Слово на Успение Пресвятой Богородицы. Св Димитрия, митрополита Ростовского

Oh wonderful miracle! The source of life is placed in the grave, and the ladder to heaven is the grave. Beloved listeners! The wondrous Mother of the wondrous God, wondrous from Her beginning to her end: wondrous in Her conception, wondrous in Her life, wondrous in Her repose. She is all one wondrous miracle. Wonderful in conception: having been conceived, according to the angelic gospel, from barren, pure and holy parents, she was born pure and holy. Wonderful in life: She was a virgin Mother and a mothering Virgin; gave birth to God and did not damage Her virginity. Marvelous in repose: She does not descend with Her grave into the earth, but ascends into heaven: and there is a coffin on the ladder to heaven. Oh, wonderful miracle! And the dead man is marvelous, and the coffin is marvelous. The dead man lives after death: the Virgin is at Christmas, and after death she is alive; and the coffin reaches to heaven (like Jacob’s ladder established on earth, the top of which reached heaven): a ladder to heaven is a coffin... Let us stand firmly with our minds at the wondrous immortal tomb of the Mother of God, as at a ladder leading to heaven, and let us look with our inner eyes at what steps this ladder is (because there is no ladder without steps), what it is - the steps along which the Mother of God ascended to heaven at the hour of Her repose? Oh, wonderful miracle! The source of life is placed in the grave, and the ladder to heaven is the grave. It would not be surprising to block the source with a coffin so that it does not emit its stream; but it is marvelous to transform the coffin into a ladder, and into a ladder reaching to heaven. Is it really possible for a human coffin of three cubits, placed directly on the ground, to reach the height of heaven? But you need to know that here, of course, the coffin is instead of death itself. Death is called the coffin as well as the ladder; as a coffin of three cubits, so is death; and the death of saints before the Lord is honest, like a ladder leading the souls of saints to heaven, and is measured by three theological virtues - faith, hope and love. And this is a great and lofty measure, reaching like a ladder to heaven! Because faith reaches to the sight of God; hope - until you receive benefits, but the eye cannot see them; and love - to the very heart of God, in which is the source and beginning of all (pure) love. Death is a ladder. Just as a ladder has two sides, so death, which ends temporary life and begins eternal life, has two sides: life ending and life beginning. And just as steps for ascent are arranged and established between the sides of the ladder, so at the time of death, between the life that ends and the life that begins, all the good deeds of a righteous man, accomplished in temporary life, are collected, with which the soul, like degrees, ascends to heaven, and thus death or the coffin becomes a ladder to ascent: a ladder to heaven is the coffin. The Mother of God ends with a most blessed death, dies an immortal death. On the one hand - the end of temporary life, on the other - the beginning of eternal life, and in the middle, like degrees arranged for the ascent of Her most holy soul - all Her virtues, which who can count? Who can count and express how, by what and how many good deeds the Most Holy Virgin pleased God, Her Creator, from Her youth to her most blessed death? Rather, you will find flowers in spring, ears of corn in summer, fruits in autumn, snow in winter, hair on your head; You would rather count the drops in the sea, the stars above, than count the good deeds of pleasing God and the dignity of the Mother of God. Leaving aside everything else that is inconceivable to count, I pay attention only to three most important objects, and present them as if they were steps of a ladder and, in order to show them more clearly, I propose a question. I ask: who died? I know that everyone, out of zeal for the Reposed One, will give an answer in praiseworthy terms; one will say: “The Mother of God reposed before Her Son and God”; another will say: “the animate sky was taken into heaven”; or: “the impenetrable gates are carried into the doors of heaven”; or: “God’s most pure house has been transferred to churches not made by hands”; or: “the sun, in which the Supreme One placed His settlement, rose from earth to heaven.” Everyone, according to His zeal, will say something praiseworthy. And I, turning to the most wondrous immortal Dead, laid in a coffin for only three days, ask: who are you, lying here? I hear a humble voice answering: Behold the handmaid of the Lord (Luke 1:38). Now let everyone know who died: the servant of the Lord died; The handmaid of the Lord was laid in the tomb: behold the handmaid of the Lord! Here I remember the ancient saying: “to work for God is to reign”; that is, working for God is the same as reigning. Whoever is a true servant of God is an heir to the kingdom of heaven, co-king with Christ. If the Most Pure Virgin is the servant of the Lord, then she is truly the Queen of all visible and invisible creation. But, diligently looking with my mind at the Lord and the servant of the Lord, just as I contemplate my Lord in three persons, one Father and Son and the Holy Spirit, so in His Servant, and our Queen, in one person I see three special manifestations that expressed the work of God: differently She worked to God the Father, differently to God the Son and differently to God the Holy Spirit. She was the Daughter of God the Father, to whom she says: hear, daughter, and see (Ps. 44:11), the Matter of God the Son and, as it were, the Bride of God the Holy Spirit; She worked for the Holy Trinity faithfully and truly in three special ways. Here I ask again: this servant of the Lord, who earned Herself the royal honor, by what degrees did she reach such great dignity, such a high honor as to be the Daughter of God the Father, the Mother of God the Son, the unfathomable Virgin of God the Holy Spirit? Truly, She laid down the ascent in Her heart, laid down in Her life the degree of ascent to God. She rose to the disgrace of God the Holy Spirit with virginal purity; for motherhood to God the Son - with humility: as he looked upon the humility of His servant (Luke 1:48); as a gift to God the Father - love. And by what degrees She approached in Her temporary life to God in the One Trinity, by the same degrees She ascended into heaven in Her immortal dormition to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit: with virgin purity, humility and love. At the beginning, from Her youth, She ascended to God the Holy Spirit with virginal purity, becoming the living Church and His animated church, because nowhere does the Holy Spirit usually dwell as in virgins: virginity, according to the testimony of the Holy Fathers, is akin to Angels, pleasing to God. And the Most Pure Mother of God, according to the testimony of Saint Ambrose, was a Virgin not only in body, but also in spirit. Let us heed with our minds the words of this teacher about the Most Pure Virgin: “she was,” he says, “a Virgin not only in body, but also in spirit.” What does it mean to be virgin in body and spirit? What does it mean to be pure in body and spirit? And since the word touched upon purity: then listen not only to those who are virgins, or widows, or those who maintain purity through repentance; but take heed, you who are married; The Apostle said to everyone: Do you not know that your body is a temple to the Holy Spirit living in you? You are the church of God, and the Spirit of God lives in you, and whoever corrupts the church of God, God will corrupt him (1 Cor. 6:19; 3:16, 17). Everyone must keep his own purity; both virgins - virgins, and widows - widowed, and those who are married must immaculately preserve marital purity in order to be a pure temple of the Holy Spirit. Before God, just as the purity of those who are not married is commendable, so is the purity of the spouses (marriage is honest); the first is pleasant and the other is not marked as not bad; that one is glorious, but this one also has its own special glory, according to the word of the Apostle: another glory is the sun, another glory the moon, and another glory the stars (1 Cor. 15:41). Although different, however, each has its own glory: the sun has its own, the moon has its own and the stars have their own glory. Saint Isidore Pelusiot interprets these apostolic words as follows: ap. Paul likens to the sun those who have loved to maintain virginity; to the moon - those who remain pure in widowhood; to the stars - those who, in close marriage, keep their bed undefiled. Just as the sun should be bright, and the moon should be bright, and the stars should not be dark; so those who are virgins must be pure, and those who widowed are pure, and those who are married are pure, so that all may be a church worthy of the Holy Spirit. So, learn everything that it means for a person to be pure in spirit and body. Every person, in himself, is twofold: external and internal, carnal and spiritual. The external is visible because it is carnal; the inner one is invisible because it is spiritual: its double purity before God must also be immaculate - bodily and spiritual, which is the purity of the spirit. It is in vain that he who diligently does not preserve the purity of his spirit is proud of his bodily purity in his mind. It is in vain that one who dreams of sinful deeds with his mind curbs his carnal lusts through abstinence. It is in vain that the outer man is considered pure if the inner man is defiled by countless impurities. The body is pure, but from the heart come evil thoughts, adulteries that defile a person - such a person is like the Apple of Sodom. In the books it is written: in that country where Sodom and Gomorrah with the surrounding cities were destroyed by the righteous wrath of God, apples will be born that are very beautiful in appearance, large and have an amazing color - and if someone who had not seen them saw them for the first time, he would be very amazed at their beauty and would imagine a special taste in them; but if I took one apple and cut it or tasted it, I would find nothing in it except unpleasant, stinking and harmful dust. And you, a man, pure in body but defiled in soul, are you not like such an apple? The purity of your body is like a beautiful apple in appearance, and the uncleanness in the body of your spirit and mind is like dust that is unpleasant, stinking and harmful to the soul. The Lord Christ Himself in the Gospel likened such people to watered-down tombs, full of stinking bones, and said to them: you are justified before men; God knows the message of your hearts (Luke 16:15). Oh, if it were possible to look into the heart by the appearance of a saint, more than one would be found there, a rotten and stinking corpse, an unclean thought! So, you need to know that the purity of the outer man, that is, the body, without the purity of the inner man - the spirit, is not purity, as St. Euthymius the Great explains, saying: “let everyone know that if someone does not commit sin with the body, but commits fornication with the mind, accepting and holding evil thoughts, indulging in them and enjoying them, he is a fornicator and cannot be a temple of the Holy Spirit.” Holy Spirit of St. Chrysostom likened it to a bee: just as a bee does not enter a stinking vessel, so the Holy Spirit does not enter an unclean soul. But let us turn again to the words of St. Ambrose, said about the Most Pure Virgin: “She was a Virgin not only in body, but also in spirit.” The Virgin was a body, keeping the color of Her purity incorruptible; The virgin was also a spirit, never thinking about marriage. When She lived in the Holy of Holies, and came to marriageable age, and the bishops and priests commanded that, according to legal custom, leaving the church life, like other girls of her age, she would get married, She answered them: “I was given by my parents from the shrouds to God alone, and therefore I promised to observe My virginity forever; It is impossible for Me to be married to a mortal man, and nothing can force Me into marriage - the Virgin of the immortal God.” The bishops, hearing this, were surprised by the news, because there had never been a virgin who promised God her virginity forever: she was the first to appear in the world like this. Someone may be surprised that, due to the crime of Adam, the Word of God did not soon come to earth for the incarnation and salvation of the fallen human race - even until half the sixth thousand years. But there was not a single virgin on earth who was pure not only in body, but also in spirit. She alone - the first and the last - found this; why, for the sake of Her pure purity, that is, bodily and spiritual, she was worthy to be the church and temple of the Holy Spirit. And just as then, with Her virgin purity, She ascended to God the Holy Spirit, approached and united with Him into one spirit, according to what was said: cleaving to the Lord, there is one spirit with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17): so in Her most honorable dormition She ascended by the same step to heaven, to heaven and above heaven. She ascended to God the Son by the step of humility, because through humility she became worthy to be His Matter. By the same degree of humility She ascended to heaven and surpassed in honor and dignity all the faces of the saints. Humility serves as a good step both to high earthly (worldly and spiritual) honors and to heavenly ones. The forefather of the Mother of God and Christ, Saint David, persecuted by his father-in-law Saul, appeared to him in one place from afar, and cried out: who are you following or who are you persecuting? in the wake of the dead dog? Saul, recognizing his innocence and meekness, answered: “Now we know that the king will reign, and therefore you will have the kingdom of Israel in your hand (1 Sam. 24:15, 21). Let us note that when David humbled himself so much, he immediately heard the royal title prepared for him by God: king, imashi to reign; Through humility he achieved royal honor and earthly spiritual honors. Saint John the Baptist humbled himself at the feet of Christ, saying: I am not worthy to bow down to loose the thong of His boots (Mark 1:7), and for this he heard from Christ: the pain of John the Baptist in those born of women will not rise (Matthew 11:11). Saint John, by the step of humility, ascended to such a high dignity that it was given to him to lay his hand on the highest head of the Son of God. But to the highest heavenly honors there is no other way of ascension and step than humility, because the Lord says: he who humbles himself will be exalted (Matthew 23:12). Once upon a time there was a conversation and dispute between the Apostles; Which of them is more worthy in the Apostolic face, and who is first in heaven? They also asked the Lord Himself a question, saying: “Who is greater in the kingdom of heaven?” The Lord, calling the little boy, placed him in the middle and said: unless you return. and you will be like children, and you will not enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 18:3). But, Lord! What kind of teaching is this, that Your disciples should be converted from perfect men into childhood? Peter is old and Andrew is the same, and the other Apostles are not young; How can they turn back to the previous years, long past, and become little youths? And the Lord says: “Be sure to be children if you want to enter the kingdom of heaven and be great in it: whoever humbles himself like this child will be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:4). This is the image of adolescence, even in old age: to be humble, meek, gentle, like youths. It is good and the Apostle said: Do not have children in your minds, but be childish in malice (1 Cor. 14:20). Whoever is a child through gentleness and humility, the heavenly door is opened for him to enter, he enters the kingdom of heaven and becomes great in it. The disciples of Christ needed to appeal to their humble adolescence, because they began to exalt themselves in their minds: some ask to sit on the right hand and left of Christ in His kingdom, while others think about who is greatest among them - they are looking for leadership. But the Most Pure Virgin did not need such treatment: She was constantly humble from Her infancy; although she grew in body, she diminished in the spirit of humility, and always, like a child, she was an infant in gentleness and humility. She grew in body over the years, grew in lofty mind, and with a godly mind reached the sky; increased in great dignity. She knew for certain that it was not another virgin, but She who would give birth to the Son of God, as it was revealed to Her from God the Father Himself, during midnight prayer in the Holy of Holies: the Divine light shone upon Her, and She heard a voice from God the Father saying: “You will give birth to My Son.” To what honor, to what dignity She grew! And at such a great age, does he think about what kind of leadership, about sitting on what throne and power? Not at all; but she becomes an infant with adolescent humility, saying: Behold the handmaid of the Lord! that is, as if not only unworthy to be, but also to be called the Matter of the Lord, My Creator; not worthy not only to co-reign, but even to stand before Him; not only is she not worthy to carry Him in the womb or in Her arms, but even to look at His most holy face, at which the Seraphim gaze with trepidation. May I be one of the servants who serve Him: behold, the servant of the Lord. What is the depth of Her humility, a depth inconceivable even with angelic eyes! With such a high level of deep humility She ascended to the highest honor of the Mother of God's incorruptible motherhood, because with those humble words of Her: behold the handmaid of the Lord, in Her most pure virgin womb the Word became flesh, and dwelt in us (John 1:14). Humility serves as the foundation for everything, and other virtues are, as it were, constructions on the foundation. And especially the Most Pure Virgin in Her life humbly approached God, Who says: To whom I will look, only to the meek and humble (Isa. 66:2). With the same humility in Her repose, She ascended to heaven and was gloriously elevated to the throne of the heavenly kingdom: humility reigns in the Most Pure Virgin where pride has been cast down. To the third, initial person in the Holy Trinity, God the Father, She ascended the third, highest step of all - love; because, according to the word of the Apostle, love is above all (1 Cor. 13:13), through which She became the Daughter of the Heavenly Father. How the Most Pure Virgin loved God - no tongue can confess this, no mind can comprehend. Love is a mystery - one of the unknown secrets of the heart, known only to God Himself, who tests hearts and wombs. We can partly understand love from some external deeds, occasions and circumstances, as, for example, the Child Jesus remained in Jerusalem, and, having found Him, the Most Pure Virgin said: I sought Thee painfully (Luke 2:43, 48), that is, painfully at heart. Here we can say that the Most Pure Virgin loved God with all her heart. She stands at the cross, looking at the free suffering of Her Son, and the words of Simeon come true over Her: But a weapon will pierce through Your soul (Luke 2:35). Here we can say that the Most Pure Virgin loved God with all her soul. After the Lord’s Ascension into heaven, the Most Pure Virgin remained on earth in the primacy of the Church and constantly thought about Her Son and God, and had an everlasting desire to move to Him from this world. Here we could say that She loved God with all her thoughts, but we will not comprehend or adequately express how She truly loved Him with all her heart, with all her soul and with all her thoughts. Humanly, we could say that the Most Pure Virgin loved God as much as one of us loves his parents, or his one-flesh friend in marriage, or his only son; But among people, heartfelt love is divided into parts: someone loves a parent especially, a friend especially, and a son especially. And in the Blessed Virgin, love could not be divided into parts. The One She loved was Her Father, her only Son, and her incorruptible Bridegroom. All Her complete love was in one God, which is why She was called both the Bride of the Holy Spirit and the Matter of God the Son, and the Daughter of God the Father; A daughter, not in the same sense as all the children faithful to God: he will give them the realm of being children of God, to those who believe in His name (Jn. 1:2); and again: I will receive you, and I will be your Father, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty (2 Cor. 6:17, 18); but in the incomparably higher, most honest, closest sense, the Most Pure Virgin is the Daughter of God the Father. If, for example, what kind of person took in two little orphaned girls and, raising them instead of daughters, called them both his daughters; then he would give one of them to his natural son as a bride. A young woman who is married to his son is, according to the law of nature, the closest daughter, more dear, in comparison with a young woman who is not married to his son: this one is called a daughter only by appropriation, by name, and she becomes a daughter by the law of nature, because she becomes flesh with his own son. Just as a son is a natural son to his father, so a filial wife is, according to the law of nature, a daughter to the same father. This is what we need to understand about the Most Pure Mother of God. God the Father, instead of daughters, took for Himself our human nature, and especially the Most Pure Virgin, as if orphaned young women. Our nature was orphaned because it had fallen from paradise and the first grace of God. The Most Pure Virgin was also orphaned after her parents. God called our nature one daughter: you will be my sons and daughters; He also called the Most Pure Virgin Daughter, saying: Hear, daughter, and see, and incline your ear, and forget your people and your father’s house (Ps. 44:11). Upon the arrival of the appointed time, God the Father paired the Virgin Bride to the Son of His Word, and the Most Pure Virgin became the closest Daughter to God the Father in comparison with us. She touched the nature of God, uniting herself with God the Word with Her flesh, with which she embodied Him in Herself, and the Virgin Mary is the closest Daughter to God the Father than all human and angelic nature. Paying attention to Her motherhood, who gave birth to God the Son, we again see Her great closeness to God the Father. It is not in vain that God the Father speaks to Her in the Song of Songs: I have made you like my neighbor (Song 1:8); just as He gave birth to His natural God the Son without a mother, so She gave birth to the same God, and not another God, the Son without a father, and became God the Father, as it were, a sincere sister. The Most Pure Virgin was elevated to this great dignity both by the previously mentioned virtues, virginity and humility, and by love, for the Lord says: I love Me who loves (Proverbs 8:17). And rightly so: because the Most Pure Virgin loved God with the warmest love - more than all past, present and future saints. Therefore, God loved Her more than everyone else, appropriated and brought Her closer, entrusted Her with carrying and giving birth with the virgin womb of a perfect God in perfect humanity. And just as then the Most Pure Virgin ascended to such high closeness to God the Father by the step of love: so now, in Her most honorable Dormition, she ascended to heaven by the same step. So with these three steps (I pass in silence the other countless ones) the Mother of God now ascends into the heavenly ones - to God the Holy Spirit with virginal purity, to God the Son - with humility, to God the Father - with love; It’s better to say, with all three steps together she ascended to the one God in the Trinity: by what She pleased God the Holy Spirit, she pleased God the Son and God the Father; by what she pleased God the Son, she pleased God the Father and God the Holy Spirit; by what she pleased God the Father, she pleased God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. We are amazed at such Her ascent, amazed at such steps, and say with horror: oh, a wondrous miracle! there is a ladder to heaven, there is a coffin. Amen 182. See the works of St. Demetrius, Metropolitan of Rostov. Kyiv. 1881, part III, countries. 123–137, cf. "Selected Words in Honor and Glory of the Blessed Virgin Mary." Moscow. 1886, countries. 123–137. You might be interested in: