, hesitate between them, are challenged by them. If we fairly evaluate the short moment for which we are placed here on earth, comparing it with an immeasurable and majestic eternity, then we will find only one correct use of earthly life. It is used correctly when carried out in preparation for eternity. This is how the Word of God judges earthly life: “Do not be afraid, little flock,” the Lord bequeaths to his disciples during their earthly journey, “for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell ​​your possessions and give alms: create for yourself a treasure that never wears out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief approaches, no moth corrupts: for where your treasure is, there will your heart be. Let your loins be girded and your lamps burning: and you are like a man who waits for his Lord when he returns from marriage, so that when he comes and pushes, it will be opened to Him. Blessed are the servants, for whom the Lord will come and find them vigilant. Amen I say to you, for he will gird himself and make them sit down, and after passing away he will minister to them. And if he comes in the second watch, and he comes in the third watch, and finds them in this way, bliss is the essence of slavery. Behold, if the master of the church had known at what time the thief would come, he would have been vigilant and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. And you will therefore be ready: for at this hour, remember not, the Son of Man will come. Who then is a faithful builder and a wise one, whom the Lord will appoint over his servants, to give in due time? Blessed is that servant; when the Lord comes he will find him doing this. Truly I tell you that he will place him over all his possessions. If that servant says in his heart, “My master will not come, and will begin to beat the male and female servants, and eat and drink and get drunk: the master of that servant will come in a day, in a certain day, in a certain hour, in a certain hour, and he will spoil him, and share his portion with the infidels” (Lk. 12:32–40, 42–46). The verbal flock of true Christians is small and humiliated; it is despised and persecuted by the proud sons of the world; but the Lord commands him not to faint in sorrows and not to be afraid of them, commands him not to pay attention to these sorrows, to direct all his attention to the kingdom of heaven, promised by the good will of the Father - God. He commands to transform earthly property through alms into heavenly property, so that a person’s very treasure, being in heaven, will attract him to heaven. He commands you to arrange your circumstances in such a way and to conduct your life in such a way that you are constantly prepared for death. Calling earthly life night, He proclaims that it is unknown at what hour of this night death will come: whether in childhood, or in adolescence, in mature courage, or in extreme old age. The Lord threatens unexpected death to those who, considering it far from themselves, allow themselves to abuse earthly life and the gifts of God. The true disciples of Christ fulfilled the Lord's will with precision. The Apostle Paul says about himself that he died daily (1 Cor. 15:31). Exactly: he who is daily prepared for death dies daily; he who has trampled all sins and all sinful desires, whose thought has now moved to heaven and remains there, dies daily. He who dies daily already lives eternal, true life 171. Very few Christians, even those who spend their lives in holy monasteries, achieve such a life in thought and heart in heaven, while living in body on earth, such a daily transmigration into eternity; the less accessible is this spiritual state to Christians living in the middle of the world. Earthly cares constantly oppress the thought to the earthly, tie it to the temporary and perishable, robbing it of the remembrance of eternity. This, however, should not lead a Christian to despondency. If he cannot constantly remain in the realm of the eternal and spiritual, then he can turn to it often and prepare for death in good time. One must prepare for it by daily or, if possible, frequent confession of one’s sins both before the spiritual father and in the spiritual cage before the one Knower of the Heart - God. One must prepare for death by abstaining from foods and drinks, abstaining from idle talk, jokes, laughter, distraction, amusements and games, abstaining from the luxury required by the vanity of the world, and from all excesses that make the thought of death alien to the mind, flatteringly presenting earthly life as if endless. We must prepare ourselves with prayers from a contrite and humble heart, with tears, sighs, and sobs; must be prepared by abundant giving of alms, forgiveness of insults, love and good deeds to enemies, patience with all earthly sorrows and temptations, which atone for the eternal sorrows of hell. If death finds a Christian in this feat, then, of course, it will find him girded, i.e. prepared to make a long journey from earth to heaven, and with a burning lamp, i.e. with a mind and behavior illuminated by Divine Truth. Remembrance of Death, or Mortal Memory One of the most excellent ways of preparing for death is remembering and thinking about death. It is obvious from the above words of the Savior that it is commanded by the Lord. And the Holy Scripture of the Old Testament says: “Remember your last, and you will never sin” (Sir.7:39). The holy monks cultivated this part of mental achievement with special care. In them, reflection on death, overshadowed by grace, turned into a living contemplation of the mortal mystery, and such contemplation was accompanied by fervent prayer with copious tears and deep heartfelt groaning. Without constant remembrance of death and the judgment of God, they recognized the most sublime feat as dangerous, as it could give rise to conceit. The Monk Anthony the Great, in his instructions to his disciples, advises thinking about death: “By considering,” he says, “the vicissitudes of human life and the uncertainty of its end, we will be removed from sin by such consideration. When we get up from sleep, it is quite doubtful whether we will reach the evening. Again, when we want to calm the body with sleep, it is just as unreliable whether we will see the light of the coming day. Reflecting on the unfaithfulness of our life and nature in all respects, we achieve the knowledge that God's Providence controls us. Then we stop sinning and being carried away by empty and corruptible situations, then we are not angry with anyone, we do not strive to collect earthly treasures, we trample on everything corruptible with the fear of daily departure from here and with constant reflection on the separation of the soul from the body; then love for the female sex ceases to act, the flame of fornication goes out, we forgive each other our debts, constantly having before our eyes the onset of final retribution. The fear of judgment and the fear of torment destroy the deceptive lusts of the flesh and together support the soul when it tends to fall.” Saint Isaac of Syria says: “Who is worthily called wise? The one who truly understood that there is a limit to this life; he can put a limit to his sins 172. The first thought sent by God’s love for mankind to man and guiding his soul to the eternal belly is the thought of the outcome that sinks into the heart. This thought will naturally be followed by contempt for the world; with it every good movement begins in a person, guiding him to the stomach. The Divine power, which assists man when he desires to manifest life in him, places this thought in him as the foundation, as we said. If a person does not extinguish it with everyday worries and vanity, but grows in silence, going deeper into himself and occupied with it, then it will lead him to a deep vision, inexpressible in words. Satan extremely hates this thought and uses all his strength to tear it out of a person. If it were possible, he would give man the kingdom of the whole world, if only through entertainment he could erase this thought from the man’s mind; he would do it willingly if he could. Insidious! He knows that if the thought of death takes root in a person, then his mind no longer remains in the land of deception, and the demonic cunning does not approach him. Do not think that we are talking about the first thought that awakens in us by reminding us of the remembrance of death; we are talking about the completeness of the matter when the memory and reflection of death constantly comes to a person, always affirming and surprising him. The first thought is physical, and the second state is spiritual vision and wondrous grace. This vision is clothed in bright thoughts. He who has it does not pay attention to the world, and does not care about his body” 173. “When you approach your bed, say to him: O my bed! Won't you become my coffin this night? I do not know whether this night, instead of a temporary sleep, a future eternal sleep will befall me. As long as you have legs, flow to work, before they are tied in a bond that can no longer be resolved. As long as you have fingers, crucify them in prayer before death comes. As long as you have eyes, fill them with tears before they are covered with dust. Just as a rose withers as soon as the wind blows on it, so you die if any of the elements that make up your composition are shaken within you. O man! Root in your heart the thought of your departure, and constantly remind yourself: behold! The messenger who was to come for me had already reached the door. Why am I sitting? Departure forever, irrevocable" 174. “Just as bread is more necessary than any other food,” says St. John Climacus, “so thinking about death is more necessary than all activities. The remembrance of death gives rise to zeal for work in communal monks and the constant training of oneself to fulfill the Gospel commandments, especially to endure dishonor with sweetness, and in the silent monks the putting aside of cares, constant prayer and preservation of the mind. These virtues are both the mother and daughter of remembrance of death. Living remembrance of death cuts off excess in food; When this excess is cut off with humility, the passions are cut off with its cutting off. Just as, according to the definition of the Fathers, perfect love does not fall, so I affirm that a true premonition of death is not afraid of falls. Just as some recognize the abyss as infinite, saying that this place has no bottom, so the remembrance of death brings purity and activity that have no limits. It is impossible, impossible to spend a real day piously if we do not consider it the last day of our life. Let us be convinced that remembrance of death, like any good, is a gift of God; because often at the very graves we do not shed tears and remain indifferent; on the contrary, we often become moved even without this spectacle” 175. The great Barsanuphius asserts that a person who cuts off his will in everything, having a humble heart and always death before his eyes, can be saved by the grace of God and, wherever he is, fear will not overtake him: such a one “forgets what is behind, but reaches out to what is before” (Phil. 3:13). “Let your thought be strengthened,” writes this reverend Father to a certain brother, “by the memory of the coming of death, the hour of which is unknown to any man. Let us try to do good before we pass from this life. We don’t know on what day we will be called, lest we be some and remain outside the palace with the five foolish virgins who took the lamps, but did not take the oil in their vessels” 176. The Reverend writes to another brother: “Understand that time does not slow, and when the hour comes, the messenger of death is inexorable. Who prayed to him and was heard? He is a true servant of the true Master, exactly fulfilling His command. Let us fear the terrible day and hour, in which neither brother, nor relative, nor superiors, nor power, nor wealth, nor glory will protect: but there will only be a man and his work” 177. – “It is good for a person to remember death in order to get used to the knowledge that he is mortal; mortal is not eternal; the non-eternal will leave this age involuntarily. Through the constant memory of death, a person begins to do good voluntarily” 178. The Monk Philotheus of Sinai advises the ascetic of Christ to devote the entire morning to sober and prolonged prayer, and after eating food to spend some time remembering and thinking about death 179 . Citing this ancient Father as testimony, our Venerable Nil of Sora also advises devoting time after meals to thinking about death and judgment 180 . This instruction of the Holy Fathers, as drawn from blissful experience, is useful and should be used by everyone who wants to accustom themselves to the remembrance of death, who wants to free themselves from the seductive and deceptive mental state in which a person seems to himself to be eternal on earth, and considers death to be the lot of only other people, not at all his own. After forcibly training oneself to remember death, the merciful Lord sends a living foreboding of it - and it comes to help the ascetic of Christ during his prayer. It delights him in good time to the Last Judgment of Christ; In good time at this trial, a person begs the humane Lord for forgiveness of his sins, and receives it. That is why Saint John Climacus called “the prayer of those who truly pray – a judgment seat, a judgment, a throne of the Lord, anticipating the general future judgment” 181. St. Philotheus of Sinai testifies that mortal memory (as the Holy Fathers generally call recollection and reflection on death) cleanses the mind and body. “Having seen her beauty,” he says, “and being captivated by the spirit, and not by the eye, I wanted to acquire her as a companion for the duration of this earthly life, becoming