382. Слово на освящение храма во имя Св. Живоначальной Троицы, в доме Святейшего Правительствующего Синода г. обер-прокурора и кавалера князя Александра Николаевича Голицына

(Said October 1; printed separately and in collections of 1820 and 1821) h3 1812 Lift up your gates, O princes, and lift up the everlasting gates, and the king of glory will come in. (Ps. 23:7). You have heard this solemn news amidst the present mystery. She 914 from the mouth of the prophet David. And was it possible not to ask at the same time: “Who is this king of glory?” (Ps. 23:8). So exalted above all greatness that the glorious king of Israel appears before him only as the herald of His procession and the gatekeeper of His house - so deeply condescending to his servants that he wants to enter into the narrow gate that cannot accommodate his procession - “who is this king of glory?” The Spirit of God anticipates this reverent bewilderment and turns it into joyful amazement - “The Lord, mighty and mighty... in battle, the Lord of hosts, is the king of glory” (Ps. 23:8, 10), “who comes to dwell in the midst of his people” (1 Kings 6:13) 915. “The Lord is mighty and mighty”, who “makes... his strength” in the very “weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9), - the Lord is “mighty... in battle”, the conqueror of the world and hell, sin and death, the Lord of “powers”, who leads the entire army of heavenly and earthly creatures in their rank, hosts them for his glory and takes up arms for their good - this “king of glory” bowed down now to come under this roof in order to establish here the throne of his kingdom, power, glory, goodness, shrine. What bliss for “the soul that desires and ends... in the courts of the Lord” (Ps. 83:3)! With the eyes of faith, she now sees how these gates listened to the voice of the Lord House, “lifted up their heads,” and became “the gates of heaven” (Gen. 28:17). But do you also notice other secret gates, to which, through these visible ones, the gatekeeper of the King of glory calls? “The everlasting gates will be lifted up” (Ps. 23:7), he says. The eternal gates, of course, are not those that are built of wood and decorated with gold: so, do you see another gate into which to enter, another church that the King of Glory desires to consecrate? Christians, “you... are the church of the living God” (2 Cor. 6:16). If He does not yet live in you, then He stands at the eternal gates of your immortal soul, waiting for you to “prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths right” (Matthew 3:3). “Behold, I stand at the door and speak: if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him” (Rev. 3:20). It would be a vain curiosity to see the consecration of a visible church, if at this time we were not thinking about the consecration of our invisible church. But just as God alone accomplishes this inner sanctification, so He alone can show the glory of this triumph. Let us cry to Him from the depths of our hearts, that He may give us eyes to see, ears to hear, and minds to understand. The image of the sanctification of the internal is presented to us in the rites of sanctification of the external. Here, with the assistance of prayer, the church is cleansed in its most important parts by washing, sprinkling, anointing, and burning incense; the throne of the mysterious presence of God is prepared with vestments and decoration, and the King of glory, hiding his unapproachable greatness in tangible images and signs, visibly accompanied by the servants of the altar, but invisibly carried by angels, by the power of his word, opens, penetrates and fills his dwelling. The same is true in the sanctification of the soul. Consecration, decoration and grace-filled visitation constitute the whole mystery and all the glory of the inner church. The church of God in man at its very beginning was pure; for although it was created partly from the dust of the earth, it was created by the hands of God: it was beautiful, for the “image” of God was placed in it (Gen. 1:26): it was holy, for it was filled with “the breath of life” (Gen. 2:7) from the Holy Spirit. But the breath of life is poisoned by the breath of the serpent: man crushed the image of God, erecting his own idol, and then he himself was so disgusted by the vision of the desecrated church of God that he wanted to hide it from himself, however, with an insignificant fence - “the leaves of the fig trees” (Gen. 3:7). In this sad form, the church of God remains to this day in every natural person, for Adam, as it is written, “begat a son after his own kind and in his own image” (Gen. 5:3), that is, a sinner alien to the image of God spread his uncleanness and ugliness to his offspring. If this innate uncleanliness is little noticed by people, this is precisely because, like fierce leprosy, it has taken root in their being and mixed with nature itself. But is it not this, being conscious, albeit by a dark, but nevertheless constant sensation in the mysterious depths of the soul, that forces them to shun their immortal nature, to occupy themselves only with temporary needs, to feed only on sensual pleasures, to live in vanity, in distraction, far from themselves: - “Adam, where art thou” 916 (Gen. 3:9)? They flee into the darkness in order to hide from the gloomy sight of their interiors, and, fearing to experience the consuming pity of the dilapidated house of God, they betray it into the abomination of final desolation. Whoever makes a decisive effort to enter into himself will see himself as the first need, and his first desire will be purification. God has already “cleansed” us, Christians, “by the washing of water with the word” (Eph. 5:26). However, the church, with all its confidence in the power and abundance of grace of a single baptism, also recognizes a second baptism in repentance. The first baptist with water also preached “the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire” (Matthew 3:11). All these baptisms are contained in the “one” that the Church confesses “for the remission of sins”: but the one grace of cleansing is poured out as many times as our vessel is opened and abolished for it; it is diverse, according to the types of sinful impurities. Who does not see that ancient leprosy crumbles into new ulcers even after cleansing, and the root of evil constantly gives rise to branches? What right do we have to want God to leave us in the blink of an eye those sins that we want and do not want to leave throughout our entire lives? “Wash yourself and be clean,” commands the Lord through the Prophet. But how, Lord? - “Take away wickedness from your souls before my eyes... - and come, and let us be spent, says the Lord, and though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them as white as snow, and if they are like scarlet, I will make them as white” (Is. 1:16, 18). First, renounce your impurities sincerely and constantly, and then, with complete trust, allow God to continue or change the font he has set for you. The bloody stains of unclean nature will be whitened by the gentle water of grace; the wounds of disobedience will be washed and healed by tears of repentance; the deeds of the flesh shall be put to death in the spirit; lusts and thoughts of the soul will be purified by the fire of temptation and suffering. Nothing is more dangerous for those who want to be cleansed than for them not to calm themselves with external cleanliness alone, which, while delighting their pride, would restrain the desire for internal and complete cleansing. Let them see what the Church is doing in cleansing the visible church: it begins from the inner and most essential parts, and from these it is communicated to everyone. This is how it should be with a person. “Cleanse first the inner 917,” says Christ, “so that the outer also may be clean” (Matthew 23:26). Human! the source of thy uncleanness is in thy bowels: stop the streams at the fountain. By deviation of your mind and will you have fallen away from God, and you are perishing within yourself; fall away from yourself through deep inner self-sacrifice, and you will find yourself in God, and God in you. Erase the most intimate traces of your property wherever you notice them. Put your very virtues into the fire of purification; Do not protect yourself with this “fig leaf” (Gen. 3:7), which reveals rather than covers the nakedness of your weakness; seek rather in the nakedness of self-denial of your purity in the eyes of him who, in the purest nakedness, shed his cleansing blood for you; “put aside” without a trace “your old man, which is corrupt in its lusts” (Eph. 4:22). As the old man is put off, the Christian puts on the new, and the cleansing of the inner church is followed by decoration. If the purification of the inner man consists in putting aside everything that is characteristic of the corrupted human nature, then even less can its renewal and decoration be arranged according to the plans of human wisdom. The beauty of creatures is unworthy of man, called to the glory of the Divine, and can it satisfy God in man? The one decoration that shone with such splendor in the first-created world can be magnified by the renewed church of God. The image of God in man is such a treasure that not only man, but the whole world in him makes it precious and dear to God. Where will we find this longed-for image, long ago erased, destroyed and lost by the old Adam? - He is revealed, listeners, again in the new Adam, in the incarnate Son of God, and was taught to us by His word and life. “I have given you an image,” He said before separating from his disciples, “that as I created... you should do also” (John 13:15). Until our inner church is so completely abolished from the images of the world and the flesh, feelings and imagination, that it can accommodate the great image of Jesus Christ, we can collect into it the diminutive images of Him that He showed to the world in His chosen followers. The Apostle even with conviction offers himself as a model for those who do not dare to look at the Divine example of the Lord: “I pray... you, be like me” (1 Cor. 4:16). However, this similarity, he adds, should not satisfy you and calm you by itself, but only bring you closer to the essential image of perfection in Christ: “be like me, as I am Christ.” There is no doubt that only through unremitting struggle and even “sickness and pain” can we achieve that “that Christ may be imagined in us” (Gal. 4:19). We must, according to Scripture, “ordain” it for ourselves “before our eyes” (Gal. 3:1) and constantly take for ourselves from his image every feature for which we will find a place in our mind, in our heart and in our life. It is necessary that we accompany him from his birth to his death, from the manger to the cross and the tomb, and imitate Him in everything that God incarnate can communicate to a person who must be “a partaker of the Divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4). And when finally the fragmented traits of truth, righteousness, love, humility, obedience, long-suffering, and the mortification of Christ, acceptable and preserved by us, merge into a single living image of Him; when this image not made by hands will be reflected in all our powers, abilities, actions and will fill them so that we do not “desire and lead... even as Jesus... and him was crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2), and this “does not... according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit" (2 Cor. 5:16) 918; when in the inner church of the soul, in the heavenly glory of humility, the manger and the cross of Jesus will be collectively visible, just as in this visible altar the sacred meal where Christ is mysteriously born and makes his sacrifice on the cross; when the human spirit is ready every minute, together with the spirit of Jesus, to commit itself to the hand of God, then “Your throne is ready from above,” and the animated “Thy house becomes holy, Lord, for the length of days” (Ps. 92:2, 6) not of earth, but of “heaven.” The Throne of the Omnipresent cannot be idle, listeners. The Lord will not hesitate to visit the house, of which He alone is the builder and the cornerstone, and the beautifier, and the adornment. “If... we are equipped with the likeness of His death, then we will also have the resurrection” (Rom. 6:5). If we have implanted in ourselves his life of mortification, then “the life and light of man that is in him” will flourish in us (John 1:4). If we are not ashamed to “bear the reproach” (Heb. 13:13) of the Son of man, and boast in His cross, then we will see “the glory... of the only begotten of the Father” (John 1:14). If we die in Him to ourselves and to the world, He will rise in us and in immeasurable abundance will return everything to us in Himself. Attracted by the power of His likeness in us, He “will appear and visit” (Bl. Mac., “Conversations,” 33), as one of those visited by His grace explains, “he will visit the soul through all its exits, paths and feelings.” He “will come to the closed door” (John 20:19) and will appear in its inner foundation; will comprehend and “approach” on the path (Luke 24:15) of external activity; will precede “in grief” (Matthew 28:16) the thought of God; will shine in the spirit with its unapproachable light; will burn in the heart “with love that abounds in understanding” (Eph. 3:19). A person will not so much feel his life and existence as the presence and action of his beloved Savior. “I live... none other than Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). But why should we remain silent ahead of time where even those who have reached the measure of the age of Christ, the very voices of their words tremble and become silent in reverence? The Apostle Paul calls the consecration of the inner church “a mystery hidden from ages and... generations,” and, at the very time when he reveals that it has already “appeared to the saints” (Col. 1:26), that “God was pleased to tell what riches of glory the mystery is sowed among the nations,” he concludes this rich mystery in these only words: “Christ in you, the hope of glory” ( Col. 1:27 ). He alone can introduce this mystery into the sanctuary and show its riches, who commands the eternal gates, and then only shows when they open. “The secret of the Lord is to those who fear Him, and He will show His covenant to them” (Ps. 24:14). Oh, the mystery of mysteries, a glorious and unknown mystery, sometimes close and inaccessible, sometimes preached long ago, but always ineffable, sometimes often disputable, and sometimes only rarely comprehended! In vain does curiosity wish to penetrate with one glance the entire depth of Christianity, in vain does unbelief think of hearing by touch and hearing to cognize the light - the God of minds is hidden from the wise and reasonable and is revealed to infants; its secret cannot be torn out or stolen, but only asked patiently and given mercifully. Our duty, Christians, is to cleanse and decorate our church, and not to assign to the Lord the time and manner of His grace-filled visit. If we want to experience how He can dwell in this church, then we will first experience how we make our preparation for this. Let us separate ourselves for a moment and enter into our inner church, albeit as cold-blooded spectators as we sometimes are in the visible church. Can we not notice in it the multitude of images of the world and the flesh, which one after another are introduced into it, one asserts itself and rises above the other, collectively or alternately demand some kind of sacrifice and, although from time to time, receive it. And is this the church of the one God, or is it the all-theorist of the world? And, meanwhile, the Lord is “at the door” (Rev. 3:20). O mercy, O ingratitude, incomprehensible! What slave can neglect to visit his master, and what master can bear such neglect? Can a rich man leave a beggar to push through his gates from morning to evening, and the beggar not curse the hard-hearted? But You, Lord, with the ineffable treasures of Your bounty, from the time the light of Your Gospel shone upon me, stand at the eternal gates of my soul, but I do not heed Your meek tramplings, and I run away through the gates of corruption, wander the world, and ask Your enemies for my destruction. Let us wish, listeners, that for everyone who opens the gates of the now consecrated church and enters them, at the same time the Divine words of consecration will resonate in the soul and open it to God: “Lift up your heads, O gates, and the eternal gates will be opened, and the King of glory will come in” (Ps. 23:7). Amen. In the department ed. added: “taken.” “And I will dwell among the children of Israel” - AB. In the department ed. these words do not exist. In the department ed. printed like this: “First cleanse the inside (glasses and dishes) (allegorically) says Christ, “so that the outside (of them) may also be clean.” You might be interested in: