Глава 4. Церковь – сокровищница спасения

I. The concept of the Church. The Church as the educator of Christian souls, possessing all the means for the salvation of man. Grace The Holy Church is the greatest, holiest, most blessed, wise, necessary institution of God on earth: this is the true tabernacle of God, which the Lord erected, and not man, not Luther, not Calvin, or Mohammed, or Buddha, or Confucius and other similar, sinful, passionate people. The Church is a divinely established union of people united by faith, teaching, hierarchy and sacraments; this is the spiritual militia of Christ, armed with spiritual full armor against the armed countless hordes of the devil: for “our struggle is not against blood and flesh, but against the rulers, and against the authorities, and against the ruler of the darkness of this age, against the spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph. 6:12). This is a spiritual Clinic, where humanity, sickened by the ulcer of sin, is healed by grace-filled healings given from God - repentance and communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ, the Body and Blood of Christ, and the word of God, instructions and advice and consolations of the shepherds of the verbal flock of Christ; it is the common font of purification, regeneration and sanctification; this is the sanctuary of God, in which everyone is sanctified by the Holy Spirit through baptism, confirmation and other sacraments and worship; this is the spiritual sun in the world, enlightening and reviving everyone in darkness and the shadow of death who sit and are killed by sins. In nature there is a law of attraction of small bodies by great ones, these by even greater ones, also the law of adhesion (adhesion of various soft, hard and liquid parts of organic bodies, also inorganic stones, metals and minerals, fossils); and this determines the existence, solidity, order, benefit, beauty, mutual connection and diversity of all creatures. The reason for this is the immeasurable wisdom, goodness and infinite omnipotence of the Creator, who created such a wonderful, majestic, beautiful world, with infinite diversity and wondrous greatness, representing one harmonious, beautiful, indestructible whole creation. In the spiritual world there also exists the law of mutual attraction and unity. The world is one - God is one, faith is one and the Church of God is one, for its Head is Christ God and the Pilot, who animates the entire body of the Church - the Life-giving Spirit of God, Who fills and enlivens the entire universe. What wonderful, tender, loving care the Heavenly Father has honored the human race perishing in sins; what an extraordinary means has been given to people to save them from sins, from damnation and eternal destruction! What a wonderful, powerful Combatant (Christ) was sent from heaven to earth against the strong, crafty, all-evil fighter of the human race - the devil! What Church is founded on earth - indestructible by any forces of hell, a fortress and stronghold in which all true believers and adherents to this Church can be safe from the fighter! What saving sacraments have been given! What and how many intelligent instruments and conductors of God’s grace have been placed in this Church for people! But what should people bring to the Lord for His many cares for their salvation? – Your faith, your work, your repentance, your self-denial, a strong struggle against sin, exercise in acts of virtue, perfect obedience to the Lord and His holy Church. The Church is one; Its head is one; the herd is one; the body is one with many ouds. Without the Head - Christ - the Church is not a Church, but an unauthorized gathering. These are the Lutherans, Russian schismatics, Pashkovites and Tolstoyans. “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20). The Lord Himself is always present in His Church; why is there a Pope? And can a sinful person be the Lord’s vicegerent? It can't. The vicegerent of the Tsar, the vicegerent of the Patriarch in any city can and does exist, but no one can be the vicegerent, the deputy of the Lord, the beginningless Tsar and Head of the Church. Right. Catholics are wrong. Instill in them, Lord, that they are absurd and are surrounded by pride like a necklace. The most harmful thing in Christianity, in this divinely revealed, heavenly religion, is the primacy of a person in the Church, for example the pope, and his imaginary infallibility. It is precisely in his dogma of infallibility that the greatest error lies, for the Pope is a sinful man, and it will be a disaster if he imagines himself to be infallible. How many great errors, disastrous for human souls, the Catholic, papal church has invented in dogmas, i.e. rituals, in canonical rules, in worship, in the deadening, malicious attitudes of Catholics towards the Orthodox, in blasphemies and slander against the Orthodox Church, in curses addressed to the Orthodox Church and to Orthodox Christians! And the supposedly infallible Pope, his and the Jesuits’ doctrine, their spirit of lies, double-mindedness and all sorts of wrong means ad maiorem Dei gloriam (to the supposed greater glory of God) are to blame for all this. We are members of St. The Orthodox Church, members of the Body of Christ, of which the Head is Christ God Himself, and individually each is a member; and Christ is Holy - the Head of the body, and the members must be holy. Christians are members of the Church, and the Church is the Body of Christ with its Head, Christ Himself, and the Enlightener, the Holy Spirit. “Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for His sake... that He might present to Himself a glorious Church, not having any filth, or vice, or anything of the kind, but may it be holy and blameless” (Eph. 5:25-27). You are a holy and chosen flock, you are members of the Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. What is required of you?! What holiness, really! What attention to yourself! What spiritual contemplation and doing in secret! What morals, what virtues, what faith, what hope, what love! What abstinence, mercy, caring for each other, striving each other for virtue! After the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles, described in the Book of their Acts, we are often reminded of the all-providential action of the Holy Spirit in the Church, of His sovereign leadership of the apostles, their saving preaching and actions in the Church. This is “another Comforter” (John 14:16), the All-Good and All-True One, whom the Lord Jesus Christ promised to send to the apostles. – Glory to Thee, Holy Soul, Life-giving Comforter, acting continually and everywhere in the Church of Christ. Convert, O Lord, with their destinies, the lost peoples of Judaism, Mohammedan, pagan, and in Christianity itself, heretical and schismatic peoples and tribes, expose and eradicate vices, instruct and enlighten them in piety; Convict Orthodox Christians of wickedness and corruption and guide everyone on the path of salvation; admonish and guide youth, observe adolescence, grow up in infancy and guide the Guardian Angels, admonish, enlighten and strengthen husbands and elders, and strengthen and instruct everyone and everyone with Your all-good, wise and all-powerful power and instruct in all virtue, dispelling, like darkness, sinful passions for the sake of Christ, our Lord, with the good will of the Father. Amen. Strong, omnipotent is the intercession before God of the Holy Church, clothed in the merits, power, truth and splendor of the Son of God, His all-good and all-powerful Head. With her intercession everything is possible. Not a single heterodox church has such power of intercession, as it is unjust-minded, as headless. A Christian must absolutely take care of his spiritual education, for which he was reborn in the holy font by the Holy Spirit and received spiritual rebirth and was sealed with the world or the seal of the Holy Spirit and was awarded the right to partake of the Most Pure Blood of Christ. - By the intention of God, St. The Church is the first and most legitimate educator of Christian souls. There is no more important matter than the matter of Christian education. Judge and understand for yourself how dear these rational, immortal souls are to God, redeemed by the Blood of the Son of God Himself, called from the darkness of ignorance to the light of knowledge of God by the Lord Himself, betrothed and united to the Lord, like pure virgins to the most pure Bridegroom! How dear is the salvation of these souls, to whom He offers His Most Pure Body and Most Pure Blood as food and drink, whom He Himself undertook to educate spiritually through these wondrous, terrible, life-giving and idolizing Mysteries! Engage in your spiritual education with all attention and diligence; engage in contemplation of God, prayer, self-examination, self-condemnation, comprehensive self-correction, practice the virtues of meekness, humility, obedience, patience, mercy, chastity, simplicity, kindness, and cut off all sinful thoughts, lusts, habits, passions. Our negligence, negligence, laziness about our salvation is amazing; for how many means, strengths, and conveniences for salvation have been given to us by the many-merciful and all-generous Lord! Firstly, our natural thirst for salvation, peace and bliss in the soul; the light of reason and the desire of our will for everything true, good, beautiful, pure, sublime; the abundance of grace given to us for salvation and, like rivers, flowing in the Church and filling souls thirsting for salvation; the nearness and readiness of the Lord to save us at all times and at every hour; intercession of the Holy Spirit with unutterable groanings (Rom. 8:26), assistance, assistance of Guardian Angels for salvation, daily worship in church, saving sacraments, prayers and intercession of the Mother of God and all saints. It’s amazing with all this how we can perish and not all be saved. Of course, there is a lot of opposition to salvation: temptations from the many-passionate flesh, from the adulterous and sinful world, from the devil, who has laid snares for destruction everywhere; natural corruption, sinful conception and birth in sin; inclinations and habits towards sin. But there are much more means to salvation than to destruction! For there is greater pain among us (Christ) than there is in the world as there is the devil (1 John 4:4), and all the saints overcame obstacles and were saved. What about us? we doze and sleep! It's shameful, sinful, painful, deplorable. Sin takes power over us by the fact that it is deeply buried and lodged in us, in our heart, in our many-passionate flesh, making itself a fortress out of our own passions, self-love, voluptuousness, ambition, pride, greed, intemperance, conceit, lack of faith, unbelief, free-thinking, hypocrisy, partiality, laziness, guile, and with these passions, as powerful weapons, shoots us down and takes us prisoner, tearing us away, removing us from Christ, our true Life. Therefore, anyone who wants salvation must dig, go deep into his heart and lay a foundation on rocks, i.e. on Christ the Savior, on strong, unshakable faith in Him, trust in Him, and on no one or anything else - on strong love for Him and for one’s neighbor. In His Church, the Lord addresses us as the Creator, a skilled Artist and Recreator, as a Father, a wise Doctor and Savior, a Provider, the Head of life, a Nourisher, a Legislator, a Leader of His spiritual army, a Combatant, a Winner. Man in His hands is a rational creature in His image, destined for immortality, and fallen, crushed, defiled, rejected from God for sins, under a curse, but redeemed by the mercy and generosity of the Only Begotten Son of God, restored from the fall, delivered from the curse and honored again by the blessing of the Heavenly Father through the intercession and merits of the Son, delivered from the darkness of sins, illuminated by the heavenly light of the Gospel of Christ, recreated and boiled from the rust and impurity of sin, washed in a mysterious bath, scented by St. world and imprinted with the seal of the Holy Spirit of God on all feelings, guided along the path of salvation to the heavenly Kingdom and bliss, strengthened in the fight against sins and opposing evil forces by the Lord Himself, by the grace of the Holy Spirit mysteriously nourished by heavenly Bread, guided by visible shepherds who have spiritual authority from the Most Almighty Head of the Church, the Lord Jesus Christ. You ask: why are such and such sacraments in the Church? what is the priesthood and shepherding for? What are churches for, what is worship for, why is the incessant preaching of the word of God? Why repentance, why communion of the Holy Mysteries? – All this is necessary for the restoration, enlightenment, guidance, reinforcement of the fallen, defiled, corrupted, perishing person. This is why the grace of baptism of re-creation, restoration and renewal from the Holy Spirit is needed. You are honored with the greatest honor, man: you are appointed to be the bearer of the Divine, the God-bearer. Have you heard about the God-bearing fathers who constantly had God within them, as in living churches not made by hands? And you must be the same God-bearer, for this you have been given to partake of the Flesh and Blood of the God-Man Christ, so that the Lord will always abide in you, according to His word and promise: “He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood abides in Me, and I in him” (John 6:56). Christ came to renew human nature, corrupted by sin, and entrusted this greatest work of His goodness, mercy, truth and wisdom to His holy Church. The Holy Spirit, who has entered the world and acts in the Church through the clergy, worship, preaching, and sacraments, accomplishes this renewal continually. This renewing power lies only in the Church; Outside the Church it does not and cannot exist. I deeply grieve, cry and sob about the terrible plague of sin, corrupting humanity, whose misery is immeasurable, indescribable, diverse - about the charm of sin, with which humanity is captivated and works for sin, and even boasts of its work, and is consoled as if by some profit. But at the same time I rejoice and triumph and applaud when I think and imagine that Divine help that is given to us by the will of the Creator in giving the great Savior and God to the entire human race and in planting on earth the Church of God, saving the human race by the wonderful grace of God. What is grace? A gift of God given to a person for the sake of faith in Christ for the salvation of a Christian person. Grace is an intervening power, merciful, enlightening, saving, predisposing to all virtue. Grace, infused into a person who believes and is zealous for holiness and truth, constantly drives out corruption and all sin from the heart and body, from a person’s entire being, and prepares him for eternal incorruption, drives out the stench of passions and instills a fragrance. The saints, while still alive in the body, were fragrant with holiness and incorruptibility and were pure temples of the Holy Spirit, working miracles. Live according to the spirit and in the flesh, do not indulge in lust (Rom. 13:14). The commandment of self-sacrifice was given, a place was given for exploits, virtues, unfading crowns of glory, grace was given, the power of God to overcome and defeat the cunning of the enemy and all passions. The Lord Himself, the hero of heroism, helps those who struggle and brings victory and crowns to his warriors. Every sinner who sincerely turns to God must fully hope for all gracious help from God in his struggle with sins, passions and all kinds of sinful habits. You just need to sincerely and undoubtedly believe in God and diligently call upon Him for help, and sincerely hate sin and diligently repent with a pure intention and not give in to sin in the future. All the saints, the Mother of God Herself, St. Guardian Angels and saints of God; spiritual fathers and shepherds appointed by God to save and guide those seeking salvation; the conscience of every person, this incorruptible, strict and truthful judge - just listen to him diligently and unceasingly. The unclean demon tries to desecrate everything that is pure, legal, and holy, or to present or imagine it in an unclean, distorted, perverted form. Oh, how cunning, unclean, insolent, indefatigable, active in his wickedness, in his malice, in his abomination! Who will escape his snares? Firm believer in Christ and the Church. The Lord, for the good of rational creatures, that is, people, wants to unite everyone into one body and Himself to dwell in them. “That they all may be one, as You, Father, are in me, and I in You, that they also may be one in Us” (John 17:21). And the devil tries to separate, dismember, disperse everyone, like a flock without a shepherd: he creates enmity, discord, discontent, or resentment in families; in villages, in cities, it restores one to another; in states it restores people against people, kingdom against kingdom; in religious societies, it restores those professing one confession to the followers of another and especially breathes rage at those professing the Orthodox faith, as against the true Church of God, instigating various persecutions against them. Let us stick to the same holy spirit. The Orthodox Church, whose head is Christ our God Himself, who continually works in us for our salvation and renewal. The enemy of our salvation is the devil, knowing all the saving power of our union with God through faith and the Church and the grace of God, with all his strength and cunning he tries to break our connection with God through sin, through carnal passions, worldly addictions. We must all hold firmly to the union with God and the Church, observing the laws of the Lord. II. Life in an indispensable union with the Church. The need to belong to the Orthodox Church, the only true So, it is necessary to belong to the Church of Christ, whose Head is the almighty King, the Conqueror of hell, Jesus Christ. His Kingdom is the Church at war with the principalities and powers and rulers of the darkness of this world, with the spirits of wickedness in high places, who make up a skillfully organized kingdom and fight extremely experienced, intelligently, accurately and powerfully with all people, having well studied all their passions and inclinations. One man here in the field is not a warrior; and a great society, but not Orthodox, and without the Head - Christ, cannot do anything with such cunning, subtle enemies, constantly awake, who have perfectly studied the science of your war. An Orthodox Christian needs strong support from above from God and from St. soldiers of Christ who defeated enemies, saved by the power of Christ’s grace, and from the earthly Orthodox Church, from shepherds and teachers, then public prayer and sacraments. This kind of helper for a Christian man in the fight against invisible and visible enemies is precisely the Church of Christ, to which, by God’s grace, we belong. The Catholics have invented a new chapter, humiliating the one true Head of the Church of Christ; the Lutherans fell away and were left without a Head; Anglicans too: they don’t have a Church, the alliance with the Head is broken, there is no omnipotent help, and Belial fights with all his might, with cunning, and keeps everyone in his charm and destruction. There are many who perish in godlessness and debauchery. By creating man in the image and likeness of God, the Creator established a close union between Himself and creation, that is, man. Man was obliged to support this blessed union through strict obedience to his Creator, through the fulfillment of His holy, wise and life-giving commandments; as a shortening of these commandments, he was given the commandment not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. She had to strengthen his will and coordinate it with the will of God so that the will of God was one with the will of man, just as the will of one Person in the Trinity was completely identical with the will of the second and third Persons: “For as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that these also may be one in Us” (John 17:21). Through disobedience, man boldly destroyed his union with God and thereby fell away from God and from His life. And since the dues of sin are death, he was subjected to temporary and eternal death and all the harmful countless consequences of sin - illnesses, troubles, sorrows, sorrows, corruption, all ugliness and all sinful slavery. Apart from the Son of God, no one could restore this lost union, and He, out of immeasurable goodness and condescension towards fallen man, wisely and miraculously restored it, and intelligent and chosen people took advantage of this wonderfully gracious restoration. By what means is this union restored? By the fact that the Son of God assumed human nature without sin, fulfilled all the truth of God in human nature, took upon ourselves our oath, suffered and died for us, and, having conquered death, rose from the dead, and gave us resurrection - incorruptibility. He planted a single Church on earth under His leadership and the direction of the Holy Spirit, and it provided all the means to restore the destroyed union with God through teaching and sacraments, through the leadership of pastors, gave baptism, confirmation, repentance, worship, constant teaching in the word of God. Now, whoever wants to live in holy union with God, be in union with the Church that teaches, sacredly acts towards holiness and truth and the Kingdom of God - and you will be saved. “He who is not with Me is against Me. He who does not gather with Me scatters” (Luke 11:23). He who is not with the Church is against the Church; whoever is not in the Church is against the Church; whoever does not believe is against faith; whoever does not do deeds of repentance, deeds of virtue, is against virtue. It is not enough to be called a Christian, but one must do deeds, fulfill the commandments that Christ commanded; we need unceasing repentance, unceasing attention to ourselves in the spirit of faith, unceasing prayer, unceasing correction, unceasing pushing ourselves forward, unceasing self-improvement, and for this purpose - unceasing testing of ourselves in faith, whether we live by faith; Are we with the Church, do we go to church, do we love the Church, do we fulfill the instructions of the Church, or the commandments of Christ preached by it? – This is how Christ God teaches. Therefore, the one who does not repent, does not go to church, and instead of church goes to the theater and various shows and worldly meetings, neglecting the church, is not a Christian. God has united Orthodox believers with Himself by the one Holy Spirit and one Church, one faith, unity of law, sacraments, hierarchy for the common good of verbal creatures. We must maintain this connection through holiness of life and obedience to each other. Christian man! While there is time, try here on earth to belong to God and His saints through faith and piety; be churchly, absorb into yourself the spirit of the church, the spirit of repentance, the sacred things of the world, the thought of God, the spirit of love, meekness, humility, patience, submission, salvation. Do not raise your head high and do not despise the Mother of your Church, who saves you, be often in church during divine services, stand with humility, listen, think, or read and sing. If here you do not appropriate yourself to her and through her to God, you will remain alien to her and to God, and after death God will not accept you and His saints will all renounce you as alien to them in spirit and disposition of heart and thoughts, and you will be expelled to an alien country, to a dark and fiery place of fallen spirits and unrepentant human souls. -Be wise to defeat the tricks of the devil and achieve your great destiny. You belong to the Church of God or the community of believers in Christ; this Church is the one Body of Christ, and Christ God is the Head. Are you a worthy member, do you live holy, do you always repent, do you correct your heart and life, your morals, thoughts, feelings, intentions, aspirations, all your behavior? Are you a living member or a dead one? Will the saints accept you when you move from this temporary life to the eternal? Won't they reject you like a rotten member, stinking, obscene? Will your fate be with those rejected from God? - Hurry to correct the matter, correct all your behavior. You have been given for that time. The work of saving our souls is the greatest, the wisest work, and we must learn this work, this skill, from those to whom this work has been revealed, who have accomplished this work: and this work of salvation, the work of repentance, was revealed especially to the saints, since they especially tried to engage in it and accomplished it in an excellent manner, pleasing to God, soul-saving. The saints left this spiritual heritage, this art of repentance and salvation - to the Orthodox Church, putting into it, as into a faithful treasury, all their understanding, their word, their zeal, their art, their experiences. It is from her that we will learn repentance and salvation. So we all went and go to church services, Sundays, holidays, weekdays and Lenten. All these services teach us repentance and salvation. Have you heard the great canon of Andrew of Crete? We heard the prayer of St. Ephraim? Have you heard the troparia and canons of Lenten? What a spirit of repentance is in them! What tenderness, what contrition for the sins of sinful humanity! What a thirst for salvation and mercy from God! What cries and tears of repentant sinners! So learn from St. Church to repentance and propitiation of the Lord. Listen, ponder, remember your sins, lament, repent, do not be arrogant, do deeds of mercy: for the merciful will receive mercy. By the immeasurable mercy of God and by the unsearchable wisdom and truth of God, fallen man was given the honor of confessing the name of God before the unbelievers and suffering for this Name, for the Lord God in the Trinity, glorified and worshiped. This honor was given especially to St. apostles, martyrs, saints, saints, righteous. This honor is still given to all those who truly strive for the Christian Orthodox faith and virtue, who firmly defend the holy Orthodox faith and the Church and endure blasphemy and torment from enemies. The holy men of God did not want to change their faith even with one word. and piety, and if, through the cunning of the persecutors, they accidentally changed in word or deed, then they were ready to atone for their sin with torment. This is how strictly the holy confessions of the right were adhered to. What are today's Christians like? – Reeds shaken by the wind (Matt. 11:7). “If your faith accepts the end, there will be salvation for souls” (1 Pet. 1:9). This is the end and goal of the Orthodox faith of Christ - the salvation of the soul of every believer. How precious is our faith, how holy, how right, how pleasing to God, how strong, how saving! How we must love it, value it with dignity, and constantly use it for the salvation of ourselves and others. Lord, save the race of Orthodox Christians, and convert all non-Orthodox Christians to Orthodoxy, as the only saving faith, confirmed by You, glorified by You, and eternally glorified! You are holy and righteous - and Your faith is holy and righteous. What does the rite of conversion from different faiths and confessions and joining the Orthodox Church show? The need to abandon false faiths and confessions, deny errors, confess the true faith and repentance of all previous sins and promise to God to preserve and firmly confess the immaculate faith, to beware of sins and to live in virtue. The beginning of all false teachings, heresies, sects, schisms is in the serpent that flatters the universe. The first all-destructive false teaching was taught by the serpent in paradise to Eve, then to Adam, then to Cain, to whom the primordial murderer, the devil, falsely whispered to his brother Abel that he was standing in his way, going against him, not thinking, not feeling, not living like him, and as if he was laughing at him, swearing at him. This is where all the heresies, sects and schisms come from. They want to be teachers, but not from God, but from themselves and according to their passions. From there the Tolstoyans, Pashkovites, Stundists, etc. “Do you think that I came to give peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but separation. For from now on five in one house (the Church of Christ) will begin to be divided: three against two, and two against three” (Luke 12:51-52). Catholics, Reformed, Lutherans, schismatics, sectarians. Hatred of Orthodoxy, fanaticism and persecution of Orthodox Christians, murders run like a red thread through the centuries of Catholicism. By their fruits you will know them. Is this the spirit commanded to us by Christ? If to anyone, then to Catholics, Lutherans and Reformed people, you can always say: “You do not know what spirit you are” (Luke 9:55). The reason for all the falsehoods of the Roman Catholic Church is pride and recognition of the pope as the real head of the church, and even infallible. Hence all the oppression of the Western Church. Oppression of thought and faith, deprivation of true freedom in faith and in life, the pope laid his heavy hand on everything; hence - false dogmas, hence - duality and deceit in thought, word and deed; hence - various false rules and regulations when confessing sins; hence – indulgences; hence the distortion of dogmas; hence the fabrication of saints of the Western Church and their non-existent relics, not glorified by God; hence - “imposing on the mind of God” (2 Cor. 10:5) and all opposition to God under the guise of piety and zeal for the greater glory of God. The Pope and the papists became so proud and exalted themselves that they decided to criticize Christ Himself, the Hypostatic Wisdom of God Himself, and extended their pride (under the pretext of developing dogmas) to the point that they distorted some of His words, commandments and institutions, which should not be changed until the end of the age, for example, the word about the Holy Spirit, the commandment about the communion of His most pure Blood, with which they deprived of the laity, they made nothing of the words of the Apostle Paul: “As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord, the Dondezh will come” (1 Cor. 11:26). Instead of leavened bread, unleavened bread is used at the liturgy. I thank the Lord, who listened and is listening to my prayers in the sight of the all-saving and terrible sacrifice (the Body and Blood of Christ) for the great societies that have lost in the faith, called Christian, but in essence apostate: Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican and others; also about attracting all peoples to the true faith, as well as our schismatics. Count L. Tolstoy encroached on the truth of the Gospel and everything holy. Scripture and distorted the meaning of the Gospel, which is indisputably important and precious for people of all ages. He rejected faith in Christ as the Son of God, the Redeemer and Savior of the world, and seduced many to follow him and destroyed them, rejected the Church founded by Christ, trampled on the grace of baptism, confirmation, repentance, communion and all the sacraments, out of arrogance he considers himself the judge of the word of God and its highest criterion, and does not trust himself to it. “But woe to those who are wise in themselves and understand before themselves” (St. Isaiah). III. Church earthly and heavenly, their living, uninterrupted communion 1) Public worship The Christian's great need is for God's heavenly help and the intercession of the saints for us; in the help of the Mother of God, the holy Angels, the Forerunner, the prophets, the apostles and all the saints, to whom St. The Church often sends us away in its public prayers. Blessed are we that we belong to St. The Orthodox Church, which continually prays for us effectively and savingly. So, having remembered our most holy, most pure and most blessed, glorious Lady Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary with all the saints, let us commend ourselves and each other to Christ our God as the Head of the Body, the Church. Amen. Grant me, Lord, to fulfill Your law, which is love in all its strength, in all its breadth, in all its depth. Amen. The Church of Christ is a militant Church with “the principalities and powers and rulers of the darkness of this world, with the spirits of wickedness in high places,” who constitute a firmly organized kingdom and wage war extremely accurately and strongly constantly with all people and with the world lying in evil. One man in the field is not a warrior, and a Christian, left only to himself, or not belonging to the true flock of Christ, not to the Church of Christ, the head of which is Christ Himself (and not a man like the Pope), also cannot successfully resist the countless, strong and cunning enemies of salvation. A Christian needs constant strong help and support from above from God and, by His grace, from the Mother of God, St. the heavenly forces of the disembodied and holy warriors of Him for us, the saints of God, who, with the help of God, overcame the flesh, the world and the devil in earthly life; in a word, the help of the heavenly, triumphant Church is constantly needed. This assistant in the Christian’s struggle against enemies visible and invisible, i.e. The Church of Christ is always necessary for every Christian struggling on earth; and therefore, during all divine services, we pray to the Lord to intercede and save us through the prayers and intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos, the honest ethereal heavenly powers, St. Forerunners, prophets, apostles, martyrs, saints and all saints. Catholics fell away from the Head of the entire Church of Christ, having chosen the earthly head of a sinning pope; Lutherans and Anglicans have fallen away, they have no church, the union with the Head is broken; They do not have omnipotent and all-effective help, because there are no sacraments - communion, repentance and others, through which omnipotent grace is given. There are many who perish in godlessness, lack of grace and depravity - there is no help from heaven. The Divine Liturgy contains the wonderful, unifying power of prayer for everyone, connecting all souls! Oh, wonderful liturgy - a sign of God’s immeasurable love for the human race and the wonderful exaltation of human nature, deified through the incarnation of the Only Begotten Son of God and through the partaking of His most pure Body and Blood in the sacrament of communion. God! Grant us to be worthy of such Your condescension towards us, such communication. Grant us Your holiness and let us learn Your righteousness every day and become righteous in the Holy Spirit! In this life, the life of testing and deeds of a Christian, he constantly stands between two currents: good and evil, between temptation and sorrow from enemies, and consolation and help from God; There is, as it were, some kind of competition between the righteous, holy and abundantly merciful God and the evil, crafty and all-destructive enemy: a person is either under the influence of enemies, or under the grace of God; enemies involve them in all sorts of guilt and sins, but the Lord has mercy on repentant sinners, cleanses, sanctifies, justifies, pacifies, renews and confirms. Especially this competition and victory of grace over sin occurs during the liturgy - this wonderful reconciling and sanctifying sacrifice of God, the mercy of the world, the sacrifice of praise. What holy breadth, depth and height of heart a priest should have when performing the Liturgy! His heart must contain the entire universe, even the entire sky, the entire underworld! He prays for everyone, thanks for everyone and glorifies the Creator, intercedes for the reconciliation and unification of all earthly beings who differ in language, tribe, faith, and customs. What a wonderful, unifying power of church prayer for everyone, uniting all souls! So, by the grace of God, I pray especially sincerely during the Liturgy for everyone - for the entire consecrated cathedral of brethren, for the king, queen and the entire reigning house, for the Chamber, all the army and all classes - and the Lord brought everyone closer to me in spirit, made everyone akin to me - adults and children, the entire class of student youth. Everyone (excluding non-believers) is spiritually disposed towards me, loves me, honors me, prays with me, even the hierarchs honor me, an insignificant, sinful person. I thank You, the only Father, King, Savior, Shepherd, Doctor, and righteous Judge of all; the one Head of His Church, uniting everyone into one body, into one spirit! You arrange all this wonderfully, you unite everyone, you act in everyone with the Holy Spirit, uniting everyone in faith, hope and love, in truth and holiness! The Holy Church prays daily for the goodness of the air and its sanctification by the grace of the Holy Spirit, for the air, like other elements, is infected and stinks with all sorts of human iniquities, secret and obvious, day and night, and carries within itself all sorts of germs of corruption and various diseases. 2) Veneration of Our Lady and Saints Where, in what non-Orthodox churches is the name of the Mother of God so commemorated, exalted, glorified and invoked, as in the Orthodox Church, day after day, year after year, for example, in the litanies of small and petitionary: “Our Most Holy, Most Pure, Most Blessed, Glorious Lady Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, remembered with all the saints...” and so on? Praise silently and earnestly, priests and deacons of the Orthodox Church, the name of our Most Blessed Lady for all to hear, in praise and propitiation for us sinners, Her unworthy servants, may she always intercede for us before the Lord of our life, the Lord Jesus Christ, and especially before the Most Holy Trinity: for for centuries we have known and become convinced of how strong she is for us. and Her prayer is saving! How many times She saved our Fatherland and our cities, our people, our villages and many individually - from all troubles and evils, and does not cease to intercede and save all those who pray, listening to our humble and fervent prayers! Where on earth is the name of the Most Holy Theotokos so magnified and exalted in dignity, as truly as it is truly, except the Orthodox Church and especially the Russian Church? Let us thank the Lord that we were born into the right faith and the Church, and let us try to be worthy members of It, living in abstinence, purity, humility, obedience, practicing good deeds, especially deeds of mercy. God bless! glory to the Lady Theotokos! The Mother of God constantly prays for me to the Lord, Her Son, for my salvation, and graciously looks at my struggle with sins, protecting me from the arrows of the enemy. Magnify, my soul, constantly the Mother of God, the Intercessor according to God! We have ready heavenly help in our Lady Theotokos, which our opponents do not have, who do not honor Her according to her heritage and do not bow to Her all-honorable image. What brilliant, powerful leaders we defeated in wars throughout the centuries of our national history - and all with faith in the help of God and the Mother of God, and by their strength! Charles XII was glorious as a commander, Napoleon was glorious; Their hordes were great and well trained, but what became of them? The Tatars who enslaved us were strong in their time, but they were defeated by the help and intercession of the Mother of God. “He, our God, crushes the arrows of the bow, the shield, the sword and the battle; both the chariot and the horse slumber from His rebuke” (Ps. 75:4,7). As long as Russia is Orthodox and diligently honors God and the Mother of God, so long will it be powerful and unshakable, for from the beginning until now it has emerged from all troubles, strengthened and expanded by the intercession and help of the Mother of God in all wars and military, disastrous circumstances - and Russian princes, kings, emperors and the Christ-loving army have always zealously honored the Ever-Virgin and Mother. Calling the Most Holy Theotokos the Lady, understand and remember what honor the Lord has bestowed on Orthodox Christians, uniting them into one spiritual body with the faces of the forefathers, fathers, patriarchs, apostles, martyrs, saints, saints, righteous and all saints, much like the Most Holy Theotokos Herself, Who is truly grace-filled, and is essentially the Lady of the spiritual the kingdom of Christ - the Church, and the nearest, speedy, all-powerful Intercessor and wall of Christians - and with the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, Who is the Head of the Body of the Church. Treasure extremely this spiritual union, to which you also belong, and try with all the strength of your soul and body, by God’s grace, to behave with dignity and holyness, so as to be worthy of the great union and intercession of the Mother of God and all the saints for you. An Orthodox Christian must always remember the immeasurable goodness of God towards himself in the fact that he has the happiness of being a member of the Church of God, true, just and saving, and having as his Head our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and as his Lady the Mother of God Herself, the Head of the mental edification of the Church, and as his fellow members - all the saints, apostles, prophets, saints, martyrs, reverends and righteous and all those who shone in a holy, grace-filled life and pleased God and became our intercessors before God. How many prayer books we have before God! How much help they show to those who want salvation! What a general petition for our salvation! What examples, examples of perfect Christian life! How they attract us to imitate their virtues and to salvation! The Kingdom of Christ on earth, or the Church, struggles in the fight against the kingdom of Satan, consisting of countless demons (a legion in one possessed person). It is necessary for success in the struggle - for salvation and successful accomplishment of the feat - to fight against such a horde of enemies under the banner of the Ascetic Christ God, the Conqueror of Hell, and in His Church - in friendly, cheerful, inextricable communion with each other - with the assistance of the Mother of God, the Mounted Governor, St. heavenly angels, St. apostles, saints, prophets, martyrs, saints and all saints who fought well and were married. And for those who are in schisms, heresies, sects, or in other religions - how to defeat the enemies of salvation, strong with their charm, lies, blasphemy, slander against God and His Church? How to escape there? Impossible. Understand this, you who are in schisms and heresies and sects - do not fight against the one saving Church and turn to her! How many ascetics, pillars of faith there were among the members of St. Orthodox Church in all ages! How worthily and wonderfully the Lord glorified them because they also tried to glorify Him in word and deed and with their whole lives, loving Him and His saving commandments with all their hearts, with all their thoughts, with all their strength, until the end of their lives! Every day is dedicated by the Church to the remembrance and glorification of the valiant ascetics of the faith, crowned by the Lord throughout all centuries with honor and glory and glorified by countless beneficial miracles! The bright, church world is not poor in its ascetics and ascetics! There is someone to boast about St. our Church! Our faith and the Orthodox Church are not vain, not vain, not verbal, not reproachful, immaculate, holy and saving, and no heretics and sectarians can despise it, if they can and want to be fair to it; meanwhile, they themselves cannot boast in their wealth, in God’s right, of any truly holy and godly person and confessor of the right faith; not a single person who would receive a clear testimony from heaven about his holiness and pleasing to God: no one has ever pleased God with heresy and schism! Heretics, schismatics, sectarians, bring to the center before us at least one of your saints: you will not find him, although you will look for him all your life! Will you boldly and absurdly challenge the reality of incorruptibility and the miracles of our saints? You are wild and blind!.. Come to us, you who call yourselves Catholics and blame us as schismatics, and we will be extinguished; Let's look impartially, according to God's truth, according to God's qualifications, at your saints, glorified by the pope, and not by God, and compare them with our saints, witnessed by God Himself with countless miracles of healing and various consolations of the Orthodox who resorted to them with faith! Who cares! How the truth of our faith shines and with its light darkens your faith, darkened by heresies and false wisdom! How will you go against the obvious truth of the Orthodox faith, in Orthodox and saving name and deed! Or do you dare to rebel against God Himself and tell lies? The God of righteousness will humble you and, if necessary, arm the creature with an enemy for revenge. But He is long-suffering and waits for the conversion of the erring. - Come, you, new iconoclasts, followers of Luther, reproaching us for imaginary idolatry, with which you brand our holy icon veneration, blessed and justified a thousand times by Heaven itself in countless miracles over the Orthodox - and, if you want, fight with God, rebel against the saving truth, against the right dogma, which God Himself taught us and teaches us incessantly, and, if Your lips are wide, reproach us for idolatry! You taught the Stundists, Tolstoyans and Pashkovites to swear at St. icons; but sooner or later, these gullible, rude ignoramuses will bitterly repent of their error; and among real Orthodox people you will never have success, you will not seduce them into your heresy, because truly Russian and Orthodox people have long been convinced of the saving power of icon veneration. The hearts of the saints were the pure church of God in faith, purity, holiness, humility, obedience, patience, love for God and neighbor, courage, and selflessness. That is why the saints were creators of miracles. They completely devoted themselves to God: God was everything to them, since they themselves were completely Godly and akin to Him and united, dissolved with Him. Such was Saint Nicholas of Myra. At the judgment of God you will learn how venerable, venerable and holy you were in the church union - heavenly and earthly, and how unworthy you were of it, what strong intercessors you could have before God for your salvation, and because of your unbelief and pride, corruption - you did not call on them for help, relying in everything on yourself, on your short-sighted passionate mind. We worship images of saints as images of the glorious and all-validating Christian virtues - faith, hope, love, selflessness, mercy, meekness, humility, gentleness, courage and patience, obedience, purity, unceasing prayer, spiritual alertness. This is who and what we worship, we worship in them God Himself, who dwells in them and acts in them and performs beneficial miracles of healing through them. Use of St. icons in Orthodox and all other Christian societies are necessary because - above and beyond other reasons - that the Lord, the Most Holy Theotokos, the holy angels and holy saints are inaccessible to our mortal vision in their heavenly wonderful glory, but in holy icons they are accessible, tangible, so to speak, and our nature - dual, spiritual and physical, requires a visible, tactile image - the very Body and Blood of Christ in communion under the forms of bread and wine. Therefore, the Lord, condescending to our weakness, depicted Himself on the ubrus and gave His image for pious worship, healing, consolation to people, for all ages; therefore he gave us the most pure Body and Blood; therefore, the world seals us in confirmation for the visible communication of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Glory to our Lord Jesus Christ for this! By honoring icons, I honor personified virtue—I honor the image and likeness of God restored in fallen man, I honor God, who rests in the saints, for “he who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit with the Lord” (1 Cor. 6:17). What do you tell me about this, follower of Luther, or you, an apostate Tolstoyan with Tolstoy, or you, a Pashkovite with Pashkov, or a Germanized Stundist with the German Stundists, who spat on their holy, heavenly, God-given Mother - the Church, “who reproached the grace of the Spirit” (Heb. 10:29), who fell away from the grace of God? Or did you do it in ignorance and deception? Turn immediately in repentance and tears to your Mother who has been desecrated by you! She will welcome you with open arms, like prodigal children! Lutherans, sectarians, Pashkovites, Tolstoyans, Stundists reproach us for venerating icons and using them. How absurd! Are we not edified in our faith, who rightly venerate them, by remembering their godly lives, the saints depicted on them, their exploits, virtues, love for God and neighbors, and do we not ourselves become better, more reverent? Do we not have images of revered persons among living people and do we not honor them? In addition, imagery and symbolism in religion are allowed and required by the Gospel itself. How often the Lord taught the people figuratively, with examples from life, from nature, symbolically, in parables! And if we do not allow sacred images and do not honor them, then will our corrupted nature not allow, will not deify images of human passions, as is now allowed by many secular, rich and intelligent persons in their homes, filled with images of naked and half-naked beautiful women who constitute the beauty, genre and tone of secular persons? Aren't many returning to the pagan cult? What a mockery of human nature, created so beautifully, magnificently, inimitably, artistically? Instead of reverence for the most perfect, most beautiful work of the most pure hands of the Creator, we mock it, at ourselves, turn it into the object and goal of low animal lust, and turn the church of the immortal soul into an object of animal pleasure! 4) Rituals and statutes of the Church: holidays Through the veneration of St. icons of the Lord, the Mother of God and all the saints, our holy, highest and all-saving faith is presented to uneducated people visually, reminiscently and instructively; it, so to speak, is realized, carried out through them (i.e., holy icons), as well as through worship, prayer, reading the word of God, dogmas, commandments and church canons. In the Orthodox Church, honorable icons, the life-giving cross and all beauty, as well as burning incense and sprinkling of St. water, blessing with the sign of the cross. All this is apostolic and holy. Father is a tradition and a work pleasing to God, proven regarding God's pleasingness, truth and salvation both by reason, and by the word of God, and by countless experiments on Orthodox believers. We celebrated the Annunciation to the Most Holy Theotokos, a sacred event of infinite importance - a message from God from heaven from the greatest and holiest of the archangels - Gabriel to the city of Nazareth to the Most Pure Virgin Mary, for the gospel of the conception from Her of the Eternal Son of God according to the flesh. What wonderful, tender, loving care the Heavenly Father has honored the human race perishing in sins! What an extraordinary means has been given to people to save them from sins, from damnation and eternal destruction! December 25, 1899. I thank the Lord, who has made me worthy to see the day of the glorious Nativity according to the flesh of God the Word for the sake of universal salvation, and again and again grant for Your great goodness, O Lord, to see this day and sweetly sing and glorify Your immeasurable compassion, O Christ. Amen. God came into the world and united with people; He also calls us to unite with Himself! What mercy, what honor and dignity! What bliss to which we are called, which the most generous God wants to give us! What a wonderful union of God with people! What a unity there should be between people, peoples, tribes descended from the same blood! The annual religious procession to the Jordan is not only a magnificent rite - the Church does not occupy anyone and does not engage in idle spectacles - but a sacred, commemorative rite, caused by the extreme need of nature itself or the nature of the elements of water and air, desecrated and corrupted incessantly by human sins; and the need of the people themselves, who live in the air and have a constant need for the water element. All nature, all the elements are constantly desecrated by human sins and dark and crafty spirits living in the air, and giving rise to all sorts of pernicious trends and diseases in it. There is an urgent need for church sanctification and healing of these elements. Don’t you notice that especially this year something bad is happening on our earth: either complete winterlessness in winter, or rain, or snow that immediately melts, or suddenly winter, only for a few days, and then again either autumn, or winter, then again something indefinite: no constancy, frequent changes of rain and snow, heat and cold, dryness and moisture; the respiratory organs suffer, the entire bodily organism is shaken at its foundation by the inconstancy of the weather; There are no number of patients, adults and children, because there is no constancy and correct air flow. And this is because nature, at the command of the Creator, through itself shows us our inconstancy, our wrong, perverted way of life. Come, come, the Church of God, holy and sanctifying us all, to the waters, as if the Jordan, and sanctify the air and water nature given to you by God, and give us, by sprinkling and drinking consecrated water, purification and sanctification for us and our dwellings, and health for our souls and bodies! All-merciful and all-powerful Sanctifier, Holy Soul, proceed from the Father and rest in the Son, come to cleanse us all, sanctify, heal, strengthen, enlighten and comfort us with Your wonderful, life-giving and sweet overshadowing! What do you think, dear brothers and sisters, is it extremely important the work that the Lord Jesus Christ performed for all and for all of us, who came down from our heaven for the sake of salvation, lived on earth for thirty-three years and a half, constantly teaching people about salvation, both Himself and through the apostles; who suffered for us, died and rose from the dead? How did He begin His word and work? By fasting and by being subjected to temptation from the devil, having defeated him; and then - a word about repentance. The time of Lent is a time of struggle, exploits against invisible enemies, against all sins and passions that possess us. This is how it should be according to the meaning of the Church. Lent was established in imitation of our Savior, who gave us an image and example in everything, and during Lent He was tempted by the devil and defeated him with the word of God. Forgiveness Sunday. – Expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise for intemperance. How many innumerable misfortunes arose from the intemperance of the first people! How many troubles there are today from delicacy, satiety and drunkenness! How necessary is fasting for salvation and reconciliation with God! The Lord humbly and solemnly entered Jerusalem, sitting on a colt; Jews and Jewish children greeted him solemnly; but the same Jews soon crucified him on the cross; People are so changeable, fickle, and evil! And we are similar, just as fickle and changeable in faith and virtue; and quick to attack evil and all sorts of passions; and we crucify Him many times every day, instead of crucifying ourselves, our passions, our old man and being renewed every day, becoming new people. Oh, how necessary for us was the sacrifice on the cross of the Son of God, who sacrificed for us, for our redemption and reconciliation to the Heavenly Father, by Himself; how necessary the cross of Christ is for us, so that we can run under its shadow every day! Not in vain St. The Church has commanded us to frequently depict the Cross of the Lord on ourselves, on our bodily members and on all our senses! How are we saved every day, if not by the cross, if not by the merits of Christ, crucified for us! Without the cross, we would all perish and be the prey of the devil and hell! O Christ God, glory to You, who suffered for us and redeemed us with Your cross from sin, curse and death! Easter of Christ. “I thank the Lord, who has made me worthy to live to see this Bright Feast and to meet it in joy and in good health with praises to the Risen One.” Make us worthy of the general resurrection of all and to You - the Source of our life - transmigration! Resurrection of Christ. – I thank the Lord, who has made me worthy to celebrate this year’s Bright Feast of His Resurrection. Grant, Lord, that I may spend the whole of Bright Week with dignity, and all my life – for Your glory! Our namesake signifies the close connection of the members of the earthly Church with the heavenly Church; it inspires us to imitate the members of the heavenly Church, whose name we bear, and to live according to their spirit, and to call on them in prayers. The miracle with the icon of the Mother of God that took place on March 8th in the Kursk Znamensky Monastery, amazing in all respects, should be taken by every Orthodox Christian as a lesson and edification. The Most Holy Theotokos wonderfully preserves Her most pure image and through it us all Russians; She did not give herself and us as a mockery to the wicked; let all the wicked themselves be put to shame and disappear if they do not repent and turn to the Lord with all their hearts. Who are these wicked Pashkovites, Tolstoyans... The Lord will find them and shame them, and punish them, and those who honor the Mother of God and Her St. He will exalt and glorify the icon, and will deliver you from all troubles, and will make you worthy of the Kingdom of Heaven. God bless! Glory to the Mother of God! The Christian Church is rich in St. people of high minds and meanings, sublime, selfless souls, adamantine firmness in faith and piety, unshakable courage, amazingly great deeds, inexhaustible love. Among these, among their countless multitudes, St. especially belongs. Nicholas the Wonderworker, who was given the name of the Wonderworker before everyone else. Thus, the Holy Church became famous for its men and even women of wondrous holiness and great miracles. Let the short-sighted sons of this age say after this that there were and are no miracles, or that miracles can be explained by natural causes, which, however, cannot be explained in any way. These miracles testify loudly and indisputably to the omnipotence, goodness and truth of the Author of our faith and the Finisher of Jesus. Come and see, we can say to every unbeliever, pointing to the countless miracles of saints, both ancient and new, and do not be unfaithful, like Thomas, but faithful, as he was in touching the ribs and wounds of the risen Lord. On August 15, the day of the Dormition of the Mother of God, 1898, I had the happiness for the first time in a dream to clearly see the Queen of Heaven face to face and to hear Her sweetest, blissful, encouraging voice: dearest children of the Heavenly Father, while I, aware of my damnation, looked at Her most pure face with trepidation and with the thought: will she not reject me from Herself? with wrath, the Queen of Heaven! Oh, holy and most blessed face! Oh, blue and dove eyes, kind, humble, calm, majestic, heavenly, divine! I will not forget you, wonderful eyes! This phenomenon continued for a minute; then she walked away from me leisurely, stepped over a small ravine and disappeared. I saw the procession of the heavenly Visitor from behind. At first I saw Her as if on an icon, clearly, and then She separated from it, descended and moved on the journey. In the evening I was writing a sermon on the day of the Assumption and went to bed late, at 2 am. During the all-night vigil, I read with great emotion the akathist and canon to the Dormition of the Mother of God in the Assumption Church. A remarkable vision of one layman in a church in the name of St. ap. Andrew the First-Called, namely, the vision of the Savior, extending His Divine hands to all those present during the general confession and resolution of sins by me and embracing everyone. I thank the Lord for this vision, for this mercy, which informs us that the matter of general confession is pleasing to Him and is being done in accordance with His Divine will. When performing household and church-social prayers, we must try to clearly understand every word or expression of the prayer, and with all our hearts desire what we ask for, and strain our will to fulfill what we ask or to give thanks for what we receive and to make a worthy use of a pleasant gift; for example, in the morning prayer we say: in my dream at night, dawn upon me a sinless day, O Christ God... we must desire and try to spend the whole day without sin, in doing good. The multi-passionate flesh constantly strives to alienate the soul from the Lord through cooling and laziness towards prayer, especially through sleep and after sleep through carnal thoughts, feelings, lusts, dreams, the vanity of life, and worldly addictions. We must constantly crucify her with passions and lusts and go opposite her, do what she does not want, what she is running from, willingly. I ask you, praying brother or sister: are you interested in prayer, is it dear to you, is it pleasant, does it delight, does it change for good, does the prayer you perform comfort your heart, or do you treat it coldly, indifferently, indifferently, fruitlessly? then you pray in vain. “These people draw near to Me with their lips and with their lips they honor Me, but their heart is far from Me, but they honor Me in vain” (Matthew 15:8). You say: “Our Father, who art in heaven...” and so on. Are you interested in all these petitions mentioned in the prayer? Do you sincerely want what you ask for? Do you hate sin, the kingdom of the evil one, the will of the evil one and his intentions towards you? Are you interested in the Decalogue, that is, the Ten Commandments? Do you want to fulfill them with all your soul for the sake of pleasing God and eternal life? On the New Year 1898. I thank You, All-Bountiful, for You have also granted me the summer of Your goodness, Lord! Renew the right spirit in my womb, Master, and create a pure heart in me for Your dwelling, in me. I thank You for Your countless blessings, poured out and constantly poured out on me, a great sinner, I thank You for Your long-suffering toward me, who drove You away with countless sins, and for Your invincible and all-conquering mercy; I thank You for my mental and physical health, for I am old in years, young in spirit and body, I thank You for Your daily justification by Your honest Blood and multiple times every day. I thank You for the tearful tenderness during the celebration of the Liturgy and for the ever-present consolations of Your Holy Spirit, for His holiness, acceptable from His most holy and inexhaustible being, which is one with You, I thank You for the uncontrollable attraction of Your people to me - babies, young, aged and old, running from everywhere and everywhere to me, wherever I am I will appear in cities and villages; I thank You, as You solemnly and strongly instill the Orthodox faith and piety everywhere, especially in women’s monasteries; I thank You for granting me courage in prayers for the whole world and all people and for bringing them from error to the unity of faith and piety; I thank You, for you have tamed the unrighteous rage of the unorthodox peoples who are hostile to us, the true believers, and brought them to an understanding of the truth; I thank You, for we all desire to be united, that they may be one, as You are One, glorified God in the Trinity; I thank You, for You have overthrown and put to shame the mighty one in the fortress of the devil every day in his all-evil and all-violent wiles; I thank You, for You grant me to stand in Your truth and righteousness; I thank You, who gives me the word of reason and strength, always telling me to people about Your name, in the word of Your Gospel; I thank You, for You glorify me everywhere, even though I am unworthy and a great sinner; I thank You for my blameless life, even though sin attracts me to itself every day and torments me, for if You had not kept me like the apple of my eye, I would have committed every sin. There is no number of Your mercies to me, Lord, and I thank You for everything, and there are no words worthy to thank You, Lord! Amen. New church year - 1898. 1) Repentance: the need for repentance; true repentance When we did not know how to preserve our integrity in paradise, now, after being expelled from it, we are commanded to each of us to repent and to diligently remove each of us from the tares of sin, and to plant and restore virtues with zeal, with the help of God. After every sin, repentance is needed. Often you need to repent and reconsider your soul. He who does not repent and is careless about repentance greatly neglects his heart field and allows all kinds of sinful tares to grow stronger in it, becomes stubborn in sins, and makes repentance and correction difficult for himself. Sin is a falling away from God, one moment of sin and a falling away. Sincere, deep, complete repentance - and union with God. This is how necessary repentance is for a sinner and how great the power of repentance is! We are cursed, poor, poor, blind, naked. Do you know what you really are? Don't know? This is what the Lord, who searches our hearts and wombs, says about you and about all of us: “Do not weigh that you are wretched, and poor, and poor, and blind, and naked” (Rev. 3:17). The need for repentance, the benefit of repentance - it attracts God's mercy. The prodigal son, the harlot, the publican, the thief, Manasseh, the Ninevites, Peter the repentant. The enemy of our salvation is angry, cunning, quick, and vigilant; but the Lord is all-good, all-wise, quick to obey and all-powerful, to save always perishing man. The great evil is unrepentance; it destroys many people. Belonging to true, soul-saving, godly repentance is a change from sinful heartfelt inclinations to good Christian feelings and aspirations, changes for the better, a disposition towards every virtue - humility, kindness, meekness, abstinence, prayer, mercy, forgiveness. - A barren tree must be made fruitful, a dirty thing must be washed, an unclean thing must be cleaned, a bent tree must be straightened, a dilapidated one must be renewed, a broken thing must be restored and made whole again, and a faded tree must be given its color. This is what happens in a hostel. And our souls are infected with sins that need to be cleansed; souls are defiled by unclean thoughts, lusts, various passions - they need to be cleansed, they are bent, askew from sins, ready to fall and be broken - they need to be straightened, supported by God's grace, which strengthens everyone. They are broken, broken due to our carelessness, carelessness, frivolity - we need to restore them and make them whole; they are darkened, they must be made bright through repentance, humility, and good deeds; they have lost their real, original appearance, color, their beauty - they must be given their beautiful and god-like, god-like appearance, as the holy saints of God did; our souls have become barren, or have begun to bear bad, bitter fruits of sin and death - we must make them fruitful, bearing the fruits of virtue, mercy, peace, freedom and eternal life. “The rent of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). So, sin leads to temporary and eternal death. Sinners and sinners, what do you want: to live or die, to rejoice or to suffer forever, to burn forever in hell or to rest forever in heaven? To live face-to-face with God in the ineffable light, or with the devil in pitch darkness and terrible Tartarus, whom even Satan himself trembles at? Either one or the other - there is no middle ground. And unfeigned repentance, faith and good deeds lead to God and eternal bliss; to eternal torment - evil deeds and unrepentance. Christ alone, to whom the Heavenly Father gave all judgment over us, can save us, and Christ gave all judgment to the Church or priests, to them he gave the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven; Without the Church and the priesthood, no one can be saved. “The tree that you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and the tree that you loose on earth will be loose in heaven,” says the Lord (Matt. 18:18). 2) Communion: the greatness of the sacrament, its power, meaning, necessity Why be surprised? Is it the simplicity or the greatness of the Mystery of the Body and Blood of Christ? Is it the naturalness of the visible, tangible and tasted types of the sacrament, or the supernatural wisdom, redemption, wonderful truth and holiness of them, which justifies and sanctifies those who partake with faith, and the life-giving quality felt by the whole being of the soul and body of the participants? A wonderful deed, a truly Divine deed, a deed of infinite goodness, wisdom, truth, omnipotence - the gift of heavenly bread as food and drink to humanity, corrupted by sin - the Most Pure Body and Blood of the Lord and God and our Savior Jesus Christ! Miracle of miracles! The earthly minds of people cannot accommodate this and do not believe in the Mystery of God: Protestants, Reformed people, many Russian intellectuals, Tolstoyans, Pashkovites, Stundists. The Holy Gifts - the Most Pure Body and Blood of the Lord - the greatest sacrifice of the truth and mercy of God, the Most Holy Blessedness, purification, renewal, incorruption, life, strength, glory, peace, joy, fragrance, a molded adornment of humanity, transformation, light, goodness, love, attribution to God. Look at the Holy Mysteries with fear and love, as a sinner and unworthy. “The promises of God in this are hers and in this is amen” (2 Cor. 1:30). So are the Holy Mysteries - the Body and Blood of Christ; in them themselves - yes, and in them themselves - amen, that is, in their very essence they are true, life-giving, redemptive, enlightening, pacifying, renewing for the soul and body of those who partake with faith and zeal, active repentance. God bless! The Holy Mysteries are more valid than any reality and more essential than any reality, visible and invisible, more true than any fidelity. And the word of the Lord is a guarantee of this: both the essence of the thing and the unceasing experiences of the believing soul. Why do you receive communion at the Liturgy, dear brothers and sisters? – The Most Pure Body and the Most Pure Blood of Christ our God. The innumerable wealth of the Gift of God, causing reflection on the extreme poverty, wretchedness, misery and blindness of human nature, to which it was inevitably subjected after the fall of the first people. Truly, when sin multiplied, grace abounded, and the immeasurable power of God, the grace of God, came to the aid of the weaknesses of mankind. Christ, the Source of incorruption and resurrection, gave us His Most Pure Body and Blood as an antidote to sin, as an antidote to sinful corruption. The Sacrament of Communion was established to renew human nature, corrupted by sin, in order to grant believers and repentants justification and reconciliation with God, forgiveness of sins, strength in the fight against sinful passions, weapons against the devil, immortality and deification. By giving us the Most Pure Body and Life-Giving Blood for food and drink, the Lord immeasurably magnifies our nature through unity and deification and prepares us for the most perfect unity with Himself in the unevening day of His Kingdom. To what height and glory has human nature been elevated by the incarnation of the Son of God, and by the gift to him of the Divine-Human Body and the Divine-Human Blood for food and drink! How reverent, pious, noble, self-controlled a Christian should behave! How to respect and love those like yourself! How to encourage your brethren to lead a good Christian life! How to be charitable, forbearing, patient and long-suffering! “Unless you have eaten the flesh of the Son of Man and drunk His blood, you have not life within you” (John 6:53). Wonderful and worthy of eternal wonder and thanksgiving are the goodness, truth and wisdom of God; God’s love for mankind is wonderful! Adam, fallen and corrupted by sin, transmitted the seed of sin and aphids to the entire human race and enslaved it to the devil, the sower of sin. Christ the Son of God, having come to earth, and having fulfilled all the truth of God, and having suffered and died for us, and risen from the dead, gave us incorruptibility and life, giving us His Most Pure Body and Life-giving Blood for food and drink; so that we know His body, of His flesh and of His bones (Eph. 5:30). I am constantly amazed by the holy, terrible, all-reconciling, all-purifying and all-sanctifying sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ, which continually destroys the works of the devil in the true participants of this universal sacrifice, which serves as a counterbalance and reflection of all sinful abominations in word, deed and thought, brought upon us from the first culprit and inventor of sin. How much strength, goodness, mercy, long-suffering, holiness, purification, sanctification, enlightenment, revival and renewal, peace, freedom, spiritual space, deification lies in this Divine all-conciliatory sacrifice! Glory and thanksgiving in the Trinity to the glorified God for the great deeds of His goodness, truth, mercy, wisdom and omnipotence. What a superiority of goodness appears all the days and everywhere in the churches of God throughout the entire universe. The abyss of mercy and generosity has opened and is opening in the daily offering on the altars of Orthodox Christian churches of the all-giving, all-propitating, all-cleansing, all-renewing, all-deifying, life-giving, terrible, immeasurably great sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ, offered according to the will of God and the covenant of the Lord Jesus Christ for the salvation of the whole world. All the sins of the faithful, those who truly pray and partake of the life-giving Mysteries, are cleansed every time they receive communion, all spiritual ties are destroyed, sorrows are consumed, all petitions favorable to God are fulfilled, the petitions of the entire Church - for all states and classes, for shepherds and flocks. The world stands, strengthens, does not waver for the sake of this sacrifice, cities stand and are not destroyed and remain in prosperity and prosperity, families are established, the intrigues and dreams of heretics and schismatics are ineffective, general piety is established, if only the shepherds sincerely perform this greatest Sacrament. Glory to the Lord, who has given us such a life-giving, sovereign, most holy Divine Gift! Shine, shine, New Jerusalem, the Orthodox Church of God - for the glory of the Lord has risen upon you; rejoice now and be glad, O Zion! The Holy Seed is the standing of the world. This is the Holy Seed, by whom the sinful world stands, I think during the liturgy, looking at the Most Pure Body and Life-Giving Blood of Christ. This is what I, a sinner, still stand for and have not fallen completely. What immeasurable goodness, wisdom and truth of God were revealed in giving us the Most Pure Body and Blood of Christ! What condescension! What have we been awarded through them, what salvation, purification, sanctification, renewal! What an honor - the honor of deification, union, merging with the Divine! For through the communion of the Most Pure Body and Blood of Christ we become flesh of His flesh and bone of His bones (Eph. 5:30) and terrible for demons - if only we firmly keep this gift of God within ourselves, and are not, as before, frivolous and greedy, and susceptible to sin, to pride, malice, anger, envy, intemperance, fornication, lies, deception, wickedness, stinginess, greed, hard-heartedness towards our neighbors. “The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin,” says St. ap. John the Theologian (1 John 1:7). Without blood there is no purification and sanctification; The Lord shed His Blood on the cross for the cleansing and sanctification of the world and deliverance; the blood of animals was shed in the Old Testament as a sign of the all-cleansing Blood of Christ; Every person is conceived, formed and born from the blood of his mother. How do Catholics deprive the laity of the Blood of Christ? What kind of arbitrary fabrication? What kind of deceit is there in judgments regarding this subject? There is no forgiveness without the shedding of blood, says the Apostle in his letter to the Hebrews (9:22). And almost everything according to the law in the Old Testament was cleansed with blood. And the first Covenant was not established without blood: for Moses, having pronounced all the commandments according to the law before all the people, took the blood of bulls and goats with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying: this is the blood of the covenant that God commanded you; He also sprinkled the blood on the tabernacle and all the vessels of service. This is an image of the Most Pure Divine Blood of Christ of the New Testament, without which there can be no cleansing of sins, and therefore the Blood in the Sacrament of Communion is necessary for both the clergy and the laity. I am miraculously renewed by the Divine Mysteries of the Body and Blood of Christ every day, even until now - until the 70th year of my life, and no matter how old I grow old, I am kept fresh and vigorous in my soul and body by grace. Thank you, thank you, thank you for this and for all the mercies of my Lord Jesus Christ. And how many His powers, how many victories He accomplished in my inner world - there is no number! Glory, glory, glory to God in the Trinity! A clear proof of the truth of the Savior’s words: “He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood abides in Me, and I in him” (John 6:55). Every day I perform the Liturgy with reverence and partake of the Holy Mysteries, and these are the fruits of this communion: purification, sanctification, renewal, victory over passions, spiritual peace, freedom, boldness, joy in the Holy Spirit; – prayer for oneself and for others, accompanied by wonderful actions inside and outside and in the souls of many; healing from prosphora and from everything that I drink and eat, and give to others who receive it in faith; the life-giving blessing taught by my hand: the joy of communication in prayer and conversations with people. “Unless you have eaten the Flesh of the Son of Man, nor have you drunk His Blood, you have not life in Yourself” (John 6:53). And many, many do not eat Flesh and Blood out of unbelief, out of negligence, unbelief, out of pleasing the world. Many writers, as I know, did not partake of the Holy Mysteries almost their entire lives and died without guidance into eternal life because of shame in front of their brothers, saying to those who offered communion of the Holy Mysteries: “What will my fellow writers say about me?” “How much, do you think, will you be freed of this bitter torment, who reproached the Son of God and made the Blood of the Testament impure?” (Heb. 10:29). How many such windbags are there in the world? And how many luxurious and cruel-hearted merry rich men are there like the one mentioned in the Gospel? How many Pharisees and hypocrites are there? How many scribes are there in Christianity? How many priests and high priests are there who think and live unholy and unjustly? 3) Priesthood: the grace of the priesthood How venerable is the office of the priesthood, how great, saving and wonderful is the grace of the priesthood! Through the priesthood the Lord accomplishes great and saving works in people; cleanses and sanctifies people, animals, all the elements, delivers people from the villainy of demons, revives them in the bath of restoration, renews, strengthens; transforms bread and wine into the Most Pure Body and Blood of the God-Man Himself, performs a marriage and makes it honest and the bed undefiled, resolves sins, heals diseases, reconciles the justice of God with repentant sinners, turns the earth into heaven, creates churches with the hand of man, turning them into the village of the Lord Almighty, unites heaven with earth, man with God; makes one cathedral of angels and men; comforts the sad, strengthens the weak and makes them strong for good deeds, and brings down an abundance of grace where sin has increased. How great, wonderful, beautiful and saving is the grace of the priesthood, and what are those people deprived of who do not have a legal, correct, effective, divinely established priesthood: Lutherans, Protestants, Reformed, schismatics, sectarians, heretics, excommunicated from the Church. How should those who have the rank of priesthood—bishops, priests, deacons—treasure this grace in order to serve people in a godly manner for salvation and God’s glory! “Have an abundance of love for the priests for their work” (1 Thess. 5:13), says St. apostle. – What do people lose without the priesthood, what blessings, what grace and mercy of God! They are deprived of salvation! It is not in vain that the Lord Himself, the Accomplisher of our salvation, is called High Priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek; and He has an everlasting, eternal priesthood, being always alive to make intercession for us. He is the Founder, Head and Finisher of the priesthood that exists on earth, together with the Sanctifier and Finisher of the Holy Spirit. Those who reject the priesthood cannot have holiness and cannot please God. Priests are endowed with the power of the grace of the priesthood, the power of the Holy Spirit. The power of priests is extremely great and important. They are, in a sense, earthly gods by the gift of God and adorers of others through the sacraments; these are spiritual shepherds who shepherd the flock of Christ, redeemed by the blood of the suffering of the Eternal High Priest Jesus Christ Himself. Without a priest, there is no one to absolve sins, no one to perform baptisms, confirmations, and the Mysteries of the Body and Blood of Christ. What power of intercession the Lord gave to the priests, authorizing them to offer prayers for the whole world, for all people, for all churches, for everyone and everything - for those on earth and in the underworld! Treasure, priest, this grace. And this is due to the power of the all-given Christ, “the only mediator for God and men, who gave Himself redemption for all” (1 Tim. 2:5) and appointed priests for Himself from among men and for men. What power is the intercession of the Mother of God, given to Her by Her Son and God! What power of intercession did Abraham, the friend of Christ, Isaac and Jacob, Job, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, all the prophets, especially Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel have! What power of intercession for people the apostles, martyrs, saints, saints and all the saints had and have! Glory to the Lord, most merciful, all-righteous, all-holy, all-powerful! For such great intercessions, I dare to trust in the Lord, who will save me, unworthy, for the sake of His goodness. Grace exalted the priest to the degree of an earthly angel, the performer of the life-giving and terrible Mysteries of God, the reconciler of creatures with the Creator, the enlightener of souls with reasonable advice, the mediator between God and fallen man, the deifier and deifier of the faithful through the sacraments; and he must understand this, feel it, and thank for it, and glorify God and try to conform to God’s intentions for him and for people. Meanwhile, there are few priests who are aware of the full height of their ministry and who try to correspond to God’s intentions for them and for their flock - and they, like laymen, are seduced by earthly life, earthly wealth and pleasures, and care little about the spiritual interests of themselves and their flocks; are carried away by earthly thoughts, carnal passions and fall deeply from the height of their calling; - and thus the devil, the primordial enemy of God and men, laughs at us to the extreme and, to spite us, opposes the works of God and destroys many people. How necessary it is to despise a world hostile to God and all its delights, to despise one’s corruptible and multi-passionate flesh, and to always contemplate grief. Have ears to hear, let him hear! V. The hierarchy of the Orthodox Church: bishop, priest and deacon. The height of priestly service It is not in vain that the Holy Church has appropriated splendor and glory to bishops, priests and deacons, especially to apostles and priests during and outside their service, clothing them in the splendor of sacred robes and surrounding them with honors - for they are befitting their rank. Priests bear the office of Christ Himself, the eternal High Priest, who clothed the priesthood with glory and beauty. “Like a bridegroom, place a crown on Me, and like a bride, adorn me with beauty” (Is. 61:10). May the priesthood of Christ be honorable forever! This is not the dreamy priesthood of Mohammed or Buddhism, or Lamai, but true, living, real, saving. “So let man despise us, as the servants of Christ and the builders of the mysteries of God” (1 Cor. 4:1): not ordinary servants, but those invested with the power, authority and greatness of Christ, close brothers and friends of Christ, performing His sacraments in the Church, heavenly, saving mysteries. The bishop in his church is like the sun in the world. From him comes light, spiritual life, sanctification, reconciliation with God, resolution of sins, guidance in all truth and virtue, from him salvation: he opens and closes heaven for people, he is the first guide to holy life and piety and the helper of salvation for believers. He was given, in accordance with the greatness of the rank, great honors, especially when serving the liturgy. The priesthood of the Orthodox Church does, according to the commandment of the Lord, a work of infinite importance, immeasurable goodness, a work of supernatural power, the work of God: it enlightens, purifies and renews people through teaching in the word of God, especially through the administration of the sacraments and spiritual administration. Only God alone can renew a person corrupted by sin, or that one of the people to whom God Himself gives grace and power and His strength to themselves be renewed and enlightened and strengthened in a new life - and to renew, sanctify, and lead others with the power of God, with spiritual power. A fallen, corrupted man can only rise and be renewed through deep repentance and the resolution of sins by spiritual authority and the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ - certainly also the Blood under a special form of wine, as the Lord established, and not without Blood - must receive the resolution of sins from an Orthodox priest who has legal ordination and authority given by God - and the Body and Blood from a legitimate Orthodox priest, and not from a papist or Lutherans who do not give the Blood of Christ! Oh, human superstition! Oh, deceit, oh, the intricacy of lies! The papists deprived the laity of the Blood of Christ, shed for the cleansing of sins. Oh, headless supremacy, acting contrary to the true Head - Christ God! Oh, Lutherans, who have lost the grace and truth of the sacraments! How can you give grace to others without having it yourself? How can you shepherd the flock of Christ without having the spirit of Christ, the truth and righteousness of Christ? Protestants and Reformed, pastors and archpastors, tell me how you can renew the people and lead them to St. life, when you yourself do not have the grace and authority of power and strength from the Holy Spirit, which you cannot receive anywhere except in the Holy Spirit. Orthodox Church? Tell me, how can you accomplish the work of renewing humanity, which can only be done by God and the one to whom He gave His grace and authority through episcopal ordination? You have no priesthood: how dare you take on such a task that is beyond your strength? You yourself are not renewed and you do not renew the people, you do not cleanse and do not sanctify. In what radiant, Divine majesty does the priest stand before the throne of God during the liturgy, especially during the performance of the bloodless, most holy, most heavenly, terrible sacrifice of transmuting bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ! The angels look at him with reverence and some jealousy, contemplating such condescension of God towards us, such a merging of the Lord God with our mortal nature. The priest here is the closest mediator between God and guilty humanity, an intercessor for the whole Church, for the whole world. The priest here is not only a servant, but a friend of God, to whom God entrusts the greatest secret, hidden from all generations in God. And for whom and for what will he not beg the Lord with his fervent prayer, if, through his prayer, such a sacrament is performed when the Lord gives Himself as the food and drink of eternal life? He who did not spare His Son for us, will He not give us everything that we ask Him for in faith, according to His will? Do you grieve for those who sin, do you feel sorry for them, do you sincerely pray for them as if they were sick? If you hate, despise, humiliate, revile them, then you yourself are grievously sinning, do not have Christian love, and are obsessed with self-love, pride, and self-indulgence. Groan and mourn, cry for those who sin, like the prophet Ezekiel; pray for them fervently, for they are our members, members of Christ Himself—sick members that must be urgently healed, as if infected by Anton’s fire. He who is insolent against his neighbor is also insolent against God. Remember the one who dipped his hand in salt with the Lord and betrayed his Lord; it was said about him that he is the devil (John 6:70). Remember the meek Lord Jesus, Who, being reproached, did not reproach, and, while suffering, did not resist, but committed Himself to His Father who judges righteously” (1 Pet. 2:23); He did not argue, did not cry (did not raise any voice), and no one heard His voice (quiet and meek) at the crossroads. Remember whose yoke, like a threshing ox, you wear on your neck (epistrachelion); work willingly and in humility of heart for Christ God, who bore all your sins, suffered and died for you, a great sinner who angered Him a thousand times and without number. You have not endured the poverty and labors of the Lord, but you live in contentment and all abundance, and you forget in the times of your Lord, who endured so much labor for you, embitterment from people, beatings, insults and the most blasphemous death. What is more honorable, more salutary, more joyful than to come to the sick and weak and sad neighbors with St. life-giving Mysteries and partake of this spiritual, incorruptible and Divine food? What a reward from God to those priests who do this holy work willingly, with humility and meekness! Don’t be lazy, priest, and don’t disdain the sick, the poor, often the ignorant, susceptible to all sorts of illnesses! Their appearance is unsightly, the picture is sad, but this matter is great in the eyes of the Lord and Lord. “I was sick and visited me” (Matt. 25:36). “Do not be upset with those who wish to partake more often of the Holy Mysteries of the Body and Blood of Christ, but love them and rejoice for them before God; for the Lord attracts their hearts, having experienced the sweetness of communion with Him in these Mysteries. After all, you yourself often participate in the liturgy. Don’t be upset about the sick, who want the same in the houses where they lie, and don’t be lazy about going to them. For they desire communication with God and healing from Him; and there is no higher and more honorable service than to impart to the sick the Body and Blood of Christ God; for Whom are you carrying? What kind of zhitomeriya are you doing? Your service is higher than that of the angels, for they look with fear at the terrible and saving mystery, but you bear Christ God Himself and betray Him to the faithful. Serving the sick with teaching them the Divine Mysteries of the Body and Blood of Christ is the greatest service, which should be considered to be the greatest honor and always done willingly, reverently; joyfully, without burden. “We must bear the weaknesses of the weak with strength, and not please ourselves” (Rom. 15:1), neither the womb, nor mammon, nor rich and noble persons, or friends and benefactors, nor our lazy and inert flesh. “Now is the time, imams, let us do good to everyone, especially to those close to us in the faith” (Gal. 6:10). If you want to prove your devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ with all your soul and with all your heart, willingly and humbly serve the sick in their homes - bringing them and teaching them the Holy Life-Giving Mysteries of the Most Pure Body and Blood of the Lord. Treat the sick whom you have to partake of the Holy Mysteries with tenderness and meekness, like a nurse treats her children, remembering how the Lord loved us all, giving Himself to us as the food and drink of eternal life.