127. Послание митрополита… к архимандриту… с выговором за неуместную строгость к младшей братии

Was not published; here published from the synodal collection No. 562, fol. 75–77, in which this and the next four letters stand between the letters of Metropolitan Jonah: in all likelihood, they belong to him. Message from the Metropolitan to the Archimandrites who are not holding the monastery well From... the Metropolitan of All Rus' to... the monastery to the archimandrite... Why are you ruining the honorable rank of yourself and your flock? Have I not appointed you a good builder of the Church of Christ, so that you will preserve it pure and immaculate? And I have made you a shepherd of Christ’s verbal sheep, so that you can shepherd according to the word of the Gospel, for whom Christ shed his blood; and I have appointed you to be a worker of Christ’s grapes: you must plant and prune them and clear them from every evil obstacle. But you are idle and lazy, cutting off those planted from him and sweeping those outside the church out of the holy fence, and you were quick and diligent and found yourself 3284 in negligence to lay down about your brethren. Yes, look, whose malice has crushed your praise, even if you do not do it with diligence, 3285 in the poverty of your mind, and even more so in unreason. Why don’t you hear the Lord, the Prophet saying: “For the life of the blood of those who died at the hand of the shepherd will be sought,” for which Christ gave his soul without renouncing? And on the terrible day of Christ’s retribution, what answer do you give? Do you understand the need of the last of this time, how a shepherd should be: to gather all kinds of cattle, and sheep, and wild beasts 3286 into one succession, and to tame every thought and temper and ferocity, and to make the world fall, and to arrange it in spiritual love and humility 3287, and one from the other will remain unharmed and all together are observed, and have bound the flesh of oneself and others with chastity, both to fulfill the divine zeal and the warmth of spiritual influence, and to lay the foundations of all piety with immovable firmness, and to have care and salvation for the immortal only-begotten faithful souls of men of Christ's flock, the assurances and benefits of them and spiritual contentment, and for these feats and pity, and good in the feat of piety of the flow will come, and the lives of the monastic, and moreover, the angelic heritage will be comprehended, from which light will shine, and joy, and peace, and eternal life, and all the good things of God. Because you are called a shepherd in a word, but the work is far from you; and it is fitting for a shepherd to be abundant in everything by faith, and deed, and word, and reason, and with all diligence to tempt the best and abide in it: what have you done? You have redeemed from the world many brethren, especially their souls, and you have brought them into your monastery and counted them as brothers, and you have made them worthy of the angelic image, so that they will save their souls with your guidance and instruction of true wisdom, like 3288 in the way of life, while they are still young and have a childish mind: and I am surprised at your foolishness, I thought about this, with which Satan deceived you? Why did you expel such a young brethren from the monastery for the sake of dividing things, excommunicated them from the brotherhood and from the flock, and took their condemnation upon your head, your tonsures? But I, humbled, was greatly troubled by this, leading to your spiritual destruction, and you fell into grief through the temptation of the common enemy of human salvation, you neither looked for the soul of the dead, nor did you admonish yourself for having done such evil to you, you were jealous of the true Shepherd, who left ninety and nine sheep on the mountains, rushing in the wake of the lost one turn it back onto the whole frame and bring joy to the angels. You didn’t look for your lost sheep, which you drowned in the sea of ​​this world, whose soul you sold for food to mental wolves, and even more so, your soul with them. They, poor monks, came to our humility and fell at our feet with many tears, and confessed to us everything that had been done about them, and only from them some words of evil were uttered about you and did not want to be ashamed of betraying you with writing, I will even speak to you with my lips. But I, humble, in accordance with my hierarchical duty, was concerned about them, and did not want to despise the perishing, and looked at them, even 3290 and you will not perish with them, and you did not want one of both, as he confessed spiritually to me, and he transferred him to another monastery; and the one who was tonsured here by you was expelled from the monastery by you, and I sent him to you, and you would have accepted him in every way, as if he were your disciple and tonsure, and you would have given him to an old man, a good man, in his cell, who could have grieved his soul: and otherwise you would not have done it. And I would like to write a lot more about your lewdness; but time will not give us: other things of the earth have come to us; But how will you be with us, and I want to tell you myself, even God willing. The manuscript is not in disrepair. You will arrange it in the manuscript, and above: you will tame it, you will save it. You might be interested in: