Word at the naming of the abbot of Sretensky Monastery as bishop

This first prison sentence lasted about three months. On May 24, 1920, at noon, in the church of the Trinity Patriarchal Metochion, Archimandrite Hilarion was named bishop. At the naming, Archimandrite Hilarion, addressing Patriarch Tikhon and the archpastors present here, said: “On this naming day, I thank God, who with the depth of wisdom has philanthropically built everything for me and has always given me useful wisdom. I thank God, who brought me from non-existence into existence and gave me the pleasure of the highest gift of His love and goodness - existence illuminated by consciousness. Blessed be God, enlighten and illuminate every person coming into the world, and me, a dumb baby, who revived me through the washing of rebirth, uniting me with Himself and with His chosen flock of those being saved. I thank God, who showed me this sensual light in the house of His servant, who brought me into this world from my spiritual ancestors, why from my childhood I approached His holy church and did not know any other place there except the choir and the altar. Blessed be the name of the Lord also for the fact that I did not have a pampered upbringing in my childhood, growing up among the meadows, fields and forests of my homeland in the gracious simplicity of working life, why, “even if I am ashamed to ask, I can dig” (Luke 16:3), and “these hands can serve my needs” (Acts 20:34). I thank God, who from the days of childhood opened my mind, put into it a thirst for knowledge and led me through not just any other school, but through a spiritual school. I especially and constantly thank God for giving me great joy and happiness to live and study at the Moscow Theological Academy. Having lost my mother as a child, in my youth I found a mother-educator at the academy, who for fourteen years now has been feeding me not just milk, but also the solid food of theology. Until the end of my days, I would rather be her last servant and have an abundance of bread, than to be someone else far from her and be deprived. I thank God, who has vouchsafed me to live for many years under the gracious shelter of the abbot of the Russian land, St. Sergius, to see the people’s faith there, sometimes to be moved by it to tears, to see a spiritual thirst there and to be inflamed with the desire to give the thirsty people at least a drop of spiritual drink. “It is good for me, for you have humbled me, O Lord, that I may learn by your justification” (Ps. 119:71), for I was proud and quick to anger “to judge a strange servant” (Rom. 14:4), and the Lord, “who is able to humble all those who walk in pride” (Dan. 4:34), taught me to understand sinful people, sinful people have compassion and forgive sinful people. Glory to God for everything that has been experienced and changed during these last years of storm and turmoil, when “the earth was given over into the hand of the wicked” (Job.9:24), when the Russian state, having separated itself from the Church of Christ, entered into a very close alliance with the “synagogue of Satan” (Apoc.2:9). During these years, my faith in the Church only grew stronger and my heart became stronger in hope in God. When the old world is torn to the ground in order to build a new fantastic world only on its ruins, when so much of human affairs turns out to be built on quicksand “when the fall of the mighty” (2 Kings 1:25-27) many, “the solid foundation of God” (2 Tim. 2:19) - the Church of God, stands unshakable, only adorned, like purple and fine linen, with the blood of new martyrs. What we knew from church history, what we read about from the ancients, we now see with our own eyes: the Church wins when it is harmed (Hilary, Rev. 7, 4). “Enemies would like to consider us obsolete, dead, but behold, we are alive” (2 Cor. 6:9), and “our soul will live” (Ps. 119:175). We not only believe, but we also see that the gates of hell are powerless before God’s eternal creation. Among the winds of false teachings, among the muddy furious waves of anger, lies and slander of frantic enemies, the Church stands like a rock, that Russian Orthodox Church, about which they so loved to repeat recently that it is in paralysis, that it is held together only by the police force of the state. But the forces of the state turned against the Church, and our Church gave more martyrs and confessors than traitors and traitors. Observing all this and reflecting on all this, I feel that “my steps are spread out under me” (Ps. 17:37) and “the Lord has set my feet on a rock” (Ps. 39:3), “let not my heart fail” (Deut. 20:3). I especially cannot hide this last good deed of God at this hour, when I stand before your host, archpastors of the Church, called to episcopal service. The young ox shakes his head when the yoke is put on him, because this yoke is unusual for him. The yoke that you are now placing on me is also new to me, and my neck trembles at this yoke. From the days of my childhood, I determined myself to serve the Church and have served her alone until now, as long as my laziness allowed me. I considered all my academic and professorial activities to be service to the Church, and in this service I saw the highest and only meaning of all our academic work. But the service to the Church that I have served so far is completely different from the episcopal service that lies ahead of me. Before I read books, now I must read human hearts, these most sophisticated and often completely incomprehensible writings. Then I wrote with ink on paper, from now on I will have the grace to write the image of God in human souls. I taught before; must now lead to salvation. Previously, I could have remained hidden, but now you place me in the church candlestick. Previously, I could hide from people and be in pleasant obscurity; from now on I must shine the light of good deeds on people. With all my soul I loved the academic life, detached from the world, elevated above the world, solitary, as if deserted. Most of all lately I regretted that I was losing my only treasure - my beloved desert. Now you are taking away from me the hope of returning to this desert again and completely. A bishop must always be in the circle of human life. He has a “daily concourse of people,” which can be called an attack all the days (2 Cor. 11:28), “he must be all to everyone” (1 Cor. 9:22), “to be enslaved by everyone” (1 Cor. 9:19), “to be weak for the weak” (1 Cor. 9:22), “to faint with him that is faint” (2 Cor. 11:29), “to be alone to comfort others, to instruct others, and to reprove others” (Titus 1:9). Having become accustomed to my previous ministry and having loved it with all my soul, I was afraid of the bishopric and always spoke a lot against my bishopric. And now I stand before you, archpastors, having accepted your title, and not at all contrary to the verb, for my hope is firm in the Lord. Now I see clearly that there is a great need for workers in God’s field. Now I know for sure that the will of God governs the Church and it is not without God’s will that bishops are appointed to the Church. I hear the prophetic admonition: “It is good for a man when he bears the yoke in his youth” (Lamentations 3:27), and I bow my neck under the bishop’s omophorion. May the merciful Lord accept my soul, this small mite, swept into the treasury of the Church for use for the common benefit. “The will of the Lord be done” (Acts 21:14). But I also confess what now confuses my poor soul. I was a sinful layman, I became a sinful monk, I became a sinful priest, but to be a sinful bishop - I tremble. “How has the Church of God sinned so much, how has it angered its Master so much that it should be given over to me, the most despised of all, and subjected to such shame?” This is what John Chrysostom exclaims (On the priesthood. 6:12). What words will I say, a sinful and damned man above all? How dare I open my mouth, knowing the terrible word of the psalm: God said to the sinner: “What will you tell of My justifications? I will reprove you and bring your sins before you” (Ps. 49–16:21). “And my sins, like a heavy burden, have weighed me down, making my spiritual wounds stink and rot in the presence of my madness” (Ps. 37:5-6). Having committed more lawlessness than a harlot, the currents brought no tears. More generous to mankind, deliver me from the filthiness of my deeds, so that I will not covet or covet someone else’s money, and, “while preaching to others, I myself will remain inaccessible” (1 Cor. 9:27). I ask you and pray, saints of God, continually pray to Christ God for me, that He may grant me to partake of the grace of the bishopric not in judgment or condemnation, that this Divine grace will kindle a fiery coal in my conscience, burning the thorns of all my sins in the rest of my life, and that I may not be brought down by my sins to a place of torment when I finish the career of this temporary life. earthly."