a lover of her splendor and honesty. How humble, joyful-sad, considerate she is! How she constantly fears future righteous torture! How afraid she is of putting off virtuous living from day to day! She exudes living, healing water from her sensual eyes, and from her mental eyes a spring, sharpening the wisest thoughts that flow and jump, cheering the meaning. This, as I said, the daughter of Adam, the memory, I say, of death, I constantly longed to have as a companion, to fall asleep with her, to talk with her and to explore what would happen to me after separation from the body” 182. “The everlasting and living memory of death gives birth to crying, combined with joy and sweetness, and sobriety of the mind” 183. “He who skillfully tests his life, constantly remaining in the remembrance of death and reflection on it, thereby wisely distracting the mind from passions, sees more clearly the hourly coming of demonic excuses than the one who wants to spend life outside of mortal memory, purifying the heart for the sake of a single mind and not keeping his thoughts always deplorable and sad. Such a one, thinking to conquer all destructive passions with his wit, is, without knowing it, bound by the worst of them, and often deviates far from God with his arrogance. Such a person must strictly watch himself so as not to become proud, and for this reason not to go crazy. It is usual for souls, says Paul, who gather knowledge from here and there, to be proud of the lesser ones they seem to be: there is no spark of edifying love in them, as I think. On the contrary, he who has the memory of death, seeing more clearly than others the invasion of demons, every evening overthrows them and drives them away” 184. “Truly, the living memory of death contains many virtues: it is the parent of crying, an incentive to abstain from everything, a remembrance of Gehenna, the mother of prayer and tears, the dispassion of decay through the discovery of its mortality, the source of wit combined with prudence; their children are the deep fear of God and the purification of the heart from passionate thoughts, which encompasses many commandments” 185. Saint Hesychius of Jerusalem places among the images of sobriety the constant content in the soul of the remembrance of death. He likens mortal memory to a goalkeeper who stands at the door of the soul and forbids evil thoughts from entering them. “Let us,” he says, “if possible, remember death incessantly. From such remembrance is born in us the putting aside of worries and all vanities, guarding the mind and unceasing prayer” 186. Constant remembrance of death is a wondrous grace, the lot of the saints of God, especially those who have given themselves over to thorough repentance in indestructible silence. Only in silence do the most sublime virtues ripen and flourish, like the rarest and most precious plants in greenhouses! But we, weak and passionate, also need to force ourselves to remember death, to acquire in our hearts the skill of thinking about it, although such thinking is extremely disgusting to a sin-loving and peace-loving heart. For such training, according to the above instructions of the Holy Fathers, it is useful to set aside a certain hour every day, free from worries, and devote it to the saving remembrance of terrible, inevitable death. No matter how true this event is for every person, at first with the greatest difficulty one can force oneself even to the cold memory of death, which serves as one of the countless proofs of the fall of our nature placed in it itself. The constant distraction of thoughts, which we have become accustomed to, and gloomy oblivion constantly steal the thought of death from those who begin to work on remembering it often. Then other counteractions appear: unexpectedly, the most necessary tasks and concerns appear precisely at that hour that we have set aside from the day to care for our eternity, in order to steal this hour from us, and then, in order to completely steal the very work, even the very memory of the existence of the spiritual, most saving work - thinking about death. When, having learned the machinations of the powers of the air, we persist in the feat, then we will see in ourselves a new battle against it - thoughts of doubt about the reality and benefits of the feat, thoughts of ridicule and blasphemy, calling it strange, stupid and ridiculous, thoughts of false humility, advising us not to separate ourselves from other people by our behavior. If, by the great mercy of God, this battle is also overcome - the most painful fear, produced by the living memory and imagination of death, as if by a premonition of it, is at first unusually difficult for our old man: it terrifies the mind and imagination; a cold thrill runs through the body, shocks, relaxes it; the heart is languishing with unbearable melancholy, coupled with hopelessness. One should not reject this state, one should not fear harmful consequences from it. “For anyone who begins to live according to God,” says Saint Simeon the New Theologian, “the fear of torment and the illness that results from it are useful. He who dreams of making a beginning without such illness and bonds not only lays the foundation on the sand of his deeds, but is also like someone who tries to build a church in the air, without a foundation at all, which is impossible. From this illness all joy is soon born; with these bonds the bonds of all sins and passions are torn apart; this tormentor is not the cause of death, but of eternal life. Whoever does not want to avoid the disease born from the fear of eternal torment, and does not jump away from it, but by the will of his heart surrenders to it and puts its bonds on himself, he, in accordance with this, will quickly begin to march, and she will present him to the King of kings. When this is accomplished, and the ascetic partially looks towards the glory of God, then the bonds will immediately be resolved, painful fear will run away, heart disease will be transformed into joy, a source will appear, draining sensually ever-flowing tears like a river, mentally silence, meekness, indescribable sweetness, courage, rushing freely and uninhibitedly to all obedience to the commandments of God" 187 . It is obvious: such a change takes place from the grace-filled appearance in the heart of the hope of salvation. Then, when thinking about death, sadness dissolves into joy, bitter tears turn into sweet tears. A person who began to cry at the memory of death, as at the memory of an execution, suddenly begins to cry at this memory, as at the memory of returning to his priceless fatherland. This is the fruit of remembering death. According to the importance of the fruit, one must be courageous in cultivating it and overcome all obstacles with reasonable labor and constancy; we must believe that the fruit will be acquired by us in due time, by the mercy and grace of God. The memory of death, the fears that accompany it and the fears that follow it, a memory coupled with fervent prayer and weeping for oneself, can replace all labors, embrace a person’s entire life, give him purity of heart, attract to him the grace of the Holy Spirit, and thereby grant him a free ascension to heaven past the aerial authorities. A Call to Remember and Contemplate Death Before we reach that prayerful, blissful state in which the mind directly sees the impending death and is horrified by death, just as a creature should be horrified by the threat of the Creator pronounced along with the commandment, it is useful to arouse in ourselves the memory of death by visiting a cemetery, visiting the sick, being present at the death and burial of our neighbors, and frequently examining and updating our memory of various modern deaths that we have heard and seen. How many of our acquaintances, who loved this earthly life and enjoyed prosperity in it, who hoped to live long and were not yet at all old, were suddenly reaped by death! None of them could say to the coming death: “Wait! Good luck: I don’t want to die yet!” Some of them did not have time to make any orders or preparations at the hour of death; others were caught up from the midst of a cheerful feast, because of a luxurious meal; others died on the road; others drowned; others killed themselves or were killed; others were torn to pieces by wild beasts; others lay down on the bed to calm their bodies with a little temporary sleep, and fell asleep in eternal sleep. Let's look around us: how many relatives, friends and acquaintances, taken by death, have dropped out of our society! Of these, the glorious ones left fame, power and honors, the rich left behind property and money, accumulated with great difficulty, kept with great stinginess. Death separated parents from their large family, husband from wife, friend from friend; she struck a genius among his great deeds; it took away from human society the member it most needed and at the time of its greatest need. No one could stop her or oppose her; no one could ask her for an account of her actions, which were so irreconcilable with human reason. What on earth is not vanity? What's not wrong? What has any permanence? Truly there is one life in Christ, continuing beyond the grave and developed in all its beauty and lightness by the death of the body. Everything else is weaker than a shadow, deceptive, like dreams... Many years of human labor for the sake of decay is destroyed by death in one hour, in one instant 188. Having realized the brevity of our earthly life and the vanity of all earthly acquisitions and advantages, having realized the terrible future awaiting those who, having neglected the Redeemer and redemption, sacrificed themselves entirely to sin and corruption, let us turn our mental eyes away from gazing at the deceptive and enchanting beauty of the world, which conveniently traps the weak human heart in self-love and self-service; let us turn them to the terrible but saving spectacle - to the death awaiting us. Let us pay ourselves in good time; Let us wash and cleanse our sins, written in the books of the World Ruler, with tears and confession. Let us acquire the grace of the Holy Spirit - this seal, this sign of election and salvation: it is necessary for free movement through the air and for gaining entry into the heavenly gates and abodes. “Unrighteous possessions” (Luke 16:11) - this is how the Gospel calls every earthly possession as a consequence of our fall - let us, according to the advice of the Gospel, use it to acquire abundant heavenly treasures by giving alms. Let us use our earthly life, this great gift of God, in accordance with the purpose indicated to it by God, for the knowledge of God, for the knowledge of ourselves, for the arrangement of our eternal destiny. Let's not waste time; Let's use it correctly: next time it is not given; his loss is irreparable. Exiles from Paradise! We are not on earth for fun, not for celebration, not for games, but in order to kill the death that killed us by faith, repentance and the cross and regain our lost paradise. May the merciful Lord grant to the readers of this word and to the one who composed it to remember death during earthly life; by remembering it, by mortifying oneself to all vain things and by living for eternity, to remove from oneself the cruelty of death when its hour comes, and to pass through it into blessed, eternal, true life. Amen. Conversation 4, ch. 9; Word 5, ch. 6. Word 6, ch. 8. Describing the supernatural actions of Divine grace during prayer, the great Macarius says: “At that hour it happens to a person that with the flow of prayer from his lips, his soul flows out of him.” Obviously, this happened to Saint Macarius himself. In our century, as far as the writer of this Word knows, two monks were honored to see their soul leaving the body during prayer: the Siberian hermit, monk Basilisk, who died in 1825, and the Nikiforov hermit, schemamonk Ignatius, who died in 1852. The latter personally revealed himself to the writer of the Word, and with the closest disciples of the former, the compiler of the Word was honored with cohabitation and friendship in the Lord. It is known that spiritual men and spiritual writings expound with all accuracy the thought of the Spirit, very often using the word of modern human society as understandable to everyone, without caring in the least about the form in which this thought is accepted by human learning. This is what Joshua said: “Let the sun become.” Rev. Gregory of Sinaita, ch. 1 of 15 chapters “On silence and two forms of prayer.” Dobrot., part 1. The spiritual vision of spirits through the grace-filled purity of mind and heart is incomparably higher than the vision of spirits with the eyes of the body or soul, when these eyes see only the outer image of the spirits. At the last vision, the inexperienced viewer almost always succumbs to either deception or mental distress. Spiritual vision, on the contrary, is the fruit of a pious ascetic life, overshadowed by God's grace and God's favor. It is full of spiritual benefit, because it sees the properties of spirits, the way they act, and therefore is protected from evil spirits, just as the holy Apostle John said: “He who is born of God keeps himself, and the evil one does not touch him.” See the interpretation of Blessed Theophylact, Bishop of Bulgaria, on the Gospel of John, chapter 3, verse 8. Also, the Monk Gregory of Sinaite says: “Where the spirit wants to breathe.” “Incorporeal and immaterial,” says Saint John of Damascus, “an angel is called in comparison with us. For everything, in comparison with God, the only incomparable one, turns out to be crude and material. The Divinity alone is, in the strict sense, immaterial and incorporeal.” An Accurate Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book 2, Chapter III “On Angels.” “By nature,” says the same Saint, “only God is incorporeal: Angels, demons and souls are incorporeal by grace and in comparison with gross matter.” Ibid., ch. 12 “About man.” “Below wisdom, with their wisdom,” says Saint Macarius the Great, “below understanding with their minds, they were able to understand the subtlety of the soul, or say how it exists, except for those to whom, through the Holy Spirit, comprehension and precise knowledge of the soul is open. But do you think here, judge and listen, and hear that it exists? That is God, but she is not God; He is the Lord, and she is the slave; He is the Creator, and this creature; He is the Creator, and she is a creation; there is no similarity between the nature of This and this.” Conversation 49, chapter 4. “Although we call,” says the Monk Cassian the Roman, “many beings spiritual, such as Angels, Archangels and other Powers, also our very soul, or what this subtle air is, they should not in any way be recognized as incorporeal. They respectively have a body in which they exist, although it is incomparably subtler than our body. They are bodies, according to the Apostle, who said: “both the heavenly body and the earthly body.” The minds that once existed and these (demons), and their immateriality and subtlety have fallen away, each one has a certain material plumpness, we are taken into body according to rank or action, and have become worse according to unmanly action: before we are more like humans, the angelic sweetness is worse, we have lost the pleasures of the Divine, and in the dust, like We, who have pleasure, are not material and these formerly material passions are habitually new (acceptance). And it is not worthy to wonder, since our soul was created in the image of God, verbal and intelligent, not having known God, it has become bestial and insensible, and is not only crazy about material things with pleasure: both, because the habit (in the manuscript: property, i.e. the acceptance of something from outside of nature) to transform nature and change the action to arbitrariness." Venerable Gregory of Sinaite ch. 123. Kindness, part 1. How nature, through accepting something from outside itself, is subject to the action of something alien to nature, can clearly be seen when taking food and drink. The forefathers, having transgressed the commandment of God, immediately submitted to the action of evil, which they arbitrarily accepted, although it was unnatural to them. It is known that the parts of an object closest to the eye appear larger to the eye, and those further away smaller. Science is based on this property of our eye: Descriptive or Descriptive Geometry. Manuscript of the Moldavian Neametsky Monastery, available to the compiler of the Word and containing the life and writings of St. Gregory of Sinaite in the Slavic language, ch. 10; also Kindness. Part 1. Life of St. Basil the New. Chetii-Minei March 26. Handwritten life of the Venerable. Dobrot., part 1. Chapters, located in the edges of the Greek scripture, extremely useful, ch. 11. Life of St. Simeon of Divnogorsk. Chetii-Minei May 24. Life of Saint Andrew. Cheti-Minei October 2. Saint Peter of Damascus. About the first mind, and how it should begin. Book 1. Kindness, part 3. See the interpretation of this verse in the Psalter published by the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra with interpretations borrowed from the Holy Fathers and placed at the beginning and end of the psalms and on the breeze. After the resurrection, the body will also be spirit. Rev. Macarius the Great, word 6, chapter 13. Hell, tartarus are Greek words meaning a low-lying, very deep place. They correspond to the Slavic-Russian word: underworld. Gehenna is a Hebrew word, the proper name of a deep ravine located near Jerusalem. “You are earth, and to earth you will go.” The Holy Church relates this sentence of God primarily to the soul of a person who, for transgressing God’s commandment, is doomed to burial in the earth both body and soul; the sentence falls with all its weight on the soul, which, even after being separated from the body, retains the abilities of thinking and sensation, which alone feels the effect of the sentence; the body, after being separated from the Soul, rests in decisive insensibility. Troparion of the 2nd song of the 5th canon at Matins on the 7th week of Easter. Saint Athanasius the Great in the Word for Easter says: “Human nature, united with the Divine (in the person of the Savior), caused the underworld to tremble. Hell exclaimed to meet the Thief of the Dead: Why are You perverting the definition You made in Paradise? Why are you tearing apart a handwriting written and sealed against human nature? I know the definition that was rightly pronounced on people: “You are the earth, and to the earth you will go.” (Opera omnia sancti Athanasii, Volume 4, Pag. 1,079 and 1,680). An accurate exposition of the Orthodox faith, book. 3, ch. 29. Lecture 14, ch. 17 and 20. Collection of Teachings, compiled by the Editors of the Sunday Reading at the Kyiv Theological Academy. Volume 1. Praise to verse 56 of Psalm CXVIII. 2 stichera on Monday evening of Bright Week. 1st stichera on Tuesday evening of Bright Week. Troparion 1 song 8 canon Matins in the 4th week of Easter. Troparion 2 songs 3 canons at Matins in the 4th week of Easter. Troparion 2 cantos 7 of the canon at Matins in the 5th week of Easter. Chorus for song 9 on Sunday. Troparion 2 cantos 5 of the canon at Matins on week 7 of Easter. Troparion 2 cantos 6 of the canon at Matins in the 7th week of Easter. Troparion 2 cantos 8 of the canon for Matins on the week of All Saints. Sunday stichera for praise 8th tone. Service throughout the days of Canon 4. Funeral rite for priests. Ladders degree 7 about joyful crying. Saint Athanasius the Great affirms positively the location of hell within the earth (above quotation; also letter to Antiochus, answer to question 19). Saint Basil the Great is of the same opinion (on the prophet Isaiah, chapter V, 14). Saint Cyril of Alexandria, as will be seen below, recognized hell in the interior of the earth; other Fathers indicate him there. Our compatriot, Saint Demetrius of Rostov, says: “At the terrible judgment, Christ our God always speaks against sinners: depart from Me, damnation into eternal fire: and in that hour the earth will give way under the sinners, just as it gave way under Korah, Dathan and Abiron under Moses, and then all sinners will fall into hell, - then the earth will return to its place will close. Sinners will be in hell under the earth, as if they were tightly locked in an iron vessel and eternally eternal.” Part 2, second lesson on the entry into Jerusalem of the Lord God and our Savior Jesus Christ. Saint John Chrysostom says: “In what place, you ask, will there be Gehenna? Out of this world, I guess. Just as royal dungeons and mines are far away, so Gehenna will be outside this world. Let us begin to look not for where it is, but for the means to avoid it. (Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans. Conversation 31. Opera omnia Chrysostomi). Placing hell in the bowels of the earth does not in the least contradict this opinion; on the contrary, it confirms it: what more convenient way could there be to hide hell from the eyes of the universe than by burying it in the bowels of the earth? Chapter 16 of the Gospel of Luke, verse 22 in some Greek editions reads like this: “the rich man also died, and they buried him in hell.” However, even in the reading accepted by the Greek-Russian Church, the Lord’s words about the rich man “buried him.” The earthquake that destroyed Brussa in 1854 destroyed the hot springs; This, at least, was the information conveyed by modern newspapers. “I’m afraid of tartar, I’m not involved in eating heat.” Saint Cyril about the exodus of the soul. Chetii-Minei May 19. Saint Patrick lived in the early 4th century, and suffered under Emperor Julian in 343 AD. See the Following Psalter. The warrior Taxiot, a resident of the African city of Carthage, spent his life in sins. A pestilence occurred in Carthage. Seeing many dying people, Taxiot came to his senses, repented of his sins and moved outside the city. There he fell into adultery with the wife of the farmer with whom he lived; He was soon bitten by a snake and, without having time to repent, died. He was buried in a nearby monastery. Six hours later, after burial, he resurrected and barely came to his senses on the fourth day. Then everything that happened to him after his death, he related, shedding tears, to the Carthaginian archbishop, Blessed Tarasius. Chetii-Minei March 28. Saint Cyril lived in the 5th century and presided over the Third Ecumenical Council. His Word given here on the outcome of the soul is placed in the Followed Psalter. Patriarch Theophilus, whose nephew and successor Cyril, also preached a teaching similar to Saint Cyril. See Memorable Tales. Many saw death before their death. If a significant part of the objects of the visible world are unknown to us, the objects of the invisible world are even more unknown, especially unknown to those who have not paid all their attention to studying them, but are engaged in them only superficially. Not everything that seems strange to the carnal human mind is already strange in itself. We must not limit the omnipotence of God by our prejudices. Every person who has not acquired true spiritual intelligence is filled with prejudices, no matter how much he has been formed by the quickly perishing education of the world - this riot in relation to God. Patrologia, Vitae Patrum, Lib. VI, cap. 13. Ladders 6th degree. Based on a handwritten Slavic translation from Greek, made in the Moldavian Holy Ascension Neametsky Monastery. Prayer at Pentecost Vespers. Breviary. Word 1, ch. 2, according to the 1833 edition. Saint Gregory Palamas, Archbishop of Thessaloniki, message to Xenia the Nun. Opinion of St. Pimen the Great (Paterikon of Skete). It was expressed by many other holy Fathers, finally, by Saint Tikhon of Voronezh. This opinion belongs to the Church in general and is based on the words of the Savior. Having healed the paralytic in Bethesda, at the sheep's font, the Lord said to him: “Behold, you are healthy: let no one sin, let him not sin the worse.” According to the explanation of St. Gregory Palamas (Message to the nun Xenia), Blessed Theophylact of Bulgaria and other holy Fathers. The Lord called two apostles the sons of thunder: James and John Zebedee (Mark 3:17). Interpretation of Saint Andrew on the Apocalypse. “I have already passed from death to life.” According to the interpretation of Blessed Theophylact, John, ch. 11:25, 26. St. Gregory Palamas to nun Xenia. Epicurus, the Greek philosopher, argued that man is on earth for pleasure, and left his followers to completely indulge in it. In order to give debauchery all the freedom, he rejected the existence of God and the immortality of the human soul. For everyone who wants to destroy the law that limits their evil will, to destroy even the memory of God, of virtue, of punishment for sin, the teaching of Epicurus turned out to be so convenient that it found many followers in ancient and especially in modern times. These provisions about the infinity of hellish torment are borrowed from the well-known mathematical theory of the infinite. We often turn to this theory in order to explain, as correctly and accurately as possible, the relationship of creatures to the Creator, which in the proper sense is incomprehensible and inexplicable. No science except mathematics is capable of such an explanation. She, she alone, proving the inaccessibility of the infinite to comprehend it, puts all numbers, that is, all types of creatures, in the correct relationship to it. The universe is numbers, and all its constituent parts are numbers; those uninitiated in the mysteries of mathematics will in no way combine the concept that all numbers, so different from each other, are together completely equal to one another in relation to the infinite. The reason for this equality is very simple and clear: it lies in the infinite, therefore constantly equal, difference between the infinite and any number. Through the indisputable conclusions of mathematics, it becomes obvious that the concept of number is a relative concept, and not an essential one. This concept, constituting a natural property of limited rational creatures, constituting an irresistible consequence of impressions, under the influence of which creatures enter upon entering into existence, cannot in any way be a property of an infinite being. The Infinite, embracing all numbers, at the same time remains above any number by the property of perfection, not having any lack in anything and incapable of being subject to lack. According to this property, the infinite, embracing all impressions, remains superior to any impression, otherwise it would undergo changes, which is characteristic of numbers and unusual for the infinite. If number does not have an essential meaning, then it is quite natural for the world to be created from nothing by the action of the infinite, which alone has an essential meaning. It is natural for the action of the infinite to be above the comprehension of the human. These are the irrefutable truths obtained by mathematics to the human mind: its zero, representing the idea of ​​​​the non-existent, turns into a number when the infinite acts on it. Natural sciences come to the aid of mathematics, to which it relates as the soul to the body. Without mathematics they cannot exist; they are built and supported by it, like flesh on a skeleton. The strictest mathematical calculation dominates throughout nature. What do natural sciences reveal to us? The fact that the substance in the environment of which we rotate, which we see and touch in various ways by touch, hearing, taste, and smell - this substance is not only not understood, not comprehended by us - this is not enough! - it is incomprehensible to us. The theory of atoms was invented so that it was possible to stop and base further judgments on something plausible. The theory of atoms remains an arbitrary assumption (hypothesis). In the precise sense, there are no creatures in nature: there are only phenomena in it. Numbers are also subject to this law: there is no number that cannot change from addition to it or from exclusion from it; There is no number that cannot go to zero. Every number is a phenomenon. One infinite always remains unchanged; it does not change either from additions to it or from subtractions from it. One infinite combines all life; it alone is a being in the precise sense. If so, then the creation of the world by God is a mathematical necessity and truth. As true as this truth is, so is the truth that the universe, as a matter of the unlimited mind, cannot be comprehended, discussed and verified by the limited human mind. The first truth is revealed to people, along with science, by Divine Scripture; on the basis of the second truth, the human mind has neither the right nor the opportunity to reject the story of the creation of the world that we read in the book of Genesis. Science confirms this again. The Apostle John the Theologian thunders to us from heaven: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was to God, and God was the Word.” Breviary, subsequent tonsure into the minor schema. St. Abba Dorotheos' teaching about the fear of future torment. Letter 6 of Svyatogorets. Similarly, in our time, a certain old woman in the Goritsky Maiden Monastery, near the city of Kirillov, Novgorod province, saw hellish torments in a dream, and, as evidence of the truth of the dream, the hellish stench remained in her sense of smell for seven whole days, preventing her from tasting any food during this entire time. Saint Demetrius of Rostov calculates the torments of hell in this way: “They will endure unquenchable fire there; for Christ our Savior said: “Their fire will not be quenched.” Patericon of Pechersk. The memory of St. Athanasius is celebrated on December 2. Life of Paisius Nyametsky, paragraph 14. The wife was subjected to the devil's temptation because she spent six whole weeks without communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ. With the abundant action of Divine grace in the primacy of the Church, even such errors, which now seem insignificant, entailed God’s punishment (Acts 5). Patericon of Skitsky. Cassiani collatio VIII. This is obvious from the scriptures and many other Holy Fathers. Word 4, ch. 3. That the power of Satan over fallen angels and men, over the world and the age, is not his property, but acquired from those who arbitrarily handed it over to him, he himself testified before the Savior when he showed Him “the whole kingdom of the world in an hour of time.” Ave. Cassian believes that Satan, before the fall, belonged to the organization of the Cherubim (Col. VII, cap. VIII). And other Holy Fathers agree that he is one of the highest angels. “Death was horrified when it saw that a new Someone had descended into hell, uncontained by the bonds there. Why, when you saw Him, were you afraid, O gatekeepers of hell (Job 38:17)? What unusual fear has taken hold of you? Death fled, and flight exposed fear. The holy Prophets flocked together, and the lawgiver Moses, and Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and David, and Samuel, and Isaiah, and the Baptist John, who preaches and testifies: “Are you the one who is coming, or someone else by tea” (Matthew 11:3)? All the righteous who were consumed by death were redeemed: because the preached King was to become the Redeemer of good preachers. And after this, each of these righteous people said: “Where is the sting, O death? Where is the victory? (1 Cor. 15:55)? We were redeemed by the Victorious One.” St. Cyril of Jerusalem 14 Catechetical Sermon, § 19, translated by the Moscow Theological Academy. When the Lord Jesus Christ descended into hell, the princes of hell were afraid and cried out: “Lift up the gates of lamentation: the King of glory, Christ, has ascended.” When the Lord crushed hell and, having freed the souls of the righteous from its captivity, ascended to heaven, the heavenly Powers, amazed at the new miracle, cried out: “Take the gates.” Some of them cried out, “Who is the King of glory?” Others answered: “The Lord of hosts, ascending in the flesh, God the Word, sitting on the throne of glory, the Son of the Father, existing with the Father from eternity, descended to earth, took on humanity and took it with Him to heaven - the King of glory.” Interpretation borrowed from the Holy Fathers and placed on the third kathisma in the Psalter of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra edition with interpretations on the breze. Saint John Climacus tells that a certain Stephen, who lived on Sinai, loved the desert and silence, spent many years in monastic feat, adorned with fasting and even more tears, flourished and other excellent qualities, having achieved real repentance, the day before his death, fell into a frenzy, began to look at the right and left sides of his bed and, tortured by invisible beings, spoke in the hearing of all those present. “Yes, exactly so; but for this I fasted for so many years.” Then: “No, you’re lying, I didn’t do it.” Again: “Yes, exactly that, yes; but I cried, I gave myself up to serve the brothers.” And again: “No, you are slandering me.” To other accusations he answered: “Yes, exactly so, and I don’t know what to say to this: God has mercy.” This invisible and severe torture presented a menacing and terrible spectacle; The worst thing was that he was accused of such offenses that he did not do at all. Alas! The silent man and hermit said about some of his sins: “I don’t know what to say to this”; meanwhile, he spent forty years in monasticism, and had tears... Where did Ezekiel’s saying disappear then: “in which I will find you, I will judge you,” said God (Ezek. 33:12, 20). Truly, he could not find anything to say: why glory to the One Omniscient! And some said, testified to the truth of their words by the Lord, that Stephen in the desert fed a leopard from his hands. But he was separated from the body with such torture... and left in the unknown how this trial, this torture ended (Ladders, degree 7). - “Do not betray me to the souls of those who are afflicted by me: for I have stood up as a witness of unrighteousness, and lied untruthfully to myself.” “The private judgment of God over souls, after their separation from their bodies, is preceded, according to the teaching of the Orthodox Church, by torture at the so-called ordeals, through which they, ascending from the earth, accompanied by Angels, pass through the air space, and in which evil spirits detain them and expose all the sins they have committed in life.” Dogmatic Theology of the Orthodox Catholic Eastern Church, Eminence Anthony, ch. 341, pp. 244 and 245, ed. 7, 1857 Vita beati Antonii, caput XXXVII. The Monk Anthony the Great lived in the 3rd century and at the beginning of the 4th. Judging by his long life and entry into the monastery at the age of twenty, we can reliably conclude that he left the world in the second half of the 3rd century. The admiration of the Saint’s Soul for the aerial ordeals described here as he began to pray confirms the opinion of St. Macarius the Great, that the souls of those who succeed in pious deeds sometimes leave the body during prayer through a special action of the Holy Spirit. Margaret. A word about patience and gratitude, and so that we do not cry inconsolably for the dead. This word is supposed to be read on the seventh Saturday after Easter and at each burial of the deceased. Western critics recognize the word as not belonging to Chrysostom; but from ancient times it has been consecrated in the Eastern Church by reading during Divine services. The Holy Great Martyrs Eustratius (his memory is celebrated on December 13) and George (his memory is celebrated on April 23) suffered under the emperor Diocletian between 301 and 310 AD. Chetii-Minei. Prayer of St. Eustratia is included in the rank of the twelve psalms. See Canon of Kiev-Pechersk. Saint Niphon lived in the second half of the 3rd and the beginning of the first half of the 4th century. Cheti-Minei December 23. The Monk Simeon lived in the 6th century. Chetii-Minei July 21. Prologue December 19. Saint John the Merciful died in the second half of the 7th century, after the capture of Alexandria by the Mohammedans. Rev. Isaiah lived in the 6th century. Question 145. The Great Barsanuphius lived in the 5th and 6th centuries AD. St. John of Carpathia consoling chapter 25. Word of Saint Hesychius, presbyter of Jerusalem, on sobriety, chapters 149, 161 and 4. Kindness, part 2. Chapters 60 and 75 according to the translation of Elder Paisius. The ascetic work of the Monk Theognostus is placed in the Christian Reading for 1826, part 23. Works of George, recluse of the Zadonsk Mother of God Monastery. Part 1, page 65, based on the 1850 edition. Small Trebnik, Moscow 1838. Akathists and canons, publication of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. 4 trails 8 songs of the canon in the Akathist to the Mother of God. Heel, tone 4, canon 8. Thursday, tone 4, song 6. Tuesday, tone 4, song 8. Saturday, tone 2, song 9. Trebnik, Moscow, 1852. Song 1, troparion 2 and 3. Akathists and canons, ed. Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. Orthodox-Dogmatic Theology of the Right Reverend Macarius. Volume 5, page 85, ed. 1853. “The continuous, constant and widespread use in the Church of the doctrine of ordeals, especially among the Teachers of the fourth century, indisputably testifies that it was transmitted to them from the Teachers of previous centuries and is based on the apostolic tradition.” Ibid., p. 86. Saint John Climacus relates that during his stay in a common monastery near Alexandria, a robber came to this monastery for repentance and tonsure as a monk. The Great Father, the abbot of the monastery, ordered him to confess his sins at a meeting of the entire brotherhood in the church. When the robber fulfilled this with ardent zeal and selflessness, the Great One immediately clothed him in the schema. Saint John asked the holy abbot in private: why did he tonsure the robber so quickly? The abbot gave the reason that the robber was honored with a confession of complete remission of sins. “And do not disbelieve this,” added the Great, “because some of the brethren present here assured me, saying: I saw a certain terrible one, holding a written charter and a cane; and when the confessor pronounced his sin, that terrible one blotted out this sin on the charter with a reed, and in justice, for the Scripture says: “Rech, let me confess my iniquity to the Lord, and you have forsaken the wickedness of my heart.” Chetii-Minei April 5. “Looking up,” says the Monk Serapion, who was present at the death of the Monk Mark, “I saw the soul of the Holy One, already freed from carnal unions and covered with white-blond clothing by the hands of angels and ascended to heaven.” Patericon of Skitsky. The procession of the Great Macarius from earth to heaven was seen by some of his disciples, who were in particular prosperity, and the Monk Paphnutius, who after the Great became abbot of the Skete, told about this procession. Ave. Brand Mobile A word about paradise and spiritual law. St. Macarius the Great. Word 2, ch. 4. St. Macarius the Great conversation 37, ch. 5 and Rev. Mark of the Ascetic Word 6. In the Word of Nile of Sora and in the 7th Word, ch. 2. Mac. Great. St. Hesychius of Jerusalem's word on sobriety, ch. 23. “When the devil sees someone who does not want to sin, he is not so foolish as to offer him obvious evil. He does not tell him: go and commit fornication, or go and steal. He knows that we do not want this, and does not bother to tell us what we do not want, but tries to find in us some kind of desire, some kind of justification, and with them he harms us. That is why Scripture says: “The evil one commits evil when he associates with the righteous” (Prov. 11:15). The evil one is the devil. Then he commits a crime when he combines his truth with our truth; – then it strengthens, then it does more harm, then it acts. When we are led by our wishes and follow our truth, then, as if doing good, we slander ourselves, and we don’t even notice how we perish.” The teaching of Abba Dorotheus: don’t form your own mind. According to the interpretation of Blessed Theophylact of Bulgaria. This is obvious from the lives of St. Anthony the Great, St. John the Long-Suffering of Pechersk and others. Ave. Hesychia, ch. 23, Kindness, part 2. Isaac of Syria, Homily 53, according to the translation of Elder Paisius. According to the interpretation of Macarius the Great, Homily 2, ch. 3. In the alphabetical Patericon the following saying of St. John Kolov is read: “The Gate of God is humility. Our fathers went up, rejoicing, into the church of God through many humiliations.” Venerable Nilus of Sorsky. Ave. Macarius the Great conversation XLIX, ch. 2. Extracted from the 6th degree of the Holy Ladder. Answers to questions 229 and 623. Answers to questions 799 and 645. Answers to questions 799 and 644. Rev. Filothea, ch. 2, Kindness, part 2. A word on sobriety, ch. 17, 18:155. Active and Theological voices 66 and 67, see Dobrot., part I. Borrowed most from the 7 Words of St. Nil Sorsky. Sudden death befalls only those who are careless about their salvation: this was announced by the Lord Himself (Luke 12:46). “God,” said the Monk Barsanuphius the Great to his brother, who was afraid of an unexpected and premature death, “will not take his soul (an ascetic struggling with passions) until he brings him into a high measure, into a perfect husband.” The answer is 265.