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Speech at the tonsure of Vladimir Troitsky, associate professor of the Moscow Academy, in the monastic life of Hilarion 2369! Our beloved brother Hilarion in the Lord! With heartfelt tenderness we all now looked at the mystery of faith, or rather, at the mystery of God’s grace, seeing how your soul, bearing the seal of high wisdom about Christ’s truth, lovingly accepted into itself “the simplicity that is about Christ,” when your eloquent lips with humility and love kissed these humble garments of the reproach and reproach of Christ. Accept this as the triumph of Christ’s truth, which has conquered and is always conquering the world, collecting what was wasted, defeating the laws of nature, for our God creates as He wills. Yes, kiss these humble vestments diligently, for spiritual power can flow from them, cleansing the filth of the soul and body, in the likeness of the Lord’s robe, which exuded healing currents to the bleeding woman. Accept with your soul this simplicity, even about Christ, for in it lies the seed of eternal life and the guarantee of the Kingdom of Heaven. I would now like to say about you with the same words of the holy apostle that he once spoke to the Corinthian Christians: “Let not your mind be corrupted by the simplicity of Christ” 2370. This is truly our constant temptation; the desire to complicate and distort the simplicity of the truth of Christ not only with something extraneous, incidental to it, but also directly alien. And it is actually very clear and simple. She says: If one dies for all, then all die; Christ died for all, so that those who live do not live for themselves, but for him who died for them and rose again” 2371. And again: The word is true and worthy of all acceptance, for Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the first 2372. And again, the entire Church and on behalf of each of us, as you heard yesterday, cries out with contrition of heart: “The prodigal son, who wasted wealth, now I am consumed by famine; I take refuge under Your roof; like him, accept me, O Good Father, and grant me a partaker of the meal, so that I can cry out to You: Lord, before I even completely perish, save me” 2373. Look, brother, how simple this truth of Christ is. She speaks only of salvation through Christ and the good of this salvation for us. In this very cry of our soul: “Lord, before I even completely perish, save me,” the whole element of Orthodoxy is expressed, the whole essence of that truth of Christ by which the Church lived and lives. For this very possibility of salvation, for the joy of deliverance from sin, martyrs suffered, saints worked, theologians fought, apostles and prophets preached it. And so, when the Holy Church triumphed in the victory of this truth, not drenched in streams of blood, not burned by fire, not drowned in the sea, not obscured by the wisdom of the human mind, this very truth of salvation in Christ touched not only your mind, but also your heart 2374 and awakened in you those very impulses that have always saved it. Now you know what to do with it, how to use it in life and what wealth it opens up in life. The usual worldly attitude towards this truth of Christ is such that many, very many, unfortunately, who call themselves Christians, do not know at all what to do with it. And often this truth of Christ, according to the word of Christ - the way and the life 2375, remains for many some kind of dead capital, lifeless, unfruitful and only heavy. It often seems to people that the truth of Christ must necessarily be reduced to the diverse aspects of human life and in these aspects its main application and its main content must be found, as if it were not enough that Christ came to save sinners, as if they do not know that in this salvation from sin the whole of human life is already embraced, all its goals change and all aspects of life are renewed. That is why they begin to see in Christianity either some new high teaching that can be taken up by a lover of wisdom, or some new beginning of social life, and interest in Christianity is often limited to the study, for example, of the influence of Christianity on art, culture, poetry and painting, or, simply reducing it to a series of ordinary human speculations, they try to understand the mutual relations of Christianity and worldly philosophy. This word about salvation, this simple truth of Christ, often remains alien and incomprehensible. I think that for you it is clear and kind precisely in this simplicity, which you see in the faces of the ascetic brothers around you here. I think that you already understand the voice of the Holy Church, which on the day of the triumph of Christ’s truth turns to its sons with the following call: “Confessing salvation, imagine this in deed and word” 2376. So, confessing in word the truth of Christ, depict the face of Christ in yourself and in deed: Remember that if the holy apostle was sick so that Christ would be imagined in the souls of the Galatians 2377, we should also be pained so that Christ would be depicted in ourselves. True, His face in us is dark, just as it is written on old icons. But we know well why it is dark. Wash it with your tears, cleanse it later with heroic deeds, and you will see how this face of Christ will shine in you and what joy and peace it will pour out on you, such a joy that the world cannot give. Make a strong union with Christ and remember that no one and nothing should stand between you and Christ; on the contrary, remember that between everything you do and what you establish a relationship with and you yourself, Christ must certainly and always stand. Consider everything in Christ, do everything in Christ, and do not allow anything besides Christ to come into contact with you. Know that according to the word of Christ: “Without Me you can do nothing,” - every work without Christ and apart from Him is lifeless and dead, and it can only breed sinful passions, feed vanity and self-love, and not grow the spiritual fruits of virtues for the creation of the Heavenly Kingdom. And this applies to absolutely everything. Even a good Christian deed, divorced from Christ and done not through Christ, is vulgarized and lifeless. The good Christian idea is relegated to the ranks of ordinary humanitarian ideas and loses its saving power. Even the beginning of Christian charity, if it is removed from the intimate sphere of the Christian soul, saved in Christ, and turns into organized virtue, it already loses that spiritual flavor inherent in the living feeling of Christian love and becomes a heavy yoke of external legality. I would even like to point out, although perhaps I am wrong in this, that Christ also suffered a similar temptation - to establish good relations with the world and people not through the mediation, but outside of God. Remember how the devil offered Christ, through worshiping him, the devil, to gain power over the world, and how Christ answered him that only God should be worshiped. I think the Lord Jesus Christ Himself showed us that our relationship to the world and to everything in the world must certainly be established through God. So, may the face of Christ always be clear in you. In Him alone consider the world and all your affairs in which you will have to work. Build everything up to Him and bring everything out of Him. True, this is a great sacrifice of our human will. But if, according to the word of the Apostle, there is no covenant without blood, and blood presupposes sacrifice 2378, then here, in our spiritual life, a covenant with Christ is impossible without sacrifice and tears replacing blood. I know and do not want to hide now what your sacrifice to Christ is. You were tempted and, perhaps, are still tempted by love for the school that you serve, and you are afraid that monasticism will deprive you of this school. But what is an academy without Christ?! This is an empty place and a dead house. And what is our whole life, our soul, without Christ?! Finally, what is the whole world without Christ?! - Of course, nothing. You yourself know that if we only hoped in Christ in this life, we would be the most miserable of all people. And they would be extremely unhappy if even in this life they did not hope in Christ and did not live by Him. If Christ speaks of such sacrifices for the sake of salvation as father, mother, relatives, even makes one hate his own soul, then what is science if it is divorced from the service of the Church and from the work of salvation. However, you can take comfort even in this. Know, brother, that the same truth of Christ and the grace of God, which opened the eyes of your mind and heart, they are able to somehow, incomprehensibly for us, but very strikingly, reward the sacrifice with the same thing, but only in a larger amount, which we seem to lose by following Christ. See how these hermits, who rejected not only worldly learning, but even gave up the only book of the Holy Scriptures 2379 out of obedience and love, enriched the Church of Christ and the world with spiritual wisdom and countless scriptures as a priceless treasure of all spiritual wisdom and theological science. And not only you and I, but also entire generations of so-called learned theologians who lived before us and after us will draw from there a wealth of wisdom and, to put it roughly, on their backs and necks, withered and exhausted from the sweat of exploits and tears, will rise to the heights of learning. This is how the word of Christ truly comes true, that if the grain does not die, it will remain alone, but if it dies, it will bear much fruit. That is why every confessor of Christ’s truth needs to die completely to every desire, even a good one, in order to give the opportunity for God’s grace to act and to demonstrate its power in our weakness and in the justification of sacrifice. After all, without Christ and without His incarnation in us as the main work of our lives, our same theological wisdom can be fed from unclean sources and become desecrated, and the same thing can be said about us that St. Andrew of Crete said about his own and, of course, about every soul: “Thou shalt, my soul, preferred Canaanite thoughts rather than veins of stone, from which wisdom is worthless a river, like a cup spilling the currents of theology.” 2380. These treasures of Canaanite thoughts are always more easily revealed in our souls than that stone, if it were rolled away, we, like the myrrh-bearers, would see the light of the Risen Christ. Strive towards this light and remember the words spoken to the Angel of one of the Churches: By all your works you have kept the word of My patience, and I will keep you from the time of temptation... Behold, I am coming quickly: hold fast and let no one take your crown 2381. Amen. Speech by Bishop Theodore (Pozdeevsky), rector of the MDA, at the tonsure, which took place on March 28, 1913 in the Paraclete Hermitage of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. Wednesday evening service of the fifth week of Lent. On the Saturday before the Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy, a petition for tonsure was submitted. Cm; John 14:6. – Approx. ed. Kontakion on the Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy. This is narrated in the life of the Monk Serapion Sindonite, who lived in the 5th century. in Egypt (memory May 14/27). – Approx. ed. The Great Canon of Andrew of Crete. Tuesday of the first week of Great Lent, 6th hymn. – Approx. ed.