Word at the burial of the ordinary professor of the Moscow Academy Ivan Nikolaevich Korsunsky

Said upon bringing the body of the deceased to the academic church. The Sabbath was left to the people of God. For He entered into His rest and rested from His works, as God did from His (Heb. 4:9-10). A rare worker rests in a serene sleep, taking the Sabbath with us for the last time in order to fast and celebrate the day of the Resurrection of Christ in the all-honorable church. An unusually active life ceased: the arduous wandering along the paths of Christian enlightenment and charity ceased, and now their end is peace, or, in the words of the Holy Apostle, Sabbath, abandoned by the people of God. What does this Sabbath mean? Why is the Sabbath, or the rest of God, the desired end of work, the desired goal of the pilgrimage? Let us, brethren, delve into this great, but somewhat hidden word of the Apostle of Christ, in order to understand for ourselves the significance and meaning of the experienced minutes of blessed Sabbath of our brother and colleague who reposed in the Lord. It seems strange in the teaching of the Holy Apostle the idea that rest or Sabbath is left only to the people of God: but doesn’t every person die? Doesn’t everyone’s life, no matter how difficult or completely inactive it may be, end in the serene peace of death? No less strange is the often repeated prayer of the Holy Church: peace, Lord, to the soul of your departed servant: why pray for peace when the latter has already arrived? Has arrived... Has it really arrived? Just pose this question, remembering sometimes the happy, sometimes ill-fated life and death of people known to you, friends, and you may be horrified, trembling... And this horror that gripped you when imagining the restless afterlife of your friend will not prompt you to fervently pray for him for peace, which until then seemed unnecessary? But it is not horror and despair that inspires us with the great word of the Apostle about the Sabbath of the people of God, but reverent, joyful and sublime hope. It was established - he says with unshakable confidence - that the Sabbath was left to the people of God: so that he who entered into God's rest rested from his works, just as God rested from his on the seventh day, when, having finished his creation, he saw (God) create all the trees: and this was great good (Gen. 1:31). This is the kind of peace the Holy Church prays for! This is the kind of Sabbath about which the Holy Apostle speaks so confidently! This is not the peace of death - the cessation of every vital force, as we see at the death of the body, this is not the peace of even deep sleep, reaching the darkening of consciousness, to the cessation of all contemplation, but Divine peace - the endless, inexplicable joy of pure contemplation of the creative beauty and glory of God. Not all people - no matter how active they are - have entered and will enter the rest of God. Through the lips of the prophet, God Himself said: I swore in My wrath, if they entered into My rest (Psalm 94:11). And the prophet, remembering this sentence of the wrath of God and warning his contemporaries, says: and today do not harden your hearts, as in anger in the days of temptation in the wilderness (Psalm 94:8). The rest of God was promised to ancient Israel, but they hardened their hearts and heard the terrible words: they will not enter into my rest. They will not penetrate; but, says the Apostle, today the Sabbath has been abandoned by the people of God (Heb. 4:7-8). Who and where are these people of God? Christ redeemed us from the curse (Gal. 3:13) and called and calls to the inheritance of the promised blessings of Divine peace to ancient Israel of all who turn to Him with their hearts, follow Him, conform to Him in His suffering and death: come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest (Matthew 11, 28). For nineteen centuries the Church of Christ has been wandering in the world, like Israel in the desert, or like a ship on the stormy waves of the sea, delivering its swimmers to the heavenly harbor, listening to the voice of Christ. Were you, most venerable, our blessedly departed brother, a swimmer of this ship? Oh, how gratifying is the confidence of everyone who knew you that you were him! Of the 50 years of your life, 40 of you applied your spiritual strength to hard work on the ship of Christ. Which of your peers in the theological school of education will not testify that you amazed them with your hard work! Who of them will not say that at that time you, like an ancient stylite, stood and sat day and night at the writing desk, all covered and immersed in the sources of Theological knowledge, and read and wrote... Who will not say that the word of God, interpreted in different languages, fed your mind, was your native element? Then your service to the theological school began in its lower and highest ranks. Should I tell you that you devoted yourself to this service with selflessness and self-sacrifice? No, I won't talk about it. For what does my word mean when the creations you left behind, your deeds, speak so loudly about it? And at the same time, am I not unreasonably afraid of anticipating the word of those most worthy of me about this? Should I tell you that not only with your mind, but also with your heart, you devoted yourself to serving Christ’s commandment, a deep and broad commandment? Did you love your loved ones and your neighbors, and who were your neighbors? Will I touch with my word the shrine of your Christianly well-appointed, family, hospitable hearth? But here the loss caused by your death is so great that my word will be only a careless touch on the torment of grief, barely bearable... Will I touch with my word your relationship with your colleagues, students, with the diverse poor of our city, whom you served so much and selflessly, as only a true Christian can serve? Oh how much I would like to talk about this! But I am afraid that even now I am exceeding the measure of words, I am afraid to further violate the reverent and prayerful silence of the many standing at your tomb, which speaks about this more eloquently than my words. I must say only one thing to finish my words decently: in your life you walked a narrow and sorrowful path, precisely the path that the swimmers of the ship of Christ were prescribed to follow. What does it mean to walk the narrow and sorrowful path? This means - according to the explanation of one great father of the Church and ascetic 1 - to give a part of everything to Christ and for His sake endure hardships and constrain that extensive path of personal happiness and peace, which is always beckoned by proud human egoism, limitless in its aspirations. Our hope is based on this, that the ship of the Church of Christ has now brought you to the heavenly pier, as a swimmer faithful to the last minutes; and this hope kindles in us a fiery prayer: peace, our Savior, with the righteous Thy servant and this one will dwell in Thy courts. St. John the Faster, Patriarch of Constantinople. You might be interested in: