Letters

High-born sir, I. V-ch, my dearest brother in Christ! It is heard that you had a trial with Captain F. L-th, allegedly he dishonored you with some word, and this L-n has long since died. It is also heard that the deceased sent you to ask for forgiveness, and you, having not forgiven him, are now seeking dishonor on his son. If this is true, I ask you to listen patiently and act on my advice. Know that remembrance of malice is the first self-interest in a person to the devil, and he rejoices over nothing so much as over an evil heart. For a remorsefully evil person does not receive forgiveness from God for sin, since he himself does not forgive. This is how Christ teaches in the Gospel: “If you do not forgive people their sins, then your Father will not forgive you your sins.” How will you pray to God: “forgive us our debts, just as we forgive our debtors” (Matthew 6:15, 12), if you yourself do not forgive? Our brother is the same as us. He dishonored us with a word, insulted us, and we are worms, earth, ashes (see Ps 21:7; Sir 10:9), stinking dirt - God, our Creator, the great and terrible Lord, Whom the very Powers of Heaven are terrified and tremble, every day how many times we anger!.. So, what kind of forgiveness do we hope to receive from God if we do not forgive those like ourselves? We sin against each other, we must forgive each other. Read the parable of the Evangelist Matthew in chapter 18: what is written at the end of the chapter is terrible to hear for those who do not leave debts to their neighbors. So you know that you too will die, but when is unknown, maybe either today or tomorrow, but what if death catches you in this anger? L-showed his humility and rewarded your dishonor by asking for your forgiveness and thus getting out of your debt. What are you looking for more now? You have that duty to let your brother go. If you do not leave and die in debt, what kind of mercy do you hope for from God? And what is L-n’s son guilty of before you? If you were looking for a monetary debt, then the son should answer and pay for his father, because his father’s estate remains. Otherwise, the father has dishonored, and you seek dishonor on the son, as if the son was an accomplice in dishonoring the father and taught the father, which cannot be. I ask you to humbly leave, cut through the whole knot of memory, forgive your brother’s sin, leave the debt to the deceased, or more, put aside your debt and you will not remain in debt until death, and make peace with his son, as if he were innocent, for God’s sake. Believe me, all this comes from a demon that leads people to enmity. Spit on this whispering evil spirit, the vengeful thought, and listen to Christ, our Savior, the Creator of the world, who prayed to the Heavenly Father for His crucifiers, and commanded us to do the same, saying: “Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you” (Matthew 5:44). Forgive your neighbor, so that you yourself may receive forgiveness from Christ; and what kind of forgiveness do you hope for if you yourself do not forgive? The one on whom you have now turned your anger, the son of your deceased father, will come to you with humility and ask for forgiveness. If you make peace with him, your love will be remembered until death, your friends will rejoice in your peace, your slaves will love you, other neighbors will please you, Satan will be tormented (for Christian love torments him greatly, just as enmity amuses him), Christ, the Son of God, who loves peace, will be pleasing, I, your unworthy shepherd, having heard, will be grateful, and will rejoice in spirit, and your I will write down your gracious name in my memory. Do this mercy, firstly, to yourself, so that you thereby receive mercy from God, then to your brother, who comes with humility to calm down, and you will do me a mercy, for you will fulfill my desire. May the Merciful God and Giver of Peace soften and bow your heart. I wrote this to you because of my position. May everyone receive the mercy they seek! Here I send you the most holy image of my and your Savior: through this name I pray to you. This name is wonderful to the angels, loved by the apostles, martyrs, saints and saints, and sweet to us sinners, since in it we have only hope and hope. Leave the memory of malice, I ask you to do this again out of my duty. And if you do this, you will be doing me a favor, because it will benefit me when you are reconciled. However, I conclude this: this thin and unworthy piece of paper of mine is a testimony to me, and it will be incriminating you at the Last Judgment of Christ. And if anyone advises you contrary to this, do not listen to him, for it comes from the evil spirit. Read the entire Gospel and you will be able to see everything. I'm staying until the reply letter, Your Highness, my gracious sovereign, your humble servant, unworthy prayer book, unworthy Bishop of Voronezh, Tikhon. December 4 days, 1764. Most Reverend Fathers, Father the Builder, and other brethren in Christ! Thank you for your writing. What do you want to attribute to me in a letter, I am not worthy of it. But why people decided to praise me before you, I don’t know, since I didn’t show them anything worthy regarding my pastoral work. And I ask for me, unworthy, out of Christian love for our common Merciful God, to create a prayer, both now and after my death, may I be pardoned by His grace. May the same Father of generosity protect you from all the snares of the enemy. 1 Your servant and brother, the most unworthy Bishop of Voronezh, Tikhon. April 14, 1765. Voronezh. Accept as your cohabitant the newly arrived sheep of Christ 3 . Instruct each other and build up spiritually, and for me, a sinner, pray to the Lord God together. And you strive for the Lord, strive, do not give in. Remember the Passion of Christ and His Last Judgment. Read the books, and you will better understand the path of the Lord, along which you will reach eternal life. Dearest brethren in Christ! Feeling your pleasure and love for me, I myself cannot help but correspond to the same to you. Moreover, I ask you, out of your love, not to leave me in your prayers. You work, work, strive. May God help the working people with His grace. And I was, and am, your lover, unworthy Bishop Tikhon. March 16th, 1766 Voronezh. Most honorable father abbot and other dear brethren in Christ! For your writing, which I received through Father Pachomius 4, your brother and mine (whom I recommend to you as honest and seeking salvation), I thank you a lot. Please don't leave me in the future. And more in holy prayers I ask with humility not to leave me, poor, as a real sinner. May our Merciful Lord and Provider for sinners who come to Him in repentance have mercy on you all with His grace. Save yourself, dear brethren, save yourself in Christ, to Whom, entrusting mercy and grace, I remain your servant and brother, the unworthy Bishop Tikhon. February 15, 1767 Voronezh. Here, one and a half hundred rubles have been sent to you with the one who hands you the letter. Two residents of Voronezh gave them to give out for alms, and they asked me to give them away. I am sending them to you so that you can distribute them, namely this way: either go to the city of Livny yourself and distribute them to the fire victims, the poorest, or instruct a kind and faithful person to distribute them without hiding anything. Work hard, don’t refuse, it will benefit your soul. And don’t tell anyone who they were sent from. And so that they are distributed to the poor fire victims of Livensky: this is ordered. May the Lord have mercy on you and preserve you in eternal life. Your servant and brother, Bishop Tikhon. Father Mitrofan, dear brother in Christ! I settled in Tolshevo 5, you and I separated. Be it so, don’t mourn. My spirit is always united with you. May the Merciful Lord allow us to be together in the abodes of the Heavenly Father! I bow to my dear Yeletsky Cosmas, his brother and other famous friends, and I wish them to prosper in the grace of Christ, and I, a sinner, like you and them, I ask you not to forget in your prayers. No matter where you are, you cannot escape the wiles of Satan. Christ's grace alone saves. Be glory and thanksgiving to His ineffable mercy to us, unworthy and damned, forever and ever! Having taken the money for the feather bed, do as I told you: sell it for alms. If possible, take the money that was given to the village of Utkino for firewood and give it to the poor in Yelets. Also, take the other money for firewood and give it to the poor Yeletskys. And if the Utkinskys don’t give anything away, let them own it. I have nothing of my own, everything is God’s, not ours. Only dishonesty is bad, and this is a sign of a soul possessed by Satan and therefore separated from Christ; and if we continue in this until death, eternal destruction follows, from which may God save us. I am, as I was and am now, your well-wisher. Bishop Tikhon is unworthy. Tolshev Monastery. 1768 Father Mitrofan, my brother in Christ! Don't grieve that I left you. My spirit is always inseparable from you, and I’m telling her the truth, I’m not lying. Be patient, be patient, that’s why I became a monk, that’s what I promised when I was tonsured. Behold, soon, behold, he will come and will not delay, and everything will end, but “he who endures to the end will be saved” (Matthew 10:22). My bow to all my Yeletsky friends, Cosma, his brother. I ask you and them to pray to God for me. Your servant is the unworthy Bishop Tikhon. Here I am sending you something to confirm my word to you yesterday about the sign of the blessing priestly hand, so that you do not imagine that I was only offering you my opinion. You see, the Greeks, our true believers, also interpret. Therefore, when you kiss the blessing hand, raise your mind and kiss the One represented by it. One of the Fathers, being reproached by the iconoclasts for worshiping the tree of the cross, answered: “I would kiss with reverence every tree from which - if I only knew in advance - the image of the Cross of the Lord would one day be made.” Here are the words of Nicholas, Priest of Malacca, Archpriest. Nauplius, about the sign of the joined fingers of the priest’s hand when he blesses the people named after Christ: “The straightness of the index finger and the inclination of the middle finger clearly depict the name Jesus. The straight finger position depicts the letter I; tilted - the letter S. Therefore, by bringing these two fingers closer to each other, folded in this way, they clearly depict this. And the transverse folding of the thumb together with the ring finger, or the so-called ring finger, and the application of the little finger to them, inclined, mean the name Christ. For the cross-section of the thumb with the ring finger, or ring finger, shows the mark X, and the slanted little finger shows the letter C, by which the name Christ, as it is said, is signified. And so that whoever desires this may be more clearly aware of it, let him fold his blessing hand, and find that he will clearly find what has been said, and nothing else, except the name of the blessed Jesus Christ, in whom all nations are blessed, as the promise was to the blessed patriarch Abraham: “and they shall be blessed,” he says, “in your seed all the families of the earth” (Gen. 12:3). He did not say, says the divine apostle, about many seeds, but about the Seed, “Which is Christ” (Gal. 3:16). Therefore, it was fitting that the formation of the hand that blesses those who are blessed in Christ Jesus should mean nothing other than the name of Himself in whom we are blessed. Therefore, I think that by Divine Providence, the Creator Himself of all things, the fingers of the human hand were hung from the very beginning - no more, no less - so that they were not excessive, not insufficient, but there were enough of them for such a sign.” It is prudently said that God’s Providence appointed the name of His beloved Son both in the number and in the arrangement of the fingers. Rightly attribute everything that is good in the creation of things and in their use to the all-wise predestination of God, who foresaw everything, The source of all blessings. One evil comes from the father of evil, the devil. You demand an answer from me as to why an unknown end will follow. I, speaking about human weakness and the machinations of the demon, who often puts evil under the guise of good, like poison under honey, cannot give you advice on unknown things, so that something nasty doesn’t happen to you later, and I wouldn’t feel sad because of this. It is better to foresee everything in advance and remain silent than to speak, advise and then repent. It is dangerous for you to be in your parents’ house for a well-known reason, but in any monastery, no matter where you are, it is safe for a God-fearing person seeking salvation, always thinking about eternal torment and a future life and listening to himself in silence. And I know that it is better for those who want to escape from their parents and relatives. I can only imagine that you will be quite bored in the monastery if you go far away. Therefore, you need to endure and overcome yourself. But you can’t escape Satan and evil people, no matter where you are. Like a shadow to a body during the sunshine, so persecution and hatred of evil people will follow the one who seeks God. It seems to me that it is better to surrender to the will of God and be in some monastery, just so as not to be in the parental home, and in that monastery to firmly establish yourself, although it will be boring, and in boredom to console yourself with the fact that death will stop everything, the eternal sweetness, joy and glory of the ascetic will soon take over, pray to God often, ask Him for help, work and not let the slightest time pass without doing something, and so boredom is over. May the Lord rule your life! Save yourself and remember me, a sinner. Your well-wisher, Bishop Tikhon. You wanted to have a brief understanding of the Ecumenical Councils of the Holy Fathers. Here is a shortened and sufficient image (in the table) of everything you need to know about them, and read their rules in the Helmsman. You will find all this clearly in the following outlines. Know that in the third column at the top are the names of the popes, and below them are the names of their locums. Note: “The Fifth and Sixth Councils did not set out rules. For this purpose it was the Council of Trulla, and it was named the fifth or sixth, during the reign of Justinian Rhinomitus, in the presence of Basil, Metropolitan of Crete, locum tenens of the pope, and under Paul, Patriarch of Constantinople. This council laid down 102 rules, but there were 227 Fathers.” 7 Up to this point - a translation about the Councils. Read and honor the rules of these Councils, and in addition, local ones, which our Orthodox Church all accepts, one for teaching, the other for information about the state of the primal Church. The custom of the Councils was established by the apostles themselves (see Acts chapter 15). They resolved the discord of the Church by sealing reverence with worthy words: “It was pleasing to the Holy Spirit and to us” Acts 15:28). The Savior promised them this Spirit and gave them this power (see John 14:16, 26; 16:13; Matthew 18:20; 28:19–20). Here Christ said that with His disciples “it will be until the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). And the preachers, the apostles, themselves long ago left both the preaching and these promises as an inheritance to the Church and the Fathers (1 Cor 12:3, 28; Eph 4:7; Acts 20:28). For the pious and virtuous, everything commanded in the rules of the saints serves to benefit. For “piety” itself, according to the words of the apostle, “is profitable for everything” (1 Timothy 4:8). From your letter I see that despondency has come over you. This passion is fierce, with which Christians who want to be saved must fight a lot. She also fights those people who have bread and everything else ready, and especially those who live in solitude. I advise you to do the following: 1) Encourage and force yourself to pray and do every good deed, even though you don’t want to. Just as people drive a lazy horse with a whip and encourage it to walk and run, so we must convince ourselves to do everything we do, and especially to pray. Seeing such work and diligence, the Lord will give desire and zeal. Gives a desire and, as it were, attracts to prayer and to every good deed and habit. Get used to it and get used to it, and the habit itself will attract you to prayer and all good things. 2) Diligence will bring variability, that is, if you do both in a variable manner. So do this too: either pray, then do something with your hands, then read a book, then talk about your soul and eternal salvation, and so on. That is, pray and read a book, and do handicrafts, and pray again, and do something else again, and so on. And when despondency takes a strong hold, get out of the room and, walking around, talk about Christ and other things, and while reasoning, raise your mind to God and pray. This will drive away despondency. 3) The memory of death, which comes unexpectedly, the memory of the Judgment of Christ and the memory of eternal torment and eternal bliss drives away despondency. Talk about them. 4) Pray and sigh to the Lord, so that He Himself will give you zeal and desire, for without Him we are unfit for any work. When you act on these points, believe me that little by little you will have the desire and zeal. God requires work and achievement from us, and He promised to help those who work (see Matthew 10:10). Work hard, may the Lord help you. He helps those who work, not those who lie down and doze. Satan is watching for our destruction. We should not slumber, but stand and fight against such a fierce enemy, which happens through prayer, and reading books, and every good deed, so that when he comes to us, he does not find a place for himself. “Resist the devil and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). The devil does not approach anyone more conveniently than a person living in idleness and laziness. Here his house is swept and decorated (see Matthew 12:44). Think about this and take care, and pray for me, a sinner. You endure severe slander, as I hear. Accept my consolation according to my strength. 1) Without God, nothing happens to us, therefore a slanderous tongue attacks us with God’s permission. Be patient with what God sends. God hears slander, and your conscience knows. 2) Take comfort in the fact that you suffer falsely. A clear conscience is a great consolation. It is better to be comforted by conscience alone, although the whole world discredits, than to be convicted by conscience, although the whole world praises. This is what I choose for myself: let everyone blaspheme me, as long as my conscience praises me. This faithful witness cannot lie: what he sees, he says, and what he does not see, he is silent, and stands alone against a thousand slanderers, and fights for us, and defends, and consoles, and in due time he will stop the slanderers from speaking, and then their shame will be covered. 3) You have many comrades in this calamity: the saints of God have endured much slander, and now many such can be found who endure the same. So, you are not the only one who endures this, many have come this way and made it smooth for us, and they call us to follow the same path. Let us follow them, and together with them we will glorify Jesus Christ who redeemed us. Oh Jesus! Draw us, weak and despondent, after You and Your saints. 4) Judge and examine your conscience: have you also hurt anyone with your tongue? If this was the case, then slander is slander and is punished, and therefore endure with gratitude that the sin is punished here, so that there you, who have sinned, may be pardoned. “We are judged and punished by the Lord, so as not to be condemned with the world,” says the apostle (1 Cor 11:32). Punish us, Lord, have mercy here and there! 5) You see how God, by His mercy, turns to us for good what Satan and evil people plan for us for evil. Be calm now, and be comforted, and forget all the vanity. 6) Learn from this not to believe the slander of others who slander others. Just as you hear slander about yourself in vain, so those about whom bad rumors are spread often hear in vain, not knowing behind themselves what they are being slandered about. Give thanks for this with the prophet: “It is good for me that You have humbled me” (Ps 119:71). Read the points sent from me, and you will find what I write. Save yourself, and remember me, a sinner. It is heard that you live among people, like iron between a hammer and an anvil: schismatics and atheists surround you, and so, running away from lions, you were caught between asps and basilisks. Woe, woe, woe to those who live on earth and want to save their souls! For Satan “walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8), and through those whom he has already devoured, he wants and is trying to devour those who have not been devoured. Beware of this lion and those swallowed up by him. Think about what I'm writing. 1) Beware of Raskolnikov like fire, and have no communication with them. At least they fasted for a week and always prayed and showed other things, run away from them. 2) Believe in the resurrection of the dead, the Judgment of Christ, the kingdom of heaven and the eternal torment that must happen, as you see yourself and other people. This is true, just as it is true that yesterday was and today is, since God declared this to us in the Holy Scriptures. 3) About the resurrection of the dead, read the following places: 1 Cor. all chapter 15; 1 Thess. ch. 4th, art. 13 to the end of the chapter; Matthew ch. 22nd, from verses 23 to 33; Mk ch. 12; Luke ch. 20th; In Ch. 5th, Art. 25, 28 and 29, and in other places. 4) About the Judgment of Christ: Matthew ch. 15th. 5) About the kingdom of heaven and eternal torment - in the same place, in ch. 25, art. 46: “These shall go away into everlasting torment, but the righteous into everlasting life,” and in many other places of Scripture it is written about this. 6) Know for sure that those who do not believe in the Resurrection of Christ, the Judgment of Christ, the kingdom of heaven and eternal torment are obvious atheists, and no matter how they caress you and no matter how they flatter you, avoid them extremely, so as not to perish with them; and here is a sign: no matter how they show themselves, they have a bestial life. 7) I advise you, if you live among such beasts, if it is impossible to evade them, to stick to your cell alone, and go to only one mass, and read Matins and Vespers at home; Yes, be dumb and deaf. Then you will more often hear our Savior Himself teaching within you. 8) Living like this, you will certainly endure a lot of evil, but endure and endure everything, so that you will be saved. Most Reverend Vladyka, my beloved brother in Christ, my co-servant and mercifully reliable benefactor! I sincerely thank Your Eminence for the favorable writing of Your Eminence, published last February 4 days, and received by me on June 24 of this year, in which Your Eminence deigned to send me Greek-Latin and simple Latin books in a box with the register attached to that letter, purchased for the library of the Voronezh Seminary, which, according to that register, are in my house, except for two, received correctly. Moreover, Your Eminence deigned to write in order to cede to Your Eminence a book called “The Tablet” taken from the sacristy at the time of Your Eminence’s departure from Voronezh, which Your Eminence deigns to safely possess; Your Eminence, my beloved brother in Christ, my co-servant and mercifully reliable benefactor, my most zealous pilgrim and humble servant, Tikhon, Bishop of Voronezh. The father builder, to whom Saint Tikhon addresses in letters II, IV and V, was the Sarov elder, famous at that time, Fr. Ephraim. According to the remark of the publisher of the book in which these letters were first published, the hieromonk of the Sergius Lavra, Father Abel, “the saint of Zadonsk had such sincere love and respect for Elder Ephraim that he carried on spiritual correspondence with him,” respecting him as an experienced ascetic in life. According to legend, this old man, distinguished by high spiritual qualities, who fed thousands of surrounding people every day during the hungry year of 1775, was destined to endure an undeservedly difficult sixteen-year imprisonment in the fortress. Father Matthew (in schema Mitrofan) was a schemamonk in the Zadonsk monastery. The publisher who first published this letter notes: “Reverend Tikhon distinguished and greatly loved this elder for his strict, ascetic life and zeal for Christian virtues. Despite the fact that he was simple and unlearned, the Right Reverend, as can be seen from the letters, wrote to him, while still a diocesan pastor, in a fraternal manner, and sometimes entrusted him with the execution of his philanthropic deeds (read the letters of Saints VII and VIII), and during his stay in the same monastery, he was more concerned with this elder than anyone else among the brethren. This schemamonk died on February 27, 1793, in old age, and, according to his will, was buried in the very cell where he lived in the Zadonsk monastery, in the garden.” The letter talks about a new novice from the merchants who wanted to live with Fr. Mitrofan." Brought up under the guidance of Fr. Mitrofan, this cell attendant, later Hieromonk Pavel, for his deep humility, was chosen by the brethren as their common confessor. Father Pachomius was subsequently the successor of the aforementioned Ephraim in governing the Sarov desert. Tolshev is a monastery located 40 versts northeast of Voronezh. It was named so, probably, from the thicknesses, or extremely thick forests that grew there, lay without touching any village, and was surrounded on all sides by forests, at that time almost impenetrable, therefore, when the very decision was made to leave the diocesan work, he was chosen by St. Tikhon to stay” (Metropolitan Eugene, in the description of the life of St. Tikhon). We are talking about Kozma Ignatievich Studenikin. This was one of the Yelets citizens, who served as ktitor of the Intercession Church in Yelets, and from a young age devoted himself to serving his neighbor. So, he set up a school at his house to educate children, and, despite the poverty of his fortune, he distributed everything he received as a reward for his work to the poor. According to the remark of one of the cell attendants of St. Tikhon, the latter had in Kosma Ignatievich, this “dear friend” of his, as he himself calls him in one of his letters, special favor and great trust until his blessed death; he entrusted him with money for distribution to widows and orphans, also for the ransom of debtors in custody.” According to the testimony of other writers, there were 103 rules set forth here, but there were 240 bishops. This letter was written by Saint Tikhon in response to a message to him from one of his closest predecessors in the Voronezh see, namely Bishop Kirill of Chernigov. This is the message: “Most Reverend Master, my beloved brother in Christ, my co-servant and mercifully reliable benefactor! You might be interested in: