Глава XVII

The Right Reverend Ignatius spent the winter from 1866 to 1867 worrying about preparing for publication his chosen sayings and stories from the lives of holy monks, of which the 5th volume was compiled, published after his death under the title “Fatherland.” At the same time, he did not leave other articles to be continued, some of them started, some of which he added to. This winter, he compiled an article, just like “Fatherland,” from the sayings of the holy fathers - “On the patience of sorrows,” wrote an article “On the attitude of a Christian to his passions” and significantly expanded “The Conversation of an Elder with his Disciple about the Jesus Prayer.” This replenishment was caused by questions posed by people who read the article in its original form, published in 1865 in the first volume of “Ascetic Experiences”. Days passed by days, the health status of the Eminence, apparently, changed little. Those around him were accustomed to seeing him constantly ill, weak in strength, but at the same time constantly dressed, constantly busy working at his desk or in prayerful feats, and nothing apparently expressed the proximity of his death, although he sometimes complained of heart pain, leg disease and other ailments, but all of them passed as temporary and fairly ordinary phenomena, which did not in the least change the order of his daily activities. Despite the various ailments that he reported to those around him, no one heard his painful groan. He said more than once that, forcing himself not to groan in illness, he accustomed himself to endure whatever came his way, and according to the custom of the Athonite ascetics, without undressing either day or night, except to change his linen, until the very hour of his death, he seemed to hide from those around him with this unchanging external order of life the very danger of his situation. On April 16, 1867, on the day of the Holy Resurrection of Christ, having performed the liturgy, the bishop was so tired that they hardly brought him to his cell. It turned out that he needed a half-hour rest to gather the strength to eat. On the same day, he announced to those around him that after Vespers no one would disturb him, for from that hour of the day he would not receive anyone, citing the reason for this order as “the need to prepare for death.” The clergy who served him on this day all attest that during the transfusion of the Holy Gifts, the bishop’s face became unusually brightened. The next day, the 17th, the birthday of Emperor Alexander Nikolaevich, the Right Reverend listened to the liturgy, standing in the altar, but went out to serve a prayer of thanks, and read the final prayer of thanks with such a strong, deeply gracious expression that he drew everyone’s attention to this circumstance. Who could believe that this was the saint’s last exit from his cells, returning to which he never left them again, although his ordinary life in labor, in heroism, in illness flowed invariably in the usual sequence. On April 21, the 3rd and 4th volumes of his works were sent from St. Petersburg, just out of print. The Right Reverend crossed himself and, giving glory to God, without opening or looking at the books, he ordered them to be left until his brother, Pyotr Alexandrovich, arrived from St. Petersburg. This indifference was completely contrary to the caring and naturally active character and the previous attention of the Eminence to the publication of his creations, which he looked upon as an obligatory fulfillment of his duty. It is impossible not to notice that, since the arrival of his brother was a completely uncertain circumstance, by the above-mentioned order the Right Reverend completely removed himself from the work that, in the natural order, was the closest to him, as a shepherd and author, among all his earthly affairs. Around this time, explaining to Archimandrite Justin his spiritual state, he conveyed to him that he had lost all sympathy for everything earthly, even lost attention to the taste of food, and added: “I won’t last long.” He repeatedly repeated to his beloved cell attendant Vasily Pavlov 270 that it is very useful to ask the Lord to notify the day of his death. “It is very good,” he said, “if the Lord informs someone of his approaching death; only these notifications are almost always inaccurately determined, so that the person remains in constant fear. Saint Tikhon prayed to the Lord: “Tell me, Lord, when will I die?” He was told: “On the day of the week,” but it was not said which day. So, get ready for every Sunday.” April 23, Sunday, Holy Week Apostle Thomas, the Right Reverend lay in bed all day due to general ill health. The next day, Monday, he wrote to the rector of the Nikolo-Ugreshsky Monastery of the Moscow diocese, Archimandrite Pimen, that he was so weak that he was waiting for death, and further said: “Yesterday (Sunday) I lay there all day, waiting for death, and today I’m wandering around again.” Even during Holy Week, the bishop said that he had a small stroke, but since it did not leave any traces of pain, this circumstance did not arouse any serious concerns. On April 25 the blow was repeated. Archimandrite Justin asked for a blessing to send for the doctor, but the Reverend with firmness, in a peaceful and calm mood, said decisively: “No need,” repeating several times: “It’s so easy for me, it’s good.” On April 27, Thursday, the Eminence asked one of his servants, Hieromonk Kallistos, to rub him with pine oil; after the rubbing was completed, he asked Callistus for forgiveness and said that he had accepted this service from him for the last time. To the hieromonk’s question: “Doesn’t he like butter?” - answered: “No, but my days are numbered.” On the 28th, Friday, after lunch, the Right Reverend, as usual, lay down to rest, but soon got up and ordered tea to be served. Cell attendant Vasily, noticing the unusual redness of the face, asked about the reason. The Lord explained this as a consequence of a weak blow, which, although it did not cause any special damage, but, in general, he felt so unwell that he expected death. At these words, which struck the young man with grief and horror, his first thought was expressed by the question: “How can I live without you, Vladyka? After all, it’s very difficult these days!” The Bishop replied: “Yes, Father, it is very, very difficult, so difficult that you cannot even imagine, and I thought about you and betrayed both myself and you to the will of God.” When the senior cell attendant in charge of his cell, Hierodeacon Nikandr, came to him and offered to send for a doctor, the bishop rejected this offer. Before, he had said more than once to those around him: “When I die, do not send for a doctor, let me die as a Christian should - in attention, without embarrassing or dissipating me with your anxiety.” Archimandrite Justin says that at the beginning of last winter, regarding a conversation about a person who had suffered a paralytic stroke, the bishop said: “And I will die with a stroke.” The archimandrite began to object, saying that given his physique, thinness and lifestyle, this was incredible, but the bishop, briefly confirming his words, changed the conversation. By Friday evening, the bishop calmed down and ordered a bath to be prepared for Saturday, but, getting up in the morning quite cheerful, he said that he was better, and adding: “And yesterday he almost died,” he canceled the order for a bath, saying: “It’s no longer necessary.” In these last days of his life, the Right Reverend was inspired towards everyone with extraordinary mercy, as if dissolved pity. This mercy and with it unearthly joy shone on the face of the sick man. On one of these last days, Vladyka, saying goodbye to his cell attendant, responded to his bow and farewell with a reverent bow to the ground, saying: “Forgive me, Father.” The old man's appearance, full of magnificent humility, moved the cell attendant to tears. During these days, the bishop told him more than once that it was difficult for him to reduce his mind to earthly pursuits and, avoiding communication with everyone, he apparently no longer lived on earth. On April 30, Sunday, the week of the Myrrh-Bearing Women, at seven o'clock in the morning the cell attendant Vasily, entering the bishop's bedroom 271, found the orlets 272 uncleaned in front of the icons, which happened extremely rarely, because the bishop, who used it during the cell rule, cleaned it himself. Having washed, he, according to custom, drank Epiphany water and went into the dining room to drink tea, ordering Vasily to quickly clean the bedroom. After drinking two cups of tea, he hurried to his inner cell. At the end of the 8th hour, just before the good news for the late liturgy, Vasily, entering him with the usual prayer, found him lying on the bed on his left side, facing the wall. Seeing that the bishop, always very sensitive, did not pay attention to his entrance, the cell attendant at first attributed this to particularly in-depth prayer work, which sometimes happened to him. After standing for a while, Vasily repeated the prayer, but there was no answer. The gospel began - the bishop remained motionless. Peering more closely, Vasily noticed that the ruler’s hand was covered with mortal pallor. Coming closer, he became convinced that the ruler had already died. His head, lying on the pillow, was slightly tilted forward, the palm of his left hand was raised up, as if in prayer, his right hand, lowered along his body on the bed from the side of the wall, lay near the open canon. In general, the decent position of the body was the reason that the cell attendant could not soon decide to recognize him as having already passed into eternity. Death, having come to the saint of Christ, found his mind occupied with prayer; having begun it on earth, he was called to endless praise of God to heaven. Bishop Ignatius had long been preparing and awaiting the coming of death, armed with unceasing prayer in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and death, defeated by Christ, honored life in Christ, coming to the faithful servant of Christ, in accordance with the desire expressed by him, in the silence of solitude, at the hour of prayer, with attention focused on God, even chose a position for the body that would not disturb the well-being of the spiritual departed hierarch-monk, who devoted his entire life to the exploits of spiritual works commanded by the Lord, repentance and crying, guided in these works by the teachings of the predominantly spiritual ascetics of Egypt and Palestine. Anyone who walked this path could not help but come to the blessings promised by the Gospel for these virtues. The face of the deceased bishop, upon transferring the body to the table, shone with bright, unearthly joy. A blue vein was noticeable on the left church, going down near the ear along the cheek in a blood-red stripe - probably a trace of the path by which death entered the body. Talking with one of his disciples close to him about the commandments of the Gospel, Saint Ignatius said: “Every obvious virtue is not my virtue, according to the teaching of the Lord Himself, who commanded to do every good thing of the Gospel in secret.” And precisely, all the greatness of his lifelong feat, in its indescribable volume, remained in the secret of his spiritual cage, confessed and open, as far as he found necessary and possible, in his writings, but in its fullness known to the One God. With this mystery, a distinctive feature of all his earthly activities, according to the exact meaning of the Gospel commandments, the Right Reverend Ignatius captured his final dying feat. Combining his story to the cell attendant about the notification from above of St. Tikhon about the day of his death “on the day of the week” with the letter of the Right Reverend to Archimandrite Pimen that he lay all Thomas Sunday, waiting for death, and, finally, on the day of his death (Sunday) the order to his cell attendant to hasten to clean his bedroom as quickly as possible - suggests that the day of his death was revealed to him too and is defined, like St. Tikhon, as a “weekly day.” To console us, his orphaned spiritual children, Vladyka left a definitive instruction about his earthly path, about where he strove with his life and where, we believe, he achieved by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, whose all-saving name his heart tirelessly cried out with a mental prayer to God for mercy. “I was taken,” he says in the preface to the 5th volume of his works, “caught away from the broad path leading to eternal death, and placed on the narrow and regrettable path leading to the stomach. The narrow path has the deepest meaning: it lifts you up from the earth, leads you out of the darkness of vanity, leads you to heaven, leads you to paradise, leads you to God, places you before His face, in the unfading light for eternal bliss.” 273 It is remarkable that on the same holiday, Sunday of the week of the Myrrh-Bearing Women, the Monk Nil of Sorsky 274, a famous practitioner of mental prayer, also died. This similarity of the days of death seems to confirm the noticeable similarity of the inner feat of our modern hermit, both in character, in teaching, and in their fruits, with the founder of the hermitage in Russia in ancient times. All this, of course, may not be significant for everyone; but those who know the prayerful asceticism of the saint from personal contact with him, or use and are guided in this work by his writings, cannot help but put this in their hearts, in the creation of the sacred memory of their spiritual father and mentor. For three days the body of Bishop Ignatius stood in his cells, invariably maintaining a bright expression on his face, then it began to swell and was transferred to the cathedral monastery church of St. Nicholas, but by the day of the funeral and burial the swelling had completely disappeared, only the fingernails turned blue. After six days had passed, on May 5, Friday, the funeral liturgy and funeral service were performed by His Eminence Jonathan, Bishop of Kineshma, Vicar of Kostroma 275. By his order, the funeral service was performed according to the rite of the Easter service. At the end of the funeral service, he said the funeral oration and said goodbye to the deceased, followed by the concelebrating clergy, the monastery brotherhood and all those present, led by the head of the Kostroma province, the Privy Councilor Dorgobuzhinov. Then the body in an open coffin was surrounded with a procession around the Church of St. Nicholas and brought into the hospital monastery church of St. John Chrysostom and St. Sergius of Radonezh, where, according to the usual litia, the lid was closed and the coffin was lowered into the crypt behind the left choir. According to the general opinion, the funeral service for the deceased gave everyone the impression of a church celebration rather than a sad ceremony. The bishop’s disciples recalled his words: “You can know,” he said, “that someone who has died under the mercy of God is if, at the burial of his body, the sadness of those around him is dissolved by some incomprehensible joy.” Although all the days preceding the burial the gathering of people was quite significant, but on the day of the burial, despite the flood of the Volga, which made it difficult for the inhabitants across the river to cross to the monastery, the gathering of people was up to five thousand people. “The blessedness you have chosen and accepted, O Lord! Their memory will last forever." Later, Hieromonk Veniamin S. - St. Petersburg Alexander Nevsky Lavra. Vladyka occupied only two rooms: a reception room, also known as a dining room, and an office in which there was also a bedroom. A round rug with an eagle embroidered on it, placed under the feet of bishops during services and prayers. T. 5. Offering to modern monasticism. S. III. Nil Sorsky (c. 1433–1508) - a great elder, founder of the first monastery in Rus' near the Kirillo-Belozersky monastery. An enemy of all appearances, he was a strict ascetic in the inner spiritual sense; he considered the main thing in monasticism not physical feat, but the internal work of cleansing the heart from passions. Jonathan (I.N. Rudnev, 1818–1906) – Bishop of Kineshma, Archbishop of Yaroslavl and Rostov.