Spiritual certificate of St. Demetrius of Rostov, which he wrote with his own hand

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Here I am, the humble Bishop Dimitri, Metropolitan of Rostov and Yaroslavl, I hear the voice of my Lord speaking in the Holy Gospel: “Be ready, for at this hour, remember not, the Son of Man will come: for you do not know when the Lord will come, in the evening or at midnight or at the sound of a noose, or in the morning, lest he come suddenly and find you sleeping” ( Luke 12:40 ; Mark 13:35,36 ). Hearing this voice of the Lord and being afraid, in addition, being obsessed with frequent ailments and exhausted in body day by day, waiting all the time for this unexpected hour of death, announced by the Lord, preparing with my strength for the departure from this life, I decided with this spiritual letter to notify anyone who wants to look for my cell property, so that he does not work in vain and does not bother him who served me for God's sake. Let him know that I have not collected treasures and riches since my youth (I say this not out of vanity, but to notify those who seek my property). From the time I took the monastic form and took monastic vows in the Kiev Cyril Monastery in the eighteenth year of my life, and promised God to maintain voluntary poverty, from then on, and even until I approached the tomb, I did not acquire property or money, except for holy books, did not collect gold and silver, avoided having extra clothes or any things other than the most necessary, but as far as possible I tried to observe both in spirit and in deed. lack of wealth and monastic poverty, did not care about myself, but placed everything on the providence of God, which never left me. The alms that came from my benefactors, as well as the cell parish according to my position, I spent all this on my needs and on the needs of the monasteries, where I had to be an abbot, an archimandrite, and then a bishop. I did not collect cell parishes (of which there were very few), but I spent partly on my own needs, and partly on the needs of those in need, where as God commanded. So, let no one work after my death, looking for any cell property, for I did not leave even for burial or memorial, so that at my death my monastic poverty would be fully revealed before God. I believe that He will be more pleased if not a single coin remains after me than if a large property remains. And if no one wants to give me, such a beggar, an ordinary burial, then I pray to those who always remember their death: let them take my sinful body to some wretched house and throw it there among the corpses. If, by the will of the rulers, it is ordered to bury me according to custom, then I pray to the Christ-loving burials: let them bury me in the monastery of St. James, Bishop of Rostov, in the church hall where I chose the place. I'm beating about this. Whoever wants to remember my sinful soul free of charge in his prayers for the sake of God, may he himself be remembered in the kingdom of heaven. If anyone expects a reward for commemoration, I pray that he should not remember me as a beggar, for I left nothing for commemoration. May God be merciful to everyone and to me, a sinner, forever, amen. Here is my will, here is my spiritual charter, my notice of my estate. If someone, not having faith in this announcement, diligently begins to look for gold and silver after me, then even though he will work a lot, he will not find anything, and may God judge him for this. Written in the God-saved city of Rostov, in the bishop’s house, in 1707, on the 4th day of April.