6. Гонения и клеветы на прп. Паисия

In letters to P. Kalnyshevsky, Rev. Paisius repeatedly mentions the slander that was spreading against him and his entire brotherhood at the Dragomirn monastery. Judging by the fact that Rev. Paisius pays a lot of attention to what happened; it can be assumed that this fact caused a lot of trouble for the elder and his brethren. In particular, in a letter dated June 1768, he writes to Kalnyshevsky: We are amazed with great surprise where such slander and such lies come from against our wretched hostel, as it came to our minds when we heard what we heard from our brother monk Pachomius, who had arrived, and who this is, stitching together lies of slander. Is it the one who, for some perceived inconstancy in others, is not accepted into our society, or is secretly consumed by envy? In another letter for the same year, St. Paisiy again draws attention to this problem: When it came to our minds, when we dreamed, when such lies were uttered by envious people, we wondered where they were coming from, so that they could stitch together such lies and slander? And who are these? Are some who, for some perceived inconstancy, not accepted into our society, or who are consumed by envy and secretly learn from the enemy of the Christian race, who always hates the good? In another place, he thanks Kalnyshevsky for not succumbing to “evil slander” and acting as “a very special intercessor and strong defender”: With His ineffable mercy, the Most Good Lord breathed into the heart of your greatness with His Most Holy Spirit, so as not to accept those false slander against our poor society, and gave us your greatness as your most special intercessor and strong defender in all the evil slander that befalls. We thank the Most Merciful God, for such greatness of yours shows us, the poor, mercy; All the same, we earnestly pray to His unsearchable Goodness, so that as your great power protects the poor and wretched, your great power, our special and merciful benefactor, will protect and preserve for many years from all evil and hostile slander of the soul and body 82. Similarly, three years later, in a letter for 1771, Rev. Paisiy writes to Koshevoy Ataman of the Zaporozhye Sich: Just as before these two years many unrighteous things happened, there were rumors and slander against our wretched monastery, so, perhaps, now various vain and false speeches, some out of ignorance, some out of envy, have been made public. But your greatness about your God-given common sense, they didn’t listen to any of the conversations that had happened before, and they didn’t doubt us, so I hope that even now, even if there were slander on our part, you wouldn’t believe it 83 . Il. 14. Envelope from a letter to St. Paisiy Velichkovsky to P. Kalnyshevsky Unfortunately, in letters to Rev. Kalnyshevsky. Paisiy does not specify what kind of slander and slander they were that bothered the elder so much, and why he paid so much attention to them in his letters. However, in the messages of St. Paisius to Archimandrite Theodosius and Hieroschemamonk Agathon reported that at this time the elder had to come out in defense of the patristic-hesychast teaching about the Jesus Prayer. According to him, in Ukraine, in the Moshensky Mountains, where the Cossack Moshnogorsk monastery and one of the centers of the Cossack-Haydamak uprisings had long been located, a certain monk appeared - “a philosopher with a vain mind,” who denied mental prayer as heresy and delusion. This monk and the meaning of his teachings and actions of St. Paisius compares “with the damned Calabrian heretic Barlaam, the first blasphemer of this sacred Jesus Prayer” 84. According to Rev. Paisius, this monk from the Moshensky mountains, “was so blasphemous against this holy prayer (which the devil prompted him to do), that he incomparably surpassed in blasphemy both the ancients and the thrice-damned heretics Varlaam and Akindinus, who blasphemed this prayer... He erected such terrible, shameful, and nasty blasphemies against this holy prayer and against its zealots and workers that they are unbearable to chaste human hearing. He also organized such a great persecution against the zealots of this prayer that some monks, leaving everything, fled to this country (Moldovalahia - approx. S. Sh.)” 85. In addition, as Rev. writes. Paisius, “not content to utter blasphemy with just his all-bad tongue, he set out to blaspheme in writing and refute this divine work of prayer and the paternal books teaching about it” 86. Apparently, polemics and disputes of a theological nature grew into serious turmoil, resulting in persecution against supporters of internal work and threatening to completely eradicate the work of the whole life of the saint. Paisius on the revival of the lost traditions of ancient hesychasm. As Velichkovsky himself reports, in addition to slander and persecution, opponents of hesychasm “reached such madness” that they collected patristic books that taught about mental prayer, and, tying stones to them, drowned them in the Tyasmin River 87 . In addition, “certain confessors, under threat of unblessing, forbade reading the books of the fathers” 88. The outbreak of unrest reached both Dragomirna and Zaporozhye. Having learned about this, Elder Paisius wrote a lengthy work in 6 chapters, “Chapters on Smarter Prayer,” 89 which he sent to the erring monks. This is a work recognized by St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov) one of the most authoritative apologies for the patristic teaching “about the Jesus Prayer, performed with the mind in the heart” 90, over time became one of the fundamental manuals on mental prayer and gained wide popularity in Eastern Europe. Apparently, it was with these events that the mentioned saints were connected. Paisiy “lies of slander and enmity”, which the elder had previously experienced on Athos, while defending the patristic-hesychast teaching about the Jesus Prayer. TsGIAC of Ukraine. F. 229. Op. 1. D. 166. L. 35 TsGIAC of Ukraine. F. 229. Op. 1. D. 166. L. 47. TsGIAC of Ukraine. F. 229. Op. 1. D. 166. L. 53. TsGIAC of Ukraine. F. 229. Op. 1. D. 166. L. 93. Rev. Paisiy Velichkovsky. Life and selected works. Serpukhov: “Heritage of the Orthodox East”, 2014. P. 381. Rev. Paisiy Velichkovsky. Life and selected works. Serpukhov: “Heritage of the Orthodox East,” 2014. pp. 489–543. Chetverikov S., prot. Decree. op. pp. 159–207.