Часть II
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I. Hieroschemamonk Ambrose’s senile care for certain persons
In the first part of the biography of Elder Ambrose, it was intended, as noted in the preface, to show what this elder was like, i.e. how and to what height he reached the height of spiritual life. Now, in this second part, I would like, if possible, to first outline his senile spiritual care for those who surrendered themselves to complete obedience to him. And although many examples of his insight and prayerful help to people in their many different needs, mental and physical, have already been presented, all these were only special cases. At this time, let us present examples of how the elder directed or disposed of the entire lives of those devoted to him, how he carefully delved into all their spiritual needs, without losing attention to apparently the most unimportant circumstances, often repeating in such cases the old wise saying: “Moscow burned down from a penny candle,” thereby making it clear that everything great, both good and evil, always begins with small and even barely noticeable things.
Just as in other cases he showed the novice the most tender fatherly love and condescension, in other cases he was strict and unforgiving, so that those who sincerely treated him, having selfless filial love for him, at the same time felt deep respect and fear for him. How he rebuked them with mercy, precisely in such a way that among a large crowd of people only one person being rebuked could understand the reproof; how sometimes, with his insight, he recalled forgotten sins during confession, healed their bodily illnesses, anticipated the dangers that awaited them, delivering them from them with his effective prayers to God, and so on and so forth. This task will be helped by oral stories about ourselves and handwritten notes from monks, nuns and lay people who sincerely treated Elder Ambrose in their time. These stories are presented here. Let's add to this that these stories are few - only six.
But they are sufficient to illuminate for inquisitive readers the path of “elderhood,” or spiritual guidance, which was introduced in Optina Hermitage by Elder Father Leonid and which Elder Ambrose then led his spiritual children, of whom, it should be noted, he had thousands.
NOTE OF THE OPTIA JEROMONK FATHER MELCHIZEDEK
I arrived in Optina Pustyn in September 1860. Before my arrival, the elder Father Macarius, who lived in the monastery, died. They buried him in front of me. From the very moment I entered the monastery, my elder and spiritual father was Father Ambrose. Only about five years before his death he handed me over to another confessor, Father Anatoly, the head of the monastery, continuing to remain my elder.
Six months after entering the monastery, due to the enemy’s actions, I began to feel embarrassed and decided to leave Optina Hermitage. I come to Elder Ambrose and explain to him my confusion. The elder answers me: “You need to read the book of Abba Dorotheos and know it, like a soldier knows the points of military service. Without this there is no affirmation in spiritual life, and a monk cannot live correctly. If you leave the monastery and come back again, then the cost to you will be a penny.” After that, I began to go to the priest more often to reveal my thoughts, being edified by his words. The embarrassment lasted for two or three months and then completely passed.
One day he remarked to me: “Without support, i.e. You cannot live in a monastery without the spiritual guidance of an elder. You told others about me: no matter what I tell you, do not tell others. And if you do things your own way, then don’t come to me.” At the beginning of my admission to Optina, I once told the elder that in our monastery they do not give tonsure soon. To this he answered me: “The internal must be respected, but there is nothing to worry about the external.”
In the first year after I entered the monastery, I was assigned the obedience of helping Father I. sort out books in the skete library. I took one book there, and Father I. snatched it from my hands, saying that books cannot be read without the blessing of the elder. I went to the elder and told him my grief. The elder replies: “If Father I. did not tell you to read the book you took, then you should not read it; read the works of the holy fathers."
Father strictly forbade visiting the cells, as well as receiving brethren without special and, moreover, extreme need. To my question, what should I answer to those of the brethren who, due to their frivolity, would be embarrassed by my behavior, the elder said: “Answer such that your father archimandrite did not order you to go to your cells.”
About twelve years after I entered the monastery, I received a letter from my parent, the priest of the village of Leshchyanov, Penza province, saying that he was close to death. I was getting ready to go home. I come to the elder, and he answers: “It is said in the Holy Scripture: let the dead bury their dead (Matthew 8:22) - do not go.” So I stayed.
I ask the elder: why do I sometimes experience mortal melancholy? The elder answers: “What should I do? I let myself go. There is no order in the external structure of the way of life.”
I also say: “What is it, Father, I’m very restless?” The elder pointed out the reason for this in his previous life.
Once again I ask: “Why do I, being placed on the choir, feel timid?” The elder answers: “Out of vanity.”
I also say: “It’s difficult for me to get up for matins; what should I do? The elder replies: “Heaviness comes from a lack of zeal and fear of God. If you don’t walk, you will be ashamed and sinful. If, due to illness, you are not at church services, then you must tell me about it.”
He did not bless drinking tea with bread. He also advised me to always go to meals. I tell him: “Father! I’m hungry in the morning, what should I do?” The priest replies: “It is corrupt nature that is pulling. Leave it, you can drink tea, but without bread and no more than three cups, and a fourth is only allowed due to ill health.” Once I drank five cups of tea. I explain this to him. The elder angrily remarked: “Remember yourself.”
I tell him that sometimes I omit the five hundred 148. The elder replies: “When you die, you will bitterly regret it; only then it’s too late.” I tell him that it’s difficult for me to make prostrations. The elder responds to this: “You cannot bend down to the ground, make bows from the waist; If you cannot put down your belts, say the Jesus Prayer with your lips. The holy prophet David said: His praise is in my mouth (Ps. 33:2). This is allowed due to weakness or illness.”
He also said: “Everyone will answer for himself before God.”
The story of the schema-nun of the Shamorda community, Mother Paraskeva.
I began my monastic life at the Belevsky convent in the Tula province, which I entered in 1854, when I was 15 years old. Having lived in this monastery for 17 years, all this time I felt completely healthy and did not experience any illnesses. I passed obedience to the choir. During the first six years, my spiritual father and elder was Father Macarius of Optina. In the fall of 1860, he came to our monastery for the last time, for all the sisters of the monastery were his spiritual daughters, including me. He comes to my cell. Putting his crutch aside, he lies down on my bed and tells me: “You will be sick and you will lie for a long time.” I cried and told him: “Father! Who will you leave me with?” Father Macarius answered: “Don’t grieve. After me, you will have the same old man and even better than me.” When the priest left us, three weeks later the news of his death came (September 7, 1860). After the death of Elder Macarius, Father Ambrose became my spiritual father.
Now I’ll tell you why it was the elder Father Ambrose who took special care of me and showed protection to me as an unworthy person. I lost my own mother when I was 14 years old. My mother led a pious life; She especially loved to do good to the poor of all kinds, giving abundant alms. We had a lot of money, and my mother used it for the glory of God and the good of her neighbors. A week before her death, an Angel of the Lord appeared to her and said that she would die on the first day of Holy Easter. Mother announced this announcement to all of us and began from Holy Week to prepare for the transition to eternity, being completely healthy. No one believed that she would die, seeing her blooming health. On Holy Saturday, Mother received the Holy Mysteries. The first day of Holy Easter, 1853, arrived. Coming from mass, we said Christ and broke our fast, but mother did not break her fast and lay down in the front corner under the holy icons. We all gathered, children and relatives, around her.
She ordered us all to make three prostrations to the ground for the repose of her soul, said goodbye to us and, with a prayer to God, gave up her soul to Him, with a joyful face, peacefully, painlessly. Such was her blessed death. Many poor brethren accompanied her coffin to the church and from there to the cemetery. When I first came to Father Ambrose after entering the Belevsky Monastery, being completely healthy at that time, I noticed that the elder, having left the monastery, was standing near the corner tower (which is on the right side of his hut) and talking to someone, although there was no one near him. There were a lot of people then, and everyone was waiting for the priest at the gates of the monastery. Finally the priest went into the hut. I remained waiting to receive the holy blessing from the elder for the journey. The elder didn’t know me then. Suddenly, I see the priest’s cell attendant running out of the holy gates and asking: where is Belevskaya nun so-and-so, calling me by name. I walked up to him and he led me into the shack.
Having blessed me, the priest announced to me that my late mother had just appeared to him (and this was at two o’clock in the afternoon) and he was talking to her near the tower. At the same time, he said what mother was buried in, and all her signs, and that her name was Khionia, that she asked him not to leave me with his protection. I was very surprised by this and thanked God. From then on, Father always showed me his patronage until his blessed death, which followed in October 1891.
After Father Macarius’s prediction about the illness that would befall me, I was healthy for eleven years. But then one day I left the monastery to give alms to the prison castle. While climbing the mountain, I felt that my legs seemed to give way and I fell. For three years after this, although I walked, it was with great difficulty. Three years later, during Lent, one day, almost suddenly, I completely lost not only my legs, but also my arms. After that I no longer owned them for eight years, i.e. until 1882.
One day Father Ambrose sends me a letter and blesses me to visit Optina. This was in 1882. They brought me to Optina and carried me to the priest in their arms. Seeing me crying, the priest said: “What are you crying about? Or that God visited you with such an illness?” I answer: “I’m crying because I can’t use my arms and legs; I can’t eat or drink.” Father says: “Don’t despair; God will not leave you. You will lie sick for a long time.” At this time, taking both my hands, he began to stroke them from hand to shoulder, which lasted about two hours. The priest looked at his watch and said: “Now it’s four o’clock; take it to the hotel." When they brought me to the cell at the hotel and put the samovar on, I suddenly freely took a teaspoon, surprising myself. The next day, after receiving the Holy Mysteries, I again visited the elder. Having congratulated me on receiving the Holy Mysteries, the priest again stroked my hands for two hours, but suddenly, throwing them away, he said: “Not only will no doctors cure you, but even the saints of God will not help you. The disease was assigned to you by God.
But you will control your hands.” After this, the elder blessed me and released me. On the same day, upon arrival from the priest, I received full control of both hands. But the leg disease remained in the same position and continues to this day. I can't walk. After this I returned to Belev and lived there for two years. I will note at the same time that in the Belevsky Monastery I endured great sorrows throughout my illness, due to the foolishness of some. And only the help of God, for the holy prayers of Elder Ambrose, and the disposition towards me of the late Mother Abbess Pavlina, who was of spiritual life, protected me from the malicious invisible enemy. Some nuns of spiritual life, having a spiritual mind, were also disposed towards me. Father knew about my sorrows and ordered me to endure. When I expressed to the elder that some considered me to be in delusion, he advised me not to pay any attention to it and to endure everything patiently.
During times of sorrow, the Lord sent me, through the holy prayers of Elder Ambrose, many gracious consolations, which I always reported to the priest for fear of deception from the enemy. Otherwise, I would not have been able to bear the great sorrows brought upon me by the enemy, and I could have fallen into despair. But the Lord protected me. Then I received a second letter from Elder Ambrose, in which he invited me to his place. I came to him. Having received me very kindly, he invited me to settle in the Shamorda community he had newly established. My move to this community took place in 1884. I've been living here for thirteen years. In Shamordin, the elder built me a new beautiful cell, in which I still remain, blessing God and praying for the repose of the soul of blessed Father Ambrose.
I will now tell you about one very remarkable case, which even the elder himself was surprised at. One day I was lying in my cell, because then I no longer had control of my legs. It was two o'clock in the afternoon, and it was completely light in my cell. I see clearly, death enters the cell (as it is described in the vision of the Monk Theodora) in the form of a human skeleton, all hung with saws, hammers and various other tools and with a scythe over his shoulders. He comes up to me and hits me on the spine with a hammer. I feel like my back is numb. At this time a voice is heard: “Leave her! She still needs to live on earth.” But death again raised its hand over me to strike another blow. At this moment, an invisible voice is heard again, forbidding me to touch me. Death still raises his hand to strike a third time. I hear the voice again: “Leave her!” She needs to live; she's not ready yet. Go to the nun Glafira, she is completely ready for the transition to eternity.” After that, death disappeared.
I remember that during all this time I was in a waking state, and to this day all the details of this visit to me by death and salvation from it are preserved in my memory. My cellmate, Mother Agrippina, comes in, and I tell her everything that happened. The next day, after Matins, Mother Agrippina went to the monastery hospital to visit the sick nun Glafira, who was lying there, and learned that she had died at 4 o’clock in the morning and had already been hidden and placed in a coffin. Father Ambrose often, on occasion, reminded me of this wondrous visitation of death to me when he was in Shamordin.
STORY OF THE SCHEMONUN OF BORISOV WOMEN'S DESERT, KURSK PROVINCE, MOTHER LEONida
Having lived in the Borisov Hermitage for about nine years, I and one old woman of that monastery, Schema-nun Lavrentia, went to Optina Hermitage. Elder Father Macarius was still alive then; this was in 1857. Father Macarius, having taught me soul-saving instructions and blessings, told me to read the book of the Venerable Abba Dorotheos. Then he added that he would send Father Ambrose and the book of St. Dorotheus to me. Soon Father Ambrose came to my hotel. Elder nun Lavrentia was leaving for her family at that time, and I was left alone. Father Ambrose made a strong and very pleasant impression on me the first time. His conversation about the meaning of monastic life and pleasing God in general was especially edifying for me. Father Ambrose visited me for almost a week, edifying me with his words. He seemed to revive me into spiritual life. By the way, he told me that upon returning to the monastery my life would change for the better, not speaking spiritually, but also materially, which actually came true.
After this, I did not stop corresponding with Father Ambrose. Father Macarius blessed me, the first of all the sisters of the Borisov Monastery, to enter under the spiritual guidance of Father Ambrose as an elder. After me, the other sisters came under his leadership, especially after the death of Father Macarius. In all the most important issues of my life, I turned to Father Ambrose for advice. This correspondence was not interrupted until the elder’s death in October 1891. I visited him several times and always gained great spiritual benefit from his wise conversations. Soon after, I fell ill with some unspecified illness and lay there for 21 years, without leaving my cell. This disease was also predicted by Father Ambrose. After 21 years, I received healing from this disease, by the mercy shown to me from the miraculous icon of the Mother of God, called “Kozelshchanskaya”.
I remember that as soon as, upon arrival in Kozelshchyna and upon entering the church, this holy icon was placed on me, at the same time I received healing and strengthened my legs so much that I could already walk to the hotel without the help of others. Returning to my monastery, I was warmly greeted by the sisters and Mother Abbess. But soon great sorrow befell me, due to the malice of the enemy. One of the sisters rebelled against me and began to harass me in all sorts of ways. I wrote to Father Ambrose about this, but the elder told me to be patient. This went on for several years. The said sister especially rebelled against Father Ambrose, humiliating him in every possible way in front of the sisters; but the priest, just as during his life he was always distinguished by his mercy and love for everyone, so after his death he remained the same. Two years after his death, this nun fell ill with scarlet fever. The illness worsened, and the doctors decided that she should die. But then the priest appears to her in a dream and heals her.
The nun then told all the sisters in detail about this, adding that the elder threatened her with a rod for the insults she caused me. After this vision and healing, the mentioned nun began to respect the elder Father Ambrose. I also remember that when I was lying in the aforementioned long-term illness, Father Ambrose suddenly appeared to me in a subtle dream and said: “Hold on, girl!” I thought when I woke up that my father was warning me against some great temptation, which was later justified. If this temptation did not befall me, it was only through the holy prayers of Father Ambrose. Father was still alive then.
Having visited Optina and Elder Ambrose for the last time and returning to her Borisov hermitage, nun Leonida fell ill and soon wrote to her brother, Hieromonk Joseph, the current skete commander, in the skete that when she complained to the late elder about her long-term illness, he told her: “You and I have not yet reached 38 years of illness, like the Gospel relaxed." It is remarkable that in the 38th year of her illness, schema-nun Leonida died.
II. Recorded words of Father Ambrose, Elder of Optina Hermitage 149
Twentieth August 1879. At my first meeting with Elder Father Ambrose, he greeted me with the words: “Ah! risen one, go, go!” Then he told a parable about jasmine, how one monk knew how to treat it. In November he completely cuts it off and places it in a dark place. But then the plant is covered abundantly with leaves and flowers. The same thing happens to a person: you must first stand in the dark and cold, and then there will be a lot of fruit. In the evening, the priest called me to him and ordered me to write my confession starting at the age of six. I can't tell you how confused this made me; and the explanation itself was terribly unpleasant for me, it brought on some kind of heaviness and irritation.
August 23. Today, glory to the Lord, I confessed to the loving Father Ambrose. The burden is gone; it became so good and gratifying. He told me to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays. Explained perfectly what the post is about. When I asked whether God cares what kind of food he eats, he replied: “It’s not the food that matters, but the commandment. Adam was expelled from paradise not for overeating, but for eating only what was forbidden. Why even now on Thursday or Tuesday you can eat whatever you want, and we are not punished for it, but on Wednesday and Friday we are punished because we do not obey the commandments. What is especially important here is that obedience is developed through obedience. “Your path,” the elder told me, “is a journey. Wanderer! Do you love the Lord? What did He do? - wandered. Well, you too, wander after Him.” When I told him about my small means of subsistence, he added: “Well, it will be enough for the journey. Such a life develops humility - you will treat everyone with equal respect, both higher and lower.”
In response to my remark that it is very difficult to keep a fast when traveling - after all, not everywhere they prepare Lenten food and this embarrasses the hosts - he said: “Ask for some gruel to be cooked for you, and that’s enough; and if they don’t want to, then don’t stay there, so as not to break the commandments of God.”
August 25. When I told the priest about my poor relatives, whom I help, and who are already accustomed to waiting and receiving from me, he said: “And if you have nothing to give, then say so: I don’t have anything.” In response to my remark that I would like to have more so that I could distribute, he exclaimed: “What pride! – she was here. You know how difficult it is for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” When I read my confession to him from the age of six, although he lovingly permitted me, he nevertheless remarked: “We must be punished for our sins here on earth.” To this he added: “Many people say: why punishment? The Lord is merciful and forgave the repentant thief and immediately brought him into paradise with Him. The saints interpret it differently: the robber had already suffered punishment before, hanging on the cross, and then his knees were broken. This means that death was painful. So he suffered punishment for his sins. So, as a punishment, I impose a penance of twelve bows a day, for a whole year, for your entire past life, so that there, in the future life, you will not be punished again.”
Regarding E., when she said that I would like to raise her myself, I replied: “Don’t think about it, don’t; love her, influence her well, and that’s all.” He told me about a nun who left behind orphans. She took them on to raise them and became so attached to them that she began to care less about her salvation. “You need to love,” said the elder, “but you don’t need to become passionately attached. The commandment commands us to honor our parents and even assigns a reward for this. But if you, says the same Lord, love your father, or mother, or anyone more than Me, then you are not worthy to be My disciple. This means that only addiction is not allowed, not love.”
May 20, 1880. I arrived alone another time in Optina Pustyn and the next day I went to the monastery to visit Father Ambrose. Seeing me, he exclaimed: “Ah! from France; So, how are things going there?” Not good, I replied. Then he called me to his cell and, in response to my complaint about life, ordered me to lock the room. Among other things, he said: “You have a lot of condescension, but little patience. It’s okay, everything will pass.”
May 26. This day the priest received me again. I told him about my irritation and judgment of others. “You need to humble yourself,” he said, “irritation and condemnation come from pride.” He drew a chain with rings and pointed out that sins, like a chain, are connected to one another and come from one another. To my words that I would like to live my own independent life in solitude, he replied: “When Lot lived in Sodom, he was holy, and when he went out into solitude, he fell. There is no need to judge because you don’t know someone else’s soul. Look more at yourself and, when reading holy books, apply them to yourself and correct yourself, and not others. Otherwise you will know a lot, but you will probably be worse than others.” He gave a striking example: “The robber robbed for thirty years and, having repented, entered heaven. But the Apostle Judas was always with the Lord Teacher and in the end betrayed Him.” He told me a few more examples from the lives of modern people. About some Count Tolstoy, who was a very straightforward and truthful person.
“He died,” said the priest, “and then one monk (Dosifei) saw a dream: people were standing and waiting for someone; and as soon as the carriage appeared, everyone fell to their knees. The monk did not want to become, but he was ordered, because, as they said, the servant of God was passing through. He looked and saw that Count Tolstoy was coming.” He also told about one landowner who squandered three estates: “At the end of his life, he came to the monastery and died in such a way that God forbid each of us to die like that. Although the deceased was wasteful, he was also unusually kind and simple in soul. So judge people! We need to have more simplicity." He even gave the example of D.V.P., who had just visited him, and said: “What a simple soul he has! This means that there are people of God both in the world and everywhere.” In response to my words that I would like to have more means of living, he said: “It’s not about wealth, but about ourselves. No matter how much you give to a person, you will not satisfy him.” He presented as an example one rich woman who was here in the Optina Hermitage: “She was from the poor and married a rich man, whose father gave away a large fortune upon marriage, and according to his spiritual will left him an even larger sum.
The wife was dissatisfied with this and began to incite her husband to force his father to give him, during his lifetime, what he had bequeathed after his death. But before she had nothing. That’s how tireless the thirst for acquisition is!”
May 27. Glory to the Lord! Today I confessed again to Father Ambrose. It’s true, he, father, prayed for me, a sinner, which is why I felt much more spiritual peace, which I told him about. How, however, he glimpses our inner state! I started with how he feels now. And then he told me: “Your jealousy is beyond reason; leave others! Sometimes something seems to you only by appearance, but the soul of every person is deep; why did the Lord twice forbid not only condemnation; but also to judge.” I answered him that the Lord said: “Judge not according to appearances, but judge with righteous judgment.” He explained these words as follows: “Righteous judgment should apply to ourselves, and not to others, and we should not judge ourselves by external actions, but by our internal state or feeling.” He asked me about the prayer that I read; and when I found out that I was praying more with my own prayer, I noticed that I should read prayers and akathists, and sometimes psalms. But if there is internal prayer, then you should then stop and pray in spirit. When there is no such prayer, then read prayers.
Having touched upon the disrespect of my parents during confession, I had to talk about my indignation against the excessive and even, as it seemed to me, a little false condescension and servility of my mother towards me, which I cannot stand without indignation. “We must judge a person,” said the elder, “by his character. You have a stronger character, but she has a weak one, and she acts in her own way, as best she can. After all, you yourself, when denouncing others, act differently and are false when you speak more insistently and harshly to the weaker, and in a softer tone to the stronger and taller.” When it came to the topic of repaying evil for evil, I noticed that this did not seem to be in me. “As if?” - he exclaimed. “And sometimes you repay him with one stern look in such a way that they won’t forget him for a long time.” He showed me my weak side so correctly that I involuntarily rushed to ask him for forgiveness. “And about you,” he continued, “does everyone judge righteously? Sometimes they praise you without knowing your inner state well.” To this I hastened to notice that it was my misfortune that I was praised more than I was worth.
“Let them praise,” he said, “don’t look at it, don’t answer or argue, but just recognize within yourself whether you are worthy of praise or not. If you contradict, you will become hypocritical, because you still have a subtle feeling of pleasure from praise; and even those whom you contradict will not believe you, so when they praise you, don’t say anything, lower your eyes and be silent.”
May 30. To the words of one nun that she needed to go, otherwise Mother Superior would be angry, the priest said: “You need to fear God and your conscience, and not Mother Superior. The fear of God is the beginning of the cleansing of the conscience.” Having talked to me about my small funds, he advised me to change interest-bearing securities and live with capital. When I objected how long such a small capital would last, the elder said: “Is your life really a debt? That’s exactly what it is,” he added. “And there’s enough to live in a monastery, even in a hostel.” When I heard the hint about monastic life, my heart sank. I never intended to join a monastery; I always felt some kind of disgust from monastic life. Having made some objection to me, he remarked: “You have to end this, you will fight in peace.” “How can I, with my weakness, carry out monastic feats?” – I asked. “The main feat in humility is; but due to your weakness, physical labors will not be imposed on you,” he answered. But I still noticed that while my mother was alive, I couldn’t do this.
June 2. Coming out into the hut, the priest sat with us and told various parables. By the way, he compared the narrow path to the Kingdom of Heaven like this: he took his stick and showed how you can’t put two legs on it side by side, but one after the other, and so mold yourself and walk, without thinking and without asking others about extraneous things. In general, my defeat, in relation to monastic life, was all the more strong for me because before that I prayed to the Lord and the Queen of Heaven that they would reveal to me their heavenly will through the priest, and that I would accept what he said. But even after all this, I still can’t come to terms with the monastery.
June 3. Today the priest received me and greeted me with the words: “Well, what did you come up with?” I told him how terribly this struck me, and what an aversion I had for the monastery, but he still insisted that I had no other place to live, and that I should have been in a monastery long ago. In the world, I am guided only by vanity. Even my access to high society was providentially granted to me only in order to show me all the vanity and emptiness of it. Regarding the forms and rituals of the monastery, they are good because they curb our rebellious nature and force us to renounce our will. I ordered to turn to the Mother of God in prayer and ask that She Herself show me the path which one to choose. That’s why I completely surrendered to Her holy will.
June 4. All morning today the enemy attacked me strongly, inciting me even against the priest, so that in the end I fell before the icon of the Mother of God and tearfully prayed to Her to protect me from the enemy with Her intercession and to show me the path which I should choose. I went to the monastery just to receive a general blessing from the priest, but I was very surprised by his sudden summoning of me to him. I thought that it was true that he would scold me, but he so mercifully began to encourage me, telling me to think about everything first, that he would not necessarily send me to a monastery, and that monastic life is chosen only for greater perfection, if anyone wishes. To my awareness that I was even indignant against him, he said: “This is a temptation from the enemy.” He also said that everyone, at his discretion, has his own path. One soul is simple, does not see anything bad, while the other, on the contrary, notices and sees everything. About my mother he said: “Why dream about something that doesn’t exist? Give her my blessing and tell her that through endurance of sorrows she will be saved.”
In response to my words that it was a pity to leave everyone in the world, he remarked: “Wait, when you get home, they’ll tear you to pieces, and you’ll be glad to run away from it. Read prayers when you can; and when you can’t, then let it go—pray as you prayed before.” When parting, he again told me to think more thoroughly about life in the monastery, that he was not rushing me, but that to be perfect I needed to be there.
June 2, 1881. Today, Father Ambrose instructively explained the words of the Savior: “When they hit you on the right cheek, substitute the other one. After all, in the usual way, when you hit someone in the face, you strike them with your right hand on the left cheek, and not on the gum. But the Lord wanted to present with the right cheek an insult, humiliation, resentment for a just cause, for which you are not to blame. To substitute the left one means: at a time when you are insulted without guilt, remember before the Lord your sins with which you insult Him, and through this consciousness, humble yourself and accept the unfair reproach as your due.”
June 3. Yesterday, during my short visit to the priest, he asked me why I had lost so much weight and changed. In response to my answer that I had a hard winter with my beloved niece, who was seriously ill, he unexpectedly struck me with the words: “Well, the Kingdom of Heaven to her!” I began to say that she was better now, and that the Queen of Heaven miraculously healed her through the Iveron Icon. But he repeated again: “What! Don’t you want to let her into the Kingdom of Heaven?” His words confused me terribly, and a terrible sorrow fell on my heart. Is this really, I thought, a prediction about the girl’s imminent death? “In the evening I received terrible news about the sudden death of my other niece, J. P-oh.
June 4. The next day I went to tell my father about the news I had received with a request to let me go home. But he flatly refused: “Stay here: now the matter is over, and there is no need for you to rush, because you won’t be able to help.” When I told in detail about E.’s miraculous healing from her terrible illness, he reproachfully asked me why I didn’t bring her to him. He ordered it to be brought by all means; said that she needed confession; it is clear that she is a pious girl, on whom all the nastiness of the institute has fallen heavily and requires cleansing. In response to my words about when to bring it, perhaps in the spring of next year, he replied: “Well, at least in the spring.”
He spoke wonderfully about how people’s ingratitude should be accepted: “If you do good, you should do it only for God. Why shouldn’t anyone pay any attention to people’s ingratitude? Expect your reward not here, but from the Lord in heaven; and if you wait here, then you are suffering deprivation in vain.” He presented an example that was here in Optina, during the time of the father of Archimandrite Moses. Someone made a great contribution to the local monastery, and while staying at the hotel, he suffered inattention from the guest monk. Very offended by this, he complained to Father Moses, adding that he, even as a depositor, was not respected. Father Moses answered him like this: “If you made a contribution in order to be pleased and honored here, and not for the sake of the Lord, then you were in vain to worry about doing it; for how can we, poor and sinners, repay you? When doing for the Lord, a person should not seek gratitude and special attention from those whom he pleases.” This story was very instructive for me.
Regarding judging and noticing the sins and shortcomings of others, the priest said: “You need to pay attention to your inner life, so as not to notice what is happening around you. Then you won’t judge.” He also cited as an example one courtier who lived at the royal court and was surrounded by all the bustle of the world, but was so attentive to his inner life that he did not notice anything around him. “This is how we need to live. It is not always necessary to expose others.” At the same time, he related an episode from the life of the Optina elders: “Some monk came to them and began to tell such lies that he gave one bishop a bribe of five thousand, and another three thousand. The elders, looking down at the ground, remained calmly silent, which showed their humility and shamed the talker. One must be more indifferent to earthly untruths. After all, the apostle said that we are waiting for a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells. This means that truth does not live on our land, which is why there is no need to be very upset when you see untruth here on earth.”
June 7. Father came out and sat in the hut. He congratulated us all on the Feast of All Saints and said: “They were all sinners, like us, but they repented and, having set about the work of salvation, did not look back, like Lot’s wife.” In response to my remark: but we are still looking back, he said: “But they are urging us on with rods and a whip, i.e. sorrows and troubles, so as not to look back.” Speaking about my current life, he said: “Live for now the way you live; Just lock your room more often.”
June 9. Today the priest told me in confession: “Make it a rule not to say anything to your mother or sister when you are outraged by their injustice. Go away and, no matter what your mother says, be silent; take the Gospel and read, even if you don’t understand anything at that moment. Set out to do everything only for the Lord and do as much as you can. You are more indignant at what you are doing beyond your strength - you take on a lot, but you can’t handle it. You have little strength, but you want to do a lot; that’s why you get irritated that they don’t seem to appreciate your work and sacrifices. Do your best for the Lord’s sake, and don’t be upset when people don’t appreciate you. Remember that you did not do it for their sake, but for the sake of God; and expect your reward from the Lord, and not from people.”
June 10. Today, glory to the Lord, I was honored to partake of the Holy Mysteries. I'm going tomorrow; and in the evening, quite late, the priest called me to talk goodbye to him. He was terribly tired and was lying on his back when I entered. When I asked him why he was tiring himself so much, he answered: “What should I do? All my veins and nerves are so tense! And besides, I also feel a feverish sensation, with pain in the stomach; But you can’t leave the people - you see how many there are! Yes, this would be all right, but it upsets me that they still grumble against me. After all, it seems they themselves can see what position I’m in.” I involuntarily noticed to him that many people bother him with trifles, and that in general he is more busy with external affairs. Even, I said, those individuals who are constantly with him, as with a holy elder, are, in my opinion, little imbued with spiritual inner life. To his question: who are they, I named two. “Why do you know?” – he asked. “But you can feel it,” I answered, “there is more vanity in one, but there is general envy; so that we, although sinners, would rather lay down our souls for others than they would.
“And they, perhaps, have such a secret good that redeems all other shortcomings in them,” he answered me, “and which you do not see. You have much capacity for sacrifice, but the Lord said: I want mercy, not sacrifice (Matthew 9:13). But you have little mercy, which is why you judge everyone without mercy; you look only at the bad side of a person and do not look at the good side: you see your own sacrifices and exalt yourself in them.” In response to my words, how I would like to live closer to him, the elder so aptly and at the same time lovingly directed the reproach straight to my heart with the words: “No, it’s better to stay away, otherwise you will begin to judge the elder too, that he is not doing as he seems to you.” Yesterday in confession, bringing repentance for condemning my neighbors, I began to ask him for forgiveness, which I sometimes complain about. He also answered so condescendingly, lovingly and meekly: “Well, I forgive, God is with you!” These two remarks pierced my entire soul and made me fully understand what a disastrous path I was on. Always noticing only the bad sides of a person means the death of the soul.
I now know from experience that it brought me to the point of constant irritation with people for their shortcomings and that I was preoccupied with myself, like an incomprehensible victim. So, who do I serve? Certainly not to God. You need to think deeply about this.
June 11. This morning was my last farewell to my father, and his denunciation of me was even stronger than before. I am so glad and thank the Lord for this. He also accused me of hypocrisy. Commanded me to follow mercy and truth, i.e. Show mercy to others, and demand truth from yourself, i.e. to judge everything in yourself according to truth and righteousness, and others according to mercy. “You are a hypocrite,” he told me, “and your hypocrisy is the most subtle, just like your pride. After all, you find out everything so cleverly, you so cleverly force others to speak out and expose themselves to you, while you don’t talk about yourself, in no way exposing what is hidden. Simplicity is also not enough for you. Leave others and take care of yourself. You are not responsible for anyone else, but only for yourself.” He said that you need to seriously start working on yourself. He ordered me to read and go through chapters of the Holy Gospel from Matthew 5, 6, 7 and 8. To my words that I was closer to the Lord before than now, he replied: “You know, when a ray of sun penetrates into a room, what an abyss of dust and cobwebs is visible!
Whereas before, when there was no beam, the air in the room seemed clean.” Regarding how difficult it is for me to be without a good company of people, more educated, to which I have become accustomed since childhood, he said that it, i.e. the so-called good society was made available to you so that you could understand all its vanity; but you don’t understand why you’re chasing after him. “But still,” he added, “if you had remained, like the others, without him, then it would have been even worse. You would have such envy of people and grumbling that God forbid!” He denounced him seriously, but his love permeated his every word. It is clear that it is not diminished in the least by the conviction of the sinner. He also said that the Lord did not bring peace to the earth, but a sword, dividing and separating the bad from the good in man. So this time the priest penetrated deeply into the innermost recesses of my soul, which simply surprised me. However, the elder’s insight is incomprehensible! Help him and God bless him.
May 24, 1882. In the evening at about 7 o'clock E. and I arrived at Optina Pustyn and were very glad to find a nice, clean room in a wooden hotel near M.I. He greeted us with the words: “Ah! The wise ones have arrived." He caressed E. - he went out into the hut and, while he changed clothes, let E. hold his crutch. Then he received us separately and dealt with E. separately too. Father made a very good impression on her, which I was very happy about. In general, she really liked life in Optina and didn’t want to go back soon.
Yesterday, June 7, I could only talk in detail with the priest about my affairs. He told me to completely surrender to the will of God and wait only from Him for help, which He, when necessary, will send as He pleases, and not humanly; why did he order to sell the winning ticket, saying that this is human hope, not God’s. Also regarding the apartment, he told me to wait until a vacancy opened where I was expecting; However, if possible, I would not hesitate to move to another, more convenient one. He advised me to live on capital, if I really don’t have enough to live on from interest; just not to embarrass yourself and not to take on anything beyond your strength. Everything unpleasant, according to him, comes from the fact that I take beyond my strength. He cited words from the Holy Scriptures that “The Lord commands you to give graciously as much as you can, and this gift is accepted; and if you want to have perfection, then give everything, and go around with your hand, asking for alms, and don’t be upset that you have nothing and people are ungrateful. Humble yourself more in spirit—humility replaces deeds. Endure all adversities and surrender to the Lord.” About E.
He ordered not to worry too much, but to leave her to the care of the Mother of God, who, if she took charge of her, would take care of her. Regarding the manifestation of her illnesses, he considered this to be an indication of her careless and absent-minded reading of the akathist and prayer to the Mother of God. “Instruct her and guide her,” he said, “don’t worry or worry too much, but just remind her every time she feels worse that she probably read absent-mindedly and inattentively.” In general, he told me to seek more peace and tranquility of heart. He positively forbade engaging in scams: “What is this for? - said the elder, - in order to find even more worries for yourself and finally lose your spiritual peace! Rely on the Lord, and He will give and help where you don’t expect.” Regarding my remark about spending capital on living expenses, that I was leaving it to E., he said: “Well, if there is anything left, then there will be hers.” To the remark of one friend, at our first meeting with the priest, that it was E.’s first time making such a long journey and that I brought her in a postal cart, the priest replied: “What?
It’s better to start with a cart, then a wagon, and end with a carriage, than vice versa - start with a carriage, and end with a cart.”
III. From the memoirs of one spiritual daughter of the unforgettable Optina elder Father Ambrose
This story is especially multifaceted and therefore extremely interesting. He, on the one hand, shows how the loving elder Ambrose, the true servant of God, following the example of his Lord, having loved those in the world, loved them to the end (John 13:1), never ceasing to guide them to salvation until his last breath. On the other hand, it also shows us how persistent the struggle of the old man is when a Christian begins to bend his neck under the yoke of Christ. A person for a long time, so to speak, hesitates between life and death: he believes and at the same time does not believe - in one case he expresses complete faith in the elder, and in the other he shows complete disbelief; asks the elder for advice with a sincere desire to obey him and at the same time persistently wants to fulfill his will; It seems that he loves the elder immensely and at the same time runs away from him, but, not finding peace of mind, he again hurries to the elder.
Realizing the benefits of revealing thoughts, he wants to practice this saving work and at the same time is embarrassed and embarrassed to the point of being unable to speak out or is distracted to the point of complete oblivion of his thoughts. Such hesitation happens more or less to everyone who has embarked on the path of spiritual life under the guidance of an elder. The proposed story, let us also say, will lead readers to the transfer of Elder Ambrose to the Shamordino women's community, and then to his last days. Here's the story itself.
You did not choose Me, but I chose you (John 15:16). These Gospel words can be applied to our great elder, Father Ambrose. By the power of God’s grace, which dwelled in him so clearly for those who sincerely revered him, he attracted to himself not only those who turned to him in all sorrows and needs, having heard about his great spiritual gifts, but also called to himself those who did not think and did not consider it necessary or even possible to turn to him. I was one of the latter, a sinner.
A worldly woman who got married early, I knew nothing except my family life. Although I had heard and seen about monasteries, monks and their elders in childhood, I had the most vague and even perverse concept, which was explained to me by the same people who understood nothing, like myself. And I didn’t consider it necessary to find out anything more about them; In short, I didn’t think about it at all.
For all my life, in agreement with my husband, the Lord often visited me with various sorrows - sometimes the loss of children, sometimes illnesses.
But in all my many years of married life, I have never felt as hard and joyless as in 1884 and the subsequent years. As if some kind of hopeless cloud, sorrows came upon me from all sides and immediately upset my entire family life. The loss, as a result of a daring deception, of the material resources collected by the many years of labor of the late husband affected him so much that he acquired a disease that happens so often in our age - gradual paralysis of the brain, and at the same time angina pectoris. Both his and my suffering were inexpressible. By the way, his position in society, his service, which at first he could still continue, and his daughter, a young girl, required from me, as it seemed to me then, the support of acquaintances and social life, which was not easy for me, given my mental disorder. In addition, my husband and I also experienced considerable grief and concern over our daughter’s proposed marriage to the chosen one of our parental heart, although not without her own consent. This matter, apparently not without reason, dragged on and was postponed from year to year.
The young man’s occupations required his constant presence at his place of residence, promising him a brilliant future, which he chased like a ghost, and thereby dragged himself and us down. But what suffered most from this was my maternal, loving and self-loving heart, which forced me to recklessly procrastinate on the matter.
Still, it was God’s will. Without this, I would not have gotten to my dear father and would never have known or seen a different life, opposite to the one I had led until that time.
Once (I remember, it was at the beginning of the winter of 1884, exactly two years before I went to my father), returning from a big ball just before the morning, with an emptiness in my heart and a heaviness in my head, as always happens with such entertainment, almost without praying to God, I threw myself, tired, into bed and immediately forgot. And then I saw in a light dream: I found myself in a dense ancient forest, in the kind that I had only seen in panoramas. I walked alone along a well-trodden path, which soon led me to some building, and I found myself in front of a small holy gate with images of holy saints on the sides. The gate was open and I entered a beautiful garden. I walked straight along the sand-strewn path. There were flowers on both sides. Soon this path led me to a small wooden church. I walked up the steps to the porch. The iron, green-painted church door was locked from the inside. When I approached it, someone pulled back the iron bolt from inside and opened the door for me. I saw in front of me a tall old man, with his head naked, in a mantle and stole.
He took me firmly by the right hand, led me into the church, turned sharply to the right towards the wall, placed me in front of the icon of the Mother of God (Feodorovskaya, as I later learned), briefly and sternly said: “Pray!” Even in my dream, I remember, I was amazed by the old man’s appearance and asked him: “Who are you, father?” He answered me: “I am Elder Ambrose of Optina.” And, leaving me alone, he went out the opposite door of the church. Left alone and having prayed before the icon of the Queen of Heaven, in front of which the elder placed me, I looked to my left and saw a tomb, or shroud. (Indeed, the shroud lies here all year round, except for Holy Friday and Saturday). I walked up to her, prayed, then looked back at the entire church. It was a wonderful little church, with a pink curtain on the royal doors, all flooded as if with sunlight. And it’s strange: I suddenly found myself in the middle of him, in a white shirt, with my hair down and barefoot - and I prayed and cried like never before. After that I woke up. My entire pillow was covered in tears.
A strange, unprecedented dream made a deep impression on me and made me think. The idea of going or contacting the elder in writing did not occur to me then. But the dream I saw did not leave and was not erased from my memory. Since that time, another two years have passed of my husband’s physical suffering and my mental anguish. His patient’s trip to the capital to see famous doctors, spending his last funds on treatment, did not bring him any benefit, but only alarmed him. We finally decided not to travel anymore.
But the Lord wanted to test us to the end, for our admonition. Typhus was brought into our house through the servants, and we all became infected. My husband was the first in the family to get typhus. For three weeks his powerful body struggled with the death that threatened him, but he endured. On the 21st day the fever left him, but a complication arose. It is unknown why, his affected leg ached, in the upper part of which a tumor formed with acute pain at times, especially at night, which the patient spent without sleep, rushing from side to side in pain. Moreover, the leg became more and more swollen and red. There was no help from doctors who did not understand the disease. The patient lay and suffered unspeakably. For some reason they decided to put a bandage on the entire leg. A surgeon was invited for this. When examining the leg, this latter determined that there was an abscess inside it and that the leg was full of pus. A cut was made three inches deep and the material was released. The patient received relief, but far from recovery. A few days later the same suffering began again - the leg was swelling again. I had to make a puncture in another place.
Then again and again they pierced several times, and the wounds, releasing matter, healed. It got to the point where it was impossible to make further punctures. All wounds, despite careful care, festered; it grew like wild meat, and the doctor said that it was no longer possible to pierce it. The patient lay on his back for three months in a row. The leg was like a log. The nerves were so sensitive that the touch of the linen caused him pain. He couldn't stand the slightest noise. I was the only one who entered the room, and then in stockings on the carpet. The swelling in my leg was growing higher and higher. I couldn’t stand it and sent for the doctor again. But he, having examined the leg, took away from me all hope for the patient’s recovery. It was then that the idea of turning to the prayers of the great elder first occurred to me, which I then immediately did. And it was very convenient for me to do this. I found out that one of my relatives, the elder’s spiritual daughter, was visiting Optina. I described to her in detail the condition of my sick husband, asking her to convey everything to the priest and ask for his holy prayers.
She also wrote: “I think that he will find it strange that a worldly woman is addressing him, a monk, with this.” In this case, I asked her to tell him my dream about him. A few days after the letter was sent, while changing the position of the patient’s leg, I saw with horror that the tumor had already taken over the lower abdomen. Moreover, the patient’s suffering was so great at that moment that, not knowing how to alleviate it, for some reason I suddenly decided to make a bandage and bandage the leg near the groin. The patient, in severe pain, did not feel how I, with my weak, inept hands, lifted his leg as far as possible and wrapped the bandage several times. My hands were shaking. I was afraid to do it too hard. And, of course, the thought of a bandage, which for some reason came into my head, was only a consolation for myself. But not even an hour had passed when the patient loudly called me, saying: “Look, my legs are all wet.” Having opened my leg, I saw that the very first wound, i.e.
the first cut, made by the doctor three months earlier, which was so overgrown that there was almost no sign of it left, is open to its full former depth, and matter flows out of it like a fountain. The treatment continued continuously for three days, after which the patient began to noticeably improve in strength. Having written about this with my relative in as much detail as possible, I, to my utter shock, learned that the day and hour of the opening of the wound on my husband’s sore leg coincided with the hour when my relative read my letter to the elder. Spring has come. My husband’s health improved so much that he could go out into the air.
The Lord visited us with new sorrow and care. Our daughter's fiancé arrived unexpectedly. His arrival both delighted and somehow frightened us all. He announced that he wanted to put an end to his pursuit of profit and was almost done with settling down near us in the city after getting married. He had funds, but not enough for a family man, so he needed to find a job, which is what my husband and I took on. Then he left so that, having finished all his business, he would return to us completely in two months.
Left with concern after his departure, I wrote to the elder myself for the first time. Without describing the matter in detail, because I was afraid to reveal the secret to him, I only named the names of my daughter and her fiance, asking him to pray earnestly for the health of both. Very soon, beyond my expectations, I received from the priest the same short answer as my letter. For such and such, he wrote, I will pray. “But you also pray yourself, it will benefit both them and you. The many-sinful hieromonk Ambrose.” Immediately they told me that the elder, having come out for a general blessing, said in front of everyone: “I received a letter from the city N from Mrs. (he gave my last name). Weird girl! her daughter must have a fiancé; and they even hide it from us.” The conditional two months passed, and there was no word about my daughter’s fiancé. Perplexed and worried, I asked him in writing why he was not going and was silent, and, although not soon, I received an answer; but which one? Not only did I not recognize him in the letter, there was even a change in his handwriting. It was simply a letter from either a drunk or a madman. It destroyed all our hopes, leaving a deep wound in our hearts.
I didn’t want to answer his letter, but my friends forced me to do so. However, my answer to the one whom I already considered as my son, wondering what could have happened to him, was meaningless. My mental strength changed this time. Not knowing how to cope with myself, especially since I had to hide my grief from loved ones and strangers, I decided to go on a pilgrimage to a local saint in the hope of killing my mental anguish with physical fatigue. For me, not accustomed to walking, the path was not close. I left the house with the maid early in the morning, on the very day of remembrance of the saint. Walked about five miles. From the lack of habit of walking and from nerves shaken by grief, my strength began to fail. By evening, my head, arms and legs ached, and I could barely drag myself to the place. There was a fever throughout my whole body, and my right hand on the side of my sore church was paralyzed, which had never happened to me before.
Arriving at the monastery where the saint’s relics are kept (under cover), I fell on the first stone I came across, not having the strength to move on and very much repenting that, without considering the difficulty of the path and my weak strength, I decided on such a journey. I sent the maid to look for a place in the hotel, but she soon returned, saying that, behind a large crowd of people, there was no free corner anywhere. I had to go to the village, which is near the monastery itself, and look for shelter there. There, in a room shared with other pilgrims, there was a corner for me: I got one bare bench, and the hostess, out of pity for me, so sick and weak, gave me her pillow. Almost unconscious of the pain, I was still dressed and threw myself on the bench. But the scream of the people walking on the street and the noise of the guests coming to my hostess did not give me rest all night. Moreover, the inexpressible pain of my whole body did not give me the opportunity to lie down even more comfortably.
By morning the street scream died down, and I fell into a light sleep that carried me home. I felt like I was in my living room on the couch. But my sleep was so light that I felt pain throughout my whole body even in my sleep. Suddenly, it was as if the doors of the room opened, and an old monk approached me. Stretching out his hands, he picked me up, sat me down and carefully asked: “What hurts you?” I remember very well that I answered him: “Arms and legs, father, but most of all my head,” which I placed on his hands. The elder grabbed my sore arms and legs with his hands, and hit my head in the sore spot three times. Then I asked someone standing behind the elder: “Who is this?” And she received the answer: “Yes, this is Elder Ambrose of Optina.” Suddenly the voice of my hostess woke me up: “It’s already five o’clock, they are announcing mass; will you go, lady? I jumped to my feet. I didn’t feel any pain in my head or pain in my body - I was healthy, cheerful, somehow revived. I crossed myself and, having rinsed my face with cold water, went to church; I held mass, a prayer service with an akathist for the saint, and was about to go and refresh myself with tea, so that later I could set off on the way back.
"How? - says my maid. “Won’t we, having been here, go bathe in the saint’s holy well?” I tried to tell her that the bathhouse was four miles from the monastery, but it would be eight miles to and fro. And we need to be home by evening at all costs, since my husband, who is not entirely healthy, will begin to worry about me. But, remembering her wonderful healing by the elder that night, she went. We took a swim. And since this took quite some time, I, almost without stopping, went back into the church, kissed the saint and, saying goodbye to the hostess, set off on the way back, which I did so easily and cheerfully that I surprised everyone with my early arrival. It was then that I decided not to look at any obstacles, but to go to Optina to the elder, Father Ambrose, who in such a wondrous way called me, a sinner, to himself.
My visit to the elder. My first trip to Optina took place in early July 1886. I went with one of my relatives, who was known to the elder and came to stay with us, and with my daughter. All three of us, as I remember now, arrived in the desert quite early in the morning. Having quickly drunk tea in our room, we hurried to the monastery. I was released by my husband with permission to stay in the monastery for only one day. My head was spinning from excitement, fatigue and various impressions, and no wonder. The path leading to the monastery, the Optina forest, the holy gates of the monastery - everything was recognized by me, because everything was exactly as it seemed to me in my first dream, and deeply touched me. Through the open gates of the monastery, I saw the very church in which I was in the dream.
Entering the old man's hut, we found a lot of people there. The cramped space, the suffocating air and, in general, the whole situation, out of habit, greatly affected me. Father soon called all three of us together - a relative and me and my daughter. I was almost staggering when I walked in to him. Looking at the elder, I immediately recognized him; only the expression on his face at that time was different, as it seemed in the dream. Father looked at me sternly and so searchingly that I immediately became embarrassed and, frightened, stopped on the threshold. Mine arrived first, as if they had not noticed anything. Father told me: “It took me a long time to get ready, why did I hesitate?” I didn’t answer him, I walked up, accepted the blessing and knelt in front of him. My relative began to say something about herself, but the priest, turning to my daughter, asked: “Do you have something to tell me?” And she, greatly embarrassed, only answered: “Mother will tell you everything.” My daughter and a relative left, and I was left alone with the elder.
Also embarrassed no less than my daughter, I was confused and began to speak from the end, forgetting that the elder was seeing us for the first time and therefore should not be familiar with our circumstances. I began to talk about the unpleasant letter from my daughter’s fiancé that shocked me, about his behavior that was incomprehensible to us, and about my wounded pride. Father, without letting me finish, said: “Why did you answer?” I referred to the fact that I was forced by my own people. “Well, by the way,” he added, “your letter means nothing.” In both cases, the elder told the truth, although I had not yet had time to tell him either about my answer to the letter from my daughter’s fiancé, or about the meaninglessness of this answer. It turned out that he knew all this by his insight. “God took him away from your family,” the elder continued to say, “he is not a religious person, he is not in your family. After all, he... (here the elder named his occupation), they are all so unpious. If the marriage had taken place, he would have left her in four years.” To my objection that he was a good man, went to church and came from a good family, the priest said: “He was good, he could change.
He goes to church, but why? This is not your blood and flesh - what can you guarantee? It's all your fault. What stupidity it was to drag out the matter for so many years! (Father knew this without any prior explanation). Give up everything now, don’t write and don’t find out about him!” - the old man said sternly. “If you forget,” he added to me as a consolation, “everything will pass. If melancholy comes over you, read the Gospel. Go! Do you hear? - don’t find out about him at all!”
I left the elder. Everything turned upside down in my soul. It seemed to me that he had destroyed all my hopes. They called my daughter, but she soon left the elder, thoughtful. In response to my words to her that I was so embarrassed that I could not say anything to the priest, and she also answered me: “And I didn’t say anything about myself.” Reasoning like this among ourselves and standing with our backs to the door, we did not notice how the old man himself came out behind us. Lightly hitting us on the heads with his stick, he said: “Well, you can’t force these wise people out of here.” We both said in one voice: “Father, we both didn’t tell you anything.” “Well, come at two o’clock,” he concluded.
Coming out, I remember, from the hut and sitting down on a bench near the monastery, I cried bitterly, inconsolably. My heart was torn from shattered hope. It seemed impossible to me what the priest ordered to do. My daughter was calm and cheerful - it was as if all her sorrow had been relieved. Subsequently, she conveyed to me these elder words to her: “Don’t tell your mother, your fiancé will disappear completely.” This is what actually happened, and very soon - a terrible fate befell him. In addition, he subsequently found himself in thirty thousand debts.
Arriving at two o’clock to the elder, I prepared to tell him a little something, but the priest, despite the cell attendant’s report, did not receive me. I sat down on the threshold next to the icon of the Mother of God “It is Worthy to Eat” and decided to wait. The crowd surged again. There were nuns and lay people, some who had arrived a long time ago and some who had just arrived. They took everyone, but I still sat. Father did not come out for a general blessing and did not take me. I waited, despite being tired; mine went, rested and came again. And I still sat. My head was foggy from the unusual surroundings. But in the crowd I heard that visitors can confess to the elder without partaking of the Holy Mysteries of Christ. I asked the cell attendant to convey to the elder my desire to confess to him and through him I received the answer: “Okay.” Again I stayed to wait, but time passed, and they didn’t call me. I waited exactly eight hours straight and didn’t see my father.
At 10 o'clock in the evening we were called to the priest's cell for a general blessing. Everyone rushed there. I was one of the first to get there; the people pushed me right into the old man’s feet. As usual, he lay on his bed from fatigue. Recognizing me immediately, he bent my head to the leather pillow on which he was lying, and put his left hand entirely on me. He pressed my head to the pillow with his elbow and began to bless all the people. I was out of breath. At my slightest attempt to rise, the priest pressed me even tighter. Finally, having blessed everyone, he raised my head, crossed me and said: “Come tomorrow morning, and at 12 o’clock, after lunch, you will leave the desert.” The next day in the morning, when my daughter and I entered the elder, he asked: “Someone here wanted to confess!” I expressed my desire, and so did my daughter. Father left me; In response to my confession - “I’m a sinner in everything” - he asked: “Did you steal horses?” I answered: “No.” “Well, you see, not in everything,” the elder said, smiling. In response to my words that I don’t know how to confess at all, the priest remarked: “You come out of confession like a saint.”
Dismissing me, the elder strictly repeated what he had said yesterday and added: “You see, we had one such mother-in-law. The son-in-law will come drunk, and she hides him from her daughter so that the daughter does not see her drunken husband and does not reproach her. And another one,” the priest continued, “brought her daughter to us to ask for blessings for marriage. She herself was beautiful in her youth, but she married an ugly man; For my daughter I found a tall and handsome groom. (My daughter’s fiancé was tall and handsome.) And her daughter, when she came to me, saw a monastery and nuns, and stayed with them. Your daughter will have another groom,” the elder continued to tell me, “but again nothing will work out - the wrong one has been assigned to her.” Father spoke to me directly, without hiding his amazing foresight, either in my present or in the future. At that time I could not suddenly understand everything and take it all into myself: I understood the present vaguely, the future was learned later - the elder let me go so that he could call me again before I left.
Reflecting on everything the elder said, I decided that my daughter must have two suitors, and she would marry a third. But this thought of mine did not hide from the perspicacious old man. When I went to him for the last time with my daughter and relative to say goodbye, he, pointing to his daughter, said: “She has been assigned neither this nor that.” Letting us go and pointing to my relative, the priest said: “This is the first department,” and to my daughter, “the second.” “And you,” he added, “are third. Do you know what they do in the third department? They'll whip you."
Dismissing us, the elder blessed us with icons and gave our daughter and me a book: “The Royal Way of the Cross of the Lord.” In response to my request for his holy prayers, he said: “I will pray, don’t ask.” But I added: “If, father, everything works out according to my wishes, then I will give you my will,” - myself, however, not knowing what I was saying. Father smiled and said: “Well, we’ll still have time to talk to you.” I asked the priest for God’s sake so that no one knew what I was talking to him about, but he again, smiling, said: “Your secret is for the whole world.” We went. When I was on the ferry and accidentally looked at my watch, it was 12. Then I remembered the elder’s words yesterday: “You will leave the desert at 12 noon.”
IV. Senior care (continuation of the previous story)
Arriving home, at first, under the impression of everything I had seen and heard, I was at peace in spirit, but then the further I went, the more difficult it became for me. A terrible melancholy attacked me. I also remembered the elder’s prediction about her, and I began reading the Gospel, but due to the influx of thoughts I didn’t even understand what I was reading. Fear of something and someone attacked me. There was a struggle in my soul. It was imagined that for the sake of obedience to the elder I was voluntarily destroying my daughter’s happiness. I felt sick at heart. During the day I walked around like I was lost. At night I was plagued by terrible dreams. One of them especially confused me because it came true. Having suffered a little, I wrote to the elder, but not frankly, but superficially. There was no answer. In October, for a short time and alone, I begged my husband to go to Optina, to which he agreed, although not entirely willingly. Arriving at the monastery, I went to the elder. Suddenly I felt ashamed that I had come again so soon. Entering his cell, I said: “Father! Won't you send me away?" To which I received the answer: “We are not driving anyone away from us.” He took me alone.
And as soon as I was left alone with the elder, a kind of peace of mind, forgetfulness and laziness at the same time attacked me. All my sorrows seemed to me such a trifle that I was ashamed to bother my father with the revelation of all this. So I told him almost nothing and didn’t really explain anything that I had experienced shortly before. She received only one answer from the elder: “You loved him (her daughter’s fiancé), that’s why there was temptation.”
In the evening I went in to say goodbye to him. Father was lying down. There were almost no people and he was free. I asked him to let me go home. He said: “God bless you, go.” I asked him to teach me to pray. Father said: “Pray like this: Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on the three of us and do Your holy will in the three of us. Do you hear? “Don’t pray otherwise.” Again this was very much against my heart. I prayed and always asked the Lord for what I wanted.
Having returned home as I later heard the priest himself say, “what I came with is what I left with,” and having received neither consolation nor instruction from the elder for the embarrassment I had not expressed to him, I began to feel twice as sad. In addition, the fear of something began to attack me twice as much.
Seeing me so changed and upset, a person very close to me, who knew our household affairs, in whose arms my daughter almost grew up, began to confuse me with a request - to at least allow her to find out (contrary to the elder’s commandment “not to find out”) what happened to my daughter’s fiancé. “Well, let’s say,” she said, “you already consider the elder to be a saint and are bound by his word, but what has I got to do with it? Finally, your daughter is also close to me, and I want to know what happened to him.” The temptation was too great for me. I gave in, as if my mind had been taken away from me, and said: “Well, do as you want.” I soon felt a reproach from my conscience. After all, I could have held her back with my disagreement, and she would have listened to me. Finally, it didn’t matter who of us wrote it – she or I. Yes, and he knew this well.
The punishment for disobedience to the elder was not long in coming: the answer was received. The letter was full of despair: they wrote, asking to be saved from an inevitable terrible death, which required sending a decent amount of money. They contacted me with a request. Inexperienced, trusting, unaccustomed to encountering different people, I believed, moved by the young man’s hopeless situation. But first she sent his letter in its entirety to the elder, asking for his blessing to help someone in trouble, asking, however, what to do. Father answered me with a telegram, the meaning of which I did not understand at the time. It seemed to me that it would take a long time to ask more; I was afraid that something might happen to him. Our money - the last crumbs were in our hands. I asked my people whether to send them; mine agreed. And I sent, without writing almost anything, in the hope that they themselves would think of notifying me of the receipt of the money and sending security for it. But this was nothing. I felt deceived.
I went to the elder and, falling to him, said with repentance: “Forgive me, father, I didn’t believe you.” With what love and regret he turned to me! - “Why didn’t you believe me? However, this is useful for all of you - you will be better able to sort people out.”
I then stayed near the elder to live for a while to take a break from all the troubles. Once, I remember, I was called to see him in the morning. But as soon as I knelt in front of the priest, he got up and went to his bedroom. I was on my knees and remained near his bed, wondering where the priest had gone. The old man was gone for a long time. Finally he returned and, coming up to me, slapping me on the head, said: “You will be a nun. Just don’t rush.” I felt some kind of joy and at the same time fear from the priest’s words. I couldn't understand how this could be. My husband was alive, and I still had a daughter in my arms. “I’m afraid,” was my stupid answer to the old man. “There I was afraid of fear, where there was no fear” (Ps. 13:5), he told me from the Psalter. I continued: “Even as I began to come to you, I began to be afraid of something: the fear of praying attacks me; I’m afraid to enter a dark room - someone is scaring me; I can’t read worldly books; everywhere I come across things against religion, and I’m all confused; I promised myself not to read anything else; Before, I didn’t notice anything and read it calmly.”
“This is all a temptation for you, everything will soon pass,” the priest said in response to my words, “read the 90th psalm three times a day: You live in the help of the Most High.”
Once again, during the general blessing, the nuns in my presence began to ask the elder questions regarding their monastic life. To me, who did not understand any of this, everything seemed so petty and stupid that I thought whether it was possible and how unashamed it was to ask the elder about such trifles. Left alone with him, I expressed this to him. And the priest answered me: “Don’t judge, small things make up big things”; and added: “You’ll be just as petty and ask about everything.” I thought, “Well, I won’t get to that point.”
This time the priest delayed my departure; left me to live with him. He told me: “I will take you when I have to and I will be free, and you sit in the shack - my shack will teach you everything, both patience and humility.” Father said the truth. In this shack I had to experience a lot, suffer and learn a lot.
Leaving him this time, I said: “Father! I’ve become somewhat attached to you.” Father raised his hand and stroked my forehead lightly. I continued: “Only I’m afraid of being spoiled around you; Life is very difficult for me at home, but here it’s good.” “No,” said the priest, “you won’t be spoiled around me.”
It wasn’t long before I had to go to my father. Three months have passed too. My mother, a very old woman, suddenly died. She suffered a stroke, as a result of which she became mute. However, the priest managed to distinguish her and commune her with the Holy Mysteries of Christ. I was confused by the thought of whether she had full memory at the time. Having buried her, I immediately went to the elder. I was called to him. Before I even crossed the threshold of the cell, the priest asked with concern: “What happened to you?” I said that my mother had died, tomorrow was her ninth day, and at the same time I expressed what worried me. “She was in full memory,” the elder said affirmatively, “otherwise the priest would not have communed her.” And he reminded me of one circumstance at the death of my mother, which clearly proved that when she died, she was in memory; I lost sight of this. Then I completely calmed down, amazed at the elder’s foresight.
But the longer I stayed with the priest, the more and more temptations attacked me. Sitting in the shack all day, I began to feel embarrassed by everything I heard around me. Various stupid, uninvited thoughts began to besiege me. It seemed to me shameful and impossible to express them to the elder, but this made it more and more difficult for me and everything became a temptation to me. I was tormented and silent. And the perspicacious priest watched me and after a while, during a general blessing, he suddenly said to me: “Leave your bad thoughts, otherwise your head will hurt.” He struck me so much with this that I immediately asked to see him and asked: “Why, father, do you know that I have bad thoughts?” He smiled tenderly and said: “God knows even more.” My father gave me so much, but I, stupid, did not understand and did not believe him and did not know what to do.
On the same visit, the priest denounced me for a general blessing, and how? He came out, as usual, to our shack and sat down on the sofa. There weren't very many of us. Kneeling closest to him was an elderly and respected nun, the elder’s longtime spiritual daughter. Father took her head in his lap and, hitting her on the head with his hand, began to say, without looking at anyone: “Mother E.! It’s difficult for you to become a saint: you don’t believe in anything, you don’t see anything and you don’t understand anything, no matter what you do.” “Father,” she said in surprise and grief, “the Lord is with you!” What are you saying? When did I not believe you?” But the priest, not listening to her, continued, turning to her, to denounce me. Here he expressed everything that was hidden in my soul. I stood there as if condemned, blushing and not knowing where to go. The nun tried to make excuses. Afterwards I heard her say: “What a shame the priest told me! What he made me endure! And this is because he needed to denounce someone in the crowd, and he turned it all on me.”
At the same time, the priest immediately said: “Look, grab tightly and hold on to my mantle, so that it doesn’t happen: once one grabbed the old man’s mantle, he carried her across the abyss. But when she saw her daughter grabbing onto it, she began to tear it away, and both broke off and flew into the abyss.” This was also said to me as a warning.
After all this, a strong desire came to me to express everything to the elder, but I did not know how to take it up. I’ll ask him, but I’ll forget one thing or another. Possessing a generally good memory, I wondered why I would forget everything at the old man’s and would not be able to tell him. I once met in Optina with one of my acquaintances, a very talkative person, whose advice I would never follow, considering myself, as it seemed to me then, smarter than her. Having talked with her one day, I told her that I always forget to tell the elder everything I need. To which I heard the following answer from her: “Yes, this happens to everyone; you have to write down what to say, the enemy is stealing.” I didn't believe her. But when, on the same day, I came to the elder for a general blessing, he spotted me in the crowd and, calling me, seriously said: “Think about who the Apostle Peter was, and he listened to the rooster’s crowing and repented; and whoever was the rooster was the bird.” I clearly understood what the elder wanted to tell me by this, i.e.
that the Apostle Peter, having heard the rooster crowing, which reminded him of the sin of renunciation, repented, but I did not want to listen to the person who told me the truth, I was proud against her, not wanting to follow her advice. Dismissing the people, the elder hit me on the head with his stick and said: “And you, fool, write it down.” Since then, I began to write down little by little and clumsily. But then my dear father taught me with patience and love how to write down.
Soon the idea came to me to tell the elder my whole life and sins from the age of seven at once. Having come to him to confess, I expressed this spiritual need to him and said with complete faith: “You, father, help me yourself; I have forgotten a lot and cannot say everything.” A terrible and until then incomprehensible and unknown to me confession began. Everything forgotten, unsaid and incomprehensible was told to me by the elder himself. My whole life, my soul was open to him, like an open book. He knew everything better than I did. Depending on his guilt and circumstances, he either justified or accused me. Here he even told me one sin, to which, it seemed to me, I was not involved. Feeling upset, I told him: “Father! In this case, I didn’t even think anything bad; Did I come to you deceiving you!” “No,” the priest told me meekly, “not with deception. Don’t think about it, I said so, forget it.” Looking at the old man at the same time, I saw the priest’s eyes. They were open to their full size, full of extraordinary fire and looked straight into my heart.
I left, but the thought of the sin the elder told me did not give me peace. The next day I asked him again and said: “Father, you confused me yesterday, I don’t know anything about myself.” “I didn’t embarrass you,” the elder answered me, “but I wanted...” and, without finishing, he repeated: “Forget.” After that, I began to strictly monitor my every action and thought. And soon, blinded until then, the eyes of my soul were opened, and I saw that the sin I was really unaware of, which the elder reminded me of, was what I confessed to before him.
I remember an even greater temptation happened to me. I was preparing to receive the Holy Mysteries of Christ. She confessed and stayed, as was her custom, to listen to the vigil in the elder’s shack. It was the eve of some holiday. There were a lot of people on our women's side. Listening to the service absent-mindedly and indulging in various thoughts about everything I had seen and heard, I suddenly lost everything, and everything turned upside down in my head, that for a minute I forgot everything that my father had given me, and a terrible doubt about the elder’s insight, no longer based on anything, crept into my soul for a minute. Someone more experienced in spiritual life than me would have understood and driven away the uninvited thought, but I was frightened and stood there confused. My thoughts became more and more confused. The reading of kathismas began. Suddenly, without prior notification to the cell attendant, an old man appeared on the threshold, wearing a white robe, with a short mantle draped over his shoulders, as he was praying. And now he went out differently from what he always did - he first prayed to the icon “It is Worthy to Eat”, or “The Merciful” and went to bless. No.
He stopped on the threshold, looking somewhere above our heads towards the stove, and stood there for a minute. His eyes were full of extraordinary fire and menacing. We all shuddered as every single one of us noticed this. Then the priest came down from his steps and began to calmly bless everyone left and right. Having reached me, he suddenly sat down on the chair behind which I was standing. When in this way I found myself next to the elder and knelt before him, all temptation immediately flew away from me; deep remorse for my unbidden thought came over me. Father raised his wand and, tapping it firmly on the floor, said: “I’ll drive away this black jackdaw,” and stood up. Then I said: Father! Take me for a minute, I’m getting ready for tomorrow.” But the elder crossed me with a large cross and gently said: “Well, no, I can’t; You’ll come tomorrow.”
The next morning, having received the Holy Mysteries of Christ, I went to the priest with the firm intention of telling all the thoughts that embarrassed me against him, despite the fact that after everything he had given me, I was ashamed in front of him and I did not know how to start speaking. The elder accepted me immediately. He was lying on his bed. His face was so bright and cheerful. I came up and, kneeling down, said: “Forgive me, father.” Father crossed me and so soon cheerfully said to me: “God will forgive you.” I felt light in my soul. Father didn’t ask me what I was guilty of and didn’t let me say anything. But, having caressed me, he pulled the bell tightly, and ordered the cell attendant who came in to call some nuns who had arrived from afar. He left me standing next to him and, placing his head on my head, spoke to them, and then released us all. I came out joyful, only wondering why I got off so easily. Until then, Father always asked what I felt guilty about. And when you used to say: “What should I tell you?
You know everything yourself,” he will answer: “I know, but you speak.” And then the priest directly forgave me, and my conscience calmed down.
Three days passed after that, and I already forgot everything. Father went out during the day for a general blessing and sat on the sofa in the second room. Not expecting him to sit down, I stayed back. Behind the crowd of people, she didn’t get close to the elder, she stood at the doorpost and looked at him. In the crowd, however, he found me with his eyes and, smiling, began to tell: “I had an archpriest I knew. One day his spiritual son came to him to confess and after confession he sinned - he was tempted and stole the archpriest’s expensive hat with a beaver. Having come home, I thought: how am I going to join? He went again to his spiritual father and asked for forgiveness, but did not say what he had sinned. The archpriest also did not ask and absolved him of his sin. When he left, only then did the archpriest realize that he had been robbed and his hat was missing.” At the same time, the priest narrowed his eyes and looked intently at me. I now understood what was going on, asked to see him and told him everything sincerely. He laughed at this and forgave me everything again.
When it happened that we weren’t with the priest for a long time, and then my daughter and I would come, he always greeted us with the words: “Well, wise people have come to us, now don’t open your mouth, they’ll catch you quickly.” He will also say, it used to be: “There is only one roost, but she has more than one message.” It was when there was some change in the spiritual mood that the priest would notice now. When he doesn’t take it for a long time and you feel sad, he will say: “For me to accept, you need to be more reverent.” And now you will see that at that time you were distracted in your mind. He liked us to be in church during church services, and used to say: “I’m more likely to take the devout, but I respect the patient.”
Taking me in his arms and saying: “You won’t be spoiled in front of me,” the priest constantly watched me, not a single thought, not a single movement of my soul passed without attention. Once, too, I stayed with him for a long time. I came to him one afternoon quite early. Father still rested after lunch. There was almost no one in the shack. I sat down in the first room. On the sofa sat S., the old abbess who had come from afar, and two nuns from different monasteries. A conversation began between them regarding their monastic life. Various cases were told. I, of course, did not take part in it and, not understanding anything about monastic life, I was only seduced by their stories. Having condemned them for this in my soul, I decided to better leave sin in another room, where the icon of the Mother of God “It is Worthy to Eat” or “Merciful” is located. I have been sitting in this room since my arrival. Having retired here, I still thought: “There is no point in sitting in the other rooms - you will always run into conversations that will upset you.” Suddenly the door opened, and the priest appeared on the threshold.
Having sternly looked at me with his eyes, when I bowed to his feet, he said: “Why are you here? Your place is there,” and pointed to the next room. “They are sitting here only with my blessing, and I did not bless you.” I was scared and embarrassed. It was said strictly and in front of everyone. I had to retire to the next room, where I have been sitting since then. And I had to sit there for a long time. Father did not take me and, as he passed, did not pay any attention to me. From then on, he rarely even blessed; and no matter how I asked to see him, they didn’t call me. I don’t remember exactly how long this went on; but I know for sure that I had to endure enough. Moreover, sitting here was much more crowded and stuffy than in the first room. And also, sitting here almost whole days and trying to somehow get to the elder, I became, as they say, an eyesore for everyone, I seemed like a nuisance to everyone. Seeing my tired, sad face, they began to laugh at me. They condemned me to my face, unceremoniously noting that before the elder often took me, but now he left me; reinterpreted it in their own way.
One even said so directly that she could see from my face that I had a grave sin in my soul, unexpressed to the elder. I kept strong and endured, although I often secretly cried bitterly. It wouldn’t have been so hard for me to bear this if, as it seemed to me, there had not been a complete abandonment of me by the elder. Father seemed not to see or notice me. Only at this time, when this person offended me so much with her assumption about my grave sin, I asked to see the priest, he called me. I told him about the insult, but did not want to name the person who said it. I think, let me endure it alone, but there is no need for her to get it from my father for me. It was so hard for him to be punished. But the priest answered me directly: “Yes, this is the one who is visiting M.K., but she is stupid, and you didn’t understand it. Go! Again my dear father let me go coldly. I kept waiting for this to pass. The melancholy tore me more and more, and I finally decided to leave completely and never return here again.
I think to myself: you live longer, you become more attached to your priest, you fall behind your worldly life; and this life is so hard, it is so difficult for me; I don't understand anything; Apparently, I am incapable and unsuited for spiritual life, which is why my father abandoned me. But on the other hand, my attachment to the old man was already so great that I was desperately trying to figure out how I could leave without the priest guessing that I was saying goodbye to him forever, so as to hold myself together so as not to cry.
I came up with the idea of telling the priest through the cell attendant that they were calling me home and I asked him to come in and say goodbye to him. I thought to myself: I’ll go in for a minute, accept the blessing for the last time and never come back. It is no longer possible to live like this. My plan was mature, and my decision was firm. But my intention was not hidden from the perspicacious old man. Having come out to us for a general blessing, he again passed by me, without even looking at my side, but, returning back, he hastily suddenly snatched me from the crowd, put his wand in my hand and said: “Well, you go forward,” and he himself led me, put me in front of the icon “It is worthy to eat” and affectionately said: “Wait a little, I need you, I’ll call you now.”
After giving me a minute to recover, the elder called me and, not yet announcing my departure, said: “Are you going home? I ask you, take one orphan with you. She's a bride. She needs to make a dowry. She doesn't know anyone to turn to. Take it upon yourself, please. Here's the money. Order everything she needs and see that everything is sewn. Then you’ll come and say what you did.” I didn’t tell the priest anything about the grief I experienced, since I had not yet been so frank with him. And besides, it all went away for me right now. There was nothing the elder could do to console me so much as to entrust me with a task of his own—and such a sacred one. This order, of course, was fulfilled by me.
The elder did not allow me to be embarrassed for a long time and away from him in absentia, resolving my perplexities. I had to experience this several times. Once, I remember, I was very sad. I had a lot of grief and bewilderment about what to do in a difficult situation. I wrote to the elder many times, but he left me without an answer. And then the thought began to confuse me that the elder, without reading my letters, was throwing them away. So it’s not worth writing, I told myself. But I, a sinner, forgot at that moment how the elder once sorted out his mail in front of me: he picked up the letters and, without opening them, threw some on the floor next to him and said: “These are the ones that require an immediate response”; and put others in his bag, saying: “You can wait to answer these.” The elder knew all this without even reading the letters. But to the point. As soon as I became embarrassed at the elder, I soon had to repent of it. I receive a letter from my relative in Optina. She writes to me: “I haven’t been to my father for so long. So much has accumulated in my soul. And finally I got there. Father called me to his place. Entering him and kneeling down, I accepted his blessing.
But just as I wanted to talk about myself, he took out some very long letter from under the pillow on which he was lying, and began to read it, completely delving into it, forgetting about me. After reading it from board to board, he told me: “I received a letter from (my name was mentioned here), I need to read what he writes.” Although, my relative continues, I really needed to deal with the priest myself; but I was so pleased to see the elder’s love and attention to you that I couldn’t stand it and sat down to write this to you.” So I received, although through a stranger, an answer to my disbelief that the elder was reading my letters, and I stopped being offended by him.
I encountered another difficulty in one more circumstance. In my opinion, it was necessary to do it this way, but the elder blessed me differently. My thoughts told me not to obey. But then I see an old man in a dream. It’s as if I’m in Optina, in his reception shack; I'm on my knees in front of him. He blesses me and says: “I will caress you and punish you for disobedience.” I was scared of sleep. When I later came to my father, I told him this dream. And he says to me, laughing: “You still don’t listen.” I answered: “No, I will obey.” “Well,” said the priest, “if you obey, it will be good for you.” So in a dream the priest kept me from disobedience.
Once again, one young girl came to me on behalf of the elder, whom he supposedly blessed to live with me before finding a place. When I asked if she had brought written proof from the elder, she said: “The elder told a nun you know to write me your address for verification, but for some reason she explained it only in words.” At the same time, the girl said that she went to the elder secretly from her relatives from the capital. Seeing her so young, with her hair cut in a brace, without any luggage except a small suitcase in her hands, I strongly doubted whether the priest had sent her to me (those were the times of the nihilists), because I was quite sure that the elder, without telling me first, had not sent anyone to me. Therefore, without completely refusing her, I only asked her to wait a few days until I could arrange for her to stay with me. She herself thought of finding time to ask the elder about her in writing. The young girl stayed with an old woman for a short time. But not even a day has passed before she comes to me early in the morning, saying that the old woman doesn’t want to keep her.
There was some kind of big holiday at that time, and I was going to go to church, so I didn’t go to her myself, but told her through the servants to refuse that I was not at home. She left. But not even ten minutes had passed when I received a letter from the post office from one of my relatives, a nun. She writes: “I was in Optina the other day. In my presence, the priest sent a young girl to you. Having taken care of her, he said oh: take the address from V.B. and go to N. to so-and-so (my name). She will guide you on the right path, i.e. will get you a place.” Again a quick answer from my dear father to my doubts. Instead of church, I immediately flew after the young girl whom I had offended on such a great holiday by not accepting her into my house, and immediately moved her to my place. And then, seeing in front of me, so to speak, only an adult child, I was at a loss as to what place the elder blessed her to look for; Therefore, as soon as things allowed me, I took her with me and took her to the elder. Immediately upon arrival, we were called together by the elder. The abbess of the Shamorda community was also with him.
The elder, having blessed us, asked the young girl where she was thinking of settling and how. And she answered: “Take me, father, to your monastery, I ask you.” “What do you think you’ll do there?” – the priest asked again. “Anything they force you to do,” she answered. - “Are you going to dig the soil in the garden? Should I chop the cabbage? “I’ll do whatever they force me to do,” she said. The elder turned to the mother abbess and said: “Well, the steeper the better. Here’s your mother,” he told the girl, “and here’s your daughter,” he then told the boss. I stood there thunderstruck. I never expected such an outcome for her and was afraid of the monastery. Seeing me so embarrassed, the priest slapped me on the cheek; and since I had already begun to become attached to the girl, he said: “Well, let her stay with you for a few days, and you stay with me.” I, left alone with the elder, only asked him for one thing, that at least the girl should be in the abbot’s corps, without knowing why I wanted this. And the elder fulfilled my request. Thus, I found a place for the girl, although I had nothing to do with it personally.
Having benefited me so much, out of his mercy, the elder punished me for my sins, and most importantly, for not expressing them.
Temptations never left me. Once I had to sin terribly with my thoughts against the elder. It happened like this: the priest called me not alone, but with another friend. I don't remember what was said here. But the elder looked at me strangely, shuddering. This was just before I was embarrassed by some thought against him. I know that it suddenly hit me 150. Frightened by this temptation, I, leaving the priest, bowed at his feet and, mentally repenting, kissed them, but it seemed impossible to express my thoughts to him. Not even a day had passed before I began to suffer from this; and no matter how hard I drove the thoughts away from myself, I couldn’t drive away the reproach of my conscience. I was tormented, but didn’t want to turn to the elder. Meanwhile, the time for my departure was approaching. Twice during the general blessing the priest looked at me and quietly said to me: “Fool! Tell me, what do you have there?” But someone definitely sewed my mouth shut. I was tormented and silent. When leaving, I said to myself: “When I come home, I’ll write to my father, it will be better and more convenient,” and, having calmed myself down, I left.
Arriving home, I wrote to my father in detail about everything that had happened to me and asked him for forgiveness. Two weeks passed after that, my conscience did not calm down at all, and my soul became more and more painful and restless. To my consolation, quite unexpectedly I had the opportunity to visit the elder. I was going on a pilgrimage with my family. And since we were only about fifty miles from Optina, I, under various pretexts, persuaded my relatives to go to the elder. I think to myself: “Father, of course, has already received my letter, read it and knows everything. I don't need to explain anything to him anymore. I’ll ask for forgiveness, that’s all.”
One of my relatives, who was traveling with me, unfortunately, had never been to the elder and did not believe him, and on the road she bet with another that she would not ask the elder anything, but would only look at him out of curiosity. Arriving in Optina, we went to see the priest. It was evening. The elder did not invite us to his cell, but went out himself for a general blessing. Looking at me, he said: “If you sleep in the midst of the boundary, the wing of the dove is covered with silver, and its space is in the glitter of gold (Ps. 67:14). I stood in front of the elder, frightened, in great embarrassment. Not understanding the meaning of the words of the psalm, I became even more confused. I interpreted them to myself like this: I seem to everyone to be good, as if plated with silver, but my inner person is terrible. That's why I was completely desperate. I barely waited until morning, hoping to be left alone with the elder, but that was not the case. When we came to the elder, we all sat and waited, but the priest did not take us. The day was Saturday. The elder himself was preparing to receive the Holy Mysteries of Christ, and he had to confess others who were preparing for service.
The late Archimandrite Isaac and some other hieromonks were waiting for confession here.
At the second hour, the elder called us all together and in response to our request to take one at a time, he said: “I can’t.” Even the one who argued that she would not ask the elder about anything cried bitterly in front of him and asked to accept her alone, but the priest refused to all of us due to lack of time. It was impossible for us to stay a little longer in Optina. The horses had already been hired back. Yes, and we all left for Optina on the sly from our husbands - they didn’t know it; and therefore it was necessary to leave. I decided to ask the priest in front of everyone about my letter, whether he received it and whether he read it. Father answered me: “No, I haven’t read it.” But the elder told me this so much that I again asked, for the sake of the Lord, to take me alone, even for a minute. Father looked deeply at me and at first seemed to hesitate, but then, waving his hand, he said: “No, I won’t take it.” I had to go home without talking to the priest. There could be no greater punishment for me. For the first time upon my arrival, the elder did not receive me alone.
We drove off into the night. Luckily for me, my dear everyone was asleep, and it was dark, and so I cried to my heart’s content. When I arrived home, I also wrote to my father. And a week later, under the pretext of September 7, 151, a skete holiday, she came to him again, surprising my Optina acquaintances with her speedy arrival. But even here I didn’t immediately tell my father the whole truth.
First, I asked him to prepare for communion of the Holy Mysteries, then, according to custom, I confessed, but again I kept silent, postponing it until the evening. Father himself didn’t tell me anything. But in the evening, on the eve of communion, after Vespers, I went to him with a full decision to express everything. Entering the hut, I met Father Joseph and asked him to take me to the elder. Father Joseph led me straight to him. Never has the elder accepted me as he did this time. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, and when I entered, he extended his arms to me and received me so tenderly, affectionately, fatherly. When I rushed to him, he asked me with concern: “What’s wrong with you?” I said that I would not join without expressing everything that happened to me. In response to my words, the priest said: “After all, I told you, you fool, several times - tell me what you have there. Why didn’t you listen and remain silent? After all, you will be tortured if you don’t tell me everything.” Then he explained to me how to sort through thoughts and not pay attention to some of them.
About the words spoken to me from the Psalter and which so confused me, the priest first asked me how I understood them, and then he himself, probably wanting to console me, interpreted them to me in a peculiar way. Taking me quietly by the shoulders, he said: “They mean that when you and I grow wings, then our neck will be golden, like a dove’s.” So, having consoled me, the priest let me go. With what joy I received the Holy Mysteries the next day!
When releasing me from Optina this time, the priest gave me his little white robe (robe). I just ordered my cell attendant to give it to me from black linen, the dirtiest and most torn. He put it on me and, looking at the torn sleeves, said laughing: “Well, you can hem them somehow.” I still keep it the way I received it from the elder’s hands, like a shrine.
There was one more temptation among the temptations that beset me. An irresistible dream began to attack me in the hut. I’ll come to my father, sit and sleep. I'll fall asleep and forget what to tell him. In general, I have never been sleepy by nature. Having come with my daughter to the elder for a short time, I missed the first time. When he called me, I didn’t speak to him properly, both from fatigue and from temptation—I dozed off next to him. And the note was in my pocket, but it was not taken out or read. My dear father called me on the first day, but did not call me on the next, the last day of my stay in Optina. But my daughter waited and was released completely. By evening I began to worry: what if the elder did not call me; and began to ask him. At ten o'clock in the evening, already before the vacation of all the people, the priest called me, but not alone, but with his daughter. When I knelt before him, he turned to me and said: “Sleep and rest, good night.” I was scared: “My dear father! Leave me alone for a minute - I didn’t tell you anything.” Father left. In his cell there was a burning lamp and a small wax candle on the table.
It was dark and I had no time to read from the note. I said that I remembered, and then in a hurry, and then added: “Father! What else can I tell you? What to repent of? I forgot." The elder reproached me for this. But suddenly he got up from the bed on which he was lying. Having taken two steps, he found himself in the middle of his cell. I involuntarily turned on my knees after him. The elder straightened up to his full height, raised his head and raised his hands up, as if in a prayerful position. At this time I imagined that his feet separated from the floor. I looked at his illuminated head and face. I remember that it was as if there was no ceiling in the cell - it parted, and the old man’s head seemed to go up. This was clear to me. A minute later, the priest leaned over me, amazed at what I saw, and, crossing me, said the following words: “Remember - this is what repentance can lead to. Go!” I left him staggering and cried bitterly all night about my foolishness and negligence. Early in the morning, post horses were given to us, and we left. While the elder was alive, I did not dare tell this to anyone.
He once and for all forbade me to talk about such cases, saying with a threat: “Otherwise you will lose my help and grace.” Now, after the death of the elder, I write down 152 to glorify his name.
Once again, I remember, the priest called all of us, how many there were, to his cell for a general blessing. There were a lot of people. It was the afternoon before the lunch break. Father sat upright on the bed, his legs hanging down. I got to his side and stood behind the headboard, so that I could see the priest’s face from the side. Father spoke to someone in the crowd and looked directly at someone. Suddenly I see: from his eyes, fixed on someone, two rays, as if from the sun, came out. I froze in place. And it was like this all the time while the elder was looking at someone. I didn’t even dare to tell him what I had seen then, I remained silent. Yes! He knew exactly who he gave what to.
V. Miracles and sayings of Elder Ambrose
The priest had a great gift of healing. Since childhood, I suffered from terrible headaches that drove me to extreme exhaustion. For me they initially began with various painful phenomena; then the excruciating pain was concentrated in some church and sometimes lasted for me up to three days. Once I came to the elder, barely alive from the pain in my church, I quietly whispered to him during the general blessing that my church was very painful. He hit me hard on it, and the pain instantly went away.
Another spring there were many people with mumps. I came to the elder to prepare. It was Lent. One lady came with me from Przemysl, and she fell ill with the mumps; despite this, she still went to the elder. Whether from her or on its own, I also got sick. The tumor covered the entire lower part of the face and throat. Excruciating pain, fever and chills accompanied her. I came to the elder and showed him my swollen jaw. Father bent my head into his lap and blessed the people with his right hand, and with his left hand he firmly pressed my tumor. When I got up from my knees, my illness was completely gone, there was no pain, no swelling.
There was also a miraculous incident with me. People pushed me hard in the chest, in a place that had been sore for a long time, which the doctors told me to protect in every possible way from injury, since I had barely gotten rid of the cancer that had started in that place. My chest became very painful from the bruise, it began to swell and pierce. I came to the elder and, without pointing to the sore spot, I simply told him what happened to me. Father, knowing himself that and where it hurts, crossed my sore chest and said: “Why didn’t you hold your hands forward?” It was true. I was wearing a scarf. To prevent him from falling, I bent my arms back, and they pushed me. Soon my illness passed.
I also remember my father’s remarkable insight. For some reason the elder seemed weak to me, and that day I was leaving home and worried; and when he approached the door, I slowly crossed him from behind. Suddenly the priest turned to face me and looked at me intently. And I had already lowered my hand and stood there, pretending as if I had done nothing.
On my subsequent visit there were a lot of people, and I was afraid for the elder’s weakness, so I began to mentally pray like this: “Lord Jesus Christ, save my elder hieroschemamonk Ambrose and with his holy prayers have mercy on me, a sinner.” I don’t know how much time passed in my prayer. But once I ran to the elder for a blessing late in the evening. Almost all the people had already left. The priest went out into the shack for a general blessing and sat down on the sofa. I was next to him and mentally repeated my prayer. He, giving me his legs, said: “Change my shoes.” And when I bent down and put socks on his feet, he said in my ear, answering my thought: there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim. 2:5).
I remember many different cases, which did not concern me 153, proving the elder’s foresight. I will write down the most outstanding ones.
So, in my presence, with a blow of his wand, he healed a young Kashira nun who was suffering from terrible cramps in her legs and whole body.
One visiting lady was pushed by people in front of me. She couldn't stay on her feet; fell, hit the closet, and was badly broken. When they brought her to the elder, he began to hit her very hard on the back with his stick. She later said that she was even offended by the elder for this. But, having left the priest, she no longer felt any pain from the bruise, and only then did she understand that the elder had healed her.
A widower gentleman with two young daughters came to the elder from afar. The older one was about 20 years old, and the younger one was 17. Both were very beautiful girls. The elder called them together several times, but he paid all his attention to the elder one and only gave her advice; he only blessed the smaller one. When they said goodbye to the elder before leaving, he presented icons and books to the father and eldest daughter, but gave nothing to the younger one. When my father asked about her, the priest said: “She doesn’t need anything.” Parting with the elder, the girl could not stand it and said to him with grief: “Father! Why did you give my sister a gift for blessing and memory of you, but didn’t give me anything?” “You don’t need anything,” said the elder, “except to give you this.” And the priest on his table, which stood next to his crib, found some long, narrow and empty box (like a coffin) and gave it to her. So she went with this empty box. On the way from Optina to Kaluga she caught a cold and fell ill. And having arrived in Kaluga and staying at the Kulova hotel, she died three days later.
Once again I was preparing for communion with Petrovki in Optina. There were a lot of visiting people. Two ladies arrived from Kursk with me. One was a landowner, and the other was a city dweller. This latter was widowed shortly before her arrival. After her husband, she was left with six children and some big business on her hands, about which she came to consult with the elder. For some reason, the priest ordered the landowner to stay and live in Optina, and after repeatedly studying with her alone, he sent the widow home, telling her that she should first go to the Tikhonova hermitage to pray to the saint of God, the Monk Tikhon. The landowner, no matter how she asked to go home and to the Monk Tikhon, was not allowed by the priest. At that time, I had a severe toothache and was lying on the sofa in the priest’s hut, and therefore I witnessed the elder’s entire conversation with them. The young widow left, but the landowner remained, although she was very dissatisfied with the old man for leaving her.
Two days passed, and I began to notice that as soon as the elder came to us for a blessing, she would begin to twitch and some vague sounds would come out from within her. When the priest goes home, she becomes calm. She didn’t ask to see the priest, but when he calls her through the cell attendant, she goes. Once she leaves him and holds in her hands a bottle of holy oil from the relics of the holy great martyr healer Panteleimon, from the priest’s cell. Probably the elder himself gave it to her, but she immediately began to give it to me, pointing out that I was sick and she didn’t need it. Finally she couldn't bear it anymore. Two days later, without the elder’s blessing, she hired horses and a carriage and, with some two fellow travelers, got ready to leave for Tikhonova Hermitage, and from there, probably home. Getting into the tarantass, she and one fellow passenger, a gentleman, quarreled over the place where she wanted to sit, and in this case she was so insistent that he, in order to stop further dispute, moved to the front. Meanwhile, this was happiness for him.
As soon as they crossed the Zhizdra River on the Optina ferry and stood on the stage, in a way inexplicable to any of us, the huge heavy chain on which the ferry log was fastened broke, and the rising log hit the lady who was passing in the tarantass right on the head so hard that she, all stained with blood and without any signs of life, was brought back to the hotel. Her head was broken. And although she turned out to be alive, she had no memory. Her life was in danger. Now they ran to tell the elder about what had happened. He sent his robe, which he ordered to cover her with. She soon came to her senses. Father resolved our bewilderment as to why the log could have broken, saying: “There are already many of them (i.e., demons) that have settled on it.” We ourselves, no matter how many people there were in the monastery, and the monks went to look at the ferry and the thick, broken chain. So the lady, who voluntarily did not want to obey the elder to stay and live next to him, had to do this involuntarily. At this point I left the desert and I don’t know how long she lived in it.
A few months later I had to talk with one Kursk archimandrite, whose father was a priest on the estate of the mentioned landowner. He told me that at one time she was a terrible serf-wife and there were many difficult things to do in their family, which is why she became like a demon. Her children abandoned her. So she went to the elder for advice.
I also remember that two sisters came to the priest, one married, and the other a young girl. The elder came out for a general blessing. She is married and asks him if he will bless her to marry her sister to another province, one and a half hundred miles away from them - the groom is a very good man. The priest looked at the bride and asked: “Does your head hurt?” She replied: “Yes.” “Does your left side hurt?” – the old man asked again. She said: “It hurts a lot.” Then, turning to his married sister, he said: “How can I give in marriage? Wait a year." Father left, and I heard my sister say to her: “Does your side hurt? You never told me about this." She quietly answered: “I was hiding it.”
I visited the elder once in the spring, during the flood. When I was there, some widow of a timber merchant came to see him, and even after her husband’s death she continued to engage in his trade. The water carried away a thousand rubles worth of forest material from the shore to an unknown destination. She came to ask the elder what to do. Father, in front of me, at a general blessing, told her affirmatively: “Go to such and such a place - there you will find your forest; you will return it for 500 rubles, and half is gone.” She bowed to the priest’s feet and hurried away.
15 versts from the Optina monastery in the forest lived a forest watchman with his wife and two small children. One summer, in the afternoon, a watchman bursts into my hut, screaming and in tears. Her youngest son disappeared. It happened like this: the wife went to the city on a horse for something, and the forester went to the forest. The children were left alone. The eldest girl was five years old, and the boy child was about a year old. He could only walk, but could not speak yet. Seeing his mother driving away, the child chased after her screaming. The mother, hoping that the older girl would stop him, drove off without looking back. For a long time she imagined her son screaming. Arriving from the city late in the evening, the unfortunate mother and father, who had returned from the forest, did not find their little son at home. There was only one girl in the house. All night they walked with a lantern along all the forest paths, as well as in the morning, but their searches were in vain. Exhausted and deciding that the child had been eaten by wolves, both of them came to the old man a day later. It was a pity to even look at the mother.
They were immediately received by the elder, who immediately sent them both to serve a prayer service before the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, and then go on a search again. A prayer service was served, but after that their search was no longer in vain. About four versts from their lodge they found their boy healthy and cheerful. He was sitting under a bush, and, despite the fact that more than a day had passed since his disappearance, it was not noticeable that he was hungry or crying, but as if he was sleeping. All this was with me, and I saw and heard it all myself.
And one more incident struck me terribly. In the summer, on warm days, with a large crowd of people, the elder used to go outside to bless the people. For this purpose, a fairly large area was fenced off with poles from the hut to the well (dug at the direction and blessing of the elder, to quench the thirst of visitors from the common people). On one side of this fence a priest and his cell attendants could pass, and on the other there were people standing. The priest blessed everyone in a row or answered questions from visitors. Not far from the well stood a man with a small boy of about four or five years old. When the elder approached them, the peasant lifted the child from the ground so that he and the child could receive a blessing from him. But at this time, a boy’s soul-rending scream was heard. In terrible convulsions I had never seen before, he bent over in his father’s arms. His body kept bending in an arc. Despite the fact that his father was a big, healthy man, he did not have the strength to bring the child to the elder for a blessing.
Father stopped, looked sternly at his father and said: “Did you take someone else’s?” “I took it; I sinned, father,” was the answer. “Here’s your punishment,” said the priest. With these words, the elder left him, but the unfortunate man could neither approach nor bring his son under the blessing.
And the priest was also merciful to repentant sinners. Once a person came to him, who had the sin of youth in her soul. But she was very afraid to appear in front of the holy elder, and she did not dare to say anything to him and did not even think about it, but only wanted to be worthy of looking at him and receiving a blessing from him. When they called her to the priest’s cell, he looked at her and greeted her affectionately with the following words: “Sidor and Karp live in Kolomna, but sin and misfortune never happen to anyone.” She burst into bitter tears, threw herself at the elder’s feet and confessed her sin.
Quite the opposite happened with another person who came with me to the elder with the same sin, but not with the goal of repenting of it, but to ask how she could settle down. Father didn't call her. At first she waited and so boldly asked the elder; then she became more and more humble, the priest did not accept everything, despite the request of not only the cell attendants, but also all of us. She was my friend, and no matter how much I asked the elder to help her, he, without refusing, but, on the contrary, listening to me, still did not call. It got to the point where she cried freely, and I was exhausted because of her. It was grief that the elder did not call, and there was also grief that he did not call her in front of everyone. So her dear father brought her to the consciousness of her sin and made her feel ashamed of it. Then he took her to sincere repentance and helped her with advice. This is how the holy elder helped sick souls.
Of the priests’ words at the general blessings, much remains in my memory, but much has been forgotten. So, he often said:
“Speaking well is scattering silver, but prudent silence is gold.”
“It is better to foresee and remain silent than to speak and then repent.”
“It’s like I’m casting a fishing rod with many ends and hooks. Each of them contains loot. Just know how to take.”
“Why is a person bad? Because he forgets that God is above him.”
“Whoever thinks of himself that he has something will lose.”
“People with the Pharisaic truth will not inherit the Kingdom of God. Our truth in this case turns out to be a lie.” To a question from the crowd listening: what does this mean, father? - the elder said: “These are those who pray for show and give alms.” The old man’s face at that time was extremely serious.
That it is incomparably easier to study a task than to carry it out, he said: “Theory is a court lady, and practice is like a bear in the forest.”
“It is very difficult to teach a person spiritual life. “It’s the same,” the elder continued in a joking tone, “like teaching a man to say the word “secretary.” He will keep saying “healer.” You tell him: here’s a ruble, just say “secretary,” and he pronounces in his own way: “slekatar.” Well, repeat after me: behold. And he says: se-kre-kre-tar-tar. Well, now say one thing separately: secretary. He says leisurely: “secretary.”
Then someone from the crowd said: “Father! You often speak in parables. You don’t know how to understand.” The elder answered: “The world is divided into smart people and fools. Once upon a time a wise man and a fool came together. The wise man, raising his finger up, pointed to the sky, and then pointed to the earth, implying that the Lord created heaven and earth. And the fool standing here explained to himself the actions of the sage in his own way, as if he was giving the fool such a hint: I’ll take you by the hair, pull you up, and throw you to the ground. Then the fool, in turn, raised his finger, pointed up, then to the ground, and finally moved his hand around, meaning: I will lift you up, then hit you to the ground and drag you by your hair. The sage understood his movements this way: the Creator created the heavens and the earth and everything around him” 154.
“We have good and bad. Even our unwashed laundry is white.”
“An unfulfilled promise is like a good tree without fruit.”
“Buying is like killing a louse, and selling is like catching a flea.”
Explaining the psalm words: The high mountains are green, the stone is the shelter of a hare (Ps. 103:18), the elder said: “Helen, i.e. deer are the righteous on the mountains, i.e. stand high. And hares are sinners. Their refuge is a stone. And the stone is Christ Himself, who came into the world to call not the righteous, but sinners to repentance (Matthew 9:13).
He also said to me alone: “The Apostle Peter leads the righteous into the Kingdom of God, and the Queen of Heaven Herself leads the sinners” 155.
That every person is the cause of his own sorrows, the elder often repeated the saying about this: “Everyone is the smith of his own destiny.”
“The asked cross is difficult to bear, but it is better to surrender to the will of God in the simplicity of your heart. And God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able (1 Cor. 10:13). For the Lord punishes whomever he loves; he beats every son whom he receives. If you remain without punishment... then you are illegitimate children and not sons (Heb. 12:6,8). - And he added: - In one place they prayed for rain, and in another - so that it would not rain; It turned out that God wanted it.”
One in her old age was very afraid to enter a monastery and kept saying: I can’t fulfill the monastic rules. Father responded to this with a story: “One merchant kept saying: I can’t do this, I can’t do that. He once rode through Siberia at night, wrapped in two fur coats. Suddenly I saw a light in the distance, as if lights were flickering. He began to peer closely and noticed that it was a pack of wolves approaching him. There was nowhere to wait for salvation. He jumped out of the sleigh and in one minute climbed a nearby tree, forgetting his old age and weakness. And then he said that before that he had never been on a single tree 156. So, “I can’t,” the elder added.
The priest loved to repeat the psalm words: “There is peace for many who love Your law, and there is no temptation for them” (Ps. 119:165).
To the sisters’ complaints that they annoyed them, reproached them, or even scolded them, the priest usually answered: “Blessing lips have no vexation.” Loving simplicity himself, he also said: “Where it is simple, there are a hundred Angels; and where it’s tricky, there’s not a single one.”
To one nun who was in some visible obedience, when she complained to the elder that she was being scolded, he said: “Whoever reproaches us gives us gifts; and whoever praises steals from us.”
Another one, a nun I knew who was complaining about sorrows, answered: “If the sun always shines, then everything in the field will wither; That's why it needs rain. If everything rains, everything will trample; That's why you need wind to blow through. And if there is not enough wind, then a storm is also needed for everything to blow through. All this is useful to a person in due time, because he is changeable.” And he added to her: “When we brew the porridge, then we will see what we are doing.” Then neither she nor I, a sinner, understood the elder’s words. And this was her prediction and it came true wonderfully.
To one head of the monastery, in response to her words that the people entering the monastery were different, it was difficult to work with them, the priest said: “Marble and metal - everything will do.” Then, after a pause, he continued: “The age of copper, the horn of iron cannot erase anyone’s horns. The Holy Scripture says: I will break the horns of sinners, and the horn of the righteous will be exalted (Ps. 74:11). Sinners have two horns, but the righteous have one - this is humility" 157.
The elder also told her: “If you break the strap, you will lose the strap. The late Emperor Peter the Great loved to sing in the choir. There was one deacon with him with a good voice, but he was so shy and so afraid of the Tsar that the Tsar always forced him to sing. Then the deacon got so used to it that his voice covered the voices of all the singers and even the voice of the sovereign himself. Then Peter the Great began to tug at his sleeve to stop him, but that was not the case. The Emperor pulls, and he screams even louder.”
Then the priest also told about himself: “When I was little, I really loved whipping a horse in my father’s stable. She was quiet. But my mother warned me: leave it! - But I still didn’t listen; I crawl up to her and keep lashing her. She endured everything, but when she suddenly hit me with her back leg, she tore out the skin on my head; and the sign is still there.” At this, the priest pointed to his head. To whom this was said, he understood.
When asked by someone from the crowd how many times one should eat a day, the priest answered with an example: “One old man was fleeing in the desert, and the thought came to his mind: how many times should one eat a day? He once met a boy and asked him about this, what he thought. The boy replied: “Well, if you want to eat, eat.” “What if you still want to?” - asked the old man. “Well then, just eat,” said the boy. “What if you still want to?” – the elder asked for the third time. “Are you an ass?” – the boy asked the elder in turn. Therefore,” the priest added, “you need to eat twice a day.”
One day, a lady whose daughter lived in a monastery came to the elder from afar. She was a very secular person, tall and very plump. For the first time she saw an old man in front of her. At the general blessing, looking at his weak, small and thin hands, she said: “Well, what can this hand do?” The elder answered her with the following story: “My father had an old house in which we lived. The floorboards in it were swaying from disrepair. There was a bookcase in the corner of the hall. On the topmost shelf there was a thin, light, empty glass decanter, and on the bottom - a thick clay jug. So we, as children, once got naughty and carelessly stepped on the floorboard on which the bookcase stood. She swayed, and a thin decanter flew down from above; He himself remained unharmed, although he was on the floor, and he knocked off the handle of a thick jug. We were very surprised by this then.”
From time to time he greeted me with psalm words: I have endured, I have endured the Lord, and I have listened and heard my prayer. And you raised me up from the pit of passions, and from the clay of mire, and set me on stones, and set my feet straight (Ps. 39:2-3), and so on.
He also told me: “The mind is good, two is better, but at least give up three.”
He often said in rhyme to my name: “You didn’t behave yourself and didn’t lead others.”
On vanity: “Do not boast, peas, that you are better than beans; If you get wet, you’ll burst.”
When one told her that she had escaped some danger, otherwise this and that could have happened, the priest, laughing, said: “Two women lived in the same hut. Suddenly a log fell from the stove. One woman is frightened and says to the other: “It’s good that my daughter is not married, but she doesn’t have a son, Ivanushka, and he wasn’t sitting here, otherwise the log would have broken his head.”
Since we were already very tired in the shack, waiting for a general blessing from the elder. When they came to him, he said: “I am tormenting him who is tormenting me. Exhaustion is worse than death."
He also said: “In sorrows, pray to God, and they will go away; but you can’t drive away the disease with a stick.”
In response to my words about the youth that it is difficult to lead them, the priest said: “It doesn’t matter that there is quinoa in the rye; But there’s trouble when there’s no rye or quinoa in the field.” He also added: “You sow rye, quinoa grows; you sow quinoa, rye grows. With your patience save your souls (Luke 21:19). He who endures to the end will be saved (Matthew 10:22). And you endure from everyone, endure everything, and endure from children.
Once, I remember, it was already very difficult for me with my sick husband, since he was abnormal, and therefore all the housework was on me. Even I had a desire to die, but I didn’t tell the elder about it. Father came out for the general blessing and, looking at me, said: “One elder said that he was not afraid of death. One day, while carrying an armful of firewood from the forest, he became very exhausted. He sat down to rest and said in grief: “Even if death came.” And when death appeared, he got scared and asked her to carry an armful of firewood.”
The elder taught humility so that it was not only external, but also internal. At a general blessing, he once began to tell, looking at me: “There lived in a monastery a monk who kept saying: oh, damned me! Once the abbot came to the meal and, seeing him, asked: why are you here with the holy fathers? The monk replies: and then that I am also a holy father.”
He also said: “They spread a rumor about one monk that he was a saint. Everyone even said this to his face. And he kept calling himself a sinner and at the same time humbly bowing to everyone. But one day he, as usual, said to someone: “I am a sinner”; and he answered him: “I know that you are a sinner.” He perked up: “How? Have you heard anything about me?
“But,” the elder said, “the late Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich once came to the prison, and began asking the prisoners why each of them was in prison. Everyone justified themselves and said that they were put in prison innocently, in vain. The sovereign approached one more of them and asked: “Why are you here?” And I received the following answer: “For my great sins, prison is not enough for me.” Then the sovereign turned to the officials accompanying him and said: “Let him go free this very hour.” - And my dear father looked at me at the same time.
At this time, someone from the crowd said: “Father! Who will you not humble? And who will not submit to you? In response to this, the elder said the following: “Once, too, the late Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich was walking along the street of St. Petersburg. Having met a military clerk, he asked: “Where are you from?” “From Dep 158, Your Imperial Majesty,” he replied. “The word “depot” is foreign, it does not decline,” the sovereign noted. And he answered: “Everything bows before Your Majesty.”
Father started talking to us this time. The cell attendant had been reporting for a long time about some people waiting on the male side, but the elder did not listen. Having entered, the cell attendant again reported: “Father! It’s late, it’s already ten o’clock (in the evening).” The elder did not answer. Apparently, they were losing patience, and probably someone said: “It’s nothing, the elder is talking to the nuns.” The cell attendant reported again: “Father! N.N. are waiting for you. and N." And the priest began to tell, laughing: “I was in Tula; I saw a monument where it was written: under this stone lies Larin Maxim; they just wanted to live and have fun, but they deigned to move to the next world” 159. The cell attendant again repeated who was waiting, probably thinking that the elder was not listening. Father calmly, laughing, answered him: “Trifles are going through my head.” And, pointing his hand at all of us, he said: “And I remember them well; But I forget who’s waiting there.” Then someone from the Shamorda monastery self-confidently said: “We know that you, father, pray for us every evening.” Father said: “Yes, when I’m not tired; otherwise the pig will forget her piglets when she is scorched.”
VI. Senior care (continuation of the previous story)
Time passed. I kept going to the elder, becoming more and more attached to him and internally breaking away from my worldly life. Everything on the outside was mine too. By the way, I carefully hid my heartfelt attraction both from the elder himself and from everyone.
The elder hinted to me about the monastery two more times. Once, seeing me and my daughter off on the road, he said: “You should both be in a monastery.” I didn't answer anything to this. And then once, moving his pen over my face, he asked: “Do you know what I write on your face?” Not understanding the matter, I, in turn, asked him: “What, father?” “The letter “Ш” on the muzzle,” he answered, “and it will come out as Shamordino.” I said nothing again. Everything was so confusing and incomprehensible to me then. I myself was not free. And my daughter had such a spiritual disposition: she would live with me in the monastery, and as if it was already difficult for her to leave it; but when he gets into the world, he will forget about the monastery. Moreover, the elder’s prediction about her second matchmaking began to come true. She began to like another young man, and I was not averse to marrying her off to him. But over time, a circumstance happened that forced us to distance her from this young man, who, by the way, very soon after this suffered from nervous paralysis.
Thus, other words of the elder, spoken to her during our first visit to him, came true: “There will be another, but again nothing will come of it - this is not what was destined for her.”
I did not let my daughter lag behind the elder. I often took her with me. And once she sent her to him with her friend for two days. But three days passed, and, to my utter surprise, my friend returned alone, but her daughter remained behind. I was told to say that she wanted to see the priest’s newly established women’s community, where she went with the head of the community, who fell in love with her and both of us in general, often meeting with us at the elder’s. Although I was surprised by this, since my daughter lived in complete obedience with my father and me, especially with him, who was sick, I accepted it calmly at first. Then the unknown of when and with whom she would come to us began to worry me. And the dream I saw about her completely alarmed me.
In this dream, it seemed to me that I was in Shamordin, where I had never been, but someone told me that this was it. I remember the Holy Gate and some grave with a cross nearby. But then, in fact, this grave did not yet exist, because the late head of the community, Mother Sophia, was still alive. Then I found myself in some kind of building, with a long corridor inside (the current abbot's building). In one of his rooms, I see, there is a font, and they tell me that they want to baptize my daughter. Then I saw her herself. Her successors seem to be Elder Ambrose and Mother Abbess Sophia.
This dream upset me greatly. Moreover, I remembered a story I heard in a hut from one, which later turned out to be untrue, that the elder forcibly left in his community one young girl, the only daughter of her mother, how then the mother came and, shedding tears, demanded her daughter back, and then she herself entered the monastery. All this taken together scared me. However, I was not so much afraid of the monastery for my daughter as of the fact that if my daughter entered the monastery before me, what would it be like for me to part with her! Because I myself am not free. And God knows how long I will have to be apart from her.
Having upset myself mentally in this way, I also became sick physically. The consequence of this was that I sent a letter to the elder, in which, without explaining to him the whole truth, I only wrote that I was very ill and therefore I asked him to send my daughter with someone. I was later told that the elder, having received my letter, went out, in the absence of my daughter, for a general blessing and said: “So-and-so (my name) is writing to me to send my daughter to her. You see, we were afraid that our daughter would be forcibly left in the monastery. We need to send it." Sending my daughter away, the priest told her: “Your mother is sick, and you need to go. You tell her from me to live my way.” It was summer time at that time, and the elder, pointing to his window, continued: “Look: the upper part of it is open, and fresh air comes from above me, and I breathe it; and the lower part is closed, and the through wind does not blow on me. So let her live; Then there won’t be any pain.” I understood very well what the elder told me and what he called the through wind. These are the empty speeches that I listened to, but thought little about what was above.
Afterwards, when I came to the elder, I still did not explain anything to him about myself, and for a long time he, blessing me on a meeting, did not let me pass, so as not to tell me: “The same fate awaits you as Mrs. X. and her daughter.” For so long, the priest frightened me, unreasonable, with this, and I told him nothing about this false fear of mine. Finally I had to find out the whole truth, i.e. how wrong the story I heard was, and to repent to the priest that I believed this story. And the priest laughed, calling me a fool, and that I only had one temptation. At the same time, he told a well-known fable about an old man, a boy and a donkey, concluding: “If you listen to other people’s speeches, you will have to put the donkey on your shoulders.”
My late husband kept getting sick, and his illness developed more and more. I had a strong desire to persuade him to move to Optina for the summer, to live near the elder, in order, as much as possible, to prepare him for death. Anyway, we always spent the summer at the dacha. That’s why I offered him this trip instead of a dacha. The only way I could persuade him was by pointing to the wonderful Optina forest and the healthy pine air. He had no idea about monasteries and the elder, and therefore he would never have agreed to move to Optina for the summer with the elder. It was difficult for me to be transported with him given the conditions of his illness. It was necessary to hire a crew back and forth, but I managed to do all this through the prayers of the elder. Although not without difficulty, I took the patient to the priest. The elder immediately asked him if he had ever thought about death and whether he had prepared for it. And then he advised him to separate himself and partake of the Holy Mysteries of Christ.
The patient at first willingly agreed to this and began to prepare for confession, but suddenly, like a nervous patient, he became upset about something, got bored and began to prepare, without thinking, to head back home; he refused to even go and say goodbye to the elder. Seeing all my efforts in vain, I ran to my father in this grief. It was early in the morning. Rushing into the elder’s office almost without a report, I cried bitterly and told him for the first time how difficult and hard life was for me. When I looked at the priest, I saw that his eyes were full of tears. But he got up and began hitting me hard in the face. I asked offendedly: “Father! Why are you still beating me?” He answered me: “I beat you lovingly.” Somehow I suddenly felt calmer and happier from the priest’s words, and I told him: “Well, loving, then beat me.” “Yes, you stupid thing,” the priest continued, “why are you so upset? After all, there is nothing. Your patient has already come to me and is sitting in my men’s waiting room. Only I called you first to ask what happened.” This was incomprehensible to me. I left my husband in the worst mood.
Of course, at that moment, as the priest spoke to me, the sick man could not come, because he could not move so quickly due to his illness, but the elder foresaw a change in his mood and therefore said that he would come. Before I had time to leave the elder’s house and sit in the hut to rest, the cell attendant told me that my patient had come and was already talking with the elder. Father directly took him to confession and, having consoled and reassured him, sent him to the hotel. Since then, the patient lived quietly in Optina and did not intend to leave until the end of his term. Unction and communion.
When we were leaving home, after spending the summer in Optina, the priest, seeing us off, said to my husband: “I advise you to resign, you will be given a good pension.” Father even assigned a number. But we were afraid of this. We were worried by the thought that if even with all the comforts of life it is so difficult for a patient to live, what will happen with cramped quarters and small means? I, a sinner, was the first to contradict the elder. The thought of my husband’s imminent death did not occur to me then. Father didn’t answer me, but only squinted and looked into my eyes. We left.
In November, having come to the elder to prepare for communion of the Holy Mysteries, I was greeted by him at a general blessing with the words from the Psalter: Man, like the grass of his days, like the flower of the field, will fade away (Ps. 102:15). This time, calling me alone and talking to me, the elder took me by the right hand and began to pull the wedding ring from my finger, but it did not give in to him for a long time. From wearing it for many years, a callus has formed on my finger. Father kept pulling it off his finger. My heart trembled with foreboding. But without saying anything, I began to turn the ring on my finger myself to remove it.
This time, when I was leaving Optina, my father unexpectedly gave me a Polish girl so that I could help her complete her education, and added: “The three of you will have more fun.” But there should have been four of us with her, but the priest said “three of us.” This means that one of us had to lose weight. He also added: “She is in your house and will accept Orthodoxy.” I unquestioningly willingly took someone else’s child into my house and, wondering how she could accept Orthodoxy in my house, I remained silent, thinking that, probably, she herself had talked about this with the elder. It turned out later that this was only his prediction. The girl did not even think about accepting Orthodoxy at that time.
A little time passed. Suddenly I receive bread from the priest as a blessing. This surprised and frightened me greatly. Then my husband got his terminal illness. I wrote to the priest about his illness and immediately received an answer from him: “Tell the sick man from me,” he wrote, “that I, a sinner, advise him to immediately partake of the Holy Mysteries of Christ.” This was done by my husband.
I dreamed of my father four times during my husband’s severe dying sufferings, encouraging and strengthening me in caring for him. In the last, fourth, dream I saw myself in Optina, in the priest’s hut. My patient seemed to be lying right there with him. Father was very dissatisfied with me and, not wanting to bless me, turned away from me and reproached me for disobedience. I woke up upset and didn’t understand the dream. The point was this: the doctor strictly forbade me to give the patient anything edible, saying that he had complete paralysis of the stomach and that by eating edibles I would only prolong his torment. And the clergy also told me that he was already ready for the outcome and he didn’t need anything. But I, foolish, being left alone with the patient, gave him something liquid to swallow. The patient himself, apparently, did not want this, clenching his teeth tightly, but swallowed it unwillingly. So I tormented him with my love.
After his death, I came to the priest, who, after the usual greeting and the concern he expressed towards me, sternly told me: “But you still did not listen to either the monks who told you or the doctor - you fed the patient. Now bow for this—six bows in the morning and in the evening.” So, this is why the old man I dreamed of then was dissatisfied with me and this is why he did not want to baptize me in my dream. I was amazed at the elder’s omniscience and couldn’t find the words to express it to him. I fulfilled the penance he imposed on me. And only shortly before his death, the priest suddenly asked me: “Are you making bows?” To my affirmative answer, he said: “Well, put it before January, and leave it there.” The elder had a presentiment of his imminent death and knew that without him no one could have freed me from penance.
Two weeks before her husband's death, business people advised him to resign while he was still alive, saying that they would give him a larger pension, which he did. The resignation letter was submitted and submitted to the governor's office for his signature and sending to St. Petersburg. We were calm about this, but things didn’t turn out our way. My husband died, and the resignation letter was not signed by the right person and on time and was lying around in the office. This happened according to the will of God for our disobedience to the elder. If we had listened to him six months ago, we would have resigned then, and everything would have been done properly, and they would have given me a larger pension.
In the very dying minutes, my husband opened his eyes and, turning his head towards me, quietly said: “The monk has come.” On this day, I sent a telegram to the elder, asking him to let the dying man go in peace. After the death of my husband, I received the following letter from the elder, which greatly consoled me at the time. The father’s letter was written to both of us and our daughter. Here it is: “Peace and God’s blessing to you, and the Kingdom of Heaven to the deceased! He was sick a lot and suffered a lot in illness. And for patiently enduring the illness, both mercy and forgiveness of sins are granted. You are now orphaned. But it is said: God Himself is the Father of the orphans and a strict Judge of widows. The Lord is strong to intercede for you and create all kinds of providence for you, to give you both a place and food. Invoking peace and God’s blessing upon you, I remain with sincere goodwill. The many-sinful hieroschemamonk Ambrose.” This letter came to me just in time. I was left with the children without a place and without any means of subsistence. Every point of Father’s short but meaningful letter was fulfilled on me.
The Lord, for his prayers, stood up and protected me and gave me a place and food.
After the ninth day after the death of my husband, I went to the elder, and since spring had come, I stayed in Optina until the fortieth day because the rivers were flooding. On the eve of this day, before Vespers, I came to the elder to ask him to pray for the deceased, but in the multitude of people who were jostling around me, at that moment I seemed to have forgotten why I had come. The elder turned his face to me and looked at me fearfully and sternly. “Oh, scary! - he said. - The verdict comes; go quickly to church to pray; and I will pray for him.” I understood very well what the priest was telling me, and I was terribly frightened by his words and facial expression. The secrets of the afterlife were also revealed to him. I went to church, where, having served Vespers, I ordered a requiem service, and the next morning a mass with a requiem. Arriving after mass to the priest, I was immediately received by him. He sat all bright and greeted me joyfully. Before I had time to bow to his feet, he slapped me on the head three times and said: “In the Kingdom of Heaven! In the Kingdom of Heaven! In the Kingdom of Heaven! His face shone with heavenly joy. And this joy was communicated to me, a sinner.
The time for me to go home with my daughters was approaching. Worries about a pension, a place to live, and one financial matter pulled me home. It was bitter and sad in my soul. The unknown tormented me. Father came out for a general blessing, where is the icon of the Mother of God “It is worthy to eat” and where we expected him; he suddenly sat down next to me on the chest of drawers that stood there, bent my mournful head into his lap and said: “Don’t worry that you don’t have belt tugs. The bast and the bast broke off; tied it up and rushed off again.” One of the crowd, who heard the elder’s words but did not understand them, asked: “What does this mean, father?” The elder replied: “But here was a rich gentleman riding in a troika; He had good horses and harness. The poor man was also traveling. He had a bad horse, and all his harness was bast and bast. Both got into trouble. Both of their harnesses were torn. Having somehow freed himself from the jam, the poor man tied up his bast and bast and rode forward, but the rich man remained in place, the belt tugs had to be sewn together.” With this story, the priest predicted, or determined, my future life. So it started flowing.
When leaving Optina, accepting the blessing from the elder, I told him: “I’m afraid of one thing, father, - I don’t have enough money to travel to you often.” Father replied: “You will always have the means to come to me. You will still come to us on foot.” I didn’t understand this then and objected: “On foot? Is this really possible for me?” However, the elder’s words came true. I always had the means to go to my father, and even more often than before I went to Optina. And now, living in Shamordin, in the summer I go on foot to his grave, and together to Elder Joseph - this is what the priest’s words meant: “You will still come to us on foot.”
Immediately, when parting, the elder said again: “If you ever don’t have enough money for your adopted daughter (who still had to study) or for anything else, take it from me.” I, a sinner, answered him: “No, father, but you better give me your old age blessing, so that I never run out of my own funds for everything I need. I don’t need much.” “Well, in that case,” said the elder, “give me your hands.” I set them up, and the elder blessed my hands with a full cross, saying: “May your money never run out! And because you calmed me down by taking your adopted daughter to you, Archangel Michael will be your assistant in everything.” Five years after this, my only natural daughter died, on the day of the Archangel Michael, November 8, having taken monastic vows into the great angelic image (schema) before her death. The elder also predicted a lot about her to me, but at the time, as he said, I did not understand anything. So, he often used to say to her, when he met her, in the words of the Gospel: Mary has chosen the good part, which will not be taken away from her (Luke 10:42).
He often called her: “You are my rose, only until frost.” And in response to my concern for the organization of her life, he used to say this: “Don’t worry about her. It will be arranged by the Queen of Heaven Herself.” And much more.
For the prayers and blessing of the elder, the Lord arranged for me with the children. They gave me a one-time benefit until my pension, which I could receive only a year after the day of my husband’s death, and government premises in the same building where we lived before while my late husband served. At first they gave me three rooms. Having settled down, I went to the elder in the fall and, after staying with him for some time, I was getting ready to leave. Father called me to his cell and, after spending a little time with me, he left without telling me anything - to leave or to wait for him. I remained perplexed. Suddenly the old man hurriedly returned and, seeing me, without saying a word to me, he hit me hard and pushed me so hard that I, unable to stay on my feet, hit my head on the door, which was quickly opened by his person. But it’s strange - I didn’t feel any pain from the blow and looked at my father in surprise, not understanding what I had done wrong to him. At the same time, I met the gentle and cheerful gaze of the priest. She immediately laughed at something and, without asking him about the reason for the blow, walked out and then drove away.
The solution to this father’s behavior towards me was waiting for me at home. My placement in a government building and my assistance were not without envious people and ill-wishers. They let me down and slandered me so much that I could barely stay in place and was almost deprived of a government apartment. But everything was explained, and the moral blow I received passed without a trace for me, and even as if in my favor and to the shame of those who slandered me.
So, until retirement, I lived on the lump sum that they gave me and the sale of some things. But it happened that this source dried up. Before I received my pension, which was two and a half months away, I only had three kopecks, and there was nowhere and no one to take it from. Of course, I could write to the elder about this, and he would not refuse to help me. But since I myself refused the monetary benefit he promised, I did not want to disturb the elder to the last degree in this case. With such faith I accepted his blessing then! Bored, not knowing what to do, I went on foot to the especially revered miraculous icon of the Queen of Heaven, ten miles from the city, and decided to give my last penny to Her for a candle. It was a hot July day. I was very tired from the road and, returning to the house in the evening, I said to myself mentally: “Father! Why did you leave me without help? And he promised.” At that time, someone drove quickly past me in a cab. I, busy with my thoughts, did not pay attention to him. And it happened like this: I approached the house, and the driver drove up, and we entered the porch together.
The person traveling turned out to be a friend of my late husband, a Tula landowner whom I had not seen for two years. He owed my late husband a lot for his fortune and was even indirectly his debtor. While passing through N., he wanted to find and see me. After sitting with me, he said: “You know how friendly I was with your husband and loved him! In memory of this friendship of mine for him, I ask you to accept 50 rubles from me.” I thanked him. These 50 rubles helped me and my children survive until retirement.
