ЧАСТЬ ЧЕТВЕРТАЯ. РАСЦВЕТ ПАИСИЕВА БРАТСТВА В МОЛДАВИИ: ДРАГОМИРНА, СЕКУЛ, НЯМЕЦ. ПОСЛЕДНИЕ ДНИ ЖИЗНИ И КОНЧИНА СТАРЦА (1763–1794)

The multitude who believed had one heart and one soul; no one called anything of his property his own, but they had everything in common... each one was given whatever he needed (Acts 4:32,35) Chapter 1. RESETTLEMENT TO MOLDAVIA. ORGANIZATION OF THE BROTHERHOOD IN DRAHOMIRN. CHARTER OF BROTHERHOOD. TRANSMISSION OF ELDER PAISIUS TO SCHEMA. ORDER OF SERVICES. ORDER OF OBEDIENCE. THE CELL LIFE OF THE BROTHERHOOD. CARE OF THE ELDER FOR THE SICK. THE ELDER'S BOOK CLASSES: CORRECTION OF SLAVIC BOOKS ACCORDING TO GREEK ORIGINALS. WINTER CLASSES OF THE ELDER WITH THE BROTHERHOOD. CONVERSATIONS AND ADDRESSES OF THE ELDER. THE DEATH OF O. VISSARION. The resettlement of Elder Paisius to Moldovlachia turned out to be very useful for his business. If the elder had continued to live on Athos, then, firstly, the growth of his brotherhood would have ceased due to lack of premises and means of subsistence, and, secondly, it could not have such a wide influence on the spiritual life of Orthodox monasticism in Moldova and Russia. The life of the Paisian Brotherhood on Athos was like the life of a tree in a small and cramped nursery. The tree had already grown so much that it did not have enough food in its premises. It needed to be transplanted to a more spacious and convenient place for it. She found this place for herself in Moldova. Of course, the change of place should have caused some disruption in the life of the brotherhood, but this disorder was temporary, and the life of the brotherhood soon overcame it and unfolded with the greatest strength and completeness. Having prepared to leave, Elder Paisius hired two ships, and in one of them he placed himself with the Slavic brethren, and in the other he placed Father Vissarion with the Moldavian brethren and set off. There were a total of 64 people on both ships. The travelers safely reached Constantinople, and then Golats, from where 17 years ago the elder went to Athos. In Moldovalachia, the elder and brethren were first placed in the monastery of Varzaresti, and then they were given the monastery of the Holy Spirit, called Dragomirna in Bukovina, with all its lands, and the governor Gregory, with a special letter, freed the monastery from all tributes. The monastery left to the elder turned out to be in a rather pitiful state. There were only five cells in it, the refectory was without a roof, there were few books, and there were only six oxen in the barnyard. But the monastery occupied a vast space, was located in a secluded and silent place and had every opportunity to gradually come into a comfortable state. Therefore, both the elder and the brethren were very pleased with the place given to them. Soon the monastery began to receive generous donations from many benefactors who wished to help the elder. The pious governor built two rows of new cells and an archondriac. The boyars followed the example of the governor: some donated draft animals, others - cows and sheep, others sent grapes, wine, wheat, shoes and clothes. This general sympathy and generous help deeply touched the elder and the brethren, and with joyful tears they thanked God for the mercy they had received. The Dragomirn Monastery of the Holy Spirit is located near the city of Sochava and the border village of Itskany between Bukovina and Moldova and is located in the gorge of the Carpathian Mountains. From the outside, it represents a real fortress and is surrounded by a fence with towers, so that it could serve the residents of the city of Sochava as a refuge during the attack of the Zaporozhye Cossacks and Tatar hordes. The time of foundation of the monastery, as well as the name of its first builder, are unknown; It is usually thought that it was founded in 1602 by Bishop Anastasius Krymka of Radout. But that's not true. When, after the annexation of Bukovina to Austria at the end of the 18th century, the Austrian government ordered the selection of immovable monastic estates for the diocesan fund and a special commission was appointed to bring them to light, two letters of grant from the Moldavian governor Peter the 7th Lame, dated March 28 and October 21, 1584, were opened, with which Dragomirna was granted eternal and inalienable possession of arable land near the village of Kostina in the Sochava district. From this it is clear that the monastery already existed at the end of the 16th century. Maybe then it fell into disrepair and was restored again by Anastasy Krymka. In any case, the participation of this bishop in the improvement of this monastery is undoubtedly. In 1602, he built a church in the monastery in honor of the Descent of the Holy Spirit, and on one of the towers above the monastery gates he built a church in the name of St. Nicholas and in the monastery garden he erected a church in the name of the holy prophets Enoch and Elijah and the holy Apostle John the Theologian. Having settled in Dragomirna, Elder Paisios soon presented to the Moldavian Metropolitan and his Synod information about the emergence of his brotherhood and its charter. (1). Our first charter and order, which we consistently observe: not one of the brethren in any way should have any movable or immovable property or the slightest thing or call it his own, but have everything in common. For the sake of order, the abbot, seeing the need of each brother for food, clothing, etc., must, like a father caring for children, give everyone what they need, not by the brother’s self-imposed choice, but by obedience. From such a foundation, sincere love for God and neighbor, meekness, humility, peace, like-mindedness and cutting off of the will increase in the communal brethren. The brethren undergo obedience not for the sake of any temporary acquisition, not for the sake of glory, honor and bodily peace, and not for the sake of any other human consideration, but for the sole sake of their salvation. And because of this, the heart and soul are one in them, and worldly envy, hatred, pride, enmity and other evils have nowhere to lay their heads. From the special property in the community, all malice and all violation of God’s commandments are born. Giving first importance to this rule, we reveal to each new brother from the Holy Scriptures that he should in no way have any special property until his last breath. All the brethren unanimously obey this rule. (2). The second order, on which, as we think, the entire monastic life hangs, is to acquire obedience, i.e. Having despised and cast aside all your own will and reasoning and commandments, the will and reasoning and commandments of your father, in agreement with the Holy Scriptures, strive with all diligence to fulfill, and the brethren, as to the Lord Himself, and not to people, with the fear of God and with humility to serve until death. (3). What should a rector be like? He must study the Holy Scriptures and the teachings of the spirit-bearing fathers, and besides their testimonies, bring nothing of himself to the brethren - neither teachings, nor commandments, but often instruct and reveal the will of God. Be guided by Scripture in assigning obediences, remembering that the word of God for both him and the brethren is a mentor and guide to salvation. Must be an example of humility and in everything a harmonious and like-minded union of spiritual love. Not to begin and create every thing on his own without advice, but by gathering together the brothers who are most skilled in spiritual reasoning, and with their advice, testing the Scriptures, to begin and create. If a matter happens that needs to be announced before the whole council, then, having gathered the whole council, begin and work with general knowledge and consideration. And then there will be peace and unanimity between the brethren and an irresolvable union of love. (4). Divine services. The rule of the cathedral, vespers, compline, midnight office, matins, hours and the Divine Liturgy, also on all the Lord's, Mother of God and great saints' feasts, all-night vigils with readings, on the lesser feasts of polyeleos and doxology with readings, and other all church rites and adherence to the conciliar charter, as they were accustomed to in the holy Mount Athos, must always be performed in our monastery steadily, without haste, in due time. At the service, the patrons and benefactors of the holy monastery, according to the order and regulations of the Holy Church, should be remembered, living and dead. The leader and all the brethren must always wear robes, cassocks and hoods at the cathedral church rule, each according to his rank; and never leave it, except in illness or obedience. And if one of the brethren was not on the church rule, the abbot should interrogate about this at the meal in front of all the brethren, and if he does not indicate the blessed guilt, the abbot should give such a brother the appropriate canon during the entire meal or non-eating that day, with his usual spiritual verbal admonition. (5). The rector and the brethren should gather at meals every day, observing the general church rules regarding permission and non-permission. At the meal, the brethren, according to their order, should be in robes, cassocks and hoods, with great and extreme silence and fear of God, listening to the reading that should be every day at the meal from the lives of the saints and paternal and teaching books according to the charter of the Church. On all weeks and on the Lord's great holidays and celebrated saints, and, if possible, then on every day, there must certainly be a Panagia. And the entire order of meals in our hostel should be according to the order of the Holy Mountain. And in no way should the abbot or the brethren eat in their cells, except from illness or extreme old age. Food should be common for everyone; only those with stomach problems, according to the teachings of the holy fathers and the reasoning of the abbot, can have special food that is beneficial to them. However, they must eat this too at a meal, and not in a cell. (6). In their cells, the brethren should sit with the fear of God, according to the tradition of the holy fathers, preferring mental prayer more than any feat, as the love of God and the source of virtues, performed in the heart with the mind, as many God-bearing fathers teach about it. In addition to prayer, have the singing of psalms, moderate reading of the Old and New Testaments, teaching and fatherly books. In addition, to have in the cell, and in every place, and in every work, the memory of death and sins, the Last Judgment of God and eternal torment and the Kingdom of Heaven, and self-reproach, and to practice handicrafts or art assigned by the abbot. You should never be idle, for idleness teaches you all kinds of evil. The untimely departure from the cell and unhelpful conversations are like poison to run away from and turn away from. What fathers teach about mental prayer? Saint John Chrysostom, Saint Callistus the Second, Patriarch of Constantinople, Saint Simeon, Metropolitan of Thessaloniki, Saint Diodochos, Bishop of Photikie, Saint Hesychius of Jerusalem, Saint Nile of Sinai, Saint John Climacus, Saint Maximus the Confessor, Saint Peter of Damascus, Saint Simeon the New Theologian, Saint Gregory of Sinaiti - all these and others the holy fathers teach about mental prayer. (7). The abbot, for the sake of the test of humility and obedience and cutting off his will and reasoning in everything, that there is a ladder that leads novices to the Kingdom of Heaven, should send brethren to the cookhouse, bakery, cellar, meal and everything inside the monastery. The brethren, looking at the hero of Christ, who showed the feat of obedience and humility, should not refuse even the supposedly final obedience, believing that it will lead to the Kingdom of Heaven, if with humility and fear of God they serve the brethren, and not as people, but as the Lord. (8). The abbot must have equal love for all brethren; I must also carefully observe that the brethren have true and unfeigned love among themselves, as a sign of Christ’s discipleship. Private love and special community, as a source of envy and destructive of true love, should be eradicated in every way. The abbot must patiently bear all the infirmities and failures of his children in a fatherly manner, in the hope of their correction and true repentance, and correct them with the spirit of meekness, instructing with words what is useful. And do not remove them from society, especially if this does not harm others. Those who live spontaneously, following their own will and reasoning, rejecting the good yoke of obedience and thereby causing harm to others, should not be tolerated under any circumstances. But after sufficient instruction and admonition, in private, with two or three brethren and before the council, they separate and expel from the brotherhood, even with many tears and with regret and mental illness, so that others do not become infected with their destructive illness. Those who have come to their senses and turned to repentance, joyfully accept them again and show them all mercy and compassion and forgive their sins, rejoicing with all the brethren about their conversion. (9). The abbot must have a skilled brother to manage the lands and slaves of the monastery and all the external affairs of the monastery, who could, without violating the commandments of God, without ruining the soul, manage these external affairs well, so that he himself, being free, with greater convenience can take care of the spiritual salvation of the brethren and about all church and communal deanery. Also, in the spiritual care of a brother, one must have an assistant, a brother skilled in reason, who during his absences should be left with the brethren for the sake of spiritual care. Having the intention of going somewhere, the abbot must ring the entire congregation of brethren in the church and, having venerated the holy icons and taken a prayer from the priest for the journey, announce his intention to the entire cathedral and humbly ask him to pray for him to God, so that he can return healthy and safe. And, having asked forgiveness from everyone and given a blessing, go on your way. Having returned from the journey, do not go straight to the cell, but, having gathered all the brethren, go first to the church and, having given thanks to God, thank the brethren for their prayers and, having explained to the brethren the mercy of God, shown about the common benefit of the brotherhood, for the sake of which the journey was undertaken, go to his cell. (10). About the acceptance of the brethren into monasticism, about the hospital, about skills and the host. A brother brought by God from the world into monasticism, the abbot must first test in private and explain to him from Scripture the power of monastic life in common, according to God, obedience and cutting off his own will and reasoning until death. Having noticed in him a true, and not feigned, desire for monasticism and Divine zeal, then before the whole council of brethren, having again revealed to him the power of common life and obedience, accept him into common life. And not immediately tonsure him into monasticism, but after the time established by the rules: some for three years, others for six months in worldly clothes, looking at the fruit of obedience and cutting off one’s will. To tonsure one into monasticism in a cassock, and to tonsure another into a mantle and join him to the brethren. If, after keeping someone on probation for a set time, the abbot does not see in him true obedience and cutting off his will even after three years, do not tonsure him, but release him into the world, so that there is no temptation from him to the common life. (11). If a person entering monasticism from the world brings any property with him to the monastery, then the abbot must keep this property intact in the monastery treasury until tonsure. After tonsure, he can turn it to general monastic needs. If a brother, before being tonsured, wants to leave the monastery for the world or some other monastery, then all his property that he brought to the monastery must be returned to him intact, so that there is no embarrassment for the brother or the monastery. (12). A hospital must certainly be set up inside the monastery so that the sick brethren can have special care for themselves in food, drink and all rest. A skilled brother should be placed there, capable of ministering to the sick with spiritual intelligence, and if there was someone who even partially knows the art of medicine, then such a one should be placed there. (13). The abbot must also ensure that the monastery has various skills, and especially those necessary for human community, and assigns the brethren to them, and trains those who do not know how, so that in this way, by the brethren themselves, who undergo various skills for the common benefit, the entire society of the brethren can satisfy their needs without hassle and there would be no need for them to go out into the world and avoid spiritual harm from that. (14). Two hospices should be established: one inside the monastery - for clergy and lay persons coming to the monastery, the other outside the monastery: so that those who come to the monastery will find peace, both for themselves inside the monastery and for their livestock outside the monastery. And over these services, the abbot must place skilled brethren who could serve the brethren with spiritual intelligence, and the abbot must have spiritual love both for his spiritual brethren and for everyone who comes to the monastery, the poor, the sick, the poor, where to bow their heads, show the same love, receive with love one in the hospice, another in the hospital and take care to the best of his ability about their bodily needs and, admonishing them with everything necessary, with let go in peace. All these and other communal rules, as in the holy Mount Athos, were preserved according to our strength, and here we preserve them as much as possible: only we still do not have ready hosts for strangers and a sufficient number of cells for the brethren, so we live in great cramped conditions. But we hope that the Lord will give us everything we need, so that every brother, after the labors of church rule and various obediences, for the sake of mental work and physical achievement, as well as rest, would have his own special cell, as a quiet and calm refuge, which can lead to better spiritual dispensation and success among the brethren. (15). We pray to Your Eminence that females will be prohibited from entering the monastery, except in extreme cases during war and flight. Also, the skete, created in the name of Saint Enoch, Elijah and John the Theologian, may never be separated from the monastery. May the brethren from the monastery, from the abbot and from the entire cathedral, observe the good order and rules of the community, and receive everything they need for life from the community. Strange monks and those who have their own special acquisitions should in no way be there. And according to the definition of the cathedral, let them celebrate both the church rules and the Divine Liturgy for the sake of commemorating saints and benefactors. (16). It contains a rule about the resettlement of monastery slaves to the village and the establishment of a church and a lay priest there for them, so that the monastery remains without any embarrassment. (17). On the procedure for electing abbots. Let us not send another from outside after the death of one abbot. But according to the consent and unanimous election of the entire cathedral and on the advice of the dying rector and with the blessing of the right reverend metropolitan, one should be chosen from society, and who would surpass everyone in spiritual intelligence, knowledge of the Holy Scriptures and communal rules, also in obedience, cutting off one’s will, love, meekness, humility and all the virtues, able in word and deed to set a good example for the brethren, rank priesthood venerable. And since our society consists of three dialects, he must know three languages ​​well - Greek, Slavic and Moldavian, or at least two - Slavic and Moldavian. If some kind of leader is appointed from the side, and not from the council of brethren, who has not by his own deed acquired perfect obedience and cutting off his own will and reasoning, who has not undergone the patience of reproach and dishonor in the community, who has not learned the power of Scripture and community regulations, who also has his own special property and has not accepted the leadership for the purpose of laying down his life for the brethren, but only to repose himself and increase his property, as such can he manage the flock of Christ's sheep well? And how can a council of brethren submit to such a mentor? And if something like this ever happened, without a conciliar election, a leader was installed over the brethren, then nothing else would result from this but the complete and complete waste of the brethren and ruin of the common life. Is it possible that in no way in the entire council of brethren can there be someone who could lead the brethren to salvation in word, deed, and example. But even then, the person taken from the outside due to such extreme need must be installed with the voluntary will of all the brethren, making a promise to God before all the brethren until his death not to have or acquire any of his own property and, together with the brethren, to have all the needs in common. Only under this condition can there be no desolation of common life. (18). This monastery will never be worshiped anywhere, just as the terrible oath of the blessed memory of the ktitor of this holy monastery was taken: without this, there would be ruin to the eternal common life. The existing monastery cannot be worshiped anywhere by the grace of God, and the common life of the brethren in it is indissoluble and unshakable. The statute of the brotherhood presented by Elder Paisius was approved and approved by the highest Moldavian church authority. The elder and the brothers could begin to calmly arrange their lives in a new place. Soon after Elder Paisius moved to Dragomirna, he was tonsured into the schema. His longtime friend and mentor, Hieromonk Alexy, who lived in the Merlopolyansky monastery in Wallachia with Elder Vasily, learned about the elder’s arrival in Dragomirna. He came to Dragomirna and lived with the elder all winter. At the request of Paisius, Hieromonk Alexy clothed him with the schema, retaining his former name Paisius. This event brought joy to the entire fraternity. Father Alexy lived in Dragomirna until Easter 1764 and went back to his skete, accompanied with great regret by both the elder and the brethren, since he attracted all hearts to himself with his extraordinary kindness. After the death of Schemamonk Vasily, Alexy was the chief and elder in his monastery. Arranging his life in Dragomirna, Elder Paisios first of all paid attention to the order of worship, which in any church society forms its basis. Divine services in Dragomirna were performed strictly according to the rite of the Holy Mountain. On the right choir they sang in Slavic, on the left - in Moldavian. The rules of the hostel were observed just as strictly. None of the brothers dared to call any thing mine or yours, but had to consider everything sent from God to be the common property of the brotherhood, receiving everything they needed for themselves from the elder. The meal was served to everyone, except the sick and the elderly or weak. All obediences are carried out within the monastery - in the cookery, bakery, etc. performed by the brothers themselves. They themselves performed various skills: shoemaking, carpentry, plumbing, tailoring, etc. Each performed his obedience willingly and diligently, conscientiously for the sake of God according to his strength. There was no place for disobedience, arbitrariness, or contradiction in the brotherhood. The brothers themselves worked in the gardens and in the fields and looked after the livestock. While working, there should have been silence on the lips, and secret prayer in the heart. The elder himself often went out with the brethren for general obedience and worked together with others, setting an example. During the grain harvest, the brothers sometimes spent several days in the field. For the sake of church rules and other church needs, the confessor went to the steppe with the brethren, having with him the Divine Mysteries. Often the elder called for a doctor, and sometimes he himself came and spent three or four days with the brethren in the steppe, and this was the greatest holiday for the brethren. The elder blessed their labors, rejoiced at their diligence and talked with them. When the elder left, the brethren lovingly saw him off, asked for blessings and prayers, kissed his hands and returned to work, rejoicing that they had seen their elder and listened to his conversations and instructions. When the elder could not personally visit the reapers, he sent them a written greeting. Taught them how they should treat each other, take care of and love each other. He wrote to them: “Take care of yourself from envy. Where there is envy, there is no Spirit of God; hold your tongue so that he does not speak empty words. He who protects his tongue protects his soul from sorrow. From the tongue there is life and death. The elders must teach the younger, inexperienced ones. There should be humility, kindness and love in everyone. You need to strengthen yourself with the fear of God, the memory of death and eternal torment. Every day you need to confess your thoughts to the elder. Repeat the Jesus Prayer constantly. Offer to God a pure, undefiled, fragrant sacrifice according to your Christian vow. Offer your labors and your bloody sweat as a burnt offering; May your tan from the sun be like the patience of martyrs.” At the end of the letter, the elder prays to the Lord to save those who labor from all spiritual and physical evil and to cover them from all the wiles of the devil. Such letters, imbued with love and caring, encouraged and animated the brethren and made hard and tedious work easy and joyful for them. In cell life, the elder demanded from each brother that he fulfill his rank with full consciousness and diligence, and be a monk not only in dress, but also in spirit. He demanded that the brethren in their cells read the writings of the holy fathers, perform mental prayer and, as much as possible, offer frequent bows with tears. Every evening the brothers, especially the new ones, came to their elders and confessed their thoughts to them. The elder considered confession of thoughts to be the basis of spiritual life and saw in it the hope of salvation for a soul that sincerely repents of sins. If there was a misunderstanding between the brothers, then reconciliation would certainly follow on the same day according to the word of Scripture: “Let not the sun go down on your anger.” And if one of the brethren became so hardened that he did not want to reconcile, the elder excommunicated him, forbidding him even to stand on the church threshold and read the Lord’s Prayer until he reconciled. For obedience outside the monastery, the elder sent such brethren from whom there would be no temptation from the world and whose own soul would not be harmed. And if, in carrying out a task, it turned out to be necessary to break some commandment, then the elder commanded that this work be abandoned, saying that it would be better for the work to perish than for God’s commandment to be broken and for us to fall under eternal condemnation. The sick, weak, and elderly were placed in the hospital and entrusted to the care of Brother Honorius, who knew a little medical art and was distinguished by a loving heart and the ability to console every sufferer with spiritual conversation. The elder loved and appreciated Honorius very much. He alone was left to take as much money from the elder’s cell as he needed for the needs of the sick. Honorius, for his part, was completely devoted to the elder and upon his death survived him only by one year. Little by little they built a warm church in the monastery, installed cells, an archondarik, etc. The elder was busy with the brethren all day long; the doors of his cell sometimes did not close until 9 o’clock in the evening. Some left, others came on spiritual or economic matters. He consoled some, rejoiced with others, but economic failures never upset him - he grieved only about spiritual troubles. “I lived with him for thirty years,” says his biography, “and did not see him grieving over material needs. He only grieved greatly when he saw the violation of God’s commandments.” With his constant concerns about the brotherhood, Elder Paisios found time for his favorite literary pursuits. He devoted his nights to them. Having stocked up on patristic books in ancient Greek on Athos, the elder used them to check and correct Slavic translations in Dragomirna. He talks in detail about his book studies at this time in a letter to Archimandrite Theodosius. “When we settled in the holy monastery of Dragomirna, I began to think in every possible way about how I could begin to correct the Slavic patristic books, and even better, to a new translation of the patristic writings from the ancient Greek language, but I encountered many obstacles to this matter. The first obstacle was that the translator of books must certainly be a completely knowledgeable person, and not only in grammar, spelling and the peculiarities of both languages, but also in higher sciences, such as rhetoric and philosophy, and finally, he must, so to speak, touch theology itself. Although I spent four years in my youth in Kyiv schools, I learned there only partly the grammar of the Latin language, and my further learning was hindered by the desire for monasticism. However, even the small information that I acquired at that time was almost lost by me over the years, so I was afraid and trembled to begin such a great task of correcting or translating the patristic books with such weak knowledge. The second obstacle was my lack of skill in spelling, i.e. in spelling. Whoever, being inexperienced in spelling, dares to write sacred books, in my opinion, although he believes in the truth in his heart and confesses with his lips for salvation, he commits blasphemy with his hand due to his inexperience. That is why I, being then still inexperienced in spelling, was horrified to begin such a great task. The third obstacle was that I did not have the necessary vocabulary. Translating books without lexicons is the same as practicing any craft without the necessary tools. The fourth obstacle was that I knew very few ancient Greek words at that time, and in fact I did not really know this language at all. The fifth obstacle was that the ancient Greek language surpasses all other languages ​​of the universe in wisdom, beauty, depth, abundance and richness of sayings, so that even the natural Greeks themselves, perfectly educated, can hardly comprehend its depth. How could I, being so ignorant, dare to begin the task of correcting or translating books from such a wise language? The sixth obstacle was that I also did not know our glorious Slavic language, which, in my opinion, surpasses many languages ​​in its beauty, depth and abundance of words and comes closest to the ancient Greek language. Taking into account all these circumstances, as well as the fact that I was too burdened with countless spiritual and physical, internal and external various concerns, I almost lost hope of ever starting the business that attracted me. But, seeing in our brotherhood the great hunger for the word of God, from which the souls of the brethren, along with my own soul, were completely exhausted, and placing all my hope in the Lord, who makes wise the blind, I decided, relying on the prayers of the brethren, to finally begin this matter with great caution. Realizing that I will not be able to immediately complete the work of correction and new translation of the patristic books that I have begun in such perfection that my corrections and translations could be immediately transferred to other monasteries for rewriting or printing, and that there may be a need for their second examination and correction, seeing as in a mirror that not once, but many more times as I acquire the necessary lexicons and improve my knowledge of both the ancient Greek and Slavic languages, there will be a need to carefully revise them again corrected books and subject them to a new correction either to myself, if God prolongs the age, or - after my death - to other brothers skilled in this matter; I made a firm decision in my soul that my work, as imperfect in all respects, would remain in our brotherhood alone until, with the help of God, it was finally corrected. I began my work as follows: due to the lack of lexicons, as well as my inexperience, I took as a guiding thread for myself the translation of the fatherly books from ancient Greek into Moldavian, made by our beloved brothers - Hieromonk Macarius and Daskal Hilarion, learned men and experienced in translating books. Part of this translation was made by Brother Macarius on the holy Mount Athos, and part in Dragomirna, and Father Hilarion also worked on his translation in our brotherhood. Having accepted their translation for all reasons as undoubtedly correct, I began, guided by their translation and following the ancient Greek original, to correct the Slavic books. In this way I corrected the following patristic books: Hesychius, Diadoche, Macarius - the second, Philotheus, Nile on prayer, Thalasius, Gregory of Sinaite, Simeon the New Theologian - a word on attention and prayer, Cassian the Roman - on eight thoughts and others, holding tightly, like a blind man to a tine, the above-mentioned Moldavian translation, and thus completed the first correction of the named books. After some time, when I gradually began to gain a better understanding of my business, I noticed a lot of errors in my first corrections. Then I revised some of these books a second time. After a little more time, noticing new errors in the books, I corrected them for the third time. However, some books remained only after the first correction, because I did not have time to correct them a second time. It must be said, however, that the books I corrected were far from being truly perfect, since those same ancient Greek books that were copied for us on Athos turned out to be not entirely correct in many places. Correcting the old Slavic books and not yet having at my disposal a single lexicon, I nevertheless again translated from the same ancient Greek books the writings of the saints: Anthony the Great, Isaiah the Hermit and Peter of Damascus - the second book, but these translations, due to my inability at that time, contain so many errors that I am scared to even think about it, and there is no way to correct them properly in the absence of correct ancient Greek books. Due to the extreme need for it, I then translated the book of St. Theodore the Studite from ordinary Greek, without even being deigned to see it in ancient Greek to this day. However, in this translation of mine, for the reasons indicated, there are a lot of errors. I spent a whole year correcting the book of Saint Isaac the Syrian from the ancient Slavic translation, checking it either against the ancient Greek printed text or against the Moldavian translation. But, to my regret, I see that this book is far from perfect and that, if only the Lord, in His mercy, prolongs my life and gives me, already almost blind, the necessary sight, I will have to work again to correct it.” Elsewhere, Elder Paisius tells the following details of his corrections of the Slavic text of this book: “When I lived among a small number of brethren on Athos, I had a book of Saint Isaac the Syrian, part of which I copied in my youth in the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, and one zealot on Athos completed it for me at my request. I still have this book. Reading this book on Mount Athos many times and with attention, in many places I could not find meaning in it... I marked such places with special signs in the margins, hoping over time, having found a better book, to correct them. After some time, I met one hieromonk who had a book of Saint Isaac, which was supposedly similar in everything to the Bulgarian book, written more than four hundred years earlier and supposedly similar to the Greek book. Believing this statement and wanting to correct my book, I asked the hieromonk for his book, and for six weeks, day and night, I corrected my book based on it, but it turned out that the unclear passages in my book remained unclear, for they turned out to be written in the same way in the book given to me as in mine. My desire to obtain the book of Saint Isaac in ancient Greek remained unfulfilled both during my stay on Athos and in the first years of my residence in Dragomirna. After many years, when I had lost almost all hope of acquiring this book, Almighty God, by His grace, prompted the Patriarch of Jerusalem Ephraim to print this book, and the patriarch entrusted this work to the wisest hierodidascal Nikifor, later the Archbishop of Astrakhan, and then living in Constantinople. Having learned about this, one brother from our hostel, who was then in Constantinople, began to beg both the Holy Patriarch Ephraim and the hierodidascal Nicephorus, so that when this book comes out of print, they would deign to send it to me in Dragomirna. With the blessing of the patriarch, Father Nikifor informed our brother that “as soon as the book is printed, I will immediately send it to your elder as a sign of my love for him.” All this happened in 1768. When our brother, having returned to the monastery, told about this, my soul was filled with the greatest joy, and I waited with hope for the fulfillment of the promise... In 1770, during the Nativity of Christ, the hierodidascal Nicephorus fulfilled his promise and sent me a priceless gift, a printed Hellenic-Greek book of St. Isaac the Syrian, which I accepted with inexpressible joy and, with tears thanking God, who had fulfilled my long-standing desire, I immediately became read your Slavic book, comparing it word by word with the printed Hellenic-Greek book, with the goal of correcting those places in the Slavic book that did not make grammatical sense, but not at all with the goal of a new translation of the book. For at that time I did not yet have sufficient knowledge of the Hellenic-Greek language, as well as the necessary books, and therefore my work at that time cannot in any way be called a translation, but only some correction of the Slavic book... When the Hellenic-Greek book of St. Isaac was translated into the Moldavian language, then, having compared this translation with my Slavic book, I made some more necessary corrections in the Slavic. And since the Slavic book in some parts turned out to be richer in words than the Greek, and these words, in my opinion, really belonged to Saint Isaac, I did not exclude them from the Slavic book, but only noted them. All this work of mine correcting the Slavic book of St. Isaac began in 1770 and ended in 1771.” As for Paisius’s translation of the book of Saint Isaac from Greek into Slavic, this translation dates back to 1787, when the elder already lived in the Nyametsky monastery, and we will talk about this translation elsewhere. In 1774, a Greek monk named Constantius came from the Holy Mountain to Dragomirna and brought with him a Hellenic-Greek book, written by his hand and containing many paternal books. It also contained books that Elder Paisius had not yet seen in the Slavic language. At the earnest request of Paisius, the monk copied these books for him. But since he was completely alien to grammatical knowledge, he introduced countless errors into both his book and his list, “so that, truly, the gold of holy words turned out to be wallowing in the mud of illiteracy, from which even well-educated people, not having reliable Greek originals in their hands, can hardly cleanse this gold.” From the books copied by the monk Constantius, the elder translated 300 chapters of Saint Mark and Saint Nikita Stifata into Slavic. From the same books of the monk Constantius, he also translated the book of St. Theodore of Edessa. But all these books are not only unsuitable for printing, but even for rewriting on the side, because they require preliminary careful correction according to reliable originals. Further, Elder Paisius writes: “What can I say about the book of Saint Calistos, Patriarch of Constantinople, and Saint Ignatius, to which Blessed Simeon, Archbishop of Thessaloniki testifies? I really wanted to at least see this book during my lifetime, but the Lord arranged it so that I not only saw it, but even managed to translate it into the Slavic language. But this book, although it turned out to be better spelled than others, is not free from such errors that even our most skillful translator of Greek books into Moldavian, Father Hilarion, could not find the real meaning in some places and had to translate it as it seemed to him correct. I followed his opinion in my translation. That is why it is difficult to print and distribute this book anywhere outside. I must say the same about the second book of Saint Calistos, called Katafigiota: although I translated it into the Slavic language, it is not free from many errors. The Life of Saint Gregory of Sinaite, written by his disciple, His Holiness Calistos, Patriarch of Constantinople, was brought by Schemamonk Savoy from the Holy Mountain to our common father and elder Vasily; and we, taking advantage of this, rewrote it for ourselves. We had only one book of Saint Maximus the Confessor - “Four Hundred Chapters on Love”, Moscow press, and, besides it, his word of fasting on the question and answer, which I rewrote in my youth in our fatherland with numerous errors and omissions. I still haven’t seen the Hellenic-Greek text of it, despite my best desire. The book of St. Nile of Sora is not at all in Greek, but only in Slavic, and in my youth I rewrote it with countless spelling errors and still do not have time to correct it.” This is Elder Paisius’s own story about his book studies in Dragomirna. From this story it is clear that here, as on Athos, the elder was primarily engaged in correcting Slavic translations, but while on Athos he corrected according to Slavic copies, in Dragomirna he corrected them according to Greek originals. It was here in Dragomirna that the elder’s translation activities began, reaching their full development already in the Nyametsky monastery. Working on the correction and translation of the patristic books, Elder Paisius shared the results of his studies with his brethren, and for this purpose the following order was established in his monastery: when winter time came and all the brethren gathered from external obediences to the monastery and the fast of the Nativity of Christ came, then the elder, using the corrected books, began to conduct conversations with the brethren, and this continued from the beginning of the Nativity Fast until Lazarus Saturday. Here is a sample of his conversation: “Brothers and fathers, it is fitting for us to take care of a contrite heart, as the divine fathers teach, for John Climacus says: “If we live a high life, but do not acquire a sick heart, then all this is feigned and vain.” And Gregory of Sinaite says: “Heart disease and humility and the work of obedience, according to the strength of each one, with the rightness of the heart, accomplishes the work of truth.” And he again: "Any physical and spiritual work that does not have heartfelt labor will never bear fruit to the one who does it, for the Kingdom of God is taken by force and those who use force achieve it, as the Lord said. For even if someone has worked or is working painlessly for many years, he does not care to perform the works of repentance with ardent zeal of the heart, he is alien to purity and is not involved in the Holy Spirit." And again: “Whoever works with carelessness and laziness, even if he seems to work a lot, will not receive any fruit, for those who follow a non-painful path fall from despondency into useless cares and are darkened.” Simeon the New Theologian says the same thing: “Whoever does not imitate Christ’s Passion through repentance, tears, humility, obedience and patience, especially through poverty and sorrow, reproach and reproach, and is not a partaker of His shameful death, cannot be a partaker of His spiritual Resurrection here and cannot receive the grace of the Holy Spirit, for the divine Paul says: if we suffer with Him, then we will be glorified with Him. If we are ashamed to imitate His sufferings, which He endured for us, and the earthly wisdom of the flesh lives in us to avoid these sufferings, it is clear that we cannot be partakers of His glory. For without repentance and tears, as we said, none of what has been said can and will not happen either in ourselves or in others.” He says in another place: “No one can prove from Divine Scripture that without tears and constant tenderness he could be cleansed from passions, and that any of the people could achieve holiness or receive the Holy Spirit, or see God, or feel Him within themselves in their hearts without preliminary repentance and tenderness, for only as tears of sadness and repentance do all this produce the Divine fire of tenderness.” And again he says: “Beware lest you lose Christ in you, and lest you depart empty-handed from this life, and then you will weep and lament.” Citing these words of the holy fathers, the elder with tears convinced the brethren to fulfill the commandments of Christ and acquire for themselves a contrite and humble heart. All his instructions, all his worries, all his heart disease were aimed at ensuring that all the brethren, with complete unanimity, with all their hearts and all their souls, would keep the commandments of God and not spend the time given by God for repentance fruitlessly and in negligence. And then your cathedral will be ruined, first mentally, and then physically.” The elder’s daily reading of the patristic books and his conversations had enormous educational significance for the brethren. Subsequently, when the life of the brotherhood began to decline, the brothers themselves admitted that one of the important reasons for this decline was the cessation of the elder’s daily conversations. The elder had such a gift of persuasion that he could console the saddest with his words, and he could inspire the most despondent. And where necessary, he denounced, forbade, begged, excommunicated, endured for a long time and, if unsuccessful, sent away. And he forbade only the most bitter and arbitrary, threatening them with the wrath of God. No one left him unhealed, and every day everyone was ready to stand in front of him just to enjoy his conversation. One day one of the brethren said to the elder: “Father, my thoughts tell me that you have hatred towards me, since you often reproach me with anger in front of the brethren.” The elder replied: “Beloved brother, being angry and irritated is alien to the life of the Gospel. If the Divine Gospel commands us to love our enemies and do good to them, then how can I hate my spiritual children? And if I reproach you with anger, then may the Lord grant you also to have such anger; I force myself to appear angry, although by the grace of God I never have anger or hatred.” The brother fell in tears at the feet of the elder, asking for forgiveness. The elder often said to the brethren: “I do not want any of you to fear me as a formidable ruler, but for you to love me as a father, just as I love you as my spiritual children.” As established by the elder, each confessor informed the elder about any brother whom he himself could not pacify, as well as the reason for his confusion. And when such a sorrowful brother would enter the elder’s cell, the elder would already see what he was coming with, and, giving his brother a blessing, before he said anything, he himself would begin a conversation with him and with his sweet and comforting words would distract his thoughts from the sorrows that had befallen him. The elder conducted his conversation, applying himself to his brother’s position, character, reason and obedience. With more intelligent people, he used to talk about lofty subjects, explaining his words with Holy Scripture, and he surprised and consoled his brother to such an extent that he was ready, out of spiritual joy, to impute everything, all the glory, joys and sorrows of the world, into nothing. With the simpler brethren, the elder spoke more simply, giving them examples either of their skill or of obedience, and with his words brought them into such a feeling that they were ready to reproach both themselves and their very sorrow, for the sake of which they came to the elder. Listening to the words of the elder, the brothers delved into themselves and forgot about the reason that led them to the elder, and, having accepted the blessing, they left him, rejoicing and thanking God. More than once the elder told the brethren that when he sees his spiritual children struggling and zealous to keep the commandments of God and humbly undergoing holy obedience, he experiences such inexplicable joy that he does not want to have greater joy even in the Kingdom of Heaven. When he sees them neglecting the commandments of God, walking without the fear of God and despising holy obedience, then his soul is seized by such sorrow that even in hell there cannot be greater. One day a brother comes to the elder and says that his thoughts are very pestering him. The elder smiled and said: “Why are you so stupid? Do as I do: I argue with you all day, and with others I cry, with others I rejoice and do other things. When I drive you all out of the cell, I will drive out all your thoughts along with you. Then I pick up a book and hear nothing, as if I were silent in the Jordan Desert.” Saying that the elder’s word was strong and effective, the biography writer explains this by saying that the elder fulfilled all the commandments of God from childhood. He read the sacred books with the greatest attention, from attention came understanding, from understanding - desire, from desire - jealousy. Once read, it remained in his memory forever. One day the elder was having a conversation about books in his cell. One brother who knew ancient Greek took part in the conversation. Asked how to translate such and such a Greek phrase, he answered: “Our teacher explained it to us, but I can’t remember now.” Hearing this, the elder said with a smile: “And if I read something once, I won’t forget it until I die.” Feeling surrounded on all sides by the love and care of the elder, listening to his conversations, the brethren succeeded more and more in the love of God and in the patience of Christ, although not all to the same extent. The elder rejoiced and encouraged even greater zeal, saying: “Do not be discouraged, children, for now is the favorable time, now is the day of salvation.” Then, according to the life writer, life in Dragomirn seemed like an earthly paradise. People, having rejected their will for the love of God, became dead to this world. Their secret exploits, contrition of heart, deep humility, fear of God, attention and silence and unceasing prayer in the heart cannot be expressed in words, and the words of St. Isaac were fulfilled in them: “The Lord is pleased with the assembly of the humble, like the assembly of the Seraphim.” The view on the essence of monastic feat that existed in the brotherhood of Elder Paisius found its expression in the “Instruction on tonsure of the monastic order,” attributed by some to the elder himself (Collection No. 485. Manuscript. Academia Romana. See Appendix 2). This quiet, peaceful and joyful life of the brethren in Dragomirn was darkened by one sad event. Around 1766, Father Vissarion, the first disciple of Elder Paisius on Mount Athos and his unanimous friend and closest assistant, died. Having bitterly mourned the deceased, the elder established an annual commemoration of him and a memorial meal for all the brethren, which was observed until the elder’s death. In the very first years of his stay in Dragomirna, Elder Paisius had to come out in defense of the Jesus Prayer, that is, the inner heartfelt prayerful stay with Christ, as the most important means of overcoming evil thoughts and achieving purity of heart. In Ukraine, in the Moshensky Mountains, a certain monk appeared who denied mental prayer as heresy and delusion. This monk acquired such influence over his brethren that some, having heard enough of his speeches, collected the fatherly books that taught about mental prayer, and, tying stones to them, drowned them in the river. Having learned about this, Elder Paisius wrote an essay on mental prayer in 6 chapters, which he sent to the erring monks. This essay will be reproduced further. Chapter 2. ELDER PAISIO'S TEACHING ABOUT JESUS' PRAYER, PERFORMED WITH THE MIND IN THE HEART. Sweet is the pure and constant memory of Jesus in the heart and the ineffable enlightenment that comes from it. Elder Paisius's teaching on the Jesus Prayer, like his teaching on monasticism, is closely connected with the teaching on this subject of his teacher and friend Schemamonk Vasily. Therefore, we will first briefly convey the teaching about the Jesus Prayer of Elder Basil, as set out by him in the prefaces to the books of St. Gregory of Sinai, Blessed Philotheus of Sinai and Blessed Hesychius of Jerusalem. Elder Basil begins his preface to the book of St. Gregory by pointing out the incorrectness of the opinion of those who think that mental work is appropriate only for those who are perfect, those who have achieved dispassion and holiness. Those who think this way limit their prayer to just the external performance of psalmody, troparions and canons, not understanding that such external prayer is assigned to us by the holy fathers only as temporary, due to the weakness and infancy of our minds, so that we, gradually improving, ascend to the level of mental doing and in no case remain with only external prayer. According to St. Gregory, only infants tend to, when performing external prayer with their lips, think that they are doing something great, and, consoled by the amount of reading, cultivate an inner Pharisee within themselves. One should not think that the holy fathers, by keeping us from immoderate external prayer and turning us to mental prayer, thereby demean external prayer. It won't happen! For all the sacred rites of the Church are established in it by the Holy Spirit, and they all reflect the mystery of the incarnation of God the Word. And there is nothing human in church rites, but everything is a work of God’s grace, not increased by our merits and not diminished by our sins. But we are now talking not about the statutes of the Holy Church, but about the special rule and residence of each of the monks, i.e. about mental prayer, as a work that usually attracts the grace of the Holy Spirit through zeal and heartfelt truth, and not just words spoken without attention with the lips and tongue. And not only the perfect, but also every beginner and passionate person can intelligently engage in this mental activity, guarding the heart. And therefore, Saint Gregory of Sinai, who more than anyone else and to the greatest detail examined and discussed with the grace of the Holy Spirit living in him the lives and scriptures and spiritual deeds of all the saints, commands us to make every effort about mental prayer. Likewise, Saint Simeon of Thessaloniki commands and advises bishops, priests, monks, and laity to say this sacred prayer at all times and at every hour and, as it were, to breathe it, for there is no stronger weapon either on earth or in heaven, he says together with the holy Apostle, like the name of Jesus Christ. Know also this, good worker of this sacred work, that not only in the desert or in solitary hermitage there were teachers and numerous practitioners of this sacred rite, but also in the greatest laurels and even in cities. For example, His Holiness Patriarch Photius, elevated to the patriarchate from the senatorial rank, and not being a monk, already in his high post learned smart work and succeeded in it to such an extent that, according to Saint Simeon of Thessalonica, his face shone with the grace of the Holy Spirit, like the second Moses. According to the same Saint Simeon, Patriarch Photius also wrote a wonderful book about smart doing. He also says that Saint John Chrysostom, and Saints Ignatius and Callistus, being patriarchs of the same Constantinople, wrote their books about this internal work. So, if you, objecting to mental prayer, say that you are not a desert dweller to engage in this work, then you will be rebuked by Patriarch Callistus, who learned mental prayer while serving as a cook in the great Lavra of Athos, and Patriarch Photius, who, being already a patriarch, learned the art of heartfelt attention. If you are lazy to engage in mental sobriety, citing obedience, then you especially deserve censure, for, according to St. Gregory of Sinaite, neither the desert nor solitude are as useful in this activity as reasonable obedience. If you say that you do not have a teacher who would teach you this work, the Lord Himself commands you to learn from the Holy Scriptures, saying: “try the scriptures, and in them you will find eternal life.” If you are confused, not finding a silent place, you are refuted by St. Peter of Damascus, who says: “This is the beginning of man’s salvation, to abandon his own desires and understandings and fulfill God’s desires and understandings, and then in the whole world there will not be such a thing or place that could hinder salvation.” If you are confused by the words of Saint Gregory of Sinai, who speaks a lot about the delusion that occurs during this activity, then this holy father himself corrects you, saying: “We should neither fear nor doubt, calling on God.” For even if some have gone astray, having become corrupted in mind, know that they suffered this from self-indulgence and arrogance. If anyone seeks God in obedience, with questioning and humility, he will never suffer harm by the grace of Christ. For, according to the words of the holy fathers, the entire demonic regiment cannot harm someone who lives righteously and immaculately and avoids self-indulgence and arrogance, even if they raise countless temptations against him. Only those who act self-confidently and self-advisedly fall into delusion. Those who, stumbling over the stone of the Holy Scriptures, shy away from smart work for fear of delusion, turn white into black and black into white. For the holy fathers teach us not to prohibit mental activity about the causes of delusion that occurs, but to protect us from delusion. Like Saint Gregory of Sinaite, commanding those studying prayer not to be afraid and not to doubt, he also points out the reasons for delusion: self-indulgence and arrogance. Wishing that we should not receive harm from them, the holy fathers command that we study the Holy Scriptures and be guided by them, having brother and brother as a good adviser, according to the word of Peter Damascene. If you are afraid to begin smart work out of reverence and in simplicity of heart, I am ready to be afraid along with you. But one should not be afraid of empty fables according to the proverb: “to be afraid of a wolf is not to go into the forest.” And one should fear God, but not run from Him and not renounce Him. For some, a significant obstacle to doing mental prayer is their physical weakness. Not being able to endure the labors and fasts that the saints did, they think that without this it is impossible for them to begin intelligent work. Correcting their error, Saint Basil the Great teaches: “Abstinence is determined for each according to his bodily strength”; and I think it is unsafe, having destroyed the strength of the body through immeasurable abstinence, to make it inactive and incapable of good deeds. If it were good for us to be relaxed in body and lie as if dead, barely breathing, then God would have created us that way. If He did not create us this way, then those who do not preserve God’s beautiful creation the way it was created sin sin. The ascetic must be concerned about only one thing: whether the evil of corruption is hidden in his soul, whether sobriety and zealous turning of thoughts to God have weakened, whether spiritual sanctification and the resulting enlightenment of the soul has not been darkened in him. For if all the good things mentioned increase in him, then there will be no time for bodily passions to arise in him, when his soul is occupied with heavenly things and does not leave the body time to excite passions. With such a structure of the soul, the one who takes food is no different from the one who does not. And he performed not only fasting, but also complete non-eating, and is praised for his special care of the body: for moderate living does not inflame lust. In connection with this, Saint Isaac says: “If you force a weak body beyond its strength, you inflict double confusion on the soul.” And Saint John Climacus says: “I saw this hostile (womb) resting and giving vigor to the mind.” And in another place: “I saw her melt away with fasting and arousing lust, so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in the Living God.” This is what the story that St. Nikon recalls teaches: already in our times, one old man was found in the desert, who had not seen a single person for thirty years, had not eaten bread, eating only roots, and he admitted that all these years he had been tormented by a prodigal demon. And the fathers decided that it was not pride or food that was the cause of this fornication, but the fact that the elder was not taught intelligent sobriety and opposition to the enemy’s tricks. That is why Saint Maximus the Confessor says: “Give the body according to its strength, and turn all your feats into smart work.” And Saint Diadochos: “Fasting has praise in itself, and not according to God: its goal is to bring those who wish to chastity.” And therefore it is not appropriate for the ascetics of piety to philosophize about it, but to await the outcome of our dispensation in the faith of God. In no art do artists judge the result of the work by the tool, but they expect the end of the work and judge the art by it. Having such an establishment about food, do not place all your hope in fasting alone, but, fasting in moderation and according to your strength, strive for smart work. In this way, you can avoid pride, and you will not disdain God’s good creations, giving God praise for everything. Mental prayer is a powerful weapon with which an ascetic defeats his invisible enemies. Some of the holy fathers give rules to monastics, along with doing the commandments of Christ, to perform prolonged psalmody, canons and troparia. Other fathers, having studied the most subtle work of the spiritual mind, find it insufficient for beginners to remain in physical training alone, but, teaching them, along with the fulfillment of the commandments of Christ, moderate singing and reading, they establish mental prayer instead of long psalmody and canons, adding at the same time that if the Holy Spirit visits through the action of heartfelt prayer, then, without any doubt, leave the external rule, for internal prayer completes it. Still others, having extensive experience and knowledge of the lives and writings of saints, especially being enlightened by the action and wisdom of the Holy Spirit, establish for beginners general, and not partial training in mental prayer, dividing it into two types - active and visual. These fathers command that all concern be given to intelligent work, devoting a little time to singing only in hours of despondency, for, according to them, church services and hymns are devoted to all Christians in general, and not to those who want to remain silent. However, through prolonged psalmody and reading of canons and troparions one can achieve prosperity, although very slowly and with great difficulties; the second way is more convenient and easier, and the third is most likely, and moreover, with the joy and frequent presence of the Holy Spirit, affirming and calming the heart, especially with diligent effort and good desire. Since holy mental prayer merges with the observance of God’s commandments and casts out demons and passions, on the contrary, one who neglects the commandments and does not care about mental prayer, but is engaged only in singing, is dragged along by passions. One does not know fall and rebellion at all, although passions control him; the other falls and rises, is conquered and conquers, strives and works, does not want to repay evil for evil, but does not restrain himself due to habit, tries not to say something evil, grieves when he receives an insult, but reproaches himself for grieving and repents of it, or, if he does not grieve for the insult he received, then he does not rejoice. Everyone who is in such a dispensation is opposed to passion, does not want to submit to it, grieves and fights. The fathers said that every thing that the soul does not want is of short duration. I also want to say something about the passions that eradicate. There are those who rejoice when they receive an insult, but because they hope to have a reward. Such a person belongs to those who eradicate passions, but not with reason. Another rejoices when he receives an insult, and believes that he should have received it, because he himself gave the reason for it. Such a person, with reason, eradicates passion. Finally, there is one who not only rejoices when he is offended and considers himself guilty, but also mourns the embarrassment of his offender. May God lead us into such a dispensation of the soul! For a clearer understanding of both lifestyles, let’s say this: the first, subordinating himself to the law, performs only his singing, while the second forces himself to intelligent work, always has with him the name of Jesus Christ to destroy the enemy and passions. He rejoices if he just finishes singing. This same one thanks God if he prays in silence, without being disturbed by evil thoughts. This one desires quantity, this one desires quality. He who is in a hurry to fulfill the amount of singing soon creates a joyful conceit, relying on which, he feeds and grows the inner Pharisee in himself, if he does not pay attention to himself. This person, who values ​​the quality of prayer, has the knowledge of his own weakness and God’s help. Praying, or better yet, calling upon the Lord Jesus to attack the enemies, passions and evil thoughts, he sees their destruction in the terrible name of Christ and understands God’s power and help. On the other hand, someone who is violated and confused by evil thoughts recognizes his weakness, for he cannot resist them with his own strength alone. And this is his whole rule and his whole life. And although the enemy may instill in him joyful conceit and Pharisaic thoughts, he encounters in this ascetic a readiness to call on Christ for all evil thoughts and, thus, does not achieve success in his machinations. But someone will say that it is also possible for the first to call on Christ against the enemy’s pretext. Yes, it is possible, but everyone knows from experience that at present it is not the custom for practitioners of the external rule to learn to pray for evil thoughts. Such people especially do not want to accept words spoken or written about internal attention, which is the science of praying for evil thoughts. And not only do they not accept, but they also resist, and, exposing their teachers, they claim that the holy fathers did not ordain novices to do mental work, but only psalmody, troparia and canons, pronounced with the mouth and tongue. And although they say and teach this incorrectly, everyone listens to them, for such prayer does not require training or renunciation of worldly lusts, but anyone, if only he wants, can pray like this, whether a monk or a layman. Sacred mental work, being a glorious and godly art of the arts and requiring not only renunciation of the world with its lusts, but also a lot of instruction and training, does not find performers among monks. With all this, one should be wary of right and left deviations, i.e. despair and arrogance. Noticing that those learning to do smart things happen by chance, and not intentionally, involuntary falls, which the fathers call everyday sins, should not come into doubt from this, for according to everyone there are both successes and declines from the good to the opposite. On the other hand, hearing about God’s great mercy towards us sinners, we should not be arrogant and fearlessly approach this intelligent sacred rite without great humility and feasible fulfillment of the commandments. Realizing that both arrogance and despair are instilled by the enemy, run strong from both. And thus, with much consideration of the Holy Scriptures and taking advantage of the advice of the skilled, humbly learn this work. The Holy Fathers, who teach through the commandments of Christ alone to conquer passions and cleanse the heart from evil thoughts, instruct ascetics to have two of the strongest weapons - the fear of God and the memory of the omnipresence of God, according to what was said: “by the fear of the Lord everyone turns away from evil”, and: “I will foresee the Lord before me... let me not move”, they also suggest having the memory of death and Gehenna and also reading the Holy Scriptures. All this is good for good and reverent men; among the insensible and petrified, even if Gehenna itself or God Himself were revealed in a visible way, nothing will appear from this fear. Moreover, the mind itself in new monks soon becomes dulled to the memory of such things and runs away from them, like a bee from smoking smoke. But although this memory is good and useful in the hour of battle, the most spiritual and skillful fathers, in addition to this good, indicated an even greater and incomparable good, which can help even the very weak. The first means can be compared to grinding in millstones with one’s own hands and one’s own strength, and this is the last means, when grinding in a mill with water and various devices. Just as water itself moves wheels and stones, so the sweet name of Jesus, together with the memory of God who lives entirely in Jesus, moves the mind into prayer, about which the great theologist Hesychius says: “The soul, blessed and delighted by Jesus, with joy and love and confession sends up praise to the Benefactor, thanking and calling on Him with joy,” and in another place: “how impossible it is to spend this life without food and drinking, so it is impossible for the soul, without mental preservation, to achieve anything spiritual and pleasing to God or to free one’s mind from sin, even if one were to force oneself not to sin out of fear of torment.” And again: “Thoughts that have penetrated into our hearts, if we do not want them and we strengthen ourselves and resist them, can be driven out by the Jesus Prayer, pronounced from the depths of the heart.” The first of the above means, without smart doing, although success is achieved, but very slowly and with difficulty. By the second means, the worker quickly and easily approaches God. For there there is only external prayer and teaching, and doing the commandments, but here there is both, both external and internal preservation. When a novice monk, after renouncing the world and the influence of great and mortal sins, makes a promise before God to abstain not only from small sins, everyday and forgivable, but also from the actions of passions and evil thoughts themselves, and, going inside to the heart with his mind, begins to call on the Lord Jesus for every battle and for every evil thought, or if, due to his weakness, he gives in to the enemy and breaks the commandments of the Lord, will fall to the Lord with heartfelt prayer, repenting, condemning himself, and will remain in this dispensation until his death, falling and rising, conquering and winning, day and night asking for vengeance from his rival, then will there not be hope for salvation for him? For, as experience shows, it is impossible even for the greatest men to completely protect themselves from everyday sins that do not lead to death, the source of which is: words, thought, ignorance, oblivion, captivity, will, chance - and which are forgiven by the daily grace of Christ, according to Saint Cassian. If someone, faint-heartedly, says that Saint Cassian, by being cleansed by the grace of Christ from daily sins, means only saints, and not novices and passionate ones, let there be room for such an opinion; but you, mainly, take into account the judgment and decision about such things of the Holy Scriptures, according to which every beginner and passionate person is condemned by these everyday sins, and can again receive forgiveness by the grace of Christ, like all saints, by hourly repentance and confession to God. For, as Saint Dorotheos says, there is one who serves passion and there is one who resists passion. The servant of passion, when he hears one word, loses peace, or says five words or ten in response to one word and is at enmity, and is embarrassed, and even then, when he has already calmed down from excitement, does not cease to be angry with the one who said that word to him, and is sad that he did not tell him more than he said, and comes up with even more evil words to say to him, and constantly says: “Why didn’t I tell him that? I’ll tell him this and that,” and he gets angry all the time. This is one dispensation where the evil state is common. Another, when he hears the word, also loses calm and also speaks five or ten words in response and grieves that he did not say three more words that were more offensive, and he grieves and remembers evil, but a few days pass and he is at peace; some remain in this state for a week, others calm down after a day, and others offend, quarrel, are embarrassed, confuse and immediately calm down. There are so many different dispensations, and all of them are subject to trial while they remain in force. Therefore, one can judge about all other cases why a passionate person cannot be cleansed by the grace of Christ from everyday sins that seem small. Let us now consider when similar sins are forgivable for beginners and passionate ones. The same Saint Dorotheos says: “It happens that someone, having heard a word, grieves within himself, but not because he received trouble, but because he could not endure it. This one is in the dispensation of resisting passion. The other struggles and toils and is overcome by passion. Others do not want to return evil for evil, but are carried away by habit. Another tries not to say anything evil, but grieves that he received grief, and reproaches himself for grieving, and repents of it. Others do not grieve that they received grief, but they do not rejoice either. They are all resisters of passion: they do not want to serve passion and they grieve and struggle. Such, although passionate, by the grace of Christ can receive forgiveness of daily sins, not with intention, but involuntarily committed, which the Lord commanded St. Peter to forgive seventy times a day. Saint Anastasius of Sinaite says the same thing: “We reason and think about those who receive the Holy Mysteries of the Body and Blood of the Lord in such a way that if they have some small and venial sins, such as: they sin with the tongue, hearing, eye or vanity, or sadness, or irritability, or something else similar, but they condemn themselves and confess their sin to God, and thus accept the Holy Mysteries, such acceptance occurs to them for the cleansing of their sins." Since at the beginning we spoke about the skillful overcoming of passions through mental prayer and commandments, let us now show more clearly the very course of the mental battle with passions. Whether the enemy’s attack comes against us through some kind of passion or evil thought, the one who does the prayer calls on Christ against them, and the devil and his attack perish. Whether he falls through weakness in thought or word, or irritability, or carnal desire, he prays to Christ, confessing to Him and repenting. Is he overwhelmed by despondency and sadness, oppressing his mind and heart, he grabs hold of the memory of death and Gehenna and the omnipresence of God and, having worked a little with their help, calls on Christ. Then, having found peace from the struggle, he again begs Christ to be merciful to him for his sins, voluntary and involuntary. And, in a word, in the hour of battle and spiritual peace, he runs to Christ, and Christ appears to him all in everyone, both in good and in evil circumstances. And he is not carried away by such conceit, as if he were doing anything by praying or pleasing God. For the meaning of external prayer is different, and this internal one is different: he, performing the amount of singing, hopes to please God by this; leaving him, he condemns himself. And this one, being reproached by his conscience for his daily sins and suffering the attack of the enemy’s excuses, always cries out to Christ, keeping in his mind the words: “If you climb the entire ladder of perfection, pray for the forgiveness of sins.” And again: “I would rather say five words with my mind than ten thousand with my tongue,” and thus, without any doubt, he fulfills the resistance to passions indicated by Saint Dorotheus. If anyone says that it is possible to be cleansed of sins by the grace of Christ through repentance even without smart work, we answer him this way: put the commandments of Christ on the one hand, and on the other the constant prayer: “... and forgive us our debts.” Give me true determination not to break a single commandment, i.e. not to lust, not to be angry, not to condemn, not to slander, not to lie, not to idle talk, to love enemies, to do good to those who hate, to pray for those who offend, to avoid lust, love of money and lustful thoughts, sadness, vanity, contempt: in a word, all sins and evil thoughts. And with such determination, begin to learn smart work and notice carefully how many times a day, contrary to your determination, you break the commandments and what sins, passions and evil thoughts you are wounded by. Be jealous of that widow who begged the judge day and night, and begin to cry out to Christ hourly for every commandment that you break, and for every passion, for every evil thought by which you are overcome. Add to this a good adviser - the Holy Scriptures, and, after spending a lot of time like this, come and teach me what you will see in your soul. You yourself hardly admit that it is impossible to fit all this into external prayer, but only through mental doing. For it teaches its zealot all these mysteries and assures his soul that, abandoning much psalmody, canons and troparia, and turning all his care to mental prayer, he not only does not destroy his rule, but also multiplies it. Just as the power and desire of the Old Testament law was to bring everyone to Christ, although this seemed to diminish the law itself, so much singing refers the doer to mental prayer, and does not extend to the entire monastic life. For experience itself teaches such a person when, while praying, he notices, as it were, some kind of barrier between him and God, like a copper wall, according to the prophet, which does not allow the mind to clearly look to God in prayer or listen to the heart, in which are contained all the spiritual forces and the source of thoughts, both good and evil. Intelligent work undoubtedly requires fear and trembling, contrition and humility, and much testing of the Holy Scriptures and consultation with unanimous brethren, but in no case flight and denial, and also not insolence or self-indulgence. Bold and arrogant, striving for what is above his dignity and dispensation, he proudly rushes to visual prayer. Captivated by a vain dream of ascending to a high level, imbued with a satanic and not a true desire, he is easily caught in the devil’s nets. And why should we strive for high success in mental and sacred prayer, which, according to Saint Isaac, is barely awarded to one in ten thousand? It is enough, quite enough for us, passionate and weak, to see at least a trace of intelligent silence, i.e. active mental prayer, which drives away the pretexts of hostility and evil thoughts from the heart, which is the work of novice and passionate monks, through which one can achieve, if God wants, visual or spiritual prayer. And we should not be discouraged because few are worthy of visual prayer, for with God there is no unrighteousness. Just let us not be lazy to follow the path leading to this sacred prayer, i.e. Through practical mental prayer, we will resist excuses and evil thoughts. By following this path of the saints, we will also be worthy of their lot, although not here on earth, as Saint Isaac and many other saints say. Mental prayer is accompanied by various bodily sensations, among which one must distinguish right from wrong, grace-filled from natural, and from delusion. It is worthy of horror and surprise, says Elder Vasily, how some, knowing the Holy Scriptures, do not delve into it. Others, both without knowing and without asking experienced ones, dare, relying on their own reason, to begin mental attention and at the same time say that attention and prayer must be performed in the desired area: this, they say, is the area of ​​the womb and heart. This is the first and spontaneous charm: not only should prayer and attention not be performed in this area, but the very warmth that occurs during the hour of prayer from the lustful area in the heart should not be accepted in any case. According to the words of Saint Gregory of Sinai, considerable work is needed in order to clearly comprehend and keep oneself pure from what is contrary to grace; for the devil has the habit of showing his charm to beginners under the guise of truth, presenting evil to them as something spiritual, dreamily showing one thing instead of the other at his own discretion, instead of warmth, stimulating his burning sensation, and instead of joy, delivering meaningless joy and sensual sweetness. However, it is also useful for the practitioner of mental prayer to know that a burning sensation or warmth sometimes rises from the loins to the heart by itself, naturally, if it is not accompanied by lustful thoughts. And this, according to His Holiness Patriarch Callistus, comes not from delusion, but from nature. If someone considers this natural warmth to be blessed, then this will undoubtedly be charm. Therefore, the ascetic should not focus his attention on it, but drive it away. Sometimes the devil, combining his burning with our lust, draws the mind into lustful thoughts. And this is an undoubted charm. If the body becomes increasingly warm, and the mind remains pure and dispassionate, and as if attached and immersed in the depths of the heart, beginning and ending the prayer in the heart, this is undoubtedly from grace, and not from delusion. In another place, Elder Basil says the following about bodily sensations during mental prayer: first of all, according to the words of His Holiness Patriarch Callistus, warmth comes from the kidneys, as if encircling them, and it seems like delusion, but it is not so: this warmth is not from delusion, but from nature, and is a consequence of the prayerful feat. If anyone considers this warmth to be from grace, and not from nature, then this is undoubted charm. But whatever this warmth may be, the ascetic must not accept it, but reject it. Another warmth also comes - from the heart, and if at the same time the mind falls into lustful thoughts, this is undoubted delusion; if the body warms up from the heart, and the mind remains pure and dispassionate, and as if attached to the inner depths of the heart, then this is undoubtedly from grace, and not from delusion. Knowing all this, it is necessary from the very beginning to accustom your mind, during the hour of prayer, to stand on top of your heart and look into its depth, and not halfway to the side and not at the end below. This should be done because when the mind stands above the heart and prays inside it, then it, like a king, sitting on high, freely observes the evil thoughts splashing below and breaks them, like the second Babylonian babies, against the stone of the name of Christ. Moreover, being significantly removed from the loins, it can easily avoid the lustful burning sensation that became inherent in our nature through the crime of Adam. If someone concentrates attention to prayer on half the heart, then either due to the impoverishment of the warmth of the heart, or due to a weakening of the mind and dulling of attention from frequent prayer, or under the influence of warfare aroused by the enemy, the mind of its own accord descends to the loins and against the will is mixed with lustful warmth. Some, due to their extreme recklessness or, better yet, out of ignorance, begin to say a prayer from below at the end of the heart at the loins, and thus, touching with their mind part of the heart, part of the loins, they themselves call upon the charm, like a snake charmer. Others, suffering from complete foolishness, do not even know the very place of the heart and, thinking that it is located in the middle of the womb, dare to pray there with their minds - woe to their deception! We should also distinguish between warmth in prayer, which is a natural gift, poured out into the heart, like fragrant ointment through holy baptism, and which comes to us from an ancestral crime, and which is aroused by the devil. The first begins in the heart alone with prayer and ends the prayer in the heart, giving the soul peace and spiritual fruits. The second begins from the kidneys and ends with the kidneys, causing the soul hardness, coldness and confusion. The third, arising from mixing with a lustful burning sensation, inflames the limbs and the heart with lustful voluptuousness, captivates the mind with nasty thoughts and attracts to bodily copulation. An attentive person will soon recognize and notice all this: time, experience and feeling will make everything clear to him. The Holy Scripture says: “Lord, did you not sow good seed? Where did the tares come from? It is impossible not to allow evil to creep into good; So charm is intertwined with sacred mental work, like ivy with a tree. Delusion arises from conceit and self-indulgence, and the cure for it is humility, study of the scriptures and spiritual advice, but not avoidance of learning to do smart things. For, according to Saint Gregory of Sinaite, we should neither fear nor doubt when calling on God: for even if some have gone astray, having been damaged in mind, know that they suffered this from self-indulgence and arrogance. The reason for arrogance, on the one hand, is reckless and immeasurable fasting, when the fasting person thinks that he is committing virtue, and is not fasting for the sake of chastity; on the other hand, solitary living. Eliminating the first reason, Saint Dorotheos says: “He who is silent must always adhere to the royal path, for immoderation in everything is easily accompanied by conceit, followed by delusion.” Destroying the second, he says: “Only the strong and perfect should fight demons and draw the sword against them, which is the word of God.” The very method and effect of delusion consists: firstly, in the enemy's participation in the lust of the inner loins, and, secondly, in ghosts and daydreaming of the mind. Warning against the first, the Holy Father says: although the enemy transforms the natural movement of the loins, as if into a spiritual one, instead of spiritual warmth, arousing his burning sensation, and instead of joy, bringing meaningless joy and forcing him to mistake his charm for the action of grace, but time, experience and feeling expose his deception. Pointing to the second danger, the Holy Father teaches this: when you are silent, do not accept anything if you see something sensually or intellectually, inside or outside yourself: whether the image of Christ or Angels, or a saint, or light, or fire, etc. Here the objector will come to life again and accuse clever doing of delusion. For they think that charm is not mixed with external singing. However, let it be known that in everything: whether in singing or in prayer, delusion has the same place despite the lack of skill of the workers, as St. John Climacus says: “Let us test and see, and measure what sweetness comes to us in singing from the prodigal demon, and what from the grace and power living in us.” And in another place: “Singing and praying, observe the coming sweetness, lest it be dissolved by bitter poisons.” So, you see that delusion can equally befall both those who sing and those who go through prayer; but since those who do not know smart work have only one fear of how they can fulfill the song rule, but they do not look for evil thoughts and lustful boiling, then they do not know when the lustful part itself boils, and when it is excited by the enemy’s participation, and how to avoid all this. They hear battles and receive wounds, but who their enemies are and why they are fighting, they do not know. Having learned from what has been said that it is not mental activity that causes delusion, but only our self-indulgence and arrogance, we should not run away from mental prayer: for it not only does not lead us into delusion, but, on the contrary, opens our mental eyes to its knowledge and understanding, which we could never achieve if we had not studied this sacred mental activity, even if someone were a great faster and a silent person. Having become familiar with the teaching on mental prayer of Elder Vasily, let us now turn to the teaching of Elder Paisius Velichkovsky on the same subject. As has already been said, Elder Paisios was forced to come out with his essay to warn his brethren against the attacks on mental prayer that were widespread at that time, although he was aware that the task he had set for himself exceeded the power of his understanding. “A rumor has reached me,” he writes, “that some persons of the monastic rank, based only on the sand of their own superstition, dare to blaspheme the divine Jesus Prayer, sacredly performed with the mind in the heart. The enemy, I dare say, arms them for this, so that with their tongues, as with their own instrument, they can discredit this divine cause and darken this spiritual sun with the blindness of their minds. Fearing that someone, listening to their fables, would not fall into blasphemy similar to them and would not sin before God, blaspheming the teaching of so many God-bearing fathers who teach about this divine prayer, and being at the same time unable to indifferently listen to the bold words on this most immaculate work, and also convinced by the intense requests of the zealots of this prayer, I decided to call on my Sweetest Lord for help Jesus, to write, in refutation of the false reasoning of idle talkers and in confirmation of God’s chosen flock gathered in our monastery, a few words about mental divine prayer based on the teaching of the holy fathers for firm, unshakable and undoubted confirmation of it. And so I, dust and ashes, having bowed the mental knees of my heart before the unapproachable greatness of Your Divine glory, I pray to You, the Only Begotten Son and Word of God, who enlightened the one born blind, enlighten my darkened mind, grant my soul Your grace, may this work of mine be for the glory of Your name and for the benefit of those who want to do prayer in the spirit through the mind to cleave to You and always carry You in my heart, and also to correct those who, in their extreme ignorance, dared to blaspheme this divine work!” What follows is a presentation of the doctrine of mental prayer in six chapters. In chapter one, the elder writes that mental prayer is the work of the ancient holy fathers and defends it against the detractors of this sacred prayer. Let it be known that this divine work was the constant occupation of our ancient God-bearing fathers and shone like the sun in many desert places and in communal monasteries: Mount Sinai, in the Egyptian skete, in Mount Nitria, in Jerusalem and the monasteries surrounding it - in a word, throughout the entire east and in Constantinople, and in the holy Mount Athos, and on the islands of the sea, and in recent times in great Russia. By this intelligent practice of sacred prayer, many of our God-bearing fathers, ignited with seraphic fire towards God and neighbor, became the strictest keepers of God's commandments and were worthy to become chosen vessels of the Holy Spirit. Many of them, prompted by innermost Divine inspiration, wrote about this divine prayer, in accordance with the Divine Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, books of their holy teachings, filled with the wisdom of the Holy Spirit. And they did this according to God’s special providence, so that somehow in subsequent times this divine work would not fall into oblivion. But many of the books they wrote, with God’s forgiveness for our sins, were destroyed by the Saracens who took possession of the Greek kingdom, while others, by the grace of God, have been preserved to this day. None of the true believers ever dared to blaspheme this divine mental work and preservation of the paradise of the heart, but everyone always treated it with great respect and extreme reverence, as a thing filled with great spiritual benefit. The chief of evil and the enemy of every good deed, the devil, seeing how, especially through this intelligent practice of prayer, the monastic rite, choosing the good part, sits with unrelenting love at the feet of Jesus, succeeding perfectly in His Divine commandments, began to use all his efforts to discredit and blaspheme this saving work, and if only it was possible to completely destroy it from the face of the earth: he sought to achieve this either by destroying books, or by mixing to the pure and heavenly wheat of the choking tares, thanks to which people who have no reasoning, seeing those who arbitrarily touched this work and, according to their heiress, reaped thorns instead of wheat, and instead of salvation found death, blaspheme this holy work. Not content with what was said, the devil found in the Italian countries the Calabrian serpent, whose pride in everything was similar to the devil, the heretic Varlaam, and having possessed him with all his power, he prompted him to blaspheme both our Orthodox faith and this sacred mental prayer. Look, friends, who dare to blaspheme mental prayer, are you not also becoming accomplices of this heretic and his like-minded people? Do you really not tremble in your soul to fall under church anathema like them and be alienated from God? What, in fact, is the legitimate reason you have for blaspheming this immaculate and blessed thing? I just can't understand. Does calling on the name of Jesus seem useless to you? But it is impossible to be saved through anyone else except through the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Is the human mind with which prayer is performed vicious? But this is also impossible, for God created man in His image and likeness; the image of God and likeness are found in the human soul, which, as God’s creation, is pure and immaculate; and therefore the mind, this most important spiritual sense, similar to vision in the body, is also blameless. But perhaps the heart on which, like on an altar, the mind sacredly offers to God the secret sacrifice of prayer, deserves blasphemy? Also no. For the heart is a creation of God, and like the whole human body, “there is great good.” So, if calling on the name of Jesus is saving, and the mind and heart of a person are the creations of God’s hands, then what vice is it for a person to send up a prayer from the depths of his heart to the Sweetest Jesus and ask Him for mercy? Or perhaps you blaspheme and reject mental prayer because, in your opinion, God does not hear secret prayer made in the heart, but only hears that which is pronounced with the lips? But this blasphemy is against God: God is the Knower of the Heart, and the most subtle thoughts that exist in the heart or are yet to appear, He knows exactly and knows everything, as God and the All-Knower. He Himself seeks from us such a secret prayer, sent from the depths of the heart, as a pure and immaculate sacrifice, commanding: “When you pray, go into your closet, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father, who is in secret; and your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you in reality” (Matthew 6:6). Saint John Chrysostom, the mouth of Christ, the universal luminary, the universal teacher, in the 19th conversation on the Gospel of Matthew, according to the wisdom given to him by the Holy Spirit, refers these words of the Lord not to that prayer that is pronounced only with the lips and tongue, but to the most secret, silent prayer sent up from the depths of the heart, which he teaches to perform not only in a bodily way, not only by the pronunciation of the lips, but with the most zealous will, with all quietness and contrition of spirit, with internal tears and mental illness, with the closing of mental doors. And he brings from the Divine Scripture as testimony about this secret prayer - Moses, the Seer of God, and Saint Anna and the righteous Abel, saying this: “But are you sick in soul? You cannot help but cry out, for it is natural for someone who is very sick to pray and ask like this, as I said. For Moses, being sick, prayed like this, and his illness was heard, which is why God said to him: Why are you crying to me? And Anna, although her voice was not heard, achieved everything she wanted, as her heart cried out. And didn’t Abel pray silently and after his death? And his blood emitted a voice stronger than a trumpet. You too, just like Moses, do not forbid. Tear apart, as the prophet commanded, your heart, not your garments; call on God from the depths. “From the depths,” he said, “I cried to You, Lord!” Raise your voice from below, from your heart; make your prayer a sacrament.” And in another place: “You do not pray to people, but to God, who is Omnipresent and hears before you speak, and knows before you think: if you pray like this, you will receive a great reward.” And again: “He, being invisible, wants your prayer to be the same.” You see, friends, that according to the testimony of the invincible pillar of Orthodoxy, there is another prayer, besides that pronounced with the lips, secret, invisible, silent, from the depths of the heart raised to God, which, like a pure sacrifice, like the aroma of a spiritual fragrance, the Lord accepts, rejoices in it and is glad, seeing the mind, which should be most devoted to God, united with Him by prayer. Why did you arm your tongue with blasphemy, blaspheming, slandering, hating, mocking, rejecting and turning away from it as the worst thing, and, in short, not even wanting to hear about it? Horror and awe cover me at the sight of such a crazy undertaking of yours! But I will also ask you: is it not for this reason that you blaspheme this most saving prayer, because perhaps you happened to see or heard that one of the practitioners of this prayer was damaged in mind or accepted some deception as the truth, or suffered some kind of mental harm, and you thought that the reason for all this was mental prayer? But no! No! Sacred mental prayer, acted upon by the grace of God, cleanses a person from all passions, encourages him to diligently keep the commandments of God and keeps him unharmed from all the enemy’s arrows and delusions. If anyone dares to go through this prayer arbitrarily, not according to the strength of the teachings of the holy fathers, without questioning and the advice of the skilled, being, moreover, arrogant, passionate and weak, living without obedience and obedience, and even leading a solitary and deserted life, of which he is not worthy to see a trace of his own self-rule, such a person, truly, and I affirm, easily falls into all the snares and charms of the devil. So what? Is this prayer really the cause of delusion?! It won't happen! If you discredit mental prayer for this, then you should also discredit the knife, if some small child, while playing with this knife, happened to inflict a wound on himself through his foolishness. Then it is necessary to prohibit soldiers from wearing a military sword, if some crazy warrior happened to stab himself with a sword. But just as neither a knife nor a sword can be considered the culprit of the harm they cause, so the spiritual sword - sacred and mental prayer - is innocent of anything bad; The culprit is the arbitrariness and pride of the self-inflicted, as a result of which they fall into demonic delusion and are exposed to all kinds of spiritual harm. However, why am I asking you for so long about the reason for your blasphemy against this sacred prayer? I know, O friends, I know well the most significant reason for your blasphemy: firstly, your reading of the Holy Scriptures is not according to the commandment of Christ, without testing; secondly, distrust of the teaching of our holy fathers who teach about this divine prayer; thirdly, your extreme ignorance, perhaps having never even seen the writings of our God-bearing fathers about her, or at least not at all understanding the power of their godly words - this is the essential reason for your wickedness. If you, with the fear of God and full attention, with undoubted faith, with diligent testing and humility, had read the books of the Fathers, which contain the whole wisdom of the life of the Gospel, and which is necessary for monks for spiritual benefit and correction, for a truly healthy and humble way of thinking, then the Lord would never have allowed you to fall into such depths of blasphemy. But He would inflame you with His grace through this work towards His ineffable love, so that you, together with the apostle, would be ready to exclaim: “Who will separate us from the love of Christ?” (Rom.8:35). And you would not only not blaspheme her, but you would be ready to lay down your soul for her, having felt by your very deed and experience the ineffable benefit to your souls that comes from this intelligent attention. To deliver you and all those who doubt from great spiritual harm, I do not find a more suitable remedy than to show you how much the Lord will help me in this, as our holy God-bearing fathers, based on the immovable stone of Holy Scripture, teach about this all-sacred prayer, secretly performed with the mind in the heart. And you yourself, when you clearly and clearly see the truth of the teachings of the holy fathers, with the help of God’s grace touching your souls, will be healed from your spiritual illness, bring to God sincere repentance for your error and be worthy of His mercy and perfect forgiveness of your sin. In the second chapter, Elder Paisios explains where the intelligent Jesus Prayer originates and what evidence from the Holy Scriptures the God-bearing fathers give about it. Let it be known that according to the writings of the holy fathers, there are two mental prayers. One is for beginners, corresponding to action, the other is for perfect ones, corresponding to vision: the first is the beginning, the second is the end, for action is an ascent to vision. You should know that according to St. Gregory of Sinaite, there are eight first visions, listing which he says: “We count the eight first visions: the first is about God, the Formless and Beginning, the Uncreated, the Cause of everything, the Trinity Unity and the above-Essential Deity; second - order and structure of intelligent forces; third - the existing composition; fourth - careful condescension of the word; fifth – universal resurrection; sixth - the terrible and second coming of Christ; seventh - eternal torment; the eighth is the Kingdom of Heaven, which has no end.” I will now try, to the best of my weak mind, to explain in what strength action and vision must be understood. Let it be known (I say this to those like me, the simplest monks) that the entire monastic feat by which someone, with God’s help, strives for love of God and neighbor, for meekness, humility and patience and all other God’s and father’s commandments, for perfect obedience in soul and body according to God, for fasting, vigil, tears, prostrations and other fatigues of the body, for the diligent fulfillment of church and cell rule, smart secret exercise in prayer, crying and thinking about death, all such feat, while the mind is still controlled by human autocracy and will, as far as we know, is called an act, but in no case is it called a vision. And if somewhere the mental feat of prayer in the writings of the holy fathers was called vision, then this is only in common parlance, just as the mind, being the eye of the soul, is called vision. When, with the help of God, by the above-mentioned feat, especially by the deepest humility, a person cleanses his soul and heart from bad mental and physical passions, then the grace of God, the common mother of all, taking the mind purified by it, like a baby, by the hand, raises it, as it were, up the steps to the mentioned spiritual visions, revealing to the mind, as it is purified, ineffable and incomprehensible to the mind Divine mysteries; and this is rightly called true spiritual vision: this is visual or, according to St. Isaac, pure prayer, from which there is horror and vision. But it is impossible for anyone to enter into these visions autocratically, by an arbitrary feat, unless God visits him and leads him into them with His grace. If anyone dares to ascend to such visions, apart from the light of God’s grace, let him, according to Saint Gregory of Sinaite, know that he is imagining dreams and not visions, being seduced by a dreamy spirit. Having proposed this discussion about active and visual prayer, it is now time to show where divine mental prayer has its origin. Let it be known that, according to the true testimony of our God-wise father Nil, the faster of Sinai, even in Paradise, God Himself gave to the first-created man an intelligent, divine prayer befitting the perfect. Saint Nile says this: “Having prayed as you should, expect what you should not, and become courageous, guarding your fruit. This is what you were appointed to do from the very beginning: to cultivate and preserve. And therefore, having cultivated, do not leave what you have cultivated without storage; if you don’t do this, then you won’t get any benefit from prayer.” Interpreting these words, the Russian luminary, the Monk Nile, the hermit of Sorsky, who shone like the sun in great Russia with the intelligent practice of prayer, says this: “The saint brought these words from the Old Testament - to cultivate and preserve; for the Scripture says: God created Adam and settled him in Paradise to cultivate and maintain Paradise. By cultivation, Saint Nile of Sinai means prayer, and by storage, the observance necessary after prayer from evil thoughts.” The Monk Dorotheos says the same thing, that the primordial man, settled by God in Paradise, remained in prayer. From these testimonies it is clear that God, having created man in His image and likeness, introduced him into the Paradise of sweets, to cultivate immortal gardens, i.e. thoughts are divine, purest, highest and perfect, as St. Gregory the Theologian writes. This is nothing other than the fact that the first person, as pure in soul and heart, was assigned to remain in visual, sacred, grace-filled prayer, performed with one mind, i.e. in the sweetest vision of God, and courageously protect it, like the work of heaven, like the apple of your eye, so that it never leaves your soul and heart. But this prayer received incomparably greater glory when the Most Holy, the Most Honest Cherub and the Most Glorious without comparison Seraphim, the Most Holy Virgin Theotokos, dwelling in the Holy of Holies and ascending through mental prayer to the extreme heights of vision of God, was honored to be a vast village of God’s Word, inconceivable by all creation, as evidenced by the insurmountable pillar of Orthodoxy, the holy Gregory Palamas, Archbishop of Thessalonites in his homily on the Entrance to the Church of the Most Holy Theotokos. He says that the Most Holy Virgin, staying in the Holy of Holies and understanding from the Holy Scriptures about the human race perishing for the sake of its disobedience, and being filled with extreme mercy towards it, received a mental prayer to God for a speedy pardon and salvation of the human race. Here are his own words, worthy of an angelic mind: “When the Mother of God heard and saw everything that was happening, filled with mercy for the human race and seeking a way of healing and healing equivalent to such suffering, She found it necessary to immediately turn to God with all her mind, receiving a prayer for us in order to force the Invincible and attract Him to us, so that He Himself would destroy the condemnation and bind us to Himself. creation, healing the weak.” And below: “Not seeing anything out of everything that exists that is better suited for a person than this prayer, rushing towards prayer firmly with all diligence, the Virgin acquires sacred silence, as the most necessary thing for prayer books for interviews. Every other virtue is, as it were, a healing applied to mental illnesses and ingrained evil passions from cowardice; the vision of God is the fruit of a living soul, as some final perfection. Therefore, a person idolizes not from words and not from visible actions of prudent moderation (for all this is earthly, base, and human), but from being in silence, thanks to which we renounce and free ourselves from earthly things and ascend to God and, staying at the height of silent life, patiently laboring night and day in prayers and supplications, we approach in some way and approach the Unapproachable and Blessed To nature. And thus, patiently making a prayer that has dissolved into the inexplicably existing Light above the mind and feelings, we see God in ourselves as in a mirror, having cleansed our hearts with sacred silence.” And below: “That is why the Most Pure One, having renounced worldly existence and rumors, withdrew from people and preferred life, invisible and uncommunicative to everyone, dwelling in the inaccessible. Here, having renounced all material ties, renouncing all communication and love for everything, and surpassing condescension towards her own body, She gathered her mind to the same communion with Him, and abiding, and attention, and to unceasing divine prayer and through it, being in Herself and having settled above the manifold rebellion and thoughts, She opened a new and ineffable path to Heaven, which is, I will say this, - mental silence. Adhering to him and listening with her mind, She flies over all creatures and creatures, beholds the glory of God better than Moses, contemplates Divine grace, which is in no way subject to the power of feeling, as well as the souls and minds of the innocent, the joyful and sacred vision, having become a partaker of which, She is a bright cloud of living water, the dawn of the mental day and the fiery chariot of the Word.” From these words of Saint Gregory Palamas it is clear that the Most Holy Virgin, dwelling in the Holy of Holies, ascended through mental prayer to the extreme heights of vision of God and by Herself set an example of a life that is prudent according to the inner man - renunciation of the world in the name of peace, sacred silence of the mind, mental silence to unceasing divine prayer and attention of the mind by concentration and ascent through action to the vision of God, so that, looking at Her, those who renounced the world labored diligently in the indicated mental labors and sweats, trying to the best of their ability through Her prayers to be Her imitators. And who can worthily praise the divine, mental prayer, the doer of which was the Mother of God Herself, guided by the guidance of the Holy Spirit! However, in confirmation and undoubted confirmation of all doubters, the time has come to show what evidence of the Holy Scriptures the God-bearing fathers, who wrote under the illumination of Divine grace, give about it. Divine mental prayer has an unshakable foundation, first of all, in the words of the Lord Jesus: “But when you pray, go into your closet, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret: and your Father who sees in secret will reward you in reality.” Saint John Chrysostom interprets these words, as has already been said, about silent, secret prayer sent from the depths of the heart. The pillar of fire, the fiery mouth of the Holy Spirit, the eye of the church, Saint Basil the Great, interpreting the words of the Holy Scripture: “I will bless the Lord at all times, I will bring His praise into my mouth,” teaches beautifully about smart lips and smart action, i.e. about mental prayer. I quote his words about this exactly. “I will bring His praise into my mouth.” It seems impossible what the prophet says: how can the praise of God always be in the mouths of men? When a person conducts an ordinary everyday conversation, he does not have the praise of God in his mouth; when he sleeps, he is silent, of course; when he eats and drinks, how does his mouth produce praise? To this we answer that there are intelligent lips of the inner man, through which a person becomes a partaker of the vital Word of God, which is the bread that came down from heaven. The prophet speaks about these lips: “My mouth was opened, and the spirit was drawn.” The Lord calls us to have these lips open to receive true food: “Expand,” He says, “your mouth, and I will fill it.” The thought of God once inscribed and imprinted in the mind of the soul may be called praise, from God always abiding in the soul. Perhaps, according to the apostolic word, he who diligently does everything for the glory of God. For every deed and every word, and every action is intelligent. The righteous person, whether he eats or drinks, or does anything else, does everything for the glory of God: even his heart watches even when he sleeps.” From these words of Saint Basil it is clear that in addition to bodily lips, there are also mental lips and mental action and praise, performed mentally in the inner man. The same-name blessedness, the Egyptian, or better yet, the universal sun, shining brighter than the sun with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the great Macarius in his words about this prayer says this: “A Christian must always have the memory of God, for it is written: “Thou shalt love the Lord Thy God with all my heart,” so that he not only loves the Lord when he enters a house of prayer, but also when he walks, talks, eats and drinks, had memory of God and love and desire; for it is said: “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matthew 6:21). The venerable and God-bearing ancient father, Saint Isaiah the Faster, spoke about the hidden teaching, i.e. about the Jesus Prayer, performed with a thought in the heart, he cites as evidence the following words of Divine Scripture: “My heart is warmed within me, and a fire will burn in my teaching” (Ps. 39:4). The Monk Simeon, who shone in the reigning city like the sun through intelligent prayer and the ineffable gifts of the Holy Spirit and for this received from the entire Church the title of New Theologian, in his sermon on the three types of prayer he writes the following: “Our Holy Fathers, hearing the words of the Lord: “For from the heart... come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, blasphemy... and that... is the essence that defiles a person” (Matthew 15:19), who taught to cleanse the inside of the glass, so that the outside will also be clean (Matthew 23:26), abandoning the thought of any other work, they labored in this guarding of the heart, undoubtedly knowing that while guarding the heart they would easily observe any other work, without it no virtue can be maintained.” These words of the monk clearly show that the divine fathers recognized the above-mentioned words of the Lord as evidence and the basis for guarding the heart, i.e. mental invocation of Jesus. The same reverend also cites other words of Holy Scripture as evidence of divine mental prayer: “Rejoice, young man, in your youth... and walk in the ways of your heart blameless... and put away wrath from your heart” (Eccl. 11:9–10); and: “If the spirit of the possessor comes upon you, do not leave your place” (Eccl. 10:4). And the Apostle Peter says: “Be sober, be vigilant, for the devil is your adversary, like a roaring lion he walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). And the Apostle Paul, obviously, writes to the Ephesians about heartfelt guarding: “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, and against the authorities, and against the rulers of the darkness of this world” (Eph. 6:12). Venerable Hesychius, presbyter, theologian and teacher of the Jerusalem Church, who wrote a book of 200 chapters about the mental calling into the heart of Jesus, i.e. about mental prayer, cites the following evidence about it from Divine Scripture: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matthew 5:8) and again: “Take heed to yourself, lest the word of iniquity be hidden in your heart” (Deut. 15:9). And the apostle says: “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17), and the Lord Himself says: “Without Me you can do nothing... Whoever is in Me, and I in him, will produce much fruit.” Our divine and God-bearing father John Climacus cites the following evidence from the Holy Scriptures about this sacred prayer and true silence of the mind: the great worker of great and perfect prayers said: “I want to speak five words with my mind,” etc., and again: “I sleep, but my heart watches” (Song. 5:2); and again: “I cried,” he said, “with all my heart” (Ps. 119:145). Our God-bearing father Philotheus, abbot of the monastery of the Bush of the Most Holy Theotokos on Sinai, who compiled a small book of priceless pearls of Divine Wisdom on guarding the heart, places the words of Holy Scripture as the unshakable foundation of his teaching: “in the morning I slaughtered all the sinners of the earth” ( Ps.100:8), and: “The Kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21), and: “The Kingdom of Heaven is likened to pea grain... and beads... and kvass”; and again: “Keep your heart with all care” (Prov. 4:23), and again: “I delight in... the law of God in the inner man: I see another law... fighting against the law of my mind and taking me captive” (Rom. 7:22-23). Our Divine Father Diadochos, Bishop of Photiki, in his word on the mental Jesus Prayer, gives the following reasons from Holy Scripture: “no one can speak of the Lord Jesus except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:3) and from the Gospel parable about the merchant looking for good beads, he concludes about prayer: “These are beads of great value, which a person can acquire at the cost of all his property and have unspeakable joy in finding it.” Our venerable father Nicephorus the Faster, in his word on guarding the heart, likens this divine, mental prayer in the heart to a treasure hidden in a field, and calls it a “burning lamp.” Our divine and God-bearing father Gregory of Sinaite, who by doing this prayer in the holy Mount Athos and other places achieved the highest vision of God, who composed the Trinity songs with Divine Wisdom, which are sung weekly all over the world, who also composed the canon of the Life-giving Cross, cites the following certificates about this divine prayer from the Divine Scripture: “remember your Lord without fail” (Deut. Chapter 18), and again: “At morning this seed is yours, and at evening let not your hand leave” (Eccl. 11:6), and again: “If I pray with my tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful” (1 Cor. 14:14); “I will pray with my mouth, I will also pray with my mind,” and: “I want to say five words with my mind,” and so on. He cites John Climacus as a witness, who also relates these words to mental prayer. A follower in the apostolic footsteps, an invincible pillar of the Orthodox faith, who at the Florentine Council, like a cobweb, tore apart the Doukhobor heresies of the Latins with the fiery sword of the spirit and the truth of Orthodox dogmas, the most holy, wise and verbal Metropolitan of Ephesus Mark writes about the divine Jesus Prayer: “It would be fitting, according to the commandment, to ceaselessly pray and offer up worship to God in spirit and truth; but the disposition of worldly thoughts and the burden of caring for the body withdraws and removes many from the Kingdom of God, which exists within us, and prevents us from remaining at the mental altar, offering spiritual and verbal sacrifices to God according to the divine apostle, who said that we are the church of God living in us, and that His Divine Spirit lives in us. And there is nothing surprising if this usually happens to many who live according to the flesh, when we see some monks who have renounced the world, mentally overwhelmed by the actions of passions, subjected as a result to great confusion, darkening the rational part of the soul, and therefore unable to achieve true prayer, despite all their desire. Sweet is the pure and constant memory of Jesus in the heart and the ineffable enlightenment that comes from it.” Our venerable Russian father, Saint Nil of Sorsky, who compiled a book on the mental guarding of the heart, uses the following words of Holy Scripture: “from the heart... come evil thoughts and defile a person” (Matthew 15:19), “it is fitting to bow down to the Father in spirit and truth,” and so on. Another Russian luminary, Saint Demetrius of Christ, Metropolitan of Rostov, who composed a word on the internal mental practice of prayer, cites the following passages of Holy Scripture: “My heart says to you: I will seek the Lord; I will seek my face for You, I will seek Your face, O Lord,” and again: “In the same way the tree desires the springs of water, so my soul desires You, O God,” and again: “praying with all prayer and supplication for all time in the Spirit.” He, along with Saint John Climacus and Gregory of Sinaite and Saint Nilus of Sora, attributes all these words to mental prayer. Also, the church charter, setting out church rules about bowing and prayer, cites the following words of Divine Scripture about this divine prayer: “God is Spirit; He wills those who swear in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). He also cites the testimony of the holy fathers in that part of their teaching that relates to mental prayer, and after that he says: “Here we finish the word about holy and sacred and ever-memorable mental prayer,” and then moves on to the one prayer that is holy for all, indicated by church rites. Thus, by the grace of God we have shown that the God-bearing fathers, made wise by the Holy Spirit, establish the basis of their teaching about the mental sacred act of prayer secretly performed in the inner man on the immovable stone of the Divine Scripture of the New and Old Testaments, from where, as from an inexhaustible source, they borrow numerous testimonies. In the third chapter of his message on mental prayer, Elder Paisios says that this prayer is a spiritual art. “Let it be known that the divine fathers call this sacred mental making of prayer art. Thus, Saint John Climacus in word 23 about silence says: "If you have learned this art by experience, then you know what I am talking about. Sitting on high, watch if you know how; and then you will see how and when, and from where, and how many, and which thieves are coming to steal the grapes. Having become tired, this guardian, getting up, will pray, then sits down again and courageously continues the first work." Saint Hesychius, presbyter of Jerusalem, says about this same sacred prayer: “Sobriety is a spiritual art, which completely delivers a person, with the help of God, from passionate thoughts and words, and from evil deeds.” Saint Nicephorus the Faster says about the same thing: “Come, and I will reveal to you the art, or better yet, the science of eternal heavenly life, leading its practitioner, without labor and sweat, into the haven of dispassion.” The above-mentioned fathers call this holy prayer art, I think, because just as a person cannot learn art on his own without an artist, so it is impossible to learn this mental practice of prayer without a skillful mentor. Its assimilation, according to Saint Nicephorus, comes from teaching to the majority and even to all; rare people receive from God without teaching, through the pain of doing and the warmth of faith.” The fourth chapter of the message talks about what kind of preparation one who wants to undergo this divine work must have. Since this divine prayer is higher than any other monastic feat and is the completion of all labors, the source of virtue, the subtlest and hidden in the depths of the heart, the work of the mind, the invisible enemy of our salvation extends over it the invisible, subtle and barely comprehensible to the human mind networks of its various seductions and dreams. Therefore, whoever wants to learn this divine work must, according to Saint Simeon the New Theologian, surrender himself into complete obedience to a person who fears God, a zealous keeper of His Divine commandments, experienced in this mental feat, who can show his student the right path to salvation. By humility, born from obedience, such a person will be able to avoid all the seductions and snares of the devil and always practice this mental activity quietly, silently, without any harm and with great success for his soul. If, having given himself up to obedience, he would not have found in his father, by deed and experience, a mentor skilled in this divine prayer, for at the present time experienced mentors of this work have become completely scarce, then still he should not fall into despair, but, continuing to abide in true obedience according to the commandments of God with humility and fear of God, and not in an arbitrary and willful life without obedience, which usually follows seduction, and placing all hope in God, together with your father, obey the teaching of our venerable fathers, who subtly teach this divine work and learn this prayer from them. And in any case, the grace of God will hasten and instruct the fathers through the prayers of the saints to learn, without any doubt, this divine work. The fifth chapter contains the teaching of what this sacred prayer is in its quality and effect. Saint John Climacus in the 28th word about prayer says: “Prayer is in its quality the coexistence and union of man and God, but in its action it is the affirmation of peace, reconciliation with God, the mother and daughter of tears, the propitiation of sins, the bridge that leads through temptations, protection from sorrows, contrition of battles, the work of Angels, the food of all bodiless, future joy, endless work, the source of virtue, the cause of gifts, secret prosperity, food for the soul, enlightenment of the mind, ax to despair, proof of hope, liberation from sorrow, wealth of monks, treasure of the silent, weakening of rage, mirror of prosperity, showing measure, revealing fortune, indicator of the future, seal of glory. Prayer is truly for the one who prays both the judgment seat, and the judgment itself, and the throne of the Lord’s Judgment before the future Throne.” Saint Gregory of Sinai writes in chapter 113: “Prayer is in beginners, as it were, a fire of joy emitted by the heart; in the perfect ones, like light, fragrant, active”; and in another place: “Prayer is the preaching of the apostles, the act of faith, or better yet, immediate faith, the manifestation of those hoped for, realized love, angelic movement, the power of the disembodied, their work and joy, the gospel of God, the revelation of the heart, the hope of salvation, the sign of sanctification, the formation of holiness, the knowledge of God, the manifestation of baptism, the betrothal of the Holy Spirit, the joy of Jesus, the joy of the soul, the mercy of God, a sign reconciliation, the seal of Christ, a ray of the mental sun, the morning star of hearts, the affirmation of Christianity, the manifestation of the reconciliation of God, the grace of God, the wisdom of God, or better - the beginning of self-wisdom, the appearance of God, the work of monks, the silent dwelling, or better - the source of silence, the seal of angelic dwelling.” Blessed Macarius the Great says about prayer: “The head of every good effort and the pinnacle of all deeds is to endure in prayer, through which we can always acquire other virtues by asking from God; through prayer, in those who are worthy, there is a communion with the holiness of God and spiritual action, and the union of the mind, directed towards the Lord, with inexpressible love with Him. He who always forces himself to persevere in prayer with patience is kindled toward God with divine zeal and ardent desire from spiritual love, and, according to his measure, accepts the grace of spiritual sanctifying perfection” (Conversation 40, Chapter 2). Saint Simeon, Archbishop of Thessalonica, says about this same sacred prayer: “This divine prayer is the invocation of our Savior: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me,” and there is prayer, and supplication, and confession of faith, and the giver of the Holy Spirit, and the giver of Divine gifts, and the purification of the heart, and the casting out of demons, and the indwelling of Jesus Christ, and the source of spiritual thoughts and thoughts of the Divine, and the deliverance of sins, and the healing of souls and bodies, and the giver of Divine enlightenment, and the source of God’s mercy, and the giver of the revelations and mysteries of God to the humble, and salvation itself, because. bears within itself the saving name of our God: which name is the name that is given to us, Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (chapter 296). Likewise, other God-bearing fathers, writing about this holy prayer, testify to its action and the ineffable benefits that come from it and the success through it in the Divine gifts of the Holy Spirit. Who, seeing how this most sacred prayer leads the ascetic to such a heavenly treasure of various virtues, will not be inflamed with God’s zeal for the constant practice of this prayer, so that through it he may always preserve in his soul and heart the Most Sweet Jesus and unceasingly remember His most dear name within himself, inexpressibly inflamed by it to love Him? Only he will not feel an ardent desire to begin this mental activity of mental prayer, who is seized by the attachment of thoughts to the things of life, bound by the bonds of worries about the body, which lead and alienate many from the Kingdom of God that exists within us, who by deed and experience has not tasted with the soul’s throat the ineffable divine sweetness of this most beneficial work, who has not understood what the hidden spiritual benefit this thing contains within itself. Those who want to be united by love with the Sweetest Jesus, having spat upon all the beauties of this world and all its pleasures and bodily peace, will not want to have anything else in this life other than to constantly practice the heavenly practice of this prayer. In the last sixth chapter of his letter, Elder Paisios writes about some external techniques for teaching this prayer to beginners. Before presenting his instructions, instead of a preface, we will give a brief note on this matter from one of our contemporary ascetics, who writes the following: “The goal of mental prayer is unity with God, Who is the Spirit, and unity with Whom therefore can only be spiritual. As for the external techniques used by some ascetics when practicing this prayer, then, of course, they are of secondary importance. In imperfect people, the soul of a person is conformed to the body, say the fathers. Therefore, the silence of the soul must be preceded by the silence of the body, i.e. his deanery, as John Climacus says. And for the concentration of mind necessary for prayer, certain external living conditions and even body positions may also be suitable. But it would be a mistake to think that the feat of growth in spiritual prayer can depend on external conditions and techniques. One thing is certain, that since the essence of prayer is to pray with the mind in the heart, then, in accordance with this, our mind should be directed into the heart. And everything else is of secondary importance. Therefore, in the Russian “Philokalia” all references to external techniques are omitted” (Arch. Feofan Poltavsky). After this preliminary remark, let us turn to the message of Elder Paisios. He writes: “Since in ancient times the practice of mental prayer flourished in many places where the holy fathers had their presence, and there were many teachers of this spiritual work then, when writing about it, they spoke only about the spiritual benefits that came from it, without having to write about the very method of this practice, which is appropriate for beginners. When they saw that the true teachers of this work, far from deception, began to diminish, then, prompted by the Spirit of God, so that the true teaching about the beginning of this prayer would not become impoverished, they described both the very beginning and the way how beginners should learn this prayer and enter with their minds into the lands of the heart, and undeceitfully perform the prayer there with their minds. Saint Simeon the New Theologian speaks about the beginning of this work as follows: “True and undeceitful attention and prayer consists in the mind, during prayer, to guard the heart and always turn within it and from the depths of it send up prayer to the Lord. Having tasted here that the Lord is good, the mind no longer moves away from the abode of the heart and, together with the apostle, says: “It is good for us to be here,” and, always surveying the places there, drives out the thoughts that the enemy has instilled.” Further, he speaks about the same even more clearly: “Sitting in a silent cell in some secluded corner, do with attention what I tell you: close the door, distract your mind from all vanity, press your beard to your chest, directing your sensual eye along with your mind. Slow down your breathing so that you are not breathing too freely. And try to mentally find inside, in the chest, the place of the heart where all the spiritual powers naturally love to reside, and first of all you will find there unrelenting darkness and rudeness. When you continue and do this work both night and day, you will find, oh miracle! constant fun. For as soon as the mind finds a place in the heart, it immediately sees what it has never seen: it sees the air in the middle of the heart and itself, all bright and full of reasoning. And from then on, no matter where a thought arises, before it turns into action or becomes an idol, by calling on Jesus Christ, he drives it away and destroys it. Hence the mind, having anger against demons, raises natural anger against them and, driving them away, overthrows mental opponents. You will learn many other things with God’s help by watching your mind, holding Jesus in your heart” (A Sermon on Three Types of Attention and Prayer). The Venerable Nicephorus the Faster, teaching even more clearly about entering the heart with the mind, says this: “First of all, let your life be silent, free from worries and peaceful with everyone. Then, entering your cell, shut yourself and sit in one of the corners, do as I tell you: you know that when we breathe, we inhale air into ourselves; We exhale it not for the sake of anything else, but for the sake of the heart, for the heart is the cause of life and warmth of the body. The heart attracts air in order to release its warmth through breathing and to obtain fresh air for itself. The instrument of such activity is the lung, which, being created porous by the Creator, constantly, like fur, brings in and takes out the surrounding air. Thus, the heart invariably fulfills the purpose for which it was designed for the well-being of the body. So, sit down and, having gathered your mind, lead it along the path that the air goes to the heart, and force it to descend into the heart along with the inhaled air. When he enters there, what follows will not be gloomy or joyless.” He further writes: “Therefore, brother, train your mind not to leave there quickly: for at first it becomes very discouraged from the inner seclusion and crampedness. When he gets used to it, he no longer wants to remain in external wanderings: the Kingdom of Heaven is within us. When we look at it there and seek it with pure prayer, then everything external appears to us as vile and hateful. So, if you immediately, as has been said, enter with your mind the place of your heart that I have shown you, give thanks to God and glorify Him, and rejoice, and always adhere to this doing, and it will teach you what you do not know. You should also know this, that when your mind is there, it should not remain silent and idle, but should have as its constant work and teaching the prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me,” and should never stop this activity. It keeps the mind from elevating itself, makes it inaccessible and elusive to the machinations of the enemy, and raises it to the love of God and to everyday Divine desire. If, after working hard, you cannot enter the lands of the heart, do as I tell you, and with God’s help you will find what you are looking for. Do you know that the rational principle of every person is in his chest? It is here, even with the silence of our lips, that we speak, and reason, and perform prayers, and much more. Let this rational principle, having removed every thought from it (you can, if you want), say: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me,” and force yourself to cry out to this alone, instead of any other thought, always within. If you maintain this order for some time, the heart entrance will open to you, as we wrote to you, without any doubt, as we ourselves have learned from experience. The whole face of virtues will come to you along with much-desired and sweet attention: love, joy, peace, etc.” The Divine Gregory of Sinai, also teaching how one should invoke the name of the Lord in the heart with the mind, says: “Sitting in the morning on a seat in one quarter, bring the mind down into the heart and keep it there. Bending over with tension, experiencing pain in your chest, shoulders, and neck, constantly cry out with your mind or soul: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.” When the frequency of repetition becomes too cramped and painful, perhaps even unsweetening (which does not happen from the monotony of frequently eaten food, for it is said: “those who eat me will still hunger” - Sir. 24:23), changing your mind to the other half, say: “Son of God, have mercy on me.” And repeating this half many times, you should not change it often out of laziness or boredom, because plants that are often transplanted do not take root. Restrain the breathing of your lungs so that it is not too free. For the breath of air emanating from the heart darkens the mind, preventing or not allowing it to descend to the heart and scatters thought. By not allowing it to the heart, it consigns it to oblivion or sets it up to learn something other than what it should, leaving it to insensibly remain in what it should not. If you see the uncleanness of evil spirits, i.e. thoughts that arise or transform in your mind, do not be horrified, do not be surprised; even if good understandings of certain things appear to you, do not heed them, but, holding your breath as much as possible, and keeping your mind in your heart and calling on the Lord Jesus often and constantly, you will soon burn and destroy them, striking them with the Divine name. For the Climacus says: In the name of Jesus, defeat the warriors, for there is not a single stronger weapon, either in heaven or on earth.” Further, the same saint, teaching about silence and prayer, continues: “Your sitting must be in patience, for the sake of him who said: “they endure in prayer”; and it is not necessary to get up soon, weakened due to painful difficulty and mental appeal and frequent raising of the mind. Therefore, bowing down and collecting your mind in your heart, call on the Lord Jesus for help. Feeling pain in your shoulders, often having headaches, endure all this, seeking in the heart of the Lord: “those in need have the kingdom of God, and those in need delight it” (Matthew 11:12). The same father also speaks about how prayers should be performed: “This is what the fathers said: one - “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me” - all. The other half: “Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me,” and this is more convenient due to the infancy of the mind and weakness, for no one can purely and completely secretly name the Lord Jesus, but only the Holy Spirit. Like a baby who cannot speak, he cannot yet perform this prayer articulately. Out of weakness, he should not often change the calling of names, but slowly for the sake of retention.” Also: “Some teach to say prayer with the lips, others with the mind; I think both are necessary. For sometimes the mind is exhausted from despondency to pronounce it, sometimes the lips. However, one should cry out silently and unabashedly, so that the feeling of the soul and the attention of the mind, confused by the voice, do not move away until the mind, as usual, succeeds in its work and receives the strength from the Spirit to pray strongly and in every possible way. Then he will no longer have the need to speak with his lips, and he will not be able to, being able to perfectly perform prayer with his mind alone.” From what has been said, it is clear that the above-mentioned fathers give a very clear teaching about the methods of teaching smart work to beginners. From their teaching one can understand the instructions about this work of other ascetics, although the latter did not speak out with such clarity. This concludes the message of Elder Paisius about the mental Jesus Prayer. Chapter 3. WARTIME DISASTERS AND ELDER PAISIO’S CARE FOR REFUGEES. TRANSITION OF DRAHOMIRNA TO THE AUTHORITY OF THE AUSTRIANS, RELOCATION OF THE ELDER AND BROTHERHOOD TO SEKUL. LOCATION AND BRIEF HISTORY OF SEKUL MONASTERY. LIFE OF BROTHERHOOD IN SEKULE. MOVEMENT TO Nyamets. NYAMETSKY MONASTERY AND ITS PAST. THE ELDER'S CONCERNS ABOUT DURATION, ABOUT THE SICK, ABOUT THE ELDERLY AND ABOUT THE WANDERING. LIFE OF THE PAISIEV BROTHERHOOD IN NYAMTS. BOOK CLASSES OF ELDER PAISIOUS IN THE NAMETSKY MONASTERY. Peaceful life in Dragomirn was suddenly disrupted. In 1768, according to the elder’s biography, “a terrible storm and mortal fear arose. Two empires, Russian and Turkish, rose against each other, furious and fire-breathing.” Moldavia and Wallachia became a theater of military operations. Residents sought salvation in flight. The mountains, forests and monasteries were filled with frightened fugitives fleeing the fury of the Turks and Tatars. The Dragomirn Monastery, located in a huge forest, in an inaccessible place, attracted many people seeking refuge. During the first weeks of the Nativity Fast, the monastery was so crowded with people that it was impossible to walk through the monastery. The entire surrounding forest was filled with fugitives. It was a harsh, snowy winter. The elder, seeing the terrible need of the people, many of whom were barefoot and half-naked, tried by all means to alleviate their situation. He provided half of the monastery to the needy, transferring all the brethren to the other half and placing them in groups of three, four, and five people in one cell. He gave a large and warm meal to the common people, especially the unfortunate, exhausted women. The cellarer, baker and cook were ordered to give food to everyone who came and demanded it. Some took raw provisions and prepared their own food, others received, like the brethren, ready-made food and bread. Bread was baked and food was prepared continuously, wanting to satisfy all those in need. But soon the light of God’s grace flashed, and the moon became darkened. The Russian army crossed the border and entered Moldova. The Turks fled. Refugees began to return to abandoned homes. However, along with the war came other disasters: pestilence, crop failures, and a three-year famine. The war lasted 6 years. Only in 1774 was peace concluded between Russia and Turkey, and the brothers of the monastery were able to begin their former life. But then a new grief came. As soon as the Russian troops left Moldova, the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa demanded from the Turkish Sultan the part of the Moldavian land that she should follow by agreement for the assistance provided to him. In this part, the Austrians included, contrary to the wishes of the Moldovans, the Dragomirny Monastery. The elder was frightened by the upcoming transition to the rule of the Roman Catholic power. He foresaw that oppression of the monastery would inevitably follow from the new government, which could lead to the ruin of the established community. Together with the elder, all the brethren were aware of the threatening danger. At this time, the elder received a letter from the abbot of the Sekul monastery in Moldova with an invitation to move to live in his monastery. Delighted by this invitation, the elder immediately wrote a letter to the Moldavian ruler and metropolitan with a request to allow him to move with the brethren to the Sekul monastery. Having received permission, the elder began to prepare for the journey. For fear of trouble and delay on the part of the Austrians, he carried out all his collections in the deepest secrecy. First, he quietly transported church things to Sekul, and then ordered the brethren to get ready for the journey. All the brothers, of whom there were 350 at that time, expressed their readiness to go with their elder. But the elder did not immediately take everyone with him. He left 150 people in Dragomirna, appointing them two confessors, one Moldavian and the other Russian, and instructing the first to be the head of the monastery, and the second his assistant. With the rest I set off on the road. To hide his intention from the Austrians, he supposedly sent them for obedience to the monastery land, located on the road to Sekul. And he himself went to church and, having prayed there with hot tears, gave peace and blessing to the remaining and weeping brothers and left the monastery, heading to the place where the brothers who had left earlier were waiting for him. Near the monastery mill, the elder joined them, and after a journey of more than a month, they safely arrived in Sekul on October 14, 1775. From the famous wanderer, monk Parthenius, we find the following description of the Sekul monastery: “The monastery is located inside the Carpathian Mountains, two hours away from the Neamtsa monastery. The road there goes through a gorge between mountains so high that you can’t even see the sun. The monastery is located in the quietest and most silent place, the most impassable desert, surrounded by cloud-high mountains and dark impenetrable forests, so in winter the sun shines little into it, and there is never any wind in it, but there is always great silence. Only a small river flows near the monastery, and water gurgles in it drop by drop. Truly, here the whole vain world with all its temptations is closed from eyes and ears.” It is known about the past of the Sekul monastery, among other things, that in the half of the 16th century, where the monastery now stands, there was a hermitage of Elder Zosima. Having come here with his disciples, it is believed, from the Nyametsky monastery, Zosima cut down part of the forest, built a wooden church in the name of St. John the Baptist and several cells around it, and began his prayerful exploits here. Neighboring residents soon learned about the desert dwellers. Philanthropists appeared. In 1595, one boyar, Nestor Ureke, a vornik of Lower Moldavia, and his wife Mitrofania built a stone church in the monastery, in which they themselves were buried. Unquenchable lamps glow over their graves. The church houses a magnificent shroud embroidered with silks, gold and silver, the work of Princess Mitrophania. Upon arrival at the monastery, the elder quickly wrote a letter to the brethren who remained in Dragomirna. He encourages them to do the commandments of God and to preserve the instructions of the holy fathers. Although they were separated from each other at their place of residence, their cathedral remains united. He had long wanted to write to them, but was delayed due to his physical weakness and many responsibilities and concerns. He urges them to be sober and constantly make the beginning of their correction, to cut off idle talk, which deadens the soul, not to go from cell to cell without the blessing of the confessor, to confess their thoughts to the confessor, through which all the machinations of the enemy are scattered, to read the writings of the fathers, from which the human mind is enlightened and zeal for the fulfillment of the commandments of the Gospel increases, without the fulfillment of which it is impossible to be saved by faith alone. Let everyone, according to his strength, take part in the work of common life. Let them not gather at the monastery gates for idle talk. Where there is zeal, there God rests, there the light shines, there the world appears, there Satan finds no place, passions depart from there. Where there is no zeal, the opposite is there: instead of good there is evil, instead of light there is darkness, instead of Christ there is the devil. The elder begs the confessors to watch over the hearts of the brothers. The Sekul monastery made a very gratifying impression on Elder Paisius and the brethren with its secluded, quiet, silent location. But at the same time, they saw that this monastery was too small for their crowded brotherhood. There were 14 of all cells in the monastery. Three, four and five people lived in one cell and could not fit in. With the onset of spring, new brothers began to come from Dragomirna. It became even more crowded. They began to build new cells. Everyone was overwhelmed with work. Some built cells inside the monastery, others stuck them to the walls like swallow's nests, as they once did on Mount Athos, others built themselves a room outside the monastery in the forest. They spent three years in such worries and labors. During this time, about 100 cells were built; and finally, all the brothers who crossed from Dragomirna found shelter for themselves. Wanting to approve his cenobitic charter in a new place, Elder Paisios in 1778 again turned to the Moldavian Metropolitan with a request for permission to use the previously approved charter in Sekule. He asked that after his death a new abbot be elected by a council of brethren from among the brethren themselves. The new abbot must be chosen from those who spent a long time under the most perfect obedience without any vice and through obedience and cutting off the will acquired deep humility, and through humility they were awarded the gift of sound reasoning and acquired the love of Christ equally for all brethren and the deepest peace, enduring a long time of temptation and reproach and always reproaching themselves, freed forever from irritability and anger and acquired meekness and simplicity. The one elected must be able to lead the brethren and heal their souls. For if it is impossible for anyone to learn the art of healing on his own without the guidance of an experienced physician, much less is it possible to learn the art of instructing souls without proper training. Then the elder again recalls the history of his community and sets out the grounds on which it is established. These reasons are as follows: a) Poverty. Complete self-imposed poverty on the promise of a monastic image, i.e. so that none of the brethren should have any special property of their own until their death, neither money, nor any other thing, nor movable or immovable property, even the most insignificant things. Let everything that is necessary for life be and be called common. b) Obedience. Each of the brethren of our cathedral, of his own free will, surrenders soul and body under the good yoke of obedience commanded by the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Fathers, so as not to be autocratic and arbitrary, not to have his own special will and his own reasoning in anything, but in everything that is according to God and beneficial to the soul, to be subordinate and submissive until his death, and not to do any deed, even in his own opinion and good, without the knowledge and blessings of the elder. c) Confession. All the brethren more often, and the new ones certainly every day, must confess and reveal to their confessor all the secrets of their hearts, without hiding anything, because without frequent confession there is no possibility of acquiring correction of their soul and guidance on the path of God. d) Stay with the brothers until death. Those. so that all the brethren, according to their promise before God and according to the bond of eternal and unbroken Divine love, remain until their death with the council of brothers gathered in the name of Christ, enduring and enduring all the hardships of life for the sake of the Kingdom of God, as well as courageously enduring all temptations and reproaches, through which, like gold in fire, the humility of a monk is purified, reproaching himself in his heart and in everything considering himself guilty and like a purchased slave in his strength and body and soulful with all zeal and with much humility and fear of God, as the brethren of Christ and as Christ Himself, serving, to be ready for any service that will be assigned to them. e) Reading Divine Scripture and the teachings of the holy fathers. f) Observance of holy fasts and church rules, as well as cell rules. g) Serving the sick and weak and old brethren in the cathedral and those who cannot be accommodated in the hospital. h) Fulfillment of monastic duties and assignments in compliance with the commandments of God, so that love for one’s neighbor is not frustrated, and satisfaction of all economic needs with one’s own labor in one’s workshops. The elder bequeathed these foundations of his community, as his commandments, to his brotherhood in writing, as evidenced by his successor and disciple, Elder Sophrony. Little by little, monastic life in Sekula settled into its regular and quiet groove. In Sekula, the same order of life was established as in Dragomirn. In the winters, the elder gathered everyone for a meal every day, read them the books of the fathers, taught them to fulfill the commandments of God, obedience, humility and the fear of God. Seeing that the brethren willingly listened to him and were making progress in their spiritual life, the elder rejoiced and thanked God for giving them this quiet and secluded place. The crampedness of the monastery and the poverty of life did not bother him, since from an early age he sought this poverty and crampedness for Christ's sake. The most painful thing was that in terms of the number of brethren the church turned out to be small and cramped, and meanwhile the number of those wishing to live with the elder increased every day and the elder did not have enough strength to refuse them admission. The elder’s book studies did not stop in Sekule. It was here that his translation activities especially began to develop. It was planned to set up a school to teach young monks the Greek language in order to attract them to the work of translating and correcting the books of their fathers, but in the meantime the elder sent the most capable students to Bucharest to teach them Greek there. However, quite unexpectedly, the elder’s position changed. The elder himself talks about this circumstance in a letter sent through the confessor Iakinthos to the disciples Ambrose, Athanasius and Theophanes, who lived in Russia in the Vladimir province in the Florishcheva Hermitage. The point was as follows. In the spring of 1779, the Moldovan ruler Constantin Muruzi sent a certain amount of supplies to Sekul and in a handwritten letter to the elder asked him to inform him about all the needs of the monastery, promising his help. The elder responded with a letter of gratitude and asked to be given 500 leva to set up four large cells for workshops - tailoring, shoemaking and weaving, and for teaching the young monks in Greek. Interested in the elder’s monastery, the prince conveyed his request to the closest boyars. “Of course,” they said, “it is not difficult to fulfill the elder’s request, but this will be of little benefit to him, since he lives in a monastery that is extremely cramped for such a significant brotherhood. The Sekul Monastery is cramped, the church there is small, the path to it is rocky and difficult; along the bottom of a narrow gorge, which is flooded with water during rains, the delivery of necessary items is very difficult.” Then the prince said: “I would like to make this old man more comfortable. Is there really not a monastery in our country where the elder and his brotherhood could settle down better? The boyars answered: “In our entire country there is no monastery that is large and more convenient for communication routes than Nyamets, which is located very close to Sekul.” The prince was delighted and decided to immediately write a letter to Metropolitan Gabriel, asking for his consent to move Elder Paisius to Neamets, where there was a large monastery. The Metropolitan agreed, and the prince immediately sent a letter to Paisius, inviting him to move with the brethren to the Nyametsky monastery. The elder received this offer in June 1779 and was very sad. Relocation to Neamets seemed to him, as well as to his closest assistants, extremely undesirable for many reasons: firstly, he would have to leave the quiet and secluded monastery and go to a rich, large, noisy monastery, visited by numerous pilgrims. Secondly, the elder realized that by moving to Neamets he would embarrass and upset the brothers there. Thirdly, aware of his old age and weakness, the elder was afraid of new cares and worries inevitably associated with moving to a crowded monastery and with the unification under one control of three disparate brethren - Nyametskaya, Sekulskaya and his own, former one. Given the large number of brothers, he foresaw the difficulty of his usual winter gathering of the brotherhood to read and explain the books of the fathers. Finally, he feared that the numerous secular visitors to the monastery would bring worldly vanity both into the monastic cells and into the very souls of the monks and would prevent him from having frank conversations with the brethren about various issues and shortcomings of monastic life. All this and much more deeply embarrassed the elder. He became sad and lost his peace of mind. Finally, he decided to send the prince a letter refusing to move to Neamet. He begged the prince not to insist on their moving to the Nyametsky monastery and not to deprive them of a quiet and silent stay in Sekule. He described the mental harm awaiting the brethren in the new place, the disruption of the life that had been established in Sekula, the ruin and embarrassment of the Nyamets brotherhood, the possible murmur and irreconcilable hostility that could arise, detrimental to both sides. With this letter, he sent to the prince the senior confessor of the Moldavian language, the reverent Irinarch, who knew Greek, and gave him another confessor as a companion, and began to impatiently await an answer to his letter. Meanwhile, in July, the heads of the monastery came to him from Neamts, who had already heard rumors about the impending transfer of the elder and his brethren to them, and with tears they began to ask the elder not to offend them and not to upset in their old age their residence, in which they had lived since their youth, so that they would not have to cry at him until their death. These complaints resonated painfully in the elder’s soul. He began to cry and, showing the prince’s letter to the Nyama leaders, said: “You see, holy fathers, this is where the cause of confusion and sorrow lies for both ours and yours. But may Christ assure you that it was never my intention to cause you any violence or sadden your souls. You know that we received Sekul not because of our violence, but because the abbot who was there, seeing our sad situation in Dragomirn, himself, out of his love for us, called us to himself. Do you really think that I would dare to commit an evil deed towards you? With what eyes would I look at your faces if I caused you such an insult? How could I approach the throne of God and partake of the Holy Mysteries, knowing that there are those who cry and cry out to God for my violence? Let this not happen! I have already written to the prince and will continue to ask him to leave both us and you to remain peacefully in our abodes. For here, by the grace of God, we have deep peace.” Peaceful and reassured by the words of the elder, the Nyametsky leaders returned to their monastery. Meanwhile, the elders' ambassadors came to the prince and handed him a message from Elder Paisius. When the message was read, the monks verbally explained in more detail all their circumstances to the prince and begged him to leave the elder and the brethren in Sekula and not bring confusion and disorder into their spiritual life. However, the prince did not give in to them. He ordered a new letter to be prepared to the elder and made the following handwritten note in it: “We provide you with this holy monastery not only to establish your brotherhood, but also so that the order of your brotherhood will serve as an example for other monasteries. Therefore, be obedient and go to Neamets without being embarrassed by anything.” On Friday, August 9th, the messengers returned with a letter from the prince to their monastery. When the elder opened the letter and saw the words written in it, “be obedient and go to Neamets,” he began to cry, and immeasurable sadness gripped his soul to such an extent that he could neither eat, nor drink, nor sleep and was completely exhausted in body. All the brethren were in great fear and in sorrow and confusion, lest the elder die of immeasurable sadness. In another of his letters, Elder Paisius describes with what excitement he awaited the return from the prince confessor Irinarch, praying to God day and night for the fulfillment of his desire to remain in his former place. But then Irinarch arrived and when the elder asked what God had sent us, he answered, handing the letter to the elder: “After reading it, you will know” - and left the cell. At night, when it got dark, in silence, the elder began to read the prince’s answer and, having read it, became completely despondent - he was ordered not only to move to Neamets, but to move in order to be an example for other monasteries. “Who am I,” thought the elder, “to accept such an opinion about my unworthiness? I am weak and feeble, almost dead in both soul and body. I cannot direct my own soul along the path of the Lord’s commandments, I accepted responsibility for the souls of the brothers gathered around me, and now an even greater burden is placed on me. Oh, my soul is sad.” The old man cried all night. In the morning, the oldest of the confessors and brethren gathered to him and began to beg him with tears to stop the immeasurable sadness and refresh themselves with food. They said: “What good will it do us if you die before your time, and we will remain alone without you. What are we going to do then?” The elder, seeing his spiritual children grieving and crying so much, was silent for a while and, turning his spiritual gaze to the Lord, sighed heavily, cried bitterly and said: “We are cramped, brothers, from everywhere.” Then, getting out of bed, he made the sign of the cross, bowed to the icon of the Mother of God and said: “The Scripture says: “Before... two or three witnesses, every word will become.” If you, brothers, say so, then God's will be done! We go and don’t want to.” After that, he refreshed himself with some food, but could not sleep. Then he called three confessors and several brothers to him and ordered them to go with the prince’s letter to the Nyamets monastery, gather all the authorities and brethren there, read the prince’s letter to them and then prepare cells for him and the other brothers, whom he decided to take with him to Nyamets for the first time. The messengers did as they were ordered and returned to Sekul. At this time, the elder, with the assistance of the older brethren, made a distribution of which of the brethren should move to Neamets and what obediences and who would remain in Sekule. He entrusted the management of the Sekul monastery to one of the confessors, Hilarion. After this, he ordered the brethren to be assembled in the church at the bell, came there himself, prayed with tears to the Lord and, informing the brethren of the prince’s will, gave a blessing to those remaining in place, comforting them with the words that each of them could always come to him in any sorrow and need, mental and physical, and, leaving the church, set off on his way. Since due to his weakness he could not walk, a carriage drawn by one horse was prepared for him, and the brethren, like bees surrounding his carriage, walked next to him, listening to his last instructions. The sick and elderly, coming out of the hospital to meet him, cried that they could not see him off, but the healthy saw him off for at least an hour and only at his insistent demand, when he reminded them of the upcoming vigil, did they return back to the monastery. Some accompanied him all the way to Neamtsa, where they arrived on the very eve of the Feast of the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary on Wednesday. When the elder and the brethren approached the Nyamets monastery, all the bells there rang, and all the Nyamets brethren came out of the monastery gates to meet the elder. Three priests in phelonions walked ahead, and one of them held the Holy Gospel in his hands, and the others held holy crosses. Two deacons in surplices held censers in their hands. The elder venerated the Gospel and the crosses and entered the monastery, preceded by priests and deacons and accompanied by the brethren of both monasteries while singing irmos to the Mother of God. Entering the church, the elder venerated the icons, and prayed especially earnestly before the miraculous icon of the Mother of God, entrusting himself and his brothers to Her intercession and preservation, protection and care, and placing all his hope in God in Her. In his letter to the prince, the elder, by the way, reveals to him one long-standing event of his life, namely, that even before his departure to Athos, in his youth, the elder came to Nyamets to pray before the miraculous icon of the Mother of God and was honored to hold this holy icon three times with his sinful hands. From that time on, he felt a great love for this holy place, where later, by the inscrutable ways of God, he had to move with his cathedral. When the elder venerated the icons, the two leaders of the Nyametsky brotherhood, Joasaph and Varlaam, hegumen and pro-abbot, placed the elder in the abbot’s place. When the troparion and kontakion of the church were sung and the litany and dismissal were said, the elder with tears told those gathered that he had come to them not of his own desire and search, but by the decision and order of the prince and metropolitan, and asked everyone to preserve mutual peace and mutual love. From the church the elder went to the cell that had been prepared for him and rested for a while. For the brethren who came with him, 15 cells were prepared, in which they were accommodated in very close quarters, with several people in each cell. Only the confessors, according to their duties, were assigned a cell each. Despite his fatigue, the elder could not sleep due to great sadness, although he had been without sleep for five days. At the beginning of the all-night vigil, he came to church with great difficulty and sat listening to the Divine service, praying to the Most Pure Mother of God that She would comfort his soul, drive away the darkness and sadness that had enveloped it, and send him a joyful dream. And when Vespers had already ended and Matins had begun, and when the Gospel had been read, the desired dream began to come to the elder. The elder went to his cell and lay down on his bed, but fell asleep only when it was already dawn and slept sweetly for two hours. Waking up, he felt relief in his head, some strength in his whole body, and all sadness left his heart. At the end of the liturgy and prayer service to the Mother of God, we went to a meal with the festive icon and the singing of the troparion of the holiday, and after the meal, upon returning to the church, we went to our cells. The elder invited the former leaders of the monastery to his place and, having talked with them privately and brotherly, promised to give them peace in everything until their death and not to oppress them in anything. And they, having completely reconciled themselves with everything that had happened, after some time were clothed in the schema and, having lived a few more years, went to the Lord. Of the Nyamet brethren, only a few left the monastery, and the rest joined the general brotherhood; one council was formed from two councils, and complete mutual peace and unanimity were established. The elder wrote to the prince about his acceptance of Neamts, about the union of both brotherhoods and asked for help in setting up new cells. The prince thanked the elder for his obedience and promised to provide assistance both in setting up the cells and in all other needs. This is how Elder Paisius and his brethren moved from Sekul to the Nyametsky monastery. The Sekul monastery remained under his main control, and the order of life in both monasteries was the same. The Sekul brethren often visited the elder, and once a year the elder himself spent several days in Sekul. This is how he himself describes these trips in a letter to the same monks Ambrose, Athanasius and Theophan: “Around the giving of the Assumption, when everything is ready for my departure, the brethren gather in the church by ringing the bell and sing “Worthy” at the entrance. Having venerated the icons and listened to the litany and dismissal, I, out of weakness, sit down on the prepared place and speak instructions to the whole brotherhood in the Slavic and Moldavian languages, asking them to pray for my safe journey, to work in fulfilling the commandments of God and to preserve among themselves the peace of Christ and all monastic decorum and reverence. After this, I leave the church, accompanied by the brethren, and, having given her a blessing, I go to Sekul. When I approach the monastery, the confessor Dosifei comes out to meet me with all the sick and elderly brethren and, having accepted the blessing, leaves. During my further procession, confessor Hilarion and all the brethren come out to meet me through the monastery gates. Having given them the blessing, I enter the monastery, accompanied by the entire brotherhood. Having completed everything in order, I go to my cell, where I live until the church holiday of the Beheading of John the Baptist. After the holiday, two days before my departure from there, after Compline, the brethren gather for a meal, one day in the Slavic language, the other day in the Moldavian language, and there is my last instruction to them. On the day of my departure from Sekul, farewell takes place as usual. Upon arrival in Neamet, the usual meeting takes place. When I leave the church for my cell, two monks, who are entrusted with the cell during my absence, meet me and take a blessing. I enter the cell and thank God for my safe return.” At the end of the letter, the elder adds: “The confessor Iakinthos will inform you about the rest of our affairs, about the construction of many new cells around the monastery and about the transfer to us of all the brethren from Dragomirna and a considerable number from Sekul and other things.” During the elder’s stay in Sekula, every day he received the brethren, who could freely come to him at any time and tell him about their needs, both spiritual and physical, and the elder told them: “If one of you has a need and grieves and complains, but does not come to me and does not inform me, I do not answer to God about such grief.” To those in the hospital who themselves could not come to the elder, he sent blessings and everything they needed through the head of the hospital, Father Dosifei, who treated the sick with such love and care that he could often be seen sitting whole nights at their bedside and comforting them with the hope of recovery and other encouraging words. The last, most difficult, but also the most fruitful period in the life and work of Elder Paisius begins in the Nyametsky monastery. The number of brothers united around him by the same spirit of non-covetousness, obedience and love for God, their elder and each other, increased here to 700 or more. The rumor about their high life and their wise elder spread far throughout the Orthodox East. The elder conducted extensive correspondence and relations with numerous ascetics not only in Moldova, but also on Mount Athos, Constantinople, Russia and other places. Every wandering monk, every pilgrim considered it his duty to visit the glorious Nyamets Lavra, to see its famous elder, to see the strict order of its hostel and the splendor of the monastic worship, and then to tell about it in their homeland, in their monastery. The elder’s book studies reached their greatest peak at this time. He was no longer alone, and not only in the circle of a few friends, working on correcting and translating his father’s books. He founded an entire school for the training of reference books and translators and extensively carried out the copying of corrected and translated books, so that with his numerous manuscripts he not only filled the monastery library, but also distributed them in a huge number of copies far beyond the borders of his monastery and especially throughout the monasteries and cells of the vast Russian land. He managed to raise interest in Russian Orthodox monasticism in book studies, in reading and copying paternal books, in spiritual conversations, and made his Nyamets Lavra the center and beacon of Orthodox monasticism and a school of ascetic life and spiritual enlightenment for the Orthodox East. In the Nyametsky monastery, many Moldovan and Russian monks received their education, who later became in many monasteries the planters of the Orthodox elders and monastic hostels according to the charter of the Paisian brotherhood. Beginning the description of this period in the life of Elder Paisius, let us first say a few words about the Nyametsky monastery. According to the Right Reverend Bishop Arseny, the Nyametsky Monastery has the same significance for Moldova as the Trinity-Sergius Lavra or the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra for Russia. For a number of centuries, it was a hotbed of Christian enlightenment in Moldova, raising within its walls many Moldavian saints - bishops and metropolitans, who selflessly defended their native Orthodox faith. For the Orthodox people, he was a high school of moral life, giving examples of asceticism and devotion to the faith in the person of his monks. In times of severe national trials, internecine war between the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, during frequent wars with the Turks, Poles and Hungarians, during famines, fires and other national disasters, Orthodox Moldova was drawn to him and found material and spiritual support here. The monastery is located in an extremely picturesque area. Where the small mountain river Neamtsul bursts out into the open from the Carpathian gorges among high hills covered with centuries-old coniferous forest, the walls and buildings of this monastery are white, with which the best pages of Moldavian-Slavic culture and writing of the Danube principalities are associated. The foundation of the monastery dates back to the end of the 14th century. Then three monks, Sophrony, Pimen and Silouan with their disciples, came to Moldavia under Metropolitan Joasaph. They came from Tisman and were disciples of Saint Nicodemus the Sanctified. The Moldavian ruler, in all likelihood Peter Voevoda Mushat, built a small church for them in honor of the Ascension of the Lord. The first document testifying to the existence of the monastery dates back to 1407, when the monastery took possession of the village and, together with the monastery of Bystritsa, was ruled by one abbot Dometian. The monastery expanded and grew rich thanks to the generous donations of Moldavian rulers, hierarchs and other persons. The history of the first years of the monastery’s existence is also connected with the name of the famous preacher Metropolitan Gregory Tsamvlakh, who, upon his arrival in Moldova, served as abbot in this monastery until approximately 1420. The monastery, like many other areas around it, received its name, in all likelihood, from the citadel built not far from here by German crusading knights in the 12th-13th centuries. The ruins of the fortress still exist on a high cliff, not far from Neamt. The current Church of the Ascension of the Lord was built in 1497 by the ruler Stephen the Great, as evidenced by the inscription above the entrance doors of the church. At the beginning of the 18th century, Hieromonk Pachomius was the abbot of Neamtse. Having learned about the famous Russian ascetic, Saint Demetrius of Rostov, in 1704 he left his abbess and went to Russia to see Saint Demetrius and worship the saints of Pechersk. He was honored to talk with Saint Demetrius more than once, received from him a book written in his own hand and returned to Neamets. After this, he retired with several monks in a deserted place where the Intercession Skete is now located (at a distance of one hour’s walk from the Nyametsky Monastery) and there devoted himself to the feat of prayer. At the beginning of 1707, he was summoned from his seclusion and made bishop of Romanes. After seven years of ruling the diocese, he again retired to the Intercession Skete, and three years later he again left for the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, where he died in 1724, having shortly before his death sent his will to the Intercession Skete, which he founded, which included, among other things, the charter for the monastery. Thus, there was a living connection between the Nyametsky monastery and the Russian Orthodox Church at the beginning of the 18th century. This connection was not broken even then. In one of the churches there is a large, beautifully crafted shroud, embroidered with gold and pearls on crimson velvet. Around this shroud there is a sewn inscription, which says that this shroud was donated to the church of the Neamets Monastery by nun Maria in 1741. According to legend, nun Maria is Grand Duchess Maria Petrovna, the daughter of Emperor Peter the Great, who took monastic vows in one of the convents in Moldova. In the sacristy of the monastery there is a large Russian Gospel, carried out at the entrances by two deacons. This Gospel was sent as a gift to the monastery from St. Petersburg in 1764. In 1849, Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich sent the monastery 10 full priestly vestments made of good brocade and money to build a hospital. Emperor Nicholas II donated full priestly and deacon vestments to the monastery. The main shrine of the Nyametsky monastery is the ancient miraculous icon of the Mother of God. The time when this icon was painted is unknown. It was once donated by the Greek Emperor John Palaeologus to the Moldavian ruler John the Good, who at the beginning of the 15th century gave it to the Neametsky Monastery. Having settled in Neamtsa, Elder Paisios began to establish his usual order of monastic life here too. First of all, he paid attention to the order of worship and established it to be performed as it was performed in his brotherhood. Reading and singing were conducted in two languages, Moldavian and Slavic. At matins, between kathismas, two teachings were read - one in Slavic, the other in Russian or Moldavian. During the week of commendation, the akathist to the Mother of God was read in Slavonic, Moldavian and Greek. In everything a close connection was maintained with the Russian Church. During the holidays, the Monks Anthony and Theodosius and other wonderworkers of Pechersk were remembered. On September 21, a service was held for St. Demetrius of Rostov, on May 3, the memory of St. Theodosius of Pechersk was celebrated, on July 10 - St. Anthony, on July 11 - the blessed Princess Olga, on July 15 - Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir. With the help of the prince, the elder set up a hospital and a hostel in the monastery and significantly increased the number of cells. Caring for the sick, elderly and wandering especially occupied the elder, for they all came to him and with tears begged for the sake of Christ to shelter them in the monastery. The elder placed whoever was needed in the hospital and ordered Brother Honorius, who here was assigned to the same work that he performed in Dragomirna, to provide them with all possible care and peace and to have vigilant care for them. He demanded that all employees in the hospital serve the sick as the Lord, change their linen and wash their hair every week, clean their clothes, beds and bedding from insects, and in the summer air their clothes more often and hang them in the sun. The elder demanded that the inside of the hospital be kept immaculately clean, and that incense or other fragrant substance be smoked in it every day. He also ordered that those in need be given more nutritious food, better bread and wine. And everyone was happy and thanked the elder with tears for his care. Wandering monks who entered the monastery could rest there as long as they wanted, a week or two, or a month. And no one ever said a word of reproach to them. Others asked the elder to allow them to spend the winter in the monastery, and he allowed it, and gave everything they needed to those who did not have clothes and linen. When summer came and they set off on their journey, he abundantly supplied them with everything they needed for the journey and sent them off in peace. The elder received worldly men who suffered from various illnesses or were tormented by various spirits and did not have anywhere to lay their heads, and in a special hospital he fed them from the common table, and they lived there as long as they wanted, some even until their death. The main church holiday of the Ascension of the Lord was celebrated in Neamtse with special solemnity. The service continued all night. For this holiday, before, a great crowd of people of both sexes, and of every rank, noble, simple, rich and poor, not only from Moldavia and Wallachia, but also from other countries, who wanted to venerate the miraculous icon of the Most Holy Theotokos, flocked to Neamets, and under the elder the number of pilgrims became even greater. Elder Paisios tried to put them all to rest if possible. For four days he himself did not have a free minute, keeping the doors of his cell open from morning to evening; everyone, both rich and poor, who wanted to enter him, had free access. He received everyone with love, thanked them for the labor of the journey they had undertaken, and, having blessed them, sent them off to a hotel or other cells prepared for them. Before the holiday, the elder appointed several brothers from the more reverent and filled with the fear of God to watch the weaker ones, walking around the monastery day and night so that no temptation would occur. Carrying out his will, the brothers protected each other. At the end of the holiday, everyone thanked Christ God and His Most Pure Mother, who enabled them to peacefully, safely and joyfully celebrate the holy holiday of the Lord. Moving from one monastery to another, uniting the elder’s original disciples, whom he had gathered on Mount Athos and Dragomirna, with the brotherhoods of other monasteries could not but have an adverse effect on the internal life of the monastery. According to the elder himself, the internal life of the brotherhood in Neamtse no longer reached the height at which it stood in Dragomirna. The elder himself continued to carefully and carefully monitor the life of the brotherhood. In the church, he himself walked around the brethren and made sure that everyone stood decorously, with fear and trembling, and observed all the established bows. One day the elder noticed a novice walking through the monastery, waving his arms and looking here and there. The elder called his confessor to him and said: “Is this how you instruct your disciples? They commit outrages and seduce the brethren.” As punishment, he gave both - the confessor and the novice - a rule: to bow at meals for three days, and others would learn not to commit outrages. Despite, however, all the elder’s worries, he had difficulty in overcoming those unfavorable influences that had a corrupting effect on the brotherhood; and the life writer of the elder declares: at the end of the elder’s life, our spiritual life descended from the first Dragomirn and Sekulsky, unanimous, peaceful and loving, completely downwards irrevocably. The reasons for this are: rumor, excess, rebellion, everyone’s concern for himself and abandonment of reading the Divine and paternal scriptures and attention to himself. The elder, who foresaw all this, often cried and warned the brethren. He urged everyone not to abandon the attentive reading of the patristic writings, to unswervingly adhere to the narrow path of the Gospel and to avoid careless pretended monastic peace-loving life. Pointing out other reasons for the weakening of fraternal life, the elder’s biography says: just as a tree garden, often replanted, fades, so our cathedral’s spiritual garden suffered from transitions and changes in monasteries. In Dragomirna and Sekula, in the winter there were cathedral teachings of the elder every evening, but in Neamtse they stopped, and it was necessary to use books more. Here the elder was more involved in translations and corrections. The visits of noble persons of both sexes also did a lot of harm to the brethren. One wandering monk asked Elder Paisius: “How, father, is the current life against Dragomirnsky?” The elder replied: “Every year it goes lower, but it is impossible to keep it at the same level, although I try. The reason for this is the unrestricted entry of women and the abandonment of conciliar teaching.” Of course, the decline in spiritual life in the Paisian Brotherhood was noticeable only to the elder and his closest assistants, who judged the state of the brotherhood from the strict point of view of ideal monasticism. For an outside observer, even a monk and ascetic, the life of the brotherhood was presented in a completely different light, as can be seen, for example, from the story of the Solovetsky hermit Theophan, who visited the Nyamets monastery under Elder Paisius. This Feofan came from Little Russian farmers. At the age of twelve he lost his parents and became an orphan. At the age of sixteen he started his own farm. One day, when he was working in the field, Divine light illuminated his soul. A special tenderness filled his heart. He unharnessed the oxen, left the plow and the land and, overwhelmed by love for Christ, went to the holy places. In the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra he was accepted among the novices. Here he spent 17 years in various labors and was finally assigned to serve the ascetic Dosifei, who had been living in seclusion for three decades. Dosifei never left his cell and did not receive anyone. Those who wanted to receive blessings and guidance from him could talk with him through the window of his cell. His special gift of speech was combined with insight: he exposed secret sins and encouraged repentance, and warned against future troubles and temptations. Theophan learned the monastic life from this ascetic. Soon a strong desire was kindled in him to visit holy places marked by the events of the earthly life of Jesus Christ. Theophan asked his elder for a blessing on this path. But the elder said: “You have no way either to Jerusalem or to the Holy Mountain. Another path will be presented to you in due time. And now, if you wish, go to Moldavia, it will be to your advantage.” And the elder ordered Theophan to go to Podol (the lower part of Kyiv), where he would find two Moldavian monks: let him lead them to the elder. Theophanes went to Podol and actually found two Moldavian monks there. One of them was Sophrony, a friend and disciple of Elder Paisius, who after him was the abbot of the Nyametsky monastery. Having fulfilled the order given to him by Elder Paisius, Sophrony was about to set off on the return journey, when Theophanes appeared to him and invited him to the recluse. Dosifei began to ask Sophrony and his companion to take Theophanes with them to Moldavia. The Moldavian monks willingly agreed to this, and Theophanes went with them, providing them with various services along the way. This path seemed difficult to Feofan due to oppression from the Turks and various hardships that he had to endure along the way, so that he even regretted leaving Kyiv. But it was not in vain that the perspicacious old man sent him to Moldova. When the travelers approached the Nyametsky monastery, Elder Paisius himself met them and greeted Theophanes with these words: “Child Theophanes, your path to us, the poor, was not in vain; God has numbered all your steps; He will prepare His reward for you.” Kindly treated by the elder, Theophan first lived in Neamtsa, then went to other Moldavian monasteries, examined their locations, studied the monastic rules, morals and customs of monastic life. This is what he tells about the life of the Nyamet monks. Their lack of acquisition was complete; in the cells there was nothing except icons, books and tools for needlework. The monks were especially distinguished by their humility. They shunned pride and vanity. They did not know hatred and mutual insults; if someone happened to offend another through carelessness or vehemence, he hastened to reconcile with him. Anyone who did not want to forgive his brother who had sinned was expelled from the monastery. The monks' gait was modest. When meeting, one warned the other with a bow. In the church, everyone stood in their assigned place. Idle talk was not allowed not only in the church, but also nowhere else - neither in the monastery nor outside it. At that time, up to 700 brothers lived with Abba Paisius, and when they gathered for obedience in groups of one hundred and one hundred and fifty, one of the brothers would read a book or tell some soulful story. If anyone started an idle conversation, he was immediately stopped. In their cells, some wrote books, others bound them, others spun wave, others sewed hoods and kamilavkas, knitted rosaries, wove wave into cassocks and robes for the brethren, made spoons and crosses, or did various other handicrafts. Everyone was under the supervision of confessors and mentors; coming to them, they confessed their sins and especially their thoughts - the beginning of all bad deeds. And they did this twice a day: in the morning they announced what they had done at night, and in the evening - about what they had done, said or thought during the day, and they revealed all this with humility, without shame and lies. Without the blessing of the confessor, no one even dared to eat any fruit, of which there is a lot in that country. Theophanes liked life in Neamtsa so much that he asked Elder Paisius to leave him in his monastery forever, but the elder said: “Go to Russia and serve a little more to your elder, who will soon go to the Lord. With his blessing, go and save yourself wherever he shows you.” Feofan sadly parted with Nyamets. At parting, Paisiy said to him: “Child, may God and the Most Pure Mother protect you on every path. I believe that God will not allow you to be tempted beyond measure and will vouchsafe some of His chosen ones for the sake of the prayers of our venerable fathers Anthony and Theodosius of the Pechersk wonderworkers and your elder Dosifei. May God's blessing be upon you from our humility. Say gratitude to your reverent elder and do not forget our wretchedness.” Provided with everything necessary for the journey, Feofan left Nyamets and returned safely to Kyiv. The following story by Feofan is also interesting. When he was returning from Moldova and he happened to be detained by the Turks, who asked him who he was and where he was coming from, then as soon as he showed the pass form from Paisiy, the Turks, waving their hands, shouted: “Oh, Paisiy, gaida, gaida,” that is, go freely. Seeing this, Theophanes was surprised to what extent the blessed elder was known to the Turks and revered by them. The same Theophanes talks about the purity of Orthodoxy in the Paisian Brotherhood, as well as about its multi-tribal composition. Already living in the Solovetsky Monastery, Theophanes, testing one of his students, asked him: “Show me how you fold your fingers for the sign of the cross?” He, showing him the three-fingered addition, said: “So, father, as the Orthodox Church teaches.” Theophan said to this: “When I was in the desert, I did not forbid dark people to be baptized with two fingers, as long as they went to church, but you should beware of the followers of the schism. When I lived in Kyiv, I did not see anyone in all of Little Russia who was baptized with two fingers. I was also in Moldova, in the Nyametsky monastery, with Elder Paisius: there were more than 700 brothers from different countries - Moldavians, Serbs, Bulgarians, Hungarians, Hutsuls, Greeks, Armenians, Jews, Turks, Great Russians and Little Russians; and they were all baptized with a three-fingered constitution, but there was no word about two-fingered.” Also interesting is the story conveyed by Papadopoulo-Keramevs