Капитан I ранга С. П. Бурачок. К прославлению памяти великого угодника Божия батюшки отца Иоанна Кронштадтского

On one of my trips from Peterhof to Kronstadt by ship, I, approaching the ship at the Oranienbaum pier, saw an extraordinary crowd of people, especially on the ship itself. I immediately learned that Father John was coming. Considering it inconvenient to impose my company on a person who was already tired of being persecuted by various petitioners, in which conditions this amazing and exceptional man was constantly in, I decided to go to the bridge of the ship, free from people, in order to thereby exclude the possibility of a meeting, and what was my surprise: the priest whom I had been avoiding was coming towards me, and with a feeling of love and attention, he gave me God’s blessing with the words: “Why don’t you, Stepan, come to me? come to early mass, just as your father used to come.” Mrs. E.N., a sickly, weak woman, burning with the desire to build a church of God on one of the outskirts of Russia, when meeting with the priest, asked for his influence on the wealthy people to collect donations. Father John blessed E.N. with the words: “Go and build!” - But how, father, can I build without any funds? “I’m telling you: go and build, everything will be fine,” the priest said sternly and impressively. E.N. was afraid to get into arguments and obeyed, as a result of which, to E.N.’s great surprise, the church was actually built without hindrance with the unexpectedly large participation and sympathy of the donors. Father could not stand smoking tobacco, calling it one of the passions harmful to the human soul, similar to drunkenness. This is how he weaned my father, and this is how he weaned me off too. Being spoiled not only by the environment of my life, but also by myself, it almost never occurred to me to give up this convenient and pleasant habit, especially since attempts to quit always brought a spoiled mood and deprived me of that favorite comfort of “smoking,” which lasted me for eighteen years. I smoked a lot. And then one day, during the difficult experiences that happened to me, as I remember now, on December 9, 1913, I came to the tomb of Father John, and I had one prayer: “Thy will be done.” Three days later I became seriously ill with bilateral abscesses in the throat, which almost cost me my life, and I began to want to give up my favorite habit of smoking, which I told Doctor Professor Bogdanov-Berezovsky about, the latter was distrustful of this desire, having learned that I had been subject to this passion for eighteen years, and, smiling, said: “Look, get better and smoke again.” Now twenty years have passed since I quite easily, despite my spoiled state, left this passion that strongly controls people. Not only the fact described in itself, but also my personal inner conviction led me to the clear conclusion that the Will of God, on which I relied in my short prayer that came from the depths of my soul, according to the holy prayers of the Righteous Father of God, Father John, delivered me from a highly developed passion, which we, people, out of personal convenience and licentiousness, do not like to see and recognize, preferring to be blind in this regard. I heard about the power of Father John’s prayer on many occasions; this was the case of the healing of a demon-possessed woman who terribly reviled the priest, unable to bear even his presence; she was held by several people. When Father John knelt before the holy icons and, bent over, went into prayer, the sick woman began to convulse, sending blasphemy and curses at him, mocking God and him, but then she became quiet and lost consciousness. When Father John got up from prayer, his whole face and head were covered with sweat, like water, and approached the sick woman, blessing her, the sick woman opened her eyes and, bursting into tears, crouched at the priest’s feet, she was greatly weakened, but completely healthy. This healing, which was clear to everyone, made a stunning impression on those present. I am happy to testify to the truth, connected with the holy memory of the great Righteous One of our time, on whom the grace of God rested so palpably even for an outsider. I remember a time when my brother was sick. Father John blessed the apple and ordered his brother to eat it, and by the evening, to the surprise of everyone, the brother turned out to be completely healthy. The distinctive features of Father John were the spoken words of prayer; and in these seemingly daring exclamations and movements there was so much faith, love and sincerity that it seemed as if not only with his heart, but with his whole soul, he was turning to the boundless mercy of God, asking for help and intercession for weak, people of little faith. Father himself said: “I often feel how easily prayer rises, and sometimes how heavily it spreads along the ground and does not rise easily,” and in these cases he said, complained with the words: Father John is truly God's chosen one, burning with faith in God, showing the noblest example of human life for the salvation of people. And how vile the sect of the Johannites turned out to be, unleashed on him as a lamp of God’s grace in order to denigrate him with their perverted, blasphemous understandings. Truly, the devil exists and does not sleep, trying to denigrate the bright if possible with the hands of our enlightened intelligentsia, who often consider the Divine Truth to be a prejudice and try to debunk the aura of holiness, seeing in the Johannite sect an accusation of the blessed memory of the deceased shepherd. But Truth will always triumph, even if evil might temporarily win. So it happened here: after all the trials sent down to us, in what a halo and holiness the torch of Orthodoxy burns in the person of the holy memory of Father John.