A little time after the death of my husband, my dear brother began to invite me to live next to him, on his full support, until I received my pension, saying: “It would be better for you to live with me than to be borrowed by strangers and occupy a government corner, through which there was already trouble.” No longer doing anything without the elder’s blessing, I wrote to him about my brother’s proposal, being quite sure that the priest would not hesitate to bless me. Imagine my surprise! I receive a very quick answer from the priest. He not only does not bless me to move to my brother and take advantage of his contents, but, in order to avoid further troubles, he orders me to immediately move from three to one room, and give up two. I couldn't understand anything. I thought it was even terrible. After the vast space we had occupied before, even three rooms seemed cramped. And then the priest orders the three of us to fit in one room. After crying all day and grumbling at the old man (I admit my cowardice), I began to figure out how to settle down in one room. So what?
When I started thinking about it, I came up with such a good idea and it worked out just fine. This was in November, and in March my brother died unexpectedly. It would have been good for me then if I had left the government apartment. About two weeks before his death, I visited my father in Optina. At the general blessing, when many of us were kneeling before the elder, he suddenly turned to me and, looking at me in a special way, said: “Look, don’t play cards, you can die playing cards.” I answered in surprise: “Father! You know, I never play cards and I don’t even know how.” But the priest, as if not listening to me, repeated the same thing again. I answered again: “I never played, except when I was a child, playing fools, and that was bad.” What then? Soon my brother died of a nervous attack at the card table.
Father consoled me, a sinner, a lot, especially when it happened that I was grieved or someone offended me. So one day, in mental distress, I came to him shortly before my birthday and asked him to prepare to partake of the Holy Mysteries of Christ on that day. I myself did not tell the elder about my birthday, but one of the strangers told me. The day before, the priest, calling me to confess, himself congratulated me on tomorrow, saying: “Otherwise, I’ll probably forget, Your Reverence, to congratulate me.” So he jokingly called me worldly. And the next day, when I came to him, he himself gave me his portrait, as a sign of his special favor.
Once the three of us came to the priest to celebrate the New Year with him. At the general blessing, the priest blessed me and the children with the image of three saints; congratulated us on the New Year and commanded us to bow to them three times in the morning and evening; immediately and forced us to bow three times for the first time. At the same time, he said the following: “There lived on one island three hermits who had an icon of three saints. And since they were simple, uneducated people, they prayed before this icon with nothing other than a simple, unique prayer: “There are three of you, and three of us, have mercy on us.” So they constantly repeated this one prayer. So travelers landed on this island, and the elders asked them to teach them to pray. The travelers began to teach them the “Our Father” prayer, and having learned it, they sailed further by sea on their ship. But, having sailed a little from the shore, they suddenly saw that the three elders who had learned prayer from them were running after them across the waters and shouting: “Stop, we have forgotten your prayer.”
Seeing them walking on the waters, the travelers were amazed and, without stopping, only told them: “Pray as best you can.” The elders returned and remained at their prayer.” Then the priest ordered the cell attendant to give him a cup that he had just received from someone as a gift and gave it to us, saying: “Here is one cup for you - drink from it, all three of you in turn.”
There were several nuns from the Shamordino monastery and those who lived near Optina. Father ordered everyone to read the 3rd chapter of the Epistle of the Apostle James. He himself read it to us by heart, especially emphasizing the beginning of this chapter: “Be not many teachers” (James 3:1), and at the end. And he said: “To teach is to throw small stones from the bell tower, and to perform is to carry large stones to the bell tower.” He added: “It would be good for you to learn this entire message by heart and read it every day.”
Often, taking me by the chin and squeezing my mouth tightly, he used to say: “Remember the sled.” I don’t know what these words of his meant, but I understood them in such a way that I would remain silent more.
Father did not tolerate any kind of women’s jewelry, earrings or brooches, or hats on me. And if he sees something like that on me, he will stretch out his hand, take it and drag it silently until I take it off. So I stopped wearing any jewelry. He left the other females alone.
On the same visit, on the feast of the Epiphany, when we came to the elder, he met us, singing the troparion to Baptism. Then I saw a very well-painted icon of St. Ambrose, Father’s Angel, in one nun’s house. And I really wanted to have the same icon and for the elder to bless me with it. But I had little money left, just for the return trip. Going to the store to buy an image, I reasoned along the way like this: “No matter what, I’ll buy an image and somehow turn around: I’ll come home, there and pay the coachman for the journey.” When I returned with the image to the priest for a blessing, he said to me: “What kind of blessing will this be for me, when you bought the image yourself? No matter what (at this the old man winked with his eyes in the same way as I did to myself on the way) - go to the shop and tell them to write down the image on my account, and somehow I’ll turn over.” And so the priest blessed me with the image of his Angel. That's how insightful he was!
In response to my words: “I would be happy with everything, but you, father, are far from me,” the elder said: “My neighbors have become farther from me. Close but slimy, far but deep.”
Once, when leaving Optina, it was very difficult for me to part with the elder. By the way, that day the priest was very weak. Lately, the thought of the elder’s death has begun to haunt me. And one thing I was most afraid of was that this might happen in my absence. I came to the priest to say goodbye and, not even daring to utter the word “death” in front of him, I just said: “Father! When I always leave you, I am afraid of one thing, lest this happen without me.” My dear father immediately understood what I was talking about, and answered me like this: “No, no; be at peace with you." Which is what happened after this conversation four years later. The Lord vouchsafed me to be at the death of the elder and even in his cell itself.
A year after this (therefore, three years before his death), the elder became very ill. I was at home in my city and, having heard about his serious illness, I was greatly saddened and worried, learning in writing and by telegram about the progress of the illness. I couldn’t go on my own; one thing the elder gave me kept me going. Having escaped only in the third week of Lent, when the old man was already a little better, I went to see him with my daughter. Late in the evening the elder received us. He was already lying on his bed in his bedroom. Looking at the priest, I was frightened by the terrible change in his face, and tears involuntarily flowed from my eyes. Father greeted me with the words: “Even if you float, let yourself be.” By this he determined the difficulty of my journey when the rivers were in full flood. Then he continued: “Fools! They begged me: I still have to live for you.” I knelt down next to him and said: “Thank God, father.” He answered me: “You fool! But in May it’s difficult, it’s becoming impossible to live.” I couldn't answer this. He said all this as if in a dissatisfied tone.
Probably in order to hold back my tears, which flowed involuntarily, the elder continued: “Well, why have you come? I’m sick and can’t work out.” I answered: “That’s why I came, because you are sick.” My daughter added: “By the way, father, it’s Lent too, so you can get ready.” “Well,” said the elder, “I handed over all my spiritual children to Father Joseph. And you confess to him.” But I realized the matter and quickly answered: “Yes, father, I was recently preparing before the oil festival, I’ll wait, I can do it after the Holy Day.” “Well, why put it off? - he said. “Go, morning is wiser than evening,” he dismissed us. I cried all night and prayed that the Mother of God would inspire the elder during his lifetime not to hand me over to another spiritual father.
The next morning I was even more upset. One nun who came to our room, the elder’s spiritual daughter, told me that she had already confessed to Father Joseph, and began to make fun of me and thereby brought me to great tears. I couldn’t contradict anyone, but I couldn’t control myself either. Having recovered as much as possible so that there were no noticeable tears, I went to the elder. Entering his cell and not yet having time to bow to him, I saw that he began to hastily look for something around him on the bed on which he was lying. From somewhere under the pillows he took out a mantle, an epitrachelion and armbands that were hidden there, and began to quickly put it all on, telling me: “Well, you fool, confess quickly; just don’t tell anyone that I confessed you myself. And if they ask how you confessed, say: like everyone else. You won’t have another father yet.” This was the transition for me from great grief to great joy! Having finished my confession and begun to read the prayer of permission, the elder was interrupted by the arrival of Father Joseph, since the door to the cell was not locked by me. I shuddered.
Father Joseph appeared on the threshold and, seeing that the elder, out of his great love, could not stand it and condescended to my weakness, shook his head and, smiling at Father Ambrose, just waved his hand and left. At the same time, Father Ambrose had a kind of guilty face. Afterwards I found out that the doctor had forbidden the elder, and everyone asked him very much, starting with the archimandrite’s father, that he should not confess to anyone until he recovered from his illness.
Having read a prayer of permission over me, the priest suddenly became serious and, looking at me with his special gaze, lit with inner fire, said: “Do you hear? You go to Father Joseph.” I, perplexed, answered him with a smile: “Why do I go to him now?” But the priest repeated again with the addition: “Do you hear? I tell you: if you want, go to Father Joseph. I handed over all my spiritual children to him.” Then I, again not understanding anything and thinking only about the present, thought: why am I going to him and what will I tell him? Father called me over to him and said to me for the third time, but so sternly that all smile left my lips: “Do you hear? I tell you: go to Father Joseph.” And then, out of his characteristic deepest humility, he added: “I gave you wine and water to drink; he will give you pure wine to drink.” Having left the priest’s, I began to look for Father Joseph, but, to my extreme surprise, I did not find him at home. It turned out that he was sent by an elder to the monastery and during my confession he came in to be blessed to go.
While looking for Father Joseph, I accidentally met a Belevskaya nun, the elder’s spiritual daughter, who looked at me searchingly and asked: “Who did you confess to?” Fortunately, I was taught by the elder how to answer, and calmly said: “Like everyone else.” There was no lie here; Confession was ordinary, like everyone else's. She was satisfied with my answer.
I will also say about the elder’s foresight and some miraculous incidents.
Once I also came to Optina to visit the elder and still did not think anything positive about telling him about the monastery and about my structure in it. Children and business kept me going. I tightly hid my thoughts about the monastery. Having come out for the general blessing, the priest looked at me and said: “We must talk about the monastery in private.” Having walked further, the elder returned and, passing his hand over my forehead, said: “You can’t hide an awl in a bag.” At first I didn’t understand this and thought: Father is saying something about my sins. Calling me in the evening of the same day, the elder - I don’t remember - asked me or offered me some kind of activity, but I got scared and said: “No, no, father, I’ll follow you.” - “If you follow me, then come to me, I will cross you.” And the elder crossed me with a large cross. This time I told him everything that was in my soul. And therefore, when I was leaving, the priest called me again, saying: “Come, I will bless you again.” His face was joyful. And he immediately ordered one nun to accompany my daughter and me for him.
Another case with me. I needed to leave Optina with my daughter. It was the end of October - deepest autumn. It was a rainy day and the mud was unbearable. Father was busy with something and received me only at two o’clock in the afternoon. To tell the truth, I didn’t even think about leaving so late. But the priest, looking at me, said: “If you are not afraid, God will bless you to go.” I answered: “If you bless me, Father, I won’t be afraid of anything with your blessing.” And so we left the desert on postal trains at three o’clock in the afternoon and arrived at Andreevskaya, the last station to Kaluga. The rain became heavier; an impenetrable darkness set in, the kind that only happens here in the autumn, although the hour was not particularly late - about seven in the evening. There were no horses here; I had to wait a whole hour. The headman began to persuade us to stay behind the dark night and the bad road, which at that time was especially bad from this station to Kaluga (now there is a highway there). But I answered him: “I’m not afraid. But if you don’t undertake to take us, that’s a different matter.” We're lucky.
When we entered the forest, which soon begins behind Andreevskaya station, not only was the road invisible, it was even impossible to see the three white horses that were carrying us. The driver began to grumble and scare us with Vyrka (that’s the name of the place where the bridge over the stream is), that it would be difficult to get on the bridge. I told him again: “If you’re afraid, come back.” Let's move on. We passed the so-called Vyrka safely. But soon such a surprise befell us. About four miles before Kaluga there is a forest on both sides of the road. Suddenly, not far from us, we heard a whistle, as happens in cities with police officers. We shuddered. In response to the whistle, another similar one sounded, and then a third. The matter was clear. Someone was approaching the road. We walked at a walk. The bells and bell rang slowly. The coachman and we both crossed ourselves. I thought to myself: “Dear Father! Why did you let us go on a night like this?” We heard that someone was already approaching us. But at that very time, suddenly a bell rang from behind us - someone was driving fast.
It turned out that it was a relay race that caught up with us at the most dangerous time for us. All three of us, grateful to God, crossed ourselves and were already saved.
Another time, when I was going to Optina to prepare for the fifth week of Lent, I took my eldest daughter with me. And my youngest, goddaughter, stayed with my good friends - she was still studying. I really wanted to celebrate Easter with the elder then. I have not yet said anything to the children about this desire of mine and relied more on the will of God, as the Lord will arrange it. But they really didn’t want it. Such a temptation attacked them. I was thinking about sending my youngest daughter to Optina for Easter. But when I came to the elder, I did not tell him this. In less than three days there was a smell of warmth and the rivers opened up. The path was blocked. It seemed to me that there was no way to go, and I was triumphant in my heart. On Saturday we received the Holy Mysteries of Christ. But in the evening of the same day, the priest suddenly called me and, beyond all my expectations, said: “Now send for the post horses! It’s too early to go tomorrow!” I said: “Father! The mail even stops. There is no way to travel either on wheels or on a sleigh.” But the priest sternly told me: “So you won’t obey! After all, you will drown. Send now! Go."
Saddened and surprised by the priest’s decision, we hastened to leave. My daughter already wanted to stay. I must admit, I was afraid to go and cried all night. Early in the morning, however, we left. I can’t tell you how difficult the journey was. We rode both on wheels and on sleighs. Arriving in the village of Kozhemyakino, where the mill is, we see: the dam has broken and the water has been released. A huge space around was flooded with water. The men poured out into the street to watch our crossing when our troika approached the bridge. It was flooded, and only one railing stick was sticking out of it. The coachman had to guess to get on it. We were told that just before our arrival the bridge was flooded. The coachman put the board on the high back of the sleigh, tied it and sat us down. My daughter, like a young girl, perched herself on the board, tucked her legs up and sat sideways. I couldn’t do that and sat up straight. Our things were placed on trestles. The Russian people are brave. The driver crossed himself and, picking up the reins, hit the troika, which rushed into the abyss. I closed my head and forgot to pick up my lowered legs.
Water and ice poured into the sled, and my legs sank to my knees in the water. But a strong troika, directed by a dashing coachman to the bridge, snatched us from the abyss, seeking prayers and the blessing of the elder. We moved on. From Kozhemyakin to the city of Przemysl 8 versts. I was driving wet, under a strong spring wind. When we got to Przemysl, an icy crust formed on my feet, which the owner of the inn could hardly pull off of them. Things were wet. There is nothing to change. My legs not only did not get cold, but burned all night. There was not the slightest cold, not even a runny nose. I slept soundly all night. The next morning we moved on. It was necessary to cross the Oka. I had to sail in a huge government-owned boat for six miles under drifting ice, which the rowers pushed away with hooks. Near Kaluga itself, where another time we had to cross the Oka, we did not find any government transportation. The ice was Ugrian (from the Ugra River), strong, and the ferry had not yet been arranged. Having met the head of the postal yard here, we decided to go in a private small boat, the so-called gas chamber, with some peasant rowers.
We said to ourselves: “If the Lord carried us there, following the prayers of the elder, then, without a doubt, he will carry us here too.” But this crossing was the last and almost the most dangerous. It was necessary to swim a mile, if not more, against the current and then gain time - between ice drifts, turn the boat downstream. The Lord carried us through safe and sound. We arrived in Kaluga. Later, when I came back to the elder and told him about the difficulties of my journey, he said, laughing: “You tell me your wishes in advance, I would arrange everything.”
Once I gathered with my children to visit the elder in Optina for the holiday of the Nativity of Christ. I myself no longer ate meat, but I felt sorry for the children, fearing that they would become weak. And I also thought: perhaps they would regret not staying at home for the holiday. So that there would be no temptation, even for the lay servants at the monastery hotel, I took with me the best smoked and baked ham, thinking: I will secretly give them little by little, all the reinforcement. But when she arrived, she told the elder about this. Father tells me: “Never bring meat to the monastery. Once I brought one, but the meat was infected with trichnine, and he was poisoned.” Returning from the elder, I said to my friends: “Well, children, wait three days; When you come home, then you’ll eat meat.” But when we arrived home, we found the meat all eaten away by worms. So they threw him out.
Having visited monastic cells and seeing almost everyone there have wooden crosses with a crucifix, I had the desire to buy the same one for myself. And so, having bought myself a very nice cross in Optina, I brought it to the elder and asked him to bless me with it. Father, taking the cross in his hands, hit me hard on the head with it, causing the top tablet with the inscription: Jesus Christ and so on, to bounce off and roll under the table. I regretfully rushed to look for it and said: “What a pity that the board bounced off!” I saw that the priest was watching me with special attention. And when I picked it up and applied it to the place from which it had come unstuck, thinking I’ll glue it at home, the board stuck by itself, under the watchful gaze of the priest. And for many years now this cross, like mine, has held the board as tightly as if cast. This cross has traveled so many roads with me, and I often put it in my bosom, but the board never came off. Her dear father glued her so tightly with his gaze.
In the spring of 1890, I came to prepare for him and had to come to confess. Suddenly, they say, the priest received a very sad telegram about the death of the Voronezh ruler Veniamin 160 and, ceasing to receive people, released everyone until two o'clock. I left with everyone else. At two o'clock I come to the elder. He called me to his place for confession. Kneeling in front of him, I said: “Father! You have received sad news - your beloved ruler has passed away.” “Yes,” the elder answered me, “double sorrow: this one has died, and ours will be taken to the Voronezh diocese.” I was dumbfounded. I loved my master very much. He was my assistant in bringing my adopted daughter to Orthodoxy; He also promised to protect her during the exams from attacks on her by one teacher. Not understanding the elder’s insight, I asked him in surprise: “Are they already talking about this?” “Yes,” he answered, turning his face away from my questioning eyes, “there are rumors. You need something good there, but there’s nothing else like it.” In concern for my goddaughter, I said: “Lord! Who will help her now? And she called her name.
Father answered me in the affirmative: “Yes, Vladyka will help.” I left the elder in bewilderment as to how and what he was saying: our bishop will be transferred, but he will also help with the exams, which ended so late for us, by the month of July. And it was still early spring. Some time later, out of the blue, a telegram from St. Petersburg about the appointment of the Right Reverend Anastasius to the Voronezh diocese. Neither he nor anyone else expected this. Meanwhile, the words of the perspicacious elder, Father Ambrose, spoken to me on the day of the death of Bishop Benjamin, were fulfilled exactly. And the Right Reverend Anastasy helped my daughter, and he was transferred to Voronezh.
Here Mrs. N’s story is interrupted in order to make room for other persons and other circumstances in the life story of Elder Ambrose, but it does not end. Subsequently, this story, without losing its goal - to show how the elder nourished the soul for salvation, will serve, by the way, to add information about his life.
VII. The death of the first Shamorda boss Sofia Mikhailovna Astafieva and her successor
For a long time we have not spoken about the Shamordino women's community, which, as we saw above, Elder Ambrose founded and about which he had special care. Let's see what's going on there.
It has already been mentioned that immediately after the death of two Klyucharyov girls, heirs of the Shamorda estate, in 1883, even before the opening of the community, by order of the elder, buildings began to be built there and those who wanted to be nuns of this place began to be accepted. In the fall of 1884, the community was opened and the first leader, Sofya Mikhailovna Astafieva, was appointed. However, she did not have to rule this young monastery for long - just over three years. Intelligent, well understanding both spiritual life and economic affairs, devoted with all her soul to Elder Ambrose, she, under his direct guidance, entered the path of monastic life and accepted the most difficult obedience in the monastery to the superior, and began to asceticize with great zeal. Having always lived in bliss since childhood and not at all familiar with bodily labors, she now worked tirelessly and did not spare herself at all. In the wet, cold autumn weather, it happened that all day long, from morning to evening, she would walk around the entire monastery, supervising all the monastic work, and by nightfall she would return to her cell, all wet and frozen.
Such an ascetic life soon broke her fragile health. She gradually began to wither away and little by little melted away like a candle; Finally, on January 24, 1888, she fell asleep in the eternal sleep of a righteous woman, having received from the All-Bountiful Lord a reward corresponding to her great holy zeal and labor. Afterwards, Elder Ambrose, when remembering her, would often say with a special feeling of tenderness: “Oh, mother! I have found mercy from the Lord."
After the death of Sophia Mikhailovna, at the direction of Elder Ambrose, the nun of the Belevsky Holy Cross Monastery, Euphrosyne Rozova, took over leadership of the Shamorda community, and is still in charge today.
Let's say a few words about this person. In terms of her spiritual life and devotion to Elder Ambrose, she was and is a worthy successor to Sofia Mikhailovna. During the entire period of Father Ambrose’s eldership from 1860 until the last year of 1891 and the day of his blessed death, she was his most devoted and sincere student. But Belev’s proximity to Optina (40 versts) had the opportunity to often personally visit the elder, revealed to him all her thoughts, received from him resolution of all her perplexities and instructions on how to act in this or that case, down to the smallest detail, trying in every possible way to live in the complete cutting off of her will and to act in everything solely according to the will, instructions and blessing of the elder. His words were law for her. She even wrote them down so that nothing he said would be erased from her memory.
For an example of how the elder delved into all the details of the many different affairs, all-round relationships and, in general, the entire behavior of a disciple devoted to him, we will cite here some instructions, extracted from her notes, at the right time, expressed by him, and first about church and cell prayer, day and night, and about sleep; and then about reading books, abstaining in food and drink, and not judging others. And since the main cause of all evils and moods in a person is pride, the elder tried in every possible way to incline his student to humility; taught love for neighbors, simplicity, fear of God, revelation of thoughts, and so on. Here are the very sayings of the elder (this is the sixth story in the manuscript about the elderly care of Hieroschemamonk Ambrose):
“When there is a vigil, about eight minutes (before the bell) one must read the evening prayers.”
“After the all-night vigil they will come to your cell; then you get up, light a candle and say: come on, sister Varvara, read the evening prayers, and take turns. This will teach you not to go to your cell.”
“When you go to bed, baptize your bed and cell with the prayer: “May God rise again.”
“To go to bed at night and get up in the morning - all members can be baptized: the heart with prayer - “In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen,” and the other members - ears and chest, and even the whole self, with the prayer “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
“Six hours of sleep; and then (if more) with repentance.”
“You can sleep in a cassock and not be covered with anything. Don’t tell dreams.”
“Don’t wish to see anything in a dream, otherwise you’ll see it with horns.”
“When you wake up, first cross yourself. The state you are in in the morning will be the same for the rest of the day. Saint John of the Climacus writes about this.”
“In the morning, when you wake up, say: “Glory to You, God!” Father Macarius always said this. And one should not remember the past and dreams.”
“When you can’t go to church, (you should) read at home: instead of Matins, morning prayers, 12 selected psalms and the first hour, and instead of mass, the third and sixth hours with pictorial ones.”
“Read morning prayers and do nothing at this time. And go to every service. Otherwise they feed you for nothing. Anthony the Great saw an Angel who showed him (how a monk should live): either to pray or to work. And while working, read “Lord have mercy.”
“It is a sin to spend time in idleness. It is both a sin to miss a church service and a rule for work. Otherwise, look, the Lord doesn’t punish you for this.”
“You must definitely go to church services, otherwise you will be sick. The Lord punishes us with illness for this. And when you walk, you will be healthy and sober. Father Macarius would sometimes get sick, but still go to church. He will sit, then go out to the bishop’s cell; he won’t find a place there, he’ll go back to Father Flavian’s cell and stay there; but when he sees that he is unable to be in church any longer, 161 he will cross himself and leave. Otherwise, he still doesn’t believe himself.”
“When you go to church and come back from church, you should read: “It is worthy to eat.” And when you come to church, make three bows: “God, be merciful to me,” and so on.”
“When you start going to services, you’ll be more sober.”
“Kathisma sometimes stands and certainly stands on the “glories.”
“Kathisma try to stand in the corner, and then go out to your place.”
“You shouldn’t talk in church. This is a bad habit. For this, sorrows are sent.”
“The rosary is given in order not to forget to pray. During the service, one must listen to what is being read and go through the prayer beads: “Lord, have mercy”; and when you can’t hear (the reading), then: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
“Be sure to recite the (Jesus) Prayer with your lips, but with your mind it’s not helpful—you could get hurt.”
“Even if you say the Jesus Prayer in a whisper, many have been harmed by the clever one.”
“While reading the Apostle, you can sit at home if someone else is reading. And you can sit in church when you can’t stand.”
“That’s why you doze off in church and don’t hear the service, because your thoughts wander here and there.”
“First of all, you need to ask the Lord for mercy and pray: weigh your destinies with them, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
“Cleanse me from my secrets, and have mercy on your servant from alien ones. (Read): “Have mercy on me, O God,” “Our Father,” “Mother of God,” “May God rise again.” And: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”
“Read the Our Father, and do not lie: forgive us our debts, as we forgive”...
“Christ is Risen” - read when required by the church; otherwise it shouldn’t.”
“We must pray and resort to the Queen of Heaven: “Help, save and have mercy.”
Read “Theotokos” 12 times or 24 times a day. She is our only Intercessor.”
“To the Virgin Mary” should be read even with bows from the waist, as the Mother of God herself said to one, appearing in a dream, adding that this is for her own benefit.”
“When you pray fervently, then be sure that there will be temptation. This happens to everyone."
“You should not say that you pray (or will pray) for others. Father Anthony 162 - and he says: I commit myself to pray.”
“You shouldn’t pray for your sisters. It is the enemy, under the guise of goodness, who is instigating. This is a matter of perfection. And you just cross yourself and say: “Lord, have mercy on us.”
“You can read the rule for communion yourself and “Lord have mercy.”
“After communion, one must ask the Lord to preserve the Gift with dignity and that the Lord will give help not to return back, i.e. for past sins."
“When you join, don’t rinse your mouth or spit for just one day. If the particle (of the Holy Sacrament) is large, then crush it (in the mouth); and swallow the little one and not pay attention to blasphemous thoughts, but reproach yourself for pride and condemnation of others.”
“If you drink water or medicine before mass, then you should not eat the antidor and the prosphora you have taken out.”
“You can eat prosphora while standing - this is a matter of piety; but whoever eats while sitting is not to be condemned.”
“To venerate the images, as everyone else does: first make two bows in front of the icon and venerate, and then another bow.”
“Pentecent (due to weakness or lack of time) from Vespers can be spread out (over the whole day).”
“If you can’t do the five hundred in the evening, then pray better in the morning.”
“Do not make your bows; and if you want (to pray more), then get up at night.”
“Do not add your own inventions to the Pentecostal Day, but pray properly (i.e., as it should be).”
“When you observe the (cell) rule, then lower the curtain. And when you look out the window, remember that you need to repent. John the Climacus writes: if you want to do something that should not be done, remember what you should tell the elder about it, and then you will stop.”
“You shouldn’t say (to a visitor): I’m going to do the rule, but say: I’ll go about my business. Otherwise tell her: let’s read the akathist to the Kazan Mother of God.”
“Read the prayer in the cell with your lips: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Or: “God, cleanse me, a sinner.” And in church: “Lord, have mercy.” And listen more to what they are reading. And if you don’t hear, then read the entire prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
“When they strike “Worthy” (if you are in a cell), you need to stand up and make three bows to the Holy Trinity: “Worthy and righteous to worship the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” Ask for the intercession of the Queen of Heaven and read: “It is worthy to eat as truly...” And if someone is a stranger (in the cell), then just cross yourself.”
“With your head covered, you need to pray.”
“When the clock strikes, you should cross yourself with the prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner; as St. Demetrius of Rostov writes: have mercy on me, because the hour has passed, it has become closer to death. You can’t be baptized in front of everyone, but depending on who you can be with; Otherwise, it’s not necessary, you have to create a prayer in your mind.”
“If something presents itself, cross yourself.”
“You don’t have to believe in omens, and they won’t come true.”
“Light the lamp; and if there is no oil, don’t grieve, let it not burn.”
“Don’t put wax candles in church, but be the candle itself.”
“When you are in a worldly house, as soon as you enter the house, in the first room you are baptized three times; and you can go to another room (you can move) once. And when you sit down to dinner, cross yourself only once during the first meal and for the entire meal.”
“You should not treat the worldly freely, you will seduce them.”
“Read books in the morning for a quarter of an hour before work; then chew the whole day - what I read, like a sheep chewing cud.”
“Perhaps it is possible to copy from books, you just need to assimilate it; what is clear, then read. You need to read less, but understand.”
“Just at least read the book. Even if you don’t remember anything at that time (i.e. while reading), you will benefit.”
“You can read the Gospel while sitting, but not at the appointed time.”
“Before communion, read St. Ephraim the Syrian about repentance.”
“You need to read books more on this day (when you receive communion), especially the New Testament, the Epistle to the Ephesians and the Apocalypse.”
“The reason you don’t like your father’s books is because they expose you.”
“Let’s read the books, even if they pour oil on them and stain them, it’s okay; only by analyzing who reads.”
“It’s better not to open books” (to find out the unknown).
“Don't work on Sundays. And if there is a holiday, for example St. John Chrysostom, etc., then you can work in the evening.”
“Drink tea without bread. And if you really want to, then after tea you can eat a small piece by eye.”
“When you drink tea and bread in the morning, say to yourself: did you really come to the inn? It's from habit. If you start small, you’ll get used to more.”
“Drink three cups of tea without bread and don’t tell anyone about it. And if you are visiting someone, then only crumble the bread, as Metropolitan Philaret (of Moscow) did. They served him sterlet fish soup - he ate the fish soup, but only crumbled the fish." 163
“Tea with fasting another time - with repentance.”
“During Great Lent, put out a samovar and say: whoever does not want to judge, drink tea. At least don’t judge, otherwise you’ll get drunk and judge.”
“When it’s hard, don’t force the cellmates to drink only three cups of tea, but say: drink according to your rule.”
“If you drink a lot of tea, your teeth will hurt.”
“Explaining lips are a pork trough.”
“If you drink after the evening rule, then you need to put 12 bows on it. Don’t judge people, but say to yourself: oh, I’m damned!”
“You must thank the Lord that He sends you everything. This is for three reasons - to bring to senses, consciousness and gratitude.”
“When you judge someone, say to yourself: “You hypocrite! First remove the logs from your hair” (Matthew 7:5).
“The beam in the eye is pride. The Pharisee had all the virtues, but was proud, and the publican had humility - and was better.”
“If you find thoughts of condemnation, then remember that one stole a horse, and another stole a sheep, i.e. you (stole) a horse.
“All thoughts (undue) are from pride. You have a lot of pride."
“God Himself heals the proud. This means that internal sorrows (by which pride is healed) are sent from God, but the proud will not suffer from people. But the humble one bears everything from people and will always say: he is worthy of this.”
“When you feel filled with pride, know that it is the praise of others that makes you proud.”
“When pride attacks, tell yourself: there’s a weirdo walking around.”
In response to the explanation that in conversations with others I speak - I, the priest said: “Father Archimandrite Moses never says - I, but: “This has been proven by experience”; or say: “We.”
“The home of the soul is patience, the food of the soul is humility. If there is no food in the house, the tenant gets out” (usual expression: losing patience).
“When you get upset, reproach yourself - say: damned! Why did you disperse, who is afraid of you?
“If they really catch your eye, tell yourself: not calico, you won’t fade.”
“There’s a lot of brains in that head, but it doesn’t go away.”
“When there is a time when you want something and you don’t know what, then write these words in your mind: “Who am I and who is my hypostasis? And what do I wish for? “I’m not going to visit and I’m not staying at home, take me to us.” Come and read it."
“Vanity and pride are the same thing. Vanity shows off its deeds so that people can see how you walk, how cleverly you do. And after that pride begins to despise everyone. Just as a worm first crawls and bends, so does vanity. And when his wings grow, his pride flies upward.”
“Vanity, if touched with a finger, screams: the skin is being torn.”
“Say (to the one praising): don’t praise, otherwise we’ll quarrel later. Climacus tells you to be wary of such people. It is better to accept the slandered person.
“If they praise you, you must remain silent - say nothing, as it is written by Abba Barsanuphius.”
“Praise is not good. Praise is terribly difficult. For the glorification, for the fact that everyone bows here, the body will deteriorate after death - acne will appear. Abba Barsanuphius wrote: “What an old man Serid was! And even then, after death, the body deteriorated.”
“Give in to N.N. in everything, offer your advice, just don’t insist.”
“You have to be respectful to everyone. Be kind, but not caressing. Bow down and quickly pass by.”
“You have to look down. Remember: you are earth and you will go to earth” (cf. Gen. 3:19).
“Don’t covet the ryassophore. I myself was forced into a cassock and a mantle, but I didn’t want to and told Father Macarius about this - I myself would not have accepted.”
“Humility consists of yielding to others and considering yourself inferior to everyone else. It will be much more peaceful."
“Vedati is appropriate, since three are the essence of perfect humility of the degree. The first degree is to submit to the elder, and not to rise above your equals. The second degree is to submit to equals, not to exalt yourself over lesser ones. The third degree is to submit to the lesser and consider yourself to be nothing, as one of the beasts, unworthy of human existence.”
“It is better for you to humble yourself more than others, in front of you you think of life. Write this and pin it to the wall.”
“First we must bow outwardly at the feet of the elders. The Holy Fathers laid this down. And then inside it will (feel) just like someone (bowing) is poor; and then they will give him a bunch of gold, and he will be rich.”
"Sister! Repent, humble yourself; Give in to your sisters - what is possible and do not judge others - all with weaknesses.”
“He who gives in gains more.”
“Humble yourself, and all your works will go well.”
“Be smart. Humble yourself. Don't judge others. Judge not, lest ye be judged.”
“Follow the publican’s path and you will be saved; say: God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”
“If you don’t have love (for your neighbors), humble yourself.”
“Read “Alive in the Help of the Most High” - and go ask forgiveness for whom you are not peaceful.”
“If someone is angry with you, then ask him the reason.”
“If someone is restless (that is, is not peaceful with you, and does not express this), then please him as if you did not notice it.”
“If your thought says to you: why didn’t you tell this person who insulted you? “Then tell your thoughts: now it’s too late to talk - I’m late.”
“If you want to prick someone with a word, then take a pin in your mouth and run after the fly.”
“Be lenient with others.”
“You need to reassure your neighbor, and the same can happen to you.”
“You yourself live carelessly, but you strictly demand from others that they do everything.”
“Be silent in front of everyone, and everyone will love you.”
“It’s better to make jokes when you’re restless (unpeaceful with someone).”
“I shouldn’t interfere in their (living together) dispute. Go to your cell, take a bottle of water and drink between them; You can speak especially to each one. Tell N.N.: we will sit without cabbage soup - neither I nor you know how to cook; and tell the other; Be patient, she’s from St. Petersburg.”
The priest rudely did not order me to contact him.
“You shouldn’t choose a sister according to the spirit, otherwise it will be according to the flesh.”
“It’s a good thing that your relatives don’t write to you. What use do you need to know their affairs? Our father A-iy’s sister came and went to look for a sleigh for herself. I went to Father D-fey, as Father Treasurer, and came across Father Abbot, and Father A-ii was there. Afterwards he said that he had never experienced such grief before.”
“Be simple and everything will pass. Consider yourself worse than N.N. If you listen to yourself, you will find that you are really worse than N.N.
“To live simply means not to judge, not to despise anyone. For example, there goes E-da. It passed, that's all. This means thinking simply. Otherwise, when you see E-dy passing by, to think about her from the bad side: she is such and such, her character is such and such - now this is not easy.”
“If N. N. is restless, then say: everything is in its place! Listen to yourself and read Abba Dorotheus! “Write it down and pin it somewhere.”
“You, N.N., will give in to her once, and she will give in to you ten times.”
“When you are restless on N.N., then bow from three to nine with the prayer: “Lord, as you weigh, help your servant N.N. and through her prayers have mercy on me, the accursed one. Then make bows when you are restless (unpeaceful), otherwise there is no need.”
“Truth without humility is based on resentment. Truth means whoever puts on one’s cheek and turns another; and on rancor - who makes excuses that he is innocent.”
“You always had this passion, this rancor; she is secretive and subtle.”
“Inner grief means: for example, to be angry in memory or to endure the cutting off of your will, because no one else can know what is inside you. And external grief on the part of others.”
N.N. so that the eldest one is for you. There will be no loss. You will still be the same. As soon as someone comes to you and asks you what, you say: like N.N. - and don’t do anything without her, but whatever she says.”
“Whoever asks you for advice should refuse: I don’t know what to say.”
“Laugh less, otherwise undue thoughts will come from this.”
“Laughter casts out the fear of God.”
“If anyone makes you laugh, reduce one cup of tea.”
“Don’t laugh at the table. You need to know the time for everything. If they laughed, then one would compress her lips and go out into the hallway, making three bows there.”
“If your thoughts say: there are no great sins, that you laugh a lot, - (a great sin).”
“Bold and bold with laughter - therefore, there is no fear of God.”
“If you interrupt a conversation, then this is a matter of insolence.”
“If someone touches someone jokingly, then bow ten times.”
“The Lord will deliver you from all undue thoughts; just humble yourself.” Prayer: “Lord! Through the prayers of Elder Macarius, deliver me from my thoughts. And remember me (Elder Ambrose), if you want.”
“If blasphemous thoughts come and condemn others, then reproach yourself for pride and do not pay any attention to them.”
“When the day comes that you seem to be living well - cheerfully and calmly, and suddenly you become restless and your thoughts confuse you, then say to yourself: why are you embarrassed now? Do you remember when you were dead?”
Question: how to acquire the fear of God? Answer: “You must always have God before you. I will foresee the Lord before me (Ps. 15:8)."
“The fear of God is also acquired by fulfilling God’s commandments and doing everything according to conscience.”
“Against absent-mindedness you must have the fear of God. Read from Abba Dorotheos about the fear of God, guarding your conscience and humility.”
Question: how to listen to yourself, where to start? Answer: you must first write down: how you go to church, how you stand, how you look, how proud you are, how vain you are, how angry you are, and so on.”
“Don’t go to your cells and don’t bring guests to your place. And if the spirit in the cell becomes cramped, then go into the closet to waste away.”
“If someone says: come in, then say: I’m in a sour mood now, I can’t.”
“You are my daughter. I’m like that myself – I’m a people-pleaser. Should not please people; It should be better to remain silent. Put pleasing people on one side of the scale and silence on the other, then silence will outweigh.”
“You look like me; I teach too, you are my daughters.” Father Ambrose repeated this several times.
“Write down your thoughts every day. And when you go to M.I. (for revelation), then write them down in general: for example, I was angry, etc.”
“We must speak our thoughts; thoughts will weaken. Where are they from? Out of pride."
“N.N. (to the old woman or old man) everything must be said; say that I condemn, and thoughts flash through, but there is no need to repeat them. This is what the enemy does. Ephraim the Syrian calls this the barking of demons. If N.N. asks - which? Then we can say.”
“We must say: blasphemous and condemning thoughts come against you” (if there are thoughts against an old woman or elder).
“Tell your sins and blame yourself more than people.”
“Don’t pass on other people’s business.”
“Don’t tell us where things are done.”
“Father strictly ordered not to tell Mother Abbess the sins of others, but to blame yourself.”
“Those thoughts need to be spoken that bother you. Another thought is reflected all day long, and nothing happens; and the other one will scratch you, and that’s what needs to be said.”
“You shouldn’t tell anyone how Mother Abbess consoles, otherwise there will be envy.”
“Give alms if you have extra money.”
“Give the money you earn to the common money.”
“When someone asks you to buy something, buy until there is no money; and then say that there is no money.”
“At N.N. weakness is stinginess, and your weakness is to give away. We had such and such a brother - he would give it away, and then he would grieve that he didn’t have this or that.”
“The light shone so that there was not an iota of darkness.”
“A tub of honey, a fly in the ointment. The enemy will show the truth ten times, and once a lie - the whole matter is lost.”
“You have to force yourself to dig ridges, and that’s it.”
“Remember Father Macarius’ words and fulfill them, and you will obey him.”
Answer to a complaint about unconsciousness: “The time will come - you will remember my words when necessary.”
“Despondency means the same laziness; only worse. From despondency you will weaken both in body and spirit. I don’t want to work or pray; you go to church with neglect; and the whole man weakens.”
“The beauty of negligence (maybe); but there will be no real charm, because we are not ascetics.”
The question - the thought came: why save yourself? We will not be saved no matter how we live. Moreover, now there are no survivors, as it is written in the vision of the Athonite monk. Answer: “This is said to mean that now there are no one perfect in everything, but there are those who are being saved. Not everyone can be a general; and another is a general, another is a colonel, a major, an officer, a soldier; and the common man is just like them.”
The instructions given here by Elder Ambrose are only a small part. There are still many answers to a wide variety of questions and instructions, most often relating only to the questioner herself. But even from the given instructions, everyone can judge the dignity of the elder mentor and his disciple. Let us add to this that these instructions can be very useful for everyone who is zealous for their spiritual salvation.
VIII. The first and second visits of Elder Ambrose to the Shamorda women's community in 1888 and 1889 under the new head nun Euphrosyne and his stay there
Every year, only once, as we saw above, Elder Ambrose used to go to the Shamorda community he was organizing for a few days in the warm summer season to stay for a few days and see what it had and what was missing. These visits, we will say in the words of the Shamorda sisters themselves, were a bright holiday for them. On the appointed day, from the very morning, everyone in Shamordin was on their feet. Some carefully prepared the cell for the dear guest, some worked in the church to meet their beloved father with due honor, and some simply walked around in excitement and joyful anticipation. Finally, a prayer service was served, and all the sisters, with the abbess at their head, were located at the porch of the abbot’s building. A familiar carriage will appear from behind the edge of the forest, and everyone’s heart will beat joyfully. The horses rush quickly and stop at the entrance. The gray beard of an old man appears through the carriage window. And the priest with a fatherly smile cheerfully bows to both sides. “Dear Father!
Our treasure, our angel!” – enthusiastic greetings from the overjoyed sisters are heard from all sides. The priest gets out of the carriage and rushes to the cell prepared for him to change clothes and rest; Meanwhile, the sisters immediately rush into the carriage to take out their father’s things. Everyone wants to grab one of these “jewels”. And if one of them fails, she grabs some end of the scarf or the sleeve of a spare cassock and remains quite happy that she, too, had to carry something. Father, having rested a little, went to church, where he venerated the holy icons, making three prostrations before each; he went to the altar and then sat on the chair prepared for him, and all the sisters came up to him to receive the blessing. In the days that followed, the priest traveled from cell to cell; visited the almshouse he had set up for various poor people - the crippled and the blind - and a shelter for orphans, of which there were already up to fifty people.
The little ones greeted their dear visitor and patron by singing various prayers and spiritual poems. As the elder moved from one building to another, a crowd of people accompanied him. They ran after the carriage, grabbing the wheels to look at it, and some jumped on the steps and managed to ask something.
Each time the elder's stay in the community was short - two or three days or a little more. And if before he was so caring about the community he founded, not missing a single year without visiting it, then all the more now he needed to visit the monastery, upon the appointment, on his own instructions, of a new head, who arrived at her post on May 23, 1888, in order to offer warm prayers on the spot to the Lord and His Most Pure Mother both for the new mother abbess and for the spiritual children entrusted to her. The first such visit of Elder Ambrose took place on July 19. Let us introduce it to our readers again in the own words of the Shamorda sisters, who described this remarkable event for themselves at one time. We read:
“On Tuesday, July 19, our dear father came to us and stayed with us until Thursday of the next week (until the 28th). Even in the first days of July, a rumor spread among us that the priest was going to visit us after Kazan; but it seemed to us such an impossible dream that we were afraid to rejoice, afraid to even talk about it. Finally, already a week before the priest’s arrival, this rumor began to be repeated more and more often by those who heard it from him. They said that he would arrive on Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And we still didn’t dare believe it. How, finally, on Monday, visitors from different directions began to flock to us to meet the priest. Three after three are rushing towards Shamordin. The hotel rooms were all occupied. It was necessary to place some of the visiting monastics in special cells. Here our doubts ceased, and we began to become convinced that great joy definitely awaited us. For another three days we began to glance at the sky every now and then.
As soon as a small cloud rolls in, the weather frowns a little, and we begin to worry: if the weather changes, it will rain, and then the desired guest will not be able to come to us. Therefore, you can imagine how excited we were all day before the priest’s arrival.
Finally Tuesday came. Immediately after mass, at about 7 in the morning, they began to arrange a room for the priest in the church house, in a large room, from the corridor of the former prayer room of the late mother, 164 which is now completely fenced off; since I had to open the door for the priest so that he could better hear and even see the service from there and go out through this door to the church whenever he pleases. By 9 o'clock the room for the priest was ready. They covered it all with carpets, made a small iconostasis, inserted blinds into the window, hung the door - and all this in less than two hours, since everything was done together, amicably and lively. A separate room was prepared for Father Joseph, who also came with the priest. The church has also changed. The floor was covered with carpets, the pillars and columns were decorated with garlands of ferns and fresh flowers. But an even more festive look was given to it by the joyful, beaming faces of the sisters, who every now and then ran in to find out if anyone had arrived from Optina, if they had heard anything about their dear father, if he had been cheerful the day before, if he was at peace?
At four o'clock one of our sisters finally arrives with the good news that at three o'clock the priest intends to leave Optina and that we should expect him any minute. This news spread throughout the monastery in an instant, and everyone was already ready. At five o'clock a horseman rode up with the news that the priest had already passed Poloshkovo. Everyone immediately gathered in church; the chandelier was lit; a carpet was spread out from the porch to the holy monastery gates, on both sides of which the sisters were placed, all in full uniform. At the holy gates were waiting for the priest Father John with the holy cross, Mother Superior with our miraculous image of the Kazan Mother of God, the treasurer nun Eleutheria with a large loaf of bread and prosphora on a platter decorated with fresh flowers, and all the singers.
“Sisters! Mother asks you not to talk,” Nun Sergia, our dean, repeated Mother’s order, placing the sisters in a line. And there was no time for talking here. Each wanted to concentrate within themselves, to gather, as they say, with their feelings. A deep, reverent silence reigned - I can’t find another word to express it. The feelings that filled each of us, that we experienced in these minutes, we will never experience again: they are not repeated, they are rare guests on earth, they cannot be conveyed. The bell rang and the bell rang; Finally, the long-awaited carriage appeared and drove up to the gate, but the palace remained locked, and the priest did not show up. 3-4 minutes passed, and finally the priest appeared from the opposite side of the carriage in full uniform - in a mantle and crosses.
They sang: “Today the grace of the Holy Spirit has gathered us, and we have all taken up our cross with the verb: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” Meanwhile, the priest made three bows to the ground and, venerating the cross and the image of the Queen of Heaven, took the icon in his hands and, accompanied by his mother, who helped him carry the image, moved towards the church. We all bowed to him to the ground, but no one approached him or crowded him. There were tears in the priest's eyes. And most of those present cried, but quietly, so as not to disturb the silence and harmonious singing of the counter anthem. When the priest entered the church, they sang: “It is worthy to eat”; then followed the litany, etc., as is generally customary to greet distinguished visitors. Meanwhile, Father went to the altar, venerated the images, and then went through the southern doors to the grave of the dear late Mother Sophia. It was necessary to see only the expression on the priest’s face at the time when he kissed the image of the Queen of Heaven at the holy gates, walked with the icon to the church and prayed at the grave so that it would never be erased from memory!
Serious, concentrated, somehow inspired, and his gaze seemed to penetrate the heavens. Upon returning to the church and at the end of his many years, the priest went up to an elevated place, specially prepared for him, sat down in a chair and began to bless all those present. After the blessing, the priest rested for some time, and then that same day he went out to the church several times, examined it and blessed everyone who happened to be there at that time. In the evening there was an all-night vigil, and the next day mass and prayer service. Served: Father John, Father Joseph and Father Pamva at the cathedral. Following this prayer service, to the northeast of the altar, another prayer service was served with the blessing of water, after which there was a procession of the cross around the church and around the entire monastery. Father himself took part in the religious procession, following him in a cab, and blessed that all our sick, paralytic and crippled people would also take part in it. So behind the crowd of sisters and lay people there was also a train of sick, crippled and paralyzed people, some in a line, some in a cart, some in what.
We walked around the monastery; The procession through the holy gates headed to the bell tower, where a prayer service was again served with an akathist to the Kazan Mother of God, which the priest listened to from Father Joseph’s room. After the prayer service, the religious procession, having walked around the grave of Mother Sophia, returned back to the church. When it was all over, the priest went out to venerate the images; then he went to the grave, to the place where the blessing of water had just been performed, and to the bell tower and everywhere he prayed for a long time with prostrations to the ground. On the same day, the priest went to mother’s building, to the chapel of St. Ambrose, even went to the terrace, from where he went to the Tikhonovskaya chapel, and from there he walked to the hut. Everywhere the priest prayed with prostrations and carefully examined everything.
In the hut, stopping in front of a large portrait of Mother Sophia (in the schema), the priest said: “Mother sees everything that is happening here”; and then, looking at the bookcases with books, he added: “Read and understand what you read!..” From the hut the priest went out the door to the terrace, walked along the gallery, sat on the steps where dear mother Sophia loved to sit and, then descending the stairs, took a few steps down the slope of the mountain. “And what place did my mother choose for her shack!” The next day he conveyed his impressions to Elena Mikhailovna: “If only my legs were stronger, it seems that I would have gone down there.”
The priest walked from the hut into the “silent room”. He really liked everything here. “And I didn’t expect that things are so good here for you,” he said, “I just would have stayed, it seems, to live here with you.” Then, going up to the window and looking through it down to the ravine, he said: “Yes, you just have better Athos here, better Athos.” From the “silence” the priest returned home and did not go anywhere else that day.
On Thursday after mass there was a memorial service for Mother Sophia and Mother Ambrosia and then a general blessing. While the priest was blessing, the singers usually sang various church songs to him: “The Diligent Intercessor,” the troparion to Saint Ambrose, etc., and they also sang “Triumph for our monastery.” On the same day, after several other sacred songs, the Easter canon was sung. Meanwhile, the priest had already finished blessing; listened and prayed. When they finished the canon, the priest himself gave his blessing to sing “May God rise again,” and at the end of this song he quickly rose from his place and disappeared behind the door. Singing always had too strong an effect on my dear father. But what a wonderful expression on his face he had all the time while he listened to the singing! One look at him would involuntarily make any lazy and careless person pray. That same day, in the morning, after a short rest, the priest went to the barnyard, inspected the buildings, went into the “little shelter” and stayed there for a long time. He went into each room, blessed all the children and talked with them.
“Big One” told the priest the poems, the works of V., their matron, and said them very sweetly. They moved Father to tears. That same day, the priest went down to the vegetable gardens. I went to the lodge where our gardeners live, walked through the mountains, blessed all the wells; went to the water pumping station, forced the water to be pumped with him, inspected its construction and returned home straight to the all-night vigil.
The next day, after mass and general blessing, the priest, having rested a little, went to the grave. Having prayed and blessed her three times, as always, he went to the place of blessing of water and to the bell tower and again prayed earnestly and for a long time everywhere. From the bell tower he went straight to the refectory. Having prayed here before the image of the Queen of Heaven, he went straight to the abbot’s seat, sat down there and gave his blessing to serve him the entire meal in order. He blessed each dish and, having tasted a little, rang the bell, as mother usually does, giving a sign to the refectories to serve the next dish. The food from the cups blessed by the priest was then poured into cauldrons and buckets, from where they were poured into cups for all the sisters at the meal. From the refectory, the priest went into the kitchen, examined the structure of the stove, stove and boilers and made orders regarding various changes that he found necessary to make, namely, regarding the expansion of the refectory, as well as the bakery, where he entered directly from the refectory.
After inspecting all these economic institutions of ours and sitting for a few minutes in the middle of the courtyard around which these buildings are located, the priest got into his cab and rode in it to the porch in order to save my mother from the great troubles, the every minute repeated requests and orders not to press on the priest, not to crowd him, which she would be forced to use in order to give the priest a free passage from the bakery to the church. The priest himself, sitting near the bakery and examining the location of the buildings, more than once turned to the sisters with a request to stand at a distance so that he could better examine everything. “I’ve seen you more than once, but I haven’t seen the building yet,” he said. But, unfortunately, all these requests and persuasion had no more success than trying to drive away moths from the fire. Father will ask us to move away from him, we will immediately move away, but not even three minutes will pass before we again, without noticing it ourselves, will find ourselves near our dear father and the lamp.
That same day, after lunch and a short rest, the priest went to the hotel and visited Father John (the priest); from there he went to Polzikova and F.F. In the evening I was in the building where Mother Magdalene (regent) lives, since she was the birthday girl that day, and returned home already at seven o’clock in the evening.
During the entire time that the priest was with us, on those days when all-night vigils were not required, you had matins in the evening, following the evening service, so as not to interrupt the priest’s rest in the morning. The priest spent his day like this: after mass he went out to venerate the images. First to the Queen of Heaven; then he went to the altar, from the altar to the miraculous image of the Savior, from where he either went straight to the grave, or began to bless everyone; and then, having rested for a while and refreshed himself with tea, he went to pray at his mother’s grave and the bell tower. General blessings took place in our church as follows. A chair was placed on an elevated place for the priest. Father sat in it. On his right hand stood his mother; then the treasurer’s mother, the dean and other elders formed a kind of chain of themselves in order to restrain the pressure of the crowd and not allow them to crowd too close to the priest, so that it would not be so stuffy for him. Everyone came up one by one. Everyone was asked to pass quickly and, having received the blessing, to leave so as not to delay others and not tire the priest.
Everyone thus received a blessing, and yet there was no crowding or crush. Having rested for a while after the general blessing, the priest began to receive visiting visitors, sometimes in his room, sometimes he went out to church, sat on a bench near the candle box and talked with them here. We all stood at a distance and could not get enough of our dear guest. The expression on the priest’s face, which changed every minute, depending on whether he had to listen to something joyful or sorrowful, whether he encouraged or gave a strict commandment, whether he addressed children or adults, his movements - whether he caressed someone or pinned someone with a stick - everything, everything in him was filled with such deep perfect love that, looking at him, the hardest, roughest heart involuntarily became softer, more merciful and kinder, and no matter how gloomy a person was, he immediately felt lighter, more joyful and brighter in his soul.
In these moments we were involuntarily reminded of that old man who, when visiting another great old man, never asked him anything, but, having sat silently while others were talking with him, left with them. When asked why he didn’t say anything, he answered: “It’s enough for me to look at him.” At about 11 o'clock the horse was given to the priest, and he went around the buildings and buildings, accompanied by his mother, who was especially traveling, who helped him get out of the carriage, protected him from the crowd, and with whom he often immediately dealt with the movement of the sisters, alterations, rebuilding, etc., and accompanied by a crowd of sisters and lay people who ran after the priest's carriage. Some brought him a bench, some a rug, some a bag of stockings. But then the carriage stops. The mother who arrived ahead is waiting for the priest already at the porch of the building where he is supposed to drive up. The priest is almost taken out of the carriage in his arms and led to his cells. As soon as the priest enters the doors, they are immediately locked, and the housewives are left alone to talk with the priest.
Mother and everyone who just managed to grab some of the priest’s travel accessories, such as a bag, galoshes, duckweed, glasses, mittens, a chair, are waiting for the priest in the corridor or entryway, and the rest of the crowd is at the porch of the building, happy with the visit of a distinguished and dear guest. But then the priest had already walked around all the cells and appeared at the door again. A great fuss begins: “Where is Father’s duckweed? Who has the priest's galoshes? Glasses, give glasses quickly to Father!” Everyone is fussing and rejoicing that they see the priest again. There is nothing to indicate about the housewives - their faces give themselves away. As soon as you notice a face beaming with delight, you ask directly: “Do you really live in the same building?” “In this, in this! This is our happiness now! My dear father sat with us, prayed, and said (this and that). “What did you do with him?” Who will say: “I studied, and how good it was!” That’s how my father consoled me, my dear, and he also made me feel better, but now my soul feels lighter”; and who will answer: “No, where can Father deal with everyone now?
Yes, now I have no time for classes - I don’t know what to talk about now with my father, I don’t even have any sorrows now.” The priest returned home at about two o'clock, ate, rested, and after rest he again went around the buildings until the all-night vigil or vespers. During his entire stay with us, the priest visited all the buildings, did not miss a single cell, went to Lapekha 165, was in all the sheds and barns. On Tuesday, a stretcher was brought to the priest at the station, prepared for the sisters to carry stones for the construction of the church. Father blessed them and himself tried to see if they were dexterous.
The weather was great all the time. On Saturday it started to rain only in the evening and rained intermittently until half of the next day, and then it cleared up again and became even better, since there was no longer that stuffiness and heat as in the first days of the priest’s stay. Since Saturday they began to say that the priest was going to leave. But probably no one knew the day of Father’s departure, not even Mother; no one even tried to find out. Well, suddenly he’ll say “tomorrow.” It will be so sad that it is better not to know about it for much longer and not to grieve ahead of time. However, sooner or later, sad news spread: “Father is leaving today.” After mass, prayer service and general blessing, the priest received many sisters and laymen; then they served him something to eat. We all almost went to our cells with the thought that the priest would probably now rest, and there we would again go to the church to guard his exit in order to look at him at least once more, when suddenly someone came running and said; “Hurry up, quickly get ready for church and in uniform, now there will be a farewell prayer service for the priest.”
We all gathered, and it was impossible to recognize that these were the same faces that could still be seen so radiant the day before. Heads are down; who cries, who can barely hold back tears. The silence is deep. A prayer service began for the Queen of Heaven and for those traveling. At the end of it, Father John proclaimed many years to the priest and expected him to come out to venerate the cross, but only Father Joseph came out. It was probably difficult for my dear father to leave. This sad, farewell atmosphere would have too much influence on his sensitive nerves. We expected him to come out for the general blessing, but he did not come out. It was announced to everyone present that the priest had gone to rest, and therefore if they wanted to wait for him to leave the church, they would try to sit as quietly as possible. About an hour passed; They began to fuss in the corridor and came out to say that the priest had woken up. About five minutes later the priest appeared. Serious, concentrated, he quickly walked through the church straight to the icons and to the altar. From the church, through the southern porch, he went out to the grave, blessed it three times for the last time and returned to his room.
Having changed his clothes there, he went out again and walked on foot to the “silent place”, where, with his blessing, some kind of building was being built that was of great interest to him. Here the priest talked for several minutes with our lucky Kuzma and, having changed clothes and blessing us, went into the church. Here he blessed everyone for the last time, since it was announced to everyone in advance that when saying goodbye, no one would approach the priest and disturb him. From the church the priest again went to his room. The sisters were again placed in two rows from the church porch to the holy gates, where again, as at a meeting, Father Mother with the image of the Queen of Heaven and the singers were waiting. Silence fell again, as reverent as before, but with a tinge of hidden sadness. Every now and then we could hear sobbing and blowing our noses from different ends. When the priest finally appeared and the singers sadly sang “It is worthy to eat,” almost everyone began to cry. Father walked quickly and blessed both sides. Where he passed, they bowed at his feet.
When, having made three prostrations before the icon of the Queen of Heaven and venerated it, the priest took her in his arms and, standing at the holy gates, blessed her sisters and the monastery for the last time, as if entrusting them to the Divine protection of our zealous Intercessor, we all bowed to the ground together and wept bitterly. Meanwhile, the father, having allowed the mother to venerate the icon, again handed it into her hands and quickly disappeared into the carriage. The door slammed and the carriage rushed off. For a long, long time, standing at the holy gates, we looked after the retreating carriage and could not move. Some kind of quiet sadness filled my soul, and it was a pity to part with it. How empty it suddenly became in Shamordin, and for a long time we could not get used to this emptiness, until we again fell into our usual rut. Father left us on the 28th, on the day of the celebration of the Smolensk Icon of the Mother of God. The present mother abbess received the image of the Smolensk Mother of God for a blessing from the monastery, accepting it under her management. And on the day of celebration, Father entrusted us all to the All-Merciful and True Guide of ours.
Mother and nun Ekaterina (Mikhailovna) went to accompany the priest to Optina. What was there! - said mother. As soon as they found out that the priest had returned, the entire monastic brethren poured into the monastery. There was such a revival throughout the forest that only happens on a bright holiday. The paths from the monastery to the monastery were covered with people rushing from all sides to the hut to receive the blessing, or at least to look at the priest. Thank God, the road did not tire the dear priest too much, so he was able to bless everyone. The next day, when asked by his mother how he was feeling, he answered that his stay in Shamordin seemed like a dream to him. Amen.
Father came to us on Tuesday 19th. On this day there was an all-night vigil for the prophet Elijah. On Wednesday there was a religious procession. In the evening, the priest was in the abbot’s building, in both chapels, the hut and the “silent room”. On Thursday there was a memorial service for Mother Sophia and Mother Ambrosia. Father went to inspect the rest of the buildings outside the fence: the horse and cattle yard, and stayed in the junior shelter for quite a long time. In the evening the priest went downstairs; was in the guardhouse, walked in the mountains, blessed the wells, inspected the water pump and returned from there to the all-night vigil (Mary Magdalene). On Friday morning the priest was in the refectory, in the kitchen, the bakery, the shoe shop, sitting in the middle of the courtyard, standing and looking through the gate. In the evening I went to the hotel (was with Father John) to Polzikova and F.F. I was also in my building with Mother Ekaterina (Mikhailovna). On Saturday, the priest was in the “silent shelter”, then in the almshouse and with Mother Glafira Myamlina. In the evening I was in the new old building. Sunday. Father did not go anywhere; On this day it was six months of Mother Sophia’s death.
On Monday afternoon, the priest was in the refectory twice, then in the building where Mother Eumenia’s cell, in the senior orphanage, in the hospital, inspected the newly built building, was in the prosphora, and finally stayed for a long time in the abbot’s building. On Tuesday morning the priest visited Mother Alexandra (Nikolaevna), went into the pantry, examined the scales, gave her a commandment not to weigh him, visited Mother Olympia, Mother Eleutheria, Alexandra Ivanovna, Mother Sergius; then in the junk room; From there he went to the station, blessed the stretcher, and was in the old house. In the evening I went to Lapekha. On Wednesday the priest went to the place where they had previously planned to build a church; in the evening I went to inspect the barns in Savik. Father left on Thursday.”
POEMS THAT I SPEAKED TO FRATE K.
Dear father, holy father!
We don’t know how to thank you.
You looked after us, you dressed us,
You delivered us from poverty.
Perhaps now we would all
Wandered around the world with a bag,
We wouldn't know shelter anywhere
And they would be at odds with fate.
And here we pray only to the Creator
So that he doesn’t leave us orphans!
This ends Shamordinsky’s story about the elder’s visit to the community in 1888. Let us add to this that the above-mentioned poems were subsequently set to sheet music by some Shamordin craftswoman. And after that, every time the elder visited a shelter in the community, the children sang this cant for him. The elder listened seriously and thoughtfully to these children's prayers, and often large tears rolled down his sunken cheeks. What he thought at those moments is a mystery to everyone. But it can be assumed that his spirit, imbued with sincere childish gratitude to him from homeless, helpless little ones, ascended in prayer to the Queen of heaven and earth, so that She, even after his death, would not leave them with Her all-powerful protection. The elder’s attitude towards children was generally the most tender, fatherly and kind. The above-mentioned A.A. Shishkova, in her article about Elder Ambrose, wrote the following: “I witnessed the father’s compassion and tender love for sick children, how every day, despite his weakness, he went to the hospital to visit them, how he spoiled them - he would give them candy, then gingerbread, caress them, joke.”
The farewell of the elder from the Shamorda community was always accompanied by the usual fuss and always left a sad impression on the sisters, as is now described above. Many went ahead far ahead along the road where he was supposed to go, in order to once again bow to the dear priest from afar when he passed by them.
An unknown person tells us several information about Elder Ambrose’s visit to the Shamorda community in the following summer of 1889 in her article entitled: “Memories of Father Ambrose,” published in “Soulful Reading” 166. In essence, we note that this visit did not differ from that described. Here's the story.
“In the month of June 1889, the Lord led me for the first time to visit the well-known blessed Optina Hermitage, into which, especially then, many people of all ranks flocked to Father Ambrose. For a long time I have been striving with all my soul to see the wonderful old man, to hear the soul-saving instructions of the one about whom I had to hear so many amazingly touching stories from near and far, from strangers and from my own. I, having undergone two painful operations in the chest in a short time, having suffered physically and morally, at that time felt a special need for consolation and spiritual reinforcement. Moreover, the very image of the priest, as I imagined him, attracted me from afar with some irresistible force. Due to the distance from the railway, it was necessary to travel on horseback along a country road for two days. There were doubts, hesitations and even fear about ill health, but after praying and trusting in God’s help, I nevertheless set out on the road.
The first long and hot day of travel, in a shaking village cart, exhausted me unbearably. We barely made it to our overnight stay in a peasant house, but, to my grief, we were unable to rest here, despite the complete cordiality of the hosts, since all night I could not sleep from the insects that tormented and bothered me. We waited for dawn; I, exhausted and completely sick, went out onto the porch. And she envied her driver, who was serenely sleeping in the open air in the cart. With horror, I was already thinking about continuing the journey, assuming that if I got to Optina Pustyn, I would lie down there completely sick. But going back halfway was too hard and painful. I sat for a long time in extreme exhaustion and thought, not knowing what to decide. The sun has already risen. An old man, either a beggar or a passer-by, with a handbag, came up to the porch where I was sitting, and, looking intently at me, greeted me and began to say: “So the Monk Sergius worked, and St. Nicholas the Wonderworker also worked, and the Monk Tikhon - everyone worked; but they ended up in the Kingdom. God loves work. That's it!
But death cannot be avoided, as you wish.” I was surprised by the unexpected greeting of the mysterious wanderer, but meanwhile I feel that my fear of a difficult journey has disappeared somewhere. I immediately felt somehow encouraged, realizing that the Lord had truly sent me this suggestion, and, no longer embarrassed by anything, I quickly got ready and, overcoming my weakness and exhaustion, set off further.
The clean morning air and the singing of birds lulled me to sleep, and when I woke up, I already felt so cheerful and good that I finished the rest of the journey almost without fatigue. And when in the evening we finally began to approach through the beautiful pine forest (from the side of the Likhvinskaya road) to the blessed monastery, my joy, it seems, was nothing like it. Whoever the Lord brought to visit there knows what a majestic, very special impression Optina Pustyn makes, surrounded by the greenery of mighty pines and spruce trees and bordered below by the Zhizdra River. At the monastery hotel, we, in the person of the hotel manager, Father M., met our fellow countryman. From Father M. we learned that the priest was in Shamordin and that all the pilgrims were going there to see him. While we were talking, the bell rang for the all-night vigil. I hurried to the church of God and there I had the great spiritual pleasure of being present and praying at the wonderful solemn service. It was on the eve of the feast of the apostles Peter and Paul.
The next morning, after attending mass, I hurried to Shamordino. Upon arrival there, first of all, I was amazed by the huge crowds of people who, from early morning, surrounded the room in which the priest was, eager to see him and, even from afar, to receive his blessing. And so great was the love of the people for him, so strong was the desire to see and receive his instruction and consolation, that among this people, who knew no fatigue and came from distant countries, there were those who waited for two weeks and did not lose hope of being accepted by him, Father Ambrose. When I came closer, I learned that they were waiting for the priest to come out - he would now go to visit an almshouse, an orphanage and other charitable institutions that he had established with the assistance of benefactors. Seeing no way to squeeze through to the exit, I stood back. The doors opened; the people became agitated; exclamations were heard: “You are our father!
Father!..” Here he is, beloved father, Father Ambrose, already bent, but a handsome old man, simple, affectionate, accessible; only his insightful eyes shone with wisdom and penetrated into the very depths of the soul. Having blessed those closest to him from the crowd, the priest got into the carriage and walked along the monastery. The people did not lag behind, they ran on the sides and in front and behind, catching his gaze, his blessing hand, and, joyful, gave way to others. I watched from afar this soul-touching and completely new spectacle for me.
Having visited all his loved ones, the priest returned to rest in the abbot’s cells. The people quickly rushed after him, and it took incredible efforts to hold him back and close the doors. I had the great happiness of being led into the rooms, thanks to the kindness of Mother Superior. Here, during the next appearance of the priest, coming very close to him, I looked with involuntary trepidation at this magnificent face and at his perspicacious eyes, looking straight into the soul. I fell tightly to his hand, which blessed me, a sinner; and when, with joyful tears in my eyes, I raised my head and looked after him again, I saw that he, my dear father, looked back, also looked at me intently and at the same time said something as he left. I froze in one place. And one old nun, running up to me, hurriedly said: “Why are you standing there? After all, the father said: I will take you. We had to take advantage of it, because they live here for two weeks and leave without seeing him.” But I didn’t dare to think that this applied to me.
The priest was haunted by visitors all day, except for small intervals when he was a little refreshed with food and rest.
Thanks to the kindness and friendliness of the abbess, I was taken to the refectory at lunchtime, where at that time many pilgrims were fed free of charge. There, in a prominent place, decorated with greenery, is a large, beautiful portrait of Father Ambrose, as if a hospitable host was watching his guests being treated. Since it was the day of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, one of the nuns quietly, but clearly and expressively read an extract from the gospel stories about the holy apostle Peter. Everyone silently listened to this holy story: about the living, ardent faith and love of the apostle for his beloved Teacher, also about his regrettable renunciation and, finally, about his restoration to the apostolic title by the risen Lord. And this meal of people who had gathered here from different sides and different ranks seemed so wonderfully good to me, sitting together as brothers, eating and listening as if to the great apostle himself, who said: Most of all, have zealous love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins. Be kind to one another (1 Peter 4:8-9).
The day was approaching evening. An all-night vigil was held in the small house church of the Shamordino monastery. The young nuns sang and read harmoniously and reverently. The pilgrims prayed earnestly. And in the dark corridor adjacent to the church, the newcomers again crowded together, languishing since early morning and patiently waiting for the treasured door to open to the priest’s cell, illuminated by the lamp burning in front of the icons. Who stood and who sat here. And right by the door, leaning her head against the wall out of weakness, sat a young, sick nun, and there was also some young woman sobbing hysterically. The door opened. Everyone perked up. The priest, all in white, looking at everyone vigilantly, took the sick nun by the hand and led her in behind him. The door closed again. At this time, the crying woman screamed: “Father! Take me too, otherwise I will die of grief,” and she began to sob even more. Suddenly the door opened again. Father looked at her with a kind smile and said: “Who is going to die here? Still, perhaps, they will have to be buried. Well, go, go!” The door closed behind them again.
And when this sorrowful woman came out, her face brightened. Although tears were still rolling down her face, they were no longer the same tears, and something joyful and calm shone in her eyes. When I asked her with sympathy whether the priest had consoled her. “Oh, how comforting! Just like my own father... Only my grief is very great, it won’t be cured soon,” she said.
“At that moment, singing came from the church: “Praise the name of the Lord! Praise the Lord, servants." Deeply moved by everything I saw, I prayed, asking for great mercy from God - to be accepted by the great elder. A few minutes passed, and the cell opened again. The priest himself appeared in it and called me by name... I shuddered with joy and, making the sign of the cross, followed him into his small cell, half-lit by the setting sun. Father was sitting on an armchair. I fell on my knees in front of him and, having received his holy blessing, bent down to his feet and fell on them with tears of joy. “Well, what do you have something nice to say?” – the priest asked, calling me by name. “My father! “Pray for me,” I said. “I had a disease in my chest, as a result of which I had surgery twice: they cut me here and here. And the doctor says that in August I should expect this disease to recur again. (I’m talking about this, but I myself don’t have any fear in my soul; it’s only joyful to look at the priest). Pray for me, my father, that the Lord will heal my body and my soul.”
While I was speaking, the priest looked at me with his insightful gaze. “What other sins do you have?” – the priest asked completely unexpectedly for me. Not being prepared at all, I could hardly say that I was vain, father, vain, careless about my salvation and... and recently I was very angry, not for myself, however. - “Have you been angry recently? Why before? A?" I was embarrassed by surprise and barely said: “When, father?” - “Where did your illness begin?” Oh, father!.. With the speed of lightning I remembered my state of mind at that time, then I felt deeply offended. It was a great grief on my soul... “After all, I was partly to blame then?” - he said, and the tone of his voice was meek and merciful. Yes, father! “Afterwards I realized that I was not entirely right. “And even if it were innocent to endure, couldn’t it have been? The Lord was patient...
Why did you have to be vindictive?” “But I did not want to take revenge, father (many years later, often thinking about these words, I realized that he was not mistaken), I said in perplexity, mentally running through the past and those circumstances of my heartfelt life, which the elder so perspicaciously pointed out, “I was only very bitter, I buried this grief deep in my soul.” - “That’s why she was burying me! Well, now look, never get angry. Now don’t be afraid: nothing will happen to you anymore; nothing will happen! Go from here to Kaluga; there, visit the Life-Giving Cross, on Kaluzhenka (the revealed miraculous icon), and at St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in the old bishop's house (otherwise - the old warm cathedral), take holy water and oil from the lamp; Drink water on an empty stomach and apply oil. God bless you!” Having blessed and released me, the priest brought me back again and gave me prosphora.
It is impossible to describe and express in words what was felt in my soul then. It was also a reverent awe of the righteous man, who with his insight penetrated my sinful and suffering soul and read, so to speak, my innermost thoughts and feelings, hitherto known only to God, and it was some kind of unearthly, enthusiastic joy from communication, the spirit of this spiritual world... No! Words, I repeat, cannot express what a wonderful, solemn holiday was in my soul then - like the Bright Resurrection of Christ. And this was not because the danger of a terrible illness and an operation, even more terrible, was eliminated by the words of the priest. I spoke about them because some of the nuns who sympathized with me strongly advised me to tell Father Ambrose about this - fortunately it was so convenient - and to ask for his holy prayers. Everyone who had the good fortune to be received by the priest had exactly the same mood.
When, late in the evening, we gathered in the monastery hotel, people crowded into a circle in the corridor, who had come from different and distant places, strangers, strangers to each other, but here they had become acquainted and openly, in a brotherly way, shared their impressions and their joy about the consolation, admonition or wise advice spoken by the priest. That crying woman was also there and was sitting completely calm. I approached her again and spoke to her: “You probably recently lost one of your loved ones that you were so upset with the priest?” - “Oh no, not at all. If I had buried someone, then, of course, I would have found sympathy in people, but now... now they would only despise me.” - “Poor thing! But Father still calmed you down, consoled you?” - “Oh yes, of course, like my own father! It’s like a heavy stone has been lifted from my soul. I was already planning to do something with myself... And if it weren’t for him, I don’t know what would have happened to me even today.” Then she said about herself that she comes from a tribe that everyone despises, i.e. Jewish.
“But how did you come to the priest?” – I was surprised. - “Perhaps you want to convert to Christianity?” She responded to this with something evasive. When I left her to find somewhere to spend the night, it turned out that all the rooms in the hotel were crowded with people. And I had to somehow settle down right there on the sofa in the corridor, and at the kind offer of one lady to stay in her room, I preferred to remain completely alone, in order to concentrate at least a little and change my mind, to relive again, although partially, all the impressions of this, the happiest day in my life.
Early in the morning, as soon as I opened my eyes, the same joyful mood again captured my soul, also reverence for the gracious old man and ardent, selfless love for him. Leaving the hotel, I looked with emotion at the windows of that modest, humble cell where our dear father was then located; I bowed to him to the ground, asking in absentia for his holy prayers for my sinful soul, and joyful, happy, I left this still young monastery, which I would not have exchanged then for all the treasures of the world.
On the way back, I religiously fulfilled everything that was ordered to me by my father. I visited all the shrines he indicated in Kaluga, and, having served prayer services everywhere and received holy water and oil, I returned home with peace in my soul and joy. Through the prayers of the elder, my illness has not returned to me since then, and this is already nine years old. Once there was danger from a severe bruise, the recurrence of a terrible disease, and even signs of it appeared. I was horrified, not seeing any other help other than prayer (our unforgettable father was no longer alive), I again went to the same shrines as before; I prayed there, stocked up on my holy medicine and, through the great mercy of God and the prayers of the priest, I received health again.”
We, following our own order, will continue the story about the circumstances of the described old man that accompanied him in the subsequent years of his life after 1889.
IX. The transfer of Elder Ambrose from the Optina monastery to the Shamordino community
On October 8, 1889, Elder Ambrose turned fifty years old from the time of his arrival in Optina Pustyn. And the grateful sisters of the Shamorda community presented him on this day with a large-format service Gospel, surrounded by beautifully crafted silver and gilding. Having accepted this precious gift, especially in terms of its content, with the usual reverence and humility, the elder first handed it over to the monastery sacristy, where it was kept for some time, but then returned it to the Shamordino community, which he cared for in every possible way and did not stop caring even to the point that he finally gave himself there too, as we will now see.
It is not our intention here to enter into subtle research into the various reasons why the elder moved to the Shamorda community. Let’s simply say, as the described elder himself once said: such was the will of God. For who can resist His will? (Rom.9:19) External circumstances, in which the will of God is expressed for us, were formed in this order. Elder Ambrose himself, as we know, lived out his last years, which is why, exhausted by incessant labor and illness, he naturally weakened more and more in strength, reaching at times, as we saw above, to the point that his life, as they say, hung by a thread. Therefore, visitors had to live for a long time, while waiting for the elders’ reception, in monastery hotels, where it has long been the custom to accommodate them free of charge. The crowd of people was enormous, and so were the expenses for the people. Of necessity, the influx of excess people had to be somewhat limited. But for the loving heart of Elder Ambrose, who longed to satisfy all the needs of everyone related to him, this was no small sorrow.
This was still inconsistent with his strong faith in God’s Providence, which always takes care of everyone and everything. When the elder somewhat recovered in strength, many visitors, both his own and others, with a wide variety of needs, and sometimes inappropriate demands, besieged him from all sides, not giving him, already exhausted, any rest or peace. The elder was, so to speak, torn apart. That is probably why, as we saw above, he, lying on his painful bed, spoke to one of his spiritual daughters like this: “It is becoming difficult, impossible for me to live.” This difficulty may have been increased by other reasons arising from the mutual relations between the elder and his close spiritual children. But it is inconvenient to judge this by guesses and conclusions alone.
Given this state of affairs in the Optina Hermitage, Elder Ambrose was still very concerned about the Shamordin economic affairs, which, after the death of the first abbess, Mother Sophia, apparently fell into decay. There, from the very opening of the community, large buildings were made; That’s why there were a lot of workers, but now there was no good supervision over them. The new abbess herself, for all her kindness, was and is in poor health and - not as a reproach to her - as not having had the opportunity to deal with economic affairs, and therefore had not acquired experience in them. There were no other people close to her who were capable of this work. Then, neither the monastery under construction nor the elder himself had any funds, but no one knew about this. On the contrary, almost everyone was sure that the funds were inexhaustible. Even the benefactors closest to the elder did not know his position. Meanwhile, the elder began to build a huge stone church in the community.
And since this church was supposed to be built on the site of a wooden house church that was already in the community, it was also necessary to move this church to another place. But little money was needed, and in the summer of 1889, when the sisters of the community themselves began to dig ditches for rubble for a new church, the old wooden one was quickly moved to the southwestern side of the monastery. A month later it was already serving. This church was erected near the monastery cemetery, and a chapel was built in it in honor of the holy icon of the Mother of God, called the “Life-Giving Source” 167.
They then began to build a new church according to the approved plan. For this purpose, the benefactors hired an architect, who was supported at their expense for two years. Preliminary work began: a brick factory was set up, and the foundation for the church was laid. But then they needed money, but they didn’t have it. A printed invitation for donations was made to all significant Moscow homeowners on behalf of the abbess. But alas! – the collection turned out to be so meager that it barely covered the costs of printing and postage. Such extreme circumstances forced Elder Ambrose to think about moving to the Shamordino community, although, perhaps for a while, for personal disposal on the spot.
The summer of 1890 arrived. June. The weather is warm and beautiful. The elder, following the example of previous years, began to gather in Shamordino. In general, it should be noted that when he was planning to go there, he did not like to talk about his trip in advance, since, probably, he himself could not determine exactly the time of his departure, and so that the visitors would not worry needlessly. However, according to some signs, everyone already guessed that the priest was thinking of going to Shamordino. A few days before departure, conversations will begin in the hut about this and questions from each other, whether anyone has heard, when the priest is going and for how long. Not receiving a satisfactory answer from anyone, they usually turned to the cell attendant with the same questions. The cell attendant answered as if reluctantly: “I haven’t heard anything yet.” For a while, everyone calmed down, although judging by the cell attendant’s tone, they were not entirely trusting of his answer. But as soon as they calm down, some new face will enter the shack with the same question: “They say the priest is going to Shamordino?” The excitement will begin again.
The visitors, fearing that they would not have time to engage with the elder, finally decide to ask him himself. The priest will come out for a general blessing, and everyone is looking forward to the opportune moment when they can turn to him with this question. But the priest’s answer did not reassure me either: “I thought,” the elder will say, “but, thanks to your prayers, I’m not feeling well this morning.” After that, grief and concern appeared, lest the priest fall ill.
The elder’s last departure to Shamordino had some peculiarities. First of all, the preparations this time dragged on for a long time: one thing delayed him, then another. Then, always before, the elder took with him to the community for service his senior cell attendant, who was already in the rank of hieromonk, Father Joseph, but now, getting ready to leave, for some reason he did not tell him anything about this for a long time. Finally, somehow hesitantly and evasively, he turned to him with the question: “How can we go to Shamordino?” It should be noted that since this senior cell attendant of Elder Ambrose, by his appointment and blessing, of course, with the consent of the rector’s father, was at that time, as mentioned above, already a confessor and was beginning to serve as an elder, and therefore, in the absence of Elder Ambrose, people came to him every day, then, when talking about leaving for Shamordino, he asked Elder Ambrose: “What should we do here, father?” In response to this question, the elder immediately decided to leave him in his place in the monastery, and take with him the younger cell attendant, monk Isaiah.
There was another wonderful incident. A year before this last departure of Elder Ambrose to the Shamorda community, the current benefactress of this monastery, Anna Yakovlevna Perlova, saw in a dream some icon of the Mother of God and told the elder about this, but no matter how many icons the elder showed her, not one of them turned out to be similar to the one she saw in her dream. Then the priest told her, when the icon she had seen in her dream was found somewhere, to order a painter to paint one. In time it turned out that it was an icon of the Mother of God, called “The Help of Sinners,” which was painted beautifully, on a golden field, in a large size (about two arshins in height). After the elder received this icon, it was hung on the wall along which there was a bed, where the elder reclined to receive the people. When he intended to leave the monastery, he ordered Father Joseph to place this icon above his head and light an unquenchable lamp in front of it, which was done later, after the elder’s departure.
This circumstance, in connection with the previous ones, somewhat suggests that the elder had a premonition, and perhaps even fully knew, that he was leaving the monastery forever, and therefore he seemed to entrust his monastery, and with it the entire monastery, to the Mother of God. And just as before, during the elder’s stay in the skete, visitors, entering the cell in which he received them in a reclining position, met directly eye to eye with the face of the elder, so now, entering the same cell, when looking at the place where he lay, they meet the face of the Most Blessed Virgin “Help of Sinners.”
To add to the circumstances that preceded the last departure of Elder Ambrose from the monastery, Mrs. N. in her notes says: “In the summer of 1990, I came with my daughters to Optina for the whole summer. Two weeks have passed since my arrival; I hear that the elder is going, as usual, to go to Shamordino, as he did every year. In the morning I went to him to find out what I should do - whether to stay here and wait for his return or to go after him. To be honest, Shamordino without the elder didn’t mean anything special to me, but the priest was going there, and I wanted to. The elder received me almost immediately and said that it was possible to go after him, but not on the same day, since he would first of all go to Rudnevo (Shamordinskaya dacha); and upon his departure, so that I, with the children and one young lady who was entering the monastery, would immediately go to Kozelsk and serve there a travel prayer for him in front of the miraculous Akhtyrka Icon of the Mother of God. He ordered the monks to go to the cathedral and also serve the Kazan travel prayer service.
Father blessed me to give all my things to Father Joseph at the monastery, and for us to take with us only what we need. To my question: “How long, father, will you stay there?” - he answered: “I think about ten days - no more, but I don’t know.” This time, the elder still left me next to him in the cell and even in my presence received one of my acquaintances, who had come to him from Kaluga, hieromonk Father L. It was as if, I later recalled, the priest detained me with intention, studying with me for the last time in Optina and in this dear shack to me, where I saw so much joy and consolation from him. And it’s true – this was the last time the elder’s work with me and my consolation.”
“Two days before the elder left the monastery, they told me this,” writes his scribe, M.E.S., who was in Shamordino, “because the day before I had to go to Shamordino to prepare a cell for the priest. With what can one compare that joyful feeling when the priest was expected in Shamordino or at the dacha, where I could see him, dear, without any reports and not for a few minutes, as in Optina, but just like the cell attendants, whom I always envied! I will even serve the elder - what a happiness it was for me! It was especially pleasant at the dacha, where the priest could spend the first evening upon arrival alone and relax. However, this was not always possible. Our father had no rest anywhere. Mostly it happened like this: in the morning they find out that the elder is leaving at about three in the afternoon, and they rush to arrive before him in Shamordino or to the dacha, where they are awaiting his arrival in the hope of dealing with the priest before there are many visitors.”
The 2nd of July finally arrived, and the elder left the monastery straight, as he said, to his dacha - Rudnevo.
By the way, let's say a few words about Rudnev. In this village - about seven versts from Shamordin 168 - the late nun Ambrosia Klyuchareva, with the blessing of Elder Ambrose, acquired land with an estate for her granddaughters. After that, a farm was established there: they harvested hay, cultivated the land and used the income. It was nothing more than that. In 1890, the elder of Rudnevsky came to Father Ambrose with a letter addressed to the elder. This letter said that many years ago, on a landowner’s estate, which now belongs to the Shamorda community, under the name of the Rudnevskaya dacha, a well was dug by some ascetics, which quenched the thirst of many travelers, and now this place is neglected. The signature of the letter was: “Lover of piety.” The elder had been to Rudnev only once before, shortly after Klyucharyeva’s purchase of the Rudnev estate, and, probably, only to be curious about what was there.
But when he inquired through a letter about the well that was there, then that same summer, going as usual to Shamordino, he first intended to travel to Rudnevo, and then, during his stay in Shamordino, he began to visit this place often. He began setting up various outbuildings there, personally telling the workers where and what needed to be built, at the same time ordering them to build as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, the elder began to find the ancient well. He ordered the earth to be dug in one place without making it public. Soon the water appeared. But strangely, everyone said the same thing: when they began to give this water to the sick, especially those possessed by demons, their suffering increased. In the summer of 1891, while in Rudnev, the elder himself examined the place near the dug well. A little lower down, he first stood for prayer and ordered everyone who was with him to pray. After which everyone, together with the elder, began to inspect the place. But suddenly, the abbess of the community, who was immediately there, began to feel that the ground beneath her was sinking, and in fear she exclaimed that she was drowning.
They began to dig in this place and found an old well, exactly the one that the elder had read about in the mysterious letter to him. The priest then sent some sick people to this well to douse themselves with water from it; He also distributed water and clay from it, which turned out to be healing.
“For more than a year,” said the above-mentioned Mrs. N, “I suffered from an illness that I cannot tell you about. Father gave me Rudnev water. At Easter, I asked the priest if he would bless me to go to the Rudnevsky well and douse myself with water from it. The elder, without hesitation, blessed. There was only a fence around the well and nothing else. There was still snow; Frozen grass was visible in places. It was so cold for me undressed that it seemed like I should have frozen or at least collapsed with a fever. But like in the summer, I doused myself with water. You can judge what the water was like when the snow had not yet melted. And I felt healthy. I walked there and back and then visited the elder. In general, this walk, unusual for me, had a beneficial effect on me.” Afterwards, a shed was built near the healing well, adapted to be doused with water 169.
But let's go back and resume the interrupted thread of the story. Having visited Rudnevo for a short time, Elder Ambrose finally arrived in Shamordino in exactly the same way as had happened in previous years. The sisters met their dear father with the same delight and were just as happy during his stay there. And this stay now lasted longer than usual. Instead of the ten days appointed by the elder himself, he has been living in Shamordin for four weeks now.
“I kept waiting,” Mrs. N. continues her story, “for the elder’s departure to Optina. She lived with her children in a hotel in cramped and stuffy conditions, deprived of the most necessary things, linen and clothes. Meanwhile, time passed, and the priest was about to leave, but one thing delayed him, then another. The priest was apparently in a hurry: he was tirelessly at all the buildings and received the people who flocked to Shamordino in huge numbers, monks, nuns and laymen. There were not enough hotels for visitors. At night people occupied the entire square opposite the hotels. Fortunately, the summer was hot.”
“Finally, in the last days of July,” writes M.E. S., the priest got ready to leave for Optina and ordered that on the appointed day in the morning everything should be prepared for his departure. He sent me there the day before and gave me work that should be ready for his return. The elder usually left after the midday rest no earlier than 4 o’clock. And therefore, from six o’clock the people were already gathering around the monastery, and some went to the ferry; some went to meet the priest across the river. But at about 8 o’clock one sister arrives from Shamordin with the news that the priest will not come today, that everything was already ready for his departure, but after the rest he felt such weakness that not only could he go, he could not even receive anyone - he stayed until tomorrow. At this news, of course, everyone became despondent, but then they began to console each other with the hope that the elder would certainly arrive tomorrow, and in this expectation they dispersed. The next day, early in the morning, people began to come to the monastery to find out if there was any rumor from Shamordin.
But in the evening the Shamorda sisters arrived to say that the priest had received visitors again in the morning and had completely decided to go, but at the same hours as yesterday he felt very unwell and it was unknown when he would arrive. The next day they gave me a note from the priest asking me to return to Shamordino. When I arrived, I found him weak and very serious. I told him that in Optina everyone was waiting impatiently for him and was worried. Father responded to this: “Let’s wait for God’s will.” This was the case in Optina.
Mrs. N. also writes about the elder’s repeated preparations for departure, as it happened in Shamordin: “Twice on the appointed day they laid a carriage for the priest and everyone was going to see him off, but the departure was postponed both times. The elder became so weak that he locked himself in his cell alone. Once, I remember this very well, the priest went out into the corridor at lunchtime. For some reason there were almost no people this time. His face was pained. When he saw me, he said: “Go to church, pray for me, it’s hard for me.” I got scared and went to church to pray. Then, after a while, at a general blessing, the elder turned to me and said: “I was walled up or caulked; At first it was difficult for me, but now it’s okay - it’s easy.” But, looking at the priest, I did not understand his words. The Dormition Fast began, during which the elder confessed to everyone without refusal who asked him to do so. There were here, starting with the archimandrite and the monks of Optina, local and visiting nuns and a lot of lay people. Where did the elder get his strength from? Only the Lord, who gave him this power, knows about this.
By August 29, the skete holiday 170, the elder again began to prepare to leave for the skete. We were all sent to church to serve a travel prayer service before the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, recognized by the elder as miraculous. And they began to pawn horses for the priest. We were not ordered to accompany the elder due to his weakness, so that he would be at peace. I stood in the church by the window to see him leave. But imagine my surprise! The service ended, but the carriage for the old man was not delivered. Silently we left the church and, in bewilderment, surrounded the building where the elder was located. They came out of the building to tell us that the priest had become so ill that he could not go. There were even rumors - I just don’t know how true this is - that the old man was found lying on the floor in extreme exhaustion. After this there was no longer any mention of his departure from Shamordin.”
They notice that the elder at the same time repeatedly traveled to Rudnevo, and nothing like this ever happened to him.
“After the feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God,” writes M.E. S-na, “the elder rarely went out into the air, since the weather at that time was already changing, and he could not go out when it was less than 15 degrees. I couldn’t imagine how or what would happen. Finally, I decided to find out from the priest: he was probably thinking of staying in Shamordin for the winter, because now he couldn’t go; and if he stays, then he needs to think about arranging a more comfortable room for himself, for his cell attendant, and for receiving visitors. Father was silent for a while and said: “Don’t tell anyone anything about this until the time comes; Otherwise, people in Optina are already worried.”
An extension began on the western side of the abbot's building. Meanwhile, the Optina rector, Father Archimandrite Isaac, like all the brethren, was expecting the elder to return to the monastery from day to day. He tried his best to dissuade some visitors to the monastery from going to see him in Shamordino, in full confidence that the elder would soon return from there. The visitors, having spent a day or two in Optina and not seeing the priest return, left for Shamordino. More than once, during a personal meeting with the elder, the abbot asked him in every possible way to return to his monastery, but from repeated unsuccessful attempts to return to Optina, the priest concluded that it was God’s will for him to remain in the community, and therefore he convinced the archimandrite’s father to humble himself under the strong hand of God (1 Pet. 5:6). Father Isaac, seeing that they had already begun to prepare a winter quarters for the elder in Shamordin, was in deep sorrow on this occasion.
“My departure home was approaching,” Mrs. N. continues to talk about herself, and by the way, adding to the Shamordino circumstances, “but I did not dare ask the elder where he intended to spend the winter. Frosts began, which came early that year after a hot summer. All my things were in the monastery. One evening, before the 7th of September 171, I came with the children to the elder and decided to ask him if he would go to Optina and what I should do with my things. Father answered me: “Yes, now you go there for the holiday and, by the way, take your things.” It became terribly difficult for me, and I said: “Let the children go and take things - I can’t.” Father asked me: “Why?” I answered: “I cannot see Father Joseph, the skete, or the monastery without you; Their grief is painful to me.” Father said: “Why is that so? Now you need to change your character so that for you it’s all the same, Optina is Shamordin, and Shamordino is Optina.” But I answered him: “Father! I will not bear the grief of Father Joseph; The monks have been waiting for you there until now.” “Well, send the children,” the elder concluded. And really, what I expected happened.
For the first time, the monastery celebrated the holiday without a priest. And my children returned, especially the eldest, with a deep sad impression. It was especially hard for them to see Father Joseph, who even asked my daughter, as she told me, not to tell the elder anything about the sorrow that she noticed in him. And thank God that I then refused to go to Optina for the holiday.”
Now it became clear to everyone that the elder remained to spend the winter in the Shamorda community. “How much talk there was on this occasion,” notes M.E. S., “judgments and reasoning! Each explained in his own way the reason for Father’s departure from Optina. This, however, is a common thing—it couldn’t be done without it. But the hardest thing was to hear when people pointed out that the priest left through this or that person. I was very surprised that one could think that such a great old man, who lived in the monastery for 50 years, during which he had to endure so much labor, sorrow and illness, would suddenly leave his monastery due to the ill-will of some people. Since the priest always relied on the will of God in everything, it goes without saying that such an important event as moving him from Optina to the Kazan community could not have happened by human will.”
The confusion in Optina reached the point that the elder, in order to calm the embarrassed and worried monks, found it necessary to send to them, dated October 4, 1890, a handwritten letter, which, with his blessing, was read aloud to all the brethren at the monastery meal. There, among other things, the elder wrote: “I have stayed in Shamordin until now due to the special providence of God, and why, this should become clear later.”
But just as in Optina there was a general sense of sorrow that the elder stayed in Shamordino for an indefinite period of time, so, on the contrary, the Shamordino sisters were delighted when they were convinced that the “dear father” remained with them for the whole winter. The thought of this had never occurred to any of them before, and even now for a long, long time it seemed incredible and unrealizable to them. “We were very happy,” writes M.E. S., “that our dear father was with us, especially those who had to be closer and more often to him. I never dreamed that I could ever serve in a priest’s cell. I remember that on one of the elder’s visits, during his rest, we talked with Mother V. about how happy we were that the Lord had deigned us to serve such an elder. And I told her that I regretted it many times, that I did not always have the opportunity to attend my cell at the priest’s. Suddenly the door opens, an old man comes out, smiles and says to me: “I’m late, I’m late!”
This is how Elder Ambrose was transferred to the Shamorda women’s community!
X. The cell life of Elder Ambrose in the Shamordin women’s community and his care for it
Remaining in the Shamordino monastery for an indefinite time, Father Ambrose, even among his many affairs, did not abandon his cell rules. Just as in the monastery, he listened to the prescribed prayers every day. Also, on holidays, he had all-night vigils in his cell, which at first he served himself, i.e. He uttered exclamations, read the Gospel at the right time, and the sisters sang and read what was required. These moments were wonderful, the Shamorda eyewitnesses note, when a bent old man, in a short robe and stole, with an open gray head, came out into the middle of the room, and in some childish, senile weak voice read clearly the words of the gospel of Christ, of which he himself was a zealous performer and preacher. The selflessly devoted sisters who were with him eagerly caught every word the elder uttered, and some, unable to get into the cell where the vigil was being held, climbed into the attic so that at least from there they could hear the sounds of “dear father” that were vaguely reaching them. However, it didn't last long. The sickly old man was unable to serve himself.
For this purpose, for the most part, its former clerk, hieromonk Father Benedict, came from the monastery.
Elder Ambrose always had a special reverence for the Mother of God, as the only all-powerful Representative and Intercessor of the Christian race before Her Son, King and Lord. Why did he not miss a single feast of the Theotokos without holding a cell vigil in front of Her holy icon? Of course, this refers to the more deliberate celebrations in the Holy Church. In 1890, the abbess of the Bolkhov convent, Abbess Ilaria, sent him a special icon of the Mother of God. The Queen of Heaven is represented sitting on the clouds. Her hands are stretched out for blessing. And below, among the grass and flowers, rye sheaves stand and lie. The image of the Mother of God, in fact, is a photograph of Her face painted on the icon of “All Saints”, located in the Bolkhov convent, and the sheaves of rye were painted at the request and appointment of Elder Ambrose, who gave this icon the name “Spreader of the Loaves.” The elder offered fervent prayers in front of this icon; He taught and forced his spiritual children, whom he had gathered in the community, to pray before her.
In the last year of his life, he took photographs from this icon and distributed and sent them to many of his outside admirers. And shortly before his last illness, in honor of this icon, he composed a special chorus to the usual Akathist to the Theotokos 172. The sisters sang this chorus with the elder’s blessing when the akathist to the Mother of God was read in his cell. The elder commanded the celebration of this icon to his spiritual children on October 15th. And now, the first miracle of God’s mercy and the intercession of the Queen of Heaven, through the prayers of the gracious elder before this holy icon of Her, can be considered the fact that although the last year of his earthly life was generally hungry in Rus', within the Kaluga diocese, and in particular near the Shamordino community, bread was born. Then, although rye was expensive at that time, the elder, during his lifetime, managed to stock up on so much of it that throughout this entire year and even the next year in the monastery, despite the large number of its nuns, there was no shortage of bread. The “Bread Spreader” helped.
The next summer, after the death of Elder Ambrose, a novice of the Optina Monastery, Ivan Fedorovich Ch-m of the nobles, painted by himself the icon of the Mother of God “The Spreader of the Loaves” was sent to the Pyatnitskaya women’s community of the Voronezh diocese. There, on the occasion of a severe drought, which threatened imminent famine, a prayer service was performed before her; after which it soon began to rain, and the monastery and its surroundings were saved from hunger. For the same reason, there were many admirers of Elder Ambrose who wanted to have this icon 173.
With incessant prayer and supplication, the elder took every possible care to establish internal order in his young monastery: about the decorous conduct of church services, about reasonable and intelligible reading and singing, about the proper attitude of the sisters towards their superior, who, as a spiritual person, helped him in the spiritual nourishment of those who were under her control, zealous for the salvation of souls, especially the novices.
Then, the elder was involved in all economic affairs. Nothing was done in the monastery without his advice and blessing. All buildings were carried out according to his plan and instructions. Summoning from the monastery some monks who understood construction and economics in general, the sickly old man made his orders through them. At the same time, he often showed an amazing gift of insight. For example, the chief monk in charge of the Shamordin buildings will come to him. “Well, Father Joel,” the elder will say, “now they brought you sand; an arshin... (father accurately estimates in his mind) it will be two and a half arshins deep. Or won’t it?” “I don’t know, father,” the monk will answer, “I didn’t have time to measure it.” The old man asked about the sand two more times, but they still didn’t measure it. And when they measure it, it will certainly turn out to be as he said. Or the elder will begin to figure out the plan of some building - he will say: “Will there be 46 arshins?” This plan is then altered, made longer or shortened, and when the building is ready, there will certainly be 46 arshins in it.
In addition, the elder continued to receive people from morning to evening and correspond with those who asked him for advice and guidance. In particular, he took the most active part in the spiritual children closest to him, not at all restricting their freedom, but expecting their own good will in serving the Lord. For example, and by the way, to supplement the Shamorda circumstances, let’s continue the story of the above-mentioned Mrs. N. “Towards the end of September 1890,” she says, “I came to the priest to find out from him the final decision about myself. The elder himself did not restrict our freedom and had not yet told me anything positive about the monastery, leaving it to my discretion. It was very difficult for me to decide my fate myself. My children embarrassed me terribly. The older one showed hesitation, and the younger one, my goddaughter, apparently was not thinking about anything except the present. But this was the task for me. In the spring of that year she graduated from science. Now I had to think about how to arrange for her and what occupation to give her.
Father soon received me and in response to my question - how should I deal with my goddaughter, should I bother getting her married - as if knowing nothing, he suddenly asked me: “How do you both think about getting settled?” I answered: “Father, you yourself know how: I’m only waiting for your word and I won’t leave your will.” “No,” said the priest, “you just say that yourself.” I again asked about my goddaughter, what should I do with her, they want to marry her. But the priest again asked me the question: “How are you going to get settled?” So I left the elder, without achieving anything from him.
Soon after this conversation, the priest unexpectedly began to send me to Voronezh and Zadonsk to pray to the saints of God Mitrofan and Tikhon. He ordered me to leave my children with me in Shamordin. I didn’t expect this trip, and I didn’t want to go so far from the old man. On the eve of my departure to Voronezh, he called me to his cell. This was during the cell all-night vigil, which was served by the elder. When I entered him, they sang: “My soul magnifies the Lord... The most honorable Cherub.” Father stopped me with his hand so that I would not come close to him, and he began to pray. I, stopping in the middle of the cell, did not bow, but kept looking at the priest. While singing “The Most Honest,” he stood with his head bowed almost to the ground. When the singing ended, the priest sternly said to me: “Why didn’t you bow, but stood like that?” I answered: “In the world I always make six bows when they sing “The Most Honest Cherub,” but here I’m afraid that no one does.” Father again sternly said: “You and your daughter should always bow down! Why do you care if no one puts in?
You know, one saw how, during the singing of “The Most Honest,” the Queen of Heaven Herself appeared and approached Her icon. You always deliver.” I even felt scared. Surely the elder himself, I thought, saw this when he stood with such reverence, bending almost to the ground. Leaving the elder, I asked him for his blessing to see the Voronezh Bishop Anastasy, whom I respected. But the priest instead told me: “If you see the blind bishop there, visit him.” What then? Arriving in Voronezh, I did not find my friend Vladyka Anastasy - he had left for a whole month in the diocese, and when I arrived at the church, I directly met the elder, the blind Vladyka Joseph. Having failed to obtain his blessing due to the multitude of people, I asked to come to his house. His cell attendant who met me asked whether I wanted to see Vladyka alone or with everyone. In my soul I never wanted to ask anything or anyone except my elder, and therefore I went to him with everyone for just one blessing.
Vladyka greeted me with the question: “Who are you and where are you from?” I answered and immediately added: “I just came from the women’s community of Elder Ambrose.” “What Elder?” - asked the bishop. I answered: “Very weak.” “How many people,” he asked, “are they allowed to see him at a time?” I answered approximately. “Well,” the bishop continued, “that’s why he’s so weak because they only let people in; We need five people, no more. What are you doing there? – the bishop already asked me. I answered: “I’m visiting; I am attached to the elder and go there on holidays and in the summer; I go to church and to the elder for a blessing.” “I’m visiting,” the bishop repeated my words. – Something strange: people go from the monastery to the world to visit, and we go from the world to the monastery. You see,” he turned to one sitting next to him on the sofa, “we are attached to the elder; “Well, tell me,” he asked, turning to me again, “what are you looking for from him?” I said nothing. The Bishop continued: “We ourselves don’t even know what we are looking for from the elder.
You’re a widow, why don’t you go to the monastery?” I answered: “I am not free, I have two daughters, one my own, the other godmother; I don’t know how they are.” “You will go,” said the bishop, “and the children will follow you; otherwise nothing will happen.” Then he pointed to a pile of small books lying next to him and said: “Here, choose a book for your daughter.” I pulled out the first one I came across. “Well, read it,” said the bishop. I read: “From drunkenness.” “Now,” he continued, “you don’t even know what to choose for your daughter.” He extended his hand and pulled out, of course, what suited her. The book was entitled: “Read the Gospel and be calm.” Then the bishop stood up and, placing his hands on my head, read some kind of prayer and finally said: “Bow to the elder for me.” When leaving, I asked my children for his holy prayers, calling them by name. He, turning to his visitors, asked: “What’s the name of the third?” And I, not understanding the question, answered: “I don’t have a third.” At this time, someone from the crowd said: “I am Catherine.” Vladyka remarked: “There are many Catherines, but this one has a rare name,” pointing at me.
So, he knew my name, which I had not yet told him. Arriving at the priest, I told him everything. He was very pleased and, rubbing his hands, laughed heartily that Vladyka had helped him. Such was the spiritual unity of these two holy elders. My father sent my children home in October, telling them: “It’s time to go.” And I had to slow down my departure for several days, starting to prepare for the communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ. Having taken me to confession, the priest this time told me: “Well, now I’m telling you: decide to enter the monastery; you spoil girls; I will arrange for you during my lifetime.” In response to my words about my goddaughter, he said: “Let him live with you for now, and then we’ll see.” To my words that I love Optina more: what churches, services, bells there! - Father suddenly stood up; his eyes sparkled with an extraordinary fire, and he cheerfully said in a prophetic tone: “Everything here will be greater than Optina; there will be something here that you don’t expect.” I felt somehow calm, joyful in my soul.
But I said again: “I’m afraid of the monastery...” Father answered: “Everything will depend on you; you know what the word “monk” means in translation; he must be alone." I said: “My last business in the world will end in November, and there I am free; The only thing left is the apartment we rented for a year; her term is in July 1891.” Father answered: “When you finish everything, you will arrive on Trinity Day.” This came true remarkably well. I finished all my work and arrived with the children at the Shamordino monastery just before Trinity Day the next year.”
The elder often predicted the future of the Shamorda monastery to others. “With what love it used to be,” notes M.E. S-na, “he listened when he was still living in the monastery, if some visitors would come from Shamordin and begin to tell how they liked it there, and be surprised at how quickly this monastery grew. The priest said to some of them: “If only they knew what would happen there!..” One day two sisters decided to move to another monastery because the meal seemed meager to them. Father, having heard about this, said: “Now they don’t want to be patient and suffer the need, but when things go well with us, they will ask, but they will not be accepted.”
“That evening,” Mrs. N. continues her story, “when I came to say goodbye to my father, I had to wait a long time. There were a lot of people. I kept asking to see the elder, thinking of going early the next day. Finally the cell attendant called me. I went in to the priest and stopped. He was not lying on the pillows, but on the bed. Sweat appeared in large drops on his face; the eyes were fixed on the holy icon; mouth open. I stood at a loss as to what to do. After about five minutes, the priest turned his eyes to me and quietly said: “Let me breathe.” I stood there, not knowing what to do. She was afraid to leave, lest they let more people in to see the elder, and remained silent. Finally he said, “Come to me!” And, crossing me, he added: “Tara-bara, it’s time for us to go. Go tell them to wait and let people in. If my mother were at home, they wouldn’t let so many people in.” (Mother Superior was not at home). I was so frightened by the priest’s weakness that I immediately went to church to serve a prayer service to the Queen of Heaven, in front of Her Kazan Icon, for the health of the priest.
Upon my return from church, I learned that the priest, immediately after my departure, received and had fun with a nun I knew. The next day I left. And when I arrived home, I found out that my daughter was offered lessons at a government institution. I wrote to the elder with the question: “Is it possible to accept a place and will this not disrupt our plans in the future?” To which the elder received the following response: “Lessons are not prophets,” he wrote. – It’s better to take a place so as not to be idle until June. And when necessary, then you can leave a place. Asking for the three of you the peace and blessing of God, I remain with sincere goodwill. The many-sinful hieromonk Ambrose.” The place was taken by my daughter.”
In the same autumn of 1990, Elder Ambrose experienced a particularly remarkable incident, with which he was greatly consoled in the midst of his sorrowful and difficult life. In the summer preceding this fall, at the Optina monastery dacha, the fishing for sterlets in the Zhizdra River was as successful as any of the old-timers could remember. More than a dozen of them were caught, about one and a half arshin in size. At the request of the elder, several of the best, most selected sterlets were sent to the court of His Majesty, the Sovereign Emperor, on October 17, in memory of the deliverance from mortal danger of him and his entire august family. The most gracious sovereign was so attentive to this Optina offering that he personally deigned to receive two Optina monks sent for this occasion, gave them his royal hand to kiss and said a few friendly words to them.
When the monks told the sovereign that the Optina elder and abbot bowed to His Majesty and themselves bowed at his feet, then the sovereign, out of his deepest Christian humility, deigned to bow slightly in response to the Optina greeting and sent the monks home in peace.
Meanwhile, over time, the Optina brethren, out of necessity, began to little by little get used to their difficult situation of living and being without an elder. In all likelihood, they consoled themselves in this case with the hope that the elder would return to the monastery in the spring of next year. The excitement has subsided somewhat. The month of December has arrived. The Shamorda sisters were looking forward to the 7th. It was the day of the Angel of Elder Ambrose - the memory of Saint Ambrose, Bishop of Milan. On the eve of this day, several hieromonks, special admirers of the elder, arrived from Optina, headed by the skete commander, Hieromonk Anatoly. They served a vigil and the next day the cathedral liturgy, with a prayer service to the saint, with the proclamation of many years to the birthday boy. Then all those who served came to congratulate the priest on Angel Day. His face at this time seemed very pale and exhausted. Accepting with gratitude congratulations from the monks, he only humbly repeated everything: “We’ve done a lot for the parade.” After the brothers, all the sisters came to congratulate the dear birthday boy.
Each of them gave him some kind of gift from her work, some - rosaries, some socks, some sewed a sweatshirt, and some painted an icon. Father, with a cheerful face, accepted gifts from them, thanked everyone, joked and gave - some with a piece of pie, caramel with a ticket, some with gingerbread; and he smeared cake filling on the faces of some, giving them inexpressible pleasure through this. Everyone was cheerful and happy that day.
“For the holiday of the Nativity of Christ,” Mrs. N. reports in her notes new information about herself and the elder, “I came with my daughters to the priest in Shamordino. The old man was very weak. On New Year's Day, when we came to congratulate him, he did not come out for a long time and did not receive anyone. They said that the old man was very unwell. Finally we were called into his reception room. Father sat on the sofa, instead of congratulating and greeting, he forced M.I., who had come from Optina Pustyn and was living there at the hotel, to read the “Trinity Leaf,” which ended with the shepherd’s prayer for his children, where he says to the Lord: behold, I am my children... And says goodbye to his flock. We all felt sad. Many brought tears to their eyes. The old man himself cried. We began to take turns approaching him with congratulations and accepting his blessing. When I approached, the priest told me: “Look - not five, but go forward.” I went out into the corridor and, sitting down, thought: “Lord! Is this really the last New Year we are celebrating with the elder?” For some reason my soul felt so heavy.
At this time, the singing sisters, led by their regent, came to the elder to also congratulate him on the New Year. When they were blessed to sing something, the priest said: “No, sing to me - “Angelic forces are on your tomb, and the guards are dead” and so on - you don’t sing it very well,” he added. This sad melody of the troparion and so inappropriate for the New Year, and, moreover, the weakness of the priest upset me so much that I left, crying. Leaving the priest this time, I saw one significant dream, as a result of which the elder ordered me to look for an image of the Savior for him in the city where I lived, and added: “You will find him there.” And so for quite some time I searched for the priest for the Image of the Savior Not Made by Hands in ancient painting. But all my efforts to find him were in vain. Once, while going through the auction, in the dirtiest place, among all sorts of rags, I came across the image of the Savior in the crown of thorns and bought it for the priest. I brought it to him during Holy Week. With what joy the priest received it from me and said: “But what is better than this crown of thorns!” - and kissed the image.
Immediately I spoke with the elder about the miraculous Life-giving Cross in Kaluga. And the priest suddenly said to me: “It’s good to be at the Savior’s Cross, but it’s even better to suffer for Him on this cross.” I, a sinner, got scared and said: “It’s so scary, father, to suffer.” At the same time, the old man’s face was somehow special: something unearthly shone in his eyes.”
So the winter of 1991 went on and on, and Holy Easter arrived. On the first day of the holiday, after the liturgy, the abbess, according to custom, came to congratulate the elder on the bright holiday, and after her all the sisters and some lay people came to “Christ” with the priest, who served everyone a red egg and a piece of Easter cake and Easter. Truly, the Shamorda sisters note, it was a bright holiday. Everyone was happy. And how could it be otherwise? Easter - and the beloved elder shares this great celebration together. Every day, throughout Bright Week, the sisters sang Matins, Hours and Vespers with him. Father himself sang along; sometimes he set the tone for the singers, corrected mistakes and made various comments. At the end of the week, when the singers began to thank the elder for the consolation that he gave them this Easter, he affectionately said to them: “Save, Lord!” And then he added: “You will remember this Saint.” No one understood or could understand these words then.
And no one suspected that next year on Friday during Bright Week, when there is a celebration of the Mother of God to the “Life-Giving Source”, in whose name the elder built a chapel in the Shamordino church, a six-month commemoration would be held from the day of his death.
With the onset of summer, the priest, as usual, resumed his walks. He walked around the buildings and went to Rudnevo, where he sometimes stayed for two weeks. If any holiday happened, he would certainly return to Shamordino, saying that on holidays he was used to always being “at home.” So, at the end of July he went to Rudnevo for a long time, because some amendments needed to be made in his cell. They took everything out of the cell; The floor was raised and work began. Meanwhile, the feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord approached, which the priest, out of necessity, agreed to hold at the dacha. On August 4, the abbess went to visit the elder, but, returning from there in the evening, she announced that he did not want to stay there for the holiday under any circumstances and would come tomorrow. What to do? Of necessity, the very next morning, in the half occupied by the abbess, a possibly comfortable room was arranged for the unexpected guest.
In July of the same summer, the elder was visited by his devoted spiritual daughter, the aforementioned A.A. Shishkova. “The last time,” she writes, “I visited my father three months before his death. I asked for his blessing in writing. The answer was: “Come; We’ll be very glad to see you.” Soon after receiving the letter, I arrived in the community; I go in to the elder and say: “I haven’t seen you for so long! Last year I asked for your blessing to come, but you didn’t give it to me, and I didn’t dare to go. But how glad I was to receive it this time!” Father blessed me affectionately with a cheerful face shining with kindness, and said: “Now don’t ask me anymore; You can come whenever you want.” Having repeated this affirmatively twice, it was as if he wanted me to understand the meaning of what was said. At that moment I was very happy about this permission and thanked him. Only later did it become clear to me that with these words the priest predicted his imminent death. On the same day, the elder invited me to his small cell for the all-night vigil. It was the eve of some holiday. The nun read the kathisma.
I thought that he wasn’t reading quite clearly. Immediately the priest turns around and says: “Read clearly, otherwise he will condemn Shishkova”; and looked at me expressively, seeing my thoughts. It was scary to think anything in front of the righteous old man. Now he saw in the depths of her soul all her thoughts. When I said goodbye to my father, his speech about Saint Ignatius the God-Bearer was unusually impressive. With what special ardent feeling, fully inspired by the grace of God, he narrated that the Lord always dwelt in the heart of this holy martyr and the name of Jesus Christ was imprinted there! “Have you read his life?” - Dear Father asked me and ordered me to take his messages for reading and guidance. Then I learned that the priest especially revered this saint of God and always resorted to him in prayer in all the difficult moments of his life.”
In the same summer, let us note another feature, a man of God, named Gavryusha, about forty years old, arrived to the elder in Shamordino, one of those whom the Lord likened to children, saying that such is the Kingdom of God (Luke 18:16). He lived in the Livensky district of the Oryol province, was relaxed, his whole body was shaking and could barely speak or eat. His legs did not work; he lay and prayed to God. They noted that much was revealed to him. In the last spring, Elder Ambrose appeared to him and said: “Come to me in Shamordino, I will calm you down.” At the same time, he stood up and announced that he was going to Shamordino. But since his legs were very weak and his gait was uneven, his mother wanted to take him by rail, but he refused this service. He met the elder near Shamordin. He was quietly driving from somewhere. There were people around him. “Father! - Gavryusha shouted in his incomprehensible language. “You called me, I came.” Father immediately got out of the carriage, approached him and said: “Great, dear guest! Well, live here." And he added to those around him: “I’ve never had anything like this before.” Father was very affectionate to Gavryusha.
He arranged a corner for him in Shamordin, and later in Rudnev, and Gavryusha kept wanting to go there: “Father! I don’t want to go to Shamordino; Let's go to Rudnevo; I want to go to Rudnevo.” And the priest kept reassuring him that when they prepared a room for Gavryusha in Rudnev, they would go there. It was touching to watch how the priest was engaged in a conversation with Gavryusha and how they walked around the cell, one hobbling on bowed legs, and the other bent over, leaning on his cane.
With so many different people constantly around the elder, there were some funny incidents. One very rich landowner came to him with her three-year-old daughter. While the mother was talking to the old man, the smart girl, left to herself, looked around the priest’s chamber, visited all its corners and finally, bored with her loneliness, stood in the middle of the cell, folded her hands on her chest and, looking pitifully at the old man, began the following speech: “Poor old man! He is so old, he lies all over his bed, his room is small, he has no toys, his legs hurt, he cannot run; I have toys; Do you want me to bring the dolls for you to play with, old man?” This naive childish speech was followed by the elder’s appropriate response: “Bring it, bring it, girl,” he said, “that’s how good you are; Thank you for taking pity on the old man.” The child, as we see, spoke like a child, and the old man like an old man.
In conclusion of this chapter, we will again and again point out a particularly outstanding feature in the life of Elder Ambrose - his unlimited mercy towards the poor and disadvantaged people. Sacrificing, so to speak, everything to his community - his health, exhausted by illness, sorrow and old age, and tranquility, and, finally, the wealth that God sent him through zealous benefactors, he never missed an opportunity to help everyone who sought and expected help from him. It’s already autumn, the last of his life. The elder himself knows this well, since he began to hint about this to those around him long ago. He also knows that there is a big lack in the Shamorda community. But in distant Moscow, one man, whom the priest called to a new life, is in deep despondency. From his family, with whom he had parted a long time ago and whom he considered wealthy, he received a mournful letter: there is need there, but there is nothing to help. He considers it untimely to ask the elder for help, since he knows well that in Shamordin people now count pennies.
At this time, the grief-stricken father suddenly receives a summons from the post office for a lot of money and cannot understand where it comes from. And it was the beneficent elder Ambrose who hastened to alleviate his grief.
In order to be able to give alms to the poor without refusal, the elder, despite the poverty of funds in the community, always tried to have in his hands up to a hundred small rubles, which he distributed either himself or through a cell attendant, to some a ruble, to others three or more. He no longer gave this money to anyone for any needs, not even for workers’ salaries. The monk Father Joel, who was overseeing the construction, would come and ask the elder for money to pay the workers; the priest will even say to him, as if with an insult: “No, no, go, go; well, you've already robbed me of everything; go, go, you’re completely gone!” When a large sum comes from somewhere, then the old man, with a cheerful look and his inherent love, said: “Now take as much as you need!”
There were people who condemned the elder for his alms. Even among people who were especially devoted to him, bewilderment often arose as to how he, having such a huge task in his hands as the organization of the Shamordino community, did not save money at all, even in the most difficult days - as if he preferred the laity to his monastery, since the elder gave away everything to the needy until the last ruble. For example, the following conversation took place between the elder and his cell attendant. The elder is looking near him on his bed for money to satisfy a needy petitioner. So he calls the cell attendant. “Look,” he will say, “somewhere; It seems that we had a ruble left somewhere; look, they ask.” “No matter how you ordered it to be given yesterday,” the cell attendant answered, “it would definitely remain the same, but now there is nothing. You’re handing out everything, and the workers are asking for wages, how are we going to pay them?” To console the cell attendant, the elder pretends to repent, shaking his head in sorrow. The ruble was still found somewhere for the poor man's share, while a large sum of money soon arrived at the Kozelsk post office in the name of Hieroschemamonk Ambrose.
The All-Good Lord always rewarded the elder so generously for his alms. In this way, it was possible to pay wages to the workers, and to provide assistance to some others in need. One of the last donations of Elder Ambrose was a very significant amount of money, which he gave for the famine-stricken.
Believing in the false promise of the Lord to repay alms with a hundredfold reward, the elder, so to speak, sowed with the undoubted hope that his community would reap abundant fruit in the near future.
XI. The sad circumstances of Elder Ambrose in the Shamorda community, and his predictions about his imminent death
Father Ambrose did not move to the community he had established, not for peace, as indicated in the notes of M.E. S., but for great work and sorrow. The elder himself, in the presence of the sisters surrounding him, spoke like this: “Mothers and sisters! I am here on your cross.”
“Indeed,” as Mrs. N. noted, “life has now begun for the elder to be incredibly difficult. Neither day nor night he had peace - both due to the inconvenience of the premises (which until his death everything was just being arranged and prepared), and from the multitude of affairs and people surrounding him. Why, by the fall (1890), his legs were swollen. I noticed this and expressed this to Father Joseph during our meeting. To which he replied: “This was to be expected; Father changed his way of life - in the monastery he mostly received visitors lying down, but there he always receives them almost sitting or standing.” The elder was burdened with matters of Shamordino proper, because the establishment of a huge women's community was in full swing, and the elder took all care of this upon himself. In warm summer weather, he himself tirelessly came for personal inspection of all the buildings being built and was apparently in a hurry, not sparing his poor health.
In addition, he himself had to find funds both for all the buildings being built, and in general for the maintenance of the monastery, along with the Rudnevo dacha, where work was also ongoing continuously. But, as noted above, the elder had no money, and therefore he got by, so to speak, somehow. He spent mostly borrowed money, relying on the devotion of some spiritual children close to him, who gave him promises of donations, sometimes posthumous, and sometimes throwing their last, albeit small, property at his feet. Much has already been said about crowds, so burdensome for a weak old man.
The above-mentioned M.E. S., who is close to Elder Ambrose, also reports what kind of moral torment he experienced. “The Optina residents grieved greatly,” she writes, “but only God knows what it was like for the priest. He sympathized with all of them, pitied them all. It was not easy for him to console them and persuade them to submit to the will of God. It’s hard to remember this autumn (1890), especially the first time. Almost every day someone came from there. Everyone wanted to hear something comforting from the priest himself. It used to be that they would say that so-and-so had arrived from Optina, and the priest no longer kept them waiting for long—he received and consoled them with special love. But very often after such visits he became extremely preoccupied and upset. It used to be that if you brought lunch to the priest, it would sit in the cell, and you would take it back without touching anything.”
Moreover, over time, the elder’s health began to weaken to the last extreme, and the murmur of visitors against him increased, since especially now, with a huge crowd of people, many of them had to wait a very long time for his reception. And the elder would have been glad to satisfy everyone, but his strength completely left him. Often in the coming winter, as eyewitnesses of the Shamorda sisters report, one had to see him lying on his back in complete exhaustion. His pale, exhausted face expressed suffering; his voice completely left him, and his eyes were closed. Seeing all this, my heart sank with pity. The priest himself often said with sorrow: “They don’t believe that I’m weak, they grumble.” And yet this half-dead old man not only never lost his presence of mind, but was also always calm and cheerful, as in the most favorable circumstances, and with his gaiety and humorous stories he knew how to disperse the darkest despondency in those around him.
During this last winter of his stay in the Shamorda community, all the sisters of the monastery, due to the elder’s excessive weakness and various other troubles, were once in a gloomy mood. The sickly old man gathered his last strength and with a cheerful look went out into the room where the sisters had gathered. At first he said something to some of them one by one in consolation, from which all their faces gradually brightened, and finally he made them laugh so much in front of everyone that they dispersed the last remnants of despondency. And one day the sisters surrounding the elder began to say to him with sorrow: “What a blessing we are to live with you and have you, father! And the time will come - you will no longer be with us. What are we going to do then? Father grinned, looked at everyone sitting with such love with which he alone could look, and, shaking his head reproachfully, said to them in consolation: “If I’ve been fussing with you here, then you probably won’t get away from you there.”
But as soon as one sorrow passed, another was ready for the sickly old man; or rather, every now and then sorrow was added to sorrow, illness to illness. Once, shortly after Easter (1891), the abbess of the community, who had just been appointed on his instructions, entered the elder’s cell on some business. But since her health was very weak, she suddenly felt very unwell. Her face turned pale, her breathing stopped, and she fell unconscious. The old man was confused. He himself, barely moving his legs, approached the apparently dying woman and, with shaking, weak hands, helped the sisters put her on the bed that stood nearby; finally, as if asking her not to leave him, the old man, depressed by illnesses and sorrows, said in a voice trembling with emotion: “Mother, breathe again!” And soon, through the prayers of the elder, her breathing resumed, and she received the Holy Mysteries of Christ. But then the painful attacks to the heart, which had happened to her many times before, as a result of which she fainted or died, passed away completely; Instead, they went to the visual organs and caused blindness.
In the middle of summer, she could no longer see anything, she could only distinguish, as she now does, white from black. She herself, due to loss of vision, began to be burdened by the position of abbess and asked the elder for advice on what to do - whether to submit a resignation letter. But the priest did not agree to this, saying: “Don’t give it yourself; and if the authorities tell you to give it, then give it.” To her objection that she was now blind and no longer had any hope of regaining her sight, he calmly answered her: “Well; Yes, you write better than me.” In general, as was noticeable, the elder was calm about the abbess’s loss of vision and only tried in every possible way to convince her not to be faint-hearted, often repeating: “Mother! Endure and do not lose heart,” citing the words of Holy Scripture: Through your patience save your souls (Luke 21:19), and: he who endures to the end will be saved (Matthew 10:22).
Along with the described sorrows and extreme illness of Father Ambrose, there was constant disfavor towards him from the highest spiritual authorities, which especially worsened towards the end of his life. There's a whole story about this. It was mentioned above that at the beginning of the summer of 1890, His Eminence Anastassy left Kaluga for the Voronezh diocese. In his place in Kaluga, the Tambov Eminence Vitaly was appointed, who, due to circumstances, did not appear at his destination for a long time. He arrived in the fall, when Elder Ambrose had his stay in the Shamorda women's community. The transfer of Bishop Vitaly from the Tambov to the Kaluga diocese had a strong depressing effect on him, as he once expressed to the rector of the Przemysl Trinity Monastery, Abbot Theodosius. But to this sorrow of the Right Reverend Vitaly, new sorrows were added here.
Soon after his arrival in the Kaluga diocese, he wanted to see the Optina elder Ambrose, known to the entire almost Orthodox world, in order to be consoled by his spiritual conversation, but, having learned that the elder lived in a monastery, he hesitated to go to the Optina Monastery, in the expectation that he would soon return to his monastery. Meanwhile, time passed, and the elder did not return. And it was also unpleasant for the bishop that the elder left his monastery without permission for another district 174 and lived for a very long time on the side, and, moreover, in a women’s monastery. But subsequent circumstances began to upset the Eminence even more. “Since the winter of 1890 - 1891,” as Mrs. N. says in her notes, unkind rumors arose about the elder. On the occasion of his stay in the women's monastery, his ill-wishers spread the most outrageous absurdities about him. They also confused the new ruler. Having been close there and involuntarily hearing all this, I was very worried; I didn’t yet dare to bother the elder, knowing that this was just a temptation, an enemy uprising for his virtuous life, for his great love for his neighbors.
There was a rumor that in this case someone especially influenced the ruler. They allegedly wrote even to St. Petersburg about the elder’s alleged undue stay in the nunnery.”
Let us add to this that the numerous visitors of Elder Ambrose carried and spread to different places various rumors about Optina and Shamordino affairs, often completely untrue. Everyone interpreted the elder in his own way; many people judged and condemned him. Thus, throughout all the places in Russia where the name of Elder Ambrose was known, an angry word about him spread. It should be noted here as a feature that among the admirers of Elder Ambrose at all times, until his very blessed death, there was also the Kronstadt archpriest, Father John Ilyich Sergiev, known to all Orthodox people for his highly spiritual life. Despite all the absurd rumors spread about the elder, he always had love for the Lord and respect for him. Often the Shamordin sisters, with the blessing of Elder Ambrose, went to Kronstadt to visit Father John. Having learned where they came from, Father Archpriest used to say: “Oh, this is from Elder Ambrose; oh great old man! I bow to him from the ground.”
Meanwhile, the further, the more the talk about the elder intensified and outraged the already embarrassed bishop, who, in a conversation with some people, exclaimed in sorrow and bewilderment: “What is this they are doing there!” Often, through the dean of the monasteries, the abbot of the Kaluga Tikhon Hermitage, Archimandrite Moses, he even demanded that the elder certainly return to his monastery. It is not known what the elder responded to these demands of the ruler. Most likely, he said the same thing that was written by him at one time and to the Optina brethren, that he “stayed in Shamordin due to the special providence of God.” The elder expressed the very essence of the matter, but they did not want to understand him and took his words for one empty excuse that supposedly had no meaning. In response to threats that he might be taken to Optina against his will, the sickly old man said with sorrow: “I know that I won’t get to Optina; If they take me away from here, I’ll die on the road.”
“One person close to the bishop,” continues Mrs. N., “knowing that I often go to the elder, asked me to warn him about the trouble that threatened him. But while I was getting ready to go, I was confused. Not knowing how to calm myself down, I, calling on the elder’s prayers in absentia, opened the Psalter, thinking that it would be revealed to the priest. The words of the psalm were revealed: Because of you we will tear our enemies' horns, and because of your name we will despise those who rise up against us (Ps. 43:6). These psalm words calmed me down so much that I went to my father cheerfully. Speaking to him, I told him: “For you, father, I will kiss the Cross and the Gospel in front of everyone.” The humble elder listened to me and meekly said: “Never kiss the Cross and the Gospel for anyone. Maybe I really am what they say about me.” The priest had such self-deprecation! The words of the psalm consoled him, and he forced me to repeat them, but at the same time strictly forbade me to resort to this method in advance, saying: “It’s too early for you.”
Just before I moved to the Shamorda community, a rumor spread that the bishop, upset by various speeches that had reached him, said: “I will go myself, put the elder in a carriage and take him to Optina.” Having arrived at the monastery with my children to live, I went to the elder only for general blessings. Father, as if on purpose, did not take me. His deeds and my own tormented me, but most of all, the fear that the ruler would come and the elder would be violated. The cell attendants and I myself asked the elder to accept me, saying what I needed. But the priest will come out, gently bless me and say: “You don’t need anything, wait.” So I got to the priest alone only about three weeks after my arrival to confess. This was at the beginning of July 1891. I told the priest: “I was eager to come to you not for myself, but to tell you about the bishop’s intention.” Father was terribly weak at that time. The people completely crushed him. His voice completely dropped, which has become a frequent occurrence lately. His hut for receiving people was just being finished, and he himself was located in the summer quarters of the late abbess, Mother Sophia.
Father answered me: “As the Lord my God lives, and my soul will live; and you know that above all rulers there is a Supreme Lord; I’m not going to go to Optina; and where will I go now? And the priest spread his hands around himself. Then he continued: “Unless... - The priest’s voice dropped so much that I only heard: “The end of September and the beginning of October.” Father read a prayer of permission over me and released me. The beginning of his words calmed me down. I understood that the Supreme Lord would protect the elder, but I didn’t understand the ending well and therefore wondered where the priest would hide. He will not go to Optina and will not stay in Shamordino; Isn't it going to the gate? And this thought horrified me. In the Rudnev-Shamordinskaya dacha, the elder was arranging something; and I thought, is this the right place? I was far from my father’s death. This thought did not even occur to me then. The Dormition Fast came, and I again went to the elder for confession. Having finished it, I said: “Father! But rumors about the arrival of the bishop do not stop; I’m terribly afraid for you.”
But the priest stood up and, turning me towards the door, lightly hit me on the back of the head and said: “Go away!.. I’m only thinking about how I can be left alone.”
“Father! – another nun asked the elder, “they say the bishop is coming here; what will you tell him? “I’ll tell you,” the priest answered quietly, “I’ll say, seek first the will of God.”
Soon after this, his spiritual son, the abbot of the Przemysl Trinity Lyutikov Monastery, Abbot Theodosius, who was close to him, came to the elder with the same fear. “Do you know, father,” he said, “what awaits you?” The old man sadly bowed his head. Clearly seeing in his spirit the intrigues of the primordial invisible enemy of the human race, now armed against him with special bitterness for his countless good deeds to people, he said: “Yes, Father Theodosius, all hell has risen against me.” This father abbot had repeatedly asked the elder for his blessing to retire from his position as abbot. The elder responded to this: “You and I, Father Theodosius, will then have peace when they sing peace over us and the saints; and it’s good if we’ll still be worthy.” And another time, in response to the same request from Father Abbot, the priest said affirmatively in a joking tone: “Live where you live (i.e. in the Trinity Monastery) until they drive you away.” Then he added: “But you still can’t avoid Optina Pustyn.” Both of these predictions of the elder, after his death, were fulfilled exactly.
Such were the circumstances that Father Abbot had to resign from his position and move to the Optina monastery, where he lives to this day.
In this coming autumn, the last for Elder Ambrose, K.N., who lived near the Optina Hermitage, came to his community. Leontyev to receive his blessing to go to Moscow for treatment. Saying goodbye to him, the elder repeatedly hugged him, saying: “Forgive me, forgive me!” Such a farewell seemed significant to Leontyev. And indeed: it was the last. Soon afterwards, first the elder died, and then Leontyev died in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra.
Meanwhile, the entire summer of 1891 in Shamordin was waiting for their new archpastor. The abbess and sisters were worried and worried and turned to the elder with various questions: “Father! How should we greet the Bishop?” To encourage them, the elder calmly answered: “It’s not us who will meet him, but he who will meet us.” - “What should the bishop sing?” The elder said: “We will sing alleluia to him.” Once again they told him: “Father! They say that the Bishop wants to ask you a lot.” He replied: “We will talk to him quietly, no one will hear.” To one of the close monks, in response to his message about the arrival of the bishop, he said: “Well, go to the church and prepare a place for me to stand.” With such answers, the elder obviously hinted at his imminent death, but none of those around him at that time understood these hints. Some sisters even had a premonition of the priest’s imminent death, but they did not want to believe it; It was thought, on the contrary, that it was impossible for the old man to die so soon.
This is what M.E. S-na writes: “Despite the great happiness that we have Father, the whole premonition of something terrible did not give me peace; and the thought - whether our father was spending his last days with us - poisoned everything. I was afraid to talk to anyone about this, lest I hear from others that they too had the same thoughts. Once, in a conversation with M., I decided to ask how she thought about this. M. also told me that she was afraid to be very happy - God knows how long it will be like this. This thought has probably occurred to many people. From the priest we never heard any direct indication of his imminent death. Some of his orders seemed to indicate this, but then everything was explained somehow differently, and only after the death of the elder did everything become clear. A few months before the death of the priest, one St. Petersburg artist, who sometimes turned to him for financial help, sent the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, a copy of Her miraculous image, and with it the names of his family, asking the priest to pray for them.
Father ordered to put a note in the icon case for the icon and said: “The Queen of Heaven Herself will pray for them.” This icon was then carried in front of the priest’s coffin. One poor family man, whom the priest had helped many times, before his last illness, wrote to the elder with a request to help him buy warm clothes. Father sent him as much as he needed and at the same time dictated a few words, adding at the end: “Remember that this is the last help I will give you.” I had to write this note, but her last words did not bother me at all. I explained them to myself in such a way that I needed to write this to him as a warning so that he wouldn’t get his hopes up too much. They brought the priest an icon of the Savior with a crown of thorns, 175 which had stood on his table in the reception room for a long time. One visiting nun, sitting in this cell waiting to receive the priest, was the first to notice drops appearing on this icon, like peace, and reported this to M. When the nun left, they brought the icon to the priest, telling him about the miraculous drops that appeared on it.
He looked at her for a long time and said: “There will be sorrows both for the one who first saw this and for those living here.” A few days after the departure of this nun, the priest received a letter from her in which she notified him that immediately upon returning to her monastery she had to endure unexpectedly great sorrow. This was at the beginning of September, and a month later our monastery had to experience the loss of our unforgettable great elder, father and benefactor.”
It is remarkable that his very last general Easter greeting also contained a hint of the proximity of his death. Having begun by interpreting the word “Easter”, that it means bringing from death to life and from earth to heaven and that on this holiday joyful Christians fraternally greet each other with the Resurrection, forgiving everything and those who hate them, the elder in this last message of his then speaks about love for God and neighbors, about the need for soul-helping instructions, and therefore mentors, and about a reasonable understanding of the word of God, prayerfully asking for help in all this God's. This was, so to speak, the last testament of the old man, who was approaching the transition from death to life and from earth to heaven.
Not long before his death, the elder said in a joking tone to the sisters around him: “Look, autumn is coming; and here and there the ducks and geese will get it.” Then, grinning, he added: “The geese will drag, and the ducks will cry.”
“In September,” the aforementioned Mrs. N. continues in her notes, “the priest suddenly hurried me and my daughters with (monastic) clothes, ordered me to sew them quickly and said what was required for this, since we didn’t know anything, even how many arshins each needed, and added: “I’ll dress you myself.” I must also say that a week before this, my youngest daughter (godmother) announced to the elder that she would never leave us behind, which gave the elder incredible comfort. On September 20, he dressed us himself and read the prayer prescribed for this. At the same time, large tears appeared in his eyes. Having finished the prayer, he asked me: “What about the Kamilavki, the apostles?” I looked at my father in bewilderment. I was not told this, and I did not prepare it. The elder said: “Well, for now, go around wearing handkerchiefs.” And then he added: “Soon there will be a new rapid manifestation.” The next day, early, the priest called me to confess. And this was my last confession with him. Father congratulated me in new clothes, saying: “So you feel much better.”
And he added: “Now tell me only your sins, and leave about deeds; I’m sick, very sick, I’m very bad.” Something clouded my head. My thoughts were far from my father’s death and I did not understand his words. “I wanted to join today,” the elder continued, “but they stopped me; they say they will come from S... from Optina, but God knows whether they will come again.” And the priest’s face was sad. I thought: who can and dares to interfere in my father’s affairs? And without telling him anything, she left. Soon I came to the priest again with some kind of sorrow. The elder was already very ill, but he accepted me. When I began to cry, he, running his hand over my face, said: “Your tears will not flow like that; they will flow like a river for you, and even then everything will pass.” To my sorrow he said: “You are fools; But how can I get it for you!”
In conclusion, let us marvel at the generosity of the blessed elder. In the community he founded, as now, there were more than 500 sisters, an orphanage, an almshouse, and a hospital. It's a hungry year, so bread is expensive. His monastery had accumulated a large debt. The abbess is blind. He himself is in disgrace with his superiors, disgraced. And, moreover, on the edge of the coffin. What adamantine soul could not tremble at this? But the elder remained calm in spirit.
XII. The last days of the life of Elder Ambrose
Now we saw that Father Ambrose had already begun to become very ill. Back at the end of August, one visitor, candidate of the Moscow Theological Academy F. I. D-ii wrote about him in his letter to a person close to him: “When I entered the room (of the elder), and - I must admit - not without some trembling and sinking hearts, I saw a little old man (he was once tall), about eighty years old, in a simple warm cassock and a monk’s cap, sitting in a chair, pale and weak to the last degree. The skin barely fits the bones, the lower lip trembles; you think that he is about to die now. If anything is alive in this almost dead body, it is the eyes, small, light brown, radiant, kind, observant and insightful. All life seems to be concentrated in them, and they present an amazing contrast with the deathly pallor of the face and the amazing weakness of the body. Truly, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
Father, according to his custom, lovingly received the visitor and talked with him a lot, predicting his service in the Polish region; then he spoke about the Moscow Academy; I remembered the kindest professor Fyodor Aleksandrovich Golubinsky and was curious about whether any of his descendants remained. Finally we got to talking about His Eminence Moscow Metropolitan Philaret. Elder Ambrose told about him, among other things, the following: “When his trips to St. Petersburg stopped, he wanted to renounce the metropolis and ask for peace. But before making such an important decision, the Metropolitan summoned the elderly and respected abbot of the Pesnosha Monastery, Abbot Nazarius 176, to Moscow and expressed his intention to him. “What do you, holy lord, intend to do in retirement?” – Father Superior asked the Metropolitan. “Of course,” answered the Metropolitan, “talk with God in solitude, pray.” “Well, wait,” objected Father Nazarius, “first talk to the demons, and then we’ll see.”
After such a conversation, the Metropolitan, as is known, did not carry out his intentions.” So the elder, even in the last days of his earthly existence, was attentive, affectionate and kind to everyone!
Everyone could see that the priest was barely alive, but, as noted above, none of those around him expected his imminent death. A cell for repair was prepared for him at the beginning of September this summer. According to custom, a prayer service was served with the blessing of water, and the elder moved from the abbess’s cell to her. The abbess, who always and in everything acted according to the will of the elder, at that time asked him: “And where, father, bless me to live?” “Now,” he replied, “you can live wherever you want.” - “So how is this?” - “Yes, live wherever you want, be it here or there.” – Again a hint of the proximity of death, not understood by the abbess. By this time, although work in the community had been reduced due to lack of money, the most necessary buildings were still ongoing. Some, especially those favored by the elder, with his blessing, built cells for themselves in the community in order to stay here closer to the priest, while his days were already numbered. We will tell you about these last days, from the words of Shamorda eyewitnesses, in as much detail as possible - day after day.
September 21st was Saturday. As usual, the hieromonk came from the monastery to serve the elder’s vigil, but in the morning the priest felt weaker than usual, and by the end of the day he was so weak that he could not hear the singing and felt chills. “Father has weakened, father has fallen ill,” was heard from all parts of the monastery. Everyone was greatly alarmed, well aware that for a weak, almost eighty-year-old old man, it would take little to ruin his life. On the other hand, the idea that the priest could die was so terrible and seemed so incredible that no one stopped to consider it. Everyone reassured themselves that “God is merciful; Yes, the priest shouldn’t die, he’s still needed.” A similar struggle between fear and hope had been experienced before every time the elder became seriously ill. So it was now.
On the 22nd, Sunday, the priest began to complain of pain in his ears; despite the fact that he continued to be involved in monastic affairs, even received some visitors, joked, and was generally cheerful.
“The next day, the 23rd,” we read in the notes of M.E. S-noy, “the pain in the elder’s ears intensified; he began to hear poorly and received very few visitors, as it was difficult for him to speak. And everyone asked him to give himself rest, but the priest got up, walked around the cell and took several people for a blessing. In the evening, the elder ordered it to be read aloud to him. When I asked if it would be difficult for him to listen with pain in his ears, he didn’t answer me. It was as if he thought for a few minutes and said out loud: “This is the last test - I lost my hearing and voice.” However, the priest’s voice (as mentioned above) had long since begun to weaken, so that in the evening he sometimes spoke in a whisper. Everyone was so far from the idea of losing their priest, and his illness seemed so different from the one before death that his words - “this is the last test” - I explained to myself that the priest had experienced all the illnesses, and his hearing was always very good - now he’s lost that too.”
For the next two days, the elder was still in the same position, but almost did not take it, since he had completely lost his hearing and voice. “The people,” notes M.E. S., “from morning to evening did not leave the porch of his cell. How much sorrow there was, how many tears were shed! Some couldn't wait long; Through the cell attendant they asked in absentia for blessings and answers to their questions. In order not to bother the priest with conversations, in extreme cases questions were offered to him in writing.”
On the 26th, Thursday, the elder felt worse - he complained of severe pain in his ears, face, head and throughout his body. There was an abscess in one of his ears. The deteriorating health of the sickly old man greatly confused everyone. They immediately decided to call Dr. Babushkin from Moscow by telegram, who, having previously lived in Kaluga, often used him. The priest willingly agreed to this.
On the 27th, Friday, an abscess in the old man’s ear burst, and the pain subsided a little, and in the evening a Moscow doctor arrived. And before, having repeatedly visited the elder in all cases of his sudden illnesses, he always answered questions about his health reassuringly and for the most part like this: “I come here for the sake of form; if it were an ordinary patient, then I would say that he has half an hour to live; but this is Father Ambrose, he can live for years.” So now, as usual, the doctor calmed everyone down, saying that there was nothing dangerous, that it was influenza in the ears; gave some sedatives and prescribed complete calm to the patient. Afterwards the elder seemed to feel better. But he could not exactly follow the doctor’s advice - to give himself some rest for a while; and as soon as he felt a little relief, he began to receive visitors again, albeit little by little. And since deafness now prevented him from speaking with them, questions were written for him on paper in large letters, and he gave oral answers to them.
Meanwhile, upset by the disobedience of some of the sisters of the monastery, the elder said with sorrow: “God took away my hearing and voice, so as not to hear how you ask for blessings to live according to your will, and so as not to speak, because you do not obey.”
On the 29th, Sunday, the priest suddenly came out of his cell and said that he had forgotten to pray before the icon of the Queen of Heaven “Joy of All Who Sorrow.” He wished that a prayer service be served in front of this icon in his cell, which, of course, was immediately fulfilled. Sisters and laymen crowded at the door. Everyone wanted to stand at this prayer service, pray for the recovery of their dear father and beg for joy from “Joy to All Who Sorrow.”
“On the evening of October 1 (Tuesday),” Mrs. N. continues in her notes, “my dear daughter came with my letter to the elder. I myself was afraid to ask often. In response to my letter, the priest, having read it all, said to my daughter: “Tell your mother - everything will pass, I can’t arrange anything else, and I gave you to the Queen of Heaven.” And since I was placed with the children at the hotel, where I was given the obedience to receive visiting people, then in response to my words that rumors spread that the elder had placed me with the children outside the fence for punishment, he said: “They’re lying, but for obedience.” To my further words that it was far away and the priest would forget me there, he replied: “Is it far? We remember you, we really remember you, and we will help you with everything.” So, having consoled me on the Intercession of the Queen of Heaven and giving the rosary to my daughter, the priest, releasing her, said: “After all, this will not last long for you; I will give you a cell, the best of the entire monastery.” She died two years after that.”
The doctor, having stayed with the elder until October 2 (Wednesday), went to visit his relative for several days. When leaving, he said that the priest’s illness was going well. The elder himself escorted the doctor to another room and talked to him a lot. The first two days after that the patient felt well. And although the pain in the ears did not decrease, and small abscesses appeared in one ear and then in the other, there was no fever. Father continued to use the drugs prescribed by the doctor, and everyone in the monastery was calm.
On the 4th, Friday, the elder said that the pain in his head was getting worse, and in the evening he had a fever. All the days that followed he had a fever every other day, most of which he spent as if in oblivion. However, despite his extreme weakness, at times he was able to get out of bed without outside help, walked around the room and even called on some of the people he needed and made orders for buildings. On this day, one of the elder’s closest disciples, Hieromonk Joseph, who was in Shamordin, wanted to confess to him, but, seeing that the elder was very weak, he was afraid to disturb him. Meanwhile, as soon as he made a small hint that he would like to confess, the priest immediately put on the epitrachelion and guards and himself handed him the confession book. And Father Joseph now had the good fortune to confess to him for the last time, after which, saying goodbye to the elder, he left for the monastery. The night that followed, according to Father Joseph’s story, for some reason he could not fall asleep for a long time, and at that time he heard someone say: “The old man will die.” The words were heard clearly.
“A week before the death of the elder (on the 3rd),” Mrs. N. adds information about him in her notes, “a young monk from the Caucasus came and stayed at my hotel. He really needed the elder's advice. He left his monastery due to trouble with the abbot and went across Russia to look for a monastery where he could settle. I heard about our great elder and came to him. Speaking to me, he said that he liked most of all the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, but they wouldn’t take him there, and the abbot of the Root Hermitage of the Kursk province took him and really persuaded him to stay with him, but he doesn’t like it there. I explained to him that our elder was very ill and it was difficult now, due to his weakness, to get to him, but still, wanting to help him, I began to bother about him through the cell attendants. Two days passed like this. On the third day (5th), on the advice of the cell attendant, I told him to wait in the elder’s reception room all day; It’s better to stay without lunch and go see the elder for a moment. He listened to me. And when people were being released from the men’s quarters for dinner, he hid behind the door and remained unnoticed.
At two o’clock, when the cell attendants were resting, the priest rang a quick call and said to the serving nun who came in: “Call me the one who is standing outside the door.” She went out to the men's quarters and found no one there and returned to tell the priest that there was no one there. The elder sent her again for the same thing. To her utter surprise, she found a monk outside the door and called him to the priest. Then this monk told me with tears: the priest blessed him and said hastily, now letting him go due to his extreme weakness: “Don’t go to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, they won’t accept you there and it won’t be good for you, but go or go back to your monastery, the abbot will forgive you; or go to the Root Hermitage, they will gladly take you there.” Then the elder pulled out the “Trinity Leaf” from under his pillow and, letting go, handed it to him. The title of the leaflet was: “Do not test the elders.” What the monk admitted to me, bitterly repenting, was that he was more attracted to the elder by curiosity.
It should be noted that after the death of the elder, the sisters of the monastery still maintain the following custom: in case of any confusion, put the “Trinity Leaves” under the elder’s pillow and pull it out 177 . According to their faith, a suitable answer is always given to them. Five days before the death of the elder (the 5th is Saturday), I went to see him for the last time and said a few words. That day, in the morning, he felt somewhat better and went out to his receiving cell, where he blessed several sisters gathered there. One of them asked: “Do you have Krylov’s fables?” To her affirmative answer, the priest ordered her to read aloud a fable entitled “The Stream” 178. Father loved Krylov’s fables, finding them quite moral, and often resorted to them to teach his wise advice or to reprove. I, not knowing that the elder was able to go out to visitors that day, went to see him with the children that day in the evening.
Father called us, and along with us he called poor Gavryusha, who came to the elder and was received by him four months before his death, who lived near the elder with his cell attendants. Father was very, very weak, but he received us with his usual love, while still sitting on his bed. From the joy of seeing him, I didn’t know what to say about myself, and I didn’t say anything, but I asked for advice about someone else’s serious matter, and the priest told me what to do. Immediately he suddenly asked me: “They say you love poor Gavryusha?” I, not knowing how to answer this, thought: who could tell this to the priest? And she just answered him: he comes to see me. Father continued: “Take him to your hotel; my cell attendants fell ill (they were both sick at that time); I'm sick too; there is no one to follow him.” I said: I will gladly take it. And who wouldn’t I take for my father? So I took the poor man with me. And the elder immediately ordered all his things, which he himself had supplied, to be sent to me.
Previously, when the priest was healthier, he stopped by my hotel one day and, pointing to one cell, said: “And here will live with you the one who will live with you for a long time.” He was poor and ended up right in this cell.
The next day (the 6th - Sunday) the elder had a vigil. At halfway through the all-night vigil they said that the priest felt ill and began to breathe heavily. All the doors were opened wide. We were scared. Then we were all released, and we were told that the old man was worse. A difficult time has begun. We gathered in crowds into the reception huts and stood silently, even holding our breath. Rarely did anyone manage to sit. Almost all the time, akathists were read in turn.”
“On the 6th,” we read in the notes of M.E. S., “after lunch, the priest called and said to the cell attendant who came in: “Go and see who is there on the porch asking to go back to the monastery.” When the cell attendant said that there were a lot of people there, the priest again sternly told him: “Go now and find out.” A few minutes later the cell attendant returned and said that there was indeed a former Optina novice standing there, Brother M., who had left Optina for Athos, and now, already in secular dress, had come to ask the priest for advice on which monastery he should enter again. Father immediately ordered to call him, spoke with him for several minutes and blessed him to go to the Glinsk hermitage.”
The patient spent the 7th day as usual on Monday. In the evening he felt very thirsty and often asked for a drink. On this day, the abbess of the monastery experienced a terrible temptation. Her soul was in such a bleak situation that nowhere and nothing could give her the slightest consolation. This, as she put it, was like a foretaste of hellish torment. Entering the cell of the sick old man, she explained to him her terribly difficult situation. It turned out that this time the elder himself was under the same inexpressibly painful temptation. Probably, he was providentially allowed to experience for some time, as it were, abandonment by God, in order to allow him to fully understand the poverty and weakness of human nature. This was similar to how the Lord, in the midst of the suffering of the cross, cried out to God the Father: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me (Matthew 27:46). Therefore, having received an explanation from the abbess, the elder answered her like this: “I feel something that I have never experienced in my entire life.”
Let us note here that, seeing the extreme exhaustion of the elder, on one of his dying days, his confessor Father Theodore said to him: “Father! Now you are dying, to whom are you leaving your abode?” The crusader and cross-loving elder answered him like this: “I leave the monastery to the Queen of Heaven; and I gilded my cross.”
Throughout his painful state, the elder enjoyed the sympathy of the distinguished visitor to Optina Pustyn, His Highness Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich. Upon notification by his Optina rector, Father Archimandrite Isaac, about the excessive deterioration of the elder’s health, His Highness deigned to honor the rector with the following two telegrams. One said:
“Tenderly touched by the kind prayer memory. Alarmed by the old man's illness. God help me. Konstantin." In another: “The dear memory of Optina Hermitage, which is close to my heart, deeply touches me. I grieve for the sickly old man Ambrose. I pray to God to send down to the holy monastery bright spiritual peace and joy in the Lord. Konstantin."
But let’s continue the diary of the course of Father Ambrose’s dying illness. 8th - Tuesday: at six o'clock in the morning the elder said that he was very chilly, and his face had changed a lot. A few minutes later the patient became feverish, and he forgot. An hour later he asked for fish soup, but suddenly became so weak that he could hardly name what he wanted. The fever intensified and delirium began. They immediately sent to the monastery for the skete’s head, Hieromonk Father Anatoly, and Father Joseph (the current elder). The latter soon arrived and upon arrival immediately, as Mrs. N. notes in her notes, “hurriedly went to the elder, and after a while he came out and told us all: “It’s in vain that you crowd here: the elder doesn’t speak and there is no hope for his recovery.” Until that time, they kept serving it to us.” Soon after, Father Anatoly arrived. All that day the patient grew weaker and weaker, so that he could no longer speak. His fever intensified, reaching 40º.
Probably, the elder was experiencing excruciating pain in his body at that time, which did not allow him to lie quietly in bed, because he kept signaling to Father Joseph, who was with him, and his cell attendant, Father Alexander, to be raised; but as soon as they lifted him up, he again gave a sign to be put into bed. At the same time, he was shaking as if with a fever. In the evening the Moscow doctor returned from his relative, but already found the old man hopeless. He suddenly felt so bad that they thought he was already at the end of his life, and therefore Father Joseph read the discharge note for him. It was finally decided to honor the elder. While preparations were underway for the unction, it was already 11 o’clock in the evening. And so the monastery leader, Father Anatoly, with Father Joseph and the elder’s confessor, Father Theodore, began the rite of blessing of oil, during which the priest lay unconscious. His heavy, hoarse breathing, probably from accumulated phlegm, which the old man did not have the strength to cough up, could be heard two rooms away. The sisters stood in the waiting room and prayed.
When the unction was over, the prayer books standing there came to the elder in threes to look at their fading luminary and say goodbye forever to their dear, loving father, to whom they were accustomed to resort in every sorrow, and who always so consoled and encouraged them. Barely holding back their sobs, afraid to break the silence, the sisters silently bowed at the elder’s feet and kissed his motionless hand, which was burning with fire, looked into his face, wanting to more clearly imprint the dear features in themselves, then immediately went out the opposite door. Some still harbored a faint hope that perhaps this was not the end, perhaps these eyes would open again and look at them tenderly, perhaps this hand would sign the sign of the cross over them more than once or pat the guilty one on the head with fatherly love. But no, it was a vain hope.
“When we went up to the elder,” Mrs. N. adds in her notes, “I heard the priest sigh heavily, and even a groan escaped from his chest. I decided not to leave the hut, and therefore, separating myself from the crowd, unnoticed by everyone, I hid behind the door under some priest’s dress hanging there, which he no longer needed, and sat down on the floor, deciding here to wait for the end of my father’s life, thinking that the end would be that night.”
After 12 o'clock at night on the 9th, the old man began to perspire, and the fever began to subside. This cheered everyone up somewhat. Then he regained consciousness, which everyone really wanted and expected, in order to communicate the Holy Mysteries of Christ. Meanwhile, Mrs. N. continues: “Father’s confessor, Father Theodore, brought the Holy Gifts, but Father fell asleep at that time, and Father Theodore remained waiting for his awakening in the corridor where I was sitting. Having waited in vain for a considerable time, the tired Father Theodore, already at two o’clock in the morning, placed the Holy Gifts in the priest’s cell and went to rest. A few minutes after he left, the elder woke up, but did not say anything, but only by shaking his hand showed the cell attendants who followed him that he recognized them. Now Father Joseph, who was resting near the elder, was called, and he communed the sick man with the Holy Mysteries of Christ for the last time. Apparently, this was the special will of God, so that the elders’ closest and most beloved disciple and successor would communion with him for the last time, as before he brought him the Holy Gifts when he was in Optina.
At this point, having forgotten all fear, I came out of my ambush and saw how the elder was given communion. At first, when presenting the Holy Gifts to the priest for a message, he more than once pushed them away with his hand. For a long time they could not understand why the elder did this, and they asked him, but he was no longer able to answer. Then they realized that he wanted Father Joseph to cross him with his own hand, since he himself could not lift it at that moment. Then they showed him the monstrance, and he showed that he could swallow. They first gave him Jordanian water, which he swallowed, after which they told him the Holy Mysteries of Christ. Having finally calmed down that the elder had received communion, I went home.”
After receiving the Holy Mysteries of Christ, the elder did not lose consciousness all that day: he drank several sips of coffee; got out of bed when it was necessary to move his bed away from the wall so that it would be convenient for the servants to walk around it; He even took a few steps towards his table. But that was the shortest time. When the abbess approached him, he was already lying down again and, looking at her tenderly, quietly said: “It’s bad, mother!” Several times after that he indicated with his hand that he felt severe pain in his head. He himself took off his cap and showed them to cover his head with a scarf.
All this day, like almost all those that preceded it, the skete monk Father Joel, who was in charge of the Shamordino buildings, and another elder cell attendant, Father Isaiah, were constantly with the elder to serve. To others who wanted to enter his cell to serve him, the elder did not allow them to enter with a sign of his hand. Let us note at the same time how deeply grateful the departing elder was to Father Joel mentioned here for his active help in setting up the monastery. When he was still somewhat strong, he once lovingly hugged him and said something for a long time, but so silently that he could not understand anything.
Having learned about the elder’s excessive and unusual weakness, the Optina rector Archimandrite Isaac and Hieromonk Macarius (Strukov) came to say goodbye to him on the same day. At the sight of the extremely exhausted patient, they both cried. Father recognized them and, fixing a deep, intent gaze on them, raised his hand and took off his cap. This was the elder’s last farewell sign to them. Upon leaving the elder’s cell, Father Archimandrite, overwhelmed with intense grief, said that he had not expected this at all, and Father Macarius expressed a desire, following the example of others, to serve a prayer service in front of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God. All those who were with the elder, who could go away, went to church; they served and prayed to God and the Most Pure Mother of God for his recovery. Those present here were asked to make ten bows for him. Nevertheless, in general, the sisters, realizing that they were forever deprived of their patron, both before and after that, did not cease to pour out their grief in tearful prayers before the miraculous face of the Mother of God.
In the church, prayer services with kneeling were served non-stop, and all the admirers of the elder, as one person, screamed and asked for recovery to their dear priest. However, the Lord did not heed their fervent prayers, but only sent down His all-powerful help - with submission to His holy will to endure the difficult test providentially appointed for them. “From two o’clock in the afternoon,” notes Mrs. N., “it became very difficult for the old man. He lay motionless on his right side and was breathing heavily.”
On this same very mournful day for the Shamordino sisters, a telegram was unexpectedly received from the Kaluga governor stating that on the following, the 10th of October, the Kaluga Bishop Vitaly was leaving Kaluga for the Shamordino monastery. Its purpose had long been known. Therefore, this unexpected news, and at such a difficult time, confused everyone.
Meanwhile, things became more and more difficult for the elder. By evening he again developed a strong fever, and from six o'clock he no longer raised his head and lay in one position. All night his breathing was heavy. The eyes were directed upward, and the lips moved quickly. According to the remark of monk I.F. Ch-va, who was on duty that night near the elder, the patient whispered a prayer until the morning.
“At night,” Mrs. N. continues in her notes, “they again began to let us into the priest, but only one at a time, so that, quietly approaching him, bow to him in the ground and immediately leave. I, a sinner, got caught at three o'clock in the morning. When I entered and bowed to the elder, I felt his gaze on me, that special look of the priest with which he sometimes looked. Father followed me with his eyes all the way to the door. I didn’t believe it myself. I was told, like everyone else, that the elder no longer recognizes anyone. I would have remained in this error if another similar example had not convinced me otherwise. One of our nuns, M. O. Ch-va, remembered that she had an expensive shrine, a small lace cover from the face of St. Tikhon of Zadonsk, and she wanted to put it on the head of the dying old man. That's why she went with my own daughter (now deceased) to the hut to hand over the cover to the cell attendant from the male side. They were lucky. At that moment the cell attendant was on duty next to the elder alone. It was Father Isaiah. He let them in so that they themselves could place the veil on the elder’s head.
Having placed the veil on him, they silently bowed to his feet and kissed his hand. Father, like me, a sinner, showered them with a look full of love and, when they left, followed them to the door with his eyes.”
Thus ended the last night in the life of the great elder Ambrose!
XIII. The death of Elder Ambrose, the funeral rite and the funeral meal in Shamordin
Repeatedly, Father Ambrose used to say to his loved ones: “I’ve been with the people for my whole century, and that’s how I’ll die,” humbly adding to this: “I keep messing around with others, but God knows when I’ll have to think about myself.” Indeed, this is how the elder had to die in front of the people who relentlessly crowded around the door of his cell, despite the fact that he could no longer hear or speak; and at the very hour of his death the elder was already positively surrounded by the people. But let's continue the story about the last hours of his life.
October 10th, Thursday. By the morning of this day, the elder’s strength had completely left him. He lay motionless. The eyes dropped down and stopped at some point, and the lips stopped moving. The pulse became weaker and weaker. The breathing was rare, but, as eyewitness Hieromonk Joseph noted, calm.
Seeing that the elder was very close to the end, Father Joseph hastened to go to the monastery to take from there the things stored in the elder’s cell for his burial - the old fly robe in which he was once dressed when he was tonsured, and the hair shirt, and also the canvas shirt of Elder Macarius, to whom Father Ambrose, as said above, had deep devotion throughout his life and respect. On this shirt there was the handwritten inscription of Elder Ambrose: “After my death, it is imperative to put it on me.”
“I got to my father’s cell,” adds Mrs. N. in her notes, “20 minutes before his death. Know that this happened by the will of God. One servant of God let me through. The old man still lay there as he had at night. Breathing became less frequent. When I entered, Father Isaiah was kneeling next to him. Father Theodore (after reading the canon of the Mother of God for the exodus of the soul for the last time at 11 o’clock in the afternoon) made the sign of the cross over the elder. The rest of the nuns present stood around. I fit at my feet." As soon as the waste was finished, the elder began to run out. The face began to become deathly pale. The breathing became shorter and shorter. Finally he took a deep breath. About two minutes later it happened again. Then, as Mrs. N. noted: “The priest raised his right hand, folded it for the sign of the cross, brought it to his forehead, then to his chest, to his right shoulder and, bringing it to his left, he hit it hard on his left shoulder, apparently because it cost him a terrible effort; and the breathing stopped. Then he sighed for the third and last time.”... It was exactly half past 12 noon.
Those who surrounded the bed of the peacefully deceased elder stood for a long time, afraid to disturb the solemn moment of separation of the righteous soul from the body. Everyone seemed to be in a daze, not believing themselves and not understanding whether this was a dream or the truth. But his holy soul had already flown off to another world in order to appear before the Throne of the Most High in the radiance of the love with which he was filled on earth. His old face was bright and calm. An unearthly smile illuminated him. “We quietly approached,” notes Mrs. N., “and kissed the old man’s open, still warm legs. Then they took us out."
As soon as everyone came to their senses, a terrible cry and sobbing arose. Hearing this commotion, those in the neighboring rooms guessed what was happening; They realized that what they were afraid to even think about had happened and that it was all over. The news of the elder’s death spread throughout the monastery with the speed of lightning, and the soul-tearing cries of the Shamorda nuns merged into one common terrifying groan of helplessness and hopelessness. Now it was not only Mrs. N., as the deceased elder had predicted for her, who was shedding tears like a river. About three weeks before the death of the elder, the man of God Gavryusha became sad and began to chant: “rest with the saints.” And when the elder died, he inconsolably mourned his death, repeating: “I will die, I will die!” 179 Soon, however, the first outburst of terrible grief subsided a little and turned into more concentrated grief.
Meanwhile, it was necessary to think about preparing the priest’s body for burial. Just at this time, Hieromonk Joseph returned from the monastery with the things needed to hide the elder’s body and with the monk Gabriel, who was obliged to hide the bodies of the dead for obedience. First, according to the elder’s will, they put on him the aforementioned canvas shirt of Elder Macarius, then on top of this shirt a hair shirt, and then, according to custom, other monastic clothes and a schema. The large paraman placed on his face was tightly sewn to the schema. While the monks were tidying the body, they read the Psalter nearby. The hidden body on a mattress was carried out into the abbess’s hall by the hands of the elder’s disciples. At the sight of the lifeless cold body of their dear father, the sisters again burst into loud sobs. In the hall, the body was laid on a prepared table, and immediately the first requiem service was celebrated for the repose of the newly deceased elder Hieroschemamonk Ambrose.
Immediately, on the occasion of the death of the elder, many telegrams were sent to different parts of Russia to everyone, especially those close to him, admirers and his spiritual children. And the first to be notified of this was His Imperial Highness, Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, who not so long ago was a visitor to the elder and had a conversation with him. In response to this notification from the Optina monastery, Hieromonk Anatoly, the latter had the good fortune to receive from His Highness from Ilyinsky the following telegram, breathing with a warm feeling:
“With all my soul I share the grief of your holy monastery over the loss of the unforgettable elder and I rejoice with you over the deliverance of his righteous soul. Create for him, Lord, eternal memory. I thank the father of the hermitage for the notice. Konstantin."
A telegram was also sent to Kaluga to the local bishop, His Eminence Vitaly, but it no longer found him in Kaluga. At the very moment of the death of Elder Ambrose, Vladyka left Kaluga, heading to meet with him in the Shamorda community. As a sick man, having driven only 28 versts from Kaluga, he stopped for rest and overnight at the Przemysl Trinity Buttercup Monastery, located on the way. Evening was coming. The Right Reverend sat in the hall with the abbot of the monastery, Father Abbot Theodosius, and had a conversation about various subjects. By the way, he also touched upon Elder Ambrose, expressing some dissatisfaction with him because the Elder, as he put it, does not have obedience to the highest authority. Just at this time, the rector’s cell attendant gave his father, the abbot, a telegram brought in his name from the city of Przemysl. Not suspecting anything special, Father Superior immediately, in the presence of the Bishop, opened the telegram. “But as soon as Father Abbot Theodosius himself said, “I read that Elder Hieroschemamonk Ambrose died, my hands trembled, and tears flowed from my eyes.
Looking at me, the Reverend asked: “What is it?” I just replied: “Sad news, Your Eminence.” Not satisfied with my answer, he asked again: “What is it?” I repeated the same answer again. “What is it?” – the Bishop asked anxiously for the third time. Instead of answering, I gave him a telegram. Looking into it, the bishop said: “What is this? Has the elder died? “As you can see,” I replied. The bishop was amazed by this unexpected news. He turned to the holy icons, clasped his hands and exclaimed: “My God! What is this? The fate of the Lord is inscrutable!..” He immediately decided the next morning, instead of the Shamorda community, to go first to Optina Pustyn. The Eminence was still very surprised when he learned that Elder Ambrose died at half past 12 o'clock in the afternoon, precisely at the very time when he was getting into the carriage in order to leave Kaluga. “Now I see,” he said, “that it was the elder who invited me to the funeral service. Bishops do not perform funeral services for ordinary hieromonks, but this elder is so great that a bishop must certainly perform a funeral service for him.
The doctors released me on the condition that I not serve anywhere, but now I consider it my duty to perform the funeral service for the elder.”
Night was falling. The bustle and movement in the Shamordino monastery subsided. The people dispersed to rest, but the sisters surrounding the body of the newly deceased elder did not disperse. They did not leave the dear remains of the priest all night. It was too hard for them. They now found the only consolation for themselves in being constantly near their deceased dear father, who so recently was with them, spoke so kindly, looked at them so affectionately. Exactly at half past 12 o'clock in the morning, the hieromonks came and after the requiem, they laid the elder's much-worked body in a simple coffin, upholstered with simple black cloth, covering it halfway with the same simple, shabby cover common to all monastery dead. So this great servant and saint of God, who spent his entire life in humility and self-abasement, and at his death wanted to equate himself with the last monastic novices! It was painful for the sisters to see how the priest had already moved in body to his new home; It was painful to think that in a few days the coffin lid would completely hide him from their gaze.
The sisters alternately read the Psalter, and every time the name of “our newly departed father Hieroschema-monk Ambrose” was pronounced, everyone in the hall bowed to the ground. These words resonated inexpressibly hard and painfully in hearts tormented by grief.
“At the urgent request of the elder’s spiritual children,” reports Mrs. N., “hieromonk V. embroidered the eyecup (large paraman), and we were shown the elder’s face. It was wonderful, bright and with an expression of greeting, the kind that the priest used to have when he met his dear spiritual children after a long separation. Whether from the heat of the candles or the cramped conditions, even beads of sweat were noticeable on the old man’s bright face, as if he were alive. But then something out of the ordinary happened to me. I stood on the right side of the coffin next to the candlestick itself, so close that my hands touched the edge of the coffin; she looked intently at her dear father, trying to imprint in her memory forever the features of his face. Behind me, not far away, was the door of the cell of M.T., the father’s granddaughter, in which the father had often been lately and worked with the people. I heard someone come up to me from behind and bend over from my right shoulder right next to my ear; and then I heard the dissatisfied, even angry, loud voice of Father Ambrose himself. The meaning of his words expressed why they were looking at his face. It was one minute.
With terrible fear, I flew away in the opposite direction and found myself at the doors of the abbot’s cells. It took me a while to recover from my fright. I never saw the priest’s face again, although it was discovered many times before the funeral ceremony was performed over him. I walked away every time. I told only one priest about this then, Father Joseph. To explain this circumstance, I must deviate somewhat into the past. Almost four years before the death of the elder, Mother Sophia, the first abbess of the Shamorda community, died. While still a layman, I came to her funeral. After the funeral, I went to Optina to visit the elder to visit him personally, and by the way, to express my regret to him about the death of his beloved student, nun Sophia. I got to the priest late in the evening and was received by him with a general blessing. There were many sisters from Shamordin who had arrived here. In response to my expressed regret for the deceased, the priest said: “Yes! She didn’t live long, but she made many people love her.” To my words: “How beautiful she was dead!
God save the sisters, - they opened it and showed it to me, although I didn’t ask them to do this,” the priest said sadly: “Everyone came running to me in tears in the first minute (Mother Sophia died in Optina, and her body was transferred to Shamordino): let me, let me embroider the schema and open it for them to look at; and according to the charter, schemaniks should not be opened. I, to their grief, gave in; and now whoever has seen her face bows for a whole year with the prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner, and forgive my unheard-of audacity to look at the face of the schema-monk,” and at the same time bow three times in the morning and evening.” I kept bowing and praying like that for a whole year. So the elder was dissatisfied with himself because they looked at his face insolently, and most of all I, a sinner.”
On the following Friday, the 11th, funeral liturgies for Elder Ambrose were celebrated both in the Shamorda Kazan women's community and Optina Monastery, and in many other places. At the second hour of the day, the last requiem service was served over him in his cell, and then the coffin with the body of the deceased was taken out of the abbot’s building into the church, where the reading of the Psalter continued and requiem services were sung incessantly, with the inconsolable crying of the spiritual children and admirers of the elder who filled the church.
As a result of telegrams sent everywhere, visitors were now beginning to arrive in the community from all sides. On all the trains traveling on this and the following days along the Kursk, Ryazan and other roads, conversations about the death of Elder Ambrose were heard every now and then. Many were going specifically to the funeral. The postal station in Kaluga was besieged by requests for horses. On the day of the burial, together with the Right Reverend Vitaly, the following arrived at different times: the dean of all Kaluga monasteries, the rector of the Tikhon Monastery, Archimandrite Moses, and other abbots and abbess of the monasteries closest to the Optina Monastery, from their own and from foreign dioceses, and many other clergy and secular persons, so that the monastery did not even have enough premises. At the same time, pedestrians walked along all the roads, so that by this time up to eight thousand people had accumulated in Shamordin.
Meanwhile, out of love and respect for the deceased elder, a misunderstanding arose between the Optina brotherhood and the Shamordino community about where to bury the body of the deceased, dear to both sides - in Optina or Shamordina. To resolve this issue, they even considered it necessary to go to the Holy Synod, from where they soon received a telegram signed by the leading member of the Synod, Metropolitan Isidore of St. Petersburg, who ordered the burial of the body of Elder Ambrose in the Optina Hermitage.
Throughout the following night, on the 12th, memorial services for the elder continued to be served. They were served at the request of the sisters and visitors, or by the hieromonks and priests who arrived at their own request and diligence. The people, as long as the body of the deceased was open, brought scarves, pieces of canvas and other things, asking them to be attached to the body of the elder, and accepted them back with faith and reverence, as a shrine. Some mothers put their small children to it.
On October 12, Saturday, the rector of the Likhvinsky Intercession of the Good Monastery, Abbot Agapit, who arrived at the burial of the elder, having previously lived with him for a considerable time in the Optina monastery, served a conciliar service: a prayer service with an akathist before the miraculous Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, a liturgy and a requiem service over the elder’s tomb. Then private funeral services continued all day and night.
On Sunday the day was clear and warm, which is rare in October. The bright rays of the morning sun illuminated the quiet Shamordino monastery and, penetrating through the windows into the church, they played merrily on the golden decorations of the iconostasis and on the large candlesticks that stood near the coffin. On this day, the Right Reverend Vitaly appointed a funeral service in Bose for the deceased elder. And therefore, from the very early morning, people moved in a long line to the church. The entire square in front of her was strewn with a motley, elegant crowd. Everything had the appearance not of the presence of a deceased person in the church, but of some extraordinary bright spiritual triumph. Finally, at 8 and a half o'clock, the ringing of bells announced the approach of the archpastor, who had an overnight stay in Optina Hermitage. Having approached the building where a room had been prepared for him, he asked: “Where is the body of the deceased elder?” Having learned that it was in the church, the bishop wanted first of all to bow to it and, without entering the house, went on foot to the church.
Meanwhile, in the church they expected the bishop not immediately upon his arrival in the community, but after half an hour of the time appointed for the rest of the sick bishop, as had been previously announced, and therefore they sang a requiem at this time. The Bishop unexpectedly entered the church just at the time when, at the end of the immaculate “Blessed art thou, Lord,” they sang “Alleluia,” as, as we saw above, the late elder predicted about this. The sisters, seeing their new archpastor, whom they had been preparing to meet with their father so long ago, could not withstand the onslaught of memories that did not correspond to the sorrowful reality, and burst into tears loudly. Not suddenly they could come to their senses and sing the entrance to the bishop, who first went to the altar and, venerating the holy altar and holy icons, then approached the tomb, bowed low, crossed the deceased three times and immediately left the church.
Some time later, the Right Reverend again arrived at the church to serve the Divine Liturgy, the beginning of which was scheduled at nine o’clock, and was already met by two archimandrites, two abbots and four hieromonks who were preparing to concelebrate with him. After reading the entrance prayers, the bishop, according to custom, put on his vestments, and the service began. On the right choir the choir of bishops sang, and on the left the sisters of the community sang. After the sacramental verse, with the blessing of the Right Reverend, a student of the Moscow Theological Academy, Hieromonk Gregory of Borisoglebsky 180, who had deliberately arrived from Sergiev Posad for the burial of Elder Ambrose, came to the pulpit, and uttered a beautiful word 181, in which he clearly depicted the significance of the late elder as, in particular, for the Optina Monastery and the Shamordino Monastery communities, and in general for monasticism and all of Russia. As distinctive features of the deceased, he put forward his broad, boundless charity, his selfless love for every Christian soul, under whatever conditions it may be, his simplicity and deep humility.
The preacher's words were at times drowned out by the sobs of his pious listeners.
At the end of the liturgy, His Grace Vitaly and with him 28 clergy, all in white vestments, stepped into the middle of the church for the funeral service. There were: Father Archimandrite Moses, dean of the monasteries and abbot of the Tikhonova Monastery, father Archimandrite Isaac, abbot of the Optina Monastery, father hegumen Theodosius, abbot of the Przemysl Trinity Monastery, father hegumen Agapit, abbot of the Likhvinsky Pokrovsky Good Monastery, father hegumen Ignatius, abbot of Belevsky Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery, father hegumen Gervasy, rector of the Maloyaroslavets Nikolaevsky monastery, archpriest of the city of Belev Ioann Afanasyevich Delektorsky, archpriest of the city of Kozelsk father Alexander of Eleonsky, two hieromonks - students of the Moscow Academy, fathers Gregory and Tryphon, and other hieromonks and priests. This sacred spectacle was majestic and touching.
The reverent service of the archpastor, the harmonious singing of both choirs, the touching chants of the funeral monastic rite, many praying with candles burning in their hands and, finally, among the brilliant surroundings, a poor coffin with a dead man lying in it, entwined with a schema, dear to all those present - all this made a stunning impression on everyone. Many were crying bitterly. – Before the singing of the kontakion “Rest with the Saints,” a student of the Moscow Theological Academy, Hieromonk Tryphon 182, as well as Hieromonk Gregory, who deliberately arrived at the burial of the elder, gave a short but deeply felt speech 183 based on his personal memories of spiritual communication with the deceased, as his novice and disciple, although he lived with him for a short time in Optina. The preacher concluded his speech with veneration of the elder’s tomb.
The hour of the usual farewell to the deceased had finally arrived. The sad, harmonious sounds of a wondrously high sacred song were heard: “Come, let us give our last kiss, brothers, to the dead.” Again screams and sobs filled the church. The bishop was the first to approach the coffin. The moment of his farewell to the one to whom he was traveling as if he were alive, but whom the Lord had judged him to find dead, was touching. The Bishop took the Kazan miraculous icon of the Mother of God, which was lying on a lectern in front of the tomb, and with deep prayerful feeling he blessed the deceased with it three times, bowed low to him, kissed his head and hands, and blessed him three more times with his saintly blessing. Behind the bishop, the clergy, the abbess, the sisters and the people began to say goodbye. The sisters' farewell was especially touching. The grief over the death of the priest was increased for them by the grief that his dear remains would not be buried with them, but in the Optina Hermitage. This sincere, tearful last kiss lasted a long time. Finally, around three o’clock in the afternoon, the bishop took leave.
Eternal memory was proclaimed to the elder. The bishop poured oil and wine, consecrated during the unction, on the body of the one who had fallen asleep in the Lord, and earth was sprinkled, according to the order of the Holy Church. Then the coffin lid was immediately nailed tightly. At three o'clock it was all over. The clergy, led by the bishop, and other guests went to the abbess’s chambers, but the coffin remained in the same place, and continuous funeral services began again. The people continually approached the coffin of their beloved priest and, with deep sighs and bows, crossed themselves and kissed the coffin lid. Some bent down and put their heads to it. In the apartments of the abbess, the assembled guests were offered a funeral meal, at which there were up to 500 people. The Right Reverend was also present. The subject of his conversation at dinner was mainly the deceased elder. It should be noted that everyone who knew and honored the deceased was very grateful to the bishop for his participation in the funeral of the elder.
But at the same time, as the guests were refreshed by the proposed meal, one remarkable event occurred, which made a strong impression on all those present. The benefactor of the Shamorda community, the wife of the famous Moscow trade figure Sergei Vasilyevich Perlov, and her married daughter, who had no children, often visited the late elder Ambrose. This childless daughter asked her father for advice and blessing to adopt a child. In 1890, almost in the very middle of October, the elder said to her in response to her wishes: “Wait, in a year I myself will indicate to you the adoption of a child.” At dinner, the young couple who had come to the elder’s funeral remembered his words with bitterness and regretted that the death of the priest did not allow him to fulfill his promise. But before lunch had finished, a rumor spread that a baby had been found abandoned at the porch of the command building, where the guests were having lunch. At first, of course, many people did not like this rumor.
But when Mrs. Perlova’s childless daughter heard about this, she rushed to the little one and exclaimed with a feeling of deep tenderness: “It was my father who sent me my daughter.” And the child was taken by her to Moscow.
At the end of the meal, the Right Reverend wished to visit the cells of the late elder. Having entered them, he prayed and made the sign of the cross three times on the bed on which the elder reposed. Then for a long time he blessed the guests, sisters and numerous pilgrims crowding around the porch of the abbess, and already at dusk he returned to Optina Pustyn.
Let us not pass by in silence the following circumstance. At the beginning of his dying illness, Elder Ambrose ordered one nun to read the book of Job. It says, among other things, that even his wife fled from the stench of the wounds of this righteous man. With this example, it seems, the elder predicted that a similar thing would happen to him after his death. Indeed, a heavy deathly smell soon began to be felt from the body of the deceased. However, long ago he directly spoke about this circumstance to his cell attendant Father Joseph. When the latter asked why this was so, the humble elder said: “This is for me because in my life I have accepted too much undeserved honor.” But it’s amazing that the longer the body of the deceased stood in the church, the less the deathly smell began to be felt. Due to the multitude of people who hardly left the coffin for several days, there was unbearable heat in the church, which should have contributed to the rapid and severe decomposition of the body, but it turned out the opposite.
On the last day of the elder’s funeral, according to the remark of Archimandrite Gregory, the compiler of his biography, a pleasant smell began to be felt from his body, as if from fresh honey. And the above-mentioned abbot Agapit testifies that on the third day after the death of the elder, kissing his hand, he deliberately drew in air and felt, albeit a little, a pleasant smell, exactly the same as what comes from the incorruptible bodies of God's saints.
XIV. Transfer of the body of Elder Ambrose to Optina Pustyn, burial of him, funeral meal in Optina and final information about the Elder
All night from Sunday to Monday the Shamordino church was full of people. Near the coffin of the deceased elder, as before, many candles burned, spilling a bright festive light onto the entire church. Every now and then incense swirled, dirges were sung, and the reading of the Psalter continued to the side. The elder's admirers kissed the coffin almost non-stop.
On the 14th, Monday, a cathedral liturgy with a memorial service was again served. The monastery's director, Hieromonk Anatoly 184, celebrated mass with one pair of hieromonks, and several more couples joined them for the funeral service. At the end of the funeral service and the usual farewell, already at the 11th hour of the day, the coffin was lifted by the hands of the sisters, placed on the usual monastery stretcher and, in the presentation of holy icons and banners, was first carried around the church, and then through the monastery, past the abbot’s building and the stone cathedral founded by the elder, where at that time there was a large picturesque crucifix of the Savior, he headed to his native Optina Hermitage. The holy icons, except for the one mentioned above from Kazan, and banners were returned back. A terribly difficult moment has now come for the sisters of the community. Their dear loving father with his body has now forever left his beloved brainchild, on which they had put so much effort and labor. Some of them went to accompany the coffin. And those who remained, with tears or suppressed oppressive sorrow, watched their dear treasure depart.
However, they dissolved their burning sorrow with the hope that their “dear father” would not leave them - he would always be with them in his spirit and would help them in everything. And that's true. The prayers of the deceased guard the monastery he created as a vigilant guard, and he himself, both before and now, is a Guardian Angel for its inhabitants.
The weather that day was stormy. The cold autumn wind pierced the travelers through and through, and the continuous rain, now subsiding, now intensifying, completely dissolved the earth. But nothing could prevent the elder’s admirers from showing him their zeal. All the time, right up to the Optina Hermitage, the coffin was carried in the arms of alternately the sisters of the community, the Optina monks, or some lay people who wanted to prove their love and devotion to their deceased mentor to the very end. And there was one among the elder’s admirers, even from eminent people, who carried his coffin all the way without a change, crossing only during stops from one side to the other. Thousands of people walked and rode for more than a mile behind the coffin. The procession was slow. Often, despite the rain and cold, they stopped to perform funeral lithiums. By the end of the procession, however, due to heavy rain, lithiums were already served on the move without stopping. When they approached villages along the way, the transfer of the elder’s remains was accompanied by the ringing of funeral bells.
Priests in vestments, with banners and icons, came out of the churches to meet them. The villagers spoke, prayed, many of them kissed the coffin of the deceased and then joined those accompanying him. Thus, as we approached Optina Pustyn, the crowd grew and grew. The coffin of the deceased elder was invariably, from the Shamorda community to the Optina Monastery itself, accompanied in vestments by one hieromonk Ilarius, who served the litia during the entire procession 185. It is remarkable that the burning candles with which the body of the late elder was carried did not go out throughout the entire journey, despite the heavy rain and wind.
Evening was coming and it was already getting somewhat dark when the elder’s coffin was carried through the last village of Stenino, located a mile from Optina. The large seven-hundred Optina bell hummed sadly, shaking the air with rare measured strikes and spreading far and wide the sad news of the approach of the deceased. Then all the clergy of the city of Kozelsk and citizens came out to meet him, joining the large crowd of people. The procession was still far away. Like a black cloud, it moved towards the monastery. High above the heads of those accompanying him, through the evening twilight, a black coffin could be seen, mysteriously illuminated by the bright flame of burning candles. Swaying from the procession of those carrying him, he seemed to be floating through the air. Truly, this touching, sad and solemn transfer of the body of the deceased elder, as many noted, was more like the transfer of relics and produced a touching and gracious impression on all those present.
On the narrow river Zhizdra, which flows right under the monastery, and is usually crossed by ferry, this time a bridge was temporarily built. To the bank of this river, to meet the deceased, two archimandrites came out in vestments with a large clergy of monastics and visiting priests and with all the brethren of the monastery and lay visitors, with icons, banners and lighted candles, and stopped at the bridge. And there, behind the bridge, separated from everyone, not paying attention to the dirt and rain, in modest clothes, walking to meet the coffin, with a sad expression on his face, Hieromonk Joseph, who had been closely with the late elder for more than 30 years, is now his deputy in eldership. Let us not ignore here the remarks of the current elder Father Joseph. Autumn, as he reports, when Father Ambrose died, was dry and threatened a crop failure for the next year, but from the day his body was transferred from the community to the Optina Monastery, as a mercy he asked from the Lord, it began to rain.
It was a majestic sight when the elder’s coffin, carried across the bridge, was carried into the ranks of a large host of clergy in brilliant vestments, and countless crowds of people from both sides united together. The ringing of funeral bells, the singing of singers, the fluttering banners, and this immense multitude of people both in front and behind, far, far across the river, and, finally, this poor coffin, to which the tearful gaze of all those present was directed, to which heartfelt sighs rushed from all sides, with a fervent prayer for the repose of the soul of the deceased in the heavenly abodes, with the secret grief of the heart for the loss of a dear father and with the request of his intercession at the Throne of the Most High Heavenly Father - all this struck the hearts of all who had gathered to pay their last debt to the elder.
It was five o'clock in the evening. Immediately on the bank of the river, a funeral litany was preliminarily sent, and the procession headed to the northern gates of the monastery. Again the coffin swayed majestically over the heads of the monks and entered its native monastery, which now greeted its long-awaited dear deceased priest with a festive ringing. As soon as the coffin was brought into the gate, they hastened to close it due to the strong pressure in the chaos of the crowded visitors. However, this was for a short time. When the crowd calmed down somewhat, the gates were opened again.
The coffin with the body of the deceased elder, brought into the monastery, was placed in the cold Vvedensky Cathedral, which shone with festive lighting - chandeliers and many candles were lit. The rector of the monastery, Father Archimandrite Isaac, with several pairs of hieromonks, served a requiem mass for the deceased. That was the end of the meeting of the newly deceased elder. It was already six o'clock. When Eminence Vitaly was informed in detail about how the transfer of the body of Elder Ambrose was carried out, he thanked the Lord for the fact that with His help everything worked out well, and Hieromonk Hilary, who had been accompanying the body of the deceased all the time, the very next day, during his episcopal service, he awarded a legguard. A short time later, a solemn all-night vigil began in the warm Kazan Church, while the coffin with the elder’s body remained in the Vvedensky Cathedral, where memorial services were held non-stop throughout the night, and the church was full of praying people.
“I remember,” Mrs. N. writes about herself, “once we left (from the church where the deceased was) to find a hotel room somewhere, to warm up a little and dry ourselves a little, there was nothing to change. Everyone went as they were in church, wet, half-frozen; and - lo and behold! “None of us not only got sick, but didn’t even get a runny nose, although we had wet feet and stood in a cold cathedral.”
The next day, October 15 - Tuesday, the coffin was transferred to the Kazan Cathedral. At ten o'clock the liturgy began, which, despite his poor health, was again performed by His Eminence Vitaly himself, co-served by two archimandrites Moses and Isaac, three abbots and five hieromonks. The choir of bishops sang on the right choir, and the monastery choir on the left. The church was filled with people praying. Secular representatives of the city of Kozelsk - the police officer, the mayor and several vowels - arrived for the liturgy. At the end of the Divine Liturgy, the Bishop, addressing the people, delivered a wonderful, touching speech 186. In it, he pointed out that the eldership that flourished in the Optina Hermitage flourished especially in the person of the deceased elder Ambrose. He expressed his heartfelt regret that he did not have to personally talk with this venerable elder and enter into spiritual communication with him.
Then he described the greatest sorrow experienced by the Optina brethren, having lost their elder, the Shamordino monastery - their father and patron, and, finally, all of Russia - a leader and support in a time weak in faith. He offered as a consolation to all those grieving that the elder had left them only in body, but was with them in spirit, saw all their deeds and thoughts and prayed for everyone. The Bishop ended his speech with an invitation to all those present to pray for the repose of the soul of the deceased, and at the same time to ask for his prayerful intercession before the Throne of God, adding that our prayer will be pleasing to him if we imitate him in the love of Christ. The expressiveness of pronunciation and the pastorally authoritative tone of the saint-preacher made a strong impression on the listeners, causing tears of tenderness in some.
At the end of the liturgy, the Reverends served a memorial service, in which forty clergy took part, all in white brocade vestments. At the end of the funeral service, after the 9th ode of the canon, the above-mentioned academician, Father Hieromonk Gregory, with the blessing of the Right Reverend, addressed the deceased elder with a brief farewell speech 187, in which he expressed his last greeting on behalf of the entire Moscow Theological Academy, touching on his exploits in the desert, countless good deeds to his neighbors, and the glorification the deceased deserved on earth and surprise to him from everyone who knew him. The young preacher concluded his words with earthly worship of the deceased elder.
After the requiem service, the coffin of the deceased was lifted into the arms of the clergy, and, presenting holy icons and banners, the funeral procession headed to the prepared grave. The coffin was followed by the bishop in full bishop's vestments with other clergy. The sad funeral chime, merging with the singing of funeral hymns, accompanied the body of the holy deceased elder to his resting place.
During his lifetime, the late Elder Ambrose, in reverence for his spiritual mentor Elder Macarius, often used to say: “Father Father Macarius was a great man! If only the Lord would bring me to lie down at his feet.” Those who visited Optina Hermitage, no doubt, remember near the south-eastern wall of the summer Vvedensky Cathedral, to the left of the path, a white chapel over the grave of the elder Father Macarius. Next to this chapel a grave was prepared for the newly deceased Elder Ambrose. After the funeral litany performed by the bishop, and after the proclamation of eternal memory to the deceased, the coffin was lowered into a tarred box prepared in the grave, which was closed with a special lid. The Bishop was the first to throw a handful of earth into the grave, and then there was such crowding and crush around it from so many people that many of the clergy did not even have to throw earth on the coffin. Then vaults were made over it.
And finally a new, fresh grave appeared, in which was hidden a precious treasure, a vessel of God’s grace, a church of a great and holy soul - the laborious body of the elder hieroschemamonk, Father Ambrose! Let us remember at the same time that, as mentioned above, Elder Ambrose, who fervently prayed during his life, encouraged his relatives to pray to the zealous Intercessor of the Christian race, before Her holy icon, which he called the “Spreader of the Loaves,” commanded them to celebrate Her on October 15. On the same day his body was buried. A remarkable coincidence.
“When the priest was buried,” notes one secular observer, “one of the monks closest to him stood at the grave, folding his arms crosswise on his chest and lowering his eyes into it. Everyone went to dinner. Two hours passed. The same monk was still standing in the same position at the priest’s grave.”
“It’s amazing,” says the same observer, “that in both monasteries (Optinsky and Shamordinsky), where the elder lived, his loss is easier to bear. There they mourn sincerely, deeply, but without despair. You can talk about him with the person closest to the priest. Everyone is calm, restrained and doing their job. Only sometimes the monk’s face will twitch with pain, or you will catch him in deep thought. And sometimes, among the conversations about the elder, suddenly someone will quietly say with a sigh: “Eh, dad, dad!” - and everything will calm down; and so much humble sorrow can be heard in these short words. You talk to anyone about him, everyone loves him, everyone is blessed by him. “Who doesn’t he love?” – that’s the common voice.”
At two o'clock in the afternoon, a memorial meal was offered to the guests gathered for the burial of the elder, in which, as before, the Right Reverend Vitaly took part. It was built in the old hospital church in the name of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God. As before in the Shamordino community, when a funeral was served over the body of the deceased, so here now, at several intervals, about 500 people dined. At the end of the meal, when eternal memory was proclaimed to the newly deceased Elder Ambrose, the Bishop addressed the guests present with a word. Having invited everyone to prayer for the deceased, the saint, both on his own behalf and on behalf of the Optina Monastery, expressed gratitude to those persons who honored the memory of the elder with their deliberate presence at his burial. He especially thanked the benefactor of the Shamorda community A.Ya. Perlov, representatives of the city.
Kozelsk with the clergy, the police officer and the mayor of the city at the head and envoys from the Moscow Theological Academy - the two aforementioned academic hieromonks, sending her his consolation with her faith and the hierarch's grateful blessing for the great joy brought by the participation of those who arrived to both monasteries and to all the numerous participants in the sad celebrations. Meanwhile, over the fresh grave of the ever-memorable elder Ambrose, the singing of dirges was heard until late at night in the presence of his admirers praying with tears.
Thus ended the sad, but at the same time joyful triumph of the departure of the righteous soul to the land of non-evening light, where the noise of pure celebrants and unspeakable joy!
Just before his departure to Kaluga on October 16, His Grace Vitaly addressed the brethren gathered in the Kazan Church with a farewell speech, in which he again remembered the great merits of the deceased elder, briefly but vividly described his spiritual image, breathing high Christian love, and once again called on the brethren to preserve this image in their hearts and become like him. Having mentioned the eldership as a feature of the Optina Hermitage, the bishop invited all those present to pray that the Lord would not leave the monastery under His protection and would erect a new lamp for it, a successor in God to the deceased elder Ambrose. Having then given the archpastoral blessing to the brethren, the bishop set off in peace.
And we, burning with love for the late merciful father, Father Ambrose, will again transfer our thoughts and feelings to him.
For a long, long time after his blessed death, the Optina and Shamordin sisters could not calm down. Everything seemed to them as if something dear—irretrievable—had been lost; There was some kind of emptiness all around that there was no way to fill it with anything. One day, the Shamorda shelter girls decided to sing those poems that they had once sung for the priest: “Dear Father, Holy Father”... But as soon as the singing began, tears suddenly began to flow from everyone, and instead of singing there was bitter sobbing.
In Optina, a three-walled chapel was soon erected over the grave of the elder, its fourth side adjacent to the chapel of the elder Macarius, similar to this last one, with a decent inscription; and inside there is a marble tomb, also with the inscription: “To the weak he was like the weak, in order to gain the weak. I have become all things to all, that I might save at least some” (1 Cor. 9:22). There is a hole left on the side of this tomb, from where admirers of the late elder take sand for help and blessing.
Passing by this chapel, one visitor to the monastery saw that an old painter was painting it. “Did you know the old man?” – he asked. “How could I not know him, my benefactor? - he answered. - Once I tell him: “Father! I don’t have long to live; you see how healthy I am.” And he answers me: “Only you will anoint me first.” I didn’t understand then what it meant, but I had to paint the chapel over it.” And the painter continued his work in silence.
However, time and circumstances smooth out heartbreak, whatever it may be. The grief of the admirers of Father Ambrose was inconsolable immediately after his death, but they soon began to console themselves with the thought that the elder died only in body, but his spirit lives forever, according to the word of the wise: the righteous live forever (Wisdom 5:15). These words are confirmed by the deed itself.
Firstly, whatever the elder said about the future, everything has either already come true or is coming to fruition. For example, lying on his deathbed, he promised, as we saw above, to help Mrs. N. in everything, and this is what she writes: “Not even three or four days passed after the death of the priest, when his body was still in Shamordin, I was in terrible grief, which drove me almost to despair. From time to time a murmur escaped me: My God, I said to myself, what did the priest do? He just received us, immediately dressed us in monastic clothes and left us. All this vaguely, I remember, passed through the thoughts of my sick head. Having lost myself somewhere, in church or at home, in a light sleep (we spent the night in church and only came home for a short time), I saw the priest approaching me. He was in his black robe and cap. It was as if I was sitting on some kind of long bench or sofa. Hastily approaching, the priest sat down at a distance from me at the other end. Raising his hand, he loudly said to me with reproach and dissatisfaction in his voice: “I will never leave you.” So I jumped up.
The dream was so clear that when I woke up, even the old man’s voice sounded in my ears. And my soul became calmer.” This lady told many more wonderful visions of the old man in his sleep and even in reality. Father, as if alive, consoled, admonished and strengthened her in various temptations, after which peace settled in her soul.
Or: the elder predicted the prosperity of the Shamordino monastery he created. A little time has passed since the day of his death, but his words are already being justified in practice. The huge stone cathedral, for which the priest laid only the foundation, is now almost ready. Huge stone buildings were erected - a refectory, an almshouse and others. The community has various artistic handicrafts: painting, photography, embossing - gilding and silvering, weaving magnificent carpets, embroidery with gold and silks. There are bookbinders, red-letters, and so on. So even now, according to the remark of some, the Shamordino monastery, according to the prediction of Elder Ambrose, was in many ways ahead of Optina Pustyn 188; but circumstances, of course arranged through his prayers, by the Providence of God, give hope for even greater and greater prosperity in the future.
Secondly, Elder Ambrose lives eternal life, as one who received great boldness towards the Lord, for now, after his death, healings are already happening from him.
The October book of “Soulful Reading” for 1897 contains a letter from a certain Nikolai Yakovlevich Shirokov, Vyatka province of Glazov district, to the current Optina elder Father Joseph. In it, among other things, we read the following: “I was very sick - I suffered from pain in my legs and head. On November 26 last 1896, my father brought the book “Soulful Reading” from our village priest, in which I found an article about Father Ambrose. After reading it and thinking a little, I began to spiritually pray to Father Ambrose for the healing of my ailments and, having prayed, fell into a light sleep. I had just fallen asleep when suddenly an extraordinary light shone in front of me, which soon disappeared - only one trace of it remained in the form of a cloud; and suddenly I hear the footsteps of a walking man. Soon I see a husband in front of me, adorned with gray hair, in a robe, with a cross on his chest. With this, I will try to describe his features: he is short in stature, his face is emaciated from fasting, and therefore it is very light; nose with a hump; gray hair is not very thick; His hair is gray and not thick either; and his voice is very sonorous.
In addition, he had a rosary on his left hand and a staff in his right hand. So he came up to my bed and said: “Child Nicholas! Get up, hurry to church, serve a prayer service to Saint Ambrose of Milan - and you will receive quick relief.” He took my hand, blessed me and touched my feet with his staff, which immediately felt relief. He gave me something like prosphora to eat, and suddenly there was a noise in my head. I was quite horrified then and thought that I had no head on my shoulders. But this old man covered her with a robe, and soon I felt relief. The elder blessed me once again, and I was honored to kiss his bright hand and at the same time dared to ask him: “What is your name?” He answered me: “To whom I ordered you to serve a prayer service, I also bear the name of him - I am Hieroschemamonk Ambrose from Optina Monastery.” Having said this, he became invisible. When I woke up, I was very glad that I had recovered; and my relatives were also very happy about this. Still, I did not reveal this phenomenon to them soon, but wrote it down only in my memorial book.
But now this phenomenon has repeated again. Father Ambrose appeared to me lying in a tomb, entwined in the schema, and said: “Why are you, servant of God Nicholas, keeping silent about the deeds of God’s mercy, i.e. Don’t you inform Optina Pustyn about the healing?” This is the only reason why I dared to report the above to your honor and at the same time ask you, Father Joseph, not to ignore my story and, for the benefit of others, to place it on at least one page of the biography of Father Ambrose.”
Another similar excerpt from an unpublished letter to Lyudmila Osipovna Raevskaya, living in the Shamorda community, dated February 23, 1898:
“Yesterday V. came and told me that a lady, a relative of L., wrote to him from Moscow that her husband was very ill. The doctors refused to treat him, and he was completely dying. One night he sees an old man near him at his bedside, who was praying over him and says: “Serve a prayer service to Saint Ambrose of Milan,” and disappeared. The patient told his wife this, and they served a prayer service. He joined in and since then began to get better; I even got out of bed, but did not tell anyone about this appearance of the elder. When he began to feel completely well, the same old man appeared to him again (the former patient recognized him) and said: “You are completely healthy now; Why do you hide and don’t talk about your healing? We must speak; and the elder before you is Ambrose of Optina.” And he disappeared. When V. told me, I was jealous; but there was some kind of joy in my soul - I cannot express it. Our dear one may not leave us either.”
Let us add to this that the two cases of healing from a deceased elder cited here are not the only ones.
In conclusion of all that has been said, we will bring to the attention of our readers two significant dreams of one Shamordino sister, depicting, as we believe, the afterlife of the great Optina elder described here, Father Ambrose. Here's her story:
“Some time before the death of the priest, I saw as if I was standing in a beautiful garden. The leaves on the tall trees tremble, and each leaf repeats the prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” It’s as if there is a bright church in the garden. I entered it and saw that its dome was unfinished. And I thought, how is it that the church is not finished? Then I heard a voice: “This dwelling has been prepared for Elder Ambrose and will soon be finished.”
And when the priest had already died, I saw that his coffin was standing. And then four Angels descended in white robes - such shiny robes on them - and in their hands they had candles and a censer. And I asked why they, so bright, went down to the priest’s tomb. They answered me: “That’s because he was so clean.” Then four more Angels in red robes descended, and their robes were even more beautiful than before. And I asked again, and they answered: “This is because he was so merciful and loved so much.” And four more Angels descended in blue robes of inexpressible beauty. And I asked why they went down to the tomb. And they answered me: “This is because he suffered so much in life and so patiently bore his crosses” 189.
Pentecent is a monk's cell rule, consisting of 500 short prayers: 300 to Jesus, 100 to the Mother of God, 50 to the Guardian Angel and 50 to all saints.
The fourth story of Mrs. N. in manuscript.
Saint John Climacus says: “The most enlightened and sensible of the fathers noticed another thought, which is more subtle than all those shown above. It is called the foray of thought; and it passes through the soul so quickly that, without time, without words or images, it instantly presents passion to the ascetic.” And further. (Ladder. Word 15, section 74).
Memorial Day of Elder Hieroschemamonk Macarius, when women were allowed to enter the monastery.
These notes were written six years after the death of Elder Ambrose.
And outside examples, no doubt, did not remain without influence on the narrator’s attitude towards the elder.
By wise Elder Ambrose meant a prudent person who looks at everyone and everything from the good side, without judging others for the weaknesses inherent in people, while considering himself the worst of all. By “fool” we mean here a person who, although not devoid of mental abilities, but, through his negligence, gave them the wrong direction; therefore, in everyone and in everything, according to the desire of his corrupted heart, he sees one bad thing and explains everything from the bad side, while considering himself more worthy than many, if not all.
Thoughts of Saint Demetrius, Metropolitan of Rostov in his teaching on Saturday of Great Lent of the 5th week on the Praise of the Most Holy Theotokos.
The fear of God's judgment and the fire of hell makes the powerless strong.
In contrast to the one horn of the righteous - humility, by the two horns of the sinner, the elder perhaps meant two related passions - pride and vanity, which St. John the Climacus likens to a horse and a rider. (Ladder. Word 23, section 38).
This probably means a department, a ministry. Note ed.
It is remarkable that all three mentioned persons, who were waiting for the elder on the male side, began their monastic life in the Optina Hermitage, but moved from Optina to different places.
Elder Ambrose had long been in spiritual communication with the Right Reverend Benjamin and was always in correspondence with him. At the request of this bishop, he sometimes sent him paternal books from the Optina edition.
The church in the monastery was originally built with the blessing and instructions of the Kaluga Bishop Philaret (later Metropolitan of Kyiv) in the form of a brownie. In its western part there was also a special cell for him, since this bishop used to come annually to the monastery founded with his blessing at the end of Cheese Week and spend the entire first week of Lent here in solitude; that’s why the cell in the monastery church that he occupied was called the bishop’s cell. There was also a cell in which the sexton, monk Flavian, later hieromonk and treasurer of the Optina Hermitage, also lived.
Hegumen Anthony, brother of the Optina chief, father of Archimandrite Moses, who lived in retirement in the Optina Hermitage.
Elder Ambrose did the same thing: he eats the smallest part of the bread, but crumbles the whole chunk.
Abbess nun Sophia.
This is the name of a separate cell - maybe a mile from the monastery.
In the October book for 1899.
Just before his death, the priest added to this wooden church a whole series of large high cells, directly communicating with it through windows and doors, to accommodate cripples who were deprived of movement, so that they could hear the church service from these cells.
Rudnevo is seven versts from Shamordin along the road, and three versts along the nearest pedestrian road.
This information is taken from the brochure “Bereavement”. 2nd edition in favor of the Shamorda women's community. pp. 53–54.
Optina Skete - in the name of the honest prophet, Forerunner and Baptist of the Lord John.
Memorial Day of the Optina Elder Macarius. There is a celebration in the skete, as well as in the entire Optina monastery. This was mentioned above.
Chorus composed by the elder: “Rejoice, O Gracious One, the Lord is with You! Grant also to us unworthy the dew of Thy grace and show Thy mercy.”
They also say that in the spring of 1897 or so, the priest of the village. Ozersky Przemysl district came to Rudnevo as a parish pastor. And there, on the occasion of a lack of rain, he served a prayer service to the Mother of God in the fields, in front of Her holy icon of the “Disputer of the Loaves,” with an akathist, the ikosas of which ended with the above-mentioned refrain. During the service of the prayer service, it began to rain for a long time. When, after the prayer service, a memorial service was served for Elder Ambrose, it began to rain.
Optina desert is in Kozelsky district, and the Shamorda community is in Przemysl district.
This icon was brought, as we saw above, by Mrs. N., whose own story is published here.
Subsequently, the Valaam abbot, who spent the rest of his days and died in the Sarov desert of the Tambov province.
In the cell where Elder Ambrose died, in the Shamordino monastery, his bed with pillows and other things are kept in the same form as they were during his life, in memory of him.
The final moral of the fable is:
How many streams flow so peacefully and smoothly;
And so they murmur sweetly for the heart
Only because there is not enough water in them!
Soon this wretched man came up with a business for himself. He approached everyone he met with a mug and asked “to go to the monastery” where he lives, i.e. to the Shamordino monastery. Some heard him say: “I will build a cathedral.”
Subsequently, inspector of the Moscow Theological Academy and, finally, rector of the embassy church in Constantinople, archimandrite, who died on November 18, 1893.
See in the appendix on p. 420 the word of hieromonk Gregory of Borisoglebsky.
Currently archimandrite, rector of the Moscow Theological Seminary.
See Appendix C. 431 speech of Hieromonk Tryphon.
This monastery leader should have been, after the death of Elder Ambrose, the main elder in the monastery, but the Lord did not destined him to live long. A little over two years after Elder Ambrose, he too reposed in the Lord.
It was published in some articles that in the villages along the way, lithiums were served in front of almost every house and the coffin of the elder was accompanied by lay priests, but all this is not true.
See Appendix C. 434 for the speech of Bishop Vitaly.
See Appendix C. 436 for the speech of Hieromonk Gregory.
This was not said to humiliate Optina Pustyn. Let this not happen. We should pay attention to the fact that the Shamordino monastery, with all its institutions and with all its external and internal order, is the work of the Optina people. The Optina elder founded it and supported it with the help of the Optina monks. And even now the same Optina residents support her mainly from a moral point of view. The Moscow honorary hereditary citizen Sergei Vasilyevich Perlov takes care of the external improvement, arranging all the capital buildings of the monastery at his own expense.
From the March book “Soulful Reading” for 1894.