Глава VI

The hand of Providence, which had hitherto invisibly covered the homeless wanderer, touched the heart of His Grace Stephen, Bishop of Vologda 65. The archpastor penetrated Brianchaninov’s spiritual aspirations, warmed up to him and took an active part in it. Having recovered from his illness, Dimitri Alexandrovich did not want to return to live in the house of his parents, but asked the permission of the Right Reverend Stefan to settle in the Semigorod Hermitage 66 of the Vologda province. The climate and terrain in which the desert is located, air, and water had a beneficial effect on the restoration of his shocked health. Here, in the solitude of his cell, he devoted himself to mental work and prayer, grew spiritually into a perfect man, as evidenced by the soul-edifying work he wrote at that time, “The Lamentation of a Monk,” 67 partly supplemented by him in the last years of his life, in which the spiritual success of the seven-city hermit clearly shines through. The large population of this desert forced Brianchaninov to transfer to a more secluded monastery - the Glushitsky Dionysian Monastery 68, where he was moved with the blessing of the Right Reverend Stephen on February 20, 1831 and enrolled as a novice. Having settled in the Glushitsky monastery, he, however, did not leave from time to time to visit his beloved Semigorodnaya hermitage. On one of these trips, Dimitri Alexandrovich met a God-fearing and jealous young man, the son of a Vologda merchant named Peter, who later became the rector of the Nikolo-Ugreshsky monastery in the Moscow province, Archimandrite Pimen 69. Their meeting and acquaintance are remarkable for the strong spiritual impression that the future bishop made on the soul of the future archimandrite. During the liturgy in the Seven-Gorodnaya Hermitage, Dimitri Alexandrovich’s reverent presence in the Church of God attracted Peter’s special attention to him. Dressed in a simple sheepskin sheepskin coat, covered with a yellow napkin, he stood away from the crowd, straight and motionless, completely immersed in prayer: not once during the entire liturgy did he turn his head or move his legs, as if frozen in reverent contemplation of the divine service being performed. At the end of the liturgy, a prosphora was presented to him. Leaving the church, he approached Peter, gave him this prosphora and invited him to his cell. This greatly surprised Peter, because Brianchaninov did not know him at all, was not familiar with him before, while in spirit he comprehended his inner desire to serve God and devote himself to monastic deeds, which involuntarily aroused in him reverent respect for himself. This respect in him increased even more when, invited to Dimitri Alexandrovich’s cell, he spent that entire day and the whole night with him in spiritual conversations, in which the high degree of spiritual wisdom and ascetic experience of Brianchaninov, who already appeared in the young body of a God-enlightened elder 70, was expressed. Inspired by love for God, Dimitri Alexandrovich always treated with special sympathy and love those of his neighbors in whom he noticed a spark of the same Divine love. He tried to strengthen, support, and kindle the God-loving feelings of his fellow men with advice of brotherly love about Christ, always based on the Word of God and the writings of the patristic fathers, which sounded especially effectively in his mouth and produced good effects in the souls of his listeners. In his real rapprochement with the God-loving young man, he expressed this love that is not of this world for his neighbor in its entirety, and subsequently he always expressed it when approaching people who loved God, whom he knew how to distinguish from those who were peace-loving, although covered with the guise of love for God. It must be said that in general the ascetic of God, when drawing close to people, even God-loving ones, did not allow his blood to flow and never allowed himself a particularly heated expression of his feelings; his love was expressed differently than that of carnal people - it was expressed by constant readiness, with complete selflessness, to serve both in deed and in word to his neighbor in his needs, especially spiritual ones, with meekness, mercy, and concern for the soul. In the last years of his life, the Right Reverend Ignatius used to say to his close disciples: “I always remember the soul of a person, but the outline of a face is not imprinted in my memory.” He was so careful with himself and always tried so hard not to let his flesh take precedence over his spirit, which is why his relationships with his neighbors were imbued with a special spirituality, a special influence that made a wonderful impression on human souls. Meanwhile, Brianchaninov’s parent did not cease to pursue him with his merciless demand that he leave monastic life and again enter worldly service. It was painful for the young hermit to see such a persistent and cruel demand from his parent towards himself. He stood alone in his own family, did not find support or sympathy for his spiritual desires in it, for, although his mother and some of his brothers and sisters were kind to him, but, being under the strong influence of their parent, they treated him more with painful regret than with spiritual sympathy. Tired of the struggle with the stubbornness of his parent, he saw clearly that the only outcome from this painful situation for him would be the speedy pronouncement of his monastic vows, which would forever stop his parent’s attempts to return him to serve the world. This forced him to ask Bishop Stephen to show him mercy and, due to special family circumstances, to hasten to tonsure him into monasticism. The Reverend, well acquainted with Brianchaninov’s way of thinking and spiritual direction, decided to fulfill his request for tonsure. Having sought permission from the Holy Synod for this, he summoned Dimitri Alexandrovich from the Glushitsky Monastery to his place in Vologda and ordered him to prepare for tonsure, but also to keep it secret from his relatives and friends, since in order to avoid any claims from Brianchaninov’s relatives, he decided to tonsure him unexpectedly for them. The position of the young novice at such an important time for him was embarrassing: summoned from the Glushitsky monastery to Vologda, he did not have a place in the city where to lay his head, and had to stop at an inn and, in this environment of worldly rumors, prepare for tonsure. On June 28, 1831, the Right Reverend Stefan personally tonsured Dimitri Alexandrovich into the mantle in the Vologda Resurrection Cathedral, calling him Ignatius in the tonsure in honor of the Hieromartyr Ignatius the God-Bearer, Bishop of Antioch 71, an apostolic man, whose memory is celebrated by the Holy Church on December 20 and January 29. On this second day of his memory, the monk Ignatius subsequently celebrated the day of his angel. His recipient from the Holy Gospel was the then rector of the Vologda Seminary, Archimandrite Evtykhian. Brianchaninov's relatives, who arrived at the cathedral for the bishop's service, were deeply amazed when, quite unexpectedly, they became witnesses to the sacred rite by which their relative entered irrevocably into the spiritual army of Christ. After his tonsure, the monk Ignatius remained alone in the cathedral. Semigorod acquaintance Peter invited the newly tonsured monk to spend this day with him, and then Brianchaninov found shelter in the country house of his uncle and godfather Dimitri Ivanovich Samarin. One of his relatives, Mrs. Voeykova, provided him with a small amount of money, because due to the then relationship with his parents he was left completely without any means. The news of their son's tonsure deeply saddened the Brianchaninovs, especially Alexander Semenovich could not come to terms with the idea that his will in relation to his first-born was not fulfilled, which in his soul for a long time he could not forgive him. Sofya Afanasyevna reacted to this event more easily and condescendingly, and thanks to her influence, the parents’ relationship with the monk Ignatius began to improve little by little. On July 5, 1831, the monk Ignatius was ordained by the Right Reverend Stephen as a hierodeacon, and on July 20 of the same year as a hieromonk, and was temporarily left at the Vologda bishop's house, which in Vologda is located at the cathedral, in the same fence formed by the walls of the Kremlin from the time and construction of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible. To study sacred worship, he was assigned to the city Church of the Everyday Savior under the leadership of the rector of this church, Priest Vasily Nordov, later rector of the Vologda Cathedral. Having met him at this time, the future saint fell very much in love with the reverent priest and from then until the end of his days he was in close spiritual relations with him 72 73 74 . Thus, the will of God was accomplished over the ascetic of God: the words of the St. Petersburg holy fool Vasilisa, who, while still in her officer’s uniform, called him a “bright priest,” came true over him in all accuracy, he became a servant of the altar of the Lord, a performer of the Divine Sacraments, and could not help but take his new high title very seriously. Meanwhile, his external situation in Vologda at the bishop's house did not at all correspond to the spiritual desires of his soul: many relatives and friends began to visit him frequently, demanding mutual visits, which involved him in worldly absent-mindedness. Young in years, handsome in appearance, the hieromonk attracted the attention of the entire high Vologda society. Everyone talked about him, sought to get to know him, while he did not at all want these worldly acquaintances, which distracted him from the spiritual pursuits of the priesthood. Bored with city rumors, the desert-loving monk asked his patron, the Right Reverend Stephen, to let him go to the Glushitsky Monastery, but the Right Reverend, seeing his ability to be a good abbot, prepared for him a different assignment and was in no hurry to let him go. At this time, i.e. at the end of 1831, the builder of the Lopotov Pelshem Monastery, Hieromonk Joseph, died. By order of the Right Reverend, the burial rite of the deceased builder was entrusted to Hieromonk Ignatius, and on January 6, 1832, the archpastor did not hesitate to appoint him as the builder of the said monastery, and placed a legguard on him. Encouraged by the blessing of the Right Reverend Stephen, the builder Ignatius went to the monastery entrusted to him 75. His Eminence Stefan (S. L. Romanovsky, 1787–1841) - since 1828 Bishop of Vologda. He was very disposed towards St. Ignatius. The seven-city Assumption hermitage in Kadnikovsky district - located in the depths of forests, was called “the Church of the Most Pure Mother of God on the Seven Mountains.” Founded at the beginning of the 15th century by monks of the Glushitsky Monastery. Dimitri Alexandrovich spent the end of 1830 and the beginning of 1831 in it; here, from the depths of his humble soul, the repentant “Lament of the Monk” “poured out”, about which the contemporary St. Ignatius wrote: “Whoever, at the age of 20, could burst into tears with the lament of a monk, was perfect without the gray hairs of experience and old age, and no one except the Right Reverend Ignatius could express such thoughts at such an early age. Hardly anyone will believe that this book was written by an almost underage youth” (Sokolov. 4.1. P. 380). T. 5. Offering to modern monasticism. pp. 387–464. Glushitsky Dionysius Monastery of Kadnikovsky district - founded by the Monk Dionysius of Glushitsky in 1413. Currently, the monastery is being revived. Archimandrite Pimen (P. D. Myasnikov, 1810–1880) – Venerable, glorified among the locally venerated saints of the Moscow diocese, commemorated on August 17 (Old Art.). Abbot of the Nikolo-Ugreshsky Monastery, a native of Vologda. For the first time Peter, the future Archimandrite Pimen, heard about the young ascetic Dimitri Brianchaninov in the late 1820s. from the Vologda parish priest Fr. Alexander Yushkov, who baptized the baby Dimitri in the village. Pokrovsky and was friends with the Bryanchaninov family. These stories strengthened the desire of the young man Peter to become a monk. Archimandrites had sincere relationships. Pimena from St. Ignatius throughout his life, they are described in his memoirs, which, in particular, contain: “The news of the death of the Right Reverend Ignatius Brianchaninov on April 30. 1867", see: (Pimen (Myasnikov). Memoirs of Archimandrite Pimen, abbot of the Nikolaevsky Monastery on Ugresh. M., 1877. pp. 406–407). “... This long conversation between him and me confirmed me even more in my intention to retire from the world and enter monasticism,” see: (Pimen (Myasnikov). Memoirs of Archimandrite Pimen, abbot of the St. Nicholas Monastery on Ugresh. M., 1877. pp. 23–24). Hieromartyr Ignatius the God-Bearer - Bishop of Antioch. According to legend, he was one of those children who were held in the arms of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is why he was called “God-Bearer.” His life also tells us that he constantly repeated the Jesus Prayer and the name of the Sweetest Jesus was imprinted on his heart, as his tormentors were convinced of when they took out his heart after his martyrdom. Translated from Greek, Ignatius means fiery. In honor of this holy martyr, the monastic prince Ignatius of Prilutsky was named, whose relics rest in the Spaso-Prilutsky Monastery next to the relics of St. Demetrius of Prilutsky. Vasily Ivanovich Nordov (1797–1883) – priest of the Vologda Church of the Savior. In 1841 he became archpriest and rector of the Vologda Resurrection Cathedral. At the same time, at the Church of the Savior in Vologda, Alexander Petropavlovsky was a deacon, who soon took upon himself the foolishness of Christ for the sake of Christ, in which he remained until his death in 1876. A true servant of God, he possessed grace-filled gifts - insight and a strong, touching word. He died in the hut where he lived in a suburban settlement, and was honored with a solemn, crowded burial, which was performed by the diocesan bishop Theodosius himself. In Vologda he was highly revered, and the Right Reverend Ignatius used to say that “it was not in vain,” for he recognized his deeds as grace-filled. “The leader of Hierodeacon Ignatius in training for the diaconal ministry was the Peter and Paul Deacon Alexander of the Resurrection, famous among the Vologda residents in his time and hitherto for his righteous life, foolishness and foresight, who predicted the episcopate for Hierodeacon Ignatius even before becoming a monk” (Sokolov. 4. 1. P. 99). Pelshem Monastery - founded in 1426. In (1833) St. Ignatius wrote: ". Our monastery seems like some kind of hermitage - in the manner of the southern deserts. - Quiet! Silently! Ingenuously! Lovingly! Joyfully! - The publican's word! We do not drink tea and do not despair! Blessed is he who can say: let us flow and comprehend. God is with us!" (Collected letters. 1995. P. 815).