of one noble Greek, Constantine Karadzh, who visited Elder Paisius on the feast of the Ascension of the Lord. This Greek had earlier delivered to Elder Paisius from his father the manuscript of a hermit, which contained a teaching for monastics, and Father Paisius, in gratitude, sent his father a handwritten copy of this manuscript in remarkably beautiful and clear handwriting. The Greek wanted to see the elder himself and venerate the icon of the Mother of God. He describes his journey with his wife from the city of Pashkani to the Neamts monastery, admires the picturesque places and talks about the meeting he received in Neamts. They were greeted with the ringing of bells, an honor that is given only to the rulers and noble boyars. The elder himself with fifty brothers in kamilavkas and robes met him at the holy gates. We, he says, hastened to get out of the carriage and, approaching the old man, kissed his right hand. Then we went to church and kissed the icons while singing prayers, and then we went to the elder’s cell. For the first time in my life, the Greek says, I saw with my own eyes embodied and unfeigned holiness. I was struck by his face, light and pale, without a drop of blood, by his large white beard, shining like silver, and by the extraordinary cleanliness of his clothes and his entire furnishings. His conversation was gentle and completely sincere. He gave the impression of a man completely detached from the body. Having then briefly described the old man’s past life and his monastic charter, the Greek describes his visit to various rooms of the monastery; in one of the rooms he saw a lot of shirts and other linen, cassocks and kamilavkas folded in beautiful rows, where the brethren come once a week to receive clean linen, and special guards make sure that the washed old linen is put in its place. He also saw the refectory where all the brethren gathered, led by the one who performed the liturgy that day. At the table they eat fish and butter. They also drink wine according to the rules. And the elder says first: “For the glory of God,” then, “for the health of the governor,” and, finally, “for the health of all Christians.” During lunch, one of the brothers reads the lives of the saints on the pulpit. There are no unnecessary conversations. But there is always complete silence, great cleanliness and strict abstinence. Four confessors walk around the cells every day and review everyone’s case. The Greek further tells how, after a rather long stay in the elder’s cell, the guests were taken to the room assigned to them, where they were also amazed by the extraordinary cleanliness and decoration. Throughout their stay at the holiday, they and other honored guests were served excellent food - meat, poultry, chickens, fish, white bread, wine, and sweets. And all those gathered in the courtyard of the monastery, of whom there were about three thousand, were also given bread, fish and wine, as much as they needed, without any payment. After staying in the monastery for two days, the travelers returned to Pashkani. The elder’s book studies in Neamts received a particularly prominent place both in the life of the elder himself and in the life of the brotherhood. Even as a child, he loved reading and copying his father's books. But then he copied them simply, without asking himself the question of the correctness or incorrectness of their text. On Athos, his book studies took on the character of checking and correcting Slavic translations according to the most ancient Slavic copies. When this method of correction did not produce satisfactory results, the elder began studying the Greek language and collecting Greek originals of paternal literature, and in Dragomirna he began to correct Slavic books based on the Greek text. Not satisfied with this either, the elder, as he improved in the Greek language and acquired the necessary scientific aids, finally began independently translating his father’s books from Greek into Slavic. In Neamts, all types of the elder’s activities received a particularly broad and properly organized staging. With the assistance of scientifically trained monks and under the constant guidance of the elder, the copying of books, the correction of the Slavic text from the Greek originals, and new translations from the Greek language took place here. The elder himself, despite his years and illness, showed his assistants an example of tireless activity. Being burdened with the affairs of the monastery all day, spiritual and economic, he spent his nights translating and correcting books. According to the biography, the elder endured labor beyond natural human strength. If it were not for the grace of God that strengthened him, it would have been impossible for human nature to endure such labor. You just have to imagine that the entire right side of the old man, right down to his foot, was covered with wounds, so that he could not even lie on it. Sitting bent over on his bed, he covered himself all over with books. Here were various dictionaries, a Greek and Slavic Bible, a Greek and Slavic grammar and a translated book. There were lit candles nearby. And the old man, hunched over like a small child, wrote all night, forgetting his weakness, his wounds, and the need for rest and sleep. He became so immersed in his studies that he did not hear the monastery bell, did not notice anything happening around him, and could not give an answer to the questions of those asking him. The brother serving him at this time did not allow anyone to see him. When an urgent matter arose, the serving brother had to repeat his words to the elder many times before receiving an answer from him. Forced to answer, the elder, with pain and groaning, was barely able to distract his mind from the book, as he himself admitted: “For me,” he said, “there is no more difficult work than when I do a translation, I have to give an answer to any question. Then, while I take my mind off the book, I’ll be covered in sweat.” Let us note, by the way, that the elder possessed an extraordinary art of writing, which is rarely seen in anyone. In his youth, for example, he copied the book of Saint Abba Dorotheos. How big it is, and he fit it on 24 pieces of paper; on each page he had 70 lines in the statutory letter, thin as hair, and the letters did not float, but clearly, cleanly, leaving edges at the top, bottom and sides, as they should. When one student, surprised, asked the elder what kind of pen he wrote this book with, whether it was a dove’s, the elder replied: “No, a goose.” In 1787, Elder Paisios completed his most important literary work - a translation from Greek of the ascetic words of St. Isaac the Syrian. In the preface to this translation, the elder talks in detail both about the external circumstances of this matter, and about the difficulties that he encountered during the translation and about the ways in which he overcame these difficulties. He writes: “In 1786, they brought me a handwritten Greek book of St. Isaac from the holy Mount Athos, and those who brought the book earnestly asked me to begin translating it. Moreover, the brethren of the monastery also forced me. I, realizing my old age and my extreme weakness, as well as the significant volume of the book and the difficulty of the matter and the unknown hour of my death, postponed the fulfillment of this request. On the other hand, seeing the Providence of God, which vouchsafed me to see the handwritten Greek book of Saint Isaac, specially brought to me for translation, and also taking into account my successes in knowledge of the Greek language and the fact that I had the necessary aids for translation, and feeling the desire born in my soul to begin translating Saint Isaac and, finally, taking into account the requests of the brethren, I began in the same year, in the post of the Nativity of Christ, a new translation of the book of the saint Isaac the Syrian. I based this translation on a printed Greek book, which I received from Constantinople from Nicephorus Theotoka back in Dragomirna, and used the handwritten one as a guide. And, indeed, I had great help from her, and without her, with all my efforts, with only a printed book, my translation would have turned out to be very insufficient, since in many places some words found in the Slavic book are also in the handwritten Greek, but are absent in the printed Greek, from which it can be understood that in ancient times those who worked on the Slavic translation had at their disposal the same handwritten Greek book. And so, translating this book from the printed Greek, I at the same time carefully, word by word, followed the handwritten Greek and the ancient Slavic and the corrected one in Dragomirna, carefully analyzing the names and verbs, conforming, as far as possible, with the properties of both languages, Greek and Slavic. I performed all this work with great spiritual joy, neglecting my weakness and illness, and thus completed my translation in 1787.” Describing the translation difficulties he encountered and the ways in which he overcame them, the elder writes: “Having been engaged in the correction and translation of fatherly books for a long time, I noticed that all books in Greek show the grammatical meaning incomparably more clearly than Slavic translations. This happens because the Greek language has both preceding and subsequent explanatory particles that help clarify the grammatical meaning. Our Slavic language, although it surpasses many languages ​​in its beauty and enormous wealth of words, and of all languages ​​is closest to Greek in the formation of names and verbs and in its composition and properties, however, it loses a lot from the lack of explanatory particles. For although the pronouns “like”, “he”, “this”, “that” in the Slavic language are used instead of particles of the Greek language, all this cannot be applied with such precision as in the Greek language to all words and cases except the vocative, and cannot give the Slavic translation such a clear meaning as we find in Greek books. Moreover, in the Greek language, almost all words of the masculine and feminine gender, whether they are used with particles or without particles, have different pronunciations in the nominative and accusative cases, due to which a clear meaning of speech is obtained; in the Slavic language, inanimate masculine words ending in a hard sign and a soft sign and inanimate feminine words ending in “b” in the nominative and accusative cases have the same ending, and this makes the meaning of speech darker. Then, although in the Greek and Slavic languages ​​all words of the neuter gender in the nominative, accusative and vocative cases, both in the singular and in the plural, have the same pronunciation, but since many Greek words of the feminine gender when translated into the Slavic language turn out to be neuter and, as a result, receive the same ending in the nominative and accusative cases, this also greatly complicates the meaning of speech. Noticing all this and wishing that in my book and in general in my translations there was a clarity that most closely approximates the clarity of the Greek books, I also drew attention to the fact that in the books of that wisest and most profound language, spelling is carefully preserved with all caution in all words. Therefore, although this language has many words that have the same pronunciation both in the singular and in the plural, it is not satisfied with pronunciation alone, but designates each word with the corresponding spelling. Having noticed this, I made it a rule in my translations to most carefully preserve the proper spelling in all words of the singular and plural, not leaving a single word unspelled, unless by mistake or oblivion. And I assure readers that in my translation, words used in the singular should be understood in the singular without any hesitation, and those used in the plural should be understood in the plural. Thanks to this, my translation achieves the greatest clarity of Slavic speech.” To explain this, the elder writes further: “As has already been said, in the Slavic language the words of inanimate objects of the masculine gender with “ь” and “ь” and the feminine gender with “ь” in the nominative and accusative cases of the singular have the same ending, and if they do not have an active verb or other control words, then no one can recognize in which case they are placed. For example: virtue - virtue. Which of these two words is in the nominative case and which in the accusative is not visible. In Greek, thanks to the different endings, this ambiguity does not exist.” To eliminate this ambiguity in the Slavic text, Elder Paisius denotes with a dot at the top the word in the accusative case: virtue - virtue, or virtue - virtue. The need for such a designation becomes especially clear from consideration of certain phrases. “Virtue gives birth to the fear of God”; “The fear of God drives away laziness.” The meaning of these phrases will be completely different depending on which of the words is the subject and which is the object. If we put a dot over “virtue” in the first phrase, then we get the meaning: virtue is born from the fear of God. If we put “fear” above it, then we get the meaning: the fear of God is born from virtue. The same thing happens in the second phrase, depending on where the period is. If a dot appears above the word “fear”, this means: the fear of God is driven away by laziness, but if a dot appears above the word “laziness”, this means: laziness is driven away by the fear of God. Let us give another example of using explanatory points of a different kind. “If you keep My commandments, I will send you the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, Whom the world cannot accept, and He will teach you all truth.” In Greek, the Comforter is masculine, while the Spirit is neuter. In Slavic, both are masculine. The dots show which word “Egozhe” refers to and which word “Toi” refers to. Without dots, the Slavic text would be unclear. Further, the elder writes: “In the translation of this book, as in all my other translations, I always use the so-called literal translation method, which is how the Holy Scriptures and all church books are translated from Greek into Slavic. Translating in this way, I diligently, as far as I could, respected the properties of both languages, using in the Slavic translation for clarity, where necessary, verbs: “am” and “happen”, and instead of particles - pronouns: “he”, “that”, “this”, and all this, used in the appropriate places, gives the translation the necessary clarity. You should also know that in my translations I quote the words of the Holy Scriptures as they are given in the Greek original, not allowing myself to change them and quote them as they are given in the Holy Scriptures, fearing the audacity of arbitrariness, but so that my translation is accurate in everything, I quote them as they are found in the Greek book.” From the above story of Elder Paisius, it is clear with what care he worked on his translations of his father’s books. And it is not surprising that, according to the testimony of knowledgeable people, the translations of Elder Paisius have value not only in religious and edifying terms, but also in scientific terms. The translations of Elder Paisius are superior to all the translations of the paternal books that were before him in that in his work he is not limited to just a list of the book in one language, but tries to obtain lists or printed texts of the book being translated in different languages, published at different times, and, comparing them with each other, mutually checking them, establishes the most correct reading, and has the habit of placing discrepancies in the margins, thus giving the opportunity the reader himself can directly verify the correctness of the reading proposed by the elder. Such a method of translating paternal writings into the Slavic language did not exist before Elder Paisius. The previous translations, not always made from Greek originals, but often from Bulgarian, Serbian, Latin or Polish translations, were distinguished in many places by their darkness of meaning, which forced Elder Paisius to approach this matter more carefully and thoughtfully. One of the researchers of the manuscripts of the school of Elder Paisius, Mr. N. Popov, (in his book “Manuscripts of the Moscow Synodal (Patriarchal) Library”, issue 2, Simonovsky Collection), characterizing the translation work of Elder Paisius and using for this the text of the book of St. John Climacus corrected by the elder, says: “The Elder translated from printed Greek, but he also has additions comparatively with printed text, taken, judging by the notes on the margin, from a handwritten book. Other postscripts give reason to think that the translator had at hand not just one Greek or Slavic list, but a whole series of different lists. There are many notes in the margins of the Ladder, testifying to the great work that went into comparing the Slavic text with Greek manuscripts and the printed edition. At the same time, the translator reveals strict legibility. For example, in one place he makes a note: “In the printed book there are also such words (extracts follow), but these words were taken from another book; That’s why I didn’t include these words in the translation, since these words are not found in other Greek and Slavic texts.” There are notes explaining this or that place on the basis of other places... Before Paisiy Velichkovsky, we did not notice such a critical treatment of the text in any of our writers.” We have already seen that the elder himself recognized the need to carry out his translation word for word, that is, having established through comparative study the correct text of the book, translate from Greek into Slavic word by word, without changing the order of the Greek words in any way. Of course, with this method of translation, which is not consistent with the requirements of the Slavic and Russian arrangement of words, the thought of the author of the book is not always immediately clear and obvious and there is a need for preliminary rearrangement of words in order to get to the meaning of this or that phrase, which undoubtedly makes reading and understanding the book more difficult, but on the other hand, this eliminates the translator’s arbitrariness in constructing phrases, which can entail a change in the meaning of the original. It should also be noted that the elder, possessing great spiritual experience, deep insight and subtlety of understanding, enlightened and sophisticated by his prayerful feat and purity of life and heart, deeply penetrated into the meaning of the book he translated, knew how to select the most accurate and appropriate words to express the thoughts of the original; and this makes his translations, despite some heaviness in the construction of speech, highly accurate and consistent with the spirit of the translated author, and therefore especially valuable. In terms of accuracy, expressiveness, strength and depth of presentation, not only the previous translations, but also the later translations of the most learned persons cannot be compared with his translations, as can be easily seen from even a superficial comparison. Further in the manuscripts, schemamonk Athanasius, confessor Nathanael, monk Paul and scribe Michael, monk Ioannikis, monk Silvanus, scribe Iakinthos, monk Nazarius, monk Mitrofan, monk Kiriak, deacon Timothy, monk Gervasiy, hieroschemamonk Nikolai, monk Philemon, Philip, monk Theophanes, monk Anthony, scribe Gury, scribe Clement, are mentioned in the manuscripts. scribe Leonty, scribe Hadji Emmanuel, hieromonk Ignatius, scribe Sophrony, scribe Spiridon, scribe Nicodemus, priest Sophrony, scribe Gerasim, monk Sadof, scribe Hierotheus, Jerome, scribe Savva, scribe Sergius, priest Dosifei and scribe Serapion, hierodeacon Cornelius, scribe Plato etc. Thanks to the hard work of this group of trained employees, a large number of corrected translations of fatherly books and a lot of lists from them appear. According to the testimony of Professor A.I. Yatsimirsky, of the thousands of manuscripts stored in the library of the Nyametsky monastery and written at different times in the languages Moldavian, Greek, Latin, Italian, German, Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, Syriac, Bulgarian, Polish, French and Slavic, two hundred seventy-six manuscripts date back to the time of Elder Paisius, and more than 40 some of them were written by the elder himself; Moreover, the manuscripts of the Nyametsky monastery constitute only part of all the handwritten material that came from the pen of the elder’s collaborators and was distributed throughout the monasteries and monastic cells of the Orthodox East, especially within Russia and among individual secular persons. Diadoche of the Bishop of Photiki - “Active Chieftains”, 12) St. Dionysius the Areopagite and other fathers - words on mental prayer, 13) the teachings of St. Abba Dorotheus, 14) the life of St. Gregory of Sinaite - the works of Callistus, Patriarch of Constantinople, 15) exposition of the apostolic and patristic rules according to the interpretations of Alexius the deacon and law-preserver Aristinus, 16) St. Isaac the Syrian - ascetic works, 17) Josephus Brienius's teachings, with the appendix of the message of John the Pope to Photius, Archbishop of Constantinople, 18) Callista Katafigiota - “On the Divine Union and Visual Life”, 19) canons for the twelfth feasts in two columns: in the left - their old translation, in the right - the new one, 20) “The Ladder” of St. John of Sinai, 21) St. Macarius of Egypt – teachings, 22) St. Mark the Faster – moral and ascetic words, 23) St. Mark of Ephesus "The Tale of the Descent of St. Spirit, against the Latins", 24) St. Nicetas Stiphatus - teachings, 25) St. Peter of Damascus creations, 26) "Answers to the Orthodox about the violence of Catholics (about union)"; autograph of the translation of Elder Paisius from a Greek book printed in Halki in 1775, 27) “Paradise” by Patriarch Callistus of Constantinople and Ignatius Xanthopouls, 28) collection - extracts from Elder Paisius from Dionysius the Areopagite on baptism, from Maximus the Confessor, from the apostolic rules, from the syntagma of Matthew Blastar, from the rules of the Ecumenical Councils, from John Chrysostom, from Theophylact of the Archbishop of Olgar - about baptism, 29) collection - Dionysius the Areopagite on communion, John Chrysostom and Theodore the Studite about the same, Dionysius the Areopagite's message, Theodoret of Cyrus about the seventy weeks, 30) collection - accusatory words on the heresy of Barlaam and Akindinus, words chosen by Simeon the Master and Logothetus, Basil of Caesarea and Theodore the Studite, a touching prayer, 31) collection - “Synodical on the Week of Orthodoxy”, “On the Seven Ecumenical Councils”, Herman the Patriarch’s sermon on the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, John of Damascus’ sermon on the Transfiguration, on the burial of the Savior, on the Dormition of the Mother of God, on the Annunciation, on the Nativity of the Theotokos, Epiphanius of Cyprus – Praise to the Most Holy Theotokos, 32) collection – Hesychia of the Presbyter of Jerusalem, teaching on prayer, Anthony the Great on human character, 33) “Light for those who are in darkness” – to the Latins converting to Orthodoxy, 34) Symeon the New Theologian’s words, 35) his own – “Words” – white copy, 36) Simeon the New Theologian – “Word to those who have renounced”, 37) Simeon of Thessalonica “Sermon on the Priesthood”, 38) The Suffering of St. Martyr Anastasius the New, who suffered in the city of Gelvina, 39) Taktikon of Nikon the Montenegrin, 40) St. Philotheus of Sinai - “Sober Chapters”, 41) St. Thalassius of Libya “Centurion”, with the appendix of St. Philemon the Hermit “On Silence”, 42) Theodoret the Blessed – “Commentary on the Book of Song of Songs”, 43) Theodore of Edessa “Teachings”, 44) Theodore the Studite “Catechisms” (while we were in Neamtsa, we were able to see some of these manuscripts of the great elder, written with great clarity and grace. Pr. S. Ch.). Listed by Prof. Yatsimirsky also includes manuscripts written by the elder’s disciples according to his choice and purpose. But there is no way to rename them all. The writings of some Church Fathers are found in these manuscripts in a particularly large number of copies. Such are, for example, the writings of Theodore of Edessa, Philotheus of Sinai, Simeon the New Theologian, Peter of Damascus, John Climacus, Hesychius of Jerusalem, Isaac the Syrian, Abba Dorotheus, Gregory Palamas, Basil the Great, etc. Obviously, there was a particularly great demand for these manuscripts. A significant part of the manuscripts are collections, extracts from patristic books, either on dogmatic issues, or on liturgical, moral-ascetic and canonical issues. Elder Paisius himself loved to compile such collections and encouraged his students to compile them. According to the elder, it was not enough to limit oneself only to reading the books of the fathers, because in this case the attention and thought of the reader do not always sufficiently follow the content of the book. In order to better connect thought and attention to the content of the book being read, it is necessary to follow the text of the book word by word, and this is best achieved by copying the book. The very slowness of this work makes it possible to penetrate more fully and clearly into the meaning of what is being written off. At the same time, the content of the book becomes more closely related to the reader’s soul and is more deeply imprinted on it. Copying the entire book is not always possible, and it is not always necessary. Sometimes it is enough to make notes of the most important and interesting places, so that later you can always have them at hand, be able to re-read them again or use them for literary work, for writing, for messages to someone else. By reading various Church Fathers who wrote about the same subjects, one can use extracts from them to achieve the clearest and most comprehensive coverage of a given subject. Thus, it turns out to be a theological and ascetic encyclopedia, an explanatory dictionary for all concepts included in the circle of religious and moral life and worldview of a Christian. The compiler of this book had in his hands several such collections of patristic sayings and reasonings that came out of the school of Elder Paisius. One collection was written by the hand of the rector of the Kozel Optina Hermitage, Archimandrite Moses, during his desert life in the Roslavl forests of the Smolensk province. This collection is called “On Monastic Deeds”, compiled in the period from 1812 to 1822 and contains valuable extracts from fatherly books about inner spiritual life, selected in a consistent, systematic order. This collection did not appear in print and was kept until the revolution in the library of Optina Pustyn. Another collection was written by a disciple of Elder Paisius, Schemamonk Athanasius (from the Senate secretaries), the same one who delivered the translation of the “Philokalia” to Metropolitan Gabriel Paisiyev of St. Petersburg, and subsequently lived in the Svensky Monastery of the Oryol Diocese, where he died in 1811. Schemamonk Afanasy, before his death in 1810, gave his collection for blessing to another schemamonk Afanasy, a former captain of the hussar regiment, named Zakharov, also a disciple of Elder Paisius, who later lived in the Ploshchanskaya hermitage of the Oryol diocese and died there in 1825. The Athanasian Collection contains extracts from the works of the holy fathers on various issues of moral and religious life, for example, about fasting, about prayer, about pride, etc. On each issue numerous excerpts from the Church Fathers are given, and thus they are given comprehensive coverage. All other collections have the same character. The written works of Elder Paisius in Neamtsa and other places were not limited only to translations and copying of his father’s books. He conducted extensive correspondence with many people on various issues of spiritual and church life. We will get acquainted with this correspondence in the next chapter. Chapter 4. ELDER PAISIOUS IN HIS CORRESPONDENCE WITH DIFFERENT PERSONS ON DIFFERENT ISSUES OF CHRISTIAN FAITH AND LIFE While the elder was in Dragomirna, the rector of one monastery, Rubaya, Hieromonk Sophronius, approached him with a request to send priests to set up a hostel. The elder wrote to him: “To your request to send a priest to set up a hostel, we don’t know what to answer: we are still at the beginning of the matter, and we ourselves need guidance in many ways. We can only tell you how, according to the power of Holy Scripture and according to the rules of the Holy Fathers, you could arrange a hostel. Firstly, it is required that the leader be wise in the Holy Scriptures, be fair, be able to teach his disciples, have true unfeigned love for everyone, that he be meek, humble, patient, free from anger and from all other passions - love of money, vanity, delicacy, etc. The disciples, for their part, should be in the hands of the boss, like a tool in the hands of a master or like clay in the hand of a potter, not do anything without his blessing, not have their own property, but have everything - books, bed, etc. - with the blessing of their father, so that they do not trust their own mind and, in short, so that they are like dead men until their death, having neither their own will nor reasoning. This should be the charter of faithful novices. And wherever your monastery is located, it should not be subordinate to any other monastery, but should be governed independently, and so that its brethren are saved by their leader, just as this latter is saved by the Lord. And this order must be approved with the blessing of both parties - both the state and the local bishop. There should be no female entry into your monastery. Only in this way, with great difficulty, can you realize a life that is saving for you and pleasing to the Lord. And if any of you wants to come to live with us, then the Lord knows whether he will be able to have such zeal to endure to the end the need and poverty of our life in things, in food, in cells and in everything else. That's all we can tell you from our inability. And may our God and Lord Jesus Christ be for you Light and Reason for holy salvation and eternal life.” As you know, the elder sent his students from Sekul to Bucharest to teach them Greek. To two of these disciples, Dorotheus and Gerontius, the elder, sending some money, writes a warning letter about the fact that, with the permission of the rulers, they are being persuaded to eat meat. The elder writes to them: “It seems to me that according to the correct meaning and establishment of the Holy Orthodox Church, even an Angel should not obey in this matter.” He draws their attention to the essay on the eating of meat by the monks of Elder Basil, who wrote it not without the grace of the Divine Spirit. “After the flood, the Lord, out of human weakness, allowed the eating of meat, but the order of monastic life corresponds to life in Paradise, where there was no eating of meat. And although at the beginning of monastic life there were places where there were deviations from this order, especially in large cities, Saint Sava the Sanctified approved non-eating of meat. And this became the general order in all countries. Therefore, one cannot refer to the fact that not eating meat is only a local custom. And this cannot be left to the arbitrariness of everyone. And it is unfair that abstaining from meat is harmful to health. And one should not be ashamed of those who eat meat, but one must please God more than people; and those who seduce you, seeing your firmness, will themselves praise you.” The elder reminds his disciples that both the brethren of the monastery and the hermits would be tempted and upset if they found out that they began to eat meat. In a letter to Russia to nun Maria Petrovna Protasyeva, abbess of the Arzamas Alekseevskaya community, the elder explains the importance of obedience as the basis of monastic life. M.P. Protasyeva, coming from a wealthy family, had an attraction to monastic life from her early youth. Her father, who had long resisted the fulfillment of her desire, finally gave in to her requests and placed her in the Kostroma nunnery. She was the spiritual daughter of the famous elder Theodore Ushakov and, with his blessing, was elected by the sisters as the head of the Alekseevsky women's community in Arzamas. After the death of Elder Theodore, Maria Petrovna turned to Elder Paisius for guidance. The elder’s letter to her begins by pointing to the words of Christ the Savior: “Fire has come to burn on the earth, and whatever I want, if it is already on fire” (Luke 12:49). The holy apostles took this divine fire into their hearts and, inflamed with fiery love for the Lord, they left the world and everything in the world and followed with Christ. They surrendered themselves to Him both soul and body, they rejected both their will and their reasoning, so that with great joy they could say: “Behold, we have left everything and died after You” (Matthew 19:27). They retained this holy obedience to the Lord in their hearts until the end of their lives, imprinting it by enduring countless temptations and varied deaths and shedding their blood to the last drop. The same divine fire of love and obedience was received by the holy martyrs, who joyfully endured various torments and the most cruel death for Christ. This same divine fire was received by all our reverend and God-bearing fathers, who fled from the world and from everything in the world, who remained in hostels in perfect obedience and cutting off their will, who labored in the deserts, in the mountains and caves, who walked the cramped and narrow path, who were crucified with Christ, who spent their lives in greed and thirst, and in all suffering, in unceasing prayer and tears, and keeping the gospel commandments pure and immaculate in everything. This same fire of Divine grace was received by all the holy true servants of Christ - people of every rank and title who carefully observed the soul-saving commandments of the Gospel, without the fulfillment of which it is impossible to be saved with the Orthodox faith alone.” Having then pointed out that the one to whom he is writing his letter was animated by the same divine fire from a young age, that for the love of Christ she endured many sorrows and oppressions, recounting some of the circumstances of her life and fulfilling her request to give her useful instruction in her difficult circumstances, the elder then speaks about the meaning of obedience. “Since you have learned by your own deed and experience the fruits of blessed obedience and the fruits of damned disobedience, I should tell you a few words about holy obedience. Divine obedience is so necessary for true pleasing to God that without it it is in no way possible to serve God. That is why holy obedience was planted by God in three places: in Heaven, in Paradise and on earth. In Heaven - in the heavenly powers, in Paradise - in primordial people, on earth - in the holy disciples and apostles of the Lord. And in these three places the fruits of blessed obedience and cursed disobedience appeared. In heaven, the heavenly powers, having observed obedience to God, were granted, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, to abide in Him eternally and unchangeably; the devil, although he belonged to the angelic face, fell from obedience by his own will, and became proud, was cast out of heaven along with other heavenly forces who had departed from God, listened to the wicked devilish advice and, having been deprived of the Divine light, voluntarily became darkness, became an enemy of God, an enemy of the salvation of Orthodox Christians. In Paradise, while the pristine people remained in true obedience to God, they enjoyed the sight of God and the various gifts of the Holy Spirit. When, by their own will, they obeyed the advice of the devil, fell away from obedience, became proud, desiring to be equal to God, then those condemned to death by God were expelled from Paradise and became the culprits of the death of the entire human race. And if it were not for the Son of God, by His obedience to God and the Father, he put an end to Adam’s disobedience, then the human race would have absolutely no hope of salvation from death and eternal destruction. These are the fruits of obedience and disobedience in primordial people. Finally, on earth, Christ, the Son of God, who descended from heaven not to do His will, but the will of the Father who sent Him, to whom He was obedient even to the death of the cross, implanted His Divine obedience in His holy disciples and apostles. Those of them who remained in this obedience even to death, through their preaching led the entire universe to the knowledge of God and now reign in heaven together with their Lord and Teacher Christ. Having fallen away from obedience and listening to the devil instead of the Lord, Judas fell into despair, hanged himself and perished forever in both soul and body. So the fruits of both obedience and disobedience appeared on earth. On this divine obedience, planted on earth by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, the entire monastic order is based, whether it be cenobitic monasticism or living in twos and threes together, or staying in the deserts - all of them, for the most part, began their monastic life from obedience and thereby avoided, with the help of God, the charms of demons. Those who began their monastic life on their own, were beset by various demonic temptations, from which may the Lord deliver us by His grace.” At the end of the letter, the elder convinces M.P. Protasyeva to set an example with her life for the sisters over whom she has been appointed boss. “Instruct them,” writes the elder, “on the path of salvation, showing them an example of every good deed, with the help of God, diligent fulfillment of the commandments of the Gospel, love for God and neighbor, meekness and humility, always the deepest for all the peace of Christ, maternal mercy, patience and long-suffering, tearful prayer, consolation and encouragement for every good deed, bearing them with the love of God all hardships and infirmities, burning with God's love for them, as for the sisters and disciples of Christ, diligently instructing them to true obedience to God in everything, to cut off, or better yet, to mortify their opposing will, to abandon their mind and reasoning. In the secret of your heart and soul, always consider yourself dust and ashes before God, the most sinful of all people. Force yourself also to be an example for your sisters and by observing the commandments of the holy fathers and by physical labor according to your strength, as much as you can, by standing at the church rule, with great and small bows, and also perform the cell rule established by the holy fathers with the fear of God, prayers and psalmody and reading. Diligently, with great attention and reflection, read in the books of the fathers about prayer, performed with the mind in the heart, which is the truest, most pleasing to God monastic feat, and if, with the help of God, you understand the correct concept of it through the study of the saints, then force yourself to fulfill it, calling on God for help, and you will receive from it great benefit for your soul. Force yourself not to condemn anyone, for there is only one Righteous Judge, Christ the Lord, who will reward everyone according to their deeds; condemn only yourself and you will not be condemned at His second and terrible coming. Forgive everyone who sins before you with all your heart, so that the Heavenly Father will also forgive you your sins.” These instructions conclude the elder’s letter to M.P. Protasyeva. In the summer of 1793, the abbot of the Polyanovoronsk monastery in Moldova, Hieroschemamonk Agathon, signed by 13 monks and the entire brethren of the monastery, received a complaint against the hieromonk of the monastery Theopemptos, blaspheming the fatherly books teaching about the mental Jesus prayer, and calling those who read these books heretics and pharmacists, while these books, according to the complainants, were received by them from the monastery of Elder Paisius. The complainants demanded that Theopemptos prove in the council of the brethren that they were heretics. All the monks gathered in the church and called Theopemptos, but he did not come. Then they went to his cell and asked why he called them heretics. Theopemptus answered: all the books you read are chimeras, and you are all deceived. He called the Holy Jesus Prayer a heresy and said that this heresy came out of the Moshensky mountains, and then reached Elder Paisius, and it would be about 30 years ago. After that, the German confessor Iakinthos came to the Polyanovoronsk monastery and exhorted Theopemptus, at the request of the brethren, but he answered him the same way as he did to the brethren. Then they decided to file a complaint with the Nyamsk Archimandrite Elder Paisius outlining all the circumstances of the case. The complaint was received by the elder on June 19, 1793. 30 years ago, Elder Paisius, while still in Dragomirna, actually wrote an essay on the Jesus Prayer, but not in praise of the heresy that then appeared among the monks in the Moshen Mountains, but in its refutation. He proved the holiness and correctness of the Jesus Prayer with references to numerous testimonies of the Church Fathers. And now he again came out in writing in defense of mental prayer. He supplements his previous proofs with new ones, borrowing them from his father’s books. Let us quote the final words of Elder Paisius’s letter: “I pray and ask you with all my heart, have undoubted faith in the books of the Fathers and in the teaching contained in them, for it is in everything consistent with the Divine Scripture and with the reason of all the universal teachers and the entire Holy Church, since the same Holy Spirit acted in them. The teaching found in the books of the fathers is true instruction for monks who want to be saved; and you, adhering to it, run and move away from the blasphemy of the blasphemer of the holy books of our fathers who has appeared among you. For neither he nor others like him can present a single holy witness to his wickedness and his blasphemies, but they rest their entire foundation only on the sand of their own corrupt and ungodly mind, encouraged by the father of lies, the devil. You, faithful and true sons of the Orthodox Church, are established on the immovable stone of faith; for you have a great many witnesses about the true doing of God’s commandments and about this sacred prayer - our venerable and God-bearing fathers, a list of which I present to you. Follow their holy teaching, compel your soul and body to do every good work and pleasing to God according to your strength, with the assistance of God’s grace. With this blasphemer, if he does not want to repent, I ask and pray, do not have any communication. If possible, remove him from yourself with love, so that your life may be quiet and peaceful, without any embarrassment, for the glory of God and for the salvation of your souls, which I most earnestly wish for you.” When the brethren of the Polyanomerulsky monastery elected Hieroschemamonk Alexy as their elder, the same one who came to Dragomirna to tonsure Elder Paisius into the schema, some of the brethren, knowing Alexy’s meek and humble disposition, doubted whether he could be a good leader, and wrote to Elder Paisius about this. The elder answered them with the following letter: “Do not be embarrassed by his gentleness and humility. This is the root and basis of the position of abbot. Let the rector, the holy fathers write, be humble, meek, kind, and quiet to the brethren, capable of bearing all sorts of reproaches himself, if it happened due to the slander of the devil, so that the brethren may also be able to set an example of patience and chaste living. Do not be embarrassed by the fact that he apparently is not familiar with economic matters: God is able to direct this matter through other brothers. The most necessary thing for your salvation is to be able to order the souls of your brothers well according to the commandments of God and according to the teachings of the saints. Do not be embarrassed because he is weak in body when he is sound in spirit, sound in spiritual reasoning. Therefore, most honorable fathers and brothers, beloved of the Lord, with tears I beg you, falling at your feet, do not despise my advice, but accept the shepherd and mentor God has given you, the all-honorable Father Alexy. Knowing the weakness of his health, do not demand from him bodily labor beyond his strength, but take care of him in every possible way so that his strength is not exhausted ahead of time and the benefit of the brothers is not damaged: it is enough for him to sit more in his cell, protecting his health, read spiritual books and be ready at the right time to give sound and spiritual advice to the brothers. Likewise, in external economic affairs, do not neglect him as if he were inexperienced, but in every undertaking, in every undertaking, always accept his blessing and advice with all humility, even if it seems to some brother in this or that matter that there is no need to ask his father, for he himself knows well what to do. This is from the evil one. This order comes from God and from the saints - in any matter, even if some brother were very experienced, first of all you need to ask the abbot and, without forcing him to give your opinion, wait for him to judge and decide; for the brother should completely humble his thoughts and, as if he knew nothing at all, approach his father and ask him whether this or that matter has his will and blessing, and, as he says, do so. And then God, seeing the brother’s humility and his true obedience (for without humility there is no obedience), will instruct the abbot’s heart with His Holy Spirit to give the one asking a useful answer and help the novice in the work begun with His invisible grace. If the abbot, not forced, himself says: “Do as you know,” then with the fear of God, relying on the prayers of your father, begin as God instructs. Having fulfilled obedience or returned from a journey, come again to your father and, having told in detail everything you have done, fall at his feet, asking for forgiveness if you have done something wrong: for it is characteristic of only Angels not to sin in anything. So, humble yourself before each other, honor each other, have God’s love for each other, and may you have one soul and one heart through the grace of Christ.” One priest, a childhood friend of the elder and his comrade at the Kyiv Academy, who was in constant correspondence with him, wrote to him about his desire to become a monk. The elder answered him as follows: “In this matter, my favorite, there is a great inconvenience. For according to John Climacus, a married man is like a man who has both his hands and feet bound; he would like to go into monasticism, but he cannot. Another thing is that you have responsibilities towards the flock of the intelligent sheep of Christ, and leaving this flock simply and at any time is not safe. Third - habits acquired during long worldly life, natural ingrained love for children and wife, addiction to the world and worldly things - are also not very easy to overcome. Being in such circumstances, could you thus free yourself from all these intractable bonds? Firstly, beloved, you need to have spiritual advice about this matter with your God-given helper and resolve this matter not without her consent. Secondly, you need to arrange for your children legally and according to God. Third - and this is the most important thing - to ask for the blessing of the archpastor for this holy cause; Will the Holy Spirit inspire him with this, and also elect an experienced successor to your flock after you? If you arrange your business in this way, then according to God it will be strong and unshakable, praiseworthy from God and from people. However, even if all the indicated obstacles were successfully removed by the grace of God, then even then you should count your spiritual possessions with great prudence, so as not to turn out to be like that gospel builder who, without calculating his means, began to build a tower and could not finish it, and so that this cup of tears and the bitter bread of monasticism would not serve you for your lack of prudence in condemnation on the day Vessels. For, according to Climacus, no one will enter the heavenly palace with a crown of victory unless he makes the first, second and third renunciation: the first renunciation is from the world and everything in the world, the second renunciation is from will and reasoning, the third renunciation is from vanity that accompanies obedience. The first of them is the easiest, but only for those who love God. The second to death requires heroism and bloody labor. The third is achieved by constant self-reproach. For all three, the invisible help of God is necessary, without which none of them is possible. So, if you hope, with the help of God’s grace, having overcome all the difficulties indicated at the beginning, to truly renounce the world and everything in the world, also renounce your will and reasoning and give yourself perfect obedience to God and God’s commandments even to death, renounce all your property down to the smallest thing, consider yourself the least and last of all, generously endure the mental abuse constantly inflicted on God’s servants the invisible enemy of our souls, and besides hunger, and thirst, and lack of everything, and reproach, and dishonor, and all oppression, and sorrow, which characterize monastic life. If you are ready to endure all this with sweetness until death for the sake of God’s love, rejoice and be merry, and glorify God and undoubtedly believe that God, with His wondrous destinies, will fulfill your godly intention, and you will be honored, albeit at the eleventh hour of your life, to work for God in an angelic form. However, do not doubt, you will receive from the all-generous right hand of God in heaven an equal reward with those who, from youth to old age, worked for God in monasticism.” Now we will move on to those letters of the elder in which he speaks out on general church issues. In these letters we see the elder speaking out in defense of the purity and truth of Orthodoxy with the same clarity, strength and firmness with which in previous letters he establishes the foundations and order of monastic life. In some cases, his word even seems too harsh to us, but this is because we ourselves have become too weak in our time. One priest named John, apparently a Uniate, doubted the truth of his confession and turned to the elder with a request to resolve his bewilderment. The elder writes to him that “the Holy Spirit Himself, emanating from the One Father and resting on the Son, inspired him with His grace to address his question to the humble and sinful, but Orthodox son of the Eastern Church,” and expresses his readiness to reveal to him in brief words his bewilderment. “The first and most important delusion of the Uniates is the teaching they accepted from the Romans that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son. This is the first and most important of all heresies, for it contains incorrect and contrary to Holy Scripture thinking about God, One in the Holy Trinity. Whoever confesses that the Holy Spirit comes from the Father and from the Son, he understands that there are two principles in God: one is the Father, the other is the Son. We, the Orthodox, confess in the Divinity the one principle of the Father, just as our Lord Jesus Christ Himself taught us in the Holy Gospel, saying that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the One Father. He says: “When the Comforter comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father” (John 15:26). And the apostle says: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17). Do you see? He says - “Father of lights”, i.e. The Father is the root and source of the Divinity; the two Lights, the Son and the Spirit from the one Light, the Father, have Their own eternal existence, the Son in birth and the Holy Spirit in procession. The divine prophet David says: “By the Word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the Spirit of His mouth all their power.” You see, he calls the Father Lord; By the word He calls the Son, as He was born from before eternity; He calls the Holy Spirit the Spirit of His mouth (and not theirs), as emanating from the One Father. Many other testimonies can be found from the Old and New Testaments, showing more clearly than the sun that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the One Father and rests on the Son, as is also revealed in the Baptism of the Lord. And all the holy interpreters of the Holy Scriptures, the ecumenical teachers of the Church, as if with one mouth, say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, and nowhere have they written that it also comes from the Son. So, if the Uniates are of one mind with the Romans in such a grave heresy, then what hope of salvation do they have if they do not clearly reject this Doukhobor heresy and unite again with the Holy Orthodox Eastern Church? Next, the elder convinces the priest to hastily flee from the union, just as Lot fled from Sodom. “Do not regret,” he writes, “neither property nor relatives, if they do not want to listen to you, but in every possible way save your own soul from destruction. For there is nothing more important to you than the soul for which Christ died. When running away, do not look back with your heart for the sake of your soon-to-be-perishing property; It is better for you to remain in poverty than to blaspheme the Holy Spirit, as the Romans blaspheme Him. Leave and flee from the union as quickly as possible, so that death does not overtake you in it, and may you not be counted among heretics and not among Christians. And not only leave yourself, but also advise others to leave, whom you know in good conscience that they will listen to you. If they do not listen, then at least get away from the snare of the enemy and unite your soul and heart with the Holy Orthodox Church, and thus, maintaining together with everyone an immaculate faith and fulfilling the commandments of Christ, you can be saved.” In 1794, the elder received from Russia a number of questions from a group of people whom he himself calls true servants of God, doers of the Gospel commandments and great zealots of piety. These were: the village of Vasilievsky, church clerk Alexander Matveev, Ioann Petrov, Matvey Yakovlev, Andrei Ioannovich, the widow Evdokia, Ivan Sergeevich from the village of Palekha, Afanasy Nikitich and others (from the letter of Elder Sophrony, the disciple and successor of Elder Paisius, to M.P. Protasyeva, it is clear that Afanasy Nikitich was an icon painter from the village Palekh and assisted Neamts in printing books). As can be seen from the questions, all these people are extremely concerned about the matter of salvation, live among schismatics, and some, perhaps, are schismatics themselves, are worried about many perplexities, fervently desire and hope to receive from the elder a word of admonition that will be useful not only for them, but also for the people around them. All the elder’s answers are aimed mainly at warning against schismatic errors. Due to their vastness, we cannot list them in full and will focus only on those that may be most relevant to our time. The elder prefaces his answers with the following introduction: “I received your second writing with special joy through our beloved brother, the monk Theophylact, and glorified God for your zeal for the immaculate preservation of the Orthodox faith and the apostolic traditions and rules contained by the Holy Church. This zeal of yours is God’s and reasonable. Prompted by her, you show such love and faith for me that, despite my lack of education, you turned to me with questions that far exceed my strength and reason and are more subject to the conciliar consideration of the Church than to my ignorant explanation. Meanwhile, you wrote me your questions with such a statement that you will accept my answers and decisions without any doubt with complete confidence. I very much praise you for your diligence, but judge for yourself how I can give answers and solutions to your questions, even though I wished this with all my heart, being, firstly, as I have already said, a simple and ignorant person, and secondly, not having the books necessary for this matter. And I don’t know what to do: should I leave your questions unanswered or should I somehow answer you according to my feeble understanding? Having spent a considerable time in such bewilderment, I decided to give in to your love for me and your faith, and your jealousy, and zeal. Most of all, I was touched by the fact that you ask and pray for me to answer with the Holy and Life-Giving Trinity. Taking all this into account, I was overcome by your love, and I pray to Almighty Christ God, that He, by His grace, will help me to begin this work and to carry it out according to the true and infallible mind of the Holy Catholic Church.” “So, your first question is this: is it possible for a true Christian to possess and read books banned by the Church and again sacrilegiously secretly printed by schismatics and distributed by them among the people, or should this not be done? I answer: The Divine Church commands not to read heretical books and not to talk with heretics. In the book of the Orthodox Confession, to the question of what the fifth commandment of the Church is, there is the following answer: those untrained in the Holy Scriptures and in other necessary sciences of heretical books should not read or listen to the harmful teachings of heretics, not even speak to them, and do not treat them according to the word of the Psalmist Prophet: “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor is there a hundred in the path of sinners” (Ps. 1:1). Elsewhere the Holy Scripture says: “Deny a heretic according to the first and second punishment” (Titus 3:10). Look carefully and notice that the Divine Church does not command everyone not to read heretical books and not to talk with heretics, but only to those untrained in the Holy Scriptures and the sciences; for the latter can very easily, by reading heretical books and becoming familiar with their teachings or carelessly entering into conversations with heretics, succumb to their ungodly and perverted wisdom; Heretical teachings often appear true in the eyes of ignorant people, while in reality they are absolutely false. Just as Satan, being darkness, is transformed into a bright angel, so heretical teachings, being darkness and completely not involved in the light of the truth of God, in the eyes of people untrained in the Holy Scriptures and in the sciences, often seem to have some semblance of truth. That is why the Church gives the commandment to those untrained in the Holy Scriptures and in the sciences not to read heretical books and not to talk with heretics, so that, due to their inexperience, they do not suffer harm from their teaching. Those who are trained in the Holy Scriptures and in the sciences are free from this commandment. Such are the holy fathers, shepherds and teachers of the Holy Church. Not only were they perfectly instructed in the Holy Scriptures by the grace of God, but they also studied all the sciences of external teaching in full and incomparably surpassed in all external wisdom not only their teachers, but also all the ancient philosophers. These God-bearing fathers, seeing how various heretics, proud of their external wisdom and turning Divine Scripture into an instrument of their philosophy, interpreting it with philosophical proofs in a false and perverted sense, raised with their teaching a constant battle against the Church of Christ, of necessity read their perverted heretical teaching and, subordinating their philosophy in everything to Divine Scripture, saw errors more clearly than the sun heretics and double invincible weapons, i.e. with theology and philosophical proofs, like a cobweb, they tore apart all their heretical intricacies and with the word of truth defended the Church of God from all heretical attacks. For philosophy, if used correctly, as the Holy and Apostolic Church teaches, corresponds to the truth of God to such an extent that it cannot be overcome by any heretical verbal intricacies; if it is used contrary to the true meaning of the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Church, as heretics do, then it becomes contrary to the truth of God, and, as it adheres to a lie, it is easily defeated by true evidence. Therefore, one who begins to read schismatic books must not be deprived of either theological reason or external teaching. For those who have not received the appropriate knowledge, it is more beneficial to obey God and the church commandment, which says: do not read heretical books and do not enter into conversations with heretics.” “Next, you ask: if someone has some doubts regarding the traditions of the Catholic Church and does not listen to its commands, for example, he is baptized with two fingers, and also doubts about any other church decrees and does not want to submit - do such people have hope of salvation, although they have done good deeds, or not? And is it possible for a priest to allow such people to go to confession and admit them to Communion of the Holy Mysteries, or is this absolutely contrary to the truth? Confirm, for God's sake, us, the poor and damned. Answer: To answer this question of yours, I consider it appropriate to tell you an incident that happened in my memory. In 1746, having come to a monastery where monks of the Russian tribe lived, I found four schismatic monks living in the desert not far from this monastery. A certain hieromonk Hosea convinced them to leave the schism and all their customs that did not agree with the church ones, and enter into communion with the Church and submit to it in everything, and through this they would receive undoubted hope of salvation. They expressed their readiness to accept all the traditions and customs of the church, if only they were allowed to be baptized with two fingers, but in no case did they want to agree to the three-fingered Orthodox constitution. Hieromonk Hosea assured them and promised that he would ask permission and blessing for this from the church authorities, as long as they were obedient to the Holy Church in all other church traditions and customs. Fully relying on his promise, the schismatic monks left their deserted home, moved to the named monastery, began to build cells for themselves, dressed in monastic dress according to the custom of the Orthodox Church and often asked Hosea to quickly fulfill the promise he had given them, but he kept putting it off. Finally, during the fast of the holy apostles, at their earnest request, he went with them to the capital Moldavian city of Iasi, where the saints were located at that time. Patriarch of Antioch Sylvester, a holy man and filled with the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, and Metropolitan Nicephorus of Moldova, a Greek, a wise man. Hieromonk Hosea, introducing the schismatic monks to them, told them in detail how he persuaded them to enter into communion with the Church and how they were ready to accept and fulfill all church traditions and customs, and only for one thing they asked and prayed with tears of condescension, that they be allowed to use the two-fingered sign when making the sign of the honorable cross; then they will accept church communion with the deepest peace of mind. In no case do they agree to abandon their two-fingered constitution and accept the three-fingered church constitution. Having listened with attention to this story, His Holiness the Patriarch and His Grace the Metropolitan said: “If you with all your soul want to join the Catholic Church, then you should, without any doubt and with all sincerity, accept all the apostolic traditions and all the customs of the Church, without any exception; then the Church would accept you into its fellowship as beloved children with great joy. And since you do not agree with all the apostolic traditions and church customs, but stand firmly and unshakably on your self-invented double-fingered constitution and do not want to submit to the Church of God in this matter and ask and pray that the Church will accept you into communion with your double-fingered constitution, can the Church fulfill your desire? Is it possible that in one and the same Catholic Church there were two customs that disagree with each other and are contrary to each other, so that the same Christians do not make the sign of the cross on themselves in the same way? And what kind of agreement will there be between Christians then? Wouldn't there be an obvious split between them then? And the Divine Church, with your two-fingered constitution, will in no case accept you into its communion, because if it accepted you, it would cause a schism throughout Greece and all Orthodox lands, similar to the schism that was caused by ignorant people in Russia. But may the Church not become the cause of a schism! Therefore, know for sure that the Church of God cannot agree to your proposal in any case, and you do not ask us for this, as an impossible thing, but go to your place and no longer remain in the monastery in which you are now, for you, as disobedient to the Church, cannot have communion with the Orthodox monks living there.” Having heard such an answer from His Holiness the Patriarch and the Metropolitan, the monks withdrew and, returning to their monastery, were very sad at Hieromonk Hosea, who had deceived them with his promise and, showering him with severe reproaches, returned to their schismatics at their original place of residence. Judge now for yourselves, lovers of Christ, if the Church did not accept schismatic monks, who were ready to accept all apostolic and church customs, for the mere failure to abandon the double-fingered constitution, into its communion, then how can it accept those who, as you write in your question, have doubts regarding the tradition of the Catholic Church, do not listen to its commands and in many other ways do not want to obey the church rules? You ask about them, do they have hope of salvation, at least for their good deeds, and is it possible for a priest to allow them to go to confession and receive Holy Communion? And pray for a reliable answer. To this I answer you: in my opinion, a schism can be twofold - either someone himself is in a schism, or he leads others into a schism, alienating them from the Church with his anti-God teaching. One who is in such a schism, even if he has done all the good deeds, even if he has shed his blood as a martyr for Christ, which undoubtedly surpasses all good deeds, in no case will he be able to atone for this mortal sin, i.e. split. If a person, even with the blood of martyrdom, cannot atone for his schism, then what hope of salvation can there be for him, and how can a priest resolve him in confession without his true appeal to the Church and grant him Communion of the Holy Mysteries? This is in no way possible, and in any case will be contrary to the truth of the Holy Church of God. I do not quote your next question verbatim, but convey only its essence. The oath and anathema, in former times, conciliarly imposed by the Eastern Patriarchs on those who opposed the Conciliar Church, i.e. against those who cross themselves with two fingers or do not submit in any other way, was this anathema subsequently resolved by some Eastern Council or not? And can any bishops, besides the Council, and without the consent and will of the Eastern Patriarchs, resolve this oath? And if none of the bishops can resolve this anathema without the will of the Eastern patriarchs, and it is not resolved from the Eastern patriarchs, then will some of the Christians, in opposition and in their unrepentance, die in this conciliar anathema? Woe to us! And will such a church commemoration be pleasant? Do not deprive us of a true explanation of this either. Answer: an oath or anathema against those who oppose the Catholic Church, i.e. on those who are baptized with two fingers or who resist and do not submit in any other way, having been collectively imposed by the Eastern Patriarchs, has the grace of Christ to remain firm, unshakable and insoluble until the end of the age. You also ask: was the imposed anathema subsequently resolved by some Eastern Council or not? I answer: could there be such a Council, with the exception of some one contrary to God and the Holy Church, which would gather to refute the truth and confirm lies? There will never be such an evil Council in the Church of Christ. You also ask: can any bishops, apart from the Council and the consent and will of the Eastern Patriarchs, authorize such an oath? I answer: this is in no way possible; There is no discord with God, but peace. Know for sure that all bishops, upon their ordination, receive the same grace of the Holy Spirit and are obliged, like the apple of their eye, to preserve the purity and integrity of the Orthodox faith, as well as all the apostolic traditions and rules of the holy apostles, ecumenical and local Councils, and God-bearing fathers, which the Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church contains. From the same Holy Spirit they received the power to knit and decide according to the order that the Holy Spirit established through the holy Apostles in the Holy Church. To destroy apostolic traditions and church rules - the bishops did not receive such power from the Holy Spirit, therefore, it is impossible for either the bishops or the Eastern Patriarchs to authorize the above-mentioned anathema on the opponents of the Catholic Church, as correctly and in accordance with the holy Councils, and if anyone attempted to do this, it would be disgusting to God and the Holy Church. You also ask: if none of the bishops can resolve this anathema without the Eastern patriarchs, then was it not resolved by the Eastern ones? I answer: not only is it impossible for any bishop without the Eastern Patriarchs, but also for the Eastern Patriarchs themselves to resolve this oath, as has already been said enough, for such an anathema is eternally insoluble. You ask: “Will some of the Christians, in their opposition and unrepentance, die in this conciliar oath? Woe to us! I answer: this question of yours contains three perplexities for me. The first is “some of the Christians.” Second: “Will they not die in their resistance and unrepentance under this conciliar anathema?” Third: “Woe to us!” In the first case, I am perplexed, what kind of Christians are they who, without any repentance, oppose the Catholic Church? Such people are not worthy to be called Christians, but according to a fair church court they should be called schismatics. True Christians obey the Holy Church in everything. Second: won’t they, in their resistance and unrepentance, die in this anathema of theirs? I am perplexed about this question of yours: for how can these imaginary Christians, remaining unrepentant in their constant disobedience to the Church, not die in this conciliar anathema? Are they immortal, the ones you wonder if they will die? And how can they not die, being mortal, and even being under anathema, and doubly mortal - both mentally and physically, just as they died under the same conciliar anathema without repentance and countless schismatics always die? Likewise, these imaginary Christians, if with all their hearts do not turn to the Church of Christ with true repentance, they will undoubtedly die under the above-mentioned conciliar anathema. My third bewilderment relates to your words: “woe is us!” These words of yours put into my soul the thought, aren’t you those certain Christians who unrepentantly oppose the Church, and fear and tremble at the anathema imposed by the Catholic Church on such opponents, and therefore ask so carefully about it, whether some Eastern Council has resolved it? Afraid of dying under anathema and unable to bear the constant remorse, you cry out: “Woe to us!” If you are true Orthodox Christians, obeying in everything the Church that gave birth to you through holy baptism, and are baptized according to the tradition of the saints by the apostle with the first three fingers of your right hand, and you ask me not about yourself, but about others, then the above-mentioned anathema does not apply to you, and therefore you should not have said about yourself so pitifully: “Woe to us!” These words of yours inspired me with the above-stated opinion about you, which may be destroyed from my soul! I ask you to give me, through a case known to you, perfect evidence of your wisdom, for we cannot have any communication with those who oppose the Holy Church and cross ourselves with two fingers. You also ask: will church commemoration be pleasant for them? I answer: if you are talking about those who oppose the Catholic Church, and die in their resistance and unrepentance, then believe me that church commemoration of such will not only not be pleasant, but will also be disgusting to both God and the Holy Church, and a priest who dares to commemorate such is mortally sinning. Remembrance for the dead is the most important part of the bloodless sacrifice made for Orthodox Christians, both living and dead. If someone, even an Orthodox Christian, clearly sins and does not repent, then the Holy Church forbids him to make a bloodless sacrifice until he completely abandons his sin and sincerely repents. If the Church does not allow a bloodless sacrifice to be made for an Orthodox open sinner who does not repent, then can she allow one to be made for someone who has died without any repentance in opposition to the Holy Church? No way. Saint Simeon, Archbishop of Thessaloniki, testifies to an obvious sinner that it is not appropriate for him to partake of the Holy Mysteries and it is impossible to make a bloodless sacrifice for him in the following words: “There is no place for the infidel or the unwise. Therefore, no priest should make a sacrifice or commemorate someone who is clearly sinning and does not repent, since this offering is a condemnation for them, just as the reception of the Terrible Mysteries is unworthy and without repentance for those who partake, as the divine Paul says about this” (Cor. 11:29). The same Simeon, about which particles should be offered: “The priests should not accept the offerings of the faithful who are obviously sinning, as happens, but first demand repentance. For communion is a part offered, and it is not proper, being unworthy, to partake of this sacrifice.” The same Simeon says that the priest should carefully observe about whom he is bringing a particle: “As beneficial as an offering is for those who bring it worthy, it is as disastrous and harmful for those who bring it unworthy, to the extent this is possible for people, for a particle brought for someone, being placed near the divine bread, after this bread is consecrated and becomes the Body of Christ, immediately that particle also partakes of the shrine; put into the chalice, it is united with the Blood, and this imparts grace to the soul for which it was offered. For there is mental communion, and if a person turns out to be devoted to reverence, or even though he has sinned, he has repented, then invisibly, as we said, he receives communion of the Spirit with his soul. In many cases, as we have seen, he also receives bodily benefits. Therefore, the priest should carefully observe, so as not to accept an offering from everyone who wishes, and not to offer for those who sin without any shame, so as not to be condemned along with them.” But no matter what the schismatic persuasion of the deceased you are asking about, to resolve this issue I will give you the answer of His Holiness Macarius, Patriarch of Antioch, to His Holiness Nikon, Patriarch of All Russia (from the book “Tablet” at the end): “We have received tradition from the beginning of the faith from the holy apostles and holy fathers, and the holy seven Ecumenical Councils, to create the sign of the honorable cross with the first three fingers of the right hand; and whoever among the Orthodox Christians does not create the cross in this way is a heretic, and we have him separated from the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and anathematized.” Note from this answer of the Holy Patriarch that if any of the Orthodox Christians does not perform on himself the sign of the honorable cross according to the tradition of the holy apostles, then for this alone he becomes a heretic and is anathematized. Isn’t the one who died in the schism about which you are asking exactly the same as someone who is not baptized with three fingers? If the one who died in the schism is the same as this one, then judge for yourself whether it is possible to bury and remember such a person according to the Christian rite? Next you ask: some priests, indulging in human self-will, confess and marry according to the old missal and cater to the schism, contrary to church tradition; Will this not result in any crime or obstacle in the action and performance of the Church Sacraments? For many in the church, both spiritual and worldly, are deceived by this through self-stumbling and self-conceit, and this causes us great sorrow, temptation and doubt. I answer: priests who have separated from the Church and from their bishops and live with schismatics become one with the schismatics, and together with them they blaspheme the Orthodox faith and the entire Church of God and the Most Holy Mysteries of Christ and all the Sacraments of the Church and the entire bishop and priestly rank. For all the above-mentioned blasphemies, such priests are no longer worthy to be called priests, but are false priests, or, more correctly, not priests. They are excommunicated from the Holy Church, alien to it, cast out from the priesthood by their bishops, and therefore how can they perform the holy Church Sacraments, or how can the Church Sacraments be performed by such? This is completely impossible, for the Holy Spirit does not perform the Church Sacraments through obvious opponents of God, bound not only by their bishops, but also by the entire Church. What power the bishop’s connection has can be understood from the following: the shrine of a certain holy martyr stood in the holy altar, and every time the deacon exclaimed: “The catechumens, come forth,” she, by the invisible power of God, came out of the Church and remained in the church vestibule until her dismissal, after which she returned to the church again and stood in her usual place. The reason for this was that this holy martyr was bound by his elder for some kind of disobedience. When the elder arrived and gave him permission, the martyr’s shrine immediately stopped leaving the church and stood unshakably in its place on the altar. Oh, how powerful is divine obedience, when the very blood of the martyr, the elder’s disciple, poured out for Christ, could not resolve the elder’s binding until the elder himself who bound him resolved it! So, if the bond of the elder, who was not a bishop, but a simple monk, was so strong, then how much stronger is the bond of the bishop! For only to the apostles and their successors, the bishops, was and is given the supernatural grace to bind and decide from Christ the Savior, who said to his disciples: “If you bind on earth, they will be bound in heaven, and if you loose on earth, they will be loose in heaven.” So, being bound from their bishops, the mentioned priests are bound forever both on earth and in heaven; and expelled from their bishops, they became alien and outsiders to the grace of the priesthood and all priestly rites and cannot perform a single Sacrament. Orthodox priests, who were justly expelled from the priesthood for great sins, are placed in the place of the laity and together with them they participate in church prayers and partake of the Divine Mysteries. And if they dared to serve the Divine Liturgy or perform other Church Sacraments, then, like rotten members, they would be completely cut off from the Church according to the twenty-eighth canon of the saints. In the book of rules, printed in Moldavian, I found one question and answer that matches my answer to this question of yours to me. Question from Saint Methodius, Patriarch of Constantinople: “If a priest is ordained by a deposed bishop, can he perform priestly services or not?” Answer of the Monk Theodore the Studite: “A tree cannot create good fruit; Likewise, a bishop deprived of grace cannot ordain priests, for he does not have a bishopric. Without having a bishop, he cannot give the priesthood. If he ordains someone, he remains unordained and cannot serve either the liturgy or other sacred rites, for he is a simple layman. A person who has something can give it to another; if he does not have the thing, how will he give?” From the above answer of the Monk Theodore the Studite, it is clear that, according to the sacred rules, the deposed priests, if they dare to perform priestly services after this, are completely cut off from the Church. Your further question is this: is it possible to bury in a Christian manner and commemorate a Christian man who suddenly died while drinking wine? For among you, as you say, many priests, classifying such as suicides, do not give Christian burials, and do not commemorate them. You ask me to answer this for you, for the sake of Christian love and benefit, and to resolve this bewilderment according to the rules. I answer: I had a great desire to resolve this bewilderment of yours according to the sacred rules, but due to my lack of art I could not find anything about this in the sacred rules, and therefore I am at a loss as to how to answer you. In two memorial Saturdays, the Meat Saturday and before the week of Pentecost, when all deceased Orthodox Christians are remembered, various images of sudden deaths are mentioned, the Catholic Church remembers the Christians who died and prays to God for the salvation of their souls. The same image of death, i.e. those who died suddenly from heavy drinking are not mentioned; and from this we can conclude that the Holy Church does not pray for such people. About these, I think, the Holy Spirit says through the Apostle Paul: “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? ...neither harlots, nor idolaters, nor adulterers... neither the covetous, nor thieves, nor drunkards will inherit the Kingdom of God.” A person who suddenly died while drinking wine, without confessing his sins and without communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ, is not guilty of causing sudden death to himself? If he had drunk a little wine with abstinence, he would not have died such a terrible and terrible, sudden death. It seems that such a person is not far from suicide, which is why your priests do not dare to bury them according to Christian custom and perform a commemoration over them. Therefore, I ask your love not to be embarrassed by this, for this thing is under great doubt and bewilderment. If someone could find a church definition about this thing in the sacred rules, then no one would have any doubts about it, but would follow the church decree with complete confidence. Your further question is the following: can a priest absolve a humbly penitent for his weakness without imposing penance and allow him to receive communion of the Holy Mysteries, or is this impossible? I answer: your question seems to me incomprehensible; Does that person repent of great sins or small ones, and does he have mental or physical weakness? Let it be that he has bodily weakness. If his bodily weakness is such that he is already approaching death and does not have time to pay penance for his sins, then, even though he has had great sins, but humbly repents of them, the priest must absolve him of his sins without penance and commune the Holy Mysteries. If he is not in such extreme weakness and can suffer penance, then without penance the priest should not allow him, for penance is the third part of the Sacrament of Penance. And one should not leave her without mortal need. What penance is and how it is assigned for sins should be explained in more detail. The Rules of the Apostle Saints, which Saint John of Damascus puts on par with the books of Divine Scripture, all the sanctified are expelled from the priestly ranks for sins, while the laity are excommunicated from communion in church prayers and from communion of the Divine Mysteries. On the basis of these apostolic rules, the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, the entire multitude of Orthodox Christians - both sanctified and unsanctified - if any of them happened to fall into some sins, guided by the Holy Spirit, corrects them from sins in the following way: sanctified, i.e. She either temporarily removes bishops, priests and deacons who have fallen into minor or great sins from the priesthood for minor sins, or prohibits them from participating in the priesthood for great sins until death, but does not excommunicate them from communion of the Divine Mysteries. Monks and lay Christians are excommunicated from communion of the Divine Mysteries for minor sins for a short time, but for great sins they are excommunicated for a long time; The Holy Church by no means prescribes any other rule or any other penance for sins to the unsanctified. The reason for this is the following: from the days of the apostles, ancient Christians for a long time throughout the entire Church of Christ, out of inexpressible love for Christ the Savior, very often received communion. When they happened to fall into small or great sins, then for a short or long time they were excommunicated from Divine Communion and from standing in the Church with the faithful and were placed at places of repentance designated by the Church: first they stood in front of the church doors and, falling down with tears, asked everyone entering the church to pray to God for them, so that God would forgive their sins; Over time, they were allowed to stand in the great vestibule at the church doors, and they listened to church singing and readings, but did not enter the church itself; after that, they were allowed to stand in the church itself behind the pulpit at all church services and only during the Divine Liturgy after the Gospel, when the deacon exclaimed: “Catechumens, come forth,” they went into the church vestibule and remained there until the end of the liturgy. Then they were rewarded with standing with the faithful, but did not partake of the Holy Mysteries. Finally, having received permission from the penance, they were allowed again, as before the sin, to partake with faith and love of the Divine Mysteries. How did they behave during penance? You should know that the Church has given the power to bishops, seeing the worthy fruits of the repentance of those who repent, to shorten the period of penance determined by the sacred rules. I also inform you that I diligently searched in all the sacred rules to see if there were any penances without excommunication from communion of the Holy Mysteries, and I could not find it. But it’s scary to think how terrible and threatening the punishment is imposed on those who dare to give communion to those who sin without excommunication from the Holy Mysteries, and who receive communion without such penance: the Church likens both of them to Judas the traitor. Your further question is the following: when particles are taken out at the proskomedia for the living and the dead, do they have the same power and benefit both when a separate particle is taken out for each person commemorated, and when one common part is taken out for many? We ask you to enlighten us, the bad ones, on this. I answer: the particles taken out at proskomedia for the living and the dead, uniting with the Most Pure Mysteries of Christ, immediately partake of the shrines and grace of the Holy Spirit, and impart the same benefit and grace to those for whom they are offered, whether a separate particle is taken out for each, or one common particle is taken out for many. And this is clearly evident from the very rite of proskomedia: for, having accepted the fourth prosphora, the priest takes out only one particle from it for the entire consecrated rite, for all living Orthodox Christians in the entire Church of Christ. Also, from the fifth prosphora, for all the departed Orthodox Christians, he takes out one particle. The Catholic Church believes and confesses that although one particle is offered for all living Orthodox Christians and for all the departed, the same benefit is brought to them by the grace and holiness of the Holy Spirit, as if a separate particle were offered for each Orthodox Christian: for the omnipotent grace of the Holy Spirit does not fail, being one and the same, bringing the same benefit with a bloodless sacrifice and a single particle for each one separately and in one piece for many. Next, you ask - is it possible, out of special desire and zeal, at the proskomedia, to ask the priest to remember the names and take out parts for those saints whom, out of love for them, you want to remember, especially for those whose names are not mentioned in the missal, is it possible, out of zeal, to give for them to the proskomedia, so that these saints are especially remembered so that they pray for us sinners? I answer: although what is written in your question does not seem incorrect to you, but since all the orders of saints, although not all by name, are nevertheless remembered to one by nine particles offered in honor of them, then if a priest, at the desire and zeal of some lovers of Christ, were asked in honor of some saints, not mentioned in the order of the missal, to bring some particles, in addition to those 9 particles, then putting these new particles in the ranks of the previous ones, he would constitute the fourth row of particles taken out as saints; if he wants to take out particles for a larger number of saints, then a fifth row of particles will be formed, taken out in honor of the saints: for the parts taken out for the saints should be placed with the particles of the saints, and not in any other place, separately from the nine parts; and if the priest had dared to do this, he would have destroyed the rite of the holy liturgy, which has been inviolably observed in the entire Orthodox Church since the beginning of the faith, and would have elevated his own new rite, hitherto unheard of, to the rite of the liturgy. From such innovations various heresies and schisms usually arise, from which may Christ preserve all who truly believe in Him. Those who have faith and love for the saints should be content with 9 particles and should not look for special particles to be taken out in honor of some saints. And let them invoke the prayers of those saints, so that through their prayers they may receive God’s mercy and forgiveness of their sins. Next, you ask whether one priest can perform the Sacrament of Anointing, or cannot, because you have such a custom that one priest with a deacon and a clergyman perform this Sacrament? I answer: the book of the Orthodox Confession says that this Sacrament should be performed by priests, and this is completely in accordance with the Holy Scripture, which says: “If anyone is sick in you, let him call the elders of the church, and let them perform a prayer over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord”; but it cannot be performed by a priest alone, which is not in accordance with Holy Scripture and contrary to church tradition. Saint Simeon, Archbishop of Thessalonica, in his book says: “Is it possible for one priest to perform the consecration of oil? It is not appropriate for one priest to perform this Sacrament, for it is said: “let them call the elders of the church,” and not just one elder, and this order must be preserved. Just as a bishop is not ordained by one bishop, so the blessing of unction is not performed by one presbyter (Chapter 283). Why are there seven elders in the consecration of oil, and why are there very often three due to a lack of priests? The Brother of the Lord does not indicate the number of elders, but the custom established to call seven. I consider the basis for this to be the seven-numbered gifts of the Spirit in Isaiah or the seven Old Testament priests, who, at the command of God, sounded the trumpet seven times around Jericho and thereby overthrew its walls; so that these too, i.e. New Testament priests, overthrew the evil city and the cruel walls of sinful offerings; Perhaps, in imitation of the prophet Elisha, who prayed seven times over the youth and raised him from his deathbed, the New Testament priests with their seven-day prayer should raise the dead soul; or just as the prophet Elijah, having prayed seven times, opened the sky, closed with sins, and brought down rain, so these, having prayed seven times, will loose the dry land of sin and bring down rain of mercy from God and the remission of sins. This, it seems to me, is the meaning of the seven-day number of priests. Some, where there is a shortage of elders, call only three, and this should not be condemned, for this points first of all to the dogma of the Most Holy Trinity, and then to the testimony of the Trinity of the prophet Elijah, when he raised the dead son of the Sarepta widow, having prayed three times and prostrated himself over him three times. But one should not search much about the number, but must adhere to the ancient tradition. Let the presbyter alone not perform the Blessing of Anointing.” From these words of Saint Simeon it is clear that it is not appropriate for a priest to perform the Sacrament of Anointing; if necessary, at least three priests must perform it. In one Slavic book I found that, if necessary, this Sacrament can be performed by two priests, but in Greek books I did not find this. Enough said. To your last question, in which you ask me how it is possible for you to be saved, living in peace with your wives and children, I answer: who can cover in a short word everything related to the matter of salvation? I can only give you my advice, so that you read with the greatest diligence the Divine Scripture and the teaching of our holy fathers, to whom it was given to understand the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, i.e. the true meaning of Holy Scripture; their spiritually enlightened teaching contains in perfection all the instructions necessary for spiritual salvation, encouraging everyone who wants to be saved to force himself to do every good deed and to flee from every deed that is contrary to God. By diligently and diligently, with faith and love, with the fear of God and with all attention, reading their teachings, you will have constant admonition for every good deed necessary for salvation. I, with all my unworthiness, taking into account that you are looking for instruction from me, can answer you the following: the Most Merciful God accomplishes the salvation of the souls of Orthodox Christians through the Orthodox faith, good deeds and His grace. The Orthodox faith is that which contains the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, and without this faith it is in no way possible for anyone to be saved. Good deeds are the gospel commandments, without which, like without the Orthodox faith, it is also impossible for anyone to be saved: the Orthodox faith without good deeds is dead, and good deeds without the Orthodox faith are dead. Anyone who wants to be saved needs to combine both, and thus, through the grace of Christ God, who said: “without Me you can do nothing,” achieve salvation. You should know that Christ the Savior equally legitimized good deeds for all Orthodox Christians, both monks and lay people, living among the world with their wives and children, and seeks and demands from everyone the most diligent fulfillment of His commandments, so that those who violate them and do not repent will have no excuse and cannot give an answer at His terrible and second coming. And all Orthodox Christians, male and female, of all ages and ranks, healthy and lying on their beds with various ailments, weak and elderly, can all, with the assistance of God’s grace, without any difficulty, fulfill Christ’s commandments by their good will and spiritual humility alone, and thus be saved. The Gospel commandments, at least the most important and most general of them, are so necessary for salvation that even if one of them were not fulfilled, there could be no salvation for the soul. These are: love for God and neighbor, meekness and humility, peace with everyone and patience, forgiveness from the heart of sins to one’s neighbor, non-judgment, non-hatred towards one’s neighbor, love for one’s enemies, giving alms to one’s neighbor, both mental and physical, and other commandments of Christ indicated in the Holy Gospel. You must try to fulfill all of them with all your zeal, especially to love God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your thoughts and your neighbor as yourself; following the meekness of Christ, resist the passion of anger to the point of bleeding, have peace with everyone, so necessary that Christ Himself repeatedly said to his disciples: “Peace be with you,” “Peace I leave with you,” “My peace I give to you.” Where the peace of Christ is, there Christ dwells; in a soul that does not have the peace of Christ, Christ does not dwell. Patience is so necessary for salvation that Christ says: “In your patience you will gain your souls.” The acquisition of souls is nothing other than the salvation of souls. And you need to have patience not only for a certain time, but until death, for “he who endures to the end will be saved.” He who forgives his neighbor for his sins with all his heart, who does not condemn his neighbor, will not himself be condemned by God. But who can briefly enumerate all the commandments of the Gospel, which everyone who wants to be saved must keep and observe like the apple of his eye? Humility, which is the basis of all the commandments of the Gospel, is as necessary for salvation as breathing is for human life. All saints were saved in various ways, but without humility no one was saved and cannot be saved. Therefore, everyone who wants to be saved must from the bottom of his heart consider himself the last of all before God and consider only himself guilty of every sin, and not anyone else. Thus, fulfilling with the help of God all the commandments of the Gospel and humbling himself before God, he is awarded the mercy of God, the forgiveness of his sins and the acceptance of the grace of God. By the grace of God he achieves the salvation of his soul with all certainty. In addition, Orthodox Christians must carefully observe all church commandments. The Sacrament of Repentance consists in truly repenting before God, retreating from one’s sins, having a strong determination with God’s help not to return to them again, then confessing all one’s sins before one’s confessor, as before God Himself, receiving from him remission of sins, and accepting from him the penance assigned to them for sins according to the rites of the church. Regarding preparation for Communion of the Divine Mysteries, I will say the following: it is necessary to begin Communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ with a sincere confession, with fasting and tenderness, having been completely reconciled with everyone, having listened, according to Christian custom, to all the rules of the church, without having any penance that does not allow one to receive Communion, with fear and trembling, with faith and love and with worship befitting the One God, so that Communion was for the remission of sins and eternal life. About how to build the life of your home and wife and children, about all Christian duties, you can find the most perfect instruction in the writings of St. John Chrysostom and other saints. So, my answers to your questions, which at your insistent request, or rather, at your compulsion, I had to write against my will, have come to an end with the help of God. You, lovers of Christ, who wrote to me with your questions, forgive me, a sinner, if I could not, at your request, due to my lack of skill, give you the proper answers to your questions according to the sacred rules: for I could not find rules suitable for all answers. Having received my answers, read them with attention, and if you find anything in them that is consistent with Holy Scripture and true church reason, then follow it. If in my answers, as a person, I sinned in something, then you do not follow my sin, but adhere to the sound mind and reasoning of the Holy Catholic Church in everything, and thus you will never sin. May the God of love and peace be with you all. Amen. Concluding with this presentation of the letters of Elder Paisius, which were at our disposal, we move on to the description of the last days of his life and his death. Chapter 5. THE LAST YEARS OF THE LIFE OF ELDER PAISIO, HIS NEAR-DEATH ILLNESS AND DEATH AND HIS GRACEFUL GIFTS We described the life and work of Elder Paisius during his stay in Dragomirna and Neamtsa, as the leader of the monastic brotherhood and as a worker in correcting the text of the fatherly books and as a defender of true monasticism and Orthodoxy in his correspondence with various persons. In these various works and worries, many years of his life passed unnoticed, and, finally, he approached the inevitable exodus from this temporary world to the eternal world. The elder's last years in Neamts were overshadowed by the terrible disasters of the war that broke out in the area close to Neamts. According to the elder’s biography, a fierce battle arose again between three empires: Russian, Austrian and Turkish. The steppes were filled with troops, the seas were covered with ships, the cities and villages of Moldova were deserted: the inhabitants fled to the mountains and forests, the Nyamets Lavra was filled with fugitives who settled both inside and around the monastery. Austrian troops arrived and occupied the Moldavian foothills. The fugitives felt safe from the Turks and began to return to their homes. But this security did not last long. The Turks gathered their strength and pushed back the Austrians, who retreated to their border. The town of Nyamets was occupied by the Turks, who entered it without firing a shot and without shedding blood, not counting three people killed for their resistance to the Turks. A rumor spread in the monastery that the Turks, having occupied a place located 15 kilometers from the monastery, were moving towards the monastery. Indescribable horror gripped those who were in the monastery and those who sought salvation there. The boyars sent soldiers to find out what the Turks were doing, but the soldiers returned, not knowing anything reliable out of fear. Without accurate information about the actions of the Turks, the inhabitants of the monastery did not know what to do. Some advised not to close the monastery gates, to go out to meet the Turks and beg them for mercy. Others persuaded them to lock themselves in the monastery and offer armed resistance to the Turks. Finally, one monk volunteered, with the blessing of the elder, to go to the town and find out what was going on there. He safely reached Neamets, walked freely throughout the town, and learned from one of the peasants that the Turks had abandoned Neamets. When the monk brought this news to the monastery, everyone calmed down. However, the joy was short-lived; the next day they learned that the Turks had returned to the town again. Then the boyars and the elder moved to Sekul, and the rest of the population of the monastery fled to the forests. This was during the second week of Great Lent. Finally, the Austrians came again and forced the Turks to retreat. Meanwhile, Russian troops entered Moldova. The commander-in-chief of the Russian army, Prince Potemkin, arrived in Iasi, and with him the Archbishop of Slovenia and Poltava Ambrose. Archbishop Ambrose wished to see the famous elder Paisius and arrived at the Nyametsky monastery, where he was greeted with great honor by the elder and the entire monastic brotherhood. This was in 1790. After living in the monastery for two days, Archbishop Ambrose celebrated the liturgy on Sunday, during which he elevated the elder to the rank of archimandrite. Thus, the Poltava native Paisiy (Velichkovsky) received the rank of archimandrite from the Poltava Archbishop Ambrose. Having lived a few more days in Neamtsa and given a blessing to everyone, Archbishop Ambrose left the monastery, accompanied by the entire brotherhood with great gratitude and glory. Archbishop Ambrose is known for his holy life, and his relics rest incorruptibly in the Poltava Monastery of the Exaltation of the Cross. After the events we described, four years passed in the usual labors and worries of the elder and the brethren. The year 1794 arrived. The elder continued to work tirelessly, wrote letters, worked on translating patristic books, led the life of the brotherhood, but his strength was noticeably weakening. According to the testimony of life writers, Elder Paisios in the last years of his life received the brethren and visitors only from morning until noon. The rest of the time he spent alone in his cell studying. Only confessors could come to him at this time. Once a year, the elder went around and walked around the homes of his disciples, blessed them and prayed to God to keep them unharmed from all evil. Shortly before his dying illness, he stopped personally translating; He did not stop reviewing and correcting translations until the last days of his life. After November 5th he felt particularly weak and had to go to bed. He spent four days in this position. On Sunday he felt better and wanted to listen to the liturgy. Arriving at church, he sat in his usual place. During Communion, he entered the altar and received the Holy Mysteries. After the service, he felt so weak that he was barely able to return to his cell, supported by the brethren. Three more days passed. The elder's weakness increased. The brothers Honorius and Martyrius who served him did not allow anyone to see him, with the exception of the closest people, since the elder wanted to die in complete silence. On the fourth day, feeling the approach of death, the elder once again received Holy Communion. Then he called to himself two senior confessors, Sophrony - for the Slavic brethren, - and Sylvester - for the Moldavian, and through them he taught peace and blessing to the entire brotherhood. The elder did not appoint anyone as his successor, leaving this to the will of God, the election of the Mother of God and the desire of the brotherhood itself. After this, he died quietly, as if falling asleep, on November 15, 1794, at the 72nd year of his life. Immediately after the death of the elder, a notice about this was sent to Metropolitan Yakov. The Metropolitan entrusted the burial of the elder to Bishop Benjamin of Tuma, later Metropolitan of Moldova. When rumors about the death of the elder spread, a lot of people gathered in Nyamets: laymen, monks, priests, boyars, and ordinary people of both sexes. They waited for Bishop Benjamin for three days and, without waiting, on the fourth day the whole cathedral performed the funeral service and burial of the elder in the Great Church of the Ascension of the Lord on the right side of the entrance. The day after the burial of the elder, Bishop Benjamin arrived and the next morning celebrated the liturgy and requiem service for the deceased. And a few days later, after the election of the entire brotherhood and with the blessing of the metropolitan, in accordance with the statutes of the Paisian brotherhood, he appointed the elder confessor of the brotherhood, Father Sophrony, as an elder and head of the monastery. A slab was subsequently laid on the grave of Elder Paisius, on which the following inscription was made in Romanian and Slavic: “Where rests our blessed father hieroschemamonk and archimandrite Elder Paisius, a Little Russian, who came from Mount Athos with 60 disciples to Moldavia and here gathered many brethren and renovated the hostel with himself, returning to the Lord November 15, 1794, in the days of the pious ruler Mikhail Sudzhu, the governor and the Right Reverend Metropolitan Jacob.” One of the elder’s disciples composed a “Funeral Lament” for the deceased of all his spiritual children. (See Appendix 3 at the end of the book). From the very first days after the death of their elder, the brethren of the Nyametsky monastery had undoubted confidence in the power of his prayers for all those who turn with faith and love to his heavenly intercession, and an expression of this confidence was the fact that soon after his death a special service (stichera and canon) was compiled “to our blessed father, the elder hieroschemamonk and archimandrite Paisius,” in which the deceased glorified as a great saint of God, through whose prayers spiritual salvation and physical health are given to believers. To familiarize yourself with this service, we present some excerpts from it. From the stichera on “I cried to the Lord”: Having ascended to the height of virtues, you asceticized monastically, Our Father Paisius, teaching, chastising and admonishing not to neglect the godly path: you yourself, being jealous, were jealous of the lives of the ancient saints, you were an image of blessings to all: you endured many troubles, even with patience, many feats and love, he assured everyone about him: having written to us testimonies from the Holy Scriptures. You were a skillful doctor, and you healed those who came to you with easy healing: not reproaching them with an attack of illness, but as if you were skillful with your patience in the hearts of their feelings, you decided not to come close to such harm: having influenced your healing into the very depths of the wounds, you completely healed them, and you sent them away joyfully and peacefully, so that they might fearlessly come to your healing, Our Father Paisie. From the Canon: Sitting in your cell, going around everyone with your mind, you considered the various mental and physical wounds of many different natures, and you applied a healing and pleasant plaster to everyone, Father. Even though you were sick, and you had many wounds on your body, you healed many spiritual wounds of those who came to you with your good custom and gentle words, Father Paisius. Sedalen: One summer you left your cell, Father Paisius, and you surveyed the villages of your disciple, riding, surveying and marking each of their cells to the setting sun, and you prayed with tears, handing them over to God and saying: Lord, protect this little flock and save it from the wolves that are destroying it. Forgive me, who transgressed your commands, who neglected your holy will, who is envious and crafty more than all people, who fulfills his will more than the devil, kindly father, by your good and meek custom, and pray to God to grant us time to repentance. I alone walked in your light, and did not feel your light; I am the only one who eats your sweet food, and I do not know my feeder; I only drank your sweet drink, and I did not feel the sweet spring flowing from your lips; I am one sheep that strays from your flock, a good shepherd; Don’t be angry with me, beg God to grant me time to repent. Even during his lifetime, Elder Paisius was distinguished by the extraordinary gift of fiery, tearful prayer, during which the always bright and magnificent face of the elder was even more enlightened and animated by the inner fire of prayerful feeling. This is what his cell attendant says in the biography of the elder he compiled: “Once, it was still in Dragomirna, I came to him before Vespers and wanted to knock on the door to find out if I could enter him; but since the door was open, I said a prayer and went straight into the cell. Seeing the elder lying down, I bowed and said: “Bless, father.” The elder did not answer. I looked at him and saw that his face seemed to be on fire, whereas usually it was white and pale. I was overcome with horror. After standing for a while, I repeated the prayer in a louder voice. The elder did not answer this time either. I realized that the elder was immersed in prayer, which caused his face to heat up. After standing a little longer, I left without telling anyone about what I had seen.” Much time later, the same disciple saw the elder’s face illuminated two more times during a conversation with the brethren. In addition to the gift of prayer, the elder in some cases showed foreknowledge of future events. So he foresaw the terrible death of the governor Grigory Ghika. Shortly before the death of the governor, the elder saw several times in a dream a sword hanging by a thread over the governor’s head. Soon after, by order of the Turkish Sultan, the governor's head was indeed cut off, about which the elder cried a lot. Another time, the elder was very sad about one brother from his dormitory, and often reminded him about correcting his life, but the brother did not listen to him. Three days later this brother drowned. The elder strongly begged the other brother not to leave the monastery and finally said to him with tears: “Brother, listen to me, for you will not see the place where you want to go!” The brother did not listen and on the fourth day he died on the way, about which the elder also cried a lot. Through the prayers of the elder, there were also cases of miraculous healings, which the elder, in his deep humility, completely attributed to the intercession of the Mother of God. In addition to these grace-filled gifts, the elder was also characterized by many other gifts, thanks to which he successfully fulfilled the ministry assigned to him by God on earth. These were: the gift of wisdom and reason and at the same time the gift of deep self-knowledge, about which the elder’s favorite teacher of silence, the Monk Isaac the Syrian, says: “He who is worthy to see himself is more blessed than he who has seen an Angel”; the gift of deep knowledge of the Greek and Slavic languages; the gift of understanding the high meaning of the patristic ascetic writings; the gift of teaching and the construction of a monastic hostel; the gift of advice, with which he correctly and accurately, in accordance with the teaching and instruction of the holy fathers, offered useful instructions to everyone who needed them, thanks to which they succeeded in humility, patience and love; the gift of spiritual strength, with which he remained calm and unshakably believing in the Providence of God in all sorrows and temptations; the gift of the fear of God, thanks to which he sacredly kept all the commandments of God and was ready to lay down his soul for each of them; the gift of love for God, which was kindled in him from early youth, never left him and flared up in him more and more, so that he warmed others with his love and ardor, had a heartache for everyone and had compassion for everyone, without pushing away anyone who needed help and consolation; the gift of peacefulness, thanks to which he knew how to keep peace with everyone, not to be offended by anyone and not to despise anyone; the gift of long-suffering and meekness, thanks to which he never appeared angry or upset, but always remained clear, meek and patient; the gift of gentleness and infantile simplicity with deep intelligence; the gift of consolation, with which he could pacify and calm the saddest and most despondent with his words; the gift of deep humility and self-reproach, thanks to which he accepted the blame on himself for all the troubles that happened in the brotherhood; and, finally, as the basis of all these gifts and as a result of his unflagging fulfillment of the commandments of God, the constant preservation of purity of heart and unceasing inner prayer, his acquisition of the grace of the Holy Spirit, from which gift a constant source of Divine teaching emanated from his lips, delighting souls and drying up all evil passions. Thanks to all these gifts, Elder Paisios was able to accomplish his great work, namely: “To renew the dilapidated monastic order, restore the fallen common life, instill in it the blessed obedience, enlighten with his teaching those sitting in the darkness of ignorance, enlighten with correction and a new translation from Greek into his own theological and patristic books.” You might be interested in: