Letters to the Abbess of the Spaso-Borodinsky Monastery Maria (Tuchkova) (80 letters)

This publication is a collection of 80 letters from St. Philaret of Moscow (Drozdov), addressed to the abbess of the Spaso-Borodinsky Monastery, Maria (Tuchkova). The correspondence covers the period from 1825 to 1850 and reflects the spiritual mentoring of the saint, his deep pastoral care for the monastic community and personally for Maria (Tuchkova), the founder of the monastery, who survived the loss of her husband and son. - spiritual guidance and instructions in the fundamentals of faith: teachings on prayer, humility, patience, the inner structure of the soul, the fight against passions (letters 2, 7, 9, 11, 13, 19, 25, 64, 66); - consolation in sorrows and personal losses: support of Mother Superior Maria in experiencing the loss of loved ones, instructions about Christian hope and God's providence (letters 3, 6, 12, 17, 18, 32, 40, 52); - issues of organizing monastic life and managing the monastery: discussion of the construction of churches and cells (letters 36, 54, 58, 78); financial issues and charity (letters 1, 41, 58); reception and dismissal of sisters (letters 15, 38, 47, 69, 70); relationships with church and secular authorities (letters 25, 26, 30, 67, 73); - preparation and transformation of the Spassky hostel into a monastery: letters related to the official establishment of the monastery in 1838 (letters 26, 30, 34, 61); - criticism of religious and philosophical works and warnings against false teachings: assessment of the books that Mother Superior Maria read from the standpoint of Orthodox doctrine (letters 2, 50); - instructions on relationships with the world: advice on the balance between monastic solitude and the need for communication, charity, participation in church life (letters 10, 16, 21, 44, 59); - care for health - both spiritual and physical: exhortations to Abbess Mary and the sisters to conserve strength, advice on healing ailments with trust in God (letters 8, 53, 76); - holiday greetings and theological reflections: letters dedicated to Christmas, Easter and other holidays, containing deep theological thoughts (letters 5, 27, 35, 45, 56, 60). Letter 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 God's blessing to you and your son! I will read books; I don't promise to read it hastily. The widow's children should have been taken by one of the children of the Orthodox Church. Or is it not possible to place them in the local house of industriousness, even as pensioners, for which the necessities could be collected every year, since it is not expensive there? It would not be a sin to put aside a piece of Yuryev bronze or gold for them; but this thought will not reach there. And what is superfluous on this paper, then take the trouble to convey to the widow with your right hand, without telling her with your left. Thank you for repeatedly remembering me, weak. Don’t be angry because you couldn’t receive those who visited. My medicine is peace and silence; Having opened the door to one, I am caught by many, and therefore forced to keep it closed for a while. I'm returning the book. I read about a third: my eyes don’t allow me to read more, and my curiosity isn’t strong. What can be accepted seems familiar. But it would be better not to read other things, such as the pages where Moses and Mohammed stand side by side, and - I don’t want to pronounce it - with signs of mutually expressed equality. The yeast of revolutionary philosophy is fermenting in the author’s mind, and he has not yet settled for pure truth, although it undoubtedly exists in this mixture. Happy is the thinker who does not forget to place the new wine of his wisdom before the eternal sun, so that the yeast of prejudices and passionately beloved opinions fall to the bottom before he carries his vessel to put it on the table. I thank the Lord with you, who has called you to His table. May He strengthen your heart and fill you with true life. Why do you think that joy is far away? She is close behind the sorrow, as in the Song of Songs, the groom is behind the wall near the bride. “Weeping may endure in the evening, but joy in the morning” (Ps. 29:6). Is it far? Loneliness is not a bad thing when you know how to use it. Isn't it good when no one and nothing in the world stops a person? Then, if he knows and remembers God, he goes straight to Him. Loneliness on earth leads to heavenly society. May the Lord and His joy be with you, especially now. Ask my forgiveness from your relatives for the fact that I did not receive them after the service, due to my weakness. One word to you: Christ is risen! 1 The Lord's Prayer, which we heard today in the Gospel, is the extreme height of sacred delight, endless for contemplation, an inexhaustible treasure of Christian hopes. May the grace of the Lord enable us not to be deprived of the communion of the blessings that it has asked for for all of us. The apostolic reading for this day 2 is farewell. This thought came to me in the house church, and to Eminence Kirill in the Archangel Cathedral. The thing that you call useful is barely understandable to me in this form. The first benefit can be if I thoroughly understand it. I obey and thank you. I don’t foresee what would make me unfree today. 3 “Christ is born, glorify.” St. said this. Gregory the Theologian in the word, and St. John of Damascus liked it so much that he forced the whole Church to sing it. I wish that you would not make an exception of yourself, but that in the days of Christ’s joy you would rejoice in Christ and glorify Him, forgetting your own sadness. If you remember Rachel weeping for her children, do not dwell on this memory, but look further at what the prophet Jeremiah says to her: “Let your voice be free from weeping, and your eyes from tears, for there is a reward for your deeds, says the Lord” (Jer. 31:16). The Lord says this to you too, if you only want to hear and accept the word of mercy and hope. You yourself once wrote to me that, having no one to talk to, you speak with the prophet: “I will sing to my God, even though I am, that my conversation may delight Him and that I may rejoice in the Lord” (Ps. 103:33-34). This is so good that I do not wish you any other conversations, but I wish you to practice and succeed more and more in what you are doing. I don’t think about doing anything regarding the Borodino parish church, since my experience is not quite successful. Let the parishioners and the priest worry, who needs to be more zealous in order to receive help. Why do you need an altar in your church that is more spacious than the one in which cramped conditions did not interfere with the bishop’s service? Therefore, I do not consider it necessary to redo the iconostasis, unless there is another reason. If the iconostasis needs to be redone due to some damage, then you can by the way rearrange it if you really need to expand the altar. However, I don’t forbid you, just watch for yourself so as not to bother yourself with an unnecessary undertaking. Isn’t prayer more necessary than improving the location of the prayer church? An archimandrite cannot be deprived of his part of the income, so why should you interfere with the division? You are quite helpful to the Luzhetsky Monastery. Pray to God to help me deliver to the monastery a good archimandrite who would live there. Then it will be better to take care of strengthening your orders for your church. Knowing your faith and hope, I force myself to think that sadness now has less power over you, and the heart, exhausted by suffering, begins to feel consolations that, like drops of dew, flow from the Source of eternal bliss. Two years of painful, desperate grief are a sufficient sacrifice for the world and the flesh. Do not be surprised at this name: even the mourning of the saints for temporary deprivation is not called a favorable sacrifice to God, and our prolonged and heavy lamentation is not only not pleasing to God, but can even be sinful. We are told: “Do not grieve like others who have no hope” (1 Thess. 4:13). It is time for you to look upon those who have migrated to eternal bliss as you would upon those who have departed to a distant city for the most honorable service of the Tsar. You are happy to rush to them, but are you ready to be there with them? There is no sorrow in the kingdom of heaven, and one is not accepted there with sorrow. Not to mention other preparations, it takes quite some time to be freed here, with the help of God, from the burden of sorrows with which the soul cannot ascend to heaven. Pray for the healing of your sorrow and at the same time ask the Lord to continue your temporary life, as much as is needed to prepare for the eternal. Your husband is with the martyrs, your son is with the virgins. The Lord leads you in one way and another in order to make you a participant in one and another joy. The martyrs did not shed tears during their suffering, and the virgins did not complain about loneliness. Let's follow them as best we can. Our business is to bear the crosses imposed with love, childlike humility and Christian patience, and not to measure them and not to compare them with others, not to complain in deprivations, but to stay alert and strengthen ourselves, so that, having become exhausted, we do not lose the prepared reward. It’s time for you to believe, without horror and sorrow, that there is no better path for you to the kingdom of heaven. Remember often: “The power of God is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9). The Lord in due time girds and leads His chosen ones no matter how they wish, but where they wish to go. Take care of your health to save your soul, talk with your family and friends, help the poor in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, be comforted by comforting the unfortunate. It is not a sin to think that perhaps you have been chosen as an instrument to comfort thousands of suffering people. If a reward is promised for a cup of water (Matthew 10:42; Mark 9:41), then how great will be the reward for a thousand cups? And how dare we refuse labor and reward? Isn't time required for merits that are individually small, but collectively make up the great? Thank the Lord for giving you two years of life and wish to live on earth for another twenty, but how to live and what to do - He will teach you and show you. Speak with your heart and soul: “Blessed be the name of the Lord from now on and forever” ( Job 1:21 )! May the Lord Jesus Christ grant you peace and consolation and accomplish your salvation for the glory of His most holy name! 5 I hasten to say briefly what I consider necessary. You can lead a monastic life without a vow. Who legitimized making a vow and remaining in the world? When you want to accept a blessing, you need to look at whether the one promising the blessing has the right to bless and how and to what extent he received this right. What is done for life, it is better to do it slowly rather than hastily. He who shepherds Israel tends both the shorn and the unshorn of his flock. May He shepherd you “in green (abundant) places, and nourish you on still waters, teaching you in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake” (Ps. 22:2-3). 6 “I will love You, Lord, my Fortress! The Lord is my affirmation” (Ps. 17:2, 3)! Let us truly thank Him with the thanksgiving of love, for He appeared as strength and confirmation to you in your deepest weakness. May He continue to strengthen you both mentally and physically! You are sick, and I am healthy, but in one letter I answer your three. Who is to blame here? Obviously me. However, since I don’t want to bear the large burden of guilt alone, I’m thinking of laying a small part of it on you. With such small forces, I shouldn’t have written to you so much. This was not noted for the past, which would have been useless, but I want to say that in general you need to write less. And small forces need a little of everything, so that they can endure labor and movement without exhaustion, and comfortably renew their strength through rest and peace. Thrift of this kind is especially needed when winter fights with spring. Perhaps you will say that by saying this, I am interfering in the matter of Grigory Yakovlevich 7 . In that case, you have the power to ask him whether what I say is true. And what he will confirm, listen more willingly to two if you are reluctant to listen to one. God's blessing and peace to you and many, and all the sons and daughters of the world! 8 May the risen Christ be with you, and may he resurrect you spiritually, may the resurrection of your body be blessed! Sometimes visible but imaginary virtues prevent a person from seeing invisible but genuine sins. Others, for example, without true need, of their own will and invention, will burden their body with chains and think that they have already entered the true rank of Christ’s crusaders in spirit, but do not notice that on the inside of the chain it is written: “in unauthorized service and exhaustion of the body” (Col. 2:23). This, however, I am not saying against faiths, for which there are people, and times, and reasons. The Fathers also say: if there is no contrition and tenderness, one should suspect whether there is vanity. We must test ourselves: “Test me, O God, and convince my heart, and see if there is a way of iniquity in me, and lead me in the everlasting way” (Ps. 139:23, 24). 9 April 19, 1828, St. Petersburg. Regarding your arrival in Moscow, I already told your sisters the other day that it would be more convenient for you to come alone to three, rather than three to one. You don’t like the liveliness of crowds, and a meeting with a dead person seems like a meeting of two dead people: what will happen to you? Do not stubbornly run away from people: among them there are people of God. Meet peacefully with the dead: “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living” (Matthew 22:32). If your late aunt shed tears of compassion for you, shed tears of love over her, but light ones, not fiery ones. In another sense, everyone is dead, but for everyone there is resurrection and eternal life. Let us remain in the hope of life: “for by hope we were saved” (Rom.8:24). 10 Peace to the desert and to those who live in it! Let the comforting “voice of one crying in the wilderness” be heard (Matthew 3:3), let the wilds be filled, let the hills be humbled, let those who expect God’s salvation see the salvation of God! A kind word: “Here I am, Lord!” ( Ex. 3:4 ) I don’t know how to add to this, and it seems to me that the point is not to add, but to say it well. “If the heart speaks” is well said. If you want to learn prayer from a person, then here is the answer: “We don’t know what we should pray about” (Rom. 8:26). If you say: “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1), this will be answered more than once. You want to be taught to love the Lord. But did anyone teach us to love some of the people we love? Have we not loved strongly without learning to love strongly? Is it really more convenient to love something that is less worthy of love? “Her sins, many, are forgiven, for she loved much” (Luke 7:47). Where did she learn to love like that? Instead of oil, she had tears of repentance; God's love for the repentant fell upon them like heavenly fire, and its lamp burned. Well, you notice that the Lord brings us closer to kind and humble souls to give us an example. Let us love Him in these instruments of His, and let us love them in Him! I had a wanderer. It is not he who is persecuting, but the law of the spirit we are persecuting by the law of the letter, and his servants do not know what they are doing, or do not know how to do according to the letter what they see according to the law of the spirit. I offered him what I could. Why do you obediently go to the cave? This is not a loss, but perhaps even a gain. Prayer in a cell may have the same merit as prayer in a cave, in which case obedience brings net gain. May God bless your obedience, and through obedience may He lead you into freedom, for I am sure that for His sake your obedience is, whether in small or great things, and not for the sake of a person. 11 Mercy, peace and comfort from the Lord! I don’t know where this letter will find you, and therefore I will repeat to you: you should not be angry at illness, but should take care of your health; Consult an experienced physician carefully. “The world has become empty,” you say. “And so a small number of kind souls makes up the completeness of the world.” Is this true? Why is it empty where, as before, He and all the Fulfillers are everywhere? “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). When could it become empty? Christ is with you, “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14)! Peace to your desert and to those who live in it. 12 May God bless you with such a blessing as He favors and which is appropriate for you, only truly - a blessing that He does not deny to anyone, except to the one who does not want the blessing, according to what is written: “He did not want the blessing, and it will be removed from him” (Ps. 109:17). And you probably want a blessing when you ask; and if you hadn’t asked, I wouldn’t have doubted what you wanted. It was in vain that you invented the idea of ​​a false desire for God and surrounded it with various guesses that complicate you, instead of praying and saying: “either I want or I don’t want, save me!” 13 You left Moscow and are heading to the Spasskaya Hermitage. Having walked a lot or a little, and not seeing the desert, you stop, and instead of going further, torment yourself with concern whether you have lost your way. It is true that the goal of the path is not visible, but it does not follow from this that you have lost your way. But doubt does not bring you closer to your goal. Find out for yourself whether this parable is similar to your condition. If this is not all, let us add: something flashed in your eyes, and it seemed to you that this was the Church of the Savior. But then it disappeared. Is there trouble again? Not at all. Having gone down the mountain, you do not see what you saw from the mountain, but this happens not only when you return back, but also when you continue walking. You ask: “With bodily weakness, would not spiritual strength rise”? In other words, this means: shouldn’t the power of grace act as the will pleases? Remember the words of the Lord: “My soul is sorrowful unto death” (Matthew 26:38), and with this mortal sorrow heal your sorrow, which is not yet mortal. May the Lord strengthen you. There is only one Rich - not only in truth for the righteous, in love for the good, but also in mercy for sinners. We are all poor, and the one who is closer to wealth, who knows and feels his poverty more, may not feel it hard with hope in Him who “for our sake He became poor, although He was rich, so that through His poverty we might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9). In your weakness, whether mental or physical, may the power of God be perfected, healing and saving. Rejoice in the Lord, and may the peace He brought from heaven visit your soul! As for the multiplication of those living with you, this is what I think. Taking too much and then not knowing what to do with what you have taken is hardly the order. At St. Savva the Sanctified or Theodore the Sanctified lived in the deserts by hundreds and thousands, but we don’t read that they accepted someone because he gave money or land and thereby supported the community: that’s what they thought in the old days. May God confirm and perfect your spiritual order. May God bless you and those who are with you, and for whatever you require forgiveness, may He forgive and allow you to find peace and joy in Him. I ask forgiveness from myself and from you, among other things, for the words with which I sometimes rebuke you, although, however, I do this wishing peace for you. The persecution of the world against those who want to be not of the world was predicted by the Lord. Should we be embarrassed that His word is being fulfilled? Let them drive them out of the world. But where? Look for where you can drive out of the world, and you will not find where - only to God. Beyond the world there is nothing but God. So, is persecution a bad thing if the persecuted one does not spoil the work of the persecutors, which they wanted to do as badly as possible and which is hiddenly controlled by God better than can be imagined? Both those who are persecuted or fearing persecution, and those who sympathize with persecution, must pay attention to themselves, so as not to give a just cause for persecution and thereby deprive themselves of the just protection of God’s providence. I doubt whether Hieromonk Macarius is doing the right thing by inviting people from afar who, perhaps, God is not calling to you. It would be a different matter if someone innocently persecuted sought refuge; then accepting it is a matter of philanthropy. But we must try and conduct good deeds with caution, so that our wisdom and our will do not go ahead of them. When you send me simple and necessary handicrafts, then I have a true gain and willingly think that during cholera my legs were preserved from cramps with the help of stockings knitted by kind and humane hands, but a vessel with gilded edges from the desert to a person who already has a lot of luxury around him - is it only to expose luxury? In this case, the reproof could have been written and sent with less care, lest it be broken along the way. The world has taught us enough about vanity and whims; Let us strive to remind each other of simplicity and satisfaction in what is needed using the easiest, most unsophisticated means. I asked for forgiveness in contradiction and I will contradict again, forgive again, and forgiveness and blessings will increase for you. You are in trouble, you say. Which ones? At least, isn't he in trouble, that is, isn't he in danger of illness? If this is so, then remember that you can die every minute, even when there is no threatening illness; that danger did not come to you first and that God, by His Providence, preserved many around whom it walked. Whoever still needs to strive in earthly life, God will leave him in it, as long as he does not bring trouble upon himself. Whom the time has come to take in peace from the world - “blessed, whom you have chosen and accepted.” In order for God to be with us, you know what is necessary: ​​for us to be with Him. I pray to Him to grant you this in prayer, faith, and love. You promise not to repeat words about your grief, noticing that someone does not like it. Come on, are you right in your point? Does he really love less the repetition of the sad memory of the meek child taken by the Heavenly Father than the stories about the playful children of the earth, whose fun will last long and what fruits it will bring is unknown? However, be that as it may, the point here should not be about pleasing people, not about not doing what someone does not like, but about a person trying to make himself the way God likes to see a person. God in His word says: “Cast your sorrow on the Lord” (Ps. 54:23). “Do not grieve for the dead, as others do who have no hope” (1 Thess. 4:13), etc. I would listen to how you would begin to prove that these words, spoken to all Christians, do not apply to you alone? Jesus Christ calls the Holy Spirit another Comforter (John 14:16), therefore, at the same time He means Himself as the Comforter. Who would dare to steal these names from the Divine, voluntarily appropriating for himself inconsolable sorrow for all the days of his life? But I find no consolation? This happens. But we must not forget that God can give consolation to the inconsolable in a minute, and we must live in this faith and hope of consolation, if not in the very feeling of consolation. You are talking about the internal structure and then about the bell tower. I earnestly wish you the first. I don’t know what to tell you about the construction of the bell tower. At prpp. Anthony and Pachomius the Great did not have even a small bell tower. Do you think that this is why their deserts were extremely insufficient and imperfect? Rather, what I can say with the apostle is: “build yourselves like living stones into a spiritual church” (1 Pet. 2:5). May the grace of the Risen One, our Resurretor, be a faithful and unobstructed source of true life, peace and joy! To recognize the insignificance of superficial splendor, which people now call enlightenment and education, is one of the degrees for ascending to sound and right wisdom. Whoever is elevated to it, let him thank the Leader of the Invisible. He who has lived for a long time with love for the created, although not unlawfully, and then learned the duty and need to live with love for the Uncreated, let him patiently endure the feeling of the poverty of love. It must take place in order, when created love must die in order for Divine love to be born. The commandment to you is not mine, but the Lord’s: take up the cross every day (see Matt. 16:24), that is, always with a ready heart, with obedience, with love, accept sorrow, whether from within or without, according to the destinies of God’s Providence. May the head of the crusaders make your cross comfortable for you to wear, with a saving effect. Peace to the desert and to those who dwell in it! They say that the desert wants to be a full-time monastery. It's not hard to guess what might happen. And it’s almost better to make your plans as little as possible and allow yourself to be introduced as much as possible into the plans of Providence, which, of course, are better than ours. One of your residents let it slip to me that you are looking for singers for the choir. Isn't this a desert luxury? It is not the one who sings skillfully who sings well to God, but the one who sings wisely and diligently. Last summer, in the Lavra, in the hospital Church, I heard one elderly man sing alone and discord with himself; but vespers was good. In the ancient deserts they kept the rule: “he who comes, I will not drive out” (John 6:37). And I haven’t heard of that being dialed. I wish that your desert will not be a beautiful ornate structure, but will be pleasing to God through the simplicity and purity of God, a quiet and silent life. I call upon you peace and salvation. Yes, it is more useful to worry about preparing for the future than to guess about the time of transition. Constant attention to preparation makes it good, whether sooner or later. Curiosity will not make him better. And when they remind you of the time, they excite you to prepare. May God help you to continually live in anticipation of the blessed hope in our Lord Jesus Christ and in purifying preparation for accepting this promise faithfully and without restraint. Entrust the one who “has many mansions in heaven” (John 14:2) with an earthly abode. He, looking at the intention and faith, will arrange its preservation through one or the other. We can promise care, but only He can give success. “Rejoice in Him with trembling” (Ps. 2:11). This immediately came to my mind when reading your letter. It is good if we rejoice in God, our Helper. But when joy about God is joined by joy about His gifts to us, you will not always notice how joy about yourself is mixed in, and this admixture will deprive the Divine joy of the purity that is characteristic of it. Therefore, it is very necessary to be careful in adding the pleasant to the pleasant - to joy awe, to joy about God - awe about your unworthiness, which can disturb a pure source with excessive movement, and obscure the light or turn it into a superficial shine and ghost. You are rightly wary of boldness. The Fathers command to remain insolent in relation to both people and the place where a person resides. Moreover, to God and heaven. Don’t you know that the child Nicholas departed with faith, with childlike love for the Divine, that “of such is the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:14)? Isn’t this enough for you to remember it with peace and hope? Is it still necessary to bother heaven so that from time to time they send you a messenger from there to tell you what child Nikolai is doing there? Stop it, at least for now; surrender to the will of the Heavenly Father both merciful notification and sacred obscurity. Father Alexy wrote to me asking for a ticket to the hospital, and nothing more. I ordered to give a ticket, and it was difficult to do anything else - how to break down the door of the heart to your neighbor when it is not opened? However, I instructed one of the clergy to try to enter into sincere communication with Father Alexy. You ask, how dare the enemy touch an altar server? Just as rain passes through a thin roof into the altar and into the room, just as the wind through a well blows out the candle in the altar and in the room. The altar and the service remain holy, and those who do not care about the integrity of their church are exposed to the consequences of this neglect, small or great, and are encouraged to fix the roof, block the well, in order to prevent greater harm. For this blessing, peace and joy to your desert from Him who was born in a manger and glorified before the shepherds. Let us bless God, who works in secret and gives us to experience and feel that His secret works bring His strength and life, His light and peace. And if He is merciful to the undeserving, we will be faithful to the one who has mercy. Whoever feels internally that the Lord is near him must quietly but cheerfully stand at the door of his heart and not allow into it the rumor of earthly thoughts that are incompatible with the presence of the Heavenly Guest. Let “the hidden man of the heart live in the incorruptible beauty of a meek and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in the sight of God” (1 Peter 3:4), as the apostle says, and therefore very worthy of man’s vigilant guarding. May the peace of God guard your heart, mind, and life. The Apostle commands to “pray for one another” (James 5:16), making no distinction between those who pray. Let us do this in simplicity. 14 Having read your saying that the consistory is pressuring you, I regretted the minute in which it was written, I thought that the next minute would easily improve the matter. To my greater surprise, I found the same view of the matter in another letter from you. I am not defending the consistory; Sometimes I also complain about her for inattention or inactivity, but the spirit of oppression is not at all the spirit of the Moscow consistory. Listen: a spiritual person does not condemn anyone; and the worldly do not consider it a virtue to blame the innocent. Did you think about this when pronouncing your judgment on the Moscow Consistory? A minute of temptation shows whether we have succeeded as much in spirituality as it seemed in moments of delight or in hours of peace. You apply to yourself the apostolic saying: “thrown, but we will not be lost” (see 2 Cor. 4:9). Is it humble and fair? Who abandoned you? No one has ever touched you with a finger before. Isn’t it just in your imagination that you imagine yourself as persecuted and rejected? You confess to murmuring and insolence. Doesn’t this mean that you only admit to not observing patient silence, and yet you think that you grumbled and boldly spoke against people who were unjust and worthy of condemnation? If so, then truth and humility are not satisfied with your very recognition. You see how my view is different from yours. Choose who sees the truth: you or me. Perhaps some benefit for self-knowledge will be derived from this investigation. And if you find that I defend the persecutors and persecute myself, bear with me without anger, and may the Lord give you peace and a crown of patience, both for all sorrow and for that which I inflict on you by contradiction. 15 January 30, 1833, St. Petersburg. Let the desert rejoice, and let it bloom like a creen. 16 The Sovereign Emperor approved the position of the Holy Synod on permission to establish a women's charitable dormitory institution at the Church of the Savior on Borodino Field. The regulations of the Holy Synod say that this should be based on rules similar to those on which, with the permission of the blessed memory of Emperor Alexander, the Borisoglebsk Anosinsky almshouse was established, which is now a monastery. And since these rules were the rules of monastic life, except for tonsure, it seems that you now have exactly what you asked for. Thank God, pray for the Emperor and be a God-pleasing community not only in name, but also by sincere zeal to please God and to help each other in this, with unanimity, love and humility. I am returning the missionary's letter. He follows the path that he himself has chosen. The path of a missionary is never easy. If he strengthens himself, he will receive reward from above. If the obstacles are insurmountable, he can tell his superiors. It is indecent for strangers to drag him back. And if someone outside, interfering in someone else’s business, distracted the missionary from his exploits, not knowing whether this was exactly necessary, and deprived those to whom he preached of benefit, what would it be: a benefit or a sin? Take care of the sisters of your hostel, and pray for the missionary. Peace be with you. Peace to all. 17 March 8, 1833, St. Petersburg. Since the letter carrier will not reach you before the holiday, then the first thing will fall to your share from me: Here are some thoughts on your thoughts. It’s unpleasant when a person finds himself not the way he would like. But would it be better if he was pleased with himself and said: “I have no need for anything” (Apocalypse 3:17), as someone said in the third chapter of the Apocalypse? Let us fall with our poverty to the Rich One in mercy and from Him let us ask for a white robe, which we cannot sew or weave for ourselves. Let him who is attached to an earthly place remember the saying of the apostle: “the earth and the things of the earth will be burned up” (2 Pet. 3:10). Let him who is attached to those of one accord strive even more closely to bind them and himself to the One, who binds His own with a union of pure and free love. Let faith give you boldness. But we must not forget the rule that the Fathers give to inspire humility: gain without boldness. Peace to you and the hostel. 18 March 27, 1833, St. Petersburg. God's blessing to you and the desert, every day, therefore, on the twenty-sixth day of August. And for this and especially the blessing of the Mother of the Lord, who suffered from Maternal sorrow for many years both before the Cross and during the crucifixion of Her Son, and, being much tempted, without a doubt, was able to help a lot. You can come to Moscow, but when I heard about this intention, I admit, I thought about this incongruity: they wanted and yearned for the desert, having the will to be in the world, and when there is a desert, we look back at the world more often than before. Pyotr Ivanovich, it seems to me, takes advantage of grief, as a novice of Providence should. May the Lord help him. Enjoy the benefit of sitting quietly in the desert, and pray for those who are destined to travel a lot. 19 With consolation, I imagine you as a quiet gathering celebrating yesterday at the Lord’s Table the feast of the Lord, and at the same time the souls who believe in Him, a feast so pleasing to Him that He Himself said about it: “He desired it with His desire” (Luke 22:15). May your holiday be according to His desire, and may your good desires be fulfilled or receive the hope of fulfillment. Being confident that you remembered me at this holiday and that this remembrance brings me good, I thank you before the Lord, or rather I pray to Him to grant you good, for who but Him can bestow good? May He grant you the blessings of peace, the blessings of health, and if He sees infirmity as good for you, may He grant you complacency in your infirmity. We are all on the way, and it’s good to think about this so as not to forget travel instructions. I have no objection to yours. Your letter found me wandering from Moscow in the Perervinsky monastery, where I spent three days, where things are done more smoothly and the silence is more audible. But it was necessary to return again to the rumors of the city. 20 To the abbess of the Spassky Hostel and to those who struggle with you, blessings, peace and help from the Lord! You are talking about the crosses of monasticism. It is good to accept them from the hand of God with humility and obedience, but there is no need to develop them for yourself. You see in Scripture that to some “is given a name which no one knows, only he who receives it” (Rev. 2:17), and it is not difficult for you to understand that it would be wrong to divulge such a name against the order of the One who gave it. Understand that you too did the wrong thing. You are told that the name was not given to you for the world. And you did not have any proof for the world that it was given to you. Why act against these instructions? What is your will after renouncing your will? Why be vain before people about what you have received only for your soul and for God? Humble your thoughts: it was not a virtue, but a mistake. This was not a legal confession of the truth, for true Christians did not dare to confess the very name of Christ willfully and as they pleased. Moreover, having uselessly proclaimed a name that was unnecessary to the world, you took away help not only from yourself, but also from the hostel: what was the point of doing this unnecessarily? But let's end the competition with law. The decree of the Holy Synod of July 21, 1804 states that the ryassophore should not be mentioned in performances, and ryassophores with a change in their previous names are not written properly, that is, they should not be written that way. You are ordered not to violate this decree. Yesterday, on the same day as the above-mentioned attitude, I received your letter about the conversion of the hostel to the monastery, which, however, was already not unknown to me here, because according to your most humble letter, some information was taken from me. May the Lord arrange good things for you, and may a blessed covering be woven for you from unintentionally tangled threads. But how could you not have guessed that a letter about such a subject should not touch on any extraneous or private matters, because it should go to a public place? And a simple hostel could not always act as it would happen. But if you want to be an orderly monastery, please learn order. 21 February 4, 1837, St. Petersburg. Blessing and peace from the Lord to Melania, the head of the community, and to those who strive in the obedience of love! You see that they did not take away your name, which was given with blessing. And what is the old name put in the eyes of the world, what is there to cry about? Grand Duke Vladimir was named Vasily in Holy Baptism; Did he really need to cry because they continued to call him Vladimir? Good names are not always proclaimed before everyone. There is “a new name, which no one knows, only he who receives it” (Rev. 2:17). If only they would give this name; let them not tell others about it. And if someone said that he does not want to announce this name out of vanity, I would doubt whether he is right. Maybe not out of vanity, but with obedience? Is it with reasoning? If you are loved, thank God for those who love you and for the fact that He gives you the consolation to see this. Just be afraid to think that you deserve it. The love of God loves in the children of God, and it also loves the unworthy, out of condescension and love for mankind. Therefore, a person cannot say: “Apparently I am worthy if they love me.” No, the mercy of God is that good souls love you; feed on their kindness and love and serve them with love in return. Does Alexander Ivanovich know that his daughter is not entirely healthy? We must tell him to more diligently bring her memory to the feet of St. Mitrofan. In good moments, slowly remove the deepening thoughts of passion from her heart, then a quiet light will come to her nerves, and the attacking darkness will not embrace them. April 10, 1837, St. Petersburg. Oh St. Someone says well to John the Baptist: it is truly wonderful that from his mother’s womb he strove for Christ and spent almost his entire life separated from Him. This is submission to the destinies of God! Here is a lesson on how to adjust ourselves when something close to us passes from the visible to the invisible. Unable to hold back the one who is leaving, we then hold on to the memorable images. Fate says: “Don’t hold on to this too stubbornly.” Ask where I heard her say that? I answer: she speaks not in words, but in events. She takes memorable images from you and thereby preaches submission and self-sacrifice. If you understand your loss or theft from you in this way, you will not be too sad about what was lost or stolen. Peace and blessing from the Lord to you and those who strive with you! Father Anikita has definitely died. A loss for the hierarchy. But what the Holy God has judged, who will destroy? The Holy Synod, taking Father Aniketas from the Elias monastery on Athos, rescued him from the plague, which later devastated this monastery, but death came to him in Athens sooner than the Holy Synod managed to take him. Such cases remind us of our benefit to remember the latter. Meanwhile, health and strength to you, to the creation of the monastery and to the edification of your soul. Through the prayers of St. Melania, may God bless you with a new summer for the renewal of life and spirit in the image of the Creator in truth and reverence of truth! The image you desire of St. Melania was brought to me from the Lavra of St. Sergius, on the evening of her day after Vespers, and now she will be conveyed to you. On the day of St. Melania, the Holy Synod signed a report on the transformation of the Spassky hostel into a cenobitic monastery. Of course, the Holy Synod did not choose this day, but God arranged it that way. Now I have learned that this report has been approved by the highest order. Bring and offer grateful prayers to God for the Most Pious Sovereign and his wife and his heir. Now, if it is true that you are still in Moscow, let me say that it is proper for monasteries to rush to the monastery. May the Lord establish your monastery with His blessing and grace and make it an abode of peace and salvation for those who come and dwell in it. January 3, 1838, St. Petersburg. May the gracious joy of His Resurrection strengthen your hope about our co-resurrection with Him, which begins secretly in the spirit and is finally to be brightly accomplished in our entire being, even to the body of our humility: may this hope be stronger than the fear of death. That's enough. The fact that there is a fear of death is not a problem. They also saw it in the Fathers who labored a lot. It is all the more natural that he comes to us. But tell fear: “You are right if our fate must be decided only by the justice of God. But now the matter is in a special situation: Christ died and rose again in order to destroy the fear of death, in order to wash away the handwriting of our sins with His Blood, in order to forgive us who believe in Him, and to judge us by the court of mercy, which will take pity on us, among other things, because we are afraid of our unworthiness. So, fear, I am not afraid of you; stay, if God so desires, with me, and be my guardian from oblivion and entertainment; but don’t stop me from believing, loving and trusting.” If you need treatment, don't deny it. I doubt that she is the best boss, who wants to be a boss more than others. That is not what the spiritual law says. The abbess and spiritual mother in two persons, whatever you say, this is not a perfect unity, but a united duality, which can split in a way unfavorable for society. May the Lord protect us from this. May God bless and keep you and everyone with you. 22 The Lord bless the desert dedicated to His name and those who labor in it in His name. I bless God with you, who gave you unexpected help, and I invoke His blessing on the benefactor. And now I don’t know what to say about the building, not knowing what you have done so far. Gothic taste seduces you hardly for the better. This is the architectural fashion of the present time; and fashion will soon pass. Then they will perhaps say: “It’s funny that foreign, foreign, unnatural taste is accepted as exemplary.” But it's not that important. The more important thing is that the Gothic taste imposed on you will make the structure more expensive and less durable due to small and protruding decorations. In my opinion, a good structure for the desert is one that is fit for purpose, cheap and durable. Then choose the flavor you want. Taking out a loan to build a farmstead is a very dubious matter. The hope of forgiveness is wrong, and it is not good to enter into a debt with the hope of not paying it. In my opinion, it is better to have neither a farmstead nor a debt, than to have the burden and worry of debt with a farmstead. And in the Spasskaya Hermitage “we do not have a permanent city” (Heb. 13:14), but we still want to have a solid dwelling in the city! If God willing, good; blessed is He. But I don’t consider it characteristic of the desert to seek this in the proposed way. Trust in God, that He will give you a host in Moscow, even if there is no courtyard. August 31, 1838, St. Petersburg. In the name of the Lord, blessing and peace to the Venerable Abbess Mary with all those who labor in the monastery! Pray for Dositheus, but pray in peace, as the Church commands, and then peace will be given to the troubled soul. Pray and think about Mary: it seems that her eye is quite accustomed to looking into the world, and it takes art and work to turn it to the silence of the monastery. I remember I told you before that Moscow is not useful to her. September 3, 1838, Moscow. May your praises and worship be given to the Beginningless Child in faith and love with infantile simplicity, and may He accept them through the intercession of His Most Pure Mother, and may He bless you to be and remain blameless before Him. Don't envy those who cut their hair early. Maybe the more difficult it will be to manage. I rejoice that God is helping Varvara Ivanovna Kolesova to enter the path of obedience, putting aside all extraneous burdens. Apostle, if we delve into the name, is a sign of those called to an apostolic life completely consecrated to God. Perhaps it was the veil of virgins who lived in churches, but not in monasteries, which, when the monastic image became more general, was kept by some and abandoned by others. In its original form, it was supposed to be a veil covering the head and shoulders, cut in one place so that one could breathe, read and speak freely. I don’t know what the full form of this veil is now, since I saw it only on the shoulders, but it is obvious that it is no longer in its ancient simplicity. From the fact that in some monasteries the apostolate is not worn, one cannot draw the conclusion that it can or should be worn. From the fact that in others it is worn by nuns, one cannot draw the conclusion that it can be worn by non-nuns. The example of nuns who wear the apostle and are condemned by nuns for this does not encourage imitation. And by what right will you have some in the kamilavka and others in the apostle? From this, I think, you will see that your thought about using the apostle is not mature enough to be able to carry it out with reason. You say that Kamilavka is expensive. Wonderful! Does the monastic order really require velvet and edges? On the contrary, he has difficulty condescending to this. The simpler and cheaper the kamilavka, the more monastic it is. If your head does not tolerate heaviness, make a kamilavka as thin as a blanket. Who is stopping this? However, I am reasoning, and not necessarily demanding a change in what you allowed in case of weakness. To two sisters, bound by friendship to the point that the grief from separation from their residence extends to fits, it must be said that “in the house of the Heavenly Father there are many mansions” (John 14:2), that they cannot demand from Him placement in one heavenly abode, for there is given to everyone what is prepared by faith, works and predestination; that a person brings into the future life what he acquired in the present; that, therefore, if in heaven they were separated and placed in different abodes, they, with their private affection and sorrow for each other, could not be blissful and, therefore, would be incapable of heaven. And therefore, it is necessary in good time to moderate stubborn private affection and subordinate it to general love, meek and obedient. With this and similar admonition, those who are overly bound by friendship must be encouraged to gradually accustom themselves to endure separation complacently. I don’t recommend allowing anything special from outsiders into the monastery next summer. I wouldn’t even want a hotel on monastery land, although they may be tempting you with benefits. If on your land, especially one that is not close to the monastery, there is an elevated place where it is decent to arrange places for spectators and especially spectators, I do not see this as indecent for your monastery. So I think; and if another thought comes with conviction, I will try to write to you about it soon. False grief came to Father Methodius through illegal means. From this we must derive the instruction that it is better to peacefully wait for what will come in the legal way, especially for a monk. You can also think about this example of a sorrowful thought, which you should soon be ashamed of: why we had it and in vain condemned another with it. When we are humble, then it is enough for us if others are disposed towards us, at least because of someone’s mercy, and not because of our dignity alone. If we have a good opinion of our neighbor, then we more readily think that he favors us for the love of God, and not for the sake of any human agency. However, I say this not against you, but to help you against your thoughts. May you, the abbess and sisters, have faith and love for the Risen One, by approaching the rite of the myrrh-bearers, and may the Lord say to you: “Rejoice,” - complete, holy, inalienable. Rejoice, and I rejoice, that you are beginning to have nuns; and let them multiply. If you wish, I can say that I am not bored with your work. And if sometimes there are difficulties in them, I ask you not to be bored, if you cannot avoid them. But it is not unnecessary to anticipate difficulties and exercise caution. By accepting too many people, are you making it difficult for yourself to supervise and guide them sufficiently and to provide them with satisfactory maintenance? I consider it necessary to draw your attention to this. April 1, 1839, St. Petersburg. Blessing and comfort from the Lord. There is a good and beneficent order in the affairs of the Lord's destinies. Calling you to heavenly love, the Lord gradually took from you objects of earthly, although, incidentally, immaculate love. The soul that shared the memory of this love remained next to you, and you were given time to get used to the hardships. He finally took her too. Give Him this pledge too in peace, with prayer and hope. Now your child and your friend are the Spasskaya Monastery. Accept consolation and keep your peace for her peace and consolation. The Lord does not require harsh food, a hard bed, or the like for your weakness, but quiet prayer, love, caring for your sisters and preserving your health in order to fulfill your duties. Condescension towards the obstinate is a different matter; this is good instead of a hard bed. January 18, 1840, St. Petersburg. Blessings and peace from the Lord. I hear that you are in Moscow, and you are stopping Varvara Ivanovna in St. Petersburg. What does this mean? Would you like to take some rent money? In this case, I will tell you that if I find out about this enterprise of yours, I will try to stop it and give you time to reconsider your intention. Deducting interest for 16 years will steal about half of your capital. By taking the rest, you will do little to last for the monastery, and you will deprive yourself and the monastery of much. In my opinion, you should not suddenly take rental money, but should receive it annually, and spend part of it, and turn part into capital for the monastery. In the event of your death, you need to write an all-submissive letter so that what was given to you will be provided to the monastery in the remaining years. How about building a bell tower? It is not the pillar of Babylon that you need to build; can be built by time; It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t take a long time to build. But there is a way to soon build a small building, because the collection for the book already extends to 20,000 rubles. In order for the monastery to better remember the obligation to pray for benefactors, it is necessary to convert, if not half, then certainly 5,000 rubles from this amount into permanent capital for the benefit of the monastery. The rest will remain at your disposal for the actual needs of the monastery, especially construction. Priest Peter Nikiforov is a modest and temperate man, and would be suitable for you to worship. But how can you arrange it for you? Where will he live? How? What does it mean to give up a place? Church rules oblige us to elect worthy people, and not to enter into trade deals. By agreeing to accept the Tula nun, you acted out of your love for humanity, and in refusing, I acted out of a duty of justice. Your monastery is already burdened with crowds. And is it fair to allow strangers to occupy regular monastic places and thereby block the path of some of those who have worked in your monastery? It is good that, while resolving the case, I did not know about the intercessors and did not have the sorrowful thought that I was not fulfilling the desires of many good souls. When Varvara Ivanovna told me that you were angry with her and showed your letter, I interpreted it to her and showed her that it was written not out of anger, but out of love. She calmed down. But in one of your letters, it seems to me that you speak somewhat impatiently about her struggle. She feels the wrongness of her unpeaceful disposition and grieves about it, but still does not find the strength to defeat temptation. Do not condemn her, but help her with words of edification and love and prayer. March 9, 1840, St. Petersburg. God's blessing and peace to the abbess and sisters of the monastery! If it is true that the location for the bell tower is not entirely consistent with your purpose, stop thinking about it. The best thing is for it to be built and for the worries to end. There is something more necessary to build, both durable and lofty: “be built yourselves into a spiritual church” (1 Peter 2:5), as the disciple of the Great Architect advises; build each other up with good reason, love and mutually kind examples. Why shouldn’t the procession be the same as it was before? Let it begin from Borodino with prayer singing; in front of the image of the Savior on the monument, let them read the Gospel and the prayer “Save, O God, Thy people,” with the sign of the cross; then, with the end of the prayer singing, let them come to the monastery for the Liturgy. Sister Elizabeth and I talked about electing your treasurer. She is amazed that some desire this obedience. If they truly wish, then I am amazed too. To refuse obedience would be wrong, but to desire would be even more wrong. We must choose not those who want to, but those who know the matter and have the strength to bear the labors and infirmities of the weak. May the Lord guide your society with a spirit of humility and love. August 21, 1840, Moscow. Blessed be God. Blessed is the heart of Tsarevo. Blessed is his beloved firstborn, and may the one he has chosen as his life partner be a joint heir of blessings. I am glad that you were chosen to be at the Confirmation of the Princess. With God's help, she will have in you a praying soul next to her, feeling the tenderness of faith, the purity of Orthodoxy and the holiness of the Sacrament. God will help you to speak words of peace, love and consolation into her heart. It is good that you also receive a new encouragement to pray with love for your beloved Royal Family. A feat is necessary, but praying with love is the easiest and most pleasant of feats. To your question: “What should I answer?” – I wouldn’t like to answer, because just like you, I don’t want to be the one to blame for refusal. But I think that it is more natural for you to choose one of the houses where there is a church; and of these, one seems to resemble a monastery somewhat more than the others. May the Lord guide you and direct your paths. Peace to your monastery and to those who labor in it. October 21, 1840, Moscow. May God the Word speak peace upon His people, and upon those who turn their hearts to Him, and may peace cover the soul of His servant Mary in them! But why do we call for peace? Why does the Lord Himself command to call him? Without a doubt, either because we have a deficiency in it, or we possess it imperfectly, or we do not possess it without the danger of breaking it and losing it. This happens with everything in time: the unchangeable, inviolable, safe belongs to eternity. Therefore, it is not surprising that the states of the soul change, and sometimes in such a way that it is difficult to give oneself an account of the reasons for the change that has occurred. Not only do natural states pass from one type to another, but also grace-filled states ascend by the gift of God and descend according to God’s dispensation, so that man may be humbled. So, we should not be too alarmed by the changes, but consider, firstly, whether it was due to our negligence or infidelity that the change from better to worse occurred, in order to hasten to cleanse our negligence or infidelity through repentance and correct it; secondly, how, in the state that has befallen us, we can correspond to the intentions of Providence and turn the worst into a means for the better. In peace and consolation, let us offer a sacrifice of glorification and gratitude to God, who gave them; in sorrow and deprivation, let us offer Him the sacrifice of patience, devotion to His destinies. Let us better say to our despondent soul: “Why are you sad, my soul! Trust in God" (Ps. 41:12); and to the careless we remind the commandment: “serve the Lord with fear” (Ps. 2:11); Let us also point her to the barren fig tree (see Matt. 21:19). But, so that instead of encouraging it to bear fruit, it would not be destroyed by horror, let us remember the Good Worker, who digs in and fertilizes (see Luke 13:8-9). Blessings to you and those with you from the Lord for the joy of the Feast of Holidays. March 5, 1841, St. Petersburg. Peace to the soul of God's servant Mary, despite the waves of embarrassment from those who do not care about peace! Look calmly at people who do not see what they are doing when they utter unpeaceful words and, therefore, deprive themselves of peace before they violate it in others. I would say: look at them with pity, if I were not afraid that condemnation of your neighbor might creep in here. It used to be that they looked for dignity in speaking softly, but now they look for it in speaking sharply, and therefore they sometimes speak worse than they think. If you need to pay for a charitable deed by enduring unpleasant words, don’t let it bother you to make a clear payment. It’s good that you have to pay with a coin that you don’t have to borrow. Beware of feelings of annoyance. “The wrath of a man does not accomplish the righteousness of God” (James 1:20). Don't be upset because others are unhappy. I wish your sick to be healthy, and for Euphrosyne not to think about the authorities, so that either she may be at peace in obedience, or, if the Lord calls, she may rule not out of passion. To the Venerable Abbess Mary and those who strive with you in a single fence, especially in the unity of spirit and heart, in the name of the Lord blessing, peace and salvation! The case of the Alator nun was forwarded to the Consistory. I don’t know what she will say, and I don’t know what to do with the fact that your cramped abode is increasingly filled. Where do you fit? In this regard, perhaps it would not be bad if the swarm swarmed from you to the Polotsk monastery. But maybe honey is more needed there than bees. The establishment of a monastery there is in progress; there seems to be a deficiency in the methods; but apparently there is no shortage of people. For the sake of the Suffered and Risen One, I pray that through the saving contemplation of His passion He will lead you into the full joy of His Resurrection. April 11, 1842, St. Petersburg. To the Venerable Abbess Mary, grace and peace from the Lord, and to those who strive with you. About Euphrosyne, I think, has already been written to you from the Consistory. She has now visited me and says that her health does not prevent her from going. When she told me that the Polotsk people had asked her to refuse, the question presented itself to me: would her service be convenient and useful, whereas even under the best circumstances it should not be without difficulties? I did not hide these thoughts from her and gave them to her to think about. She said, among other things, that it was inconvenient for her to refuse because the case had been made public. It seems to me that this is not so much a feeling of discomfort as an inclination to accept the call. However, I consider it my duty not to stop the work begun without me, and I wish that the desire of N, who cares about the establishment and expansion of Orthodoxy in this region, will be fulfilled as usefully as possible. Euphrosyne can, without a doubt, invite with her only those who wish, with your consent to their dismissal, and to take whomever she wants without asking consent would be both unfair and useless. I'm glad you're at peace. May the Lord preserve this treasure for you; and you guard it and do not allow those who try to kidnap it. Some want to go to Polotsk, others to Voskresensk. And another asks whether it is possible to look for peace closer than a few hundred miles away. Peace be with you all; and let relief come to the sick. Reverend Abbess Mary - rejoice in the Lord! May the grace of the Lord cover you and your abode. It is good to seek peace by thinking about heavenly things and the insignificance of earthly things. However, earthly needs cannot be neglected by those who must take care of the brethren. Let us do what is for heaven as work, and what is needed for earth as a share, and not so much for ourselves as for the brethren. May the Protection of the Lord always cover you. October 5, 1842, Moscow. I rejoice that the Lord accepted your service and brought the retreating one closer to Himself. Maria says that she has been running from Khotkov for eleven years and everything is returning there as if by an unknown force. Perhaps, indeed by an unknown force, perhaps in this refraction of the will there is a good that she would not have found in a poetic flight from monastery to monastery. I’m not driving her out of your monastery yet, but there’s a lot of discussion to be had about whether she should stay with you. I'm returning your book. This is sacred history under the name of the history of Jerusalem. The writer is not without faith, but he mixes it with the now fashionable romanticism. Is it good to call the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy a Jewish odyssey? Is it good to say about the Jewish people: “From the magnificent and gigantic epic of Jehovah he passed on to the meager comedy of mysterious liars imprisoned in dark caves?” This is a literal translation from your book. It seems to me that better reading can be found for monasteries than this. Peace and health to you and your hosts. To the Venerable Abbess Mary, and to those who strive with you, rejoice in the Lord. I thank God with you that you returned safely and that your assistant received relief from her illness. May the Lord's help not forsake you all in all things necessary, and especially in the salvation of souls. I am returning letters from Polotsk. It's strange that they don't receive yours there. Isn't anyone hesitant to give them away in order to act more strongly to retain Palladium, which has no support? Or is it a sin to think so? Judging by the letters, there is a lot of entertainment from the visits, perhaps to console those who come. May they find good work to do at home. Palladia, I think, it’s better to return. To Sofya Ivanovna I have called and continue to call upon God’s blessing; and I send the image to her as a blessing, without competing with her for not visiting me when she was in Moscow. Wasn’t it the story I read about her grandmother? If so, then a good blessing and instruction from her was given to her granddaughter. For your guest Maria, everything points to a return to Khotkov, except for her own thoughts and desires, which the Lord wants to subjugate to His will and His inscrutable wisdom. We will see how the way of the Lord will appear, which most often is not the same as the ways of men. Peace to you all. May the Child of Bethlehem, “Father of the age to come” (Is. 9:6), bless you with temporal and eternal blessings, may you be like children in integrity, simplicity and love on earth, and finally His perfect children in heaven. Truly Christ is risen! Rejoice, sister, in the Lord, as the risen Lord Himself commanded, and let no one take away your joy, and let nothing force you to act contrary to the command of the Lord. Didn’t He endure all the suffering so that none of our sorrows would be unbearable? Didn’t He die and rise again so that He could be our hope in death and life after death, so that it would be convenient for us not to fear death and not to grieve for the dead? Peace to the soul of the Virgin Catherine. She accomplished her feat with faith and patience, you performed a service of love. Pray for her in peace, and let her pray for you in peace. Physical blindness should not be considered an important disadvantage. It does not stop the invisible communication of faith and love. There is no doubt that there is benefit in the past service of love, and there will be benefit in submission to the fate of God. Grace and peace be with you all. From the Lord a blessing to His servant Mary for relief, peace and health! You act as if you were healthy and caring for the sick. It is true that we were very concerned about the first news, but we already had others that tempered the concern of compassion and increased the hope that the Lord, who visited you with a test of patience, would support you and restore you. There was no need to work with the right hand so as not to increase the work of the left. Tabitha could retell what you wrote. Seeing your letter is useful to me only in order to notice in the firmness of the handwriting the preservation of some strength and peace, giving hope for complete recovery. I ask you to maintain peace of mind in every possible way. This is a medicine that you can always give to yourself and which is no less important than external medical remedies for the body, and much more for the soul. I knew a man who, having become ill, said to himself: “Now the Lord does not require from you any efforts that, perhaps, you would use incompletely or incorrectly, or not to the point, nor deeds for which you should be responsible, but requires that you simply and obediently accept what He is doing with you.” And thus had the world in illness more than in health. May the Lord help you endure your illness with peace and benefit, for He sends everything for the benefit. Peace be with you and those who are with you, and your abode. Blessing and peace from the Lord to the Venerable Abbess Mary, the sisters and the monastery! I was told that you asked: should we take money from the saved treasury to build cells? The question is not easily resolved. You were told that with funds that exist for several years and must cease, it is necessary to create a capital that will somehow ensure the maintenance of the monastery for the future. Meanwhile, you were advised not to multiply the number of sisters beyond your capabilities in terms of accommodation and food. Little capital has been saved so far. The number of sisters, as I hear, reaches one hundred and thirty. In this course of affairs, one must be afraid that by taking capital and building cells, you will further increase the number of people living, destroying the small previously saved provision for the future. It is necessary, although unpleasant, out of a duty of precaution to think that it might not happen that the more people you gather with you, the more will be left behind the helpless, who will leave the monastery, looking for bread, and will not soon find another. I present to you a mental view of the gloomy future, so that it does not actually appear to the eye, but so that, with the help of God, everything can be coordinated and a bright view can be prepared for the days ahead. It would not be a bad thing if you considered my doubts and wrote to me how you resolve them. Without that, I don’t know what to tell you decisively. I ask for patience for the first part of this letter. Some dispute for lasting peace is better than careless indifference and abandonment of precautions under the guise of peace. December 10, 1843, Moscow. Having read your letter again and seeing that you promise not to sew with gold, I find it unnecessary to remind you that I did not strongly demand this, but only drew your attention to the inconveniences that may arise due to the predominance of luxurious work. Sew in gold if it is necessary and useful to the monastery, but also support simple necessary work and needlework, and the readiness to turn from the elegant and magnificent to the simple and necessary when circumstances require it. I wish you and those with you to worship the Infant Lord Jesus with childlike simplicity of heart and devotion of faith and love. Rejoice in the Lord risen with the myrrh-bearing women, offering Him instead of peace a prayer fragrant with His name, for “His name is poured out in peace” (Song. 1:2). May the Lord bless you and those who struggle with you with peace and joy. Earthly joy is imbued with sadness, because the soul intimately feels the unsatisfactoryness of earthly things and the need for something better. Sorrow for the Lord is imbued with joy, because the soul has a presentiment of what the apostle said: “sorrow for God brings about salvation” (2 Cor. 7:10). Let us seek joy in which the sting of sadness is not hidden. Let us not be afraid of sorrow, which will turn into joy. Blessings and peace to the Venerable Abbess Mary! You already know that what you did without permission is permitted. So, you see that there is no harm in what is done in the spirit of brotherly love. It does not interfere with management and does not banish reasoning. Let us leave our passion and our will behind our superiors; and let brotherly love rule, and let reasoning be his assistant. You make such strong excuses against my letter that it may turn out to be guilty. If I heard about your debts, I forgot, and therefore had no thought about them. But there is no dispute that debts must be paid and that this need is stronger than many others. But you are not justifying yourself in what constituted the whole strength of my argument - that you accepted too many people, and therefore there is barely enough money for the present, and the year steals everything from which something should be saved for long-term needs and to provide for future years. You built a table, and now you want to build another, probably because for the increased number of people it has become cramped. Will it be necessary to build a third one in a few years? What means are sufficient for this? And how can you not talk about frugality with your limited funds? This is where it was more necessary for you to justify yourself, and to reason with me. However, I do not judge or condemn, but I am concerned about achieving something soothing for me and for you. The long courtyard between the building and the stone wall, four arshins 23 wide, is hardly suitable for anything. Neither the wind nor the sun will dry it, and the snow will probably be so heavy that it will be difficult for you to open the doors to the yard. Isn’t it better to build a corridor instead of a courtyard, and to make room for a courtyard, cut off the end of the proposed building? A one-story building, meals and a kitchen will cost 20 thousand rubles. What should it cost to house your many sisters, who, of course, live very closely in dilapidated wooden buildings? Wouldn't it be more profitable to build a small second floor above the same walls, under the same roof, to house the sisters? What do you need bells for? Previously they complained that there was no bell tower, but now, apparently, it’s boring to go to it. Lower the rope from the bell to the ground: it’s cheaper than spending 1,200 rubles to buy new bells. To the Venerable Abbess Mary and to those who strive with you - blessing and peace, to please the will of God, always good and perfect, in oblivion of your own will, not always good and always imperfect. I rejoice in your joy in contemplating the Epiphany. May the grace of God that has appeared to the world, saving all people, appear savingly to your mind, and heart, and life. Let us glorify Him who was glorified on the Jordan with the voice of the Father, and let us humble ourselves before Him who humbled ourselves on the Jordan under the hand of a slave. May we love for the sake of Him Who was Glorified and for the sake of Him Who Humbled Himself, may He show us His love. Let us turn to the matters of our humble service. If we recognize ourselves as ignorant, why extend into distant relationships? Isn't it easier to contact your own people than to strangers? Isn’t it easier at home to admonish ignorance and correct errors than to publicly indicate illegality, which is done from afar? Why assume ill will in a matter whose failure is simply explained by non-compliance with a given order. The case, ruined by the way by the delay of the passport, was dragged out onto the road. But you have to judge whether it is worth so much effort. Removal from the Goritsky monastery to a non-existent monastery, disagreement with the nun for whom the novice left the monastery - these are not traits that would be a guarantee for you and would encourage you when accepting a novice. I often hear about yours traveling around Moscow. Shouldn't you pay attention to this? Don't you need to use more firmness, although not pleasant to everyone, instead of condescension, which exposes those entrusted to you to the danger of stumbling, and you to responsibility for failure to protect? Should we not remember the fatherly word that monks outside their cells, and especially outside the monastery, like fish out of water, soon die? Save yourself and take care of the salvation of those entrusted to you. In the name of the Lord, blessing to the Venerable Abbess Mary with the sisters of unanimity and daughters of obedience! He who fasted for forty days to correct our intemperance, and who conquered every temptation by a perfect feat, in order to gain us the strength to defeat temptations, may he strengthen you for the feat of fasting for the purification of souls and bodies, so that with purified hearts and lips you may commune with the Most Pure One, may you taste the sweetness of sorrow in His suffering and the enduring joy in His Resurrection. I received a letter from Sofia Ivanovna. I wish that she would not be embarrassed by circumstances, as she complains, but would either be favorable or could not shake her spirit, established in calm devotion to the will of God. That our desires are not fulfilled is sometimes not worse, but better. God's blessing to the abbess and the monastery. He who gives prayer to the one who prays, I hope, will not take your prayer away. And experience says that after rumor it is difficult to tell the sisters to love the fence of the monastery and beware of external rumors. Do not demand much from a weak body so that it does not become weaker, but show it indulgence to preserve its strength, so that, as St. Maxim, to have in him a co-worker in serving the best. The form of the statements sent to me is an empty concern, but take care of the correct form of what should go to the highest or secular authorities. This was apt, but take it not as an accident, but as a necessary cautionary note. Why did you tremble on February 23 at the thought of dying on June 14, when without any prior knowledge you knew that you could die on the same day, February 23? “If we live, we live for the Lord; if we die, we die to the Lord” (Rom. 14:8), soon or not soon, foreseen or unforeseen. However, if the thought from June 14 reminds you of preparation for the great path, take advantage of this reminder, preparing yourself with purification, faith, prayer, and love. A dream is not yet a prophet; The prophet Jeremiah teaches about the prophet: “when the word comes, they recognize the prophet” (Jer. 28:9), i.e. when the time of the prediction comes and it comes true, then only, and not before, can you know that this is truly a prophet and a prediction. So, use the reminder of something useful, which is good no matter how it comes, but do not bind or confuse yourself with the thought of a day and hour unknown even after the reminder of it. I think you have been ordered to present some sisters for tonsure. Submit with the required information. What do you mean when you say that you want to remain at your previous rank? Trustees? This title no longer exists at the monastery. Dorm superiors? The Spassky hostel, by your will, not mine, no longer exists; there is the Spassky Monastery, which should have not just an abbess, but an abbess. With a secular rank? It is wonderful that when you could not be in the clergy officially, then you wanted to belong to it at least secretly, with difficulty for you and for those who looked more at a good desire than at difficult consequences; and now, when the place you created, in which you are in charge, has become spiritual according to your desire, you stop on the path to spiritual rank and want to remain with the tonsure known to God, which, however, you yourself made known to everyone. You need rent for the benefit of the monastery. Fair enough, I respect that. But for this purpose, you had to remain the head of the Spassky hostel and not solicit any other type of society and superiors. Now depriving you of your leadership would be offensive to you and harmful to the place; but the only way to retain your leadership is by transforming it directly into a spiritual one. I think you heard from me how, when Princess Meshcherskaya founded the monastery, she had to become an abbess, while she only wanted to be a nun. You should have seen this as your story when you wanted to establish a monastery. I knew this one method for improving the Boris and Gleb Monastery, and I know this one for yours. If you know another one that is no less reliable, teach me. Your influence over the sisters must not be eliminated. If there is another abbess, there will be two beginnings, more or less complicated by one another. However, I do not at all want my will to be done, but may the will of God be done, may it be beneficial for the creation of the monastery, and may your soul choose what is for its peace. Discuss further, if you like, and write to me about what you find best. By God's mercy and grace, peace be with the soul of Abbess Mary! That there is no constancy in the state of mind, of course, this is not order and perfection. But remember that the constant and unchanging are in heaven, and we live in a world of change and are ourselves subject to change, which is what needs to be so that we can change for the better. So, let us, as far as we can, try to change ourselves for the better; and let us endure involuntary changes without impatience and anxiety, which would not be useful, constantly calling on help from above. It is good when we can serve God with inner fervor and delight. The feat becomes easy because it rewards itself. But if, despite our involuntary coldness, we continue to serve God with peace and firmness, isn’t this also good? The Lord will look upon the unsatisfied feat and will not deprive him of his reward, now hidden. Are you not yourself hindering your internal order with external worries? “Cast your sorrow upon the Lord” (Ps. 55:23). Do not compare your monastery with the St. Euphrosyne Monastery, so that the thought of envy does not creep in, so that the thought of humility is not lost. Ask yourself: is it possible to demand for Abbess Mary what they do for the Venerable Euphrosyne? The answer seems to be not difficult. In Polotsk they honor the memory of the saint, restore the ancient glory of Orthodoxy, and console those recently reunited with Orthodoxy. You have no such rights to government largesse. They may tell you that you were not asked to build a monastery, but that they did you a favor by allowing it. You can argue that your place is important too. This is true; and if it spoke of its rights, I would listen with reverence and would not challenge its rights. But I must tell you that you do not have full power of attorney from him to represent the rights to his government, which itself knows them. Why do you intensely desire a big church? Do you have a place to pray and receive consecration? Therefore, the need of your brotherhood is fulfilled. You don't owe anything to outsiders. The rules, ancient and new, say that the less contact a monastery, especially a monastery, has with worldly people, the better. What would the enterprise of building a large church bring to you? The labor of construction and then the burden of maintenance. What new things would you buy for your spiritual salvation? Whether the proposed building of the refectory will be too close to the church, I cannot judge this without having a plan in mind. But if it’s close, what’s the harm? This is not a meal of feasts, but a meal of those who take food with prayer, reverence, thanksgiving to God and dissolve bodily food with the spiritual food of soul-healthy reading. External appearances deserve little care. There is no need to look at those living in splendid and magnificent dwellings; one should look more often at those living in caves and huts. Let there be, whatever happens, churches made with hands, the concern should be that churches of God not made with hands will be found placed in them. I wish you complete success in this endeavor. It is good to desire nothing but salvation, and I wish that this state would be yours. But do you only want salvation for yourself or for your neighbors? I hope that your neighbors will too. And the desire for salvation for ourselves will not be fulfilled if we give up the desire for salvation for our neighbors. And if we want the salvation of our neighbors, then we need to take care of their peace, especially those of them who, by God’s special dispensation, are entrusted to our care. So, don’t say: “I don’t want to think about the matter of building.” Don't think about it out of desire, but think out of obligation. Because this matter is necessary to calm the sisters of your monastery. Before you wanted to take care of many things, but now you don’t want to take care of anything. What is this transition from one extreme to another for? We must try to walk with a firm and calm step along the royal path. Before you hoped a lot, now you completely lose hope. Wasn't there a little arrogance in the previous disposition? Is it not present in the current condemnation of our neighbors who did not live up to our hope? I wish - and you beware - that neither one nor the other will happen. Use what happens against your will to practice patience. If everything were voluntary, how would we acquire the virtue of patience? I looked at the plan of the church and other buildings now. Fine. It’s enough that they built it in the imagination, if they still don’t allow it to be built on the ground. The first build is cheaper. But the second is transitory, like the first. Pray diligently in a small church, and you will have a great one either on earth or in heaven. I am returning the letter. What they write, I have already known for several months. Let them take the trouble to look for secrets in the simple act of love for humanity, if they find it necessary. When I agreed to send monks to Georgia, I told the governor that this incident could be reinterpreted. This is not the first time that I have trusted people, not wanting to give in to my mistrust, which would be a burden to others. The will of the Lord be done. May the peace of the Lord, which surpasses all understanding, guard your heart and your mind; the heart is in devotion to His will, the mind is in obedience to faith. Perhaps there is no need to complain too much about the inactivity of the mind. Let him be silent and listen to how the heart cries out to God, let the heart give movement to God to the mind. If the heart does not soften before God, the Fathers order to examine oneself: whether an intruding cruel thought, for example, conceit or improper concern for something earthly, is preventing this. We must reject it in every possible way and submit ourselves before God, forgetting ourselves and our own, with the sole desire to serve Him. And with continued coldness of heart, holding yourself before the eyes of the Lord and waiting, as you say, is the correct position of the spirit, according to the teaching of the saints. “I have endured the Lord and listened to me and heard my prayer” (Ps. 39:2). If we translate this closer to the original and together to our vernacular, then we must say: “I waited and waited for the Lord, and He paid attention to me and heard my prayer.” Wait for the Lord, and he will listen to you and hear your prayer. God's blessing and peace to the Venerable Abbess Mary, and also to the sisters. What was started as a work of faith must be continued. If a work is started with imperfections, one must ask the Source of perfections to perfect it without relying on oneself, with hope in the grace of God, which favored the work to begin and grow. But we must use the care and foresight that is possible on our part. Peace be with you! I am returning the letter. May the Lord save the writer, giving him humble repentance. He confesses his suffering, not his mistakes. He already sees and preaches the first resurrection, and our Fathers loved to preach cleansing from passions and sins, not daring to touch secrets and destinies. He teaches generously after the Church took the authority to teach from him and placed him in the place of the penitents. Forgive me for these remarks. Wish him well, but leave him to go his own way. You have the royal path, the ecclesiastical and paternal path. Blessings and peace to the Venerable Abbess Mary! What you wrote to me before this is more accurately retold by your sister, who was in St. Petersburg. Requires a formal presentation of the plan. If you want, I will do this, but for this I need a formal submission from you, with the attachment of a plan and a formal certificate from the architect about what obstacle was encountered from the ground for constructing the structure according to the previously approved plan. But I can’t guarantee you the speed that you are promised. If you want to build according to an already approved plan, then talk to the architect to see if it is possible to build a basement, but in such a way as not to go deeper into the ground, but to raise it higher than the basement walls. My governor says that the basement in Odigitriev was built in the same way, and with success, although it was on swampy land. You know that I preferably advised building a two-story building. But that was when the matter was not complicated. Now, given the complexity of the matter, it is difficult to say which is better. And I cannot say anything that I am not convinced of. One thing I can say for sure: don’t dwell on the idea of ​​not bothering me with an introduction. My purpose is to serve the benefit of those entrusted to me, without difficulty or with difficulty, only without violating law and order. May the Lord protect you and your abode. 25 God's blessing and peace to the Venerable Abbess Mary and to those who struggle with you! I sympathize with your sorrow for your fields. May the Lord forbid the worm to consume grain created for the service of men and to prepare bread for them. There have been frosty mornings here for several days now. It seems they should kill the worm. Meanwhile, you had to resort to the punishing and merciful Lord with common prayer. One eyewitness told me that when the village manager reported to the landowner that a worm was damaging the fields, the landowner immediately invited a priest and gathered the people. They went to the fields, blessed the water with the prayer prescribed for this occasion, sprinkled the fields and their edges, where devastation meant the trace of a worm. The next day, the steward brought the landowner a lot of dead worms from the field, as proof that the disaster was over. It was not this year, but our God and Lord “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb. 13:8). Cry to the Lord, so that he will not be completely angry and will not reward us for our sins, but may he look upon our humility, and “let His poor be satisfied with bread” (Ps. 131:15). Let us fall to Him together. Peace to the Venerable Abbess Mary, and the sisters, and the monastery! The question of girl N. is difficult to resolve reliably. She lived with you, and then she didn’t want to live; then she lived in the Odigitrievsky hostel, and again did not want to live, although there, just like you, there was care for her. Therefore, I cannot say decisively: “Accept it.” Moreover, your monastery is filled and overflowing. One thing deserves attention: you still have a cell that belonged to the girl N. Out of respect for this circumstance, here’s what you can do. Propose to the older sisters: would they agree to have her in the monastery for three months as a guest sister. If they agree, accept it for this time, without committing yourself to the future. When this time has passed, then see if she is at peace with the sisters and they with her, and depending on that, again consult with the sisters to see if they will agree to accept her decisively. Even if they agree, it must be placed not widely, without embarrassment for the sisters who took places in the monastery before her current arrival. Do not doubt the favor of the Odigitrievskys. They wanted to put her to rest with them, but could not achieve this, and they will be consoled if she finds peace with you. And your communication with them has not stopped. Through our fellowship with the Lord, may our mutual fellowship in the Lord expand, so that in Him we may all “be one” (Gal. 3:28). I wish this for you, and ask me this from the Lord. If the apostles experienced troubles from false brethren, then there is no need to be surprised if our weakness is met with sorrows from the imperfection of brotherly love. You will not have a shortage of people, but you pity the soul that is worried at the pier and wants to go, not knowing where. Wish well to the departing as to the abiding, and remain in peace. Your Guardian Angel teaches you to purely contemplate the Divine in its immeasurable height above the insignificance of the human, although called to serve the Divine, out of immeasurable condescension so that humility is simple and so that under its cover man-pleasing and the arrogant cunning of one’s own mind are not hidden. Accept the instruction and pay attention to yourself. Tell Sofya Ivanovna that the Holy Synod gave her the blessing to be Sarah, that is, a soul graciously ruling over passions, desires and feelings, or Solomia, that is, a peaceful soul, or anyone else whom the Spirit of the Lord calls and creates, clothing a person in an angelic image. May the Lord grant her to be clothed both in the sign and in the characteristics and virtues of those being saved, and may he preserve the bride’s clothing until the day of the Lamb’s marriage. How long will A. with the name of the sister of your monastery live in Moscow in a secular house? Does she want to wait for what happened to E. in Klin and give you another answer? As long as it is considered yours, you are not free from the obligation not to leave it unattended in the waves, but to direct it somewhere, just to the shore. However, you will accept this reminder calmly and do what is due, without needlessly grieving. Peace to the Venerable Abbess Mary! What to write at the request of the runner, she teaches you very literally. You can say that you agree to fire her so that she does not fill a vacancy in your monastery. But even if you do not add this condition, it must be met. Self-justification is not a monastic quality, but justification of management matters is necessary. Thinking of writing an excuse, you write an accusation, saying that there was nothing to pay for the forest. Why is this when you were given money according to an estimate and when some materials should have contained significant savings of money. You need to think about this so that the matter is not confused and so that you and the authorities who trust you are not involved in responsibility for the confusion. Don't worry, just use caution. Peace to you all; Do not turn the light wind of frivolous human words into a storm. Calm down, reverend mother. If a truly important nuisance were to occur, the monastic task would be to accept it generously and, with devotion to God, who sent the temptation, to calm the trembling heart. But you “were afraid of fear where there was no fear” (Ps. 13:5). The novice was taken by the authorities not for a crime, but for lack of written form. A kind person was found who testified that she was yours, and she was released, and the trouble was over. You acted simply, but the mayor acted according to the strictness of the police, and one cannot complain that it turned out to be stronger on the main road than on the country roads. It was written to me about this incident, and the Consistory is therefore asking you, but this is not a problem either. Asking does not mean insulting, and giving an answer does not mean being insulted. One should not worry, but reason; and reasoning will show that you have been sent instructions to be more careful, to fire not unnecessarily, with a ticket, with a designated place and time. There would be less pretension if it were not said that the novice without a written form was in St. Petersburg. As for E., she also needs to calmly accept what happened, and even with gratitude to God’s dispensation. She once ran from the landowner. The reason for running away was good, but running away is a violation of the law. The civil law did not catch her to punish her, because the providence of God protected her for the good cause of flight, and now it allowed her a small civil penalty for flight, in order to show that any violation of the law requires purification, and it is good for us if purification is accomplished by temporary sorrow. Peace and blessing from the Lord to the Venerable Abbess Maria and the sisters of the monastery. With gratitude I received your letter and the blessed bread from your holiday. Since the holiday opens the doors to prayer more widely, I hope that your holiday prayer will be especially for my benefit. However, even on holidays, let me not be forgotten in your prayers. The thought of your inability, included in a letter not intended for complaints, makes me understand that you are not quite calm about some of the words that came to you from me through the Consistory. In vain. If you are told not to accept too many into the monastery, then this is not a reprimand, but a reinforcement for you, so that, when necessary, you can refuse admission, not complaining about yourself, but following the direction of your superiors and conveying his refusal, for which, of course, it will not be your fault. The Chief Prosecutor has been written about Ms. Naryshkina’s intention to build a church here, so that he respects her request. Meanwhile, you pray calmly in a small church, without arousing in yourself the thirst for a great one, which will require considerable care. Blessings of the Lord and peace to the Venerable Abbess Mary! By the power of His Cross, may the Lord heal all your sorrow and grant you spiritual consolation! Without knowing exactly what kind of rumor about the novice that upset you, and from what source the slander arose, I cannot judge this definitely. I don’t think that Abbess A. would neglect, if she could, the opportunity to counteract the slander. But slander does not ask permission from those in power and does not accept orders from them to shut up. I told you that teaching music is not a monastic activity. If we abandoned this, there would be less need for relations with the world, subjecting us to rumors and gossip. True, the prophet, apparently, felt the burden of slander when he wrote: “Deliver me from human slander” (Ps. 119:134). But there is no need to attribute more burdens to her than there are. Some slander drives you out, leads you into poverty, throws you into prison - this is hard. Isn’t it easier when slander passes by your ears like the wind? Enter your cage and do not listen to the sound of the wind. Compare two people: one slandered and one justly blamed. Which one is unluckier? Of course, blameworthy and guilty. So, the one subject to rumors of slander is not the most unfortunate. And perhaps it is not unfair to say about that person: he is happy that he was slandered by rumor and not accused by his conscience. Heal your wounded heart with sound reasoning, prayer and trust in God. And if experience proves the unpleasantness of slander, then teach the sisters not to allow themselves much freedom in the hope of their integrity, but by strict observation of themselves, like armor, to protect themselves from the arrows of human language. May the Lord deliver from human slander all those entrusted to your care, and may you keep His commandments. July 9, 1847, Trinity-Sergius Lavra. Hello, Reverend Mother Abbess, mentally and physically, you and your sisters. We are healthy, but not all of us. The assistant inspector of the seminary went from the seminary house to the house of his father, a Moscow priest, for his mother’s name day. Having arrived, before sitting down to the birthday dinner, he fell ill and died the next day. I feel sorry for the father, but who could have foreseen this and not allowed his son to see his mother? Don’t be embarrassed that you didn’t foresee why your treasurer was sent to Moscow. You wished her health, and the Lord, perhaps, foresaw that you would suffer a lot at the sight of her death and burial, and decided to remove this spectacle from you. She entered the hospital safely, but before treatment began, she hurried to go to where “there is no illness, no sadness, no sighing.” I ask you to accept this with obedience to the will of the Heavenly Father, and obedient children, if they cry, do not cry very much and quietly. May the Lord strengthen you. With generosity and calmness, protect your health, which is especially necessary now that your assistant has been taken from you. Don’t just think about the one who passed away, but think about who will replace her, and tell me. November 27, 1847, Moscow. God's blessing and peace to the Venerable Abbess Mary. You complained that you were being prevented from praying. You would remember the Abba, who, having arrived at the royal house, stood in the corner waiting for the king and read the clock to himself. But thank God that next time it is given to you to participate in prayer, the good consequences of which are desired and precious for the Royal House and Russia. Thank God for the consolation of meeting the bright gaze of the beloved Tsar and Queen and their children and hearing the word of mercy. May the Lord guide your return. To the Venerable Abbess Mary and to those who strive - peace and salvation. That you admit your guilt in hastily undertaking to establish a church and in hastily canceling the enterprise is good, firstly, because any admission of guilt leads to humility, and secondly, because this teaches caution. I do not in the least complain about the cancellation of an enterprise that I had previously seen as serving not for benefit, but for burden. But it would not be superfluous to know how you will place the icons and how the investor views it. While one hasty undertaking was frustrated before it began, those sent by you told me about something else, much more important - about the preparation of materials for a large church. If I reluctantly agreed to the first, then I shouldn’t rush into the last. You have churches to pray to, therefore the need of the monastery is satisfied. Building a church for a large crowd is not the need and duty of a monastery, which was not built to be immersed in an extraneous crowd. If a crowd of people comes praying, glory to God! But the monastery is not to blame and should not be embarrassed if it is crowded with outsiders. If the opportunity to create a large church opens up, God will bless those who are diligent. But to try and rush, and to start a business when there is a shortage, would mean to complicate oneself. Time does not seem to say: “Expand and be magnificent,” but seems to say: “keep what you have” (Apoc. 3:11), take care of what you have. With patience I wish that your monastery has a spacious church; But more than that, I desire that you who dwell in it will be churches of the Living God, and that the Spirit of God will live in you, according to the word of Scripture (see 1 Cor. 3:16). It's good that you are away from noise and rumors. There are no more worrying rumors than before, but there are also no comforting ones. The sky gave rain, but requires prayer. 26 To the Venerable Abbess Mary - rejoice and be at peace in the Lord! Thank God that there are those who console us with obedience, and if there are those for whom patience is needed, then we must think that we also need such, so that we can exercise patience and, with God’s help, achieve success in it. Where would patience be if everything was optional and there was nothing to endure? To make bricks for a building for which there are no funds, one must be perspicacious and foresee when and what means will become available. I have not been given this gift, and therefore I am simply afraid that the hastily made bricks will crumble before the construction begins. Do you hear about the sadness of the Sovereign Tsarevich and the Empress Tsesarevna? May the Lord comfort them. It seems that it is not difficult to release an innocent child to the Angels: they will raise better than earthly mentors. But no matter how obvious these thoughts are, it’s sad to look at parents complaining with them. May the Lord grant them obedience to His destiny, so that, in obedience, giving Him the sacrifice He accepts, they may acquire the blessing to preserve what they have and to make up for the deprivation they have suffered. The blessing of the Lord be upon you and those with you. To the Venerable Abbess Mary - peace and salvation from the Lord, and also to those who are with you. If there is a feeling of indifference to earthly things, so long as the soul does not reject heaven, then let the soul preserve this feeling and let it hold on to heaven. But it does not contradict this to be not indifferent to a grieving neighbor. There is brotherly love in this, but it does not separate one from heaven. It is only necessary to moderate the concern of brotherly love. It is not care that will help your neighbor, but a word or deed of consolation and prayer. May the Lord help Abbess Salome mentally and physically. But it would be neither convenient nor in order for you to go to her, nor to take her with you. Pray for her; tell her a word of consolation through a letter, and then - “let us commit each other and our whole life to Christ our God,” as the Church teaches daily. You say that you have no repentance, but it seems to me that it is in your letter. May the Lord grant you that you have the fruits of repentance, and not that you see them. Letter from the Sovereign Tsarevich from Princess Anastasia Mikhailovna. I hope she returns it to you. I rejoice that the high look down on the humble. Let us learn humility from them, and by their kindness let us be aroused to pleasant prayer for them. Have peace in the Lord and cast your sorrows on His mercy. It is impossible without them when we live, as you yourself say, “in a deplorable vale” (Ps. 83:7). Therefore, the Lord took upon Himself the name of the Comforter. And, of course, he will not cease to be what he calls himself. Published in the magazine “Soulful Reading”. 1868. Part 1. pp. 61–62. Published in the magazine “Soulful Reading”. 1868. Part 1. pp. 260–291. Published in the magazine “Soulful Reading”. 1868. Part 1. pp. 62–64. Published in the journal "Readings in the Society of Lovers of Spiritual Enlightenment." 1868. Book. 4. pp. 85–87. Published in the journal "Readings in the Society of Lovers of Spiritual Enlightenment." (omission in the text - A.L.) Vysotsky, a famous doctor in Moscow at that time. Published in the journal "Readings in the Society of Lovers of Spiritual Enlightenment." 1868. Book. 4. pp. 87–88. Published in the journal "Readings in the Society of Lovers of Spiritual Enlightenment." 1868. Book. 5. pp. 61–62. Published in the journal "Readings in the Society of Lovers of Spiritual Enlightenment." 1868. Book. 5. pp. 61–63. Published in the journal "Readings in the Society of Lovers of Spiritual Enlightenment." 1868. Book. 4. pp. 88–89. Letters 12 to 23 were published in the journal “Readings in the Society of Lovers of Spiritual Enlightenment.” 1868. Book. 5. From a prayer for sleep to the coming St. John of Damascus. Published in the journal "Readings in the Society of Lovers of Spiritual Enlightenment." 1876. XI. pp. 148–149. Published in the journal "Readings in the Society of Lovers of Spiritual Enlightenment." 1868. Book. 5. pp. 74–75. Irmology, tone 2, song 3 Published in the journal "Readings in the Society of Lovers of Spiritual Enlightenment." 1868. Book. 5. pp. 76–77. Published in the journal "Readings in the Society of Lovers of Spiritual Enlightenment." 1868. Book. 5. pp. 77–78. Published in the magazine “Soulful Reading”. 1868. Part 1. P. 64. Letters 30 to 34 were published in the journal “Readings in the Society of Lovers of Spiritual Enlightenment.” 1868. Book. 5. pp. 78–84. Letters 35 to 66 were published in the journal Readings in the Society of Lovers of Spiritual Enlightenment. 1868. Book. 5. pp. 85–126. This letter is not dated, however, based on its contents, it should be attributed to the period January - September 1838 and is thus located between letters 34 and 37. The placement of it by the compiler of the publication under number 61 seems to us erroneous - Editorial Board of the ABC of Faith Letters 67 to 77 were published in the journal Readings in the Society of Lovers of Spiritual Enlightenment. 1868. Book. 5. pp. 126–135. Letters 78 to 80 were published in the journal Readings in the Society of Lovers of Spiritual Enlightenment. 1868. Book. 5. pp. 135–140.