Saint Tikhon (Zadonsky)

Tikhon of Zadonsk, in the world Timofey Sokolov, saint, bishop of Voronezh, famous hierarch and spiritual writer, was born in 1724 in the village of Korotsk, Novgorod province, Valdai district, in the family of a poor sexton Savely Kirillovich. Having lost his father early, he experienced material need from childhood. “When there was nothing to eat at home,” he later recalled about this time, “it used to be that I spent the whole day harrowing a rich man’s arable land just to feed me bread.” From 1738 he studied at the Novgorod theological school, living at the expense of his brother Peter, who was a sexton in Novgorod. With the opening of the seminary in 1740, he, as one of the best students, was accepted into government support. Even before graduating from the seminary, in 1750, he remained with it as a teacher of Greek, and after graduating in 1754, also as a teacher of rhetoric. In 1758 he became a monk in the Novgorod Anthony Monastery with the name Tikhon; on St. Thomas Sunday he was ordained a deacon in St. Petersburg and in the same year a hieromonk. In 1758, Tikhon began teaching philosophy at the seminary, and on January 18, 1759, he was appointed prefect there. In the same year, at the request of the Tver Bishop Afanasy, he was appointed archimandrite of the Zheltikov Monastery, but was soon transferred to the Otroch Monastery with the appointment of the rector of the Tver Seminary, a teacher of theology and a member of the spiritual consistory. Then Tikhon ruled the Khutyn monastery. On May 13, 1761, Tikhon was elevated to the rank of Bishop of Kexholm and Ladoga, vicar of the Novgorod diocese, and the ordination took place in the St. Petersburg Peter and Paul Cathedral. In August 1762, when the synod went to Moscow on the occasion of the coronation of Catherine II, he was ordered to come to St. Petersburg and temporarily preside over the synodal office. On February 3, 1763, Tikhon, after the death of Ioannikiy Pavlutsky, was appointed to an independent Voronezh episcopal see. From the very moment he took over the management of the diocese, a wide scope for activity opened up for Tikhon. First of all, he drew attention to the dilapidation of the cathedral, and he managed, mainly with private donations, to lay the foundation for a new stone cathedral, which, however, was completed after him. Among the clergy, he found ignorance, neglect of duties and abuses: many did not properly know the order of the service, others did not perform services at all on holidays and Sundays due to personal affairs, there was a lot of unrest regarding marriage matters; In general, the moral and educational level of the clergy did not correspond to its purpose. Soon after arriving in Voronezh, Tikhon wrote a short teaching in catechetical form for the priesthood, “On the Seven Sacred Mysteries,” in which he gave a brief understanding of the essence of each sacrament, the manner of its administration, the person performing it, and the persons receiving it. Then they wrote “Addition to the priestly position about the mystery of St. repentance”, where priests are given instructions on how to behave during confession: to arouse a feeling of repentance in the flock, but at the same time not to be too strict, but cautious and prudent, to console with the mercy of God those who, in grief over their sins, reach despair. In order to prevent people unworthy or unprepared for serving the church from being ordained, Tikhon immediately upon entering the diocese (May 31, 1763) sent a decree to all city and spiritual administrations so that the proteges would have an approving certificate from the clergy and parishioners. To encourage priests to deliver sermons and to accustom them to reading, Tikhon ordered that after the prayer behind the pulpit on every Sunday and holiday, the corresponding passage should be read either from the Explanatory Gospel or from some other book accepted in the Eastern Church. “And on other Sundays, read the word of St. printed in the Followed Psalter on sheet 386, which is very beneficial and encouraging to a sleeping soul that is careless about its salvation. Cyril, Archbishop of Jerusalem about the exodus of the soul and the second coming.” During his administration of the Voronezh diocese, Tikhon strictly monitored the implementation of this instruction. And in order to acquaint the priests with preaching the catechism, he called from the Moscow Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy a student of Ivan Vasilyevich Turbin, who preached sermons in the cathedral every Sunday. All the clergy of Voronezh had to come to listen to these sermons. For the district towns, in which it was impossible to find people capable of being catechists, a special book was sent out for reading in churches. Tikhon tried as much as possible to educate the clergy, took care of correcting their moral shortcomings; They were written and sent throughout the diocese with a special instruction in the form of a district message, which outlined the high duties of a priest, how he should prepare to perform the sacraments, and was encouraged to avoid drunkenness, foul language, and bad customs. Caring for the good life in the morality of the clergy, sometimes resorting to strict measures of punishment, he nevertheless ensured that the consistory was not biased towards priests in its actions and sentences, did not delay matters, and fought against the harsh treatment of priests by consistory officials. Tikhon was the first to prohibit the use of corporal punishment against clergy in his diocese. And in his own decisions, he was not so much a strict judge, punishing a crime, as a shepherd, correcting the guilty. Tikhon also paid a lot of attention to schools, in which there was a great need. The seminary, founded in Voronezh in 1721, stood at an extremely low level under Tikhon's predecessor. In the entire Voronezh diocese there remained only two Slavic schools: one at the bishop’s house, and the other in Ostrogozhsk. The lack of schools forced Tikhon to order the ecclesiastical boards of the cities of the diocese to establish Slavic schools and buy or build the buildings needed for them at the expense of the clergy. But due to the negligence of the spiritual administrators, the lack of sympathy for this cause on the part of the clergy in general, who skimped on funds, and the escape of students, these schools had to be closed after two years. Then Tikhon opened Latin schools in Ostrogozhsk and Yelets instead. In addition, he opened a school in Novocherkassk for the children of priests of the Don region, where there was a special need for an enlightened clergy due to the Cossacks’ tendency to split. When, after the seizure of peasants from the monasteries, the government made the first allocation for the maintenance of theological schools, Tikhon began to establish a seminary in Voronezh. For this purpose, the former seminary house was expanded and teachers were summoned from among the students of the Kyiv Academy and the Kharkov Collegium. The collection from the clergy for the maintenance of schools was stopped. Tikhon often visited classes, determined the order of classes himself, and noted the best and most instructive passages for interpretation to the students. He also wrote “Instructions for what seminarians should observe,” which outlined the moral responsibilities of students as future shepherds. The bad state of the monasteries of the Voronezh diocese, the drunken lifestyle of some monks, and the disorder that reigned among them also attracted the attention of Tikhon, and he wrote 15 articles for monasticism. No less significant are his concerns about teaching the people basic Christian concepts. To this end, Tikhon preached sermons that were distinguished by simplicity, depth of faith and inspiration, wrote special works for the people and sent them to churches. These are: “A short admonition that every Christian from infancy to death should always keep in mind”; “A brief instruction on how one should maintain oneself in a Christian position”; “Instruction on the Christian office, parents to children and children to parents”; “Some notes from St. Selected scriptures, awakening the sinner from the sleep of sin and calling to repentance, with subsequent examples,” with a brief exhortation to quick conversion. Finally, he also wrote a large essay “Flesh and Spirit, or a collection of certain moral teachings from St. Scripture, the Old Testament and psalms and the interpreter of St. Scriptures, St. John Chrysostom" (St. Petersburg 1796). Tikhon took a number of measures aimed at ensuring that people attended churches more diligently on holidays and Sundays; For this purpose, among other things, they were sent throughout the diocese “A short admonition on how it is appropriate to enter holy churches for doxology.” Tikhon also fought against non-Christian customs widespread among the population. So, in order to eradicate such customs in the celebration of Maslenitsa, in 1765 he delivered the most remarkable of his sermons - “The Sermon on Cheese Week.” He also energetically fought against the celebration of Yaril, a folk holiday, a relic of pagan antiquity. In 1765, he himself appeared on the square where the festivities were taking place in honor of Yarila and delivered a sermon; on the same occasion, he wrote “An admonition to the residents of Voronezh about the destruction of the annual festival called Yarilo,” and as a result, this festival was gradually forgotten. The fight against the schism, which had deep roots in the Don region not only among the laity, but partly also among the clergy, also took a lot of energy from Tikhon, but this fight did not lead to significant results. In his activities to improve the health of the church, Tikhon encountered obstacles from both the population and the clergy, who were dissatisfied with the severity and exactingness of the bishop. Tired of continuous worries and struggle, Tikhon asked for his retirement and was dismissed on December 17, 1767. D. Rovinsky claims that his dismissal occurred because he delivered an accusatory sermon in the palace. Tikhon stayed at the Voronezh episcopal see for 4 years and 7 months. Having retired, Tikhon initially settled in the provincial Tolshevsky Monastery, located 40 versts from Voronezh. He chose this monastery due to the privacy of its location, but its unhealthy climate and harmful swampy fumes forced him to move to the Zadonsk Mother of God Monastery in 1769. Initially, Tikhon languished at such a sharp transition from the energetic activity he showed at the Voronezh see to the peace of monastic life: he even considered accepting the position of rector of the Valdai Iversky Monastery offered to him by the St. Petersburg archbishop, but then he abandoned his intention and remained forever in Zadonsk. Tikhon's life in the Zadonsk monastery was distinguished by its simplicity and was an example of high piety and asceticism. He sold his best clothes and jewelry, which he had kept from his time serving at the Voronezh see, and distributed the proceeds to the poor. He reserved the bare essentials for himself, ate the merest food, slept very little, denied himself everything, and devoted most of his time to prayer and theological studies. Along with this, Tikhon was engaged in heavy work in the monastery garden, sawing and chopping wood himself, mowing hay, etc. “If it weren’t for the episcopal rank,” he used to tell his cell attendant, “I would have gone to the simplest jobs, such as: chopping wood, carrying water, sowing flour, baking bread. But the trouble is that we can’t do this in Russia.” He did not like and avoided the usual services from his cell attendant and accepted them only in the most necessary cases. Tikhon spent a lot of energy fighting his character. By nature he was an impressionable and irritable person, prone to despondency; at times he was overcome by a feeling of melancholy and unaccountable grief; Only through persistent struggle and at the cost of many efforts did he manage to smooth out these unevenness and develop in himself humility and a meek attitude towards people, develop in himself those moral principles that he considered obligatory for every Christian. He has reached that degree of humility when the elder asks the younger for forgiveness; and Tikhon often bowed at the feet of his cell attendant and asked for forgiveness if he noticed that he had offended him in some way. The following case also demonstrates the same. Once, while visiting a landowner acquaintance, Tikhon met a nobleman, a free-thinking man towards the hot-tempered, and entered into an argument with him; The saint strongly and aptly objected to his interlocutor, and the latter became so irritated that he hit him on the cheek. Then Tikhon fell at his feet with the words: “Forgive me, for God’s sake, that I led you into such a frenzy.” This act had such a strong effect on the nobleman that he himself began to ask for forgiveness and from that time on became a good Christian. The following characteristic given to Tikhon by one of his cell attendants is interesting: “The saint had a hypochondriacal complex and there was a part of choleric in him. Sometimes he will give me a strict and fair reprimand, but soon he will come to repentance and regret.” In retirement, Tikhon devoted himself zealously to works of charity and mercy. Out of sympathy for the common people and because, coming from a lower class, he knew well the plight of the peasants, Tikhon did most of his charitable work to the peasants, although at the same time he did not refuse to help the poor from other classes. Whether someone lost their home due to a fire, or some misfortune brought the peasant to ruin, Tikhon always provided, to the best of his ability, material assistance to the impoverished. At his expense, a significant almshouse was built in Livny. He spent his entire pension of 500 rubles and all the funds he received as gifts from private individuals on charitable causes. Tikhon often visited the sick and dying in the surrounding villages, comforting and encouraging them with his conversations. He was the same comforting friend for prisoners: he visited the Yeletsk prison several times a year. His sociability and ease of manner, his cheerfulness of spirit attracted the hearts of people to him. His cell became a source of spiritual healing for the surrounding population, among whom he enjoyed exceptional respect and authority. He reconciled quarreling monks and often settled disputes among landowners, which arose mainly due to family misunderstandings. There are many reasons to think that Dostoevsky drew his elder Zosima in “The Brothers Karamazov” based on Tikhon’s spiritual appearance. Close to the people by his origin, Tikhon loved to talk with people of the lower class - and with all the greater pleasure when his interlocutors did not recognize him under his simple attire. He understood the conversation of the peasants, knew their needs and wants. Often, under the guise of a simple monk or novice, meeting peasants in the yard or at the porch, he would start a simple conversation with them, asking about their work, occupations, duties, government orders, etc. Considering Christian education to be very important for a person, having a strong influence on his entire future life, and seeing, on the other hand, the inattention of the peasants to the upbringing and education of their children, Tikhon willingly gathered children in his cell, took care about their upbringing, trying to instill in them Christian concepts, to soften their bad morals and inclinations. And children from the neighboring settlement willingly came to him. Even many of the schismatics were attracted to Tikhon by hearing about his virtuous life. Soon after his settlement in the Zadonsk monastery, the schismatics, who were unsuccessfully looking for an archpastor, finally turned to him with an offer to be their bishop. The misunderstanding with this appeal is obvious, but it speaks eloquently about the high lifestyle of the saint, which even appealed to people of other church rites. Despite Tikhon's refusal, the schismatics continued to have a sense of respect for him, especially since he was not a supporter of decisive measures in persecuting them. Thus, in word and deed, Tikhon won the sympathy of wide sections of the district population. Tikhon continued to write a lot in Zadonsk, where he completed his best works. In Tikhon's writings, a predominance of moral and religious content is noticeable; His largest works are devoted to issues of Christian morality. Moral life was more important and above all for him, and therefore in all his writings he mainly tries to reveal the duties of a Christian, since in them he saw the essence of morality, but at the same time he does not make one virtue the central point and exclusive task of moral improvement, does not reduce all his thoughts to it alone, does not concentrate his attention on it alone. Just as in his own life he did not indulge exclusively in feat alone, so in his writings he tries to embrace and reveal the universal duties of man as fully as possible. So, for example, his book “On True Christianity” has as its subject precisely this complete spiritual development of a person into a “perfect man.” But so that social status does not distract people from this matter of moral improvement, Tikhon also gives private instructions, in relation to the differences in the social status of people: he left instructions for the sovereign and the subject, the rich and the poor, the noble and the ignorant, the strong and the weak, the merchant and the buyer, husband and wife, parents and children, employer and worker. In connection with religious and moral issues, Tikhon tried to represent the dogmas of faith. And in depicting them, he strove to establish a living and direct connection between dogma and real everyday life, which made his writings understandable and accessible to a wide range of people. External nature, everyday phenomena and incidents of life served Tikhon as material and illustrations for his moral and religious conclusions and for clarifying the essence and meaning of the dogmas of faith. In this spirit he wrote the book “Treasure Gathered from the World.” The analogy between the external phenomena of nature and the spiritual life of man, his religious views is often found in him. Harmony, order, mutual connection and dependence on each other of the phenomena of visible nature should, according to Tikhon, remind and instill in us the idea of ​​​​the order of spiritual life, of the connection between people based on mutual help and love. “You look at the sky,” he writes, “so wonderful, high, vast, decorated with various stars; shining on the sun and moon and illuminating the whole of heaven; on the clouds in the air, passing here and there and like wineskins of rain, sharpening and watering your fields. Presents to you the feeling and the mind, the earth with its fulfillment, with trees, herbs, livestock, animals, seas, rivers, springs and other decorations. Pass with your mind from the visible, from the creation of the world to the creator. May you have this opportunity to be surprised: 1) at the omnipotence of our God, who created all this out of nothing with one word; 2) His wisdom, who created so wisely; 3) His goodness, who created all this for us.” In his writings, Tikhon very rarely resorts to any logical, purely formal constructions and proofs, but tries primarily to influence the common sense of the reader, the immediate sense of truth, and the image of ideas that is characteristic and usual for every average person. And here the influence exerted on him by the works of John Chrysostom, which was his most favorite reading, is noticeable. Tikhon constantly uses examples, comparisons, and contrasts taken from everyday life to explain his thoughts. The language of his writings is distinguished by its extraordinary simplicity, accessibility, liveliness and captivating form; his speech is replete with folk expressions and poetic images. One of Tikhon’s biographers gives the following description of his writings: “A publicly accessible presentation of the highest truths of the faith, close to the understanding of the simplest Christians, a rare art through comparisons and images to communicate truths with special clarity and entertainment for every Christian, at every opportunity to find edification for them and pave the way for their own improvement in Christian thought, all these qualities make St. Tikhon primarily a popular Christian teacher"... The first work written by Tikhon in the Zadonsk monastery was his essay “On True Christianity,” in 6 parts (St. Petersburg, 1785 and 1803); This work is based on a translation from his theological lectures given at the Tver Seminary, with significant additions and explanations. Among the largest and most outstanding writings of Tikhon are “Spiritual Treasure, Collected from the World,” in 4 parts (St. Petersburg, 1774) and “Flesh and Spirit, or a collection of certain moral teachings from St. Scripture, the New Testament and psalms and the interpreter of St. Scriptures of St. John Chrysostom" (St. Petersburg 1796); The last work, back in 1784, was published in St. Petersburg by P. Bogdanovich without indicating the author, under the title “Tablets of Moral Teaching.” Then Tikhon wrote “Christian Instruction with the addition of mutual Christian duties” (St. Petersburg, 1784; 3rd edition, St. Petersburg, 1794). Having selected some passages from this work and supplemented them with some other articles by Tikhon, the synod published this collection entitled “Instruction on the duties of every Christian” (St. Petersburg, 1789; 48th edition, Moscow, 1870) and ordered its reading in churches. Especially for the monastic clergy, Tikhon wrote, in addition to 15 articles while he was still a Voronezh bishop, also “Rules of Monastic Life” and “Instructions for those who have turned from the vain world.” Then he wrote the following articles and essays of the most varied content: “Cell Letters” (St. Petersburg, 1784; 2nd edition, St. Petersburg, 1796); “Various letters sent to some writers” (St. Petersburg, 1784; 2nd edition, 1802); “Miscellaneous Sermons” (St. Petersburg, 1784; 2nd edition, 1794; this collection is also attributed to Tikhon Madinin); “Meek moralizing words” (St. Petersburg, 1784; 2nd edition, 1794); “Conversations on Prayer” (St. Petersburg, 1821); “Feelings of Thanks to God” (St. Petersburg, 1821); “Fleeting water”; “Useful Instruction on the Fear of God” (St. Petersburg, 1821); “On love for enemies” (St. Petersburg 1821); “On love for one’s neighbor” (St. Petersburg, 1821); “On the forgiveness of sins to one’s neighbor” (St. Petersburg, 1821); “Admonition to preserve justice and oath”; “Knowledge of the Love of God” (St. Petersburg 1821); "Discourse on Humility"; “The Hope of Hope” (St. Petersburg 1821); “Explanation on the Narrow Path” (St. Petersburg, 1821); “Reflections on contempt and denial of the world” (St. Petersburg, 1821). Then there is an indication that Tikhon translated the psalter from Hebrew and the New Testament from Greek. In addition, he wrote a number of small articles, instructions and instructions in connection with various aspects of diocesan administration during his stay at the Voronezh department. Some of his works were collected and published by Evgeny Bolkhovitinov, Metropolitan of Kyiv, under the title “The remaining works of Tikhon” (St. Petersburg, 1799). The first complete collection of his writings, “The Works of the Right Reverend Tikhon, Bishop of Voronezh and Yelets,” was published by the same Metropolitan Eugene in St. Petersburg, in 1825–1826. Later, the synod took over the publication of Tikhon's complete works; it was published in Moscow in 1836; 5th edition in 1889 Tikhon died in the Zadonsk Monastery on August 13, 1783. They left a spiritual will, in which he makes the final orders for the distribution of property and says goodbye to the monastery brethren. In 1861, the solemn discovery of Tikhon’s relics took place, which rest openly in the Zadonsky Monastery. His memorial day was set on August 13th. Tikhon’s life was described by two of his cell attendants, John Efimov, Tikhon in monasticism, and V.I. Chebotarev. Efimov's letters, which depict Tikhon's life in retirement, are stored in the Kiev-Sophia Library (under No. 194).