Часть III. О делах раскольнических

1. About the essence of schismatic affairs Search for schismatic matters. I don’t want to talk here about the secret and unknown deeds of men, below about sins that occur either from weakness or from ignorance, and even though they do not attack the Church of Christ. May my mouth not speak of such human deeds 632; Who will make me judge over them? and I am a sinner, and subject to human infirmities; Even if Saint Elias (according to Jacob’s words) the man 6th is servile to us 633; How much more are we sinners? It is enough for everyone to contemplate their own sins; Our Lord is the common judge of all, even though he judges the living and the dead. But we are talking about those matters, even as they are actually doing them, in opposition to the Holy Church of Christ. And they act not out of weakness, but out of the devil’s malice, and not out of ignorance, but deliberately out of stubbornness; about such matters a word is presented to us. The essence of them, as we hear, is also good (in human opinion) deeds: many fasts, continued prayers, many bows, sobriety and abstinence from drunken drinking, and from eating meat and fish, and the very thing is their deserted (like in imitation of the Holy Fathers) stay, and other feats and labors, in the image of pleasing God, even though we do not blame, God, the all-seeing one, will consider it. But our ears begin to hear about their boasting, in which they exalt themselves above the Church of Christ, boasting about their labors and labors of prayer and fasting: but we are reproached about eating and drinking, and about our entire life as sinners, while blaming ourselves as saints. It is necessary for us to consider doing good deeds, just as we do about evil ones: with their evil deeds they actually oppose the Holy Church of Christ by imagining their deeds to be good, hiding, like a pig digging its nose, they undermine the church, many of the common people are seduced by their hypocrisy. Let us talk about deeds in general, about evil and about good, and we will conduct a search. The most important things in people are usually done: some good, some evil. Evil deeds are always evil; lower deeds can sometimes be good, just as soot cannot be snot, blast is gold, gall is honey. i) Sometimes the existence of goodness is completely visible, but pleasing God is unknown. 2) Sometimes, under the image of goodness, great people are evil and are displeasing to God. 3) Even though they are truly good, they are still barren, not deserving of salvation for themselves. First of all, let’s talk briefly about good deeds. Chapter 2. About deeds that seem to be good, but unknown about pleasing God 1) Consideration of deeds that seem to be good, but are unknown about pleasing God. Good deeds; pleasing to God, written in the Divine Scripture: in the commandments of God, in the Evangelical and Apostolic councils, in the teaching and fasting books; and the imams are countless images of pleasing God in the lives of the saints, which, according to our strength, we must imitate, and we can see them in living virtuous men; but we ourselves cannot truly know whether we are doing what we are doing is pleasing to God. If a person knew that his actions were pleasing to God, then he would also know about his salvation. But just as one knows about pleasing God, one’s life and one’s salvation, no one can boast. Let us not despair of our salvation; imams hope in God, who wants to save everyone: but no one can say from us: I have pleased God, I am one of the saved, my deeds are good and pleasing to the Lord. Verb of the Inflow: who will praise you to have a pure heart? or who dares to be clean from sin 634? Let us strive, as best we can, to protect ourselves from the wrath of God; We work, our very weak strength, strengthened by God’s help, will bear it if it would be acceptable for us to appear before the face of Christ. But all our exploits and labors cannot say about ourselves: we are loved by God. The Church speaks more eloquently, saying: righteousness, and wisdom, and their doings are in the hand of God: but man does not see love and hatred 635 . Which scripture in the translation is more explanatory than this: the essence of righteousness and wisdom, and their doings are in the hand of God: otherwise, a person does not know whether he is worthy of love (from God) or hatred. A good deed is fasting, but it is not the one who is pleasing and dear to God who fasts to the point of exhaustion of the body; sometimes God says: This is not the fast I chose 636. And Saint Chrysostom in Margarita dispels the question, saying: 637 Is it true that even if we fast, what is fasting? Is it fasting that means abstaining from food, or is it abstaining from lust? Even if we restrain ourselves from bodily food, we will not restrain ourselves from spiritual lusts; there is no joy in creating abstinence from food, which is the fruit of creating evil. If I abstain from bread, but I cannot refrain from being angry with my neighbor, I am no longer a man; For the beast cannot do such things: the beast does not eat bread, but eats flesh 638. It is a good deed not to drink drunken drinks, nor to eat meat or fish, for the sake of abstinence: but it is not the one who is pleasing and dear to God to eat, who abstains from intoxicating drinks, and from eating meat or fish, says St. Chrysostom, reasoning: If someone does not drink wine or eat meat, let him not be proud of himself, for he is nothing greater than cattle. created. Every cattle neither eats meat nor drinks wine, even ox, donkey, and sheep. It is a good thing for someone who has exhausted his flesh to cast himself onto the bare earth into a little sleep, but it is not pleasing to him and is dear to God; about such a person, the same teacher says in the same word: If someone lies on the ground, not demanding a bed, not a cloth at all, but just the bones of his body, let him not boast about this, do not be magnified, as if he thinks he has corrected himself more than everyone else, for that is in the nature of bestiality. This is by no means wonderful, but even more blasphemous, if we are partakers of the essence of words, we will be worse than cattle. Until here Zlatoust. Good deed is continued prayer; but it is not the one who is pleasing and dear to God who continues the singing of prayer for many hours, for the Lord himself says in the Gospel: you will not be heard with too many words 639. And Saint Theophylact, interpreting the words of the Lord, says: It is not appropriate to continue prayers, but often, and say little. And again: unnecessary verbiage (in prayer) is idle talk. But also in Chrysostom’s Discourses on the Apostolic Epistles, on folio 1830, on the brez it is written: He who speaks too much in prayer does not pray, but talks idlely. It is a good deed to tax oneself with many labors, to live in desert hermitages, and to mortify one’s body in every possible way: but he has not already pleased Beg to do such a thing, the message below is known that by such labor he will please him. We find something in the books of the fathers, such as fasting, desert, hardworking, in the perfect mortification of our bodies, we lived a life, but in the unknown of our salvation we departed from this life. Saint John of the Climacus laments for a certain desert dweller Stephen 640, who spent many years in desert labors, marvelous animals and gentlemen who were, who gave bread to the leopard from his hand in the desert: he died quickly in a terrible ordeal from the menacing faces that appeared to him, and was tortured by them, to some extent good, but you can’t give an answer to anything else; and truly the vision is menacing and scary, (says Climacus) an invisible and unforgivable test. Oh miracle! the silent man and the hermit spoke about some of his sins, as if it were not the imam who said anything against this; having been in monasticism for nearly fourty years, having tears: woe is me, woe is me! and the Climacus ends the legend about this: and thus the subject departed from the body. What judgment, or what the end, or its answer, or the end of the test, do not make manifest. Until here Climacus. This gives us fear and apprehension about the unknown of our salvation, as we do not know whether our supposed existence of good deeds is pleasing to God or not? Do we deserve love from him, or do we deserve hatred? This word of God in the psalms is terrible: when I accept the time, I will judge righteousness 641. It’s not surprising that we have to judge our sins; but this is terrible, because our righteousness is our good deeds: fasting, prayer, abstinence, sobriety, killing, and many other feats, as if we want to judge sins. Why is this so? For this reason, many times and in our good deeds, a certain sinfulness is discovered; No one is perfect, but most of all, under our good deeds, we usually harbor an opinion about ourselves, as if we are pleasing to God, and are already righteous and holy; Some opinion, like a fiery fire, destroys all our labors and exploits, and all our merits. And it is not surprising that a sinful man should not be worthy of the kingdom of heaven: it will be marvelous for him who is supposed to be righteous and holy here, but there will be deprived of the kingdom of heaven. It is not marvelous that one who walks on a long path cannot enter into the belly; it is wonderfully narrow and sad that the path of one who passes through does not lead into death, but not into the belly. It is not surprising for a drunkard, a glutton, not to receive the pleasure of heavenly blessings: it is marvelous for a faster, who does not partake of drunken drinking, and is alienated from being the sweets of heaven. It is not surprising that a man with a plump body, tired and fat, cannot pass through the narrow gates of the heavenly abodes; it is marvelous that he who has dried up and exhausted his flesh with many abstinences, and labors, and only his bones are covered with skin, cannot squeeze into that narrow entrance, and find himself outside the heavenly villages. When the righteous Judge begins to judge our righteousness as well as our sins, in that hour a secret certain crookedness will be revealed, not in the only righteousness, which a person cannot see in himself, or, moreover, does not want to: if they had reasoned with themselves, (says the Apostle) they would not have been condemned 642. My secret, I say, our crookedness will be revealed before the all-seeing Judge; then (according to the Apostolic word) the Lord will bring the secret darkness into light, and will reveal the counsels of the heart 643. Having already been declared to exist, what sins will not be revealed? What is purer than the rays of the sun, even more enlightening than all the air? and when a ray of sunlight enters the church through a window or a hole, oh, how much moving dust can be seen in it! In our good deeds, even on the last day they will be illuminated, when our many weaknesses and shortcomings appear! Who can be clean from sins, even if not committed by the deed itself, but rather by a deigning thought? And how can anyone appear pure before God, since before him (according to Job’s verb) the stars are unclean: how much more is man a pus, and the son of man a worm 644? Then many of our good deeds are high-minded, while the saints and the righteous are like me, they will appear, just as sins are displeasing to God, abominable: everything that a person imagines to be high in himself is abominable before God. And all our truth, created with arrogance, is thrown down before him like rags; We hear the prophet Isaiah saying: like the port of evil spirits, all our righteousness 645. And such are our good deeds, we rely on this highly intelligent prince. together with their sins they will be imputed and sent to torment by the righteous judgment of God; For this reason, the Apostle usefully protects the verb: work out your salvation with fear and trembling 646. Not just with fear, but also with trembling: work, say, for the Lord with fear, and rejoice in him with trembling 647. Even if you knew that you were standing on the saved path, be afraid, it is written: be sure to stand, and be careful that you do not fall 648. Even if through your deeds you had achieved so much, if you had received the gift of miracles, cast out demons, prophesied the future, healed the sick, otherwise be afraid; For the Lord himself says in the Gospel: many people will say to me on this day: Lord, Lord! was it not in your name that we prophesied, and in your name we cast out demons, and in your name we created many mighty powers? And then we will confess to them, as we have known no one else about you: depart from me, you who practice iniquity 649. O thy terrible destinies, O Lord! who will not be afraid in heart, who will not tremble in soul hearing such a terrible answer from God, not only to sinners, but also to certain miracle workers who thought they were saints, who proclaimed the future, who cast out demons, who created many powers, even though they acquire everything not in negligence and lying in laziness, but in many prayers and fastings and labors, just as the Lord did about the expulsion speaking of demons: this generation does not come forth except by prayer and fasting 650: but the righteous Judge, and the prayers and fastings and other labors of those who are not favored, not only does not count as a good deed, but also calls it lawlessness, to those who have fasted and worked and prayed, saying: Depart from me, you who do lawlessness. Cheso for tacos? maybe for some secret, highly intelligent opinion about yourself? but who can tell? The destinies of the Lord are many, many 651. His judgment has not been tested, and his ways have not been explored. Who understands the mind of the Lord? or who will be his adviser 652. For this sake, David, who will avoid the judgments of the Lord, prays to him: do not enter into judgment with your servant, for no one living will be justified before you 653. Do not be magnified by your boasting, and do not rise above the Church of Christ, Brynia, who pretends to be a saint; don’t talk too much about your exploits and labors, about long prayers and many fastings, about drinking water without drinking and drinking kvass. When you cannot be known, is the essence of your supposed good deed pleasing to God, or not? Forgive me, I do not blame your deeds, which were said to be good; But I will not appease your arrogance and boasting: you have not risen from the earth, but think that you are already higher than the heavens, but you are bringing us down to hell. Chapter 3. About hypocritical deeds 2) Consideration of deeds that seem to be good, but under their image great things are evil and unpleasing. Good deeds done feignedly, hypocritically, are not good, but evil: just as a wolf in sheep's clothing is not a sheep, but only the image of a sheep, itself a wolf by nature and disposition; These hypocritical deeds bear the image of holiness, reverence, and pleasing God, but inwardly they are the very essence of evil and lawlessness and God’s wrath. But under the hypocritical image of good deeds evil is hidden: behold, I bring it to reality. The first evil is proud vanity. Another evil is futile labor. The third evil is condemnation of others. The fourth evil is pretension. The fifth and final evil is its cruel destruction of the deceived. Here, everyone judge whether the evil spirit hiding under the image of hypocritical deeds is small. Greatness is evil, under the image of good deeds, prideful vanity; because God himself, who resists the proud, resists. He resists, because he seeks not God’s glory, but his own glory; does not please God, but pleases man, and does not work for God’s sake, but for his own sake; may he who is revered be as holy, may men please him, for he is a great saint of God. Such a one, when he fasts, darkens his face, as if it were a man who fasts; Whenever he prays, he prays in reality, continuing his prayer, so that we may see people praying 654. And when he does anything good, he does it not in secret, but in reality, so that he may be praised by men. Christ our Savior likens such a one to a sunken tomb, to the hypocritical Pharies in the Gospel, saying: Woe to you scribes and hypocrites, for you are like a sunken tomb, who on the outside are red, but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead, and all uncleanness. So you too, on the outside you appear to be a righteous man, but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness 655. There is great evil, under the image of good deeds done hypocritically, the futility of labor, as if all labor done for the manifestation of man, and fasting and prayer and every feat perishes. Here he receives his reward of human praise, but in the next century it will not be found, St. John Climacus expresses the futility of labor more eloquently, saying: Vanity is a waste of work, a ruin for sweat, a slander for treasure, a hedge of unbelief, a precursor to contempt, melting in a haven, filth in a threshing floor; Fractional slaughter of the essence (moraviy) slanders every deed and fruit. Morality awaits the wheat, and vanity awaits the likeness of wealth (the virtuous); ov ubo (mordity) rejoices, let him steal; ov (vain) and waste it. And again: vain fasting without reward and prayer without profit; praise for the sake of human wallpaper makes. The vain fasting man accepts dirty tricks, drying up his body, and does not accept bribes. Who wouldn't laugh at a vain worker? Until here Climacus. Great evil, under the image of good deeds hypocritically done, another condemnation, as seen in the vain Pharisee, who prayed with the tax collector in church, saying: God, I give you praise, as I do not like other people: predators, unrighteous people, adulterers, or like this tax collector 657. The publican, who was condemned by the Pharisee, was found justified before God: the Pharisee condemned others, he himself was condemned, and his good deeds were in vain. Great evil, under the image of good deeds done hypocritically, is the deception of others into false faith. And to impute false deeds as if they were true ones, and to honor the feigned saint as if they were the most holy ones, and to have his words as if they were words of truth, and to obey his teachings. In such a hypocritical manner, many heretics have deceived many from the Orthodox faith into evil; such a one is similar to Satan, transforming into an Angel of Light 658; darkness appears as light, so that it may deceive a person and lead him astray from the saved path. The last and greater evil is eternal destruction; if you do good deeds hypocritically, out of vanity, you will be condemned just as if you do evil; Hypocrisy and vanity itself are evil. If you exhaust your strength on hypocritical deeds, you will be condemned like a wicked servant, who steals the wealth entrusted to himself from his master and squanders it evilly. And that one, given the talents given to herself by God, turns not to God’s glorification, but to her own great praise. Condemn others, and the Antichrist will be condemned. Is it not written in the books of the fathers: for he who condemns his brother is the Antichrist? What did John of Savais suffer, what for one thing - oh, the hedgehog of his brother’s judgment, who in the vision of Christ the Lord crucified on the cross was driven away, called the Antichrist, and stripped of his mantle? If you please, read about this in the Prologue, the month of October on the 22nd day. Those who deceived others will be condemned as a seducer, who, according to the word of the Lord, will not eat, and a millstone will be laid over his neck, and he will be cast into the sea 659. It is not the one who perishes himself, but also those who are seduced by him who are seduced by him and bring destruction with him: just as that serpent, whom St. John the Theologian saw cast down from heaven, did not fall on his own, but took away with him a third of the stars of heaven 660 . The deceived perish together with the one who deceived them; St. Chrysostom says this in his Epistle to the Philippians in conversation 2661, saying: Is there anything worse than the devil, who intended to preach, to inflict intercessory torment on those who submit? Do you see how many evil ones he pierces his people with? He intends torment and languor for them from preaching and from their labors. Until here Zlatoust. Only great and fierce evil is hidden under the image of good deeds done hypocritically. Here are the opponents of the Church of Christ, who imagine and pretend to be holy and righteous and reverent, let them examine their own conscience, and let them test their deeds, whether under the image of their good deeds there is fivefold evil. I, a sinner, do not condemn those, but I protect my flock, entrusted to me by Christ my Master, according to my position, speaking to the verbal sheep of Christ the words of Christ: take heed to yourself from the kvass of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy 662; Beware of the hypocrites who come to you, deceiving you with images of good deeds. Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but tempt the spirits if they are from God: for many false prophets (false teachers) have gone out into the world 663. Chapter 4. About good deeds, but fruitless; out of pride 3) Consideration of good deeds, but fruitless ones, which do not deserve salvation for oneself. Good deeds that do not bear the fruit of salvation are those that are done: Or not from the love of God itself, but from self-love. Or they do things outside the Orthodox Catholic Church. ABOUT GOOD DEEDS FROM PRIDE That which is not done out of love for God itself, but out of self-love, good deeds are studied here: A person either loves God better than himself, or loves himself better than God. Love God better than yourself, seeking not for yourself in your deeds, but for God himself. Love yourself better than God. he is not looking for God, but for himself in his deeds. Seek God in your deeds, lover of God, all the good deeds you do are done for God’s sake, for the sake of Divine love, so that they may please the one who loves him. Look for the selfish person in your deeds, the one who does all the good deeds, does it for himself, for his own sake, for no good, either temporary or eternal. For the sake of temporary good, a selfish person does good deeds, and either he will not end up in futility, in punishment, in reproach. as punishment and execution for crime; or may he receive some kind of self-interest, or honor and praise from people for good deeds: an evil person does not do evil for fear of torment, but would do evil in every possible way, if there were no punishment and execution. A good person does good for the sake of self-interest or honor and praise for the sake of man, but would not do good in any way, if for that he did not expect some kind of reward, or veneration and praise from himself. Both are good, the essence of the matter, the one who does not do evil for fear of torment, and the other who does good for reward and honor: both of them are not done out of love for God itself, but out of self-love, for the sake of self-interest; For this reason, the essence is barren before God, not deserving of eternal salvation, but here they accept their reward and self-interest. For one who does not do evil for fear of torment, reward and self-interest are the very thing that does not fall into torment. To the one who does good for the sake of his own good, then there is reward itself, the received self-interest and honor and praise, for the sake of which he does good. But even for the eternal sake of good, anyone should work for good deeds, even if he is more vain. no longer a lover of God, he remains unfruitful or very fruitless in his labors; He deserves little or does not deserve salvation for himself, as he explains to her: Three are the essence of guilt (reasons), for the sake of which a person, desiring salvation for himself, avoids evil and does good: 1) Or fear for the sake of eternal torment, 2) Or receiving for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, 3) Or for the sake of divine love itself. Do good, fearing for the sake of eternal torment, there is in the rank of a slave and a slave, whoever does it, lest he be beaten and tormented; and if he were not afraid of torment, he would not do good, but he would avoid doing evil in every possible way. Do good; receiving for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, he is in the rank of a mercenary, whoever works, let him receive a reward: if he did not expect reward for himself, he would not have wanted to work in good deeds. Do good things for the sake of divine love, in the rank of a son, who does not fear torment, nor reward tea, but for the sake of the father’s love itself; and to have it as torment for oneself to anger one’s father: and to love one’s father, and to be loved by him from the father, then to have it as a great reward and wealth. And everything he does, he does to please his beloved father, and not for his own special gain or gain; all the desperation to have as one’s own, and all the desperation to be one’s own, speaks. A servant who does good is not blasphemed, nor is a hireling blasphemed when he labors in good deeds: but the son, who is more praised and exalted than these, has one intention and another; she wants to please her father in everything, neglecting herself: these are looking for their own good, caring little about pleasing God: and they have good deeds, but the intention is not praiseworthy, even if they intend for the wrong end, so as to please God, but so as to find good for themselves. For the fear of torment preserves its integrity, so as not to suffer wounds: the desire for the heavenly kingdom seeks its own good and self-interest. And the essence without love is like a branch without a root, which does not bear fruit, but dries up and becomes useless. Saint Gregory the Besedovnik (Dvoeslov) informs Sitsa about this in conversation 7 on the Gospel: Just as many branches of a tree come from a single root, so many virtues will be born from a single divine love. There is no green branch of a good deed if it remains on the root of love. Until here Gregory. From which of his words this is clearly known, as every good deed, even if not done out of love for God, but for one’s own sake, is done only for the sake of good, is like a branch that has fallen from a tree, which no longer bears fruit, but dries up, and the deed is indecent. It is good to be afraid of torment, and fear for the sake of torment to fear evil, and to do good: but if that fear is dissolved by divine love, if that branch remains on the root of love, which is to be feared, and to love God, then the good person’s deeds will not be deprived of the fruit of their salvation. And without divine love there is only fear, fear of God, lest it devour a fierce beast, or kill a tormentor; That fear destroys everything that does good; a branch without a root dries up and becomes without fruit: fear without love does not deserve salvation. It is good to desire the kingdom of heaven and to do good things for the sake of this, but if that desire is dissolved by divine love; If the branch remains on the root of love, then you want to be in heaven. not only for his own pleasure, but also for the glory of God, to praise him forever, then the good person’s deeds will not be deprived of the fruit of their salvation. And without divine love, the mere desire for the heavenly kingdom is like a branch without a root, not bearing fruit, but withering; The Apostle affirms this when he says: “Even if I am the imam of all faith, even if I have given up the mountains, I am not an imam of love, I am nothing.” And if I distribute all my possessions; and even if I betray my body, burning it, I am not an imam of love, there is no benefit for me 664. Chapter 5. About good deeds, but fruitless; still outside the Orthodox Church About good deeds, even outside the Orthodox Church Those who are outside the Orthodox Church do good deeds, even if they are very good, but they are still fruitless, not deserving of salvation; For now, outside the church, whose head is Christ, say: what is not with me is on me, and what does not gather with me, scatters 665. Whoever adheres to Christ's church, adheres to Christ himself, harnessed to his church, as the head of the body, and will take away from him who is present. If one is alienated from the Church of Christ, one is alienated from Christ himself, the head of the church; Without Christ, everything that thinks of collecting good deeds for salvation does not collect, but is wasted, and does not deserve salvation for itself. A member that is animated and controlled from the body by the head, if cut off, can it be alive and active? Can a rod that is cut off from a grapevine, or a branch that is broken off from an apple tree, bear fruit? Not at all. Even a Christian person, even if he lived a virtuous life, if he is separated from the union of the Orthodox Church of Christ, cannot receive salvation. Hearken, His Holiness Athanasius, Patriarch of Alexandria, in his symbol at the beginning says: Whoever wants to be saved, first of all it is fitting for him to hold the Catholic faith; Even if someone does not keep them whole and blameless, except for all bewilderment, he will perish forever. Likewise, at the end it says: This is the Catholic faith, even if someone does not believe correctly and in a certain way, it will not be possible to be saved. Until here Afanasy. From which his words can clearly be seen, as if no one can be saved outside the Orthodox Catholic Church; just as in the days of Noah no one was saved from the flood, who was found outside the ship of Noah, but only escaped from those who went into the ship, but all who did not enter perished: this also means about the holy church of Christ (of which Noah’s ship was not a prototype), as not a single one will receive salvation from those who are not found inside it: he is not worthy of it have God for your father (says Saint Cyprian) who the church does not have for your mother 666. And the Gospel says: if anyone does not listen to the church, be like a pagan and a publican 667. Do not look at his good deeds when he is obedient to the church. Many virtuous people are found in the Hagaryans, preserving the truth, showing mercy, offending no one, but doing love and good deeds not only to their own people, but also to Christians, but their good deeds will not save them; The essence of Christ and Christ’s churches are still alien. Like them, those who bear the name of Christ on themselves, Christians who are denigrated, but are alien to the Church of Christ, will perish with their (even if they have) good deeds. This is what Saint Chrysostom informs in his interpretation of Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians, chapter 1, in conversation 2 668, saying: The devil’s foulest nothing, everywhere he imposes his labors with useless things and tears them to pieces. And not only does he not leave the heavenly rewards to be received, but also to bring good news to the martyrdom of the guilty. Not just a sermon, but also fasting and virginity, which will not only deprive them of their reward, but also bring great evil to those passing by, about whom he says elsewhere: “burned by their conscience” 669. Until here Zlatoust. We heed how fasting, and purity, even virginity, and the preaching of heretics, and their other exploits and labors, not only do not bring them salvation, but also intercede for eternal torment. The truthful mouth of Zlatoust is known. Chapter 6. About the morals of hypocritical teachers Having offered a consideration of the schismatic imaginary existence of good deeds, I will not ignore the hypocritical teachers of their character, by whom they seduce the souls of gentle and simple people, for we have heard how these ravening wolves come into the flock of Christ in sheep's clothing. In the first they see (as we hear) lavish, rich houses; they do not enter poor and beggarly houses. Sitse and the wolf does; He doesn’t come there, where he doesn’t want to steal something for himself, but where he hears a meeting of cattle, he comes there. They also see persons who are comfortable admiring their charms, which are the essence of common people, and especially the female gender. Also, having moved into any house, they show great reverence, and in word and character they show themselves to be God’s servants, holy, and righteous, and reverent. They bring their own bread with them, and want nothing more than to taste the food offered to them, until they seduce the inhabitants of that house into their evil faith. They do not eat their food, because they abhor filth, but only show their fasting, and they fast until the evening, or every other day, and more, eating little of the bread they brought with them. They continue their prayer diligently towards God with tenderness, so that people will be visible; Christ speaks about such prayer books in the Gospel: They pray for a long time without eating, but these will receive unnecessary condemnation 670. They offer book reading, and from this they extend their teaching, not so that they teach the saved path, but so that they deceive into their like-mindedness. They talk to those who listen to them with sighing and tenderness and tears. They show the whole image of the shrine, all the deeds of pleasing God, but with an insidious disposition, a sly intention, according to a similar parable, which we read in Book 671 of Climacus: A fox pretends to sleep, but a demon pretends chastity; You'll have to smoke, but you'll ruin your soul. They and hypocrites pretend to be chastity, shrines, fasting, prayer and other imaginary good deeds, yet hypocritically, for the charm of gentle souls. People, simple beings, who do not understand their deceit, are amazed at such a life, fasting, prayers, meek disposition, and honor them as great saints of God, and with open lips they listen to their teachings in sweetness. Then they, having already laid out the path to human ignorant hearts, begin their heretical tares. At the beginning, the Church of God is blasphemed as not having faith, and the spiritual order and books and every church shrine and all the sacraments. The same Bryn monasteries extol their rites and faith and life with high praise. At the same time, they prophesy about the second coming of Christ, saying that this will already happen, the Antichrist will already reign in the world. And so they deceive gentle souls, and separate me from the Church of Christ, and lead me into their own evil faith, and they accept many alms from them, and return to their own with self-interest, like wolves with stolen food; They also take some people away with them, hoping to save them, but in fact to their destruction. Chapter 7. A virtuous life does not confirm an unjust faith We exhort you and pray, O sheep of Christ, be careful from those deceivers, from the hypocritical righteous, who have an image of piety, but have rejected its power; turn away from these: just as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so these also resist the truth, men of corruption in mind, and inexperienced in the faith 672. Below, be seduced by the image of their virtuous life that they show, it is well known that whose virtuous life does not confirm the faith of an unrighteous person. Because sometimes in the virtuous people one acquires evil faith, just as in the unvirtuous people one acquires right faith: but because someone’s virtuous life does not confirm the faith of the unjust, it is clearly evident from here. It is written in the life of St. Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria 673, (also in the Prologue, February on the 25th day; a certain Elder was found in the lower countries of Egypt, even though he was holy in life, both rude and simple, from the ignorance of his verb, as Melchizedek is the son of God. This was announced to the most holy Cyril and sent; calling to himself He knew the old man, and the elder did a sign, and he asked from God, then God showed him, and he spoke about Melchizedek, out of ignorance he said: the patriarch used such wisdom, with meekness saying: Abvo, I pray thee, yet the thought speaks to me, that Melchizedek is the Son of God, and another thought speaks to me, neither, but there is a man, and a bishop. God; and I doubt this in my thoughts, I purposely called you to pray to God, and inform me. The Elder, trusting in his life, spoke with boldness: weaken me for three days, and I will ask God about this, and I will tell you openly. The elder then went to his cell, and closed himself for three days, praying to God, that he might reveal to him about Melchizedek; and having received what was asked, you went to Saint Cyril, saying: man is Melchizedek, and not the Son of God. The verb patriarch: how much do you weigh, father? He said to him: God showed me all the patriarchs one by one, and I saw each passing before me, from Adam to Melchizedek; and the angel said to me: Behold, this is Melchizedek; be known, then, be the lord, for truly this is what it is. Saint Cyril rejoiced greatly, as if he had saved the soul of that elder, and having given thanks, let him go. And the elder went preaching to everyone that Melchizedek was a man, and not the son of God; With such wisdom, the saint of God Kirill guided the ignorant to the true path. We look: holy was He the elder and the miracle worker, and received everything we asked from God, but remained in the wrong faith about the Son of God; and would have perished in every possible way, had he died in that evil faith. Is it possible for his virtuous life to confirm that wrong faith that calls Melchizedek the Son of God? And in Limonar, in chapter 37, we honor a certain stylite who was in the countries of Hierapolis, who adhered to the evil faith of Sevirov, and who later most holy Ephraim, Patriarch of Antioch, miraculously converted to orthodoxy. That stylite, who remained completely in Sevirov’s evil faith, with his virtuous life as a stylite, in fasting and prayers, was it possible to confirm the faith of Sevirov, even if he held on to it? What are we talking about Eudoxia, Patriarch of Constantinople, the Holy Great Martyr Theodore Tiron appeared to him, commanding that a feast be held on the Holy Pentecost for Christians, just as it is written about in the Synaxarion on Saturday of the first of Lent. Didn’t that Patriarch Eudoxius, the son of the former holy martyr Caesarea, who was burned in fire for Christ, live a virtuous life? Otherwise, a virtuous life cannot confirm his unjust faith; Because of Ariev’s evil faith, he died and the heretics perished, and the father was cursed by the Saints. Likewise, Patriarch Sergius, who dipped the robe of the Most Pure Virgin into the sea, and immersed the Scythian ships near Constantinople into the sea with his prayers, set up an akathist to the Most Pure Virgin Mother of God in praise on the fifth Saturday of Lent; Isn’t she going through a virtuous life? Otherwise, a virtuous life cannot confirm his unjust faith; the chief of the Monothelitian heresy, which is written about at length in the life of St. Maximus the Confessor, on the 21st day of January; and in that heresy Patriarch Sergius died, and was imputed to heretics, and the father was cursed by the Saints. This is true, because someone’s virtuous life does not confirm an unjust faith. The same is known from the words of St. John Chrysostom 674, in which he commands those who live virtuously, but teach those who are untruthful to observe, to teach, saying: If the teaching of faith is corrupted, if even an angel will be (by life), do not obey; If the law teaches, do not pay attention to the life, but to the verb. Until here Zlatoust. Ubo and Brynyane, be virtuous by your imaginary life. They cannot confirm their wrong faiths. Faith, I say, not a single faith; yet in them (as before Rekhom) there is not one faith, but many. There are only a few monasteries, only a few faiths; and every hermitage wants to magnify its faith and create justice; and they send into the world secret, hypocritical preachers and teachers, like the Apostles of Christ, on whom these teachers confer with this Apostolic word: false apostles, workers of flattery, transforming themselves into Apostles of Christ 675: and no wonder; For Satan himself is transformed into an Angel of light: it is not great, even if his servant is transformed, like a servant of righteousness, whose death will be according to their work. Chapter 8. About the deeds of evil schismatics, and about teachers The evil schismatic deeds that are clearly perpetrated by them in opposition to the Church of the Saints, as they are reported to us, are innumerable, and it is not possible to write about them in detail, unless we offer the most notable ones here. Let us not offer it on our own behalf, since the humble one was not born and raised in these countries, nor have we ever heard about the schisms found in this country, nor about the Bryn forests, nor about the monasteries, nor about the difference in their faiths, nor about their deeds; but already here, by God’s will and by the decree of the Sovereign, he began to live, having learned by ear from many reports. Let us offer something that is authentic (known), something we learned from false narrators, something we heard from self-witnesses. ovaya same on the letter priyahom. At the beginning, we will offer some from the blessed memory of the Right Reverend Ignatius, Metropolitan of Siberia, from three of his epistles, which during the days of his pastorate in Siberia he wrote to his entire diocese, denouncing and destroying the harm of schismatic heretics, while exhorting the faithful not to be seduced by soul-harming heretics. In the first letter he talks about three schismatic teachers who were in the Siberian countries in Tyumen, their names are: Oska (Joseph) the false monk, also called Astomen, an Armenian by birth, from the city of Kazan; Yes, Yakunka (Jacob) is an apostate, nicknamed Lepikhin; yes Avramko (Avram) a Jew, nicknamed Hungarian, a lying monk. These three are teaching people not to go to church, not to confess, not to receive communion, not to be legally married according to the church rites; Make the sign of the cross on yourself not according to the ancient Greek custom, not with the first three fingers of the right hand, but with two fingers, according to the custom of the Armenian heresy. And another absurd one, contrary to the Holy Church and harmful to the soul, its own teachings are scattered among the people: and they torment the Church of God, deceiving many, and drawing them after themselves. From those three schismatic teachers, two with the third, although they agreed in many of their heresies, they both disagreed with this, as Oska and Yakunka taught people to burn themselves, for Christ; and he burned many, leading them into the forests and wilds, into empty places: and Avramko objected to their teaching and deeds, not ordering people to be burned, but only to shun the church and church sacraments. The Right Reverend Ignatius, in his third epistle near the end, will remember another of their disagreements, as Yakunka Lepikhin was taught by the pseudo-prophet Avvakum Archpriest, who said that the coming of the Antichrist should not be sensual, but only mentally found in the world, and already akiba is found: and Avramko of the Jews is more likely, as sensually the Antichrist will come in his time for him, and he will reign in peace; Having therefore separated from themselves from their disciples, the Lepikhins were called true believers, while the Avramovites were called sensualists. To this day, in the Bryn forests, there is a monastery of sensualists, who are said to have descended from him Abram the Jew, nicknamed Hungarian, a lying monk. And this is known about those false teachers, for Oska Astomen, an Armenian, was brought into exile from Kazan to the Siberian countries in the year of the world 7168 (1660), after Habakkuk, the rostopriest, in the fourth year. Oska was first in Tyumen, and was also taken to Eneseisk; everywhere throughout the towns and villages, as well as the path that is appropriate for him, leave traces of his schismaticism in simple people, whom he can deceive. And Yakunka Lepikhin was formerly a serving ataman in Verkhoturye, but having had his first wife, he killed and killed another, and gave birth to a daughter with her; Having also deviated into schismatic wisdom, he was called a priest, and was not sanctified, the priestly acted except for the liturgy: women giving birth through prayer, purifying babies, baptizing people, confessing people, and taking communion with an unknown kind of communion, supposedly brought to him from afar from nowhere; and were tonsured into the monastic rite; and burying the dead, honoring the prayer for their permission. I took the former Oska the Armenian from Tyumen to Eneseisk, left behind there Yakunka and Avramko, corrupting the people of God from the right path, and wrote many blasphemies against the Church of God, among which were blasphemies this: Yakunka himself, the icon painter himself, depicted on a sheet the church and the devil, in the image a serpent entwined around the church and vomiting its vile poison onto the most pure mysteries of Christ; Having written many such sheets, distributed them to people, and sent them to the surrounding areas, so that people are disgusted with the church and alienated from the most pure sacraments of Christ. In his second epistle, the Right Reverend Ignatius, Bishop of Siberia, says that they are false teachers, teaching people to be burned, having gathered together disciples and like-minded friends, and followers of their evil deeds, this cruel and inhumane creation of lawlessness and torment: they have deceived many, and brought wives, and virgins, and children into empty places, first I desecrated them with all kinds of fornication, even in the huts prepared for this in the forests, I shut them up, and having secured the entrance, I burned them, and took their property for myself. And thus I will destroy those deceived by death, killing soul and body, the soul with sin, and the body with fire. It is more common for people to live with their wives without a wedding, for the babies born from them to be baptized by ordinary peasants, and for those from the sacred rank not to accept either a wedding or baptism, which is below any blessing. Chapter 9. About Capito, Habakkuk and others In his third epistle, the Right Reverend Ignatius, Bishop of Siberia, after his contented denunciation of the Armenian heresy, and according to the description of the former heretics of Velikonovgorod, who deviated into Judaism, the story of the current schisms and heresies begins from a certain heresiarch Capiton the monk, who lived in the Kostroma district, in the Kolesnikova desert, and who gathered disciples for himself. And from the villagers, having seen his fasting life, they came, and they cohabited with him, and they had him as a mentor. He made such a show of fasting, as if he wanted to allow cheese and butter or fish neither on the Feast of the Nativity of Christ nor on Easter; but I ate bread, and from seeds, and from berries, and from other fruits of the earth with my disciples. On the blessed feast of the Resurrection of Christ, instead of red eggs, scarlet onions (cebul) were given to the brethren. I, being great and holy, began to despise the spiritual rank, and did not want to accept blessings from spiritual persons: they also began to invent new teachings and faith in their own wickedness, and create schisms and discord in the Church of Christ, ordering them to shun the union of the church and the blessings of the priest; learn not to venerate new holy icons, but only old ones; and imagine on yourself the sign of the cross with two fingers; and you uttered other ideas contrary to orthodoxy, and taught many, and the beginning became Capiton, who was so named in his name. In the reigning city of Moscow, schismatics rose up: Avvakum the archpriest, and Gregory the archpriest, nicknamed Nero (this one later repented and was forgiven); yes Lazarus the priest, yes Nikita the priest, called the empty saint, and Fedor the deacon, many others from the spiritual and temporal rank, and from the court of the Tsar Netsy, defenders of the Armenian double-finger heresy, and other inventors of discord. Chapter 10. The girl gives communion with raisins At the same time, in the districts of Kineshma, and Reshem, and on Pleso, other schismatics appeared, the verb Podreshetnikov, named taco from his teacher, who had a certain villager called Podreshetnikov, who, following the heresiarch Kapito, taught people not to go to the Church of God, neither to have spiritual fathers, nor to the blessing the priest should come, and all the sacraments of the church should be alienated. They themselves, in their homes, perform certain church services according to the priestly rite, not having been consecrated, and the infants are baptized: their communion was some kind of magical, not bread, but berries, raisins, infused with enchantment, and they took communion in the rite of the mother: they will choose one girl from among themselves, and in the underground hut Having entered, she will be dressed up in a colored dress, and she will come out of the underground for an hour, wearing a sieve on her head, covered with a clean cloth, and in the sieve there are raisins; and in the hut there are many gathered husbands and wives and children. Having come out of hiding, the girl with a sieve worn on her head says in the likeness of a priest: May the Lord God remember you all in his kingdom, always, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages; They bowed and answered: Amen; This girl says this three times, and they answer Amen three times. And then that girl gives them that blasphemous offering, instead of communion of the holy mysteries: those who tasted those abiye berries wished for themselves to die, as if for Christ, or to burn themselves, or to be strangled, or to drown themselves in water, as if they had gone mad; and many people have destroyed themselves. Chapter 11. Demons rejoice over those who are burned Within Nizhny Novgorod there are palace villages, nicknamed Knyaginino, and Murashkino; from those villages, and from the surrounding settlements and villages, a multitude of husbands and wives with children had gathered, prepared to burn themselves on a certain threshing floor in a barn, and partook of their magical communion, tying themselves with thin ropes in twos and threes into sheaves, leaving two people between them so that they could be placed on fire and burned them. These people, even if they accepted their communion in their hands, but did not eat it, were preserved by God to see the death of these damned demonic martyrs. When these two lit a fire, and the whole barn was engulfed in flames, and although these two themselves were thrown into the flared fire to be burned, they saw above the flame in the smoke of two black demons, in the likeness of the Ethiopians, flying through the air, having wings like bats, (flying mice), rejoicing and splashing their hands, and crying it is clear: ours, ours naturally. That demonic joy over the lost, these two people saw it, shuddered, and decided to each other: Do you see, brother, how we are perishing from the teachings of the damned? and began to make the sign of the cross on yourself and run away from there. Having come to the priest, she confessed everything to him and repented; not exactly to the priest, but to others with tears, we told that we saw demonic joy over the lost, and thanked God for delivering them from that destruction. Chapter 12. About the baby's heart, cut into charms From the city of Vologda, on the road leading to Kargopol, in a country just from the sea, in a deserted place, living a certain enemy of God, a sorcerer and a sorcerer, bearing a desert-dwelling name, and having a hypocritical virtue, and imaginary from the surrounding villagers was holy and reverent; and many came to live with him, having him as a teacher and mentor. Not just husbands, but also wives and girls, that desert has already been filled; By his teachings, his flattering and hypocritical life, Byahu is drawn to him, like to the great saint of God. That accursed imaginary saint secretly taught everyone to live fornication without any shame, saying that carnal copulation by consent is not a sin, but there is love; Just don’t get married, but be blessed into marriage. A certain man from the city of Vologda, having been burdened with many sins, came to his senses, repenting before God; and make a vow to live the rest of your life purely, and go into the desert, so that after living in silence, you will receive forgiveness of your sins from God. Having heard about this desert dweller, how many who had gathered to him lived in the desert, I went there, not knowing their secret life of prodigal life. And having come to this hermit and the chief of the prodigal desert dwellers, pray to him that he would command him to live with him in the desert, like the others; he also said to the one who came: beloved brother, it is good that you came to us, for now there is no longer on earth the Church of God, all of which have strayed and become indecent; In the churches they still sing and read in a new way, but here we are still covered by the mercy of God, and we do not accept any news, and we are baptized according to the tradition of Blessed Theodoret, but we do not accept Nikon’s tradition; You did good in escaping from the Antichrist. That man, hearing this, spoke to him with tenderness: I am an honest father! I pray that you guide me on the path of salvation; For this reason, I came to your shrine, having heard your life according to God, which can lead souls to Christ God; save me who wants to be saved. The accursed hermit answered, saying: good child, it is fitting for you to be tempted by fasting first, so that you do not eat for some days until the Lord God informs us about you, and then we will receive you with joy. He promised to do everything commanded to him without hesitation, to save himself for the sake of his soul. The hermit commanded that he be brought into the inner, one from his cells, a small church, even if it were added to his cell, where he himself lived; in this little church there is only a little window, seeing the way, very small, so that there will be light in the little church; harden the entrance so that there is no way for anyone who has been planted to come out. While that man remained in the seclusion for three days without food or drink, he began to create a small well in the wall of the hermit’s cell, the moss was torn between the logs, and having done it, they looked at what that hermit was doing. I saw him through this well, behold, two men came to the hermit saying: Holy Father! God forgave this pregnant girl, she gave birth to a male child, what do you command to do about him? The same accursed imaginary holy hermit said to them: “Have you not been told before this, that when that maiden gives birth to a child, lifting up the breasts of the newborn baby with a knife, sweep out the heart, and bring it to me on a platter? Go, then, and do as you were destined. They departed and, little by little, brought the heart of a newborn baby on a wooden platter. something that is still alive and moving, and given to it; He took a knife, cut it into four parts with his own hand, and said to them: take this, and after drying it in the oven, grind it. These vile servants of that accursed hermit went and did what they were commanded, and again brought to him that infant’s heart, crushed into flour. The hermit, taking a sheet of writing paper, crushing it into small pieces of paper, put a small part of the crushed heart into those pieces of paper, and calling some of his novices, he said to them: take these pieces of paper with the shrine (he called his enchantment a shrine), and go to the cities and towns and villages, and when you enter the houses, say to the people, so that they would not go to church at all, and would not accept blessings from the priests of today, and would not confess to them, and would not partake of any church shrine, and would make the cross on themselves with two fingers, but would not accept the triple-fingered structure, because that is the seal of the Antichrist. And whether they listen to you or do not listen, you secretly put from this interpretation given to you into their drink or drink or into a vessel where they have water in their house, or into a well. When they taste it, then they will turn to us to the truth, and they will have faith in your words, and they will become martyrs of their own free will. Having seen and heard this, the man sitting in seclusion was completely numb with fear, not knowing what to do. They began to diligently pray to the Lord God, glorified in the Holy Trinity, for their deliverance from such misfortune, and they began to make the sign of the cross on themselves with three fingers (before doing this with two fingers, as they had learned quickly from that bad hermit). God, those who prayed to him in troubles listened, to that man sitting in the shutter, he sent freedom in a gray way: in the morning some merchants passed by that cell and saw them closed, and calling them to the window with his hand, secretly confessed everything to them, even about himself and about the hermit, what he saw, and what he heard, and prayed to them, may they deliver him from there. How can they deliver him, teach him: let them say that their servant has stolen their property, running away, and hiding here, and let them beg the hermit to give them their slave. The merchants, having greatly regretted that they had been closed, pretended to be looking for their slave, who had stolen from them and fled from them; and Akiba knew that he was hiding in that desert: and he prayed to that hermit, that he might give them their servant. The hermit, calling a man from the gate, said to him: what have you done, brother? You deceived us, saying that you were seeking salvation, but you, having robbed your masters, came to us. That man fell to the ground, saying: Father, I have sinned in heaven and before you, evil people whispered to me: but I pray you, do not betray me into the hands of my Lords; for I should not live from them. The hermit said: go, brother, and serve them, as the Apostle commands: servants, obey your Lord. The hermit prayed to those feigned gods, so that they would not do harm to their servant, if he returned their property. They gave their word to the hermit not to embitter his servant; and I ate more than that man. After the departure of those merchants with this man, it was announced to the hermit, as if all his secrets were known to the merchants from the man who was in seclusion. The hermit, having gathered with all his disciples, male and female, burned their cells, went to the boundaries of the great Novgorod, and settled in the desert on a certain lake, in the Paleostrovsky monastery, and took possession of that monastery; Many people from the surrounding villages began to flock to him, they were flattered by his teachings and attracted by magic. Hearing about them, His Eminence Cornelius, Metropolitan of the Great Novgorod, sent honest men to them from the spiritual rank and worldly admonition to according to the church: these libertine desert dwellers with their leader not only did not listen to the admonition, but also gave themselves over to destruction. For first of all, they blasphemed the Holy Church and all the Orthodox Christians by shutting themselves up in that monastery, and setting fire to the churches, the cells and the fence around, and so the monastery was burned and destroyed. Chapter 13. The burned ones cry out under the ground: oh, they are perished! That self-immolation has spread even to the Siberian countries, from exiled schismatics it is multiplied: when Oska the Armenian false monk was brought to Tyumen, seducing a certain priest in the name of Dometian into his corruption; and together with the prophesied Yakunka Lepikhin, it deceives many, and leads into the desert, burning. Oska was also taken to Yeneseisk, the former priest Dometian went into the desert, and found nowhere the monk Ivanishcha, equal to his malice, took monastic vows from him, and was named Daniel. After your tonsure, build yourself a special dwelling in the desert, not too far from that monk Ivanishcha, going out into the world, spreading your heresy throughout the villages, and corrupting ignorant people, so that they would be alienated from the Holy Church and all church shrines and sacraments: and you told them that the Antichrist had already reigned in the world, and as if the day of judgment had already insists, and frightens the simplest soul; and, gathering those who listened to him, he led them into the desert to his dwelling there. Having gathered husbands and wives and children, like a thousand and seven hundred, I wrote to the monk Ivanishch, asking for advice: Gathering (speech) to me in the desert of virtue, men and wives and virgins and children, and they all asked for a second undefiled baptism by fire: what then does your shrine command you to do? The damned monk Ivanishche wrote back to him a word worthy of laughter, saying: You made porridge, and eat it as you want. Dometian, like Daniel, the accursed apostate and libertine, began to prepare the same for burning, and to make huts from the plump tree, having already built it, he commanded to apply resin, and birch bark, and hemp, and also prepare sulfur, and shooting gunpowder, so that the people would be engulfed in fire when will light up. Thus, for those who are preparing for burning, they have had enough time to prepare, and wishing not to hasten them, but also to gather even more to themselves, the Most Reverend Paul (who was before Ignatius), Metropolitan of Siberia, was informed of this, and his soul ached for those who were perishing, and soon sent to them from the spiritual rank and worldly men honest and prudent, to admonish them, and to lead them away from their evil undertakings. And when I finished the message to them, and began to admonish them, they shut themselves up in the huts prepared for burning, and many blasphemies against the church and the spiritual order, speaking, burned. And the fire from shooting range gunpowder, and sulfur, and resin, and birch bark, and hemp, was engulfed in fire from everywhere, and burned. In that place where it was burned, a great stench emanated for a long time, as if it were impossible for anyone to pass that place without stopping my nostrils. Many, who happened to pass this place in the early or evening dawn, heard the mournful voices in that place, like crying underground: Oh, they are lost! oh, they died! And I testified many times about such lamentable voices, even as they were according to God’s revelation, as a warning to the destruction of those who were deceived, and as a warning to others, so that they would not be deceived by schismatic false teachings. The same thing happened in the Tomsk district: a certain apostate, named Vaska Shaposhnikov, corrupted many of the male and female sexes and led them into the desert, burning them. And build three great wooden churches, and everything will be prepared for the imminent burning. The voivode of the city of Tomsk, hearing that many people had gathered in the desert and were burning, sent priests and other men to them, admonishing them not to destroy themselves. And when they approached the seduced, Vaska locked all those gathered in the church, and went up to the top, saying to those who came: we are burning with this fire, but you are burning with eternal fire and now, and you will burn there: get away from here; Whenever the saltpeter and gunpowder begin to tear up the mansion, then he will beat you with logs. This is the verb, the accursed one, frightening those who came, and let them go away; No, they have a lot of gunpowder and saltpeter. Having come then hearing it, retreated far from those churches; and Vaska, having gone down to the church, said: I will go out the window from the church, and ignite the courage gathered around, and then again I will go down. A certain girl said to him: don’t go, but go and light the little girl; He himself, who wanted to get out of the fire for the sake of igniting them, but by the very prophetic thing he lit them, he himself will run away. He has prepared a secret pit between those churches and the earthly exodus is far away, so that he will escape there with the property that remains for those who are burned. With this accursed intention, I deceive people and burn them, so that they may take their property for themselves; I burn people and let myself run away. I want to get that accursed Vaska out of the church, having burned him in a hedgehog, the girl and the others attacked him, holding him strong, saying: you want to destroy us, but you yourself want to run away. And she let the little girl out of the window, so that the prepared courage would ignite; The girl melted and saw the death of those who were burned. running to the priests standing afar off, and telling them all about how Vaska was kept in the church, and the accursed one perished with all those deceived by him. After the burning of those, a certain villager of the same Tomsk district grieved and cried, as if from his house Vaska he had cursed eight souls, male and female, having deceived and brought them into the desert, destroying them with him by burning. The villager came to that place, where he was burned by deception, walking over the ashes, weeping for his household; and when he heard the mournful voices coming from the ashes: oh, they perished! oh, they died! He was filled with horror at those voices, and after standing a little, he quickly went from there and proclaimed in the city and in the villages what he had heard. Here are three messages from the Right Reverend Ignatius, Bishop of Siberia. Similar to this, the city of Ustyug was told to us by a man of the living hundred, Maxim Danilov, nicknamed Pivovarov, when he was with us in Rostov this year 1709 about the holy week of the bright resurrection of Christ, telling the city: On Ustyug the Great, in the official hut in the deeds it is written: in 196, or in 197, (I don’t remember the actual year) in Ustyug district, in the Cherepovskaya volost, 120 versts from Ustyug, there were schismatics with 300 people in the forest; and from information from the sotsky volosts and peasants, governor Timofey Ivanovich Rzhevsky knew that schismatics lived in the forests; and he, the governor, sent people to them to take those schismatics into the city; and they dissenters became disobedient. And in those forests, the schismatics built great churches, and there was a fence all around, and under the churches, caves were dug in the ground. Those sent from the governor always wanted to take them, they became strong schismatics, and did not give in; and those churches with a large crowd wrapped them in straw and set them on fire, and they themselves burned in them, while others in the caves under the churches suffocated and bent. And for many years in the place where they burned, all night long I heard mournful voices screaming: oh, they died! oh, they died! There is still a great stench in that place to this day. The schismatic leaders not only seduce with charming words, but also attract with magical enchantments to such self-imposed burning and destruction; as if he had been created beforehand, and he will create the subsequent legend in reality. Chapter 14. About magical enchantments, and about the priest who plunged into the fiery cave In the current year 1709, the month of February, in the early days, Hieromonk Ignatius, an old man, tonsured the Ugletsky Resurrection Monastery, conveyed verbally and in a letter to our humility, and how he was tonsured already 26 years ago, and in the world his name is Jacob; he lived in Poshekhonsky district, in the Beloselskaya volost; I was a priest in the Church of Holy Friday for seven years; and said that in his parish souls of both sexes and all ages were burned in 1920, except for other surrounding villages and hamlets, in which countless people were burned, seduced and enchanted by magic from schismatic teachers; and the air was filled with a stinking stench from the burning corpses for many days. And as if by magic he was enchanted by the burning, Hieromonk Ignatius told us the true news, and in a letter to us he gave us the following: During that (de) time, when many people in the Poshekhonsky district were burning, Prince Ivan Ivanovich Golitsyn from Moscow came to his patrimony in the Beloselskaya volost, in the village of Kuzmodemyanskoye to persuade the peasants their own, so that they stop making sex. And his peasants were burned according to evil teaching, also in the Poshekhonsky district, the estate of the boyar Ivan Maksimovich Yazykov, the village of Kholm, the peasant Ivan Desyatyna. Having heard about that charming man, the prince ordered him to be found and brought before himself, and asked about his teaching, and persuaded him to stop such atrocity and murder; That man, Ivan Desyatina, threw out three berries made from some flour from his heap, but those berries were like cranberries in majesty, and began to rub those berries with his foot. When he saw the princely priest on the cross (but Elder Ignatius does not remember the name of that priest), he rushed and grabbed a single berry, picked it up, rubbed it on the bread with his fingers, and threw it to the dog. The dog, having eaten that bread, ran away; and in the courtyard at that time a fire was lit for the purpose of cooking food; and the dog ran towards the fire, screeching and scouring, and spread out on the fire and was burned. And he, the priest of the cross, crushed that berry on bread and threw it to the dog, crushed the berry with his fingers, brought it to his mouth, although he tasted it; and abiye was created outside the mind, and his face and eyes changed; and everyone was surprised and horrified by his sudden change and amazement. The prince, feeling sorry for him, took him to the basement, and in the basement at that time the stove was heated to supply food for the prince; and when he was brought into the basement, he saw fire in the cave, and he was thrown into the fiery cave, and would have burned there, if the prince’s people had not soon pulled him out of there by his feet; and his head and face were burned, his hair and hair burned; and remain crazy for the whole day. Then he came to his senses and came to his senses, beginning with tears to thank those who took him from the fire; and you informed the prince, and told everyone publicly: When you brought me into the basement, and I saw a burning cave, the cave seemed to me like heaven, and the mouth of the cave like the door of heaven. In the cave, in the fire, I saw sitting bright young men, who called me to themselves, saying: come to us; I abiye turned to them. This priest told the prince and everyone with tears; And there was this one who told us this, Hieromonk Ignatius, then Jacob was still called in worldly affairs, and he was a witness and self-hearer of all this. And as he saw and heard, he conveyed it to us according to the priestly conscience and we have faith in him, a much older man. Chapter 15. About Jewish and schismatic magic From the message of Joseph the priest, who in recent years, by order of the Sovereign, was on the Olonetsky verva, and wrote to the schismatic teachers of that country: to Daniil Vikulin, and to Andrei Dionisov, and to the whole host of them. That priest Joseph, denouncing the schismatics about their enchantments, first cited a wondrous magical deed that was sometimes created by the Jews in the kingdom of Poland, written out from the book of the verb Mirror of the Polish Crown, from the fifth article, as if some Jews gave a great price from Christian wives in order to sell them the milk of the Christian; and her wife told her husband about this, and according to his teaching, she sold them the milk of the blood, instead of human Christian milk. The Jews joyfully accepted the milk, hired a certain man, and went with him to the gallows, where the villain was hanged, and having performed their magic spell on the milk, they commanded the hired man to pour the milk they had enchanted into the ear of the hanging villain, and bowed his ear to the ear of the dead villain. He always did something when he asked the Jew, what does he hear? I answer the same: I hear the growling of cattle. The Jews, saddened, went to her Christian wife; and barked as if she had deceived them. Then there was a great pestilence on livestock throughout the entire kingdom of Poland; There would have been a pestilence on Christians, if only that Christian wife had sold them human Christian milk. Then he brought the priest Joseph and said to the schismatics: so you schismatics, over the retreat of piety, act with enchantment like the Jews, walking around the house, and deceiving both flesh of ordinary people, and who are not affected by your charms, you charm those with enchantment, as we learned from reliable witnesses to this. In Berezovo on Volok in the Kola court, a resident of that place, not the last person, having a full house, and a sizeable family, and knowing your charming machinations, named Gregory, who was later the monastic image, was received, and died piously; he told about himself: When the schismatics gathered there with your leaders, they built a prison on an island on the lake: a certain rich inhabitant there, seduced from them with his whole household, up to seventy people, moved into that island. and quite a few others moved in there with them; and from there he began to come often to the house of this Gregory and seduce. He, knowing your cunning, is not heedful of those charms, and dangerously guards his own household. After some time, these cruel people heard that they would soon be expelled from Olonets: then, especially, Gregory began to come to him and seduce him in every possible way to his evil faith; He remained adamant, having a brother in Olonets in the military rank, and from him he was completely punished not to accept your false teaching. Some time when these schismatics came, Gregory became poor with him: he then especially protected his household; These same curses with your guards, having seen him, are adamant to their charms, what are they doing? I often began to leave the hut in the vestibule; At first he made a mistake, carelessly about that, and shuddered at the thought of what he was going for: and he went out himself, and began to look around in the hallway to see if he had planted anything, and found nothing. Therefore, for the sake of need, a certain one came to the need for water, he again went out into the canopy, and took off the covering from the vessel, in which the water, like the top of the water, floated like flour; He collected it in a vessel and more conveniently looked at it in the form of a certain bone burnt in water: and before that time, his wife and daughter-in-law and several children drank the water. After fasting, these evil people left, and soon they were waiting for the army that would come against them from Olonets, the household of Gregory, who drank the enchanted water, began to ask him to go to the schismatic in the prison, but he restrained them in every possible way, begging and praying with tears: but it was impossible to restrain them, fleeing from him to those damned ones. And then soon a message from the warrior arrived; They are the beginning of the evil spirits (schismatic teachers), having locked everyone in that prison, deceiving them, setting them on fire, and they themselves fled. And so all the temptations of the fire perished. Behold the curses (Priest Joseph speaks to the schismatics): behold the charms of your wiles, where you cannot deceive with words, there you use sorcery, charm and destroy: such is your holiness. Joseph's message is here. There are schismatic speeches about burning and enchantment; also about their other self-inflicted death, how they are being starved to death, and we are talking about what they completely learned from the samovids. They have a monastery, called the Sears, who, like the burners, entice ordinary people, husbands and wives, to go into seclusion through fasting and hunger, akibs for Christ: they bring them as images from the lives of the saints, many of whom loved Christ in fasting, and others in exile and prisons of faith for the sake of hunger and thirst. And Scripture says: as through many tribulations it is fitting for us to enter the kingdom of heaven. What is the benefit of this existence in life? There is already no right faith on earth, no spiritual fathers, bishops and priests are all wolves, and churches are stables and an abomination of desolation; and the Antichrist already reigns in the world, and the terrible day of judgment will come. It is fitting (they say) for one who wants to be truly saved to suffer here; and like the martyrs and confessors, they died with hunger and thirst in this short time, so that they could reign with Christ after having escaped eternal torment. Let us suffer here in a small way, so that we do not join those who have abandoned the right faith, and for its sake they persecute and torture us. Surely we have a short time of hunger and thirst for melting, rather than being condemned to eternal torment with them. This is what the damned charmers say, with much tenderness, sighing and crying. And if anyone is deceived, they pray to him, so that, going to a single cell or cave, he will repent of his previous sins, and be crowned with a fasting crown like a martyr. The point is, those Morelers have special places in the forests for this purpose: wooden mansions, and holes in the ground. Some mansions have small doors, and they may put in the seduced one and close them tightly; others have no doors, but they let you in from above. The holes or caves are deep, it is impossible for anyone to get out of them, and from above they are blocked and secured with velmas. Sometimes they plant one, sometimes two, and three, and more. The plantings are poor, on the first, and second, and third days, and on the greatest number, cold from famine, they cry out, scream, and pray that they be released from there; but there is no one who listens to them, nor one who has mercy on them. And it’s even more terrible to hear that where two or three or more are planted, not enduring the famine, the living meat of which can overcome each other. And let no one imagine that this is unreliable, even if in imprisonment and hunger one eats one another, when one also feeds oneself in such need. Georgiy Kedrin the Tsargradets writes, in the Synopsis of stories, about the evil King Zinon of Greece, as if from much drunkenness I often go into a frenzy, and fall to the ground for him, and lie dead for a long time, Queen Ariadne his wife hated him, and not wanting to see him alive, put him to death: when Zinon fell into a rage to the ground, and as if he were dead, the queen took him up, laid him in a coffin deep in the ground, but did not cover him with earth, but placed a great stone over the door of the coffin, and set a guard. When King Zinon arrived in time, he began to cry out for him to be released, but the guards did not listen to him; For the queen’s commandment is strong for them. And he was alive for three days in the tomb, crying and sobbing, and died. After the death of him, the coffin was opened, and seeing him, his body was eaten in his arms even to the waist from hunger; that is written in Greek histories. Probably there is, as even among the Bryn Morelytsy, prisoners in earthen or wooden confines eat each other, and are convinced by the green feast. Cue the cry? Who's crying? some sobbing? what is the pain and sorrow? And what kind of salvation is there from that involuntary martyrdom? And thus, cursing the day of their birth, they perish with a death of extremes, physical and mental: not to the kingdom of heaven, but to the torments of hell, the souls of those go away, like suicides. And what benefit do they have from this bitter death? for it is not pleasant for Christ the Lord to bear that martyrdom, even if someone deigns to destroy himself, as will be revealed below. Chapter 17. They do not put the sin of fornication, but the love of Christ And this is marvelous, as they commit themselves to death, either by fire or by smooth death, for the sake of Christ: but they do not kill their carnal lusts, which of course a true servant of Christ must kill, but live fornication. I do not say this about everyone; It is heard that many of them live purely and chastely: the many who are numerous do not classify fornication as sin, but they call the love of Christ curses, as if we hear abie. The Voivode of Rostov, Mr. Semyon Eremeevich Pashkov, told us that last year, in 1703, he was sent by Sovereign’s Decree on business to the Balakhonsky district, to the Zauzolsky volost, there, during his stay, schismatic teachers did a sad thing: there is a village called Bor from Nikola, in that village, near the priest Sisoy, two schismatics persuaded his wife with money, and were taken to Bryn schismatic places; Akiba to the rescue. And before they reached the Kerzhenets River, those schismatics brought that priest to a certain empty church. And before their arrival, according to God’s providence, two beekeepers of the Tolokontsovskaya Palace volost arrived there, and, having heated the stove a little, sighed on the floor for a while, and fell asleep. After an hour, they woke up, sensing the arrival of these schismatics with the priests, even though they knew the beekeepers well, her husband, priest Sisoy, was their spiritual father; and I sit silently on the canvas, and secretly look at what wants to be. These schismatics entered with the priest, and found the warmth of the church, gray-haired; I think that there is no one else in the church, I don’t know about the beekeepers. I also began to say to the priest: create sister, Christ’s love is with us. She asked them: what kind of love of Christ should the imam create with you? They decided to her: be with us through carnal copulation, that is, the love of Christ; She was horrified and said: Is this why you persuaded me from my husband of course? I hope that you will receive the salvation of my soul, and I follow you, as a holy and helpful mentor and teacher, but you know that you will defile me: and you do not deign to sin. They began to forcefully force them to their lawlessness; and strike one of them with your hand in the face. Then the beekeepers, secretly sitting on the beds, had a squeak loaded with gunpowder, simply without a bullet, shooting at the top of those. lawless and loudmouthed. These damned saints of Bryn, frightened by great fear, quickly fled from the church, leaving the priest with the money, and were missing. And the priest rejoiced at his deliverance from the hands of lawless fornicators, who condemn the love of Christ for fornication, wanting to defile it. The beekeepers took the food, took it to her husband, to her spiritual father, to the priest Sisoy, and gave it to him whole with the money and with her purity. The priest was extremely happy when the beekeeper gave him a few rubles of money for bringing his wife to him. The same Mr. Semyon Eremyevich also told this that the peasants of the Zauzolsky and Tolokontsovsky volosts take their daughters, and sisters, and sister-in-law girls to the Bryn forests to the holy fathers (this is how schismatic teachers are called holy fathers), and hand them over there as if for the love of Christ, in fact for fornication. Only the demon has blinded those damned, because fornication is not exactly considered a sin, but is considered a virtue, and is considered the love of Christ; legal marriage is called lawlessness and slave labor. When those girls become pregnant, the schismatics take those pregnant girls to their former places, the one from which place they were brought. And when they give birth to their fathers or relatives, and live for six weeks after birth, the Bryn forests are also allotted. We place faith in this story spoken by the master; We are still hearing the same thing in our diocese. It was recently reported to us truly about certain people in the city of Romanov, townspeople, rich in estates (I don’t remember their names, they are from those living there), from whom there are three: Ivan Grigoriev, the son of Trusov, nicknamed Mylnikov, exiled three daughters; Vasily Grigoriev, son of Trusov, nicknamed Mylnikov, exiled one daughter; Ivan Mikhailov's son Shanin, nicknamed Fools, exiled one daughter; Fyodor Stefanov, son of Lykov, one daughter; one daughter each; and the fourth Mylnikov, three daughters, were sent to the Bryn forests, to a certain women’s monastery there, with happy money, with an unknown intention. Surely they didn’t have nunneries for girls in the Diocese of Rostov, if they wanted to marry their daughters to Christ? Likewise, here in Rostov, the only supposedly kind man, Ivan Menkin, secretly sent his daughter, who was old enough to marry, to schismatic dwellings, and for what, God knows. Chapter 18. About the monasteries of Bryn For the clearest expression of the deeds of the schismatic, displeasing, hostile Holy Church, and some of their monasteries, briefly mentioned in the first part, let them be repeated here in a little more detail. The schismatic dwellings in the Bryn forests are strictly called monasteries and talk houses. For this reason, the monasteries, as they wander in the deserts, resemble the ancient Holy Fathers of the desert dwellers. Interpretations are called for this reason, because every monastery interprets the Divine Scripture in its own malicious wisdom differently, not according to anything else; and throughout the surrounding villages and hamlets they spread their rumors, more often than ordinary people of their own faith, and inclining towards their own sense. First of all, let Christhood be offered. In that monastery or monastery there is a certain man, who is called Christ, and who is revered as Christ; but they bow to him without the sign of the cross. The refuge of that Christ in the village called Pavlov Perevoz, on the Oka River, 60 versts outside the Lower City. They say that this false Christ was born in Turchenin; but he takes with him a red-faced maiden, and calls her the material for himself, and those who believe in him call her the Mother of God. And the girl (or rather whore) is Russian by birth, from the Nizhny Novgorod district, the village of Landyukha, the daughter of a townsman. There are false Christs and apostles 12 who go around the villages and villages preaching Christ, the true one, to simple men and women; and whoever is deceived is brought to him to worship. That sense, the verb Christhood, even if it blasphemes the Church of God, does not forbid entering the church, venerating holy icons and the cross, and coming to the priestly blessing; So this false Christ allows hypocrisy to those who believe in him: not to defile you, but you would not have known. The monk Pachomius, who told us this, having heard from the witness who saw this lying Christ, was brought to him by his disciple for worship. Then Christ came to the Volga river, in the village of Rabotki; 40 versts beyond Nizhny Novgorod, down the Volga. In that village, on the river's edge, there is a dilapidated and empty church, and then people who believe in it gathered to pray in that church. Christ came out from the altar to the people into the church and into the meal, and seeing on his head something great was wrapped in the likeness of a crown written on icons, and some small red faces, in the likeness of birds flying around his head, they say to be cherubim; (It seems to us that either demons in the likeness of such are dreamily staring at people, or cherubs are written in paints on writing paper, and a crown is attached around them.) I sat down with him, and all the people gathered there fell, bowing to him to the ground, like the true Christ; and bowed down to the unceasingly praying for many hours, until they were exhausted from prayer. In prayer I called out to him: Lord, have mercy on me, saying; Oviy: O our creator, have mercy on us. He spoke to them a certain prophetic word, saying what would happen, what kind of change in the air, and affirming them to believe in it beyond doubt. Anufrievshchisha, as well as Popovshchina. That monastery is the greatest of all; Anufriev’s evil faith is expanding in many cities and throughout our diocese. Those who adhere to that sense and faith say Popovshchina, and the chief Anufriy himself says not a priest, but a simple old man. Priests are accepted by those who were appointed Patriarch Nikon before, but not many of them are found. Habakkuk, the heretic archpriest, betrayed and lost to the curse, is revered as a saint, and is named the new passion-bearer, and his image is painted and venerated like a saint, and a service was composed for him, and a celebration of his memory is celebrated, and the letters of that heresy are contained, and they believe so, and they teach others to believe so, and to glorify the triessential Trinity. And his disciple Erofey Andreev testifies about Avvakum’s letters: Avvakum’s letters are brighter than the sun, and they are all kind. The heretic gives testimony about the heretic, and both of them, like-minded people, receive praise from their greatest teacher, the devil in hell. The monasteries or talks that host today's priests are: Pavlinovshchina; Andreyanovshchina, Iosifovshchina, and others of similar malice. They accept priests who have been cast out and who do not submit to the holy church. They rebaptize people who adhere to their faith and are under sixty years of age; Our Orthodox baptism is called heretical baptism and they say that heretical baptism is baptism, but more than desecration: and those over sixty years old are not re-baptized, they are said to be baptized with true baptism; before the patriarchate of Nikonov, and before the correction of books, he was baptized; In the same way, monks have their hair cut. And the current priests who are accepted are first told to curse their priestly consecration, and the bishop who appointed them. They also give them power from themselves, which is a sacred act, and they serve from those priests in empty churches according to the old Missals on seven prosphoras, but not often, only in reserve for the sake of gifts, so for the sake of a great prosphora they create, so that it will last for a long time. And other priests tell them that their gifts are old, and they give them communion. This thing is worthy of laughter: Netsy villages and villages of their ilk exist at a far distance, when a wife gives birth, and they cannot quickly call the priest to her, for the sake of distance, but because in other villages the priest happens to go away, they will quickly send a man to him with a white, clean salary; The priest said a prayer appropriate for women in labor, saying it in the cloth, and named the baby, made the cloth, and gave it to the messenger. Having returned the same, having developed the cloth, he shakes it over the face of the woman in labor, and says the name of the baby: and thus the woman in labor is prayed for. Likewise, when someone dies, but it is too late to come to the dead person and say the prayer of permission; He takes a white, clean cloth, reads the prayer of permission in the cloth, and reads it, and bending the cloth, sends it to shake the cloth over the face of the deceased, and so the dead, absolved from all his sins, is buried. O the pre-mad minds of those mad schismatics! This is also worthy of laughter: if someone from their faith, on occasion with our faithful, eats or drinks, or enters the church; over such a prayer is read, just as it is read over a vessel into which something bad will fall. The monasteries or talk, which do not accept any priests, are these: Volosatovshchina, Andreevshchina, Ilarionovshchina, and others agree with them in schisms. These are unsanctified beings; they themselves act in a certain priestly way: they baptize, confess and tonsure into monasticism, and pray to women in labor and read the prayer of permission for the dead. Their women also baptize babies, and go to the book of the Helmsman, in which there is such a rule as the holy fathers, who command the women to perform the secret of baptism. But they do not live in legal marriage, but in lawlessness, and wives and girls and nuns live together with them in the same cells, and they have common confusion. Their teachers teach that it is better to live without a wedding than to get married heretically (they call us Orthodox heretics) and they abhor those who are married according to the church rite. And if a child is born to those who, according to the church rite and the Christian law, are married, then they then neither eat, nor drink, nor talk, nor pray with them, like with the filthy. For this reason, fathers and mothers who have daughters do not give them away to legal marriage, but order them to live with whomever they want without a wedding. They say that the communion is ancient, consecrated even before Nikon, Patriarch Akiba; and when that communion does not melt, they make unleavened dough, and having ground the remaining part of the communion into flour, sprinkle it on the dough, and make large prosphoras so that it will last a long time, and bake it: and send it out to their congregations, saying that this is the body of Christ. When it doesn’t melt again, they make prosphora in the same way, sprinkling the dough pounded into flour with the remaining part of the sacrament, and so their ancient communion, consecrated by Nikon before, is never diminished. These are the same rumors about the burners: Andrei Pomoryanin burned more than three thousand people; The hairy old man burned more than two thousand people. For this purpose they build special churches in large forests, and put one hundred and two hundred souls or more in one church; and small children, so as not to run away, are seated on the lavas, and their clothes are nailed tightly near them with nails. And so, having wrapped the hut in straw and bravado, they set it on fire; and stand near the fire, taking care so that no one runs away from the fire; and whoever escapes, they will kill him and throw him back into the fire. Having burned those people, they eat their belongings for themselves. Serapionism: from Serapion the monk. false teachers who are increasingly starving to death; many nuns gathered to their monastery, and they were in charge. After the death of that Serapion, his brother, his own monk Simeon, began to kill all the nuns and those like him in that monastery to self-inviting martyrdom, starving to death in the seclusion the souls of fifty, leaving only one, even the 6th boss, and went with her to Kazan, and married her there. Stefanovschina: from Stefan the deacon, he has already died, but his heretical meaning remains. In that sense (as in the Feodosiev region, about it in the first part), marriage is called fornication, and they themselves are called virgins; but they live in communion with the female sex, and commit fornication; they commit themselves to the sin of fornication, but to love. Both of them hide before our faithful, the Akibs live virginally. But the very act of staying in single cells with their wives exposes them. How can hay contain fire? The babies born from them are carried into the forest far away, and they are thrown there; and those babies become food for beasts and birds or dogs. That’s what the monk Macarius told us, who was originally from the Rostov district, the village of Zverinets, and lived near the Bryn monasteries among the schismatics for five years. He also converted to Orthodoxy and took monastic vows in the newly built Assumption Monastery from Abbot Pitirim. And when she visited us in Rostov in this year 1709, on the holy week of the bright resurrection of Christ, she told us what was offered here. Kozminshchina: in the same way they call marriage fornication, the churches of saints and priests and the holy mysteries are not said anywhere on earth; but in their prayers for the king they do not pray to God. The same goes for other monasteries. The monastery of the maiden, Rostov Grad, a nun named Anfisa, old, who lived in the Bryn forests before, she tells a thing to Sitsev: more than twenty years ago, the monk Abraham on the Kerzhenets River made herself a monastery. That Abramius was created as a teacher of the schismatic faith according to his own interpretation, deceiving many to his evil faith, and appearing through a fasting life; those who come to his monastery cross him. And he gathered the nuns to himself, re-baptized them, and re-haired them; By the way, he has two very handsome nuns, whom he seduced to himself: Cilicia and Matrona. Live with Cilicia like a true wife, exchanging fornication for soul-saving love; Having a matron instead of a daughter, she will live with Cilicia as a male child. For some time, Cilicia fell ill. a serious illness, as if he were about to die, he confessed to me himself, and gave me communion, and was tonsured into the schema: after a few days, she began to come to health, and rose from the bed of illness. Having been healthy, I wanted to create fornication with him as before; but he did not wish to, saying that it is impossible to love carnally with a schema-woman; and already with his betrothed daughter Matrona, they began to live prodigal lives. Cilicia became jealous, filled with anger and rage, fled to another monastery, and hired two strong men there, killing the ambassador Abramius; They went to attack his monastery. And Avrami, recognizing their evil intention, ran away from them; and one of those people threw a spear after him, and hit him in the shoulder, and wounded him; both wounded and ready to flee, they ran away, but they beat Matrona, barely left alive, and, having taken their belongings, returned to their own. Therefore, this elder Abramy and Matrona were seen in the city of Yaroslavl, secretly teaching and seducing simple people to their evil faith. A fair amount of fasting and feat of that schismatic teacher! About the year of the world's existence 7210, at the beginning of my coming to Rostov; a certain man named Fedka or Fyodor, originally from Rostovets, came out from the Bryn forests, and with him two charming nuns. That one came to Rostov to the nunnery, and began to persuade the nuns here, saying that it was impossible to be saved here in the city, and you will not be saved unless you run into the Bryn forests and hide in the desert. That said, giving them cranberries from the Bryn hermitages as a blessing, which they had with them in the sieve, so they ate those cranberries, with a great desire they wanted to flee to the Bryn forests; and the nuns ran after him: Euphrosyne and Mastrigia; and the other two after them. That Fedka went through the city and the Rostov district, and seduced many wives and girls; With your life, take them to the Bryn forests. Once he reached his monastery, he took their belongings from them, and sent them to other monasteries. Abbess Natalia of the Rostov monastery and other sisters told us this. The essence of them is the kind of monastery or talk that is neither clerical nor priestless; These people do not have any baptism, and many of them grew up without baptism, and got married without a wedding, and gave birth to children, and are very alien to Christianity. What kind of Christianity is there, where there is no longer even baptism! What are we talking about Subbotniks, who fast on Saturdays like Nozhidov? Didn’t these renew his Judaism, which arose in the great Novgorod, during the reign of Grand Duke John Vasilyevich, under Archbishop Gennady of Novgorod, in the days of St. Joseph, Abbot of Volokalamsk? Then many people of spiritual and worldly rank, having been seduced by certain Jews who came to Great Novgorod, went away from Judaism without circumcision. Also, a new meaning is heard, recently revealed from the wisdom of Bryn, saying the Rogozhniks or Rubischniki, who walk around the world in rags and matting, show themselves to be saints; Church rules command that such people be expelled from cities. The helmsman, sheet 191 on the back, rule 12. But who will consider their crazy inventions, and their evil faiths, and their heretical wisdom, and the deeds of the true Church of Christ that are contrary to piety? And even here, from various testimonies, their deeds are remembered, then let them be presented in a short list for the most convenient reasoning. Chapter 19. List of deeds of schismatics who pretended to be good. 3) Before burning, the female sex is desecrated by fornication. 4) Burnt people steal their property. 5) Starved to death. 6) They blame each other for living in seclusion. 7) The girl gives Holy Communion with magic raisins. 9) Sorceries attract people to themselves. 10) Legal marriage is called fornication. 11) Fornication is said to be through the love of Christ. 12) They make a man into Christ, and they bow down to him like Christ. 14) The heretic Habakkuk, accursed, is revered as a saint. 15) They rebaptize and cut their hair. 16) Priests acceptable to them are rearranged. 17) Their priests read the prayer in the plat. 18) Non-sacred, simple priestly men act. 19) They make false communion. 20) They don’t pray to God for the king. 21) They have no inn and baptism at all. 22) Innyi keep the Sabbath in the Jewish way. Whether all their deeds are good and pleasing to God, everyone can judge and see with a sound mind. Chapter 20. Reasoning of schismatic cases Is it a good thing to burn so many people of both sexes and gentle babies who lead nothing? Is this an obvious murder? Just as you kill someone with a dagger or a weapon, hand over someone to death and fire to be burned, that is also murder. And the commandment of God commands: Thou shalt not kill 676; and city laws punish murderers by death; and God also said to Noah the verb: They shed the blood of man, in his place his place will be shed 677. And even if a single person is killed, a great network of evil: how much more will the many and numberless be put to death fiercely. Mauritius, the pious Greek king, was kind and kind, and did not kill anyone, but only because he did not redeem the captives from the Kagan, who were given for a small price, and was guilty of those beheadings: for this, by the righteous judgment of God, Phokas was handed over to the tormentor for murder, even before his eyes, he cut down his first sons, and beheaded him with a sword. What kind of judgment will the schismatic leaders, who burned so many thousands of people, suffer? In the Prologue, the month of February, on the 3rd day it is written that a certain robber, killing an innocent child, repented and became a monk; and remained for nine years in great abstinence and monastic labors, and without hesitation about the forgiveness of one’s sins, hoping for God’s mercy. Every day, I go to church for him, and the baby he killed appears, saying: Why did you kill me? And after nine years, leaving behind the monastic attire and worldly reception, he went to the city of Diospol, although according to the city court he was tormented for his sins: and when he was there, he received the death penalty as a murderer. What will the schismatics do? Thousands of gentle children will be born, and babies who suck at their nipples will be put to fiery death? What answer will they give to God? What do they answer to those babies who were burned by them, when they cry out to them at the Last Judgment of God: Why did you burn us? And the schismatics, who are now burning every age of male and female, imagine offering service to God 678, and teach ordinary people, so that they would not be horrified, and not doubt about their salvation, but would dare to go to the fire for Christ, but with the prophetic thing itself for nothing. And the previously mentioned teacher Habakkuk taught their schismatic, saying: everyone who is faithful, do not let those ears hang, do not hesitate, go boldly into the fire, and suffer with the joy of the Lord, for the good warrior Jesus Christ, for the sake of righteousness, for the sake of the ancient books of the saints. And again, pleasing those who are burned by their own will, he says: blessed is this will in the Lord 679. But oh, maddened Habakkuk, tell the false teacher, or rather speak to the tormentor! Are you like the devil, a murderer from time immemorial, rejoicing in the murder of men, and striving to kill men? Teach and strive for people to let themselves die, and to perish in body and soul. Where their bodies are burned, but there their souls are consumed by the fire of Gehenna. You, who are guilty of both their deaths, what answer did you give to the righteous judge God for everyone, through your teaching and advice to the dead? Is it a good thing for those who listened to schismatic teaching and advice to give themselves into fiery death, to be burned with their wives and children, and to be their own murderers? This means laying hands on oneself, killing oneself by some kind of murder, whether with a weapon, or by strangulation, or by water, or by fire: all that is suicide and that suffering does nothing to benefit, but rather to harm; Even if he sheds his own blood, he kills himself, since that blood is not for his salvation, but for his condemnation; and martyrdom is not the crown, but the cruelest hellish execution; for suicide is a greater sin than murder. It is a great sin to kill a person; to kill oneself is greater than that. We hear Saint John Chrysostom, in his conversations on Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, writing about those who themselves destroy their lives through forced death and boa constrictors, and other deaths, and saying: God torments such people more than murderers, and we are all disgusted (we abhor suicide); and in truth, if it is not good to kill others, much more so than yourself 680. And again, the Saint in his Epistle to the Philippians, in conversation 13, says: Crucify yourself, I say, so that you do not kill yourself: do not wake up; for this is wickedness 681. Until here Chrysostom. Behold, hear the universal. the great teacher Saint John Chrysostom, who says how he talks about suicides: as if God does not have mercy on such people after their death. but it torments; and how such things are abominable to God and man, and how such a thing is not pious, but wicked. And the schismatic teacher Habakkuk wants to teach his disciples, and he gratifies such a thing, saying: blessed is this will of the Lord. But who is better to give faith to: Patriarch Chrysostom of Constantinople, or Habakkuk, the Rospope of Moscow? Whether it is the ancient true teacher of the universe, or the new schismatic false teacher, judge for yourself. We know that in ancient times the holy martyrs plunged Christ into the fire for their own sake, but when they were beaten by their tormentors, and were tortured for Christ’s sake, and were condemned to be burned by fire, and were already brought to the fire, then they did not wait to be cast into the fire: and their deed was praiseworthy before God. And besides the tormenting hands, they themselves did not put fire on themselves, they plunged lower into the fire, but they waited until the filth had them, and they would begin to torment them, and they would light fire on them. Today’s ungodly martyrs are schismatic, even if there is no persecution for Christ, and no one forces them to reject Christ, no one torments them for Christ; Otherwise, they kindle fire on themselves, and are burned without permission, and think that they are suffering for Christ. But their hope is vain, their hope is vain; For they do not suffer for Christ, but for their own stubbornness, and their souls go not to Christ, but to the devil: they are not martyrs of Christ, but demonic ones; for the devil also has his own martyrs. Who are the martyrs of the devil? these (as we hear from Chrysostom) who kill themselves. And while the schismatics are still burning, they kill themselves; for they are not martyrs of Christ, but demonic martyrs. According to these, the rules forbid the creation of paternal commemoration: St. Timothy, Archbishop of Alexandria, Rule 14 says: If anyone kills himself, or stabs himself, or strangles himself, no offering will be made for him, unless he has truly destroyed his mind. Look about this in the book of the Helmsman, page 270 on the back. For the schismatic disciples, who destroy themselves with fire, are unworthy of commemoration after their disastrous death, like suicides. No offering will be made for them. Their memory will perish noisily. Is it a good thing for those seduced before the burning of their wives, girls and children to defile themselves with fornication, which happened in Tyumen? 0 His Eminence Ignatius, Metropolitan of Siberia, of blessed memory, testifies in his second epistle, as he wrote above in this third part. If, for one child, the seduced grief is fierce, like Christ the Lord Himself in the Gospel, when he says: whoever seduces one from these little ones who believe in me, he will not eat, and the millstone of the village (millstone) will be maddened about his neck, and will drown in the abyss of the sea 682. How much more, for the seduction of many, they will give birth to many children, girls and wives, defiled by fornication, woe to the defiler, from them not only one will be angry about the neck of a heavy stone, but because of the great temptation of persons; and will wallow in the abyss of fire, even in hell. For such seducers do purely evil: they destroy soul and body; the soul is sin, and the body is fire. It’s terrible to think about both of them, the kind of judgment they will suffer. Is it a good thing to steal the property of burned people for yourself? Isn’t this what they seduce and burn for, so that they can get rich from their possessions? And is this obvious robbery, killing people with fire for the sake of property? And truly the most brutal is this robbery from schismatics. often on the way from robbers. The robber, sitting on the roads, only wants to take away property: the schismatic seeks to destroy the soul. The robber may kill the body, but he cannot kill the soul; the schismatic kills both the soul and the body. Having reduced a person to a soul-destroying heresy, you consign your body to fire and consign your soul to hell. Is it a good thing to shut up those who are of great value in remote huts, or in deep cellars, and starve me, and be a terrible guilt for centuries? of this unheard torment, closed to a glad death, unable to endure the cruel famine, to eat one another alive, who will overcome whom? Where in the heavenly world is such torment heard? and who from centuries ago invented the way of pleasing God and salvation? Truly this path is not to please God, but to anger God; and not salvation, but destruction. And such poor people begin their torment even in this life, and with it they go to eternal tartar. O godless invention and inhuman torment! Is it a good thing for a girl, instead of true Christian communion, to give communion to people in the districts of Kineshem and Reshem with enchanted raisins, as mentioned above; What magical sacrament did those who took part in, going mad, destroy themselves, either by fire, or by water, or by strangulation? Is it a good thing for a newborn baby to take out the heart, and dry it up, grind it into flour, and pour the thaw into a person’s food and drink, and pour it into treasures for human charm, and with such sorcery attract people to their heretical like-mindedness? Is it a good thing to charge a legal marriage, married according to the rites of the church, as fornication? Is this not contrary to the law of God and the laws of the city? And in the unfaithful the law of marriage is preserved, but in the schismatics who pretend to be faithful and holy, that natural law is destroyed. Where will they put the Holy Scripture, the mouth of Christ himself in the Gospel, saying: Do you not believe that He who created the male and female sex from time immemorial, created I? And he said: For this reason a man will leave his father and mother, and will cleave to his wife, and both will become one flesh. Moreover, there are two, but the flesh is one: if God unites, let not man separate 683. And who among the faithful would dare to call the law of God and the law of God-created nature fornication, when the Apostle testifies about it, saying: marriage is honorable in all, and the bed is undefiled 684? Is it a good thing to commit fornication, even if it is not in reality, but repent, and call fornication the love of Christ? where did Christ command such love? and who from the Apostle, or from the Prophet, or from the saints, the father teaches to remain in fornication? Don’t everyone, moreover, forbid the life of a prodigal, punish him cruelly, and sometimes even execute him with death for prodigal deeds? Isn’t it commanded in the Law of Moses to stone fornicators and adulterers 685? And what does the holy Apostle say about such things? Every fornicator and evil spirit will have no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ God 686. And again: God judges the fornicator and adulterer 687. To Christ Himself, our Lord, most pure and undefiled, born of the most pure Virgin, and the source of all purity that exists, since prodigal uncleanness is unlovable and vile, powerfully seen from here, it is written in the Apocalypse: Christ our Lord, having appeared to his beloved disciple John, spoke to him: To the angel of the Pergamon church write, this says, having a sharp sword on both sides: the imam is against you, as you are the imash who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to lay a temptation before the children of Israel, to eat food sacrificed to idols, and to commit fornication: So you and the imash hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans, which I hate. Repent: no matter what, I will come quickly and make war against them with the sword of my mouth 688. Until here are the words of Christ. We listen to this; Because Christ the Lord hates the teachings of the Nicolaitans, I also (speech) hate him. And what about the Nicolaitan teaching? The same goes for Valaamovo; just as in ancient times Balak taught to seduce the people of Israel with prodigal wives: in the days of the Apostle, Nicholas of Antioch taught people to have wives in common and to commit fornication without fear or abstinence, for there was no sin in that. The Lord sharpened his sword against such, and declared in reality that the teachings of that Nicolaitan, he hates fornication, and wants to wage war against fornicators with the sword of his mouth. But the accursed schismatics are not horrified at calling fornication by the love of Christ. They say: for not all are like this, not all commit fornication, and do not count fornication as a sin. I answer: we are not talking about everyone; for we find it in books; for there are many filth from men and women who preserve purity and virginity, even in idolatry; How much more can there be in Brynyany those who remain in virginity and purity? Both we hear and see, then we speak. We often hear maidens and blueberries fleeing from our diocese; We see those returning from there with their bellies, and what more evidence is there for? Is it a good thing to call a simple peasant Christ, and honor him like Christ, and pray to him like Christ, and believe in him? Isn’t this what Christ himself foretold in the Gospel, saying: Then if anyone says to you: Behold, Christ is here, or here; Do not have faith: will false Christs arise? 689 Is it a good thing to be a hypocrite and appear as a person as if you were holy and righteous and reverent? Hypocrisy cannot bring salvation to a virtuous husband. Moreover, under the image of holiness, the evil one who thinks evil, and the deceitfulness of man who covers the wolf's skin with sheep's skin, does not seek salvation, but destruction, not only to the hypocrite himself, but also to those who are overpriced from him. Is it a good thing to venerate the heretic Habakkuk, who was cursed by Rospop, and cut off from the Church of Christ like a rotten ud, among the saints, to venerate his image, and celebrate his festival, and to have his heretical books like Orthodox ones, and to adhere to his spiritually harmful teachings? Is it a good thing to rebaptize those who have been baptized with Orthodox baptism into a schismatic faith? Don’t the Apostolic Rules forbid this? Look in the book of the Helmsman, on page 12 on the back, rule 47: If anyone baptizes with true baptism, let him be erupted. 690 And what does Saint Chrysostom say? Let us bury him (Christ) by baptism into death. Just as there is no second time for Christ to be crucified, it is below us to be baptized. And below it says: Whoever baptizes himself will crucify him again. Is it a good thing for priests to be rearranged, monks to have their hair cut, for unconsecrated simple men to dare to perform priestly duties, to baptize and confess? How can a simpleton, not accepted by the priestly authorities, absolve a person from his sins? Isn’t that thing worthy of laughter, when a priest says a prayer into a cloth and sends it to a woman in labor or to a dead man to shake the cloth over her face? can that prayer do? Is it a good thing for simple, unsanctified men to give communion to unknown people, and instead of the true body of Christ, they give communion to people with empty and false communion? If even a priest who, from those who had come to them, should perform the liturgy in an empty church according to the old Service Book on seven prosphora: then what is the service of that one who excommunicated himself from the Orthodox Church, and cursed his priestly sanctification, and the sanctified one and the bishop, and rejected all holy things, and accepted the power of the sacred rite from simple unsanctified men? What is the invasion of the Holy Spirit like there, where the Holy Spirit is blasphemed? Is it a good thing not to pray to God for the king, in whose power they live, and to abhor his name in prayer, as heretical? Holy Scripture commands us to pray for unfaithful kings. To Sitsa the holy prophet Baruch writes to Judea in his captivity in Babylon: Pray for the life of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, and for the life of his son Belshazzar, that their days may be like the days of heaven on earth, that we may live under the canopy of Nebuchadnezzar, and under the canopy of his son Belshazzar. Who was Nebuchadnezzar? and who was Belshazzar? Are not idolaters wicked? And the Prophet orders us to pray for them. Likewise, the holy Apostle Paul always taught to pray for the king and for all those in power: at that time who was the king? Isn't Nero the wicked idolater, the great persecutor of the Church of Christ and the fierce tormentor of the faithful? and the Apostle is pleased to pray for him. The Brynians, if not in all of them, will at least in many of their monasteries drive away the Christian Orthodox Tsar from their prayers. Are they not worthy of their prayers, coming from unfaithful lips, so that the name of the Christian Orthodox King may be remembered in them? And as Saint Chrysostom teaches, listen to this: Imitate God, if everyone wants to be saved, it is fitting to pray blindly for everyone; If everyone wants to be saved, so do you; If you want, pray: This is pleasing to God, and because we are like him, we are for this reason, just as we also wanted with him 692. Don’t be afraid of anything else, pray for the Greeks, and she also wants this: be afraid, just pray for her, because she doesn’t want this. Is it appropriate to pray for Ellineh? It is obvious that it is worthy to pray for heretics (it is proper to pray;) for all men it is worthy to pray, and not to drive them away. Until here Zlatoust. We pray for the bastards, that the Lord may enlighten them with the light of the holy faith; We pray for the heretics who have fallen away from the Church, that the Lord may turn them again to the Church of His Saints. The Brynians do not want to pray for the faithful. Is it a good thing to be called a Christian, but not have true baptism, according to the rite of the church, but be baptized needlessly by simple unsanctified men or women, or not have baptism at all? The point is, they are the same, as they said before, who have grown up and given birth to children, but have not been baptized. Is it a good thing to renew the Old Law sabbathism of the Jews, as if one hears of some good in them? Do not the Fathers of the Saints forbid this rule? Look in the book of the Helmsman, sheet 14, rule 53, and sheet 18, rule 64, and sheet 59, rule 17. Brynyane says: not all monasteries and monasteries do such things. I answer: even if not all have the same actions, each monastery or some special purpose should be done in opposition to the Orthodox Church, as if it had already appeared before. All with one mind and one accord schismatic, and blaspheme the Church of Christ with the wicked, all of them are collectively caught by the devil in the net of their own devilish will, and all of them are collectively doing the devil’s will. 693 Agree with each other in schisms and blasphemies against the Church of God according to the devil’s will; one is a promiser of one another’s bad deeds, according to the Apostolic Judgment: he who sins in one thing is guilty of all. 694 Chapter 21. He who tears apart the church, all the good deeds of evil are If in schismatics there are some good (in human opinion) deeds going on, such as many fastings, prolonged prayers and other similar things; Otherwise, everything in them is also unkind, since it creates schism, from those who tear apart the Church of Christ, with whom the head of the church is discorded - Christ is extremely angry. What does our Lord Christ do when he is angry, like schismatics opposing his Holy Church, redeemed with his honest blood; and creating discord among the faithful, but in the likeness of Arius, tearing apart the robe of Christ, or rather the very body of Christ, which is his church, cutting off the half? Hear that the great church teacher, Saint John Chrysostom, says: Nothing irritates God so much as to separate the churches, even if we have done countless good things, and from those who cut off his body, we will accept no less punishment, cutting off the execution of the church 695. Listen here, everyone, to the verb of Chrysostom: If anyone, even a countless number of people, does good, and if the fulfillment of the church is interrupted by strife and schisms, he will not be saved, but will perish; Only then will Christ be angered by anyone who has thwarted his body. And also that universal teacher, with his other verb, applied to intimidate those who create schisms, although he brought the nameless holy martyr Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage 696, the most ancient teacher of the church, for Cyprian was before Chrysostom for more than a hundred years. Cyprian of Carthage suffered in the summer after the birth of Christ in 261; Chrysostom was consecrated as deacon in Antioch by Archbishop Meletius in the summer of 382; Because of Saint Cyprian, Chrysostom quotes the saying without a name: A certain holy man spoke something that seemed impudent, but it was also spoken. What is this? Below, martyr's blood can atone for this sin; speech: tell me, why are you a martyr? or the glory for Christ's sake? Give up your soul for Christ, why, having destroyed the church, did Christ give up his soul for another? Hear Paul saying: Because I am not worthy to be called an Apostle, they have persecuted the church of God and destroyed it 697. Until here Chrysostom. Behold, you hear two Holy Church teachers, Cyprian and Chrysostom; those who know that the blood of martyrdom cannot wash away the sin of schismaticism, which can tear apart the Holy Church. The most unkind and evil deed of all schismatic and unkind deeds is the most unkind and evil work they create for the Church of Christ, by which their good deeds (if there is any essence in them) are destroyed. Let St. Cyril of Alexandria not fail here to say about the schismatics, written in the word about the exodus of the soul, this: Even the church and the sacrament are deprived of themselves, and there are enemies of God and demons as friends 698 . Chapter 22. Frank news about schismatic affairs, as if they are not godly We heard before that the Right Reverend Ignatius, Metropolitan of Siberia, of blessed memory, in his third letter to his Siberian diocese wrote that, in the Nizhny Novgorod borders, the palace villages of Knyaginin and Murashkin people, when with their wives and children on the threshing floor in the barn they lit up and burned, two black Ethiopians were seen, in the smoke above the fire flying in the air, and splashing with joy, and saying: ours, ours naturally! And when in Tyumen many people were burned in the forests, mournful voices were heard all night in that place: oh, they died! oh, they died! A great stench emanated from that place for a long time. The same thing will happen in the Tomsk district, as we talked about before. The same thing happened in the Ustyug district, in the Cherepovskaya volost, as the man there, Maxim Danilov, who was higher than the highest, truly spoke about it. It is powerful to understand God's displeasure regarding schismatic heresies, and from the death of the priest Nikita, the empty saint, who was crucified, who repented of his heresy, and returned to the nude, like a pig to the caltina; about which the Right Reverend Ignatius, in his third epistle near the end, says that in 7190, during the confusion that was in Moscow from the agitated archers, he Nikita and his squires, having time like themselves, and the benefit of the seditious troublers of the royal city, moved into the settlement of the Streltsy, even beyond the Yauza, the regiment of Semyon Titov: and from there proceeding to the red square, shouting with a great cry, with much boldness to the people saying: stand by the Orthodoxy of the people for the true faith; now there is no true church on earth, neither in Rus' nor in the Greeks; Only we still hold the Orthodox Christian faith, and we are baptized, as Blessed Theodoret wrote, with two fingers, depicting in that the Divinity and humanity of the Son of God: and whoever is baptized with three fingers will be with the Antichrist in eternal torment, that is, there is a seal of the Antichrist, Thus, the accursed whore-speaking, more often than not, the people should not enter the churches of today, and no shrines from the church accept. Please, let the patriarch with all the spiritual authorities go to the Place of Execution, and let there be a debate about faith there. On the 5th day of July, the cursed heretic Nikita and his like-minded people came shamelessly to the royal chambers, boldly asking for a debate about faith with the patriarch and the bishops. Having placed analogies near the church of the Cathedral of the Archangel, and having placed the icons that they had brought with them, and standing on the benches themselves, shouting and blaspheming the church, and teaching the people to make the sign of the cross on themselves (in Armenian) with two fingers, and not in the image of the Holy Trinity, with three fingers. His Holiness Patriarch Joachim sent two priests from the great conciliar church to them, admonishing Nikita, and those with him, to stop such an evil undertaking. They rushed towards the priests, but I was satisfied, as it was barely possible for the priests to escape from the hands of the beatings. Seeing the increasing heretical rumors and rebellion, the patriarch demanded the royal defense of the Holy Church. The blessed kings, John Alexievich and Peter Alexievich, commanded the cathedral to be in their royal faceted chamber, at which the cathedral was presided over by their royal mother, the blessed queen Natalia Kirilovna, and their royal aunt, the noble princess Tatiana Mikhailovna, and their royal sisters, the noble princesses, Sofia and Maria Alexievna; Their neighbors are His Holiness Patriarch Joachim and his bishops. And Nikita came in empty-handed with his like-minded people, handing over a scroll in which all his crazy speculation was written. and all blasphemy against the Holy Church, and petition, asking for just judgment, from the blessed kings, in church corrections. Having been contented with ranting from the holy books, Nikita was exposed and ashamed of all his heretical evil, he rushed shamelessly at his Eminence Athanasius, Archbishop of Kholmogory, who had transgressed him, and struck him in the chest, for which impudence and lack of judgment, by royal command Nikita and those with him were expelled from the chamber royal They are marching like hail to the Place of Execution; With a great voice like wolves, I cried out loudly: victorious, victorious: no one can say anything against us at the council. When they ascended to the Place of Execution, and then appealed to the people, the Lord God himself, not enduring the blasphemy of those against his church, denounced their heretical wisdom with sudden execution: for the evil spirit struck the leader of the heretical Nikita the empty-holed, and Nikita fell to the ground, numb and possessed. Then all the people, seeing God’s vengeance on him, knew it. for Nikita is an obvious heretic, and a blasphemer to the Holy Church, and an enemy of God; and in the morning all the infantry regiments were filled with jealousy, having caught that damned heretic, his first accomplices, and having tied them up, they brought him to the civil court, and by royal command, Nikita was executed by death, as a heretic and a rebel of the people. From here we know that we see God’s displeasure about schismatic malice; for Nikita the heretic, who apparently blasphemed the Church of God, was apparently betrayed into the region of Satan in the face of the entire Moscow people. And Nikitin became possessed, an obvious revelation of his evil faith, and of all his like-minded people. Above all of these, Pachomius the monk, who is mentioned in the first part of the book, was brought to the forests there from the Poshekhonsky district in his childhood, and was rebaptized twice by the schismatics after his true baptism here: the first time he was rebaptized in the sense called Bespopovshchina; Another meaning is the verb Popovshchina, his name in the world is Panka, he is Panteleimon. Turning to the holy church, he was tonsured into monasticism by the previously mentioned abbot Pitirim: that monk Pachomius gave us the same reason, which is true news, during his stay there among the schismatics. In Anufrievsky's sense there is the monastery of Elder Elena, in which the monastery contains more than a hundred nuns. They had a great thing: about five years ago, an old woman died, and lay unburied for two days, they were waiting for their teacher and mentor Anufri, but he was away somewhere. And even before Anufria came to them for burial for the sake of the deceased, that dead old woman came to life, and sat down in the same place; and they began to call the boss to them, saying: mother! come to me. There will be fear on all those who were there. And the boss came to her, she was revived, and ordered all the nuns to gather to her, and to everyone who came to her, she told them: that we are all Anufrievsky’s sense that we are not going to heaven, but to torment; then die, lie down, and die again. Then all the nuns were greatly horrified, and many began to think about getting away from there and returning to the holy church. Meanwhile, Anufriy came, and having seen the miracle that had happened, they began to persuade them, saying: then Satan acted, and it was a dreamy apparition for you, and not the truth itself. Ivan Vasilyev's son, the sense of Bespopovshchina, lived on Yazvitsy, (Pochinok or the village is so called, Sheremetyev's patrimony died about four years ago, and lay there for a day to wash, and dressed up. His mother, crouching down to his body, crying, even revived from the dead, began to scream: I'm drowning, I'm drowning. Frightened mother, run away from him. He Having come to his senses, he began to call his mother to him with tears. And the mother and those who were in the church came to him, and the revived one began to say where he was in his soul, and what he saw. fiery, and showing the souls of all the monasteries and monasteries to hell, burning with fierce fire, whom I knew before in the living, and they were already dead, the teachers of various monasteries, and simple ones, I saw them all in the fire (speech) and in the dark field, in which it was said to me, that the souls of those who did not know God, and those who did not hear the teachings of Christianity, were in darkness, but not in fire. So, ask me: will you repent, and will you start going to church, and will you go to all the monasteries and tell them what you see here? Otherwise, I will put you in the fire with your good will. I promised to repent and do everything commanded. That husband, having brought me out of those terrible places, brought me over some mud (dirt) and I will lie there. I cried out: I’m drowning, I’m drowning, and I found myself alive. It was Ivan who came back to life from the dead, as his mother told him, and others like him then came to life. And go to all the hermitages, telling about yourself how you died, and how you were led through torment, and what you saw, and how you were quickly returned to life. But I didn’t give him faith, rather I laughed at him and cursed him. After that, he went out from there with the cloth to a certain city (Pachomius does not remember the exact city), and after living for a short time among the Orthodox, he reposed in piety. From such revealed news, everyone can be powerfully convinced about schismatic deeds, since they are displeasing to God, and not salvation, but torment they deserve. Let all who are leaving the Church of Christ hear this, and those true shepherds and teachers, following in the footsteps of the schismatic false teachers: and let them heed and see whom they listen to, to whom they have faith, to whom they follow: murderers, murderers, sorcerers, sorcerers, heretics, hypocrites, fornicators, lawless people, apostates of the holy faith, blasphemers of the highest shrines of God, rejecters of the grace of the Holy Spirit, in whose image the true path is blasphemed, in whose image Christ our Lord in His most pure mysteries is dishonored, in whose image Christian reproach is reviled, in whose destruction the demons rejoice, in whose souls the fire of Gehenna is accepted after death. What kind of salvation can those who seek and hope for themselves? Is it possible to accept destruction even as their leaders? Behold, O beloved faithful people, true sheep of Christ’s flock, and to the Holy Church his sincere children! By breaking through sound reasoning, the third fruit of the Bryn Garden, their deeds, and a genuine search were found: About their supposed good deeds, And about the unkind, even they approve. And I found in that fruit, as in the red-flowered apple of Sodom, not a sweet taste, but stinking dust and ashes, I found it as: Their good deeds are not pleasing to God; still hypocritically done. Even if they do things that are not hypocritical, they are not pleasing to God, nor do they deserve salvation: they are being done outside the Orthodox Catholic Church, without which no one can be saved. Who can approve of their evil deeds, which are clearly against the Church of the saints? Is it the one who loves to call darkness light, and night day, and gold gold, and fire water, and soot snow, and gall honey: he will call evil good. But woe to such, cries the prophet Isaiah: woe to those who say good to evil and evil to good, who put darkness in light and light in darkness, who put bitter sweet and sweet bitter 699 . Chapter 23. The end of the book, and an admonition to the faithful Sitsa was authentically searched for: Look, O people of God, and understand the deceit and harm to the soul of schismatics, and beware from dogs, beware from evil doers 700. Beware of the wolves who come from the forests of Bryn, secretly in sheep's clothing, and try to deceive you with false prophecies and teachings, and try to draw you to their destruction. These are truly false prophets and false teachers, about whom the holy Supreme Apostle Peter prophesied, saying: There were lying prophets among men, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will bring heresies of destruction, and the Lord who purchased them will be swept away, bringing swift destruction to themselves: And many will follow their uncleanness, in which the true path will be blasphemed, And in the multiplication of flattering words you will be caught: judgment will not touch them from time immemorial, and their destruction will not sleep 701. These are the essence of whom the holy Supreme Apostle Paul commands to be careful, saying: I pray you, brethren, beware of those who create strife and strife, except for the teaching that you have learned, and turn away from them 702. These are the ones who teach differently, and do not approach the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the teaching, which is based on good faith, and are proud, knowing nothing, sick of evil faith, compete, and spin words 703. These are the essence, from them comes envy, zeal, blasphemies, non-conceit of the evil one, evil conversations of people corrupted in mind, and deprived of the truth, those who do not despise the existence of an imaginary gain, their own evil piety 704. In their wickedness, they imagine themselves to be pious, and deceiving people, they acquire their property for themselves, and take advantage of the rich with their alms. From such deceivers, deprived of the truth, corrupt in mind, crafty blasphemers, Paul orders Timothy to retreat: These are the ones who dive into houses and captivate the bride, burdened with sins, led by various lusts, always learning, and never able to come into the mind of the truth 705. These are wicked men and sorcerers who prosper in the worst, deceiving and being deceived 706. These are the essence of whose morals Saint John Chrysostom explains, saying: they are not only wolves, but also exponents of wickedness, and adversaries, and enemies, and invective, and blasphemers, and hypocrites, and thieves, and robbers, and false teachers, and false prophets, and teachers of blindness, and seductresses, and wicked opponents of Christ, and the seducers, and the sons of the evil one, and the Doukhobors, who have blasphemed the gracious spirit, who will not be released either in this world or in the future, they are blasphemed against the true path 707. To this end, the children of the wicked devil, as the Lord said to them: as you of your father are the devil 708 . And again the Theologian John; known, spoken, the essence of the child of the devil. Until here Zlatoust. Beware of such, O beloved! I pray and exhort you; Listen to their fables below. Sitsa and Saint Paul admonished Timothy: deny nasty and woman’s fables: teach yourself to piety 709. Observe their conversations, pay heed to their false teachings, rather flee their cohabitation, and receive into your homes those who seek from the path of true corruption. Listen to the useful advice of St. John the Theologian, who says: whoever transgresses and does not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have God: but abides in the teaching of Christ, this one will have the Father and the Son 710 . If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not accept him into your home, and do not say to rejoice in him. The verb to rejoice in him is communicated by his evil deed. As if you touch the heat (tar), you will be blackened by it, (Sirach says) 711: communicate with heretics, you will be like them. Know that it is known about orthodoxy that everyone who welcomes schismatics, enemies of the Church of Christ, and has friendship with them, and gives alms to them from his property, is an enemy of Christ himself, who is the head of his church. Like someone who makes friends with the enemy of the king and feeds him, he is not a friend of the kings, but an enemy. Sitsa become an enemy of the Holy Church, who is the body of the head of Christ, the servant is not faithful to Christ, but is hostile to him. And like a son who loves the enemy of his father, who does not truly love his father, he himself is less worthy of love from his father: here is a Christian, who loves the enemies of Christ, schismatics and heretics, who does not truly love Christ, he himself is less loved by him; Christ for the one who loves him loves. How can she say about herself that she loves Christ, who communicates with those who tear the robe of Christ, and cut off his body, the holy church associated with him? If you truly love Christ, be far from those like Christ who blaspheme the church, and like dogs bark at her, and like wolves howl and tear her to pieces. It is good to imitate David when he says: Have not those who hated Thee, O Lord, hated thee, and of Thy faults? I hated with complete hatred, and became enemies 712 I have offered this to your love, O faithful people! I conclude my conversation with you with the words of St. John the Theologian, these: He who knows God will listen to us; but he who is not from God will not listen to us: by this we know the Spirit of truth, and the spirit of deceit 713. God, the most merciful, does not want the death of sinners, who have been corrupted into schisms and discords, and his saints who have fallen away from the church, so that he may turn them to the right path, along with the message of their destinies, and may he unite them again to his holy chosen flock. May your children, who adhere to their mother, the holy Catholic Church, and remain in orthodoxy, establish and strengthen you unshakably in the holy faith, and may your church keep the gates of hell insurmountable until the end of the age, amen. I present this little book of my wretched work to the judgment of the church, to the Most Reverend bishops, and to the entire spiritual rank. I don’t imagine myself being wise, nor do I trust in my poor reason. And if there is anything wrong with it, I ask for your kind correction. I am ready to obey the command of the church in everything, even though I am the last member, and the lowest novice and worker. Margaret, word 12, sheet 450. Word 22, sheet 180 and 181. On 2 Tim. 1, moralizing. 2, sheet 2318. Not sent. to Galatians Chapter 1 Article 4 sheet 1469. Life 2:24; and Matt. 19:4, 5 and 6. In EUR Chapter 6 conversations. 9, sheet 2857. On 1 Timothy. 2. conversations 7, sheet 2423. Not sent. to Ephesus. Ch. 4, like. 11 sheet 1692. Kiril. Alex, in the word about the exodus of the soul, sheet 495. Margaret, word 13 about false teachers, sheet 466.