73. Около 1452 г. Послания митрополита Ионы: I) вятским воеводам и всем Вятчанам, с убеждением их покориться великому князю, прекратить грабежи и разбои и возвратить полон; II) вятскому духовенству, с предписанием наставлять мирян в христианских обязанностях

From the collection of Count A.S. Uvarov No. 512 (formerly Tsarskogo No. 366), l. 318–323. They were published, according to the same manuscript, in the first volume of Historical Acts under No. 261. From Jonah, Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Rus', to Vyatka and the entire Vyatka land, to the zemstvo governors Yakov Pugvin and Onikei and Yurya Alekseev Myshkin, and to all the vatamans, and sub-warriors, and boyars, and merchants, and living people, and to all those who are called by the name of Christianity in the land there. We do not know what you will be called: you are called by the name Christians, but you live doing evil, worse than the wicked, neither according to Christianity, nor according to the kiss of the cross, nor according to the divine scriptures of the Orthodox true Christian faith: you offend the holy cathedral apostolic church of the Russian metropolis, and you destroy the old church laws, and you are rude and rude to your ruler, the Grand Duke, you pester his enemy, and for a long time and with filth united, and with the excommunicated from God's church with Prince Dmitry and Shemyaka, they naturally came many times to the Grand Duke's estate, to Ustyug, to Vologda, to Galich, and through the kiss of the cross, kissing the life-giving cross from the prince from Dmitry from Ivanovich Ryapolovsky, at Gleb at Semenov you kissed the cross three times, at Oleksandr at Myakinin you kissed the cross twice, good for the Grand Duke, but forgetting that kiss of the cross, and changing everything, and destroying Christianity, and with those Christian destroyers and your own patrimony you are constantly fighting, you are destroying Christianity by murder and complete and plunder, and you are ruining the churches of God and plunder all the church's sacred parishes, the forge, and books, and bells, and you all do evil and godless deeds, as if they were filthy. And now, just these hours, the Grand Duke’s estate, Sysola, and Vym, and Vychegda, was at war, and they tortured and killed many people of Orthodox Christianity, and threw some into the water, and impaled others in huts and mansions, countlessly burned husbands, elders and little children, and burned out the eyes of others, and impaled some babies on stakes. they killed, like Herod, the evil destroyer and killer of Christians; and they naturally took more than one and a half thousand souls; Yes, which you now keep for yourself, and sell others for trash and give as gifts; Yes, because of this you will not stop from your evil deeds, but you are always rude to your ruler, the Grand Duke, and do not hit him with your forehead for your rudeness. But as God, with his mercy, put it on the heart of the great ruler, the great prince, he still favored you, and listened to our humility, as his pilgrim prayed for you, with many tears, and with prayer, and with blessing, according to his hierarchical duty: and the great ruler, the great prince, and until now he tolerated you, did not execute you, expecting your petition from you and repentance, your evil deeds will cease; Otherwise, there is no control from you. And I, his pilgrim, already finite, sent to you this elder of mine, Abbot Nafon of Kineshma, with this advice and meek letter and with his speeches, pitying you, so that you would stop from your evil deeds, and with your souls would not perish now temporarily, and in the next century would not be in endless torment: the church would be the nature of God they kept it according to Christianity, according to the old days, honestly; and the ruler would have been his own nature, but our son, the Grand Duke, for his evil rudeness towards him, was beaten with his forehead; and naturally they would give up all the church robberies, and naturally they would all let them go ingenuously, and then naturally the clock would cease from its evil deeds. And listen, otherwise the mercy of God and the blessing of our humility will still be upon you, and the great ruler, the Grand Duke, will receive a salary, according to your correction to him; but you will not listen to us, and you will not beat your ruler, the Grand Duke, with your forehead, and you will not correct yourself in everything without cunning, otherwise the mercy of God and His Most Pure Mother of God and all the saints’ prayers, and our blessing, both now and for all endless centuries, will not be on you; and that Christian blood will be poured out for you: then everything will come to you from yourself. And with my speeches, with this old man, I also ordered you. Pisan... From Jonah, Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Rus', to Vyatka and to all Vyatka cities and volosts, and to churchyards, and to villages, and to all Vyatka places, to abbots, and priests, and deacons, and monks, and all the designated local priesthood. We do not know what to call you priests, from whom you have received ordination, spiritual punishment, and teaching of the divine and sacred rules of the holy Apostles and holy God-bearing Fathers and all the divine scriptures of the Orthodox Christian true faith? You yourself do not demand the Gospel and apostolic and paternal teachings, and live carelessly, and you yourself go to destruction and to the future eternal and endless torment; they are called Christian priests and teachers, but above all, carelessly about their souls and neither knowing their priesthood, nor remembering the spoken verb that a priest should be, as it was said: “where the angels desire to come, the one who stands at the terrible throne of Christ.” And how indecent are we that we don’t give a damn about it and just blame it on ourselves? and the imams will accept condemnation forever. Moreover, we send Christian souls into eternal torment, not punishing them, neither from an evil life, but withholding, as we hear how your spiritual children there live illegally, taking wives up to five, up to six, up to seven, and you bless them and accept an offering from them, which is disgusting to God: and how they betray the kiss of the life-giving cross, and with those excommunicated from God’s church and they copulate with filthy and wicked people, and they destroy Orthodox Christianity with murder and robbery and all kinds of evil deeds beyond counting, and the holy churches of God are destroyed and robbed, and those who are called Christians, but do evil deeds, are worse than the filthy ones. And from now on, those who are called priests, abbots, priests and deacons, and monks, if you do not recognize your saint and abbot, and do not repent of your previously evil and bitter deeds, and do not have to punish your spiritual children and do not have to refrain from evil deeds: and our humility, by God’s command and according to the divine and sacred rules of prohibition, has you not priests, but we also impose spiritual church burdens and unblessings on you until you come to your senses and true repentance towards God and our humility. And those of your spiritual children, who are called Christians, but do filthy deeds, in the same way, if they do not repent, but do not stop from their evil previous deeds, they will not finish off their master, the Grand Duke, with their foreheads, and they will not give up church robberies, and they will not freely let go of all Christian souls: and with our humility, and with all our priesthood, we have them unblessed, and from God's Church, from Orthodox Christianity, those who are excommunicated temporarily and in the future, until they repent purely to God and correct themselves in everything without guile. You might be interested in: