Глава XVIII. Чудодейственный рассказ Шамординской Амвросиевской женской пустыни схимонахини Юлии Гурьевой о старце Макарии, вместе и о другом замечательном Оптинском подвижнике – страдальце иеродиаконе Мефодии

Next to the story of Mr. D.L. here is another interesting and also authentic story of the Shamordino schema-monk Mother Yulia Guryeva, who died in the first decade of this 20th century, written down by her in her own hand, about the elder father Fr. Macarius and Hierodeacon Methodius. The original manuscript is entitled: “From my childhood memories of the Optina elder Father Macarius.” Forever, says the schema-nun, the bright image of the late elder Father Macarius remained in my memory. When I recognized him, I was only 14 years old. I came to Optina on a special occasion, with my now long-deceased parents. This was in the year that the terrible Crimean campaign began, when, due to the lack of officers, the late Sovereign Nikolai Pavlovich issued a decree - all those who completed a course in classical gymnasiums and gymnasium students suitable for military service were to be released into regiments directly as officers. For this reason, exams were scheduled ahead of time. They ran out at our Kaluga gymnasium in February. My older brother was one of those appointed to production as he had completed his high school course with excellence, and was of athletic build, despite the fact that he was only 16 and a half years old. Such was his own irresistible desire to be a military man. All our ancestors sent their eldest sons into military service. Likewise, the parents of my eldest son intended to be a military man from childhood; and the younger brother had to remain with his parents. But God judged differently. Having completed the exams, my brother was introduced, at the request of my father, to the dragoon regiment, where my father’s nephew, our cousin D.K., to whom my father wanted to entrust the young officer, had long served. But my brother, to celebrate, while riding on Maslenitsa, caught a bad cold and went to bed. Having never been sick before and not accustomed to lying down, he did not succumb to illness for a long time and thereby deceived himself and his mother, who loved him passionately and looked after him. Meanwhile, the illness was serious - pneumonia, which, due to untimely medical assistance, turned into fleeting consumption. Two weeks later, his days were already numbered. The disease progressed quickly in the young body. A month later he was already dead and lying on the table, precisely on the day when the paper about his acceptance into the dragoon regiment arrived. The father's grief could not be described; but it’s hard to say about the mother. This son was her first-born, whom she loved so much that with him it was as if she had no other children. To tell the truth, my late brother was worthy of this love by his character. No mother's pampering could spoil this simple, kind boy. He died with remarkable presence of mind, with the full Christian farewell that he himself had wished for. Having asked everyone in the house for forgiveness and made peace with everyone, feeling himself the approach of death, on the last night he persuaded his mother to go and rest, saying that he felt very good, and without her he peacefully departed to the Lord. In the morning no one dared to tell her about her son’s death. But she herself went up to him and as soon as she saw his lifeless body, she immediately lost her mind. She laughed furiously, danced, tore her clothes and hair, tried to raise the dead man, opened his eyes; during funeral services she broke candles, threw them at the icons and God knows what she said; She even burst out in blasphemy against the Lord. After they performed the burial rite established by the Holy Church over the deceased, they transported his body to our family estate. On the advice of the doctors, they decided to move my mother to the village in order to distance her from the city and the house where my brother died, thinking that it would be easier for her at his grave. But it didn't work out that way. In the village she did not come to her senses at all; but it became even more difficult for her. Deprived of sleep, she secretly went to the grave at night, when we, exhausted from caring for her during the day and deceived by her imaginary calm, fell asleep, tearing up the frozen ground with our hands, hoping, probably, to dig up the deceased. More than once we found her there, lying on the grave, frozen, and brought her home. This continued until June. In June, before the start of field work, we used to go to visit my uncle, my father’s brother, whose estate was eight miles from Optina Pustyn. But strangely, despite the proximity of the monastery to my uncle’s estate, my parents never went there. This time, my father, due to my mother’s illness, did not want to go to visit my uncle; and called him to him. My uncle arrived and, seeing my mother in an abnormal state, began to persuade my father to take her to Optina Pustyn, where he often fasted, to Father Macarius as an elder of holy life - which was done by my father. Our whole family went, taking with us one of our neighbors, a middle-aged girl, very religious, who wanted to enter a monastery after the death of her mother and longed to see the blessed elder, about whom there had long been great fame. We arrived in Pustyn in the morning and stayed in a wooden hotel. We learned that before Vespers, the elder has the habit of coming to the inn to those who need his spiritual help, and that he also sometimes leaves the skete gates and immediately near the skete deals with the people, mainly the female sex, who have long been prohibited from entering the skete. Thus, we went to meet the elder; and with us a lot of people left the rooms. My mother walked mechanically with us, hanging her head, as if unaware of where she was being taken and what was happening around her. So we brought it to the place where the side path leads to the main path leading from the monastery to the monastery. We had to stop here; because the elder himself was already approaching us with many people accompanying him. With him were both monastics and laymen of both sexes. The old man walked towards the hotel. Father stopped and, looking around our entire crowd, quickly walked past everyone to my mother and sharply, somehow hurriedly asked her: “What’s wrong with you?” She, beyond our expectations, raised her eyes to him and said, crying: “I have lost my son.” “Well, what then? - the old man said in the same tone, - what age? In response to her answer - sixteen and a half years old - he said cheerfully: “The boy has long been one of the saints.” I heard these same words from Elder Macarius about my brother, more than 30 years later, from Father Fr. Ambrose, to whom, while telling my life, I accidentally mentioned how my brother came to me in reality on the ninth day after his death to console me in my grief for him. But I continue my main story: then Father Fr. Macarius turned to my father and asked what room we were staying in, looked intently at me, who was standing behind my father, and just as hastily and sharply, sternly asked: “Do you read novels?” I blushed to the root of my hair and answered: “No.” Just before leaving for Optina, having stolen the key to his library from my father, I pulled out some old novel, secretly read it from board to board and put it back to him. That’s why I blushed so hard before the elder’s searching gaze. “Look,” he continued, wagging his finger at me as if I were a child, “don’t read novels, it’s not good for you.” Standing right there with me was some Moscow young lady of about 17 years old, apparently a very lively and socialite. She said: “But, father, I always read novels,” and wanted to add something. But the elder, interrupting her, said: “Without you, I know what you are reading, I don’t ask you, but I tell her not to read.” “And here,” said my father, “is my youngest son,” pointing to the boy standing with us. Then this brother of mine was only 9 years old. He was a plump boy, white, pink, his cheeks were especially full. Father o. Macarius grabbed them and, shaking him slightly, said: “Be careful, young man, don’t get married without your mother’s blessing.” And always the next time, meeting my brother, the priest repeated the same thing to him. Of course, it seemed strange at the time. My brother was still a child. But 16 years after that, my mother and I had to remember the words of the elder Father Macarius. My brother, 25 years old, married, not at the request and blessing of his mother, to a girl, although educated, but not from his environment, and was unhappy with her - which, as it were, shortened his life. The old man we met on the path went with us to the hotel. Taking my mother by the hand, he took her to our room, where he remained to talk with her alone. He did this for a week, or during our entire stay in Optina, coming to us every day. At the end of the week, he forced us all to fast, appointing Father Paisius, then the monastery confessor, as confessor. Unfortunately, I remember almost nothing from the elder’s conversations. I was still so young, and it didn’t interest me much. Moreover, he was left more alone with my mother, who needed his spiritual help. The consequence of this was that she, having stayed with him for a week or perhaps ten days, left Optina completely healthy. Her inconsolable, desperate grief turned into quiet sadness. Arriving home, she began to do a little of her family affairs. The elder gave her the rule to read the Psalter (having explained what kind of book it was), the Gospel several at a time, and the Apostle. He ordered the fasts to be observed: Monday, Wednesday and Friday and all, of course, the four main fasts, which also, it seems, were not observed among us, perhaps the Great One. Then, probably telling the elder about themselves, my parents mentioned that on our estate there was a large stone church, which, due to some dissatisfaction with the clergy, was closed and stood locked for more than 40 years; and the parish, probably at the same time, was included in the neighboring village. This resulted in a lot of inconvenience and sin. The landowner of the neighboring village, where our parish was assigned, was a Lutheran and did not pay any attention to the Orthodox church, which was cramped, damp and cold. They didn't even provide firewood for heating it. The people of our village, one might say, were almost without a church; and it was a long way to go to another village. Our abolished church stood in the center of the parish and was spacious; but all that remained of it were walls. The iconostasis of two altars collapsed, the images peeled off from dampness and very few of them remained; thrones have fallen. For so many years the church was boarded up and no one entered it. All church utensils were transported to the church where the parishioners of our village were assigned; and the utensils were rare for a rural church: an altar cross with 30 or more particles of St. relics, the Gospel granted by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, during whose reign our church was consecrated. Here is Father Fr. Macarius advised my parents to petition the diocesan bishop first for the restoration of the abolished church, and then for the transfer of their parish. So they did. With his blessing, they used the entire part of my late brother’s inheritance for the church, building a new chapel in it in the name of the brother’s Angel. Through the prayers of the elder, they succeeded in all this. Soon after the consecration of the church, my father died a remarkable death, and my mother took care of the church and supported it until her death. At the same time, she fulfilled all the rules assigned to her by the elder; she was a great faster and pious. But I went a little ahead. After our first visit to Optina Pustyn, we went to this monastery of Petrovkami for two more years in a row to prepare for receiving the Holy Mysteries of Christ. On our last visit, my father, going to the morning after a heavy rain, slipped from the stairs of the hotel porch, which was then steeper than now, and not covered by a lantern, and hit his right side hard on the railing, which was the beginning of his dying illness; and a year later he died of cancer caused by a bruise. Our departure this time from Optina, on the occasion of my father’s injury, slowed down somewhat. Both I and again the pious young lady who accompanied us, our neighbor, were very happy about this slowdown. From the first time Optina Pustyn made a deep impression on me. Something that had long been forgotten or had been dormant in me awoke. I was drawn to all the Optina services, I fell in love with my meek spiritual father Paisius, who taught me how to pray and be baptized. Then, surrounded by nuns, who then lived for a long time near the elder and to whom I ran, I had the convenience of seeing Elder Macarius with them, who often came to see them from the hotel. I don’t remember whether they were Belevsky or Sevsky, but they stood in the Shakhovsky building and then worked on clothes for the throne in the monastery. They loved me and caressed me; They talked a lot about the monastic life, inviting me to choose this life, and they even decided to tell my mother about it. To which she replied: “I don’t know about my father; and I would gladly give her to a monastery.” I was 16 years old then. The impression the monastery made on me did not go away even after the winter I spent in Moscow with my other uncle, my mother’s brother, who tried to take me wherever possible due to my young years and make me happy. Not daring to ask Elder Father Macarius myself about my fate due to my extreme shyness, I decided to ask him a mental question. It happened like this: the priest came to our room and began to tell my parents something. I only know one thing: the story was not suitable for my thoughts. I fixed my half-childish eyes intently on him with the question: should I go to the monastery? I thought with faith that if the elder was truly perspicacious, as they said, then he would answer my mental question what I needed. By faith it was for me. The elder suddenly turned in my direction; After passing his eyes around my head, he hastily and rather loudly said: “We’ll get married first, and to someone we don’t expect.” Then he continued his story. No one except me noticed the words he inserted. They hit me right in the heart and turned everything in me upside down. “Well, this,” I thought, “will never happen; without loving, I will not get married; how is this possible? And I, embarrassed, left the room. This time, as if to confirm the elder’s words, a young lady of mine who came with us to Pustyn accidentally found out that in the Optina hospital, which was then located at the Vladimir Church, Hierodeacon Methodius had been lying for many years, paralyzed. People said that he predicted a good life. Some reported that during the service he became paralyzed and stopped at the words: “Lord, have mercy!” Others said that it was his vow to say nothing except the words “Lord, have mercy.” My friend relentlessly began to drag me to his hospital. The people came to him in large numbers at noon. And since this was the only time when they were allowed to see him, it was crowded around him due to the multitude of people. I - I admit my stupidity - was terribly afraid of such people. And someone else managed to scare me with his appearance. And most of all I was afraid that he would tell me something so terrible in advance. But I couldn’t get rid of my friend. She reasonably proved to me my stupidity and almost forcibly dragged me to the hospital. To the left, as you go up, there was a corridor, and the outermost cell was his. When we got up, people were standing both in the corridor and in his cell. It was difficult to squeeze through the crowd; but we still got through. I thought to myself: if I see him from afar and he seems scary to me, I’ll leave, and I was about to run. Before I had time to think this, the patient’s laughter was heard, and he rose from the felt on which he was lying on the floor. There was neither a bed nor even a bench in his cell; he had been lying on the floor for 26 years. Fr. shouted in a tearful voice. Methodius: “Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!” - and, indicating with his right hand for the crowd to move apart, laughing loudly, he pointed the finger of his healthy right hand at me. His other arm and leg were paralyzed. This continued until they almost forcibly brought me, a servant of God, to him. Frightened, I knelt down in front of him. He hugged my head with his right hand and, laughing, kissed my forehead. Then saying: “Lord, have mercy!” - he sent the whole crowd of people out and ordered to lock the door, leaving me with my friend next to him. Laughing merrily, he ordered a bouquet of roses standing on his window to be served. And when my friend handed them to him, he pulled out several white roses and put them in my hand; and, taking my hand and my friend’s, he covered them, I don’t remember, either with his hollow robe, or with a manatey, and, singing: “Lord, have mercy!” – he circled our hands three times. It was clear that he was pointing me towards a wedding. Then, laughing cheerfully, he showed me that I would be happy in family life. It's hard to convey why I understood him. Then, pretending to be serious, he showed me one of my husband’s habits when he used to think, and which only caught my eye when I got to know him closely. Involuntarily I remembered the already deceased Fr. Methodius. After that, the patient was completely transformed. His face became serious and reverent. Looking at the image of the Savior that stood in the corner of his cell - its only decoration - he somehow sternly, or prayerfully, pointed to the Savior and, completely devoted to prayer, took off his rosary from his hand and put it on my left hand, singing in a completely different tone: “Lord, have mercy!” I realized that at the end of my life something different would happen to me, and I would have to end up in a monastery. Finally, slapping my hand on the head, he again, with a serious expression on his face, took his rosary back and, pointing to the door, immediately let us go. We, having kissed his hand for the first and last time, left. I never saw him again, nor did I see Father Fr. Macaria. That same autumn, their brother, who served there, unexpectedly returned to our neighbors from the Caucasus, severely ill with a fever. He was there throughout the Crimean campaign and was in action. The war was already ending, and he was given leave without any hindrance. Having become intimately acquainted with us, he soon became the favorite and friend of my father, who was already very ill and living out his last year of life. Our guest was twice my age and quite a serious person. That’s why it never occurred to me that his choice would fall on me. I attributed his constant presence in our house to my father’s friendship with him, and nothing about myself occurred to me. Ten days before his death, the father himself revealed the whole secret. Due to his illness, my mother and I did not sleep for whole nights next to him, sitting with him in turns. And it happened like this: I sat over him in the evening; then she woke up her mother and, having sat her down, immediately fell asleep in front of them. My father called to me at night, but I didn’t answer right away because I was asleep. I hear him say to his mother: “I have forgotten myself now and I see in a dream: the holy saint of God, Nicholas, has come to me. (It is remarkable that the church, renewed by my parents, was in the name of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, and his miraculous image is there.) The saint says to me: “I have prepared for you a narrow and long house; in ten days I will take you.” “I would have died calmly,” the father continued, “if she (named me) had married so-and-so; I would, I say, die calmly, leaving her and the whole family in his care.” I froze in place and was silent. Exactly ten days after his dream, my father died. About three hours before his death, he, having blessed all of us who were crying, repeated his request to me and wished me to make him a promise of this. I agreed to rely on the will of God if it was so. Eight months after my father's death, I was already married. My mother, my relatives and his relatives were all unanimously happy about this marriage. Thus, God’s will was accomplished over me, and the prediction of the Optina elder, Father Fr. Macaria 124: I married someone I didn’t expect. Many years later, I asked another Optina elder, Father Ambrose, about this: “Why did it happen like this? After all, as it seemed to me, I had a calling to the monastery; and the elder (Makariy) pointed to marriage.” “No, no,” Father Fr. answered me seriously. Ambrose, “the world needed you.” Two or three years after my father’s death, my mother went to Optina to visit Father Fr. Macarius with his daughter-in-law, her brother's wife. This was not long before the death of the elder. This aunt of mine went with her mother to ask for his advice and blessing on her daughter’s divorce from her husband and her marriage to someone else. The elder said seriously, citing the text from the Gospel of Mark: If a wife lets her husband go and commits adultery for another (Mark 10:12). And in another place - from Matthew: Whoever understands the wasteland commits adultery (Matthew 5:32). And he added: “If you don’t listen and marry someone else, a great punishment will follow - there will be no happiness; I don’t have my blessing for this.” But my cousin did not listen, divorced her husband and married someone else. About two years after this she lost her mind. And although she was not in a mental hospital, since she had a certain point of insanity and enormous means of living, and therefore her husband supported her at home; but still, it was clear that this was God’s great punishment for both of them. And only 17 years later the Lord took the sufferer to Himself from this temporary life.