Дневник 1860–1861 гг.

Word of the Right Reverend Philaret on the 4th Sunday of Great Lent about fasting 1. Notice the extreme instructiveness of the word! Having remembered the Most Holy Theotokos with all the saints, let us commend ourselves, and each other, and our whole life to Christ our God. Why remember the Most Holy Theotokos with all the saints? - In order for us to more firmly surrender to the Lord: they surrendered themselves to the Lord (behold, the Servant of the Lord [Luke 1:38], said the Virgin to the Angel) and were saved; we will betray ourselves and be saved. Also, in order to remind everyone that they are all praying for us and greatly contributing to our salvation with their godly prayers, if only they themselves were not lazy. Let us not be lazy, our souls... weakened [Heb. 12, 3]. Grains from the Lord's Table. You yourself, unworthily using the countless gifts of the Lord - spiritual and material, at least with joy of heart, and not with sadness, accept the tuna 2 of those who eat your bread, and this will be credited by the Master for the cleansing of your sins, for the manifestation of the righteousness of God over you. You think it is not right that your brother eats your bread, but do you rightfully eat the bread of God? Oh! If we judge the truth, then none of us rightfully enjoys God's gifts, but only by grace, by grace alone. Oh, our pride! Oh, our blindness! In the case of 3 brothers, we always see one piece of wood when it comes to our property, but we don’t even see a whole log with ourselves. A brother, in our opinion, is not worth this, and that, and the third, but we ourselves are worth everything. Just think, we are great, perfect, busy, useful members of the Church and society; in fact - the most sinful of all, the most insignificant, lazy, useless members! Oh, pride! Pride! Pride! Oh, the blindness of self-love! Consider yourself unworthy of all the gifts of God - and you will always consider your neighbor worthy of the gifts of God given to you! Do you still not consider everything on earth to be vanity? Have you not yet learned to hope in the one Lord, according to the Scripture: by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God man will live [Matt. 4, 4 ]? Is your heart still clinging 4 to earthly acquisitions and to corruptible poison? 5 The humble servant of God, using the gifts of God, does not dare to recognize them as his own, but as common ones and says in his heart: they do not completely belong to me, I am unworthy of them, they are a work of God’s goodness not for me alone, but for many - may they be the property of many. When explaining the Lord’s Prayer, tell us in advance about the happiness of explaining the Lord’s Prayer, about preparing yourself for this explanation through prayer and fasting. Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant [Matt. 20, 26]. Is it possible to pray unceasingly? You can, as you can, breathe continuously. Prayer is the breath of the soul. On the wall. With the measure you use, it will be measured to you [Matt. 7, 2]. He who digs a hole for another will fall into it himself [Prov. 26, 27; Eccl. 10, 8; Sire. 27, 29]. When you see someone who hates you and hear from him words that breathe hatred, contempt, rudeness and disobedience, admonish him meekly and certainly with love, overcome your heart, which carries you with a stream of embarrassment and anger towards him towards uniform 6 hatred, contempt, rudeness and words breathing malice - and you will defeat his anger. The Word of God is not false: it finds the goodness of the heart abundantly sufficient to overcome its malice. Conquer evil with good, it says, but do not be overcome by evil [Rom. 12, 21]. Chrysostom, two volumes of “Conversations on the Gospel of Matthew.” "Legends about the asceticism of the holy fathers." "Bright Week" by Ignatius. Surrender yourself to the Lord like a broken statue to a skilled sculptor or like rusty iron to a forge; Listen in everything to the Lord, the renewer of our nature corrupted by sin, and you will be saved. We will surrender ourselves, and each other, and our whole life to Christ God, the renewer of our nature, without any doubt. What is needed in prayer? What should I avoid? If you do not have money in exchange for dirt 7, or the dust of the earth, you will not escape frequent torment of the heart, sadness, sorrow and distress. The Lord watches our every thought. What does it mean to deny yourself [Matt. 16, 24; Mk. 8, 34; OK. 9, 23 ]? It means to reject your old, passionate man, self-loving, prone to hatred, envy, pride, covetousness, love of money, stinginess, irritability, gluttony, drunkenness, theft 8, adultery - the old man in which he lives, has his throne and which Satan operates and controls. “I,” or my old man, completely damaged by sin, all infected with the breath of the devil, his will, is no good except for eternal fire. That is why unrepentant sinners are called stubble, which will be burned with unquenchable fire [Matt. 3, 12]. This old man must be completely rejected. What is required of those who hope for future bliss? [Truth] requires us to rely on virtue. But it is not enough just to deny oneself: one must accept in Jesus Christ a new man, created according to God (in the image of God) in truth and the dignity of truth. Write letters to fathers Alexander Zuev and Taratin. You, as a priest who often unites in the Holy Mysteries with the Source of life, do not you feel melancholy and terrifying emptiness in your heart - but the laity, and people living according to the spirit of this age? ABOUT! They feel killing boredom and emptiness in their souls and look for entertainment, amusements, and drunkenness. Of course, it is their own fault that they feel boredom and emptiness, because they do not read the Holy Scriptures and soul-saving books, and do not cleave to God through prayer and contemplation of God. Therefore, you can be lenient towards them, seeing their entertainment. At least they don’t become discouraged, don’t get angry, and don’t commit suicide. For there is such a soul-killing emptiness among non-believers that they themselves end their lives, unable to resist the murderous feeling of boredom. Mortal boredom. Christ is my life, and without Him there is all sorrow and ruin of the spirit. May I be with Christ every minute. Under my heart is the hand of God. Hope in real life for the forgiveness of sins from the Lord, no matter how many times one has sinned (repentance and prayer of Repentance...): in the Sacrament of Communion, His Blood cleanses seventy times seven times; hope in all matters for the help of the Lord, especially in the matter of saving the soul; in the future life, hope in Him in death and after death; hope 9 of the resurrection of the dead, the second coming: to wait for His Son from heaven (1 Thess. 1:10), retribution and the Last Judgment (future bliss prepared for the righteous, each according to his deeds [Rom. 2:6]); infinity of degrees of eternal bliss: another glory of the sun (1 Cor. 15:41), in the house of My Father there are many mansions [John. 14, 2]. Do not allow obvious drunkards and adulterers to receive communion. Make a partition for confession and install a watchman. No one called anything from them his own, but they had everything in common [Acts. 4, 32]. This is the character of the Christian life: unity in everything. These are the words that serve as light for our souls in the darkness of the passions of covetousness, love of money, unsociability and stinginess! When your heart regrets something for your brother, remember with faith and humble submission these words of the divine evangelist, and they will give rest to your soul overwhelmed by passions, illuminate their darkness, extinguish their fire, and you will not spare your brother’s property, which he needs, and you will sing victorious and grateful songs to the word of God, living and active, passing before separation soul and spirit, joints and marrow, who judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart [Heb. 4, 12] and cutting off with his edge all the branches of passions. If you are an intelligent and educated person, but if you don’t have a heart, then you are a worthless person, because then you have neither living faith, nor hope, nor Christian love. The heart is the soul of all virtues, the heart is the throne of God in a Christian, the heart is the altar of faith and love, the heart is the seat, the senses and the pillar of truth. The heart is the eye of a Christian, his spiritual hearing, spiritual taste, smell and touch. Wish every good thing to the one who hates and blasphemes you, especially 10 the salvation of the soul. Admonish him with meekness and love, even if he does not want to listen to you, even if he resists you and laughs at you. Be patient with everyone, like the Lord. The light of Christ enlightens everyone. Love your neighbor as yourself, and value all the material gifts of God, which you will have to sacrifice to your neighbor, willingly or unwillingly. The soul of a neighbor is more valuable than the whole world - it is the image of God, and when you give to your brother, you give to God, and if your brother does not repay, then God will repay for him. Blessed will you be that they cannot repay you, for you will be rewarded... [Lk. 14, 14]. Love God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your thoughts, and for Him neglect everything earthly that is pleasant and dear to you, so that you may receive from Him a hundredfold for the neglected earthly blessings; disdain even people if they go against the commandments of God and with their advice and examples turn you away from God. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. May this book also be filled with intelligent 11 light for the glory of the Triune God. Amen. October 19th day, 1860. All the same from those who do not exist! 12 From those who are not, let this book be a beautiful thing that exists. Amen. I will begin with the corruption of everything on earth, and with the eternity of the human soul and deeds of virtue. Buy an akathist to the Passion of the Lord in the synodal store. How can we acquire the fear of God, said Abba Pimen, when our belly is like a vessel filled with cheese and like a barrel with salty provisions? (The need to abstain in food and drink to acquire the fear of God.) Page 268 “On the asceticism of the holy fathers.” Abba Paphnutius said to those who asked him for advice: go, love sorrow more than peace, dishonor more than glory, love to give more than to receive. Do not eat buns with tea soon after tea and rolls. When a guest who frequently visits you comes to you and you hate him in your heart, say to yourself: no one has ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and warms it [Eph. 5, 29]. And my neighbor is my flesh, for we are all of one blood [Acts. 17:26], although we live all over the face of the earth. Consider your brother’s frequent visits to your home and the use of your meal as an ordinary and natural thing, similar to what you allow yourself: aren’t you every day freely illuminated and warmed by the sun, breathe the air, eat bread grown by God, drink water and wash yourself with it? This is a common thing for you, and no one is angry with you for it. So, consider it an ordinary thing to visit your neighbors without being called and to eat your food without being called. Love your neighbor as yourself [Matt. 22, 39]. Since man consists of soul and body, and our body, or our flesh, as our punishment for the first sin of disobedience and eating from the forbidden fruit, has many bodily needs of food, drink, clothing, strongly aroused by sin, and man often does not have the means to satisfy them; since a person for his sins is exposed to illnesses, for which he needs help and consolation, or for civil crimes he is subjected to imprisonment, in which he needs consolations and instructions of faith and piety, then love for our neighbor is primarily expressed by feeding our neighbor, clothing him, introducing him into his home, helping him in illness, visiting him in prison, as the Lord said this in the Gospel 13. Since our love for our neighbor is expressed in these assistance primarily to his body, his many different needs, the disembodied enemy, the primordial opponent of love, the very essence of hatred and malice, tries by all means to distract Christians from the mentioned virtues: he inspires us, attracts us, forces us with fiery closeness not to have communication with our neighbor in bread and salt, in money, that is, infects the heart of Christians with stinginess and unsociability in earthly goods with those in need; he instills in us contempt and hatred for strangers, 14 a desire for a home for them and suspicion of them; he also made tempting examples with beggars and wanderers (rich beggars and wanderers are thieves or murderers) in order to close the wombs of 15 Christians more conveniently for them; he instills in the hearts of little-experienced Christians an extreme reluctance to visit the sick and serve them with Christian sympathy and self-sacrifice; he inspires contempt for those in prison for crimes, while he himself was the main driver in their commission of crimes. Therefore, we must listen firmly and constantly to our hearts and with all our might, with the help of God, resist his machinations acting from him in our thoughts and in our hearts, overcome and defeat them, doing everything opposite to what he forces us to do, that is, feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, generally have Christian sociability in food and drink with our neighbors, be hospitable with cordiality and affection, receive strangers and give rest them, to clothe the naked, to serve the sick with willingness and compassion, to visit those in prison, to sympathize with them, to console them with Christian faith and hope. Through prayer we atone for our sins. I forgave you all that debt because you begged me [Matt. 18, 32]. Experience says the same. He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood abides in Me, and I in him [Jn. 6, 56]. This is confirmed by tactile experience. Blessed, filled with life, is the person who partakes of the Holy Mysteries with faith, with heartfelt repentance for sins. This truth is palpably [clear] even from the contrary. When you approach the Holy Chalice without sincere repentance for your sins and with doubt, then Satan enters you and remains in you, killing your soul. And this can be extremely noticeable. With God, the proverb says, everything is close. Exactly, everything is close: all spiritual and sensual creatures - Angels, souls of the departed, all living people, all animals, all material worlds: the Spirit of God passes through all intelligent, pure, subtle spirits [Russian: penetrating all intelligent, pure, subtle spirits] [Prem. 7, 23] and lives in every believing and pious soul. The beauty of the village is with Me [Ps. 49:11], He says. As for the infinite spirit, for God there is nothing distant, but everything is in full view before Him. All of Him is everywhere, and everything is in Him, everything lives and exists through Him. God and the created spirits and souls of departed people, as well as the living, are mental beings, and thought is quick and in some way omnipresent: think with all your heart about them - and they are inherent in you: God is always and necessarily, and others are by the gift and power of God. We remembered God and rejoiced [Ps. 76, 4]. Why? Because He is with you and in you. When our heart is covered with satanic darkness, the darkness of passions, then it denies God, although it should, as it should, deny only the light of the heart itself: it has become darkened and therefore has closed its spiritual eyes, it does not see God, and not that there is no God. The speech is mad in his heart: there is no God [Russian: The madman said in his heart: “there is no God”] [Ps. 13: 1]. Truly mad. The name of Jesus Christ or the sincere thought of Jesus Christ is associated with great power that drives away passions and calms the heart. Experience. Transfer this to the names of the holy Angels and holy people of God, starting with the Mother of God to the saints and righteous and Christ for the sake of fools. Just sincerely call on their names, and by the grace of God they will help you too. When your soul grudges food or clothing for your brother, tell it the words of the Savior: Is not the soul greater than food, and the body greater than clothing? [Matt. 6, 25]. Or His words: Give us this day our daily bread [Matt. 6, 11]. About Christian hope. The words themselves show what we should talk about. We must talk about our hope in Christ and the eternal bliss promised to us by Christ, and the utmost desire of ours when talking about hope is to turn all sinners who despair of their eternal salvation to the hope of Christ - our hope and our salvation. He... will save His people from their sins [Matt. 1, 21] - this is what Christians hope from Christ, [the Archangel showed]. I would be glad to go to heaven, but sins are not allowed in, say many Christians who have no idea about Christian hope, as if sins are some kind of unbreakable wall. No, I will say that it was she who was destroyed by the cross and death and who opened the paradise of God for all who repent, our Savior Jesus Christ. Our task will also be to teach how to hope in Christ, because not every hope is Christian, true, saving. What is not Christian hope? We will show the properties of Christian hope: solidity, firmness, constancy and completeness of it - and those signs by which you can know whether there is Christian hope in us; that Christian hope breathes through prayer like air, is supported and strengthened by the life-giving Mysteries, by reading or listening to the word of God and the writings of the Holy Fathers, by everyone’s own good deeds [...]. We will reveal that since a Christian is a free and rational being, created in the image and likeness of God, but at the same time fallen (by his own will), or removed from God through iniquity, [he] must himself, through faith and hope and love, approach his Prototype. We advise every Christian to carefully consider what in him actually constitutes a godlike and immortal person; we ask him to pay attention to his heart, listen to its demands, which are very often revealed before the consciousness of a person, and satisfy them without delay. Our heart requires faith in God and union with Him, in Whom it finds peace and bliss, but it is also seduced by the action of the dark spirit and is attacked 16 [corruption] by all earthly blessings, which do not constitute its peace and life and bliss, but only sorrow and torment 17 . To unite this heart with faith and hope with Christ - this is our last desire when talking with you about hope; to interrupt your hopes for earthly blessings: for people, for honors, for wealth, for the pleasures of sensuality - this is our only desire. We drown in sins and often become discouraged, despair, and perish from their multitude. To turn everyone's eyes to our hope - Christ the Savior - in all sins, in all sorrows, in all the vicissitudes of life (happiness and misfortune), to show that He is the God of the repentant and the Savior of those who sin - this is our desire. To show in Christ our life, our bliss, our light, our wealth, food, drink - everything, and throughout our lives to teach everyone to strive for Him as the end of all our desires - this is what we will strive for. (Take the akathist.) Jesus is the source of living water. I would like to bring you to the point where each of you from the heart calls Jesus your Jesus 18, your Savior. God forbid that we should have to exclaim: Lord! who believed what we heard, and to whom was the arm of the Lord revealed? [Is. 53, 1; In. 12, 38]. The Lord is truth; everything He said is the pure truth and does not allow a shadow of doubt. And that is the hope that God will come again to judge the living and the dead, that there will be life in the next century, the bliss of the righteous and the torment [of sinners]. Christian hope can be characterized as follows: pray and hope, strive and hope. Strive to enter through the strait gate [Lk. 13, 24]. Be constant in prayer, watching in it with thanksgiving [Col. 4, 2]. The nature of prayer. Whoever comes to the Holy Chalice with any passion in his heart, that Judas comes to flatteringly kiss the Son of Man. Prayer hopes to receive everything. Triple Love, have mercy on me. About doubts. I don’t know how a sane person can waver in any divinely revealed truth, revealed by Jesus Christ, witnessed by the apostles, sealed with the blood of a countless number of martyrs, preached by saints, saints and all saints, life-giving for the heart. And yet there are unfortunate ones who hesitate, really hesitate, shaken by some kind of heavy, like a ten-pound stone, gnawing like a viper, killing like the devil, internal suggestions, seduced by some unknown, invisible flatterer - a merciless killer. What does this mean? Why am I sometimes so senseless, stupid, ugly and, on top of that, gloomy and despondent? Oh, I know why. By their fruits you will recognize them [Matt. 7, 16]. From such terrible consequences in my soul I conclude the cause, and from the traces of the murder I find the murderer. This is what my enemy, the devil, does. Murderer! He, killing my soul with doubt and unbelief, torments me. But I am also unreasonable, allowing myself to obey the suggestions of a liar, a murderer, an opponent of God and men. When you notice in yourself any mental resistance to God, doubt about the trinity of the Persons of the Divine and Their relationships, and the like, believe that you are an enemy of God and man. You have long believed in the Holy, Consubstantial, Life-Giving and Indivisible Trinity, you have long enjoyed Her mercies, Her life, Her peace and all the benefits - and stand for Her until death against the common enemy. After the triumph of faith and virtue, which I sacrificed to God, the enemy especially strongly kindles his arrows against me. Experience. Glory to the miracles of the life-giving Mysteries of the Body and Blood of Christ God. Upon awakening in the morning, I felt very heavy today, some kind of extreme burning sensation in my stomach, sides and back relaxed me, and I could barely pray, and then almost insensibly, and I could barely stand, which is why I sat down several times during Matins and the hours of Mass; He served mass with extreme relaxation of mental and physical strength; but as soon as I received Holy Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, the burning sensation almost instantly disappeared along with relaxation, liveliness and warmth of heart appeared, and I completely came to life, as if from the dead I became alive. Glory to the miracles of the Mysteries of the Savior. It is the Lord, with wise and good intentions, who gives me over to spiritual death and physical illness, so that by instant healing and revival of my body and heart he will show me His omnipotent right hand that revives us. And I said: “This is my grief - the change of the right hand of the Most High” [Ps. 76, 11]. (The sight of wine usually has the property of making one hot, but here the Body and Blood in the form of wine cooled the furnace of the body. Wonderful! Amazing!) Glory to the miracles of Spasov! Glory to my Savior even when, for the momentary doubting of the heart in the truth of His words regarding His Mysteries or Divine Persons, He burns my insides with terrible fire. Sunday. October 30, 1860. Faith is a sweet feeling of the heart of spiritual truth, for example, that God sent His Son as the Savior of the world. A full stomach does not have this feeling. He who eats heartily binds the soul invisibly and elusively, hand and foot, in thought and in the heart. Receive your brothers as if they lived with you, like your own flesh. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I came into the world, to testify to the truth [Jn. 18:37], says the Lord, and He testified His truth with countless miracles, which were all beneficial and revealed in Him the Director of life through prophecies, suffering and death. It was not He alone who testified to the truth, but He and the Father who sent Him, who testified several times about His Son: This is My beloved Son [Matt. 3, 17; 17, 5; Mk. 9, 7; OK. 9, 35; 2 Pet. 1, 17]. To this day the Lord is the truth and life 19 to all who seek Him, and His truth is firm as a stone and unshakable, like God Himself; With all His strength He stands for His truth against the liar the devil and people who, by their deceitfulness, have the devil as their father, as well as against those whom the devil, through temptations of the heart, inclines to lie. These words are great: I am the way and the truth and the life [Jn. 14:6], spoken by the Savior about Himself. Chew them with your heart. The Savior is always in my heart, filled with living faith in Him, a belly - which means He is the way and the truth for me, because the goal of my life is to come to the belly from which I fell through sin and unite with the belly. The devil always appears as death in me, which means that for me he is delusion and a lie, because initially through error and lies I was exposed to death, and now I am. The Lord is in this place, but I do not know. And he was afraid and said: How terrible is this place: this is not, but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven [Russian: truly the Lord is present in this place; but I didn’t know! And he was afraid and said: How terrible is this place! this is nothing other than the house of God, this is the gate of heaven] [Gen.28, 16–17]. You see, the house of God is the place where the Lord is. This means that in our churches there is the Lord at all times, just as this presence is apparently [represented] in the antimension 20. Enter the church of God reverently and with fear. Faith calms and delights; unbelief worries and stings. When praying, do everything wisely. When you add oil to the lamp, then imagine that the Giver of Life, every day and hour, every minute of your life, supports your life with His Spirit and, as it were, daily through sleep in the body, and through prayer and the word of God in the spiritual sense, pours into you the oil of life, with which your soul and body burn. When you place a candle in front of an icon, remember that your life is like a burning candle: it will burn out and go out; or that others make it burn faster than it should (by adding it to their body), igniting much and often bodily and spiritual life with passions, gluttony, wine and other pleasures. Also: since [our] first teacher of prayer is the Church, which is taught to pray so beautifully by the Holy Spirit Himself, as we ourselves do not know what to pray for as we should [Rom. 8, 26], then it is the duty of every Christian to know the language of the mother of his Church. It is a sin to those who do not know it enough; a sin especially for those who, having learned foreign languages, did not want to learn, and do not want, the language of the mother-savior. In general, everyone needs to understand and learn the Slavic language to some extent. Otherwise, how will they pray intelligently? Just as fast food can make the heart soft and harden, so lean food can refine and soften it. When the stomach is in fasting, then the heart is purer, more tender, firmer in faith, more capable of prayer and holy sensations. Means that affirm Christian hope: prayer, especially frequent and sincere prayerful confession of one’s sins, frequent reading of the word of God, especially frequent communion of the holy life-giving Body and Blood of Christ. Our leaders to Christian hope: the Lord Himself (And if you ask anything... [John 14:13]; He Himself prayed and received... He was heard for His reverence [Heb. 5:7]), His Most Pure Mother, all the saints (prophets, apostles, martyrs, saints, saints). They flowed to God with the hope of salvation, and no one was ashamed, everyone was saved. Hope... will not put you to shame [Rom. 5, 5], – did not put him to shame. The expression of Christian hope in relation to earthly life is the forgiveness of sins in which we live all our lives: if anyone sins, then we have an advocate with the Father... He is the propitiation for our sins (1 John 2:1-2). In relation to the future life: we will see Him as He is (1 John 3:2); Let us be enlightened like the sun [Matt. 13, 43 ]; where I am, there will my servant also be [Jn. 12, 26]. Our residence is in heaven, from where we await the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, who will resurrect our humiliated body [Phil. 3, 20]... When you speak in a meeting, do not think about your honor, but have in mind to serve the truth with your speech; Don’t think to yourself: I’ll say something bad and they’ll judge me - the truth is simple: speak simply and calmly. It’s a sin to blush for yourself ahead of time. You have been given from God everything that is given to others. Another subject of hope: passions begin to approach the heart, their flow is fast, it is difficult to resist, not to succumb to them; but have hope in Christ and you will overcome them. Say: passions fight me, Master, but stand up for me and save me, my Savior. Since my youth, the enemy has been tempting me, burning me with sweets: but trusting in You, O Lord, I overcome this. The misfortunes of Christians are because they do not have Christian hope. Here is a person who has sinful tightness in his heart, melancholy, sinful boredom: if he does not have Christian hope in his heart, then what is he doing? - resorts to artificial means to drive away cramped conditions and boredom, to criminal entertainment, and not to Christ, whose yoke is good for our hearts and whose burden is light [Matt. 11:30], not to prayer, not to repentance of sins, not to the word of God, which is useful for teaching, for reproof (2 Tim. 3:16), and consolation. This is how it is done for the most part. Hence the need for secular people to have theaters and many other entertainments. They resort to suicide. The affirmation of Christian hope in the heart is greatly facilitated by the experience of receiving what one asks for. And those who are attentive to themselves will easily notice these experiences. The one who prays must hope to beg the Lord for all sins: I forgave you all my debt, because you begged me [Matt. 18, 32 ]; there is no sin, defeating God’s love for mankind. The blood of the Son of God cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7). Mary of Egypt. If anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous (1 John 2:1). Hope presupposes the expectation of some good that we do not have. When we hope for what we do not see, then we wait with patience [Rom. 8, 25]. But since our greatest good is sinlessness (and we do not have this good and suffer daily from sins that can destroy us forever), then Christian hope must be turned to Christ as the Deliverer from sins and our Savior. Just as we receive everything necessary for physical life from earth, air, fire and water, so we receive everything necessary for spiritual life, all bright, kind and saving thoughts and dispositions of the heart from God, although we do not notice this due to the invisibility of thoughts and heart movements. The Spirit breathes where it wants, and you hear its voice [Jn. 3, 8]. Not because we ourselves are capable of thinking anything of our own... (2 Cor. 3:5). Icons of the Savior in every Orthodox home depict His omnipresence, His dominion in every place, and the images of saints depict the co-presence or closeness to us of saints by the grace of God, as members of the one body of the Church, united under one Head, Christ. As You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, so may they also be one in Us [Jn. 17, 21]. This is why we need to pray to the saints: they are in God, and God is in them, and that is why they hear us - that is, because they are in the omnipresent God. Holy ecu, our God, and you rest in the saints... For the sake of our faith alone, the mountains of the heart are moved, that is, the heights and heaviness of sin. When Christians lift the burden of sins in repentance, they sometimes say: thank God, a weight has been lifted from our shoulders. Prayer requires a sincere desire for correction. Just as through an electric telegraph we quickly communicate with people distant from us, so through living faith, like through some kind of telegraph, we quickly communicate with God, with Angels and saints. Just as we fully rely on the speed of electric current and its intelligibility, so we must completely rely on the speed and intelligibility of the prayer of faith. Send your request to God or the saints via the telegraph of faith - and you will immediately receive an answer. The answering telegraph readings are simple, but experienced ones read them; The actions on the heart of God of spirits and all flesh and saints are simple, but the experienced understands them. Show those praying the holiness of the church, the ever-present presence of the Lord in it. How to stand in it. The holiness of Christian houses, consecrated by the special presence of God: Christians, members of Christ, temples of the Holy Spirit live in them; the Sacraments, prayers, and blessings of water are performed in them; icons in them. Tangible proof of the omnipresence of God: for example, you were hurt, let’s say, by silver: you clung to it, although for a minute, with your heart, and your heart hurts; but only you will tell God with all your heart: You are my only treasure, You are my silver and gold, food, and clothing - and now it will be easy for you. There are many who pray who turn out to be worshiping the Lord in vain. There are also such lazy and crafty pilgrims who, sensing an unclean surge of nasty and crafty thoughts in their hearts and heads, immediately give up prayer and run away from the church or from their home icon. If you want to pray life-giving prayer, first of all establish your heart in the Lord, lift up your horn 22 in your God (1 Samuel 2:1). To the glory of the life-giving Mysteries. Today (October 5) before communion I felt ill both physically and spiritually: I was weak in body, lethargic in soul; but as soon as I took communion, the physical weakness inside suddenly disappeared, I suddenly felt a beneficial movement inside, I was encouraged in spirit, calmed down, and rejoiced. Jesus! You are the heart of my joy, You are the health of my body. When you receive the life-giving Mysteries, firmly imagine Christ Himself in the forms of bread and wine, make a mental inscription on them: Jesus Christ, and with this mental inscription (and there is a sensual thing), carry it mentally to the depths of the heart and there mentally place the Life-giving Guest. If so, with such faith you accept the Holy Mysteries, then you will see what they will produce in you: the deepest peace of spiritual strength, everything will be incredibly easy for you. To the extent of our faith, the Lord benefits us, to the extent of our heart’s readiness. Body and Blood - burning coal taken from the altar 23 (Jesus Christ, as God, sits on the throne). The Body and Blood turn out to be a life-giving fire on the heart of the believer. The Church is heaven, the altar is the throne of life, from which God descends to nourish and revive the believers in the Holy Most Pure Mysteries. Wonderful are Your works, O Lord! You prepare us in advance for the contemplation of the heavenly throne and Him who sits on it by the vision of the earthly throne in the church and the contemplation through the eyes of faith of Him who sits on it. When you ask God for spiritual gifts, for example, wisdom, faith, hope and love, meekness and humility, then remember that you are the image and likeness of God, that your soul is, as it were, some imprint of the Divine, and all the wealth of the soul lies in God, as in a treasury (Treasure of the good), from where we can draw every spiritual good through the prayer of faith and patience and cleansing ourselves from all filth. Speak to the Lord: my limited spirit has come from Your infinite, all-perfect Spirit; Here I am poor, my Lord, in wisdom and reason or faith, hope and love, meekness and humility. Look upon the desire of my heart and grant me, by Your throne, sitting 24 wisdom [Wis. 9:4], faith is unashamed, hope is known, love is unfeigned. Obedience to the Church of her children must begin with complete trust in her prayers, Sacraments and rituals and end with the actual fulfillment of all her laws. – Mother With the eyes of your heart you see clearly how the Lord always keeps you in obedience to Himself by the laws of conscience. Those who go to the divine service having eaten, voluntarily impose unnecessary and harmful burdens on themselves and drown their hearts for prayer in advance, blocking access to holy thoughts and holy sensations. It is extremely important to be careful not to eat too much before worship. We must remember that the Kingdom of God is not food and drink [Rom. 14, 17], that is, God cannot reign in that heart that is burdened with overeating and drinking. The Lord is so close to everyone, especially the holy living Christian, that his heart and body are the temple of the Holy Spirit. What a convenience for prayer anywhere. The word of prayer is close to you, or God to whom you pray, in your mouth and in your heart [Rom. 10, 8]. Nasty, evil and blasphemous thoughts nest only in unbelief of the heart. Living faith, like the fire of bees, drives away these unclean thoughts. Sin closes the eyes of the heart: the thief thinks that God does not see; the fornicator, indulging in filthiness, thinks that God does not see him; the money-lover, the glutton, the drunkard think that they are hiding their addictions. But God sees and judges. I am naked and hid myself [Gen. 3, 10], - this is what every sinner says through his actions, hiding from the omnipresent God. That the Lord is always with us - His Divine life-giving Mysteries are obvious proof of this. Here He allows us to touch Himself, to place the hands of our hearts in His wounds of nails and to place our fingers in His sides. No matter how many times I prayed in faith, God always listened to me and fulfilled my prayers. For the most part we live in doubt, lack of faith, unbelief, having eyes and not seeing, having ears and not hearing, a heart hardened by having. We must beware of the whitening of the heart. Man is the image of God, the living image of the living God; in the soul of a person, especially a believer and a virtuous one, the radiance of the Divine, His perfection, is reflected. Be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy [Lev. 11, 44]. The soul of the first man is from God, and all the souls of subsequent people: all are the breath of His Divine Spirit, all are His children, all as one. As You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, the Savior prayed to the Heavenly Father, so may they also be one in Us [John. 17, 21]. This is our high origin and purpose. Through Jesus Christ we must be one with God, and where He is, there we must be. Where I am, there will my servant also be [Jn. 12, 26]. Since our souls are from God, then, of course, He is always close to us, just as parents are close to their children. Just as parents know their children, so much more does the Lord know His people, His grace-filled children in Christ. I know Mine [Jn. 10, 14]. In ordinary human knowledge, once you recognize an object well, you often know it well for the rest of your life, without a strong clouding of knowledge about it. But in faith it is not so: once you have known, felt, touched, you think: the object of faith will always be so clear, tangible, and loved for my soul. But no: a thousand times he will darken for you, move away from you and, as it were, disappear for you, and what you previously loved, what you lived and breathed, at times you will feel complete indifference, and sometimes you need to clear the way for yourself with sighs and tears in order to see him, grab him and embrace him with your heart. Why do simple, rude people devoted to sensuality love loud singing? It is very simple to solve this: the coarser the soul, the more it is suppressed by worldly passions, the stronger stimulation it requires for its awakening. The petrified heart softens and shakes from loud singing. When you experience sorrow and tightness of heart, bless the Lord and say: We know, Lord, that I am unworthy of Your love for mankind, but I am worthy of all condemnation and torment. Thy will be done in me, a sinner. Will we really accept good from Your hand, but not evil? [Job. 2, 10]. When the evil one with evil thoughts forces you to laugh slyly before a person, then say in your heart to the Lord: Lord! Plant Thy fear in the heart of Thy servant. God! Do not allow your heart to wander into the thoughts of evil. If your soul hurts from a decline in opinion about itself among a gathering of people or alone, cross your chest with a cross and say to it: my soul! this is your dignity! - and her illness will pass. I always use Your light, Your peace - and don’t I touch You every moment, as if... ecu is with me [Ps. 22, 4 ]? Put a prayer on your heart. God! You are the great boldness of my heart in the host of great and powerful people of this world. I, small and insignificant, become Your great greatness and with a cheerful heart I speak Your truth in the assembly of people. Without You, without living faith in You, I am like a leaf shaken by the wind. Therefore I sing of Your power, my Strength, I sing to You: Lord my God, my strength, my courage, my joy, the light of my thought. I will keep you wherever you go [Gen. 28, 15]. The Lord protects His chosen ones everywhere. Before Me ecu 25 [Isa.49, 16]. The face of God is always turned towards us. You must completely put aside all concern for perishable food, because the Lord feeds you daily with imperishable food, infinitely more excellent than any perishable food. Your food is the Body and Blood of Christ. In serving God, place all your happiness and all the people of God who require your service, be a diligent servant; Do not be burdened by the work of God if all day long they invite you to different places and for different needs. Do not have the slightest, even heartfelt, inner impatience, do not be irritated, do not complain, but be complacent; be kind to all those who require your service and thank God that He deigns you to spend most of your time in conversation with Him and serving the spiritual benefits of His people; know for sure that this is the happiest time in your life. What should you do at home? Rest? – But after minor labors, what kind of rest? Eat and drink? - An animal matter. Talk to your own people? – Conversation with God is better. Also note: all prayers and praises to the Lord or His Most Pure Mother and His saints, speak as your own, with full sympathy, and the Lord will reward you for them as for your own works, because the saints of God, having been enlightened by the Spirit of God, composed them so beautifully. Remember whose spirit you are, that is, always and everywhere and with everyone, be meek. Take care with all the strength of your soul about meekness. Learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart [Matt. 11, 29]. Oh! You have the habit and weakness of being irritated, often getting angry over trifles, you have a weak, pampered, self-loving spirit. Set yourself up for nothing, trampling [for] everyone; serve everyone, as if in someone else’s body, get used to enduring all sorts of physical and moral troubles. The one who prays, like the letters of the alphabet, must recognize as a truth that does not require proof that God everywhere hears and sees the inner cries of our hearts, as well as the saints by His grace. Prayer is necessary at every step: a person has so many spiritual and physical needs. There is great power in the name of Jesus Christ, and to call on His name from the heart means to receive His help. This also includes cases of driving out demons and passions in the name of Jesus Christ. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover [Mk. 16, 18]. So, soon after I served the liturgy, I laid hands on a man with a fever (he was already sick and had not eaten for a whole week), and he recovered. Some hope in princes, in the sons of men, others in wealth, others in their strength - vain hopes. Do not trust in princes, in the sons of men [Ps. 145, 3]. Advise the rich in this age not to think highly of themselves and not to trust in unfaithful wealth, but in the living God (1 Tim. 6:17). We do not trust in our bow... [Ps. 43, 7]. The hope of a Christian should accompany him everywhere and in all circumstances of life: a Christian should not lose heart or lose heart in the face of any difficulties, whether internal or external, even after committing the greatest sin. A Christian, especially an Orthodox Christian, if he wants, can, through faith and hope, be a happy person even in the most misfortunes, because the Christian faith strengthens and calms his soul with the greatest, all-joyful promises. We rejoice in sorrow [Rom. 5:3], says Paul. Count it all joy... when you fall into various temptations [Jas. 1, 2]. A clear proof of the omnipresence and providence of God is provided by vegetation: where is it not found on the globe? It covers the plains, climbs the inaccessible steepness of stone mountains, makes its way in deserts, establishes its roots in the waters and among the waters - on uninhabited islands. And who grows it and decorates it with a wonderful variety of species and colors? - Lord God. God dresses this way... But if God dresses the grass so carefully, will God leave man even for a minute, will he forget? If God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more so than you, O you of little faith! [Matt. 6, 30]. If God revives the grass every minute and does not leave it with His life, will He cease to revive me? No: if He clothes the grass and revives it, then He lives in me constantly, as in a church, if I do not voluntarily drive Him away with my sins. Do you not know that you are the church of God, and the Spirit of God lives in you? (1 Cor. 3:16). By the way, note about the church: the apostle calls a Christian a church, because the Spirit of God lives in him; This means that in Christian churches God constantly lives - the holiness of the church. Reverence for him. [Feel] the effect of God dwelling in the church on the hearts of people who turn to Him with all their hearts in prayer. He will call to Me, and I will hear him [Ps. 90, 15]. Oh, words full of love! Oh, words that breathe the most living hope into the one praying! Until now you have not learned to love your neighbors. You respond to others' dislike of you with your own dislike. Do the opposite: respond to others’ dislike of you with affection and love; The more you see dislike for yourself, the more you love. Lack of love is a disease, and one must have more pity on the sick person, greater care, and greater love for him precisely because he is sick. Don’t you know that the disembodied enemy is treacherous over everyone, infecting everyone with the poison of hatred? And you are not exempt from his deceit. Do not serve him, the spirit of hostility, but serve with all your zeal the God of love. Remember that God the Word died for your brethren. Who is most easily possessed by the devil? A well-fed and proud person (and pride is spiritual satiety). As rivers flow to the sea, so do the souls of people flow to God. Spiritual and physical life diverge and do not agree: sometimes you feel great in your body, but not in your spirit or heart. Start praying, and you will see that your heart has grown pale, fat, fat and fat, and has forgotten God [Deut. 32:15], and it’s hard for you to pray, although you are healthy and strong in strength; If you stop praying, it will be easy again. But this is sinful ease. That's how it happens! Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also [Matt. 6, 21]. Know what those praying in the church are thinking about. Anyone who is devoted to something with their hearts thinks about it. Glory to You, Trinitarian Love! I glorify the trinity, because without the trinity of Persons in God, who would make a sacrifice for us to the justice of God, angered beyond measure by our sins? If the heart doubts about the Life-giving Spirit, then there will be no life in it, but sorrow and distress - and rightly so, because life comes from the Life-giving Spirit. Grief from doubt is a sure sign that this wisdom is a lie and comes from the murdering devil. Until now I have lived by God (thought, felt, fed) - and from now on I will live by Him. I put aside all restless worries and rely on my hope, on my breath - Christ. How should one believe in Christ who does not allow himself to doubt for a moment the truth of what He said in His Holy Gospel, what His pure bride, the Church, teaches from the meaning. It is necessary to acquire in faith such firmness of heart that, by our free will, it is not at all, not for a minute, wavered by double-mindedness, inclination to the opposite side, so that a Christian does not become a disturbance of the sea, which is raised by the wind and then scattered again. Our faith in Christ is true and amen: in Him Himself it [Russian: yes] will be (2 Cor. 1, 20, 19). Remember that those who heartily and firmly believed in Christ were saved into eternal life, and remember how the Holy Church of its faithful followers did not destroy anyone, but saved everyone by the grace of God. The works of the Savior and the Church over believers speak for themselves. The acts of doubt and unbelief in a person’s soul, which kill his soul and body, also speak for themselves. Since the Spirit of God is the formidable power, fear and torment of demons, the demons with all their hellish machinations resist the Spirit of God and blaspheme Him; since the Spirit of God is a saving Spirit, [is] the Spirit of unity, love, peace, then they resist by all means the unity, love and salvation of people; because of them there was a division of the Churches into Eastern and Western - note, because of the Holy Spirit this division occurred; because of them - the further division of the Roman West, Lutheranism, Calvinism and the Anglican Church; because of them there is a schism in our Orthodox Church. By the way, is it necessary not to make necessary, beneficial transformations in the Church because of schismatics? We must do it, otherwise the demons will laugh at us - will we really allow ourselves to be overcome by their malice? It won't happen. So, it is necessary to translate the Bible into Russian. How many millions of people are deprived of its wealth because it is in an incomprehensible Slavic language. Demons are also trying in every possible way to tear out from the hearts of Christians - and they have pulled out - faith in the Gospel and in the Church of Christ, which is also blasphemy against the Holy Spirit; They are trying by all means to plunge Christians into carnal affairs and into carnal defilements, so that the Spirit of God does not dwell in people, as in the antediluvian people - and don’t we see that people are given over to the love of money, gluttony, drunkenness, debauchery on the most enormous scale? What kind of corruption is this? ABOUT! It will be bad for us, and perhaps very soon. It’s also a pity to look at our [stupid] secular literature: it often breathes immorality. Spirits of evil also attack the Spirit of God in the thoughts and hearts of individual people, shaking faith in Him; woe to us; Let us not blaspheme the Holy Spirit of God, the Life-Giving Spirit, the Spirit of unutterable love, who intercedes for us with unutterable groanings [Rom. 8, 26 ]; let us know all the time of our lives to worship Him and glorify Him, as we worship the Father and the Son, as we glorify the Father and the Son inseparably and with equal honor; let us remember the Ecumenical Creed - this is a saving guide in faith for believers of all times and places; Let us not offend with a single thought the doubt of the Spirit of God who lives in us and quickens us, this womb of God, which loves us endlessly, like the Father and the Son. All are filled with one Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13). You see, the Spirit of God, like water or air, surrounds us on all sides. The Spirit of the Lord fills the universe [Wis. 1, 7]. Faith is given to us by the Spirit of God: faith to another is given by the same Spirit (1 Cor. 12:9), says the apostle; the love of God is poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit [Rom. 5, 5], as the same apostle says. How good it is to conquer passions! After a victory, you feel such lightness in your heart, peace and greatness of spirit! Is not the life more than food, and the body than clothing? [Matt. 6, 25]. Oh! Immeasurably, infinitely more! The image of the invisible God, the Creator of everything, shines in the soul. I must not spare not only anything material – my soul, my life – for the benefit of my brother; material, physical, especially spiritual. By lovingly serving my brother's benefit, I am serving God Himself. ABOUT! I feel in my heart a lofty, great truth: just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me [Matt. 25, 40]. Why is this so? Because, 1) because every person is the image of God, 2) because Jesus Christ is God and at the same time man and the Head of the body of His Church, so that we constitute His ods from His flesh and from His bones, or members of Christ. Do not believe your flesh, which threatens you with failure during prayer - it lies. If you begin to pray, you will see that the flesh will become your obedient slave. Prayer will revive her too. Always remember that the flesh is deceitful. He who believes in the Savior and feeds on His Flesh and Blood has eternal life in himself, and this is the reason why every sin produces severe illness and confusion in the heart: this is precisely because heavenly, eternal life abides in him; therefore, when sin touches, it is death: the heart, which contains the life of God, becomes very heavy. But those who do not have an eternal belly drink iniquity like water [Job. 15, 16], and they will not get sick, because there is no eternal belly in their hearts. Glory to the Spirit of God, who comes from the Father to give life to every creature and fills the whole universe. Glory to Him, who gives life to Angels and men and every creature. Glory to Him, our strength, our holiness. Glory to Him, coeternal Father and Son. My bodily nature necessarily requires an image 27. We make images with dignity and righteousness and worship them. Man himself is what else if not the living image of the living God? The Son of God Himself is an equal seal, showing the Father in Himself. If we ourselves are images of God, consisting of soul and body, then why don’t we honor the saints of God in their hand-made images? Naming a name on an image means a lot for a believer: this name, as it were, serves him instead of a soul. Call on the name of the saint with all your heart - he will hear you and reveal his miraculous power in the image. The name of the Savior, called upon with faith, does miracles: casts out demons, extinguishes passions, heals diseases; By the grace of the Lord, the saints, called by name with faith, also perform miracles. And what's surprising? They are all in the Spirit of God, and the Life-giving Spirit of God fills everything everywhere and everything, and with the Holy Spirit the saints all do miracles, because the one Spirit of God is the Spirit of miracles. Is not the life greater than food [Matt. 6, 25 ]? If the same person comes to you twenty, thirty times in a row, feed him: his soul is countless times greater than food, even the whole world: Christ died for it; Christ feeds him with His Flesh and Blood. Man is a small world. As the soul is in the body, so is God in the world. The soul leaves the body, and it is now disintegrating. The Spirit of God will leave the world, and it will immediately fall apart. The soul is everywhere in the body, but especially in the heart - and God is everywhere in the world, but especially in heaven and in the church. And so, at every step, recognize the presence of God. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses [Acts. 1, 8]. For strong, effective, life-giving preaching, a preacher must receive strength from the Holy Spirit; Likewise, a teacher of the Law of God in schools also needs to prayerfully ask for the power of the Spirit of God for fruitful teaching of the truths of the Law of God. Who knows? Commit your way to the Lord and trust in Him, and He will bring it to pass [Ps. 36:5]. Start living according to God’s commandments, trust in God – and you will be saved. A Christian must put the stamp of rationality on everything, on all his religious actions, and begin everything with a short prayer. When you begin your fast, pray like this: Lord! Grant me the coming fast to sacrifice, pleasing to You and saving me. Glory to Thee, O All-Holy One, life-giving Soul, proceeding from the Father and resting ever in the Son, inseparable from the Father and the Son! Glory to Thee, Son of God, in the Spirit of God you cast out demons and through Him build our salvation, sanctify, make us wise, strengthen us; Glory to You, Father, who has always been well pleased with us in the Son through the Holy Spirit. Indivisible Trinity Unity, have mercy on us! Children are close - the images of father and mother - to the hearts of parents; people, especially Christians, are even closer - images of God - to the heart of God. The external similarity of children to their parents, and often the internal similarity, sends us to the internal similarity of people to God. Every place is a place of God's presence and God's dominion; hence there is no doubt that the Lord looks at us through the eyes of icons and through the lips of icons, as if with his own, he can speak to us. Because the Lord is in every place, His cross works miraculously, His name produces miracles, His icons are miraculous and, in any case, places of His gracious presence; the donkey says. My thought freely penetrates buildings with their walls, mountains, seas, sky and earth; but in thought, man is the likeness of the Divine, Who is the infinite Spirit and exists everywhere. Doesn’t God permeate everything and fill everything, as the Creator of everything? Hope breathes in prayers, and prayer without hope is sinful prayer. Does everyone have Guardian Angels? There are and there should be. The nature of the spirit is unusually active and cannot help but act: we see this in our souls. The nature of a good spirit necessarily seeks activity and expansion of the circle of this activity, the expansion of the kingdom of truth and goodness, just as, on the contrary, the nature of an evil spirit seeks corresponding activity and expansion of the kingdom of lies and all evil. That demons are trying in every possible way to spread the kingdom of evil - we feel this, experience it in ourselves, and the Holy Scripture testifies to this: the devil walks like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour (1 Pet. 5:8). How can one not allow, even at the request of common sense, the truth that Angels are trying to spread the kingdom of good and are seeking human salvation? And the word is true, that in heaven there will be more joy over one sinner who repents [Lk. 15, 7]. And just as the devil is with every person, so a good Angel is also with every person. We clearly feel the presence of that with us, and the presence of that, although out of pride we are accustomed to attributing all good thoughts, feelings, dispositions, intentions to ourselves, and not to the Guardian Angel. Will there be enough Guardian Angels for every person? Enough and in abundance. When the Apostle Peter rushed with a knife at the bishop's servant to defend his Teacher and Lord, the Lord said to him: or do you think that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He will present to Me more than twelve legions of 28 Angels? [Matt. 26, 53]. This means that the Lord always has enough of them in abundance to protect every [person] (Elisha, Jacob), and especially for the Son of God incarnate. It is also known that the Guardian Angel appeared to the Savior in the Garden of Gethsemane to strengthen Him 29; The angels came and served Him [Matt. 4:11] after fasting and temptation in the desert; The guardian angel of the baby Savior appeared to Joseph in a dream and commanded his movements 30. You who hate Zion (the Church), be put to shame by the Lord, for you will be dried up by fire... The Russian language, says Vadim 31, went its own way, the church language – its own. Our (!?) non-religious, atheistic nature had little in common with the Church in its development. Leaving school or seminary and going on public activities, our writers and teachers forgot the Our Father and the Faith and finally broke with the Church. Until Nikolai 32, the connection was somehow maintained. Since December 14th 33 it has burst or almost does not exist. How could we have a biblical language? Who has read our [theological] books? Who dealt with religious issues? What was written by the clergy was not read by any of the best and advanced writers (? - because they are advanced, corrupt), except perhaps Gogol alone (honor to him), but he also died from his connection with religion (religion revives, and does not destroy; the Savior says: I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly [John 10:10]). As a result of this alienation of (imaginary) society from the Church, we did not consider it necessary to retain the half-dead church language in our translation. What can we expect from a translator like Vadim? Vadim, who calls himself an atheist and in any case shows extreme disdain for the Church and its representatives? Did God give such an ill-intentioned translator the spiritual means, internal and external, depending on the circumstances, to properly translate the word of God? It seems that to translate the word of God it is not Vadim who needs to be used. Who is Vadim? - Impostor. God did not give him these external means. He himself admits that he had neither Pavsky 34 nor Skaryna 35 translations from Hebrew into Russian or even a Slavic translation of the Bible at hand. So, Vadim, while translating the Bible into Russian, was hanging, as they say, between heaven and earth and made the ugliest translation, in which one cannot recognize the word of God: all proper names are distorted, words are taken in translation, many are common. And he relied on the English translation of Dr. Benish 36, a reader in the London synagogue, on Benish - the enemy of Christianity. You get angry when students don’t believe you in what you teach them, but you really are a person with mistakes, with shortcomings, and you can easily lie in the teaching itself - and you do. But you do not firmly believe in your heart the Son of God, Who is the truth and the all-perfect mind, all-perfect goodness, endless love, endless life, like God - how can it be for His loving heart, for Him, the truest, to endure lack of faith or unbelief from you, from your deceitful heart? Holy Soul, living, personal, lordly, living connection between the Father and the Son, have mercy on me! Holy Soul, life-giving and uniter of all creation, especially 37 rational creatures, the strength of all creation, have mercy on me. In prayer, let a person put aside all worldly worries and only care about the salvation of his soul. We must rely on the Lord: in all temptations, in all joyless states of the soul, the Lord will deliver. What a unity of the Being in the Three Persons of the Divinity: the Son does nothing without the Spirit, just as the Spirit does without the Father and the Father without the Spirit and the Son - everything is all together. This is not the case with a person: he sometimes works with his mind without the participation of his heart, and his work is often soulless. This discord is a consequence of sin. Three Wanderers of Abraham: two do the will of the third. I think: how all-perfect is the Divinity, what an infinite fullness of life is in Him: God the Father gave birth from Himself to the creative 38 Word and brings forth the creative Spirit, and They masterfully fulfill the will of the Father, just as the hands of a person carry out in deed what the head thinks about, what the heart desires. Marvelous are You, our God, who created everything with Your Hypostatic Word and [performed] by the Hypostatic Spirit! What fullness of life! Both the Son and the Spirit are equal to the Author Father; both the Son and the Spirit are equally omnipotent, like the Father, and they are one goodness and love, one will, one power, one Divinity and kingdom! What fullness of life! Both the Son is the Creator and the Spirit is the Creator. Thy hands (Son and Spirit) create me and create me [Ps. 118, 73]. What unity! Neither the Son without the Spirit, nor the Spirit without the Son does anything, but together they fulfill the will of the Father, being Three - one Being. Therefore, where you hear the Son acting, there the Spirit certainly acts as the Son, and there the Father certainly acts, from Whom and to Whom They are raised. I glorify the power of the Father and the Son, and I sing the power of the Holy Spirit, the indivisible, uncreated Divinity, the Consubstantial Trinity, reigning for ever and ever 39 . This is Your Divine greatness, O Lord the Savior, that the life of all creation is in You, as in the Hypostatic Life: that all may honor You, as they honor the Father [John. 5, 23 ]; This is Your greatness, O Holy Life-Giving One, that You sanctify everyone, strengthen them, and live together with the Father and the Son: that everyone may honor You as they honor the Father and the Son; This is Thy greatness, O Holy Soul, that the Only Begotten Son of God, as one in essence with You, created powers and miracles through You, and through You sanctifies, strengthens and leads us to His Father. Thus the imams bring... [Russian: we have access] [Eph.2, 18]. People who pray little have a weak heart, and when they want to pray, it relaxes and weakens their hands and body and thoughts, and it is difficult for them to pray - but they must overcome themselves, try to pray with all their heart, because it is good, easy to pray with all their heart. Blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven to men [Matt. 12, 31]. Whoever rejects the personal existence of the Holy Spirit, especially who has been a partaker of the Holy Spirit many times, blasphemes Him and, if he does not correct himself from blasphemy, will not be forgiven either in this age or in the next. Holy Life-Giving Soul, Soul of Grace, have mercy on me! Now many antichrists have appeared (1 John 2:18). Remember the conversation with Al. V. Murashov about Kutorga 40. He is jealous with God's jealousy - shouldn't we, shepherds, be jealous? He rightly accused us of silence. To the glory of God the Savior. My heart was wounded in the evening by an addiction to perishable goods, but only I recognized and condemned my recklessness in addiction to temporary goods and said from my heart: give us our daily bread this day [Matt. 6, 11] - and now I felt at ease, and I, vividly imagining after that the Savior present with us during the all-night vigil at A. Murashov’s, felt unusually calm, light and sweet. Glory to my Savior God! Trust in the intercession of the Mother of God, Angels and saints is a type of Christian hope: they are strong in interceding for us by the grace of the same Christ and their virtues. It is not in vain that we pray to them: through their intercession we hope to receive mercy, remission of sins, salvation, and temporary blessings, for example, health, purification of the air, deliverance from disasters and sorrows. Pray in the Spirit and the Holy Spirit to the Savior, the Father, the Angels and all the saints - and your prayer will be fiery, and tears will stream from your eyes, sweet and light tears. Glory to the Comforter Spirit. And what a consolation He is to the soul! November 23, 1860. The Savior and the Comforter are two Divine Persons: One always saves from sins, the other comforts the one being saved. The names are taken from the case itself and are always justified in reality. Comforts! He comforts, like a mother, - this is how the Holy Spirit comforts a believing soul. The Lord shows you the weaknesses of your apprenticeship, your insignificance at school, so that you know that your present position is exclusively the mercy of the Lord - your only weaknesses, and your clinging to the Lord, as a result of your own weaknesses. Money has the following inscription: earth and dust, and always read this inscription on it. God sovereignly transforms ordinary bread and ordinary wine into the life-giving Flesh and Blood of His Son by the Holy Spirit. From this we clearly see that He is both the Author and Nourisher of our bodily life, and that our bodily life is far from being as important as our spiritual life, because ordinary bread and wine, which nourish and comfort our bodily nature, are transformed into the best Bread - the Bread of spiritual life, and wine - into spiritual drink. The Spirit of God is everywhere; mentally sweep across the whole world - everywhere you will see His works: by Him people are constantly revived with a higher life, animals, birds, fish, plants; everywhere the Body and Blood of the Savior perform the same miracles; Everywhere the Sacraments have power, and their strength is the Holy Spirit. On the veneration and invocation of saints in prayers. (On the day of St. Nicholas.) Foundation: they are in God; they are rich in spiritual gifts; they are on the land of the living and on the land of abundance, and we are on the land of death and spiritual famine. God took them to Himself for our life. For life, God sent me to you [Gen. 45:5], Joseph said to his brothers. Abraham, Noah... The rich man asked Abraham in hell to send Lazarus. Noah is the deliverer from the flood. Blessed is he who has a tribe in Zion and tribes 41 in Jerusalem, says the Lord [Isa. 31, 9]. Draw a parallel between Joseph and the brothers - both the saints in heaven and us sinners. I rejoice and admire the infinite perfection of the Divine; I have fun and admire that the Divinity is in Three Persons, and each Person independently is the all-perfect God; that the Father is omnipotent, the Son is omnipotent, and the Holy Spirit is omnipotent; the Father is omnipresent, also the Son, and also the Holy Spirit; life is the Father, life is the Son, life is the Holy Spirit; love is the Father, love is the Son, love is the Holy Spirit. I rejoice in God the Father, I rejoice in God the Son, I rejoice in God the Holy Spirit, the one Godhead, the one nature and power, the one Savior God who loves us. I rejoice that each of the Three Persons of the Divine, as God, is also given special dominative actions: to the Father - invention and good will, to the Son - the implementation of the Father’s thought and good will, to the Holy Spirit - accomplishment, sanctification, revival and implementation. The devil sometimes acts in the head as a restless interrogator about the incomprehensible, as a daring encroacher on the inaccessible secrets of the Three Persons of the Divine, on Their mutual relationships. One must begin to think about the trinity of the Divine with reverence and extreme caution. Prayer, like the outside air of the body, refreshes the soul and enlivens it: you feel more cheerful and cheerful, just as, after taking a walk in the fresh air, you feel both physically and mentally more vigorous and fresh. All that the Father has is My essence [Jn. 16, 15]: everything that has the Spirit is also His essence 42, except for the procession; speak equally about the Son and about the Father, just separate the personal properties. Due to Their consubstantiality - communication of properties. Learn to pray, force yourself to pray: at first it will be difficult, but then the more you force yourself, the easier it will be; but first you always have to force yourself. Holy Hierarch Father N, pray to God for us. On what basis do we ask the saints to pray for us, and do they really pray for us, and are their prayers valid for us? We ask the saints to pray for themselves on the solid foundation of Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition. God Himself directly expressed His will to some people who did not have a special closeness to Him, mostly sinful people, so that they would ask the people of God to pray for themselves: for example, Abimelech, who took Abraham’s wife, was commanded to ask Abraham to pray for Abimelech; Job prayed according to the clear revelation of the will of God for his friends; Moses, Samuel, Elijah, all the prophets; The Lord Himself, in His human nature, prayed to the Heavenly Father for Peter and for all the disciples. The saints deserve to be intercessors for us to God according to their virtues, according to their, so to speak, merits before God, as His saints. If on earth justice requires that a famous person close to God pray for others (for example, a priest for people), then why not in heaven? All the saints are alive with God and for us, they see our needs in God, sympathize with us and are ready to help us through our prayers. Why, according to our prayers, not otherwise? - In order to confirm us in faith and prayerful deeds. Moreover: why do the living want others who need their help to ask them? (Gen. 20, 4; Job 42, 8 – 10; Exod. [about Moses] 32, 11 – 14, 31–33.) Just as the devil instantly kills by attacking the heart with some illegal desire or unrighteous thought, so God and His Guardian Angel revive with an instant influx of holy desires and thoughts. We must be attentive and grateful to the Lord for His spiritual gifts of light. What does the daily invocation of saints mean, different every day, throughout the whole year and throughout life? This means that the saints of God, like our brethren, only perfect, are alive, and not far from us, and hear us, and are always ready to help us by the grace of God. We live with them together in the same house of the Heavenly Father, only in different halves: we are on the earthly, they are on the heavenly; both for us and for them there is a means to penetrate each other: for us - the prayer of faith and love, for them - their spiritual nature, always ready for active help out of love, which permeates their souls. Faith is given to a person by the Holy Spirit, which is why no one can call Jesus Lord except by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:3). The Holy Spirit was revealed to us by Jesus Christ, who was conceived and born by the Holy Spirit, who grew and strengthened by the Holy Spirit, who cast out demons, who was resurrected by the Holy Spirit. The apostles, martyrs, saints, saints preached about the Holy Spirit, and very many sealed with their blood the teaching of the Holy Trinity. I am weakness; God is my strength. This conviction is my highest wisdom, making me blessed. Quit smoking completely. The Most Reverend Theophan threatened while I was smoking, and he himself was in pain from God and in sadness and embitterment about the flock entrusted to him. I didn't sleep at night from the tobacco. Priests of God! Celebrate the Sacrament of Baptism reverently, with appropriate faith. Through baptism you do the greatest good for the baby, and all the more so since he is irresponsible and completely weak: it depends on you whether or not to expel from him the spirit of the evil one, hidden and nesting in his heart. My life and my true sweetness are one, my food and drink is Christ. So speak to the enemy who seduces you with the sweetness of the food and their pity for others. According to Macarius, one should rejoice that they are destroyed by others: through this there is less burden on the soul, it is easier for it to ascend to heaven. The enemy robbed me, stole me now during the vigil of St. Andrew the First-Called: with a crafty laugh he overpowered me, with a swift, uncontrollable laugh he captivated me over my brother Matthew. Oh, I am cursed, frivolous, cowardly, weak as a reed! Was I unable to stay in the church of God? It was not for nothing that Father Paul gave me the Missal some time before the litany - he did this at the inspiration of God: I needed to strengthen my soul with prayer, and when not occupied with prayer, the empty soul was robbed by the villain, depriving it of gravity and importance, concentration, heartfelt tenderness and fear of God. Woe to me, who have angered the most good God. How attentive I must be to myself at all times! I am never safe from the enemy. He tempts me with everything: when I am healthy and calm, he relaxes me with a sly laugh; when unhealthy and restless, then despondency and cowardice, impatience, irritability. There is trouble everywhere: I feel cramped everywhere [Dan. 13, 22]. When Christians come to church to pray to God, it turns out that they have not one, but many gods and many idols (and thus sin against the first and second commandments); one or another is one’s own idol of self-love; where one’s treasure is, there is one’s heart. Just as you borrow your breath from the air and release it into the air again, so that you are always in the air, and surrounded by it, and it penetrates you, so your soul is from God, and returns to God again, so that you are always in God and surrounded by Him on all sides and filled with Him internally, like air. That is why it is said: be filled with the Spirit [Eph. 5, 18]. Just as you breathe air every minute, so every minute you think of either God or the devil, depending on your inner disposition. What air is to the body, the Spirit of God is to the soul; just as you inhale from the air the principles necessary for your body, so from the Spirit of God you inhale into yourself good dispositions and thoughts. I read the Gospel - it’s not me who speaks here, but the Lord Himself. He, He Himself in these words. After all, He is Spirit, Wisdom, or endless Hypostatic Thought. It is He, He is in these wonderful thoughts and words of the Gospel. Only our human word, or, better yet, the word is His, and the thought, its essence, the truth is the Lord Himself. I see just as accurately, for example, the image of the Savior or His cross: again here He Himself, my omnipresent Lord, in this face or on this cross, as in the word of the Gospel; His image on an icon or on a cross is only an appearance, but the essence is He Himself, appearing everywhere and in everything and through everything, especially through images and signs on which His venerable name or His very image is named. So, in the priestly blessing of the cross He appears with His power and, as it were, He Himself blesses. Therefore, the priestly blessing of hands is very important. And our ordinary sign of the cross also has the power of God, just do it with faith. Thus, the Lord can be found and touched everywhere. You yourself enjoy yourself - nothing, but others - it’s a pity and annoyance. Don’t feel sorry for yourself or anyone else. Disregard everything eaten as if it were pus. Love everyone as you love yourself. Glory to God, my Savior: I cried out to Him for salvation, and He saved me. December 8, 1860 Morning, ten o'clock. If he falls seven times, and repents seven times, saying, I repent: leave it to him [Lk. 17, 4]. The Lord knows, as the Knower of the Heart, that people are prone to very frequent falls and, falling, often rise up, and therefore he gave the commandment to often forgive the fall, and He Himself is the first to fulfill His holy word: as soon as you say after a sin with all your heart: I repent, you immediately forgive. For God, all women are like one Eve, therefore all are unclean before Him in their blood and in their birth. And men too. We were born in sins and in iniquities, and we are all defilements before You. The whole Gospel is the Gospel of the Kingdom, to which Christians are destined, and, as it were, one promise 43 (all parables, all prophecies, miracles); The Apostolic Epistles reveal in more detail the promises of Christian hope. Thy kingdom come [Matt. 6, 10] - that is, Your perfect reign in our hearts. My body is earth and ashes, but my soul lives and rests only in God: He is the lightness of my thoughts and the strength of my heart. So, actually, I am nothing. If others offend me, thank God for this: I am worth it, because I myself offend the Lord every day. I just don't want to offend others. The saints fulfilled the word of the Lord - the Lord fulfills their word; They did for Him - He did for them. Measure with the same measure, the Lord Himself said, it will be measured to you [Matt. 7, 2]. That is why the Lord quickly fulfills the prayers for us saints. All pleasing God consists of thoughts. Macarius. Part 2. Conversation 31, art. 3 44. Prayer requires sincere regret for one’s sins and sincere repentance; listing the sins indicated in prayers, say them, feeling in your heart as if your own. You also need a fiery desire not to commit the same sins in the future. The ringing of a bell is a call to a conversation with God: children with the Father; a call to appear before Him. Remember often that you are only the promoter of God’s truth. Whether you pray or study, you are a promoter of God’s truth. Treat God truly, reverently, holy. Feeling poverty, crying over the existence of evil, a thirst for salvation are found in every straight and humble soul. The holy prophet David calls the soul an eye (My eye is troubled [Ps. 6:8]), hearing, tongue, hand, leg or feet (Do not let your feet become troubled [Ps. 20:3]). My tongue will rejoice in Your righteousness [Ps. 50, 16]. The eye of the soul that sees at night. Captivate me, Master, into the sweet captivity of Your Holy Spirit, yes, like streams at noon [Ps. 125:4], my words will flow to Your glory and to the salvation of Your people. Grant me this sweet and powerful inner urge to express freely on charter 45 the fullness of spiritual visions and feelings. Let my tongue be like the reed of the scribe and cursive writer of the All-Holy Spirit [Ps. 44, 2]. Intending to talk about the hope of Christians, I must reveal to you the promises of God and those intrigues with which the enemy of Christians entangles in order to distract their eyes and hope from their priceless hope: the flattery of wealth, earthly pleasures, honors. Speaking about hope, I must reveal to you the treasury of blessings promised to us in Christ, show you the inexplicable, infinite goodness and countless bounties of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit: the Father is our hope, the Son is our refuge, the Holy Spirit is our covering. My God! I see the infinity of the benefits promised to Christians, and at the same time the endless inattention of Christians to the promised benefits, the lack of faith and the very unbelief and coldness of Christians, trampling on the Blood of the Covenant, not caring about [the sacrament of] salvation. Oh, may the Lord give me a mouth and wisdom... may I speak with tongues of fire, may I kindle 46 the fire of hope in the Lord, making haste 47 in cold hearts. (The Book of Immutable Covenants! Tell us about God’s promises to the righteous and to the sinners.) Abraham, My servant, will pray... Job, My servant... Moses... Samuel... Elijah... So we pray, and our prayers for you are pleasing to the Lord. This is how saints pray: their prayers, as faithful servants of God, are pleasing to Him. Heartfelt prayer is the nourisher of life-giving humility and sweet tenderness of the soul. The devil constantly lies in our hearts against God, especially against His omnipresence: “God forgot, He hid His face” [Ps. 9:32]; to justice: “You will not demand it” [Ps. 9, 34 ]; to being: “there is no God” [Ps. 13, 1]. For this reason, God wants us to always turn to Him in prayer, so that we, who have become wild with sin and His children who are moving away from Him, can be drawn to Himself, cleansed and embraced in the arms of His love, in order to show us how He always has good for us. This is what good parents do with their evil children. When you hear what God says, imagine His word as a deed either accomplished, or being accomplished, or about to be accomplished. Hope in God after committing sins, whatever they may be, that is, for reconciliation with Him, after a quarrel, in despondency, melancholy, in passions. Nowhere, it seems, is the sinner’s hope for forgiveness of sins and salvation expressed so clearly and strongly as in the prayers for communion, in the canons of the Sweetest Jesus and the Mother of God, the Guardian Angel and in the canons of the day. Hope also requires a life consistent with hope. Those who have hope do not have to live like others who do not have hope (1 Thess. 4:13). So, beloved, having these promises... (2 Cor. 7:1). The word about your hope. This is what I ask of God. Where I am, there will my servant also be [Jn. 12, 26], with Me on My throne [Rev. 3:21], we will be caught up in the clouds... we will be with the Lord [1 Thess. 4, 17] – this is our hope! Saturation is the deprivation of faith, heartfelt tenderness and prayer, cold insensibility, powerlessness of the heart for any spiritual work, nakedness from grace, a source of pride, loss of humility, rejection of heavenly help, a source of blasphemy against God and the saints, an insatiable thirst for more, dissatisfaction with what you have, deceitfulness of the heart: so that, having had enough, I would not deny You [Prov. 30, 9]. If you were to ask: why are there so many people who are unbelievers, who do not pray, who do not live as Christians, and who are given over to all sorts of vices, the answer is ready: from serving the womb-God. Prayer is living water with which the soul quenches its thirst. When you pray, then imagine that there was only one God before you, three in persons, and besides Him there was nothing. Imagine that God is in the world, like a soul in a body, although infinitely higher than it and not limited to it; your body is small, and your little soul permeates it all, but the world is great, and God is infinitely great, and throughout all creation God fills everything: He is everywhere and filled everything, just like the soul is the body. God dwells in your little world - in your soul and in your body; He is all in the Mysteries, as in the world or as in your soul. What did the appearance of the three Strangers mean to Abraham? It meant that the Lord, trinitarian in Persons, constantly seems to be wandering on earth and overseeing 48 everything that is done on it, and [to] the vigilant servants, attentive to themselves and their salvation and seeking Him, Himself comes to stay with them and talk with them as with friends: let us come to him and make an abode with him [Jn. 14, 23 ]; and wicked people are consumed by heavenly fire. In prayer. On the worship of the Divine Trinity. The Holy Spirit is for believers fire, water, air, bread (from the belly will flow rivers of living water [John 7:38]; they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water [Jeremiah 2:13]), just as the soul of a person is an eye, a hearing, a foot, a hand. The world, like the soul and body, is disposed of and governed by the everywhere existing Spirit, which animates everything and builds and contains everything, together with the Father and the Son. More than anyone else, I am a pet of the Spirit, being extremely weak, and should I not revere Him every moment, every breath? He is the strength of my weakness. About hope. Take away from everyone from visible things what he loves most: ask or take away money from the money-lover, sweet food from the satiated one, some of his advantages from the ambitious and proud, call him by a bad name - and you will see what is the hope of everyone! Oh, what shameful hopes one sometimes encounters! Sometimes a person becomes attached with unclean love to a person of the opposite sex, breathes, feeds on him, so to speak! Oh, shameful hope! O vile heart that has departed from the Lord! O man who has strengthened his fleshly weak muscle on an insignificant person like himself! I'll show you who you need to love! Your hearts are aggravated by gluttony and drunkenness! I'll show you who should fill your hearts. Lover of money! I will show you from whom to buy kindled silver; passionate about entertainment, about honors - the honors of a high rank; before the outfits - the robe is white, and you are clothed. Sins that are contrary to hope: despair, despondency, zeal, self-conceit. Punishment for sin and peace of conscience after repentance clearly prove that there is one Judge, Giver of Life and our God, who can save and destroy us, who gave us life and the laws of life and punishes for violating them, and that He is unchangeable. Paying attention to the voice feeds the insensitivity of the heart to what you sing or read, makes the lips flattering and just a soulless drum. Need a heart. A person gives birth to a person similar to himself, but he himself remains the same as he was. And God, who created everything, gave birth to the Son? A person teaches others with a word, and with the word his spirit comes out, the spirit of meekness, love, patience, and he himself does not lose the word and spirit, but remains with them and improves them even more in himself and in others. Isn't it more like God? The Lord is so merciful that He does not disdain any of our prayers, but mercifully accepts all and corrects imperfections, if only we turn to Him and do not forget Him at all. Learn to have such faith in God that you can breathe Him like air. Present to the people in conversations the content of the canons and akathists to Jesus, the Mother of God, the Guardian Angel, the canon and prayers before communion, prayers after communion, canons of daily, morning and evening prayers, prayers of supplication, thanksgiving, and blessing of water. Show that you need to pray in every place. About hope in the power of the cross, in the name of the Lord, in the prayers of the Lady, in the prayers of Angels and saints. We, preachers, only need to help God’s actions on human hearts, catch their ready dispositions to repentance and strengthen them. The Word of God is the same as God Himself, therefore, undoubtedly believe every word of the Lord. God's word is action, and your word must be action; therefore, having given your word, be sure to fulfill it. Therefore, in prayer, our words should be action and truth, and not lies, not pretense, not flattery. So it is in all life. The high dignity of man as the image of God. Why can a person who has living faith perform all sorts of miracles and be, in some way, a god for nature? Because he is the image of God, because through faith he becomes one spirit with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17). Why did God send His Son as the Savior of the world and give Him to die for people? Because people are the image of God. Why are there such ineffable promises to people of such good things: eye has not seen, ear has not heard, and it has not entered the heart of man (1 Cor. 2:9)? Because they are images of God. What should be our respect for people? What should be the hope of Christians? Friends of my God! Set your mind on things above [Col. 3, 2 ]! Jesus looked at Peter... And he went out weeping bitterly [Lk. 22, 61, 62]. And now when Jesus looks at us, we weep bitterly for our sins. Yes, our tears in prayer mean that the Lord has looked upon us with His all-reviving gaze, searching our hearts and wombs. Oh! How sometimes our soul becomes entangled in various sins, like a bird in a net: sometimes you don’t see the outcome of your sins, and they torment you, your heart becomes terribly sad from them. But Jesus will look - and streams of tears will flow, and with tears the whole tangle of evil in the soul will turn into nothing, and you cry and rejoice that such mercy has suddenly been unexpectedly sent to you; and what warmth there is in the heart, and how easy it is - I would have flown away then to the Lord God Himself! I thank the Lord with all my heart, who cleanses all my iniquities! December 16th day, 1860. Do God’s work—preaching—with joy and great diligence, and not at all lazily, reluctantly, or carelessly. Our soul is called a soul because it breathes the Spirit of God, that is, it is so called from the Life-Giving Spirit. Jesus Christ, distributing food, first looked at the sky, thanked, blessed, then broke it and served it. The Apostle Paul is the same on the ship. Likewise, we should thank God for food and drink and for all material blessings, especially spiritual ones. The Holy Spirit is the treasure of all goods, or spiritual wealth. Look at what wonderful wealth the souls were filled with, in which the Spirit of God dwelt, with what light of knowledge, with what fragrance of virtues. The soul of a pious person is a rich spiritual treasury. Pavlov's soul, Peter's soul, John's soul, Zlatoust, Vasiliev, Grigoriev. A good man brings forth good things from the good treasure of his heart [Lk. 6, 45]. This is where the true treasure is - it is not at all what the world values. Talents. According to Macarius, to show the dignity of a Christian, redeemed by the Blood of the Son of God and prepared for the eternal church of God; about the highest bliss awaiting him, and the obstacles to becoming the church of God, presented by evil spirits; struggle in the hope of God's help, the grace of Christ and the Holy Spirit. If you want to see Christian hope in all its greatness, read church prayers, watch Christian worship, especially Sunday and holiday services. There you will see the endless wealth of benefits promised to believers. A spiritual man plunges his mind and heart into God and in Him finds treasures of knowledge and wisdom, truth, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, while a carnal man plunges into an adulterous and sinful world, or into material nature, not seeing God in it, and in it he seeks food for his earthly, myopic mind, his self-love and pride. About the meaning of the heart in hope. Blessed are the pure in heart... [Matt. 5, 8]. Cleanse - and hope to unite with God for endless ages. In prayer, we must strive most of all for ardor of spirit, ardor and sincerity of repentance for sins. Ananias, Azariah and Misail, the prophet Daniel (before the appearance of the Archangel). A prudent robber. A word for those who do not receive communion for a long time out of consciousness of their unworthiness. The priest is a servant of God, armed with His authority and power (in repentance; the power of the cross; priestly blessing). Man is the image of the Holy Trinity. The bodily form, the whole being – Father, Son and Spirit; belly - Son; lungs - Spirit. In the soul there is thought, word and spirit, which comes from thought and rests in the word. You are irritable and proud - you sin against the Meek and Humble. Always praying - because we always sin; constant thanksgiving - because every day, every minute we receive new mercies of God, and there are countless [old] ones; constant doxology - we always see the glory of the works of our God in us and in the world, especially the glory of His endless love for us. In the most sorrowful, joyless moments, the Lord is with us. I am with him in sorrow [Ps. 90, 15]. But we think that no, that God has abandoned us. Oh, the unspeakable power of our God over our hearts! A mother cannot completely attract our hearts into her love, but the Lord attracts us with Mysteries and prayer. A clear demonstration of the omnipresence of God. Countless multitudes of creatures breathe air at the same time all over the earth; the sun illuminates, warms and revives countless creatures; the rain will water countless individual plants. Thus, countless numbers of Angels and people breathe the Spirit of God, countless other living creatures have received the abilities necessary for their life and enjoyment and self-preservation. The Spiritual Sun illuminates, warms and enlivens countless intelligent creatures; rain or dew of the grace of the Holy Spirit will water many souls. There is nothing closer to us than God. He is the God of hearts, the very hearts, and the heart, in turn, is closest to us: it is our being, our essence. God will not abandon you - that’s the hope. The commander with his voice, and the priest with prayer, puts the Lord’s armies in order and arms himself with the cross instead of the sword against the spiritual enemy. What is me and what is not me, the devil? In good deeds there is hope for reward. Great is your reward in heaven [Matt. 5, 12]. Let us not become weary in doing good, for in due time we will reap [Gal. 6, 9]. A crown of righteousness is laid up for me (2 Tim. 4:8). May Thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us, as we trust in Thee [Ps. 32, 22]. Respect yourself as the image of God, remember that this image is spiritual, and be zealous for fulfilling the commandments of God, restoring in you the likeness of God lost by sin; Be extremely careful not to violate the slightest commandment of God. This violation destroys the likeness of God in you and brings you closer to the likeness of the devil: the more you violate the commandments of God, the more you will become like the devil. Paul and Silas, praying, sang praises to God [Acts. 16:25] in prison, and from prison their prayer comfortably floated into heaven and sent down heavenly help to them: an earthquake, the falling of bonds, the opening of doors. About Peter, when he slept and when the Church prayed for him. About prayer in the house after the apostles accepted dishonor for the name of the Lord. The place where they were was shaken [Acts. 4, 31]. Learn to despise and suppress your heart by the power of the name of the Lord and your will at the very time when it suffers most from impulses of pride, when it is ready to smash and break everyone and everything. I have a Teacher who gives me life: every word of Him is a word of life and, therefore, truth. I believe in Him in everything, and I don’t believe everything that I hear contrary to His word in my thoughts and in my heart or from people and consider it a lie, death to the soul. The All-Holy Spirit, by the good pleasure of the Father, as well as by His will, revives all creation, heavenly and earthly. Everything material, we see, is smoldering, starting with food and clothing; sins also, we all notice, corrupt the soul and body. This circumstance should revive in us the hope of the incorruptible, enduring and, therefore, the state of sinlessness. You who eat sweets, you who boast of clothes, houses, wealth - what are you doing? Everything that breathes breathes air and cannot live without air; all rationally free beings live by the Holy Spirit, as if by air, and cannot live without Him. Every soul is alive by the Holy Spirit. Know that the Holy Spirit is in the same relationship to your soul as air is to your body. Be extremely careful not to offend a woman in labor with a baby by refusing her prayer or otherwise: you will greatly offend Christ Himself, who deigned to give birth to us for the sake of His infancy, and His Immaculate Mother; Don’t be lazy to do everything for the mother in labor and for the helpless baby. At night, our soul is free from the vanity of the world, and therefore the spiritual world can freely act on it, and it can freely receive its impressions, so that the thoughts and dispositions of a person’s heart are the thoughts and dispositions of the Lord Himself or the Angels and saints, if the person is righteous, and the thoughts and dispositions of the devil, if he is an unrepentant sinner. Their sins and their iniquities I will remember no more [Heb. 8, 12] – these were the words in my thoughts. My miraculous image of the Savior is the Lord Himself on it. I cry bitterly, and as if involuntarily, by the grace pouring out abundantly on me from him, I shed streams of tears, cleansing my soul from sins and bringing peace and sweetness to my heart. The devil has a habit of attacking us in tight places. Before you ride with the cross, lift up your heart’s eyes to the Lord, ask for His help for the work ahead, cross yourself with warm faith, saying: Lord, bless, and go, and in every house, when you sing the troparion and kontakion of the holiday, mentally descend into your very heart, imagine Christ in it and the face of the holiday, press the cross from your heart to your forehead - and you will see what grace will be with you, how they will gladly accept you. Experience. December 25, 1860. All Christianity is in hope: all its fruits are in the future, death - eternal life. The Holy Spirit received by believers is the betrothal of future benefits. Finally achieving through your faith the salvation of souls (1 Pet. 1:9). Eye did not see it... (1 Cor. 2:9). Subjects of Christian hope: 1) in the present age; 2) in the next century. The Missal and Breviary clearly show Christian hope. About holy water. Those who touched the Savior's clothes were healed. Why are those who still use holy water with faith being healed? The cross, immersed in water with the prayer of faith, is, as it were, the Lord Himself, the Life-Giving One. Just as the Savior’s clothes were imbued with His life, so the water in which the life-giving cross is immersed is itself imbued with life—that’s why it is healing. Christian hope is peace of the heart... Such peace of the heart is based, among other things, on examples of God's care for the salvation of human souls. We often see that the Lord recalls a person from this life soon after he completes some good deed for the glory of God, in order to have a guarantee of pardon for him in this matter at the Last Judgment. My heart is my soul - in my heart I think, in the words of the Savior Himself: why do you think evil in your hearts? [Matt. 9, 4] - He said to the Pharisees, or: evil thoughts come from the heart [Matt. 15, 19]. Therefore, when you want to compose, take extreme care of your heart: and your mind will not work if your heart does not want it. Ask God to enlighten your heart. Do not lose heart in any sorrowful circumstances, but always, without turning away from looking to the Lord, hope in Him. When blasphemous thoughts come into your head from the heart during prayer, then quickly humble your heart and say inwardly: I am not worthy to pronounce even the name of the Lord or His Most Pure Mother or any saint. When you remember the names of the dead before the throne of the Lord, remember that they are looking at you with the hope that you will sincerely pray for their repose. And I myself will refine my hope with you. What is hope in general, and then what is Christian hope? 1. Hope that I will live, that I will not die, that I will not lose the blessings of life: health, food, clothing, drinking, breathing, abilities. Due to the fact that the enemy often confuses me with food and drink, I will, for the glory of God and with God’s help, use food and drink more carefully. The limits of hope: even in the belly of the family... 49 Our residence is in heaven, from where we await the Savior [Phil. 3, 20]... An exercise for hope. For example, during the day you feel cursed, and poor, and poor, and blind, and naked throughout the day, and you think to yourself: how poor I am in all good things and how much evil there is in me - there is no hope of salvation in me, the Lord has left me, will He even accept me in prayer? Oh! Then hope, beloved: the Lord is always looking for the lost and is always ready to throw himself on the neck of his lost son. Remember the parable of the prodigal son. It is repeated over every converted sinner. Hope also that the Lord will accept your prayer from you the more sincere it is, the more imbued with the consciousness of your unworthiness. The Spirit of God is, by the way, the spirit of sincere benevolence and compassion for everyone, the spirit of patience and condescension towards the weaknesses of others; and the spirit of malice is the spirit of hostility and cold insensitivity towards others, the spirit of impatience and irritability, the spirit of mercilessness towards human weaknesses. Beware of the latter, stick to the former. Love is patient and kind... (1 Cor. 13:4). Also: the evil spirit is the spirit of restless doubt or suspiciousness, and the Spirit of God is the spirit of firm, unshakable faith in what is true and righteous and good. The Lord is the life and space of my heart, the clarity and freedom of my thoughts; He is my word. Without Him there is none of this. He is my everything. Experience. (Akathist.) Put off the old man with his deeds, crucify your flesh with its passions and lusts, mortify your body and enslave, according to the Apostle, so that by preaching to others you yourself will not be enslaved 50 (1 Cor. 9:27). Do not pay attention to fear and the devil’s relaxation of the heart in the work of God, but, strengthened by faith and trust in the Lord, cheerfully continue it. Oh, how unfaithful I turned out to be to my Lord on January 5th: unfaithful in viewing the poor as brother and sister, having the same dignity, no matter who they are, rich or poor, as members of Christ, equally redeemed by the blood of Christ and having the same spiritual needs; in viewing the Sacrament of Anointing as precisely the Sacrament that conducts the gifts of the Holy Spirit into the soul of a Christian. I remember with shame how I laid down my weapon before the enemy who was working intrigues in my heart, and did not sincerely lift up my eyes with appropriate humility to my Lord, the ever-ready Helper in sorrow. Lord, forgive my sin, for it is great [Ps. 24, 11]. Remember not my iniquity, O Lord, on that day. Oh, how merciful You are, Lord: You bowed down to my tears and my sighs and, through my faith and my repentance, washed away my sin with Your most pure Blood and accepted me again 51 into Your love. You have taken away from me the guilt of my sin [Ps. 31:5], covered all my sins, turned away the fierceness of Your anger [Ps. 84, 3, 4]. All the teaching of the Gospel, all the church (services, Sacraments, rituals) - spirit, peace, life; and what goes against them is confusion, sorrow, death. From this alone we know that the entire Gospel and everything churchly is the truth, and that which is contrary to them is a lie. If any lie crept into the Church, she immediately cut it off through Councils and conciliar condemnation or through some of her representatives, and never tolerated any lies within herself, she was always a glorious Church, without spot, or blemish, or anything like that, but... she was, is and will be holy and blameless [Eph. 5, 27]. The sting of death is sin. You see, sin certainly stings. This means that everything that stings the soul, every thought, every feeling that stings the soul is sinful. To be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace [Rom. 8, 6]. Praying with the Holy Spirit [Jude. 1, 20]. The Holy Spirit is like air to the soul; Jesus Christ is like life-giving food; however, the Spirit and the Son are inseparable; just as air and food are equally necessary and one is inseparable from the other, so the Holy Spirit and the Son are inseparable in themselves and in their actions in us; and God the Father, through the Son and the Holy Spirit, acts initially and benevolently, as Their principle and guilt. Leaders in prayer: David in his psalms, holy men of God or sinners like us in the Old and New Testaments, who left us examples of prayers. Three youths, Daniel, prophets, Anna, Moses, Manasseh and others. About the church. Just as from the pillar of cloud of old in the desert, so now from His holy church the Lord hears those who pray. Therefore, for those standing in the church, everything should express prayer: the eyes, the facial expression, and the position of the body. Calling the saints means their closeness to us and prepares us for a joyful meeting with them in heaven. The rising and setting of the great luminaries precedes and follows the dawn. The sunrise of the great holidays is celebrated with the pre-celebration and will be followed by the post-celebration. For what? In order to prepare the eyes of the heart in advance to see the light pouring abundantly from the Creator of these holidays - Christ the Lord. Away with all internal self-pleasure, self-praise and self-satisfaction and placing oneself above others. You know with what convenience the devil moves into you and works in your heart and in your thoughts—isn’t it even more convenient for the filling Spirit of God to move into you and work in you? All the spiritual benefits of Christians are in hope; here are the firstfruits and guarantees: the resurrection of Christ is the firstfruits of our resurrection, the guarantee of the Spirit in the hearts of Christians is the guarantee of future blessings of bliss in the Holy Spirit. I will be satisfied, never to appear before Your glory. [Ps. 16, 15]. The power of the cross of Christ, all the miracles from the life-giving Mysteries and from holy icons are the guarantee of our future bliss. Here we are weak; the cross protects and carries us. There is nothing closer to us than God, He is the God of hearts, their strength, life, peace, joy. Trace all the conditions of society - and you will see how little hope there is and what constitutes the hope of everyone. Sacraments and services lead to hope. The life-giving Mysteries tangibly, visually prove that the Lord is the Creator of the spiritual world (enlivened by the Mysteries of our souls) and material (who can transform ordinary bread into his own body and wine into his own blood, except the one Creator?). Prayer is the restoration of our covenant broken with God by sins. When I sincerely pray, then I am at home with the Father. Hope, and carefully fight your thoughts and passions. Know yourself, everyone: who you are, what you need essentially and what you don’t need essentially, and what you are destined for - and then you will know what you need to hope for: the heart (the eternity of the soul, the eternity of enjoyment of future benefits), God and His eternity. Christ is the unity of our heart, His perception of us into Himself and Him in us. And let them be one in Us [Jn. 17, 21]. When inner exhaustion in goodness and the resulting sorrows overtake you, then thank God both for this abandonment of you by His grace and for these sorrows, but only pray to remain faithful to the Lord. The writings of any holy man are the same as himself, therefore believe them as he himself, much less the words of the Gospel, as the Lord Himself. About prayer. God is the God of our attention, so to speak: He is more attentive to us than any kindest and most attentive person. Have you ever seen a good-natured and attentive person? How attentive he is, he will not utter a single word, he will enter into the power or essence of your every request, every word. And God is incomparably more attentive: He is attentive to every movement of the soul, to every movement of the heart, to every sigh: not a single drop of tear, not a single particle of a drop is hidden from Him. This is all said from experience. How gratifying it is to pray to such an attentive Being, such an all-good Father. Be extremely careful that the hellish dog in your heart does not bark at God’s truth, as proclaimed in the word of God and in the Church. Do you want to ask the Lord for healing for your body? Ask this: Supreme Artist of all visible and invisible creation! My body hurts. You, as his Artist, heal him with Your word, for with You, instead of all kinds of tools, Your one creative word works. All earthly and diverse artists use various material tools to create or correct works of art and with them, sometimes for a very long time, achieve their goal, but with You, with a single wave of Your will, everything is accomplished. Deign then, O Lord my God, to heal this work of Your hands—my sinful body—so that I may offer it to You as a sacrifice of service, for You are the only Physician of our bodies and souls, and we send up glory to You with Your Beginning Father and with Your Most Holy and Good and Life-giving Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen. The soul has its own food, its own drink, its own clothing, its own amusements, its own air, its own fire. The light of God dwells in the heart and from it it spreads to the mind, and this happens when Christ is in the heart, introduced into it by faith: Whoever believes in Me... out of his belly will flow rivers of living water [Jn. 7, 38]. Do everything with humility - even the most apparently small and insignificant things. Remember that there is one All-Creator and All-Powerful One. Why does one moment of doubt or disbelief in the truth remove the Lord from us and cause torment to our hearts? Because the Lord is a mental Being, and just as He is contained in one true and true thought, so one false thought is not He, but the being opposite to Him - the devil. Remember the words: Whoever keeps the whole law and sins in one point, he becomes guilty of all. For the same One who said: Thou shalt not commit adultery, also said: Thou shalt not kill [Jas. 2, 10–11], and so on. Therefore, do not betray the Lord with a single thought and strengthen your heart in the truth in every possible way. If any thought is life for the heart, then it is truth; if languor is death of the heart, then it is a lie. Our Lord is peace and life, and rests in peace and life in our hearts. The Word of the Lord is so firm and unchangeable that it holds together the entire world, visible and invisible, the world of Angels and humans. That is why the word of the Gospel is so firm that it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one jot or one trait to perish from the law [Matt. 5, 18; OK. 16, 17]. Everything that the Lord said in the Gospel is so true and so firm that heaven and earth can sooner pass and disappear than the words of the Lord spoken in the Gospel! Wonderful is the word of God! And look how true the word of the Lord is: this is already the nineteenth century from the ascension of Christ into heaven, and His word remains firm and unchangeable, quickening our hearts, enlightening our minds, being fulfilled in its promises and prophecies, and will exist and quicken human souls until the end of the age. I fall to You, like Solomon, the Word, and, like him, I ask you to grant me wisdom, to teach Your people what is the hope of Your calling and what is the treasure of Your glory in the saints. I am a sinful, unclean, old, perishing person - I desperately need the guidance of the Holy Spirit and holy men of God - this is the guidance of church services and prayer. As a sinful, old man, I feel within myself, in my heart, opposition to the Spirit of God, to the truth of God. This should serve as a reason for my extreme humility throughout my life and make me completely revere the Lord and His chosen vessels, and despise myself in Christ, all my own wisdom, not according to Christ, and with all my heart surrender to the truth of God, revealed in the Gospel and the Holy Church. In general, I must impute myself for nothing moral, so that the Holy Spirit can make me something. Gentile Galilee, the people sitting in darkness, saw a great light [Matt. 4, 15 – 16]. This Galilee is pagan - we, Christians from the pagans. We have seen and been enlightened by the light of Christ, His holy faith. You should be grateful. Does the light of Christ shine in us? Hasn't it faded? Are you not darkened by the deeds of the flesh? Isn't our inner man suppressed by the flesh? Are the eyes of our hearts darkened? We must hasten to repent: repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand [Matt. 3, 2; 4, 17]. We must remember that sins drive the light of Christ out of our hearts and plunge us into spiritual darkness, the darkness of death, the predecessor of eternal death, eternal torment in hell, so that it is not in vain for us to be called Christians and not to boast of a light that we do not have; not only that, so as not to expose us to more condemnation than the pagans, darkened by their ignorance of God: it is very bad if we, knowing all the will of God, do not fulfill it, if we live no better, even worse than the pagans who do not know the true God. The servant... who knew the will of the master... [Lk. 12, 47]. This refers to the word of St. Philaret (Drozdov) on the 4th Sunday of Great Lent and on the day of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos, spoken on the 25th day of March 1845. Tune (Church Glav.) – for free, without payment. Prilpeti (Church Slav) – stick, stick. Yad (Church Glav.) – food, dish. Uniform – having equal measure, identical, of the same degree. Clay (Church Glav.) – clay, dirt. Tatba (Church Glav.) – theft, theft. Aspiration (Church Glav.) – expectation, assumption, hope. Pache (Church Glav.) – more, more, higher, beyond. Clever (Church Slavic) – mental, mental, spiritual, reasonable. From those who do not exist, brought everything, created by the Word, accomplished by the Spirit, the Most High Almighty, confirm me in Your love (Russian: Who brought the world out of non-existence, created by the Word and completed by the Spirit, Master Lord, confirm me in love for You) (irmos of the third song of the Sunday canon, voice 3). Strange (Church Slavic) – wandering, wanderer. Womb (Church Glav.) – womb, heart, entrails; in a figurative sense - goodwill, love, compassion. To strike (Church Glav.) – to rush, collide, hit; to strike, to strike with one's desire, to strike with one's desire. Tuga (Church Glav.) – sadness, care, trouble. Jesus (Greek) – lit.: Savior. Belly (church glory) – life, being. Antimins (lat.) – lit., “instead of a table.” A plaque placed on the throne with the holy relics of the martyrs placed in it, on which the Divine Liturgy is celebrated. In vain (church glory) - in vain, in vain. Horn (Church Glav.) – strength, strength, advantage. Wed: Then one of the Seraphim flew to me, and in his hand he had a burning coal, which he took with tongs from the altar (Isa. 6:6). Prisedet (Church Glav.) – to be near something, to be near something. Ever (Church Glorious) – always, unceasingly, continuously. Legota (Church Glav.) – lightness. Legion - a detachment of soldiers in the Roman army, which included from 6,000 to 7,000 people; Initially, the legion consisted of 6,200 infantry and 730 horsemen. Probably the number of warriors in the legions varied at different times, sometimes more, sometimes less. The rabbis used the word “legion” to designate an indefinite multitude. So, for example, the Lord Jesus Christ speaks of twelve legions of angels as an indefinite multitude that constituted an irresistible force. See: Matt. 1, 20–23; 2, 13, 19–20. Vadim (pseudonym) - Kelsiev Vasily Ivanovich (1835 - 1872), Russian emigrant, temporary associate and collaborator of Herzen, political agitator among Russian schismatics. He had outstanding linguistic abilities, knew twenty-five languages ​​and dialects, of which he could speak fourteen. Fascinated by revolutionary ideas while still at university, he fled to London in 1858, where he joined the Russian revolutionary party. In his personality, everyone was especially struck by a strange mixture of political nihilism with religious aspirations, rather vague and indefinite. Having taken up the early stages of his stay in London with the proofreading of publications of the London Bible Society, published in Russian, Kelsiev decided to undertake a word-for-word translation of the sacred books of the Old Testament from the Hebrew original, without being embarrassed by the fact that the grammatical forms of the Semitic languages ​​did not at all coincide with the Russian ones; the beginning of this translation was published under the pseudonym “Vadim” in London in 1866. Nicholas I (1796 – 1855), Russian Emperor since 1825 On December 14 (25), 1825, an uprising took place on Senate Square in St. Petersburg. Pavsky Gerasim Petrovich (1787 - 1862) - archpriest, philologist and Hebraist, rector of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, professor of the Department of Jewish Language. He was the director and editor of the Russian Bible Society (1812 - 1862), whose goal was to distribute the Bible among Protestant Christians and among the peoples of the empire by translating it into their languages. In 1816, the highest permission of Alexander I for the Russian translation of the New Testament was received, and already in 1818, Archpriest Pavsky, Archimandrite Philaret (Drozdov) and other translators prepared a translation of the Four Gospels. In 1822, the Russian Bible Society published a Russian translation of the psalms, made from the Hebrew original by Archpriest Pavsky. In his lectures on Jewish language and theology for students of the St. Petersburg Academy, Archpriest Pavsky translated and explained Old Testament texts. In 1839–1841 these translations were published in lithography by students and were circulated both in other academies and seminaries, and in secular circles. The translation was distinguished by philological accuracy and ingenuity in the selection of Russian equivalents. However, the distribution of these translations brought charges of heresy upon their author, and most of the lithographs were destroyed. Skaryna Francis (George) (c. 1490–1541) - Russian scientist, physician, typographer, publisher and educator, a prominent figure in Slavic and Russian literature and translator of the Bible into Russian. Skaryna's translation was preserved in manuscripts, and part of it was printed, with some books remaining in the Church Slavonic text (Psalter, Apostle), others corrected according to the first printed Czech Bibles, especially according to the edition of 1506 (Venice). The Psalter and nineteen separate books of the Bible translated into Slavic languages ​​were published by him in Prague in 1517–1519. In the 16th and 17th centuries. Skaryna's translations and publications found many imitators. Even the Ostrog Bible of 1581, which established the Church Slavonic text of the Bible in southwestern Rus', follows Skaryna’s work in some places. By translating biblical books from Church Slavonic, Czech and Latin texts into Russian, Skorina laid the foundation for the literary language of southwestern Rus'. The form of Skaryna’s language is mixed, undeveloped, but it reflects elements of the Belarusian dialect. Benish A. is the author of the first complete translation of the Hebrew Bible, published in England in 1851, made specifically for Jews. Moreover (Church Glorious) - even more so, especially. Constructive (Church Glorious) – creative. The Sunday stichera on the Lord I cried, voice 3. Translation: “I glorify the power of the Father and the Son and the power of the Holy Spirit, the indivisible, uncreated Godhead, the Trinity of one essence, reigning for ever and ever.” Kutorga Stepan Semenovich (1805–1861) – scientist, professor of natural science at St. Petersburg University; already from the 30s of the 19th century, he became a conductor of natural-historical knowledge into Russian society, both through his scientific works and social activities: giving public lectures, publishing numerous popular science articles on various issues of natural science, including human physiology. Yuzhika (Church Slavic) – relative. Essence (Church Slavic) is the 3rd person present tense form of the verb to be. Promise (church glory) – promise; promised. Conversation 31 by St. Macarius the Great “The believer must change his mind and gather all his thoughts into God, which is what all service to God really consists of.” Art. 3. “If we are not lazy and do not give ourselves pastures to unruly, vicious thoughts, but by our own will we attract the mind, forcing our thoughts to rush to the Lord: then, without a doubt, the Lord will come to us by His will, and will really gather us to Himself; because all good pleasure and service depend on thoughts. Therefore, try to please the Lord, always waiting for Him inwardly, seeking Him in your thoughts, urging and forcing your will and desire to constantly strive towards Him” (Reverend Macarius of Egypt. Spiritual conversations / Translated from Greek. Reprint, published by the Holy Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, 1994. P. 236–237). Charter (Greek) – papyrus paper or parchment, on which they wrote in ancient times; manuscript. To inflame (Church Glav.) – to ignite, to inflame. To hasten (Church Glav.) - to help, assist, contribute to success. Nazirati (Church Glav.) – to observe. Even if in this belly we have complete hope in Christ, we are the most wretched of all men (Russian: if in this life alone we hope in Christ, then we are the most miserable of all men) (1 Cor. 15:19). Inaccessible (church-glorified) – worthless, obscene; in Russian lane here: unworthy. Paki (Church Glorious) - again, again. In the hedgehog (church glory) - so that. You might be interested in: